cabiness42

Which is exactly why urban areas are free to set minimum wages that are higher than the national minimum wage.

Most places in Indiana.

The median age being 29--is that including management or just entry-level positions?

That is too complicated, however, I'm not against singling out certain industries where the majority of workers are under 21 (thinking mainly about fast food here) and having a slightly lower minimum wage for those positions.

Depends on where in America. I could do it here pretty easily. Rent+utilities for a modest 1BR apartment is about $7000 per year. If you're willing to have a roommate and/or live in a more questionable area, you can do it for $4000/year. Groceries are about $1600 per year. Car payments for a reliable used car are about $1800 per year. Gas for a commute of about 20 miles each way is about $2000 per year. Clothes are about $600 per year. Doesn't leave a lot left over for entertainment, but it's still doable. That's not to say that the minimum wage shouldn't be higher, but it's not at all impossible to live in $15-17K in a lot of areas.

We're throwing money into the wrong things at schools. Money needs to be spent on (1) making sure the kids get to school (2) making sure they have a safe environment in which to learn (3) having teachers they can connect with. In the worst of the bad neighborhoods, you need one person for every 50 students whose full time job is to follow up on kids who are absent from school and keep in touch with their parents. I'm not aware of any schools that have this to that extent. When I taught, we had one such person for the entire school of 600 kids.

US education spending is high, but not the highest in the world, and that figure includes the ridiculously expensive private schools. As for cost of living: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_living_index

She wasn't. I don't know where you got that.

This is my solution to the problem, though it encompasses far more than health care. First of all, yes, contraception should be widely available, but find some other way than forcing people who have religious objections to provide it. That's an absolutely terrible way to go about it. Planned Parenthood gets hundreds of millions of dollars in government money and tens of millions more in political donations, so if they're going to continue to get that money, make them responsible for providing it. Secondly, nationwide, but especially in poor areas, we need a dramatic increase in education spending. Getting a kid a basic education and high school graduation is the best way to reduce the chances that he'll be a drain on government resources the rest of his life. Aside from teachers, schools need paraprofessionals whose job it is to be out in the community interacting with parents and making sure kids are at school when they're supposed to be. Also aside from teachers, schools need child care facilities that take kids age 3 and up from 6am to 9pm, so that parents can be free to have jobs without worrying about who will be caring for their kids. Yes, this is going to cost a lot of money, but a combination of cutting pork from the budget, modest tax increases, and the expected decrease in the need for other entitlement spending can cover this. Thirdly, let's pass a law that automatically pegs the minimum wage to the cost of living. Having to have Congress argue about it every couple years doesn't help anybody. There's probably more, but this is a start.

Senate just passed the "nuclear option" (though not really) to change the cloture rules. Only 51 votes now needed to invoke cloture on votes for all nominees except Supreme Court. No change to the cloture rules regarding votes on legislation.

Maybe disingenuous is the wrong word to use, but making their case on the back of buying information from somebody who didn't have the right to possess or distribute it is not entirely on the level.

OK, except that she wasn't raped. Her accusation that she made to the police was that the player groped her clothed breast. That was the extent of the contact as described by the victim. That is the problem with the generic legal term "sexual assault" is that it covers a very broad range of activities. She was told to keep quiet by two friends of the player, both people not affiliated with the football program or any other ND athletic program. Perhaps charges could have been filed against them, but there's no culpability within the athletic department.

Can I think that MLB is being very disingenuous in this process and yet at the same time believe that A-Rod deserves every bit of the punishment he's getting?

Tex is trying to have an intellectual conversation about women with a bunch of horny 18-39 year old guys. You can see how that's working out.

Sam's Club has Mach 3 (not Mach 3 Turbo) for $37.99 for a 20 pack. With tax it's right about $40. I also generally go through 5-6 a month instead of 4, which is what joining the club would force me to do. If $4/month extra is what makes my shave a bit quicker and more comfortable, I'm willing to pay it. I'm cheap, but not that cheap.

You've read far less than I have about the situation, unless you have the same connections in St. Joe county that I have.

Which makes the Sox the worst fit for him. The Sox have all the lefties (presuming none of them get traded). If he wants to be useful hitting lefties, he needs to go to some other team and play against the Sox.

Sounds like he takes Casper Wells' spot in the bullpen.

I've read every word that's been written about the case, so yes I know a thousand f***ing percent more than you about it. Yes, it's tragic that she took her own life, but that doesn't change the reality that once it happened, there is no case. Get over it. Go hang around ND's campus and hand out money to players to try and play gotcha.

No, those are facts. I feel bad this all happened, but the reality is that's what happened and once it did, the investigation is over and there's nothing the university can do. I'm sorry that the facts of the story don't fit right in with your hatred for Notre Dame, but that's too bad.

I would create a fictional woman who has the exact body of Kate Upton, but paler skin and natural red hair.

The victim has a mental condition that caused her to snap and commit suicide. That isn't on the university. And investigating it becomes pointless once the victim is dead. It's hard enough to prove anything with a cooperative victim.

No system is going to be perfect. No matter what system you put in place, you're going to have some people who legitimately need help and aren't going to get it, and you're going to have others soaking up all kinds of benefits they don't really need. The goal is to try to make the system as good as we can, but as long as we continue to single out the handful of outliers on either side as our reason for making (or not making) changes, things aren't going to improve.

Yeah, other than the severity of the alleged crime, the existence of DNA evidence, the existence of witnesses, and the authority level of the people telling the victim not to press charges, it's almost exactly the same.

OK, the blades I currently use (Mach 3) run me roughly $2/blade. The two comparable blades from Dollar Shave Club are $1.50/blade and $2.25/blade, so I don't get what the big deal is.