catbirdseat

Mais oui! Haven't you ever heard of the Sniff Test?

In order to see the benefit of the Iraq War you have to first believe that Saddam Hussein was threatening us with total annihilation. That is the only scenario that is worse than what we are experiencing.

All I am saying is that it isn't cut and dry. In many industries, the price of the product CAN be raised to compensate for the higher wage costs. Also, in many cases, labor is only a small fraction of the product cost.

Cleophus' entire cc.com career spanned only three days!

What area is it in and what is the rating?

It could become just another of the Flaming Fords.

Yay, Chris!

Jay, you are a supply-sider if there ever was one. The assumption that you make are that if you raise the minimum wage that jobs will be cut. That may be true in some cases, but not in others. Certainly more true in manufacturing than in the service sector. Maybe the solution is not across the board wage supports but targeted ones. Maybe Milton Friedman's idea of a negative Income Tax instead? There's one that never took off. This is where tarrifs come in. The only argument for tarrifs is one of national defense. The supply of certain goods could be cut off in time of war. Propping up a domestic manufacturing helps ensure supply. Getting back to the word "idiot". I don't think anyone here thinks the word is being used in the literal sense. We are using it to describe people who lack the ability think critically. I've always thought that one of America's strong points was that we taught our children to think critically. All the emphasis on test scores and the like is a sign that we no longer value the ability to think, but rather to regurgitate information.

Did somebody let one?

Best Trip Report: Uncle_Tricky of course- Truth is Stranger than Fiction

No way, Jose.

Last time I got a look at the Matterhorn up close, I wasn't a climber. Considering they built that thing back in the 1950's or 60's, they did a pretty good job of it. One thing about California is that they really know their concrete.

I think that people haven't been able to get a handle yet on government that says on thing and does another. For the past 20-30 years we have had a government that more or less did what it said. Many of the people who voted this year have not read Orwell's 1984. In a word, they are gullible- not stupid, but gullible.

Scary times we are in. Here's a choice tidbit: "These are punitive people. One of the ways - one of the things that you could say is, the amazing thing is we are been taken over basically by a cult, eight or nine neo-conservatives have somehow grabbed the government. Just how and why and how they did it so efficiently, will have to wait for much later historians and better documentation than we have now, but they managed to overcome the bureaucracy and the Congress, and the press, with the greatest of ease. It does say something about how fragile our Democracy is. You do have to wonder what a Democracy is when it comes down to a few men in the Pentagon and a few men in the White House having their way."

That first pic is a classic. Looks like ca. early 1980's Neon Chic, but the pro could be even older. The dude looks a little like Uncle Trickey. I saw this image on the Devil's Tower thread and decided to steal it.

I watched the pilot starring Rob Morrow, of Northern Exposure fame. It was actually pretty entertaining. Finally a drama for us geeks. It's funny they put it on Friday night at 10 pm. I guess they figure geeks won't be on the town with their wives or girlfriends like everyone else. Blurb

Stephen Ambrose wrote a book called Undaunted Courage about Lewis and Clark who have been dead for two centuries. It is arguably the best book ever written on the explorers. The idea that an author can't write about dead people and make a valuable contribution to literature is laughable.

Ask JGowans.

I think we should all take advice from Jack Sprat and his wife. If you are fat, carry carbohydrates. If you are lean, carry fat.

Ain't the Internet great? I am truly inspired. If a dumbass can figure out some like that, then anyone can.

Hey, they put it in quotes. Automobile analogies are the best way to communicate with the American public.

If hydrogen is ever to become the answer for transportation, my guess it will be as part of a system that combines a reformer which converts something easily stored, like methanol, into hydrogen as needed to run fuel cells. Right now no one can make a fuel cell that is affordable, let alone the reformer. Where does the methanol come from? Probably natural gas, but it also could be made from any carbon source if hydrogen were available.

Getting back to why George Bush is bad. He's bad because he is driven by a religious dogma. His values were not acquired through a process of personal growth, but, rather were fed to him on a silver spoon, and they are the values of a minority. He chooses to ignore the half of the nation that don't share his views. He is not interested in compromise or in even respecting those who think differently than he. Because he believes that what he knows comes from God and must therefore be correct, anyone who thinks differently must not be Godly and therefore must be wrong. It makes it very easy to disregard them.

I find that rather hard to believe. Low-pressure sodium vapor lamps are incredibly efficient. LED's certainly could produce a more pleasant spectrum of light, but I don't know that they'll beat the efficiency of LPSV.

Man, we need some sort of astonishing technological development to bail us out, like fusion, or it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Rising oil prices is definitely a positive thing, fostering such things as windmill farms and hybrid vehicles.