nittany ram wrote:

I suppose this could lead to some sort of voting reform though, like, oh I dunno…retinal scans at the voting precincts?

Integrated chips under the skin.
But then the religious right would never go for that.
Number of the beast and all.

PA Ram wrote:

I keep hearing this almost anti-education–or at least formal education, in your posts, X. If I’m reading that wrong I apologize. But I think there really is an anti-intellectualism movement in the country. I think there is a “dumbing down” of things. Have you watched CNN lately?

You’re not wrong. I am anti-formal education – if there is such a thing. I look at what it’s producing, and it makes me cringe. And CNN is a joke. They’re the top of the liberal media bias totem pole.

PA Ram wrote:

I also have an 11th grade education. I did get my GED and I put in about a year of college when I went into the air force.

I’ve never been a particularly “formal” education kind of guy. I wanted to follow my curiosity. And when I did find something interesting, I wanted to know a lot about it. I studied it. There are many subjects that I am woefully ignorant about and I’m aware of what those are. There are things I WISH I had more interest in–a lot of practical things, really.

Nice. I didn’t know that, so thanks for sharing,.

PA Ram wrote:

I hear blue collar workers all day long(or evening since I work 2nd shift)and I heard many of them before this election blasting Clinton for emails or this or that or the other thing. I didn’t hear one person tell me WHY they liked Trump.

How could they?

Trump’s plans were vague at best. Slogans. And more anti-Hillary than anything else.

I believe that is how people voted. And she deserved it. She was an awful candidate and it’s true that she didn’t give anyone a reason TO vote for her besides the fact that she wasn’t Trump. At the end of the day that was still enough to win the popular vote.

I don’t doubt that you might have heard those things from some blue-collar workers. I, too, have heard similar things while out and about on different jobs. But I don’t agree that Trump had no plans or that they were vague. The thing his detractors didn’t bother to do was notice that he is a ‘big picture’ kind of guy who assembles teams to help realize those plans. That’s all he ever did as a civilian. He actually had many plans if anyone bothered to listen. Really listen. Secure the southern border, back out of the TPP, back out of the Iran Agreement, offer incentives to Corporations to return jobs to the U.S., reform health care, reform immigration, let Generals loose to do their jobs and not encumber them with politically correct directives during war, zap the EPA and its bloated budget, tap into our natural resources to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, appoint Constitutionalists to the Supreme Court, reform the V.A., etc. He said the same things over and over and over. What was vague was Hillary’s ten thousand different slogans and her strange obsession with intimate pressers and her courting of rich celebrities while simultaneously trying to convince everyone she was in touch with the plight of poor Americans.

wv wrote:

And i dont believe in Mermaids.

Now you’re just being hateful.

Same thing as with the Panthers game. Their top O vs our Top D, and their struggling D against our struggling O. Another one of those ‘something has to give’ games. The light at the end of this particular tunnel is that we seem to always rattle Brees. I don’t imagine he likes playing the Rams very much.

zn wrote:

I don’t know what’s going on. It has too many causes. Will the OL ever gel? How much of that is Gurley? How fast will Goff progress? How much real improvement have we seen at receiver? Is Boras ultimately a capable OC?

This all leads to the “get rid of Fisher” sentiment.

On that, I am an agnostic. There’s no such thing as a Fisher diehard. Most people who defend Fisher would be fine with a coaching change IF the new HC is a good one.

That’s fair, but I’m not someone who just stopped looking for reasons for the losses. I can still enumerate the things that happen in a game that would cause a team to lose no matter who the coach was or is. For me, it’s the cumulative effect of these individual losses that has me pining for a change. Jeff Fisher seems to be a very likable and smart guy. I haven’t turned my discontent with him into a seething resentment like others out there have. He’s not an iduot or a relic or any of the other infantile nouns and adjectives I’ve seen attached to him lately. But at the same time, he’s becoming less deserving of my support. Ultimately everything that goes wrong with this team is his responsibility – short of widespread injuries which sometimes effect entire units. My thing with that, though, is that after 4.5 years, there isn’t any real team system in place on offense, and a real reluctance -or maybe even inability- to accelerate young players’ learning curves (not Goff). It’s this guy’s O, then that guy’s O, then the other guy’s O. Compound that with injuries, and you get what you get. Confusion, penalties and lack of execution.

It’s just not fun to watch anymore. But like I said, I won’t stop analyzing these things. And i won’t internalize the results either. It’s just come to the point where change is the only hope I have now. Different is better, and all that.

zn wrote:

So the trick is, if they win, we won’t hear it.

zn wrote:

Thing about me is, though, I am not doing “Fisher should stay/go” with every single issue.

Neither am I. This is my first time. Also, I understood what you were trying to say with the quotes and reinforcing what their philosophy is as it relates to opening up the offense. I’m fully cognizant of that stuff. BUT. How often are we going to listen to his post-game comments telling us the same things all the time? “We had this, but…” or “We had the opportunity, but….” or “We just couldn’t get [XYZ] going….” or “That was a good defense [insert team] has, and we just couldn’t….” Breaking down the break-downs is becoming a futile endeavor.

wv wrote:

The losses have been bad this year. These are not elite teams they are losing to.

I think this is Fisher’s worst year as a ram-head-coach.

This is Fisher’s OLine. And they, apparently, are Healthy.

I guess we’ll see how Fisher does in Year SIX. Ah well.

Yeah. That’s the thing. We win some of the games we should lose, and lose most of the games we should win. It goes to what I said about them playing exactly to the level of their competition. They beat Seattle, which is great, but then Seattle goes on to beat everyone else the Rams lose to. It’s almost funny (cuz I chuckled when I typed that).

It’s his O-line.
It’s his run game.
It’s his receivers.
It’s his secondary.
It’s all his (except for Quinn and Saffold).

Is what it is though. I’m not all pissed off about it or anything. He’ll probably get extended, and he may even catch lightning in a bottle. But I just think there’s something wrong – some kind of disconnect – between the operations side and the coaching side. I dunno. I can’t even put my finger on it the problem. Other than to say, there’s a problem.

I’m going to preface this with the qualifier that I’ve seen you ask people to give when they make the following statements. I just don’t like Jeff Fisher (anymore). Now, onto the statements.

I’m aware of what the offense is designed to be, and what it could be if executed properly. It’s been a very long time and none of it has been realized (I know the reasons), and I have very little faith that it suddenly will. Even with Goff as QB.

Why?

Because they draft too many players with high talent ceilings while foregoing the very real need to draft players with fundamental football smarts. Freak athletes are great and all, but not if they never become more than freak athletes (e.g., great football players).

Because the team is always undisciplined. I know there are no correlations between penalties and losses, but I do know that there are correlations between untimely penalties and losses. Too often this team shoots itself in the foot at the most inopportune times. That’s, IMO, a direct reflection of coaching. OR, it goes to point #1 above that these players just aren’t all that smart. Which is a broader problem.

Because this team seems to always play exactly to the level of its competition. That’s why we see such tight games all the time – which is good, but not enough. With the talent level on this team, Fisher shouldn’t get out-coached by all of these ‘new’ coaches with much less experience than he has. Most of the time that these games come down to the closing minutes of the 4th quarter, Fisher’s team finds a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Because their draft doesn’t match their philosophy as it relates to offense. Why strive to be a ground-n-pound team who ‘takes shots’ and draft guys like Austin and Goff? Those are guys you’d see Martz pick up. Had they stayed put in the 16 draft, they could have gotten many more guys who fit the mold he’s put in place. I outlined a perfect draft scenario for him too before the draft this April, and it included several players who are now producing in a huge way for other teams. Meanwhile we’re out a #1 overall next year, and have a QB with elite skills (no idea if they’ll be realized) so we can run the ball and set up ‘shots’. It’s bass-ackwards.

Again, even if all of that can be discredited somehow with statements, stats, drive charts, trends, reasons, excuses, etc., it doesn’t matter. This season will mark the 5th year in a row that Fisher’s team couldn’t break through that .500 glass ceiling. It wears on me. I’m worn. So, I’ll reiterate. “I just don’t like Fisher”. Anymore.

wv wrote:

Well, ok.

I haven’t really decided what it is yet. Seems to be, like most political ‘movements’, more than one thing. It seems to be a collection of things.

It’s not even a movement. It was more of a discovery of what was already out there hanging out in the dark web, and now on different sites that have absolutely no political influence like /r/ channels and 4Chan. Then their influence on society was exaggerated by the Dems to scare independents into staying away from Trump. As though Trump had any affiliation whatsoever with the many different sects of the “alt-right”.

“Hey, look! David Duke doesn’t hate Trump! Trump is a racist!”

lol. So stupid.

That’s some good writing, but I obviously don’t agree with all the content.
Good writing though, for sure.

It takes about 5 hours for alcohol to leave your system, and that’s if you’re only *at* the legal limit. Apparently he had more than a few the night before if his BAC was still above the limit at 8:00 a.m. Of course that also depends on when he stopped drinking the night before too. Shame. I’m willing to bet he thought he was fine the next morning – meaning, not *feeling* buzzed anymore.

I got clipped for a DUI once – over 20 years ago while on vacation in Myrtle Beach. I was the only car on the road and only drove about a half mile to a store to pick up more supplies for a gathering. And only got pulled over because I rolled through a stop sign leaving the store. That was awesome. But that’s not the story. I had to go to an 8-hour DUI class in order to get my license reinstated. In this class, the instructor actually made everyone breathe into a breathalizer before he began and said he was going to kick out anyone who topped the legal limit. Two people did. Not because they were drinking that morning, but because they were drinking the night before. Both protested vehemently that they were sober, but that became the first lesson of the class. Feeling sober and being sober are two different things.

nittany ram wrote:

Well, no you can’t legislate morality. All that you can do is make laws that don’t allow the beliefs of one group to impinge upon the rights of another.

But I do think people can be taught to see the differences of other groups as just differences and not to automatically judge those differences as being better or worse. The world continues to get smaller and different groups are exposed to one another at a rate far greater than at any time in history. I think the exposure to other cultures makes some people feel uncomfortable. They think their way of life is in jeopardy and right now there is a lot of backlash against that. This leads to groups like the alt-right. They take a defensive posture instead of trying to understand or see the positives. But as the world continues to get smaller eventually the differences will seem less important. That’s my hope anyway.

Good stuff, Nitt. I agree that there shouldn’t be any laws enacted that would serve to penalize another race unjustly. You mention that people are fearful that their way of life is in jeopardy, and subsequently there’s some backlash over it, and I agree. But I think it’s misguided. I think it’s safe to assume that we’re talking about immigration. Most of what I hear from people across multiple platforms is that this administration is going to arbitrarily deport everyone and quickly erect a giant wall behind them. Break up families, leave children homeless, deny access to America, etc. That’s not the case. He was very clear that he was targeting criminals, and is flexible in his immigration reform policies. He wants people here — legally. He wants prosperity for all people, but he also wants the rules and laws of the land to be applied to everyone. I don’t know how it’s going to shake out, but I’m very confident that there won’t be an arbitrary mass deportation. He knows that local police forces know who the illegal criminals are. He knows they know who the gangs and drug dealers are and whether or not they’re here legally. He wants to give them the power to help remove those people from our society, and I’m all for it. Everyone should be for that. Otherwise, remove border police from the borders, open it up to Columbian Drug Lords, Islamic terrorists, drug smugglers, and anyone else who wants to come over and destroy the United States. Freedom and equal rights for all, yeah?

And I agree about the alt-right. They’re instigators and trolls, and aren’t doing anything to improve society. I just understand their motivation. Similarly, I understand the New Moral Order and their life mission to make everyone become tolerant whether they like it or not. I don’t understand or agree with how they attack people for being 20 steps removed from racism, but are racists anyway — just because. But it is what it is. The only thing I can do, personally, is ignore it when I know it’s unwarranted. More people on the right could benefit from doing the same. Then it might at least quiet down a little.