Is YouTube down?

Or is it just me?

Hand over the kittens and nobody gets hurt!

And please hurry! Kittens are the only antidote to the crazy gun talk (pro and con) all over DU. Better yet, I think I'll just stay in the lounge for the rest of the night.

Newtown minister: "Evil visited our town, today."

I wonder if assigning this horrific act to some amorphous, unmanageable, unseeable force as "evil" exonerates us from our responsibility to act on it in any meaningful way. I know it allows self-serving creeps like Bryan Fischer to make political hay but does it really help the rest of us?

Taking evil out of the equation, as I consider the proliferation of the guns in our culture versus the problem of mental illness, I'm struck by the fact that, again, we can't see, ahead of time, the level of mental illness that result will in mass murder by firearms. But we can see assault weapons.

With that in mind, doesn't it make sense to clamp down on what we can see and touch?

We need to dial way back on the permissiveness of violence in our culture--as portrayed in news, games, commercials, movies, music videos, print ads, and so on. But, until those representations of violence make exceedingly rare appearances, if at all, shouldn't we take the means of their execution in real life out of everyone's hands?

Control what we can, now, and begin working on the rest until, culturally, we're safe again.

*Please move this to the gun forum, if necessary.*

Help, please! I want to ditch cable TV and go with antenna and a subscription like...

...Netflix (don't want the DVDs, just the streaming service) Hulu Plus, or other service (are there others?). But I am beyond confused by the whole thing. What do you guys use? If you've managed to wean yourself off of cable TV, are you happy with the decision? What do you miss the most?

I pay $70 a month for my TV service and there are only a few shows I really like--mostly re-runs of sitcoms that are no longer in production. I would miss cable news (mainly, MSNBC but CNN, to some extent, as well). I love PBS but I'm pretty sure I can pull in a good signal by antenna.

I looked at antennaweb.com and it indicates that I would need two different antennae to get all of the local channels. I'm skeptical of that but even if it's true, the only channel I'd be missing by not getting the second antenna is KGUN9 which I think is ABC.

But, for the streaming content, I don't know what system or "box" I need to get. I'm not interested in video games, so I don't necessarily need a game console. I don't own a high definition TV, if that makes a difference. Premium channels aren't of much interest to me, except that it might be good to have Current, if that's possible. Actually, though, since I've never seen Current, I'm only assuming that, as a Liberal, I'd like it.

So, any help you guys could offer would be appreciated.

Re: the Affordable Care Act, I was looking online at the current thinking on the public option...

and I found this: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/11/15/the-public-option-alive-and-well-in-obamacare/

It says that "in 2014, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the small agency that runs the federal civil service, will administer at least two nationwide health plans to compete against private insurance. OPM will be responsible for negotiating the new health plans’ medical-loss ratio, profit margins, and premiums.

"The OPM-sponsored plans will automatically qualify to compete against private health plans in the new state exchanges and thus will not be subject to the same qualifications and standards outlined in Obamacare for private plans in the exchanges. OPM must contract with an already existing large insurer, because such a plan must be offered in 60 percent of states in year one.

"These government-sponsored plans will be the only plans that can compete nationwide under a separate set of government rules. Moreover, such plans would have a clear advantage over private plans in the exchanges."

It's clearly a scare tactic-style article designed to rally health care industry lobbyists. And the fact that it's from the Heritage Foundation even further exposes the writer's agenda. But, is it true? Will we really have an option to buy our insurance from better priced federally operated plans, no matter which state we live in?

If this is true and the threat to the big health insurance companies is high, will this option become a bargaining chip for Congressional 'pukes to strong-arm Democrats with? If so, we need to do everything we can to convince our Congressional Democrats to protect it.

Barber strengthens lead over McSally (Gabby Giffords' seat)

Pima County Elections is still counting ballots and expects to continue counting through the weekend.

Pima County counted more than 10,700 ballots Friday.

The Congressional District 2 race has still not been called. Democrat Ron Barber is leading Republican Martha McSally by 1,402 votes.

Tucson's proposition 409 is also undecided. The $100 million city street repair bond is currently passing by 583 votes.

http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/20120152/ballot-counting-to-continue-through-weekend

Barber/McSally Update (Gabby Giffords' seat)

Pima County crews counted more than 2,000 early and provisional ballots yesterday. Thousands more provisional ballots still need to be counted.

Election workers have until the end of tomorrow to verify those.

The latest numbers still show a tight race for Congressional District 2.

Democrat Ron Barber's lead now stands at 923 votes over Republican Martha McSally. That is up from 709 vote lead this morning.

Is it just me or does this Petraeus business reek of Rove?

Maybe I'm behind the curve here and others here have already discussed this but doesn't it seem precisely like the sort scandal Karl Rove would attempt to manufacture? Is there any circumstantial evidence pointing to him? Should Rove be scared?

Ballot counting continues, Barber still leading McSally (Gabby Giffords' seat)

Pima County has added some updated results in the ultra close race for Arizona's Congressional District 2.

Democrat Ron Barber's lead in the CD-2 race now stands at 940 votes over Republican Martha McSally.

And there are new numbers in another close race, Tucson proposition 409.

The $100 million city street repair bond is currently passing by about 240 votes.

The ballot counting continues here and around the state.

A little more here: http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/20101188/ballot-counting-continues-barber-still-leading-mcsally

Ballot counting continues; Barber holds slim lead (Gabby Gifford's seat)

TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) - A supporter of Martha McSally in her race against Ron Barber in Congressional District 2 asked that more than 130 ballots in Cochise County be thrown out, alleging they were mishandled.

A judge agreed to put on hold the request for a restraining order aiming to stop ballot counting.

Cochise County election officials, therefore, will proceed with counting.

The CD-2 race is hinging on every vote. Barber, the Democrat incumbent, remains in the lead over McSally, 136785 to 135956.

A little more at http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/20088484/ballot-counting-continues-barber-holds-slim-lead