Posted: September 14, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized
Congratulations NFL you’ve positioned yourself in such a way that your league is on the side of people ambushing Deputies and cheering for them to die.
All you need to know is: There’s a 6-year-old boy right now praying for his sheriff deputy mom to survive an ambush shooting while BLM demonstrators blocked the entrance to the ER hoping to treat her & her partner & chanting “we hope you die!” Yet today, the NFL will honor BLM
Congratulations NFL you have reached a point where on the opening weekend of what was the most popular sport in the nation nobody is talking about the games themselves.
Congratulations NBA In a year when you have a captive audience at home you’ve managed to see your rating drop and provided a visual of your players kneeling during the national anthem on the Anniversary of Sept 11th.
Congratulation MLB in a sport with an aging but loyal demographic you managed to push fans away directly against the advice of your own surveys.
Congratulations NHL You managed to insert yourself into a situation that you could have pretty much avoided and allowed yourself a share in the backlash.
The bottom line: As of last week Major sports have gone from a net +20 positive rating among the public to a -10 rating in just one year. As Ed Morrissey noted:
the decline is as broad as it gets. The sports industry’s positive rating fell in every demo, and by double digits in all except Democrats (-5). The rating among non-white Americans might be higher than among white Americans, but it also fell farther among non-white Americans (-35, as opposed to -26 among whites). The collapse is almost total, in other words, and even in the few demos that remain positive, enthusiasm has almost entirely evaporated.
Congratulations major sports you played Biden Ball and managed to cancel yourselves.
I’ve been writing here about the Illinois Exodus for several years. The COVID-19 outbreak, as it has many other societal trends, is accelerating the people drain. But two rounds of riots and looting, one after the homicide of George Floyd, and the second last month, after false rumors that Chicago Police had killed a man now charged with murder, are gut punches that the city will not quickly recover from.
In my DTG post-second riot post about the decline and fall of the city, Welcome to Detroit, Chicago, I wrote, “But when Chicago’s downtown area is dominated by boarded up store-fronts with signs declaring ‘Move in now–lease rates reduced again–first month free!’ you’ll know the downtown descent is well under way.” The vacancy rate for luxury units in downtown Chicago are at their highest level ever recorded according to Mike Flannery (more on him in a bit).
I haven’t been downtown since that “Detroit” entry, but on my own blog, Marathon Pundit, an automated Google Ads banner from a downtown Chicago apartment building offered this promo, “First two months rent free.”
Decline and fall.
And keep in mind that over seventy percent of Chicago’s economic activity comes from the downtown area. And Chicago is of course Illinois’ largest and most important city.
Downstate things aren’t much better. AP is reporting on three towns in St. Clair County, which is across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, that are considering merging because of “severe population decline.” St. Clair County, like Chicago and Cook County, are Democratic strongholds where corruption is widespread.
The Prairie State has lost population for six straight years. It’s a safe bet that when the counting is over for 2020 it will be seven.
On the usually-worth watching–Fox Chicago’s Flannery Fired Up, three cheerleaders for the city and one moderate skeptic talked about its descent and for the most part, it’s quick bounce back. But this weekend’s episode was an aberration. The show sucked. It was up to the host, Mike Flannery, to bring up the two 800-pound gorillas in Chicago’s otherwise looted basement: rampant corruption and the worst-funded municipal pensions in the nation.
Since 1973 over thirty members of Chicago City Council have been sentenced to prison. At one time he was the city’s most powerful alderman, but now Ed Burke is under indictment for allegedly shaking down a fast food franchisee. Do you want to bring your business to Chicago? You may have to endure having your pockets picked by a pol. Or by several of them.
Where do I sign up?
Burke has been an alderman since 1969. Chicago needs term limits. And so does Illinois. Boss Michael Madigan, who is from the same part of the city as Burke, has been speaker of the state House since 1983 except for two years in the 1990s when the Republicans had a majority in the lower chamber. Madigan is also a Chicago ward committeeman. He’s been chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party since 1997. Illinois’ most powerful Dem is also currently under investigation as part of an evolving federal corruption probe that has already ended the careers of several Chicago and suburban politicians.
There is no way out of Chicago’s pension bomb other than a municipal bankruptcy, one that may also force many city vendors to go under, or a federal bailout. Even if the the Democrats capture the Senate and the White House in November, such a rescue for irresponsible spending, a backhanded reward really, faces tall odds in Washington. But under current Illinois law, government bodies are prevented from declaring bankruptcy.
The “moderate skeptic” on Flannery Fired Up mentioned transportation as a city selling point. While O’Hare is one of the world’s busiest airports–it used to be ranked first in traffic–and Chicago is a rail hub and it has many miles of interstate highways, that “expert” needs to drive on Chicago’s streets. They are falling apart.
And if you don’t own a car and you use your feet to get around? Watch out, walking on crumbling sidewalks often requires strong ankles and a steady balance.
Violence in Chicago was declining over the last few years but shootings are way up since the pandemic was declared.
As I’ve mentioned before, like an alcoholic, Chicago’s cure won’t begin until it admits complete and utter defeat.
That point has not been reached. But it’s probably coming soon.
As it is for the rest of Illinois. The state’s pension programs are almost as poorly funded as Chicago’s.
The Atlantic magazine has come out against the Nobel Peace Prize itself
"The record of achievement of the peace laureates is so spotty, and the rationales for their awards so eclectic, that the committee should take a long break to consider whether peace is a category coherent enough to be worth recognizing," @gcaw writes: https://t.co/kMGZGzTaki
If Donald Trump is for the Peace Prize they’re agan it!
Can we now assume that the Nobel Peace prize for Barack Obama was an affirmative action award?
I think it’s been really something to see the left go on a full defense of what objectively is child porn in their defense of Netflix “Cuties”
If I was Donald Trump I’d direct the AG to investigate if the movies violates US child porn laws as written.
The whole: ” If Donald Trump is against Child Porn then I’m for it” reaction from will be something to see, of course in fairness they’re already all defending it. I wonder how fast they would condemn the movie Fatima about the miracles there if Trump came out for it?
Well at least the new peace deal between Barain and Israel is something that Democrats can celebrate. Right?
Asked on @CNNSitRoom if Trump deserves credit for Bahrain-Israel deal, Pelosi questions his ties to Saudi and says: “Good for him for having a distraction on a day when the numbers of people who are affected and the numbers of people who are dying from this virus only increases”
“After watching Thursday’s game and also watching the Dolphins players’ video, it shows that it is not about who is standing or who is kneeling for the anthem,” Mayfield said. “But instead, coming together and taking action to create real change. Also after reading many letters and messages over the past few weeks, I have been showed (sic) that a gesture such as kneeling will only create more division or discussion about the gesture, rather than be a solution towards our country’s problems at hand. With that being said, I am choosing to stand for both anthems to show respect, love, and unity to everybody involved.”
Trump will obviously be for this so as you might guess the left is agan it but I suspect those who have invested in him as an advertising spokesman are for it. The real question is this: Given that the Ravens are expected to be blitzing a lot will his offensive line be for it or agan it?
Autonomous mower from Left Hand Robotics, image from their website
By now, most kids are in school. Well, at least attending school in some fashion. My kids, like many, are in an online program, cobbled together by our local school by administrators that likely ask questions like “The files are IN the computer?” Like most people, we’ll find a way to manage and try to get our kids ready for their adult lives, despite the flawed setup.
When we eventually go back to school, we need to ask harder questions about how well our schools are preparing kids for future careers. One area we’re missing is how we’ll work with autonomous vehicles in the future. We see much talk about autonomous cars, but there are plenty of other areas where autonomous vehicles are quietly proliferating. Too many people focus on jobs that would be taken away. Yes, jobs are going to leave, but new ones will appear. The new jobs require humans that are used to, and can work with, autonomous vehicles as they perform their tasks.
For example, there is a lot of investment in autonomous trucks. Long haul trucks move goods across the country, and the lack of sufficient capacity became obvious when Amazon and other delivery services struggled under the weight of COVID restrictions and increased demand for home delivery. Autonomous vehicles can operate longer and safer, but they aren’t ideal for all circumstances, such as icy roads. The human driver of the future needs to understand how the vehicle works, how to maintain it, and when to take over to keep the truck safe.
Construction vehicles are another area. Currently construction is viewed as a low education job. Its not (think about the engineering that goes into road construction), and in the future it’ll require even more education. Autonomous construction vehicles are now operating in remote sites, running 40 ton excavators and doing the dirty work while humans supervise the project. Before long, construction workers will need expertise in setting up sensors, monitoring equipment, directing an army of robots to build bridges, roads, solar arrays and the other things that make our world a pleasant place to live.
Robots that are out of sight are also getting attention. Underground digging by the BADGER robots in Europe could completely change how our cities are built and enable us to bring in new services (water, sewer, internet, etc.) without requiring expensive and obtrusive digging. Dredging harbors, necessary to ensure enough water depth for container vessels, could become completely autonomous thanks to a new underwater vehicle. These robots can do the dirty work and operate around obstacles using autonomous logic, but they can’t determine what to do. That’s still for humans to perform.
The more we get our kids used to directing and working with robots, the better they will be positioned to work in the future. Technologists are quick to announce the demise of any particular field, but the future is always a hybrid first as new technology adjusts to the reality of the world. Our future with robots is no different, and our kids will work in that future better if we make our schools prepare them for it.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.
