StrangeSox

Libertarians are generally much more in line with Republicans in US politics.

QUOTE (SleepyWhiteSox @ May 8, 2012 -> 04:26 PM) Because those would be the rules and requirements set by the employer (NBA). The rules and requirements are collectively bargained with the NBAPA.

Meat consumption per capita around the world. The US is, perhaps surprisingly, not #1.

QUOTE (SleepyWhiteSox @ May 8, 2012 -> 04:06 PM) Adding an additional year requirement seems like an easy compromise to this debate... Why should a young athlete have to wait another year earning a ton of money for a college but little for himself?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 03:43 PM) One of our cats lived in the wild for the first couple of months she was alive. She learned to click like a squirrel and do a rough imitation of a bird tweet. 13 years later she will still sit in our window and try to draw them over to kill them. The same cat that jumped into the window makes the clicking too, but she never lived in the wild. My wife's old cat started as a stray they took in, so it was in the wild for a year or two. It still made these awful-sounding hunting noises when it would walk around with a toy. The first time I heard it, I thought she was dying.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ May 8, 2012 -> 03:06 PM) Our cats love to sit perched on the back of a loveseat and watch outside. Well, our 5 month old puppy has absolutely picked up on this habit, literally perching like a cat on the back of the loveseat. You see three heads moving in unison as they watch birds, squirrels, etc. The dog, however, isn't quite as passive about it. The animals outside end up winding him up and he jumps off the chair and runs around. The cats, in turn, just seem to give us looks that say, "that dude has NO idea how to watch outside." Love the cats. Ours have tons of personality. Our cat just about knocked herself out jumping at some birds perched just outside our (closed) window once. Had it been open, she probably would have gone right through the screen.

QUOTE (Tex @ May 8, 2012 -> 03:19 PM) I have five or six days coming up without really clear plans and was thinking about some of the really great lessons from school. Or useful stuff that doesn't really fit anywhere else. For example I learned in a college journalism class that US currency is exactly 6" in length. With the tolerances that it is manufactured under, it is more accurate at 6" than any cheap ruler you may buy at the store. Of course it isn't really practicle for measuing say 2 5/8ths but for whole numbers, it works very well. Anyone else remember something they learned in school that was like that? That's a really handy engineer/technician's trick in the field.

I can't even imagine why they'd want that information. edit: Well it's from the Washington Free Beacon, so I'll wait till something with more credibility than that verifies this.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ May 8, 2012 -> 01:50 PM) Special thanks to BS for helping me get this posted without a "link". Props to deGrasse Tyson for this: The ignorant, militant atheists of the world like PZ Meyers are awful. There is an overwhelming amount of dumb and insult in that speech.

9/11 defense attorney wears hijab at hearing, wants others in court to dress more modestly Intentionally trying to throw the case?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 01:17 PM) For every Rose in the draft, there are how many guys who wash out because they aren't ready? Someone like Rose or Lebron could make the opening day roster anyway.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 8, 2012 -> 12:53 PM) That's true. I hate the one and dones. Let them turn pro. Its a farce having them pose as college students. Making them go for 2 is just going to create an even bigger farce and more cheating. Plus it gives the NCAA free labor for an extra year.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 11:31 AM) Anytime you want to send me $15 out of every $1000 you earn, feel free. I have a big problem with the government wasting my money. This doesn't actually mean anything. Obviously a 0% overpayment rate is ideal, but it isn't realistically achievable. Just like a 0% fraud rate in insurance, or 0% shrinkage, or 0% embezzlement rates are not achievable. Policies to reduce fraud do not come without associated costs, both in actual dollar costs such as increased staffing and in other costs like denying legitimate claims. There are inefficiencies and fraud and waste in every operation, large and small. Saying that you won't be happy until there's zero fraud tells me that you aren't actually interested in any real, meaningful discussion over problems and solutions.

Well nothing discussed here has any bearing on anything. I was genuinely curious if you had any policies in mind since you believe that a 1.5% level overpayment rate is unacceptable.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 11:17 AM) Well except for all of those risks we make the system exclude, much like SSI. That's what is meant by choosing the acceptable risk level--you exclude those outside of that level when designing your security (anti-fraud) plan. For instance, nuclear power plants do not have to design a security plan capable of defending against a full-scale military attack. For SSDI, what would propose as additional anti-fraud measures?

Honestly, what would you like to see done here to reduce the fraud below 1.5%? What is an acceptable level of fraud for you?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 11:13 AM) Whatever percentage of your money you are happy to give away, feel free to send it to me. I can even send you pictures of all of the things I would do to enjoy it. I'm happy to realize that every system has vulnerabilities and that some will exploit those vulnerabilities. You cannot stop every single possible avenue of fraud because you likely won't even be aware of the nearly limitless possibilities. This is the same mentality used in the physical security industry. You could do a full-body cavity search on every single person entering the airport, but you choose which levels of risk (fraud) are acceptable.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 11:10 AM) Just like I thought. Nothing compared to the fraud rate. They investigate the claims of fraud they get and only a fraction of the claims come from SSA employees themselves. They rely on citizen-reporting because they do not have access to investigative resources on the scale of the FBI to observe and document every claimant for a period of time.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 11:09 AM) They write the rules and regulations. Is the government at fault when someone embezzles from their company? Are you arguing for increased regulation? I'm not arguing against combating fraud here. I'm saying that 1.5% doesn't seem especially high to warrant combating fraud at the expense of legitimate claims. You will never have a zero-fraud system for anything. Obviously, in the health care industry, there are much higher fraud rates and fraud should be combated there.

1)yes 2)no

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 11:00 AM) Again, government oversight and regulation doing a great job there. How is it the fault of the government if private insurance companies are defrauded?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 10:57 AM) Do you really think if social security were being bought off a rack somewhere the fraud rate wouldn't be much higher? It'd probably be right in line with the health insurance industry fraud rates since the two are pretty comparable. It can access all sorts of data, but what it can't do is divine that a claim is fraudulent based on that information without significantly increased investigation resources. If you want to argue against allowing mental disability depression claims resulting from long-term unemployment, then you're talking about something besides fraud. http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_rea...om/usab5206.pdf Between October 1, 2002 and March 31, 2003, the Office of the Inspector General for the Social Security Administration (SSA/OIG) received 51,311 fraud allegations from a variety of sources, including private citizens (23,951), anonymous tips (8,782), SSA employees (7,402), law enforcement (10,120), public agencies (323), and SSA benefits recipients (726). See SSA/OIG 2003 Semiannual Report to Congress, available at http://www.ssa.gov/oig. At the same time, SSA/OIG opened 9,170 potential fraud cases and investigated and closed approximately 9,389 cases nationwide. During the same period, investigations by special agents of SSA/OIG culminated in 2,677 arrests and indictments involving Social Security fraud, which resulted in 1,008 criminal convictions. Here's the latest report: http://oig.ssa.gov/sites/default/files/sem...all%20FINAL.pdf The numbers are similar to the 2004 letter quoted above.

Here's an article with even higher estimates of fraud rates in the health insurance industry

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 10:49 AM) Government is the biggest single employer we have in the country. It is also the biggest single landowner in the country. Call it whatever you like. I'll call it "government," which is distinctly different in constitution and purpose from private industry. Actually that kinda really helps me! Retail has all of these mechanisms and controls and still can't match SSI's low fraud rate. SSA does investigate fraud claims, by the way. The letter from the Bush DOJ that I linked to cites statistics on the number of cases and convictions. Are you advocating that the size of the SSA grows to combat fraud? How is that example of "your government failing?" The testimony says its a problem in both public and private sector systems.

Also important to note that government isn't an "industry"