ComradeKayAdams

1. Chiefs 2. Ravens 3. Bills 4. Titans 5. Patriots 6. Texans 7. Steelers 8. Browns 9. Broncos 10. Colts 11. Raiders 12. Chargers 13. Dolphins 14. Jets 15. Bengals 16. Jaguars

Whatcha got, Bills fans? I need help with mine: K (1): Hauschka P (1): Bojorquez LS (1): Ferguson QB (2): Allen, Barkley RB (4): Singletary, Moss, Yeldon, Jones FB (1): DiMarco WR (6): Diggs, Brown, Beasley, Davis, McKenzie, Roberts TE (3): Kroft, Knox, Sweeney T (4): Dawkins, Williams, Nsekhe, Ford G (3): Spain, Feliciano, Boehm C (2): Morse, Long DT (5): Oliver, Butler, Jefferson, Lotulelei, Phillips DE (5): Hughes, Epenesa, Addison, Murphy, D. Johnson LB (6): Edmunds, Milano, Klein, Thompson, Matakevich, Joseph S (4): Hyde, Poyer, Neal, J. Johnson CB (5): White, Wallace, T. Johnson, Norman, Gaines My analysis: I had to cut too much talent! I couldn't even fit the last 4 draft picks (Fromm, Bass, Hodgins, Jackson) on the final 53, and it's probably not safe to store any of them on the practice squad. Wade and Foster also have too much natural talent to leave off the roster. My conclusion: Goodell needs to cancel the 2020 NFL season immediately, but it has nothing to do with the coronavirus. The Buffalo Bills have already won the 55th Super Bowl with their roster additions. Brandon Beane is a GM magician who has mastered the dark arts of pro football roster assembly.

Normally I believe the Sam LB if you are in your base 4-3 and the slot CB if you are in your regular nickel.

I know, I was just making a bad joke. A slight trade-down could be the best option, given all the talent that should still be available at #54.

Unfortunately the Bills pick 22nd tonight, so they will just miss out on those 20.

For me, Butler to Buffalo was the most interesting free agent addition in the NFL. He's built like a prototypical run-stuffing nose tackle, has the pass-rush potential for annual sacks in the high single digits, and could elevate a top-5 defense to historical dominance. Is he a late bloomer or just a one-year wonder? Was his one-year wonder situation because he played as a 3-4 NT? Will he struggle again in a 4-3? Will the Bills be using more 3-4 looks? I like Phillips, Star, and Jefferson a lot. But to me, an Oliver-Butler 4-3 DT pairing has the highest potential for greatness.

I have a NSFW joke involving Kamala Harris and Willie Brown. Should I make it? No...no, I shouldn't. My prediction for VP is still Harris, with Newsom a possible Biden replacement at the convention. An all-California ticket I suppose (EDIT: Oops, forgot that both Pres and VP can't be from same state).

No, not quite. I only agree that some people will make (sometimes laughably) inaccurate predictions and that this phenomenon is independent of the date in time. The overall quality of prediction-making from climatology experts has been getting noticeably better since 1970, as it probably should, since 50 years is a long time for a scientific subject to mature. The biggest variability seen in today’s climate change predictions may come from determining how exactly the methane trapped within the permafrost soil of the Northern Hemisphere tundra gets released. I do often roll my eyes, however, at some of the doomsday scenarios proposed. Yes, man-made climate change will make life different and more difficult in many ways for us, but it’s not going to end human civilization altogether. Rest of my comments from posts: 1. Greta Thunberg, AOC, Al Gore, Bill Nye: I don’t get as worked up about them as others do. They serve a useful purpose, which is to raise public awareness of man-made climate change. You can make a fair argument that their sometimes outlandish, hyperbolic, and downright scientifically inaccurate claims hurt the cause overall…but the bottom line is that they are not scientific experts and should never be treated as such. I blame the mainstream media here for deifying these 4 as climate change authority figures. I also blame climate change scientists for harboring a culture of disdain toward science popularizers, which creates a knowledge void within the public that charlatans can fill. Oh yeah, and I also blame liberals in general for peddling nonsense like Russiagate and “Wuhan virus” racism shaming because then it makes it that much harder for the public to take anything else a perceived leftist says seriously. 2. Era of pollution regulations (like EPA) and agricultural innovation (like GMO’s): What I was intending to say is that the greatest rate of positive change occurred during the 70’s and 80’s. Progress spilled over into the 90’s and beyond, of course. 3. Decade of big hair: Wasn’t this more of an 80’s thing? I’m going by movies and music videos, primarily. 4. Weather versus climate: I know y’all having fun with this, but just make sure you understand the difference. 5. Biden and anything related to Green New Deal: Won’t happen with him as president. They are empty words to win votes from the far left. The fossil fuel industries have purchased both Republicans and establishment Democrats like Biden. 6. Hypocrisy of liberals: Agreed. You can’t proclaim man-made global warming is a problem and then behave in your own personal life like it’s no big deal. This is especially true for liberals who are public figures. 7. Supreme Court and Clean Water Act: It’s interesting how these kinds of arguments generally tend toward the left taking the side of public health over the economy, while vice versa with the right. The politics surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic seem to mirror this. In my not so controversial opinion, both matter and the devil is in the details. Each environmental health case needs to be treated as its own unique situation with its own unique set of factors. The rabid lefty in me can’t help but fear how many more Love Canals and Flint Michigans exist throughout the country but go unreported.

Can someone explain his backyard to me? It looks like a bizarre football field for toddlers, but with a dangerous fire pit at midfield.

That accuracy is why I think he's going to be a superstar. From Kelly vs. Marino to Allen vs. Tagovailoa.

Superstar? As in future first-team All-Pro? It's possible. Everything about him is potentially elite, with the sole exception of breakaway speed. Fortunately, Buffalo's offense won't have to rely on Singletary becoming elite. He just needs to do his job moving the chains, catching screens out of the backfield, and performing basic pass blocks. Daboll is building the offense around Allen and probably prefers a RB-by-committee approach. Add Carlos Hyde or his draft equivalent (Zack Moss?) as the power back, Yeldon as the third-down back, Jones as a special teams ace, DiMarco as whatever he does, and Wade as a wild-card. Not a bad group!

Oh gosh...that's quite an impressive list of talent. Of the remaining players who can realistically fall to #54, I really like Zack Baun (OLB, Wisconsin) for Buffalo. Prototypical McDermott player - versatile, hard-working, student of the game, natural leader, very talented. Perfect replacement for Lorenzo Alexander. Definitely more of a BPA than need pick, but the Bills don't have any glaring roster holes to fill. I could also see any number of extremely talented WR's or CB's somehow falling to the Bills. Pittman (WR, USC) would be a great red-zone target for Allen. Diggs (CB, Alabama) would be a great fit for Frazier's zone secondary. Zack Moss (RB, Utah) would be perfection at #86.

Ok, well I get the point being made here: shockingly, it is possible for scientists to be incorrect. But this particular article seems to be filled with selection bias, no? 15 listed incorrect predictions from random people in 1970, but no reference to any correct predictions made by scientists within the past 50 years. 4 of the wildest quotes came from one singular fella named Kenneth Watt. I don’t know what the deal was with this guy. Others were vague predictions of doom and gloom too general to even be considered “testable.” Some of these predictions didn’t come from qualified scientists. Others referenced global food shortages and pollution, problems which still could have conceivably come true were it not for agricultural innovations and effective environmental regulations achieved throughout the 70’ and 80’s. I am a devout “believer” in the scientific method. I believe that reason, logic, facts, and evidence will eventually overcome whatever personal biases, groupthink, and research grant influences that exist within the scientific community. If the current scientific consensus of man-made climate change is wrong, it will be made obvious and break down soon enough. But an opposing case being made is much more credible if it comes from trained scientists in the subject and not from laypeople. There are always heretical scientists out there eager to prove their colleagues wrong and make their name in science. If you provide research papers or articles for me to read from dissenting climatologists, I am more than happy to look over them and reevaluate my stance. I certainly hope I am wrong on this subject. No need for lengthy replies. Quick links will suffice. As for the practical solutions side to the debate, you seem extremely bothered by the very notion that I would be open to Green New Deal solutions. If I’m placing my full faith in the religion of science, is it not possible that you are doing something similar for the “religion” of economic libertarianism? Again, no need to reply if you don’t want to do so. Just something to consider. I hear ya, but I see no other realistic choice. Isolating China from its allies because of its fossil fuel usage seems to be our best option. In my opinion, the much easier part would be controlling the CCP via their resolute obsession for global economic hegemony. The much harder part may be getting the EU and the US on the same diplomatic page with China’s current allies, like Russia and many of the Islamic countries, whose economies are already heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Hmmm…..

I would replace the bolded with “could very well end up as” since nothing is obvious now and since so many things can happen between now and the late summer. The US government can still put giant band-aids on this economy for the short-term, though it will require bipartisan cooperation plus levels of government intervention that us Americans are historically loath to support (look how difficult it was squeezing one-time $1200 checks out of Congress). The two most immediate crises looming on the horizon are stabilizing small businesses and stabilizing rent/mortgage payments. Next up is getting people to start spending “normally” as they exit quarantine protocol in the face of large economic uncertainty and often without jobs anymore. Further down the road are student loan debts and other consumer debts. Additional temporary UBI checks will likely be necessary to avoid the most suboptimal economic outcomes. Moving forward, I’m optimistic that the dreaded “curve” can remain flat enough for our health care system as we gradually roll out our service economy. Testing, sanitation practices, and social distancing measures are going to be so much better than when we started. But the big elephant in the room is the massive rising number of unemployed Americans without health insurance. Free COVID-19 care may not be enough. Temporary M4A should be on the table. Looks like we’re on the same page when it comes to policing crony capitalism, increasing the social welfare safety net, implementing some form of a Keynesian progressive taxation policy, and probably curbing certain types of deregulatory practices. But do you think the pandemic will accelerate any changes to these because of the impending economic degradation? I’m not so sure change will even happen. The progressive left’s ability to politically organize and fight is unimpressive, to put it mildly. And oligarchs gonna oligarch, so wresting power from them when they own the Fourth Estate seems daunting. However, we may very well be witnessing many conditions analogous to those that sparked the social and political upheaval during the French Revolution. If you are not a Millenial or among the working class, maybe this is not quite so obvious yet. As JFK (I think) said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Hopefully cooler heads prevail and enough Americans on all political sides remain open-minded and empathetic toward each other. I think so too. Many from third-world countries look at the United States as absolute paradise once they experience it. Those from “social democracy” countries do appreciate many aspects of our country: the nice people, the melting pot of cultures, our entertainment industry, and the physical landscape. What they are uncomfortable with here are things like our huge socioeconomic disparities, our religiosity, our cultural obsession with money and status, and our poor civil infrastructure (this one seems to come up a lot). This is a very valid point. Other countries need to be spending more for their own national defense. I still believe it’s possible to have both a strong national defense and a reasonable social safety net without drowning in taxes, however.

It fell down my draft board because it made my scouts' urine smell. He can run my legume draft, but I'm in charge of the vegetable draft.

I bet you we could end up agreeing a lot on gun regulation specifics. I do personally know people who want to repeal the second amendment or are at least indifferent to doing so. You are correct that it’s not a very popular political opinion or one that has been represented anywhere in this thread. But more importantly, here are my top 5 vegetables: 1. Spinach 2. Broccoli 3. Garlic 4. Sweet potatoes 5. Onions I am willing to trade up to get into that top 5. Brandon Beane style.

Looking at these past 10 thread pages…I think we all would have been better off debating broccoli. At least the firearms debate managed to take a couple interesting twists and turns. The “100 home invasion homicides per year” stat pops up a lot and is unfortunately used disingenuously among my fellow lefty friends. It’s a surprisingly small number, but of course it doesn’t account for all the burglaries, assaults, and rapes that were either thwarted or could have been deterred with firearms before police arrive. My same lefty friends then point to the approximately 400 annual homicides from mass shootings as a reason for heavy gun restriction, if not an all-out repeal of the second amendment. So worrying about 100 national homicides is right-wing paranoia, but worrying about 400 is highly sensible? My conclusion is that determining rationality seems to be a mostly subjective endeavor when you’re dealing with risk analysis. Is it rational to purchase fire insurance? Earthquake insurance? Volcano insurance? Meteorite insurance? When it comes to protecting your loved ones, sometimes uber rationality doesn’t even need to be a part of the equation. This reminds me of the infamous 2007 home invasion in the safe neighborhood of Cheshire, Connecticut. If the doctor had purchased guns the weekend before for home defense, maybe everyone around him would have looked at him like he was going crazy. But maybe his wife and two daughters would still be alive? Apologies for the rambling thoughts. By the way, I would rank broccoli as the second healthiest human food on the planet, slightly behind spinach and slightly ahead of garlic. Disagree? Come fight me.

I like how Zack Moss is 6 inches shorter than Derrick Henry but only 15 pounds lighter. Like Singletary, his very low center of gravity makes him a bit tougher to bring down. He is EXACTLY what Buffalo's offense needs. Definitely worth a third rounder, even if it means trading up a bit in the round. Not sure whether he's worth that second round pick, though we've seen way worse reaches from the Bills before and it would at least fill the team's biggest need. Carlos Hyde is still an option as well.

It’s okay I understand, just make sure you hold Biden’s feet to the fire if he gets elected. You should also demand to know Biden’s short list of SC judges before the election. Same goes for his VP choice. My best guess is that it will be filled with lackluster anti-union neoliberal types. I’ve already decided to vote Green in a blue non-swing state. I’m recommending the same for all other progressives who live in obvious non-swing states or who are otherwise planning to stay home on November 3. Good to see you back on PPP, by the way! I think we are the only Bernie supporters here??

Kyle Dunnigan!

BPA!! All the way!! But if I wasn't all about the BPA, here is my roster priority list for the Bills: 1. north-south power RB upgrade to Gore who can sustain drives by getting those tough between-the-tackle yards and ideally have some homerun speed too. 2. young LDE to replace Lawson, with run-stopping and edge-setting just as important as pass rush ability. 3. zone CB who can fill in due to injuries. 4. ILB to back up Edmunds and play ST. 5. WR with large target radius and ideally some speed and ST potential. 6. OL because you can never have enough quality ones and because Allen must be protected at all times. I can't imagine more than 6 draft picks making Buffalo's roster. It's easily among the very deepest in the league.

Fair enough, but I don’t think the debate on M4A should be dismissed so readily by an argument that a government-run service = intrinsically incompetent. I’ll probably start a separate health care thread this summer once we have a more complete understanding of how each country in the world was able to navigate the dual crises of a pandemic + potential global economic depression. My concerns with how the U.S. will fare under our employer-based health care system are not alleviated by all the other countries in red here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_universal_health_care Not exactly a who’s who of international success stories.

Yeah I have a big problem with whomever is the “handler” of Handler’s twitter account. I once sent her a tweet soon after she appeared on the Bill Maher show and told her to listen carefully to Killer Mike’s take on the second amendment (another frequent guest on Maher’s show) as it relates to minorities and their relationships with law enforcement. I then ever so kindly recommended she check out Hamilton’s Federalist Paper #29, Madison’s #46, 1689 English B.O.R., and I believe a couple other things. No response. Just blocked. So I’m not a fan.

I’m expecting Trump to win both if the election were held today. Similar EC result as 2016 but maybe a 3% or so popular vote differential. I’m basing my opinion on all the polling data I’ve seen as well as a general sense of how the Bernie people are feeling about the election. A whole lot can change, of course, depending on how Trump handles COVID-19 into the summer. That’s an interesting theory. I don’t know how strongly the Castro comments tanked his campaign. I feel like there were many underlying flaws in the campaign that would have popped up later anyway. The Anderson Cooper interview is a classic example of people hearing whatever they want to hear based on preconceived notions. I know what Bernie was trying to say and I thought did say well enough without issue, but I also have my own biases and don’t have the intense emotional connection with escaping Castro’s communist Cuba that Cuban-American Floridians may have. Bernie had a very viable path to nomination until the epic centrist consolidation before Super Tuesday. He was doing fine with women (a slight majority of the Bernie supporters in 2020!), although Liz Warren was stealing a lot of the suburban female vote and did Bernie no favors by not dropping out before ST. Bernie was also doing well with all minority groups except older African-Americans. But that Boomer black voting bloc is so crucial to the Democratic Party, so not making inroads with them was a fatal campaign flaw. To the extent that Trump bothers to court Bernie supporters at all, he will attempt to appeal more to a sense of anti-establishment populism than to socialism. His “temporary COVID-19 socialism” actions, as I call them, are clearly about short-term pragmatism and not about any long-term structural changes he has planned for our country. Any Bernie supporters who vote for Trump (5% at best?) will mostly be doing so out of anger and maybe as a strategic ploy to influence the Democratic Party long-term. I wonder if part of Bernie’s cravenly behavior may be due to the “Nader effect.” Bernie has said that the 2000 election result had a profound impact on him and that he never wanted to be considered another Nader in his lifetime. I completely disagree with the strategic aspect to this sentiment. A third party candidate garnering 5% or more of the popular vote can have an enormous influence on the public policies of both major parties. A good example would be the Post-Gilded Age policy reforms stemming from the People’s Party, Socialist Party, and Bull Moose Party. A backbone is my biggest demand for the future political leader of American progressivism. My battered progressive heart cannot take any more political quislings. Interesting how competent establishment Democrat politicians are in suppressing the progressive wing of the party, yet utterly incompetent in dealing with Trump. Why is that? Answer: They get to both avoid Bernie’s progressive tax policies AND keep their DC insider jobs hating on Trump while he’s in office. DR gets it! Neoliberals = neocons. I see multiple progressive policies as political inevitabilities once the Millenial+Gen Z vs. Boomer voting power ratio reaches a critical point. A constitutional amendment for Supreme Court term limits is one of them. Status quo enmity is at unreal levels among us under-40 folk. We may only be a few months away from the penultimate scene of the Joker movie! But somehow none of these things are well received by the Democrats’ centrist establishment wing, either!!! Herein lies the crux of the problem: all this “vote blue no matter who” nonsense destroys any political agency the Bernie movement has. The biggest fear for the establishment Democrats should be us Bernie supporters choosing to stay home on November 3, which could be very substantial among the under-40 crowd. We need to be impervious to all forms of voter shaming, even as they come from Bernie Sanders himself. Biden will make no concessions if he doesn’t respect our power and if he isn’t appropriately challenged in interviews. I’ll take the first public policy issue mentioned as an example, since M4A happens to be the flagship concern for most Bernie folk. Here are some questions I would like to ask Biden if I could (by Zoom only and not in person for fear of getting Tara Readed): 1. You once called health care a basic human right. Do you still feel that way? 2. You once said that you would veto any bill for M4A. Do you still feel that way? 3. You have repeatedly questioned where the M4A money will come from, but have had no problem with the Wall Street bailouts in 2008-09 or with the most recent $4.5 trillion coronavirus corporate bailout or with funding the various military misadventures in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya. How do you square these circles? 4. What do you say to the many thousands of American families that go bankrupt every year due to health care bills? 5. What do you say to the millions of Americans who no longer have health care because they lost their jobs within the past month? 6. What would you say to one patient without health care dying of cancer when the other patient in the next room is getting full coverage due to COVID-19? 7. How come you are meagerly proposing to lower the Medicare age down to 60 when Hillary was proposing to go down to 50 in 2016? 8. What influence do corporate donations to your campaign from the health care and pharmaceutical industries have on your M4A opinions?

Both, unfortunately, since we can’t decouple our environment from the rest of the world. Implement public policy changes for ourselves, while using diplomacy and different forms of economic pressure policies for everyone else. China is still in the Paris Agreement and will want to be a cooperative international economic player moving forward beyond COVID-19 (hopefully…because it is in their own economic interests to be that way). CCP is also positioned very favorably for all these nascent renewable energy industries because of their country’s own rich transition metal oxide natural resources, as well as the ones they’ve been eyeing in Africa. Thanks for this reply. A few comments: 1. Regarding a clearly defined problem and solution: You’ve listed 7 questions. Do you want me to answer them in detail here? Or were they more rhetorical? Questions 3, 5, and 7 are very well-defined by the science (quick source: NASA GISS site). Questions 1, 2, and 4 are defined well enough (quick source: Paris Climate Agreement PDF documents) with a converging consensus, but there is still a range of opinions that vary somewhat by country. Question 6 is still open-ended with the “Green New Deal” umbrella term for the potpourri of solutions, but the United States is one of the few remaining countries in the world with a major political party still stuck debating the worthiness of the other 6 questions first. I’d be happy to answer them in detail later if open-minded people want to read them, but it’s not worth my time if they will be laughed at because they’re coming from a “pseudo scientist” perceived as capable of reading and regurgitating but incapable of understanding and questioning. I’ve already defined the criteria I’m looking for in order to break off from the mainstream scientific consensus: dissenting research papers or research summary articles from properly credentialed climatologists that I could examine. What would be your evidence criteria in order to join my side (a question directed at any anthropogenic climate change skeptic reading this)? 2. On the models and data: I’ve never argued that all the data is known. Likewise with the modeling assumptions and unknown variables. What I did argue was that enough of the data and modeling assumptions are known to make satisfactorily accurate climate predictions. We can have a discussion on what constitutes “satisfactorily accurate.” Future predictions that track all data metrics within 2.5% deviation at 100% consistency? Have you defined your own computational model accuracy expectations at which scientific legitimacy can then be bestowed? It seems absurd and unproductive to me to demand climate model perfectionism before political action is to be taken. It would probably be more productive to take up an accuracy debate with credible climatologists (Zeke Hausfather would be a pretty good start). 3. On government solutions: I’m currently looking into what’s specifically working and what’s specifically not with all the various Green New Deal implementations in the EU, especially in Germany right now. All ideas should be on the table, anyway, given the pressing need to overhaul our dilapidated national civil infrastructure. I just want to reiterate that I would be unhappy pushing Green New Deal legislation without careful deliberation beforehand and without appropriate safeguards. I like to think that we share similarly deep concerns for government overreaches of power, government choosing economic winners and losers, and government waste and inefficiencies that increase with government program size. Where I may possibly differ from others here is my essentially equal concern for corporate power left unchecked in capitalist systems (the fossil fuel industries in this case). I’m mostly referring to the many forms of crony capitalism: shirking environmental stewardship responsibilities via deregulatory pollution law measures, price manipulation policies, foreign policy in places like the Middle East and Venezuela, and exploiting such an overly expansive U.S. transportation grid already built to heavily favor fossil fuel consumption. But even in a completely uncorrupted and unfettered capitalist system, I fully and very cynically expect private tech industries to move on their own volition without proper regard to long-term crises involving mutually shared risk (i.e. man-made climate change).