[2015-16 NHL thread]

There's a rumor floating around twitter that the accuser has a history of stalking athletes & lying. Again: "rumor."

That smacks of the kind of thing someone would just say for no reason and then the internet would run with it.

[Official High School Football Thread!!!]

Them and Maine South should both be unbeaten when they face.

I think the last time that happened was 1999 when Matt Lottich was the quarterback.

[The Democrat Thread]

I think Bush's daughters will sneak in there too

At the same time. And the Obama kids will be co-Veeps.

[2015 Catch-All thread]

Yeah, I have heard this is incredibly cheap to do on your own.

 

It's just a personal thing. I am probably one of the least mechanically inclined individuals on the planet. I can barely install an air freshener

 

I figure my talents are better put to other things.

 

In fact, I would likely cause more damage trying to do things myself and cost myself more in the long run than simply entrusting my vehicles to a professional and spending a little more.

My thoughts as well. I wish I knew more about cars, cause I know about zero.

[Official High School Football Thread!!!]

Is New Trier supposed to be any good this year? I remember last year someone saying they had some good young guys.

[European Refugee Crisis]

Ask Minneapolis how they like having 10k Somalian refugees there.

Um, I live in the Twin Cities and have zero idea what you're talking about.

[2015-16 NCAA Football Thread]

IU managed to get a delay of game penalty on the opening kickoff. Never seen that before. Solid start to the season!

 

A win's a win, even if it's Southern Illinois. But man, the defense kept giving up big plays, again. Hopefully getting a few defensive players back next week will help some, especially Darius Latham and Tegray Scales.

[The Democrat Thread]

I'm actually going to enjoy this.

 

"If Israel attacks Iran … we’re supposed to be on Iran’s side."

 

"We’re the most highly taxed nation in the world."

 

"We have 93 million people out of work. They look for jobs, they give up, and all of a sudden, statistically, they're considered employed."

 

"The Mexican government ... they send the bad ones over."

 

The number of illegal immigrants in the United States is "30 million, it could be 34 million."

 

 

Under President Barack Obama, income levels and unemployment numbers "are worse now than just about ever" for African-Americans.

 

The five Guantanamo detainees swapped for Bowe Bergdahl "are right now back on the battlefield."

 

Says John McCain "has done nothing to help the vets."

 

"If you're from Syria and you're a Christian, you cannot come into this country" as a refugee.

 

"You know, the sanctuary cities, do you know he had five of them in Florida while he was governor? Can you believe this? I didn't know that."

 

"the $5 billion website for Obamacare, which never worked. Still doesn't work."

 

"The Mexican government forces many bad people into our country."

 

I write a book called The Art of the Deal, the No. 1 selling business book of all time, at least I think, but I’m pretty sure it is.

 

"Even our nuclear arsenal doesn't work. It came out recently they have equipment that is 30 years old. They don't know if it worked."

 

"The last quarter, it was just announced, our gross domestic product … was below zero. Who ever heard of this? It's never below zero."

 

Says President Barack Obama’s recent New York fundraising trip "cost between $25 million and $50 million."

 

Says President Obama's "grandmother in Kenya said he was born in Kenya and she was there and witnessed the birth."

 

"The people that went to school with (Barack Obama), they never saw him, they don't know who he is."

 

And that doesn't even add in his BS where he straight up lied to your face and didn't care on this one:

"In 2011, when Trump was a voluble “birther” — you remember: Obama supposedly was not born in the United States, hence he is an illegitimate president — an interviewer asked if he had people “searching in Hawaii” for facts. “Absolutely,” Trump said. “They can’t believe what they’re finding.”

 

He lies to you constantly and you don't care because his lies are mean things about people who look different and that's ok.

I don't think anything greg has said in here has gone that far.

[Music and more Music]

New Macklemore song is great. The video is even better.

Is that that Downtown song? I wasn't sure what was worse, the song or the video. They were both just so, so bad.

[2015-16 NCAA Football Thread]

Well yeah, any division with Indiana as the champion pretty much sucks

Hey now, no reason to pick on the little guy.

[2015 TV Thread]

Yeah, I'm not as high on it as other people but it's a harmless fast watch to me. Didn't need to see Rock's ass.

It's decent and entertaining, so I like it. Finale was super boring though.

[Bill Maher: God/Organized Religion, yes or no]

I just wanna know if people believe there's a man upstairs in charge. Not a spirit or a state of limbo but a real God.

 

As far as the other topics it's hard to believe we are going to die and merely vanish with all memories of this life gone and no future contact with those in our families and others we connected with on earth. It's possible but why have all this to begin with if when we die we're just vaporized and no longer exist in any fashion?

Why do you assume there's a reason why humans exist and have established civilizations on earth? There doesn't need to be a reason. Maybe we're just here because billions of years of evolution and progression have led here, as well as an uncountable number of other places.

[2015 TV Thread]

Ballers finale was pretty boring. The Brink was hilarious.

[2015 Films thread]

So many of the look-a-likes and actors were good. Then there was whatever the hell Snoop Dogg was.

 

It was a really well made film, though it should be subtitled "Ice Cube doesn't understand record deals."

 

And yeah, Eazy rocking the Sox hat in 1986 was kind of funny.

I was impressed with Straight Outta Compton. I was a little wary of the nearly 2 1/2 hour run time, but it didn't feel like it dragged on at all. Told the story at a good clip.

 

Yella was hilarious.

[Bill Maher: God/Organized Religion, yes or no]

Yeah, I totally despise the abuses of power you mentioned. I remember when I was an altar boy and through two years at Brother Rice no priest or lay ever made any advances toward me. Though some of my peers weren't as lucky. The worst I remember was one priest being a chain smoker and he smelled bad of smoke as we did Mass. Of course both my parents smoked on the south side so I should have been used to it. As far as the pedophiles, It would be nice if all were caught and imprisoned forever.

It is interesting in a growing liberal culture we've never had a President who was an atheist or non believer. That's pretty wild. You'd think in this growing non-God culture there would be some political candidates who do not believe. Yet to date all have mentioned God. I know Bill Clinton did. I would assume Hillary is not an atheist as well. Oh well not a lot of responses. I'd love to hear if Soxtalk has way more nonbelievers than believers which is my suspicion but so far it's only 4-2 voting.

I suspect we've already had a non-religious president or three. Even today, it's political suicide as a national politician to admit you don't believe in God. Those days are rapidly closing, though.

 

As to the original question, I consider myself agnostic. No one know what happens when you die, but if I had to guess it's like going to sleep indefinitely.

[2015 TV Thread]

Last week on Ballers the "You rather sell me a car, sugar tits?" had me dying.

 

Also it's awesome that Rashard Mendenhall is a staff writer for the show.

[Trump, Hillary....move over...Deez Nuts is coming]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015...-not-exist.html

 

LOL is all I can say.

“'The polls are pretty long. By the time we drop Deez Nuts on them, they’re pretty deep into the poll,' Williams says"

[Trayvon Martin]

In situations like this dont they sometimes charge the other burglary suspect with some type of manslaughter? I could swear I remember seeing an episode of the first 48 where 2 teens robbed a guy on the street, and the guy took the gun and killed one of the kids and they charged the friend of the deceased since he was apart of the crime that got the other guy killed.

That's felony murder. If you commit a felony (in this case, aggravated robbery) and someone dies during the commission of that felony, it can be a murder charge. Specifics depend on a state' statute.

[Trayvon Martin]

Yeah but they have guns and they already pointed them at you. What's to stop them from running way for a minute and then coming back? It's not like this guy waited 20 minutes or even shot at them 100 yards down the road. It reads like they run, he went after them, still on his property, and shot as they were running.

 

This is a perfect example of heat of the moment decisions of this guy v. what we all think he should have done in hindsight. How can we really judge him when he's probably scared s***less, running on adrenaline after getting a gun pointed at him by two guys that invaded his home?

 

Throw in this guys loser life criminal history and it's not like he killed a nun. When you commit an armed robbery, being shot before/during/shortly after the attempt should be an appreciated risk.

Do you mean the intruders are still on the property, or that the homeowner is on his property while he shoots at the intruders, who are no longer on his property and are running away?

 

If it's the former I don't convict, if it's the latter I do.

 

As for the "principles not law, should he spend decades in jail?" question. I don't think he should spend decades in jail. But there should be a very serious penalty. Something like 1-3 years makes sense to me. It should definitely be a felony.

[Trayvon Martin]

You're in your home. Two intruders come in and point a gun at you, trying to rob you. You pull your gun out, they run out of the house. You chase. You shoot at them outside of the home, in your yard (allegedly). One is killed and found a couple houses away. Now you're being charged with voluntary manslaughter.

 

How many people here convict him (obviously the full set of acts aren't available yet, so based on this fact pattern alone).

Assuming that by "they run out of the house" you meant they run out of the home and continue to run off/away from the property (as opposed to run outside the home, but stay on the property and continue to engage the homeowner), I convict. They were running away. The threat was over.

[Jared Fogle/Subway scandal...presumption of guilt?]

Let me say this one more carefully then in response.

 

While I understand your grief and your personal issues, I feel strongly that it devalues us all when we treat rape as ok under any circumstances. I will understand that not everyone will find this to be a major issue. I feel it is more important to point out precisely because it's difficult for people to stand up for the rights of people who already broke the law once. People may get annoyed with my stance on this issue and this is not the first time I've taken this stance here at ST. I do so because it's not exactly an issue people are going to be passionate about, most people are happy to ignore it and, as you note, some people will have experiences that make it particularly personal for them going the other way.

 

The fact that people are willing to look the other way is why it happens. Even if it's understandable that people are willing to look the other way, I feel we're a worse people for having it happen at all. In this case I can point at the U.S. bill of rights and say "this is wrong" and "two wrongs do not make something right". So even if I'm never going to get you to take an interest in this issue, I feel prison rape is something I don't want happening to anyone with my support, even my tacit acknowledgment. I'll leave it at that.

Something similar is happening in MN. There are some sex offenders who are deemed unfit for public release after their sentences are up. At that point, they get sent to the Minnesota Sex Offender Program in Moose Lake, where they are held indefinitely. It's the subject of a current federal lawsuit and the judge has found the program unconstitutional. But, Minnesota's government (governor and legislature) continues to insist the program is constitutional and they they'll fight this ruling.

 

This is wrong. No matter what punishment you want these people to have, make that punishment part of the sentence. Don't hand down a sentence, and when the sentence is over, say "Yeah, we're just going to keep you locked up indefinitely without recourse." But this is a population of people that everyday citizens either a) don't care what happens to them; or b) don't want to speak up in support of them in fear of getting labeled as a supporter of sex offenders. Politicians are especially susceptible to the latter.

 

EDIT: To be clear, it's incredibly rare someone is released from this program. Per the article, there are currently about 720 sex offenders in this program. "In the program’s 20-year history, no offender has been unconditionally discharged from the MSOP, and only four have been provisionally discharged."

 

Also, this: "In a long, contentious trial early this year, MSOP administrators admitted they may be detaining untold numbers of offenders who no longer meet the state’s legal requirement for confinement."

[Planned Parenthood videos]

And sounds like you have equally accepted the PP version. That's fine. But when they negotiate the pricing, that isn't 'recouping costs'.

And how are the costs set? They're negotiated....

[The Democrat Thread]

I'm almost positive I posted about the UIUC-Steven Salaita story last year, but I can't find any related posts.

 

In late 2013 or early 2014, UIUC offered a full tenure position to Steven Salaita (who was tenured at VTech at the time) in the American Indian Studies department. He accepted in early 2014, resigned his position (as did his wife) and moved to UIUC to start teaching in Fall 2014. In June of last year, he tweeted some offensive things about Israel, sparked by the latest exchange with Gaza. Wealthy donors and some Trustees starting heavily pressuring UIUC to "unhire" him, and eventually Chancellor Wise acquiesced. The university has since claimed that he was never formally hired since the BoT had not approved it yet (the BoT vote was scheduled to take place a couple of months after he would already have started teaching at UIUC and officially representing and acting on behalf of the university). Salaita filed a suit against UIUC.

 

Last week, a judge issued a ruling on UIUC's motion to dismiss. He found that both UIUC and Salaita had executed the offer letter and that Salaita did in fact have a valid contract with UIUC. Shortly after this was announced, Chancellor Wise turned in her resignation. She was to move into another position at the school (the department she had come from originally) and take a $400,000 bonus. UIUC also released 1,100 pages of emails from Wise it had not previously released. She had been deliberately using a personal account instead of her official one to avoid discovery, and she even explicitly stated what she was doing and that she was also deleting sent messages in one email.

 

Here's a summary of what's happen since then:

 

 

 

Pretty much every step of the way, UIUC administration has screwed up. They show no signs of stopping. And apparently the board will capitulate to outside political pressure to void contracts and agreements at the drop of a hat.

 

edit: this quote from Wise is pretty ironic: “Yesterday, in a decision apparently motivated more by politics than the interests of the University, the Board reneged on the promises in our negotiated agreement and initiated termination proceedings. This action was unprecedented, unwarranted, and completely contrary to the spirit of our negotiations last week.”

 

Jesus, what a s***show.

 

Maybe it's the lawyer in me, but when I write work emails, I write them with the expectation that someone might well read them some day. The fact that a person this high up at a prestigious institution could think she could circumvent discovery by using her personal email account, and then actually talk about the fact that she was doing it, is mind boggling. Some things you do not put in writing.

[2015-16 NHL thread]

I assume there were more people at the house than just the two women. Kane must have had some friends with, too.

[2015-16 NHL thread]

I assume there were more people at the house than just the two women. Kane must have had some friends with, too.