StrangeSox

You know, you can be against eating meat or using animals products, against hunting and against the deliberate torture of animals without trying to make a hilariously bad argument that all three are morally equivalent.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Feb 9, 2011 -> 08:00 PM) Brilliant observation. Given that hunters only hunt because they're angry at the animals they're shooting at, I am also confused by this hypocritical stance of his. I'm picturing a fat, drunk hunter swearing under his breath at the deer while he's lining up the shot.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 9, 2011 -> 04:42 PM) Ignorance doesn't imply stupidity. I wanted to make sure you didn't think I was dismissing any personal responsibility of all people who end up in bankruptcy or foreclosure. I just don't like it when the responsibilities of all of those who profit are dismissed.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 9, 2011 -> 04:30 PM) I'm not denying there aren't outliers and that there are some people who did everything right and still got screwed. But I also don't buy that the cause of the foreclosures was Bush closing a credit card debt loophole and insurance companies screwing people over. There's no single cause of the massive amount of foreclosures over the past several years, but this certainly didn't help. Mounting medical bills didn't help. Confusing, complex lending practices and banks lacking any financial or ethical lending guidelines in pursuit of more profit didn't help. Complex but ultimately garbage financial instruments that caused trillions of dollars to evaporate and the economy to crash didn't help. And, yes, people borrowing more money than they could ever reasonably expect to repay certainly didn't help. However, laying the blame on stupid, dumb people who can't manage money ignores the root causes of the problem. Like ever-rising medical bills, stagnant or shrinking real wages, job off-shoring, unethical lending, heavily marketed credit and loans and a real lack of any decent financial education for most people.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 9, 2011 -> 04:15 PM) Awful mortgages plus piss poor money management was the cause moreso than an increase in medical bills. Probably made things worse for people, but it wasn't THE cause. Uh, keep reading after that quote. The medical bills can place a heavy burden on a family that's doing ok or even just treading water without them being stupid, having piss-poor money management, or falling into any other derogatory category that makes it easy to dismiss their plight and its causes.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 9, 2011 -> 03:36 PM) Man, f*** the government for holding people accountable for their actions! Those assholes. Seriously, how people ignore the first step in this - that a ton of people were stupid, not understanding how money, debt and compounding interest works -is beyond me. This article makes no sense to me, other than to blame Bush yet again. Nah, the first step is the large percentage of medical bankruptcies, as Balta points out. The second step is predatory lending with incredibly high interest rates and reams of confusing legal documents offered to anyone and everyone. The third step is people not understanding intentionally dense and convoluted financial instruments and loans/credit, and not necessarily because of stupidity or not grasping the basics of money and debt.

When is Noah due back?

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Feb 5, 2011 -> 07:58 AM) Tea is where it's at.

ATT seems to be great in larger cities, but I get terrible/no reception when I'm traveling for work (usually it's in the middle of nowhere).

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Feb 4, 2011 -> 09:49 AM) I'll have an iced coffee once in a while when I get a taste for it (talking 5 or 6 times a year), but I load it up with tons of sugar and cream. I never understood the fascination with coffee. I don't like the taste, it doesn't wake me up, it makes your breath smell just awful, and it gives you the runs. Yeah, the smell of brewing coffee just gives false hope for the taste.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 4, 2011 -> 08:55 AM) Yeah, because the media was all roses and sunshine during the Bush years.... GMAB. The media did a pretty good job of cheerleading the Iraq war from late 2002 through the first several years.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 3, 2011 -> 03:33 PM) Disagree. If you take all of the countries resources for your own, the expenses usually even out. If you look at the Dutch when they were in control of the Dutch East Indian Company etc., the British or Spanish, they basically built their empires on taking resources from colonies (mercantilism). Right now we are paying the cost of keeping armies stationed in countries, yet we are not raping the country of its resources/money. That is why its so costly to play world police. Sure, but what's the larger political and economic impacts? The costs of controlling a territory long-term against the will of the populace on a much more intense level than we currently see in Iraq and Afghanistan would be huge. Additionally, overt imperialism isn't exactly looked at kindly these days by most nations, so we'd likely see a lot of resistance and condemnation from the EU, Russia, China, etc.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 3, 2011 -> 03:29 PM) Which is technically not imperialism. The point I am making is that you can control large amounts of territory if you want to be truly imperialistic (think sun never sets on the British empire.) But if you play the role the US has, with backroom manipulation etc, it often becomes difficult to truly control those areas. As you are using indirect control the control is significantly weaker. Putting in a puppet governor/dictator can some times work, it can some times turn out bad (see Saddam etc). Im comparing that to the US just taking over countries, which we could do if we really wanted. Not that I support it, I am just trying to show that the US does try and not interfere, but obviously we are going to when it comes to our own best interest. Which is what puts us in the same precarious position over and over again. We dont want to take over, but we want our way. You cant have both, maybe thats clearer. Domination is expensive and bloody. Manipulation and clandestine operations are less so. It's just the modern-day imperialism. I just really reject the idea that the US doesn't try to interfere in foreign affairs and governments since we've been doing in constantly in dozens of countries around the world for decades.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 3, 2011 -> 03:26 PM) Well we're still doing that to this day, are we not? yeah.

No, you misunderstand what I meant. I was referring to the "US was no imperialistic post-WWII." We didn't come and directly take over countries, but we did plenty of things to influence, control or remove governments based on our policy preferences.

I think Central and South America along with SE Asia would disagree with that.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 3, 2011 -> 01:55 PM) Ok dude...technically, Housing and Human Services is a cabinet office...and the Cabinet is subservient to the Executive office of the President. So it might not be President Obama sitting there and manually stating "i like this company and I don't like this one", but it's still an executive branch decision. That's a good clarification, as I was distinguishing more from the signing-statement type exemptions Presidents make vs. decisions from executive branch departments, but that wasn't really clear.

It was grandfathering in an existing project, and it was probably taken into consideration that Avenal has filed suit against the EPA over this. It doesn't seem fair to me to impose new standards on applications that were already submitted and were waiting on approval. And relating it to GE, GE's CEO and his relationship with Obama because they're using some GE equipment is a bit more than a stretch. NY Times article on the filing, which contains a link to the filing itself.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 3, 2011 -> 01:28 PM) Agreed. Also, I still want to know why/how Obama can just exempt certain companies from complying with this law. What's the point if he can do that? I can understand the need for that sort of power to give temporary exemptions to companies that may suffer an inordinate amount of financial harm if forced to comply all at once, sort of following the "too big to fail" argument. My understanding is that these are 1-year exemptions for a small part of the bill, not total exemptions. Not sure if they are renewable or extendable. edt: forgot to say I understand the reservations of the executive having this power, there's potential for abuse just like the pardon system. edit2: here's an article that contains a response from the Department of Health and Human Services explaining their rationale. It also seems that it was DHHS's call, not Obama or the White House.

US interests aside, a democratic revolution to overthrow a dictator can still end up with things being worse off for many people in the country. How good is a democracy without protections for minority rights, free press, and stable relationships with regional neighbors? I think it's safe to say that all forms of dictatorship are bad, but I don't know that all forms of democracy are better than all forms of dictatorships.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Feb 3, 2011 -> 09:00 AM) There are good portions of this law, and those SHOULD remain law, and I hope through all of this they DO remain law. But as for a blanket statement like, "I like the law", all I can say is: no, you don't...you like the few portions of the law everyone likes...and you don't understand anything else about it (just like everyone else), so stop pretending you "like it all". Aside from the key points the law covers, which happen to be the only bullet points of this law anyone ever talks about, I guarantee now, the rest of it's a bunch of garbage designed to siphon money from the system. Insurance reform (and take this from a person working in health insurance) was necessary. But in the end, this bill fails on almost all other fronts...it does nothing to lower the cost of care/drugs/etc (despite people claiming it does, just knock it off, because it doesn't)...so it fails on almost all necessary fronts.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 2, 2011 -> 08:54 PM) If anyone wants to see the sequel to the Bill O'Reilly "Tide goes in, tide goes out" proof of God's existence, here it is. How did the Moon get there? I recommend the comments. (p.s. Having a number of friends who are actively working on the minor details of how the Moon, and Sun, etc., got there, how they got their final isotopic compositions, etc., I find this priceless). Holy Christ. That's a borderline retarded argument. Like something is seriously wrong with his cognitive abilities. eedit: Bad Astronomy with a good detail of everything Bill got wrong in that short video. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastro...lly-tidal-bore/

I am sort of delirious due to physical exhaustion from all the shoveling I did today.

QUOTE (G&T @ Feb 2, 2011 -> 01:08 PM) Even if the answer is none, how does it help to close that artery? The road was passable until accidents blocked the road. Right, it seemed like the combination of 3 accidents within 15-30 minutes right when the storm was getting worse was what did it in. Now we have to try to get to the house we just bought and shovel out that driveway before it ices over.

My boss's family lives in that area. They were worried a few weeks ago with the flooding, can't imagine now.