jdm00

The offense is finally starting to wake up, and it's hard to complain about the pitching at all at this point. Now, if Dusty would just bat Bruce 4th behind Votto. I hate the stupid "have to break up the lefties" mentality. They would both benefit from it.

I don't think your immigration number makes any sense. You said there would be 90 million Gen Y'ers in the workforce in the US--are you saying that we are going to get 30 million immigrants born between 1979 and 1995 coming to the US between now and 2030? That we're going to get as much immigration as half of what you are calling a "boom" generation?

Well, my problem is that every time you claim to be focusing on the big picture, you are using numbers, but those numbers aren't supportable. In fact, even here, you claim to want to talk about the big picture...and you then go right back into numbers.

I'll be interested to see where Cintas and Cincinnati Financial place in the Fortune 1000.

Well, DFW is kind of a bad example, since Southwest is based out of Love Field, the other airport in Dallas. I'm guessing that those fares are cheaper than DFW.

Case Western's law school is good, but not top-shelf. It's on part with UC's. Ohio State has the highest-rated law school in the state, by a fair margin (though as little as 10-15 years ago, UC was neck and neck with it in the rankings). Case is a very good school with a great reputation for a lot of things, including medicine.

^huh? Cleveland has Case Western, which is ranked #38 on US News and World Report's National University rankings (about 15 spots behind Carnegie Mellon). And tOSU is actually ranked ahead of Pitt by three spots in the same rankings. If you don't like those rankings, that's cool, but I can honestly say I've never heard anyone (and I know some real school snobs) talk about Pitt's academics favorably as compared to OSU. (Granted that's a very specific topic.)

Also--again based on your website's figures--that 61 million Gen Y'ers in 2009 was not 25% of the US population. It would be 20%, pretty much on the nose, which is actually not that big a segment when you consider a life expectancy of between 75 and 80 and break down the generations into 15 or 16 year segments.

The only way on earth there were 90 million people born between 1979 and 1994 who get counted as part of Gen Y is if you count immigrants, and even then it's not even going to come within, at best, about 15 million people. Did you look at the data that you linked to? If you add up the births between 1979 and 1994 on that page, you get 61,315,000 members of Gen Y. Even taking the 76,000,000 boomer number at face value (which I think is low), there are still 15,000,000 fewer Gen Y members out there. Quite frankly, there is no way your quoted figure of 90 million Gen Y members is supportable--either now or in the future. If you're saying that the other alleged 30 million members of Gen Y (1979-1994) currently do or will in the future consist of immigrants, I don't think that's connected to reality. The total estimated number of illegal immigrants in the US is around 11 million--with really top end (unsupported) estimates at 20 million. And obviously not all of those are going to be born between 1979 and 1994. And all the estimates seem to agree that that number is actually falling. I also don't buy your statement that there are far more people entering the work force for the first time. Latest estimates indicate that about 10,000 boomers are retiring every day. That means 3.65 million people leaving the work force every year, which is within 400,000 people of covering even the biggest years of the Gen Y "boom." Which means that, for the relation of the baby boomers to Gen Y, you need to add, essentially, 400,000 jobs a year total to cover people coming into the work force, based on birth rate (putting aside immigration for the moment). (Also, just FYI, the "unemployed" would not be considered to be "entering the workforce." They're already in it.) I get that you post economic data with a skeptical eye. It's good and needed. But your contentions about the size of the work force and particularly the relation between the baby boomers and Gen Y are unsupportable.

Unless you are counting immigrants (undocumented) in your totals.

Also, everything I've seen (in my admittedly brief google searches) indicates that the "Echo Boomers" are the largest generation since the baby boomers. I've seen some that put the numbers as roughly equivalent, but nothing saying that there are more than the baby boom generation. And since the consensus seems to be that there are about 80 million baby boomers (for 1946-1964) and that we seemed to have averaged about 4 million births, on the high end, in the 1980s (http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/babyboom.htm), I don't see how that Generation Y group could be bigger than the baby boomers. (In fact, it seems we went from a birth rate of 3 million people in 1980 to around 4 million in 1990. Most of the sources seem to peg the Gen Y/Millenials at 1980-1995, but even if you include up to 2000, I still don't see any way that group is bigger than the Baby Boomers. http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/babyboom_2.htm

I make no claims about that website, by the way--just the first that came up.

^Isn't the population growth in the United States driven almost entirely by immigration? Our birth rate is either right at or right below the amount necessary to maintain the population, as explained in this link. http://www.susps.org/overview/birthrates.html Given that's the case, and that the birth rate in the 1980s/1990s was below replacement level--when Gen Y would have been born--I'm not sure how the "y" generation is larger than the boomer generation. I accept it may well be the case, just not getting my head around the math.

Are you sure that all of these people out of the labor force are discouraged and not wanting to work any longer? Do these numbers take into account that we are in the heart of the baby boomer retirement curve, with literally thousands of people retiring every day?

Dead on on how they make money. Years ago, I worked at a bank, and one of our customers was a local gas station/food mart (some national chain or other). He said they made next to nothing on gas--maybe a penny or two per gallon, but not much. But he said that the first cup of coffee he would sell would pay for the pot, and every cup after that was profit.

I don't feel like I follow the Browns closely enough to offer a critique of the organization as a whole, but I think that there are three viable critiques to be made of Heckert's (or whoever was the trigger man) draft, particularly the first round: 1) Picking Weeden. This is either going to be a love it or hate it thing. I don't know that there's a right answer, but anytime you take a guy who's going to be 29 before he ever plays a down in the league, you run the risk of criticism. If he works out, great--you get six to eight years of quarterback play. If not, you have Chris Weinke, but spent a higher draft pick. Given the percentage of first round QBs that flame out, it's probably not that much more of a crapshoot than picking anyone else. 2) Picking Richardson in the top 5. To me this is a viable critique. Running back has been devalued more than any other position. I think there are many teams--maybe even a majority now--that think it's foolish to spend a top pick on a position that (1) often has a very short shelf life, and (2) where guys picked up in later rounds (or not at all) can contribute just as greatly as high picks. Not sure how I come down on this one--if you are drafting a back and he has the chance to be the next Adrian Peterson, well, who wouldn't want AD carrying the ball? But I can see why some people just look at this as something you don't do in the NFL these days. Not saying it's right, but I get the premise. 3) Trading up from 4 to 3. This, to me, is the most valid critique of what the Browns did. I understand not wanting to miss out on Richardson if he is the guy you want, but it seemed like a lot to give up to move up one spot. I have not read anything out there--and if it's there, please point me to it--indicating that the Bucs or anyone else was seriously considering trading up to the 3rd spot, and the Browns had to move. It sounds like Spielman from Minn. convinced Heckert that there was someone doing this when there wasn't, in which case it stings to lose those picks. I assume that it must be, in some sense, a reaction to losing out on the trade up to number 2 for RGIII. That said, in the long run it probably doesn't add up to much more than giving up picks that the Browns fleeced from the Falcons in the Julio Jones trade anyway.

I can't tell if it's going to be white, or if it's just being primed for some other paint job.

Looks like they are repainting the Ensemble Theater. No more faux stone/marble finish.

I can't believe they are citing the internet for that story. Wow.

And I say that because if you've seen tape of him at ASU, there's no doubt he has the physical skills (when in shape) to play linebacker.

Oh, I'd say that the 40 time more likely came from simply not caring since the end of the season. Who knows how much weight he put on between then and the combine, or if he even bothered to prepare at all. Lots of reasons guys tank. I agree it goes right to the "character issue" theme that knocked him out of the draft.

I think they liked Zeitler because they perceived him as a better run blocker. I was expecting them to pick DeCastro, but I assume they must have had them graded pretty equally to trade out of the spot for the extra pick. Zeitler was moving up the boards pretty well at the end. I wish he hadn't gone to the Steelers, though. (Word is the Ravens were targeting Zeitler with their pick (along with Hightower), which is one reason that they traded out of the round.) Personally, it seems really tough to take a guard in the first unless you know he's Steve Hutchinson. I like Sanu. I feel pretty good about Kirkpatrick, actually, but I am taking a "wait and see" appraoch on Still. The one nice thing is that they've done a good job developing d-linemen the last few years, including people with tons of talent who slipped for whatever reason (Frostee, Carlos Dunlap, etc.). I also like the Vontaze Burfict signing. I think LB is a need, and it's a high-reward, low-risk signing. First round talent for no pick at all. If he gets his head on straight, great; if not, no big loss.

True. But people often commit crimes with guns that they would not be able to do otherwise. Look, I'm not saying people shouldn't have guns. But to completely excise the ready availability of guns--or any of the many other factors that lead to crime--from the discussion of why crime rates are what they are doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It would be like saying "people commit crimes, not drugs." A nice tautology and certainly true, but not a basis to exclude the discussion of the illegal drug trade from why crime rates are what they are. People may commit crimes because they are on drugs, or they want drugs, or they are in the drug business, but the drugs thesmelves don't commit the crime.

Ah. My original point was going to the point as to why there is more violent crime, particularly murder. The point I was trying to make is that availability of implements that make it easier to murder people will, well, make it easier to murder people. There's obviously plenty of contributing factors to the murder rate in Cincinnati or elsewhere. Does the availability of firearms directly result in more murder? No. Does it help? I'd say not, because whatever the other factors are--poverty, drugs, who knows what--leads to people getting guns in their hands and committing the murders.

How is it irrelevant? If you're concerned about the fact of dangerous crime, doesn't it make sense to understand the reasons for it?