As long as we're stuck in a wait-and-see period, what are your personal suspicions -- foreign terrorists, domestic terrorists, lone nutjob(s), something else?

I'm leaning toward a lone anti-tax, anti-government nutjob.

this is awfully close to the usual time anti-government, white supremicist and "home-grown fuckers" like to stage their bullshit protest and their attacks.  of course, it's also Patriots day in Boston, so it makes it a nice target for both extremist m-fers. 

And tax day. Plus there was a Tea Party rally two days earlier, which might not be remarkable elsewhere but is a rare thing here.

Latest news is lending more credence to international terrorism, but I'll stick with my first hunch for now. It's all still speculation.

As long as we're stuck in a wait-and-see period, what are your personal suspicions -- foreign terrorists, domestic terrorists, lone nutjob(s), something else?

I'm leaning toward a lone anti-tax, anti-government nutjob.

I conferred the title "Chief Executive Overlord" upon myself because it amused me. Yeah, I'm officially the CEO of my own corporation. But in reality I'll stick with my original description of "housewife".

Boston isn't even IN Maryland, silly.  

no, but you know how bostonians like to party. 

and living here in the PacNW, charging for every month it rains is the same thing as a regular monthly bill.

Oh, we are still paying for the court-ordered cleanup of Boston Harbor. Our sewage bills are among the highest in the nation thanks to Mike Dukakis. Instead of accepting the federal government's offer to pick up 90% of the tab, he fought the order. The federal funds were gone by the time he lost, so we got to pay the entire bill.

The people of MD will have to pay for it one way or another. The "rain tax" sounds like a dubious plan based on the minimal facts given in the OP's link, but I'm prepared to believe that it might be better than raising sewer rates. 

May I ask what condition required a hysterectomy? My wife had one at age 26 to cure endometriosis. Just ignore this post if you would rather not say.

Hit the nail on the head.  She's had endometriosis since she was 17.  It was odd being told by a doctor when she was 18 that we should get pregnant as soon as possible.  She's had 4 surgeries since then to try to alleviate the issues, but the scar tissue and damage was reaching a point where it was just not possible to repair.  When they looked at the organs once removed he speculated that the massive scarring inside would have overtaken the organ and scarred the outside within a year, had we not done the hysterectomy and the oophrectomy (removing the ovaries as well). 

Well, on the bright side it's a surefire cure for endo. Once she heals up from the surgery and gets her hormones balanced she's going to feel better than she has felt in many years.

My wife went through the laparoscopies and all that rigamarole too, and 30 years ago there were no support resources for women -- it was uncharted territory. My wife helped found the national endometriosis association and contributed a chapter to a book that was, for quite a few years, THE book on endo.

So I'm sorry about your financial wallop, but glad to hear that your wife is on the way to recovery.

I've already got >100 disks in my netflix queue and my DVR slurps down 8 or 10 "live" shows each week. Why would I need to go out and steal more TV or movies?

I might watch Game of Thrones if the DVDs ever show up on netflix. I just don't care enough about it to go out of my way.

More generally, I used to pirate games back in the day (and by "pirate" I mostly mean make copies in the days before serious encryption), but I gave that up with I went to work in the game industry and developed an appreciation for intellectual property. Nowadays I just wait for new games to become old games that I can buy cheap.

May I ask what condition required a hysterectomy? My wife had one at age 26 to cure endometriosis. Just ignore this post if you would rather not say.

Blondes and glamor girls are not ordinarily my types. Glamorous blondes are right out. But I'm prepared to grant Ms Upton an exception. The older I get, the more "my type" gravitates toward any non-obese female under 50 who has a pulse.

More likely Anglo-centrism. I don't think most Americans know or care much about Venezuela.

That was an awful movie partially redeemed by a strong performance. I don't recommend wasting your lifespan on it.

Came across this gem from 1990 today:

...her speech laid out a simple conservative argument for taking environmental action: "It may be cheaper or more cost-effective to take action now," she said, "than to wait and find we have to pay much more later." Global warming was, she argued, "real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.

If climate change had become a conservative cause 20+ years ago, would liberals be in denial today?

It's my understanding that April will be the first month to reflect the first job losses and furloughs, and by May we should have a good indication of just how bad it will be. Or won't be, I hope. Some say that the weak March jobs numbers reflect employer anticipation of the coming slowdown, while others say that's bullshit. Either way, we'll find out soon enough.

They certainly benefited from smart investment decisions within the Simple, which last I checked also does not equal a "loophole".

You really have no clue what a loophole is, do you?  Loopholes, while technically legal, are intended to take advantage of something in a way that it wasn't intended to function...often to the detriment of many others involved.  As Ironrod pointed out, IRA's are intended as a way for average folks to plan for retirement, not as a tax shelter for the wealthy.  

Normal people can contribute $5,000 annually to an IRA, or $6,000 if we're fortunate enough to be old. The average IRA is worth $67,438. Through some perfectly legal chicanery, the Mittmeister used his IRA to dodge taxes on somewhere between $20 and $100 million. I think we can all agree that that's not how IRAs were meant to be used.

So it comes down to how you feel about gaming the system. Most of us think that if it's unintentionally legal for a small number of high rollers to abuse the rules, the rules need to change. I fail to understand the opposing point of view. Why is it wrong to tighten up the law so that it's closer to its original intent?

IRAs were supposed to be a way for the middle class to save for retirement. A loophole that lets billionaires use them as tax shelters needs closing.

In the 1960s my family used to get the big bucket o' chicken for dinner every now and then. I liked the biscuits and gravy. Those were boneless.

[Spoiler]

OK, this is a real tangent and I don't know if it will translate or not, but it's a funny story so here goes.

I'm watching Eureka on DVD. There's a story arc that includes the actor who played Gaius Baltar, playing a completely unrelated character. There's an episode wherein all of the major characters hallucinate a person from their past with whom they have unresolved personal issues; the only way to dispel the illusion is to confront the old conflict. "Baltar" can't disclose the person that he's hallucinating to the others so when they ask him who he's seeing, he says "A leggy blonde in a slinky red dress."

Spoiler for Hiden:

I just about peed myself. Eureka has had a couple of other BSG references (like mentioning Cylons), but that one was over the top.

In another testimonial to the power of low expectations, I found this movie hilarious. Really hadn't expected to LOL several times. In fact, I hadn't even expected to enjoy it.

Huh. I had written a long and cogent reply and then apparently forgot to click Submit before I left. Please just consider yourselves persuaded.

The gist of it was: Yes, I'm satisfied with the direction we're moving in, with some strong specific exceptions. Most of the damage from the 00s has been reversed. One war is done, the other is wrapping up, the economy's struggling back, and the right wing factions are at each other's throats. The country is slowly hobbling back from its crippling lurch to the right. Still got a ways to go but moving in a good direction.

I'd grade Obama a thoroughly average C based purely on performance, then upgrade that to a B- considering the adversity that he's faced since 2010. He could still earn a B+ or even an A- by making meaningful progress against climate change and/or wealth concentration. I had expected that the 2008 collapse would bring the gilded age to a close with another progressive era...but that ain't happening.

I'm an editor for one of the largest romance publishers in the US.

You harlequin!

Found a good infographic, let's see if the link works.



Hmmm, apparently we don't have bigimg tags here, so here's the link to an actual readable version:

http://nationalpostnews.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/northkorea1200a.jpg

Mostly I'm a housewife. I also own and run Curio City Online.

[Spoiler]

Spoiler for Hiden:

It was the little character things that were good, which is when this show is at it's best.  The moment with Daryl and Carol.  The one with Rick and Hershel.  Rick and Carl.  Even the stuff with who stood up to the Gov and who was intimidated.

The best little character detail was

Spoiler for Hiden:

Rick picking up his old badge and staring at it with conflicting emotions after learning that his son just gunned somebody down in cold blood. So much for law enforcement!

[Spoiler]

The Boston Globe promo'd tonight's episode of Revolution thusly (major spoiler on the slim chance that it's true):

Spoiler for Hiden:

This is so unbelievable. NBC and the makers of Revolution have completely lost their minds. In Monday's episode, we learn that the apocalyptic lights-out disaster is really all just taking place within an Atlantis-like bubble. The whole thing is a "Truman Show" experiment to study how human beings cope with the loss of electricity and what happens when we don't have cellphones and computers.

Yeah, that Iraq liberation worked out so well in the end...for Iran.

The Chinese could remove the NK regime simply by enforcing the letter of international law and tightening the border screws. But China doesn't want to deal with the resulting basket case any more than SK or the US want to. Geopolitically, the status quo is better than collapse as long as the country stays isolated and contained. Sucks for the NK people, although by all reports they don't realize how bad they've got it relative to the rest of Asia.

When we want to get rid of something of value that's too troublesome to sell, we give it away through Freecycle.

Then there's the little matter of the Chinese. I do not think they would look the other way.

I think you're wrong. NK invades SK and China is turning it's back on them immediately. Won't be like the 50s.  If China supports NK militarily, their  economy would crash like a meteor.

Ah, but Roman's premise is that we start it by lobbing some spite missiles their way just to take them down a peg. You have to imagine the US (or SK) as the aggressor.

There's no question that SK would roll them back quickly, or at least as quickly as the US military can lend full assistance. But Seoul is 30 miles from the DMZ. NK could cause a world of hurt before it's erased from the map.

Then there's the little matter of the Chinese. I do not think they would look the other way.

Yeahhh, that's a hornet's nest you don't want to poke. The whole country is a paranoid armed camp. They could roll over Seoul in a matter of hours.

I understand the sentiment, though.

I noticed that my DVR obediently slurped it up. Will I watch it? Eventually, probably, even though it feels more like a chore than a pleasure. I'm sorta compulsive that way.

I'm sure it was deductible.

Would've been relevant if they'd included some Ferenghi.

I'm not much of a traveler myself (haven't flown anywhere in at least 10 years) so I don't know the ins and outs. Just reporting my spot-check results. Wife's flight is indeed next week, so your explanation might be right. The last time we took a vacation we saved a lot by going through the company agent...but that was over 10 years ago.

Pretty cool presentation, but every fare listed was substantially higher than my wife's company's travel agent got her for a Boston to DC flight next week. 

Yeah, remember travel agents?

I don't get how that works....travel agents have to get paid, so they tack on an amount to the ticket price, but somehow the prices are less?   

Airlines give agents sweetheart pricing in exchange for the volume of traffic they direct. They also have access to airfare/hotel/rental car packages that are hard for individuals to put together. Wife is paying $178 roundtrip Boston to DC, including taxes and fees, through her company's agency. The best fare at the linked site is $273 and most are in the $300-350 range.

Travel agency for the general public is mostly a thing of the past, but you can save big bucks if you're fortunate enough to be able to use your employer's service to arrange personal travel.

Pretty cool presentation, but every fare listed was substantially higher than my wife's company's travel agent got her for a Boston to DC flight next week. 

Yeah, remember travel agents?

They can have all of my text messages. Oh wait, I've never sent one.

so,this is crap is it?

It's not the worst sf show I've ever seen. It's not very good, either, but I'm intrigued enough by the central storyline and have invested enough time in it already to keep on watching. For overall quality I'd say it's better than V, equivalent to Terra Nova, and a notch below Falling Skies.

I wouldn't say it's better than V - V had much better campy value and a hotter cast.  I'd say much better than Terra Nova and agree not as good as Falling Skies. 

My opinion is based on the quality of the writing, both plot and character. V had every stereotype in the book and painfully cheesy dialog. Terra Nova was just plain insipid. Revolution is highly inconsistent. Falling Skies has steadily improved...it's still not up to the level of the classic sf series that we all know so well, but it's certainly better than average. If it lasts a couple more seasons it could reach the top tier. IMO, of course.

so,this is crap is it?

It's not the worst sf show I've ever seen. It's not very good, either, but I'm intrigued enough by the central storyline and have invested enough time in it already to keep on watching. For overall quality I'd say it's better than V, equivalent to Terra Nova, and a notch below Falling Skies.

Been using bags made from recycled plastic for a few years now. Never wash them, never got sick. When they get too gross I just replace them.

I fill up 6 big reusable bags of groceries every week. Each one holds at least twice as much as you could fit into a plastic film bag, so I figure I'm avoiding 12 bags a week or 600 per year. I do still use the occasional throwaway bag when I need to make an unplanned grocery stop, so I'm glad they aren't banned here.

In a lame attempt to make this on-topic...if most people made responsible choices voluntarily, nanny laws like this would never gain traction.

Will Andrea kill the Governor? Will the Governor kill Andrea? Tune in again next week for another exciting episode of TWD! 

there are potential sticking points, including Ryan's proposed $4.5 trillion in tax cuts

Good lord. Did those people learn nothing from the '00s?