Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 12:37 PM) The article bs posted was mocking Republicans for whining about no debate or study and having it "shove down our throats," but now the defense of such a quick repeal is "oh it's been debated enough already!" Can't have it both ways. I'm sure plenty of liberals would still be pissed at this quick vote even if it didn't fly directly in the face of conservative rhetoric on the issue, but that's not the point. You can't have it both weighs either then. Apparently there was enough debate the first time, so why do you need more debate now?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 12:39 PM) Aside from restructuring the basic format of our government, what's the remedy? And you didn't address the issue that the logical conclusion of his position is that states can make laws for gender and sexuality-based discrimination without worry of equal protection violations. That seems pretty self-contradictory on its face. I don't think you restructure, I think you allow for states to have greater control over their own citizens as was the original intent. I think the threshold for overturning laws made by the states should be higher (on those questioning it). Which is probably his response to your second point. The 14th isn't automatically thrown away, and states can't make any law they please. Instead, the standard to overturn those laws would change. Here's a cite he uses in his VMI dissent, which deals a lot with this issue and with the Courts power to just make up (i.e., narrow/broaden it's standard of review) whenever it fits their opinions: Edit: some additional portions of his opinion I liked and agreed with:

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 11:56 AM) It's just an impossible standards tactic. But this ignores the original comment, which is why does a repeal of this law require further discussion or debate or study? As you all contend, everyone spent months and months with this, so they know whether it'd be a good idea or not.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 11:55 AM) My point was to illustrate Scalia's willingness to abandon his "originalist" stance whenever he sees fit. How does his originalist stance match up with treating corporations as people with free speech rights? Were the drafters of the BoR thinking of that? How does his originalist stance match up with gun regulation? The founders surely were not considering semi-automatic weapons. How does his originalist stance match up with search and seizure? The founders didn't envision wiretaps and electronic communication, so is that fair game for government eavesdropping? etc. But this is the problem with providing 9 people that kind of power. Based on the various decisions of the courts, Judges can create an opinion that weaves whatever they want into it. There's no set standard because SCOTUS has decided that it has the power to go beyond the Constitution in some cases, or to ignore the Constitution in others. It's absolutely up to their beliefs and writing ability.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 11:30 AM) Did you ever consider that maybe it was the people voting against the bill who didn't know what was in it, and that was why they voted that way? Perhaps my memory is incorrect here, but I thought that changes were made late in the process such that the final draft was passed before members of Congress had the chance to read it?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 11:20 AM) So the courts haven't had a pretty substantial role in protecting minority civil rights in this country? Anyway, how does Scalia not find gender discrimination in the 14th but manages to cite the 14th in his Bush v Gore decision? Who says they haven't? He said that textually speaking the Constitution doesn't prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation. He's right. It's not in there. Judges have added that to be specific to a certain group. He doesn't say that's good or bad on that issue, just that it's not democracy when 9 people can legislate something like that. And the difference is that the 14th doesn't single out any particular group, like gender. It's equal protection for all. If you're reading it to include everyone, then fine. It's now unconstitutional to discriminate on the basis of any criteria that person A has that person B doesn't have. Red heads now can't be discriminated against, fat people can't be discriminated against, Cubs fans can't be discriminated against solely on those characteristics. Is that how we read the Constitution? In Bush v Gore it was based on the fact that voters were being treated differently. In county A their votes were counted, in county B their votes were not. I'm not really a fan of the argument, but basically that's what it was.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 11:18 AM) You'll never "know enough about" it though, that's the point. It was the most-debated piece of legislation in my lifetime. It wasn't read. Legislators don't fully understand what they were signing. They don't need to become healthcare industry experts, they simply need to know wtf is in the bill.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 11:17 AM) 9 people being able to use "legal reasoning" to come up with whatever they want to come up with.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 11:11 AM) That's the irony that's being pointed out--Republicans whined and cried about it being "shoved down our throats" (after about 13 months of debate over such great issues as death panels), but now they're ready to repeal it with no analysis and instead are saying "we already examined it!" Can't have it both ways. No, it's different. The last Congress forced us to buy a car we didn't know enough about. This Congress is saying, let's return the car and start the process over. You can't claim that we need debate and study over something that we didn't know enough about in the first place. That's not how legislation should work - let's pass it and figure it out later, which is exactly what happened. Edit: I mean the Republicans in this Congress

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 11:12 AM) The whole point is that civil rights and protection from discrimination shouldn't be subject to majority law-making. Or minority legal reasoning.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 10:52 AM) But why repeal? Why not? What about all of the people affected by this decision? Millions of lives and billions of dollars will be affected. Seems like a little more than a yes or no question. Maybe that should have been debated/studied more thoroughly the first time around no?

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 10:45 AM) via Why debate a yes or no question? Repeal or don't repeal. Seems simple enough to me.

This should make everyone happy, assuming it actually happens: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70306W20110104

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 07:04 AM) Oh Scalia... Women Do Not Have Constitutional Protection From Discrimination In a sense I agree with him here. Today we have 9 people appointed for a lifetime to determine what the Constitution includes and what it doesn't include. I'm guessing if this had been a comment that said, textually speaking, that the Constitution doesn't protect speech in the form of political contributions by corporations, you wouldn't have a problem with it. But really the way our system has molded itself over the last 100-150 years, our legislatures don't work as intended, so this scenario he brings up can't work. In theory we should be able to assemble and get X legislation passed, but it never does because legislators are corrupt and/or self-interested (so it never gets passed in the first place), or even if we could we often times get overruled by an ever-expanding federal government.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 08:11 AM) A lot of these zillion little NCAA rules seem arcane and wierd, but when you spend some time thinking about how they relate to the recruiting process and where the money is, they start making more sense. For example, selling memorabilia, one of the exact ones you cite, is a great way for people to buy off athletes to make decisions that a booster or gambler would want. Memorabilia in particular is odd because it's hard to come up with an exact value for it...the market value of the materials that go into making a Big Ten Championship ring could be $1000, but if I were a graduate of a Big Ten school and my team won a big ten championship, I might be willing to pay a lot more than that for the item and I could testify accurately about that. Meanwhile, the guy who sells me the ring, or pants, or helmet, whatever, gets $500,000 with the understanding that he's going to stay at Ohio State as a Senior rather than go pro. That's a great way to set up a bribery system. The one I always come back to is the Kelvin Sampson at Indiana mess. His biggest crime was sending too many calls and text messages to recruits. How awful is that right? He's just calling them too much. Big Deal. Well, for one coach to do it maybe it's not a big deal, but then the other 30 coaches trying to recruit that player realize the NCAA thinks it isn't a big deal, and next thing you know, the recruit isn't sleeping because he's spending 24/7 receiving recruiting calls. Free Tattoos? Fine. Where do you draw the line on free stuff that a player can get? The NCAA has chosen to define anything free as an inappropriate gift. Say you allow each gift if it's under $100 in market value. Hey, five star recruit, I've got 10,000 alums lined up each of whom are willing to give you a $99 gift. Oh sure, they're just coffee makers, baseball cards, and collectables, but you can sell them all off and pocket everything you want. Or, you're never paying for your own meals again, just come to our school You're ignoring the entire ethical element there. Stupid rule or not, he broke them. Repeatedly. He told his assistants to cheat. After being caught and fired for the first violation. After holding the chair of the NCAA's ethical committee. It was much, much more than simply making a few extra calls.

QUOTE (zenryan @ Jan 4, 2011 -> 01:16 AM) Probably because I'm not shocked at all on what big time college athletes are doing. It happens everywhere so when I hear it I think, "sounds about right...". I dont condone cheating and we all know its wrong but I feel the total disrespect Pryor showed is more telling of what type of person he really is. Here's the thing though, and Tressel said this at his press conference - you're a 19-20 year old kid whose been in the media spotlight for a number of years. This guy continues to talk about you, mostly negative, and you don't have the right to say something back? Obviously he shouldn't have said it (from the perspective of "we don't pay attention to the media and what they are saying, we concentrate on the task ahead of us"), but IMO if you're going to publicly criticize someone, it's fair game for that person to criticize you back. And sorry, but no. Cheating means you're a cheat. Lying and breaking ethical rules means you don't abide by the rules everyone else has agreed to play by. That's much more damning than throwing it back to a media talking head.

If you're looking for a good movie depicting the complete f***up that is the war in Afghanistan, mixed with the greatness of the average American soldier, check out Restrepo.

I bought a new 2010 Ford Escape last year for about 6k off the asking price and got 0% to boot. Had I bought a used 09 with 5k miles on it I would have paid about the same simply because of the financing. I got a better model with all the options I wanted. I think it totally depends on the model you want and the kind of financing you can get.

Anyone watch Battlestar Galactica? My wife and I picked it up to replace Lost and other various shows that are on break. Over the last couple months we've gotten through about half of season 4. So far it's been pretty entertaining. It's a lot like Lost, in that some of the "hook" episodes are dynamite, but some of the filler episodes are pretty rough to get through.

QUOTE (hitlesswonder @ Jan 3, 2011 -> 01:54 AM) They are better than I thought. Nice job on the boards versus Wisconsin. i was surprised that the Badgers took so many outside shots when they had an advantage in the post. The game did provide some good material for the debate about who is the best point guard in the Big Ten.... Debate? Who is better than McCamey as an overall point guard? There may be better scorers (Battle for example), but IMO there's not much of a debate about who is the best at that position.

QUOTE (dasox24 @ Dec 29, 2010 -> 11:49 PM) I was at the Texas Bowl tonight. Illinois was just too dominant on both lines, and I must say, Leshoure is legit. I think we all knew that but watching him in person, reading the blocks and.then accelerating through the hole was a real treat. I don't see how he won't be successful in the NFL. And unfortunately for Illinois, he'd be dumb to come back to school. I don't see how he could have a better season than this. The defense also came up huge today, and while Griffin had a big game, that was expected, and Illinois limited the rest of the players, which is exactly what they needed to do. Only complaint is that the mid- and deep-middle were open all day for Baylor. If Griffin had connected with a few open receivers, it could have been a whole different ball game. But, Illinois took advantage of that, and that's what winning teams do. Also, I think I was the only person in the stadium not fooled by Scheelhaase's TD run at the end of the game. I loved the play call. Zooker should be using the RB situation as a huge selling point in recruiting. Pierre Thomas, Mendenhall and now Leshoure. I think he's got a chance (depending on the team that drafts him obviously) to be the same kind of back as those guys - very powerful, difficult to tackle, and just enough speed to get past guys. Leshoure reminded me a lot last night of Mendenhall in the Rosebowl. Good win for Illinois. Still not all jazzed about Zook coming back next year, but s***, had they not imploded at the end of the season this is a 10+ win team this year. I dare say the experiment of the two big time coordinators and Zook as the recruiting coordinator worked out pretty well. They'll lose some guys to the NFL, but I think there's a ton of talent on this team, and Scheelhaase appears to be a legit QB. If he continues to develop it'll be a fun couple of years in Champaign.

QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Dec 28, 2010 -> 09:47 AM) I bought a Kinect for my wife in November. It's a lot of fun, but you have to have at least 6 feet of room in front of the TV. We end up having to move a table every time we play. You literally have to be at least 6 feet away, you can't cheat the number at all. I would recommend it if you have a large space available to play. Otherwise it can get pretty frustrating. 6 feet might be generous. You really need 8-10 if you're going to play any game where you run up towards the screen, plus another 4-6 feet in width. As I said when the Kinect was first introduced, it'll be a huge financial success, but ultimately it's a gimmick and there won't be much there for the future. Yeah, it's fun to use your body to block shots in soccer, or dodge items thrown at you or whatever, but really any average gamer out there has the same complaint - lack of control. Tiger Woods sounds awesome, but at the end of the day it's not a true simulation because you have a 4 oz piece of plastic in your hand, not an actual club. You can't find the limits of movement like you can with a hand held controller. I just don't see where they take this technology, though it is pretty awesome how accurate it is.

QUOTE (farmteam @ Dec 28, 2010 -> 10:56 AM) IU loses to Penn State. I'm coming back early and will be at IU-Ohio St. I don't expect it to be even remotely close. We have absolutely zero legitimate bigs, and Ohio State probably has the best ones in the conference. They can go low all game and the Hoosiers won't have an answer. Anyone know if Crean is getting much heat for a terrible year 3? They haven't resembled a competitive team in a LONG time. Even with the Sampson stuff, you'd think they'd be a little better than they are.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 28, 2010 -> 12:08 PM) OH is a great choice for stocks, ETF's and options. They are also getting to be good at mutual funds. But for JIMB, if he wants to direct invest in bonds, OH isn't a good choice. Jenks, are you talking about actually buying bonds, or buying bond funds? If you are just doing funds, then OptionsHouse may be the best choice around. Also by the way, OH does have a mobile site, which plays with basically any mobile OS. Its not a Market-buy app, its just a version of the website that is written to work well in mobile browsers. yeah, bond funds. I'll take a look at OH. I'd never even heard of it before.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 28, 2010 -> 11:13 AM) Ok, next comes the account type. Some will say IRA, Roth IRA, etc...I disagree with this for a number of reasons, however, such accounts are good for people with no financial discipline, as it forces you to keep your money there with the threat of penalty for early withdrawal. The only time I think these types of accounts are a good idea is for the reason mentioned previously, or because it's a company sponsored 401k with some sort of % match. Why IRA's are bad (and most people don't realize): 1) Cannot wash 2) Cannot get to your money in an emergency without a huge penalty 3) When you do retire and start using this money, it's taxed as ordinary income, not long term capital gains, which is essentially double the tax at current rates...odds are these will only increase in the future, not decease. All that said...if what you want to do is invest in a mutual fund with a large portion of the money on a quarterly basis, and dabble with some individual stocks, and again, I'm sure people will disagree with me... The only fund you should buy is the S&P500 Index. Aggressive mutual funds, and mutual funds in general tend to have a higher cost basis (meaning the person running the fund gets their cut, usually 1% or more, per year), while the S&P500 Index funds cost basis usually hovers around 0.15%, and over a span of years that alone is a huge cost savings. Add to that, given the period of time you are looking to invest, no fund has EVER consistently outperformed the S&P500. There can be a span of years in which they do, even as much as a decade (for instance look at the lost decade 2000-2010, outperforming the S&P500 was easy), but the further and further you go back, the harder and harder it becomes to do it. Also, due to how low the S&P500 has been, the indexes were cheaper...and that's what you want out of whatever index or fund you do decide to invest in...to buy low, not while they're at the height of their popularity. Example: Going back 5 years, 50% of mutual funds can show they've outperformed the S&P500 index. Going back 10 years, 25% can show this. Go back 20 years, 2% can show this (the number exponentially falls off a cliff). Go back 30...and 0.01% can show this. Over the long haul, nothing outperforms the S&P500, AND it's the cheapest fund to hold. It's what I recommend. In addition to this, just to cover your bases, you can pick a random International Index or Mutual fund so you have some of your money in foreign companies, but I'd recommend you do this with a smaller portion. Edit: I shouldn't say nothing outperforms the S&P500 Index, obviously things have and can...the odds of you picking that exact fund are very VERY low, since there are millions of funds to choose from. Also, going back far enough where funds to beat the market (when people say beat the market they mean beat the S&P500 index), it will be by an almost negligible % amount...so the risk of holding that fund over the S&P vs the reward isn't enough to justify the added and much higher cost basis. Any questions? Yeah I was thinking about the Vanguard 500 index fund, but it seems like EVERYONE recommends that. I dunno if that's a good thing or a bad thing.