gdp's Comments

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Health care options for young, healthy and broke | Health | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 18:14:24 +0000

The company I work for does something like that. I get annual checks of BMI, blood pressure, cholesterol, and the presence of nicotine. Each healthy result reduces my health insurance premium by a certain amount for the next year. It does add to my motivation to exercise and watch what I eat.

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Romney\'s wife says woman being eyed for VP candidate | National & World News | Seattle News, Weathe

Thu, 5 Jul 2012 16:50:16 +0000

The headline "Romney's wife says woman being eyed for VP candidate" seems a little misleading. Here's the context from abcnews.com: "We've been looking at that," Ann Romney replied, when asked if her husband should pick a female as his No. 2. "I'd love that option as well. So, you know, there's a lot of people that Mitt is considering right now." So it was a reporter's idea, and not ruling it out made headlines.

KOMO - Seattle, WA : What was with the spooky \'sky tornadoes\' over Seattle? | Weather Blog | Seattle News, Weather, Spo

Tue, 3 Jul 2012 14:39:57 +0000

"if you think this is just a conspiracy you are wrong," Wait -- so you're saying it's not a conspiracy? Or are you saying it's not just a conspiracy?

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Ballmer, Gates show support for same-sex marriage | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Sports

Tue, 3 Jul 2012 06:11:13 +0000

No, I'm ignoring the thumbs as you suggested. I'm just looking at the content of the posts.

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Ballmer, Gates show support for same-sex marriage | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Sports

Tue, 3 Jul 2012 05:20:48 +0000

Okay, let's use a different metric, then. Looking through these 106 posts, I only see 16 that unambiguously oppose gay marriage. I didn't count the ones clearly in favor, but I'd estimate the number to be at least 50. So it's hard for me to see Yupitsme as simply following popular opinion. Unless maybe you're defining popular at the national level, by looking at how many states have legalized gay marriage so far?

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Ballmer, Gates show support for same-sex marriage | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Sports

Tue, 3 Jul 2012 03:31:52 +0000

Isn't a lemming a metaphor for someone who follows whatever opinion happens to be popular? Because if that's the case I really don't think Yupitsme qualifies as even a pretend lemming. Check out the TU vs. TD scores on these comments. Even Sparky2112, seven posts below us, who supports gay marriage, is getting negged just for questioning whether the story is significant.

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Ballmer, Gates show support for same-sex marriage | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Sports

Mon, 2 Jul 2012 23:16:15 +0000

Thanks for the laugh, Sunny!

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Guys who like My Little Pony gather for \'BronyCon\' | Entertainment | Seattle News, Weather, Sports

Sun, 1 Jul 2012 22:40:40 +0000

Googling "brony" gives you 12,800,000 hits, most of which have to do with male fans of My Little Pony. Most bronies wlil insist that they're serious about MLP, but there's a definite campy aspect to this fad. It started on 4chan in late 2010 and spread from there. Here's Stephen Colbert regretting that in some earlier shows he had said "I'd like to give a shout-out to all my bronies." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvVlZe3hDS4

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Orbitz toying with showing different deals on Macs vs. PC users | Technology | Seattle News, Weather

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 13:41:01 +0000

Maybe, but they'll also suggest the most formal restaurants for you (Tux required).

KOMO - Seattle, WA : P-word? OK. The V-word? That\'s trickier | Entertainment | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking N

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 03:39:10 +0000

Obviously you never saw The Wall. :)

KOMO - Seattle, WA : P-word? OK. The V-word? That\'s trickier | Entertainment | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking N

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 23:03:23 +0000

Okay, so it sounds like we're all comfortable saying "vagina." That's nice. Next challenge: Get comfortable with people who aren't comfortable saying "vagina." Extra credit: Find a real-life person who goes around saying "penis" but is embarrassed to say "vagina." (Sitcom characters don't count.)

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Posters: \'Cat people deserve to die\' | Offbeat | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News | KO

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 00:23:17 +0000

"It definitely catches your attention, but I'm not sure what they're trying to do with 'hipsters deserve to die,'" one passerby said. ...implying that the others sound quite reasonable.

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Putting Duluth\'s incredible rain storm into Seattle perspective | Weather Blog | Seattle News, Weat

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 21:10:01 +0000

Do my eyes deceive me, or does the car in that first pic have WA plates?

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Will Surface finally end Microsoft\'s tortured tablet history? | Technology | Seattle News, Weather,

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:37:32 +0000

I think archerynut is referring to Peter Boyle as Young Frankenstein's monster: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1522368768/tt0072431 Pretty close!

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Authorities say \'Kindness\' hitchhiker shot himself | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Spo

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 18:27:23 +0000

The cool part is that the headline on the original story was worded ambiguously, making it sound like the shooter was the one writing the book: ("Wash. man accused of shooting hitchhiker writing 'Kindness' book"). So it turns out that the shooter was the writer (although he wasn't the WA man). Still... Ambiguously-worded headline foreshadowing! Woot!

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Proposed \'messy lawn law\' could land owners in jail | Video | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Break

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 15:17:10 +0000

This story is from Long Island, New York, so don't worry too much. Here in WA we do have a law (RCW 15.09.080) that allows the county to remove plants when a homeowner fails to take measures to prevent the spread of pests or diseases (e.g. apple maggots), but in that case more is at stake than aesthetics.

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Wash. state may help end gay marriage losing streak | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Spor

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 08:20:36 +0000

The votes were more along North/South lines than Rep/Dem. Almost all the legislators from the South were Democrats and they were mostly against the Act, so that makes the support percentage from Democrats as a whole look worse. In the North, where the parties were more evenly distributed, there was actually a bit more support from Democrats than Republicans. A large number of people (Southerners) did end up having to live with legislation they wouldn't have voted for, but which most Americans (even in the South) now agree is right. Many people (including Ken Schram and several people on this thread) now point to that example as proof that it's much better for rights issues to be settled by elected officials rather than by popular vote, but there are a couple of problems with that line of reasoning: 1. It seems to assume that since the North forced the right decision on the South in this case (they had about 3x as many representatives and senators as the South) the lawmakers with the most voting power will get it right in all other cases, too. 2. It misses the point that the primary goal of most politicians is to be re-elected, so they usually try to please the majority of their constituency, which has an end result very similar to holding a referendum. So I don't think holding a referendum on gay marriage will make much difference. If it loses in a popular vote, it won't indicate that the politicians are ignoring their constituency. It will only mean that they misjudged the timing and got a little ahead of the voters. Popular culture is pretty clearly moving in that direction. This may sound a little far-fetched now, but if Romney gets elected, I won't be too shocked if he comes out in at least partial support of gay marriage by the end of his first term. Okay, maybe a little shocked. But not as much as I would have been if, say, Jimmy Carter had done it during his presidency.

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Wash. state may help end gay marriage losing streak | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Spor

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 23:09:30 +0000

I'm with you on that. In my earlier post I was just observing that sometimes the term "hate speech" gets used rather broadly.

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Wash. state may help end gay marriage losing streak | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Spor

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 22:25:53 +0000

Hmm... I do agree with you that Jesus didn't take the Westboro Baptist approach, and also that he must be appalled that anyone associates them with his name. His "go and sin no more" sounds like more than a suggestion, though. If you base your view of Jesus on Biblical accounts of his life, you have to admit that he didn't do alot of suggesting.

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Wash. state may help end gay marriage losing streak | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Spor

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 19:43:18 +0000

Although if that happened today, Jesus would be accused of hate speech for characterizing the woman's earlier actions as "sinning."