Mark Davis

My wife had our daughters when I was 35 and 39. But I more have experience here from the child's point of view. My dad was 52 and mom 42 when I was born. I was an only child, they assumed they couldn't have kids, then at that late age they had me. There are pros and cons. My dad, although he lived to be 98 and had great health, never could play ball much with me beyond just the standard tossing the baseball etc. Physically it was tougher on them no doubt. But they were also more financially stable. And while we weren't well off, for where I grew up we certainly were on the better side of things. They were set in life, not a lot of drama, good stable upbringing. Like someone else mentioned, there are more risks as you get older. Even back when I was born there were some tests they could do and at some point the doc asked my mom did she really need the tests and what would she do if something were wrong. They decided to just go forward and luckily everyone was healthy.

I have a daughter who runs track as a distance runner. She’s not a threat to win the state or anything but she was the only one in her class to run varsity this year at every meet as a freshman. Our school is in the largest classification in the state and the best region for track and field, xc, all the running sports. The difference in her time and a boy who finishes about the same spot as she does in varsity meets is about an entire minute in the 1600m (1 mile). We have a freshman guy who is in about her same spot as she is just on the boys side. If he ran in the girls races he would win the state meet if he ran his best that day. He won’t even qualify for our sectionals though in the boys division. Another reference point is we have a senior girl who got a D1 scholarship to run distance who runs the 1600 in the 5:20s. So clearly she’s pretty good in the girls division, will qualify for our state finals meet which is top 16 qualifiers in the state. This freshman boy who I mentioned earlier and is pretty good for a freshman but very average in varsity standings and has run some junior varsity for us broke 5:00 on the 1600 already this year. It’s not even a question of if the boys are better but more if you are a male and can’t win track meets against females you really aren’t any good at it. To say it’s unfair to allow males to compete against females in track is an understatement.

I'm in Orange Beach right now and seeing these commercials all over our tv.

You aren't kidding. He and his wife lived in Birmingham. I'd see them around town now and then. I spoke to him in a hotel the Phillies were staying at during an exhibition game here back in '99. Just super nice people. Along those lines, most of the famous people I've met are baseball players. Including Michael Jordan during his 1994 time in Birmingham.

SEC vs Big 10 in Atlanta. Gonna be a tough ticket only 90 min from Auburn campus. Auburn/Michigan and Ole Miss/Michigan St

Sorry to see this update. Hopefully the tests come back favorable. Best wishes Jerry.

The sad part is we've let so many people from violent gangs into our country illegally that this could even occur. We shouldn't be in this position to begin with.

Only I haven't seen anyone here argue that a singular person can't be good who grew up there. You're making the argument because one such person can exist, others exist (I agree), and that we should welcome larger numbers of them because of that. Your goal line to cross for your argument to succeed is way shorter in your mind than where it should be. The problem is that large numbers, I'd argue the vast majority of Palestinians, believe in things that are harmful to the United States and the West at large. You cannot vet them to know who has managed to escape that mentality despite the upbringing in that environment. So if you accept larger numbers of them, you are naturally going to get disproportionately larger numbers of people who are problems to our society at large. Knowing one such exception to the rule does not make your argument valid. The belief we should save our country and culture from that damage and possible destruction isn't racist or bigoted, it has nothing at all to do with skin color. It has everything to do with our way of life and beliefs. If we accept your friend is one of the exceptions, I'd have no problem with many like him living here. But the problem is you can't tell me from a subset of 100 Palestinians who want to come here which are like him and which are not, who only wants to escape the poverty and strife they are in. Yet they believe the West is evil, violence against those ideals is justified, and have had it ingrained in them since birth and will raise their children to believe the same. I could see the argument if those elements were the minority of that population, but polling of beliefs and what we see unfolding in Europe shows us that isn't the case. I'm not willing to drive our society off a cliff to feel better about ourselves that we weren't racist or bigots in the eyes of some because these people who wish us harm happen to be a different skin color or ethnicity. I don't give anyone a pass for that because they happen to be a different skin color, your skin color, my skin color, whatever their skin color I don't want them here.

The Palestinians in particular have issues when it comes to extremism. There's a reason that even other Arab/Islamic countries have been unwilling to accept them in any significant quantities. They can't vet them with any certainty. To act as if we can somehow vet them, absorb them and these problems magically go away is not realistic.

You are using a singular example to identify someone who is friendly to you. Maybe he's the best guy in the world, let's give him all the benefit of the doubt. I still contend we cannot tell when bringing people from that region of the world. Their culture is rife with pro terrorist indoctrination. Because of kids being taught that from a young age, there's nothing we can do about a large proportion of them from being pro terrorist, sympathetic, enabling, willing to help, God forbid become a willing terrorist. I believe we agree that they teach these things to young Palestinians. Therefore, each person you bring in from that region poses a disproportionate risk to my family and yours. You can't find a way to weed out the good from the bad, and there is a disproportionate amount of bad because of those teachings. I'm not trying to personalize this argument to you by giving personalized examples of what could happen, but I'm not willing to risk my family for what you would like to believe looking through an idealist prism. I don't know that you are so much a bleeding heart, but I feel you're more of an idealist. Since what this country is about is an opinion, mine is different in that I feel you've gone a little askew. Yes, it's about individuals from all over, individuals who aspire to be American and assimilate. What we are seeing from that region are migrants who have no interest in our ways, they in large percentages hate the West. They, in large, don't want to live like the West, they want the destruction of the West. Europe is learning this the hard way and I'm not willing to go down that path.

It may not make them criminals. But it does unfortunately make their society in totality too dangerous to allow into our country. When you have children being raised from birth to support terrorism, it's poisoned their minds beyond what can be changed for the populace as a whole. Just like cheering the bodies in the streets might not be a crime, it speaks to the mentality of the population. I agree the majority aren't criminals, but that sympathetic to terrorism belief is something that has been taught since childhood we just can't remove. We don't need terrorist sympathizers in our country due to the risk of them acting, teaching their children this ideology, or aiding someone who would take such actions.

Sure one of us is wrong. But there are contradictory studies so while factually one of us has to be wrong it’s disingenuous to act as one side has indisputable facts. The situation above shows one example.

We’ve gone over this before many times. You know there are plenty of studies I can cite that show the opposite. Let’s not speak in certain terms even if we both believe our side of the issue is correct. I feel your belief is wrong just because of things like this and distorting the numbers. As certain as you are you’re right I'm just as certain I am.

I for one am shocked they underestimated the costs of this. My only real question is on a scale of 1-100 how much of it was intentional so they could skew the economic impact of illegal immigration and how much of it was just fiscal incompetence.

I wonder if this cost made it into the analysis of all these left wing think tank pieces about the net cost/benefit of illegal immigration on the U.S.

Crews has great speed and all the tools supposedly. Worried about his average a bit though until he shows he can do it at the top level. Hard to deny the upside though because you know he's gonna run. I milked a few SB out of him during the playoffs last yar plucking him off the waiver wire to fill in for my OF with off days.

Nashville is dying for a team. They've come a long way from the old days of Greer Stadium. They used to be owned by a guy named Larry Schmittou who wanted to bring MLB to Nashville. He used to get MLB teams to play games in Nashville on their way north from FL Spring Training. He and the mayor had a long running feud so the city let Greer get into bad disrepair and appear much older than it really was. Moving out of Greer and going back to Sulphur Dell has made a big difference.

To me that's kind of the point. He's here as a courtesy of the US, a privilege. Regardless of whether the crime is tresspass for the Columbia incidents or supporting a terrorist organization, one would think he would be more appreciative and not commit crimes and expect to be allowed to stay. He's not merely spoken dissent at a protest as some here want to make it out to be like he's a member of the crowd who marched a bit then went home.

Except the government is collecting the tariffs. Effectively this is government income in the form of a tax. I'm usually for lower taxes and have some reservations about this situation, but saying we gain nothing isn't correct. It is income into the federal government, a reduction of deficit/debt. It's essentially a foreign goods consumption tax. There's also an impact of bringing jobs to the US to save these tariffs on the part of foreign producers.

Not to mention if when you are ready to retire the market is going to end up in that same spot, short term lower prices actually help build wealth over time as you average in your purchases.

I for one was shocked that the leadership of BLM wasn't on the up and up. If you can't trust Marxists, who can you trust?

So we have Tlaib and only 13 others out of the whole caucus? That must be some motley crew. I haven't looked yet but I'll bet my house that includes the likes of Ilhan Omar, Pressley, and our newest Gong Show contestant, Al Green.

It may be worth asking why these admitted “bad actors” always seem to show up at these specific types of protests.

The short of it is that he’s not an American and any acts whether occupying buildings illegally or supporting Hamas should give rise to him losing the privilege of being here. It’s pretty simple. My moral code tells me American kids shouldn’t be prevented and/or afraid to go to class, especially by a foreign national we have extended the courtesy of being on our soil. If he can’t abide by that, then he should go.

The left just keeps gifting Trump these wins on 80/20 or better issues. We can split hairs whether he directly supports Hamas, or just those in his groups do. Whether he himself occupied those buildings illegally or just negotiated on behalf of those who did. To the average person and voter, it's a distinction without a difference. There are some legit concerns over the issues with tariffs going on right now, but the left insists on diving off a cliff on some of these things that the average person just thinks is crazy. They're basically giving Trump cover fire in the news cycle with stuff like this.