caeron

Congratulations!

I was sad when I read this story. As a gay guy who got a ton of abuse in school, I sympathized. I thought of suicide quite seriously back then. It also angers me. I want to just beat these bullies with a 2x4.

I've been on the internet for 25 years (from the days of the arpanet). I've never seen political discussion do anything other than turn into a drunken brawl. Who knows, this might be the first site to manage it, but I doubt it. If we end up there, I will participate much less. My experience is that these discussions are very low signal to noise ratio discussions with much interest in scoring points and little interest in debating. Even if they are debates, they are usually useless because if you strip it all away, it's just different people saying they have different political priorities than others. If two people have different priorities for judging political decisions, there is really no useful basis for debate. Add to that a huge helping of bitching/insults, and I find that there isn't much useful to be gained by the conversations. My .02

I think he did a couple of small reasonable liberalizations. If cuba responds well, it could happen swiftly. If we can have "normal" relations with China, we ought to be able to with Cuba.

I'm dubious about providing contact information to someone on this basis. Though I hope it's real and they succeed.

I'm guessing the MN supreme court will be the final stop. They'll either take it or they won't. I can't guess whether they will, but I'm betting that the finding of the lower court that there is no evidence of corruption in the process will stand, and that Franken will take the election.

That was amazing. I hope she's capable of more, because I hope the best for her.

I actually wanted to hire him when he was still escorting. Thought he was hot, never got around to it. Now don't regret that. Other than the self promotion, was he any good?

He does look pretty trashy in the picture, doesn't he? I guess TV makeup can do wonders.

Ah. Well I tend to agree that soliciting rough sex from a total stranger isn't something I'd do. Maybe from an escort I'd seen before. Craigslist doesn't particularly scare me, but I've had rotten luck with it finding anything other than flakes.

I'm pretty tired of egomaniacs of all stripes pretending to be journalists. I think they do a great disservice to us by turning reasoned debate into moral outrage. It may feel good, but it leads nowhere productive.

If you've followed Michael at all, you know he is a big attention whore. I'm sure he staged the whole thing for the drama of it.

We often hear about the nasty CEOs who get outrageous compensation packages. It seems to really stoke a populist outrage. But I think the interesting flipside is, what do everyday people think should happen with that money? Perhaps they think the companies should pay everyone more. But I rather suspect that if CEOs and other executive compensation comes down, then it will be the anonymous shareholder who will benefit. I suspect that people would be completely ok with the anonymous shareholder making more, but people with 'faces' making it upset them. I had a friend in college who thought it was sort of criminal for people to make a large salary. He couldn't see how it could be justified. At the time, I didn't much care, but thought he had a bit of a point. 20+ years later, I know why. Because people may be created equal, but they don't stay that way. I'm not a CEO (and wouldn't want to be), but I'm good at what I do, and am well paid. It's not that I'm worth 3 or 4 regular workers. That's a false comparison. I'm worth this much because 20 of them couldn't do what I do. Of course, then there is the argument how much that uniqueness is worth, but I think that's probably another thread....

Maybe I'm missing something, but I see nothing in the article about soliciting rough sex, or that he knew the kid was a minor. He may well have done both, but I'm not reading it. I think this kind of thing is just the reality of attempting to be intimate with a stranger. Some of them are crazy and fucked up and will kill you. There's nothing unique to craigslist about that. It's part of the human condition.

On the subject of the shamwow hawker, he apparently has a thing for female hookers and had a rather ugly incident that got him arrested. Don't follow the link if you're very squeamish http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years...27092sham1.html

I'm not very active myself on it, but I enjoy reading the updates from my friends about what they're up to. Given that they're a pretty geographically scattered bunch, it helps me stay in touch.

Gov said yesterday he'd veto it. NY Times article speculated they probably had enough votes for an override. What a change a few years brings. I don't think 10 years ago I would have thought we'd get to here.

Interesting resignation letter from one of the folks getting a big bonus. Apparently, he was working for an annual salary of $1 and the bonus. He reiterates the point that the people getting these bonuses had nothing to do with screwing the company up in the first place. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?em

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...ER&v=glance I saw him on The Daily Show. Not sure if I can pick this up though. I'm not sure I can take 300 pages of being outraged.

My father in law died of a brain thing. woke up in the night, had a head ache, keeled over, and died. Only good thing was that he could be an organ donor. Death sucks pretty much any time and any way.

I haven't gotten high in many a year. Come on California, make it easy for me :-)

At my company no. No bonus this year, and extremely unlikely next year either. But if we hit the numbers, the company doesn't get to say "oh, changed our minds, not paying you after all."

Last I heard there was suspicions that the wife knew, but not the sons. But they'll all lose everything, as well they should.

MsGuy, Just ignore 2hard2tame. He's clearly interested in starting threads about himself and gets upset when not enough people pay attention to him. The online equivalent of dancing on the table with a lampshade on your head.

Conway has it exactly right. In fact, I asked for one of those posts to be reviewed... and I'm generally considered a lefty. I believe the moderators don't have any desire for spitting matches. I hope not. But if you engage with integrity, you'll have an interesting conversation. I'm socially very left wing, economically right wing, and middle of the road on foreign diplomacy. I want to hear from all sides, but in a reasoned, and rational way. The way you might disagree at a friend's dinner party. You might express a strong opinion, but you wouldn't start insulting the other guests. Well, unless you were drunk and an ass. Which is how it comes off here.