bmags

well, to be fair, the dems (still in majority) could have raised the debt ceiling after those december compromises the GOP leadership agreed to, but wanted the GOP to own it. Instead of doing that, the GOP is now demanding highly regressive cuts, and in return will raise the debt ceiling. Regardless of how this turns out,t he debt ceiling needs to be abolished. It's way too dangerous a bargaining chip. An economic atomic bomb and the GOP is north korea.

It's the idea that you would constantly make better choices than these people eligible for government assistance. Do you really know their plan or why she's putting herself and family in that position? Probably not, you just know that you always work hard and make the right choices and they are just lazy and moochers. Being poor really, really sucks. I don't think that can be emphasized enough. 32k a year and below witha family regardless if the mom is working or not is a miserable existence that is exhausting. It's pretty easy to lose empathy with it as you move out of that bracket, see yourself as working hard, and project that other people aren't there because they are lazy.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 26, 2011 -> 07:39 PM) I tend to side with you more often than not, but then you're taking a sect of society and telling them screw you because they made a different choice than you would have. For example, what if me and my wife held jobs helping underprivileged children, where the job may be rewarding in knowing we are helping kids that would otherwise get tossed aside and have almost no chance, but it pays us almost nothing? Are you saying f*** us, we shouldn't be able to have kids because we didn't choose to go into a more lucrative career path? I ain't buying that brand. Within one generation you'd have effectively put numerous valuable societal jobs into extinction because anyone that has them can't have kids. Having kids isn't and never will be a privileged for the f***ing rich. Now, I'm not saying this doesn't have a breaking point -- such as having more than 1 or 2 kids when you can hardly make ends meet as it stands...but come on...telling people not to have a single child?! Overboard. bravo

Let's just remind everyone that this is money that congress already agreed to spend in december, but is now threatening to ruin everyone in the world's lives because they voted on it in december.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jul 26, 2011 -> 05:32 PM) Europe has a lot less right-wing politics in general, though they can up that count to "1" now. Regardless, it pretty thoroughly demolishes the idea that most terrorists are muslims. That's not true. There are a lot of anti-immigration right wing nationalist groups that have gotten powerful in europe over the past decade.

well, there's nothing that says we have to reign in debt via refusing to pay our bills. We could just raise the debt limit and then make proposals to reduce our deficits.

Because when republicans make a grandstanding political move holding the country hostage, if the democrats don't submit to their demands and the country defaults on it's debt, they were playing politics. Meanwhile, letting the debt ceiling raise while letting the republicans vote on a message of disapproval? That is policy at it's finest.

austerity budgeting in a economic slowdown, on the other hand...would definitely make the economy worse. So we SHOULD do that.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/25/...-patents-attack NPR takes on patent trolls. Yes, the system is broken. No, you shouldn't be allowed to patent windows that pop up when you scroll your mouse over a button.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/25/...-patents-attack I thoroughly recommend listening to this "this american life" on patent trolls.

Just did this trip yesterday. (NYC-Chicago). More manageable than I imagined. I ate way too much mcdonalds though.

For a new tab, just hold the command button and left click. Delete the tab with command+w. Control click right clicks. On most macbooks, two fingers on your mousepad scrolls up and down.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 03:54 PM) The reason I asked is because the way you made it sound is Netflix is the same as Spotify (a replacement product)...it's not...which I pointed out. You were talking about your movie/music rental budget moving from one to the other in terms of replacement. I'm sure you could see where the confusion lies. It was more that I wouldn't pay 9.99. And in all likelihood i'll probably downgrade, but for 1 month I wanted to see all that it was. And it's pretty great. The equivelant to this prior was grooveshark which was an absolute mess filled with s***ty duplicates and poor sound quality. The ease of making a playlist, queuing up songs, and sharing things with friends is awesome. This is everything I thought it would be.

Made an incredible meal last night. Pork loin that I covered in rock salt and lime and slow cooked, then served with grilled vidalia onions also seasoned with lime, salt and olive oil. Mmmmmm

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 04:23 PM) But it doesn't replace netflix...one is a video service and one isn't. It's music. You are so brilliant. I canceled my 9.99/mo service of netflix, and now am putting that toward Spotify. Otherwise I would be doing their free service. Please go on explaining to me the difference between music and video.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 04:19 PM) How does a music service replace netflix? in my budget.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jul 14, 2011 -> 04:00 PM) Did you rock the $4.99 premium, or are you waiting for your invite? I went 9.99. I know that's steep but it replaces netflix and the fact that it works OFFLINE on your phone (playlist) is worth it to me. Seriously, i'm rocking it now. THis is f***ING AWESOME. This must be what it was like when the beatles came to the united states.

wish I had stock in spotify.com. This is so awesome. quick edit: perhaps secondshare.

Just signed up for spotify. VERY EXCITED. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 13, 2011 -> 09:41 PM) You seem distraught, bmags, is there anything I can get you to revive your hope in humanity? a Yoohoo.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 13, 2011 -> 09:42 PM) It's less relevant...because the supposed frontrunner seemingly believes he can't win there but will own the state next to the one he was governor in. Really, you can minimize the impact/bounce that either of them would get from a win. "Oh, it's just Iowa, she'll only win one state, Huckabee won Iowa last time". "Oh, it's just N.H., they were going to go for Romney anyway since he was the governor in Mass.". I'm not trying to minimize early wins, but Iowa in Republican primaries recently (obviously small sample) seems to choose candidates that have less of a chance in the majority of the states. The opposite of Iowa for dems, which sort of shows they can win more conservative bellweather states.

sigh.

It seems to me Iowa is much less relevant for Repubs than Democrats. Bachmann winning would certainly legitimize her as "one of the front runners", but NH is the big one. Also, hasn't Romney mostly conceded Iowa already?

saying "shut your f***ing kid up" is never an appropriate response.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 13, 2011 -> 07:53 PM) So if you're at a nice restaurant or a movie theater trying to enjoy a nice dinner or movie and multiple whiny ass 2-3 year olds are going apes*** for no reason because that's what they do wouldn't piss you off? And management is not supposed to impose when they see their paying customers are getting annoyed by said whining/crying? What's rude? "tell your kid to shut the f*** up." Nobody does that. But you have to see their point of view. you aren't even addressing what's being said, just doing your "I'm EXTREEEME" schtick.