chucK

Seattle should just play hardball. Let 'em go, and sue their asses if they do. When a new contract is inked, make sure there is a no whining clause that allows Seattle to immediately boot them from the arena if they start asking for more. Unreal that a loser team like the Sonics can get considerations because the Seahawks had a freak year

I had the same experience on Friday at Index. No falling on 5.9's but bouted by 10a. Guess I'm buying that new Whitelaw guide....

Yes Jay, thank you. Your view that fat people deserve no special privileges because they did it to themselves is already well-documented.

Man have I got a great idea now. All they need is a few personal video game/movie players (many flights already have these available for a fee). They could just ask if any person (kid) needs less space than a full seat, they could use the gameplayer gratis during the flight. Everyone's happy! Person of size doesn't have to worry about sitting next to a hater. Kid gets to play video games. Parent doesn't have to endure whiny fidgety kid. Airline endures little to no marginal excess cost. This is pure genius, if I do say so myself. However, I know it will not please those of you who feel fat people should be punished.

Hah! I clearly haven't figured out all the kinks of my strategy. I think clever use of euphemisms would be key here. Perhaps key the rewards on people requiring a little less seat space, instead of for sitting next to the fat guy. This would kill two birds with one stone, as you'd solve your "nobody wants to sit next to a squirrely kid" problem too.

I've racked my brain to think of a wonderful solution to this earth-threatening problem. Here's an idea.... Figure that most people who are in all likelihood going to inhabit 1.1 seats, are not going to volunteer this information when buying their ticket online. And also figure that the airline is not going to employ chubby checkers and severely alienate 1/4 of their clientele. This pretty much negates any sort of fatties pay extra type of promotion in all but the most extreme cases. Here is what they could do to keep us skinny whiners happy: When a person of size is identified to be overflowing their purchased seat, the airline could announce incentives to passengers willing to suffer the indignity of experiencing such fatness up close. This would be similar to the flight bumping procedures. I'll bet there'd be more than a few takers on a full flight for a future first-class upgrade or some such incentive.

That's an easy one. I can not only empathize there, I can sympathize with that guy! It is messy having to coexist with inferior beings, isn't it? I'm sure we could keep playing this game of inching up the indignities we are being forced to undergo as well as the culpability of the perpetrators. For example, I think my compassion would stop well before the point of someone who ran a redlight and killed my daughter because he needed to get to the liquor store before it closed. But getting mad at a fat guy because he's fat and needs to take an airplane somewhere just doesn't seem to be very productive.

Related note: I recently got the pleasure of sitting next to an overweight guy on a cross-country flight. He was spilling onto my seat. The armrest was definitely bending and seemed ready to snap. I just sat there feeling sorry for myself, and mad that that guy was making an already uncomfortable flight more uncomfortable for me. I just sat there the whole time, surly and not talking to this guy, and he didn't talk to me. Then after the flight, or maybe after I first actually looked at his face. I realized he was just another person who also was not enjoying the situation. I felt really bad. We all have the right, I guess, to protect ourselves from having to experience fat people. But when it comes right down to it, in situations like this, it's really the fat person who's suffering the most, plus all the other problems they've probably got related to it. Even if you're the most cold-hearted dickhead, even if you posit that "it's his own fault he's fat", it seems pretty self-absorbed to get bent out of shape about it. "There but for the grace of God go I" and all that good stuff.

Foraker, you beat me to it. Related statistic: Currently, 64.5 percent of U.S. adults, age 20 years and older, are overweight and 30.5 percent are obese.

Ummm... I reread this and it appears I at least partially misconstrued your misconstruing me. So, anyway, I'll continue...*cough cough* ahem Though noone but you has yet brought up affirmative action, you really seem to want to tie this in here so here goes. I think there are probably many naysayers of affirmative action who have noble or, at least, non-racist motives. I also think that a politician taking a stand against affirmative action will appeal to racists on that basis. The previous two sentences are not contradictory. The border fence is a similar issue, though a little harder to defend with a non-racist straight face, and the smearing of John McCain is pure hate politics (I notice you didn't address that one). Is Bush deliberately pandering to the "racist vote" through policies and actions? Why yes, that is my premise!

Even though I attempt to clarify, even though I do you the courtesy of following you down a tangential path in answering and clarifying, you continue to mischaracterize the majority of what I write. Either you're doing this deliberately or you're really thick. Either way, I'm done with this for today.

You don't even read the posts. Where did I imply Bush had racist convictions? My examples point to efforts made to garner the racist vote.

No, anvilicious, as in "anvil", as in deliciously unsubtle. Mmmmm....umalicious

Some guy talking about the NSA needing their wiretapping privileges because we capture a terroists laptops and get a bunch of phone numbers. Um...like the FISA court wouldn't approve wiretapping on those phone numbers? It's obvious that the reason these guys don't want to go to the FISA court is because they are worried that their desires are overreaching. Or again, one could opt for the "inept" defense. But here's the best part...this guy points to a story in the news where some store was burglarized and 180 disposable cellphones were stolen. He uses this as proof that TERRORISTS ARE STEALING PHONES TO AVOID THE NSA WIRETAPPING!!!! And, of course, he goes on to say that this is all because the NY Times broke this story and thus informed the terrorists that we were listening in on them. makes ya think doesn't it!

Well, there's the caving on his immigration reform (i.e. the "fence" part), there's the constant snubbing of the NAACP, there was that Bob Jones University thing way back when he was on the ropes versus McCain. I guess the whole Katrina inaction thing makes him look more racist himself than just pandering to them (or you could always cop to the "inept" defense). Back to the topic of this thread though: you take Bush who by all accounts is in the upper echelons of the political community in terms of use of hate politics (big issue in 2004, same-sex marriage ), and you whine because Jimmy Carter makes an anvilicious statement about MLK being wiretapped by the FBI. Once again, for effect,

Where did I blanket all people against racial preferences as racist? I said nothing about racial preferences. This and your chicken-fat responses make me believe that you don't even read my posts. You've just got some idea of what you think I'd write and respond to that.

If someone with whom I've bitterly battled shows up at my funeral to try to gain (or keep from losing) a couple of political points, I surely hope that my survivors would take the asshole to task for it. The funeral is for the survivors, not the deceased. The people who are close to CSK are still fighting a battle with Bush and the right-wing racist subgroup that he panders to. I say, use CSK's funeral to help those survivors, by making their hypocritic enemies look bad at the service.

Hey JayB, I think you ran into a minor local celebrity. She's cussed me out once or twice as I rode by her, and I've heard various tales of the psycho-bike-lady sightings. So anyway, just wanted to let you know, it probably wasn't you or your physique. You just got lucky. Though I wouldn't be too quick to absolve the Woman's Studies curriculum from this incident.

loads of flaming liberals

9 out of 10 times - 'special rights' means some baby having to give up something

Ooooh aggregated scores from virtual football! That's even more boring than aggregated scores from real football!

If she would have assented, you'd have to be one brave MoFo to follow through!