SL

@royalsexec Before or after the draft?

I may go ahead and crash out so bad on here that I get fired/quit.

@royalsreview The biggest issue with Roccaforte is his 30% strike out rate. That’s not sustainable as he moves up to AAA and the Royals. He needs to fix his K rate.

In 85 games at Double-A over the past two seasons, he is hitting .269/.368/.506 with 17 home runs and 20 steals.

@royalsexec Dax Whitney is going to be how great of a pitcher? It seems like Ethan Kleinschmitt projects to be a high leverage reliever?

No Corvallis I guess. Would have been nice to escape the northeast.

@royalsexec In the draft, who has the outlier bat skills like McGonigle?

It’s April, which means I get to really dig into the fun stuff (the farm and the draft). Ask some questions.

@FralickTim34304 @AnnaMalindogUy Classic LBH expat.

@AnnaMalindogUy Lola Anna, our favorite China CCP hack, is trying to lick every CCP leader in Beijing by being their pet. go Pet Lola go, tell them your fellow pinay/pinoy that it is better to go to China and ask along the way. Wait, was not Iran China's ally, and yet China did nothing?

US Alignment, Economic Abandonment” So let me get this straight. While our ASEAN neighbors are busy attracting investments, building industries, and quietly positioning themselves as beneficiaries of regional economic flows… the Philippines, under Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is proudly collecting… geopolitical applause from the U.S. but losing the economic benefits of being friendly to China. What a Brilliant strategy, right?? Duh! 🙄 🙄 🙄 Because nothing says “economic development” like being left behind in actual capital flows while loudly declaring loyalty in someone else’s strategic contest. Chinese investments are not charity—they go where there is predictability, pragmatism, and policy coherence. And yet here we are, projecting hostility on one hand, then wondering why the investments go to Vietnam, Malaysia, or Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, even to Myanmar... Kaloka!🙄 We chose to turn diplomacy into theater, foreign policy into ideological posturing, and economics into collateral damage. And now the result? 👉 Investments diverted 👉 Opportunities missed 👉 Growth potential compromised But hey—at least we’re U.S. “aligned,” right? Military Aligned… but economically sidelined. This is the tragic irony of the current foreign policy: maximum noise, minimum gain. Instead of a balanced, multi-vector diplomacy that leverages geography and pragmatism, what we have is a one-dimensional approach that treats geopolitics like a loyalty test—rather than a tool for national development, strategy and national interests... Because apparently, in Marcos Jr.'s administration’s playbook, it’s better to be a frontline state than a functional economy. Truly, a masterclass in how to turn strategic positioning into economic self-sabotage.

@Mnoman1984Noman @Kathleen_Tyson_ It would be good to see the Israeli regime get captured and put on the trial.

Israel is absolutely being destroyed, from Haifa to Dimona, from Arad to Tel Aviv, the destruction is immense. Iran and its allies have done it a lot of damage. Note, we don't see much of this on any news sources in the US or even Europe.

@joequant KMT hasn’t selected good candidates and leadership has been dodgy out of touch senior citizens. Actually in 2024, KMT ground support was Terry Guo, not Hou. But the machine and Eric always make the wrong choices. So, we get “癩”.

@STL02288050 That's what people will argue about. Also how incompetent the candidates were is also arguable. The KMT was not going to win in 2016. 2020 was lost because of Hong Kong. 2024 it lost because of the KMT-TPP split, and I think Hou did the best that he could.

One important thing about the KMT chairmanship is that all of the candidates pledges not to run in 2028. There are three strong possible KMT candidates Han Kuo-yu, Lu Shiow-yen, Wayne Chiang. One fun thing is that none of the candidates

@WhileTravelling Naive question, why is Erdogan popular with Turkish 農民？

Turkey just walked into the world’s most expensive trap, smiling, waving, and signing IOUs it hasn’t even figured out how to pay back because what Ankara is trying to do right now is the fiscal equivalent of ordering 300 Ferraris on credit while your bank account is already negative. Turkey just promised to buy 300 planes and locked itself into 20-year LNG deals with U.S. suppliers. That’s a mortgage on the next two decades of your grandchildren’s future. Buying hundreds of jets is straight up debt cosplay. Even if financed over decades, these planes are denominated in USD. Means Turkey just said, “We’ll pay you in dollars,” while the lira is busy free-falling like a skydiver without a parachute. When your interest rate (r) > your growth rate (g), the math is brutal: Delta D = (r - g)D + new borrowing Congratulations, Turkey just turbocharged its debt overhang problem. Keep in mind that Turkey still doesn’t have enough fire planes. Then there’s the LNG contract. BOTAS signed a 20-year deal with Mercuria. Twenty. Years. That’s basically saying: Hey, whatever happens in energy markets, shale boom, renewables, global price collapse, we’ll keep overpaying because we pinky-swore with Trump. Beautiful, if you’re Mercuria. Disastrous, if you’re a Turkish consumer footing the bill. 🤔300 planes + long-term LNG = massive imports. 😳Imports = foreign exchange outflow. 😱Outflow = bigger current account deficit. 😫Bigger CAD = more dependency on foreign capital inflows. 😵‍💫Foreign inflows = you’re one tantrum away from a sudden stop and devaluation. The minute you’re tied into defense and energy contracts worth tens of billions, you’re not balancing anything, you’re leasing your sovereignty on a monthly plan. The U.S. now holds a remote control with two buttons for delivery delay and price adjustment. Instead of investing in domestic aerospace, renewable energy, R&D, or education, Turkey is funneling billions into imports. That’s like skipping college tuition for your kid so you can buy your neighbor’s kid a car, a house and life insurance. It’s economically suicidal. You don’t build resilience by importing dependency. Ataturk wouldn’t have wanted this. Turkey’s policymakers may think they scored diplomatic points, but what they really signed up for is a future of debt, dependency, and diminished autonomy. When growth slows, when FX reserves shrink, when interest payments eat the budget alive, remember these deals. A massive economic own-goal. Instead of strengthening its economy, Turkey just mortgaged it. Planes will fly, LNG will burn, but the debt will stay grounded like a heavy chain around the country’s ankle. The people selling Turkey these planes and gas don’t even need to lift a finger. They just sit back, collect the payments, and watch as Ankara tries to explain to its citizens why their kids’ future has been securitized for someone else’s balance sheet.

@Allyjay25 Oh I disagree with you. I have been doing many of the things Bryan Johnson is touting. It works. And you learn to customize for your body. I add meditation, yoga, running, a lot more morning sun bathes. It works.

@STL02288050 @RnaudBertrand Fasting, sleep, exercise and going organic ain't gonna cut it against slowing down aging.

The single biggest issue with his "blueprint" that "anyone can follow" is that this was all tested on one person, himself. That's not science. I'm not denying it works for him, I'm sure it does, but if you wanted it to work for you you'd need to follow the exact same path as him: testing all those complements and methods on yourself to see which ones work FOR YOU. And suggesting, as this thread does, that you don't need to do that and can simply take the same complements as him is actually dangerous advice because what works for him might actually be detrimental to you...

Alibaba's ongoing buyback program visualized: 👉$17.3 billion spent buying ADRs (aka U.S. shares) 👉306.2 million shares bought 👉173 million shares retired net of SBC. Takeaway: ~7% of the float has been retired since the buybacks started. $BABA