StrangeSox

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 16, 2010 -> 03:42 PM) what? i said hardly any. if we were just going to throw money at construction projects it should have been used to update bridges or ports or canals or whatever else is 10 years away from falling apart. highways in central IL are infrastructure.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 16, 2010 -> 03:25 PM) The stimulus was an absolute waste. 750 billion dollars of spending, and hardly any of it went towards infrastructure improvement (what, 50 billion worth?) I gave you the list the other day of wasteful spending (so far). Thanks for repaving that highway in the middle of central illinois Mr. President. Way to keep those government employees on the job working on unecessary projects. That really helped. The stimulus has been a complete fail to this point. It was sold to the American people as a necessary evil to create jobs. It's created nothing to this point. Unemployment has gone up since that bill was signed, not down. what

A November prop initiative shouldn't impact what happens by the end of this year.

And it's working.

what lost said. Classify it as telecommunications and regulate like it should be. End of story.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 10, 2010 -> 10:55 AM) I get annoyed when everyone goes insane at the game on a fly ball that is clearly not going to be a HR. Why don't people take a quick glance at the outfielder and which way he's running/walking to get an idea if the ball has a chance to go out? The last game we went to some lady right behind us kept going berserk for every routine fly out. I felt like punching her. Yeah, I'm not that great at judging fly balls myself. If the CF is just standing still about 40 ft from the wall, no reason to get up and start yelling.

yeah but socioeconomic status is still very strongly correlated with race.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Aug 10, 2010 -> 09:04 AM) You cant win that suit, thats why they print that warning on the tickets. Good luck buddy. Liability waivers don't get you out of all lawsuits. I know race tracks that have lost lawsuits even with a bunch of signed waivers because they were found to have been negligent in maintenance. IANAL, but if you could show that MLB knew these bats posed a significant threat to fans and weren't necessarily a fact of the game (like a foul ball is), you might have a case. edit: what that blog says. Not sure why there's a bunch of animosity being thrown at this guy

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Aug 3, 2010 -> 10:46 AM) Flash is simply not a safe closed, Apple-controlled platform that limits available content to what you pay for which is why Jobs doesnt like it. I dont think it has anything to do with performance.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 9, 2010 -> 02:40 PM) That is the point here... parking wasn't profitable for the City. It is profitable for a private company. It was slightly profitable for the city. It's very profitable for a private company.

So all government services should be break-even at best? Wouldn't a slight-profitable service and a slightly-unprofitable service work well together to allow the government to keep taxes slightly lower?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 9, 2010 -> 12:36 PM) And the money to pay for that is going to come from...? vouchers

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 9, 2010 -> 12:33 PM) They also will need a lot small budgets in the future, because they won't be supporting formerly money losing operations on bloated bureaucratic budgets. They'll have to find a way to spin off those money-losing operations or citizens will simply have to give up those operations. Selling off all of your profitable assets just doesn't seem like a winning proposition unless you have massive cuts or tax increases.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 9, 2010 -> 12:14 PM) definitely. I know MIT currently posts selected lectures and coarse work on the Internet for anyone to read and attempt. I believe Stanford has something similar as well.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 9, 2010 -> 11:46 AM) I'd like to see that as well, in many cases. Not all, or even most - but there are businesses the government (federal, state, local) is in that could be done more efficiently by private business. And if those businesses can be run profitably, so much the better - because that means they have value, and the government can get some cash out of it too. But what are we going to do when the city has sold off all of its cash-generating operations to fix short-term budget gaps? Instead of having some profit come in over the next 75 years from parking (and Midway and the skyway and whatever else is privatized), they get some money upfront. Instead, these profits will get funneled to wealthy board members and shareholders instead of supporting local government. I don't see that as a winning solution in the end. That's why the article said: "The present value of the contract was $2.13 billion, more than the $1.15 billion the city received" quick edit: there is something to be said about selling off pieces of your business to restructure and refocus on your core competencies, I'm playing more of a devil's advocate here.

The end result of it is that private citizens pay more. Either though higher taxes to support the city spending or through higher parking rates that go to corporations.

I thought about that this morning, and I have to apologize. I have no idea why I said that because this never was a states rights issue here.

hahahaha yeah, white men sure are at a disadvantage compared to minorities!

Good opportunity to post this, though it may have already been posted here a few months ago: Man who survived 2 atom bombs dies http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/01/0...dies/index.html

haha AJ loved that one

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 07:13 PM) What case? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Wong_Kim_Ark It's wikipedia but it has a pretty good explanation of what the court found the meaning of that jurisdiction clause to mean. You can read the decisions themselves as well. If you want to get that literal about a phrase in an amendment, how do you reconcile the militia clause of the 2nd amendment? Or is this just more picksy-choosey States Right advocacy?

hahahaha keep pretending there isn't white male privilege, kap. Maybe it's that white man's burden that's putting us at a disadvantage! kap, jenks, have you guys ever read any sociology at all? Your arguments are completely blind to reality.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 11:27 AM) Was making a joke. Someone referenced a report that apparently found gay men were more likely to molest children. I referenced one of the pro-prop 8 witness's ridiculous testimony. His source for that claim was "the internet". No such scientific study exists showing what he claimed; gays are just as likely as straights to molest children, but that doesn't stop the "save the children!" boogeyman from rearing its ugly head all the time.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 11:17 AM) Except that this argument only gets played like this when it comes to these types of social issues. States grant all sorts of rights tailored towards a specific group while clearly discriminating against others. Think about things like minority contract requirements with cities. It's absolutely blatant discrimination, but no one cares because it benefits the little guy. The "benefits" of giving out the miniority owned business contracts aren't much better than the "benefit" of protecting children from all those gay raper guys out there. Or the other one that really gets me (though it will soon be moot) is the fact that women and children can get free health care in illinois, but a man can't. Apparently the justification is that protecting women and children's health is more important than a man's? Minorities are at a systematic disadvantage. AA-type programs aren't perfect but they're not "reverse racism" or "reverse discrimination". The justification is that there's a lot of single mothers out there who can't afford health care for them or their children. It's not fair to punish children for their parents' lack of financial success and if that parent becomes too ill to work, they'll be screwed.

Equal protection, 14th amendment. eta and due process was in the ruling I think.