Jenksismyhero

Must be nice! I have my Sales Law final Thurs, Remedies Mon, Wills/Trusts Tues and Intellectual Property Wed. On Wed evening i'm going to get sooooooo s***-faced.

So we had all these people in one room and all of our bombs were preoccupied? Shame. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236014,00.html

Yeah. I'm one of those rare people that have owned both and definitely prefer the PC. Every benefit of having a Mac, the functionality/usability for multimedia, is severly diminished by the lack of available software and additional hardware, especially for gaming.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 12, 2006 -> 09:41 AM) I think most of what you say about PC crap and allowing people's complaints to derail our sense of community is right on target. But I sort of chuckle at the suppose connection to "liberalism". That's a joke. Liberalism is about freedoms and opportunity, not the things you describe. And if you think that the complainers and law suit filers are somehow more likely to be "liberals", then you have listened to one to many Rush shows. The lack of personal responsibility and generally me-culture is pervasive, and across the political spectrum. Everyone is all about themselves. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness Most issues dealing with political correctness come from liberal movements.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 12, 2006 -> 08:37 AM) The Republicans around here crack me up. Pussies? Americans? why it seems like just three or four years ago that Bush landed on that aircraft carrier with the giant Mission Accomplished banner behind him. Just to prove I'm not a pussy, I am ready for thousands and thousands of more Americans to die in combat. I want blood everywhere. I believe we should invade every planet if it means that no person on this planet is living under a brutal dictator. Only when every last person who wants harm to the US is killed and lays bloodied in the streets will I say enough have died. Then we need to kill their children, and their children's children. Most Americans understand the difference between a just, necessary war and everything else. Perhaps the lesson to learn here is don't mislead the US public. 90%+ of Americans supported the invasion. We need to clarify why we're calling the country pussies or being soft. I don't think we're talking about our ability or desire to fight a war if the need arises. What I consider Americans weak for is the negative effect of liberalism: that everyone becomes stale and generic creatures without any differences because we're all socially programmed to say and do the same things. My examples of the Christmas tree or the Victoria Secret display prove this. Another one I heard today was that Rosie O’Donnell 'hurt' the Asian community by mocking the Chinese language when she tried to make a joke. There was a 'firestorm' created and NYC councilmen were asking for her to apologize and/or be removed for a show. And why? Because people can't take a joke? Because some people's feelings were hurt? Boo-f***ing-woo. Get over it. We're a nation of pansies that complains and whines about every little thing we don't like. We expect other people to change their ways when we should instead move away or stop watching. When you take this political correctness crap to its extreme there will be no differences between people. Everyone will be cookie-cutter Americans, pandering to anyone offended by anything. This is why we're a bunch of pussies. We continue to let these soft people rule over us. We continue to appease the incredibly small minority on these issues. And for the rest of the drivel you write, I'm not even going to take the time to respond. Just keep using hindsight. You'll get real far.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 11, 2006 -> 05:54 PM) And for the most part, I agree. Just be aware what they mean. I don't see it as apples and oranges at all. I think its a good comparison. Look. As you said, there is no law against stereotyping, or any other form of bigotry. You want to feel that way, go right ahead. I'm going to see the world otherwise. One more thing. Don't put this "appeasement" crap on me. I don't want appeasement - I want us to win the war. And I believe the way to do that, the way that actually takes some courage, is to stand up for what is right and not stoop to the level or our enemies. Extremists want us to all be paranoid and fearful, and that is what we are becoming. To me, THAT is appeasement, and it makes me sick. How is it a good comparison? You're going from a situation with ZERO reason to suspect anything, other than your preconceived notions about an ethnic group, to a situation where people were witnessed acting in strange ways. Two entirely different situations. And how is that bigotry? It's connected some dots. More often than not you'll probably be wrong. But wasn't one of the major problems, and a major recommendation, after 9/11 that we start becoming a little more serious about the threat that extremists pose? That we start using a little more imagination in how we recognize our vulnerability to attack? I think your position is BS if you're essentially labeling everyone a racist if they so much as hint of stereotype in their thinking about someone. We should all strive to not be prejudicial in our actions and thoughts about other peoples, but apparently these guys did something to warrant the attention (and reaction) that they got, and it wasn't as if there were merely a handful of people who thought that way. There was a large group of the flight who were concerned. And personally I don't see this as paranoid and fearful, I see it as people wising up. They're taking note of their surroundings and acting accordingly. Appeasement to extremists would be accepting a future attack is inevitable. If we're all on guard, hopefully it won't be. QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Dec 11, 2006 -> 07:12 PM) It takes courage all right. Takes courage to see the damn thing through. America is a nation of soft-ass pussies. A bunch of pussies who have no stomach to fight against a nasty opponent who would like nothing more than to see American cities burning and its citizens in a panic. You are right that extremists want us to be paranoid and fearful and its a lack of committment to exterminate the threat that undermines us. It does so far more than quibbling about rough interrogation techniques or imperceptable "encroachment" upon civil liberties ever could. Agreed.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 11, 2006 -> 09:21 PM) LMAO Yet our murder rate is higher than almost every major country. We've killed more people in wars than any civilization in history. I guess we could step up the torture and take over a few countries. You would have been great during the crusades. Rape and pillage the NukeClevland way. I call BS. Give me proof of that. Germans killed 6 million innocent people in one war. I doubt the US has killed that many in all wars combined.

Apples and oranges man, it's entirely different. Pulling over a car because you see the driver is black is one thing. Pulling guys of a plane because they're acting inappropriately, making a lot of people nervous in the process, is another. This is precisely my point. Screw the majority of people on the plane. Let's do whatever these six guys want us to do because dammit we have to appease everyone. And for the record there is no law against stereotyping. I can judge anyone and everyone, for whatever reason I deem appropriate. The government can't pre-judge someone. Judges can't pre-judge someone. A plane is not a courtroom. People can (and should) voice their concern, especially in an environment like a plane where you have zero control. Right. And the current going ons in the world are that a s***load of muslims want to see us all dead. Compound that with these six guys, acting in a weird way, eerily similar to the stories we've all heard from 9/11, and I think it's a perfect example of when people SHOULD use their common sense and voice their concern. I'm tired of people trying to tell me (and the rest of us) that we should appease everyone and their mother in the name of fairness and respect. Guess what, life ain't fair. We do the best we can but sometimes people are gonna be unhappy. Get over it. A guy on the radio made an excellent point this morning. One of these days someone is going to b**** and whine about something they don't like, and instead of a major corporation appeasing them and changing, their gonna tell that person to f*ck off. And then we'll be back to being Americans. When we can tell each other to f*ck off and move on with our day. And for the record I don't think it's Reps v Dems. It's both sides. I really wish after something like the Janet Jackson fiasco at the superbowl a couple of years ago CBS (and the government) told all those people to f*ck off and deal with it. If you don't like it, don't watch it. If you can't act a certain way on a plane, deal with it. When 250 million people think one way and 10,000 think another, sorry. Majority wins. (And don't bring up something like the minorities would never get heard. We all know what circumstances I'm talking about here. Minorities without a voice, demanding RIGHTS, is a different matter).

QUOTE(Buehrle>Wood @ Dec 11, 2006 -> 03:36 PM) Extremly Nooby questions: 1) Is there any ever massive battles, like horde vs alliance? Is there like a system where certain races can take over certain territories from other races? 2) What will the Burning Crusade provide extra/how much/when? I'm guessing I need the original to buy it. But I believe the demo is actually the full version of the game and its your account that is limited. Anyone want to clear this up for me? I'm a semi-noob. Have a level 30 Shaman on Mal'Ganis. There can be massive battles if the two sides set it up. Within each territory you could get 50 friends and try to battle against 50 enemies. Most of the battling goes on in the battlegrounds though. The territories can never change status. The new expansion is going to add some territories and add a couple of races. Having just started a couple months ago, I don't really see any need to rush out and get the expansion. I think it's geared towards people that have played the available races already and are looking for some fresh quests/areas to explose/objects to use. I started with the Demo as well. Really it's not bad. The game is $20, you get the first month free and then depending on your payment system (how many months you buy in advance) it's like $13-16 a month. If you play it semi-regularly, it provides enough hours of enjoyment to justify the cost...or so I keep telling myself.

It's a shame this country continues to pander to the ubber-ubber-minority. What's that? Stereotyping muslims when there is plenty of reasonable suspicion about their activities?! Shame on you! Upset that the Seattle airport is going to have a Christmas tree?! Don't worry! We'll get rid of it for you! Upset about a 'too sexy for shopping' Victoria Secret window display in Detroit?! No problem! We'll have it removed right away! Bless all those groups (all 250 citizens total) that complain and b**** and continue to rule our lives!

Interesting discussion. I think another form of bias is what is considered news in the first place. Most of the time the stories that are covered aren't really news at all. Laci Peterson is the greatest example of whats wrong with this country. Is it sad that she was killed? Absolutely. Did it need a year of complete, 24/7 coverage? Hell no. Compound that with the 'Do Nothing Congress' passing the Laci Peterson Act in like two weeks, even though they couldn't get anything important done in two whole years. I think now that money is involved and cable news is so big, 'news' is being created by the media. Whatever sells papers/commercials is considered news. Everything else is just everyday life that doesn't matter, even though it should.

This movie looks very good. Whoever put together the trailer with the NIN song gets an A+ from me. I fell asleep half-way through Sin City. Hopefully I won't fall asleep watching this one.

We sorta have this at my work. We can't necessarily take off at 2pm any time we want because everyone in my office sorta depends on each other to get things done. That said, if you give people a little notice and you're able to be contaced if something comes up (nearly all of use have a palm treo or pocketpc so its not a problem usually) then it's fine. There's not a rigid 8-5 day. I think the very end of the article brings up an interesting point though. We're going through a very succesful time here where every quarter we're increasing our revenue between 3-5%. Who knows what will happen when we start to slow down.

QUOTE(Damen @ Dec 5, 2006 -> 11:53 AM) Like I said, anecdotal evidence from relatives does nothing for me. But it sure doesn't seem like they have any sufficient knowledge of health care in any country but our own, so I'm not sure what the point is. It doesn't seem to have much to do with what I was saying. Your original qoute said: I would think that having sufficient knowledge in our own health care, first-hand knowledge at that, would refute your claim that we haven't increased the quality of care. You make no reference to another country so why would I need to bring evidence of that in? If you are saying that COMPARED to other countries our system has not increased in quality, I'd like for YOU to prove to me, with empirical evidence, that our system is on par with that of other similiar countries in all respects of medicine, including technological advancement. I still think context is important. Different countries stress different health care needs. For instance I doubt our quality of care in bird flu medicines would outweigh that of China, but that's not because we lack the requisite skill or knowledge. Conversely I would imagine our skill and knowledge of diseases like AIDS or diabetes would be higher comparatevily. As would things like sports medicine or even obesity now that it's so prevalent. I'll try to find some studies though when I have time.

QUOTE(Damen @ Dec 5, 2006 -> 11:02 AM) If you can point me to a study that shows the US health care system surpasses the quality of care in other countries, I'd like to read it. I know in certain areas, like breast cancer, we lead the world, but in many others, we are middle of the pack. I've yet to come across anything that shows anything different. And anecdotal evidence from a relative doesn't really count for much. I get this from my mother who's been a nurse practitioner/nurse for over 30 years and my sister who's been a doctor for close to 10 years. We get into these discussions all the time and they are always speaking of how their jobs have changed because of new technologies. Be it procedures that are now more readily available or more efficient, to old in-patient care now being performed in out-patient care, speed of recovery, etc etc. Again, I think you have to look at it in context. The health care industry is probably vastly different than the rest of the world. Think about things like Viagra. While other countries are more worried about death, we're spending money talking with a urologist about how to get excited again...

I don't see the point in having race as a factor in this. I'd imagine by now Jefferson County has enough diversity in it's neighborhoods that each school would have blacks/whites/latinos/etc. The big thing with Brown was that by allowing the school district to segregate blacks they not only weren't treating them equally, but also forcing them to unreasonably travel to attend school when a better alternative existed. I'm in hopes this Court, with it's evil conservative minds, will rid this country of wasteful doctrines like affirmative action. We all learned as children that two wrongs don't make a right, but O'Connor never adhered to that theory (she being the majority leader in the Michigan AA cases, and the swing vote in a lot of others). I just don't believe these problems exist as much as they did 50 years ago. There's no reason to use race as a factor for anything. General statement I know, so there is probably an exception. But aren't we to the point now in our existence that we're all American's and not specific types of American's? I know, I'm a white male. Because of my 'kinds' past advantages, I shouldn't be able to speak like this. But that's just how I feel.

QUOTE(Damen @ Dec 5, 2006 -> 10:33 AM) how can you defend a system in which we spend vastly more per capita than anywhere else in the world I think we need to look at this in context. How many times does the average American go to the doctor in a year? How many 'ailments' do Americans suffer from that the rest of the world doesn't (think of all those wonderful drug commercials.....'is your eye leaking too much?') What do you mean by quality? By the technology used? By the results of medical care (i.e. more people being cured)? I'd say in both contexts you're wrong. I have two family members working for Northwestern Memorial here in Chicago and both would say you're insane to think that the healthcare industry has become stagnant in its technological advancement or quality of care. See my other posts in this thread. Not everyone is deserving IMO.

QUOTE(fathom @ Dec 4, 2006 -> 06:15 PM) Am I the only one who would love it if we signed Bonds? Considering some of the other ex-juicers that people want us to trade for, I don't see why so many are upset about his 'roid use. I know it won't happen though, but it's fun to even see it rumored. If the White Sox sign Barry Bonds I will become a Cubs fan. No lie, no joke, I will jump ship faster than anyone in Chicago. That's how much I despise that piece of sh*t.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 4, 2006 -> 12:25 PM) Heck I'd be happy if the UN had actually passed a resolution with balls, let alone having the balls to enforce them. I am not much of a fan of his techniques, but the UN needs a kick in the ass. Right now they are a nuetered organization that is too easily tied up into special interests of as few as one country, to actually be effective. When you have to argue as long as they have, over whether what is going on in Darfur is technically a genocide or not, that tells me everything I need to know about the UN in its current form. This is what I was getting at. I remember reading a Time or Newsweek article on him a while back. Basically it said that he was upsetting people and cited a meeting where everyone was arguing over something trivial and he basically yelled 'why are we wasting our time with this.' I think he shocked the culture that was there and people didn't like that. True, but pandering to them and playing their game hasn't been successful either. I'm just not sure that the Dems are basing their vote on anything he's done but rather the fact that he's a Bush appointee. To me, he's done an amiable job considering the circumstances (that everyone seems to despise anything the US does in the world arena) and not reaffirming him for the job is going to set us, and the role of the UN back a little.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 4, 2006 -> 11:17 AM) The Economist That should have read: "He's an American, so everyone dislikes him to begin with." and "His style rubs people the wrong way. He envisions the UN as a functional organization and manages towards that end. He should know the UN is designed only to pass meaningless resolutions with no balls to enforce them."

QUOTE(LowerCaseRepublican @ Dec 3, 2006 -> 11:13 AM) I thought the exact same thing about Obama's book. After the first chapter, I was like "Yeah, having everybody singing Kum-bay-yah and being happy with each other is a good idea but how are we going to get there, Champ?" It seems like a lot of rhetoric and little to no plans/ideas on how to get there. And he's a democrat?! Shocking!

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 4, 2006 -> 09:02 AM) http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/12/04/bol...n.ap/index.html It's too bad. He seemed to be doing a good job as ambassador. He wasn't pissing anyone off and he was trying to hold the UN accountable for what it produces; namely, if you sanction someone, you follow up with it.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 2, 2006 -> 07:32 PM) But you see, then that does exactly the same thing. In the insurance pool, something like 10% of the sick account for 90% of the medical expenditures (could be off by a factor of 10% or so, but it's really close to that). If the number of really, really expensive people goes up due to obesity, then either rates have to go up for everyone, or the insurance pool has to get bigger. But if rates go up, fewer businesses will provide health care, fewer individuals will be able to buy insurance, the uninsured pool will keep getting bigger, and that will keep driving up the costs of health insurance...which is exactly what we've been seeing the last few years as the amount of uninsured has surged simultaneous with the surge in health insurance costs. Yeah. That's a good point. I dunno, I guess we'll see what happens. Hopefully it can get fixed. QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 2, 2006 -> 07:27 PM) Is it a poor choice, or a noble one? I'd say there is a pretty substantial list of life-enhancing things you benefit from everyday that were created or bettered by low-paid scientists. I am not saying universal government health care is a good idea... but I think your characterization of this choice as a bad one is very short-sighted. If I really enjoyed being a father and decided to adopt 10 kids, even though I couldn't afford them, it would be considered a bad choice yes? Admirable, sure. Poor choice, absolutely. If something like wages or benefits is important to you and you decide on a career that doesn't give either of those, then you've made a poor choice based on your wants/needs/expectations. That's all I was saying.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 2, 2006 -> 07:05 PM) But you see, here's the remarkable thing about how poorly our health care system is constructed...it is exactly that statement which will be the death of the current American health care system. Right now, I'm pretty damn healthy. I exercise regularly, eat pretty well, don't get sick much. Have some bad knees, but that's about it. Probably similar to you. But the key about the health care system is...if people like you and I aren't paying into the large pool of insurance, if we judge that it's so expensive that it makes more sense for us to just take ourselves out of the pool for a while until our risk goes up...then it winds up leaving fewer healthy people for the insurance pool. And of course, when healthy people start to leave the insurance pool, that drives up the cost for the people who remain in the insurance pool. And when the cost goes up, it is more incentive to drive more people from the insurance pool, which literally creates a cycle that doesn't end until the system is reformed. I think the odds of this are low. More and more people have medical problems that are treated earlier and earlier. It would take a lot of people to have this affect on the system. I dunno that there are that many problem-free americans that could afford to stop participating. Especially now that 1 in every 3 or 4 kids is obese.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Dec 2, 2006 -> 12:56 PM) But why as a nation should we accept a healthcare system that lets people who are contributing to society fall through the cracks like that? And, as far as your assessment of people like academics who enter poor-wage/no benefit sectors as having "made a bad choice". . . That is some fµcking arrogance, brother. How is that arrogant? I'm not saying being an academic is a bad thing. I'm saying that if you require certain benefits and you choose a career that doesn't offer those benefits then you've made a poor choice for yourself. What's wrong with that?