StrangeSox

B&B were in a state of horrified-to-the-point-of-amused disbelief at the 8 jurors announced yesterday. I can't believe they're holding this in State College.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jun 5, 2012 -> 08:08 PM) lol that's a pretty smart remark by him. I get the rarity of it, but, blah, i dunno. Things like this are neat, but not really news worthy to me I guess. Now if it crashed into the sun, i'd watch that. It was pretty cool to see the sun, venus and sunspots projected into a shoe box via my telescope. I didn't sit around for hours watching it, but I checked it out a few times over the course of the evening. We had perfectly clear skies the whole time.

Who's saying that the system is broken or that democracy has failed here? eta: ACORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!11!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It limited the on-campus organizing and voter drives.

Read that 60% of WI voters said they opposed recalls that weren't for official misconduct. A small majority (51%) of people who said they're voting Obama in November voted against the recall.

Dems are so much worse at politics than Reps

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 5, 2012 -> 07:47 PM) Is it acceptable or useful to keep police officers and firefighters on the payroll until age 67? Or even 55 in many cases? In the event that they are physically unable to do those jobs until the rising social security eligibility age, what do we do with them? Literally work them until they are broken or dead.

Really don't get why the dems ignored this nationally.

I melted a telescope lens. Glad it wasn't my hand. Oops.

he wasn't b****ing about smartphones, though.

1) 80% odds China avoids a hard landing 2) 60% chance of Euro-zone solution 3) 70% likely US avoids fiscal cliff P=>*Nothing* goes wrong =33%

I work at job sites frequently enough, I do not deny what you are saying. Just last week I had to wait 1-1/2 hours for someone to go get me a tape measurer. I'm just pointing out that we're no less guilty of it when we're browsing ST during working hours.

The craziest thing to me are the seizure dogs.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 5, 2012 -> 10:17 AM) It's like road workers...where 3 stand around talking, 1 works with the machine, and 1 holds a sign telling cars to watch out. Yes, the 3 standing there could be doing something else... But they won't. Says the guy posting on SoxTalk...

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 5, 2012 -> 10:13 AM) Do you even know how public jobs work? Because it doesn't sound like it. Desk workers do NOT go out on calls...not in the police department, and not on the fire department. Never have. City of Chicago, not really. I'm thinking of suburban stations, with a bunch of guys sitting around playing cards or cutting the grass until a call comes in.

My in-law's dog has always had weird skin allergies and does the same thing from time to time. They've tried different diets and different shampoos, and it can help, but he still chews a hole through himself sometimes. Then he gets the cone of shame.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 5, 2012 -> 10:09 AM) People always try to use this bulls*** line on me...and it's just that...bulls***. And easily discarded, too. Watch me do it now. Why do the 65 year olds have to be the ones doing that? Can't they be the ones...you know, doing the paper work? See how easy that was? There are PLENTY of jobs that the older workers can be performing, ASIDE from running into burning buildings. Firefighters have an awful lot of downtime. If you're keeping (forcing) that 64 year old dude to sit around and do paperwork, you're taking a job away from the younger guy who'd be doing that AND going out on calls.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 5, 2012 -> 10:07 AM) I agree...and they should be paid every dime they are owed...BUT, leaning on the private citizen to cover for them was NOT in the contract *I* and other private workers agreed too FOR them. They have oversight committees, and the union workers didn't give a f*** who they 'elected' into these roles...and watched them, year after year, steal their money. It wasn't until they wanted to retire that they suddenly cared...they all magically thought the money was going to reappear. So the entire time this was happening, none of them "banded together" and did anything about it. Instead, they just watched it on the sidelines until it was too late to do anything about it. Now enter the private citizen to bail them out...the private citizen who DID NOT AGREE to any such contracts. ??? The pension funds were bailed out and taken over by the unions because the private corporations could not meet their contractual obligations to fund them for their retired workers whose labor made executives very wealthy over the decades. We're talking about GM here, not public sector pensions.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 5, 2012 -> 10:04 AM) Police and Fire are both 51...20 years of service, right? Do you want a bunch of 65 year olds trying to pull you and your family from a burning building after doing a lifetime of exhausting physical labor?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 5, 2012 -> 09:54 AM) This is where I step away from my conservative brethren and agree with you evil liberalites. This practice is bulls*** and should not be accepted. I wish society would realize how this system ends up f***ing middle class America much more than they realize. Promoting the American dream/free market to benefit the rich ends up costing the middle more in the long run. The poor don't pay for it, and the rich don't pay for it, so middle class - here's your bill. The poor suffer as well when factory factory jobs wages and benefits are slashed, eliminating good work opportunities to earn a decent living.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 5, 2012 -> 09:53 AM) That depends. My issue with government funded healthcare for retired workers is we live by two vastly different standards... 1) The union standard, where you are of retirement age at 51 and eligible for healthcare benefits/pension funds. 2) The private standard, where you are of retirement age at 65 and eligible for healthcare benefits/social security funds. So no, I don't want to be on the hook for paying their pensions/healthcare contracts because the unions made sweet deals with the corrupted politicians, then blamed the politicians for spending their money when they were the ones overseeing it...that's on them...they should fix it with their own workers, who get to retire as early as 51...maybe they should retire at 65, too. UAW retirement age is not 51. No local unions that I'm aware of have retirement that low. These retirement benefits were contractually agreed to and earned by the workers. eta: though for some jobs it makes perfect sense to have the retirement age earlier than others. Military, fire and police all are eligible for retirement before 65. Trade workers can usually retire earlier than 65 as well. The toll on your body from physical labor is a lot different from a desk job. Once your knees and back are shot from decades of working as a pipefitter/carpenter/painter/etc., you're no longer very effective at your job if you can even do it anymore.

Government-funded bond payments are much more preferable than government-funded health care for retired workers.

They're free to not buy from GM if they have a problem with pensions for labor but no problem for obscene wealth for executives.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 5, 2012 -> 07:46 AM) That's just it, I think people are catching on that they are paying for other people's retirement, especially when you see the fraud and the games being played in Illinois. On the other hand, we have companies like Verizon and Caterpillar laying off workers and fighting to slash wages and benefits while paying out hundreds of millions of dollars collectively to a handful of top executives over the past several years.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 4, 2012 -> 07:50 PM) Well, that's his fault. Nobody forced him to take his talents to South Beach. Or turn the whole thing into such a spectacle and be part of a pre-season championship rally.