Ultima Ratio

Sorry, but the end of the decade will be next year. There was no year zero. Carry on.

If/when Astudillo is sent down, surely a therapy goat can be brought aboard as part of the corresponding move to roam the dugout, quell the unrest.

Free fall? Yep. Definitely feels like 9.8m/s2 of accelerating sadness. Can't watch and if you open your eyes, you may have a heart attack before impact.

Looks a little over ripe, if you ask me.

Joe's future will be brighter tomorrow.

Doumit in RF was an example of getting a "bat" in the lineup vis-a-vis position flexibility. I'm choking as I say that. OTOH, I agree that given these bad experiments of the past, it would be nice to have players with real flexibility and defensive talent in the future.

Matt!

Wast that ball to Kepler uncatchable or would a better route/setup have made it doable?

Exposure? Hoping to get rid of him before the circus is back in town, er... on the mound?

I have no tears for this team.

Absolutely nailed it. Good form!

Just "spect"

I really appreciate this post. Some good things to consider -- some now and some at a later date. I'll have to table the civil religion discussion for now (bed and I don't normally have this much time to write on TD, so may be a awhile, sorry). My minor in undergrad was religion as we studied this a bit, but not much that a cursory discussion -- so I look forward to it. I totally endorse the sentiments of your first paragraph. I believe in a liberal arts eduction as in the kind of education necessary for free men, which is the genesis of the term. Liberal, here meaning "free." The kind of indoctrination I'm talking about is not an explicit, "hey, let's get the bourgeoisie!" It's the bias that leaks into one's teaching, one's reporting, one's sermon, one's guidance. It's what is emphasized and what is not (or left out completely). Of course you do get explicit indoctrination at time ins k-12 (Walk for our lives walkout), teaching all sorts of culture issues (how many genders are there? Well, depends on which classroom you are in, biology or sociology). In college, indoctrination is clearly a problem and more pervasive. But I'm talking about bias that may not even by a conscious determination. Obviously the subject at hand may make the bias more easily leech out (humanities) or not ("hard" sciences). I agree that the leftist economic message may not be being "pushed" so much, but definitely the culture issues. Whether one choose to refer to fetus as a fetus, baby or clump of cells tells us a lot. But again, these are explicit things one says. I'm talking about curricula, book selection, and so on. Does the teacher use gender neutral terms? Are bathrooms gender specific? How and when is sex ed taught? Is absence taught? And so on. The general theory is that we all have a perspective and our subjective bias will always influence our work and how we work. And in education, with 80% being liberal, there must be implicit bias at times, apart from the hopefully rare explicit indoctrination (unless that's actually a great thing now, i'm confused). I like to think I'm objective in the courses I teach. In fact, those of us that are in the minority in my line or work actually self-censor and are highly aware of not wanting to "out" ourselves to our peers and our students. I just try to play it as straight as I can and I assume most teachers do the same. But the literature and theory tell us that biases have a great down stream effect. I do see the messaging of "the 1%" "greedy" "no one needs a gun" "spread the wealth around" seeing widespread use in schools. I'm rambling and tired so I'm just going to end it there.

Stay focused. This is a deflection. You're better than that. I gave you the facts, with detail. They demonstrate my claims. Instead of some humility you deflect and say, "Well, you're right, but....we're better for it! That's quite an about-face. "American political Liberal" today is not a "classical liberal" -- I'm quite sure you know this but you equivocate anyway. To Review: TheLeviathan The Republicans have been brainwashing at elite levels for a long, long time now. Though, their success is in part due to the kind of people they attract.Old, disgruntled, poorly educated white folks seem really keen on conspiracies. And now: Brainwashing is great when liberals are doing it. <<<bangs head>>>

Sorry, it's like asking for a link that the earth is round. There is so much out there that it seems intentionally bothersome. But, if this is the first time you are aware, here is a link that studied many professions and their compositions of liberal and conservative. All this corroborates my feelings. Every single category listed. You can click on each category to reveal subcategories. I'll highlight those categories I listed in my initial post. http://verdantlabs.com/politics_of_professions/index.html Teaching: 79% liberal Media Production: 83% Liberal Film and Stage pod: 93% Liberal Editorial: 92% Liberal Journalist: 82% Liberal (subcategory of writing) Religion: 64% Liberal Academia: 90% Liberal

I didn't have time to track down every footnote. Kind of back of the napkin. But thank you for thinking so much of it that it might get to publication. If you need convincing that public education skews left, then nothing will satisfy you. But that's kind of your MO. I do not take that personally. More Alex Jones, now again with Fox news. Big snoozer. I do find Tom Steyer interesting though.

For the last time. Infowars and Alex Jones do not represent republicans outside of a small fringe percentage. Can I say it any clearer? Should I assert that Leftists pursue anti-semitism by linking to Louis Farrakhan? Give me a break. How does that fly... logically? I have not done, logically, what you have accused me of... bad form (there is a whole list, it's just a sampling, it nowhere says anything of the form not A therefore B. On the other hand. The fallacy of composition is at the center of your Alex Jones admits trying to brainwash people, therefore (all) republicans are brainwashing voters. The hands of a grandfather clock are lightweight does not imply that the grandfather clock is lightweight.

He's no Ron Karkovice behind the plate.

Insofar as words matter, yes. These are not the same. The former implies coercion with impure motives; the latter cannotes comfort. Claiming that republicans brainwash is akin to saying that republicans vote against their own interests. This is the condescending refrain we've heard from Hillary and Michelle for the election loss. And, this is the same song I hear from insufferable progressives. And, this sufficiently explains why many (here too?) remain in the first two stages of grief vis-a-vis the election.

Since so many have responded I'll just try to mention something here all at once. As I said at the beginning, once someone mentions Fox News the conversation is derailed. I did not mention this at all and even if one wants to believe that just as many tv news outlets are left as there are right (even the degrees, yes Brock, I know they are not all the same degree but that would be really tough to pin down how much leaning there is in some objective way -- EDIT: but now I see you have a chart, kudos ) -- what I initially responded to was that millions of Americans were brainwashed into becoming republicans. I pointed out in a short list that we get the leftist/progressive messaging with our mother's milk on through our early twenties (in most cases). I think it is clear that the brainwashing occurs there, with impressionable kids and youth, hostage to caretakers, teachers and parishioners -- to name a few. I'm not interested in the media aspect of my arguement/list and it is not central so leave it out. I;m arguing that the "brainwashing" in toto is really going on with our kids and young adults. Most adults who switch political parties do so in one direction. Why is that? So instead of brainwashing, I think Levi would be more accurate in what Pseudo was saying about media as such giving consumers what they want (for better or worse) -- but not "brainwashing" -- at least not to those unconverted. Don't get me wrong, there are many, many,many trump sycophants. It's unimportant but I am not one. But there were also legion Obama sycophants also. These absorbed in the cult of personality are utterly non-rational. They only want to hear and will tune into ideas and shows that validate their views or feelings. If that is what was meant by brainwashing, fine, but that is just willful ignorance that is transcategorical. The true brainwashing, again, is the youth and rising generations. And that is overwhelmingly a leftist/progressive message. Many on the left are not even shy about admitting this.

I'm concerned with the hard news aspects, not the opinion makers. If we can't agree that fox leans rights, and the rest mentioned left, then we have an intractable starting point. Bias is pervasive in the news biz and has been documented sufficiently for me to recognize the lead of news stories, the emphasis of the story and the headlines. I truly believe this is a dogmatic blind spot for liberals -- the refusal to believe that the hard news of both print and tv is biased towards the left/progressive vantage. Infowars has such a small audience. I'm not saying it isn't right leaning -- it is. But it is a such a small segment of "the right" if we must use a linear political map (that I do not use except in shorthand to avoid a longer conversation). I put it up there is the daily Kos and mother jones.

This is petty and obvious (at least IMO) -- but FNC is right leaning. Name the others. ABC? NBC? ABC? MSNBC? CNN? BBC? Public Television? DailyMail has a half hour new program in my region -- right leaning? Levi, has been delineated so no, not anecdotal. Do we really need to go through every newspaper and online news site for you to believe that left-leaning are the majority. Come now. I agree with your second paragraph though. Limited government has not been on the ballot in many years, save local and state elections. Infowar is not representative of right-winger BTW. And shame on you for saying so. Though, again, this may be part of the problem.

Bolded: I think you are a day late. (may be source of other problems) I didn't bring it up. I don't watch F&F so wouldn't know. 99% eh? Anecdotal. The end. Edit: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/05/10/white-house-official-mocked-dying-mccain-after-haspel-criticism-sources-say.html Can't believe I took the 9 seconds to find this. Not from memory mind you as I do not use their URL. Boy, I hope this doesn't become tired Faux news bashing. They deserve it though, amirght?

And.... Maybe they are tired of being under constant assault from small and inexhaustive list I put together above... who could blame them for wanting to come up for air? Look at how you guys drone on every day in these threads (please no one say to adjust my ignore settings). You don't get much diversity of opinion do you? You drive out many and more know its a waste of time. You guys love, love love to agree amongst yourselves. I don't blame you for that. There a particular kind of people that love discussion forums and most aggregate where they fell welcomed or.... at least heard and respected..... something other than the constant pot-shots an slander you can readily find above. So just like I don't blame the usual characters in these kinds of threads for keeping up the drumbeat, and find it just as easy to forgive millions of Americans for CHOOSING to listen and read outlets whom don't revile and have contempt for them. Or, they're brainwashed.

With what? A captive audience in education from age 4-22 and beyond if post-grad? Entertainment media (Hollywood)? Cable/TV News Media (1 vs. 8 at least) Print/Web Media (way more left-leaning outlets) Slouching religious institutions (ELCA among most others)? Other institutions (Boy nah... SCOUTS) Social experiments in the military? I mean really -- the messaging from the Left is ubiquitous. The one area where the right has more influence is talk radio. Yet there is the brainwashing? Or Maybe more and more people see the constant rejiggering of society and human nature by the left and find it repulsive. Or maybe Most people still just want to be left the fudge alone and understand the merits of limited government and libertarianism.