Jenksismyhero

Good decision! Lots of history analysis there. Soxbadger and Balta, this part responds to a lot of what your arguments have been:

Homeland from last Sunday was much better than the week before, but man has this show fallen. Acting is still great, and a few scenes are still pretty awesome (Brody/Jessica in the car, anything with Sal, Carrie/Roya interrogation) but the implausibility is just ridiculous now. No debrief of Carrie!? The FBI search team getting separated? Carrie lying about what happened to Walden? We're supposed to believe this? I think the writers bit off more than they could chew this year. This season should have been split into two, with the reveal about Brody's video not coming out until mid-season or later.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 09:12 AM) At this point, a collapse is not making the tourney IMO. 9-9 might not look pretty after their hot start, but the Big Ten is f***ing tough this year. And since Illinois depends on the 3 point shot so much, there always has to be worries that you go cold in one of those "guaranteed" wins and don't pull it out. They've played 10 games in a variety of different environments and still hit those shots. Yes, they might have a night where everyone can't hit a shot, but I think that would be abnormal given the amount of shooters they have. Paul, Abrams and Bertrand can also drive the ball, as they showed against Gonzaga. They didn't do that as much last year. I dunno, i'm less worried about the offense going cold and more concerned with the bigs getting into foul trouble. If Few had a brain in that Gonzaga game he would have thrown the ball inside on every possession in the 2nd half. Illinois couldn't contain their bigs at all and the top 3 big guys should have been on the bench with about 10 minutes to play.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 01:49 PM) AFAIK there's nothing corroborating the idea that torture was crucial and necessary and several sources discrediting that claim. You cited one blog referencing earlier statements made by 2 senators and Panetta. Those statements, btw, don't say whether other sources (tortured inmates) corroborated the information their source gave them. It's hardly as definitive as you're making it out to be.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 01:27 PM) Disappointed to hear that Zero Dark Thirty perpetuates the awful lie that torture was critical to finding Bin Laden. Meh, I think Panetta has just as much of a reason to lie about how they got that information than the chief torturer with a book deal. Ditto the Senators. I'd imagine they were all anti-torture people during that whole water boarding debate, so to have some kind of claim that advanced techniques actually worked to find Bin Laden wouldn't be something they want out there. And its also possible that there was more than one source of that information and that both parties are semi-right.

I think i'm going to try the home-fix first. Probably won't work, but worth a shot.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Dec 8, 2012 -> 11:26 PM) Aaaaaaaaand we're a top 10 team. We won't end that way, but I don't give a f***. We completely deserve to be there right now. There's your "Illinois hasn't beaten anyone" win. No way I thought we'd win this game, completely set up for a loss. 12 point dogs. This team is for real. Thoroughly satisfied. +1

QUOTE (fathom @ Dec 8, 2012 -> 11:26 PM) Duke over Louisville on neutral court Without their star center?

Wow, bp3! The most impressive player in the big ten so far this year.

Tough call there, just being physical, but you have to be smart. Stupid foul

QUOTE (chw42 @ Dec 8, 2012 -> 11:05 PM) They have a huge size advantage on the inside yet they're doing almost everything they can not to take high percentage shots on the inside. And foul trouble 3 minutes into the 2nd half

Mark Few, what are you doing? Does he not know the huge advantage he has?

Mother f***er. Got the yellow light on a 60gb PS3. Anyone have this problem before? I see there are a ton of do-it-yourself fixes out there, wonder if they work. I was up late on Green Bay in the conference finals too

I'll miss those guys. What classic TV work:

QUOTE (flippedoutpunk @ Dec 6, 2012 -> 05:28 PM) Me Me too. Still do.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Dec 3, 2012 -> 03:59 PM) Not to be a stickler, but you can get a well equipped Sonata for around that price because of their rebates. The $1500 rebate basically pays for the sales tax and fees. You're still starting at a base of 21k.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Dec 5, 2012 -> 06:37 PM) Frankly... when you combine the law along with your nonchalant hand-waving of every concern, which is a pretty neat microcosm of everyone else's reaction too (just pick any 3 posts you've made in this thread as an example) then that is the logical outcome Unless the "reasonable person" standard becomes "it's reasonable to assume all black people mean to do you great bodily harm," then no, that's not the law.

Isn't there a video of it too? I heard the parts of the interview with the photographer (or maybe a different guy taking video) and his excuse was that he wouldnt have been able to pull the guy up anyway. At first I thought it was disturbing that he didn't even try to help, but the more I thought about it the more I'm not sure what I would do in a split second moment like that. Charging him with anything would be ridiculous.

I'm not dismissing racism as if it doesn't exist. I'm saying that Jackson and Sharpton are rabble-rousers because they fly all over the country any time any race issue comes out and the first thing the scream on their soap box is "damn whites, this is racist!" So, we ignore the fact that 7 idiotic assholes started a riot, and instead tear a community apart over why white people in Decatur hate black people.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 4, 2012 -> 07:51 PM) The state of Florida has decided that a person intimidated by scary looking (blackity black black) teenagers at a gas station has every right to defend himself as long as a reasonable person would also be intimidated by those people. Oh stop, that's not the law.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 4, 2012 -> 04:16 PM) Rainbow PUSH, theNAACP and the BCC are not "rabble-rousers and nothing more." Reading the quick wiki, the school had expelled them for two years. That is an injustice and a terrible policy. Zero-tolerance, three-strike laws, etc. are dumb and disproportionately affect minorities. Reading through this article, it sure seems like the school administrators did their share of "rabble-rousing" as well, with dubious gang accusations and releasing school records to the public. A ten-year look-back on the incident notes this: Those kids deserved to be punished like that. That wiki article explains they were s***ty students before this event, the zero tolerance policy was enacted BEFORE the fight, and Jackson made it a racial thing when it was simply stupid kids getting a much deserved punishment. I remember watching the video - which was the end of the fight - and they literally were in the stands punching and kicking without regard for anyone. Edit: and pointing to the fact that more blacks were expelled than whites doesn't really prove there's racial bias. How do you know it wasn't justified based on each specific case?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 4, 2012 -> 05:49 PM) Yep...very entertaining. My issue with it - and it's a common complaint with most History channel specials like this - is that they throw in awful commentators. Why the hell is Brian Williams telling me about the greatness of the human race? Or some writer who wrote a book about fighting? Or Donald Trump (in the Men Who Built America series)? These specials have such good production values I'd much rather they fill that talking time with professors and scientists who aren't just spewing out a bunch of BS.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 4, 2012 -> 11:07 AM) Yeah but there's a lot of racism on the part of the white man out there. The way I phrased it was unintentionally snarky, but I honestly would recommend reading someone like TNC to at least understand where social-justice types are coming from. Because nobody, not JJ or Sharpton, especially not the BCC or NAACP are calling each and every action taken by a white man racist. That's just a silly dodge to avoid discussing or understanding racism and racist attitudes and actions or why others might perceive something as racial even if you don't. Your dismissal of them doing that crap doesn't help either. At this point those people are rabble-rousers and nothing more. I remember when I was in high school 6-7 black kids went to a high school football game and started a brawl in Decatur. The school expelled them (as they should have). Jackson went down with his coalition, screaming racism and injustice. It shut the school down for a few days, became a huge thing, and he bullied the school into putting the kids into alternative school instead. They were a bunch of dickheads that deserved to be expelled, but they were black so the punishment was immediately too harsh and wrong. That was my first exposure to Jackson being the problem with racism, not the solution.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 4, 2012 -> 09:53 AM) It's not that he shot them "because they were black." It's that it's a reasonable conclusion that he went to tell some 'thugs' to turn their 'music' down while armed with a gun and, due to his prejudices, interpreted something they did as a threat against his life worthy of shooting a teenager to death over. If you check that article or others and look at the comments (which Y2HH wisely advises you not to!), you'll see people who support the shooter with a similar interpretation of the likely events. I'll readily admit that I'm making some assumptions here and judging it in a harsh light. Racism isn't just guys in hoods lynching people, though. It's not explicitly thinking "man, I hate me some n*****s." It's attitudes and prejudices and judgments and beliefs ranging from disgustingly, openly racist to low-level soft bigotry in the way things are perceived or told. It doesn't take a huge leap, imo, to come to the conclusion that a middle-aged Florida white guy who felt the right to tell a bunch of black teens he parked next to to turn their music down and who eventually shot at and killed one of them had some underlying racist beliefs. That doesn't make him someone who goes to klan rallies or posts at StormFront, but it doesn't mean there's not a racial aspect. Who knows, maybe he tells a bunch of white kids blasting Brad Paisley to turn their music down, too, and is armed when he does so. Yet it's abhorrent for Zimmerman to think that Martin was up to no good? GMAB. You can't have it both ways. It's either acceptable to stereotype or it's not.