156 Comments

Happy 246th Birthday United States Marine Corps!

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I live across the street from the Iwo Jima Memorial and they had a special wreath laying ceremony this morning. I've awakened to their rehearsals for the last week.

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My daughter turned 4 today. It’s amazing how time flies and how much parenting ages a person.

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Our twins were 4 yesterday. Today they're 15. Tomorrow they'll be 25. Every cliché about how fast it goes is true. My only advice: fill it up with memories.

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Happy birthday to the big girl!

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What ages a person faster? Kids or Cal football? Asking for a friend.

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i find that kids are "anti-aging" and keeps you young.

Cal football does not have that kind of development or hope of progression

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The effect is multiplicative. At least, it is in the case of my daughter because Cal football is 4-9 in her short life so far.

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Does this mean Cal's downfall is your fault for making a spawn?

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I was seriously contemplating that during the 2020 season until the Oregon win. And again this season until the Colorado win. And again again after the Arizona loss.

tl;dr I cannot rule out that possibility

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Kids. Cal football is only 12 weeks of the year and I can ignore it without the worrying about going to jail. Kids are 24/7/365.

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Makes sense...the childless Chitwood household definitely prefers the act of making children to the actual byproduct, of course....

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pqtm

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Behind (metaphorically)

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Puberty (started the second season of Sex Education)

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Can we just skip past this sports calendar year (except for swimming and women's basketball)?

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what makes you think women's basketball will be any better?

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They beat Sac State by 19 last night, so they've already matched their win total from last year.

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All the 5 star recruits!

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Behind

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Did squats today. Going for 3 rep max next week - targeting 225. (I did 24 reps at 195 today without too much strain)

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I also did squats, but apparently at a much lower weight than you and now I'm spiraling into inadequacy.

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I have a big butt.

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And you cannot lie?

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Have you seen this new trend about Gen Z chinese kids? There's a whole trend about "lying flat" - it's China's new slacker generation.

It's a response to the 9-9-6, grind your way into university, grind your way to an apartment mortgage culture

https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/the-lying-flat-movement-standing-in-the-way-of-chinas-innovation-drive/

I think it's great for once.

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DBD Test Kitchen

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Rare, somewhat fancy mid-week meal: Small bowl of homemade tomato soup with a sweet Batard followed by a hearty salad of roasted pear & red onion with pecans & blue cheese over spring mix. Quite good '09 Bordeaux with a very goofy name (K&L special).

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DBD AV Club

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Dopesick, episode 7 of 8....damn good series.

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Anyone start the new season of Big Mouth yet? I watched the first episode of the season and it was fine. Slightly underwhelming, if anything.

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Yeah, and the second one was well trodden ground for them as well; but still, I laughed.

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Name an underrated movie or TV series

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Clear and Present Danger - post cold war, pre current middle eastern quagmire. CIA starts illegal drug war in Colombia because the cartels kill a friend and supporter of the President. Harrison Ford stars as Tom Clancy hero Jack Ryan.

Herny Czerny as a duplicitous CIA operations guy is the best.

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Fantastic movie - he was great as Ritter…played Kittredge in Mission Impossible as well…may have to watch CAPD again soon…

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I like most of the Tom Clancy movies/series.

Hunt for Red October was really good, even though they changed the story to put Jack Ryan on the sub.

The Sum of All Fears was just alright.

Patriot Games and CAPD were good.

Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit was alright. I don't think this was based on a Clancy book.

The new Without Remorse with Michael B Jordan was good, even though it had nothing to do with the book.

And I really like the Jack Ryan series with John Krazinski.

Overall, I enjoy them movies.

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Well said, hag - totally agree. Without Remorse is my favorite book in the world, and the Amazon prime movie was so loosely based on it they probably should’ve just called it something else. Jack Ryan is good too.

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His worst book was Red Rabbit.

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Bring It On (2000). A movie about competitive cheerleading starring a high-school aged Kirsten Dunst. In an unrelated note for the Jesse Plemons haters of the DBD - Meth Damon has had 2 kids with is wife, Kirsten Dunst.

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Jesse Plemons is married to Kirsten Dunst?!?! wow.

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Mr. Right. Anna Kendrick and Sam Rockwell.

"A woman (Anna Kendrick) comes to a crossroad when she finds out that her new beau (Sam Rockwell) is a professional assassin who kills the people who hire him instead of the intended targets."

Stupid silly fun movie.

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Spaced: a brief, two-year sitcom with the same director, writers, and many actors from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz (Spaced preceded those two films, however).

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Honeymoon in Vegas

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I saw that in the theater (1991?) laughed at the flying elvises and don't remember much else.

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I did too!! In Emeryville back in the day…

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it probably would have been the La Verne 17 screen multiplex off of Foothill Blvd.

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Space: Above and Beyond. It’s a 90s sci fi show that aired on Fox and my brother and I loved it. It ended on one of the biggest cliff hangers because it was cancelled.

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The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

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Ace in the Hole - 1951 - Billy Wilder

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Josie and the Pussycats - music written by Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo

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Speed racer is so underrated. Great visuals and good story. I highly recommend this movie to everyone.

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i didnt realize there was a Speed Racer movie. loved the cartoon

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Watch it, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

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I remember seeing Josie in theaters and being surprised that it was actually pretty good.

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CR: NAARRRRRRCOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSS

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Our Crumbling Democracy

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While I'm not taking this seriously, I doubt anybody had this on their 2021 Bingo Card.

https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1458217830822858758

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I'm just glad she's not decided to spawn with him the old fashioned way.

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Wanna know why Bannon hasn't been prosecuted yet for defying his House subpoena? Because this guy hadn't taken his seat yet. Now he has. Also, "subpoena" is spelled weird.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/matthew-m-graves-takes-office-united-states-attorney

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Sub poe na. You're welcome, and happy lawyer day!

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Yes, "subpoena" is spelled weird. "Obey" is a fun word to say. "Obey your subpoena."

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10 more people have been sup... subpe.... subpeni... given an official legal summons from the 1/6 Commission.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/09/jan-6-panel-testimony-stephen-miller-kayleigh-mcenany-520455

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I think sub-peen is part of Josh Hawley's next election campaign platform

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1. What the fuck is up with that guy? 2. How on earth does he think he knows a single thing about masculinity?

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small testicles, probably.

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I think it is funny that both him and Cucker think they are the bastions of masculinity. I remember when Cucker wore a bow tie and I’m fairly certain he has never been in a physical fight in his life.

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Surgeon General disputes vaccine-hesitant actor who is considering running for TX governor. All wrong, all wrong, all wrong.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/09/politics/matthew-mcconaughey-vaccine-mandates-children-vivek-murthy-cnntv/index.html

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I'm going to be honest, I wasn't exactly clear about the scale of it until I moved to the US at 11, it somehow never got mentioned in the all WW2 hagiography in the UK at the time. (The worst part of this anecdote is that I went on a school trip to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, but at the time it was literally just the house - you went to the attic, looked around, and left. There was no context or exhibits about the Holocaust more generally)

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There is a particularly English view of WW2 that is extremely centred on them and the hardship they endured during the war, which I find, on the one hand, understandable considering how it impacted them, and on the other yet one more vestige of a dead empire not quite realizing that's what they are.

I think the US view of the war likewise skews our importance in it, but takes a much broader view of all that went on throughout. It kind of feels like the Jews were sort of incidental to the whole thing in English minds -- I'm not painting all Brits with this because I don't know -- because they were much more focused on the French surrendering, thereby endangering their little island even more. I don't think it's willfully or maliciously dismissive, but they just can't get any of the thought around the war onto anything other than their own suffering and bravery.

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There's a lot of truth to this. The UK spent 3 years losing overseas territory and just getting battered on the literal home front, and then turned in that into an immediate post war mythology of the Blitz spirit like everyone just muddled along like it was nothing. Basically an existential crisis for all and a mental health crisis for some.

I think that this was also reinforced by how long it took to rebuild - my parents were 5 and 2 at the end of the war, but still remember when chocolate came off rationing in the early 50s... and my mother is far from the only person of that era who was bitter *decades* later about the Germans being "rewarded" with the Marshall plan while the UK was paying off lend lease debt for years. It all turns into this inward-looking version of events.

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When I was a kid living on a RAF base in East Anglica, every year on the anniversary of the sinking of the Bismark - BBC would play "Sink the Bismark!" Also I remember all these small towns still had machine gun bunkers at key intersections - when I revisited in '99, they had all been removed.

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yeah, I still remember coastal pill boxes when I was a kid. I think they might finally have started getting rid of those.

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Oh this a 1,000 percent.

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That's interesting and alarming. Would you say that's representative of European education?

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I don't know. This was a long time ago, and I went to the British School in the Hague, so I can't say that I'd draw any conclusions about the broader state of affairs. I will say that I knew that every morning on the way to school, I went by the prison where the Germans kept hostages before taking them to the dunes to be shot, and that our neighbors still got a hard time 30+ years after the war because he was German and they'd met during the war. So how I didn't know the broader details of the Holocaust, I don't know.

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I recently read Eddie Jaku's The Happiest Man on Earth. Over 90 years old now, he said he didn't talk about his Holocaust experiences for most of his life because it was too painful. But he realized it was important to keep the message out there. Even then, he said it was easier to write a book and give a Ted talk than to talk to his own relatives.

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I imagine as a survivor of the holocaust it would be difficult to talk about for many reasons.

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Today in Covid 19

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I had a big sigh of despair this morning thinking about how one political party is actively trying to convince people not to get the vaccine, obviously in order to get people killed and to slow down the economy.

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Dying to own the Libs

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The football team's breakthrough infection was a timely anecdotal answer to a question that I tried to find the answer. I knew that vaccines were high-90s % effective in keeping you out of the hospital. And I knew that the infection rates were low because it included sample population of people who rarely left their houses - but it didn't answer the question of "how much do vaccines protect you from catching Covid IF you are in casual indoor contact". That is, can you go to a public indoor event unmasked if you're vaccinated? All studies I read concluded that "it is too early to tell".

Granted, kids tend to underestimate risk, are undisciplined in preventing an invisible/asymptomatic disease, and football players spend lots of time together breathing hard...... but this is a very interesting and relevant sample test. It does show (to me) an upper limit as to how much protection a vaccine gives you against catching it. In my mind, the answer is "okay, but it' can easily overloaded". And I looked into long-haul Covid effects, which seem to be a high percentage of people.

I need to answer this question in order to decide how I'm going to live my life and be okay with the odds of me being permanently affected. I'm not sure I have the answer yet, but I feel a lot less protected by my vaccination than before this weekend.

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The extreme outlier nature of this episode leaves many questions, and certainly makes it questionable to use it as a driver of significant change of direction in decision making, personally or at the community of interest level, at least until many questions get answered. Practices, and the degree of looking the other way, doubtless vary wildly across the conference, region, and country, but there's no way any amount of looking the other way would be able to overlook a 99.5% vaccinated group turning into an outbreak where 1/3 of the group tests positive. Even Cal can't credibly depart from the norm documented by months of the medical community researching and tracking this across this and other countries.

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More anecdotal data: two households in my neighborhood have had covid outbreaks in the last two months (including one this week). In both cases an unvaccinated person (one child and one moron) brought the virus into the household and every single vaccinated person in the household fell ill (albeit with no or mild symptoms). It seems that prolonged contact indoors is little match for the vaccine's ability to prevent infection.

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I just signed up for appointment to get the booster shot. I got one dose J&J in March and I don't know how effective it is now. Going to get Pfizer shot.

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So if I'm Pfizer, is it better to not get Pfizer for the booster?

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I looked into this and the answer is unsatisfyingly "it's too early to tell". So I had to look at secondary and tertiary information. I went with "which vaccine combination created the most antibodies". The answer is Moderna-3, Pfizer2+Moderna, and then Pfizer-3.

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so Moderna is the strongest? Maybe I should get Moderna booster

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I'm getting Pfizer after two Moderna shots, mostly because the clinic where I'm getting the booster does not yet have Moderna and because the BIL has Pfizer stock. Also, I don't see any harm in doing so, so why not? If Pfizer has any benefit that Moderna does not have, I get that benefit. If the Moderna booster is better, then in the next six months I'll get the Moderna booster.

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I have no clue, but I have seen some say get a different one.

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🤰🏼

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Pro

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Matt Barkley joins his ninth NFL team in 9 years. I wonder if the Barkley household buys paper plates and leases cars month-to-month.

https://pantherswire.usatoday.com/2021/11/09/panthers-signing-qb-matt-barkley/

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I'm surprised he's still in the league!

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I was shocked to learn that Colt McCoy was still in the league as a backup QB and not a QB coach.

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KAaron Rogers fined $14,650 for Covid protocol violation by the NFL.

That's 5 hours 43 minutes worth of his 2021 salary, which he literally made in his sleep. I'm sure he learned his lesson.

https://twitter.com/RobDemovsky/status/1458239716768169988

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Wish they could/would fine him for each violation.

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Maybe they can fine him for every stupid thing he said on the Joe Rogan show.

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Anaheim Ducks GM put on administrative leave to investigate how much of a dick he is.

https://sports.yahoo.com/ducks-gm-bob-murray-on-administrative-leave-for-alleged-verbal-abuse-toxic-behaviour-154615582.html

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Other College

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[Fort Worth Star-Telegram] Deion Sanders in running for TCU job.

https://www.star-telegram.com/sports/college/big-12/texas-christian-university/article255669621.html

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Why?

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Marshall University is kinda famous for its squirrels. ICYMI: one of them went 65 yards for a TD, exceeding the number of times that FIU made it into the end-zone.

https://twitter.com/Stadium/status/1454554087157116930

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Came across this reading the paper.

https://www.gocomics.com/bignate/2021/11/10

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FIAT SLUG!

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GO FIGHTING BANANA SLUGS! #noknownpredators

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I never thought that I would say this, but "thank you USC for rescheduling rather than just immediately taking the W".

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well SC is not going bowling, so one assumes this is the only way to extend practice.

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Dunno about the bowl....2-1 their last 3 gets a bid, with UCLA (rivalry game/backup QB) and Cal (because it'll be a cointoss game at best) both eminently winnable....it's do-able, especially after getting an unexpected BYE this weekend....

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Do forfeit wins count for bowl eligibility?

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Dunno for sure, but I would think so...a win is a win, no?

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Don't wins against lower divisions not count for bowl eligibility?

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seriously

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Read yesterday's story in the WSJ about SC running a degree mill MA program in social work with the help of some company of parasites here in Maryland. I don't know why I'm surprised that SC is cashing in on this bullshit but folks, we have discovered the tipping point for whether or not I'm willing to keep donating for scholarships. Plainly the new(ish) administration isn't interested in badly needed institutional reform. I'm mostly mad at myself for being dumb enough to hope that they would.

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I don't think that SC is alone in this stance. The more that I deal with the administration of universities and their alumni groups, I find more evidence that they are all about increasing revenues and conversion ratios.

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they are not alone at all. But I haven't been donating to other universities for nearly 30 years.

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You can always donate to Cals scholarship funds.

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L&S leadership fund for me

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The inaugural Chitwood Scholarship is currently seeking funding...intended as a re-educational tool of sorts for the staunchest, most unrealistic sunshine pumpers in the sports world....this year's focus: Kyle Shanahan and his status as the most overrated head coach in the National Football League....an essay contest will determine the winner. Donations are tax exempt, of course - I can get you the details, DCTrojan....;-)

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Most overrated coaches:

NFL

CFB

MLB

NHL

NBA

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Here's the Scootie hawt take: Kyle Shanahan is not remotely sexy enough to be this bad at his job and have us look the other way.

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Fact...his personality is actually rather un-attractive.

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Cal

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Tough week to be a Cal fan.

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A little info from Luc Bequette

https://twitter.com/LucBequette/status/1458142012872425473

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Egads, we may not sniff a > 3* recruit for years now… these are dreadful optics.

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Yep. This is up there with the week when mbb assistant Huffnagel's sexual harassment scandal broke and the team subsequently lost in the first round despite earning its highest seed in program history.

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Even with the Hufnagel mess, that team should nonetheless have beaten Hawaii...tho Ty and Bird were out, they still had 2 Mickey D's AA players that would go on to be drafted (tho Ivan Rabb is arguably one of the most overrated players in Cal basketball history)...that loss was on Cuonzo Martin, by far the runaway winner of the "Cal Coach that did less with More" award....

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I completely disagree with your assessment of Cunozo but its also worth remembering we started Brandon Chua at point guard against Hawaii. He eventually couldn't make it in the PBA . . . as a local.

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I completely respect your opinion on Cuonzo, Terence…I personally just do not share it, especially with the benefit of hindsight. And true, Chuaca was PG…and Bird missed too bc of the back.

But we got unceremoniously blown out…Jaylen had been struggling with player control fouls all year, so getting 2 quickies was zero surprise…and Rabb was not good enough to dominate. And with 4 NBA players on the roster, we should’ve been our highest seed of all time!!

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Oh, and of course I would absolutely punch my Nana to have Cuonzo now, without hesitation

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Plus the refs were abusing J. Brown with bullshit charging calls from about the 2nd half of the season onward.

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I Agree with Terence Johnson!

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Fact, though most weeks are.....

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It’s been a rough decade.

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I think you meant to write half-century.

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My first year of grad school, Ohio State went to the Rose Bowl, and my friends were really excited, "because it's been so long!"

It had been 11 years.

We'd had multiple national championships in that time.

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I had a similar reaction to a German friend talking about how it had been a while when they won the 2014 world cup. I should add he's a very nice guy, when Germany was beating Brazil 7-1 he looked genuinely shocked when I was shouting "go for 10!"

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We had some good seasons mixed in during some of those decades. We haven’t really had one really good season this last decade. I don’t even think we had one winning Pac 12 record from the last decade.

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Gleaned from the Pac-12 Football Media Guide -

2011: 4-5 (Tedford)

2012: 2-7 (Tedford)

2013: 0-9 (Dykes)

2014: 3-6 (Dykes)

2015: 4-5 (Dykes)

2016: 3-6 (Dykes)

2017: 2-7 (Wilcox)

2018: 4-5 (Wilcox)

2019: 4-5 (Wilcox)

2020: 1-3 (Wilcox)

2021: TBD (Wilcox)

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...or rough 69 years (since 1952; Ronnie Knox tskandal).

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Go Bears

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