The Goat Pen

I'm not sure how I would react to a drone hovering outside my window.

South Park had a good episode about that, with the drone owners creating a drone neighborhood watch and then the police getting drones to pull over other drones.

I remember as kids how cool we thought it was to have one of those rocket kits that had a camera in it. 9 times out of 10 it would never work, but we all wanted to be like those drone operators today.

However at this point, I don't see how enjoyable it is to have a $300 toy that can fly for 15 minutes. Just like those Cox airplanes. Any toy that needs more prep time than playing time just ends up in the attic at my house.

We were bored at my cousins wedding in Michigan several years back and bought one of those Cox airplanes. I was too young to play with it but my brother and brother-n-law got it going. Thing started up and went straight for my 75ish grandfather. He hit the ground to avoid being scalped by it. Only time I ever heard that man say fuck out loud.

We ended up buying a Tonka jeep and rigging the motor onto the wheel. That was as cool jeep for all of the 6 times we got it to run.

fuck it, now I want to go buy a Cox airplane. Do they still make those piece of shit toys?

The idea that if you see a drone its someone spying on you has become very pervasive among the stupid. This one is a little different, but I just shake my head when I hear about some nutjob going Rambo on a drone in like a suburban neighborhood.

I'm not a big fan of Bill Maher but this was pretty funny

[youtube]LATqcoGOsxE[/youtube]

that said, when Bill Maher isn't acting like a swarmy jackass, he does a decent interview

[youtube]hDRxbQlpqmo[/youtube]

went on my first college visit with my son today.

I think he was impressed enough with UC that is where he'll end up.

I know its almost a cliche' right now but I was kinda stunned at how expensive the whole concept is. Its $100k for 4 years of being on campus.

wow.

Make him run laps

we sat down last night with a spreadsheet and worked out a way where he'll graduate and not owe any money. I'm glad we had that 529 plan. There is going to be some pain involved for both of us. I expect him to contribute $20K with co-ops and summer jobs between now and 2021, plus he'll need to pony up about $600 - $700 a month in 2020-2021 for rent his senior year as he moves off campus. I'll end up kicking in ... my pontoon boat money ...I mean a bit on top of the 529 plan but as least we have a plan where he isn't saddled with debt when he graduates. I'm actually relieved.

I had to plan all this while keeping in mind I'll be going thru this again with my daughter in 2 years so I can't overly commit to him. There goes my Cadillac CTS

" I'll end up kicking in ... my pontoon boat money ..."

[youtube]V0O0nzkESTI[/youtube]

My senior daughter has me in the same situation. My oldest boy spoiled me by going to the local engineering program and living at home. I pay his $6K a year in tuition out of the 529 plan and let him keep what he earns at his 30 hours a week Pep Boys job. Not only will he be debt free he will have some cash in bank after its said and done with.

My daughter, however, has her mother's work ethic whilst attending out of state studying fashion design. I will be forking it over until I die, I'm afraid.

living at home and doing the local community college thing is the way to go as long as you can

so much depends on what he is studying

it better be something he can only get on a major campus

student loans is high finances newest way to rip you off

and so many of the kids wind up in debt up to their ass managing a chain business of some sort

It drives my wife crazy when I play the pontoon song along with redneck woman. She won't be in the room with me.

When she leaves the room, you should yell "you know you want to"...

Get the kids thru college, then splurge and get the CTS-V...

Employees of midsize and large companies in 2015 paid an average of $4,700 for their health insurance, up from $2,001 in 2005, according to recent analysis from Aon Hewitt.

Because they are looking for solutions to high costs, companies are changing the design of their benefit programs, Aon Hewitt Senior Vice President Mike Morrow said, moving toward leaner plans. In fact, 38% of employers have increased their participants’ deductibles and/or copays in the last year, and another 46% may do so in the future, the report from Aon said.

Companies are also beginning to offer high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) more frequently, an option that didn’t really exist for employers until the last decade, said Gerald Kominski, the director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research; they are now the second-most popular plan choice, surpassing health-maintenance organization plans (HMOs).

Employers are making cutbacks in health coverage in other ways, too. Some 18% of companies are reducing subsidies for covered dependents, and 17% are adding a surcharge for adult dependents who have access to other health coverage. Plus, 43% of companies are considering using unitized pricing, in which employees pay per person instead of individual versus family.

“It comes down to a fairness-and-equity point of view,” Morrow said. “If you are covering many more members of your family than another employee, is it fair that your contributions are the same?”

These types of increases in health-care costs do make a significant impact on workers’ purchasing power, since they happen faster than increases in wages, Kominski said.

in the shitstorm that Trump has stirred up, if I was advising him, I'd push him to double down and start talking to the women of this country

You want to get people pissed off about Muslims? Start asking the feminist and pro-lifers if they want to support a religion that tells a woman to cover up in public and walk five paces behind a man. A religion that believes in forced marriages, etc

Women will start losing their minds over that kind of thing.

Then I'd remind Americans that we aren't the only ones that are concerned about Muslims - I'd ask them to look at Saudi Arabia and the other muslims countries, - and ask them why they aren't taking in the lionshare or any of the muslims that are becoming refugees in this country, when they are wealthy muslims themselves. Why Egypt has shut down 500 mosques in the last 2 years and why Germany has demanded the Saudi stop financing the Wahabi sects

then I'd remind the politicians who are slamming me to ask Merkel if she'd do anything differently the past 4 months.

The enlightened folk may think Trump is a fascist dictator wannabe - but he's getting the heartland, he's getting the people who have been conditioned for the last 12 years to fear these people and he's getting a boatload of democrats who don't understand why their government isn't putting their safety first.

Finally, to those who are calling him the next Hitler, I would ask - would you have let Nazis come into America in 1943? Would you have been able to tell a Nazi from a German citizen when they arrived at Ellis Island?



The issue to me personally is that Muslims are looking the other way and not doing nearly enough to self police this sort of thing. And its time for American policy to treat it as such.

The Supreme Court has held consistently, for more than a century, that constitutional protections that normally benefit Americans and people on American territory do not apply when Congress decides who to admit and who to exclude as immigrants or other entrants. This is called the plenary power doctrine. The Court has repeatedly turned away challenges to immigration statutes and executive actions on grounds that they discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, and political belief, and that they deprive foreign nationals of due process protections. While the Court has not ruled on religious discrimination, it has also never given the slightest indication that religion would be exempt from the general rule.

There is even precedent for Trump’s plan. In 1891, Congress passed a statute that made inadmissable people who practice polygamy (directed, at the time, at Mormons), and in 1907 extended this ban to people who “who admit their belief in the practice of polygamy.” While Congress later repealed the latter provision (the former seems to be still on the books), no court–as far I know–ruled it unconstitutional.

The plenary power doctrine is universally loathed by scholars and some have argued that it is effectively a dead letter. But any honest answer to a journalist’s question about whether Trump’s plan to ban Muslim immigration is unconstitutional should start with the plenary powers doctrine, and observe that it would be an uphill battle to persuade the Supreme Court to abandon a century of precedent. Unfortunately, that is not what scholars–who certainly know better–are telling journalists. They are likely being abetted by journalists and headline writers who don’t like the idea that Trump’s ban would be lawful.

Man, type away. Trump is horrible for the party. After this is over, the Republican Party will file for a name change.

I agree he is horrible for the party but the party has been a steaming pile since...well...Reagan to be honest. I'm perfectly fine with GOP blowing up and something else fills the void.

Trump isn't a stereo type republican, he's probably not even sincere - but his extreme positions have forced a conversation that up until now, Democrats and Republicans were too politically correct to talk about.

I love what he's doing - and while he'd be the biggest wildcard president ever, he's not going to diminish the presidency any more than a single term Chicago senator or a Mayor of Wasilla , Alaska.

I don't think he'll win - but he's forcing the republicans to take positions they'd never take in order to get a footing in the heartland

and at the same time Bernie Sanders is forcing Hillary to go more left and not be a moderate. Plus, one of her most important advisors just wrote an op ed about being a proud Muslim. That's going to cost her moderate voters as well. Given the chance, Trump will pounce on that if he can pull off the Muslim rhetoric and still maintain a lead over Cruz and Rubio.

Fears of terrorism have now been layered on top of the issue of illegal immigration. Long-standing fears about Islamic State terrorism have intensified since the recent attacks in Paris and now the shootings in San Bernardino by a young California couple who had been radicalized but managed to conceal the transformation until it erupted last week.

Stanford’s Kennedy pointed to “inchoate, diffuse, free floating anxiety” brought on by economic strains, the nation’s inability to extract itself from Middle East wars and a generally unsettled world as other causes for Trump’s appeal. He also noted that in contrast to times past, what once held extreme expressions in check no longer does.

“We’ve known for a long time that we’re just less trustful as a people,” he said. “We have less confidence in our major institutions and our leaders. . . . He gets denounced routinely when he does these things and everyone gets up and says this is not a voice we should listen to. But nobody has credibility on the other side. Nobody has the cultural authority to put this guy down. . . . All the condemnation in the world falls on deaf ears.”

What once might have seemed inconceivable in political debate has become acceptable, at least to a part of the population. That makes this moment a potential inflection point in the life of the country.