balki1867

^^ LOL that just made my day, and it's only 9am in Chicago. That said, how is it 3 degrees during the day, 23 at night and then 0 again during the day on Sunday-Monday?

Odd thought about the long-term effects of Net Neutrality- what if we the people force the ISPs into an bizarre endgame where they have to defend the websites they choose to "let through". For instance, a bunch of liberals could go after Comcast for allowing access to FoxNews.com as it's "hate speech," encouraging a boycott. The second the ISPs blink and mollify liberals, conservatives would go after them with the same vigor and insist they're unamerican and need to block access to cnn.com because it's unamerican. It'd actually be way easier for them to sidestep this whole argument by saying, "hey we're constrained by net neutrality," but in the post-net neutrality world, its actually possible to fire up an audience by claiming that the ISPs have the power to stop these websites from mis-informing the people, but they choose not to. I know it sounds ridiculous, but Cable companies and ISPs are basically local monopolies, and their shareholders expect certain revenue/income growth year to year. The old model for getting this growth has been just to raise prices ~3% every year. That's getting challenged by cordcutting, which was unheard of ~10 years ago. The one weakness about a monopoly is that they have no opportunity to "grow" their market- so a boycott can only be offset by raising prices even more, which would only encourage more cordcutting. Just an additional note on the cordcutting: I realize its a complicated topic- cordcutters don't forego watching TV like they did 10 years ago- they use services like netflix, youtubeTV, hulu, etc and those would definitely be affected by net neutrality. I realize its more complicated than the scenario I drew out. I also realize that giving them power puts us in a position to make them accountable for things they traditionally wouldn't be accountable for, and we should wield that power.

^^ From the article: "Researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology recently published a study on the ability of great tits to learn by watching videos of other great tits ..." HAWT

^^ LOL, that reminds me of a Man Show skit where they sent a really attractive woman to a speed dating event to have her act as psychotic as possible. I wish I could find the clip online.

Philly TV station inexplicably airs a Roy Halladay tribute that consists of him giving up homer after homer: https://deadspin.com/nbc-philadelphia-airs-roy-halladay-tribute-video-of-him-1820253741

Why would the parent not let his/her kid go-fart at The Zone Adventure Center? It's better than go-farting all over the house after school. This seems like a win for everyone (well... except the minimum wage staff at The Zone).

Good perspective from Wired. https://www.wired.com/2017/03/tsas-new-ban-laptops-cabins-may-not-worst-thing/

The whole thing about laptops on middle eastern airlines reeks of US airline lobbyists. Delta's had an ongoing feud with Emirates and has actively tried to box them out of US-UAE routes. Their contention is that the playing field isn't even- Delta is a private company, whereas Emirates is a semi-private state run airline. Emirates can run at massive losses with no implications. Delta is actually right on that point but this is a terrible way to go about pushing them out. Some background: http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2015/10/30/emirates-deltas-dubai-atlanta-route-shouldve-been-moneymaker/74890270/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-09/emirates-says-flight-was-delayed-as-delta-withheld-300-spare https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/01/29/emirates-announces-a-2nd-us-europe-flight-delta-un.aspx

Former Greenville, SC police chief, who's been a US citizen for 42 years, gets detained at JFK. Oh yeah, he happens to be Muslim. http://www.theeastcarolinian.com/news/article_bcb8ca82-0c39-11e7-82ea-2fd83c607f73.html I guess blue lives only matter when they're not also brown.

Nevermind, King clarified his comments. Apparently he wants me to impregnate as many women of different ethnicities as possible until all of America's babies look the same. I got this.

Wow as an American who happens to be brown, this is utterly terrifying that they're simultaneously letting CBP harass brown people over the most minor undocumentable suspicions while lowering the hiring standards for CBP to get more agents. I see this working out very well. Can someone please remind me about how it's actually only illegal immigration that this administration cares about, and how I'm being alarmist?

I'm a little shocked that a Republican from Missouri would make such a callous comment about drug overdoses, given that the Opioid crisis is destroying poor rural white communities right now.

hahaha, I love that he just gets up and keeps running like nothing happened.

This is disturbing: Khizr Khan cancels Toronto trip after being told his travel privileges are being ‘reviewed’: reports http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/khizr-khan-forced-to-cancel-toronto-trip-after-being-told-his-travel-privileges-are-being-reviewed/ That's a naturalized citizen of 30+ years who's been a productive part of society for all of it. I really hope its something far more innocuous that was misinterpreted. I really hope that.

Different nutritional information on the two boxes. Weird.

Might as well add this one to the mix: "Indian-origin businessman shot dead in the US" (this is a different incident than the Kansas shooting) http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/us-canada-news/indian-origin-businessman-shot-dead-in-the-us/articleshow/57462656.cms What I don't understand is: 1) Why isn't the US media covering this more (including the "liberal" outlets) 2) Why aren't white people turning in members of their community before they commit these incidents? (ok that was sarcastic)

And they're lowering the hiring standards for CBP because they don't get enough applicants. This should work out well.

People focus on the number of immigrants in STEM jobs, but if you also factored to this the number of people who are the children of immigrants, it'd be a truly shocking assessment of how dependent we are on outside talent.

It's an Op-Ed, but Canada's already seizing the opportunity: Trump and his immigration politics are redefining Canada, and helping its tech sector http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-marche-canada-trump-opportunity-20170214-story.html

I'm a child of immigrants and I fully agree with you. Unfortunately, this isn't as simple as electing someone different in 4 years and rolling back the last 4 weeks of EOs. This country has proven itself to be unstable politically and our trading partners and potential immigrants will remember this. Mexico will expand their trade partnerships- not to spite us, but to protect themselves. Future skilled immigrants, who once believed that getting a green card was the first meaningful step towards citizenship, now see that nothing is really certain until you get citizenship and they might choose not to come here. Even if they do, they won't truly participate in our economy (no major purchases) until they have that security. This isn't some 'Land of Opportunity' nonsense. We've maintained our position because we've been able to attract the best and brightest from all over the world. We're at risk of losing that distinction.

She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.

NYT: "Trump’s Travel Ban, Aimed at Terrorists, Has Blocked Doctors" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/health/trump-travel-ban-doctors.html

There's a pretty huge dearth of doctors in the rural parts of the US. I have multiple exes who are doctors who've told me that they've been offered multiples of their salaries to move to smaller towns because of the shortage. The biggest issue is is that most people who become doctors end up marrying someone who is fairly educated, in a professional career. That spouse isn't going to pick up and move to a tiny town and give up their own career, so moving a small town is off the table. The solution is offering green cards to foreign-educated doctors to work in those small towns. This isn't some touchy-feely liberal "American dream" type of story. It's hard economics- the US has to offer up something real to encourage highly qualified (and in-demand) professionals to move here and fill a hole in the economy. From what I've read, ~25% of the practicing doctors in the US are foreign-born. That's not a tiny gap. Given those numbers, i have to think that limiting green cards and legal immigration is going to affect our healthcare system, and it'll hit small towns the hardest.

In fairness, based on what I've heard from fans of other teams, the NFL has a conspiracy against all 32 teams and is constantly blowing calls in their respective opponents' favor.

My understanding was that the Redskins color rush jerseys were only designed for fans to purchase. The plan was always to use traditional/throwback uniforms on thanksgiving.