The Goat Pen

Professor Tiger wrote:

If she's that cagey-good then she really ought to be president, right?

I think the word is "sneaky."

In other news, I'm glad to see that TV ratings for NFL games have plunged this year, after a long period of steady growth. It appears that NFL fans don't like it when players are trying to propagandize them, and they are voting with their remotes. Bravo.

Now, I hope the same thing happens to the NCAA and the ACC. They are punishing the state of North Carolina for keeping male perverts out of women's public bathrooms. I hope the ACC Championship is played on C-SPAN for lack of viewership elsewhere.

Olympics viewership was down 15%.

National MLB viewership has been on a slide since 2000.

Nationwide NBA ratings have tanked the past 5 years.

Those were all "pre-Kapernick" and the explanation points to 2 factors:

1 - Tribalism. Most viewers now are fans of just "their" teams rather than fans of the sport, so whereas a Yankees-Rangers game would have drawn fans of the Yankees, Rangers, Dodgers, Pirates, Orioles, etc., now only the Yankees and Rangers fans are watching, and

2 - Uncaptured forms of viewing. Nielsen has not yet mastered the art of tracking viewers who watch on mobile devices or online, as well as those who watch a lot of recorded or "On Demand" programs.

I can see a diehard Steelers fan turning off the game during the National Anthem if he doesn't want to see the protests. I cannot see him refusing to turn it back on to watch them play the Ravens, Raiders, etc.

Seems like the RW is ignoring the age-old axiom: correlation does not imply causation.

bluetick wrote:This year our clowns in the TN legislature

I talked to a young man last week who is an inmate on a (privately owned) prison farm near Memphis. He was scheduled for a parole hearing seeking early release on a minor charge. On the way to the hearing, one of the guards to the young man (and 40 or so of his fellows) that they just got the updated occupancy stats that morning and since they were only at 86% of capacity, no one was getting parole because the company needed money.

Of the 40 something men who went before the parole board later that day, none were granted parole.

I'm certain that story is 100% accurate.

Our politicians are as crooked as all,the rest.

Privately owned prisons have lots of problems. They pay their guards just above minimum wage, which means most of their guards are being bribed by the inmates, who are often drug dealers with tons of cash.

Also, private prisons have less oversight than regular prisons, and therefore they have more staff brutality on inmates.

I have a lot of praise for Obama's recent clemency decisions. Thousands of first-time, non-violent offenders with horrendously long sentences have been quietly leaving federal prisons in the past year.

Fortunately for the Dems, they managed to fend off the collapse of the fraud that is Obamacare until after the election.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/i ... /89196762/

Obamacare is doing exactly what it was designed to do: give the illusion of being compassionate, but destined to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. When the final collapse comes after the election, the Democrat response will be "We tried EVERYTHING, so now the only option left is single payer."

That's been the goal all along.

Yes, bait and switch, which means fraudulent.

"They pay their guards just above minimum wage, which means most of their guards are being bribed by the inmates, who are often drug dealers with tons of cash."

You should be happy about that. Capitalism trumps socialism once again...

"Our politicians are as crooked as all,the rest."

Why the comma?

Your mention of privatized vs public government functions just gave me an idea: In places like South side Chicago, East St Louis, Compton, Anacostia, Charlotte, Ferguson, and other places where the locals hate cops: outsource law enforcement to Black Lives Matter. Let BLM hire their own cops, enact their own use of force policies, implement their own tactics, and take all responsibility of public safety. If any police shootings look fishy, it will all be BLM's fault. When those places start to look like Aleppo in a matter of days, no more blaming George Bush, the Man, Pepe the Frog, the KKK, the Nazi's, talk radio, Fox News, etc.

Professor Tiger wrote:Your mention of privatized vs public government functions just gave me an idea: In places like South side Chicago, East St Louis, Compton, Anacostia, Charlotte, Ferguson, and other places where the locals hate cops: outsource law enforcement to Black Lives Matter. Let BLM hire their own cops, enact their own use of force policies, implement their own tactics, and take all responsibility of public safety. If any police shootings look fishy, it will all be BLM's fault. When those places start to look like Aleppo in a matter of days, no more blaming George Bush, the Man, Pepe the Frog, the KKK, the Nazi's, talk radio, Fox News, etc.

I doubt Charlotte et al will resemble Aleppo any time ever, no matter who does the policing. Aleppo is bombed out, a shell with no running water or electricity, with tens of thousands dead and dying, and it's believed that by years end it'll be a lifeless pile of rubble.

Granted there was extra security at the last Panthers game and Cam did have an extra bodyguard, so maybe you're onto something after all. And oh yeah...pm rush-hour traffic is a real killer.

sardis wrote:Yes, bait and switch, which means fraudulent.

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Aleppo is bombed out, a shell with no running water or electricity, with tens of thousands dead and dying, and it's believed that by years end it'll be a lifeless pile of rubble.

Sounds like Flint, MI.

Cletus wrote:I'm certain that story is 100% accurate.

The re-telling is. I'm fairly certain the inmate was accurate, as well. Whether or not the guard was being serious - that I do not know.

Professor Tiger wrote:

Aleppo is bombed out, a shell with no running water or electricity, with tens of thousands dead and dying, and it's believed that by years end it'll be a lifeless pile of rubble.

Sounds like Flint, MI.

Aleppo was caught up in a civil war, then bombed by multinational forces.

Flint was raped and pillaged by a Republican administration in the statehouse that gave not a crap about the welfare of Flint residents, made them subjects of a Republican experiment on cost-cutting and, because of Republican indifference and nonfeasance, now they're victims of what will probably be the greatest public health catastrophe in human history. Tens of thousand of (mostly black) kids were exposed to toxic drinking water for a year or more - deceived by those who took an oath to protect their water.

We can assume 3 things:

1 - the class action suits will total in the mid billions. The one that was thrown out has already been refiled and is moving along,
2 - Michigan will fight it for 20 years, ultimately losing/settling and paying,
3 - Rick Snyder will not pay a single penny of it.

now they're victims of what will probably be the greatest public health catastrophe in human history.

Worse than the bubonic plague in the 14th century? Worse than the Spanish flu pandemic of 1917?

Worse than the Zika outbreak in Rio?

Professor Tiger wrote:

now they're victims of what will probably be the greatest public health catastrophe in human history.

Worse than the bubonic plague in the 14th century? Worse than the Spanish flu pandemic of 1917?

Yep, because the Flint water crisis was not only completely avoidable, but the state fought the feds for nearly a year when the feds notified them about the problem. The plague and influenza outbreaks were, in effect, acts of God. There were neither mechanisms nor technology in place to prevent or stop them.

With Flint, it was a case of the Snyder administration wanting to show they were tough fiscal managers by ignoring warnings beforehand that they were on a dangerous course and then, once the danger was detected, doubling down on bad policy for political reasons, further exacerbating the problem.

So, no, the 20,000 kids poisoned with led contaminated water pales in comparison to 75 million dying in the bubonic plague, but in terms of catastrophes of bad/racist/arrogant policy, Flint is at the top of the list.

I get that.