Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 29, 2015 -> 03:44 PM) But that isnt the reality. Its important to know what the President thinks because he can do things like "veto" legislation, he can tell the AG how to enforce policy, etc. It would be like saying asking about marijuana legalization is a stupid question because it should be up the legislature. And really, isnt the more terrifying part that the idea of limited federal govt is pretty much dead? And really thats a huge problem. It seems no one even cares about state/federal rights, unless its in their favor. 100% agree on that.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 29, 2015 -> 12:51 PM) Why is the legal definition of a multibillion dollar gambling business a joke? They just found out that employees of these companies are basically using insider information to game the system, this is not a joke. You want to know why Christie wants it to be thought of as a joke? Because of the gambling in his state. It's a joke because the PRESIDENT shouldn't be concerning himself over a relatively small problem like daily fantasy sports. That's why we have state governments and federal departments and, I dunno, f***ing Congress that investigates and legislates these sorts of issues. This is precisely why our system is so f***ed up. We expect this one person to magically solve all the world's problems. He's one f***ing guy. And 99% of the time, he doesn't do s*** to effectuate change. He's a poster boy. He gives speeches. I'd vote for the next candidate that says "i'm going to step back and let Congress decide wtf to do in this country. I'll worry about how we look and how we interact with our allies. Everything else i'll just help enforce."

They asked a question about fantasy football? WTF?

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 10:00 PM) Denver beat Houston by 19??! Wow No Dwight helped.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 02:16 PM) http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/28/politics/loo...rad-east-coast/ They need to act fast in order to prvent a tragic accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day. Two jets were sent out to keep track of a balloon? Makes sense.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 02:02 PM) If racial minorities were hypothetically perfect and committed no violations, infractions or crimes, no. In the real world, they get targeted for enforcement more frequently and punished more harshly for the same violations/crimes. Again, law/rule breaking is something that can't be controlled apparently. I know I have a huge problem with it on a daily basis.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 01:57 PM) This puts the blame for institutional racism on the victims of institutional racism. True or false, if the crimes didn't occur, would we have the statistics we have?

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 01:53 PM) Except the crime being committed(shoplifting) or rule being broken(talking on phone) are pretty minor. The action by the police is not. It one case they killed someone and in the other they physically attacked someone. Police have rules and laws to follow as well. Just because someone is committing a crime doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want to them. No one is saying that.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 01:35 PM) So if you commit a crime, no matter how small. Shoplifting or selling cigarettes. You should be able to be killed? Seems a bit extreme. No, but the reverse isn't that we should just chalk the whole event up to racism. Why can't we acknowledge two wrongs were made? Why can't we also focus on why crime/rule breaking occurs? Again, to me, that's an easier fix than this supposed involuntarily racism that everyone has.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 01:22 PM) I think there's a difference between excuses and ensuring that the proper context surrounds a discussion. 1) People are holding Groce to an historically unrealistic standard regarding recruiting (why doesn't he land 5 star recruits!!). Groce needs to fix the point guard situation, and hopefully Lucas is that guy. But other than point guard, recruiting has been good. 2) It's important to remember that Webber and Groce inherited very different programs. Webber inherited a program loaded with experienced talent (the core of the '05 team all played a ton in Self's first year) that would ultimately be the '05 team. Despite that, Webber was not able to recruit at an acceptable level until '09. By contrast, Groce inherited a program coming off a 6-12 B1G season that lost its lottery pick center. Without that context, I don't know how you can adequately evaluate Groce as a coach right now. Webber had some bad luck (Jamar Smith, the Carlwell crash, Eric Gordon), but he also had a large enough sample size that we knew his strengths and weaknesses. Groce has 3 full years in. One with Webber's holdovers where he overachieved, one with a gutted roster (the massive outflow of transfers) that was about at expectations (bubble team that just missed the tournament), and one that fell short of expectations, partially due to factors outside Groce's control (read, injuries). I don't see how you can discuss Groce without providing context to the events during his tenure here. And that's where I acknowledge that this is a huge season for Groce. The '17 class is loaded and deep in Illinois generally, and south of I-80 specifically. As bigruss said, if Groce doesn't win this year and has a lackluster '17 recruiting class, the heat should be on. I agree with you. As to point 1, people want the one big recruit to put them over the edge. That hasn't happened yet. And yes, that's happened the last 25 years or so at Illinois. Were they always blue chip recruits? No, but they were very, very good, program leading recruits. Deon Thomas, Kiwane Garris, Frank Thomas, Brian Cook, Sergio McClain, Dee Brown, etc. (notice the PG theme there). That hasn't happened yet.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 01:21 PM) Here is a tip: if you are starting your response with "obviously," stop, because you're just going to make up a bunch of stuff nobody is actually saying in order to avoid actually discussing something. Those studies do little more than place the blame on how people react to criminal/rule breaking behavior. None of it addresses the actual criminal/rule breaking behavior. Michael Brown committed a crime and attacked a cop? Who the f*** cares. He got shot by a white dude! Eric Garner was selling illegal cigarettes? And then he resisted arrest? Who the f*** cares, he was killed by a white dude! This student was breaking the rules, wouldn't listen to her teacher and then wouldn't listen to the cop who came to take her away? Who the f*** cares, she was assaulted by a white dude! Racism, racism, racism. Who cares about the fact that crime and rule breaking actually occured. Yes, pointing out the fact that minorities can be targeted in certain cities and certain neighbors for minor traffic offenses or whatever is an important thing to learn about, be wary of and fix. But guess what, fix your s***! And don't drive in a manner that gets you ticketed! And then you won't have a problem. In EXTREME situations i'm sure some of that is unavoidable and/or extremely difficult. But not in 99% of cases. 99% of cases you have someone that actually commits the wrong and then gets "excused" by being able to scream "i was unfairly targeted because of my skin color and therefore it's wrong!" Instead of focusing on why people are arrested/detained/whatever as they are, why not focus on why people feel the need to break the law/rule to begin with? Isn't that a much easier wrong to fix?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 01:06 PM) It's about how this incident fits into the larger pattern, not that this specific incident was provably racially motivated. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_pol..._of.single.html Obviously the answer is to get rid of the cops and teachers that discipline. Whatever we do, DO NOT question what the students are doing. Getting in trouble is a must. There's no way around it. Students have no choice.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 12:14 PM) Yep. Also of note, people tend to overstate past Illinois recruiting success. Jimmy Collins was the only Illinois recruiter to ever really pull top talent out of Chicago. Other than that period in the 80s (pre-probation), and the brief Self era, Illinois basketball has been successful when the talent downstate has been strong. Kruger didn't need Chicago because three straight Mr. Basketballs were south of I-80. The point here is that Illinois has never recruited well nationally, and has never consistently landed the best kids from Chicago. The expectation on Groce should be that he recruits at a high level regionally. And Groce has done that. Leron Black and JCL are recruits Illinois doesn't have a shot with historically. Memphis and Indiana are not traditional recruiting areas for the Illini. Groce deserves more credit than he gets for landing those guys. The other thing Groce doesn't get credit for is getting in very late in game on Kendrick Nunn. Webber had 0 shot at landing Nunn. Groce was able to get Nunn and establish something of a Simeon pipeline... The biggest indictment on Groce is his inability to land a PG. He mis-evaluated Ulis. It happens. Self misevaluated Andre Iguodala. No one is infallible. And then the Quentin Snider 11th hour de-commit compounded the mistake on Ulis. Finally, I think people undersell the rebuild Groce had to do. With an empty '10 class (none of those guys were around for Groce's first year), a largely empty '11 class (4 of the 6 transferred after Groce's first year and Henry was the only one who could play), and the '12 class was empty. Groce did well with the remains of the '09 class in year 1. Did well to almost make the tournament with a completely revamped roster in Year 2, and had bad luck in Year 3 (Cosby not working out, the Rice injury, the Abrams injury, the obvious chemistry issues when Rice returned). Year 4 is setting up as another down year because of injuries. I'm optimistic about the '17 class. Particularly because a lot of the talent is south of I-80. If Groce doesn't land a strong class there, it's time to worry about whether he can stick at Illinois. While I agree with you here, this sounds an awful lot like the excuses that were made for Weber the last 5 seasons. Oh well he missed on this guy, oh well this guy never panned out, oh well he had problems with this guy, etc.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 11:46 AM) You'd also have to look at how many times Mr. Long had confrontations over cell phones with white and black students, and if he ever called security on a white student. If the student was white, most would be saying that level of physicality is completely unnecessary or warranted in terms of cell phone usage in class. It would have been easier to first call the student's parent or guardian and threaten to have the daughter suspended for 3-5 days if she wouldn't surrender it. Looks like he was hoping for an excuse to escalate the situation. No, because this story would never have been reported.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 10:31 AM) It was 1 game and we didn't exactly look amazing. But there are already signs of good things, IMO. 1) No Hinrich (queue the "ha-lle-lu-jah! music) 2) We have more scoring options than Gasol, Butler and Rose. Moore gave good minutes, Niko played well, Snell hit some big shots, etc. Last year that game would have been a loss because Thibs would have shut down any attempt to run an offense in favor of defense with 4-5 minutes to go. Seemed to me that Hoiberg was the opposite - keep scoring points, and that's what they did (granted, Noah getting hurt maybe forced his hand). 3) Playing Niko and Gasol instead of Gasol and Noah gave Rose some lanes to drive through. That was encouraging. He didn't finish a lot of stuff around the rim. I think (and hope) he'll get better at finishing at the rim. 4) I like Noah off the bench. It was an energetic burst when he came in. Some bad: 1) I don't see how Gasol fits into this team. He's slow. He's a pick and pop guy, not a fluid, screen/motion guy which it seems like Hoiberg likes to play. And he looked to get winded pretty quickly. If they play at a quick pace, that might be an issue, although luckily we have a lot of front court depth. 2) Brooks. Pass the ball. 3) Bulls played good. Cavs played ok without Kyrie. And it still took the full game to win. Certainly didn't calm my fears that they'll get blasted out of the playoffs yet again by Lebron & Co.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 11:23 AM) Because if it's part of a pattern of racial disparity, it's not "Period. End of story." It's "chapter 11,487" in an ongoing saga. So again, using this logic, you yourself are a racist because 11,487 other white people have done racist things to black people. You can't take data from what 50 or 500000 individuals do and use that as evidence for what one person did or why that one persons did it. You can't make those assumptions/claims when dealing with human behavior.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 11:17 AM) Well, there's also the general evidence of racial disparity in both policing and school discipline, plus there are accusations against this particular officer from other people. But you seemed to be rejecting the notion completely, asking why we can't just go with "he's an asshole/bad cop" and not even consider the racial aspect. Racial disparity in policing and school discipline across the board isn't evidence in this particular case. "Blacks teens commit a lot of crime" isn't evidence that black teen X committed Y crime. Same with accusations. That complaint was filed against like 20 cops. For basically claiming a kid was a gang member. Not of misconduct or anything like. So yeah, I dismiss that right away as being nothing. If there's some more digging and he's done this in the past with black students but not whites, then absolutely, let's peg him for the racist he is. But I don't see it with those two pieces of evidence is all i'm saying. And that was what was first reported, from what I saw.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 11:12 AM) If you think this: is a fair interpretation of what I'm saying, either I'm communicating very poorly or you're not reading very well. YOU aren't saying this. I'm talking about how this story, and others like it, are reported and have been reported the last couple of years. CNN isn't saying "look at this racist cop!" They're saying look what this cop, who's white, did to this student, who's black. And oh yeah! He's got this complaint against him accusing him of being racist. He's got a shady past! They're purposefully making a racial component where there is no reason to. And they do it because it gets people on both sides upset. I'm asking, why can't we just report that an asshole cop went too far? Period. End of story.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 11:10 AM) It's not about pegging anyone as "a racist," and it's not even really about discrete actions being driven by consciously racist thoughts. I would bet that there's an underlying racial element here, but really I'm more pressing you on why you think we should dismiss it out of hand. We're probably pretty much all 'racist' to some extent, and that's regardless of our own racial background. There's been a lot of recent work on implicit bias. Because there's literally no evidence of that here other than he's white and she's black. So why is that an appropriate assumption or outright accusation (even if indirect) to make right off the bat?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 11:00 AM) Look at the "second angle" and tell me if your assumption that she provoked the violent assault still makes sense. She did provoke it with or without the punch. She resisted. Period. It wouldn't have been necessary if she had just gotten up like she was told before this cop ever arrived. Nothing excuses the degree to which he responded, which I said from the beginning.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 10:54 AM) That's not really how things like institutional racism work though. Plus, please stop your terrible argument style of jumping to ridiculous extremes nobody has come close to saying when you disagree with something. I'm disagreeing with your desire to dismiss the racial angle out of hand, not claiming that every case of a white cop doing something to a black person is an example of them individually being a racist. I'm not even claiming that every time a white cop does something to a black person it's an example of institutional racism, which is not the same thing as the officer "being a racist!" It's highly probable that this guy is terrible at his job. It's pretty probably that he's also an authoritarian jerk. It's also possible that he disproportionately targets minorities in his job, and I don't see why we shouldn't even consider the role that plays. How is that an extreme? That's exactly how this story is being reported. It's white cop beats black teen and oh look he's been sued for it before! Why else bring that up unless you want to stir up that fire? I'm tired of the every cop is racist and that's the only reason they do x, y and z story. Why can't we assume, firstly, that he's just an asshole and bad at his job? And then if the FACTS (not criminal accusations in a complaint) come out that he DOES target blacks, then you can come up with that angle. That's all i'm saying. You bringing up the "well studies show racism!" line means you're doing the exact same thing.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 10:54 AM) As your link clearly states, it's not clear what the sheriff is referring to, and three videos have already been released publicly. What I'm saying is that, other than the sheriff's one sentence, there's been nothing about some other video. There hasn't been any alternate series of events. Nobody has claimed that she hit him first. All you're going on is that the sheriff says there's a video that shows her punching him, and you can already see her punching his face as she's being thrown to the ground in the other videos. Since making the comment, the sheriff has also fired the deputy. I'm also asking you to explain how her hypothetically throwing the first punch could even fit in with what we see on the available videos. Throwing your hands in the air and pointing to an unspecified video the sheriff mentioned isn't making much of an argument. She could have punched him the first time he asked her to get up and then he walked away. Who knows. I think it's fair to assume if a high ranking person is making a statement about another video that needs to be looked at, that other video is going to show something different. If that's not the case, that's not the case. Citing to "institutional racism" studies alone isn't enough to peg one person as a racist or to show that one person acted a certain way because of having some racist beliefs/thoughts. By that logic we must conclude that we're all racist since there's institutional racism everywhere, right?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 10:44 AM) But he's dating a black woman so he can't be all that evil or racist. http://heavy.com/news/2015/10/ben-fields-r...deo-complaints/ You can't just intimate there is a video exonerating him and then fire the guy at the same time. Johnson said, “When I asked (their teacher) Mr. Long if he felt bad for what happened to her … his reply was ‘she should have cooperated.'” Great role model, that teacher... Maybe that's the third video there.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 10:40 AM) The videos that have been made public show her swinging at his head as he's throwing her to the ground. There's been nothing about some other video that shows anything different than what we already know. No students, no one in the police department and no one within the school is saying that she swung at him first. You're trying to downplay what the video clearly shows based on one comment from the sheriff who has since fired the deputy. The investigation appears to be over. We've got a violent, unprovoked assault on a black teen. What more info are you waiting for? Well right, fine, i'm assuming there's an importance to the sheriff saying she punched him. Again, why else say that at all? And again i'm just commenting on this "other video." I don't know what it shows. You don't know what it shows. We have two cell phone videos of the incident that are short. And what do you mean "there's been nothing about some other video." Yes there has, that link i just sent quoting the sheriff as saying there's a third video showing her punching him. I have no idea how or when that happened, i'm just responding to that report. Other than the fact he's white and she's black, what evidence do you have that this was racially motivated? edit: oh great, site a report showing how blacks are treated differently. Obviously that must mean that in every case, without exception, where a white officer does something to a black person, it must be because they're racist. It can't be that they're just bad at their jobs or bad people generally, it's because they don't like black people.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 10:32 AM) I think a reasonable person would believe that a cop slamming a student to the ground and dragging her across the floor for not immediately obeying his command is putting that student in danger of great bodily injury. What if she cracks her head open on the ground as he's throwing her around? Why would a reasonable person believe this man who just launched into an unprovoked violent assault of a teenage girl would stop once he's slammed her to the ground and dragged her around? Again, if that's your standard, and juries across the country agree with you, there will be a lot of dead cops out there. Any cop throwing an assailant on the ground will be seen as trying to cause death/great bodily harm.