StrangeSox

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 04:30 PM) how come a free college scholarship isn't considered as having any value here? In many cases it has minimal worth. In many cases its worth is vastly disproportionate to the value they could otherwise get. Why is it okay to not pay these athletes with the billions of dollars in revenue they generate, but it's okay to make millionaires out of their coaches?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 04:28 PM) I don't even know what you're arguing. I live in the real world. And in the real world basketball is played at colleges and universities across the country every year. In that real world a guy like Boeheim has value above, beyond and separate from the players that he RECRUITS, TRAINS, COACHES and DEVELOPS into athletes good enough to make a living playing a game. Basketball is played by basketball players at colleges every year. It generates hundreds of millions of dollars. Coaches and AD's get millions of dollars. The players, for some reason, get none of it. I'm not saying the Boeheim is worthless or that NCAA coaches should work for free. On the contrary, they should be paid for their work. I'm saying that the athletes, the people actually playing basketball, should be paid as well. Boeheim is a giant hypocrit, though, when he claims he never got into it for the money and that it's idiotic that his players should be paid for their work. I don't see Boeheim willing to work for room and board and some free classes. And college athletics are nothing without athletes. Why doesn't your argument apply to NFL players? To people working in a factory? After all, they wouldn't be producing anything if the company didn't run the plant. What makes these athletes working in a multi-billion dollar industry so different? Boeheim is paid almost $2M/year. His players are not. The NCAA is an incredibly one-sided relationship.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 04:21 PM) I don't disagree that they have an argument. But very few college athletes (including the hundreds of thousands who don't play premiere sports) generate sufficient revenue for their school or the NCAA to warrant being paid BEYOND their scholarship and additional benefits. Let's lowball it and assume a scholarship, room and board, and extras cost a school 50k per athlete. How many players are actually worth that much to a team based on the money they generate for the school? I don't know, nor do I particularly care. If no one wants to pay them money, then they won't be paid money. They shouldn't be barred from outside sources of money, endorsement deals, outside jobs, etc. I had a friend who was a walk-on WR at Illinois. If WR's aren't getting scholarships, 3rd string kickers aren't, either. The compensation is minimal. Many of these athletes are there primarily to play a sport. They're encouraged to take easy classes and get all sorts of extra "help." They're barred from getting jobs and internships that would otherwise prepare the vast majority of students for non-sports-playing career after school. If they are rigorously pursuing a degree and get hurt, they can lose their scholarship. As I said before, the scholarship and stipends typically don't cover the cost of living. I'm sorry, how does this argument not apply to every other sports league that actually pays its players? How do MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLS, etc. etc. teams figure out what to pay players, and how do players figure out their market value? How do colleges figure out what coaches are worth? Yes, exploits. Makes some people into multi-millionaires while not paying the people that are actually making the product that generates the revenue. Bars them from getting any form of compensation while making tons of money off their names and images and work. Why shouldn't they be able to be "king of campus" and also get some of the enormous revenues they generate? Why should they be playing for extremely wealthy coaches and getting paid nothing in return? Really, what is the actual argument for why it is okay not to pay these athletes for their labor? Why is it necessary that they don't get paid for you to enjoy watching them play their sport?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 04:05 PM) Go back and read what I wrote. I'm saying that no insurance =/= death. 30 million uninsured doesn't mean 30 million are dead tomorrow. Coincidentally, neither was anyone else, beyond some silly one-liner inserted into NSS's purposefully silly story. I already tempered it myself. I'm not accepting your claim that there aren't millions of people that go without adequate health care in this country because they lack health insurance, though. You're aware of some free programs and clinics in a major metropolitan area. Great. Are there no people in the Chicagoland area that would like medical care but have to go without? I am doubtful. I am even more doubtful that your limited knowledge of some programs in a major urban center are applicable to millions of people who don't live in these areas. We see what happens when Doctors Without Borders hold one of their yearly free clinics in Appalachia. That means sick people will be paying hugely expensive premiums. If you're already sick, then the insurance company knows exactly what it's going to cost them. The entire point of insurance is that everyone else who is healthy subsidies those who are sick. Essentially, if you want to guarantee coverage, you can either have an individual mandate if you insist on a private for-profit insurance model or you can have a single-payer system if you want it to be a public service. I suppose you could enact significant taxes elsewhere and use those funds to subsidize these expensive pre-existing condition plans, but that inserts a pretty unnecessary step.

lol

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 02:53 PM) How do you know the rate isn't the same for insured people? I've been covered under my wife's plan for 4 years. I've never gone to the doctor. Our insurance premium at this point is just another deduction out of her paycheck, just like taxes. We don't really think twice about it (well, we didn't, until we had to change the plan to get a kid). I feel like people forget that insurance coverage doesn't necessarily mean healthier people. The majority of people DON'T get medical treatment despite being covered. That's how insurance companies stay in business. You are literally arguing now that insurance isn't actually useful and that people without insurance aren't forgoing medical care because they probably wouldn't have to go even if they did have insurance. This is completely absurd. Without a mandate and with guaranteed coverage, everyone can just wait until they are ill and then get insurance. The system can't function that way. There are systems where health care is much more reasonable and affordable. They're socialized.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 03:07 PM) The bolded is irrelevant. They play basketball, every year. And 25-35k people show up in a stadium to watch them play (supposedly the upcoming Duke game they might move the court so 50k can attend). And hundreds of thousands/millions watch every game on TV. If the program sucked, they wouldn't draw like that. http://espn.go.com/blog/bigeast/post/_/id/...etball-revenues It's not irrelevant. Boeheim's value is $0 if there aren't people paying basketball. Why should the person who convinces them to play basketball and tells them how to play basketball earn millions upon millions of dollars, but the people actually paying basketball earn nothing? This assumes that someone else couldn't come in and do his job for less, or that he couldn't do the same job for less if the revenues were split with the people actually playing the sport as well. And it still remains 100% true that, without a basketball team, 0 people will show up to watch Boeheim stand on the side of a basketball court.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 03:01 PM) Ok, let's break this down. Who are "they" we're talking about? The star athletes that have the only argument for being paid? Every person providing labor that generates revenue for the NCAA has an argument for being paid directly by the NCAA/their colleges. They certainly have an argument for being able to profit off of their images, names, likeness, etc. I am doubtful that a 3rd string kicker is receiving a full scholarship. If he's not making the school a dime, then why are we worried about allowing them to be compensated? We're talking about every athlete who generates billions of dollars collectively for the NCAA but, god forbid, somebody buys them a cheeseburger, let alone gives them compensation for the labor that is generating massive profits and wealth for others. Oddly enough, there are many sports leagues that exist and actually do pay the athletes. They also allow these athletes to benefit off of their own name and likeness through apparel deals and endorsements. How do colleges manage to figure out if they should pay a coach $50k a year or $2M a year? How does any other labor market function? Why should college athletics be any different? If college athletics can only exist if it exploits unpaid labor as the overwhelming majority of its workforce and the sole reason they generate revenues, then college athletics shouldn't exist. I've very doubtful that college athletics would be ruined if people were actually fairly compensated for their labor, though.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 02:39 PM) How many people does Boeheim allow the University to employ because he's really good at his job? How much money has he made the University and local economy because of what he can do and the kinds of recruits he's been able to bring in? I think college coaches are vastly overpaid but at the same time they bring in ten times what they earn. Boeheim brings in exactly zero dollars to the school if there aren't people playing basketball. Why should some become extremely wealthy off of this billion-dollar industry while the bulk of the labor is unpaid and barred from any compensation? I'm also skeptical that Boeheim really does bring in about $20M a year to the school.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 02:37 PM) Oh please, they get everything they need for free - food, housing, transportation, equipment, clothes, etc. They go on trips to foreign countries and participate in different group activities. Let's not pretend they have to pay for their own sneakers to play basketball. No, many of them don't get "everything they need for free." Many leave with debt or have to scrape by, especially if they didn't come from backgrounds where their family could financially support them. Only if I'm working for Google but not getting paid.

Boeheim gets $77,000 a year to buy a car. More than the average family of four earns in a year. 50% more than they earn in a year. Just for his car. The richer you are, the less you actually have to pay for stuff.

Fox News asks Nicaraguan meteorologist to host ‘Taco Day’ segment: ‘You grew up on tacos’

jesus christ please no

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 11:43 AM) I don't buy that the lack of health insurance means you go without care. Ok, but that doesn't change the reality that an awful lot of people actually do go without care, which leads to chronic illness, untreated illness or worse complications down the road. how do you pay for these things without the mandate?

Jenks, do you not believe that millions of Americans lack(ed) access to affordable health care? Would my statement be agreeable if I modified it to "Millions of us don't have any candy at all and we literally suffer and sometimes die because of it"?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 10:44 AM) Yuck. Owns what? Being smarmy and occasionally looking at the camera? She's a spoiled, self-centered brat for 8 episodes and sometime in between she'll do something "nice." I think she's a pretty useless character. being hilarious

The Republicans have trolled themselves into arguing in favor of government-created jobs (National Parks help small communities flourish!), government programs and government healthcare. It's at least a moral victory. What's sad is that the Senate has sent back only a six week extension of the CR. So we're just going to keep fighting these battles over and over and over now.

Also left out of the conversation: liberals and leftists advocating for a real, actual fix that works in every other OECD country. Though I suppose that's accurate

There's debate as to whether unterminated (i.e. open) ports on a splitter cause signal issues due to impedance mismatch and reflections. I'm not sure how far upstream it could really cause issues, though. The solution is to buy a splitter with the number of ports you need, or by a 75-ohm terminator cap (less than $1/ea), which is basically just the threaded connection with a resistor inside. edit: that said, Comcast technicians are generally awful

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 09:00 AM) Have to disagree. The Ron off the grid stuff was funny, but everything else was kinda meh. April is one of the worst characters on TV right now. Leslie/Ben can be gag-inducing. And the funniest guy on the show after Ron (Andy) wasn't in it. Parks and Rec and Modern Family are kind of in the same boat for me - they've run out the same formula for so long now it's getting a little old. They need some new characters or something to spice things up. Maybe a new Tammy episode. Anyone watch Masters of Sex? The wife and I caught the pilot last night. Very well done. I think we'll stick with it. You are wrong, April owns

There's a key component missing, though: Americans (US): Millions of us don't have any candy at all and we literally die because of it. It doesn't look like this happens in any other developed country in the world?? Please fix this, thanks in advance!

Not necessarily political, but contentious enough to keep out of the NCAA sports threads. Man Rich Thanks To College Athletics Blasts Paying College Athletes

That is a compelling argument in favor of actual socialized health care. Thank you, Congresswoman Renee Ellmers, for your support of a single-payer system.

There was a DEA agent there. He wasn't in on the scope of the operation, but I'm sure as soon as he found out Hank and Steve were dead, he realized what was going on. Huell might have been charged with some kind of criminal conspiracy charges, though. If they find the barrels on the compound, yes, it'll be seized as part of the drug operation. I dunno, I always thought they were pretty clear that it was a love triangle thing. Ok so really there were 9 decent questions, but they needed something to make it a nice, round 10?

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Oct 3, 2013 -> 01:20 PM) And check out this article. Here's a snippet: That would have been terrible, I'm so glad they didn't go that route. Walt's and Jesse's relationship wasn't nearly strong enough at that point, nor was Walt that far descended into that world. He never really became sadistic, only the one time when he told Jesse that he watched Jane die.