@ChaosEngine @Buck

My dad was in the Air Force. He was chosen for a particular program -- to be a Range Safety Officer on launches.

Once he got his Masters in Engineering at MIT on the government's dime, he was stationed at Cape Canaveral.

His job was to have his hand on the key that would blow up a missile when it went off course. The course was set so that if it went bad, the pieces would fall safely into the ocean. If it started to veer off course, you had to blow it up quick.

He was stationed at Cape Canaveral from something like 1958 to 1966. About that time frame. Early days, when they didn't know quite how to do a successful launch -- and he blew up a lot.

More than any other person -- and no one will catch up with his record, because it is no longer early days.

He got a Saturn. He blew up a Titan. He blew up a lot of Missilemen missiles.

He mostly worked on the unmanned launches. Only one launch (that I know of) was manned -- and he almost had to blow it up. He was sweating that one -- because of the stakes of blowing early or blowing late and no good result if you make the wrong choice. There was a wobble ... and he waited ... and it corrected.

But yeah. A Saturn.

After Cape Canaveral, he was stationed at Vandenberg Air Force Base, NW of Santa Barbara. The west coast equivalent of the Cape.

PM me your email, and I'll send you a SERIOUSLY cool cartoon that was a gift when he left the Cape. Sitting astride a rocket that has obviously been launched from Florida, with silhouettes of all the missiles he blew up -- with HASHMARKS for how many of each.

It is seriously cool.

As they mentioned, Warren Buffett famously bragged for years that he pays less in taxes than his secretary. The rich get such value on deductions, loopholes, capital gains rates, etc. that they can avoid taxes overall.
I'm in the bottom 20%...my uncle Sam has never even sent me a birthday card, he sure hasn't ever paid me a dime of assistance. Has Trump ever taken public funds for his projects? Hmmmm.

Another fail, Dimitri.

So basically you're not to blame if you contractually agree to a shitty service and then forget to maintain the conditions? There's a good reason I do my credit business through reputable establishments with reasonable T&C and interest rates rather than Bruce the leg breaker at the local fucking pub... Because Bruce is a cunt and his T&C are ass rape...

I have 55 days interest free on my platinum card and I've not spent a single cent in interest in about 16 years. Mostly cos my wife would kick my ass harder than the bank, but it's a matter of discipline rather than the bank being a pack of pricks. I agreed to the terms, I need to meet them.

There's probably a fair point to be made somewhere in there about usuary rates re: credit cards, but the airline bit is a fucking silly...

Budget airlines offer everything as a pay for after the ticket price service because people want cheap fairs. In some cases, it's actually cheaper to fly today than it was 30 years ago in the 80's... (http://www.smh.com.au/business/aviation/international-air-fares-at-30year-low-20160422-gocr1r.html)

Well, funny that, people don't want to pay for a premium product and they get a shitty one that nickel and dimes them to death to try and keep the margins up (aka "staying in business").

You can look at plenty of markets where cheap, shit products are now the standard because people either won't or can't pay for quality ones. It's the entire reason why many industries outsource to foreign wage slaves and why cheap Chinese shit shows up everywhere as well known and reliable brands go out of business.

Yes, the US certainly has a problem with a lack of oversight on various industries which allows them to get away with a lot, but the customer/end user has to take some responsibility as well.

But bikes can brake much faster due to being 1/10 the weight. My bicycle has far less contact and stops on a dime.
I'm pretty sure some new bikes have abs too.

I have no interest in defending Trump.

...Yeah, you smell it coming. BUT:

Budgetary concerns for telling trans people "thanks but no thanks" regarding desire to serve in the military might possibly be defensible and comparable to other conditions / states / whatever.

Manning was in jail (whether you think that deserved or not) and got ACLU assistance to be provided with hormone therapy and eventually gender reassignment surgery, because it was deemed psychologically damaging to withhold them. That's some pretty expensive treatment. Paid with tax dollars.

Perform a thought experiment and replace barring trans people from military service with some other group that would similarly require expensive medical maintenance. There's a pretty good example available: Type 1 Diabetes, requiring insulin. And guess what -- diabetics are barred from military service. If you develop diabetes while in the military it isn't grounds for discharge, but if you have it beforehand and want to join up you're SOL.

Back to trans. Do I personally think that they should be barred from service? No, not based purely on that. But if somebody feels that they need hormone replacement and/or gender reassignment surgery, I think they should be paying for that themselves, not on government / military dime.

I'll admit that I see those things not as necessary, but elective. Maybe that's unfair, but at what point does it become ridiculous? Can bald soldiers get hair transplants? Botox? Breast implants?

Trans people want to serve and either A) don't need hormone replacement / gender reassignment or B) are willing to pay out of pocket for them? Sign 'em up. Otherwise, it becomes murky. If that seems insensitive / bigoted, sorry. But plenty of things beyond your control can make you ineligible for military service.


**edit:
Oh, forgot to mention. Do I think Trump really had that sort of argument in mind when he made this decision? HELL NO. He's a spiteful prick. He probably did it for a combination of trying to curry favor with prick GOP congressclowns and just to prod.

Considering Sanders appeal, I don't think abandoning all their ideals is called for, but examining which are important and which equate to morality bullying would be good. I think most leftists agree that the name calling isn't helpful (with exceptions for total douchbags).
Really, I think an honest, non bombastic candidate from either side would be preferable to either choice we had.

Sorry to hear that pc thuggery is so prevalent there. That does sound overboard, but I totally support banning proselytizing of any kind at a school that takes public funding. Spreading your belief on my dime is unacceptable.

I think not. Maybe I underestimate their numbers and clout, but never the anger and outrage they cause...I just think it's overblown insanely.

Consider atheists who have endured millions of merry Xmas's, happy Chanukahs, and myriad of other religious holidays we might find insulting or divisive. We don't complain until it's espoused in publicly owned areas. If not spreading your beliefs on my dime causes you utter resentment, you are the one with the problem of entitlement.
If someone gets upset that you said merry Xmas, they have personal issues.

I did love what Bill said.

I think he hit the button after I called him out.
Have you talked to him? It's not out o character for him to make a statement like that.
This is why I reengaged.......
http://videosift.com/video/Suicide-Bombings-and-Islam-An-Apologists-Guide

It came before this thread.

You can see those types of pro cop videos, I've posted some myself...but when they do it for personal gratification, web hits or a friend's web hits and not as a community outreach type thing, like here, I can complain that they did it on my dime. Same when the outreach gets out of control like batkid shutting down downtown San Francisco on a busy workday, costing untold dollars.
So sorry that I'm not on board with their viral marketing campaign involving abusing their authority for fun....I would rather have them working instead of wasting time trying to go viral. That doesn't come close to stopping them, though, so fret no more.

Answer-Yes, clearly self defense.

Nice snark, clearly directed at me, in your description @Buttle.

Mixon is not a disabled person or someone not used to violence, so it would clearly be harder to make a point that he feared for his life, but also clearly he should have feared for his safety, he was hit twice by a nutjob that was emboldened by idiots that think you can't hit a woman in the face...they have faces, don't they?

Had he gone to trial with the video, he probably wouldn't have been convicted of a thing, at worst it might be argued that it was mutual combat, even though it was clearly self defense, he even let her get away with the first physical attack and only (properly) retaliated after the second.
The incident was allegedly started by Molitor and her boyfriend who were loudly hurling racial slurs at Mixon, then attacked him physically when he tried to walk away....twice.

I think it's awful he took the plea, he should have stood up for himself, but I think the video proof wasn't made available to him so it was her word against his, and she claimed he was the sole aggressor. Sadly, because of people like the video poster who seem to believe that a woman attacker can't be defended against under any circumstances, he saw the writing on the wall that no matter how justified his actions were, he would likely be made to pay for them.

That woman shouldn't get a dime though, she clearly started the fight. Start a fight like a man with a man, you'll get punched like a man. That's called equality.

The problem in a nutshell, imo.....

The full quote would have been better;
"Remakes, to god-damned hell with remakes! We have no remakes. In fact, we don't need remakes. I don't have to show you any stinking remakes, you god-damned cabrón and chinga tu madre!"

And I think that's a big problem with remakes, in the remake they will simply say "badges?... we don't need no stinking badges" because that's how people misremember and simplify the excellent line, and all the flavor and fun will be lost in an effort to squeeze another dime out of a great piece of art by bastardizing it towards the lcd.

Really? And what video were you watching, because this one didn't have him in it.
He certainly should have feared bodily injury, since he suffered bodily injury. In my view, when someone is so irrational that they physically attack a larger, stronger, younger person, it's reasonable to assume that they are extremely dangerous.
He could not, from what I saw, turn the other way. Scooters don't turn on a dime, and it wouldn't help anyway, she follows him to continue the encounter, she would have done the same thing in the other direction, imo.
Being detained by force is kidnapping. In no jurisdiction that I know of is kidnapping not justification for killing someone, no matter how little they threaten onlookers. ;-) Lucky for her he wasn't a stand your ground don't back down asshole in a stand your ground state.

It sure beats the alternative, which is sharing a windowless IT tech room with someone who doesn't bathe every day but instead throws on another layer of some dime-store spray, powder or gel. So it's like working in a Greyhound bus restroom with the industrial-strength masking agent covering the organic human stink.

I think the biggest thing that is upsetting millennials is the cost of college. Bill is a comedian, I get that, but if he doesn't comprehend that many kids are entering a mediocre job market with 60k or more of student loans riding on their backs, then he is very out of touch.

Of course there are other options, like skilled trades such as the ones Mike Rowe tries to educate teens about, but the reality is that if you go to college on your own dime today, you are going to have a ton of debt by the time you get out. I got my degree back in the 90's on pell grants and money I got from working outside of school. There is absolutely no way I could have afforded it if I was going to college today. I also would have balked at putting myself deep in debt to go.

Actually, he's said clearly and repeatedly that wages are too HIGH in the US and should go down, so any inkling that he thinks we should raise them in any way is a 180 switch. It's also a total cop out that he could use for any topic....'I'll just leave it all to the states....so I don't have to do a damn thing as president and nothing I say makes any difference.'
It should be no surprise to anyone. He's written about how he operates, and not keeping your word and changing your position by the moment while insisting everyone else follows along with his 'new deals' is a large part of that methodology....as is lying about facts and threatening anyone that contradicts him with lawsuits or just 'taking his ball and going home' (which doesn't work when you are in business or government) etc.
The whole 'self funding' thing was a fraud from the beginning....and a clear one. He LOANED his campaign money, he didn't spend his own money. He ALWAYS planned to pay himself back with private donations, and you can be sure he's paying himself an enormous interest and massive 'fees' on those 'loans', which means he's actually MAKING money on the campaign, not spending a dime of his own. You can be certain he'll get every dime back and then some....no question.

Also....you should note, this is not a news program (not that they're better) so should not be subject to the requirements of fact, honesty, and clarity we SHOULD (but don't) insist on with 'news' organizations.

Fresh experience from a different healthcare system: a friend of mine gave birth last Saturday and she won't have to pay a single dime for it. It's covered, all of it, the entire procedure, no questions asked. No shopping, no negotiation, no worries.

That's the kind of freedom that makes a difference for your well-being, both physically and psychologically.