The real problem seems to be parental controls are not turned on by default. Turning them on means kids will be required to enter a password for IAP.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201357720

Most of them are available for rent (which you mention in passing later, I just wanted to highlight this). If we're comparing Netflix to Amazon's Prime Instant Video, they're largely identical movie lists (anecdotal experience only, no hard data). However, Amazon has an advantage in that it offers other films for rent. Netflix did away with its own advantage of "if you can't stream it, at least you can get it delivered on DVD" (Amazon's advantage is more instantaneous, but doesn't have the catalog of Netflix's DVDs, even for rent). I do wish Netflix had a "you can stream this other stuff for $2-3" but I think their customers would revolt (again).

So for now I'm using both. Check on Netflix (better interface on XBox), then check Amazon Prime (which I have anyway for the shipping), then look for films on Amazon Instant to rent if there's something specific I want to see. We'll see if Netflix can distinguish itself with added content.

For the lazy (note "filibuster proof" means 60 votes in the Senate):

111th U.S. Congress
Senate: 58% Democrat, 42% Republican (although Democrats had 60 for about 4 months, if you count the independents and blue-dog Dems who didn't always vote along party lines)

House: 59% Democrat, 41% Republican (although there is no filibuster in the House of Representatives)

EPOCH fail!

Sherrod's speech starts at 0:29 of your video, and ends at 2:11. This corresponds to 17:02 of my video to 18:44. It is not a "missing piece".

The audio is better in the video I linked, and you might describe it more as "amused murmuring" than "cheering". Perhaps that's splitting hairs, though. I took it as the crowd giving a friendly chuckle to Sherrod's comic tone about how much help she was going to give this white farmer in the context of her 1986 views. You took it as the crowd's approval of such behavior in 2010, that they were encouraging discrimination against white folk at any opportunity.

I thought we could have this discussion without calling each other names, though. By now there's nobody in this thread but you and me. There's nobody to keep score of how many times you can call me incompetent, malicious or blind.

Can you provide a time in this video that you perceive a "cheer"? Regardless, this was what the rationale was changed to once it became obvious that Sherrod was telling an uplifting (if meandering) story about her overcoming her prejudice. Is what Andrew Breitbart did to Sherrod more or less egregious than what you perceived from the NAACP (not sure what, exactly, I'll wait for a time in the video I linked to).

Racism is nasty, and we should be able to discuss it without throwing our hands up in the air and labeling it "impossible to discuss" just because conservatives pretend that all liberals think that "all whites are racist, and no person of color can be". I don't think that, and none of my liberal friends think that.

This is a common criticism of the left, and it is designed to protect members of the right from real charges of racism. Let me be clear, your comment contains no element of racism. The statement "the Tea Party are racists" is inaccurate, but "some Tea Party members, including leaders in the movement, espouse racist views" is accurate.

I could point to Mike Williams, Glenn Beck's "deap-seated hatred of white people" comment (among many other comments), or a host of others for examples of the movement in general (liberal Joan Walsh seems to have a nice summary).

What these all have in common is they are specific examples of racism, not general "they're all racists!" kind of fear-mongering. I commend the Tea Party for dealing with its racist fringe the way it has. I think that is the proper way to handle these issues, not putting your head in the sand and shouting "both sides" (a la Rand Paul when a MoveOn protestor got stomped on by his volunteer).

Liberals weren't clamoring for McCain's birth certificate. We aren't accusing John Boehner of anti-colonial sentiment driving his decisions. Sure, there are boneheaded liberals. You're welcome to bring it up. I'll take a look and decide that Olbermann's off his rocker, or that Media Matters is too whiny (which sometimes I do find).

You have to allow for the possibility that, sometimes (or often), liberals are crying racism not because it's a political gambit to appeal to "stupid voters", but because someone on your side is being a racist.

That would have been great.

Should I get pregnant?
- No, children are a hotbox for every communicable disease imaginable.
- No, the planet is overpopulated as it is.
- Yes, children are beautiful and can be trained to do all sorts of menial labor.
- Yes, CowboyNeal will stop hitting on you.
- I don't have a uterus, you insensitive clod!

True, I joke about my kids illnesses, after the fact. "WTF is croup?!? He sounds like a dying beagle! Next you'll tell me my kid has the plague, totally normal, just wait it out."

Anyway, good luck to you and your complications! Hope all goes well.

I've had 2 babies, and I've had a couple chuckles so far in this thread. Granted, I browse at 3, but it's been pretty mild stuff about 10 comments in.

"Teachers should have the freedom to look at creationism and find a way to get it into the classroom."

Wrong.

I skimmed the Rolling Stone article, and it was difficult to find any specific evidence for what Taibbi is asserting. I have no doubt that Goldman is a huge behemoth that abuses its position to affect markets in a way that benefits itself at the expense of lower-tier investors, which makes it doubly dissapointing that Taibbi mounts such a weak attack. He chooses to fill his "expose" with invectives like [t]he world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. To prove this point, he simply lists the former Goldman employees which are now, or were, in positions of power. I find the Frontline documentaries on this topic to be much more rational and informing:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meltdown/view/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/breakingthebank/view/