foraker

I'm not prone to altitude sickness but the two times I've been headachey and puked my dinner were the two times I've been heading up towards the climbers base camp at Mt. Whitney. Because of that, I'd lend my vote to willstricklands comments apropos heat and dehydration.

Not to worry, it's only the children of god-less traitorous liberals that are having sex. The good, wholesome children of the God-fearing right are abstaining until marriage until death. At least, that's what Ann Coulter tells me through my brain implant.

Heard the choppers this morning when I was camping at 8 mile. It was kind of early so we didn't think anyone had had an accident by then. Sad news!

Lumping all of 'the secular left' into the same bin as, say, Stalinists, is about as intelligent as lumping all of your average church goers into the same bin as Nazis.

Are you saying they hate us for our Hooters and buffalo wings?

I didn't realize old BobU had an exchange program with the Seven Sisters. Little hint, J, few people are as less impressed by PhD's as those who already have them. How many more times are you going to give us a detailed account of your research? I'm sorry. I'm not going to be your validation monkey. Oh, I'd reign in the disparaging comments about other people's fields. Unless you want to continue down the path to being a social pariah.

Let's see: War on Poverty: Failed War on Cancer : Failed War on Drugs : Failed War on Terror : pending Shouldn't there be a three strikes law for the US government?

Ooooh, right for the ad hominem attack with subtle overtones of homosexuality and homophobia. Feel the love from the Christian right. How's that Bob Roberts U correspondence course working out for ya? Oooh. Ban me! Two snaps up!

They might not be doing any beheadings, but they and their friends in Washington are doing nothing but polarizing American society, fomenting a culture of fear, mistrust, and hatred, and spending us down the shitter. That worries me more than a few Islamic jihadists with pipe bombs.

I'm more worried about hard-core right wing evangelists and neo-cons than I am about the KKK and the Aryan Nation.

Good thing we have all you peace-loving, non-racist Euros to show us the error of our ways, KiltLifter.

Stefan, the problem is that you have mentally extricated yourself from 'the market'. As a consumer, you've said 'I want bandwidth and I choose which information I want to access.' Read the link I posted and maybe you'll understand better why we shouldn't let the telco's decide this issue.

gotta get out there darn it. nothing past trad 5.10...unless i happen to have a particularly brilliant day...which never happens when i'm just getting back into it after the winter.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2006/06/19/telco-argument-implodes-during-dc-debate/

That I believe.

Well, as we've all observed, sometimes throwing money at a problem (through taxes or charity) doesn't necessarily solve it. That said, it's not always true that applying 'the business model' to a problem will solve it either. At least he's trying to be philanthropic with it and not hoard it and pass it on to some ne'er do well children who'll just squander it on coke and prostitutes.

Maybe he means fear of a 'traditional relationship' or a 'traditional marriage'?

Actually, it wasn't a dodge. It was a rejoinder. Wouldn't expect you to know the difference seeing as how you only recently realized that ShrubCo has been lying to you all these years. I'm not against missle defense systems as a rule, I'm simply against wasteful spending on a hugely complex and easily spoofed missile defense system predicated on antiquated Cold War scenarios, especially when better solutions exist for asymmetrical threats. Apparently the chickenhawks in DC. They seem to be doing quite well for themselves in this regard. That's a pretty stupid comment even for you. Please note my comment above about the need for smart weapons, better human intel, and special forces instead of expensive high-tech satellites and slow-to-mobilize ground forces. It would also be good if we could coordinate our anti-terrorism efforts with our allies better without pissing them off so much. Actually, I'm a scientist and I know this even better than you do. I've also spent more time around the guys who design the systems than you have (both the hardware and the software). I may not be the brightest kid on the block, but when it comes to science, I think I can say I pretty much pwn you six ways from Sunday. Actually, I consider myself to be more of a progressive libertarian with a conservative fiscal sense. Not that you'd understand how nuanced that is though..... If I don't respond to all of your verbal gymnastics, it's because I choose not to spend another six years trying to show you that you are wrong about something else. I have better things to do.

Reichwingers who prefer dead bodies over diplomacy. Have I got you in the right pigeonhole? I'd hate to undersimplify your nuanced political views.

Yes. If you've ever worked for a major government contractor (I subbed to Lockheed for 2 years) you'll realize that Job #1 is "Suck the government teat as hard as you can for as long as you can". I'm not even sure if "Quality" is even on the list. The trick is presenting enough 'progress' to keep them interested. The other problem is that contractors will basically lie through their teeth to keep the money coming. I've seen too many cases where the execs made sky-high claims to the government and the tech guys all shat their pants collectively. We lost out to another contractor and I just read that the entire multi-billion dollar project is now in jeopardy because they are having problems making good on their promises. The problems with missle defense systems these days are several. First, it's designed around old thinking that someone was going to be lobbing technically sophisticated missles at us by the hundreds if not thousands. No one's really in a position to do that now except our ostensible allies. While we're busy building expensive solutions to Cold War problems, our current 'enemies' are thinking of quick, dirty solutions that don't require a military-industrial complex to solve and implement. Then there are all the technical problems with shooting down a missle (well covered elsewhere). Oddly enough, the same contractor involved in the missle tests also won the contract I just mentioned....hmmm.... What we need now are good stealthy weapons delivery systems (e.g. smart bombs, cruise missles, stealth ROV's -- not B2 bombers and next-gen ballistic missle subs), superior human intelligence (people on the ground familiar with languages and culture, not spendy satellites), and special ops teams. Then, too, we need politicians who know when to use the scalpel and not the battle axe. Ah, if wishes were fishes.

The dude's not fat enough to have one of those. He must not be American.

There's a money pit you fools keep shovelling billions into.... No shit.

I don't know him, but get better dude!

I always assume politicians are crooked. Even the ones I can tolerate (note, I did not say 'like' or 'support'. I can only think of one politician that I actually liked). If they aren't crooked, it makes me suspect that they are too stupid to be crooked, or lacking enough political acumen/power to be worth the trouble of corrupting.