NoiseInsideMyHead

Somebody call 911...new dumpster fire smoldering. When has this ever not been the case? The old and infirm have ALWAYS been vulnerable to diseases contracted from healthy and asymptomatic carriers. The solution has never been to restrain movement of all to lower the risk to the few. Why not let the young go about living - or at least have the choice to do so, and let the vulnerable population self-isolate - or at least have the choice to do so. “Rejoice, O young man in thy youth.”

One thing that's been noticeably absent from the recent news coverage of the USPS is historical context. If I'm not mistaken, the USPS is always changing its service model. Reacting to trends. Adjusting postage rates. Upgrading and retiring equipment. Consolidating services and facilities. Locating and relocating postal drop boxes. Changing PO retail hours. Altering delivery schedules. Hitting Congress with almost laughably regular funding ultimatums and threats to eliminate six-day residential service. Someone just watching the news these past few months might think that none of these things had ever happened before. That Trump was single-handedly dismantling the USPS and solely for political purposes. Or that a venerable blue mailbox had never, ever been taken out of service. Or that a sorting machine had never broken down. That fed-up postal carriers had never dropped a load in the garbage. I think that may not be the most accurate impression. Anecdotes by politically motivated customers do not tell much of a story.

Takeaways: MILLER - neutral. Don't know the kid. Don't condone bad behavior but also not going to second guess anyone who had far more information than me. Remorse and contrition are internal to the individual, and not for you and me to judge or quantify. There's a reason why we seal juvenile records (don't yell at me, yell at your legislators). There are civil lawsuits to redress harm done; ironically, an NHL contract deepens the defendant's pockets. Lots of hypocrites out there screaming for blood from the safety of anonymity or the secure knowledge that their past transgressions shall forever remain buried. COYOTES - down. Way down. Had a chance to not draft the kid...passed on it. Had a chance to explain their motivations at the time...apparently lied through their teeth. Had a chance to stand by their stated convictions...caved to pressure. Zero character. Hope Berry and UND do better.

It's gotten a hell of a lot more play here than when it came up in the Committed Recruits thread in late June...that was only a couple of pages. I guess the draft and the proximity of the season are to blame. But I do wonder if some of the kid's harshest critics will change their tune if he starts putting up points. Will there be darts thrown when people see "UND GOAL - MILLER!" posted in a game thread? Or boos at the Ralph, assuming fans are in attendance?

Your exact quote was "I don't understand..." and now you're saying the issue is not on your end? Seriously.

As a ND resident, I would respectfully beg to differ. I'd say things in ND got pretty f**king quiet for a while there. Hair salons and restaurants did not re-open until early May, and even then very slowly. So many media observers and pundits were basing their 'assessments' of local activity solely on gubernatorial proclamations, which obviously did not tell anything close to the whole story. Even states with "orders" that were hailed by activists as sensible were chock full of countless exceptions and carve-outs for "essential" activities. Bottom line, nobody "fully closed down."

Sports has a unique and powerful capacity for change, and redemption. There is a good story for every bad. A good outcome for every poor. Maybe you should binge watch Real Sports on HBO...they do a great job of humanizing a lot of these issues. Forgiveness and opportunity are hallmarks of both Christianity and Americana. Only a cold hearted SOB or a blatant hypocrite would take a hard line.

Do people seriously expect something more than has already been said? You do realize that athletics departments have since the dawn of time embraced minimalism vis-a-vis SA behavior. Do either of the phrases “the team is handling this matter internally” and “federal student privacy laws prevent us from...” ring a bell?

If only they could convert the Dumpster Fire thread into some form of reusable energy...

Setting aside all of the non-sports issues...how much pressure is on jurisdictions with brand new stadiums? I have to admit, when all this nonsense started, I found strength in the notion that there was NO way that places like LA, Vegas, Arlington, Minneapolis, etc., with brand-new or new-ish, pricey sporting venues, would EVER permit their badly needed revenue streams to be choked dry. Yet, seven weeks into the NFL season, here we are. What are the short-, medium-, and long-term economic repercussions here? Not just the game-day jobs lost, and the collective impact on the local psyche, but on municipal, public-private, and private funding vehicles? It has to be nothing short of catastrophic. Those arenas were built with only one business model in mind: butts in seats. Lots of butts in seats.

Everyone can express their opinion by not going to UND games this season. That'll show them.

The solution is tell people to grow the hell up. Old people die. Sick people die. Sometimes younger and healthier people die, too. It's part of the human condition that, until March 2020, we all just kind of accepted. Stop publicizing COVID like it's anything more than a respiratory bug with a ludicrously high survival rate. People can't handle the information they've been fed and worse, I think there are people who are addicted to the data and will want a fix perpetually going forward. We've made rock stars out of epidemiologists and public health advocates; they've tasted the limelight and will not give it up easily. There will always be people working to solve humanity's problems, and ease human suffering. Ain't nobody gonna solve the ultimate problem, however, because people die. Add COVID to the list of conditions for which medicine will search for better and improved treatment and prevention, but not at so great a social and economic cost. Hate capitalism? Hate the modern economy? Tough, because without those we're in real trouble. Trouble that masks and distancing won't solve. Look what we're doing to our children. Look what we're doing to ourselves. It's cliche, but pick a color and hand out COVID ribbons. And don't let anyone give you any BS about prejudice or marginalizing a micro- or sub-population that is disproportionately affected by disease. We've managed to co-exist with sickle-cell anemia for a long damn time, and that draws some pretty awkward social lines. Throw a benefit, raise funds. It doesn't bring anyone back but it would certainly be better to have more people gainfully employed, and more people feeling confident in society and the economy to support the cause. If I'm wrong, and COVID is the global killer I've been denying since day 1, so be it. But I'd rather go out living, than not. And if I'm right...start the apologies now because the list of people to whom they are owed is long and growing.

Two things: 1. If you profess to be a Christian, and you can't square UND's move with this kid, shame on you. Go back to Sunday School and apologize to that poor lady. 2. Would you rather see the skeleton in the room, or all of the ones in the closets that you don't yet know about? I would say the people who have had their sins laid bare are always a far safer bet than the "angels."

Only at autopsy can you really know what's in someone's heart, and even then, it's kind of mushy. Who gets to be the arbiter of "remorse", anyway? It's a silly notion, frankly, but ripe fodder for the smug internet hit mob, for whom no apology is ever genuine or sincere enough.

So the NCHC just retweeted a UNO picture of the ice at Baxter, and the red and black O is painted at center ice. Open question...should it have been painted neutral for the "pod"? Maybe a conference logo at center? Was there no potential for ad revenue for non-UNO games? Maybe the conference could have sold some dashers and ice real estate and distributed the revenue among the conference teams, or to defray pod-related expenses. (As I recall, the NHL changed out dashers between games, so that is obviously still a possibility.) Not saying the REA would or wouldn't be down with the same thing, and I get that UNO has obligations, too, but should the conference have stepped in? Mostly curious what Sioux fans think.

I'm not sure what's worse...thinking that "control" is within our grasp due to human arrogance, scientific ignorance, or partisan politics. Control is an illusion. Have we controlled influenza? The common cold? Hell, polio took decades. Has anyone even bothered to try to define what "control" is?

What's missing is compromise. The all-or-nothing, sweepstakes style politics have just completely turned off most center-minded folks, who struggle to identify with either "party." We are in an era not of progress but circularity. Presidential priorities seem out of whack. It seems the new norm is to expend considerable energy undoing - often by executive order - the policies of the previous administration. Trump was never shy about this, but he never was able to deliver on some of his loose promises. Frankly, I would have liked to have seen Trump without his GOP enablers in Congress, and particularly the Senate. Hard to imagine less gridlock than we already have. When was the last time the US accomplished something meaningful? Are term limits the answer? I believe that the US can no longer be defined by a single, American ideology. There are probably at least 5-6 factions in the country, struggling to find any common ground whatsoever.

In fairness, the states do actively market and sell Powerball tickets. So focusing on the exceedingly rare is a bit of a hallmark of government.

So, the testing policies basically ram due process up the ass and don’t even offer a reach around. Presumed “guilty,” on the strength of a single positive, with no chance for rebuttal. But the penalties for violating “quarantine” would be inherently criminal, right? Then you would have every right to a trial, defend yourself, introduce evidence of negative tests, challenge the testing methodology used against you, argue false positive rates, etc. The government would literally have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you were infectious - and a threat to public health, not just a random “positive”. Do I have this wrong? Or is this essentially how the people will need to assert themselves over this pseudoscientific tyranny?

Hardly relevant here, but pro-choice all the way.

Wait a second. Are you sure? So it was...an outlier? Are you saying that the presentation of this information by the State in this manner is potentially flawed, misleading, and counterproductive??? That we shouldn't rely on it, or read too much into it? Good God, man! What is it you are trying to tell us?

No one is preventing YOU from following the recommendations of the CDC. And no one is preventing YOU from according Covid-19 whatever degree of concern YOU deem appropriate. If asking YOU to leave ME out of your decision-making makes ME a "cultist," "circle jerker," or "Trumptard," so be it. Sure beats the hell out of letting you impose whatever it is that you seek to impose on me. (See how I did that without using any derogatory labels or name-calling? It's easy...you should give it a try.)

Too many woke Karens complaining to the floor manager at Scheel's.

Problem is, nobody breaks down the testing data, so nobody knows exactly who is getting tested and why. Lots of asymptomatic close contacts, nervous people, and healthcare workers are among those being swabbed. At the end of the day, reporting positive cases is both a cop-out (because it's ostensibly an easy way to convince one's self - or one's state - that one is doing something) and a red herring. Scientifically useless. And little more than fodder for hand wringers and fear mongerers.