VaporTrail

I remember meeting him a few times at tailgates around 07, 08. Told me about some of the national parks he'd been to. Sad to hear this news. 

I won't fault anyone for not wanting to get the vaccine. There are documented cases of otherwise healthy people who have neurological sequelae following vaccination. The long term risks are not and will not be known for decades. All of us who have gotten it are the guinea pigs, like it or not. That said, if you are at risk because you are old, fat, pregnant, immunosuppressed, have an autoimmune disease or any combination of the above, you should probably get the vaccine. 

As someone who's been in academia for almost two decades, I can say unequivocally that it is mostly a racket. There's a handful of people that the college system will benefit, myself included,  but we are a very tiny slice of the pie. I'm looking forward to watching the higher education bubble burst before I die. 

If you want to talk about actually fixing it, then step one is to eliminate federal student loans. As it stands now, the caps on what you're allowed to borrow from Uncle Sam may as well be infinite. Knowing that the American taxpayer is going to pay out these loans, these unscrupulous fuckers running American colleges have increased tuition far beyond the cost of inflation over the past half century. 

Take a look at this example, back in 2013, the University of Wisconsin system was getting bashed by politicians for pleading poverty and raising tuition while sitting on a $393 million endowment. The president of the UW system defended himself by pointing out that Illinois and Minnesota had more money in their reserves. The people running this shit got theirs and don't give a fuck what happens to the people they've fucked over.

He needs to put his ego aside and drop out of contention if he wants a non-Democrat in office in 2024. He's too polarizing a figure to win over the soccer mom vote he needs.

BoldStrategyCotton.gif

3 hours ago, calfoxwc said:

actually, I did, but you mentioned "Trump's mismanagement of the covid crisis" whatever it was, that was enough for me. lol

Were it not for PRes Trump, we still would have have a vaccine. How is the covid crisis mismanaged? What better was there to do?

We'd have the vax regardless of who was president because our country is the greatest in the world when it comes to massive mobilizations. We are just slow to get started,  and just like in World War II, once we got rolling, nothing could stop us. Now we have the largest surplus of vaccinations in the world and are using them for diplomatic capital.

It hurt Trump to bicker with the guy appointed to manage the pandemic on a daily basis - it made the administration appear aimless. If it wasn't for Trump's infighting and the idiot Republicans in Congress deciding that a once in a hundred years pandemic is the time to prioritize fiscal responsibility, then Trump is still president today. Literally, all they had to do was print one more stimulus check prior to the election with Trump's name on it. The 2020 election was supposed to be a referendum on populism, yet the populists are still here and will continue to be here after Trump is long gone. 

Don't get me wrong, the Democrats would have mismanaged this whole thing, too. When Trump was closing the borders to China, the Democrats were hosting hug a chinaman day to prove how not racist they were. Trump's xenophobia probably got the ball rolling at least 1 week earlier than a Clinton administration would have. Let's not act like Trump was the perfect president during 2020. He picked the wrong battles to fight and now the Democrats hold both houses of Congress and the White House.

Saving The Crew Is What Columbus Fans Do (msn.com)

Haslams have walked back the rebranding. The Crew remains The Crew. I guess they learned something from their idiotic uniform changes they did here.

On 5/12/2021 at 2:34 PM, calfoxwc said:

Hoorta sent you, I'm guessing?

attention getting TDS bs.

lol cal did you even read my post

1 minute ago, calfoxwc said:

you voted for Pres Trump?

yes. in 2016 and 2020. I will probably vote populist for the rest of my life.

2 minutes ago, calfoxwc said:

baloney. your biden puppet would just take it and spend it on illegals.

my biden? i didn't vote for him, bro.

The United States should fuck off out of the area and spend that 3 billion dollars in aid a year for israel toward fixing the opioid or obesity epidemic here.

1 minute ago, DieHardBrownsFan said:

Actually you're wrong.  The Asians are the fastest growing population in the country.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/09/asian-americans-are-the-fastest-growing-racial-or-ethnic-group-in-the-u-s/

Oh dang, I had no idea. That even further reinforces my point. As someone of white-asian ethnicity, I can speak for a lot of Asians when I say it's ridiculous that people are blaming the white supremacy bogeyman for black-on-asian violence. Also, we don't like that our kids get discriminated against when it comes to college and professional school admissions. This demographic gonna shift red, as well.

7 hours ago, Westside Steve said:

And frankly, who cares? For a lot of you guys it's all about personalities and politics that's just stupid but that's the way it is. Split the conservatives and the liberals will win every year. I realise that's good news for many of you.Even now the lunatics have taken over the asylum so the best I can do is to hope that these idiots don't completely destroy the economy in the event that I might outlive mw cat.

 I would ask anybody with the inclination to think about it to tell me a handful of issues that you would separate yourself from the regular republicans or the regular democrats but I doubt it will be long before it turns to a discussion of dementia and Cheetos.

 Frankly if the new more liberal Republican party is just going to get into a bidding war with giveaways  the battle for the American way will be lost anyway.

WSS

 

https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2021-05-11/rationals-vs-radicals-anti-trump-republicans-threaten-third-party?context=amp

The whole thing's gonna shift, Steve. The Democrats right now have control because they're riding the wave of Trump's mismanagement of the pandemic and the way he left office. It sucks, because my biggest fear was a reactionary blue POTUS, senate, and house that makes sure that someone like Trump never gets in again, but that's where we are. The GOPe has collapsed. This is Trump's crowning achievement while he was in office, and is a big reason I will never regret voting for him twice. Similar things are on the horizon for the Democrats. 

Right now, the Democrats are the party of rich, coastal elites and concerned soccer moms, a demographic they've poached from Republicans. Now, that party is also attracting the Never Trump, neocon Republicans. For the city liberals, Liz Cheney, Romney, and Kasich are great when they are undermining Trump from within his own party. These city liberals are going to feel quite differently when those politicians start influencing the Democrat party. To compound that, you've got Democrats bending over backwards to show their support for BLM and the woke agenda, which is going to continue to alienate the fastest growing population in the country, Hispanics. Hatred of Trump was the glue that was holding that coalition together. Without Trump, the Democrats are very soon going to have a similar identity crisis that the Republicans are going through right now. 

Just sit back, grab some popcorn, and look forward to Caitlyn Jenner being a frontrunner for a GOP office in the near future.

I am a huuuge Crew fan. Got into it when I lived down in Dayton. Haslam saved the Crew. It will always be the Crew. This name change is fucking stupid. I guess if you want to emulate the soulless european leagues that's fine. The quality of play might be on par with them in the next two decades, but as of now you see all our best young talent leave the league to go play in europe.

It would kill me to see the Packers have 30 years of QB play with Favre, Rodgers, Baker. I'd do it if we got picks from them. 

On 5/6/2021 at 12:49 PM, Canton Dawg said:

“As part of the [separation] agreement, [Gayton] will receive a $4 million sign-on payment and a monthly consulting fee of $666,666, beginning this month and ending April 2022,” the company reported, according to BusinessWire, which listed Gayton’s new role as helping to “drive certain key objectives,” without further explanation.

I think the takeaway here is that I went into the wrong profession and should have instead studied to be a diversity consultant.

Man. I feared Ben was going to retire and he would go to the Steelers. Now I'm scared they'll just straight up trade for him.

8 hours ago, ballpeen said:

2021 NFL Draft: New age traits and skills at each position that prospects need in today's NFL
These are the skills draft prospects need in order to be successful in the modern NFL
Chris Trapasso

By Chris Trapasso
Feb 19, 2021 at 12:16 pm ET
6 min read
micah-parsons.jpg
USATSI
The most vital aspect of scouting the NFL Draft is to know precisely what to look for. And the NFL evolves faster than any other billion-dollar entity, so knowing what to look for is a moving target.

Each year, it's important to stand back and examine the latest trends and themes from the previous seasons to see how GMs and coaches will pick, and then how they use their players in new, tweaked roles from even what they were asking of those players a season or two ago.

This article outlines the new-age traits and skills for prospects as they enter the NFL in 2021.

Quarterbacks
New-age trait: Improvisational expertise

Tom Brady, king of the statuesque quarterbacks, just won his seventh Super Bowl and did so as a 43 year old on a new team. But don't let that fool you. Brady is the outlier of all anomalies and may have morphed from human to cyborg somewhere in the middle of the Patriots dynasty thanks to a steady two-decade long diet of pink Himalayan salt and avocado ice cream.



The highly athletic, ad-lib master describes the new, young wave at the quarterback position in the NFL. Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Deshaun Watson, Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, Joe Burrow -- all can win from the pocket, but they can also bust big plays when they go off-script and are legitimate multi-dimensional threats. Now, does every single quarterback have to be a phenomenal athletic specimen with street-ball skills outside the confines of the tackle box? No, not necessarily, but what Mahomes, Allen, Watson and Co. have done is raise the bar for playmaking at the position, and if you're a draft prospect who can only flourish as a stoic pocket passer, you're going to have to be absolutely surgical in essentially every game to play to their level.

Running backs
New-age trait: Legitimate route-running skill

Gone are the days when a big plus to your running back's game are his abilities to simply catch a screen pass and make things happen after the catch. We're entering an NFL in which backs are deployed as stand-in slot receivers, and the 2021 draft class will serve as the catalyst to this movement.

Najee Harris, Travis Etienne, Demetric Felton, and Kenny Gainwell can all, quite comfortably, line up in a classic receiver location before the snap, run an intricate route against a linebacker or safety, get open, catch the ball, and then utilize their honed running back skills in space down the field.

Offenses with running backs who have legitimate positional flexibility are ahead of the vast majority of the other attacks that don't have that luxury, and as the run game is slowly but surely moving the background of offensive philosophies, running backs can maintain value by proving to their coaches they can run sharp, separation-generating routes.

Wide receivers/Tight ends
New-age trait: YAC skills

By now, it's old analysis to label separation skill as the "new" ability teams covet most from their wide receivers and tight ends. We know this. In some ways, the NFL is going retro -- think back to Bill Walsh and the debut of the West Coast Offense in the 1980s. It was predicated on precise rhythm in the offense and mostly, yards after the catch.


Because superfreaks like D.K. Metcalf or Julio Jones don't enter the league every season, and hyper-quick wideouts like Davante Adams, Stefon Diggs, and Deandre Hopkins are decently rare too -- wideouts who aren't unbelievably athletic or don't run in the 4.3s can carve a valuable niche for themselves in today's NFL.

Ask Deebo Samuel, or A.J. Brown, or D.J. Moore.

Now that the league has become obsessed with high completion percentages, the ability to maximize the three-yard pass and morph it into a 12-yard gain has become en vogue once again, just like it was when Walsh had Jerry Rice and John Taylor running away from every corner in the league on drag routes in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Linebackers
New-age trait: Blitzing/pass-rushing acumen

Linebacker prospects who are legitimately good in coverage are so rare, it's almost become pointless trying to find them. Relatively soon, I do think we'll see the safety and linebacker spot essentially meld into one, but as for your "traditional" linebacker who's playing at the distinct second level of the field, there's like one or two in each draft class who can actually be impactful in coverage.


Because of his glaring, widespread weakness, coaches in college and the NFL asking their linebackers to affect the passing game in another way if they simply can't cover anyone or are lost in zone -- get after the quarterback.

In 2020, of qualifying linebackers, 30 of them rushed the passer on at least 20% of the passing downs when they were on the field, the most in at least the last 10 years in the NFL. But even if the uptick in linebackers as rushers is minimal year over year, it's a new philosophy more teams should incorporate into their game plans. It's better for a young linebacker to beat a running back in pass protection and disrupt the quarterback than he is to adequately cover a pass catcher in space.

While I do value coverage as the most heavily weighted category in my grading system when evaluating linebackers, "pass-rush/blitzing skill" has now entered the system as a new category.


Cornerbacks
New-age trait: Twitch

In my eyes, gone are the days when you need to be a 6-1, 210-pound cornerback to play in the perimeter in the NFL. In fact, that type of size at the cornerback spot has transformed into a slight concern after spending years as a clear-cut luxury. Why? Because most corners that tall and that thick aren't the most fleet of foot and don't have twitched-up athletic traits, and the modern-day star wideout destroys press at the line with agility and can get open routinely with athleticism.

This past season, Julio Jones, Corey Davis, and Kenny Golladay were the only wideouts taller than 6-1 in the top 10 of yards per route run among qualifiers at the receiver position. From 11 through 20 in yards per route run, there were only three more pass catchers taller than 6-1 (Jakobi Meyers, Michael Thomas, and Allen Robinson).

The majority of the elite receivers today are smaller, more sudden, and more explosive than ever before. So cornerbacks entering the NFL who're confident they can beat up those wideouts at the line of scrimmage and smother them through their routes are almost always sorrily mistaken -- especially with the strict defensive holding rules enforced today.


Get me a twitched-up, hyper athlete who can handle burst and routes with abrupt changes in direction, even if that means drafting a 5-10, 185-pounder.

Safeties
New-age trait: Legitimate versatility

The three safety look started to appear late in the playoffs and it's the wave of the future defensively in the NFL. And I'm not talking two classic safeties and one hulking Derwin James type. Because, well, Derwin James is a unicorn and oftentimes the 6-3, 220-pound second-level defenders aren't the most apt in coverage.

Because of the increase in pass-catching targets for quarterbacks, teams are simply going to have to keep more defensive backs on the field, and typically, safeties are better run-support players than cornerbacks when a run does occur. Worth noting here too -- for as much as the league is won and lost through the air, the NFL's run rate was still 43.3% in 2020, so it's not as if the run game has completely vanished.


Safeties who can cover in man, are instinctive in zone, are comfortable as a deep middle rover, patrol the intermediate levels at time as a robber, blitz in critical situations at get home, and, oh, range across the field to stop a running back dead in his tracks on 3rd and 4 are worth their weight in bitcoin, I mean, gold. Even if they are stellar in any particular area, versatility has become king.

Advanced stats courtesy of TruMedia unless otherwise noted

3 minutes ago, MLD Woody said:

It sounds like the hispanic vote isn't just one big monolith. Hispanics in the southeast voted differently than those in the southwest. It'll be interesting to see the breakdown on everything.

It's bad all across the board. I've thought that the Cuban-Americans were going to carry Florida for Trump since 2016. That's not really a surprise. The people in these counties are not Cubans. They're Mexican-Americans. We are watching both political parties undergoing a seismic demographic shift. You've got neocons like Kasich outright endorsing Biden and being considered for Biden cabinet positions.

Trump lacked what could be called anything remotely close to leadership during the pandemic. Instead, he attacked democrat governors and turned masks into a political statement. In return, the people have voted his ass out, particularly those from Michigan and John McCain's Arizona.

The Democrats were handed what should have been a layup for the 2020 election because of the above. They played politics with the second stimulus check while Americans are out there struggling. Instead of a message for unity, they doubled and tripled down on calling anyone who supports Trump racist, sexist and backwards. They kept their mouths shut on criticisms of rioting and looting until it became politically inconvenient for them. Now they've pushed the Hispanic vote right into the arms of the GOP, they won't win back the Senate, they'll lose seats in the House. 

I voted for Trump. I have NO RAGRETS over my vote. My worst fear was a democrat WH, Senate, and House passing batshit crazy legislation like court packing, gun grabbing, and making PR a state for electoral college purposes. I'll take president Biden without a matching Congress. No harm done. Today's a good day.

12 hours ago, MLD Woody said:

Also, where did people think politics we're going to go when they elected Trump? His whole primary campaign was finding insults for his competition. We're at the logical "4years later" point of that timeline

I wanted to throw a wrench in the gears of our political system. His crowning achievement is making neocons in federal government irrelevant. I'd consider my vote a success.

An Indiana medical school professor got reprimanded and had to issue an apology for having a question with the phrase "I can't breathe" on an examination. This is a common complaint that patients will have, but apparently this combination of words is now forbidden.

Source: https://reason.com/2020/06/17/indiana-university-i-cant-breathe-medical-exam/

Petition signed by 500 students and academics calling for the firing of Harvard professor, Steven Pinker, a guy who's made an academic career out of using data to tell you why things aren't as bad as the headlines are telling you. He stands accused of saying "Police kill too many people, black and white," and of describing Bernard Goetz as "mild-mannered."

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/us/steven-pinker-harvard.html

This is a petition signed by hundreds of students and professors at Princeton calling for significant changes to be had in the name of anti-racism. Some of their recommendations include extra sabbatical, summer salaries for faculty who are "persons of color" as well as preferential status and monetary benefits to those who demonstrate work with black students. 

Source: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfPmfeDKBi25_7rUTKkhZ3cyMICQicp05ReVaeBpEdYUCkyIA/viewform 

A Princeton Classics professor wrote a response to the above petition, saying, whoa pump the brakes, maybe it's not a good idea to favor people based on race. He was denounced by his department in a public statement that has since been taken down from their website. Their response said that he was putting black people at risk.

Source: https://quillette.com/2020/07/08/a-declaration-of-independence-by-a-princeton-professor/

Freedom of inquiry seems to have taken a back seat to finding racism where it doesn't exist. Also, I cannot believe that there are people who are unironically advocating for fixing the problem of systemic racism by adding more systemic racism.

17 hours ago, D Bone said:

.... again, as a dude who actually lives here, I can tell you that the only unmasked people that I have seen in public had Nikes, rocks, paint, stolen TVs and signs in their hands.

You can not go into ANY store without a mask on, and in all of the days since masks have been required, I have not seen a single person in public without one. In their cars sure, but the greater LA county area has been doing a great job in both distancing and mask wearing.

Now I'm not stupid and I know there are rogue people here and there that are not wearing a mask, but there is not a store around that will allow them through the door.

So long as those people are out there, the risk of spread is greatly increased. Those people won't matter once we get to the herd immunity threshold, but we are a long ways off from there.

16 hours ago, Westside Steve said:

Actually the word likely would imply over 50%. I don't think that would kick in until someone is over 80 or beyond and with substantial health issues. 

But I will repeat if you choose to go to a big grocery store a big box store or whatever just so you could come home and whine about others not wearing masks I can't take you seriously. Every place in the world will deliver  or provide you with curbside service. (Not you in particular Vape ,  but as in you people who do.)

 

WSS

 

 

Contact tracing studies showed little to no spread within hospital systems where everyone is mandated to wear a mask. The vast majority of cases are community spread. If one person at the grocery store has their nose sticking out the top of their mask, then everyone who comes within 6 feet of them is exposed to whatever's in their lungs. The loud people on social media ought to be ignored. 

14 hours ago, D Bone said:

As a SoCal, Los Angeles county resident who has been required to wear a mask since March, I respectfully and vehemently disagree.

The masks don't really provide any community level protection unless everyone is doing it. Your mask doesn't protect you from the virus (unless it's an n95). It protects everyone around you from whatever is floating around in your lungs. The solution requires EVERYONE to participate. That hasn't been the case anywhere in the US.

It's inconvenient. It's uncomfortable. But the latest studies this week are projecting a quarter of a million dead by the election. I understand that we have a minimal chance of trying to get the spread under control at this point, but I'm sure as hell going to advocate for a pretty easy lifestyle change (everyone wearing a mask in public) if it means saving a significant amount of human life. Most importantly, selfishly, I don't want to be called up to take care of a covid surge.

On 7/12/2020 at 12:12 AM, Westside Steve said:

He has said before that he wears them and plays his for he deems it necessary.

They aren't necessary most places he goes.

Of course they're not really necessary anywhere for anybody but still...

WSS

Please wear a mask. If you look at spread of cases in countries where they wear masks when they're sick as part of the culture (Japan, Taiwan, Korea) versus places they don't, the value of the mask speaks for itself. Cases are spiking pretty much everywhere, and everywhere I go, I see people who aren't wearing their masks properly (it does nothing if you don't cover your nose). 

If everybody wore them properly for 6 weeks, this thing would be under control. Countries that got it under control early are basically back to normal. Yes, you're only likely to die from the virus if you are over 60 or obese. However, the primary goal of all of this is to keep hospitals from being overrun. Once ICUs reach capacity, people with all sorts of diseases will be dying due to a lack of access to care. That is when shit hits the fan.