Guy Chamberlin

I gotta think our Athletic Department has earned some credibility for its non football success in recent years.

Always interesting to hear what the NBA players think when they get to be anonymous: https://theathletic.com/5433545/2024/04/22/nba-player-poll-2024-lebron-jordan-goat-celtics-nuggets-rudy-gobert-timberwolves/?campaign=5888993&source=dailyemail&userId=11186373

I don't have a dog in the hunt anymore, but those two games yesterday were pretty damn entertaining.

I don't get it. What's the "fine people" corollary here?

I don't expect you to find a post to back that up, as you generally pride yourself on your laziness. It's sad, because I took a few seconds to consider your predictable response and chose words that would make it clear that concern for the people of Palestine doesn't equate to supporting Hamas, and can even be the opposite. Now I will never get those few seconds back.

University cops did not intervene on the white nationalists waving Confederate flags at Charlottesville, and indeed the standard for protecting free assembly has been pretty consistent for both wings. University administrators definitely let themselves get boxed in on the pro-Palestine, anti-Israel outburst, and if you'll recall they either resigned or walked their wishy-washy declarations back per the pressure from their own liberal ecosystem rather than a viral post from Pradheep Shankar. I'm trying to imagine a right wing protest against transgenders, featuring a rainbow flag being pulled down to a cheering crowd. That would be pretty ugly. Cops wouldn't intervene, but I can easily imagine social media blowing up about it, applying the same standard of outrage as Pradheep here. Also, minor niggle, but the police in fact did arrest 47 protestors and the action was immediately condemned by the President of the United States. As a trade-off, could we ask Republicans to openly declare that casting doubt on the legality of the 2020 election is both unfounded and detrimental to the nation? And if you want an equivalency to the Yale douchebags, encourage the farther right wingnuts to lay low on declaring the J6 prisoners hostages and the opposing party cannibalistic pedophiles. Yale Arrests Pro-Palestine Student Protesters As Tensions Escalate On Ivy League Campuses Zachary Folk Forbes Staff Police began clearing out the protester encampment at Yale University on Monday morning, the Yale Daily News reported, as tensions mount between protesters and leaders concerned about growing antisemitism on college campuses, which had prompted the White House to condemn “calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students.” About 47 protesters were arrested at the encampment at Yale’s Beinecke Plaza on Monday morning, before being charged with misdemeanor trespassing and placed on shuttle buses, Yale Police Chief Anthony Campbell told the student newspaper. Police cleared the plaza encampment by about 8 a.m., but more than 300 protesters gathered in the streets and blocked a key intersection near the plaza. Videos circulating on social media show police officers entering the camp and instructing protesters to leave early on Monday morning: “we will give you time to leave, if you do not leave, you will be arrested.” The Yale Police Department did not immediately return a request for comment from Forbes. The Yale arrests come after over 100 student protesters were arrested at another encampment on Columbia University’s campus on Thursday—which was quickly reorganized over the weekend. WHAT ARE THE PROTESTERS CALLING FOR? Both the Columbia and Yale protests were organized to call on their respective universities to divest from arms manufacturers that provide weapons to the Israeli military and other companies tied to the state. Columbia College Student Council previously approved a measure asking the university to divest from “companies and academic institutions that profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s acts of occupation, apartheid, and genocide,” the Columbia Spectator reported, but the student government tabled the motion after pushback from administrators. Last week, Yale’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility approved a resolution to divest from companies that sell assault weapons to the public, but declined to divest from military arms manufacturers, rebuking protesters. “Military weapons manufacturing for authorized sales did not meet the threshold of grave social injury, a prerequisite for divestment, because this manufacturing supports socially necessary uses, such as law enforcement and national security,” the university said in a statement.

I do believe that pollsters have identified Russia and abortion as liabilities for the 2024 elections, and the Republican strategists are acting accordingly.

Impressive. But how long can you keep a monopoly on the technology? If I'm an enemy of the United States and I have a microwave weapon, I'm not aiming it at our defense facilities, I'm taking out civilian internet and cell-phone servers and watching the entire nation panic. Has anyone heard about Stuxnet? It was an incredibly successful piece of malware created for the U.S. military, who continues to deny its existence. It was so good that it was able to destroy Iran's nuclear centrifuges and make it look like an internal glitch, leaving no trace of the foreign attack. It was a collaboration with Israel, who got so excited about the success that they doubled-down against the wishes of the U.S. At that point, computer vendors got involved on behalf of Seimens and Microsoft, unaware of the top-secret origin of the malware, so they unwittingly outted the U.S. and Israel as the culprits. Stuxnet was devised by the NSA under Bush and expanded under Obama. Fascinating documentary on the subject called Zero Days. Worth watching.

Tattoos are one thing. Tattoos that loudly announce your satanic leanings are another. Giant nose rings and face studs are yet another thing. You don't do any of this if you don't like reveling in negative attention, especially from the people you have no intention of impressing. That's why that clip feels like clickbait. She knows exactly what she's doing.

It's true, the money they "save" won't even bring them under the luxury tax. If you're willing to live with a huge payroll and penalty tax, you need to see something for the effort. It turns out owner Joe Lacob is that kinda owner and I think he'll be advocating for the bold move. Might not happen this particular off-season, but someone always comes into play, and they are throwing out names like Karl Anthony Towns, Dejounte Murray, Pascal Siakam or Brandon Ingram. I'm just worried that if you mortgage your young, homegrown, affordable talent to rent a star for 37/38 year old Steph Curry, you could be no better -- or worse -- than you are now. Maybe they just need a Naz Reid kind of player or two. Costlier than the exception, cheaper than a Klay, Paul, or Wiggins. But I honestly don't know how much a Naz Reid would cost in this market. And yes, Paul's second year isn't guaranteed and there's little chance the Warriors will pony up. I believe Dunleavey was able to get Washington to absorb Jordan Poole's contract so that money is no longer on the Warriors books.

You'd have to get something in a trade for Draymond, and if you could find a taker you could get at best a solid role player. Which you're gonna need. If you let Klay and Chris Paul walk there are no transactions involved and you suddenly have $75 million to spend. No free agent worth that kind of money yet, but there are always a few surprises and unhappy stars cropping up, like AD. Kerr is coaching the Olympic Team, the best assembly of talent since the 1992 Dream Team. Doesn't hurt for him to spend the summer coaching and socializing with the superstars.

That's my era. I didn't really need a student loan in 1980, but I took one out anyway because the rate was 7.5% and I could put it in a 13.5% money market account.

Well this same Warriors team finished 27-11, one of the best records in the league since January, so they are able to win with this lineup. But something always seemed janky, and in a sudden death game against an injured team that had faded in the stretch, Warriors gave up to a Sacramento team that by all appearances wanted it more. Warriors did not appear to be having fun. Much is made of Klay going 0 for 10, but Curry had six turnovers, most of them sloppy and unfocused. That's going to linger. Upside is that the young guys looked good when given the chance. They will do more when given more minutes. You keep Steph and let any combination of Klay, Dray, Wiggins, and Chris Paul go, use that money to buy one legit star and some key role players, bid farewell to the dynasty and see if you can't climb back into the ring with reduced expectations. Don't know how much playoffs I'm going to watch, but I like the Nuggets and Thunder in the West. I have little rooting interest in the East, where I only liked Jimmy Butler's Heat. 76ers could make things interesting this year.

In case anyone is wondering, there's a lot of drama and finger-pointing in Warriors land right now.

And half the rich white guys thought the other rich white guys weren't serious about letting non-land holders vote.

As mentioned in past threads, it's interesting to revisit American history and realize how much of our patriotic founding is based on acts of vandalism and aggravated police confrontation, designed to escalate resistance and create martyrs.

Would you consider the Minutemen more Antifa or J6?

We can talk about what Make America Great Again means to the people who've adopted the slogan. It's a common and understandable yearning for a better time in America, although it has more to do with age, nostalgia and selective memory than policies we should return to. But MAGA the acronym is a brand, and the display of it announces reverent loyalty to Donald Trump and profound hatred of Joe Biden.

And some people totally understand the consequences of biting the hand that feeds them. Props to Zach Galifinakas.

There's also a great case for boycotting all Apple products, but that's a line Apple-addicted social justice warriors can't cross.

Someone looked at the poll numbers.

So what happens when the facts lean in one direction? And by that I mean the body of evidence, not the anomaly that gets people excited.

It seems to me that you have grabbed the worst possible strain of narcissistic leftist agitator to represent everyone who would protest on behalf of Palestine. That allowed you to ignore the points I was making and common positions I was conceding. There was a revolutionary Marxist contingent in the Vietnam and Civil War protests, too, and they did hinder the larger movement to some extent. But they were also the folks at the ramparts who forced the conversation, and allowed the more moderate to make the stance more reasonable and ultimately mainstream. i.e. you were an idiot to have a poster of Mao in your room, but you weren't wrong about the Domino Theory. Martin Luther King benefitted from having Malcom X and the Black Panthers to his extreme left. Sounds like you don't think the conversation has shifted on Gaza, nor should it. But a disturbing common thread to Gaza, Vietnam and the Civil Rights era are the bystanders in the middle, often women and children, being killed in pretty horrific ways while people debate whether trying to stop those deaths is political posturing. If you know your history you obviously know Netanyahu's history, and why it's lazy, unserious and dangerous to support him unequivocally. It's an easy but false equivalency to think that equates to supporting Hamas. Israel itself is divided on what should happen next. If you don't think protesting college kids really care about the people of Gaza, you have at least one thing in common with them. Of course we can agree to disagree, but I still find it a worthy conversation, even with all the laughy emojis I'm getting. There's also a distinct possibility that we agree: the worst possible strain of narcissistic leftist agitator is really irritating. Now let's join hands and solve the Middle East!

NPR's official statement in defense of Berliner's claim was pretty thin and mealy. So who out there has a news source they like and trust and seems nonpartisan?

Sorry man, but there are nothing but common threads in this kind of activism and protest. That it hasn't yet reached the scale of Vietnam and the Civil Right movement doesn't change the motives, the players, and the public reaction. You don't have to like it. Folks back then didn't either. But it's entirely possible they've shaped the conversation. While you contend they are "shrieking about a ceasefire" they've been joined by politicians of every stripe and nation, who agree it's a more than viable option for stopping the death and starvation of innocents on a massive scale that Hamas clearly anticipated. And possibly avoiding a global escalation. The conversation has changed significantly in six months, and a lot of that wacky left stuff has gone mainstream. I don't agree with coddled self-satisfied cosplaying college protestors on plenty of things, and I go out of my way to de-romanticize their melodrama. But I do have to bring my A-game because they actually are well-versed on the history of the region. More than most. Forced to do my homework, I realized how much s#!t I'd forgotten. Or had wrong. And yeah, they didn't hesitate to bring up Yemen, either. I implore them to understand that the difference between Biden and Trump remains just massive enough to deserve their vote. It's a tough sell. Seems to me they actually do care about the Gazans, but your mileage may vary. If you think a cease fire isn't even viable, there's nowhere to go but down.