StrangeSox

Lousy workers, personally responsible for decades of stagnant wages, disappearance of pensions and the ever-growing income gap!!! Either way, whether you want to blame it on individuals who didn't save enough and invest 'properly' in financial products or you want to look at the huge amounts of wealth our financial sector has sucked off along with various other structural problems, we're still left with a coming wave of widespread elderly poverty. For whatever the cause, this 401k/IRA experience we've tried is complete s*** and doesn't work for the vast majority of people. Your response appears to be "f*** 'em I've got mine"

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Mar 22, 2013 -> 02:51 PM) Might as well have just kept Urlacher and spared all the uncertainty about the locker room and pissing off the fanbase. A huge persona that was a big supporter of the previous regime probably isn't seen as a good locker room presence by the new regime.

Moral indifference to the likely reality of widespread elderly poverty in the wealthiest country in the world noted, though.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 22, 2013 -> 03:04 PM) Damned rich people not saving enough for me to retire on! wealth distribution, how does it work??

The Greatest Retirement Crisis In American History http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsiedle/2...erican-history/

CLUNK. CLUNK.

only gets worse

haha

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 22, 2013 -> 01:27 PM) Brick, Brick, Brick.

A whole lot of things count as felonies that have nothing to do with with guns or violence in even loosely connected ways.

LinkedIn somehow recommended Tex's profile to me despite neither of us using our real names on this board or ever having communicated outside of it.

But, had Japan not attacked us, you'd be cool with him just doing his thing in Europe?

Hey, you might not realize this, but "the consequences" are not some fixed, immutable law of nature! They are public policy and can be debated and changed! I'm surprised you're not 100% in favor of removing another infringement of the 2A. Why should Martha Stewart, convicted of some securities fraud, be barred from owning a gun in order to protect herself from violent criminals and the tyranny of the state you like to tell us about so much?

Ex-felons should have the entirety of their rights resorted, imo, with the exception of violent (and possibly some other) crimes.

Louisiana Court strikes down state ban on possession of a firearm by a convicted felon http://www.volokh.com/2013/03/21/louisiana...arms-provision/

If they didn't get tired of war after the atrocities and meaninglessness of WWI, or the centuries of war prior to that... edit: Duke seems unaware of millions of Syrians who are neither the Syrian government or the rebel forces.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 21, 2013 -> 02:16 PM) Oh no! Drose said no instead of any and didn't add an ly when speaking! What a complete asshole! Every post on SoxTalk is grammatically perfect.

OTOH we should always be weary of international interventionism because that leads to incredibly dumb things like Korea, Vietnam and Iraq.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 21, 2013 -> 01:58 PM) It's also just something that is allowed to be considered. It may also be unfair to this student that her school may have not had as many extracurricular options as other students, however, those are also allowed to be considered. Also LOL at being forced to pay to apply. As soon as we abolish legacy admissions and relaxed "student"-athlete standards maybe we can care about the "injustice" of a mediocre white student not being good enough under any metric to get in who's crying race-discrimination.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 21, 2013 -> 01:58 PM) As soon as you make race a factor it's discrimination. Schools can hide it in these application processes all they want, but what the US attorney didn't want to answer - and what is absolutely true - was Alito's question that if you have two identical students with the same qualifications and the only difference is one is black and one is white, under these admission standards, the black kid is going to get in over the white kid, and it's only because of race. That should be unconstitutional. He did answer it by saying "I don't know" because a) that hypothetical will never, ever happen and b) that judgement would be made in the context of the rest of the class as I understand it. Ruling in that manner would make any consideration of race in an attempt to ameliorate racial inequalities unconstitutional. It'd be one step closer to completely barring public policy from being able to address that problem.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 21, 2013 -> 01:55 PM) I thought he said he couldn't - that they might be able to use what they self-identify as on the application but they don't have to. And the school doesn't go classroom by classroom to count minorities. They're relying solely on how people self-identify on the application even though it's not a clear cut case of being 100% one ethnicity. I mean, I get your point that the same issue might exist with census data, but census data is just a figure, not a figure to use whether there should be an exception to the equal protection clause. That's why it's important in this case. Census data is critical to equal protection with laws like the VRA as well as a whole host of other allocation systems. If we can't rely on self-reporting for UT, then we can't rely on any type of census. Since race is a social construct, how an individual self-identifies is, in some sense, what race they are. Yeah, you could be dishonest and claim you're black, but that again applies to any demographic analysis. E.g. Obama identifies and is identified in our society as black, no real question. She would have paid $100 regardless of the policies in place, though, and wouldn't have gotten in with race-neutral policies. So even if they find that the policy is a Constitutional violation, why should she get her $100 back? They have a clearly stated and compelling interest, so that leaves us with efficacy then. Should the SC really be the judge of whether or not a particular admissions policy is effective-enough? Why can't I turn this question around on them and ask "at what specific quantitative level do you find it to be Constitutional?" The problem is that this is a hugely subjective area, and it's hard to see why the SC should be making that final determination on holistic racial policies. well this court should be a-ok with this policy then because they've effectively barred any form of review for wiretapping because you can't prove you were harmed by secret wiretapping because it's secret!

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Mar 21, 2013 -> 01:51 PM) But isn't the SCOTUS' line of questioning relevant to that issue? If the school doesn't have a good way of determining who is a disadvantaged minority, or racial identification involves huge shades of grey, isn't that a big problem for the policy itself? No, and I don't see that racial identification actually involves huge shades of grey. Obama is mixed-race, but he self-identifies and is identified by our society as black. UT's stated goal of diversity would be clearly advanced in that case. There's always the possibility of someone who's culturally and ethnically white but, say, 1/32 Hispanic ticking that box because they think it'll give them an edge that they need, but potential fringe issues like this are possible for any demographic group. Either way, he quickly and clearly told them how they get this data (applicants tell us on a form), and their follow-ups didn't actually go anywhere. If they have a problem with the concept of self-identification (and thus the entirety of demographics), they could have pursued that line of questioning without sounding so childishly naive.

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Mar 21, 2013 -> 01:43 PM) If you have a discriminatory policy, then you need a significant state interest for why that policy is necessary. If that interest is to help historically-discriminated-against minorities, isn't determining who counts as one of those minorities relevant? Sure, but that quoted text was in response to jenks' statement that he would prefer no racial element at all.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 21, 2013 -> 01:36 PM) If it's so easy why couldn't the attorney for the university explain it? He did, immediately, and out came the "what about 1/8???" "What about 1/32???" stupidity. It's self-identification. It's compiled and readily available to administrators. She wasn't, she was mediocre and wouldn't have gotten in with or without this policy. So, not being a lawyer here, maybe I'm just wrong, but why is something Constitutional or not based solely on efficacy? Yeah, administrators should examine policies, absolutely. And if they're not working, change them. But this policy did boost minority admissions, so it was at least working on some level. They were just badgering him to give them some quantitative number, which plainly isn't allowed, and possibly because they're skeptical of the idea of self-reported demographic information and racial self-identification. It's not like it's just UT's specific policy at stake here most likely. This could have a far-reaching affect on admissions offices across the country despite the Courts not actually reviewing those other policies and results.

It's pretty easy to understand how the university (or the US Census!) determines that. If they couldn't figure it out on their own with about 5 seconds of thought or if they thought the "what about 1/32 hispanic?" was a good gotcha moment, then they are thinking at a junior-high level. If self-identified demographics aren't reliable, then we might as well trash the entire census and the study of demographics all together. It doesn't matter what you or Scalia or Roberts prefer UT's policies should be unless there's actually a Constitutional violation. It's not the role of the Court to evaluate the efficacy and merits of admissions criteria.