OGTEleven

It has sort of been done but not really. I get what you are saying about BLM and all of the other stuff and I have my own opinions about this as well as guesses about the reality. My point is that the more facts we have and the fewer opinions and guesses we have to rely on, the better off everyone will be. I also get that the facts get filtered through agendas. 26% of the fatal shootings involved a black person. 12.3% of the population is black. So your statistic, taken on its own, does not answer all of the questions. In your next sentence you get into the unarmed cases and then start throwing qualifiers around. It is not a compelling way to make an argument because you haven't addressed at all why shootings of blacks are basically double the population percentage, you haven't said how many shootings of whites involved unarmed whites (or just non-blacks), you haven't qualified any of those but you did say one of the armed white guys shouldn't be counted as armed. Whether i agree or disagree with a spoon being a weapon is moot. If I'm someone who believes blacks are treated unfairly, much of what you've written confirms what I think, because the stuff you wrote is all over the place. Mathematically you have to start with the number 987 and determine if that is enough of a sample size from which to draw a statistical conclusion. Then you take the factors other than race into account and measure the best you can. Was income level a more important factor than race? Drug involvement? Domestic dispute? If you have enough information you can determine that race was a factor ini x% of the shootings and likely resulted in the deaths of x additional people because of skin color. Tasker's study tried to do this but also pointed out that not all the data was reliable. I have conclusions I have made in my own head about a lot of this stuff as do many people. I don't think they would all be proven correct if every bit of related data was suddenly available. I don't think anyone's would. I hope I've done a good job reaching mine. I haven't even shared them at this point. The point I'm trying to make is that talking past each other with partial information isn't going to change anything. As you point out, people with agendas will ignore or hide information as well. I'm not naive enough to miss that. I think there is a lot of stupidity to go around on this topic. I think Kaepernick was off base (but within his rights) to base this off of Michael Brown. I am not all that sympathetic to Michael Bennett based on the information I've seen at this point and I think Goodell fanned those flames a little with his statement of support based on what was probably limited information. I assume he did so for NFL-centric reasons and disregarded societal impact. I think Trump was very stupid with his stream of comments on the topic and I think the players and teams were put in an awful weird spot by all of the factors listed above. Trump isn't the first or last president to put his foot in his mouth. Obama did it on racial topics too in my opinion. I'm glad you're not agreeing with him because that interview is not a good look for him. Having the context of any friend of Malcolm X's is a friend of mine isn't a real good context, and that isn't a comment on Malcolm X. It's a comment about him needing to evaluate Castro based on Castro, not on someone whose hand he shook. In the interview he seemed to know a lot about Castro and seemed to have a positive impression.

There is no way to quantify it in 2017. Some day there may be. There is an ability to take the best available information and determine whether it is likely blacks and whites are being treated differently. You cannot then go back and say an individual incident was racist but that is not the goal. The goal is to attempt to measure aggregate results. For example, if on a per capita basis the number of whites and blacks shot and killed were the same everywhere but way out of whack in Ohio, you might want to evaluate the laws of Ohio and how they are implemented, right? But you couldn't say that Joe Smith was targeted because his incident was in Ohio. The goal would not be to pacify the dumbasses asking for knives to be shot out of hands. It would be to understand what is actually going on based on the best available data and adjust based on that. I know there are people trying to do this but they are not communicating well. And this leads to Kaepernick wearing pig socks and promoting Fidel Castro as a solution to a guy getting shot after attacking a police officer.

I would not expect what you described, but I would expect (hope) that the numbers would become equal when you account for economic circumstances, situational details, etc. In other words, I would think a reasonable expectation is that a black person that steals a car after beating up its owner and leading police on a chase then aggressively confronting them would have the same odds of getting beat up or shot as a white person who steals a car after beating up its owner and leads police on a chase then aggressively confronts them. Statistics is a difficult science because there are always more factors for which to account, but it is a science. If the numbers indicate a small variance, it might indicate that there are some racist cops. That is more easily dealt with than a wide variance which would indicate a racist structure or system. What about a wide variance in Toledo but no variance at all in San Antonio. Is it fair to call them all "the cops"? I don't think so. I think it would mean Toiedo has some work to do. All sides and neutral parties should be willing to apply real math with the most reliable data and accept the results even if it doesn't meet their narrative. Perfect math is not available. That is a fact and needs to be accepted by all. A quote from the study Tasker provided ia an example. You have to analyze based on the best available data. You cannot expect perfect data. Some day, there will be a sensor on everything and perfect data will be available. The call for body cameras is an example of the call for better data but even that is far from the entire picture. So where does that leave us? It leaves us in a place where there are a lot of blanks to be filled in and people tend to fill them in based on their own set of experiences and biases, all of which are wrong to some degree. As time and technology advance those blanks become fewer (that creates its own problems but that is a completely different topic) and systems can be more accountable. Everyone needs to look at themselves first before shouting their own conclusions from the rooftops. We have the right to expect our systems to treat us all equally and fairly. Perceived injustices absolutely should be addressed and people are right to call them out through the use of their free speech right. If their perceptions are proven wrong, they ought to be able to accept that and not simply look for a way to look right. If the system is proven to be broken, it should be fixed, not violently destroyed. I'd be in favor of re-building the Toledo PD from the ground up to follow the lead of San Antonio if problems merited. I am not in favor of using the Che model of improvements based on the mental extrapolations of Colin Kaepernick.

From the article, I think he is coming from the right place with his intent and he is trying to be measured, but this is the kind of thing I was talking about and I don't think it is productive unless he is open to listening. I'll try to give some examples. That is the very first sentence of the article. He later cites a specific case but one in which the person shot was actually armed. I get his connection given his home town and am not too worried about that one error if it were isolated. What does bother me is him saying "by the police" instead of "by police". The whole premise of the protest is that police are categorizing people into groups (which of course they should not do). He doesn't even get out of his first sentence and he has done the same thing. There are hundreds if not thousands of police departments nationwide. "The police" paints them as monolithic. I wouldn't like it if some police chief said some like "this is how we plan on dealing with blacks" or "the blacks". I can understand if he thinks there is a problem with the Baton Rouge police, or the Chicago police, or something more specific than "the police". In general I will give him the benefit of the doubt here because I assume there was limited space for the article, but systemic oppression and the other things listed need to be defined, articulated specifically, and validated before they can be fixed. If not, just about anything can be attributed to them. A dialogue about this should always be on the table but both sides need to be willing to listen. If blacks are being arrested at a higher rate, that is a valid data point and a reason to start a discussion, but it is not proof of anything. Skin color may or may not be a determining factor in those numbers. Clearly it has no place in being a determining factor and if it is one, that should be eliminated. But anything that is in need of elimination needs to be defined. It's not an easy task for anyone on any side of this argument and no one side should assume it is easy for the other. I'm 100% with him on this and am glad to see they took there time and put thought into how to structure their protest. I have to differ here. Kaepernick has shown intentions that are not necessarily in line with what one would call the best. The pig socks, Castro praise and Che t-shirt make me wonder how much of the pervious quote Kaepernick would share with Reid. Free and fair society with free speech? Che? That makes no sense at all. Maybe I don't agree 100% with Reid on that quote because he shouldn't be baffled at the backlash that came after those statements by Kaepernick. His girlfriend equating the Ravens owner with a slave owner is probably not the most constructive thing I have ever heard. A discussion involves more than one way communication. It is not fair to expect Reid, Kaepernick or anyone else to fully comprehend arrest and shooting statistics before saying something. But it wouldn't be fair for them to ignore these statistics either. Because the truth is the truth. Sometimes we know it all but most times we don't. It isn't right to assign cause to the unknown parts so that it matches your agenda. We all do this all the time and always have (I didn't do my homework because that teacher is mean to me and would have just given me a zero anyway). Those who really want a solution to a problem need to move toward a solution. Personally, I don't think pig socks is an indication of someone who wants something solved. Racism will go away when racists are seen for what they actually are, which is groups of idiots. The best way to deal with idiots is to ignore them. Systemic issues in law and policing can be written out. A racist cop or a racist perpetrator cannot be. They need to be dealt with individually and that is not going to happen all at once. It can't, as much as we'd all like that. Assuming the cop that shot Michael Brown was a racist pig and ruining his life over it does not move us toward any worthwhile goal.

I was asking Tasker for numbers. I know I've seen them somewhere but can't find them. If 100 white people and 85 black people got shot by cops then black people are getting shot at a higher per capita rate. That is the point I'm making but I can't be sure it is valid without actual numbers. I'm not assigned racism as a cause (nor am I dismissing it).

Is there a link for that? I'm aware that more whites have been killed by police bullets but there are also more white people overall. The back and forth on this stuff with battling statistics is not productive. If Colin Kaepernick feels that blacks are being targeted he should be expected to articulate why. If he uses good arguments people should listen, if he uses hyperbole, generalities and feelings then he should be ignored. The truth is what should matter as should striving to achieve our goals as a society. If the truth turns someone's argument to mush, then that person should eat a little humble pie and/or try to communicate better.

I should have added another sentence about the Brown shooting because from everything I saw, it seemed justified and an odd choice of a protest topic. Again, it is still his right. I'm not a huge fan of the term good shoot but I get what you mean. I'll give Kaepernick a bit of a break on that one though. These stories get so distorted and oversimplified that someone can fall into a trap believing an incorrect narrative. I think there are a lot of people out there that actually believe cops are going around looking for black people to shoot. I don't agree but that doesn't really matter. I don't think the people that believe this do so out of some sort of evil intent. More black kids are getting shot, per capita, than white kids. The assumption made is that skin color is the reason for this and I find that unproven at best. There is a gigantic mix of things that leads to any shooting. If you stripped out skin color and looked at intoxication, economic standing of the person shot and circumstances of the shooting, my guess is that the numbers some close to evening out. Did some cop in some shooting pull the trigger faster due to the race of the person? Probably. Is it an epidemic to the point that cop pig socks is a valid point? Not in my opinion. Those were very stupid. I think all of the factors that led to the shootings combine to make the disease and that the shootings themselves are a symptom. I think that the American ideal of equality is a big part of the cure. If Kaepernick's protest was an attempt to tell us that we're not living up to these ideals then he delivered his message poorly. If he thinks the ideals are somehow the flawed part, then he should articulate his desired ideals. Starting with Castro digs him enough of a hole for me that I'd rather use my time listening to other people's ideas, but he still has the right to say it. I don't think he should lose a job or be passed over for one based on his beliefs, whatever they are. But then again I don't own an NFL team and if I did I probably wouldn't have been thrilled with his girlfriend calling one of my peers a slave owner.

i don't agree with the way he chose to protest but it is his choice to make, not mine. I think his point is that cops mentally lump people into groups based on skin color and treat them differently. But if that is the case then he should have done a better job explaining it. He knelt at the anthem, which is a symbol for the ideals of America. It was a way of getting attention. Personally I think it was a good first step to get some attention and have a platform for his message. It could have had a positive impact, but after that he could have said something pointing out that we are falling short of our ideals and that the Ferguson shooting was an example of this. Personally, I see Ferguson as a singular incident so I would have disagreed with him there, but fully understood what he was trying to do. Whether he intended to do so nor not, his message seemed more an attack on the ideals themselves. The pig socks, clearly lumped people (cops) into a group based on their profession. To me, it was an odd way of protesting people being categorized based on a single trait and seemed more like picking a fight (still does). The praise of Castro and the t-shirt of Che also seem like more of a questioning of American ideals than a path toward achieving those ideals. All of these things are still his right, but I think his message is way off base. How many million dollar quarterbacks are there in Cuba? I get that they like baseball more. Why do their players defect here? Had he been a star baseball player in Cuba and knelt for their anthem in protest of the imprisonment of dissidents based on their single trait of dissent, what might have happened to him? I will give him the benefit of the doubt with respect to his message, but he delivered his message very poorly in my opinion. He isn't the only one to do so, but his protest was definitely a pivot point that led us to yesterday.

This thing has gotten so far out of control I don't know what to think of it at this point, other than thinking that everybody is wrong, at least in my opinion (except, oddly enough, maybe Shady). Kaepernick started the whole thing as a protest over Michael Brown IIRC ( I think that was it). It turns out that it may not have been the greatest cause that ever existed because it sure seems probable that the Brown incident was at least primarily on him and not the cop. Regardless of that, how was kneeling for the anthem the right way to protest at all? How about speaking out about Ferguson Mo. in particular? Was the Ferguson incident an indication of our nation as a whole? The ideals of our nation? He certainly seemed to think issues went beyond Ferguson and that is something worth discussing. Starting that discussion the way he did and then with the pig socks, Guervera t-shirt and positive words about Castro might not have been the way I would have approached it. Kaepernick not having a job seemed to be phase two and that one has a lot of moving parts. A high salaried marginal QB who is far from bad and far from a guy that is the last piece to a championship brings a lot of questions by itself. Add the potential fan uproar to the mix and then what? Then his girlfriend and the Ray Lewis stuff? Every owner gets to make his own decision based on his own situation and Kaepernick didn't make it easy but man there are 32 teams so somewhere between 64 and 96 QB jobs and I would put him in the top 64 somewhere. He isn't being blackballed due to his skin color (see Taylor, Winston, Wilson, EJ, Webb, and many other QBs), but i it due to politics? Fast forward (skipping a lot) to Michael Bennett which just seems like it is being overblown to me. The guy was in a chaotic scene and was was detained by police. Was it a little rough? I guess. Were there some bad choices of words flung around in the heat of the moment? Maybe. Was he shot or hurt or falsely charged with anything? No. He has made claims that he got off easy because he was a football star. Maybe. Has anyone named even one non-football star that was not let off easy in that incident once they were cleared? I haven't seen it. Then Goodell and a bunch of owners jump in without all the facts to defend players. I get the labor relations side of this but the NFL has influence and I think they acted hastily. Now we have a bunch of guys kneeling and protesting the flag and country over things that are very cloudy at best. Of course the backlash from the other side comes complete with stupid statistics about how more white people are killed by cops than blacks. Of course there are. That's because there are more white people available. As a percentage, more blacks are killed. There are so many factors that go into this that are socio-economic, locations based and otherwise, but everyone takes a side, all sides based on bad math. Fast forward again and the president says something along the lines of having a right to protest but they should all be fired. What was the point of that? It's none of your business so stay out. How is it different than when Obama said the cops acted stupidly even when they didn't? These are issues that presidents have stayed out of forever because they should be, you know, doing their actual job. Of course this led to yesterday's mass kneelings which led to more reactions. The whole thing is ridiculous. Ted Kennedy, or Tip O'Neil (I can'r remember which, but neither of which I share ideologies with) was correct when he said all politics is local. The problem is that in 2017, everything is local. The speed of information has brought a lot of positives to society but it has also brought negatives, based on human shortcomings. We all oversimplify information in an effort to process it quickly. That proclivity knows no political boundary. The part that I like the least is that the flag and the anthem are supposed to represent our ideals. These ideals are things we should always be moving towards, not away from. No society in the history of human kind has ever completely lived up to its ideals. We are all flawed and we all fail. I think the protestors are mistaken in their protest if they say the anthem represents cops killing black people or something like that. It doesn't. It represents the ideals toward which we should all strive. Individually and collectively we all make mistakes and there are bumps in the road, but the ideals laid out in our founding documents are worthwhile goals. The people speaking out about achieving those goals and not simply arguing about which side is right and which is wrong are few and far between at this point. I'm not sure I even see one.

About the phone calls made from the towers and planes on 9/11.

It is hard to beat Saratoga in August and Lake George is right up the road. The track is awesome (but might be a long day for the little one). There is also a lot to do in town with a lot of great restaurants. Lake George is beautiful and there are activities for young ones around the Village area. Both places might be a little pricey when it comes to hotels at that time of year. IT might be a better fit for your mini-weekend getaway afterward.

I'd like to see the Bills get Maclin and have him be great but he can never be my favorite #19.

I'll add two songs that I think are really meant for a female voice, (although it is hard to beat the original of the first), and my favorite female voice at that. I think I posted these in the earlier thread that Jack couldn't find. Dancing in the Dark

As great a guitarist as he is (my personal favorite), his greatest attribute is as a songwriter. He always shows up (too low) on lists of the greatest guitarists but almost never on lists of greatest songwriters. Growing up I liked all the classic rock bands like Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Genesis (mostly the Gabriel stuff), Yes, etc. Dire Straits was definitely on the list. As I got older I still liked all those bands and I still do. The difference with Dire Straits was that I was always finding cool new things that I had missed in songs over the years. I knew all the songs by those bands but the Straits stuff always seemed fresh. The only exceptions were in their super popular stage with songs like Money for Nothing, which I like but is just a fun song. A lot of their songs (Telegraph Road, Lions, Tunnel of Love and even Sultans) have just a lot of stuff going on that is easy to pass over at first. Where Knopfler got underrated was that he was thought of as a guitar hero but his songs has some of the greatest lyrics and were written in original ways. Romeo and Juliet has a line "You can fall for chains of silver, you can fall for chains of gold, you can fall for pretty strangers and the promises they hold". It's a perfect phrasing for a rejected lover to throw at the his ex. One of my personal favorites is from Telegraph Road. "Cos I've run every red light on memory lane". While in Dire Straits he created the soundtracks to Cal, The Princess Bride and Local Hero, all among the greatest ever. Post Dire Straits he has created songs from about every genre (pop, rock, blues, country, bluegrass, folk, Celtic) and far surpassed his Dire Straits work in my opinion. Barely anyone knows this it seems. Unlike many songwriters, his songs are not commonly about himself. They are usually about ordinary people and usually paint them from a perspective of respect and dignity. They are incredibly relatable. Even when he writes about someone famous like Sonny Liston or Ray Kroc he makes them very real, not some larger than life figure. So many lines of his lyrics are pure genius. I'm sure most songwriters would be happy to have written one of them. He has hundreds. His guitar is still there. I saw him 18 months ago in concert (see clip below) and his guitar is still very much there (as you'll see at the end of the clip). The list of his collaborations and people who have covered his songs is unbelievably long and varied. Tina Turner, Chet Atkins, Bob Dylan, The Killers, The Judds, Kenny Rogers, Metallica, Emmylou Harris, The Indigo Girls, Randy Travis, The Everly Brothers, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shooter Jennings, Eric Clapton, and I'm sure I've left off a ton. I'd say he is underrated.

Oh my God. My wife (about whom I have no right to complain) also does this exact trick. She also adds an intra-store mode to the mix. We can be done grocery shopping and headed toward the checkout pushing a cart overflowing with groceries. After getting 65 things from our original list of 20, she'll stop and say we forgot toothpaste (or something else). I say ok and get in line with three people in front of me while she goes for the toothpaste. The next thing I know I am almost done checking out the full cart and she is still nowhere in sight. Sometimes she'll even get there at the absolute last second (I don't know how she does that) but with two tubes, wanting me to make the decision. Whichever one I pick (completely at random because I cannot even care if I try), she extols the virtues of the other one (but that is really a separate story which deserves it's own post).

She does a nice version of Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark too, but I'll go with this.

Nice. I don't know why Youtube never brought that one up with my search. That whole skit idea was great.

That's why I went with it. Other stuff preceded it but this is the lowest of the low.

OK it looks like it is time to wrap it up. RIP McLaughlin. Answers 1. Robert Woods is going to have a great year and will only be under the players I listed as potential Bills MVP (opinion of course). 2. There are a lot of bad trends these days but none are worse than The Real Housewives of (fill in the blank). It is it's own subculture and it is disgusting. 3. Taro T got it with Local Hero 4. A repeat of the blocked field goal return against the Broncos would be an amazing way to win a Super Bowl in the last second. The Ravens did it to the Browns just this year. 5. This was a bad question but I can explain. The answer was Seemingly uncivil discourse that was actually civil under the covers. I would have accepted similar answers. What I liked about McLaughlin's show was that although there were strong disagreements and even yelling, there was a level of respect and courtesy. At some level, they listened to the other person. Shows like Hannity and O'Reilly and MSNBC's lineup leave me believing the people do not like each other and are more into making the other person look bad than trying to make their own point. There are exceptions on individual shows from time to time but most of the discussion is pointless and antagonistic. I never got that from The McLaughlin Report.

1. WRONG!!!!!!! But I hope he has a good year too. 2. Most people have been close on this one. Not you. WRONG!!!!!!!! 3. Seek help in the musical taste category. Already answered and you are WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4. That would be a good way to get into the Super Bowl if the Patriots or Fish did the dropping. WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5. Clearly. WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like Martina McBride, Telegraph Road is never technically wrong, but in this case the desired answer was On Every Street. I got to see him last fall and he had just started playing it again after 23 years. Below is a clip of the show I attended. Outro starts about 3:45. It throws in Speedway At Nazareth so enjoy. If you haven't checked out every bit of his post Dire Straits you owe it to yourself.

1. Bad hair, high winds and long extra points are a toxic mix. WRONG!!!!! 2. Yet another good but WRONG!!!!! choice. 3. WRONG!!!! and already answered. 4. It would be hard to win the Super Bowl on that play and I don't want to see Matt Cassel ever again. WRONG!!!!!!! 5. I don't want him to die but WRONG!!!!!! To recap 3 is Local Hero, 5 was probably a bad question so I may just give the answer soon, we're all around 2 but it hasn't been hit, I'm surprised nobody has hit 1, and 4 will be great if it happens, think hard about that one. A couple of hints might be that a play similar to 4 happened this year but it did not involve the Bills, 5 involves how McLaughlin's show was different from a lot of political talk you hear on shows today. I can't give hints for 1 and 2 without giving it away. 2 should be so easy.

1. That would be good news but is WRONG!!!!!!!! 2. WOW!!!!!! That was a long winded and philosophical way of saying you are too young to remember Renee Richards. WRONG!!!!!! 3. That song is constantly mocked in sitcoms. WRONG!!!! (and already answered correctly by Taro T). 4. Good one as many have been. Not heart stopping enough. WRONG!!!!! 5. NOPE! 3. WRONG!!!!! in so many ways. I didn't say he should die, he's just not the answer to that question. Maybe if I do another one I'll make him an answer. Maybe I can work him and Martina McBride into the same answer somehow. #3 is already answered, #1 and #4 are good but WRONG!!!! choices and agreeing with Dr. Who has thus far proven WRONG!!!! in this thread.

1. I hope not. I remember the days when Moorman was our best player. I'm an optimist. WRONG!!!!!!!! 2. There are so many to choose from for this question. So far everyone has chosen WRONG!!!!!!! 3. CORRECT. 1 point for you. Bonus question. Only Taro T can answer for a point and he only gets one try Which Dire Straits song would make a better radio talk show theme than anything out there today? Hint: Guitar outro. Hint 2: It would also make a great closing song for an episode of The Blacklist if you used the whole song. 4. Another question with a lot of great choices. Also all WRONG!!!!!! so far. 5. WRONG!!!!!! Dana Carvey makes jokes. This is serious business. This question is a little hard and probably not a great one. I may end up giving hints. Regardless of that I repeat WRONG!!!!!!! 1. Now way. WRONG!!!!!!!! 2. I said cultural symbol of cultural decay not cause of political and economic decay. WRONG!!!!!!!!!!! (And lighten up if anyone was mad at that answer) 3. Are you 9 years old? WRONG!!!!!!!! 4. Yawn. WRONG!!!!!! 5. Explain this WRONG!!!!!! answer.

1. I hope he plays well but WRONG!!!!! The question us simply who will have the best year, not who is the most important. 2. Everybody Is WRONG!!!! here bust most are on the right track. I don't think Paris started it but even if she did it has gotten worse. And if you only last 10 minutes that doesn't mean the whole thing is 10 minutes. WRONG!!!! 3. Mozart Schmozart. WRONG!!!!! 4. If that is the way they win, although redemption for Norwood, it would not be as exciting as the answer so WRONG!!!!! 5. That would be cool but it is still WRONG!!!!!!! Maybe. WRONG!!!!!!!!