@RockChalkinTexas said in All Politicked Out? Election 2020:
BIDEN WINS!
HATE LOOSES!
WOMEN WIN!
BLM!
Isn't it nice that there are some states with a majority of really great voters?
🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆
mayjay
7180 posts
@wissox Well, in fairness, OU averaged over 100 pts a game and it was by no mean just Billy Packer who turned out wrong--nobody expected KU to run with OU in the first half (both teams slowed up in the 2nd). And Brown himself didn't expect it. Letting the team loose was a response to the fact that KU shot the lights out in the first half while playing fast, missing only about 3 FGs. He would have reined them in otherwise.
Trashing Billy P makes it sound like the KU victory was somewhat expected, as if he was some aberrant pessimist about KU. KU had Manning, but no one expected the Miracles to play their heads off.
@approxinfinity Forgive me, but that is the worst idea about voting I have heard in years. No system with widespread access is unhackable (think of the vulnerability of users' credentials to get in, not the central code); millions of people do not have reliable internet access (kids are sitting outside motels to do virtual learning); many more millions have little ability to use or protect passwords (have you tried to coach an 83 year old non-internet user how to Zoom?); it would require universal voter registration (as well as national ID cards, not a viable idea in the US); and no one would trust the results.
Online voting in the US is a dream only.
A better idea would be to have national uniformity of voting and counting procedures.
"They can take away my paper ballot when they pry the pen from my cold, dead hands."
Fingers crossed, but this is pretty optimistic:
What Votes Are Left in the 7 States That Will Decide the Election https://nyti.ms/3oXUkaA ↗
He gave up on the 3 ptrs though. Rumor has it he did not like how his 55% 3 ptr percentage lowered his overall FG rate.
@stoptheflop Recruiting to the Myrtle Beach area may be easier than to Kansas, especially getting players out of the more densely populated East coast and in the football crazy South.
I like the comment about what this suggests about how hard he has worked! Udunka Forever!
It will be quite interesting to see how high shooting percentages will go when the refs enforce a 6 foot social distancing space on defenders.
This, and other rules, will make basketball possible this year!
@Kcmatt7 said in The NCAA Belongs on Probation...:
.... UNC who literally created fake classes for athletes intentionally doesn't get even as much as a slap on the damn wrist.
If UMass had "accidentally and inadvertently" arranged for landline phones for all their students, no punishment under the UNC precedent.
@wissox said in The NCAA Belongs on Probation...:
Quarantine the NCAA
In my crystal ball, I see NCAA execs wearing masks far into the future past the time when the Covid pandemic is but a memory. When their identities are revealed, mobs react darkly.
@BeddieKU23 It is clear that UMass got away with a lower penalty than they deserved. Those land line phones installed in the athletes' off campus housing gave them a clear advantage over other schools. While other athletes at honest schools were stuck with broad band of up to 100 gigabytes per second, those evil UMass player no doubt had access to much more advantageous dial-up internet running at 300 or 2400 bits per second.
Slam 'em, NCAA! Show 'em not to commit accidental violations and self-report! That'll learn 'em!
Sadly, we went to a bbq rib dinner last night in the golf community that we are moving to. It was outdoors and somewhat breezy, but we were too close to a number of people. Nobody wore masks, but most of us afterwards agreed we should have been. It was the first gathering we have been to since February, and I guess we just let the excitement get to us.
But, stupid begets stupid, and no one was setting a good example. Wishful lemming mentality.
And here we had all been thinking we were so much smarter than His Royal PITA!
The next couple weeks should be interesting....
@approxinfinity said in Trump has COVID:
you don’t think Trump would seize power and commit genocide if he could?
It’s playing with fire, trying to be civil with a ruthless self serving barbarian with influence over a large part of the masses.
We spent lots of hours in law school arguing over whether homicide of a psychopath could be moral (discussed lots of show like Dirty Harry). Mostly, we diverted to whether someone would have been justified in the early 1920's in taking Adolph out. The question always included whether the uncertainty of knowing precisely what would happen eliminated the moral certitude of preventing the holocaust he slways called for.
I fully expect the WH to claim the virus got to The Donald from a Deep Stater who was brainwashed by the MSM.
@BShark said in Trump has COVID:
Best reply in that thread: "Trump is in several high-risk groups — elderly, obese, low-income."
I have no problem with any evangelical Christian using their beliefs to inform their reasoning.
The problem I have is with all the self-proclaimed Christians who never seem to have read a single word Christ is related in the Gospels to have said about: loving your neighbor, treating others as you would be treated, protecting the weak, being honest, leaving judgment about who will get to heaven to God, casting stones only if you are without sin, and, oh yeah, that camel-through-the-eye-of-a-needle analogy about a rich man not having much chance to get into heaven.
@stoptheflop said in Baltimore Beat Down:
@Crimsonorblue22 Did you see that Mahomes' mother doesn't like anyone calling him Pat? ESPN showed a tweet that told the announcrs to stop calling him Pat. Very Funny.
In the post-game interview, Patrick said his dad is "Pat" to his mom, so he is Patrick.
@mayjay My complaint isn't about the idea that appraisers should contribute to solutions. My issue is calling the appraising industry racist because they do not perceive themselves as the problem.
As your discussion with @FarmerJayhawk reveals, housing involves very many social, political, and economic factors beyond how someone evaluates worth. The problem is systemic, but attacking appraisers as the cause is absurd. They cannot magically influence the political, social, and attitudinal solutions you and he have discussed.
Incidentally, I spent 22 years in federal jobs in Washington DC. Most of the support staff in every office were Black, and about 90% lived in DC proper. Over the years there were many discussions about racism, bias, racial perceptions, housing conditions in many neighborhoods, etc. A big issue was "gentrification": the perceived uplifting of neighborhood home prices, and overall conditions, in previously blighted areas where bargain-hunting Whites were moving in. Some Blacks loved it because their prices rose as the neighborhood houses were renovated. But others, especially renters, were eventually driven out of areas their families had lived in for generations. (This actually also occurred where wealthier Blacks moved in and improved houses throughout the neighborhood, but the perception of the cause was largely divided along racial lines in the people I talked with.)
One woman, who said she found new bullet holes in her fence just about weekly, kept telling me to move to her neighborhood: I remember "Gentrify me, please!" Others got pissed at her.
@benshawks08 You said there are things they can do. I suggested one. I have seen no ideas from you except they should talk about it.
Their saying they do not believe the appraisal industry is systemically racist is not the same as them being "happy" that racial discrimination exists in the values of homes. But their job is to evaluate home value.
Again, please propose a solution other than say they should solve it. They certainly need to identify appraisers using race to reduce value. But it is already illegal to do that. What other tools do appraisers have? Other than @FarmerJayhawk's facetious idea of artificially inflating values, which would lead to huge market distortions for the most financially vulnerable homeowners--and renters as well.
You know where my sympathies lie in civil rights battles, but this is an outrage without a (current) cause. Blaming appraisers is literally blaming them for comparing prices.
@benshawks08 That just repeats the article's criticism, but saying "there are things they can do as appraisers" doesn't present specific ideas.
So, like what, exactly?
Having gone through about 12 appraisals, I think the attack on appraisers is misplaced (with one exception noted below). People don't understand the purpose of appraisals: it is solely to assure a lender that a home can be readily resold at a price that covers the outstanding debt in case of default and foreclosure. The only way to do that is to evaluate the house against others in the same neighborhood.
Values in those neighborhoods are definitely lower in minority neighborhoods due to both past and current racism. Redlining by banks and insurance companies, racial covenants, and broker racial preferences all have been outlawed, but their effects last today in lower values that do get identified in appraisals.
One comment to that tweet caught my eye because it was something I said in my first purchase: basically, shouldn't an appraisal reflect what someone is willing to pay? The answer is yes, but an aberrantly high price does not reflect what the market as a whole will pay in the NEXT transaction, not this one. We put more down than was initially required because of certain aesthetics that were very appealing to us (i.e., virtual forest in back yard), but not worth much in comps, and the sale went through. This kept the sale price the same, so helped neighborhood prices stay higher, but not everyone buying a home can come up with an extra $7G. Often a low appraisal results in lower prices, and that tendency self-reinforces.
I do hold appraisers responsible for maintaining racial neighborhood disparites when they are unwilling to go beyond nearby boundaries between suburbs and cities, or when they exclude new developments nearby because of the entirely different "character" between new and older homes. Those differences often track demographic disparities, and prices are lower when higher nearby homes are arbitrarily excluded.
Perhaps appraisers should be required to do comps of all homes in a 1/2 mile radius. (It will still be hard to decide what to do, though, for the best house in a really depressed neighborhood.) Until people are willing to buy at prices higher than appraisals reflect, I am at a loss for what appraisers can do to eliminate demographic price differences. Their jobs literally depend on tracking existing prices, not ideal ones.
You need to be sneakier. Real loud yelling helps....
@approxinfinity squirtgun (softly is enough!)
@AsadZ said in Chargers at SoFi Stadium:
I was not expecting it to be such a close game.
Neither were the gamblers! 94% of bettors were on KC to cover the 9 pt spread. Ouch...
Tonight may have saved me countless hours of late Saturday TV this year.... 'Night, y'all!
It isn't as if they are waiting for the fan to find a seat....
When did they stop having kickoffs when listed? KU supposedly @ 9 but so far 13 minutes of ads and talking heads, same thing earlier for Clemson game.
@kjayhawks I thought the booing began because it looked like a bunch of people milling around very disorganized after the minute already began. The announcement was too early and so it looked like the players were the ones not observing a respectful silence.
But it was only a few fans, whose noise is always more noticeable during a silence.
The over/under was 53. Best bet of the night is that a bunch of "under" bettors were angry 'bout that final FG!
@wissox I take it there wasn't a Nike-type name-pronounciation problem in signing your new teaching contract?
✍
Interesting choice in the current climate for yet another experience-free White guy to get chosen over an experienced Black guy who took the team to the playoffs despite an injury-plagued roster.
Not judging. Just....interesting.
The "ambitious" thing is much repeated, but I have yet to hear of any office holder in history who wasn't.
Well, except for Cincinnatus in the Roman Republic who reluctantly accepted being appointed "Dictator" by the Senate, and went back to farming after he dispelled the invasion threat. Wrote my Senior History Thesis on thst guy....
I swear I could hear certain heads exploding when I read the playbook guy's praise for Bill's offensive smarts--top 5 in D1!
@approxinfinity said in Juneteenth:
Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
I realize my reference to Jar Jar revealed my familiarity with the storyline, but how the hell did you know that I just finished watching (for the first time since 2005) "Revenge of the Sith" literally 3 hours ago???
Hacking into my tablet are we? Cameras placed in my family room have you put? Asked for whatever consequences you will suffer have you!
@approxinfinity Published as a book with other stories in 1961, but originally as a story in Redbook magazine in July 1953. 8 years after the liberation of Europe.
I am only trying to get you to understand that the distinctions you make, in order to avoid labeling, play into the hands of people who use subtleties to disguise their true animus. As long as well-intentioned people like you provide HEMs with that type of cover for fear of "ending a discussion", they will get away with it. Because they make pronouncements, they do not want to discuss.
@approxinfinity No real reason that I can see to think Seuss's intent was to deal with American discrimination. The lessons are universal, which is clear from his use of non-identifiable cartoon characters.
@approxinfinity Hitler killed Jews because he believed they are an inferior race. While that may not comport with modern sensibilities of religion versus race, the fact remains that much of anti-Semitism is based on the believe that Jews are a race. The period when Dr. Seuss wrote this story was the '50s, when the Holocaust's causes and effects were very much on people's minds. I doubt it was divorced from the burgeoning civil rights movement.
In the Anne Frank House website, you will find this valuable lesson:
"Conclusion: Jews are not a race, and categorising people according to race is wrong and dangerous. Even so, some people still believe in the concept. If it is the basis for their hatred of Jews, it is undoubtedly racist."
Your continued effort to draw distinctions about racism is a throwback, in my mind, to our dispute about HEM. I am reminded of the Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's discussion of hard-core pornography. He said he would not try to delineate all the things that might be entailed in that phrase, "But I know it when I see it."
Sigh...finally...
Does Grant Foster wear sunglasses backwards?
Opinions are fun, but sometimes facts help. According to Wikipedia, Dr. Seuss expressly stated that The Sneetches had its origins in his opposition to anti-Semitism (quoted in fn 4). It was even distributed in Bosnia by NATO to try to encourage tolerance between Serbs and Croatians.
Jar Jar Binks seems like a Seuss caricature come to life, and, as many others pointed out when that miserable movie was unleashed on an unsuspecting fandom, has exaggerated features, speech patterns, and personality traits, all of which are often used as racial tropes. (See how careful I was there, 'Prox? 😇)
I recognized the racist nature of GWTW in junior high when I first read it. I also recognized Huckleberry Finn as an attack on racism by the use of a racist narrator who is gradually becoming aware of the inhumane biases with which he is filled. Still, its language reflects Twain's time when the N word was acceptable. Both can be read with an eye to what they reveal about changing cultural standards and racial identity, but it is absurd to think that they should be treated as racially neutral due to being "art".
The world, especially my fellow liberals, seems to me to be too incapable of accepting the contradictions in life. There are good and bad in many things. Our job is to figure them out, and improve what we can.
@approxinfinity said in Juneteenth:
“Racist” should be reserved for use only when a person or thing displays overt intent to discriminate based upon race.
I am not sure what John Oliver called "racist" that would not fit into this category. Much of what he described were things that stemmed from institutional racism designed to perpetuate white supremacy and stereotypes of black inferiority.
The only thing I had any problem with was the lumping of the 3/5 provision in the Constitution in with his other examples. As with so much of history that provision's inclusion is complicated. To wit:
At the Constitutional Convention, Southern states wanted a federal legislature based purely on population, which would have resulted in the huge slave population that could not vote being used to inflate the influence of Southern states over the free, less populated, Northern states. The Northern states wanted a federal legislature where each state had equal representation. The bicameral system adopted as a compromise gave the Northern states a Senate where each state is equal in power, and the South its House based on population.
In creating the House, the North objected to counting slaves for purposes of calculating the population to be represented. The compromise of counting slaves as 3/5 did not affect how free Blacks were counted.
A provision in an amendment about fugitive slaves favored the South, as did a probition on banning the imported slave trade until 1808 at least.
The power of the South in the federal government would have been much greater had the 3/5 provision not been adopted. So it is simplistic, and misleading, to discuss it only as a racist reduction of the humanity of a Black person.
@benshawks08 said in I am curious as to your opinions - life back to normal or stay shutdown:
their own personal shit downs
It is wonderful how apropos some typos are!
@DanR said in Surfin' again on Safari!:
good things are hard to come by these days
We were pretty excited the other day when our neighbor installed a string of blinking white lights above her porch. Biggest event around here in weeks!
@nuleafjhawk As it turns out I forgot my Scotch last night. The ramblings are just the usual insanities floating around inside...
@approxinfinity I will always upvote a post giving me Scotch permission!
@Texas-Hawk-10 Yep, Self failed by getting someone anticipated to be a project in 2013 who merely became the number 3 pick. Crappy recruiting....
Oh, don't forget the no. 1 pick that year, too...