kgambit

Mine hasn't watched Arrow and I don't think she's going to like The Flash but she likes AGENTS of Shield, Agent Carter, and Gotham. FWIW, she thinks Lucifer is terrible. can't figure out why women would hate lucifer. ........ If you knew her in RL you could ask her directly instead of theorizing about the reasons; but you don't. If you like the show, fine. She doesn't. Neither do I. End of discussion.

Mine hasn't watched Arrow and I don't think she's going to like The Flash but she likes AGENTS of Shield, Agent Carter, and Gotham. FWIW, she thinks Lucifer is terrible.

Anyone interested in a 90% off Steam coupon for Particle Mace?

Told of that, (Spurs GM) R.C. Buford had his own line: "We'll see how Wednesday goes." I call piling on ........

And I stopped reading right there ........

Final seal is broken ...... Who are you planning on voting for .... As it stands right now? None of the above ......

Final seal is broken ......

Busy day 1) Completed repairs for the heat pump for upstairs (the fan motor needed to be replaced) 2) Finished the fed and state tax forms 3) Laid in emergency supplies in case we lose power over the weekend - forecast is for up to 10-12 inches of snow 4) Helped the wife make pizza for dinner - no pineapple and no anchovies.... LOL

Is ISIS controlled oil factored into world oil prices though, since it isn't traded legally? It effects how much there is demand for legally produced oil. And oil price is determined by how much demand there are compared to amount oil that is produced. But I would guess that ISIS controlled oil has quite marginal impact on oil prices. ISIS oil production (in Syria and Iraq combined) accounts for ~ 0.04 % to 0.1% of global production (~96 mbpd) and has a negligible impact on global markets. It's beyond laughable to think that cutting off ISIS production would result in a catastrophic price increase when there is a current over-supply of roughly 1.9 mbpd and oil stockpiles increased by nearly 2 billion barrels in 2015. Iran will have a far bigger impact on global markets if/when it increases its production by nearly 800,000 bpd after production limiting sanctions are removed.

Navy Aims to Install Over-the-Horizon Missile on Littoral Combat Ship by End of 2016 http://news.usni.org/2016/01/07/navy-aims-to-install-over-the-horizon-missile-on-littoral-combat-ship-by-end-of-2016

The complete series (excluding the graphic novel and short stories) spans over 2 dozen novels (28 total iirc?). You can catch the first four episodes here: http://www.mtv.com/shows/shannara

The cats got catnip mice but weren't impressed. So we went outside and cut some fresh catnip for them. They are now in drug induced stupors and purring up a storm. Merry Christmas to all.

Those numbers don't mean what you think they mean. They're from estimates produced under the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002, which requires agencies to estimate the amount of all "improper payments" in their programs. "Improper Payments" is much broader than fraud. It includes any overpayment, underpayment, payment made to the wrong recipient, and, for complicated reasons, any payment for which the people doing the estimate can't find sufficient supporting information to verify. https://paymentaccuracy.gov/ is the official reporting vehicle. It's also not a great way to defend DOD spending, because DOD can't even get its recordkeeping together well enough to produce a statistically valid estimate. But, yeah, federally-funded state-administered programs with huge numbers of beneficiaries and complicated qualification criteria are the areas where it is hardest to ensure that payments are going to the right people. (Particularly in the healthcare field, where time doesn't often allow for lengthy verification processes.) You can always make improvements, but it's kind of the nature of the beast with that type of spending. I do know the difference Enoch. I was quoting estimates for fraudulent claims only. An estimate by the GAO published in October of this year, (see attached link) for improper payments is much higher (as you would expect). From the enclosed link: I'm not trying to gloss over the issues with the DOD budget. The cost overruns for the F-35 program are well known and some people think the entire program was wasted money. I can't tell you if the cost overruns are due to improper program management, poor initial cost estimates, fraud or something else. I'm not suggesting that the DOD doesn't have some house cleaning to do as well. Regardless of whether the waste is endemic to the systems or not, the waste does exist and on a massive scale. PS: I'll concede that any estimate is no better than the underlying assumptions driving it. I don't consider estimates hard numbers - more as indicators of the potential magnitude of the problem.

Sounds to me like we should expand the Federal law enforcement and Treasury Dept. budget so we can hire more Secret Service agents, IRS agents, Postal Inspectors, U.S. Attorneys, and fund better equipment and the like to catch these crooks! There is a program in place to investigate Medicaid fraud called Recovery Audit Contractor (created by Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006) which has had a great beginning and recovered over a billion dollars. Maybe we should start eliminating redundancies and instituting some real oversight on how tax money is spent instead of just blindly calling for budget cuts.

You mean one of these? <snip> What's the problem exactly? Did the Navy order one made out of glass, gold plated or the wrong size? No, we just don't need another supercarrier added to the fleet. Especially given a time where everyone and their brother is shouting "austerity, we won't make it another year without cutting budgets!" Considering the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) was christened in 2001, your objection seems just a trifle bit late. But they're building the JFK (CVN 79) with the keel laid in 2015, and a new Enterprise with the keel scheduled to be laid in 2018. And these are 18 billion a pop. No. The total program cost is $36 billion for THREE carriers and includes ~ $5 billion dollars for R&D. The actual cost for construction of the Gerald Ford was ~$9 billion dollars and the average cost for each carrier estimated at $10.45 billion spread over 5 years. The Gerald Ford was launched in 2013 and will be commissioned this coming year, the JFK has a scheduled launch in 2018 and the Enterprise has a scheduled launch in 2023. The Gerald Ford replaced the forty year old Nimitz and the other 2 Ford class carriers are intended to replace the Eisenhower - commissioned in 1977 and the Carl Vinson - commissioned in 1982. If you were referring to the future Gerald Ford class carriers why did you specifically mention the Ronald Reagan which is a Nimitz class and then just it's propeller? Thinking the USN was building a SHIELD Heli-carrier perhaps? If you really want to bitch about something, try complaining about the actual waste and fraud in the budget. Like the $60 billion ANNUAL waste due to Health care fraud ($10 billion from Medicaid alone) or Social Security waste where the government is making SS payments to approximately 6.5 million people who are over the age of 112. Edit: Revised the program costs, added R&D and more cost details.

You mean one of these? <snip> What's the problem exactly? Did the Navy order one made out of glass, gold plated or the wrong size? No, we just don't need another supercarrier added to the fleet. Especially given a time where everyone and their brother is shouting "austerity, we won't make it another year without cutting budgets!" Considering the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) was christened in 2001, your objection seems just a trifle bit late.

Showing the play after he hits the ground? How about showing a video of the entire sequence? There is a video from NFL.com posted on Yahoo sports that appears to show Green had control prior to that. Admittedly it was just one angle but I think the Zebras missed this one.

You mean one of these? What's the problem exactly? Did the Navy order one made out of glass, gold plated or the wrong size?

No. Have a root canal instead. It's less painful.

Too funny even for FIFA ...... http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/sports/soccer/fifa-conmebol-corruption-argentina-federation-vote.html?_r=0

@Gromnir - Hurlshot was correct actually insofar as he only mentioned revenues. Gromnir's numbers for the NCAA financials are pretty accurate. You can check them out here: http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/NCAA%20Financials%202014.08.31%20-%20Final_0.pdf The NCAA is the sole negotiator only for the TV rights for 24 NCAA Championship tournaments*. That includes the Men's and Women's Final Fours, the NIT, the CFP and associated bowl games; the CWS for baseball and softball and the Frozen Four and over a dozen more. The Men's FInal Four is a 14 year deal with CBS / Turner worth 11 billion $ and the CFP deal with ESPN is worth 470 million per year. Those are the two major revenue sources for the NCAA. You are correct that most of the revenue received is disbursed but it is not disbursed to the universities. It is paid out to the conferences and the conferences are then free to distribute that money any way they choose. The fund distribution is not equal between or within conferences. Conferences with more teams get a larger payout and participating teams get a bigger share based on how far they advance in the various tournaments. That is the extent of the NCAA's involvement in negotiating TV deals. The individual conferences negotiate their own TV deals independent of the NCAA for regular season games and conference championship games. The NCAA has no hand in any negotiations beyond the NCAA Championships.* The recent 2014 agreement between ESPN/CBS and the SEC for football rights including the conference championship game did not involve the NCAA. Neither have the prior agreements between the BIG12 and ESPN/Fox; the PAC12 and ESPN/FOX; the ACC and ESPN; or the BIG10 and BTN, ESPN, FOX and CBS. The deals involving the big 5 conferences originally returned a combined average value of $1.15 billion per year in 2014. That figure increased with the 20 year SEC/ESPN agreement signed in 2014 which created the SEC Network. The latest estimate puts the figure at $1.45 billion just with the increases from the prior year's revenue for the SEC and the BIG10 alone. It does not include any increases from the ACC, PAC12 and BIG12. Just to be clear, those figures do NOT include revenue from any NCAA championships. Further the funds generated by the big 5 networks are not uniformly distributed across the entirety of the NCAA membership, nor even across the entirety of division 1. The funds generated by conference affiliated networks are distributed solely to the member universities of that conference and to no one else. In addition, the big 5 conference networks retain broadcast rights for games not aired on the networks in other deals. CBS retains first right of broadcast and can select the SEC games it chooses to air first; the remainder are then free for broadcast by the SEC Network. (Note: It's not clear if CBS retains exclusive broadcast rights to their selected games or not; or if they simply have an exclusive broadcast window which will later allow the network to broadcast a game on tape delay.) The ownership of these networks is a mixed bag. The SEC Network was created and is owned by ESPN. The BIG10 network is a 50/50 joint venture between the Big10 and Fox. ACC Network is owned by RAYCOM Sports. The PAC12 conference has 100% ownership over the PAC12 network and it's 6 regional sub-networks. The owners of the conference networks negotiate with various carriers such as Comcast, Charter, DirectTV, DIshTV and others for subscriber fees. The SEC added Comcast to its distribution list in 2014 expanding its coverage to 46 million households (at the time - its even larger now) and was still negotiating with other carriers. In its first year of operation, SEC Network returned $455.8 million and distributed a record $436.8 million to the member 14 schools: a record $31.5 million each. An additional $19 million was distributed to schools participating in bowl games. Some teams such as University of Texas and Notre Dame do have their own private broadcast deals with providers that are also outside the control of the NCAA. One major issue encountered by the BIG12 in negotiating their contract with ESPN/FOX was the complications caused by the conflict of interest with ESPN over the Longhorn Network which was subsidized by ESPN and which claimed exclusive rights to all UT football games. Pretty massive numbers, right? Well, here's one more: 346 NCAA Division 1 schools paid a total of $2.2 billion in scholarships/financial aid to athletes in 2014. (add in Division II and the number climbs to $2.7 billion.) Each Division 1 school can offer the equivalent of ~440 full scholarships (some sports allow fractional scholarships). * The NCAA does act as the collection agent for cable television royalty payments and resolve disputes between claimants. They do not negotiate with the cable providers. It's not clear if the NCAA also acts as a collection agent for cable subscriber fees.

Giveaway Time ...... A friend gave me a brand new dvd/digital copy of Season 1 of The Last Ship. Inside the case were TWO codes for redeeming a digital copy on Ultraviolet. I've used one, the second one is up for grabs. If you aren't familiar with UV or Flixster, check them out here: https://www.myuv.com/ http://www.flixster.com/ Just to reiterate: this is a digital copy only; it is not region specific and it does require a UV and Flixster account. Here's the rules: If you're interested, send me a pm You will need to have an Ultraviolet account and probably a Flixster account as well. SPA accounts are not eligible for this. Sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rh6qqsmxNs

Kobe's shot chart from the GS game. This is just brutally bad.

Brooklyn isn't far behind the Lakers for ineptitude. My favorite lottery scenario is Brooklyn getting the top pick which is unprotected (from the Pierce Garnet trade which has to be one of the greatest heists in history) and goes to Boston who take Simmons (a one and done at LSU) as their pick.