Quotulatiousness

February 29, 2024

Arizona GOP pushes to legalize hunting down suspected illegal immigrants with deadly force! Film at 11!

Filed under: Government, Law, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Chris Bray reports on this utterly abhorrent piece of proposed legislation that will literally condemn any brown person in the state of Arizona to be murdered out of hand by evil red-hatted Trump supporters … or will it?

Republicans in the Arizona legislature have advanced a bill that would allow anyone in the state to just casually gun down any migrant anytime they feel like that filthy brown person might be trespassing. You can trust that this is really happening, because it’s in the news.

Delightfully, Axios reporter April Rubin trained at the New York Times. Here’s how she starts this story:

    Arizona Republicans are advancing a bill that would allow people to legally kill someone accused of attempting to trespass or actively trespassing on their property.

    The big picture: The legislation, which is expected to be vetoed if it reaches the state’s Democratic governor, would legalize the murder of undocumented immigrants, who often have to cross ranches that sit on the state’s border with Mexico.

These monsters, they’re legalizing the murder of undocumented migrants.

So, as always, let’s read the actual bill:

A person in lawful possession of property can threaten deadly force, or potentially use deadly force, in response to an act of criminal trespassing: You can go out on your property with a gun and tell a trespasser to get lost.

But Subsection B is the key to the actual use of deadly force, and journalists aren’t saying anything about it (emphasis added): “A person may use deadly physical force under subsection A only in the defense of himself or third persons as described in sections 13-405 and 13-406,” existing sections of Arizona state law. The bill explicitly references an existing legal standard for the use of deadly force.

March 4, 2023

Corruption? In Arizona? It’s more disturbing than you think

Filed under: Americas, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Elizabeth Nickson digs into the allegations of massive corruption in the state of Arizona:

Governor Katie Hobbs speaking with attendees at a Statehood Day ceremony in the Old Senate Chambers at the Arizona State Capitol building in Phoenix, Arizona on 14 February, 2023.
Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons.

One always likes a unifying theory, particularly one that explicates a thorny mystery rigorously ignored by the super-culture, by which I mean the world that the educated and financially secure occupy.

For instance: why was the preponderance of evidence of election fraud ignored by the courts? How did corruption in city and county governments take hold? Why are desperate people flooding the borders unchecked? Why is human and child sex trafficking so prevalent and not stopped? Why are we permitting our fellow citizens to become human wrecks in open-air drug markets? Why are our biggest cities degrading? Why, in so many cities, is middle class housing out of reach for the middle class?

The answer may be because a significant number of elected and appointed officials have been bribed by cartels and other criminal enterprises like the CCP or Asian gangs, like the ones operating in Vancouver, Seattle and San Francisco. And they are bribed through single family housing, bidding up and up and up the price of real estate.

Late last week, an extraordinary hearing took place in the Arizona Senate, whiphanded by Liz Harris, the chair of the committee investigating election fraud in Arizona. Only Harris expected the last presentation, and it was given by a woman we have all met in the nether worlds of finance when we are re-mortgaging, insuring, reinsuring, or investing in a local enterprise.

She is competent, reductionist, modest, and honest to a fault. She knows the paperwork she slides in front of you for signature, willing to describe every phrase in exhaustive detail.

One of those invisible people upon whom the entire system relies.

Jacqueline Breger was a single mother who owns her own insurance company, has multiple degrees, in accounting, an MBA, and various other necessary finance-industry certifications. She works with her husband1, an investigative attorney named John Thaler.

The story she told had half of America transfixed. Her testimony was based on that of a whistleblower from the Sinaloa cartel given during an application for witness protection, and the subsequent acquisition of 120,000 court documents that prove the case.

Nobody could believe it. Even those who would benefit by it if it were true, didn’t believe it. In the dozen or so interviews that followed the testimony, questions were barked at her and her employer with no small measure of hostility. Rick Santelli of CNBC looked as if all his hair was standing on end.

It starts this way:

In 2006, members of the Sinaloan cartel were arrested, tried and convicted for money laundering through single family homes in Illinois, Iowa and Indiana.

In 2014, Berger’s partner, John Thaler was asked to review the Sinaloan cases in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa and investigate whether the cartel had moved its enterprise to Arizona. Currently, the couple are working with several States Attorneys, the Attorneys General of New Mexico and California, and members of the FBI.

So this is a theory that requires attention.

    1. Thaler and Berger are married. Thaler’s ex-wife was the Sinaloan cartel member who requested witsec, and decanted the evidence which triggered the acquisition of the thousands of forged and fake documents. Much of the story is focused on the domestic drama, as if domestic drama were not a part of everyone’s life at one time or another. I am more interested in discovering the truth of the matter.

December 17, 2020

QotD: Light rail systems are almost always an upper middle class boondoggle

Filed under: Economics, Government, Quotations, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

What we can see here is exactly what Randall O’Toole of Cato has been saying for years — that light rail projects tend to actually hurt total transit use as they scavenge resources from other modes, like buses. This is because light rail costs so much more to move a passenger, both in terms of capital investment and operating cost, so $X shifted from buses to rail reduces total system capacity and ridership substantially. We have seen this in Phoenix, as light rail costs have forced closing or reduced services in a number of bus routes, with obvious results in the ridership numbers.

[…]

The problem with light rail (and the reason it is popular with government officials) is that it is an upper middle class boondoggle. There can be no higher use of transit than to provide mobility to poorer people who can’t afford reliable automobiles. Buses fulfill this goal better than any mode of transit. They are flexible and can reach into many corners of the city. The problem with buses, from the perspective of government officials, is that upper middle class people don’t like to ride on them. They like trains. So the government builds hugely expensive trains for these influential, wealthier voters. Since the trains are so expensive, the government can only build a few routes, so those routes end up being down upper middle class commuting corridors. As the costs mount for the trains, the bus routes that serve the poor and their dispersed commuting destinations are steadily cut.

Warren Meyer, “Phoenix Light Rail Fail, 2019 Update”, Coyote Blog, 2019-11-13.

August 25, 2019

Vikings beat Cardinals 20-9 in sloppy “all-important 3rd preseason game™”

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The third NFL preseason game is traditionally the last chance for teams’ starters to get together in a game environment and show that they’re ready for the regular season to begin. This certainly wasn’t true for Saturday’s match at US Bank Stadium between the Minnesota Vikings and the Arizona Cardinals. Neither team’s starters looked fully awake, never mind ready to play in games that matter. Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins in particular looked to be struggling with accuracy issues, as he registered a lot of incomplete passes in his first-half appearances (3 of 13 for 35 yards and a 39.6 passer rating), while Arizona’s rookie quarterback Kyler Murray kept the Vikings’ starting defence on its heels with his unpredictable mobility (although they did manage to keep Arizona out of the end zone).

With the notable exception of Dalvin Cook’s 85-yard touchdown run, Cousins and the starting offence seemed to be going backwards nearly as often as they went forward. The second team, under Sean Mannion didn’t do much better, and it took the third team to inject some energy in the fading minutes of the second half with All-Preseason Quarterback Kyle Sloter working his traditional magic to put the game out of reach. Sloter ended up with a gaudy stats line against Arizona’s third team: 6 of 7 passing for 102 yards with a touchdown, yielding a 158.3 passer rating. All he does is win games…

An exterior view of US Bank Stadium, the Minnesota Vikings’ home field by “www78”
“Viking Stadium” by www78 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Christopher Gates sums up the action for Daily Norseman readers:

It wasn’t pretty, but it was a victory

On Saturday afternoon at U.S. Bank Stadium, the Minnesota Vikings played host to the Arizona Cardinals in the third preseason game, which is generally viewed as a “dress rehearsal” for the regular season. The starters on both sides of the ball played most of the first half, and for the Vikings … at least on offense … it wasn’t good.

The final score showed that the Vikings defeated the Cardinals by a final score of 20-9, but the first team for the purple on both sides of the ball was less than impressive.

The offense for the Vikings in the first half provided just one highlight … but it was a really, really cool one. Dalvin Cook, seeing his first action of the preseason, saw just two carries. The first one went for three yards. The second one went for a lot more.

Cook took a handoff from Kirk Cousins and blasted for an 85-yard touchdown, giving him the longest run from scrimmage in Vikings’ preseason history.

The passing offense was, to put it mildly, awful. Between inaccuracy from Cousins and a handful of drops, with Stefon Diggs and Chad Beebe being the primary culprits, Cousins completed just 3-of-13 passes in the first half for 35 yards. A good chunk of those yards … 29 of them, to be exact … came on one pass to Diggs in the two-minute drill at the end of the half. Adam Thielen did not play in this one for the Vikings, but the pass offense was still bowling shoe ugly for the entire first half of play.

At SKOR North, Judd Zulgad discussed Kirk Cousins’ performance after the post-game interviews:

Murray’s performance provided hope. Cousins’ performance? Even the veteran knew it wasn’t close to acceptable.

“I’ll just start by saying, it’s a disappointing performance,” Cousins said. “Put it on me, it wasn’t good enough. If we play that way during the season it’s going to be a very tough year so we have to be much better than we were today. I really should say, I have to be much better than I was today and it’s about as simple as that. … I’m going to have a lot to look back at and learn from and correct.”

Cousins wasn’t exaggerating. The highlights with him in the game were few.

After the Vikings went three-and-out on their opening drive, running back Dalvin Cook, seeing his first preseason action, took a handoff on the first play of the second drive and went 85 yards on first-and-20 for a touchdown. Late in the second quarter, Cousins completed a 29-yard pass to Stefon Diggs on second-and-10 from the Vikings’ 46.

Got all that?

Otherwise, Kubiak and offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski had to be disappointed and at least a little (to a lot) concerned. Vikings coach Mike Zimmer was far more succinct in summing up his quarterback’s play. “I think he can play a lot better than that,” Zimmer said.

The Vikings’ opening drive ended with Cousins overthrowing Diggs on a deep pass over the middle. After Cook’s feel-good moment, Cousins’ poorly thrown screen pass for fullback C.J. Ham was nearly picked by Cardinals linebacker Terrell Suggs on the Vikings’ third drive. Cousins had been sacked for an 8-yard loss on the previous play to set up a third-and-13 from the Minnesota 37. Cousins’ struggles to throw screen passes remain a mystery but the problem is very real.

It didn’t get better in the second quarter. After an incompletion for Diggs and a 1-yard run by rookie Alexander Mattison, Cousins was sacked again for a 3-yard loss on third-and-9 from the Minnesota 26. That sack was on tight end Kyle Rudolph.

“I think at the end of the day, I can get rid of the football,” Cousins said, taking responsibility for being sacked. “You can always as a quarterback, throw out of bounds, find an eligible (receiver) to throw it over his head so it’s in the direction of him or even try to skate out and start a new play.”

The Vikings did get a first down on their next possession — it came on a 7-yard Cousins completion to Brandon Zylstra — but that drive opened with a poorly thrown pass to wide receiver Chad Beebe and ended with a third-down pass that Beebe dropped.

Cousins’ struggles partially masked the Vikings’ ongoing kicker issues: recently acquired punter/kicker Kaare Vedvik missed both of his field goal attempts (43 yards wide left and 54 yards wide right). That won’t endear him to his head coach: Mike Zimmer has been noted as not being fond of kickers at the best of times.

October 18, 2018

The wisdom of Zim Tzu, post-Cardinals edition

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

In the NFL, team head coaches are required to meet with the media during the week following each game. Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Zimmer is widely known to dislike this part of his job, but to avoid being fined by the league, he somehow swallows his intense distaste for the low-life scum of the sports media world and gets up in front of the microphone. While he’s there, in the spotlight, he answers questions from the great unwashed, but always in secretive koans of wisdom that can baffle the average intellect. Fortunately, the Daily Norseman employs the world’s greatest expert in decoding Zimmerian into ordinary language, Ted “The Decoder” Glover:

The Vikings warrior poet coach dispenses his words of wisdom.

ED NOTE: This has bad words. Most of the other things we write on here usually don’t, but this one does. It seems to be a popular bit, so until the law catches up with me, I’m going to keep doing it. Thanks for understanding, and thanks for not reading and not letting your kids read it if bad language isn’t your thing. Hope you enjoy the rest of our articles—Ted

At some point, every warrior poet deals with opponents you try take seriously, but just can’t get worked up for. They’re inferior at almost every position, their field general is more inexperienced than a year one med student trying to do brain surgery, and your field of battle kills birds at a rate higher than Americans shot down Imperial Japanese planes during the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot during WWII.

So you reach into your bag of tricks to keep everyone focused. Maybe you yell a little louder, or swear a little bit more. Or maybe you lay off a little, and let the troops blow off some steam and have some fun

Whatever method you chose, you picked the right course and approach. Even though it was a slow start and things weren’t firing on all cylinders early, you wouldn’t let a win slip from your grasp. You grabbed victory by the neck, and dragged it across the finish line.

Because you are Zim Tzu, The King In The North, Defrocker of Cardinals, Subduer of Equestrian Excrement Consumers, Nightmare of Clan Fromage, Breaker Of Gold Fever, High Septon Of Eagan, Lord Commander Of The Iron Range And Twin Cities, Master Of Fortress TCO, Honorary Elder Of Mankato and Protector Of The Realm.

And when The Great Unwashed need to hear how you dispatched a team that probably tasted like chicken after you cooked them, you just can’t come right out and say it, point blank. That would be a tad uncouth, and unbecoming of a warrior poet. So you need to hire mercenaries* to do your dirty work for you.** We take what Zim Tzu says, then we hook up words and phrases and clauses to get you very far.***

*Hi.

**It’s just a press conference about a football game. No mercenary shit is done. Although it would be cool as hell, not gonna lie.

***No this isn’t Conjunction Junction, Interplanet Janet. It’s just me making shit up about what Mike Zimmer actually thinks, as my lawyers from Franklin, Bash, and Bateman want me to remind you.

October 15, 2018

Arizona Cardinals 17, Minnesota Vikings 27, as the Vikings discover you’re still allowed to run the ball

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The Cardinals finally got their first win of the season last weekend and came into Minneapolis hoping to get their second. The Vikings, returning home after a hard-fought win against the defending Superbowl champion Philadelphia Eagles were just hoping that they didn’t have a relapse to the Buffalo game a few weeks back.

The Vikings had to re-shuffle their offensive line yet again, as starting left tackle Riley Reiff was unable to suit up for the game with a foot injury, so Rashod Hill slid over to the left side and rookie Brian O’Neill got his first NFL start on the right. Despite the change, the line was able to open some gaps for running back Latavius Murray (starting in place of the injured Dalvin Cook) who logged the Vikings’ first rushing touchdown and first 100-yard rushing game this season. That didn’t mean that quarterback Kirk Cousins was untroubled by the Cardinal pass rush: he had several passes batted down at the line and he was sacked four times and lost a fumble that Cards safety Budda Baker scooped and ran back for a defensive touchdown (and a tie game). The Vikings took a 3-point lead into the half, and then dominated most of the second half both statistically and on the scoreboard. The Cardinals put together one efficient scoring drive, but that was all they could muster.

(more…)

August 20, 2018

QotD: Economic refugees wanting to re-create the hell they just escaped from

Filed under: Economics, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

I can’t tell you now many people I know here in Arizona that tell horror stories about California and how they had to get out, and then, almost in the same breath, complain that the only problem with Arizona is that it does not have all the laws in place that made California unlivable in the first place. They will say, for example, they left California for Arizona because homes here are so much more affordable, and then complain that Phoenix doesn’t have tight enough zoning, or has no open space requirements, or has no affordability set-asides, or whatever. I am amazed by how many otherwise smart people cannot make connections between policy choices and outcomes, preferring instead to judge regulatory decisions solely on their stated intentions, rather than their actual effects.

Warren Meyer, “When You Come Here, Please Don’t Vote for the Same Sh*t That Ruined the Place You Are Leaving”, Coyote Blog, 2016-11-02.

February 3, 2018

Arizona’s legally protected blow-drying cartel

Filed under: Business, Government, Health, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Eric Boehm reports on the fantastic lengths protected businesses will go to to protect themselves from “unlicensed” competitors, even in such areas as hair drying:

Brandy Wells never anticipated the amount of vitriolic abuse she would receive over — of all things — her public support of a proposal to let people blow-dry hair without a state-issued license.

“I’ve been called a cunt, a bitch, an ass, trashy, a puppet, a pawn, repugnant,” Wells says. “And my favorite: ‘your logic on deregulation of cosmetology is much like your hair, dull and flat.'”

Wells says she’s received several attacks from cosmetologists on social media accusing her of being “uneducated” or “clueless” about cosmetology because she doesn’t work in the industry. It’s true that Wells isn’t a licensed cosmetologist (though she does, in fact, know how to use a blow-dryer, she confirmed to Reason), but that’s actually the precise reason why she’s speaking up.

Wells serves as the lone “public member” of the Arizona State Board of Cosmetology. That means she is the only member of the seven-person board who does not work in some capacity as a cosmetologist or with a connection to a cosmetology school. Last month, she voiced her support for House Bill 2011, which would removing blow-drying from the state’s cosmetology licensing requirements. Under current law, using a blow-dryer on someone else’s hair, for money, requires more than 1,000 hours of training and an expensive state-issued license. Blow-drying hair without a license could — incredibly — land you in jail for up to six months.

In response, Wells says, members of the cosmetology profession have sent messages to her employer, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, suggesting that she should be fired — fired because she thinks people can safely blow-dry hair without 1,000 hours of training!

The cosmetology board is “a group of special interest bullies,” said Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, in his recent State of the State address. The board, Ducey said, “is going after people who simply want to make a living blow-drying hair. No scissors involved.”

This week, the fight over the so-called “blow-dry bill” spilled into the state legislature. The state House Military, Veterans, and Regulatory Affairs Committee held its first hearing on the bill, and licensed cosmetologists packed the room to speak one-by-one about the potential dangers of letting unlicensed professionals blow-dry hair

August 28, 2017

“Convicting Arpaio of contempt of court was like busting Al Capone on tax evasion”

Filed under: Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Jon Gabriel on Il Donalduce‘s pardon of the world-class authoritarian scumbag and all-around thug, ex-Sheriff of Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio:

President Trump asked the crowd last week at his Phoenix rally, “Was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job?” Had the hall been filled with an accurate cross-section of Arpaio’s former constituents, the answer would have been a resounding “no.”

Nevertheless, Trump pardoned the ex-sheriff on Friday, though he had not yet been sentenced and had shown zero remorse for his crime.

America’s self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff” was convicted of criminal contempt of court last month after refusing to obey court orders. This most recent legal battle involved numerous federal attempts to get Arpaio to stop racially profiling residents of Maricopa County.

Not only did Arpaio refuse, he bragged about it. “Nobody is higher than me,” he said. “I am the elected sheriff by the people. I don’t serve any governor or the president.”

Many conservatives outside of Arizona celebrated his headline-grabbing antics, but they don’t know the real story. I’m a conservative Maricopa County resident who has lived under Arpaio throughout his decades-long reign. Arpaio was never a conservative; he just played one on TV.

I saw his love of racial profiling firsthand, especially on my daily commutes through the tiny Hispanic community of Guadalupe, Ariz. When conducting these “sweeps,” helicopters buzzed houses, an 18-wheeler marked “Mobile Command Center” was planted in the center of town, and countless sheriff’s deputies stood on the roadsides, peering into the cars rolling by. Being Caucasian, I was always waved through. The drivers ahead and behind me weren’t so lucky.

Washington’s laxity in border enforcement led many right-of-center Americans to appreciate more robust enforcement, even when it regularly included authoritarian scenes like the one in Guadalupe. But even if you turn a blind eye to the human cost of such race-based enforcement, Arpaio’s other misdeeds are legion.

August 1, 2017

QotD: NFL preseason game passion and intensity

Filed under: Football, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The NFL pre-season is getting underway, with teams using their matchups to assess the rookies and free agents who all hope to make the team. The Vikings played the Arizona Cardinals in Minnesota on Saturday night. The new coach of the Cardinals was formerly the head coach of the Vikings. The Cardinals had a last-second, fourth-down, desperation play in the last regular season game which knocked the Vikings out of the playoff race. There was thought to be plenty of incipient drama to this game. This article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press talks about the lack of excitement in the game:

    Last and best sign it’s the preseason: The Vikings were offside on a fourth-quarter kickoff. Twice. In succession.

Reposted from the old blog (no longer online), 2004-08-15.

November 21, 2016

Vikings beat visiting Cardinals 30-24

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:48

With the CFL’s Eastern and Western conference finals being played, there was no Canadian broadcast coverage of the Arizona Cardinals visiting Minnesota that I could access, so I had to follow the course of the game on Twitter. Many Vikings bloggers were billing this game as a make-or-break for the Vikings season after enduring a four-game losing streak and yet more injuries on the offensive line. It would be especially important because the team is playing again on Thursday in Detroit. Another loss and a short week before facing the Lions at home was probably going to be too steep a hill to climb.

During the pre-game introductions, a Fox sound technician had an unwelcome encounter with the Vikings defence:

Despite the violence of the collision, he was able to continue working after the hit, and had a brief cameo during the halftime coverage.

(more…)

September 22, 2016

Arizona’s law to effectively criminalize parenting survives state supreme court scrutiny

Filed under: Law, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

If anything could symbolize the Crazy Years, this (insane) Arizona law certainly qualifies:

The Legislature passed laws ostensibly designed to punish child molesters, but apparently forgot to make sexual intent a requisite element of molestation.

As Slate legal writer Mark Joseph Stern notes, the laws prohibit any person from “intentionally or knowingly” touching “any part of the genitals, anus or female breast” for anyone under 15. That’s it:

    Indeed, read literally, the statutes would seem to prohibit parents from changing their child’s diaper. And the measures forbid both “direct and indirect touching,” meaning parents cannot even bathe their child without becoming sexual abusers under the law.

In response to a legal challenge by a man convicted of molestation because of the Legislature’s idiocy, three of five judges ruled there was no ambiguity in the law. They declined to

    rewrite the statutes to require the state to prove sexual motivation, when the statutes clearly contain no such requirement.

There’s some interesting discussion between the majority and minority over whether the law is nonetheless unconstitutional, even if it’s not ambiguous. The minority, per Stern:

    No one thinks that the legislature really intended to criminalize every knowing or intentional act of touching a child in the prohibited areas. Reading the statutes as doing so creates a constitutional vagueness problem, as it would mean both that people do not have fair notice of what is actually prohibited and that the laws do not adequately constrain prosecutorial discretion.

This terrible bit of legislative farce is actually a symptom of a much wider problem:

Let’s not forget, however, that if the Legislature had taken its job seriously and crafted legislative language that passed the laugh test, Arizona parents wouldn’t be in this position.

Lawmakers have gotten a little too comfortable in trusting that they can pass any idiotic law – perhaps to sate their rabid, ignorant constituents – and judges will save them from the consequences.

Then they can rail against “judicial activism” and get re-elected. It’s a perfect scheme.

If more judges were to let lawmakers suffer the consequences of their foolishness, perhaps voters would sober up and stop demanding the most draconian, unjust, utterly pointless measures against sexual offenses, real or perceived.

December 11, 2015

Vikings lose 23-20 in Arizona

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Before the game started, even the most fanatical fans were looking at this as a likely loss: the team got eight wins this season primarily due to the stout defence and the running of Adrian Peterson. On Wednesday, the team had already declared that their three best defenders were out (each ranked in the top 3 in the NFL by Pro Football Focus), and might even start a newly signed street free agent and a player just called up from the practice squad as their safeties for the game. On Thursday morning, Star Tribune columnist Jim Souhan explained why a loss to the Arizona Cardinals might not be the end of the world for the Vikings:

It’s time like these that cause overreaction. Here’s the right way to react to three key issues:

1. Losing to Arizona won’t be disastrous, unless injuries mount.

If the Vikings lose tonight, they’ll be 8-5 with two winnable home game between now and their season finale at Lambeau Field. That’s about where any optimistic realist would have projected them to be before the season began. They still can reach 10 victories and make the playoffs for only the second time since 2009, and they might be better off finishing second in the division if that means a chance to play against the NFC East champion instead of Seattle.

In a theoretical world, you could argue that the Vikings would be best off resting as many important players as possible against Arizona and preparing for the final three games. In the real world, you can’t expect the Vikings not to try. For at least two or three quarters. Then they need to save their most important bodies.

2. Adrian Peterson is the kid who won’t eat his spinach.

Just as the Vikings are bound to try to win against ridiculous odds on Thursday night, Peterson will want to carry the ball 25 times. And like trying to beat Arizona, that’s a fine plan going in, but if this game turns into a blowout the Vikings would be right to again put him on the sideline.

Peterson hated missing 15 games last year, but that rest probably led to his remarkable performance this season. He hated getting only eight carries against Seattle, but that game became unwinnable and he and the Vikings might benefit if he’s fresh going into the last three games and the playoffs.

This might be a good time to develop Jerick McKinnon, who has played well and might be a bigger help than Peterson to the passing game.

(more…)

July 26, 2015

The problems when you try to resolve complicated discrimination problems with laws

Filed under: Business, Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Warren Meyer explains why he — who organized and lead an effort to legalize gay marriage in Arizona — is not reflexively in favour of using the blunt force of the law to “solve” problems of discrimination:

There are multiple problems with non-discrimination law as currently implemented and enforced in the US. Larger companies, for example, struggle with disparate impact lawsuits from the EEOC, where statistical metrics that may have nothing to do with past discrimination are never-the-less used to justify discrimination penalties.

Smaller companies like mine tend to have a different problem. It is an unfortunate fact of life that the employees who do the worst job and/or break the rules the most frequently tend to be the same ones with the least self-awareness. As a result, no one wants to believe their termination is “fair”, no matter how well documented or justified (I wrote yesterday that I have personally struggled with the same thing in my past employment).

Most folks grumble and walk away. But what if one is in a “protected group” under discrimination law? Now, not only is this person personally convinced that their firing was unfair, but there is a whole body of law geared to the assumption that their group may be treated unfairly. There are also many lawyers and activists who will tell them that they were almost certainly treated unfairly.

So a fair percentage of people in protected groups whom we fire for cause will file complaints with the government or outright sue us for discrimination. I will begin by saying that we have never lost a single one of these cases. In one or two we paid someone a nominal amount just to save legal costs of pursuing the case to the bitter end, but none of these cases were even close.

[…]

To make all this worse, many employees have discovered a legal dodge to enhance their post-employment lawsuits (I know that several advocacy groups in California recommend this tactic). If the employee suspects he or she is about to be fired, they will, before getting fired, claim all sorts of past discrimination. Now, when terminated, they can claim they where a whistle blower that that their termination was not for cause but really was retaliation against them for being a whistle-blower.

I remember one employee in California taking just this tactic, claiming discrimination just ahead of his termination, though he never presented any evidence beyond the vague claim. We wasted weeks with an outside investigator checking into his claims, all while customer complaints about the employee continued to come in. Eventually, we found nothing and fired him. And got sued. The case was so weak it was eventually dropped but it cost us — you guessed it — about $20,000 to defend. Given that this was more than the entire amount this operation had made over five years, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back and led to us walking about from that particular operation and over half of our other California business.

March 6, 2015

Politicians spend your money and hope some of the glamour attaches to them

Filed under: Business, Government, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

At Coyote Blog, Warren Meyer wonders why so many states and cities are so eager to throw taxpayer money at movie and TV productions:

I am always amazed that the media will credulously run stories against “corporate welfare” for oil companies (which usually mostly includes things like LIFO accounting and investment tax credits that are not oil industry specific) but then beg and plead for us taxpayers to subsidize movie producers.

I wish I understood the reason for the proliferation of government subsidies for film production. Is it as simple as politicians wanting to hobnob with Hollywood types? Our local papers often go into full sales mode for sports team subsidies, but that is understandable from a bottom-line perspective — sports are about the only thing that sells dead-tree papers any more, and so more local sports has a direct benefit on local newspapers. Is it the same reasoning for proposed subsidies for Hollywood moguls?

Whatever the reason, our local paper made yet another pitch for throwing tax dollars at movie producers

    Notwithstanding a recent flurry of Super Bowl-related documentaries and commercials that got 2015 off to a good start, Arizona appears to be falling behind in a competitive and lucrative business. The entertainment industry pays well, supports considerable indirect employment and offers the chance for cities and states to shine on a global stage.

Seriously? I am sure setting up the craft table pays better than catering a party at my home, but it is a job that lasts 2 months and is then gone. Ditto everything else on the production. And I am sick of the “shines on the world stage thing.” Who cares? And is this really even true? The movie Chicago was filmed in Toronto — did everyone who watched Chicago suddenly want to go to Toronto? The TV animated series Archer gets a big subsidy from the state of Georgia. Have they even mentioned Georgia in the series? Given the tone of the show, would they even want to be mentioned?

When government subsidizes an industry, it is explicitly saying that resources are better and more productively invested in the subsidized industry than in other industries in which the money would have been spent in a free market. Does the author really have evidence that the money I would have spent to improve the campgrounds we operate in Arizona is better taken from me and spent to get a Hollywood movie shot here instead? Which investment will still be here 6 months from now?

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