chasfh

I will consider it out of control once it affects what I do on a day-to-day basis. You're right in that I have no interest in crime anecdotes. I'm more interested in crime data, such as the data I posted—which I was criticized for doing instead of, I guess, setting my own hair on fire based on stories—showing that the change in violent crime rate varied substantially by neighborhood. Violent crime is down in Bucktown, for instance, in 2021 versus 2020. I took a metaphorical shot to the kneecaps for that one.

I will say that the only indication I have that crime in Chicago is out of control is from the media telling me it is, in so many words. Personally speaking, nothing I see in my day-to-day life suggests to me that Chicago crime is out of control. COVID notwithstanding, I'm moving about the city in the same manner I did last year, and as I did during 2020, and as in I did during every year before that. There is nothing in my day-to-day experience that restricts my movement or activity because of increasing crime, increased police presence, imposition of city curfews, or anything of that nature, Everything looks to me like it has always looked since I've moved here. Even the WGN newscast that buddha referred to is showing no more yellow tape stories than before, as far as I can tell. Regardless of whether actual crime levels are waxing as they are now, or waning as they did during the early 2010s, local stations run the same number of yellow tape stories every newscast, three or four. So I can't get any real indication of how crime is trending from that. The only indication I have that Chicago crime is out of control is the media telling me flat out that it is. And by the way, this is the only point I was trying to make: not whether Chicago's crime is actually "within control" or "out of control", per se, but that the only way I could know either way is either by the media telling me, or based on my personal observation, and I'm not personally observing that.

You didn't say 175 is the target number it within control, in so many words, but you're saying that now, so, OK. By inference, I take that to mean you think New York City's murder rate is on the high end of being within control, since you used their murder number of 485 as the basis for your determining that if Chicago had the same rate, their totals murders would be at that within-control figure of 175—that is, that's what Chicago would have to drop to in order to no longer be at "out of control" levels. Please feel free to correct me if I got any of this wrong, which I know you always do with particular relish. 😁 By the way, Chicago murder totals haven't been under 175 since World War II or thereabouts, so it looks like by your definition, out of control crime is a chronic condition here. So, better stay away. 😏

Not my turn until you tell me whether you think 485 murders in New York City what you would consider within control.

We haven't signed him yet ... 😏

I think it's apples and oranges to compare Chicago with either Toronto or Juarez, since they are all in different countries, since they have different social structures, even beyond different policing and justice structures. Is 485 murders in New York City what you would consider within control?

Some of them might—and some in my own neighborhood might—if they personally see crime, or know people who do, or who are in the game. They would definitely have a different opinion on it.

This is what I mean by a media-induced approval bump. The only reason most people conclude that crime is spiraling out of control is that they are being told that. And it works the other way, too: if people’s main exposure to the police is via media stories of their killing unarmed black people, their approval of the police would plummet accordingly. If most people were responding only to what they see in their own lives, their opinions of the police would be unchanged, since most people don’t see out-of-control crime, or encounter the police, on an personal basis every day.

What number would be within control?

Right, and even among less elastic products there can be tradeoffs consumers can make. With gasoline, there's driving less; with cigarettes and alcohol, there are cheaper brands. Point being, it's not as easy as here you go, customer, pay for my price increase. If it were that easy no one would ever go out of business due to cost increases.

Was access to testing completely dependent on Biden? Was he the difference Maybe it was, I don’t know. I wasn’t aware of it. I do know that they were really conservative about allowing heathy people under 65 to get the vaccine and booster, which may have led to marginally more hospitalizations and deaths, although I always thought that was more CDC reticence than administration incompetence. Could Biden have overruled them by executive order?

Well, that sure was a lot more than I was talking about! 😅 I wasn’t making a one-on-one comprehensive comparison between the two. Referring only to their shared ability to use their personal charisma to motivate people already primed to respond.

ECON 101 taught me that businesses can’t always just turn around and pass 100% of cost increases on to customers, because higher prices pushes demand down, customers buy less, inventory builds up, and businesses start incurring greater losses than from just the price increases. Businesses can successfully pass on costs only if demand for their products is relatively inelastic.

Makes sense. In an environment in which literally every day the local media is hammering the idea that crime is out of control, people’s opinions will be shaped to be sympathetic to the only organization that their entertainment shows tell them will save us all.

“Look” is a holdover from the Obama administration. It seemed like the answer to every question from everybody top down started with “look”. It felt like “look” was mandated as a rhetorical tactic, but it might have been merely a mirroring tactic taken to the extreme.

Relying on front-end participants is risky. Better to control the back end machinery.

His power is in mobilizing people with pre-existing grievances, and being charming enough to them to hold them in thrall. Whether not for nothing or a propos of nothing, that was Hitler’s power, too.

Granting for the discussion that Biden’s approach is not working, how much of that is due to his own and his administration’s incompetence, and how much of it is due to Republican obstruction? Also granting that R was never going to cooperate under any circumstances, what could Biden have done, within solely his power, that would have significantly reduced cases, hospitalizations, and deaths?

Back bacon.

I prefer the way it is with nine batters. Maybe it's because baseball has a sort of symmetry of threes: three outs, nine batters, nine innings, everyone is 0-for-3 in a perfect game. That kind of thing.

The DH is no longer an experiment. It is the state of the game. Every league above high school uses it. Only two leagues in the world do not. Pitchers will never get any better at hitting for a simple reason: they never work on it. Why should they? They never hit in college, they never hit in wood bat leagues, they never hit in foreign rookie leagues, and they never hit in the minor leagues. Most pitchers hardly step to the plate even in the major leagues. Of the 901 current active pitchers who have played in the majors, 242 of them haven't logged even a single plate appearance, and exactly have of them have three or fewer career plate appearances. Why bother working on your hitting if you're basically never going to hit? Every moment a pitcher works on his hitting is a moment spent not working on his pitcher. It would be a waste of his time. The only pitchers who have the luxury of working on their hitting are those who receive guaranteed multi-year contracts with National League teams. Sure, it was fun to watch Jon Lester work hard so he could get his first big league hit and home run, but he still ended up hitting .115 for his career. And that's what a good-hitting pitcher hits. Too often, too many pitchers try to make outs, on purpose and sometimes under manager's orders, to preserve his health for his pitching. They'll swing half-heartedly at pitches not intending to hit them (which would be a disaster because they might accidentally get a hit and have to risk injury on base), or more likely, just watch three strikes go right down the pipe. Some people might find that charming, but I think trying to make out makes for a dishonest at-bat, and I don't find it charming to watch the guy at the plate try to make out on purpose. Bring on the universal DH.

Did Capone run a confidence game? I thought he was a racketeer.

I guess it’s time to put away the dog whistle.

Talk about false equivalencies, it seems like some people would like to put Maddow and Tucker in the same box. That is asinine. Even though Maddow clearly has an agenda to advance the Democratic Party, she is also a first-rate journalist. She has both the deep background and the news chops to deliver the goods. The best Tucker can aspire to is mean-spirited hack.

The filibuster, which allows even a single Senator to essentially kill any Senate bill regardless of either its level of support among US citizens or votes to pass among Senate, is literally the most anti-democratic feature of the inherently undemocratic body that is the Senate. #MAGAMathFail Which is why the MAGA fascist elite are trying to take it down from the inside, using their red hat base as the cannon fodder to do their bidding. And why not? No skin off the elite's asses. Yet. You do know, don't you, that we realize that everything you and the red hats say the Democrats are going to do, the Republicans have already done or are in the process of doing right now? The projection reeks. This is as valid as me saying to you, "If things were reversed and Republicans were pushing for Senate rule changes, you would be having a party."