StrangeSox

Here's the area that Chicagoland encompasses: It represents about 3/4's of Illinois' entire population. It has some of the wealthiest cities in the country, is home to multiple Fortune 500 HQ's, and has a huge economic base. The top 7 Illinois counties for per capita income are all in Chicagoland. There is just so much more industry and so many more people in this area than anywhere else in the state. And don't forget to factor in farm subsidies throughout all of the rural areas. Illinois' total GDP is about $650M, and $585M (90%) comes from Chicagoland. So on a per capita basis, Chicagoland produces substantially more GDP than non-Chicagoland Illinois.

I have to imagine that Putin desires a unified, pro-Russia Ukraine above anything else. Isn't this similarly true of the Euromaidan protests?

I really don't get the whole "US/The West is weak while Putin is strong and takes what he wants" story. This has been pretty s***ty for Putin from the start. He had a friendly government running Ukraine last November. Now he's got a pretty major neighbor in the midst of a populist (though not exactly democratic) coup by anti-Russian factions and a serious threat to the long-term status of their only warm-water naval base in Crimea. He's being portrayed negatively all over the world and looks like a huge hypocrite over his "don't meddle in internal affairs" protection he ran for Assad.

That's pretty remarkably stupid even for Lindsey Graham. Not everything is directly related to the US.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Mar 4, 2014 -> 01:30 PM) Wouldn't the mere fact that we aren't invading them make us look like a better option? To Western Ukraine, sure. But whoever ends up in charge of Ukraine is going to have a very difficult time satisfying all sides.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Mar 4, 2014 -> 01:04 PM) I know, and that sucks. They never should have moved the kickoffs up. It was just a reactive move under the pretense of "safety" that they hoped people would actually buy. If safety was a pretense, what do you think the real motivation for that change was?

Keystone would do f***-all as far as Russia in concerned. They supply Europe with a significant percentage of their oil and natural gas, and tar sands oil from Canada won't change that.

A couple of people here have over 500k points on southwest. The former owners of the company were both United Global Service at one point and have lifetime Premier status, can't remember what level though.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Mar 3, 2014 -> 09:29 PM) their standing army is double the size of ours... Our active military is almost exactly twice as large as theirs, plus we spend boatloads more money. Russia has a draft as well, so it isn't an all-volunteer army. Even if there army were twice the size, you're still talking about an invasion and occupation of another country that would have huge internal and international backlash. How well has that worked for anyone in recent decades?

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Mar 3, 2014 -> 10:07 PM) Lastly, their loyalty program rewards you a lot better than other airlines. By my calculations, on average you can get a free one way ticket for every three round trips you make, and that's with their lowest grade of ticket. If you get a higher grade ticket or have membership status with them, you actually can get a free ticket a lot faster. Regardless, it beats the mile system any day. Until this year, I was A-List preferred. None of our trips are ever solidly scheduled more than a week or so in advance, so we are always getting Anytime tickets. Between the Anytime points, the A-List preferred bonus and some promotion they were running on top of it, I got something like 40,000 points for a round-trip flight to LA. You can usually book a one-way ticket to almost anywhere for 10k points or less. Also had the Companion pass last year, where a chosen person can fly with you for free on an unlimited number of flights. This includes flights booked with points, so flying to Pittsburgh, Ft. Lauderdale, Spokane and Reno-Tahoe cost me about 80k points total for both of us. I haven't paid for a personal flight in four years.

I think Russia is a net-exporter. They only lose access to those pipelines if Europe decides it doesn't need natural gas.

Russian forces are there at the request of the Crimean government (which itself took power in a coup a week or so ago). It's a show military strength for sure, but the word "invasion" just doesn't seem to fit, at least to me. Intervention or something seems better, but really just arguing semantics at this point. Does Crimea have a right to independence from Ukraine?

I don't know that portraying what Russia's done so far as an "invasion" really makes sense. Last I had read, they had deployed a whole bunch of people to Crimea, but they have a huge naval base and existing treaties for military forces to be there and the new Crimean government asked them to come.

Some more longer background reads: Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda (pro-Ukrainian nationalist a bit) Crimea, the Tinderbox Ukraine: The Price of Internal Division

One of the first actions of the new parliament in Kiev was to repeal a law that allowed regions to use Russian as a second official language. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-...ussian-takeover

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Mar 3, 2014 -> 04:26 PM) Eastern Ukraine? No. Western Ukraine? Yes Ukraine is Ukraine, though. Short of Ukraine splitting into two, they still don't have wide-spread support.

I'm not sure how much legitimacy the new government in Kiev really has right now. They certainly don't have the support of a majority of Ukrainians.

I don't think this is "WWIII", though. This seems like a repeat of the Georgia/South Ossetia thing from 2008 in terms of global politics more than anything.

Hard to feel sympathetic towards any of the sides in this one. I thought this was a pretty good primer: http://pando.com/2014/02/24/everything-you...raine-is-wrong/

given that they said today that they aren't going to because they just finished a reconciliation budget deal for the next year last month...

The case against Cameron Todd Willingham, the almost-definitely innocent man Texas executed a decade ago, has even more problems. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/us/evide...ution.html?_r=1

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Feb 28, 2014 -> 12:23 PM) And yes, over the years, your genetics will change in that some aspects slow down, others speed up, etc...so while that may be impossible when you're in your 20's and burning 10k calories being awake, when in you're 30's that probably won't be the case. FWIW I don't think your "genetics," i.e. your actual DNA is changing when your metabolism slows down. Body chemistry would be more accurate, but your genetics are going to at least partially determine your body chemistry.

Yup. If I don't actively try to put on weight/muscle, my body weight will be right around 150 lbs. I'm 6'3". My little brother is the exact same and so was my grandpa (until he got older and got a big gut, but he still has pencil legs). I have a friend with a very similar body type who bulked up to around 185, but that required him eating something like 4-5k calories a day and 10+ hours of exercise a week for a long time.

My friends had this happen to their next-door neighbor http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=n...&id=9447222