StrangeSox

Some interesting articles on Space Tourism and climate change, and on soot problems in general. Space tourism to accelerate climate change This article contains a response indicating potentially unreliable/wrong data in the study. But either way, soot is still pretty bad. 2003 paper by Hansen on soot.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 28, 2010 -> 05:18 PM) The worst are infomercials for school board races How is the campaign going? Funny you should mention school boards... http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-natio...y.School.Board/

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 28, 2010 -> 05:00 PM) Well, there's a dozen lawsuits. I thought that was known a long time ago, but that BP kept insisting to move ahead with the project? I remember reading about Haliburton engineers warning BP that all of their simulations showed it most likely was going to fail.

I was thinking of the flex accounts being a tax-reimbursement for money already spent instead of pre-tax savings. Anyway, my criticism of the "use it or lose it" rule stands, and as NSS said, it's just too much of a PITA for a relatively small amount of money. Now, if I were taking hundreds of dollars of Rx's every month, that'd be a different story. I'm in agreement with his proposal to fix it. But, then again, maybe the "use it or lose it" is a significant part of funding the program.

I have no idea what I was thinking when I typed that. Sorry.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 27, 2010 -> 12:53 PM) We tried this for this year, and won't be doing it again. Its a huge pain in the ass that consumes significant time to deal with, the use it or lose policy makes no sense, and all that for relatively minimal savings that is wiped out in terms of time spent. Not worth it, IMO. That said, the much easier thing to do here, is to get rid of it entirely... take out the high bar for deductions, take it all the way to zero... and then give a choice - you an deduct the expenses at tax time if you do deductions, or you can take a flat deduction that represents the average medical costs for your income bracket. That way, you only have to deal with the B.S. once a year, you remove the silly use it or lose it rule, and you cut out the wasteful spending. That terrible rule is why I don't use the program. Here's an idea, simply stop taxing medicine if that's the end-result you want.

It's screwing up an awful lot of flights for people where I work.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 26, 2010 -> 07:59 AM) the "guys" you are describing are not financial engineers - those are people who work in securitization and analysis, they are business side, not usually technical. Financial engineers are the people who write the software for financial systems of all kinds. They still write the analytical software and come up with the mathematical models for it. The big banks recruited heavily from U of I's engineering program.

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ Oct 25, 2010 -> 09:34 AM) I still say Cutler > Orton, and I still think its a trade that you make at that time, but to me there's no almost no arguing that the Bears would be better now and in the likely near future with Orton at QB and the two lost No. 1s used on wideouts or the O-line, even with the Bears s***ty draft record. Cutler is much more talented, but both QBs have a penchant for lousy decisions, and that just gets hugely amplified behind a piss poor line and receivers that can't seem to learn to run routes. He may be maddingly brain dead, but Cutler is the most skilled QB the Bears have had in 20 years. Leave it to the Bears to finally get a talented passer, and then waste him by surrounding him with utter s***. And I'm not saying this to make excuses for the guy, because Cutler completely crapped the bed against the 'Skins. Like at San Fran last year, this loss was almost totally on him, even with idiot Lovie's refusal to challenge. We'd probably have two more d-linemen instead, or maybe a reach on a mediocre WR or RB.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 25, 2010 -> 07:49 AM) Lovie is horrid on challenges, but don't the Bears have someone looking at that stuff above telling him to challenge or not? The challenge lost was silly as it was pretty clear it wasn't going to be changed from the beginning, but considering the Bears are 0-10 scoring a TD their last 10 snaps from the 1 yard line, perhaps it was warranted. I don't know if they would have given Cutler the TD or not, but not challenging that was ridiculous. But really, and not trying to be a Lovie apologist, Lovie has the worst view of almost all to make the challenge call. If the Bears don't have someone telling Lovie when to challenge, they are even more inept than previously thought. Lovie challenges plays that are 100% clearly correct and challenges plays where, even if he wins the challenge, it doesn't actually change anything. Why he decided to not challenge such a high-impact play is simply baffling.

Brady's winning on SoxTalk? Quinn doesn't stand a chance.

What's the difference? BTW it's a clear-cut choice between Marxism and freedom.

hahahaha oh man.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 24, 2010 -> 12:41 PM) This team is really bad. -

Yeah, positive yardage! When was the last time this team hit a big play down field?

This team is really bad.

"hey, you know, that play kept working against us last week, maybe we'll get lucky..."

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 23, 2010 -> 10:44 PM) Another thing? Did this game start before 7? It's a damn shame a 3-2 game lasted this f***ing long. These playoffs games are honestly starting to bore the f*** outta me. I watched the first inning, put on the Godfather, and still caught the final three AB's. Ridiculous.

It is just a right wing pseudo-problem. So, those private security guards for Joe Miller who arrested that reporter? Active-duty military. From the link, video showing them intimidating and threatening other reporters.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Oct 23, 2010 -> 04:58 PM) I didn't mean that ad per se was the worst, but that he is. While it might be 'refreshing' for him to speak his mind, it sure doesnt' help the general tenor of things around Washington. He called Gibbs Bozo the Clown, wanted to have critics arrested and jailed for 5 years, the 'republicans want you to die quickly' thing you mentioned and even called a female advisor to the Fed a 'K-Street whore' (and not one peep from women's groups about that). And as usual, he projects his actions onto others, claiming what he does is mirroring what Republicans do. http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_poli...five-years.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/weekinre...nhorn.html?_r=1 death panels.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 23, 2010 -> 11:07 AM) Oh come on, it's not amazing at all. It hits 3 points they love to hit on. 1. It's offensive to tell them they can't be afraid of Muslims 2. The media is liberal and oppressive and unfair 3. NPR is socialist and should be shut down. The extent of the meltdown is surprising to me since the election is so close and I don't really see this having an impact one way or another. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 23, 2010 -> 11:09 AM) Yes, NPR's reaction was somewhat knee-jerk, but they're actively taking efforts to make sure they appear non-partisan. An example from a week ago is them sending out a sternly worded memo that they don't want their staff showing up at the Stewart/Colbert rally, under similar penalties. They've had issues with Williams appearing on Fox for years, and they jumped when he finally went for the part-racist point of view. Just like Rick Sanchez...it's a firing that they've been wanting to do for a while. QUOTE (lostfan @ Oct 23, 2010 -> 11:14 AM) People kill me with their not having a single solitary clue what free speech rights actually are. Unless your state has specific laws stating otherwise or you have a contract with your employer speficially stating terms to the contrary, you do not have a Constitutional right to keep your job, and 1A doesn't apply to your employment. They can fire you for any reason, and that includes "not liking something you said." This kind of thing should be common knowledge and to me it's kind of embarrassing to see it actually debated. (Granted, they can't fire you for "ANY" reason, i.e. because you're black, or female, or a naturalized citizen, etc. but almost anything, yeah.) Still, I don't think NPR was ever really comfortable with him recently and if you listen to everything he said in context, it seems like they just needed a reason to fire him and this was it. Kind of like when ESPN fired Rush Limbaugh for saying the media wants to see black quarterbacks do well. Not so much because he said that, but because they had been thinking "why the hell did we hire Rush Limbaugh?" and that was a convenient way to undo that. Yeah, that is what it looks like.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Oct 23, 2010 -> 09:42 AM) Nina Totenberg. Not only Helms but his grandchildren too. Very classy. NPR guidelines for a statement like that are what exactly? FWIW this occurred about 15 years ago. It was in response to Jesse Helms' consistently fighting AIDS funding and more or less saying it is a disease that gays deserve. If that's the only defense of Juan, well... It's amazing how much the right wing media is melting down over Juan Williams being fired. Not to mention the general ignorance of what NPR is and how it's funded, what editorial standards are (ha!) and how firing something for saying something stupid isn't violating their free speech rights. Juan's comment and fears are ridiculous given the reality of various attacks and attempts: but NPR's reaction does seem a bit knee-jerk. Oh well, Juan can go on to be the next token 'liberal' at Fox News and conservative talk radio and TV now has something to rant about and get the base ANGRY!

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Oct 23, 2010 -> 09:50 AM) The 'Taliban Dan' ad Grayson put out is probably least honost/most hilarious ad i've ever seen. pretty much sets the bar at a whole new level. jesus christ this country's politics.

Newest GOP boogeyman: NPR For having the audacity to fire Juan Williams for revealing some pretty bigoted thoughts about Muslims.

QUOTE (Whitewashed in '05 @ Oct 21, 2010 -> 03:22 PM) Anyone hear the new Kings of Leon? I give it a 3/5 right now. I listened to it online a few days ago. Like the last album, decent background music but just meh overall.