foraker

oooh. reports from The Man about weapons safety. That's almost as good as news from Fox or research reports from the Cato Institute! yay! that's a load off of my mind.

how's that state-sponsored research program working out for ya?

i wonder how much the apple lobby paid to have that stuck in there?

so what you're saying is that we get the government we deserve. gee, at least be original. what you're basically saying is that politicians should have no personal accountability when they fuck us over because we basically begged them to do it. hell, we gave them a 'mandate from the masses'! you should remember that half of america didn't want bush. if we can't blame politicians for anything, i guess you should stop blaming clinton for everything bad in the last 5 years, eh?

lemme guess where you draw the line regarding these "certain elements"....everyone to the left of you? just a guess... maybe you need to realize that america isn't a big gym filled with two kinds of people all crammed up against one wall or another but is more like a whole bunch of people milling about with more closer to the center than towards the walls.... i can live with fringe liberals (and i don't use the term pejoratively, unlike some...hint,hint) who utter what i consider to complete nonsense because i have a common vision of america that includes them. i can also live with fringe conservatives who espouse views i find to be an anathema to a united america. i don't hate either group because i know neither group represents a significant number of americans. if i would like to see one thing, though, it would be a dissolution of political parties or, at least, de-monopolization of the political power in this country. in such a situation, it's too easy for one side to demonize the other, just as we see now. if there were more targets, or none, i suspect (or, rather, hope) we might see a lot less polarization and more reliance upon the relative merits of ideas. what does this have to do with radical islam? oh, not much. just tired of reading things by people who need a good chew toy or something.

I'm not sure if he means the concepts of "democracy, human rights, and freedom" are illusions (probable) or if he is talking about how they manifest themselves in, say, the US, UK, etc (less likely). More than a little axe grinding is obvious. ;-)

oddly enough, come to think of it, he/she sounds like a libertarian...

Pretty much true, it's just the part where they start talking about blowing up innocent civilians as part of furthering God's Great Plan that I have problems with it.... (of course, to some, that sounds like what Dubya is doing in Iraq)

Reminds me of certain scientists I've known with a particularly conservative world view. One was ranting about something involving taxes once and my only question was "So, I guess you're going to jump off that National Science Foundation pork wagon and get a real job?" I guess that's why I'm not in academe....too many bad references.

Isn't this the point in the movie where all the dudes chip in and finance some BuxomBlondeNympho with a bad memory to give the MainNerd a sympathy f**k?

most russian lit can be summarized by the phrase: "you die, she dies, everybody dies". so, olyclimber, you aren't far off. ;-)

beer sux

Do you think they wanted to talk about sanctioned drug use in the military to a bunch of high school students?

If you were going to submit it, I'd make it sound more Dave Barry-esque, esp. flesh out your lack of adjectives and metaphors in describing the "Squamish Yacht Club" ;-)

Now, if you're just looking for a interesting door-stop-sized read to keep you busy while minding the children at the gym, go for "Don Quixote". Make sure you don't get the abridged edition.

Squid, don't waste your time on this. It's a mind numbing tome. Rather, go read "Anna Karenina". Better yet, go read Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita" if you are delving into Russian lit.

Saw many examples of something similar in Seward whilst growing up. One classic comes to mind. Some gentleman, apparently unfamiliar with the tides there, hitched his boat to pole of the floating dock, rather than to the dock itself. It was rather impressive to come upon this later, at low tide, to see a 20' cabin cruiser hanging in mid-air by nothing more than a single line of rope. My father's example of this was to fail, somehow, to lock the boat to the trailer which was attached to our Amerigo camper. While driving down out of Turnagain Pass, we were set upon by some crazed yahoo behind us who kept waving and flashing his lights. He finally found a straight spot on this curvy mountainous road,pulled up along side us, and screamed 'You lost your boat!' I might add this was a 21' cabin cruiser, something not insignificant. Thinking the worst, we turned around and high-tailed back up the road to find it resting up against the trees on the opposite side of the road. While posing a bit of a conundrum as to how to get it back onto the road, we were merely thankful that, in leaving the trailer and crossing the road it had not run headlong into a family travelling the opposite direction. We were also glad that it had not ejected itself into maw of the valley on the opposite side of the road, where it would surely have fragmented into a million pieces. To this day, we don't know how we could have failed to notice it falling off the trailer. Suffice it to say, I reckon that was the beginning of the end of my father's interest in boats. These days, he just mutters and says "What was I thinking? Why didn't I just rent one?"

my paleontology prof in college beat you to this. he referred to it, more aptly, as the 'scrotum shrinkage index'

lord knows the 'liberal press' would never enter into the fray: it would be bad for business

Yes, but in a good way.

the real question, Dru, is that you in the tights and cape? tres chic!

if you meant me, i meant we were at squamish not on the lower malemute.

wow, talk about stealth. i was there this week from Tues-Thurs and there wasn't a hint that anything was up.

support "intelligent design"? I thought he was all about making sure 'good science' supported policy decisions? Oh, I guess since this isn't a decision he has to make, it's ok if he just blows off the science part. Oh, wait, he already does that anyway....