Baseball peeps:

• Earlier in the series, Buck said of someone (maybe Adames or Arozarena), "I've noticed he doesn't break his bat much." The tone was complimentary. What does it mean about a batter's technique? Does a broken bat betoken a bad swing of some kind?

• This was my favorite play of the Series, because I'm kind of shaped like that now, but not nearly so usefully.

• Because 2020, there's a Covid angle. Skip down in the replies… Someone pointed out that the WNBA wouldn't let anyone play with an inconclusive test, which caused someone else to ask "What's the WNBA?"

That Passan twitter thread has a lot of neat ideas: Twitter is a fascinating, if corrupting and incomplete, simulation of the hive mind.




In other news:

Here's a fascinating, if atonal, consideration of economic forces. IF UBI is in our future, you won't regret having looked it over.

Well if you redefine "men" and "women" to be meaningless words, then sure.

This kinda makes youwanna lift up her skirt and see what's goin' on under thar....

Now, it's been half an hour of web browsing, so this comment has nothing to do with the previous one.

Between reading the actual articles this morning, there are tweets & headlines like these…

HEBDO cartoon of Erdogan lifting woman's burqa to see naked body sparks fury...

Pope says 'lady' COVID must be obeyed, forgoes mask...

An election! A vaccine! And then, as the scientists say, a miracle happens: a re-integration of history's hard-won & bitterly contests truths, a stoic acceptance of our personal constraints and weaknesses. So we can move forward!

It's ain't gonna happen. It's 2020 all the way down.

contested, not contests. I make a lot of typpos when crying

We all wanna blow off steam this year, but....

Not only does he not understand what "court packing" means, his geography could use a little work, too.

https://twitter.com/247gonefishing/status/1321514651738382336

"Better than nothing" beta test:

https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2020/10/27/SpaceX-launches-public-beta-test-of-Starlink-Internet-service/2971603815156/

"Bizarre things people believed 50 years ago"

https://www.grunge.com/48616/bizarre-things-people-believed-50-years-ago/

Sure, it looks like clickbait, but you only have to click once, anyway. It's not that long, either. However, it kept reloading, so there may be an extra article when you open it - the one I saw was about predictions from the 1990s that turned out to be wrong.

I knew most of the former list about the 1960s already, but I leaned a few things about school gun clubs and drunk driving. Other subjects are vibrating belts, stewardesses, "harmless" sugar, restrictions on credit cards to unmarried women, seatbelts - in the 1940s, drivers were cutting them OUT with razor blades! - asbestos, jello molds and a few more.

I'd like to quote the part about drunk driving, but something's getting in the way.

More on "know-it-alls."

From 2009 (I could have sworn that Miss Manners had a similar column from a year or two earlier, but I could be wrong):

DEAR ABBY: I'm one of the smartest people in my seventh-grade class. Sometimes it's hard being that person. Once, when I was in fifth grade, someone came up to me and told me, "No offense, but I think you're a know-it-all." Let me tell you, that did not feel good!

What should I do? I know almost all the answers in class, but I don't want to answer because of what people will think. Please help me. -- SMART SEVENTH-GRADER IN MICHIGAN

DEAR SMART SEVENTH-GRADER: Talk to your teacher and also your school counselor about your feelings. If you know all the answers in class, it's possible that you would qualify for advanced classes -- or even for skipping a grade. Of course, your parents would have to agree, but it's worth a try.

One thing is certain, you should not refrain from participating to the fullest extent you can in class. And the classmate who called you a know-it-all in fifth grade was out of line.

(end)

Follow-up - there are three letters, one from a teacher and one from a librarian named Barbara. I liked that one, in particular, since she suggested a good compromise, for the sake of ALL the students, not just the slow or jealous students.

https://www.uexpress.com/dearabby/2009/12/10/girl-is-encouraged-to-be-smart

Dear Abby, Dear Abby, you won't believe this, but my stomach makes noises whenever I kiss. My girlfriend tells me that it's all in my head, but my stomach tells me to write you instead.

Siiiiiiiiiigned

Noisemaker.

I miss John Prine. I do.

Damn it, I am tired of all this shrinkwrap corporate BULLSHIT!!

I'll bet that Sally Hines doesn't actually understand what non-binary is. She's probably imagining someone who has committed themselves to living as the other sex, undergone hormone therapy, surgeries etc..

That's what most people unfamiliar with enby culture tend to assume. They're confusing them with truly transexual Transgender people. In fairness, that's the image enby's like to promote in order to get their way. But they are a very different group of people.

Enby's are simply people who don't feel like they 'conform' to whatever stereotypes they associated with their sex and so choose to associate with some other set of gendered traits, however they choose to define those. This is why there are over 50 recognized 'genders' in the 'non-binary spectrum', and you'll notice they're all from Tumblr.

That's right - the dorky guy with purple hair and mascara who wants to use your daughter's locker room at college doesn't actually think he's a woman. He's just there because he's 'gender queer' and likes staring at naked girls.

I miss John Prine. I do. ~ Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at October 28, 2020 3:03 PM

The Dead Kennedys did a pretty bizarre send-up of that song.

I'll print the lyrics here because the song, as sung, is completely incomprehensible - as are many of the "songs" they scream.

========================================
Dear Abby,
Got a problem. I'm a decent, underpaid, hardworking county coroner.
It's Important that my family eat meat at least three times a week.
But we just can't afford to with the prices the way they are.
So I bring home some choice cuts from my autopsy subjects.
Just mix in the Tuna Helper:and ta-da!
The whole family thinks my new meals are delicious.
They ask me what's my secret.

Abby, I think they're getting suspicious.
My smart-ass eight year-old keeps asking, "Where's all the meat?
The red dye number two kind that's kept in the fridge."
If they find out the truth I don't think they'll understand.
Abby, what do I tell my family?

DEAR REAGANOMICS VICTIM:
Consult your clergyman. Make sure the body's
Blessed and everything should be just fine.
========================================