StrangeSox

QUOTE (HeGone33 @ Jan 2, 2014 -> 01:27 PM) @AlokPattaniESPN "Jay Cutler; 66.5 QBR in '13, 4 other 30-year old QBs w 60-70 QBR have declined sharply within 2 years" 1) Who were they? 2) If four have, how many haven't? 3) What about 29 year olds or 31 year olds?

A counter-point to the OP would be that we already are given "made in" information on most products we buy, yet an overwhelming majority of our stuff still comes from overseas because people generally don't care or can't afford to care. You see "Buy American" or "Buy Union-Made" campaigns every now and then, but they just aren't all that effective. I think about the proposal the same way I do about buying seafood. It's not directly about jobs or hiring, but the logic is pretty similar. We've ravaged many of our fisheries, we're doing enormous environmental damage with others, and it really does look like the world's oceans are on the edge of ecological collapse. There's lots of good information about what types of fish are fished sustainably and don't result in lots of environmental destruction (e.g. cutting down mangroves for shrimp farms), but keeping track of all of that and then finding the right things at the supermarket is a pain in the ass, so I generally just don't buy seafood. People don't want to sit down and look over spreadsheets of financial data or social responsibility ratings just to know what gallon of milk or what sweatshirt to buy. You can have supplier-side tagging, but as we've seen with the organic labeling and the sustainable fishery labeling, absent strong and enforced regulations, these labels can be bought for a donation or may be general or vague enough that consumers still don't really know what they're getting. You also run into ideological problems. If you want to give consumers one simple, easy number for each company or brand, then the ratings agency is going to need to make a lot of subjective determinations. Some will argue that NAFTA and more free trade in general is a rising tide that lifts all boats and boosts both domestic and foreign employment and wealth, while others would strongly disagree. Whose ideology and whose economic model is going to go behind these ratings? Is that even more information I'm going to have to dig into and validate before picking which rating system I'll use? I've yet to read the whole thing, but Tom Slee wrote a book called "No One Makes You Shop At Walmart" several years back that really pushes back against the perceived power of consumer choice.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 2, 2014 -> 01:06 PM) Why don't unemployed people go get jobs? Don't apply at Wal-Mart!!! If you give them unemployment benefits until they get a good job, they'll never look for a job!! Maybe they should lower their standards. But don't apply to places like Wal-Mart, one of the largest employers in the USA It would be heresy to raise the minimum wage also ----> working economy I'm unsure as to how the entire population of the working poor starving to death would lead to positive outcomes for anyone.

that's awesome

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jan 2, 2014 -> 12:35 PM) What? There's been fairly extensive discussion of the last-second Kuhn, drive-saving block put on Peppers. Like. A f***ton of conversation on it. Here and everywhere. season-saving(/ending, depending on your perspective)

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Jan 2, 2014 -> 12:29 PM) Lol. According to Bear fans, every play the Packers should been called for a penalty. It was a pretty clear hold but those things get missed/uncalled all of the time, the main point was about Peppers and that he didn't "whiff" on the sack, he was blocked by Kuhn who made a hell of a play.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 2, 2014 -> 12:22 PM) Lost in the Conte awfulness was the blitzer off the edge (not sure who it was) whiffed on Rodgers allowing him to get open for a few more seconds. Peppers was blocked by the FB and was lunging over him at Rodgers. Wooten was held pretty bad on the play as well, as you can see in the third still from Bowen: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1905131...rom-nfl-week-17

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 2, 2014 -> 11:42 AM) Well, according to Bowen, you arent correct. I will defer to him. Bowen's breakdown is from Monday, but he does mention a coverage change and the defense not all being on the same page in the comments. edit: to clarify, the Bears changed to a Cover 0 blitz, but the original call may have been Cover 3, which is exactly what Conte played.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 2, 2014 -> 11:36 AM) Presumably in the call someone else was supposed to release over the top, perhaps the CB playing to the outside of Conte. Instead if that CB got the blitz call and went into man coverage, staying with the receiver on the sideline, it removed the help that Conte would have had in the original playcall. Yeah, that's the standard Cover-3 defense, the CB's cover the left and right deep passes while the FS covers the middle and the SS covers the 5-10 yard area in the flat. Conte would then be responsible for covering Jones and Bowman should have gone deep with Cobb and with some help in the middle from Wright. Conte misses the call and appears to be sitting right where he would in a Cover 3.

Matt Bowen's got some breakdown of that play here http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1905131...rom-nfl-week-17

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 2, 2014 -> 11:26 AM) If he thought they were in a zone then wouldn't he have expected he had help over the top if Cobb kept going? The safety is usually the "help over the top" though, unless Wright was supposed to cover either side of the field

I think you run into the same problem you do with people trying to buy more environmentally conscious products or any other social-cause driven purchasing. I might be able to afford to spend a few extra dollars on the fancy free range chicken or grass-fed beef, but many more people can't. People shop at Walmart because it's cheap and its what they can afford, even if it's all part of a horrible self-damaging cycle (offshoring->stagnant or falling domestic wages->consumers driven to find ever-cheaper prices because of restrictive budgets->more offshoring->more falling wages etc.) You'd be placing an awful lot of burden on consumers, a burden most consumers won't undertake. You'll get some more affluent shoppers who will follow that sort of information, but I don't see it making that much of a difference now. I think the biggest hurdle is that thanks to industrialization and globalization, we are so far removed from the production of the goods we consume that it's all "out of sight and out of mind." We don't see the deplorable conditions in clothing factories, we don't really see how sausage literally gets made, we don't see the precious metal mines and the pollution rampant in China. Economic impacts are even more abstract, so even if its directly impacting your community, it's not exactly easy to see how or why. And then we still get back to the problem of people having to choose some social goal over their own budget/family. The mom shopping for her family of five might like the idea of that free range chicken that's produced by an employee-owned co-operative that provides good jobs to some people in her community, but Perdue's $3.99 a pound and that stuff is $8.99. Without getting too deep into it, you're ultimately trying to push back against the essential nature of capitalism here. You need to do one hell of a good job convincing people to put social conscious above personal budget in order to have any sort of counterbalance to global capital and the pressure to seek ever-larger profits and personal fortunes.

Glad to see Jennings coming back, but I'd be surprised if Tillman resigned.

No, that strain of Ayn Rand-style sociopathy runs pretty strongly through a lot of libertarianism.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 1, 2014 -> 01:06 PM) That's a rather strange argument, but it is essentially what conservatism is. Resisting change not out of some empirical or systematic line of reasoning, but out of fear of disrupting the status quo. The devil I know is better than the one I don't. Reactionary.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Dec 30, 2013 -> 10:21 AM) The unnecessary roughness call was fine. If you think that you can just pile on a QB after the play is over, in this modern NFL, you haven't been paying attention. The NFL protects QB's to the max and I am fine with that. No one wants to watch a league full of Jason Campbell and Matt Flynn. that wasn't a pile-on

So they're a bunch of evil murders full of hate constantly inventing new forms of evil, but it's absurd to think he'd support criminalizing lgbt and it's just as likely that he supports marriage equality.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Dec 30, 2013 -> 08:56 AM) OK, criminalized was the wrong word. The Texas anti-sodomy law you threw back in my face had a fine as the penalty. Not exactly the "throwing them in jail" attitude you were attributing to Mr. Robertson. Oh just a fine for their criminal behavior, no big deal. What about the people that have been arrested for attempting to obtain a marriage certificate?

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Dec 30, 2013 -> 08:31 AM) Millions and millions of people think that homosexuality is a huge moral problem, and I have never heard a single one say that it should be criminalized. Like I said, that is complete, made up bulls***. Do I need to find links to stories of gay couples being arrested when they try to obtain marriage certificates? Are you aware that, until the Lawrence decision about ten years ago, it was criminal in many places to engage in sodomy, essentially criminalizing any same-sex sex activity? Are you aware that the republican candidate for governor in Virginia proposed reinstating the state ban on sodomy and defending it up to the supreme court? Are you aware of how many states have constitutional bans of ssm? spare us the tired defenses of bigotry.

Okay this from him is just straight-up creepy http://egbertowillies.com/2013/12/29/duck-...il-robertson-2/ Marry them when they're fifteen or sixteen

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Dec 29, 2013 -> 07:36 PM) There's some crazy for you. Look I still don't care but my sympathy for him is a little drained. The thing is his horrible beliefs were really apparent when he compared lgbt to bestiality, not to mention the other crap he said. There never was any plausible deniability, but this old video makes it perfectly clear at least.

QUOTE (Jake @ Dec 29, 2013 -> 08:16 PM) All of those excuses were true -- that's why they were/are convincing excuses. The lines were pretty bad, the coaching was questionable, and this year's defense is really f***ing bad. It devolved into a thing that may be one of the worst defenses in recent NFL history. There indeed was a time where Earl Bennett was a breath of fresh air as our best WR, which was emblematic of the crap we ran out there at that position. Unfortunately, Jay has never played past those things. This has easily been Jay's best year as a Bear, as it should have been with literally everything going for him. He has the best WR tandem in football, an easy top 5 RB, a revamped line, a true weapon at TE, and a brilliant offensive coordinator. We usually lose because of the defense. McCown was important this year. He showed how simply being semi-accurate, tough, and on top of the mental side of the offense was enough to guide such a talented team to some great offensive production. Maybe it wouldn't overcome the defense, but what do you expect with a journeyman QB? Cutler can do all kinds of stuff that McCown can't and often does those things, but the mental side of Cutler's game looks like a rookie's up against McCown's with all this talent around. If I'm going to go with the expensive QB, I want it to be the guy that at least sometimes will overcome this adversity. Any ol' McCown off the street can win the games the opposing team gives to you. If we're going to go for the big name, big paycheck guy, what I want is a guy who has some history of being so good that he often overcomes all the other bulls***. Today's game could easily, in a vacuum, look like an accumulation of luck for Aaron Rodgers. Over time, though, it seems rather expectable that things would go the way of Aaron Rodgers because he is great and it just doesn't matter that his defenses and offensive lines usually suck. This is a good post.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 29, 2013 -> 08:01 PM) Let's not forget too that another franchise was willing to trade the guy, despite his elite talent. You realize you're trying to enlist the wisdom of Josh McDaniels in favor of your own argument? Edit realize several other people pointed this out already

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 29, 2013 -> 07:58 PM) Great, so your statement was stupid and your repeated arguments in support were equally stupid. I agree. Even if you had couched that though I still would not have agreed. That's a simple, basic football play. 8th graders learn to never give up on a play until the whistle blows. You don't have to have a culture of getting after the ball to know that as a professional football player. My statement was fine for everyone else, including multiple people who said the same thing. I'm sorry you don't think coaching matters and are so bad at watching a football game that you can't see the difference between how they played under lovie. Edit; to expand a bit, do you think coaching makes no difference between for player discipline, unsportsmanlike penalties, pre-snap penalties, you know since they're taught from the age of 12 not to commit penalties so coaching couldn't possibly matter there.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 29, 2013 -> 07:41 PM) how else do you interpret this sentence? Probably not as a literal statement of fact since its a counterfactual, but if that's all that is driving your silly posts on that topic I'll admit to being imprecise in my wording on that post.