Rex Kickass

QUOTE (lostfan @ Sep 23, 2009 -> 11:53 AM) Reagan but he wasn't actually dumb. Palin on the other hand I'm convinced I could talk circles around. In 6 weeks I'll also have the same level of education she has except I will have gotten more out of mine. Usually anti-intellectual populist figures with a grasp on actual power are fairly intellectual themselves - having gone to good schools, etc. Palin seems to be a solid exception to that rule.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 23, 2009 -> 12:06 PM) Calling for the extinction of a race of people shouldn't get you an audience with the United States, and neither should a rogue nuclear program. That is the kind of thing that shouldn't be rewarded. Neither should systemic oppression of an ethnic minority or minorities (see China among others) yet we deal with them. Why? Because its in the best interest of the country's foreign policy interests. I'm not opposed to sending a message to a foreign state when they do something patently offensive. But when that state is doing something like playing with a nuke program, we have a fundamental interest to work to contain that threat. Ignoring an issue because you're not satisfied with a country's rhetoric (and that's essentially what we've had a history of doing in both Iran and North Korea) is never a good foreign policy move.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 23, 2009 -> 11:11 AM) I'm sure she is actually smarter than the average American on the street. But she isn't the sharpest tool among high level leaders, to say the least, and she makes it worse by playing up the whole home-town-girl schtick because she thinks if works for her (and to a certain degree, she is right). More than anything, she is just an embarrassment. After all she reads all of the papers. All of them.

Datarock - Gangurd Girl Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66 - Scarborough Fair Asian Dub Foundation - Scaling New Heights Kako and His Orchestra - Shingaling Shingaling The Gossip - Yr Mangled Heart Waldir and Seu Conjunto Azevedo - Brasileirinho MIA - Mango Pickle Down River Kensuke Shiina - Insomniac Speech Debelle - Finish This Album Parry Gripp - Truck Drivin' Man

I think it would be an ideal solution if the "caretaker" Senator would be considered ineligible for the special election.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 22, 2009 -> 08:48 AM) I take serious issue with this quote: The first sentence is probably true, as it is for people of any mortgage holding at all. But the second and third are simply not true at all, and I suspect the author of the article took a fact from the Fitch report, and interjected their own conclusion (which is why it isn't a direct quote). A variable rate, interest-only ARM (the kind they are referring to here), have you pay a fixed interest amount for the first X years (1, 3, 5) and no principal. There is NOTHING ADDED TO THE BALANCE. It in fact stays the same, but of course therein lies some risk - that means when the variable rate kicks in, and so does the addition of principal payments, then the payment total goes up, possibly a lot (if the rates have gone up - fortunately for most, they have not). This seriously pisses me off when people write stuff that is manifestly false. It gives people reasons to panic that are completely unfounded in truth. Anyway, here is another thing to consider - many people with ARM's that will reset in the near future, will actually end up SAVING MONEY. The payment will go up only slightly, but because the LIBOR and other pinning rates are still so low, the variable rate will in many cases be less than the locked rate was. For example... if your interest-only payment was $1000 a month with a pegged rate of 6%, and the reset value is LIBOR+2, your new interest rate is actually about 4.5%. That is less than you pay now. But the overall payment still goes up, because you start paying principle, and at an slightly higher pace than a traditional mortgage (X/30 faster). So your payment might become, say, $1200 - but only $800 is interest. So do you think that the Fed is keeping interest rates so low right now because of this ARM reset wave?

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Sep 21, 2009 -> 02:52 PM) I got "surprise gayed" by one of my college friends recently. It’s a weird feeling, because it makes you reexamine every conversation you ever had with the guy. I don’t think I’ve ever said anything homophobic to him, but I was pretty open about talking to him about getting girls, essentially, I talked to him like a straight guy would talk to another straight guy. I know this shouldn’t bother me, because I never even suspected he was gay, but I do wonder if I ever seemed like an asshole in any of our conversations. If you did, he probably wouldn't have bothered coming out to you.

Any show about a Madison Avenue advertising firm in 1963 that is able to successfully include an office accident involving a british man getting his foot chopped off by a John Deere during an office party is well worth the emmy it got last night. Bravo Mad Men.

QUOTE (CanOfCorn @ Sep 21, 2009 -> 04:47 PM) Headhunter V 1.0 - Front 242 Nobody - Replacements Feelin' Alright - Len Run - Tin Machine Kalahari Bush Man - Astralasia We Dance So Close to the Fire - Tommy Faragher (don't judge, you know you love it) Always Be There - Basement Jaxx Sweet Sweet - Smashing Pumpkins Hell - Foo Fighters Dead - Pixies That's a really excellent mix. Serious props for Tin Machine BTW. 1. Jay Z V Coldplay - Lost Pt 2 2. Phoenix - 1901 3. Royksopp - Alpha Male 4. Deltron 3030 - State of the Nation 5. Neil Richardson - Rio Magic 6. Goldfrapp - Ride a White Horse 7. Mighty Voices of Wonder - I Thank The Lord 8. Gorillaz - Dare (Soulwax Remix) 9. Gossip - 2012 10. Sigur Ros - Vaka

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Sep 21, 2009 -> 03:30 PM) and one more... What I love about that image is that if you look at where the two images meet, I keep seeing the word FART. I think my sense of humor stopped developing at age 8.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 18, 2009 -> 10:08 AM) Tea party protesters complain about paying taxes, underfunded infrastructure. Kevin Brady, the Texas Congressman quoted in this article voted against emergency funding for repairs on the METRO system after the recent fatal accident.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Sep 17, 2009 -> 05:41 PM) One of the de facto leaders of the GOP proposing segregation: This is such a bulls*** out of context accusation. I'm all about calling Limbaugh out for being a jackass, but 60+ seconds into the offending bit, its just bad satire, its not him being a blatant racist.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Sep 17, 2009 -> 03:44 PM) Chris Martin is a great producer and known period. Didn't he produce the track he's featured on on Graduation?

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Sep 17, 2009 -> 04:35 PM) So why haven't we heard anything about it? It couldn't be that he has to placate his bats*** anti-war groups and keep it on the hush hush, right? With that said, I do agree with you on the missle defense if he's proposed putting in a short range missle defense in its place. I haven't had a chance to catch up on any news today at all except here, so I don't know anymore then what you just posted. Because success is boring.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Sep 17, 2009 -> 11:14 AM) It has nothing to do with public employee unions and their pension costs. Not just Cally. Illinois needs to reform too. I hear no one talk about this problem. 3% colas every year,in ILLINOIS, without regard to the underlying economy? Good policy. You want to retire after a certain amount of years, and then take another job, you do not receive your pension until you turn 65, just like Social Security. You take your pension early, you take a reduced amount, just like Social Security. You work in several levels of gov't., you receive one pension. That's the argument people will make, right, these peolple have no Social Security. So make the pension system like social security. Except the problem with that is that you can't retroactively adjust terms of a pension like that. Coupled the fact that most people who put into the Illinois pension plans twenty, thirty years ago are not enrolled in Social Security.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 17, 2009 -> 10:57 AM) So here is an odd question. For people who are FORMER members of Presidential administrations, or of Congress (federal), do they get that fancy insurance coverage for life, after they leave? Just wondering. I believe it depends on their position held and length of time served.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Sep 17, 2009 -> 10:30 AM) That's why I asked the other day if people thought a split in the party could occur. We're almost to the point where centrist conservatives have no voice or place in their own party. Nope, yet they have a place in the Democratic Party - oddly enough. The Dem tent is so big, it often times keep them from advancing an issue (see health care reform).

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 17, 2009 -> 09:00 AM) And I think Rex is right - the GOP as a group are more influenced and guided by these whack-jobs than the Dems are by the lefty whack-jobs. This is why I have gone from being a usually-Republican voter to a usually-Democratic voter - I have no patience or tolerance for the hate and the social crusading into people's private lives. I have issues with both parties' platforms, but the GOP's decision to follow the crazies off a cliff meant that I went from being a center-right guy to a center-left guy. I'd argue its not that you're a center left guy, but rather that the GOP powerbase has gotten so extremist that they've moved their goalposts far enough to the right, that centrists have become "center left."

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 16, 2009 -> 02:20 PM) Both sides of the aisle have their bat-s*** crazies. But the difference in the past decade, is two-fold. One, the crazies on the right (Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Buchanan) have a much bigger, much more fervent following than those on the left (Olbermann, not sure who else really qualifies). And two, the ones on the right are driven much more by anger and hate than the ones on the left. Its sad and desperate, and makes me cringe to watch it. The only good news is, the crazies in that right-wing mode are generally older, and will be fading from existence, as society matures and becomes more open-minded. I'd go further than that and say that the crazies on the right control the agenda of the GOP. The crazies on the left are the crazies on the left. Michael Moore doesn't control our agenda. Keith Olbermann was never hosting or even promoting latte parties during the Bush administration. Yet sitting members of Congress apologize and clarify when they call Rush Limbaugh "just an entertainer." I'm gonna say something that I think a few people won't want to hear. The more I look back at the last few months, the more I wonder if Jimmy Carter wasn't right the other night when he said a large amount of this outrage and anger is motivated by race. I think its a legitimate possibility that some, including some of the people fomenting this anger, have that idea at its base. In 2000, George Bush won an election in the slushy margin. The decision to give Bush the Presidency was strange at best, and insiduously political at worst. Yet in 2001, there was no great liberal uprising - despite the embarrassment that the Bush administration was rapidly becoming in June, July and August. Granted, Bush's agenda in 2001 was far less ambitious. He seemed more interested in taking a weekend to clear brush while thinking about stem cells than he did on making big changes in policy. Nobody was showing up at town halls with guns. Nobody was marching on Washington with signs that said, we come unarmed (this time). In 2004, there was a lot more anger and Bush won reelection on a very narrow electoral margin. He went after Social Security. There was opposition. That opposition succeeded without violence or even the threat of violence. I don't know what's the main motivator here. Is it the start of decades in the wilderness for a movement that's running out of gas? That tends to be really ugly. Is it a nasty byproduct of a compartmentalized media who rewards the loudest and most sensationalist voices over the ones of reason? Or is it the natural expansion of a GOP tradition of refusing to accept the legitimacy of a Democratic controlled Presidency and Congress. I think the craziness and protests we've seen, at the level we've seen, are either the legacy of George Wallace, Ted Turner or Newt Gingrich. And frankly all three of those options disturb me to a certain degree.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Sep 15, 2009 -> 12:16 AM) I didn't really like American Gangster that much. I mean it was good, I bumped it. But I wasn't like OMG JAY'S ALBUM IS SO HOT like everyone else did. I really haven't been that into Jay since the Black Album. American Gangster was the first good thing he did since the Black Album, IMHO. And I wasn't even a fan of the black album til it became the grey album.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 16, 2009 -> 11:33 AM) whatever to the GOP, if this is the bill that the dems need to pass to get BLUE dog support, why would the repubs support it. The bill the dems will be owning is essentiallly telling the poor and middle class voters they need to pay money to health insurance companies, who are probably dancing to the bank right now. I think the non Baucus proposal has 51 or 52 votes in the Senate, and it probably can get to 230 votes in the house. If that's the case, split the bill. Vote the public option budget stuff through reconciliation. Then put the preexisting condition language, tort reform language, etc in a regular bill and make the GOP stand up against it.

QUOTE (chunk23 @ Sep 16, 2009 -> 11:22 AM) The bipartisan thing was never going to happen. Which is why I hate that they bothered trying to compromise in the first place. Everyone knew the republicans would vote against anything put forth by a democrat, so why even bother? That's why I think the democrats don't really care that much about the reform. If they did, they would've started with single payer, so if need be, they could negotiate down to public option. An individual mandate without a public option is a disaster and is a worst case scenario. Afterall, Baucus is a leading recipient of donations from insurance companies. Mandating that you're required to pay as much as one out of every eight dollars you earn to the insurance companies is what comes out of the bipartisan deal. The bipartisan deal that the GOP senators who helped craft it are walking away from. Bring on reconciliation, IMO - the GOP is not acting as an honest broker in any health care reform effort.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 16, 2009 -> 10:28 AM) What? Who do you think the Federal government is exactly? Medicare and Medicade costs are 110% passed on to the general public. We pay for the procedures, the staffing, the oversight, the tax collection, and the interest on the debt. What affects your ER/Hospital bill more? Medicare cost overruns or completely unpaid medical bills (either through charity care or uncovered health care costs that just aren't paid for whatever reason?) Health insurance reform is going to require subsidies for low income people - because its either something from the government or the hospitals eat that cost. Health insurance reform won't be effective unless more people are insured. One way to do this is by mandating some basic level of coverage for Americans. The more I think about this, the more I argue about this, the more f***ed up this whole system seems to be. Hospitals aren't allowed to turn away patients in need of urgent care, required to treat patients who receive health coverage from the government (Medicare, Medicaid). In many ways, as it should be, they are required by law to act in a non-profit interest. This nonprofit interest acts in direct response to a profit motive that the medical industry has grown to embrace. There's a challenge to balance the altruistic care that is necessary for a health care system to work for a country with the need to protect people's money. Eventually, we're going to need to figure out which priority is more important - protecting money, or providing health care and go with it. It kind of boils down to that. If we focus on the priority of providing some level of health care for all, we can find a way to make it affordable for everyone and we can do it in a way that won't break the bank. I think part of the flaw in our arguments, on both sides, is that we expect the status quo in the levels of health care which we'll see in the future. Part of the goal of increasing health care coverage is that preventative care will become a bigger part of the solution than emergency care. Preventative care tends to be much cheaper than emergency/urgent care. If that's the case, wouldn't that naturally bring the cost of health care per capita down?

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Sep 16, 2009 -> 09:51 AM) Right, so status quo with our government now intervening. Except not, because with a public option and a health insurance mandate, the costs won't be passed on because someone is paying for the procedure, the hospital won't be forced to write off the manpower either. Someone is paying for the costs through the insurance pool, government subsidy or not. Even if everyone on the public option who are currently uninsured got a Medicare or Medicaid option, we're all better off. Because Medicare and Medicaid costs aren't passed along nearly as much as Charity Care costs are.