In my morning perusal of news articles, I ran across this article in The Guardian which made me laugh. Any group that has two butt cheeks as part of the official emblem, gets my attention. Here are excerpts from the article.
As bitcoin plunged below $20,000 in mid-June, many cryptocurrency users were distraught over massive losses – with some reporting they had lost their life savings. But one corner of the internet was cheering: Buttcoin, a Reddit subforum launched in 2011 to poke fun at cryptocurrency.
The cryptocurrency flirted with its two-year low again this week, which meant a festive mood at Buttcoin. With about 135,000 members, the subreddit is tiny compared with the millions of people who chat on Reddit’s many pro-cryptocurrency forums. But frequent contributors to the community – whose logo replaces bitcoin’s golden “B” with a pair of golden buttcheeks – describe it as a kind of digital support group, laced through with dark humor, for people who are horrified by the proliferation of crypto scams and pyramid schemes. Though they may not have the power to destroy crypto, they can make jokes when it stumbles. As Buttcoin members say, instead of mining useless digital coins – they’re “mining comedy gold”.
Just like the crypto culture it mocks, Buttcoin has its own set of memes. Some of them simply flip crypto sayings. Instead of baying for token prices to rise “to the moon”, Buttcoin users chant “to the floor”. But Buttcoin’s most popular jokes take pro-crypto logic and push them to sarcastic extremes. To skewer crypto promoters’ habit of spinning negative news, Buttcoin users comment “This is good for bitcoin” under stories of cryptocurrency catastrophes. (Bitcoin’s been banned in a major country? Good for bitcoin. Bitcoin’s price is plummeting? Good for bitcoin. Someone lost their life savings to a bitcoin scam? You guessed it… good for bitcoin.)
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I ran across an article today in The Guardian which caught my attention, because I did not know the U.S. Supreme Court is not subject to a code of ethics like all other federal judges.
Earlier this year, the New Yorker published an investigation into the mounting evidence of possible conflicts of interest under the headline: ‘Is Ginni Thomas a threat to the supreme court for her role in an attempt subvert the 2020 presidential election?’ Her husband, Clarence Thomas has refused to recuse himself from cases relating to the insurrection, including one in January in which he became the only justice to dissent in an 8-1 decision over allowing hundreds of documents held by the National Archives to be reviewed by the House committee investigating the January 6 storming of the US Capitol. Five weeks after that decision, it was revealed that leading up to January 6 Ginni Thomas exchanged 29 text messages with Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, urging him to block Joe Biden’s victory.
Ginni Thomas has denied any conflict of interest between her activism and her husband’s jurisprudence. She told the Washington Free Beacon earlier this year: “We have our own separate careers, and our own ideas and opinions too. Clarence doesn’t discuss his work with me, and I don’t involve him in my work.” Whether that is true is perhaps a moot point, given that the mere appearance of conflict of interest can damage an institution’s reputation.
Unlike all other federal judges in lower appeals and district courts who are obligated to recuse themselves in cases of potential conflict of interest involving their spouses, the nine justices of the supreme court are entirely unfettered by any code of judicial ethics. They in effect police themselves.
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I am excited about the new rules in major league baseball which will take place starting in 2023. The rules have been developed to speed up the game, increase offense, and improve player safety. Here is a summary of each new rule with my editorial comment.
The new rules include a 30-second timer to speed up time between batters. Pitchers will have 15 seconds between pitches when the bases are empty, but, with runners on base, that time will expand to 20 seconds. A catcher is required to be in the catcher’s box with nine seconds left on the clock and a hitter in the batter’s box and focused on the pitcher with eight seconds remaining. If a pitcher violates the timer, he will be charged an automatic ball. If a batter violates the limit, he will be charged an automatic strike. There will be a limit of two of what MLB calls disengagements — pickoff attempts or steps off the rubber — per plate appearance, and a balk would be called for a third or more unless there is an out. The disengagement limit, which some players predict will benefit baserunners, would be reset if a runner advances.
My comment: It is about time. High school has had a speed up rule for pitchers and batters for many years, and it works. When tested in the minor leagues, the new rules have reduced the length of time for games by over 20 minutes. There will be no more watching players adjust their batting gloves four or five times, pulling at their shirt and pants, ala Victor Martinez and Mike Hargrove, the human rain delays.
The disengagement rule is going to help the runners. If a pitcher has used the two disengagements, the runner knows the pitcher cannot throw to first again so it will be easier to get a jump when stealing.
Two infielders will be required to be on either side of second and all infielders to be within the outer boundary of the infield when the pitcher is on the rubber. Infielders may not switch sides unless there is a substitution.
My comment: This is a major change, which will improve the offensive output which is down significantly. Keeping the infielders within the confine of the infield will make a big difference. No longer will a hitter drive one-hop rocket to the right or the first baseman only to be robbed of a hit because the second baseman is 15 steps onto the outfield grass. I will be a big plus for pull hitters, who will now be able to hit line drives that won’t be caught by a third infielder on the pull side of the field.
Shifts have soared from 2,357 times on balls hit in play in 2011 to 28,130 in 2016 and 59,063 last year, according to Sports Info Solutions. Shifts are on pace for 68,000 this season. See my Video of the Day
Base size will increase to 18-inch squares from 15
My comment: This is a win for safety. It will help protect the first baseman from getting stepped on by the runner and it will help runners remain on the base without over sliding. With the advent of instant replay, infielders were taught to keep their gloves on a runner sliding into base because it was likely their hands or legs would come off the base during the slide. Prior to instant replay, it was one of the unwritten rules that once a player gained the base, he wasn’t called out because he wasn’t touching the base completely throughout the slide.
Eeach team will be allowed a sixth mound visit in the ninth inning next year, if it has used five during the first eight innings.
My comment: I am not a big fan of this one. High school rules allow only three visits. On the fourth and any subsequent visit, the pitcher must be removed. If three visits are enough for a seven-inning game, five visits are enough for a nine-inning game, especially since they get one additional visit for each extra inning.
It is interesting that the MLB Players Association released a statement making clear that none of the four players on the committee voted in favor of the pitch clock or the shifts ban, explaining that MLB officials had not taken player feedback into consideration when finalizing their rule proposals.
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Quote of the Day: “I think fans will cherish the moments absent the extreme defensive shifts when games are decided not by whether their team’s infield is positioned by the perfect algorithm, but by whether their team’s second baseman can range to make an athletic dive playing with everything on the line.” Former Boston and Chicago Cubs executive Theo Epstein, now an MLB consultant.
Orchid of the Day: MLB for implementing the rule changes announced today.
Onion of the Day: MLB Players Association for not supporting the rule changes for pitch clock and player shifts.
Question of the Day: If major league games are 20 minutes shorter and offense increases are you more likely to watch a game?
Video/Image of the Day: Here is why they are killing the shift.
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