I'm sorry, I really should let it go, but...

Terminator 2 was not empty. Aliens was not completely empty. The Abyss was classic start shooting before you have a script debacle. True Lies was just plain offensive. (Those movies are fundamentally about Fatherhood, Motherhood, Marriage, and Cameron not realizing that he's a dick, respectively.)

The LotR movies, including The Hobbit, all made my ass hurt. Here's a good rule of thumb: movies should not take as long to watch as it takes to read the book.

It's the budget (which you allude to above) which is the problem. For a given film-maker, pretty much the bigger the budget, the worse the movie. Peter Jackson made Meet the Feebles, for goodness, sake. When he had to scrape by, he made amazing things. Cameron and Lucas have basically the same problem.

In your comment above you say Lucas only directed one good film. This is wrong, because you've forgotten THX 1138 and American Graffiti -- neither as good as the first star wars movie, but neither as bad as anything he did after that.

Damn them.

This completely violates our historical treatment of the lakefront for the past 100 years and has been specifically forbidden since the 70's. They are putting it right between the only other two structures which do the same thing. We've had two mayors in a row who do not understand the lakefront and it's role in Chicago, or who just don't give a crap. Daniel Burnham would have reamed them a new one. If they want 7 stories, they're welcome to it, but only if they dig 5 stories down.

Furthermore, this placement of a major draw right between two other major draws is a great idea, because transit to the other two venues already doesn't work. Let's make it worse. Brilliant. They currently have one train which stops right nearby which isn't connected to the rest of the transit system, and another train which is connected but which doesn't come close enough for most people to consider taking it. There's parking all around and it all exits into a small area of road, so that traffic gets to be a nightmare around these two venues.

Yeah, let's add another. And let's make it so tall it blots out the lake.

Bastards.

Hopefully friends of the park will sue them into submission. Put this damn thing on the other side of the drive. It's so tall it won't matter where you put it anyway. Hell, it's so big you could run I55 right through it.

Yep, let's say he walks on water. He won't win.

Want to get him elected? Get him to say he's a Republican.

The system sucks, but that's the system.

There are only two parties. Get over it. You're fucked.

The libertarians can't win. The Greens can't win. The independents can't win. If we got rid of the Democrats and the Republicans, I we all know who'd win the next election: The Democrats and the Republicans.

You're putting words into his mouth and seeing a fight where there isn't one. Bush was a catastrophe. Obama is 8 more years of the same and worse.

You don't have to love Republicans to hate Democrats or vice versa.

It's the nature of American politics that, almost by definition, it wouldn't.

They'll take a second look, and the smart ones will go with chromebooks. The chromebook world is full of boxes which perform acceptably at a low cost. They have no recurring costs. They're disposable. When one is smashed, you can use can replace it with without any setup at all. Work is never lost due to a disk crash.

The kids can install Linux and mess with that on these things. It runs reasonably well.

You can still have some Windows or Macs around to do the hard-core crap (that wouldn't work on underpowered windows boxes either) but the massive bulk of the computing needs for the students should be chromebooks. It solves lots of problems and has both a low entry price and a low continuing price.

Hardly a political decision.

No, that's what trade school is for.

No, that doesn't follow.

The handout to the employee enables the corporation to employ workers at a lower rate, and without it they could not -- they would be forced to pay more because their workers would die at the rates they paid them.

The hypothetical handout to the corporation might get it to pay more, but not only would it not be required to, it could have paid that extra money without the handout.

See nbauman's link above: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10

Thank you. You are quite correct.

We do jail people driving way over the speed limit. Google it. People get points on their licenses and have them suspended or revoked for repeat offenses.

There's only one mention of it on that page.

You are incorrect.

The workers they brought over were not allowed to work in the US. If they had been on H1Bs, they would have to have been paid competitive rates for skilled workers (you can't bring over H1Bs unless they have skills you can't find enough of in the US) so they must be worth $20 an hour at least. If the workers had had real work visas they could have gotten low skill jobs which paid a bit more than minimum wage and would have gotten overtime, would have had some rights, could have negotiated with their employers, gotten raises, changed companies, etc. Certainly they needn't have worked for EFI and gotten minimum wage and no overtime.

So this company didn't save $40,000. They saved more than $80,000. And the government looked right at them and yet still somehow managed to look the other way.

So your points are logically correct, but they save more like 40 cents on the dollar even if they're caught 100% of the time.

Yes, jailing EFI's board of directors would be a start. They are responsible for the company and ultimately, if you can't figure out who really broke the law here, they're responsible. They are also the most likely to affect change, once they get out of prison.

We need to do both.

"Quisat Custodies ipsos custodes" is a fragment of s rant by Juvenal and what he means is that your wife will be such a slut that she'll bribe the people you pay to watch her so she can screw everything that moves. Possibly including the watchment themselves. He's saying you can't trust women. It's not a comment on how to run a government.

It's still appropriate, but you should know where your quotes come from.