Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 18, 2013 -> 09:11 AM) You do realize how awful the history of the concept "cleaning the gene pool" is, right? I'm not saying the government should be forcing that onto people, but why not create a voluntary program? You get your tubes tied and stop creating generational government dependents for 10k. I'm sure it would be well worth the cost in the long run.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 05:19 PM) But the 2 kids are. And whether you like it or not, currently we don't allow the government to decide when people are allowed to reproduce. Until we can do that, saying "it's your own fault" isn't good enough because all you do is keep the cycle going. I'm open to a discussion about that. Create a voluntary program where you get fixed for X number of dollars. Clean the gene pool a little.

He's a top 50/60 guy right?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 04:32 PM) How? How exactly can you do that? If you leave her to work a minimum wage job with 2 kids on her own, her kids aren't going to have stable housing, they're going to have terrible nutrition, that's going to impact their development significantly. They're going to be unlikely to go to college, they're likely to wind up in exactly the same situation their mother was in. If you give her family the kind of food aid her kids really need, then you're "accepting and excusing her behavior". She's not getting punished enough! Helping her out is "exactly why this country sucks" and "Forgetting the stupid decisions made by this lady". That's the double-edged sword of having a world where people can work a full time job and still be in poverty. Take your pick, which do you want, to improve the situation for the kids so that they can have a good future or do you want to punish the mom? I agree there's no easy answer, but I really wish our society as a whole would look down upon people like that and make it a shameful way to live. The exact opposite of your view which is "she's a victim, she's entitled to more!" No one in a modern, developed economy should consider cashiering at a fast food joint a career. And if you end up like that, it's your own fault. Just like it's your fault when you choose to become morbidly obese by eating McDonalds every day, just like you choose to be an addict by taking drugs, just like you choose to end up dying of liver or lung cancer from drinking and smoking throughout your life. We have this amazing thing called free will. You're not a victim of things outside of your control with every decision you make in life.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 04:19 PM) If her kids are hungry, that will teach her the appropriate lesson! You can address the s***ty reality she's brought her kids into without accepting and excusing her past decisions. Edit: it just boggles my mind that the first thing some people in this country think about in that situation is "ugh, she should be paid more!" instead of "ugh, how irresponsible of her to have not one but TWO kids without the means to do so." I'd be in favor of a law making it a crime of child abuse to do something like that. Pregnant at 19, fine, you get a pass for making a bad mistake/being unlucky. But a 2nd kid? No, f*** that. That's on her.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 03:19 PM) The biggest problem in your campaign for having this person earn a low wage to teach her a lesson about personal responsibility is how much damage it actually does to the economy when people like this can't grow up. They can't get an education, they can't get good jobs, and they can't contribute to the creation of good jobs. By the report, she had a kid when she was 19 and had been working at McDonalds for 3 years. I can't judge whether she was a high school dropout or not. But my point of view is...if people wind up stuck working minimum wage jobs for a decade+ because of what they did when they were 19, it's not just a personal failure, it's a major negative for society. On top of that, and I'm surprised you haven't figured this out yet...who do you think is paying for the kids? If she's working full time at McDonalds, that earns $17,000 a year before taxes. Unless there's a spouse contributing, that's not nearly enough to support 2 kids, and there's virtually no chance she has actual quality health coverage. Her kids are likely being partially/fully paid for by the taxpayers as well. So I hope it's worth it to you that this person gets their lesson about why they shouldn't have kids. Jesus Christ this whole post is exactly why this country sucks. Let's completely forget the stupid decisions this lady made because she's actually the victim of our awful, awful society.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 03:13 PM) That is a cop out. Making mimimum wage, you can get birth control very cheaply free in many places. Fixed

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 02:48 PM) You have better than a high-school education I'm presuming? If a person has been working at McDonalds full time or nearly so since they were 16, they may well not have one. The unemployment rate for people with a high school education is currently 8.3%, and 12.4% for people with less than a high school education. If that person has a college degree, then that's a potentially likely reason why they haven't advanced, because they were only working that job part-time for a large portion of that period. And I'm sure McDonald's maternity leave policies are strong right? It's not like we'd be the only country other than Swaziland and Papua New Guinea to not mandate paid maternity leave, we couldn't possibly be that inhuman. I forgot how difficult and expensive it is to obtain a better than high school education in this country. That cash up front requirement is tough. Also, WHY THE f*** DOES SHE HAVE TWO f***ING KIDS WORKING AT A FAST FOOD JOINT.

so what's the deal with buying that for the ps3? you can upgrade to the ps4 version for 10 bucks?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 11:06 AM) Sounds like it was from an Illinois "insider." Jones and Okafor would be option #1 if I was a school that was looking at all of those players, but Alexander/Turner would be a nice second prize. More likely it's from some nobody that made it all up to look cool on a message board. BRAD STEVENS IS ON A PRIVATE PLANE TO CHAMPAIGN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, you guys are right that there wasn't a lot else to choose from, but Teague just never struck me as an NBA player. Guys like Taj and Butler you could tell would be at minimum decent 8-10 minute role players because of their size/athleticism and basketball IQ. Teague doesn't really have anything that sets him apart, on top of still being lost while on the court.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 10:28 AM) I only caught the beginning of that story and meant to go back and listen to it, thanks for the reminder. Prepare to be enraged. My wife and I were listening to it on a road trip and kept saying "WHAT? Are you serious?" I also now question every statistic that the CPD puts out (I mean I did after watching The Wire too, but still), including the lower murder rates. No doubt some murders are just not reported and/or classified as suicides or something.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 08:44 AM) I think Jones/okafor to Duke. Alexander/turner to Kansas. My same random internet post I read explained that Jones doesn't want to go to Duke because he's not assured of playing time. And supposedly Kansas has been giving Jones/Okafor the hard sell on going there. Alexander, in turn, is option 2 which is why people think he's more of an Illinois lean. But no one really knows anything.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 09:50 AM) I have read a few tweets here and there that indicate the bulls are really trying to move Teague, Thibs prefers Mike James. So I am guessing Snell will get minutes, Teague will not Teague blows. That was a terrible pick by GarPax. Maybe Utah will take him since Burke got hurt?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 06:26 AM) This is what it's like to be in a Stop And Frisk http://gawker.com/this-is-what-its-like-to...dium=socialflow On a somewhat related note, did you check out the This American Life from a week or two ago about people that can't keep their mouths shut and get in trouble? They had a great piece on a NY cop who started recording conversations with his superiors over his lack of "work" (illegal citations). His bosses were telling the cops to basically make up crimes and arrest people. People would be arrested for open alcohol containers even though they would be drinking juice. It got to a point where he couldn't stand the pressure anymore and took a day off. In the middle of the night a bunch of higher ups in the NYPD showed up at his apartment, arrested him, and forced him into a pysch ward where he was "missing" from his family for multiple days. Luckily, he was smart enough to record the whole thing. It was all a big cover-up though having to do with this particular precinct (and probably many others) under reporting crimes (rapes were just assaults), not reporting crimes (rapes simply didn't get put on the books as happening) and/or making up crimes (picking up random people for whatever offense you could think of in that moment). The crazy part is that he left the department, sued the city for millions and then moved an hour or two away from the city. To this day he still gets random visits from NYPD officers just wanting to talk. And he still records them. edit: here's the link if anyone is interested. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-arch...o-remain-silent second edit: hmm it's actually an old podcast from September 2010 but they just recently replayed it. Anyway, still good stuff.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 09:21 AM) The shutdown could have bought healthcare.gov 40 times over' As liberals would say, meh, that's a drop in the bucket.

South Park missed its deadline for the first time in 13 years (204 episodes) due to a power outage. Given how they do the whole show from scratch in six days, i'm surprised this hasn't happened before.

QUOTE (Brian @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 03:45 PM) He'll be announcing Nov 16...that he's going to Kansas. A random internet person with one post stated otherwise on a message board! Book it!

Come on SB, you know that 14.whatever figure is a joke. Bo Ryan teams get away with murder, especially at home (even though I agree with you they don't really tackle guys like other teams *cough* Purdue *cough*).

In more important news, 10 days until Cliff Alexander visits/commits to Illinois.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 12:03 PM) Wisconsin doesnt play this type of defense, so not sure why it would impact them. If you are going to complain about Badger style at least appropriately argue that they foul with their lower body and get away with a lot of non-hand contact. This will tremendously help Wisconsin actually. They usually struggle against teams that are really handsy on guards. Maybe with some better scouting Indiana can actually beat Wisconsin this year? ahhhhhh, snap!

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 09:54 AM) I am developing a lot of empathy for Boehler. He is in about the worst situation that any speaker has had to deal with, and I honestly do not believe it is even 10% his fault. I don't think anyone could have provided a solution that would work in this situation. Basically as I am now seeing this it's like a poker player getting a crappy hand, no matter how you played it you were going to have to fold. I don't know. Supposedly he had the support of the other republican house reps to get something down before the lockout. He's pandering to those tea party reps to save credibility, but I don't think he had to.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 09:26 AM) Craft moves his feet better than any defender in college bball. He'll always be a plus defender. From memory he doesn't really use his hands that much, he's one of those guys that uses his chest/mid section to body up on guys. So he'll still be a very good defender. That said, I still think Craft is overrated because of the "white guy gym rat" mentality.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 09:34 AM) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-07/a...man-s-fall.html About halfway down this article, they describe the differences between 1979 and a default today. Basically, in 1979, the debt deal was done before the deadline, but "severe technical difficulties" at the Treasury caused payments to go out late. And even that caused yield rates to jump by half a percent. Obviously the US in 1814 was not the basis of the global economy. In an actual default, money-market funds will be required to sell off their US Treasuries. Additionally, given the impact of Lehman's default on $500+ billion, it's reasonable to believe that the world stock markets will go into free fall, and the cost of borrowing will go through the roof. So who will a default hurt most? Hey! The middle class! You know, those of us with our retirement in 401ks and the equity in homes as our other major asset. And Jenks, you are smart enough to recognize that the bond market in Illinois is very, very different than a default by the nation upon whose currency the rest of the global economy is based upon. Even for people who are not completely convinced a default would be catastrophic, why tempt fate? Well sure, this whole thing is dumb.

I read somewhere this morning that the US has defaulted twice, and in both situations nothing dramatic happened. The first was with Madison in 1813 or 1814, the second was under Carter. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economi...he-printer.html Also, in terms of the doomsday scenario, haven't various states (like Illinois) been defaulting on its debts for years? And we're still around, right? Obviously scales are different and Illinois is the furthest thing from a model government/economy, but still.