StevetheClub

Not to nit-pick, nor to come out as pro-NDP (though I did vote for them I've very cautiously optimistic), but I'm not sure you could do any better than being a teacher now in Alberta. The starting wage is close to 6 figures and the union is very strong.

This is basically what I'm hanging on to. Doer was great...the province was great. Selinger just ****** everything up. The NDP, as a party, aren't necessarily the boogey man, as Doer's NDP proved. 
 
I'm taking a wait-and-see approach to all this. We desperately needed a radical change.

"When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is "correct" or "wise," any more than a forest fire can be "correct" or "wise."" (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/nonviolence-as-compliance/391640/)
 
--------------------
 
"When our cultural emphasis is on keeping things ‘status quo,’ then the people who are threatening or inconveniencing that way of life become ‘the violent ones.’ Everyone else is simply engaged in righteous efforts to control ‘the threat’ or expressing justifiable outrage at the world’s failure to do so.   Worse yet, the whole mess is self re-enforcing. Society is set up with the decks stacked so high against certain groups of people that they are – at times – quite literally set up to do the very things society claims not to want them to do. Our societal structures are boxing people in (through poverty, discrimination, lack of choice, etc.) to untenable ways of life. Once boxed in, society then proceeds to keep an extra close watch on those ‘high risk’ types (i.e., people whose basic needs are not being met by that society), just waiting for them to step somehow out of bounds in order to make do in a world not necessarily set up with their survival in mind. Society then uses that as the proof they needed to be boxed in in the first place. And, voila: “See, we told you ‘those people’ are bad!”   Never mind that people are angry and desperate because they want to survive. Never mind that they are even angrier and more desperate because they aren’t surviving. That all was well in Baltimore before the riots befell its peaceful streets is little more than an illusion palatable only to those who have distance from the harsh realities thanks to race, geography and/or some other source of privilege. The violence has been there all along.   Strangely, when I say these sorts of things, people seem to hear them as being 'pro-riot.'  I'm not 'pro-riot.'  But, nor am I willing to see only one side of the violence while remaining blind to the other.  In fact, it's the institutional violence that has the much more longstanding and far reaching impact.  CVS will be rebuilt.  Lives will not.  One needn’t go so far as being "happy" about the riots to understand that simple truth." (http://www.madinamerica.com/2015/05/baltimore-burning-defines-violence/)   --------------------     The recipe for this violence to continue is to keep ignoring the institutional violence. Keep focusing on charges and arrests, on about how throwing rocks is wrong. Focus on punishment, on catching the one person or the few people and putting them in jail. Tell yourself it's not about race or housing or employment or addiction or mental health. Ignore oppression. Simply, keep simplifying. It's clearly working.

"When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is "correct" or "wise," any more than a forest fire can be "correct" or "wise."" (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/nonviolence-as-compliance/391640/)
 
--------------------
 
"When our cultural emphasis is on keeping things ‘status quo,’ then the people who are threatening or inconveniencing that way of life become ‘the violent ones.’ Everyone else is simply engaged in righteous efforts to control ‘the threat’ or expressing justifiable outrage at the world’s failure to do so.   Worse yet, the whole mess is self re-enforcing. Society is set up with the decks stacked so high against certain groups of people that they are – at times – quite literally set up to do the very things society claims not to want them to do. Our societal structures are boxing people in (through poverty, discrimination, lack of choice, etc.) to untenable ways of life. Once boxed in, society then proceeds to keep an extra close watch on those ‘high risk’ types (i.e., people whose basic needs are not being met by that society), just waiting for them to step somehow out of bounds in order to make do in a world not necessarily set up with their survival in mind. Society then uses that as the proof they needed to be boxed in in the first place. And, voila: “See, we told you ‘those people’ are bad!”   Never mind that people are angry and desperate because they want to survive. Never mind that they are even angrier and more desperate because they aren’t surviving. That all was well in Baltimore before the riots befell its peaceful streets is little more than an illusion palatable only to those who have distance from the harsh realities thanks to race, geography and/or some other source of privilege. The violence has been there all along.   Strangely, when I say these sorts of things, people seem to hear them as being 'pro-riot.'  I'm not 'pro-riot.'  But, nor am I willing to see only one side of the violence while remaining blind to the other.  In fact, it's the institutional violence that has the much more longstanding and far reaching impact.  CVS will be rebuilt.  Lives will not.  One needn’t go so far as being "happy" about the riots to understand that simple truth." (http://www.madinamerica.com/2015/05/baltimore-burning-defines-violence/)   --------------------     The recipe for this violence to continue is to keep ignoring the institutional violence. Keep focusing on charges and arrests, on about how throwing rocks is wrong. Focus on punishment, on catching the one person or the few people and putting them in jail. Tell yourself it's not about race or housing or employment or addiction or mental health. Ignore oppression. Simply, keep simplifying. It's clearly working.

Here is a story on Baltimore drug war policing, which is a major component of the context of Freddy Grey's death. Spoiler: it's brutal and anti-consitutional but no one gives a ****.
http://www.vice.com/read/david-simon-talks-about-where-the-baltimore-police-went-wrong-429
Also today, the six cops involved were hit with a variety of charges from the state attorney, the gnarliest being second-degree murder.
You all realize we're going to have enough material to keep this thread going for a very very long time.

Perhaps the sarcasm was unfair. I have just grown very tired of the microscopic view of incidents that have come up in this thread that completely ignore systemic issues. 
 
The problem is that "if you don't want to get shot then don't run" or "looters are losers" gets to the bottom of absolutely nothing. And investigations into these incidents will, I have little doubt, teach us that if only more people obeyed the law we'd have less people getting killed, which, once again, gets us nowhere. 

Perhaps the sarcasm was unfair. I have just grown very tired of the microscopic view of incidents that have come up in this thread that completely ignore systemic issues. 
 
The problem is that "if you don't want to get shot then don't run" or "looters are losers" gets to the bottom of absolutely nothing. And investigations into these incidents will, I have little doubt, teach us that if only more people obeyed the law we'd have less people getting killed, which, once again, gets us nowhere. 

I've been reading this thread, reading other articles, and scratching my head for the past few days.
 
Running away from Police is a strange decision to make - sometimes people make strange decisions.  Does that mean they should be shot?
 
I dare say not. 
 
I get that some of you are arguing semantics and commenting on the rights of Police Officers in general - but why defend a cop who shot and killed an unarmed, fleeing suspect?

You're inventing ****.  You need to show me where in this thread I said either of those things.
 
Here is a thing that grownups know: sometimes multiple things matter at once.

It seems people are getting confused with the difference between individual and systemic racism. I have no idea if individual racism was at play in this murder or not but I have little doubt that systemic racism was, for reasons that have already been better articulated by others.
 
Saying it was racist because it was a white cop who shot a black man is oversimplifying it just as much as saying it wasn't because it was a cop who shot another law-breaking citizen without considering race, and both ignore the larger point of a broken system that teaches human beings how to treat one another.

It seems people are getting confused with the difference between individual and systemic racism. I have no idea if individual racism was at play in this murder or not but I have little doubt that systemic racism was, for reasons that have already been better articulated by others.
 
Saying it was racist because it was a white cop who shot a black man is oversimplifying it just as much as saying it wasn't because it was a cop who shot another law-breaking citizen without considering race, and both ignore the larger point of a broken system that teaches human beings how to treat one another.

It seems people are getting confused with the difference between individual and systemic racism. I have no idea if individual racism was at play in this murder or not but I have little doubt that systemic racism was, for reasons that have already been better articulated by others.
 
Saying it was racist because it was a white cop who shot a black man is oversimplifying it just as much as saying it wasn't because it was a cop who shot another law-breaking citizen without considering race, and both ignore the larger point of a broken system that teaches human beings how to treat one another.

I think the "police aren't targeting black people because they're black, but only because they're poor" argument is pretty much horseshit.  The numbers don't add up. Consider how black people fare in non-fatal encounters with law enforcement:
 
According to the 2009 U.S. Census (http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0695.pdf) there were about 3.7 million black families under $30,000 income in the USA, and 13.1 million white families under $30,000 income.
If the imprisonment numbers tracked with income, then you'd expect to see roughly 3-4x as many white people in jail as black people, because there are 3-4x more poor white people than poor black people.
However, according to the Prison Policy Initiative (http://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/rates.html) blacks and whites each account for about 40% of the prison population.  Blacks are many times more likely to be imprisoned than whites are.
If the American justice system is indeed blind to race, then why are black people being imprisoned at such an elevated rate?

They have to be careful about reporting too because it could just make people less likely to seek help if they feel their doctor is obligated to report back to their employer.  I think the obvious solution is regular mental health review requirements by the airlines and then they are in a better position to determine flying fitness.  In this case, his doctor did order him off work.  The question will be was it due to the reported vision issues or mental health issues?

Well, that's settled then because clearly, that one guy represents the entirety of the people of Norway.  So if I can find a Canadian who left Canada because he didn't like it here, that must mean that Canada's bad and some other country is "doing things right".

Yes, Norway does tax its citizens at a high rate, but Norweigians get free dental care, fee eye care (including glasses), free psychological care, and two years of free post-secondary education for those who qualify. Moreover, Norwegians rate themselves a the third-happiest people on Earth (the Danes were #1) and as a measure of the health of their society, when neo-Nazi Anders Brevik (who killed 77 people including children) appeared in court, families of the slain appeared in court to ask that Brevik be given psychiatric help rather than a lifetime behind bars. That is a mark of a humane society.  
Wealth does not equal happiness or mental health. There is evidence to the contrary.

As one final tribute to Gary Etcheverry, we're going to sign Greg Ellingson and Stanley Bryant. But play Ellingson at LT and Bryant at WR.

For a lot of reasons, I don’t usually publically post or discuss site discipline.
 
Wide Right has now been banned.  This morning he used an IP address that was common to one that only Migs has used in the past.  Of course this is never 100% proof that it is the same poster, it could mean that they simply work at the same company.  But the other evidence that was posted made it compelling enough to ban him.
 
And by posting this, he will know not to post from that IP address again in the future (one of the reasons I don’t usually disclose this stuff).
 
As a rule, I don’t like to ban people.  In the history of this site, there have been 4 people banned.  3 if you count Migs and Wide Right as one.   Not something we do lightly.  And being a Rider fan is not reason enough to ban people. 
 
But with Migs, he keeps coming back because there are a group of posters who fall for his schtick every time.  He wants to derail threads, he wants to post silly arguments to get the replies from you.  You will never win an argument with him, you will never get him to see the light, as he obviously has no interest in that.    So when he does return the next time, the best thing you can really do is ignore him, and don’t give him what he wants.
 
And seriously, “letting you at him”, will have no effect on him what so ever.  Words can’t hurt people or put them in the hospital.  Letting you at him is exactly what he wants and why he comes here.

This is great that Miller isn't going to let the NHL push him around. I've been to a Grey Cup, I've been to an out door hockey game, there is no contest which one is the better event, but a lot of Jets hype right now I don't doubt there's a lot of people in Winnipeg when forced to choose between the CFL and NHL would jump on the hype train.Good for Miller, good for the Bombers and good for the CFL. 

So glad Miller stuck to his guns and chose to stick it to Bettman. A) The Grey Cup is way more important than a stupid outdoor hockey game. The GC brings in huge revenue...the WC does not. The league gets all revenues, aside from the rental fee they pay WBB FC. The outdoor games suck now...way overdone. The GC will be far more entertaining. C) Putting the GC and WC back to back like that is insane because people can't afford tix to both. Spread them out...one goes one year, one goes the next. WAY better option for everyone. 
 
Anyone complaining about this postponement is an idiot. Good on Miller, good on the WBB FC...

Agreed. I don't think he'll put up 1300-1400 like he did in his prime, but I won't be shocked if he flirts with a 1k season.

If you think your impatience is representative of the prevailing opinion among our fanbase right now, you're way off.
 
I tested a theory I had this morning. There are 3 other season ticket holders in my office. I went up to each of them individually and asked what they think about the Bombers taking so long to make a decision on the coordinators.
 
Answer 1 - "the Grey Cup was only last week"
Answer 2 - "wasn't Grey Cup a couple weeks ago there's lots of time"
Answer 3 - "doesn't that usually happen in February"

I think the problem you're feeling is more about a sense of false entitlement than anything.

And if you don't like the discussion, don't partake in it, walk away, don't post, don't reply.  You only shed light on, amplify, and acknowledge what you deem as thoughtless opinions.
 
Hate to break it to you, but you aren't the "intelligent police".

It's kind of amazing that a 14 year old kid gets it better than a grown adult.
 
In any intelligent discussion .. if you have to resort to base name calling .. regardless of the opinion, subject matter or how you feel about a given topic.  You've lost.   Lack of civility almost always derails any rational exchange; it resuls in polarization and limits the ability to find a middle ground.  If anything, people who resort to name calling are the ones, ".. who just want to hear themselves ***** and moan .." because they show themselves unwilling to participate in thoughtful conversation.
 
/shrug.
 
At any rate, I hope we can return to discussing football .. the end of this season and what's on the horizon for next year .. I hate having to lock topics.