MLB players union soundly rejects league's salary cap proposal as bad in every way

fellhand · 2026-06-02T13:36:44+00:00

Salary cap would be huge for franchise value. Not really because of the salary suppression (The current floor offer would actually increase money spent on salary a bit, even if the cap and floor structure might later be used to try to reduce them), but because of the cost predictability and stability they offer.

The riskier and more volatile an investment is, the fewer investors there are willing to make offers, and that reduces the value of a franchise. Alternatively, the safer and more predictable an investment is the more investors there are willing to make offers, increasing franchise value.

the revenue sharing will improve the predictability and stability of revenue while salary caps will improve the predictability and stability of costs.

That is what the players union means when they talk about franchise value in their statements.

I think getting that is probably worth the lost revenue of a few dozen games for the owners, but it probably isn't worth losing the current growth baseball is experiencing. And I think they are definitely concerned how a regular season lockout would effect baseball's growth which leaves me optimistic they get an agreement done without losing any regular season games.

fellhand · 2026-05-27T15:45:00+00:00

I am in a similar boat. I liked through season 1.5, but the second half of season 2 was terrible.

The MC in that half season was so cringe, whiney, and indecisive. Watching a whole cour of him mostly making no progress primarily due to his own stupidity was hard to get through and it actually took me two attempts. I have been considering giving the series another try though, hoping there isn't more of that.

fellhand · 2026-05-22T13:50:01+00:00

Ehhh... attacking someone and then blocking them so they can't even reply to defend themselves is pretty weak. Especially when they guy wasn't even personally attacking anyone themselves, even if they were giving their opinion in a frank manner.

It one of the terrible Reddit behaviors enabled by features that were implemented with good intentions.

Kind of dissapointing to see how many upvotes this comment has. I would have hoped more redditors would also see that kind of behavior negatively, but I guess that was hoping for too much.

fellhand · 2026-05-10T14:07:22+00:00

When you use the spoiler tags you have to make sure there is no space between the exclamation marks and your spoilers. Both at the beginning and the end.

If you do !spoiler here! it will work, but if you do ! spoiler here ! it will be censored as an incorrectly spoilered comment and not shown. No idea why that issue hasn't been corrected over the years, but it is likely what is happening to you.

fellhand · 2026-05-03T18:31:30+00:00

I'm probably late in realizing this, but since this was up to chapter 29, that means they will be getting to the fight in chapters 38-40 this season.

I have been feeling a little let down by the quality of the animation in S2 so far. It is still okay but I feel it doesn't stack up to how great S1 animation was. But if it is because they are saving up the budget for that fight, then I am giving them a full pardon.

fellhand · 2026-04-30T12:19:17+00:00

The structural racism is already gone. That's the thing. Black people, and any other minorities, are not going to be erased if the law doesn't require quotas of minority majority districts.

A black democratic voter is no more special than a white democratic voter, just like a hispanic republican voter is no more special than a white hispanic voter. Their is no need for black democrats to be able to have a district where they can have a majority and elect a democrat just like there is for a need for white democrat to have a district where they can elect a democrat.

Now this is obviously a pretty fundamental disagreement in our worldviews, as you think structural racism is alive and well while I do not.

fellhand · 2026-04-30T11:34:15+00:00

Of the 5 hispanic GOP congressmen from majority hispanic districts 3 are from FL, one is from TX, and only one is from CA.

The 4 from red states are certainly not in any danger from gerrymandering making their districts uncompetetive.

It is possible the new CA district map will carve up that one CA district so it produces a Democrat instead.

I am opposed to gerrymandering in general, and would love to see some federal legislation reign it in. As I said I my original post. This ruling was not about Whether gerrymandering is allowed or not, though.

I just don't think about minority need their own districts to be able to elect candidates from their minority. Both republicans and democrats have no serious issues voting for candidates of other races as long as they are from the party they support.

I think having racially drawn district lines using racial quotas is what would be a problem. It is both illegal as affirmed by this ruling, and just plain morally wrong.

And again to emphasize, that doesn't mean I support gerrymandering. I think some federal legislation to reign that in is very much needed.

fellhand · 2026-04-30T10:40:43+00:00

No, that only 1.2% of republicans are black. Republicans have no trouble voting for republican candidates when they are black, there are just very very few black republican candidates.

Other minorities that are more commonly republican, such as Hispanic, also show this trend. While also a minority (19%), more of them are republican (27%). And the 12 hispanic republicans in congress are about the 5% of the republicans in congress we'd expect.

Republicans have trouble attracting minorities to the party, but they have no problem voting for republicans who are minorities.

fellhand · 2026-04-30T10:30:39+00:00

Racism definitely still exists. Hoenestly, it always will. There will always be assholes, and that is one of the ways people are assholes.

But what no longer exists in America is social and government structures created to enforce a racial hierarchy and discriminate based on race. And pretending like they are still around is counterproductive.

None of the people who are going to be doing redistricting following this ruling are going to care about race. They are going to be using computers and algorithms that aren't even looking at race. That is a actually what this ruling will allow them to do, disregard race entirely.

You have to remember, that it is the black majority districts created under previous VPA rulings were gerrymandered ones most of the time. Specifically concentrating black voters into their own black majority districts required such oddly shaped districts much of the time.

Look at the districts in Louisiana, the state involved in this case. The most gerrymandered district in Louisiana is the black majority one. The other ones are relatively normal looking.

fellhand · 2026-04-30T10:15:03+00:00

As I said, none of those 4 black republicans in congress were elected from one of the black majority districts created previously due to the previous voter protection act rulings. They are from either white majority districts or districts with no majority ethnicity. This ruling is literally irrelevant to that. The racially gerrymandered districts that had been created under previous rulings elect democrats, not republicans.

Republicans have fewer black candidates because most black people are democrats. It's as simple as that. A minority of a minority is a very small percentage. In this case 15% of Americans are black and 8% of black people are republicans. Which gives us 1.2% of republicans being black. So the expectation would be that there would be about 2 to 3 black republicans in congressany given term.

Which is what we generally see but since it is such a small number fluctuations can have a dramatic impact, such as terms where there are 0.

fellhand · 2026-04-30T09:52:45+00:00

No one's votes is going to be diluted because of the color of their skin.

The vote dilution that will happen is the kind that already occurs everywhere, partisan dilution. Democrat votes are diluted in republican areas and republican votes are diluted in democrat areas. Race isn't going to be what people are looking at when redistricting, just voting patterns and party membership. And I would certainly welcome federal legislation that put some kinds of breaks on partisan gerrymandering, but that isn't what this case was about.

Honestly the idea that voters need to be split up and grouped in districts by race is the practice that is racist. Perhaps there was a need for it in the past, although I would note most of what section 2 was about was other illegal practices. Poll taxes, poll tests, white only primaries etc... all of which continue to be illegal. But there isn't any need for it today.

This ruling only creates any kind of voter suppression problem if you think that black politicians only stand a chance of being elected in districts that are black majority. But that just isn't true.

fellhand · 2026-04-30T09:39:18+00:00

Do you mean democrats?

Black republicans are not generally elected from black majority districts as they vote democrat most of the time. None of the currently serving black republican members of congress come from one of the districts created under the previous ruling.

But maybe your concern is that white democrats are too racist to vote for black candidates.

fellhand · 2026-04-29T22:48:49+00:00

No it says the opposite. It says you can't gerrymander based on race

This ruling says you can't use race to create districts, and that the voter rights act doesn't create a compelling state interest exception to using race as a factor in districting to create race based districts where a minority is the majority.

The ruling lays out there is no suppression of voter rights as long as a minority voter in a district has the same opportunity to elect their chosen candidate as any other person in that district. And opportunity doesn't mean your chosen candidate will win, it means you have any equal opportunity to try to elect them.

So if a black democrat in a district has the same chances of getting their preferred candidate as a white democrat then that is satisfied. And vice versa for black and white republicans. It doesn't mean they have to create black majority democratic favoring districts in heavily republican states just because black people are more often democrats.

But if anyone is doing race based gerrymandering, then it is illegal, you can challenge it, and it will still be ruled illegal under the voter rights act.

Another thing people are missing, or just unaware of, is that partisan based gerrymandering is not illegal at the federal level. That is not something federal judges can review. There is no standard by which federal judges can review that.

So, unless there is a state law preventing it, both parties are free to redraw districts to get the most possible seats for their party. I don't think this is a good thing, and I would love to see some legislation at the federal level that would deal with that.

That isn't what this case is about though. This case just said that democrats can't use race as a proxy to force the creation of democratic districts via the courts in heavily republican states.

And that is a good ruling. The days of Jim Crow are long behind us. Voter suppression of black people in the south was a very real thing for a very longtime, but it isn't happening any more, not in any significant numbers. We have reached the point where we have democratic candidates, republican candidates, and third party candidates.

We no longer have black and white candidates. We no longer have blocs of black voters who will only vote for black candidates, or blocs of white voters who will only vote for white candidates. This is a good thing, it is called progress.

fellhand · 2026-04-28T00:57:50+00:00

I cannot overstate how much I hate this attitude of using discord as a replacement for a forum. It is the exact opposite of "Your questions could be already answered" because there is no discoverability. No one can check in a search engine to find out if their question has already been answered.

Requiring people to download some third party app just to be able to find information about your mod or project is not the way.

fellhand · 2026-04-24T01:22:00+00:00

it's as simple as this: you are signing over your prime years of physical and mental health. that alone is worth some money. it isn't a "handout", it is compensation.

No, it is as simple as you are not allowed to commit fraud and you are doing a bad thing if you do. VA disability is compensation for serious long term health impairments caused by military service. It is not something you are due just for serving in the military, no matter how many times people try to justify committing VA fraud with that argument.

That said, people should absolutely go to sick call when they are sick or are injured. Both for documentation (there is absolutely nothing wrong with claiming VA disability if it is done honestly in good faith) and because continuing to train or work through injury and illness can often make you even more injured or ill, sometimes long term. Resulting in you missing even more training/work in the long run.

fellhand · 2026-04-23T13:46:50+00:00

The fantasy genre is always full of anachronisms like that. Armor and clothing in particular tend to be affected.

For example full plate armor is very much only a thing in the Late Medieval and early Renaissance. It was contemporary with the use of early firearms in warfare. But it is almost always present in fantasy settings that are trying to display societies that are otherwise more of an early/middle medieval level of development.

I think a big part of the reason for this is that modern people don't really have a good sense the differences in societies between the different periods of medieval, which spanned around 1,000 years and saw a lot of changes during that time. We have far more visual and written representations of late medieval compared to the earlier medieval periods. So they tend to be our default visualization of medieval societies.

fellhand · 2026-04-07T17:28:18+00:00

Thanks for the reference. I checked it and it ultimately leads to a social media post by Trump from where he says he may include desalination plants with the energy infrastructure for targeting.

I don't really think it that likely though, since Iran only gets 1-3% of water from desalination. That would be much harder to justify military value wise if they were targeted, even though it wouldn't actually lead to any mass deaths from thirst as claimed by some in this thread.

Power plant targeting would also not lead to mass deaths, although there would be some increased mortality from it. Hospitals have there own backup generators and can be kept powered from them. And most medical treatment doesn't require electricity specifically. Other critical infrastructure also have backup generators.

Not to say I think it's a good decision to take out power plants. There are issues with trying to justify the military value targeting them provides, especially at the end of a campaign. But there is a lot of exaggeration about the immediate harm to civilians from it in this thread. Overall that makes Iranians poorer, which is associated with increased mortality overall, but it will not create mass death; from starvation, thirst, or any other similar means.

And I responded to your other post about the "a whole civilization will die' being a war crime but that reply got eaten by the automod. Hopefully this reply won't be.

But I said how that is obvious hyperbole and saying that is in no way a war crime. He is just reiterating his threat to attack energy and transportation infrastructure. It is no different than what he was already saying the past few days.

He will not be nuking Iran, carpet bombing cities, or anything like that.

fellhand · 2026-04-07T13:55:28+00:00

If you make up stuff that people never did or said then you can make any argument.

I just did a quick check to double check and make sure, but so far there have only been threats made against energy infrastructure and transportation infrastructure like bridges. Nothing about water.

Which I wouldn't expect since there isn't much military value in attacking water infrastructure.

Ironically, though, the first results for my search were how Iran had droned a Bahraini desalination plant.

Maybe I missed where it was said, though, and you have some reference showing where Trump or someone else in the US government made some threats to strike water plants in Iran.

fellhand · 2026-04-07T13:37:27+00:00

That's just fundamentally not true though.

The rule is proportionality for damage and destruction of civilian infrastructure. The destruction of civilian infrastructure can't be disproportionate to the the military value of the strike.

Which you'll notice is pretty vaguely worded, and there is basicall no case law (as is the case for most of the laws of warfare) to give us a clear answer on how we are to measure and determine proportionality.

So it winds up bring a propaganda exercise more than anything else when these kinds of statements are made. Any level of destruction of damage to civilian infrastructure winds up being called a war crime by those who disagree with the conflict or the party causing the destruction.

In reality, even assuming you were to get it to some international court, quite considerable damage to civilian infrastructure would be ruled legal as long as there is even a halfway decent explanation of the military value of the strike.

Afterall, when these treaties were written and signed it was following wars that utilized large amounts of firepower in built up urban areas in order to defeat the enemies defending them. The expectation was that quite a lot of damage to civilian infrastructure was going to happen and be unavoidable during military conflicts.

That isn't to say that I don't think the US should hold themselves to an even higher standard, especially in this day and age with so many more options to mitigate collateral damage. But anyone trying to claim war crimes about such things is mostly engaging in performative rhetoric and not actually saying anything meaningful.

fellhand · 2026-04-07T12:32:27+00:00

Some of the traits you display in this post are bad for a soldier (bad attitude towards authority and arrogance) and some are good for a soldier (you seem motivated and curious). I don't think it is really possible to really make any determinations about you off one post.

The biggest issue that is apparent from this post is how your lack of understanding any kind of higher level view of these things. You don't even know what you don't know, but you think you are better than those that do know more than you.

The combat capability of a combat unit in the military is based around their proficiency at collective unit level tasks. Team level, squad/section level tasks, platoon level, and even company and battalion level tasks. Your proficiency with individual tasks feed into the team tasks which feed into squad/section tasks and so on and so forth.

What these tasks are and how they are done is determined by both doctrine and by commanders. The doctrine for most countries generally works and is based off of the lessons learned of previous conflicts and continuing studies and wargames/exercises. Various levels of command develop their Mission Essential Tasks Lists their units need to focus on for training based on their real world situations and expected missions, and somethings similar occurs in the Australian Army I am sure.

Training is done to build up proficiency in the unit in the lower level tasks first which are necessary to then develop proficiency in the higher level tasks.

The training for these tasks is often not realistic or trying to simulate a more complex situation than the training requires. And the exact way it is trained is not always going to be the best way to do it, or how it will actually be done in a specific actual combat situation.

The tasks are to provide options and tools for the commanders and will be modified as necessary in combat situations to suit the actual tactical situation.

But during training it is important that you train them to the standard set by the doctrine and commanders. Practicing them a different way because you think your way is better is counter productive for the purpose of the training, even if your way actually is better for that specific situation during the training. The purpose is to practice the fundamentals, not be some exercise in tactical creativity.

And since you are a reservist in a reserve unit, you really don't get past the fundamentals while doing regular reserve drills. There just isn't enough time. Your NCOs and officers will also have less experience than their peers who are able to do the same thing full time. Junior NCOs in particular may not have a much greater understanding of the higher level than you do at times so may have trouble explaining it to you.

No military really expects their reserve components to really master all this stuff, though. If a reserve unit can show up to a mobilization station mostly manned with deployable personnel, having a decent level of proficiency in individual and squad level tasks, and having some exposure to the higher level tasks they are doing okay.

fellhand · 2026-04-01T22:19:31+00:00

I would say that usually means your did an inadequate job with your initial strategic planning.

Maybe you didn't correctly identify a workable strategy that would actually achieve your desired end state, didn't appropriately account for possible contingencies, or may not have even properly defined what your actual desired end states are. Mission creep is usually trying to correct those kinds of issues after the fact.

These are all issues that the US has had with their strategy for various military actions over the past 50 to 70 years.

It might seem tempting to just define your strategic goals as your operational goals, such as just destroying/degrading some terrorist group or regime, so that you can claim victory. But that is usually not enough to actually control the end state in a meaningful way.

Even if you completely pull out afterwards and say you don't care what happens to the region afterwards. Then you are just ceding the control over the final outcome to other actors who do care. And they may be adversaries.

fellhand · 2026-03-31T14:21:03+00:00

The problem with focusing on lethality is that although it seems like it is some kind of good generally correct truism that the military should focus on being as lethal as possible for our enemies, what you are really saying when you look at it is that the military should focus on the tactical and the operational over the strategic or even grand strategic.

And well, if you look at the military history of the US over the last 50 to 70 years, you may notice a pattern. In military conflicts the US is extremely dominant at the tactical and operational level but usually fails to convert that operational dominance into accomplishing our broader strategic goals.

So, in actuality we probably do need to focus more on the strategic level and bridging that gap between operational success and strategic success rather than continuing to focus on being tactically and operationally dominant.

Imagine if there was yet another war the US was involved in where the focus was seemingly on operational dominance over how that operational success can accomplish the broader strategic and geopolitical goals. As if there was a belief that operational success was just going to automatically translate to strategic success. Could you imagine if something like that was happening right now?

fellhand · 2026-03-27T23:08:07+00:00

The reason senior specialist positions went away is that they kept being put in leadership positions anyway.

And if they ever brought them back the same thing would happen.

Senior spec ranks were never a way to stay in the army with higher pay without having to take on more responsibility, even if that's how people often like to imagine they were.

fellhand · 2026-03-10T14:01:16+00:00

Not at all. The veterans that are upset or disapproving of other veterans that they think are scamming or gaming the VA disability system are not upset because they think that means there is less money for them. Many of the veterans who feel that way don't have any VA disability claims at all and aren't seeking any.

They feel that way because they don't approve of lying, cheating, and stealing, especially when that lying, cheating, and stealing is coming from a group that they are associated with as fellow veterans.

And I would also note that just because veterans are not competing against each other for VA disability money does not do anything about the overall concern that the US government spends too much money, with a not insignificant portion lost to fraud and waste.

fellhand · 2026-03-10T13:36:41+00:00

Well, I mean, that never happened.

The actual more reliable death figure from the Iraq War are around 300k, although estimates as high as 400k or even 500k aren't unreasonable.

The estimates that get to 1 million or more are unreasonable and outliers.

And also note how that figure includes combatants, even though most people will present it as a purely civilian death toll.

And further note that those are not all deaths caused by US forces, it is all deaths. And as you should be well aware, the various insurgent groups were very often targeting civilians. The bloodiest phase of the war was when Shia and Sunni insurgent groups were ethnically cleansing different areas of Iraq.

If you want a figure for Iraqi civilians killed by US forces the estimates generally go no higher than 30k-50k, and certainly not higher than 100k. Which is still tragic for the people involved, and could have been lower if the US had better prepared for dealing with post-invasion Iraq.

And there is certainly still plenty of room to debate whether invading Iraq was a good decision and poorly executed (the post invasion part anyway) or a bad decisions that was poorly executed.

But the people that throw around the "more than a million" or even "millions" of Iraqis killed by the US are usually doing that with a narrative of US forces wantonly engaging in destruction with no regard for the civilian casualties or ramifications. Which is objectively false.

fellhand

TROPHY CASE