You're just upset because of this: Former NBA player Oliver Miller pleads guilty to pistol whipping girlfriend’s brother By Associated Press, Published: November 2 ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A former professional basketball player has pleaded guilty to assaulting his girlfriend’s brother after a cookout in Maryland. Oliver J. Miller, who played for the Phoenix Suns and other teams in the 1990s, pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and carrying a handgun Tuesday in court in Anne Arundel County. According to prosecutors, Miller and his girlfriend’s brother argued at the cookout in April and Miller later hit him repeatedly in the head with a gun. The man required 11 staples to close his wounds. Miller’s attorney did not immediately return a phone call requesting comment. Sentencing is set for Dec. 16. Sentencing guidelines suggest Miller might spend four to nine years in prison, though because he does not have a record he will likely spend much less time behind bars. Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...ends-brother/2011/11/02/gIQAaTshfM_story.html
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I can't help but notice that PigMiller hasn't even tried to respond to this post. Rationality must be scary.
Why is socialism seen as an evil? As long as you have an appropriate mix of capitalism and socialism, then things generally work out fine. You cannot have a completely laissez-faire economy (or else everybody just gets exploited endlessly by the firms) but a completely socialist government is crap as well (or else the government has to resort to oppression to achieve it). In a sense, insurance works best on a nation-wide level, primarily the law of large numbers, indeed you are using the largest number of people possible, and get rid of adverse selection at the same time. And what on earth is that link for the Internet in Finland about? Heck, if anything, I'd welcome a government coming around and saying 'Ok, now it's actually a RIGHT to have the Internet'. I thought Republicans kept going on and on about freedom and rights, well Finland just gave every citizen right to the Internet, so I'm slightly confused why it's in the OP's post. The oil article is also 3 years old, and it even points out that everybody was laughing at Waters for suggesting socialising the oil industry, so I'm not sure where in that article you thought that liberals in general wanted to socialise oil...
To be fair, a second look at my own post reveals a pretty glaring flaw in logic. So allow me to repost with a bit of editing (bolded for emphasis): I don't think anybody argues that it's IMPOSSIBLE for a small market team to win in baseball. But the odds are stacked against them. The problem with your argument is that it looks at one season only. One season allows for statistical deviations that might otherwise go completely against the norm. You need to look at success over time - if the big market teams are playoff teams over and over again (even with significant turnover in the rosters), then it's safe to say that baseball's lack of parity in money means those big-money teams have an unfair advantage.
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http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/v...Tg#search="world series winners team payroll" "While conventional wisdom holds that teams have the ability to “buy” championships in baseball because there is no salary cap, our evidence does not support this claim. In the postseason we found no statistically significant relationship between wins and team payroll. Although the period from 1995 to 2000 demonstrated such correlation, the relationship disappeared when the Yankees were viewed as an historical anomaly and removed from the analysis. These Yankee teams were able to spend their way to four championships in five years and become the only real championship dynasty in the free agent era. The statistically insignificant relationship between postseason wins and team payroll conforms to our hypothesis that the playoffs are a random event. Other unsuccessful attempts to find explanations for postseason success corroborate this contention. Neither regular season winning percentage, the level of internalization, performance over the final month of the season nor a team’s pitching or power statistics seem to be related to a team’s postseason success. Besides the Yankee exception, a postseason in which a team has to win 7, 8 or 11 games is too short for any explanatory variable to take effect. Because of the nature of a postseason series, one off night or even a lucky bounce can lead to the elimination of a ballclub. Therefore we conclude that the playoffs are a random event in the free agent period. Compared to other American professional sports leagues, Major League Baseball maintains a healthy degree of competitive balance. The level of imbalance during the regular season ensures that the playoffs include at least a few of the same perennial contenders. The presence of these clubs keeps casual fans interested in the game. However, since the turn of the 21st century, eight different ball clubs have won a World Series championship. This diversity of winners stands in stark contrast to a league such as the NBA, in which only eight franchises have won going back to 1980. The NFL suffers from such excessive randomness that Super Bowl teams can end up in the cellar the following season. We believe that ultimately the fortune of any professional sports league depends on a playoff system that stimulates maximum interest from the league’s fan base. The familiar faces combined with the unpredictable nature of the outcome make for exciting October baseball. Thus, the current payroll and salary structure in Major League Baseball contribute to the continued success of the game."
Hey Hightop, No one response to your post asking communists what they think. Maybe you have to wait longer for a communist to read your post. Geez, so impatient aren't ya?
I would happily be a Utopian Communist, but I don't trust one of you f***ers to play it square. You'd be all takin' more than you need and not givin' all you can. Cept Max, maybe Giddy.
Where I live, healthcare costs maybe $30 a month for people (including *cough* non-citizens), but most doctors make maybe 50k to 70k a year. Common medications are subsidized, and people with terminal illnesses are paid a modest stipend to prevent undue burden on their families. Food is subsidized, but only staples like bread, vegetables, fruit and dairy products, making it much easier for poor people to make healthy food choices rather than eating junk food to survive. This in turn keeps overall medical costs lower. There is a 100% tax on automobile purchases, and a punitive fuel tax, forcing most people to walk, bike, or use public transportation unless a car or truck is needed for their business. That keeps the air cleaner, the people thinner and keeps tax money flowing to growing the bus fleet and new rail routes rather than having to build and maintain new roads. This is possible in a corrupt country that spends even more of its GNP on war than the US does, where the average family makes a bit more than $1000 a month, where property prices are about the same as Southern California...and the life expectancy is considerably higher than the US and the unemployment rate is 5%. It's also headed by a collection of hawkish arch-conservatives, religious fundamentalists and nationalists, all of which would be butt hurt if you called them "liberals" or "communists." And yet, for all of the hand holding and woo pitching these cats seem to get on with the GOP - every one of them would voted out of office faster than you can say "general strike" if they tried implementing the ideas of their red state benefactors. I think there is a healthy balance between the needs of private enterprise and the collective well-being of a society, and it can sometimes be a burden but living in a society where basic needs are met for vast majority of people is a much less stressful life, and one that gives its people a freedom to start the businesses they want or study the subject that interest them rather than work for more money in jobs they hate in order to provide for their basic needs.
