5 Thoughts for April 26, 2016

1. Deflategate: It's back, and this time it'll stick. A 3-person appeals panel (by 2-1 vote) overturned Tom Brady's case, in effect reinstating Roger Goodell's 4-game suspension. Brady's options are to ask for a rehearing by the same 3-member panel that overturned a lower judge's ruling, or a rehearing en banc (the full appeals court), or for a writ of certiorari with SCOTUS, but none of the options seem likely to occur. It shouldn't have been overturned in the first place, since the players themselves granted the commish wide leeway, for better or worse, in doling out punitive measures. The only means of arguing that the commish's punishment was overly harsh, is to identify bias. But whereas it's easy to find Patriots hatred among the other NFL team owners, it's hard to find bias in a commish who had a tight relationship with Patriots owner Bob Kraft, prior to the Deflategate kerfuffle.
2. The Bernie Bros: I'll point out two of them. H.A. Goodman and Seth Abramson. They contribute to Salon and Huffington Post, and both write nonsensical things on the race, manufacturing an alternate reality where Sanders is somehow winning. Their condescension is spectacular while their arguments tend to require no less than 1500 words -- basically, *yawns* all around.
3. Bernie Sanders Demographics: It's called White Males. Of the 30-something primaries and caucuses already completed, there were just 13 with exit polls that analyzed gender-race. Having spent an inordinate amount of time looking over the data, it was striking to discover that in 12 out of these 13 states, Bernie Sanders won the White-Male demographic. Aside from that, his only demographic win was in Illinois where he won the White-Female demographic. Hillary won the rest, and her demographics resemble that of the Democratic Party.
4. The Acela Primaries: Drumpf swept all five states (CT, PA, MD, DE, RI) and is now projected to take enough delegates to be within 210 of the nomination. All he needs to do is win California and New Jersey. Meanwhile, Hillary took CT, PA, MD, DE. The votes are still being counted so not all of the delegates have been appropriated, yet, but this might be the nail in the coffin for Bernie. Bernie just passed a critical juncture where he can no longer win out and claim the nomination w/o a single super delegate. The flip side of that, is that were all 712 super delegates to pledge support to Hillary right now, she would have the necessary number of delegates to win the nomination. Assuming the remaining super delegates all support Hillary, Bernie would have to win the remaining contests with 84%. Assuming all 712 super delegates split along the popular vote, Bernie would have to win out with 64%. Every time he comes up short of those percentages, they increase.
5. Google Fiber Portland: Psst. There's a live page for the Portland Metro area. If you input your address, it'll tell you if your neighborhood is currently being considered. After inputting your address, one of two messages will appear; (1) "Be among the first to know when we have more to share"; (2) "Google Fiber isn’t available for this address". I've tested some addresses, and there's a noticeable trend (which I won't disclose). GTK when you're shopping for homes / places to live, don't you think?