StrangeSox

So when is Fitzgerald supposed to come out with actual charges?

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 02:19 AM) What? This is just a guess, but a handful of companies threatened to leave the country ala John Galt in Atlas Shrugged if the "looters" (man do I hate Rand's polemic language) enacted universal health care.

I like France's nuclear policy. We should duplicate that.

'roids

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2009 -> 07:57 AM) All that proves is that the finace field has its quacks just like any other field. There are plenty of scientists in specialty fields out there who are saying that they know best and that we should change our lives accordingly. Many of them have way less evidence than what these stock pickers use. We're talking about the quacks, e.g. the CNBC network. I'm not slamming the finance field as a whole. Plenty of financial planners are very, very competent and make a lot of money for their clients and themselves. It's more of a media-in-general issue because the loud mouths making the crazy predictions will get the coverage/ TV shows, not the even-tempered pragmatist who carefully weighs and analyzes the stock data.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2009 -> 07:49 AM) You can't think of any worse ones, because the others aren't getting demonized on a daily basis. Has anyone gone back and found out how wrong that any other groups of experts are? You can talk about Steven Hawking, but the universe also isn't changing on the same lurching instant to instant dynamic basis that corporate valuations are, and yet scientists still disagree on many of the fundementals of the universe. Should I not trust science because of that? Should I never trust a weather man again because he screwed up my forecast last week? Should I not trust the theory of plate techtonics because no one has been able to predict a single earthquake with any real accuracy? I would hope not. The standards that are being held up here are just ridiculous when looked at under any reasonable light. Its all a part of the concerted effort to portray these people as evil and incompetent so that they can be punished. Stimulus and jobs be damned if it involves a bank or Wall Street. I edited the previous point to further my point. They market themselves and sell the idea that they know these things for certain and that they can make you more money. Science (in general, every field has big egos) does not do this. Balta isn't posting here every day about where the next big earthquake is going to happen and selling you some product as a result. Plate tectonics is not about predicting earthquakes; the theory is verified independent of that, so your analogy does not work. Weather forecasting is trying to predict a chaotic system, so of course they won't be 100% accurate and no reasonable person expects them to be. However, they are, on average, reliable. When I can do better than the "experts" by flipping a coin or parking my money in an index fund, it that shows that they are not, in fact, experts in anything but selling the idea that they are experts.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2009 -> 07:08 AM) In reality you can take any stock picker and find some glaring errors. Its an near impossible science, which is why the SP outpreforms the vast majority of stock pickers on an annual basis. Its not different than the experts in any other field. Tell me one scientist who can tell me exactly what the weather is going to be like in a week. Find me one who can tell me exactly when the next great quake is going to strike in the world and where. How about one who knows how big the universe is. You can keep going on with this, but you get my point. I have to take issue with this. No "expert" in any given field is perfect, but I can't think of worse "experts" than stock-pickers, and particularly those on TV. When index funds or coin flips consistently out-perform you, no one should pay attention to a single word you say. That is different from imperfect-but-usually-accurate weather forecasts and not-fully-understood cosmology (BTW, WMAP gave us a good estimate: 156 Billion Lightyears). Stephen Hawking isn't telling you wildly different things about black holes on a week-to-week basis; Tom Schilling isn't telling you it's going to be 85 and sunny and then its 24 and snowing. The difference is that other experts (like geologists wrt earthquakes) do not claim to know exactly when its going to happen and where. Stock pickers do claim to know when to buy and sell stocks and advise others when to do so.

Beast, you can choose your focus with the English degree AFAIK. You could choose to do an English writing focus instead. Sure, you'd probably have to take some lit. classes, but the majority would be focused on what you're interested in. That sounds like a great idea to me. Best of luck.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Mar 11, 2009 -> 05:50 AM) So, if he does it just a little bit, as long as it's less than W, and as long as it is for the good of the people, that's ok. Yeah, It's always different. Pretty much the response I expected. What other response could be given? It isn't a dichotomy of "all signing statements" or "no signing statements." It's an issue of abusing them or not.

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 06:27 PM) im interested to get some takes on this. are any of the following items, socialistic (if that's even a word) - public education - police departments - fire departments - public hospitals - military defense - homeland security - libraries - park districts - water/sewage departments and if not, how is "socialized medicine" any different then say, "socialized police protection" I can tell you that a more extreme libertarian would say all of those are socialized, though they might be okay with some of them. An anarcho-libertarian would want them all abolished and replaced by private companies (that would also include the legal system and roads & infrastructure).

QUOTE (The Beast @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 10:38 AM) I guess my issue is that UIC doesn't have a journalism program. I know they have a paper, and I know it is only weekly. I've often thought about writing PR reports, too. However, I would like to get a background in business so that I can adapt to writing in a business setting. As of right now, my goals are to improve my writing, vocabulary, and overall, just to move forward in life. I'm just unsure if the reason why I didn't want to write for the Daily Eastern News anymore was because the material they were giving me was dry, or for the fact that no one gives a crap about sports at this school. Thank you for your post; I'm going to consider a lot of what you've said. @kyyle: I'm just proving to you guys that I'm not as narrow minded as I was last year. My girlfriend majored in English Lit at UIC and is currently working as an editor; you don't necessarily need a journalism degree to get into that line of work. If you want to stick with that path, take their internship class. It's run by Linda Andrews, IIRC.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 10:05 AM) Great post Jurny, and congrats to you and your wife on your good fortune with the process! QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 10:13 AM) "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing" There's some great examples here: http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Poe%27s_Law

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 09:15 AM) By the way, markets up big today, 4 to 5% on major indicies so far. Not sure if this is the beginning of a bounce or not - there seems to be increasing levels of noise that the market is oversold on irrational levels of fear (as I suggested recently). Could also just be a blip. As long as its not a dead cat bounce...

QUOTE (lostfan @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 09:02 AM) I was going to swing at that fastball last night but figured someone else would.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Mar 9, 2009 -> 09:27 PM) Oh yeah, because the government is now throwing in funds, scientists will NOW solve the mystery of stem cells and come up with all of these cures... Hundreds of millions of dollars are a good way to kick-start scientific research. QUOTE (BearSox @ Mar 9, 2009 -> 09:28 PM) how exactly is in vitro ethic? I think it's pretty sick as well. We saw what type of crimes against nature go on with in vitro, key example being that nut case in Cali. Those people who can't get pregnant naturally can just go to hell! I can't tell if this is sarcastic or not.

Here's a quick description of how Bush's policy resulted in a de facto ban on ESC research: "This ban enacted under GWB was far more reaching than most people would imagine. It was to the point where even if you had found private funding, if you had a lab that had previously purchased equipment using NIH funding, you couldn't do your research. Researchers had to go out and buy all new equipment [especially like flow cytometers which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, even though they already had one], buy or lease new lab space, and pay more people to do work they could have already done. What a wonderful idea, take away access to cells AND cripple them financially. Awesome." And here's a Wired article explaining why private funding often falls short when it comes to basic scientific research (Bell Labs just closed down their basic research division last year): http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2006/12/72206

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Mar 6, 2009 -> 09:04 PM) But why do they have to be federally funded? If this is such a promising field, why isn't there more private money going there? Because if you do this research, you're cut off from ALL federal funding since money is fungible. Big labs can't afford that.

Great move.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Mar 5, 2009 -> 10:46 AM) That's true. They are doing Europe tickets out of Chicago for $400 ROUND TRIP right now. It's insane. There's 3 and 4 night packages for places like London and Rome for about $700 a person right now. I'd recommend Hawaii over Mexico any day of the week. I've been to Kauia, Maui and Oahu. I'd prefer them in that order, too.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 6, 2009 -> 11:16 AM) if I didnt have a friend that was a mechanic, I would probably do all those myself as well. Its funny how much they can charge for something mundane like that. Another one of the reasons I lease, so that everything is always under warranty. This was mostly because my Jeeps cost me more money in repairs than I bought them for. Shop labor rates have to be high to cover a lot of shop overhead. I know the company I work for bills a hell of a lot more for engineering time than I get paid!

Car dealerships are spawns of Satan (both sales and service).

QUOTE (SoxFan101 @ Mar 6, 2009 -> 01:01 AM) Not true, I just played MVP 05 a couple weeks ago and still in love with the game. The only thing that was annoying is out-dated rosters, but graphics were fine for me and gameplay is just awesome. You can update it to 2008. http://www.eamods.com/index.php/View-detai...all-08-MLB.html It's a shame that there isn't a decent baseball game for Xbox. Maybe next year...

Not all mechanics are bad, but there's a good reason I do 99% of my own work. Labor rates of $80/ hr+ are no fun.

About the actual glyphs: http://www.catchpenny.org/abydos.html http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Abydos_helicopter That doesn't mean the Lost writers aren't going to incorporate this theory somehow, though.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 5, 2009 -> 07:33 AM) Did anyone really blame Bush for the 2001+ recession? That's pretty absurd. That's politics. Always blame the opposition ideology and leaders for whatever failures happen in the real world.