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Additionally, Trump promised deflation then did a bunch of stuff that totally predictably had the opposite effect, and even the voters smart enough to know the president doesn't control the economy are rightly blaming him and his party for these blunders.

Core inflation in October 2022 was 6.3% and Democrats overperformed in the midterms, only losing 9 House seats and picking up a Senate seat. To the extent inflation is impacting elections--and it obviously has been since at least 2024--it's about the cumulative effect, not the YOY rate.

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The Floor will lose to Survivor. 99 to Beat will lose the Amazing Race AND Millionaire. And those are just the other game shows! But yeah, stick the Dodgers trying to come back from 2-0 against the team top-seeded Brewers on your cable sports channel that just tries to copy ESPN but somehow worse.

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R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 6h

It's seems bizarre that Fox, which aired NLCS game 2 against Sunday Night Football, would rather air "The Floor" and "99 to Beat" than game 3 on a night with essentially no other sports to compete against.

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You don't need to flip state governorships to be able to prosecute state crimes. City/county DAs can do that, and they're largely elected rather than appointed. A lot of them are already held by Democrats. And you can commit and be charged with crimes in states you don't live in or represent.

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R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 6h

Or you could read the article I linked to and inform yourself about the discussion taking place before inserting yourself into it with irrelevant pedantry.

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R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 6h

First, this is a discussion about 2029, not 2027. Second, state prosecutions and congressional investigations don't depend on who controls DOJ, and DOJ may not have a large role to play even in 2029 if Trump starts handing out pardons like Halloween candy, which seems probable.

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R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 23h

Tampa Bay going back to the Devil Rays jerseys this season was such a great choice. That color gradient is superb.

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R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

It's a fine line to walk between punishing behavior in a way that discourages the behavior and doing so in a way that encourages escalation and reprisal, and I'm not sure Dems are up to the task, but I think it's necessary unless we want a future GOP president to finish the job Trump started.

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R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

In my opinion, trying to mitigate the risks associated with the next pendulum swing is far more important than trying to delay the swing. Hopefully these goals aren't inconsistent, but to the extent that they are, I'd err on the side of the former.

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R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

My thinking on this is that Democrats have a role to play in actually chastening Republicans by ensuring they finally face consequences for their blatant corruption and lawlessness. They dragged their feet in 2021-22 and can't repeat that mistake.

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R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Yeah, this postseason really hasn't backed up the narrative MLB owners are trying to push before they lock players out this offseason.

First: series 2 of YHCIH. Next: set 6 of No More Jockeys? Presumably just have to get Taskmaster and The Paper canceled to free up the other two, so I'm sure it's right around the corner!

Can't speak for the reviews, but regarding box office, it seems like more of a niche film that falls on the "looks interesting; I'll keep an eye out for this to show up on HBO Max in a few months" end of the spectrum. Never would've guessed it (allegedly) cost $180 million before marketing.

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Seems more like an investment than a gift tbh.

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Looked into it a bit and they did struggle against fastballs during their rough stretch in July/August but were still the best team in the baseball against 95+ MPH fastballs. Obviously 95 =/= 105, so it's not to say Misiorowski will get shelled, but it's no surprise he's already at 69 pitches.

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Hot take: the Brewers' cream uniforms are vastly superior to the Giants' cream uniforms (which don't go well with black and orange and would be better if they were just white).

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I haven't checked the numbers this season, but I know one thing the Dodgers have been built to do the last several years is hit velocity. Misiorwoski is throwing almost all fastballs, and even at 102+ MPH, I don't think you're gonna beat LA that way.

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Unfortunately, I don't think either AL team will be able to compete in the World Series the way Toronto did last season, but I'm gonna enjoy the rest of the postseason as much as possible because this offseason is gonna be ROUGH.

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After a bunch of wild card and division series matchups I wasn't that interested in, I'm pretty intrigued by both the ALCS and NLCS. I also haven't had many opportunities to watch Misiorowski pitch, so tonight's game is especially exciting.

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I still think Republicans have both a higher floor and ceiling for Senate seats than Democrats, and regardless of partisanship I think the Senate is a problematic institution, but if Dems can beat an incumbent in a state like Kansas I may tone down my "we should abolish the Senate" takes a bit.

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Also, Daniels had every opportunity to "throw over somebody's head out of bounds" and chose not to do so.

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Even if true, it just makes the whole sequence worse. They took 37 seconds to call and run the "throw an incompletion" play and didn't take any of that time to remind Daniels to not scramble since they were out of TOs. Even in a world where you can't just spike the ball this would've made no sense.

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I honestly don't know why this became a story, and if this is how he really feels that's fine, but I would've advised him to handle this differently and draw a contrast between his ability to disagree with the party leader with Republicans having to demean themselves more and more on a daily basis.

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2nd down play ends with 50 seconds left. They didn't even huddle until there were 33 seconds left. Then they take 10 seconds in the huddle and 10 more seconds to line up and snap the ball. Then they choose a run that gives them no chance to get out of bounds or even spike the ball. Pure cinema.

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As someone who didn't care at all about the game and really just wanted it to end so I could watch 49ers-Seahawks, it was really funny to watch the last 30 seconds of that game recognizing early on that the Commanders either didn't know the clock was running and/or forgot that they had no timeouts.

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LOL all-time great clock management from Dan Quinn there.

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(For the record, this was sarcasm.)

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Let's cut the guy some slack. He's been through a lot.

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Football referees signaling a first down before even getting the ball from the ball carrier--let alone spotting it--on a close play is so bizarre to me. Feels like something they just started doing last year, and I'm not sure why or what purpose it serves.

I'm sure there are specialized models that are already great for niche uses, but my experience with a few popular (and relatively powerful) models was... frustrating. But I'll keep experimenting with them if for no other reason than to be able to confidently say they suck until they don't.

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I agree and even started doing this recently despite never using ChatGPT, Gemini, etc. It actually convinced me that these general-purpose models still really aren't that useful for most people. But that *probably* won't always be the case, so if you have the hardware, learn how to use it.

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I know it's minor, but it really looks like he took a new hat and just rubbed a bunch of dirt on it to make it look artificially worn, which, if so, is kinda pathetic and also pretty telling. It's like when a politician takes off his suit jacket and rolls up his sleeves to appear more approachable.

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Matt Campbell has been at Penn State for like ten months. Why does his hat look like it's been worn for the better part of a decade?

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Was it an intentional choice to make the Matchbox trailer look like the kind of cheesy parody you'd see in a bad sitcom?

R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

It's so weird seeing Oregon actually wearing a uniform with a jersey, helmet, and pants that all match each other. Can't remember the last time I've seen that.

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There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of, apprehensive about, or antagonistic toward AI, but I really think that the obvious answer for why a lot of people dislike AI is just that, in their experience, AI sucks.

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It's not just a fear of potentially taking away jobs and/or causing some other catastrophe in the future. AI is actively making a lot of things worse right now. The utility of AI--at least the consumer-oriented kind that has been hyped for years-- just isn't there for your average person currently.

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I'm not saying any of this is incorrect, but there are some obvious reasons not included here, namely that the average person's actual exposure to AI is having general-purpose tools that are still pretty bad (and are largely still worse than what they replaced) forced down their throats.

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Can confirm that certain ad breaks on my HBO Max stream are too long, and if I don't select "jump to live" I fall 20+ seconds behind. So I can either miss part of the game to stay live or fall further and further behind if I don't want to miss anything. Live sports on streaming services are great!

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If someone is voting based on transphobia, they're going to vote GOP. Just accept that and--for the rest of the electorate--call it out for the distraction that it is, and trust that the vast majority of voters aren't going to vote for a senator based on their position on trans kids in sports.

R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Baffling that this continues to be the default response. I understand the urge to respond, but you can do it in a way that makes you look disingenuous while increasing the issue's salience, or in a way that preserves your integrity, reframes the debate, and turns the tables on your opponent.

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Shortening the regular season to give teams a day off each week makes sense, but having teams pick their postseason opponent is a colossally dumb gimmick that serves no purpose other than to try to manufacture drama for sports radio talking heads.

R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I didn't pause this game at all but somehow got a couple minutes behind and saw a prompt to "jump to live" on multiple occasions, and the only explanation I can think of is that HBO Max had longer ad breaks than the live broadcast and just delayed the game more and more.

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R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Love it when a guy like Ryan Vilade, who has basically been a replacement-level player his entire career, somehow winds up on a postseason roster and comes through with a huge home run.

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R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Wild that there hasn't been a single game yet where both teams have scored at least 4 runs.

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R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

In fairness, they had five days off then had to face Cole and Schlitter and still only struck out 9 times total, so the early offensive numbers aren't necessarily anything to panic about. But they aren't gonna beat any of the NL teams if they can't hit considerably better than they have so far.

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R.J. @rjva.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I think most of the recent rule changes have been for the better. Even the ones I didn't necessarily agree with, like the extra innings runner or banning extreme infield shifts, I (mostly) understood. This, on the other hand, seems like a solution in search of a problem.