A run heavy offense is a given with the rookie QB and the first tier running back. However, in my opinion, the key to the success is play calling…exploiting mismatches as well as the talent (see Austin, Kendricks) beyond Gurly.

We haven’t seen that with the Rams since 06.

bnw wrote:

Ozoneranger wrote:

I’ve arrived at Old Fartdom.

That just means you’ve seen things good and bad, and you likely smell.

No, I don’t smell. I bathe regularly…at least twice a month.

“It is always about choices.”

Yep. And I made some real doozies when I was younger. Set us back quite a bit. Almost back to home plate.

But then again, if you’re born a one-armed, two-toed sloth with no teeth you’re pretty well screwed no matter what you do.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Ozoneranger.

“Inherited background advantages”?

What the hell is that?

Anyway, I disagree, mostly. We as a society created an infrastructure to lift and grow the society. And that takes risk as well as hard work on the individual’s part. I know. In addition to working full time while I went to school, I also drained a mutual fund while I completed my industry certs. By the time I found my first IT job, we had $1100 in our checking account. We were that close to bankruptcy. My wife didn’t even know about this.

So by your logic, flirting with bankruptcy was a team effort with “institutional policies”? And had I failed, would it have been entirely on me? Can’t have it both ways…

Ozoneranger wrote:

“See these things are double-edged. You do know, for example, that blacks are more likely to be pulled over by police and LESS likely to be breaking the law than the whites police pull over.

-I thought I addressed this. This isn’t even debatable.

Also, about the gun…open carry states are okay for whites, not blacks, right?”

Of course not. I think you’re having a bad context day, Zack.

By the way- Blacks do commit crime disproportionate to their population. That’s a generally accepted premise on both the left and right. That’s not conservative or racist.

http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-commit-crime/19439

The claim

“It’s important to note that black men commit nearly half of all murders in this country, which is astounding when you take into consideration the fact that they only make up 12-13 per cent of the population.”
“James”, 26 November 2014

The analysis

There were angry protests across America this week after a grand jury decided a white police officer should not stand trial for the killing of black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

FactCheck has already looked at the statistics on killings by law enforcement officials. Though imperfect, the official figures suggest blacks are disproportionately likely to die at the hands of police.

Several people have left comments pointing out that this is not necessarily surprising or unfair, since blacks are also disproportionately likely to be involved in violent crime in the US, thereby putting themselves in the firing line.

One reader, “James”, wrote: “It’s important to note that black men commit nearly half of all murders in this country, which is astounding when you take into consideration the fact that they only make up 12-13 per cent of the population.

“So, given this fact, does it make sense that black men are disproportionately involved in shootings with the police? Your graph is appropriately proportionate, when you take into consideration the role that the black population plays in, not just murder, but crime in general.”

“Sean” said: “If one group is more likely to be involved in that then they are more likely to be killed by the police – so they have nothing to complain about if that is the case.”

We thought we’d check these claims out.

The analysis

It’s true that around 13 per cent of Americans are black, according to the latest estimates from the US Census Bureau.

And yes, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, black offenders committed 52 per cent of homicides recorded in the data between 1980 and 2008. Only 45 per cent of the offenders were white. Homicide is a broader category than “murder” but let’s not split hairs.

27_bjs_use

Blacks were disproportionately likely to commit homicide and to be the victims. In 2008 the offending rate for blacks was seven times higher than for whites and the victimisation rate was six times higher.

As we found yesterday, 93 per cent of black victims were killed by blacks and 84 per cent of white victims were killed by whites.

Alternative statistics from the FBI are more up to date but include many crimes where the killer’s race is not recorded. These numbers tell a similar story.

In 2013, the FBI has black criminals carrying out 38 per cent of murders, compared to 31.1 per cent for whites. The offender’s race was “unknown” in 29.1 per cent of cases.

What about violent crime more generally? FBI arrest rates are one way into this. Over the last three years of data – 2011 to 2013 – 38.5 per cent of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black.

Clearly, these figures are problematic. We’re talking about arrests not convictions, and high black arrest rates could be taken as evidence that the police are racist.

Police corral protesters before making mass arrests in Los Angeles, following Monday’s grand jury decision in the shooting of Brown

But academics have noted that the proportion of black suspects arrested by the police tends to match closely the proportion of offenders identified as black by victims in the National Crime Victimization Survey.

This doesn’t support the idea that the police are unfairly discriminating against the black population when they make arrests.

So why are black offenders – and young black men in particular – over-represented in America’s crime statistics?

Judging from online comments, there is a wide spectrum of views on this, from unapologetic racism to militant refusal to blame the problem on anything but historic white racism.

Some criminologists think we could be simply confusing race for poverty or inequality: black people tend to offend more because they tend to be more disadvantaged, living in poorer urban areas with less access to public services, and so on.

If you control for deprivation, people of different races ought to be similarly predisposed to commit crime. Or that’s the theory, at least.

There is a lot of research in this area, but a lot of it is contradictory.

This study of violent crime in deprived neighbourhoods in Cleveland, Ohio, found that reductions in poverty led to reductions in the crime rate in exactly the same way in predominantly black and white areas, suggesting poverty, not race, is the biggest factor.

Other studies get different results.

All sociologists have suffered from the same basic problem: finding urban white communities that are as disadvantaged as the poorest black neighbourhoods, so that you can get a fair comparison.

Some thinkers play down the importance of poverty in favour of the “violent subculture theory”.

This is the idea that some black communities, for some reason, have developed cultural values that are more tolerant of crime and violence.

Some commentators on the unrest in Ferguson – mostly right-wing, though not all white – seem to favour this idea, but naturally it remains highly controversial.

The verdict

There is evidence in the official police-recorded figures that black Americans are more likely to commit certain types of crime than people of other races.

While it would be naïve to suggest that there is no racism in the US criminal justice system, victim reports don’t support the idea that this is because of mass discrimination.

Higher poverty rates among various urban black communities might explain the difference in crime rates, although the evidence is mixed.

There are few simple answers and links between crime and race are likely to remain the subject of bitter argument.

Related posts:
1.FactCheck: can we trust crime figures?
2.FactCheck Q&A: are we really getting less violent?
3.FactCheck: how many black Americans are killed by the police?
4.FactCheck: how much would a 50p top rate of tax bring in?

Black Crime Rates: What Happens When Numbers Aren’t Neutral

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-farbota/black-crime-rates-your-st_b_8078586.html

There is a common conservative narrative that indicates the disproportionate incarceration of black people is not the result of systemic racism, but rather of shortcomings within the black community.

It is also common to hear the supposedly neutral statement that “black people commit more crimes than white people.” This “fact” is used to justify a belief that black people have a natural criminal propensity, or that a “culture of violence” is to blame for problems faced by black people in America.

Black people make up roughly 13% of the United States population, and white people make up 64%. Black people make up 40% of the prison population, and white people 39%. Therefore, even though there are roughly five times as many white people as black people in this country, blacks and whites are incarcerated in equal numbers. But the fact that black people are incarcerated five times as frequently as white people does not mean black people commit five times as many crimes. Here’s why:

(1) If a black person and a white person each commit a crime, the black person is more likely to be arrested.

This is due in part to the fact that black people are more heavily policed.
Black people, more often than white people, live in dense urban areas. Dense urban areas are more heavily policed than suburban or rural areas. When people live in close proximity to one another, police can monitor more people more often. In more heavily policed areas, people committing crimes are caught more frequently. This could help explain why, for example, black people and white people smoke marijuana at similar rates, yet black people are 3.7 times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession. (The discrepancy could also be driven by overt racism, more frequent illegal searches of black people, or an increased willingness to let non-blacks off with a warning.)

(2) When black people are arrested for a crime, they are convicted more often than white people arrested for the same crime.

An arrest and charge does not always lead to a conviction. A charge may be dismissed or a defendant may be declared not guilty at trial. Whether or not an arrestee is convicted is often determined by whether or not a defendant can afford a reputable attorney. The interaction of poverty and trial outcomes could help explain why, for example, while black defendants represent about 35% of drug arrests, 46% of those convicted of drug crimes are black. (This discrepancy could also be due to racial bias on the part of judges and jurors.)

(3) When black people are convicted of a crime, they are more likely to be sentenced to incarceration compared to whites convicted of the same crime.

When a person is convicted of a crime, a judge often has discretion in determining whether the defendant will be incarcerated or given a less severe punishment such as probation, community service, or fines. One study found that in a particular region blacks were incarcerated for convicted felony offenses 51% of the time while whites convicted of felonies were incarcerated 38% of the time. The same study also used an empirical approach to determine that race, not confounded with any other factor, was a key determinant in judges’ decisions to incarcerate.

***

Racial disparities at every stage of the criminal justice process build upon one another. So, if 1,000 white people and 200 black people (a ratio of 5:1 to reflect the U.S. population) commit the same crime, here is what the eventual prison population could look like:

100 white people and 74 black people might be arrested.

It is impossible to determine what percentage of crimes committed result in arrests because there can be no data on un-observed crimes. As noted above, however, it has been found that while black and white Americans smoke marijuana at similar rates, blacks are arrested 3.7 times as frequently for marijuana possession. These numbers were picked to reflect the 3.7:1 ratio of black to white arrests for marijuana possession. 100 is 10% of 1,000 and 74 is 37% of 200, so these numbers would represent an arrest disparity equivalent to that noted in the example above.

50 white people and 48 black people might be convicted.

If black people account for 35% of drug arrests and 46% of convictions, this indicates a conviction rate that is approximately 1.3 times higher than it should be based on the black arrest rate. So, if 50% of white arrestees were convicted we would expect to see 65% (.5 x 1.3) of black arrestees convicted: 50 is 50% of 100 and 48 is about 65% of 74. (50% was picked at random; the important factor here is the comparative proportion.)

19 white people and 24 black people might be sentenced to prison.

Using the example felony incarceration rates cited above, we might expect to see 38% of the 50 convicted white defendants (19) and 51% of the 48 convicted black defendants (24) incarcerated for their crimes. In this scenario, 12% of black people who commit a crime and less than 2% of white people who commit the same crime might eventually go to prison.

This example demonstrates that there are systemic differences in how blacks and whites are treated by the law. These differences, which are compounded in each successive phase of the criminal justice process, increase the percentage of black people incarcerated for committing a particular crime.

This example is NOT meant to be a conclusive analysis explaining the incarceration gap. The statistics presented above and applied to the illustrative example come from different contexts and refer to different crimes. Racial disparities in the application of criminal justice are not the only source of differential incarceration rates. Poverty, geography, and lacking educational and career opportunities all likely play a role. These factors exacerbate the effects of systemic racism and feed the cycle of incarceration, joblessness, and poverty that plagues some segments of the black population.

Regardless of the exact factors behind the incarceration gap, it is not some neutral, statistical fact that black people commit more crime. The gap is the result of numerous interacting factors, not the least of which is racism. Explanations of the incarceration gap as a result of black criminal propensity or insular cultural deficiencies are critically flawed, and by definition racist.

[/quote]

I have “handsome guy” privilege. This is a real thing, too. It’s gotten my foot in the door more than once. I accept it and I rather like it. You should have seen how many hits I got on my Match.com profile from chicks who want me to take(treat) them to a European holiday. Of course, then I open my mouth and it’s all over.

Seriously, how do we move forward, as PA said? I can see both sides…Blacks do get profiled. As do Hispanics. By the same token, these groups commit crimes disproportionate to their population so I think its human nature for the cops to give disproportionate attention to same.

I don’t know. Bit for starters it would help a lot if one didn’t carry a gun around. And follow the commands of the cops when ordered.

This is a big fucking problem and it’s getting worse. I’m at a loss.

(Edit- as an aside, I’ve been on the wrong end of police brutality. At 19, I didn’t follow the commands of two very large SFPD officers and they beat my skinny ass pretty good after I told them to fuck off.)

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Ozoneranger.

You can have my 155mm artillery piece when you pry it from my cold, dead trailer.

I’d focus more on registration, psychological and back ground checks with a 30 day waiting period. I’d also mandate training and firearm safety.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by Ozoneranger.

PA Ram wrote:

I think that one thing that has to happen is for the NRA to be seen as the radical organization it is. They have so much power and promote so much propaganda that having a reasonable conversation is impossible.

That’s an important first step.

When you can put someone on a no-fly list but that same person can walk into any gun shop or show and buy whatever they want–you have a problem.

When you have an organization that even went so far as fighting against tagging the type of fertilizer explosives used in Oklahoma, you have a problem.

They are extreme.

ON this, we agree. Instead of a hardening of resolve, the NRA should adopt common-sense legislation. Registration, waiting periods, a national database linking various government agencies, etc. I mean, sometimes the NRA sounds just like Trump. Cringe worthy.

I have very limited experience with firearms. Skeet shooting and a couple of weeks ago went to a range to fire at targets with a 9mm Glock. I will say, it was great fun. I was shocked how fast I could unload three or four shots and hit the target…the range rules were one shot every three seconds. I know I could have emptied that ten-round clip in four or five seconds, easy.

That said, I have no need for a weapon in my home. I live in a nice neighborhood where violent crime is almost non-existent. For security I have alarm and video systems. That’s all. However, if I did live in the boonies, yes, I would purchase a shotgun and a 9 mm. A female friend of mine owns at least one AR since she lives in rural Arkansas 20 minutes away from help. So I kinda get that way of thinking.

Honestly, I have no clue how to address these mass shootings. Ban the things? Good luck with that. We would just create a large and very violent black market for weapons. Drilling to the bare walls of these tragedies, I think it’s a disease of the hearts and minds. Has to be. How does one sink so far into the darkness of hate to the point of killing and maiming over one hundred individuals? How? I think it’s safe to say that this Orlando monster was radicalized. Do we go after the Imams then? The Mullahs who issue the fatwas to incite violence? But that won’t address the rage of the disgruntled employee who channels that rage against his co-workers? Or the teenager who turns to guns for retribution for real or imagined slights, bullying, etc., from classmates? Or the undiagnosed mentally ill?

This is like treating a disease that presents differently in many parts of the body. Almost impossible to treat across the board.

Hearts and minds. I keep coming back to that.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by Ozoneranger.

Zooey wrote:

wv wrote:

You know, I know zip on this ’email scandal’ thing. Zero. Nada.
I havent read a single solitary word about it.
And i don’t intend to.

I couldn’t care less whether she “committed a crime” or not
by sending or receiving “classified” emails.

I mean to me, the CIA in and of itself is a Crime. The whole entire organization has a long history of assassination, torture, butchery spying on pacifists, derailing democracies, dealing in narcotics…etc, etc, etc. And the FBI aint no better. Or the NSA. All those secret shadow organizations are anti-democratic and rife with corruption.

I dont care what Clinton did with some emails. What Clinton has done that is perfectly LEGAL is what appalls me. Her support of the mega-corpse, neoliberalsim, the big-banks, goldman-sachs…etc. All THAT stuff is enough for me to loathe her. And Obama. And Bush. And all the mainstream Dems and Reps.

I could go on. But i have to plant some milkweed seeds.

wv curmudgeon

I haven’t read much about it until I found this. I knew she had used a private server, and that she deleted 30,000 personal emails, but that’s it.

And I don’t really care about the email issue either because whatever she did is nothing compared to what she plans to do if she is president both domestically and internationally. You know…invading Libya and Iraq is a smidge worse than mishandling classified documents (though she could potentially be blackmailed by nasty people).

The reason I care about the above is that it shows a lot of high up establishment intelligence people are telling Obama that this is really, really bad news, and postponing it, or trying to sweep it under the carpet, could be devastating to her, the party, and the country. To me that means that this scandal is a real scandal – as opposed to so many Clinton scandals over the decades – and I would like to see her destroyed politically. Prison time would be a bonus. And the sooner, the better. That’s why I had interest in it.

I’m a hardware engineer. Part of my job is email admin- I build these machines and configure the client and setup the end users. I can tell you what she did was egregious and illegal. Also, pretty ignorant with a lot of arrogance mixed in. The only reason I can see in maintaining private server is to hide shit. To assume she could do this with no repercussions was arrogant. To assume the box couldn’t be hacked is ignorant. And most likely our adversaries were reading her mail. Also, email is forever. There’s a copy around somewhere, even if she did a DOD format on the drives (it would be at least two).

The part of this I just don’t understand is “why”? Most government – State, Mil, etc- systems are more secure- by light years- than anything a private firm could put together on the fly, which this appears to be. And she used Clinton in the domain name. She could have just used her State account for both personal and private stuff and nobody would be the wiser, and it would have been way more secure. Probably would have violated the user policy in place, but most folks up that high don’t bother with such things.

I’ve had clients who wanted me to do really stupid shit before, but this takes the cake. Arrogance and ignorance. I could cost lives, too.

I remember this game very well. What has been forgotten was Everett’s performance under fire. The guy was getting drilled every time he dropped back to pass. If memory serves, a coach mentioned he was hit 25 times in that game. It’s a shame he’s remembered primarily for “The Phantom Sack.”

zn wrote:

Ozoneranger wrote:

Canada- My sources are two Canadian widows from a couple of FB support groups.

Well I am Canadian originally and have family there.

The wait time thing is on elective procedures only, and that was a deliberate policy choice—keep costs down when it comes to elective procedures.

Either way, here is one advantage of single-payer over private insurance: with private insurance, billions upon billions of dollars go to things like advertizing, executive salaries, lobbying (they are one of the biggest in spending on lobbying), and campaign donations. That doesn’t happen with public health insurance.

There’s also administrative costs that have an effect on all health care costs. These are costs that exist solely because medical providers must deal with multiple insurance companies, while insurance companies must all pay clerks etc to handle all those transactions on their side. With public insurance this is all cut down on both sides to be much more efficient and much less costly.

http://fortune.com/2014/10/20/health-insurance-future/

In 1991, Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein, two Harvard doctors with an interest in health policy, published a paper in The New England Journal of Medicine in which they estimated that health care administration constituted somewhere between 19% and 24% of total spending on health care, an amount that was 117% higher than what it was in Canada and much more than in the U.K.

Their updated estimate, once again published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that administration accounted for about 31% of health care spending and that more than 27% of all of the people employed in health care worked in administrative and clerical occupations.

This large administrative expense is not surprising. It costs money for health care providers to deal with multiple insurers, each with its own protocols, forms, and requirements. And it costs money for insurers to be able to transact with multiple providers and to furnish the oversight—which many would consider more annoying than helpful—of health care delivery.

Well, your just preaching the choir here. No disagreement.

Ozoneranger wrote:

Ozoneranger wrote:

bnw wrote:

The US consulate office in Venice couldn’t arrange a translator for you at the hospital?

No, the first weekend was Labor Day. Office was closed. I didn’t really think about contacting them again until I had to arrange for a mortician. For this task, they were very helpful.

On Italy- Obviously, I’m not a resident and they did not bill my insurance provider directly (Kaiser wanted a tax ID number for the hospital). I paid up and was reimbursed. So perhaps I’m not 100% fully informed about how my wife’s care, such as it was, fit into their system. I received a demand for payment via registered letter with no detailed bill for services provided.

Canada- My sources are two Canadian widows from a couple of FB support groups. One elected to self-fund a boob job, of all things, due to quality of care concerns. The other is still recuperating from the auto accident that killed her husband. A third source is an instructor in a tech class I took last November. He cut one class short so he could make an appointment for chronic back pain- he stated that he HAD to go or wait several more months.

So I’m providing anecdotal evidence on the Canadian system which is really all I have. As for Italy, thanks for firming that up.

Oops. I meant this for ZN…

BNW, the ships doctor was South African. He just wrote some instructions for the staff at the hospital and handed them to the EMTS at the dock. The cruise line provided me with the number of some kind of “Port Advisor,” who was paid by the line to provide services to passengers who had to leave the ship. I guess for such things as transportation, hotels accomodations, etc. I was able to contact the guy but he was useless, too. Couldn’t speak English.

Ozoneranger wrote:

bnw wrote:

The US consulate office in Venice couldn’t arrange a translator for you at the hospital?

No, the first weekend was Labor Day. Office was closed. I didn’t really think about contacting them again until I had to arrange for a mortician. For this task, they were very helpful.

On Italy- Obviously, I’m not a resident and they did not bill my insurance provider directly (Kaiser wanted a tax ID number for the hospital). I paid up and was reimbursed. So perhaps I’m not 100% fully informed about how my wife’s care, such as it was, fit into their system. I received a demand for payment via registered letter with no detailed bill for services provided.

Canada- My sources are two Canadian widows from a couple of FB support groups. One elected to self-fund a boob job, of all things, due to quality of care concerns. The other is still recuperating from the auto accident that killed her husband. A third source is an instructor in a tech class I took last November. He cut one class short so he could make an appointment for chronic back pain- he stated that he HAD to go or wait several more months.

So I’m providing anecdotal evidence on the Canadian system which is really all I have. As for Italy, thanks for firming that up.