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Post by blackngold on Oct 7, 2009 13:09:51 GMT -5
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Post by blackngold on Oct 7, 2009 13:32:02 GMT -5
This one concerns the newly openned casino in Pittsburgh, my hometown. I have watched this issue with some interest as it wound its way through the murk of Pennsylvania politics. Gambling was supposed to be the great savior of PA creating jobs, tourism, and tax revenue. Things are not coming up roses as can be seen in this article. www.post-gazette.com/pg/09277/1003006-53.stmIn my youth, I was much more anti-gambling than I am now. Full disclosure - I am a minor gambler, participating in the office football pool for camaraderie's sake. I meet with friends to play poker about six times a year and a couple fantasy football leagues. The total layout is about $300 per year. I have on occaision paid the stupid people tax, er Powerball. If stupid people tax is too perjorative, you can substitute poor/desparate people tax. So, I don't have a huge problem with gambling in general. But, the main thing is that it is a destructive activity more than anything else. Money is just cycled amongst people without the creation of anything useful. Pittsburgh was built on the steel industry. We mined coal and iron from the surrounding hills. Shipped it down the rivers in barges to the steel mills and made steel which was supplied to the world. At one point, 25% of the world's production of steel occurred in Pittsburgh. Gambling is the exact opposite of this. It takes money that people already have and through a giant shell game reapportions it to different people. Before everybody started to get on the gambling bandwagon, the only places to gamble in the US were Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Those cities could build an economy around this activity since they had virtual monopolies. Their success was based on bringing in people from outside the local economy and taking money from them. Now that gambling is more widespread, the need to travel in order to gamle is being removed. Therefore, no new money is brought into the local economy. I think the impact will be greater on Atlantic City than Las Vegas. Vegas will still hold the attraction as Sin City, but they will be impacted. Atlantic City is located in a great spot to pull visitors from the Philadelphia and New York City areas. Philadelphia's casinos will be erected shortly. Once that happens, what will become of all the people who used to shuttle down to AC? Will they still go? I tend to think not (Poof he disappeared. Sorry digressed into Descartian humor).
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Post by blackngold on Oct 7, 2009 13:47:09 GMT -5
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Post by blackngold on Oct 7, 2009 13:47:42 GMT -5
By the way, you're all free to post things which may only interest you.
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Post by blackngold on Oct 7, 2009 13:53:18 GMT -5
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Post by blackngold on Oct 15, 2009 9:51:19 GMT -5
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Post by blackngold on Oct 19, 2009 9:38:31 GMT -5
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Post by blackngold on Nov 2, 2009 10:12:55 GMT -5
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Post by Fins on Nov 2, 2009 18:59:29 GMT -5
I always liked the one Far Side cartoon where is shows "What dogs hear!" and the person is saying, "Bad Rover, bad dog. Rover, that was very bad... bad Rover!" and then next pic shows the dog wagging his tail with the caption "What dogs hear!"... "Blah blah blah Rover, Blah blah blah Rover..." That's just hilarious.
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Post by blackngold on Nov 3, 2009 8:06:42 GMT -5
That's one of my favorite Far Sides, too. Also on the list is the episode of Dexter where he creates a device that gives speech to a dog. The dog had been barking at one of the machines in Dexter's laboratory and Dexter wanted to know why. Perhaps something was wrong. With the device on, the dog runs over to the machine and says, "A thing! A thing! I found a thing! I don't know what it is, but I found it. There it is!
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Post by blackngold on Dec 1, 2009 8:14:13 GMT -5
A phrase which irritates me to no end - "No pun intended". Generally this is uttered/written whenever someone has made a very lame and obvious pun. It shouts "Gee look at me! I made a funny and aren't I clever." For me the whole point of puns is to be more clever than the room. Make your puns and whoever gets it gets it and so what if the rest don't. For the record, my puns are always intended.
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Post by blackngold on Dec 4, 2009 11:08:24 GMT -5
This is a pretty cool article about a man with no long term memory who gave his brain to science after his death. Once again illustrating the world in which we live is infinitely more interesting than the world of magic, demons, vampires, etc. I have often thought of donating my body to science after my death. Not that there is anything particularly interesting but much of our medical advances have come through autopsy and study of anatomy. My mother participated in that long term women's health study being done in Massachussets. www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/health/research/03brain.html?_r=1&em
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Post by blackngold on Jan 8, 2010 13:34:24 GMT -5
From a recent Simpson's episode.
In this episode Krusty the Clown’s ratings with girls are in the tank, and station executives force him to take on a female co-star, a frilly, pink, singing Princess Penelope (Anne Hathaway), who trills about her “princessness” and kisses unicorns.
Lisa is delighted, but Bart and Homer are as disgusted as Krusty himself. When Bart complains to his father that girls ruin everything, Homer replies, “Oh, Bart, you say that now, but when you’re grown up, you’ll just think it.”
Laugh out loud funny.
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Post by Richard on Jan 8, 2010 15:02:22 GMT -5
LOL! Gotta love the Simpsons. Unfortunately, we're about 3 seasons behind over here... Too bad!
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Post by blackngold on Jan 12, 2010 8:00:41 GMT -5
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Post by blackngold on Jan 12, 2010 11:25:41 GMT -5
Ok, so here are a bunch of articles about eugenics and such. www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2010-01-10-embryo-genetic-screening_N.htmnews.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100112/ap_on_re_as/as_china_gender_gapdenisdutton.com/baumeister.htmThe first article is about the parents who delibrately selected an embryo to be implanted because genetic tests show that this child would have the bone marrow necessary to cure his sister who had a rare (fatal) disorder. The second article is about the coming shortage of women in China due to a culture that prizes men more than women leading to sex selection abortions. There are about 120 men born in China for every 100 women. This then ties into the last article which is the layout for a book that Dr. Baumeister is writing entitled, "Is There Anything Good About Men?" In the article, he states that 80% of the genetic make up of humans today come from women and only about 40% comes from men. Not sure why it doesn't add up to 100% but I'm sure there is some reason. The key point is that men do not always find mates and are culturally driven to extremes to attract females. This is certainly something that will be playing out in China in the years to come. Back to the eugenics, I have a huge problem with what the Chinese are doing in their culture but not much problem with the family that genetically determined their next child. Bioethicists seem to think that there is a likelihood that the such children might be unloved particularly if they do not fulfill what might be the primary purpose they were born for. (I think there was a movie about this). It seems to me that plenty of children are born unloved the old fashioned way. I also do not have a problem with people screening for serious defects. My wife has thalassemia minor which means that 3% of her blood did not convert from fetal blood to adult blood. The defect has no serious health affects. However, if I also had thalassemia minor than there would be a high likelihood that we would produce a child with thalassemia major which is fatal in childhood with no known cure. Shouldn't we (as a society) avoid bringing such children into the world? I say this because we had our daughter genetically tested. My wife was of advanced maternal age and had a sister with Down Syndrome. In short, we wanted to know what we were in for. Quite frankly, I don't know what I would have done if the tests had come back more negative than they did. What came back was that one strand of her chromosomes had a defect. Part of the 3rd and 6th chromosome had switched places so that instead of a pair of 3s and a pair of 6s she had a 3 with a 3/6 and a 6 with a 3/6. The geneticist explained to us that most of the material in a chromosome does not contain dna. As long as the split did not occur where there was important genetic information then the child would be born healthy. Otherwise, the child would not develop normally and would most likely be stillborn. The odds were 90-10 in our favor. I heard those odds and was immediately confident that all would be okay. My wife was more fearful which I suppose was only natural. As you all know, things turned out fine. My daughter does have thalassemia minor, but really that is only a minor thing.
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Post by paulis1 on Jan 31, 2010 2:24:02 GMT -5
In thinking about talking dogs, one must interject...
"SQUIRELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, I really like you." (pant, pant)
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Post by Richard on Jan 31, 2010 16:09:55 GMT -5
LOL. Me and some friends went to a bungalow park for a weekend a couple of months ago and we had just seen Up. You won't believe the number of times there was a random 'Squirrel' shout during that weekend... There were a lot of squirrels in that park...
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Post by blackngold on Feb 1, 2010 7:55:46 GMT -5
My wife and daughter are big fans of Doug.
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Post by blackngold on Feb 1, 2010 8:03:24 GMT -5
In my mail on Saturday was an envelope from Target and another one from Toys R Us. I opened the Target one first. It was a brand spanking new credit card. I set it down thinking it was some promotional thing like they used to do in the 80's and early 90's and opened up the Toys R Us envelope. What do you know, another credit card. Must be my lucky day. At this point alarm bells start ringing. I call target and sure enough my identity had been stolen. $1,000 from Target and $2,000 from Toys R Us. Man, I was pissed. Fortunately the damage to me was minimal. I had the cards cancelled. Put a fraud watch on my SS number with the credit rating agencies. I signed up for Lifelock, but am somewhat dubious of the necessity/effectiveness of it. My feeling is do it for a year and then reevaluate it.
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