StrangeSox

That right isn't enumerated in the Constitution. I don't know if it's part of the history of natural rights philosophy, but I would doubt that.

I'm going to link to TNC again because I think he made a good point about the escalation that carrying a weapon invites:

yeah but you set yourself up for that one.

But you have a defined right to keep and bear arms. Not so for "avoiding people who are keeping and bearing arms."

Big butts on black women are a stereotype. think of an asian impression with buck teeth--are asians the only people with buck teeth? Of course not, but it's still playing into a racial stereotype. I thought the referenced articles/quotes did a decent job of explaining what some find offensive about it. it's more of a cultural issue with racial and sexual stereotypes than "omg! she's racist!" imo. I don't expect Jackson or Sharpton to comment on this issue but I appreciate you caricaturing your own position!

Posner addresses #2 and #3 in his opinion. Essentially, avoiding places where guns are banned, when the bans are limited, does not present a substantial burden. Most people can generally avoid those places. Not so when they're banned everywhere but your own house.

well s***

Majority on divided three-judge Seventh Circuit panel invalidates under the Second Amendment an Illinois law forbidding most people from carrying a loaded gun in public:

A pretty good breakdown of exactly how awful, both in terms of politics and policy, the idea of raising the medicare age is: http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpres...-isnt-harmless/

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 10:13 AM) ESPN, and, not sure if you are aware, but it's 2 week playoff rounds, 2 each. I hate them. I am the #1 team in my league, scored the most points and tied for the best record, and because I had one bad week and my opponent had one good week, I'm screwed and I have to hope for 2 more good weeks to end the season just for 3rd place and make my money back In fantasy, the top 6 should make it. #1 and #2 should get a bye, #3 and #6 should play, #4 and #5 should play; quarters are 1 week, semis are 1 week, championship is 2 weeks. That's how my yahoo league works. I had a bye this week, and I'm re-seeded against the lowest seed next week. Championship is only one week, though.

Bettman has to be the worst commissioner in sports, right?

OTOH Congress in 2012 shouldn't and can't tie the hands of Congress in 2022.

This Is Not Wisconsin. It's Worse. If union adversaries can pass a right-to-work law in the home of the once-powerful United Auto Workers, they can pretty much do it anywhere.

I'm significantly to the left that I don't regularly identify as a Democrat, but they are the major party closest to my positions.

Grew up with a radical leftist friend and was into the punk/skating scene in early high school. That, plus the Iraq war and spending years arguing with uber-conservatives on another message board helped form what I was not for, at least. I've continued to move further leftward over the past four years.

This was impossible to predict:

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 03:19 PM) The thing that ought to surprise is that the Bears O is performing basically as bad as it did the last 2 seasons...despite having Marshall, Jeffrey, Carimi, and Bush. If nothing else, I'll take it back...the Bears additions to the O-line last year weren't enough, and they should have spent money there, even if it meant not getting Marshall. Imagine how terrible that receiving core would have looked with Marshall the last few games. Without him, the offense would be epicly bad.

QUOTE (Jake @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 03:18 PM) OL is all about value picks. Not taking one in round 1 doesn't necessarily bother me, you can get special players at various positions there. This is just predicated on being able to get 5 year starters on the OL in rounds 3-7. I sure wouldn't mind getting Te'O this year. There were six linemen taken between McClellin and Jeffery that are now starting. Would have been nice to trade down and pick one of them up.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 03:16 PM) I think I had that exact post a year ago, and then what did we do? can we get a TE in there?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 03:11 PM) Lotta details just to remind about...don't forget when comparing to 2011 that the Bears had Caleb Hanie and no Forte for 1/3 of the season, so they weren't exactly a scoring machine in 2011 that deserves positive comparisons. And yeah, any time you compare total TD's, you run into that serious problem of the Bears scoring D and Special Teams, so you need to go to the next level of comparing running and passing TD's. The Bears are 18th in the league in passing TD's and tied for 17th in Running. In 2011, they were 24th and 21st. In 2010, they were 20th and 21st. They might be slightly, slightly better this year relative to the rest of the league...but that's a very small upgrade if at all. Again I'm not saying that the Bears are better than under Martz, I'm saying that they're no worse and that wishing for Martz to come back is baffling to me.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 02:58 PM) Above average by what metric? 14th in the league in points per game, which as you said is extremely inflated by the TDs the defense has scored. In yards per game, they are the 28th ranked offense. Sounds below average to me. Rzza was replying to a post where I pointed out that we were dead-average (2011) or a little below-average (2010) under Martz if you measure by pts/game. We are 28th in yds/game this year, were 24th last year and 30th in 2010. I'm not saying our offense is good, but I don't get the pining for Martz. We're one rushing TD from matching our offensive output in 2010 and one rushing and five passing TD's from matching 2011. we also had plenty of TO's created by the D over the last two years, they just weren't scoring on as many of them. You'd need to spend a lot of time to find out the resulting field position etc., but when the D scores that takes away opportunities and field position from the O. Nothing wrong with that from a team perspective but something to consider if you're comparing offensive output across years.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 02:53 PM) But we NEEDED Shea McAsshat to run by the QB over and over till he gets hurt. At least we didn't have to suffer false hopes after Jerry left for long

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 02:43 PM) I'll take an average offense now, aren't we ranked near the very bottom this year? We're above-average right now, though that's somewhat inflated by 8 defensive & special teams TD's. Still, we have 9 rushing TD's and 18 passing TD's so far this year. All of last year, we had 10 and 18. In 2010, it was 10 & 23.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 02:36 PM) I would be terrified if Ted Thompson was asking his o-line coach who to draft. They may have some input, but there are full time scouts watching these players. The Bears haven't exactly done much o-line drafting since Tice has been here, anyway. They drafted Webb in 2010, but Tice had only been there a few months at that point and he was a 7th round pick. They drafted Carimi last year, who is inexplicably playing poorly at RT. They drafted no o-line this year.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 02:24 PM) I think our offense looked much crisper under Martz. Maybe someone could find the stats to prove my point, I'm in a bit of a rush right now, but at least Jays individual statistics bear this out. And for all of Tice's talk of protecting the QB he has not been able to do it any better than Martz did. He's got 31 sacks now. Last year at 7-3 Jay was sacked 21 times. They were average/below-average in points/game* under Martz and towards the bottom in yards/game. *that includes defensive and special teams points, which were 4 TD's in 2011 and 10 TD's in 2010.