MadDAsHell
MadDAsHell's JournalAll in good fun: "Millennial International: Sponsor a Millennial Today"
"A typical sponsorship program costs $29 a month; Millennial International is actually $2900 a month."
"Am I capable of having a job? Sure. But I just feel, like, maybe employment right now would just kinda be stifling my creativity."
"I brought him an apple pie my wife had baked him, but I totally forgot he's gluten free...he really didn't have much energy...turned out he was on a juice cleanse, and I wanna respect that."
"Many of these kids in traditional sponsorship programs are fighting diseases like malaria, pneumonia, tuberculosis...and these millennials have the same struggles: peanut allergies, pollen sensitivity, lactose intolerance...kids in Africa are getting typhoid...Declan was recently diagnosed with tennis elbow."
"I was originally paying vision and eyecare insurance for him...but it turns out his eyeglasses weren't even real."
Genius
OSU Attack Suspect Identified as Abdul Razak Ali Artan: Officials
Source: ABC News
The man suspected in an attack at Ohio State University today has been identified as Abdul Razak Ali Artan, according to law enforcement officials. The officials confirmed Artan's identity as authorities conducted a search of an address in Columbus, Ohio, that was associated with Artan in public records.
School officials said this morning's attack on the OSU campus began when the assailant drove a vehicle into several people, then exited the vehicle and began slashing at them with a knife.
A police officer near the scene responded almost immediately, shooting and killing the attacker within about a minute of the beginning of the attack. Several of the knife attack victims have been treated at nearby hospitals and are expected to survive.
Sources told ABC News that the man is of Somali descent and is a legal permanent resident in the United States. Sources said authorities believe they have found at least one posting from the attacker on Facebook, with one source saying information being collected indicates he made what was described as a "declaration" on Facebook expressing some sort of grievances over attacks on Muslims.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/osu-attack-suspect-identified-abdul-razak-ali-artan/story?id=43827435
Ugh...awful to hear. 1 dead (the suspect) and at least 8 hospitalized.
He's being described by some outlets as a "Somali refugee;" that kind of potent political weapon for Trump and his ilk is the last thing we need right now...
The first woman EVER was running, and Trump got 42% of the female vote; abortion issue to blame?
I'm not saying that the Democratic Party needs to change its stance on abortion, but I think we do need to recognize that it's as divisive an issue as ever and that we're losing millions of votes over it, and think about new communication strategies.
Over the last few years I've noticed a trend where so many progressives, especially here on DU, have seemed to bubble themselves off from reality and assume that the only opposition to abortion is coming from old, white men and that ALL women are pro-choice because, well, why wouldn't they be? They're women, it's their bodies, etc.
The reality is that there are still TENS OF MILLIONS of women in this country that, whether for religious, moral or whatever reasons (I tend to think mostly religious), are against abortion. They consider it the murder of a child, and it's especially potent for them if they are mothers themselves (or at least women who have tried to have a child). And even though abortion rights are the law and it's a settled matter, and there are tons of other issues on the ballot, including the incredible misogyny of Donald Trump and the opportunity to vote for the first female candidate, a candidate being for or against that "murder of a child" is a dealbreaker for them.
I suspect there are hundreds of thousands of female voters, maybe MILLIONS, who disagreed with Trump on nearly every single issue, were incredibly offended by his rhetoric, and agreed with Clinton on nearly every single issue. But the fact that he could claim he was against abortion, while she proudly supported it, was the dealbreaker (especially late-term abortions).
The question is, is there anything at all that we can do to stop people from making their voting decision on this single (already settled) issue? Think about it. Wouldn't your vote be affected if, in your mind, you were choosing between someone who is pro-murder and someone who is anti-murder? What can we do differently on this issue? What framing needs to occur?
Do only genetic charactertistics count as "history" in elections?
I love seeing us break through racial and gender barriers, but is not the way someone was raised and their experiences in life way more impactful on the way they would conduct themselves as a politician than their gender or race?
Isn't a millionaire a millionaire, whether or not their skin is darker or they have a vagina? Do Herman Cain and Sarah Palin deserve to be elected just because their race/gender are "historical?"
I'd love to see US voters start to scrutinize the backgrounds of candidates to find their "history," not just what's between their legs or what their skin hue is.
Where are the homeless? The poor? The single mothers? The HIV-positive individuals? The abuse survivors? Where are any of these folks in our "historical" elections?
With her qualifications, I suspect Hillary could have won with a 100% positive campaign.
Was watching the Cubs game last night and I didn't see nearly as many HRC ads about Hillary as I did HRC ads about Trump.
But with as qualified as she is and as qualified as he isn't, it would have been a fascinating experiment if she had stepped up and tried the 100% positive campaign that focused only on why she was qualified, not why he isn't. Not only to see her win with that approach, but to also see if it has a positive post-election effect in terms of bringing people together.
Do you think we'll ever see that type of campaign in our lifetimes? If the most qualified candidate in history didn't take that approach, I'm skeptical unfortunately 
Do you think candidates would ever agree to mic off/on in sync with the timer?
I've always wondered why, if interruptions and going "past your time" is such a big deal in debates, why the hosts don't just sync the mics to turn off and on depending on whose turn it is to speak and how much time they're given?
Or would the candidates never agree to this?
Or maybe the networks secretly love the interrupting, combative style because it makes for better drama?
"Use Tax": How many of us actually pay it?
If you're not familiar, Use Tax is "a sales tax on purchases made outside one's state of residence on taxable items that will be used, stored or consumed in one's state of residence and on which no tax was collected in the state of purchase." i.e. We're all supposed to be paying sales tax on our online purchases: Amazon, Ebay, any other online business. If the website itself doesn't calculate and charge you the tax, you're supposed to figure out what you owe and submit it with your year-end taxes. Most tax software today has a section dedicated to helping you calculate and pay this tax.
While some states already have at least some arrangements to collect sales tax (usually because a retailer has a physical presence in that state), many states do not. And many online businesses don't have arrangements to collect sales tax for any state besides that in which they are HQ'd. So a significant amount of the collection is up to taxpayer honesty.
An NPR article a few years ago said that while 45 states have a use tax (i.e. a system through which people can calculate and pay their owed sales tax), only about 1.6 percent of the taxpayers in those 45 states actually pay the use tax . There's something like $11 billion dollars that states are missing out on here.
My question is, how many of us are actually calculating and paying this tax every year? Are we practicing what we preach when we talk about all taxpayers paying their fair share?
I'll start; I make an effort to calculate any owed sales tax from the main places I buy online (Amazon and Ebay), but don't for the places I might buy something from one time. So I'm at least partly avoiding it.
On edit: asking because we have a business client undergoing its annual audit and they're being scrutinized regarding online purchases and whether use tax was paid, and over lunch several of us started speculating just how ubiquitous avoidance is at both the business and consumer level.
You know what's crazy? At least 40% of the population will still vote for Trump.
It is extremely rare in a 2-person Presidential race for the losing candidate to not garner at least 40% support from the voting population, regardless of the policies, positions, or actions of that losing candidate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin
His campaign seems to be going off a cliff, and from an electoral college vote standpoint a Trump victory is looking less and less and less likely.
However, as difficult as it is for my brain to grasp it, as it is for many others I suppose, especially if we live in a bubble and only really socialize/mingle with other Democrats, history tells us that nearly half of the people that live, work, and play around us are going to go into that voting booth on November 8 convinced that Trump will be a better President than Hillary Clinton...
...REGARDLESS of what Trump or Hillary says/does over the next 90 days. That's insane to think about.
Is it "justice" if you don't agree with the outcome?
As so many controversial cases have concluded their journey through the courts over the last few years, we've all heard our share of people referring to a judicial outcome as "unjust" or failing to "deliver justice" to a person(s) or their family.
Or before the investigation has even started (often within mere hours of the incident in question), individuals saying that they're seeking "justice" and only "justice" will do. i.e. "no justice, no peace," though rarely do these individuals come right out and say what they mean by "justice."
Even the National Bar Association, a predominantly African-American legal organization (that I'm actually a member of), started referring to decisions its membership (presumably) disagrees with as "unjust," while simultaneously saying it "respects the law" and acknowledging that said decisions usually follow years of investigation and legal proceedings.
So as a lawyer interested in possibly writing on this topic, I'm asking DUer's opinions: what is justice? Is it a process? Is it a specific outcome?
And if it's an outcome, does each case have only one "just" outcome? If so, whose preferred outcome is considered the "just" one, and how do we control for that from case to case as the involved parties change?
Truly interested in the input of anyone willing to share their perspective.
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Member since: Wed Nov 5, 2014, 11:56 AMNumber of posts: 2,067
