StrangeSox

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 10:27 AM) Yes. To think at one time there were six is hard to believe. The flip side of this is that these guys don't get to do nearly as much tackling in practice any more. These preseason games give them some good full-contact time. doesn't mean they aren't generally boring as hell, though.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 04:51 AM) Sure he did: Defense & Position probably have little to do with the voting, if anything. You have to do some pretty amazing s*** to win an MVP without being at the top of the triple crown stats along with going to the playoffs. Ichiro, Verlander, Larkin, Pedroia are all outliers compared to typical MVPs. Position matters huh? Look at Barry Larkin's year after he won MVP, 1996. Destroyed his MVP stats from the year before all while playing SS. Well he didn't make the playoffs that year, but the top two in voting did, Caminiti and Piazza. I think more people would argue that Larkin's best season in 1996 was more valuable coming from a SS over a 3Bman...nope. 90% triple crown hitting & playoffs, 10% you better not be a DH. That the MVP has been dumb and arbitrary in the past isn't a reason to keep it dumb and arbitrary now

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 03:31 PM) Or what if you cheat on your wife (twice) and she attacks you both times but the police are called? Is that worthy of a lifetime ban? There's something in there about the league making an "evaluation" if/when a player is charged with a crime. There's enough wiggle-room in there to allow the NFL to keep it's current standard of punishment being seemingly completely arbitrary. It also includes assault, battery and sexual assault, not just domestic violence.

Keeps the central pro-Western Ukrainian government weak, hopefully leading to an eventual pro-Russian replacement government would be my guess.

I wasn't trying to say that holding all of Ukraine would be like holding Crimea, just pointing out the huge international economic problems increasingly overt military actions will pose for Russia proper.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 10:21 AM) And that whole Afghanistan thing kind of weights like Vietnam Afghanistan does here. More than just the difficulty of holding all of Ukraine, they'd also completely isolate themselves from most of the world economy if they did that. Their economy is already pretty terrible, and the sanctions over Crimea haven't helped.

More seriously I wonder what the line for NATO intervention might be. And I wonder what Putin's desired end-game is here.

greg was right!

Michael Brown's Mom Laid Flowers Where He Was Shot—and Police Crushed Them New details emerge about callous tactics that fueled anger in Ferguson.

I've been enjoying The Banner Saga lately. Picked up on Steam for $20 or something like that.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 06:52 AM) Yeah, CNN, who lambasted people for running with 'unverified' medical reports about a broken eye socket jumped in head first with an unverified audio tape, because, you know, it COULD be real. The source for the audio tape, which the FBI is apparently reviewing, was not the dumbest man on the internet aka Jim Hoft so they've already a leg up on credibility there.

there's definitely a mental benefit to having one less payment to worry about

I need to scramble to figure out who I'm going to draft for my work league tonight. What's the best sources I can plow through for rankings?

There's not really a good financial incentive to paying the loan off early if they're lending you the money for free.

the pre-trial perjury immunity for police is pretty troubling as well.

This is why I'm skeptical about the rush to give police a bunch of tasers: Georgia cops fired Taser 13 times ‘as a cattle prod’ to make tired man walk before he died

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 04:10 PM) Who cares about internal audits, i'm talking civil cases. There are a s*** ton of those and they are successful. Hell, I owe my job to my firm obtaining a 2.5 million dollar verdict in a police brutality case. And it wasn't even that strong of a case. Oh but you want to fire the incompetent cop too. Well, as i'm sure you're aware, they're fully unionized and those police unions are powerful sons of b****es, so good luck with that. While those types of cops out there exist, and they're mostly control freaks and assholes, you still bite your tongue and follow their instructions. And you do that because you know that it's just going to be a bigger pain in the ass if you speak up. My wife and I just had this happen to us over parking (standing) in a handicap spot for literally 5 seconds. I wanted to scream at the cop and get his badge number and raise hell for being an asshole about the whole thing. But ya know what, I didn't. And after 3 minutes he gave us a warning and let us go. And while I was pissed, it was done and over with and life moved on. Had I been an ass about it, it would have been 100 times worse i'm sure. So like telling your parents or your boss what's what, you close your mouth, you deal with it, and everyone moves on. That's how most civilized people operate. When you scream at cops and yell at cops and disobey orders, like parents or bosses, they get pissed and they'll lash out in response. Wanted to follow up this post with this editorial in the NYT about judicial immunity for government entities and often times even government actors and how it makes holding people accountable for their abuses very difficult. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/opinion/...-share&_r=0

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 27, 2014 -> 10:08 AM) Sure it was hokey, but he does make a good point that the Chief was never used like a mascot, running around the field trying to make people laugh. He was a symbol 99% of the time, and a halftime piece the remaining 1%. It just frustrates me when people claim it's all racist and a big insult when clearly the students/alumni/fans ADORED the Chief. They loved every minute of it. It's been 7 years since his last performance and the crowd still goes nuts when he randomly shows up. They don't do that because they like seeing a guy make fun of American Indians, they like it because they like the Chief and the entire tradition behind it, including their own personal memories of it. And yes, fans can be really stupid. right, but that doesn't mean that the Chief or other similar mascots aren't still inherently hurtful or demeaning. Whether or not you intend or even realize you're saying or doing something offensive doesn't change that.

I think this photo does a good job illustrating how hokey "the chief" was. I never really cared much one way or the other when I was there. I'll never understand why some people get so emotionally attached to team names, logos, or mascots, though. This is just ridiculous:

Audio recording from the area of the shooting that allegedly has the gunshots in the background. http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/26/us/michael-b....html?hpt=hp_t1 Total of 10 shots fired, including a pause in the middle.

I'm 6'3" and don't really mind someone reclining their seat. What makes me want to start stabbing people is when someone thinks the back of your seat is a nice handle to pull themselves up.

This is from Brookings' Tax Policy Center, and it lays out a couple of options to recapture the capital that's fleeing to lower-tax jurisdictions: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publication...l.cfm?ID=904637

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 26, 2014 -> 11:37 AM) I still don't see how that makes up for taxes on billions of dollars of revenue. A company isn't paying out all that revenue to salary, so to change from taxing all revenue to just taxing a portion of the revenue that is designated for salary doesn't really add up, even if you increase the tax rate on the high end. I'm not familiar with the proposal that balta's talking about, but I think it'd be more about targeting dividends and capital gains or something, not wage income.

I'd assume that you'd raise the taxes on the higher brackets more. That's where a majority of the profits/dividends are going anyway.

At one point he crudely erased the "university of Iowa" stamp on the image. But most of the conservative media jumped on it as the actual images from Wilson, coulter drudge etc. I don't believe the fox news report was independent.