the joker is standing in front of a wall of flames Alt: GIF of Joker setting a giant pile of money on fire

Greg Byrne rn

So Alabama just lit at least $70 million on fire. Final number still TBD

The Mets, probably: Challenge accepted

There is no Pope in the evangelical community, no individual making doctrinal decisions "official," no one place you can go and say "this is what evangelicals think." Which makes it hard to make sweeping generalizations, even though declining to make those generalizations is not fun on social media•

Christianity is a religion that, particularly in the Protestant evangelical tradition, is heavily focused on a relationship with God. It also often (though not always) has a less centralized structure. Who generally chooses the pastor for a Southern Baptist congregation? The congregation

And I understand there are different flavors of this. My wife and I both grew up in the evangelical movement (I'm now interested in the Episcopal Church), and some of the things she talks about sound wild to me. But that's part of the point

"Calling Trump the President of Peace is supposed to invoke Jesus's title as the Prince of Peace."

If you had not said that, I -- who went to Sunday School at Southern Baptist churches devotedly in my youth -- would have NEVER made that connection

My least favorite genre of post is "analyzing" how Christianity is influencing politics when I as a Christian thinks what the poster is saying is nonsense. Yes, Christianity is wrongly invoked by some politicians, but that's not the only source of wrongheaded political statements

A Ben Rhodes column headline: Graham Platner Went to Hell and Back. He Has a Simple Message for Democrats.

Yeah, that's about what I would expect

After careful consideration, I have decided that it's time for South Carolina Baseball Football Men and Women's Basketball Head Coach Dawn Staley

Y'all can have your old baseball coach back if you want

April 21, 2016, was exactly a decade ago. None of us are equipped to deal with what we have dealt with over the last ten years. Our culture is a reflection of that

Hurricane Teddy just doesn't sound intimidating

Very Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense energy

Imagine getting scooped on your own biography by basically everyone

I'm all for good-faith argument, but that's not really what Nichols is here for

Why argue with Tom Nichols? If he's right, he's going to win, and if he's wrong, he's going to change the meaning of words and concepts so that he wins. Let it go

If you're going to go off about Employment Division v. Smith, you should at least know something about it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employm...

Wait until he tries to follow MLB this year

I'm not curious enough about this to watch it, but is the defecating pig affirmatively causing the drug war? Like, is he deciding to initiate a conflict?

Hollywood Reporter headline: 'Euphoria Defecating Pig Starts a Drug War, With Rue Stuck in the Middle

I don't know anything about "Euphoria" and at this point I'm afraid to ask www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-featur...

Like, he could end up with 300-350 home runs and 2,000 hits, and he came in third for MVP last year. He gets an MVP, I like his chances. But the traditional numbers (HRs, hits, BA) aren't going to be what gets him there

Jose Ramirez is going to be one of those edge Hall of Fame cases we spend ten years shredding each other about. No MVPs (so far), 131 OPS+, no big longevity numbers, and HOF indicators all over the map. Could strengthen the latter, but it's his age-33 season. Almost fully baked

Once again, thoughts and prayers are necessary after a mass shooting, but insufficient and insincere on their own if you are capable of doing more

The New York Times app put a story about the shooting deaths of eight children in Louisiana down in its "More News" section

"More News."

Be better, @nytimes.com. This is a big story even if it happened in Louisiana

The Cubs and the Brewers are tied for last in the NL Central

The Cubs have tied the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central standings. The divisional battle we all expected

And then the Cubs try this and Dansby Swanson seems to not know how to bunt

Extra innings thought: I understand that bunting is statistically the wrong call 90+% of the time. Got that.

But bottom of the 10th with the ghost runner rule, why don't teams that did not give up a run in the top of the inning bunt and then try twice to get the runner home? What am I missing?

Some weird energy gathering in Rays-Pirates

I always periodically forget that the ghost runner rule exists, and am disappointed all over again when I see an extra-innings game