Leferd

Bruce, don't get too excited. It's only August. In August of 2000 Gore was leading Bush, in 1988 Dukakis was leading the other Bush, Romney & Obama were in a dead heat (the election wasn't that close) and Obama was blowing out McCain (the election ended up being pretty close). We haven't even had the debates yet. A LOT can happen. Especially if Johnson gets in and offers a viable 3rd choice. If Jill Stein gets in (which is looking like a possibility) it's Hodor hold the door after that. After the last debate THEN you can start believing the polls. GD, where are you getting your polling and voting information? In 2008, Obama had 52.9% of the popular vote to McCain's 45.7%. On 8/7/08, FiveThirthyEight gave Obama a 63.8% chance of victory. https://web.archive.org/web/20080807174038/http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ in 2012 it was Obama 51.0% to Romney's 47.1%. On 8/13/12, FiveThirtyEight had Obama as the 71.6% favorite to win. https://web.archive.org/web/20120813072907/http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/ Gore was leading Bush in August 2000 and he did you know...win the popular vote. As for Dukakis/Bush...yes Dukakis dropped his lead over Bush but well....he had an incompetent campaign and the sitting President was extremely popular and GHWB was essentially running for a third term. Really good retrospective on the 1988 Dukakis meltdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGu848znQpc http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/film-how-to-destroy-a-presidential-candidate/ As of today, Clinton is given a 77% chance of victory. http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/?ex_cid=rrpromo#plus Current battleground states projections:

Absolutely brilliant 10K world record shattering performance by Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia... 29:17.45 --breaking the old record by 14 seconds! The Ethiopians and Kenyans essentially went balls out right from the gun --completely running roughshod over all sensibilities of tactics and energy conservation...and weeding out those not strong enough to keep pace. Gutsy -high risk/high reward strategy. But it worked out for Ayana and I certainly want to see her go all out again and get the double and another WR in the 5K.

Favorite part of the game was Cousins having another patented meltdown; getting benched --throwing a tantrum, then Draymond having to go up to him and telling him to CHILL THE F-- DOWN. Oh Boogie, don't ever change.

Technically speaking, James Naismith was Canadian.

Interesting read from Katy Tur of NBC News on what it's like to be embedded longterm as a reporter with the Trump campaign. http://www.marieclaire.com/politics/a21997/donald-trump-katy-tur/

Prince Fielder is done. Both he and his pops have 319 career home runs.

That's true. ...though I liked Summer Sanders and Janet Evans. Natalie Coughlin is also pretty chill despite going to Carondelet for high school.

I actually ended up rooting for her. I found the American TV shills and Lilly King especially insufferable.

True. But the data in MOBAs is readily available. Which is rich for exploitation in the right hands. Potential gold mine opportunity before the rest of the field can catch up. *edit* Nahaz is featured in the article.

Excellent longform piece on MOBA by former baseball GM/sportswriter-extraordinaire, Ben Lindbergh. https://theringer.com/the-wild-west-of-e-sports-1cc050f8100e#.l4px5b9fq What I found fascinating is the discussion on how eSports analytics are still behind MLB and the NBA -despite the prevalence of data available. However, it can provide a huge competitive advantage for those teams that know how to use it. The analytics movement is there, but the adoption rates are still at the baseball equivalent of the 1980's. Also...Mark Cuban introduced an eSports betting service?? Grantland is dead. Long live The Ringer.

Yes, that will be added to the list of his crimes once the election is over....but nothing can be done now To be fair, Donald Trump did make it a point to say that his caps are made in the USA. Which I don't necessarily doubt.

Yep, that was a cool story. I believe the SF Chronicle (or it could be the Mercury News) published a similar story when Norman passed away.

Hell of a block by Saric. Looks like THE PROCESS may work out for The 76ers after all.

Women's Rugby Sevens, where have you been all my life?

I'll be watching/streaming constantly but like Keyrock, the real Olympics don't really start for me until track starts.

I associate that name with Spenser for Hire - the P.I. show from the 80's with Robert Urich and Avery Brooks. And that's spelled differently.

Trump should blame the Fire Marshal.

Impressive. Looking better than expected considering how much was raised.

New York Times video compilation from various Trump rallies. Warning. Salty language.

Trump's current odds of winning in November is a little bit better than your chances of hitting the flush on the river to my Ace high straight --which is encouraging but still extremely scary and possible. The anxiety levels are proportionally the same.

We've got Red Robin in California. Or at least here in the Bay. I usually go with their blue cheese burger.

Welp. Looks like the RNC was a bust. ...And The Donald completely flopped.

I'm counting on George P. Bush.