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Todd Gack

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Posts posted by Todd Gack

  1. 7 minutes ago, Longhornmaniac8 said:

    A guy citing Spencer/Christy's work as the end-all, be-all of temperature records and criticizing others for making adjustments is just laughably hilarious.

    And then citing an article by Bjorn fucking Lomborg as an accurate authority on, well, anything. I should say he's great at being a contrarian.

    And then citing one single response to one of the 10 peer-reviewed papers that find >90% consensus among climate scientists as if it refutes it.

    It's really funny when people like @Thetexashammer pretend they know what they're talking about because they've done a little internet sleuthing.

    He's so stupid he doesn't even know what he doesn't know. The cognitive dissonance is astounding.

    And the one response is an editorial from a guy (not a climatologist) who also wrote an article called "Coal is Clean".  This is after he laments that "there is a propaganda war and I would encourage you to get past the media manipulation."  Jesus...

    I understand it's easy to think you're enlightened and above it all when you stay in your echo chamber and only ingest info from people who already agree with you.  But to then lecture everyone else about propaganda and manipulation is just too much cunty condescension to ignore.

    • Like 4
  2. 1 hour ago, Dahobbs said:

    From an historical context, this is true but misleading. Increased temperature resulting from natural sources, particularly in geological time frames, causes large increases in greenhouse gases (carbon sources being released by the increased temperature). The releases in turn feed the temperature change, causing greater increase than would have occurred without the additional releases, at least until the Earth finds a new equilibrium. This is one of the reasons why human CO2 releases are so concerning and why scientist talk about climate change going beyond human control. Our releases cause temperature increases. Those increases will in turn cause further massive releases of greenhouse gasses, for instance methane from melting arctic ice, thereby causing further temperature changes. 

    This is what I've read as well - positive feedback.  What I don't get is the lack of explanation for basic physics from this hammer fellow.  If additional CO2 (whether it lags or leads temp) increases through positive feedback, which in turn causes more temperature increases, then land-locked ice will melt and sea levels will rise.  How is that controversial? 

  3. 13 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:


    There are huge price distortions and it costs too fucking much, among other things.

    I'd argue that the core problem is that the richest country in the history of ever doesn't cover every person who gets sick when the health and longevity of the populace is a cornerstone of a well-functioning society.  If you believe healthcare is a right (I do), you should start there and then figure out how to pay for it.  Kinda like the way we did it with the bank bailouts.  Kinda like thousands of families all over the country who find out that their child has just been diagnosed with leukemia.  There is no decision to make, only strategies for how to cover the costs.

    The current problem with the "how to pay for it" discussion is that it's hard to even get a handle on what the academic research says.  The main study that Bernie cites is a somewhat Koch -funded study that shows M4A will save $2 trillion over 10 years.  Factcheck.org casts some doubt on that, as does the person who did most of the research.  It would be nice if the media dove deeper into these things.  But all things considered, other countries have figured this shit out, we should be able to as well.  

    https://www.factcheck.org/2018/08/the-cost-of-medicare-for-all/

    • Like 1
  4. 18 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

     

    Not that I disagree with anything that Hawking 2.0 is asserting, but at which point in our history has a grassroots movement overtaken an industry as large and influential as healthcare in America?  Isn't healthcare spending something like 20% of GDP?  I imagine a shit ton of very wealthy people will keep their middle finger raised at the people while upping their campaign contributions and keeping the same political whores in office.  Asking honestly 'cause I suck at history.

  5. 36 minutes ago, Machinator said:

    (Scipio Tex) Texas-LSU Postmortem: Defense

     

      Reveal hidden contents

     

    The final butcher's bill was long and bloody. I'll hit a few lowlights beyond 45 points surrendered at home before a raucous 100,000+ Texas crowd. The larger context of that is important.

    LSU QB Joe Burrow was 31 of 39 for 471 yards passing. He completed nearly 80% of his attempts on largely downfield throws (>15 yards per completion). He averaged 12 yards every time he attempted a throw. As a general rule, competent defenses force a trade off between accuracy and DOT (depth of target). Higher completion percentage? Fewer yards. More yards downfield? Lower accuracy. Texas failed on both accounts, allowing what will likely be Burrow's highest passer rating all season. Generally, a defense can make an impact on one part of that equation by simple alignment. Not so Saturday.

    LSU converted 50% of their 3rd downs. On par with the rate Orlando surrendered last year in Big 12 play, where Texas surpassed only conference winless Kansas in money down defense. As I wrote last year during the season, in my preseason preview and pointed out leading up to this game after we saw the La Tech effort, Todd Orlando has exhibited a post 2017 problem with 3rd down defense and the call matching approach, with squads absent overwhelming talent advantages and seniority.
    Those situations more than any other call for coherent team defense and individual agency at some key positions. Not mindless Xs running to spots.

    All three LSU primary receivers went >100 yards receiving. Jefferson: 9-163-3td. Marshall: 6-123-1td. Chase: 8-147-0. Jefferson was in single coverage on his game sealing 3rd and 17 zero blitz 61 yard touchdown catch. Of course, so was every other Tiger receiver.

    LSU's "normal runs" (non sack yardage) went for 5.7 yards per carry. But why run for 6 yards a pop when you can throw for 12 yards an attempt? When LSU ran successfully, it was primarily when Texas lined up wrong. They won surprisingly few individual match ups in the run game. Mostly leaning and screening.

    LSU had only 11 meaningful possessions. They scored on 8 of them. Surrendering points on 73% of possessions is not good. Particularly given that Texas will play some Big 12 games where the opponent will have 12-14 possessions. In a game featuring 88 combined passing attempts and 100 attempted throws (factor in scrambles) allowing LSU only 11 possessions is a triumph of the clock-milking, possession-stealing Longhorn offense. Typically, a game like that might yield 14 possessions for the opponent. Had that occurred, LSU likely puts 59 on the scoreboard.

    The Texas defense was never placed in a bad spot the entire game. Every point they gave up was excruciatingly deserved. LSU's average scoring drive length was 68 yards. Relevance? No short fields. Tiger average starting position? The LSU 23 yard line. The Texas offense and special teams did not have a single turnover. That's ideal.

    In the second half, in a game played in 98 degree heat, Texas dominated time of possession: 20:38 minutes to LSU's 9:22. But LSU's last three possessions? Three 6 play, 75 yard touchdown drives. Bam. Bam. Bam. In the late 3rd quarter on, when the game boils down to conditioning and picking up the other team's tendencies and adjustments over the course of the contest, the Texas offense dominated. The Texas defense got worse (from a low bar), despite barely having to play.

    Due to the Longhorn O dominating Time Of Possession, LSU ran only 68 plays. But had 573 yards of offense. That's 8.4 yards per play.

    **

    The Texas offense and special teams did everything possible to protect the Longhorn defense. And were resoundingly successful in that effort. So while the defensive effort looked bad, in the larger picture, it's substantially worse than what you saw. Usually a defense surrendering 45 at home is doing so on the wrong end of short fields, handicapped by a sputtering offense, betrayed by turnovers, a blocked punt, general bad breaks. The scoreboard reflecting a total team failure more than any one one unit.
    Nope, nope, nope and nope. This was all on the D.

    Texas was also able to run dime personnel against LSU's O, but saw no (or negative) coverage benefits despite a seemingly favorable personnel mix that played more to the defense's relative strengths. Maybe that's because we chose to play that dime more for pressure rather than helping/disguising in coverage.

    The 3rd and 17 call. With 2:38 on the clock, the Texas offense dominating (they scored on every 2nd half possession), down 37-31, 3rd and 17 on the LSU 39 yard line, Todd Orlando chose to go with a zero blitz on the game's most important play. Texas brought six men, leaving four Texas DBs in single coverage on four LSU receivers (the middle safety, Chris Brown, didn't have depth and was basically a QB spy). Burrow evaded the blitz and threw a game sealing 61 yard touchdown.

    That call defies Football 101. It's bad probability analysis - the difference in not understanding the percentages between playing Powerball or a hand of Blackjack. It also ignores the larger context of the game. All that matters there is possession of the ball. A 10 yard gain is cause for riotous celebration. At that point, statistical window dressing, frustration that you've been taken to school by a 29 year old passing game coordinator for four quarters, or the dream of inflicting a defensive big play is out of bounds. You play the percentages established by God and man.

    I won't try to characterize Todd's thinking there, but I will say that it was consistent with his defensive approach the entire game.

    It might be a useful encapsulation of Todd Orlando's 3rd down problem. Increasingly, the Texas defense just looks like a bunch of calls on a play sheet. "Looks." A defense is a coherent blend of 11 men playing their positions and doing their jobs within a larger construct. Some players have necessarily narrow assignments. Hedgehogs. Some key positions require individual agency if you want a successful defense - particularly against wide open offenses. Open doesn't just refer to space - it's also about being open-ended. The way to combat that is having some of your own flexibility and open-endedness. Not creating robotic Xs running to spots you anticipate will cause a problem and playing Battleship with the opposing OC. (I-9? A-4? G-3?)

    The inability to trust athletes and a possible failure to teach them the game from position up means that in key moments, he's always going to try to make them mindless X's running to spots and try to Call Match the opposing OC. If we don't guess right, we blame a lack of instincts for their struggles to operate within larger defensive principles they may not really have been taught. I mistakenly believed/hoped that more experience, some smart players, and a loaded safety room would have our staff grant their pupils more freedom and trust. Or at least put them in a base defense that they know and are confident in where they can display the instincts that made them four and five star recruits.

    I think defense should start at the position level up. Not the white board down.

    The Players

    Usually, I break down the players, but why bother? It's irrelevant. The Texas defense played hard. Actually, really hard. They also have talent. They weren't assignment perfect, but they weren't blowing coverages and melting down either. LSU has three NFL quality wide receivers and a good QB playing in a cool scheme. So it's not as if the reasonable standard is defensive domination. But the standard should be something higher than a thorough X&O pantsing for four excruciating quarters despite massive support from the offense, special teams, field position and crowd.

    LSU's excellent receivers made some good plays. But most of those throws were open by scheme. Just as they were last year against hurry up spread practitioners with lesser talent. Burrow made accurate throws to open receivers. If our defense is relying on offensive incompetence, that's going to hurt our ceiling.

    So while Joe Ossai, Mal Roach and Chris Brown had several great individual efforts and McCulloch missed an open field tackle on Helaire (and made some others) and Kobe Boyce and Jalen Green got beat in single man coverage (sometimes as we rushed four and had four Longhorn players at LB depth in no-man's land incapable of pressuring or coverage) what exactly is the value of evaluating their individual play? I'd be making the same mistake our defensive staff did.

    The game wasn't about that.

    The defensive staff lost their battle. They didn't just lose on the white boards on Wednesday. They lost in Spring and Fall camp. Because we still don't have a hang your hat defensive identity or a plan - however imperfect - for answering the same questions.

    A laminate with some pressures on it isn't a defense.

    Want to know why Texas can cross train it's linebackers and defensive backs so easily?

    Because they're not learning a position...

    ...they're just memorizing a call.


    Hook 'em.

     

     

    You know, if even half of this analysis of our defensive "scheme" deficiencies is accurate, a loss to ou is an almost certainty. 

    And the fact that our def guys haven't done well in the draft becomes less of a mystery.

  6. 29 minutes ago, bolverk said:

    WTF ethnicity is the name "Menashi?" I mean, is it French, German, Irish, or god forbid Polish? I mean, yeah, the dude looks white, but what ethnic brand of white is he?

    Because, apparently, that shit matters to having a functional democracy.

    I think it's Dutch.

    • Like 3
  7. FYI
     
    Candidates who have qualified for the September debates in both polling and fundraising:
    1. Former Vice President Joe Biden
    2. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker
    3. Mayor Pete Buttigieg
    4. California Sen. Kamala Harris
    5. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar
    6. Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke
    7. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders
    8. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren
    9. Businessman Andrew Yang
     
    There are now 11 Democrats who say they received contributions from at least 130,000 individuals, coming from at least 400 unique donors in 20 or more states.
    Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii have reached their fundraising threshold, but still need to hit their polling minimum to qualify. Castro and billionaire Tom Steyer have each received three of their four necessary polls. Gabbard and former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper each have one. All other candidates haven't reached above 2% in any qualifying polls.
    The DNC requires that all polls be conducted by an approved pollster, released between June 28 and August 28, 2019, conducted nationally or in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and/or Nevada, and fit a certain question structure.
    The candidate must get above 2% support in four or more polls of this nature, and they cannot be conducted by the same pollster in the same region. There is still a month for candidates who have not yet hit the polling threshold to do so.
    • Like 2
  8. 2 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

    I thought the qualifying polls were all national, not state polls like this one.  Also, I had read last week that Yang already got the polls to qualify for debates 3 and 4:  https://thehill-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/thehill.com/homenews/campaign/455207-yang-qualifies-for-third-and-fourth-democratic-debates

    "In an email sent to campaigns by the DNC on Tuesday that was obtained by The Hill, the committee argued that a July 11 poll from NBC and The Wall Street Journal and a July 19 poll by NBC and SurveyMonkey, would only count as one poll because they were conducted by the same sponsor — NBC."

    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/455337-exclusive-dnc-rejects-yang-poll-leaving-him-off-september-debate-stage

  9. 14 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

    She also called out our country's support of al qaeda.  I mean, wow.  Stuff like that is simply unspeakable.  

    I think she focused on the Trump administration's support of al-qaeda, but yeah that was good stuff.  Haven't heard her address the bloat/corruption of the MIC... not sure if anyone touched on it last night. 

  10. This is a really good interview.  Yang is forced to go more in-depth on his UBI plan, stutters thought a couple answers, but he concedes that some tweaking will be necessary for it to work for (almost) all citizens.  Good back and forth.

     

  11. 15 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

    WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS LEGAL jesus fucking christ.

    even if it were NOT legal, we should STILL treat them with compassion.

    we don't have to be evil. we are abusing these people on purpose.

    these are fucking human beings!

    THIS IS NOT NECESSARY. can you admit we can do better? 

    I think this is the disconnect b/t you and slorch.  Only one of you views these people as having equal humanity to yourselves.  It would appear that the first step in the condoning of torture and other human rights abuses has been successfully implemented - that being the dehumanization of the 'others'.  

    Hypothetically, if say, Louisiana closed its borders, started detaining all Texans who tried to cross, and treated them the way our govt is treating the migrants, I bet slorch would be condemning the absence of compassion and human decency similar to that which is occurring at the border.

  12. 11 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

    But Trump support isn't at 50-50.  He's consistently about 42 - 53, both in approval and against the major Dem candidates, and that's counting states like Mississippi that we should just fucking write off.   And plenty of voters in the approval column can't stand him but would live with Hitler if the economy stays as is.  They'll peel away the second the recession hits, no matter what arguments you make.   There is a already critical mass against Trump.  Now is the time to give the rest of them no quarter, in my opinion. 

    The election is next year, do you know something that we don't?  Haven't you heard, we're in the greatest economy in the history of ever.  #tiredofwinning 

  13. 21 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

    Everyone is too quick to write Biden’s epitaph based on this one debate, but I don’t see that yet.

    I will say one thing, however, he looked old

    yep.  sounded old too.  reminded me of Lee Corso trying to get through a two-sentence thought coherently.

  14. 7 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

    Neither do I. The purpose of a UBI is to provide a UNIVERSAL Basic Income. Yang's plan fails on the first word and does so for incomprehensible reasons. (I'm lying, the reasons are extremely understandable... Silicon Valley guys fucking hate the poor.)

    The families who rely on government benefits will absolutely be affected, negatively. As everyone who isn't in poverty gets $12k/year, everything gets more expensive and the poor now have to compete in the market with even FEWER resources than they had before relative to their market competition.

    Oh, and this scheme is funded by taxes paid by those poor people. Very cool.

    So, in the meantime, why exclude them from the "U"BI?

    What about actually engaging in the conversation instead of just being happy about "starting" it? (This has been a big idea well before Yang, but whatever.)

    Pete and Yang both operate on a level of participation trophy that's embarrassing to see from men who want to become president.

    (Also, his messaging is a 100% lie. He makes it sound universal. It isn't.)

    Points well taken.  Hard to call something universal if it excludes any significant portion of the population.

    Not sure I agree on the idea of the poor funding it in any meaningful way.  It's a shitload of cash to distribute and a large portion will come from a value added tax on the biggest tech companies.  Can't imagine the poor will have any tax increase at all as a result of UBI.

    And I agree on engaging in the conversation - I hope some of these issues are raised on the debate stage.

  15. 6 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

    The general means test is that you don't get something if you're too rich, but Yang's UBI is the wrong direction: You don't get it if you're too poor.

    It's very, very stupid.

    Furthermore, limiting the idea of "receiving government assistance" to only the assistance provided to the poor is yet another anti-poor issue with Yang's UBI scheme. What about military contractors whose entire livelihood is taxpayer money? What about income from firms who survived because of bailouts? What about income from businesses that utilize government infrastructure projects (oops, all of them) or those who used government loans/grants to start or grow?

    UBI can be a good idea. Andrew Yang's UBI is garbage. But he's a Silicon Valley guy, so that's kind of how that whole thing goes with that sort of person.

    This is a gimmick and a joke.

    So the objection is that it doesn't address extreme poverty and I would agree.  Those families receiving 2k, 3k, whatever per month in food stamps and housing stipends will be unaffected, but I don't think the point of his UBI is to fix that.  I imagine the very poor on the fringes will need more fundamental changes to our education, housing, and prison systems.  Real reform that will likely happen only when our current environment of scarcity is less of a factor on people's lives.  

    I think Yang's idea is a great start.  He won't win, but starting the conversation and doing so in good faith is what has endeared him to so many people.

  16. 6 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

    UBI is a good idea. Yang's version is bad because it means tests in the wrong direction and seems to ensure that the only people who get it are the ones who don't need it.

    Can you elaborate on this?  I've heard him say there is no means testing and it's a universal dividend for all above 18.  The only catch is for those already receiving govt assistance, in that they won't have the 1K on top of their current govt check. They'll need to choose to stand pat with what they've got or opt in and get the 1k unconditional with no oversight or income verification.  And the super rich can check a box and choose to donate their check to a charity. 

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