Rex Kickass

The abuse incident is true. A year after he left the Sox, he was interviewed at length by the Detroit News and Free Press about it - it happened in Suburban Detroit.

The Bankruptcy law was absolutely anti-middle class and a total handout to people at Bank of America, Capitol One, and other banks who don't want to be responsible lenders and make sure they get their 22% interest from anyone stupid enough to take the card.

Sergio Mendes & Brazil '66 - Look Around. Yum!

The other thing that it does is add a complaint to the number of complaints the BBB has received regarding a company in the past few years. That can make a difference with people doing business. If they see several hundred complaints - it might make someone think twice about doing business with the company.

Can't even do that anymore. They changed the laws. There is no hope!

Gang rape isn't lightning. It can strike the same person twice. Seriously, you're sitting there and saying it was bulls*** and thinking "if it was real the first time, why wouldn't she have pursued it." I think the reaction from a lot of people on these boards proves exactly why she wouldn't.

Not at all. It's a tool to bring awareness and to force action. Most of the time people don't get embarrassed about something until the reality they ignored is sensationalized.

We could just default on our loans. That would save us a lot of servicing money.

QUOTE(jasonxctf @ Apr 26, 2006 -> 04:34 PM) yeah beta was actually higher quality. higher costs if i remember too. that was part of their problem. vhs undercut them in pricing. eventually, i'm sure that there will be many different brands to choose from for satelitte radio. in the short term, im not sure if the demand and fixed costs are just right to allow for more than one successful player in the market. Probably not, actually because the FCC only granted two satellite radio licenses and you need to have one to operate a satellite radio operation. Also the bandwidth is great enough that you need to launch your own satellite - so we're talking about a billion in start up costs - assuming your satellite doesn't go up in smoke on the launching pad like one of the XM sats did.

Offer some form of them "making it right." If you say that 7 out of 10 trips that you have taken have departed more than 10 minutes late, you're probably going to have a better result than just saying that those people are rude. Poor customer service does get addressed by the BBB. Especially if the customer feels ripped off.

I've always heard the "dot" referred to in more mysoginistic terms.... When I asked my friend why - I was told because you have to be gentle and use it "just so" to get the desired result.

Kap, there was never a gilded age of protests. At their nature, they are always a sensationalist act.

I believe the courts have said that it is not illegal to expose an illegal program. But the program has to be found illegal first - and since neither the Congress nor the Executive controlled Attorney General's office seems interested in investigating the legality of such a program - it makes it hard to determine whether the illegal leak of a program was actually illegal or if it was legal whistleblowing of an illegal program. BTW, in tangentially related news, Arlen Specter is threatening to pull the plug on funding for the NSA's Domestic Spying program if the White House doesn't start cooperating and disclose to the Senate just what the program exactly does.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Apr 27, 2006 -> 10:40 PM) ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ I don't believe in attaching special penalties because a crime may have been racially motivated. It shouldn't matter whether the attack was motivated by genuine hatred or if it was random, the penalties should be uniform. That being said, hopefully these 2 jackasses get a taste of their own medicine when they get to the pokey. You've agreed with Balta and me in the same day. About politics. There's something wrong in the universe today. There is no such thing as a "hate" crime and leeway for sentencing should lie with the judge - not another law to piggyback onto the original offense.

*waits for another lame Chappaquiddick joke* Kennedy would not be the most visible Democratic Senator. I'd say you hear more about what Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Russ Feingold, Barbara Boxer, Chuck Schumer and even Joe Lieberman does on a regular basis than Kennedy. And yeah, they both should shut up and frankly put a goddamn windmill in their compounds.

Every crime is a hate crime. Throw the book at em.

There are some windfarm projects on the Jersey shore. They haven't diminished tourism at all.

I love the fact that people call a demonstration intimidation yet a threat to make 12 million instant felons and put everyone that looks Latino subject to scrutiny over their papers is just a legislative agenda.

Actually, unleaded gas is on a futures market as well. The price of crude only factors into the price of unleaded gas by about 25% im told. So wouldn't an oil holding company who has a refinery be profiting twice by monopolizing its production (i.e. selling oil to its refinery arm who therefore increases the price of gas and jacks it up further despite the fact that net costs never actually increased to produce either the oil or gas - but more the demand for the oil adjusted the price upwards?)

Atlantic City has a ton of windmills, I think it actually adds to the atmosphere.

But wouldn't an ethanol blend use less oil than regular gas and less corn than plain ethanol?

Regarding Drudge, his knack for sensationalism hides context. He talks about how some bookscan survey showed "Crashing The Gate" (which is the new must read in Dem activist circles) as only selling 3,000+ copies last week. He neglects to mention that that survey doesn't include independent bookstores or Amazon (where its ranked top 25) or the fact that the initial pressing was only 10,000 copies and its currently in its third pressing and has distributed around 50K of the book. (It's also overpriced in my opinion - $25 is a lot for a book without a whole lot of heft to it.) He also talks about the ratings plunge for WLIB in New York (The Air America radio station) from a 1.6 to a 1.0 in listeners 12+ and specifically noted Randi Rhodes's steep decline. Again context is key - although they did have an off book - and judging from the useless 12+ trend numbers I've seen, they rolled off a great November and replaced it in their three month average with a horrible February. It makes sense given the extreme directionality of their nighttime signal and that they revert to the nighttime signal before 5PM in January and February. They probably also had a drop off that was pretty noticeable but most likely attributable to a one or two month slump with a s***ty book.

No, I'm asking the Vice President to produce the executive order showing his authorization to declassify material. If he has the authority to do it, he should prove it. Without it, he's just leaking intelligence.

When did he get traded to Baltimore?

QUOTE(Felix @ Apr 26, 2006 -> 01:51 PM) Excellent post. I think thats the same deal with traditions at ballparks as well (such as what you put on your food) I agree with you completely, as long as you put mayo on your fries. Otherwise, you're just ignorant to the finer things in life.