EvilMonkey

QUOTE (Jake @ Apr 28, 2014 -> 01:05 PM) Yeah, Illinois people tend to be pretty pessimistic. Illinois is easily the best place to live of all the surrounding states, at least, and the funny thing is that most of the people who say Illinois is one of the worst places would also say that they'd never live in those surrounding states (or the South). I would leave this place for Texas, Missouri, Arizona, Tennessee or Montana, but wife won't go. She MIGHT accept Missouri, but not at this moment.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Apr 27, 2014 -> 03:32 PM) Looking for an SUV with less than 30000 miles and no older than a 2011 for under 25000 and a 7 seater at least. Only one I seem to find is the Durango which looks really nice and has some decent reviews. Just want to do due diligence. Can anyone recommend any others? Hyundai Santa Fe. Had a rental for a month when my work Rav4 got totaled. it was very nice and we considered getting a new one of those instead of the Malibu. You can get a 2 or 3 year old Sante Fe with your specs easy.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 24, 2014 -> 06:06 AM) Anyone recommend a late model small truck? I've been looking at frontier, Tacoma, Colorado but don't really know anything about this segment. I have had 2 Rangers that I was happy with. One was extended cab and some dude totallyed it in a parking lot. The other was a regular cab Sport model with stick and a V6. I liked that one, but 6 months after I bought it, found out our second kid was on the way. It ended up becoming a minivan.

DeAza

ABru

Adam E.

We just got the base one with the ecoboost engine and while I have had faster at merging, it had no problems on the expressway coming home. Didn't notice any extra effort to get it up to 75.

Alexei

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 23, 2014 -> 10:25 AM) Coors Light? Jesus Indiana, you are embarrassing me. At least it wasn't Corona....

The Chevy Malibu is actually a pretty good car, although until the last few years, pretty bland in styling. We just bought a new one last weekend for $19k.

DeAza

Abru

Abru

Dunn

Alexei

QUOTE (buhbuhburrrrlz @ Apr 18, 2014 -> 08:17 PM) that was my understanding. it's sad looking at some of the prices on ebay. don't you have to have them graded now too? Grading only helps is you have a sought after rookie card or some super special limited production insert. I have a huge collection still, wife hates it. Complete Topps sets from 1976 until now, thousands of Thomas cards and various inserts from sets throughout th years. I was woking on 1959 and 1966 White Sox team sets, but money was just too tight to buy the few remaining cards I needed, and on the trading site I was belonged too, very few people had any of the older cards at all. I used to have a program that cataloged my cards and kept track of 'value' according to Beckett guides. At one time just my Thomas collection had a high book value in the thousands. HA!

QUOTE (Brian @ Apr 18, 2014 -> 05:39 PM) I got thousands of old cards packed away under my stairs. I'd give them away cheap if I could If they are very early 80's or older, still might get something for them. Beer money, perhaps?

Most of the baseball cards from the late 80's until the mid 90's are just kindling. You can go into a Kmart and still find sealed boxes of 1990 Topps baseball cards. The value of all the cards are in a down cycle right now. Someday they will go back up again and different ones will be in value. I haven't actively collected in years, but when I did, was so glad I traded or sold away most of the 'hot rookies' for cards i wanted or to fill a set, since they are pretty much worthless now. J.D. Drew;s rookie cards were thru the roof when they first came out. I traded away over 20 of them for other 'needs'. I managed to snag several 2001 Frank Thomas Topps Gold cards. Those they only made 2001 of. I have 62 of the 2001. As for values, Witesoxfan had it right, as bad as it is, Ebay sets the 'value', since most of the time that is where your market is. For your signed card, thanks to the multitude of scammers, the auto does zero for the value unless you have a COA. I have maybe 40 different cards I got signed as a kid that are worth lots to me for the memories, but nothing on any market.

QUOTE (Jake @ Apr 18, 2014 -> 01:43 PM) The whole point HH is making is that the reason making changes to the questions is so difficult is because they are ensuring that the new data will be useful and that they'll understand how the change in the question will affect the results compared to the old wording/question/etc. But it won't be useful NOW as an indication of things getting better or worse as it is measuring things differently than before. The numbers are destined to be different, even if they were really the same, because they are being reported differently.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 18, 2014 -> 08:59 AM) oh you still think issa's joke of an investigation revealed anything actually nefarious The fact that you think nothing was going on is funny in itself. Glad you thinnk that what they did was just fine. No complaints from you then when the IRS turns the other way sometime in the future.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Apr 18, 2014 -> 09:09 AM) Census Bureau is very different than the IRS. A lot of statisticians move between government, private statistical research, and non-profit research, and their ability to do so would be totally shot if they accepted bogus changes to surveys while with the government. That order isn't coming down the chain to me because one or more people in that chain have professional reputations outside the government to protect. A lot of very wealthy people of both political leanings get/remain very wealthy by using accurate census data, and they aren't about to let politicians mess with it. Regardless of whether the new questions are accurate or have been in the works for years, if they record stats in a different way, the stats will be meaningless as they would be uncomparable to the previous census stats. So whatever it shows, decrease or increase in insurable people, you won't really know.As for their interest in providing correct information, they also produced the labor statistics that were 'cooked' right before the election. http://nypost.com/2013/11/18/census-faked-...on-jobs-report/ In 2012 Obama decided to have the next Census director report to senior White House staffers as well as the commerce secretary. Wonder why?

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Apr 18, 2014 -> 08:31 AM) In most government agencies, including the Census Bureau, if one person changed things, it would take a couple thousand people to look the other way, including me. Some of that aluminum is seeping down into your brain from your tinfoil hat. Again, please don't pretend that you know 1% as much about how it works as I do. I never claimed to know the inner workings, that is something you made me up as saying. And nice to know that is a boss a few levels higher than you comes by and says 'We are making X change, deal with it' that you would fight back, your job and pension be damned! And getting multiple people to look the other way or play Sgt Schultz and 'see nothing' wasn't too hard to do at the IRS. Perhaps the census dept. is a lone island of virtue residing in the government quagmire.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 08:49 PM) Trust no one If they are getting a government paycheck, at least think twice.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 12:44 PM) Please don't even try to pretend that you know 1% as much about how government agencies work as I do. All it takes is one person in the right position to change things. And all it takes is one person to ignore that happening if it isn't supposed to happen. One person to look the other way, make a change here, drop a line there, add something where it doesn't belong. Every government agency is f***ed up.

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