When I left Boston for Seattle in 2008, I was given the option by Comcast, via customer service rep, that I could have a tech come by to pick up my stuff. It never happened. I ran out of time.

I mailed the modem via certified mail. This, of course, only introduced a lengthy cross-country battle where they'd try to bill me & I'd repeat the tracking number of the delivered package. For weeks.

Scotland isn't part of England, it still a part of the UK.

The Yes campaign would had gotten more voters, if they actually worked out a feasible currency, and how they would do better with their share of NHS and State Pensions...

I can't wait to read the next illuminating article from that Vox writer about how it is unhealthy to stop breathing, the news that chicken sandwiches are made from chickens, or that it feels miserable to be cold and wet. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

@2: Thanks, changed.

I had GREAT experience returning my modem (they even sent me a box to do it), and got a check for $25 dollars because I had overpaid for something at some point over the four years I was with them.

Not saying Comcast is good, but it's not 100% bad all the time......

I still think Bertha should be renamed Christine.

Arrrrrr, that be a fine video with Richard Sherman, me hearties. That it be.

John Henry wins!

@6 - It always should have been Boneshaker, but now more than ever, now that it's stuck deep under downtown.

Horrifying news from Bellingham where a psycho gun nut named David Latham angry over a barking dog stuck a rifle through wrong neighbor’s fence and shot their 13 month-old Corgi at point blank range. She wasn’t the dog that was barking, and she bled to death. What kind of monster shoots a helpless dog like that? What if there had been children playing with the dogs in the yard?

This is why gun violence in this country is totally out-of-control. Gun nuts like Latham think they can just start shooting and intimidate the rest of us. How would you feel if someone stuck a gun into your backyard and started shooting?

I emailed and faxed the prosecutor to request that he face the maximum penalties.
Whatcom County Prosecuting Attorney David McEchran: dmceachr@co.whatcom.wa.us
By mail or fax: Whatcom County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office
311 Grand Avenue – #201
Bellingham, WA 98225
Case# 14-0-01044-6 (David William Latham)
. Fax #360-738-2532, Shannon Connor is the attorney assigned to the case.

@2, @4 I'll say it again... Scotland will always be a part of Britain no matter how they vote, unless they dig a canal and separate the two. Britain is an island. Scotland was voting to secede from the UK.

I think the Brits borrowed some voting machines from 2000 Florida.

@11 I give you credit in trying to link Scotland Independence referendum to the history of the Seattle Monorail, plus with some links to the Jacobite Rebellion...It takes some pictish anger and rage to cook that up..

Does anybody else find it abhorrent that Obama's coalition to fight IS includes Saudi Arabia? They behead people for adultery, fercrisakes! Are we already that desperate? It's clear now what we're up against. A region that is losing it's civilization and entering a dark age. And we seem to want to follow.

@17: if we were going to have a problem with SA's barbarous and misogynist ways, we'd have had that problem decades ago.

we are that desperate. for oil.

Hey, wait a minute, from a report by the University of Washington released yesterday:
"North Dakota saw the number of poor people, but not its poverty rate, increase, while four states – Colorado, New Hampshire, Texas and Wyoming – saw their poverty rates and/or numbers decrease."
Source: http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/09/1…
Three of the four states, Wyoming, New Hampshire and, of course, Texas, are WELL KNOWN pro-market, fiscally conservative states.
Yet Washington, with the highest minimum wage in the country, sees an increase in poverty.
Honestly, TEXAS SAW A DROP IN POVERTY RATES?! This while being a RIGHT TO WORK STATE and having a LOW, FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE at 7.25/hour and LOWER TAXES and LESS GOVERNMENT REGULATION while big-government Washington State and New Jersey saw an increase in poverty?
I'll let the Dos Equis man handle this one for me:
http://gotgame.com/wp-content/uploads/20…

@19: I'm glad Texas, with its 16.2% poverty rate putting it 5th-highest in the nation, is doing better. It's a shame that Washington, with its 10.2% poverty rate making it 15th-lowest in the nation can't do as well.
GG collectivism_sucks, you've done it again. Sincerely, your friendly neighborhood guy-who's-not-as-dumb-as-you.

@20
Wow, not as "dumb as me" and yet you don't understand what I was saying. Did I EVER say "Texas has less poverty then Washington"? No. Only that Texas has a poverty rate that is going down, while Washington has a poverty rate that is going up. I may be "dumb", but at least I learned reading comprehension.
Oh, and Texas has a MUCH LOWER poverty rate then the "liberal utopias" of New York and California:
http://compare50.org/poverty/index/rate/…
And I also mentioned New Hampshire, the most libertarian state in the union, which also lowered it's poverty rate...want to guess where it stands in poverty nation wide?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S…
So do tell, Mr Liberal Genius, how is it the state with no income tax, no mandatory kindergarten, and few state mandated social safety nets has LESS POVERTY then the People's Republic of Massachusetts? This despite the fact that Massachusetts is right next door?

You've done it again: given me a chance to PWN a Seattle liberal.

@21: I never said that you said Texas has less poverty than Washington. All I said was that the state you commended for a reduction in poverty level actually had more poverty than the state you vilified for an increase in poverty level. So much for your supposed reading comprehension.

Texas actually has a substantially HIGHER poverty rate (16.2%) than California (13.2%) or New York (14.5%). The only states that beat Texas to that dubious distinction are Alabama, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Mississippi. I'm getting these numbers directly from the Wikipedia article you linked to, numbnuts.
You mentioned the "pro-market, fiscally conservative" libertarian utopia New Hampshire*, which does indeed have the lowest poverty rate. You also mentioned the "big-government" liberal hellhole of New Jersey, which has the second-lowest poverty rate. If you know so much, how come New Jersey and New Hampshire are neck-and-neck like that, huh?

If you're wondering about the difference in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, you need only look at their demographics and living profiles. MA has nearly 6 times the population density, and its largest metropolitan area is literally TEN TIMES the size of NH's largest. With greater urbanization comes greater poverty. It's not an issue of statist versus libertarian so much as it is urban versus rural.

If you want to "PWN a Seattle liberal" by arguing with me, let me assure you that such a feat is categorically impossible. Just out of curiosity, how old exactly are you that you use "PWN" in a sentence you want people to take seriously?

*By the way, New Hampshire isn't some sort of tax haven or anything. It may not tax wages at the state level, but it has the third-highest property taxes in the nation. Also, while the state doesn't require parents to send their kids to kindergarten, it does require school districts to offer kindergarten to all students.

@22
No, you don't understand the way poverty works. First, if rural states had so much more poverty, then why does Rhode Island, a state with one of the most urbanized populations as a whole, have lower poverty then Mississippi?
And yes, the poverty rate of Texas is lower than California and New York, as the link I posted (but you either didn't read, or didn't understand) proves. You're using the antiquated method of judging poverty by national standards, and not adjusting for local inflation. Making $30,000 a year in New York city and making $30,000 a year in South Dakota are two completely different things.
Texas is a LOT cheaper to live in then New York or California. If rent is 20% lower, food 15% cheaper and gas 20% less, is someone making 9% less then they would have in the more expensive area better or worse off? Even you should be able to understand that cheaper logic.

And yes, New Hampshire offers, but doesn't force, kindergarten on kids...and weren't you the same guy who suggested that people left to make decisions make the wrongs ones? Allowing parents to opt-out of early childhood education is as anti-liberal as it gets.

And the tax rate is higher for property, it is lower on businesses and doesn't tax wealth itself. Taxing land is Libertarian, because no one built the land itself. It's a kind of Georgism.

And how old are to to expect anyone to take you seriously when you use ad hominem attacks? (i.e, you're dumb)

@22
Oh, and I forgot: look at the last column of that wikipedia article, whose numbers you can't seem to read. It says "Supplemental Poverty Measure, adjusted to inflation". In other words, poverty when the cost of living is taken into consideration. It shows Texas at 16.4%, New York at 18.1% and California at a whopping 23.8%
But I'm the "numb-nuts"

@23: Why is Rhode Island better off than Mississippi? Because Rhode Island and Mississippi are nothing alike. (i.e., Rhode Island isn't a backwards shithole.) Population density isn't the ONLY thing driving economic and societal trends; it just happens to be a major factor in distinguishing New Hampshire from Massachusetts. Are you capable of considering more than one variable at a time?
The point I'm making about optional kindergarten in New Hampshire is not about the choice but rather about the spending. If you're offering it, regardless of whether it's used, there's a certain amount of money you need to dedicate whether or not kids take advantage of it.
Income tax doesn't tax wealth either. You know what does tax wealth? Taxing gains from interest and dividends, which New Hampshire does. Remember, the facts don't fit your narrative most of the time, so there's no reason for them to start now.

Also, what "ad hominem attacks"? Please point out anywhere in this thread when I attacked your person rather than your argument. YOU USE THAT PHRASE QUITE A BIT. YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT MEANS.
I am, as I have said before, twenty two years of age.

@24: You can't have it both ways, numbnuts. You crow about how New Hampshire has the lowest raw poverty level, but then you insist we need to use geographically-adjusted numbers. If you use those adjusted numbers, New Hampshire slips to 7th-lowest and not-remotely-Libertarian Iowa actually takes first place. One way or the other.
Also, you're gawdawful at presenting the actual facts. "Supplemental Poverty Measure, adjusted to inflation"? No way in hell. What the article ACTUALLY calls that last column is "Supplemental Poverty Measure (2010-2014 average) (Geographically Adjusted)". DON'T FUCKING USE QUOTATION MARKS IF YOU'RE MAKING UP THEIR CONTENTS OUT OF THE BLUE, YOU DIMWIT.

The more c_s talks, the more I understand the massive libertarian dimes connect from reality. It's almost religious.

"dimes connect" = disconnect