At Amazon, Nigel Rodgers, Ancient Rome: A Complete History of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chronicling the Story of the Most Important and Influential Civilization the World Has Ever Known.
Monday, July 31, 2017
Dodgers' Kyle Farmer Smacks Walk-Off Double in MLB Debut (VIDEO)
You rarely get a bigger "storybook" ending than this one.
What a magic moment.
At MLB on YouTube, "7/30/17: Farmer, Puig lead dramatic comeback win."
And at LAT, "Kyle Farmer delivers a walk-off, two-run double in debut to give Dodgers a sweep of Giants":
What a magic moment.
At MLB on YouTube, "7/30/17: Farmer, Puig lead dramatic comeback win."
And at LAT, "Kyle Farmer delivers a walk-off, two-run double in debut to give Dodgers a sweep of Giants":
When the rookie becomes the HERO. 👌— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) July 31, 2017
Welcome to the 2017 #Dodgers, @kFarm17! #WALKOFF | #LetsGoDodgers pic.twitter.com/Mc4UQs1c6B
The text message reached Dodgers manager Dave Roberts on Thursday night, soon after word leaked about the team calling up a rookie named Kyle Farmer. When Alex Wood heard the news, he wrote to his manager to extol the virtues of Farmer, his former teammate at the University of Georgia. He raved about Farmer’s presence and his makeup.More.
“And,” Wood ended the message, “he’s clutch.”
He had to wait three games on the bench, but Farmer needed only one at-bat to live up to Wood’s scouting report. In the 11th inning of a 3-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants on Sunday, Farmer stepped to the plate with a pair of runners aboard and one out. It was his major league debut. He was the last position player left on the Dodgers bench. He had waited 26 years and five minor league seasons for this night. He did not waste it.
When reliever Albert Suarez fired a 3-2 fastball, Farmer was ready. He stung a double into the right-field corner. Corey Seager scored from second base. Justin Turner chugged home from first. And Farmer raised his arms with glee in the middle of Dodger Stadium, a building shaking with noise, as an avalanche engulfed him.
The first teammate Farmer saw was Wood. His old roommate tackled him near second base. Two dozen Dodgers joined the pile, a euphoric celebration of the team’s eighth victory in a row.
“Oh, gosh,” Farmer said. “It feels awesome. That was a pretty cool moment for me and the team.”
“Surreal,” Farmer called the scene. Wood said he could not recall a cooler moment in his career. Roberts could only shake his head.
“I don’t know what else I can say?” Roberts said. “How else can you describe this ballclub?”
All these Dodgers (74-31) do, it seems, is win.
On Sunday, the offense came back from a one-run deficit in the ninth and another in the 11th. Farmer received a curtain call after a game that lasted just shy of four hours. Earlier in the night, Hyun-Jin Ryu matched Giants ace Madison Bumgarner for seven scoreless innings. Both starters limited their opponents to five hits. Each man struck out seven.
Ryu benefited from stellar defense behind him. The Dodgers tied a franchise record by turning six double plays. Four occurred with Ryu on the mound, including a run-saving throw by Enrique Hernandez in the seventh inning.
Once Ryu and Bumgarner departed, the offenses showed life. Giants third baseman Conor Gillaspie punished reliever Josh Fields with a solo shot in the eighth. The Dodgers evened the score in the ninth. Chase Utley led off with an infield single, then stole second base. He scored on a single by Yasiel Puig. The Dodgers loaded the bases in the ninth but Cody Bellinger popped up to send the game into extras.
As the evening wore on, Hernandez turned to Farmer in the dugout.
“Dude,” Hernandez joked, “this game has Kyle Farmer written all over it. You’re going to win this game.”
“I know,” Farmer told his new teammate...
Sunday, July 30, 2017
Jennifer Delacruz's Humid Warm Thunderstorms Forecast
Well, tomorrow's the 31st, the last day of the month. I've got to start in on my course syllabi, so I'll be off to the office tomorrow for a while. Should take a couple of days to get most everything revised and ready for the end of the month (when classes start). After I get my materials ready, I'll be just enjoying my last few weeks of lackadaisical summer bliss, lol.
More about that later. Meanwhile, here's the gorgeous Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
More about that later. Meanwhile, here's the gorgeous Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
Joshua Green, Devil's Bargain
*BUMPED.*
At Amazon, Joshua Green, Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency.
At Amazon, Joshua Green, Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency.
Courtney Messerschmidt Today
So, I'm reading this great piece at the National Interest, "Nazi Germany's 5 Most Lethal Weapons of War," which goes on about the Messerschmitt Bf 109 figther plane, which was prominently featured in "Dunkirk."
And the "109" part was interesting especially, since the old Courtney Messerschmidt, of GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD, uses the handle "courtneyme109." And coincidently, somebody retweeted her the other day, and here she is. It's been six years since "The Courtney Messerschmidt Scam."
Those were the days, lol. Courtney's gotta be about 28-years-old by now. I hope she's matured and mellowed out a bit. You can't go around in life living a lie. Sooner or later people find about about you.
And the "109" part was interesting especially, since the old Courtney Messerschmidt, of GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD, uses the handle "courtneyme109." And coincidently, somebody retweeted her the other day, and here she is. It's been six years since "The Courtney Messerschmidt Scam."
Those were the days, lol. Courtney's gotta be about 28-years-old by now. I hope she's matured and mellowed out a bit. You can't go around in life living a lie. Sooner or later people find about about you.
A New California Gold Rush
This will warm your heart a little.
If folks are willing to go panning for gold up in NoCal, maybe there's hope for this lame state after all, lol.
At LAT, "A new gold rush is on, sparked by California’s post-drought snowmelt: The heavy winter rains have stirred echoes of the gold rush in Sierra Nevada foothills":
If folks are willing to go panning for gold up in NoCal, maybe there's hope for this lame state after all, lol.
At LAT, "A new gold rush is on, sparked by California’s post-drought snowmelt: The heavy winter rains have stirred echoes of the gold rush in Sierra Nevada foothills":
The state’s historic drought has ended. Riverbeds, once dry, are torrents, and California’s Gold Country is living up to its reputation.Keep reading.
Standing on a narrow bridge over Eagle Creek, weeks before the Detwiler fire ravaged the foothills to the south, Robert Guardiola watches nearly 40 miners spread out. Wearing knee pads and waders, they have begun to organize their equipment — buckets and classifiers, hog pans and cradles — along the edge of the stream.
Some cut into sand bars with their shovels; others adjust their sluices half in and out of the flowing water. A few have begun swirling mud in their gold pans.
“Everything begins and ends with a pan,” says Guardiola, pleased with the activity. He helped organize this outing, a monthly foray for a local prospecting association known as the Delta Gold Diggers.
Settled in a nearby folding lawn chair, Russ Tait is doing his part. A latte-colored slurry circles the perimeter of his emerald-colored pan.
With a floppy hat, ponytail and a white beard that hasn’t been trimmed in 18 years, the 72-year-old looks like a refugee from Knott’s Berry Farm. Even his blue eyes behind silver frames have a bit of a twinkle.
Tait has bone cancer, so getting down to the creek isn’t easy. But even if his days are numbered, he isn’t above dreaming. He peers into the murky solution, hoping to glimpse something shiny.
“I guess you call it gold fever,” he says. “You get out there, and there’s times where you get tired and you don’t want to quit.”
*****
Since first smelted almost 6,000 years ago, Au 79 — one of the 118 elements on the periodic table — has inspired an enduring madness.
Ovid tells the tale of Midas, John Huston of a similar malady in the mountains of Mexico, and television cameras bring home the frenzy on the Bering Sea.
But gold is admired not just for its beauty and worth. In a chaotic world, it speaks with evangelical zeal to values less ephemeral. Populists and politicians champion it as a stabilizer for the dollar. Survivalists see salvation in its worth when civilization collapses.
But on the banks of Eagle Creek, the talk is more about the poison oak, twining its way through the brush, as unwanted as the mining regulations that have come out of Sacramento.
In 2009, the miners complain, a state judge issued an injunction that put a temporary moratorium on the use of motorized equipment near the state’s rivers and streams, putting an end to dredges that suction rocks, sand and pebbles from the bottom of a creek and pumps that circulate water into sluices located high on river banks.
A coalition of tribal, conservation and fisheries representatives said such practices compromise riparian habitat, and the judge ordered the matter to be studied. A final ruling has yet to be made.
But what regulations have prohibited, nature has allowed, and with all the water blasting through these mountains, prospectors have a new kick in their step.
Geological gumshoes, they search for ancient rivers, for rounded boulders tumbled together, for orange soil tainted by rusted iron and veins of quartz hiding gold.
They read streambeds, imagining how the current flowed during floods, hunting for any irregularity — a riffle, a ledge, a waterfall — that could create a backward eddy for the gold to escape the water’s momentum and drop to the floor...
Out in Paper: Ruchir Sharma, The Rise and Fall of Nations
*BUMPED.*
Out in paperback, at Amazon, Ruchir Sharma, The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in the Post-Crisis World.
Out in paperback, at Amazon, Ruchir Sharma, The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in the Post-Crisis World.
Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
I've got a couple more books to finish on World War I to finish, as well as one on 19th century European imperialism in Africa, then I'm looking to go on a Roman empire jag. I've got a couple of novels lined up already, but I've had Edward Gibbon's classic tome on my shelf for almost 30 years. I need to wade through that thing and blow it out. I picked it up back at the time when Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers was the rage.
Once summer's over I'll switch gears a little. As noted, I'm teaching comparative politics this fall, and the German case plays large in my approach. It's going to be a blast.
In any case, at Amazon, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Once summer's over I'll switch gears a little. As noted, I'm teaching comparative politics this fall, and the German case plays large in my approach. It's going to be a blast.
In any case, at Amazon, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Saturday, July 29, 2017
Danielle Gersh's Beach Weather Forecast
What do you know? It's almost August already!
I start back at the college August 28th, so I'll be really enjoying these last few weeks of lollygagging around, lol.
Seriously, though, I'm going into the office early next week to work on my syllabi. In addition to U.S. politics, I'm teaching Introduction to Comparative Politics this semester, for the first time in years. It's going to be great!
In any case, here's the lovely Ms. Danielle with the forecast, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:
I start back at the college August 28th, so I'll be really enjoying these last few weeks of lollygagging around, lol.
Seriously, though, I'm going into the office early next week to work on my syllabi. In addition to U.S. politics, I'm teaching Introduction to Comparative Politics this semester, for the first time in years. It's going to be great!
In any case, here's the lovely Ms. Danielle with the forecast, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Toppled
At LAT, "Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif resigns after Supreme Court orders his dismissal in corruption case":
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif resigned Friday after the country's Supreme Court disqualified him from office due to corruption charges he and his family have been battling.Also at NYT, "Pakistan, Ousting Leader, Dashes Hopes for Fuller Democracy."
"Following the verdict, Nawaz Sharif has resigned from his responsibilities as prime minister," a spokesman for Sharif's office said in a statement.
The unanimous, five-judge ruling — delivered to a packed courtroom in the nation’s capital — came after an investigation into the family’s finances following the Panama Papers leak in 2015. Documents uncovered during the international media investigation linked Sharif’s children to offshore companies that had not been revealed in financial disclosures.
After the ensuing investigations, Judge Ejaz Afzal Khan said Sharif was no longer "eligible to be an honest member of the parliament.” The court had already recommended anti-corruption cases against Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz, her husband Safdar, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and others...
Huntington Beach: U.S. Open of Surfing (VIDEO)
I used to live in Huntington Beach. This event is excellent.
And there's supposed to be big surf this weekend.
At CBS News 2 Los Angeles
And there's supposed to be big surf this weekend.
At CBS News 2 Los Angeles
New White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci Cancels Politicon Appearance
I think he's got enough on his plate, rather than fly out to Pasadena for this cattle call.
You can always go see Ann Coulter's shtick, heh.
At LAT, "Anthony Scaramucci cancels weekend appearances at Politicon convention in Pasadena."
You can always go see Ann Coulter's shtick, heh.
At LAT, "Anthony Scaramucci cancels weekend appearances at Politicon convention in Pasadena."
Leftists Freak Out on Twitter Over Trump's 'Police Brutality' Joke
At Blazing Cat Fur.
Watch, here's the comments, "President Trump: Don't be too nice."
Also, "Remarks by President Trump to Law Enforcement Officials on MS-13."
Watch, here's the comments, "President Trump: Don't be too nice."
Also, "Remarks by President Trump to Law Enforcement Officials on MS-13."
Los Angeles Times Links Priebus' Ouster to #GOP's Failure to Repeal #ObamaCare.
Disingenuous.
See how the placement of these articles implies a close link. Actually, Priebus' ouster and the failure of the health bill aren't closely related, but you'd think it was all of one piece by looking at the cover of this morning's paper.
Here's the article at the top, "Trump ousts Reince Priebus as chief of staff in latest White House shake-up."
And at left, "GOP confronts an inconvenient truth: Americans want a healthcare safety net."
Page placement tells you a lot about the thinking and agenda of the editors at the Times.
See how the placement of these articles implies a close link. Actually, Priebus' ouster and the failure of the health bill aren't closely related, but you'd think it was all of one piece by looking at the cover of this morning's paper.
Here's the article at the top, "Trump ousts Reince Priebus as chief of staff in latest White House shake-up."
And at left, "GOP confronts an inconvenient truth: Americans want a healthcare safety net."
Page placement tells you a lot about the thinking and agenda of the editors at the Times.
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