Brock Beauchamp

I doubt it. Given the way Warren has gone hard at big business and her popularity in Massachusetts, I don't see anyone short of Jesus unseating her. Could you imagine how badly she'd eat Schilling alive in a debate? Man, that'd be a spectacle. Warren is fierce.

I'm not sure how FiveThirtyEight plans to handle the final week or two of the election. I know that in the past, Silver has "called" each state and predicted a winner. This algorithm isn't really built to do that because it intentionally bakes in variables over multiple election scenarios, leading to a 100% chance either side wins a virtual impossibility. I suspect that at some point, he'll call each state as he has done in the past. It makes sense to use this algorithm for the lead-up to the election but at some point, you have to push all the chips to one side or the other. The algorithm is good for getting you 25 miles into the marathon but isn't really equipped to run that last mile.

Yeah. Let this sink in for a moment: It has been 25 years since the Twins last won a title. Only 12 franchises have won a title during that time. That's less than one new franchise every other year. At that pace, it would take roughly 65 years for the final team to win a championship. I understand the frustration with the 2000s Twins and their lack of postseason success but I'd love to see the Twins play at that level again, titles be damned. Losing sucks.

Ironically, hospitals are one of the only industries that do well in many rural areas as the population gets older and government assistance pays for much of the hospital care. But, yeah, overall I completely agree with you. Where my parents grew up in the UP had money pouring out its ears in the 40s and 50s. Great schools, great town, plenty of cash from the iron ore mines in a post WWII boom. When I was unemployed after the crash, I stayed up there for 6-9 months. I talked to many of these people and the things they'd say were horrifying (ignoring the blatant racism and ignorance stuff, which was also horrifying). Some of the crap I heard just filled me with despair. There used to be a small Coleman manufacturing facility in the town. That closed some time ago. AFAIK, there's just one business in town that employs more than 30 people. All the mines closed, the last one in the 70s. And, to a person, almost everyone there blames the government. The mines closed due to regulation and difficulty extracting the ore. Today there are new processes to extract difficult ore but it's expensive to build a mine under current regulations so I believe there's only one ore mine operating in the entire UP right now. Another reason to blame the government. The only industry that pays reasonably well is the lumber industry, which is under constant attack from liberals. Again, the government is ruining these peoples' lives. Michigan has oppressive tax law, one of the worst in the country. They could get away with it for years because of the auto industry but how did that ever help the UP? They have nothing to do with the auto industry. So, it's not only the feds that are screwing them, it's those idiots in Lansing, too. It's not hard to spot a trend here. Everything in that region is in decay and has been for 3-4 generations. They clearly know who to "blame" for their issues, which is a big reason why the GOP platform sounds so appealing to them.

I thought of this response randomly today and realized I never responded. FiveThirtyEight's prediction model doesn't really work that way. It's a simulation of (I believe) 1,000 elections so the number will never hit 100% or anything approaching that number unless Clinton has a 20+ point lead. Part of the reason for that is the system uses a t-distribution model, which naturally leaves more wiggle room for less likely outcomes (but outcomes that are still feasible). For example, polling can be off 3-4% on a pretty regular basis. Unexpected voter swings at the last minute can account for 3-4% of a voting change. In total, maybe there is a 9%-ish possible swing in the overall electorate. Neither of those situations are likely. Both of those situations happening simultaneously are unlikely. Both of those situations happening simultaneously and being in favor of one candidate are super-duper unlikely. But it's still feasible that it could happen. So even if Clinton has a, say, 8% lead in the aggregate polls, there's still a small, maybe 2-3%, chance of those events completely skewing the election and Trump wins. I seem to remember reading that Silver said even if Clinton had a ~11-12% poll lead, she'd still only hit 97-98% in the prediction algorithm. So it's not really a prediction algorithm so much as it's a "most likely outcome" algorithm.

Yeah, I'm having a good day as well. Thanks to Netflix, my entire portfolio is up around 2.5% for the day.

FiveThirtyEight now giving the most likely Senate outcome to the Democrats at 52 seats.

Yeah, saw that a few weeks ago. Cracked is a pretty solid site. Half their articles are garbage, about a quarter are funny, and the last quarter are a mix of funny and intelligent.

Could be, but I see Dozier more as a 4-5 WAR guy over the next two years. And that's toward the upper end of the best case scenario. I think the most likely scenario is probably more in the 4 WAR range. Impressive, but not elite.

Wow, Netflix. Big international growth this quarter and up a whopping $20 (!) in after hours trading.

I don't think that's light. My goal was to get one guy in the 20-40 range with add-ons. Two guys in the 40-80 range is a pretty similar value. But two guys in the 40-80 range are also easier to find, as teams with disposable 20-40 prospects are few and far between.

Clinton up to 87.7% on FiveThirtyEight. It appears she's stabilizing at a point higher than any other of the campaign.

Finishing this article now and it's really good: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-white-flight-of-derek-black/2016/10/15/ed5f906a-8f3b-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html

I think this is very true but not for those reasons. There has always been a small, sometimes vocal, portion of America that is racially intolerant. But, as I argued with someone on my Facebook wall recently, we shouldn't use that small group to explain what is happening today. The comparison he made was of David Duke and Trump. Yes, many of the same people who supported Duke now support Trump but I don't believe the percentage of racially hostile Americans has risen since Duke had his 15 minutes back in the early 90s. What has changed are the circumstances. David Duke didn't gain traction for a myriad of reasons but, in my opinion, the biggest reason he remained a fringe element is because most Americans were doing okay for themselves in the late 80s and early 90s. Content people don't look to blame other people for their problems because their problems aren't significant enough to expend the kind of energy required to show the kind of despair and fear we're seeing from the Trump camp today. But you know who does search out the Other and blame them for their problems? Desperate people who feel alienated by the system, people who looked upon their fathers raising them in a stable, though meager, environment but cannot do the same for their own children. People who don't only struggle themselves, but also see everyone else around them struggling in all the same ways. I believe the rise in religious fundamentalism is tied to this as well, as people tend to turn to God in increasing numbers as their outlook turns more bleak by the day. That's the key takeaway from Trump; not that there are racists in America because there have always been racists in America and, for the most part, those racists have been on a steady downward trajectory in relation to the American populace since this country was founded. Trump is desperation, an easy answer to a complex problem. That problem involves globalization, a dwindling manufacturing base, and increasing economic disparity between urban and rural populations. All that other **** - the racism, the pure hatred of the opposition, the challenging of fundamental tenets of Americanism - are corollary to the big problem that people are unhappy, that they feel they have no prospects for a better life, that everything they knew as children is crumbling around their feet. Basically, that their way of life (the economic way of life, not the social) is dying. So they lash out at people whom they feel have caused this to happen: immigrants, Obama, Muslims, Democrats, Muslim Obama, and Obama, mostly. Trump makes them feel hope. Yes, it's for entirely the wrong ****ing reasons but it fills them with hope, that someone actually cares about them (though it's quite apparent Trump cares about no one other than himself). So, we can either blame Trump or we can view Trump as a vessel for a problem that has been stewing in America for decades, a problem that will not go away on November 9th. As I've spent the summer and fall reading more about the white underclass, I've come to the conclusion that both sides are guilty of some pretty ****ty things that have allowed this to happen. Democrats strive for black equality yet routinely **** on rural white America because they're hopeless idiots who don't know what's good for them. Conservatives have nurtured the ideal that rural white America is the One True America and lay blame at the destruction of America upon the feet of inner city blacks, immigrants, and white liberal elites. But the common denominator here is poverty. Neither side has made a legitimate attempt to shore up that single unifying trait of both sides.

Unfortunately, that trait is a hallmark of Abrams-led shows. I hope Westworld is different.

It's possible Molitor puts on his game face as manager and that's all you see. In any case, it's impossible to make an educated evaluation of a manager based on the 1-2% of the game he's on the television set. It requires you to not only extrapolate out the remaining 98-99% of game time, it requires you to completely disregard the times when coaching actually happens in baseball: on flights, pre-game workouts, post-game meetings, non-game days, and the entire preseason. Add in the time Molitor is with the players that we don't see at all, and you're basing a judgment on literally one hundredth of one percentage point. A manager is within shouting distance of his players for 10-16 hours a day over a six month period. Yet you claim to understand his coaching style based on the literally 30-45 seconds of nightly game time footage we see as fans? One cannot evaluate the competency of a manager with such scant information. And, for the record, I'm all on board with firing Molitor so it's not like I'm going out of my way to defend the guy.

I love the term alt right, as it levies a blow directly at the base of the modern conservative movement, which is rife with contradiction and, if not pure racist, "mostly leaning pretty racist yeah" policy.

If you have a manager who is unable to see the benefits of a platoon, it won't be an isolated incident and the team will suffer for it. Mauer should probably be platooned but he's not the only guy. The catcher might need a platoon, the shortstop, the left fielder. If we're worried about what Molitor will or will not do based on the numbers, he shouldn't be manager. One doesn't discard useful assets because the mananger refuses to use them correctly, one discards the manager instead.

Mauer had an OPS of just shy of .800 against RHP this season with an isoD of .111. If you can't fit that guy into your lineup a few times a week, you're a 100 win team. The Twins are not a 100 win team. Park is irrelevant to this conversation until he proves he can hit MLB pitching.

Yeah, I didn't have the ability to really dive into that topic (I'm high af on Vicodin right now thanks to having my wisdom teeth removed) but it's intrinsically linked to voting for someone because they're black/female/whatever. There's an entire set of life experiences that goes along with being of a certain race or gender that we don't experience as white men. We shouldn't discard those experiences based on race/gender and label it as "single-issue". Look at Obama. He's basically Jackie Robinson. He never gets angry, he never loses his temper, he never acts out of impulse. I'd argue he doesn't do those things to a fault; he's had more reasons to be pissed off than any president of my lifetime, maybe ever. And that's on our society for imposing those limitations on black men so they don't come across as "scary". Personally, I'd love to see Obama go completely ****ing unhinged in a speech just once before he leaves office. Show us that Jackie Robinson year 5-6 and vent that ****, man. When we get to the point where a black man is president and doesn't have to alter his attitude to placate the masses, then we'll reach a milestone. Sorry if I rambled. Seriously. High af.

Well said, Ash. Equality in representation is a slow grind and, unfortunately, it's a numbing process for many people. JFK's Catholicism was a big deal, now few care. Obama was a big deal and we're still working through that process. Clinton will be a similar struggle. And to many, this isn't only a matter of political issues. As you said, "what's good for the country" sometimes extends beyond pure politics. I think this is one of those times. Electing the first female president should be a pretty big deal and I'll be glad to see it happen. I kinda wish Hillary Clinton wasn't the person to break that barrier but she's not a bad option, either. I wish the first female president wasn't a mediocre establishment candidate but given the options this November, I'll take what I can get.

Expecting it to go away entirely just because one black man/white woman got into the White House isn't really reasonable, in my opinion. Years of oppression don't go away with a single candidate. I think this is just part of the process and it will take years of exposure/choices until race/gender fades into the second or third tier of importance.

Sure, I generally try to avoid it as well but we're in a position that makes it really easy to take the high ground on such things. We don't have a frame of reference for being either underrepresented or not represented at all in government. Rip the band-aid off, get a woman in the Oval Office for four years, and I suspect this kind of single-issue voting goes away in time as we see more equal representation in all levels of government. But, in the meantime, I won't criticize people for feeling a connection with a gender/race and casting a ballot because of that connection.

Imagine being 100 years old. When you were born, your gender couldn't even cast a vote for president at all. And after 100 years on this planet, you haven't been able to cast a single vote for a president of your gender, a gender that makes up 51% of the population. So, yeah, I can't really fault someone for saying "Clinton is a woman and god damn it, I'm voting for the woman because this should have happened fifty years ago." I don't think it's fair for white people to say people of color and/or women shouldn't be single-issue voters when we've had the luxury of 99%+ representation in our government during our lifetimes.

No offense but I've heard this line, or something similar, said several hundred times in my life. A white male has said it nearly every time, if not every time. Yes, in a perfect world, no one would care about race or gender. But we simply do not live in a perfect world. Erasing race/gender is easy for a white dude to do. We just snap our fingers and say "uh, I'm totally not paying attention to race or gender anymore", even though we obviously do pay attention to those things because it's impossible not to register the color of someone's skin or their gender upon first glance. Erasure isn't the answer. Acknowledging our differences and accepting those differences as peers is the only way to gain true equality, at least in our lifetimes. Maybe in 300 years when everyone is some shade of brown after generations of interracial mixing can we begin to ignore race but not today and not tomorrow.