Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (Texsox @ May 26, 2009 -> 05:07 PM) How many years have we been at war with Iraq? Now sit back and think for a little while what war with North Korea will be like. If that doesn't scare the shipps out of you, think harder. But 90% of the reason it took forever is that we rebuilt the country. The actual "war" lasted about 3 months. Again though, what's the alternative? Basically play a big talking game until they have a nuke and THEN take it away from them? Or wait until they use it? Keep saying use the diplomatic option, but we've been doing that for what, 5 years now, and not a damn thing has changed, except for the fact that they just succesfully detonated a nuke.

What's the alternative? Keep telling them no while we watch them build and test and then eventually obtain a nuke? We've tried economic sanctions, they agreed to stop, but they lied (same response twice now right?) I think strategic missile strikes and ousting Kim Krazy would be sufficient to send the message. I dont think it would be easy, or without a cost, but what's the purpose of obtaining a nuke? To use it right? So whose going to be the victim and is it in our best interest to protect them? And who comes to their aid? I really dont think either China or Russia would stand in the way if Europe, Asia and the US give it the green light.

QUOTE (Texsox @ May 26, 2009 -> 10:11 AM) What would you suggest is the proper response for the UN and how would they back it up? Well since sanctions don't appear to be working, I would think that soon there needs to be a military option on the table. This isn't a US-NK thing, it's a world-NK thing. The only two parties in opposition are China and Russia (most likely), but I can't imagine they're excited about NK getting to the point of actually having a bomb. IMO there needs to be some serious coalition forces style intervention, lead by Asian countries.

I can't wait for the swift UN response - "hey stop! seriously this time. or else...we might do something..."

QUOTE (BobDylan @ May 20, 2009 -> 11:18 AM) It comes down to poor marketing, if you ask me. I'm not going to buy a video game system based on the fact that it has an SD slot, or a blu-ray player or some other s***. (You can probably quote me saying otherwise earlier in this thread.) If you want that, buy a computer. I buy my systems for games. Sony did an awful job marketing its game line-up, and still does. They wanna sell systems? Hype the f***ing games, not the fact that it is a s***ty computer. It's a damn shame because it IS nice to have those extra features, and the system IS the best on the market, they just happened to forget that it is a video game console. Disagree. 90% of games are for each platform, so it does little to hype the 5-6 exclusives it has (which it does btw, quite a lot, especially MLB The Show and Metal Gear when it was new). Sony's biggest problem wasn't the cost, it was that the 360 had been established for over a year. Most of my friends went ahead and got the 360 because they figured they'd eventually get both. Then when the ps3 came out they had no reason to rush out and buy it. The exclusives were non-existent at launch and really are just now really coming out. IMO this generation wasn't about which is better, because they are different machines. PS3 is designed for single player home entertainment, whereas the 360 was designed around xbox live and multiplayer. As an owner of both, they do what they're supposed to do in a fantastic way. As I've said for a long time, Sony knocks out the best hardware and Microsoft puts out the best software. It's too bad they can't collaborate for a really good console. Meanwhile, in a distant galaxy, Nintendo is content servicing milf's and old folks, completely forgetting their fan base, and probably screwing itself in the future. The Wii's shelf life is easily half that of the ps3 or 360, and the only must-have game in the future is Zelda, which is still a complete mystery. So we'll keep getting gamecube knockoffs and lame hello kitty titles until the next next generation. Thanks Nintendo.

QUOTE (RibbieRubarb @ May 15, 2009 -> 10:18 AM) I can help you get started in no time. Just send the naked pictures you want up you can handle vids too right?

QUOTE (scenario @ May 14, 2009 -> 09:22 PM) I'm going to propose a counter-suggestion to the above. I run several websites and have ditched godaddy, dream-weaver, etc. (I've spent a ridiculous amount of money on tools in the past.) IMO, find yourself a quality host like hostgator.com, and run your entire website using Wordpress. Setup is simple, edits are easy... it's easier to keep your site fresh with content. You don't need to learn HTML or buy an HTML editor, and the software is free. Wordpress is a tool designed for blogs, but you can do pretty much anything you want website-wise with it. In fact, alot of professional websites have made the same sort of conversion I describe above. If you want more input on this, I'll be glad to talk with you about it. Here's an example of a template that can be used to create a professional website using wordpress. (I bought this one recently.) That corporate theme looks really nice. That might even be more complex than I need, but that was along the lines of what I wanted.

QUOTE (Texsox @ May 15, 2009 -> 07:56 AM) Volumes have been written on this subject, and of course I will toss my .02 in, but in a different direction that has not been addressed. Before you do any of this STOP! You are an attorney, not a web designer, etc. Before you take off in this direction, and I know you want to get started on this immediately, you need to plan. Sit down and write the business plan for your firm. Included in this document should be the answer to a simple question, where will my clients come from? And eventually, how will the web site be used? A website as an advertisement to get customers to your door is one thing, a website to allow you to effectively communicate with your existing customers is another. You may find that your initial advertising and marketing dollars should be spent in other areas. For example, yellow page ads are expensive, but people still use directories. A little market research is helpful, a lot of research is even better. What area of law are you planning on practicing? Where do those clients go to find an attorney? Once you have your plan in place, and these is a whole lot more to this than above, you will see where you need to spend your time to maximize your return and where you need to sub out the work. You may find you do not need a fully custom web site initially and can make do with a prepackaged web presence. Hint: If your entire marketing plan at this point is create a web site and the customers/clients will come rolling in, you are probably fooling yourself. Bottom Line: A web site is part of your over all business strategy, do not get too tunnel focused on it and remember you are an attorney and ultimately you will earn more money for your firm by practicing law than designing a web site. Totally agree with the bottom line, which is why I'm not wanting to invest TOO much into this. I don't expect to use the website as a marketing tool to bring in business, but more of a if i'm networking/throwing out my business cards it'll allow people to check out my firm and what I do. So I guess in a sense it is for marketing if that causes a client to call my office, but really it's more "here's who we are and why we can help you" than *flash cheap legal work here! click now! *flash My experience is in civil litigation (contract disputes, personal injury/medical malpractice, discrimination, etc) but I've always wanted to get into helping businesses from formation to dissolution and everything in between. I was just sent a referral for a guy who has just started his own company which could become huge thanks to Obama's green energy initiatives, so there's potential it could be a very long deal. That was the basis for wanting to get a website going and actually get the firm established. I think I'll look into Wordpress. Any other ideas on hosting? Specific things I should be looking at (like the Linux/Windows issue)?

So because I managed to graduate law school in the worst legal job market in decades (or ever), I've decided to try and start my own firm. I'd like to create a website for it. Does anyone have experience doing this? I just started messing with godaddy.com for the domain name and hosting. Looks like it'll only be like $60 bucks a year, which seems reasonable to me. Any other suggestions? And does anyone have a web design software they like? Apparently Adobe Dreamweaver is the best, but I'd like some reviews before I drop $300 on it. And I guess I should preface this by saying I'm not looking for anything too fancy. Probably a main page with 10-12 sub pages with some firm specific information, and maybe the option of in the future adding a blog area.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 14, 2009 -> 01:01 PM) It's a game about Historically Black College(s) and University(ies), not about black people as a race. I really don't think that makes a difference. Might as well come out with an all white [insert sport] since historically they were all white.

Umm. What? http://www.ebgames.com/Catalog/ProductDeta...roduct_id=74705

QUOTE (lostfan @ May 13, 2009 -> 01:22 PM) Let's say for the sake of argument that you're 100% correct about this - it's still pretty irrelevant as far as national politics go. Most of these things you're talking about are state and local governments, whereas the feds try to do things like welfare, education, etc. which is a whole other argument in itself. The federal government does fund a lot of public housing, but yes state/local governments also fund these things. But i think the argument can extend to welfare/health services since we're talking about the same people.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 13, 2009 -> 12:49 PM) The Dems rise to power from 2006 to 2008 worked primarily for three reasons: 1. The anti-Bush push (as noted here), and just the presence of Bush and his policies 2. Dean and the DNC's 50 state effort 3. The emergence of an unusual good Prez field, led by a charismatic guy named Barack Now, the GOP is on its way downhill in a hurry. So let's look at those three items above. Can the GOP do similar things? 1. The anti-Obama push will only succeed if Obama does pretty badly, and the economy stays in the s***ter for too long. If the economy has improved by 2011 in a noticeable way, and Obama's policies haven't sunk the country, then its a tough road for the GOP to win the Presidency OR significant moves in Congress in 2010 or 2012. 2. The GOP's general push has been to narrow the party, which of course as we all agree is ridiculous. This is the opposite of the 50 state strategy - its the southern state strategy, and will likely fail. 3. The GOP needs to find some charismatic young leadership who isn't psychotic (like Steele) and doesn't make a complete buffoon of themselves in their early appearances (Palin, Jindal). Not sure who that is. I'd suggest the GOP can probably get a nice little rubber band bounce in 2010, by focusing on the insane levels of spending by the government. Not enough to regain any control, but enough to stop the bleeding. But the next step from there depends on how the country looks in 2010 and 2011. If Obama is doing well and the economy is OK, I think you need to pretty much focus on Congress - focus on fiscal restraint, and the idea of not allowing the Dems to control EVERYTHING. Last bit. As completely untrue as it is, the public perception is still that the Republicans are some how better at national security. Any major events that cause problems in that area for the US, especially if on US soil, will help the GOP. Agreed.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 13, 2009 -> 11:54 AM) There's another way of looking at things though...not everyone who is stuck in relying on government assistance is doing so because they have no incentive to become financially independent. A lot of us would love to be in a better situation, but simply haven't had things work out correctly just yet, due to either the economy or just luck in the world, whatever. The question is...what happens to people who hit the bottom or come close to it? If people lose their jobs and there is no backstop, then people are going to be in much worse shape. Things like your medical state, that goes dramatically downhill if you can't afford basic medical care...you wind up in this sh*tstorm of trying to figure out whether to pay the rent or the medical bills, you pay the rent, and you get sicker and sicker because you can't afford to go see a doctor, and there winds up being no way out because you can't save up anything. People don't like being in poverty. It isn't fun. A few people who don't mind it doesn't mean that we should condemn everyone else who has trouble at some random point during their life to never having a chance to recover. I just don't think this is reality. My main history in this is a public housing law class where we dissected the Chicago Housing Authority (and visted cabrini green and the new mixed housing developments and got to hear a drug addict with 3 kids complain about her 150 dollar a month rent payment for a 2bed 2 bath condo that easily could fetch 2k a month...and in fact does, because we all pay the 1850 dollar difference). Roughly 140,000 people are in the public housing system (only 7k of which are seniors btw). Results have shown that the odds of getting out of the system are incredibly small, meaning that the system is not a "lets give you some temporary help to get you back on your feet" it's a "lets make sure you have a home, even if it means paying for your home, food, and whatever else you need for the rest of your life." I'd venture to guess that the vast majority of people that receive welfare in any form end up staying on it for the long term. How many of those 140k people are truly going to leave? What's the net change on a year to year basis (hint: there's a waiting list for public housing). That's a gigantic cost on the public that doesn't amount to much of a return. We're supposed to be aiding people through tough times, but in reality the budget for public housing (and welfare systems) on the local, state and national levels have risen every single year. So it goes back to forcing people with money, including the middle class, to pay for a relatively large portion of the population to have a home and have food and whatever, without nearly any conditions - like staying drug free, staying out of trouble with the law, and actively searching for a job - for a lengthy period of time (in some cases, life).

QUOTE (lostfan @ May 13, 2009 -> 11:22 AM) My problem with that is because of this label (which may be technically accurate but is such a reckless oversimplification) I have friends who honestly think that Democrats raise taxes specifically to take money from their paycheck and give it to some woman on welfare. Also they seem to assume that everyone who is on welfare actually wants to be and is doing nothing about it. In reality this is a tiny fraction of what the federal government does, and it's just a massive red herring that prevents actual discussion from taking place. Lol, see I think that's true - Democrats want to provide low income people with things. And the only way they can pay for those things is to raise taxes on people who have money. And yes, I'm sure the majority of people on welfare don't want to be on welfare, but that doesn't mean they run out and work like crazy to get out of the program. I've seen the public housing situation here in Chicago, and I firmly believe that if you get a free handout, you lose all incentive to become financially independent. The welfare system is no longer an investment in people, but a life-long cost. Which is why we need to raise taxes, because we can't afford to pay for it anymore.

QUOTE (Texsox @ May 13, 2009 -> 10:51 AM) I love the whole redistribution of wealth concept. Do we really want to live in a country where the budget is based on the poorest taxpayers and what they can afford? Do we really want to live in a society that allows people to starve? Stop financial aid for education? You earn more, you pay more in taxes, you live better. When we stop public health programs that target low income people, TB rebounds and guess what, the wealthy catch it also. Nice phrase, but meaningless when analyzed. Well, I think when you start designing a system penalizing someone for having money, all while not holding any expectations to low income people that receive that money, you're effectively just taking a chunk of money from person A and giving it to person B. Thus I think the phrase is entirely accurate.

I want to know why the Republicans can't be "classy" and disagree with Obama on his policies without bringing the debate down to a 3 year old level. I'm ready for the GOP to just start calling Obama a stupid nose picker. That makes about as much sense as this (and i'm someone who DOES believe Obama is moving this country in a socialist direction - way too much government involvement in the private sector). If I were leading the Republican party I'd be hitting the American people with future projections of what Obama and the Dem leadership have signed into law and what they eventually plan to sign into law. There's nothing they can do right now to combat Obama...everyone in the country is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Until we're at a point where the GOP can show X policy was a failure, and harmful to the country, they're not going to get anywhere with name calling. And anyone else tired of the "liberals" basically mocking the GOP for this (among everything else they do), all while a mere 5 years ago the Dems were doing the exact same thing? Yeah, so there wasn't an official meeting/resolution/memo regarding party directives, but please, like the Dem leadership didn't come up with their "the GOP are stupid hick gay hating cowboys" ad campaigns? Or, instead of talking about issues, lets talk about how Bush can't finish a sentence without mispeaking. Or, instead of talking about how we'd fix the country's problems, we'll just point and say "look how much they screwed up" (IMO, the main reason they lost in 2004 and why they won in 2008). The GOP is a party completely out of favor with the majority of Americans, so they're resorting to every tactic in the book. I'm pretty sure EVERY party in the same position has done the same thing. So get over it.

I don't see how they could detonate the bomb. The temple wouldn't have survived for Ben to be judged, Dharma-ville wouldn't have been around for Sun/Frank/Ben/Locke, etc. If it does go off i'm thinking it'll do something with the "special properties" of the island such that it won't destroy things, ala the hatch imploding without anyone dying. But who knows with this show anymore. I'm more "lost" than I used to be.

QUOTE (DABearSoX @ May 7, 2009 -> 11:30 AM) I like Warcraft 2 battlenet ftw

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ May 7, 2009 -> 07:19 AM) What classes were the three other chars? DK's got nerfed like crazy in the patch. I guess they cant tank the way they used to. Shammy (main), Rogue, and Pally.

I was/am (though not currently) a big WoW fan. I picked it up right before the burning crusade, played about a year, then dropped it for a year, then picked it up right before the lich king, and then just recently dropped it again. After getting 3 guys to 80 and a DK to like 76 I called it quits (mainly because the schedule of the 4-5 people i played with got all messed up). I'm a big video game nerd, and felt especially nerdy playing WoW as much as I did, but it was a great way to keep in touch with friends who live all over the country. It's also a really fun game that you can immerse yourself in. I dunno if there's another game out there that I could devote a 6 hour (or more) marathon session to (i've never been a fan of oblivion or fallout 3 and the like). My only complaint is the ridiculous arena set up. Unless you know people you can't get the best gear, which is stupid. I also got tired of grinding and grinding and grinding to get enough honor/marks to get the best gear, which in 3-4 months becomes obsolete anyway. That's why I just leveled a bunch of different guys. At least that way I was experiencing something new most of the time. I'll prolly sign back up if/when there's another expansion, but prolly not until then. Especially since by that time (anyone know if it's even in Blizzard's plans?) Starcraft II and Diablo III will be out.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:57 AM) They are. It's called "living and breathing". And it's wrong. The problem with strict textualism is that many of the rights we hold dear would not be around. The biggest would be the right to privacy. I would agree the emotion (or personal feelings) should be left out, but that's just not possible since we're all human. I get angered when the Court creates law which overturns what a legislature wants (most of the recent decisions with gay marriage/homosexual "protections," affirmative action cases, etc) but I think those cases are very rare (one or two a decade).

another moving screen with no call

ugh, don't even get a shot. I originally thought that these were two good teams going at it, but the farther this goes, the more i'm believing they're both pretty mediocre. So many bad turnovers, so much bad defense, inability to execute on offense. They're just hitting some ridiculously lucky shots at the right times. And Allen is f'n ridiculous.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 30, 2009 -> 09:30 PM) Because when all you do is isolate the hot shooter, that's going to be the easiest open shot. Move the damn ball around people! welcome to NBA basketball