Worst Teams in Modern Baseball History

1. The Chicago White Sox
2. No Teams come close

This season is just so depressing

They have not won two games in a row since the end of June

Prediction for after the election

Trump loses
Graham says the Republican Party must move away from Trump and look toward the future
Trump refuses to go away
Graham shows up at Mar-a-Lago and grovels

Vance is just self-mocking now

Answer to a Laura Ingram question by JD Vance
Replied Vance: “Well, first of all, I don’t buy that, Laura. I think most suburban women care about the normal things that most Americans care about, right? They care about inflation, they care about the price of groceries, they care about public safety in the streets where their kids play.”

JD needs to avoid using the word normal (or weird) in any sentence he utters. It just brings about laughter and reminds people that he may be the only husband in the world whose wife doesn't kick him to the couch when mad at him because it's just rewarding him

USMNT hires Mauricio Pochettino as the new Head Coach

According ESPN, this is a good hire
Pochettino was most recently the manager at Chelsea
Jurgen Klopp I guess has zero interest in the job

Offering to help il douche with a nickname for Harris

President
Always happy to help

Methods of Measuring Time... A Truss, A Scaramucci, A Rittenhouse, A Rogan

A Truss: About 2 months
A Scaramucci: About A Week, A week-and-a-half
A Rittenhouse: About 1/2 a day
A Rogan: An Hour, maybe two

God, Rogan is such a weak person. Talk about folding in record time. And his comment on it shows he is such a loser. "I'm not the guy to get political information from."
What a cuck

No Unhappiness, No Disatisfaction. Just going away for a while. Tiring

As I said, it's not anything other than a bit tiring.
As some of you may remember, we live in Japan and have 6 daughters (Single,Twins, and Trips). Our oldest started university last year, and is attending King's College in London. Daughters here have finals coming up, then their week of school after finals, and then summer related school activities, etc
For the last 6 weeks it has been non-stop politics as well.

Our oldest just returned from the UK for a visit her during vacation. We wound up following the UK elections because she is there. She stayed later in the UK than planned to provide lodging for people who came into London to help Jeremy Corbyn's campaign, and a few other campaigns. So there was all those politics that happened there.

I have friends and relatives in France -- we followed those elections. Heard from them every few days. Almost everyone is satisfied with the Left doing so well.

I know people who have complained that the right got jobbed in the UK and France because of the way the system works. Reform and RN got so many votes, and so few seats. My pat response is, "So, you're equally upset Trump won the presidency in 2016, even though he got millions fewer votes?" That kills the conversation.

Throw on top of those elections, the US elections; I'm an American, Wife is Korean-Japanese. So, I've been following the US. That has been never-ending.

And, for the past few weeks here in Japan everything has been focused on the Tokyo Mayoral race. For anyone who wonders how big a job it is to be the Mayor of Tokyo, they have an equal, or bigger budget than many countries around the world.
We live in Kanagawa which is near to Tokyo, so we got a lot of the news -- actually all of Japan got the news daily, hourly, seemingly minute-by-minute, etc.
At least in Japan the news we get is news, and not commentary disguised as news

Over 50 people ran. A conservative party (don't know which one) owns board space on walls and rented it out to anyone who could pay the roughly 150 US dollar equivalent per day. So there were walls filled with reams of posters.
Some postings had scantily clad women, some had pictures of their pets, some had weird drawings, one guy dressed up in a Samurai outfit. None of these people were serious, many were influencers trying to get attention. Under Japanese law the only two things you cannot say in a campaign are; 1. You cannot promote a rival candidate for the same position; and 2. You cannot lie. (Imagine what that would do to Trump) But bright lighted boards, women barely wearing anything, loud blaring quotes and comments -- all fair game.

It is 40 Celsius in many places in Japan, so there's also that.

It became both annoying, and tiring.
It's break time for all of us here in Kanagawa. Will only show for salmonchanted's posting once a week for a while

I realize it's not a major event. But for the some I do keep in contact with -- you know I didn't die.
And, when I return, I hope it's with enough energy and enthusiasm to return doing my 5 Things from Europe.

Have a wonderful summer. Hopefully see you all in August

'More Fawlty Towers than Downton Abbey': Jacob Rees-Mogg's bid to become a reality TV star

One of the most fascinating parts of election night was watching the various ways that outgoing Conservative MPs reacted to the furious bloodbath to which they were subjected. Some, like Penny Mordaunt, made a decent fist of equanimity. Others, like Liz Truss, reacted to their loss like they’d just been clonked over the head with a leg of lamb. And then there was Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Throughout election night, Rees-Mogg adopted a slightly amused distance to the carnage around him, happily doing the media rounds before the votes were in before quoting Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in his concession speech. “From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success,” he said, shortly before warmly shaking the hand of one of his opponents, a man in a baked bean balaclava.

For days, people have wondered exactly what Rees-Mogg meant by “the roses of success.” Was he already in the early stages of plotting his political comeback? Might he jump ship and ride the coattails of Reform back to parliament? Now we know the answer. According to a press release that landed this morning, when Jacob Rees-Mogg referred to “the roses of success,” he was in fact describing his new five-part Discovery+ reality show.

Long rumoured as a distant possibility, today Discovery+ announced the imminent arrival of a “fly-on-the-wall docu-series”, Meet the Rees-Moggs. Promising to “lift the lid on the man behind the public image,” Meet the Rees-Moggs will be set in the family’s 17th-century Somerset house where Jacob Rees-Mogg lives with his wife and six children, and will follow him from the announcement of the general election to the present moment. In the press release, Rees-Mogg said “Animals, children, an election and a film crew. What could possibly go wrong? This everyday story of Somerset folk is fun to film but may be a bit more Fawlty Towers than Downton Abbey.”

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/jul/10/more-fawlty-towers-than-downton-abbey-jacob-rees-moggs-bid-to-become-a-reality-tv-star

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If you don't know who Rees-Mogg is, think Rick Santorum w/o the insane religiosity.

Some surpise winners from the UK election

Jeremy Corbyn: Polls had varied over the last couple of weeks. I had seen polls that put Corbyn up by 1-3%. But there were also ones that had him behind; one had him behind by more than 9%.
Not only did he win, but he won rather handily. I guess parachuting in a guy who is strongly linked with private health care, and has been pushing for split public/private health care in the UK wasn't such a good idea.

Adrian Ramsay: A tip of the hat to Waveney Valley. They ousted the conservative. What makes this especially notable is not just that they've elected the Tories for decades now, but it's a rural area, which most pundits felt wouldn't go for a Green.

Shockat Adam: In what was probably the biggest surprise for Labour (on the negative side), Jonathan Ashworth was parachuted into heavily Labour supporting Leicester South. Ashworth was chosen by the NEC (National Labour Council), who chose him rather than allow the local constituency to choose their candidate. Ashworth's loss is a big deal as he was the National Labour Party's Campaign Coordinator, and very powerful within the party. Adam, an independent, ran on an 'End the War in Gaza' campaign.

Richard Tice: The odious Richard Tice of Reform Party. Tice, who is close to Farage (in both manner and politics), beat the moderate Tory, Matt Warman, in Boston and Skegness which was considered one of the most safe seats for the conservatives. (I will admit, this one is a bitter disappointment just because the toad won.)

Larry awaits his 5th PM with the arrival of Keir Starmer