Google censors? i knew they did for china, but in america?

The Economist summed it up pretty well: Russia had to get a deal done, and the Chinese got a favorable terms as a result. They’re hardly staunch allies, just global powers that share some, but not all agendas. I’m happy for the Chinese people that the country will burn less coal as a result.

@empireman:

Where I live would be the spot where the war will first start, So I would have the choices of being a slave or a part of a resistance group. I would choose to fight the evil commies.

same here…

Chicago Public Schools have a different teacher union than charter schools in Streamwood, Smack.  I know that’s not common knowledge so you were probably unaware of that.

Our union negotiated a credit from the schools in our district that we could apply to our own health insurance plans that we bought from a second party.  Primarily the cause was a change in policy of United Health Care which applied the copay to each line item in a bill (which for a child birth has A LOT OF LINE ITEMS!  You have anesthesia, you have room charges, food charges, medicine charges, specialist charges, nursery charges, etc…it adds up fast!)  Instead of dropping UHC altogether, we negotiated with the school for a clause that allowed us to find a different policy somewhere else and have that amount auto-debited from our paychecks (kinda like what happens for your payroll taxes and if the courts garnish your wages, etc) and applied to our insurance bills.  The only problem with this plan is that if we don’t go with the UHC plan we have to pay taxes on the wages earned that are spent on health insurance.

Thing is, however, UHC was charging us a lot more than BCBS is charging me and providing worse coverage.  I, personally, think the reason for that was because we were a captive set of customers.  We had to use UHC so they could screw us.  Now we can shop around and with the market the way it is, other providers are dying to get us onto their books and so gave us a relatively great deal. (Relative to UHC.)

And I am not confusing will not turn away with free.  They will not turn you away, even if you have never paid an emergency room bill.  Therefore, since you don’t have to pay for services rendered, by definition, it is free.

@Jermofoot:

How would a guy under a pile of cops hurt anyone? He wasn’t even on PCP.

I think CC covered this, should they sit on him for 10 minutes? 20? 2 hours?

@Jermofoot:

Actually, there has been much debate about not only the lethality of a taser, but also the excessive employment of them.  People have died from being tased, there are records showing that cops are more likely to use the taser since it is considered nonlethal.

I don’t know how the laws are inother places, but in AZ you can’t use “less than lethal” on someone unless it has been used on you.  In other words the cops here have all been tazed and pepper sprayed.  They know exactly what it does and how it works.

@Jermofoot:

Unfortunately, we can’t just silence what we don’t want to hear.  A discussion must include even the fringe arguments that are unlikely.

Yeah we can.  You may have freedom of speech, but I also have the freedom to tell you to be quiet if I don’t want to hear it in my house.  I can hold my hands over my ears, mI can turn off the TV/Radio.  And if you’re on my property I can tell you to shut up or leave.

@Jermofoot:

What could possibly be more to the story?  You can see everything from start to finish on the video.

Of course there’s more to the story, unless you were there, you don’t know what was happening outside of the camera view.

It will be even messier if Turkey is part of the EU when this takes place.  However I think this should resolve itself before that happens as it doesn’t look like the EU is letting Turkey join anytime soon.

It isn’t certain what will happen with regards to greater Kurdistan (Kurdish areas in Iraq, Turkey, Iran), although it could certainly get ugly there.

Any Kurds in Syria?  I’m not sure, and if so what that would imply as well.

Nevertheless, this goes back a long ways to when the British occupied Iraq (taken from the Ottoman Empire in WWI if I am not mistaken).  It is always a difficult thing to go back to the pre-colonial (and pre Ottoman empire) nations and boundaries as often they were not clearly marked or identifiable.  Besides, there is oil in N. Iraq…and everyone wants a peice of that!

Shortly after Moses Bittok, of West Des Moines, took the oath of citizenship on Friday, he discovered he had a $1.89 million winning ticket from the Iowa Lottery’s Hot Lotto game.

“It’s almost like you adopted a country and then they netted you $1.8 million,” Bittok said Monday as he cashed in his ticket.

actually, it was more like $1.9 million

I dont know where in the US they are from, but I see them all the time.