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Brock Beauchamp

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Everything posted by Brock Beauchamp

  1. If the police unions are going to have an impact, they need to aggressively lobby for gun legislation on the national level. It's easy for conservatives to shrug off police unions from Chicago, NYC, etc. as just more "liberal nonsense". We need to see police unions across the country - specifically the Bible Belt - join in the fight.
  2. Gay marriage isn't written into the Bill of Rights. While that doesn't seem like a big deal to you or me, these people worship the Constitution. It gives this lunacy legitimacy, at least in their eyes.
  3. One thing that could help the situation shift in the right direction is to see police unions and fire departments come out strongly in favor of gun legislation. Put conservatives at odds with themselves. Make them choose between their beloved police departments and their beloved firearms. That could help swing some of the less radical gun owners away from the NRA and their destructive lobbying.
  4. I think Levi is right in that the only way this changes significantly is with a culture shift. Some segments of this nation have been sold the line "guns are the only way to protect yourself" for generations and they've bought into the idea whole-heartedly. Unfortunately, in many cases the more viciously a person stays true to that idea, the less that person should own a gun at all. The more paranoid and radical the person, the more likely they are to believe gun ownership is a necessity. And paranoid, radical people are the last people we want owning guns in a civilized society. How do we fix that? I don't know. We need to figure out how to make these people less radical and paranoid but given how the far right has been feeding off that paranoia for years now, I'm not sure how we do that. A normal person sees these mass shootings and is horrified. They accept what we're doing is terrible and needs to change. Whereas some elements of the far right see these mass shootings and are convinced the only solution is more guns. It's lunacy. We can't fix the problem until we convince the most radical right elements of our society that "more guns" is not the solution. We've been trying "more guns" for years and the problem is only getting worse.
  5. As horrible as it sounds, it's probably a good thing if we continue to see a rapid-fire succession of shootings up into the election season. America needs to be grabbed by the shoulders and shaken until it snaps out of its delusional state. Other than seeing report after report of dead civilians, I don't know how else it will happen. I'm all in favor of gun ownership rights but come on, a little temperance is needed here. We need to apply some common sense to this situation.
  6. Looking at ST stats is useless (or something approaching useless) but the team gets 5-6 weeks to monitor physical maturation, approach changes, player attitude, etc. That's valuable.
  7. You will probably enjoy it. It makes few references to previous Marvel work, almost to a detriment. And it doesn't feel like a superhero show. It feels more like neo noir in its first 5-6 episodes before a few - not many, just a few - superhero elements creep in. Have you watched DD? It's like that, only darker and better.
  8. That's not necessarily how it works. It's likely the team and Park's agent have already met or come close to finalizing terms on the deal. Terms are often agreed to pending a physical, which is only a formality before pen meets paper. The Twins could already have this deal virtually locked up or they may have a considerable amount of negotiating left to do with his agent. It's hard to say, either is entirely possible. Given the amount of money we're talking about here - a pittance compared to most MLB deals - reaching a final agreement in 3-4 days is not a stretch. Hell, they could probably hammer out a contract in a few hours. This isn't going to be some crazy option-laden, opt-out, big money contract.
  9. Boy, I hope the Brewers are rebuilding and not reloading. Going half-assed into a divisional fight with the Card, Cubs, and Pirates is a good way to ensure you'll have a bad team for a very long time. Their only real hope is to start from scratch and hope the Pirates and Cards fade by the time they're competitive again.
  10. What possibly bothers me the most is that people are too damned dumb (maybe not dumb... "intentionally ignorant" might be a better way to put it) to see what happened decades ago is still influencing our culture today. If your parents (or grandparents) grew up with nothing, had the potential to own nothing, and saw the same outlook for their children, why are we surprised those people have an ingrained nihilism that pervades every aspect of the culture? It's a different form of what we see with Islamic terrorism. If you put people in a ****ty situation for long enough, they simply stop caring. Crime goes up, people do terrible things to one another, maybe they organize and turn violent... The culture slowly bleeds to death because there's no reason it shouldn't bleed to death. We have beaten these people so far down they no longer give a **** about much of anything.
  11. It all depends on how you structure it, I suppose. Physical violence against black people is condemned by the overwhelming majority of the population... That wasn't the case 50 years ago. Black people can (mostly) vote without difficulty, at least without fear of physical retribution. Racism has gone underground, I guess. It's more nefarious and shadowy now than it was in the past, which makes it easier to ignore... But at least the physical component and danger has greatly diminished. That's why I'd consider it "less", I suppose. Tomato, tomahto.
  12. I definitely think it's less of a problem - rounding up a posse and lynching black folk is no longer a past time of the south - but it's still a very big problem. We're still facing problems that stem from those bad ol' days with housing and artificial ghettos being the root of the problem, at least in my opinion. Everything stems from where black people live in this country. For decades, white people did everything they could to avoid integrated neighborhoods, forcing black people into small areas of extreme poverty. That means the schools sucked. That means people didn't get a quality education. That means no good jobs, especially neighborhood jobs. That means no tax base to lift the neighborhood and education system. That means the cycle of poverty continues. Add in the general difficulty of simply "being black" in America and the police issues, job potential, etc. problems and here we are today. The only fix is education and our system is so broken I'm not sure how we do that.
  13. The Brewers would laugh Ryan out of the room with that offer. Milwaukee needs to rebuild. They don't have any use for players already in MLB unless they have 5+ years of control. If you want Lucroy and Arcia, the Brewers would demand Sano or Buxton in return and possibly want a guy like Gonsalves thrown in for good measure.
  14. Eh, I'd have to dig through available options and I don't feel like doing that. I'd classify the term "shutdown" as someone between, say, Kevin Jepsen and Wade Davis. Not necessarily the best reliever in the league but consistently well above average. Somewhere just north of 9-ish K/9, 2.5-ish BB/9, that sort of guy. One of the better relievers in the league, a guy who could be a "closer" if given the right opportunity but not eye-poppingly dominant.
  15. Oh, good to know. Is this a new addition? I could have sworn that wasn't the case a few years back.
  16. WAR doesn't really treat relievers fairly, especially late inning relievers. If a shutdown guy comes out in the eighth or ninth inning of 75% of the games where the team is leading or tied, his effect on the outcome of the team's W/L record is tremendous. WAR doesn't account for that, which is why I generally avoid position player to reliever comparisons (even position player to starting pitcher comparisons are tenuous). If Plouffe could be traded for a shutdown reliever with 2-3 seasons of control, that's a fair trade of talent. The Twins don't particularly need Plouffe but they really need a dominant arm in the eighth inning.
  17. I have to admit I'm more than a little bit terrified of America right now. The latest from Trump: “Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would — in a heartbeat…And I would approve more than that. Don’t kid yourself, folks. It works, okay? It works. Only a stupid person would say it doesn’t work….Believe me, it works. And you know what? If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway, for what they’re doing. It works.” Holy ****, America. What has happened to you? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/23/donald-trump-on-waterboarding-if-it-doesnt-work-they-deserve-it-anyway/?tid=pm_politics_pop_b
  18. True... But some people are underrating Plouffe around here. 6 WAR over two seasons isn't a "meh" player. That's a damned fine starter. He won't make any ASG but he's the type of complementary player teams love to pencil into the lineup. This is one of the few situations where I have nearly 100% certainty Ryan will do the right thing. If he's good at just one thing, it's saying "no" to a bad trade. He gets value for the players he trades. Whether that value pans out in the long run is another story entirely but on paper, his trades are always solid.
  19. Does he have a lot of value? No. But look at that FA third base market. It's worse than barren. It's pathetic. Plouffe should be able to pull back a very good reliever with 2-3 years of control or an upside prospect without much difficulty. If that deal doesn't happen, don't trade the guy. We're talking about a player worth 6-ish WAR over the past two seasons. That's above average, if only by a tick.
  20. A 3 WAR position player is worth a hell of a lot more than a "solid" bullpen arm. It better be a great bullpen arm.
  21. Ten years ago, I thought this idea absurd. Now, it may be the only fix for the current system, which is so broken I don't see a way to fix it (but let's not forget that this system is broken in part because voters have turned more polarized and fed this insanity). The system isn't entirely to blame for our problems. A large part of the problem, maybe even the majority of the problem, is because voters continue to radicalize by creating their own echo chambers and burying their heads in the sand. If you dogmatically support either the right or the left, you're contributing to the problem by electing more and more extremist politicians. The right has gone more extreme than the left but not everything can be blamed on the GOP and Tea Party. Much of the left has abandoned the center as well, just not to the extreme (or in the same numbers) as the right.
  22. Smarter football fans.
  23. Just finished the season. The best comic-related show I've seen (and I'm pretty sure I've seen them all). We are truly in a golden age of television.
  24. IMO, better than Daredevil. And I *really* liked Daredevil.
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