Rob's House

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I don't think anyone is really outraged about it. It's just funny to watch these maroons step in it; especially given their undying allegiance to politically correctness.

Note to Joe_the_six_shooter: This is another reason I need a gun. So when I'm 70 and some dick bag like this drills my daughter in the face I can relieve him of his knee caps.

Much egg on many faces

Right after announcing the first black girl to win the individual all-around in gymnastics, NBC cuts directly to a commercial with a monkey swinging on the bars doing gymnastics.

From your article Actually, this is most certainly a First Amendment issue. When government entities, who are agents of the state, are denying businesses permits because of the owner's personal political views, there is most certainly a free speech issue at its most fundamental. I'm not sure by what stretch of the imagination anyone could see otherwise. This would be no different from the mayor of a major city denying permits to a middle eastern style restaurant because the mayor found muslim views offensive. I get why he and his friends wouldn't do business with companies with interests contrary to his own, and I even understand trying to organize a boycott, but allowing the government to punish the "haters" shouldn't be taken to hastily. It's a sharp knife that cuts both ways. Maybe next time the mayor will be denying permits to businesses for supporting gay marriage.

Does the arbitrary nature of this whole fiasco strike anyone else as odd? This is the most absurd case of manufactured outrage since a golfer got caught getting some strange. Some guy who owns a fast-food chain opposes gay marriage and there's supposed to be a national outrage over this "hate"? Really? No, seriously, you're not joking?

We get what they deserve.

I know, that's why I even now find it surprising. Perhaps the arrogance has caused a once nimble brain to atrophy, but you'd be amazed at some of the questions & comments I've heard from otherwise successful people. Don't worry, as long as you're not that guy that makes sure everyone knows to call you Dr. the odds are in your favor. Of course if you've ever called a financial institution and been incredulous over the fact they wanted to confirm your personal info before giving unfettered access to your account info & funds, then yeah, you might be one of the simple ones. The only thing I can figure is these were guys with high SATs that got tired of being asked "what, are you !@#$ing stupid?" and became doctors so people would assume they were smart.

What's good for the goose...

You'd be surprised. Some of these guys must be savants because some of them require long and extensive explanations, delivered very slowly with examples & explanations just to understand very basic concepts that your average Joe gets right off the bat. Granted, it isn't all of them; some are very smart, but too high a % are functionally retarded for it to be a coincidence. If you refer to him as Mr. Douche Bag & he corrects you with Dr. Douche Bag you're probably dealing with a moron who got a degree so he'd have plausible deniability to accusations of idiocy.

Despite being a life-long liberal who voted for Obama and Kerry twice, this negative campaigning by Obama and hand wringing over such a petty non-issue like Romney's tax returns has convinced me to vote Republican in this election.

That pertains to actions & statements made in the course of their official duties, which this would not fall under. And even though Romney's a public figure, he could still be liable for slander if his comments were made with reckless disregard for the truth.

The difference is your view is to impose itself on all of us at the hand of your government. The view opposite yours asks for the freedom to live one's life without constantly having to assume liability for your feel-good "solution". The argument that if you're not allowed to run your experiments that we all have to suffer from your inaction is is fundamentally different because you are claiming a positive right; worse yet, one that violates the negative rights of another. The irony is you see it as a way to free people when in actuality it casts them deeper into bondage.

Other than Levi I think we'd all say yes. We are talking about the girl in the picture and not the video, Right?

fixed

I was referring to how it would work here. Most taxes, particularly corporate taxes, are passed down to consumers, so you can't dodge de facto taxation on those in lower income circles, except for the very poor that live off the system anyway. As to the bolded part we have that already in the form of Medicaid, Medicare, free clinics, and laws requiring hospitals to treat the uninsured. They don't necessarily get the best care money can buy, but getting first world medical treatment is pretty good when you're having it provided at someone else's expense.

This man must be stopped. The assassination of Obama = 8 years of Biden.

That's actually what hooked me on the site. My work wasn't condusive to reading books or lengthy articles, but the brief posts of the message board are ideal. Although, I must admit, lately I've spent way too much time away from work on here. My wife hates this site.

My only problem with solar and wind is the concern that they are being forced in despite being less cost effective than alternative measures. If they were more or equally cost effective the market would usher them in; as of yet it has not. The only reason I can see for their existence is to reduce CO2. While I don't see that as a top priority I'll respect that others do and frame my thoughts through that prism. I'd want to have at least a vague idea of the cost per ton of reduced CO2 and what % of CO2 pumped into the world's atmosphere annually that represents. Job creation should always be a by-product rather than the objective for the reasons mentioned before.

Oops. Wrong "Where's the buzz" thread I don't mean to keep coming at you, but you keep posting things I'm interested in. I reject the notion of looking at production based on jobs created. It's a short-term view of a long term issue. You want to look at net production. It goes back to the Friedman quote I pointed out where the chinese were bragging that having their workers use shovels instead of back-hoes created more jobs, to which he asked why not give them spoons. A job is only as valuable as the utility it creates. If you're paying more for a worker than the utility his job creates (and that's to be measured against the utility that would be created were the funds allocated differently) then the difference is essentially a welfare check. Like so many government jobs programs where we pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for temporary median wage jobs. It would make more sense to just cut those people a check and have them stay home. That's called welfare. And if you're generating less electricity for more money all that extra money is waste. If your ultimate goal is reduction of CO2 that can certainly weigh into the analysis, but if economic growth and increased prosperity is the goal then # of jobs created should not be a factor.

To your first part, I understand that people being upside down in their mortgages and/or unwillingness to accept the loss along with an erroneous belief that the market will rebound (which assumes the height of the bubble or close there to is the real price and we're in a temporary downturn, rather than the other way around) is stifling the market, and I've already acknowledged that I was attacking his argument with too broad a brush. Nevertheless, a correction is just that, a correction in valuation. You can't ascend if you haven't reached equilibrium and while creating artificial demand may be desirable in some situations to act as a buffer to avoid shocks to the system, it can't create long-term equilibrium. And most of the otherwise smart people who advocate this seem to base their argument on humanitarian grounds (as if those being foreclosed on will be left in the streets rather than moving to more affordable housing) rather than sound analysis that addresses the fundamental underlying economics. And your point about private financial systems failing to do x, y, and z, is irrelevant to the conversation. Regardless of who was at fault for doing it, ultimately the bubble was created by artificial demand which was created by increasing the supply of funds for housing. Whether you want to blame the government, private entities, irresponsible individuals, or some combination thereof, or even if you want to take the simpleton's road and lay exclusive blame at the feet of the ever-present bogey man known as "corporate greed" it all comes down to the same condition. And whatever measures should be put in place to prevent those conditions from recurring is a much more complex matter than the one at hand. But often times smart people get too caught up in the complexities and the basic underlying principles are lost in the mix.

I think he was saying those who think it's free would be incorrect, and if so he's right, and that's the irony. All the people who think some rich ass hole is going to pick up the tab don't realize that they pay taxes which are built in to the prices they pay for everything else. They'll still have to pay, they're just relinquishing what little control they still have over their coverage.

This is why, despite having dealt with some real power-tripping ass hole cops in my life, I tend to ignore police brutality protestors because they're usually morons having a knee jerk reaction with no idea what happened and no solution for how the situation should have been handled. I'd like to allow them all to move into a cop-free neighborhood together and see how they like it. As long as they don't piss on his corpse. He deserves better than that.

!@#$ these people. I read Fredrick Douglas' narrative last night and one think I took away from it was how much is squandered by the so-called oppressed. This guy had people actively preventing him from learning to read and jumped through proverbial hoops of fire to learn to read and write. And this was a time when disobedience meant he'd get whipped to ****, not get his fragile little feelings hurt. Yet we have government schools that pump thousands of dollars per student per year through their coffers to make sure the little ***** have good school books and computers and professional college educated teachers, and half of them still can't read. The problem is in the parents, the students, and the culture, not school funding. Edit: the problem's also in the absurd job security afforded teachers regardless of performance.