SoTier

The FBI doesn't have enough active terrorists for their list that they have to list one who was last active almost fifty years ago? Assata Shakur is a 73-year-old former BLA member who was convicted as an accomplice in the killing of a NJ state trooper in a shoot out in 1973. She escaped from prison and was given political asylum in Cuba in 1984, where she has been ever since.

Maybe that's true, but It undoubtedly takes one to support one.

Oh, you mean, like the mainstream media pointing out Trump's lies?

The point is that Republicans have been losing ground among voters in Orange County over several years and election cycles because of changes in the population, so there's nothing "surprising" about the Congressional election results. Historically, mid-term elections frequently result in Congressional losses for the party of the sitting president.

How exactly can Orange County be both "Orange County" and "the county & surrounding areas" at the same time??? More to the point than your geographically-impaired thinking, there's nothing "miraculous" about Orange County's voting Democratic in 2018. It's called changing demographics. The Republicans went from having a 10% advantage over Democrats among registered voters in 2013 to only a 1% advantage among registered voters in 2019. At the same time, the number of non-aligned voters increased to more than 27% of registered voters. That makes the electorate in the county much less predictable. In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first Democrat presidential candidate since 1936 to win the county, so there's nothing surprising about the Democrats taking the three Congressional seats in 2018.

Trump doesn't need the media to show him in a bad light. He does that all by himself every time he tweets.

The military and the country it protects are not synonymous. The national anthem, like the flag, is simply a symbol of the country while the military is an institution subservient to the country. The military does not make policy, although its members are too frequently expected to sacrifice for those policies it has no voice in making. What is disrespectful of the military is presidents sending American soldiers/sailors/flyers into harm's way in pursuit of questionable objectives stemming from short-sighted or foolish policies, not individuals expressing their dissatisfaction with their country during the playing of the national anthem. More importantly, "freedom" rings very hollow if people aren't free to express their dissatisfaction with the conditions in the country or the current government's actions. The anthem has NEVER been apolitical as it represents the country which is a political entity.

If you want to have a sanitized NFL playing in a vacuum where "the outside world" doesn't intrude, I suggest Madden. The NFL is made up of people, and people can't divorce themselves from their experiences or from what happens in the world. Deal with it. This applies as much today as it did 394 years ago ... "No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any many of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." John Donne, 1624

I don't think that anybody gives "homage" to OJ for the last quarter century. I think that many like myself don't take pride in the greatest player to ever wear a Bills uniform because he so tarnished his legacy by his later actions.

This is simply untrue. The only groups that have been shown to trying to inflame a "race war" have been some white supremacist groups, which are part of "the Right" not "the Left". Moreover, who made you an expert on what the "majority of America" thinks about anything?

OJ isn't the first ex-husband/boyfriend to kill his ex. In fact, it's so common that ex-husbands/boyfriends frequently top the list of suspects whenever a woman is murdered or disappears under mysterious circumstances. From my memory of the well publicized murder trial, there was never any testimony by anyone claiming that OJ displayed erratic behavior that might, in hindsight, be considered symptomatic of CTE. He did demonstrate anger and a willingness to threaten his ex wife.

What these two posters said. He''s in the HOF and he's on the Wall. Leave it be.

Jameis Winston threw for the infamous 30/30 ... 30 TDs and 30 INTs, including IIRC, enough pick sixes to approach, tie or break the NFL season record. That's not "mediocre". That's terrible. Even average QBs are expected to throw more TDs than INTs. I don't think Jacoby Brissett is listed behind Phillip Rivers because he's black. I think the Colts don't think he's quite good enough. I think they also believe that they're a better QB from being a SB contender, so they're willing to see if Rivers has something left in the tank. I personally would have preferred Dalton to Rivers, but Dalton was still with the Bengals when the Colts signed Rivers. That's nice, but your original parameters conveniently left out black QBs like Tyrod Taylor and Teddy Bridgewater, both of whom will will likely be starters for their teams on opening day. That's kind of the old "skew the params" so that my data will support what I want to prove. Your premise -- that it's harder for black QBs to get and keep starting gigs than white ones -- is probably correct but your numbers don't prove it. More importantly, Jameis Winston isn't the only starting QB from his draft class to get kicked to the curb last season. Marcus Mariota also lost his starting job. In both cases, maybe their teams should have sent them packing sooner because neither has been more than barely competent as starters, but teams don't like to give up on QBs they drafted high. When it came time to shell out big bucks for either, they were both cut loose -- as was Blake Bortles, another below average starter, at the end of his rookie contract.

There are "bad opinions" for which there is no middle ground because they are simply wrong. Maybe they were "okay opinions" or "popular opinions" fifty or one hundred years ago but times change, and societal standards change. Racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and homophobia are among the opinions that are no longer acceptable in the general American society in 2020 although shrinking segments of society still hold them. Holding those opinions is your own business, but if you express them or act on them, then you will offend a lot of people and catch hell for it. Hopefully, George Floyd's death will be instrumental in adding the idea that police brutality is okay -- not just against black and brown men but against every person in the US -- to the list of proscribed opinions.

My 2020 garden update. Several weeks ago, I turned a short piece of plastic sewer pipe, about 2' diameter by 1' high into a raised bed in which I planted lettuce, radishes and spinach. Because of the cold weather, the seeds were slow to germinate and then grow, but they've taken off now. It's time to sow some more lettuce in it. I dug out the lemon balm and catnip from my herb garden, planted the lemon balm along the outside of the herb garden so that it will form a boundary, and divided up the catnip into 1 large and 2 small clumps that I potted up. The big one I will replant in my garden and give the other two away. I left the chives, garlic and some onions that apparently resowed. I filled the rest of the bed with extra soil to raise it up, and planted 5 Ozark Beauty strawberry plants. I put in 4 Romaine lettuce seedlings among the strawberries because they will be done before the berries send out runners. I rototilled existing garden space plus the areas where I planned to expand. Then I built the raised beds from the 3 yards of garden soil I purchased (at least half of which still remains). I have one bed that's two feet wide and 25 feet long and about 4 inches higher than the existing garden. The second bed is about 21 feet long. In one irregular corner, I put in a bed against the fence. Along the south side of the garden is a 4 foot by about 15 feet raised bed that I'm building up with more soil as I plant seeds and seedlings. I have a drainage area right along the garage which is still a work in progress plus an entrance area from last year that's covered with landscape fabric and wood chips. The paths between the two long beds and the shorter wider bed are wide enough to fit my garden cart. So far, I've planted 21 tomatoes, 4 eggplants, 2 zucchinis, and a small area of yellow and red onions. I still have a few red onion sets to plant plus 4 celery and 4 parsley plants. I still have room for green beans,carrots, basil, and dill. I made the main garden, the currant patch, and the herb garden/strawberry patch dog proof with a two foot high wire fencing because my dog Gibbs gets inspired to digging out plants by watching me digging and weeding. While Gibbs could easily jump the fence, he isn't even interested in the area unless I'm in it. It should keep out any stray bunnies or woodchucks that come into the yard, too. I currently have 2 makeshift wire gates. Earlier in the spring, I built a raised bench along the fence in a sheltered area behind my garage. It's about 12 feet by about 3 feet. I planted 10 asparagus roots there and some peas, but those don't seem to be likely to sprout. I think I should have just spent the money to get actually started plants but I was cheap. The area in front of this would-be asparagus patch is going to grow okra after I build the raised bed for it. Okra needs really warm soil to germinate, so I will plant that some time after June 1.

I saw two once thirty plus years ago at my late father's. They apparently came out of the woods to feast on the ripe grapes in his vineyard near the house.

Why not? Andrew Luck was a superstar on the Colts even as a rookie even though he had limited offensive talent around him -- and not very good coaching -- until the Colts brought in a new regime and hired Reich as their HC. I don't think that Mahomes would have the numbers that he has in KC but I think his talent would be apparent to all. The major difference between the Bills and the Pats of the last 10 years was team philosophy. The Pats were dedicated to winning football games. The Bills were dedicated to enhancing their bottom line until the day Russ Brandon was fired in 2018. Under Brandon, who took over the team in 2006, they hired poor/mediocre HCs or first time NFL HCs with the exception of Pegula being conned by Rex Ryan, traded away or didn't resign the best of the young talent they acquired (how about letting 3 All Pros go between 2009 and 2017 -- Jason Peters, Marshawn Lynch, and Stephon Gilmore?), and made "splash" FA signings intended to put butts in the seats rather than help the team win -- most egregious being the signing of Terrell Owens for Dick Jauron's lame duck season in 2009?

The Diggs trade was a good move because of the Bills need for a true #1 WR for this season. They simply couldn't afford to wait 2 or 3 years for a WR drafted in 2019 to develop -- if he ever did -- when they need to decide by 2021 whether they'll pick up Allen's fifth year contract, and they can't judge him accurately if he's short on quality targets. One of the big problems last season was that Allen only had 2 reliable receivers: Beasley and Brown.

I think that your point is invalid. Some teams like the Chiefs, Eagles, and Ravens consistently find top players in the draft and seldom waste their first round picks, and when they have the opportunity to a special player, they go for it. Other teams, including the Bills but also teams like the Browns, until very recently seem to always pick the wrong guy. The evidence that you've offered is "cherry picked". First of all, using a single draft class proves nothing. Some drafts have more top end talent than other draft classes, and some classes are just down right putrid. Somewhere on line some writer posted a list of worst draft classes from over the decades. Conversely, some drafts are loaded with talented players, sometimes at one position and other times at several positions. Over several decades of draft classes, it's rather clear that players taken in the top five or the top ten of any draft are much more likely to have success in the NFL than players drafted later ... and it's rare that late round picks become NFL stars. I would also argue that the decision to pick up a fifth year option is not necessarily an indicator of whether or not a player has lived up to where he was drafted, especially on teams that have undergone a regime change or at positions that aren't highly valued, such as running back. I find it interesting that you selected the top six picks from 2017 rather than the top five or the top ten. In that same draft, the 6th through 10th picks were ... 1.7 Mike Williams WR Chargers 1.8 Christian McCaffrey RB Panthers 1.9 John Ross WR Bengals 1.10 Patrick Mahomes QB Chiefs Mahomes and McCaffrey are both great. In fact, Mahomes seems likely to be a generational talent if he stays healthy. Stephon Diggs was injured in both his sophomore and junior seasons in college but still decided to declare for the draft. Those injuries impacted his draft rating.

I am unwilling to blame Daboll for the Bills poor offense in 2018 and 2019 because of the dearth of offensive talent that has been a problem all through McDermott's tenure. In 2018, the Bills simply didn't have NFL caliber offensive talent. The handling of Allen by the Bills n 2018 was reprehensible -- and it was decisions by McDermott, Beane, and probably others higher up the corporate food chain that resulted in the Bills starting the season with Nathan Peterman under center and with non-NFL caliber OL and receivers. When Allen got hurt, the Bills brass failed to bring in a competent veteran QB for a month! Moreover, the Bills supposed QB coach hadn't actually coached QBs in 30+ years. When Beane corrected all three of those serious deficits in 2019, including bringing in almost all new offensive assistants, the team improved significantly. They were still thin on talent but at least the starters were generally better than waiver wire refugees. With the continued development of current offensive players and the 2020 additions, the Bills finally have enough talent to enable Daboll to be judged fairly. I don't think that the Bills offense will ever resemble the Chiefs' offense but that's again on the FO and HC not the OC.

My statement was "millions of people died from starvation, domestic violence, addiction, suicide, disease, crime, etc.", and I think that that's accurate over the span of what is generally considered "the Great Depression" by historians as starting in late 1929 and lasting until at least through 1939 when an increase in defense spending finally brought real recovery. Tapia Garandos' 1930-1933 time span for the Great Depression is ahistorical and seems to have been used to make the data fit his thesis: if the period between 1934 and 1937 is considered a recovery like the one after 1921, then the period between 1930-1933 can be considered similar. Historians, however, estimate that unemployment between 1930 and 1939 never fell below about 20% (actual unemployment statistics weren't tracked or calculated at the time). Moreover, some of the causes of death that I mentioned like disease -- there was an increase in the incidence of tuberculosis during the 1930s -- don't necessarily happen quickly, and other causes, like domestic violence, weren't tracked.

This. I could see the Ravens, Steelers, and Browns all making the play offs -- although they might all lower their win totals if they take turns beating one another.

Today there's a tendency to romanticize the Great Depression and find many positives that stemmed from it, but millions of people died from starvation, domestic violence, addiction, suicide, disease, crime, etc. It was a horrific experience for anybody who lived through it, and it scarred them forever. For example, the extreme poverty many people experienced during the Depression turned many survivors into hoarders. My father never, ever threw anything out. My step-mother was just as bad. They even saved used plastic bread bags to wrap things in rather than throwing them out even when they had collected so many that they could never use them all. I don't buy the narrative that surviving the Great Depression enabled the American people to persevere through WW II. It's a nice story but in reality the American people were very reluctant to commit to even helping Great Britain against the Nazi much less to actually going to war because so many were so disillusioned by their experience in WW I. The attack on Pearl Harbor galvanized sentiment against Japan, but there wouldn't have been support for war against Germany if Hitler hadn't declared war on the US on December 11, 1941. I suspect that the American people's response to WW II would have been exactly the same if the Great Depression had never occurred. Mental health is more than just death from suicide. As others have mentioned, PTSD is likely to be a permanent part of millions of people's lives because of the pandemic. There's been a significant rise in domestic violence reports and opioid deaths are also manifestations of how the isolation during the pandemic is impacting people's mental health. I expect there probably has been increases in child abuse incidents as well.

A bit "territorial"? Ounce for ounce, nuthatches are bigger bullies than bluejays! They're better behaved these days when they occasionally visit my feeders but when I still had my old ash tree along the driveway (it was suffering from ash die-back and had to be removed), they included both the tree and the feeder station within their "turf" and would fearlessly run off other birds, even some larger than themselves.

How can anybody be arrested for "unlawful carrying a firearm" in Texas? Isn't that one of those states that allow carrying concealed weapons?