murraysovereign

A friend back in High School days was walking across the field at a track meet when someone "dropped" a javelin from the other end of said field. Friend "caught" it with the quads of his left leg. Pinned him to the ground like one of those butterflies in the display cases down at the Natural History Museum. He was OK, eventually, but I think he switched from sports to Stage Band after that. Can't even remember the guy's name now, it's been so long.

Why read about it, when you can watch the movie After this thing's over, maybe people won't be so quick to laugh at my tin-foil helmet. The FOOLS!!

It varies from province to province, depending on each jurisdiction's Motor Vehicles Act. In BC they're legal, in Alberta they're not (or vice-versa, maybe? Don't quote me in court, 'cause there's a good chance I've got it backwards). I'm pretty sure radar jammers are illegal in all provinces, but not detectors.

One of my favourites is that the shooting of President Kennedy was merely one small part of an elaborate conspiracy to assassinate Lee Harvey Oswald.

I wear mine in-bounds, but not b/c. I bought mine two seasons ago, after more than 30 years of not wearing one. Why? Simple - I took a pretty mellow fall one day, on pretty mellow terrain (just kinda tipped over and lay down, really - you know the type...), and as I was getting back to my feet I noticed the depression my head had left in the snow was about a foot from a good-sized rock. Pretty simple fall; pretty serious consequences if I'd fallen just slightly slower; pretty cheap insurance readily available - I picked up a helmet the next day. On the mountains I grew up on in the Okanagan I may not have felt the need, but now I'm skiing Whistler/Blackcomb these last few years and venturing onto bigger, more challenging (and rockier) terrain, I'm glad for the extra coverage.

The trailer I saw said the movie was/is " inspired by a true story." That could mean just about anything. I take it to mean there might have been some sort of true story way back when, somewhere, but so many liberties have been taken that you'd be hard pressed to trace the threads back to that original event. It could have been "inspired" by some guy showing someone the scars on his finger from the time he was sharpening his chainsaw and the file slipped and he sliced his hand open in 4 or 5 places (the scars have mostly disappeared, but if I look at just the right angle I can still make out a few traces). That could be sufficient to "inspire" someone to write a story about a chainsaw-wielding psychopath.

It will be interesting to watch Alberta, where a flat tax has been applied starting last year (or maybe the previous year?). But they've addressed your concern about everyone needing a certain minimum amount just to cover the basics, simply by exempting the first X-thousand dollars of income. So the income you need to cover basic needs is tax-free, and everything above that is taxed at a flat rate (something like 17% - I don't have the specifics here in front of me). Alberta is a bit of a distorted laboratory for experiments in taxation, due to the vast sums pouring into the treasury from oil revenues which allow the government a lot of breathing room as long as prices stay high. When oil prices bottomed out back in the 80s, Alberta became an economic basket-case almost overnight, and conversely the only reason they can currently afford major fiscal experiments like a flat tax is because there's so much money being pumped out of the ground that they don't need to worry much about revenue short-falls or other unforseen consequences. So stay tuned, we'll see how it's working after a couple of years. The acid test will be to see how it fares in the face of collapsing oil revenues, but we may have to wait a while for that to happen.

Need one with remote speakers for automotive use (not legal to drive with earphones, I believe). If you've got one, great, but assuming you have to buy something the flea market option might be cheaper than remote speakers for the Walkman. But regardless, if you want to play tapes, there are simple ways of doing it that don't require some whiz-bang techno-gizmo adaptor/converter gadgetty thing. You just need a tape deck, and it doesn't have to be fancy. I hitched a ride on the Icefields Parkway a few years ago with a couple of guys in a VW van. Their "Sound System" consisted of a ghetto blaster duct-taped to the dashboard. Worked just fine.

Go to your local flea-market and buy a portable tape deck for, like, $5.00. Put it on the seat next to you. Run power from the cigarette lighter. Plug in tape. Press "Play". I know it sounds crazy, but it works. This is how we used to do it in the old days, before computers made our lives so much simpler.

This Treadwell guy sounds a bit like an American version of Troy Hurtubise. If you want to see a person with an odd bear obsession - rent this video. Last I heard, Troy was working on something like the "Mark 7" or "Mark 8" version of this thing, and trying to find a suitable bear to test it against. At the same time , he was suing the National Film Board because the film makes him look like an idiot. I suspect the NFB's defense will sound something like "what the Lord giveth, the camera taketh not away."

Go easy on the "democracy" angle there, Dru. Our next Prime Minister just got appointed to the job by a handful of party hacks. So for the next few months we're going to have TWO Prime Ministers: one everyone wants to vote out of office but will never get the chance to, and another no-one voted into office and won't get the chance to until he decides to let us.

But the original question was asking the first American to win ANY Nobel prize. The Peace prize drifted in when everyone got all excited about Teddy Roosevelt.

So by "conviction" I take it you mean some sort of rigid, dogmatic, ideologically defined position on issues, since flexibility and pragmatism and a willingness to explore options apparently constitute a "lack of conviction"?

Same for us on this side of the border. Bloody Swedes - first they learn to play hockey, now they're beating us at soccer. What next - curling? Still, I thought our women made a pretty good showing advancing as far as the semi-final, considering they were ranked 12th coming into the tournament. Oh well, we'll see you in the Consolation Final next Saturday, dukin' it out for third place. Good luck.

Hear, hear! Summer's fun, but I LOVE ski season - bring it on!!

What "truth" is being revealed here? This reads like just another Entertainment Tonight celebrity interview puff-piece. I like Bruce Willis, but he's not breaking any news here. The troops are helping to restore power? Sure they are, six months after they knocked it out. That's a bit like thanking the arsonist for helping to put out the fire he started. "O'REILLY: Do you engage your peers in a debate on this? Say you're on a movie set and there was Sean Penn or Kevin Bacon. I mention them because they're in a new movie upcoming (What the Hell has that got to do with anything? Is Bill just taking the opportunity to help plug the upcoming movie? This bit of phrasing is straight out of E-T. Puff, puff...). Say you were on a set with them, would you debate them about this? "WILLIS: No. I don't really feel the need to debate it. I believe the United States, everybody is certainly entitled to their own opinion, and as I am entitled to mine. I just happen to be patriotic..." Presumably anyone whose opinion differs is not patriotic? But don't worry, there's no need to get into a debate over it. "O'REILLY: Did the weapons of mass destruction controversy bother you at all? WILLIS: I don't think that's what it's about." Well, actually, that's exactly what this was all about. The fact they haven't found anything doesn't change the fact that the US invaded Iraq specifically to rid Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction. That was the sole justification given to the UN Security Council, the American people, and the world. Any other reasons being kicked around now are simply attempts to rationalize the decision after the fact. "WILLIS: Maybe people have a short memory, but the memory of those people forced to jump out of the World Trade Center will forever be etched in my memory. O'REILLY: They'll say, the opponents, they'll say Saddam had nothing to do with that." Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al have also said that Saddam had nothing to do with September 11. It took them a couple of years to get around to it, preferring previously to always mention Sept 11 in conjunction with Saddam, and letting everyone assume they were somehow connected. But at least they did eventually get around to admitting the insinuation was wrong. Read a newspaper, Bill. You too, Bruce. Or perhaps you both did, but your memories are kind of short? Seriously, I'm glad Bruce had such a great time entertaining the troops, and that he found their morale to be so high. But if this was a celebrity puff-piece interview with a "liberal" celebrity, it would rightly be dismissed out-of-hand as precisely that - a celebrity puff-piece. The fact that Bruce is a "conservative" celebrity doesn't change the fact that this, too, is an empty puff-piece.

So which part of this dismays you? Is it the idea of a band "hosting" a live suicide, or is it the court injunction infringing on their right to freedom of expression? Personally, I'm not impressed with the whole idea of making a spectacle of someone else's misfortune in order to promote/enrich yourself, particularly when the planned spectacle could be seen as encouraging suicide. So I've got to side with the judge on this one. But, some people may feel the band's rights outweigh my moral qualms about their plan. Any takers?

Yeah, I know, but if a rat had been crushed, would it have been "Art"? It certainly was controversial - Gawd, what a circus! Wasn't that the same guy who ate a human testicle and called it "Art"?

Hey, Dru - remember "Sniffy the Rat"? (insert "snaffle-being-crushed-to-death-under-giant-weight" graemlin here) Was that Art, or Snaffle-Bashing, or both? Discuss

I agree 100%. However, I think there's also a tendency lately to dismiss controversial works of art solely because they're controversial, which is just as bad as calling controversial crap "Art" simply because it's controversial. Somewhere in there, there's a line, and it's very poorly defined. As to the specific piece in question here, there's no question that it's controversial (we wouldn't be talking about it otherwise). The question is whether it's "Art," or if it's "Catholic Bashing." I'd say it's both. It's not "Great Art," by any means, but satirical caricature is a legitimate artform, whether in cartoon form, prose (Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" and "A Modest Proposal" come to mind), or cast in bronze as is the case here.

Actually, it's the other way 'round. Our leadership not only have used drugs: they're quite open about it. Our Minister of Justice (Attorney-General equivalent) was asked a few years ago if he had ever smoked marijuana. His answer? (paraphrased) "I'm 45 years old; of course I've smoked marijuana. Next question?" And that was it - no storm of controversy, no Congressional Committees subpoenaing witnesses to try to run him out of his job, nothing. They just went on to the next question - something to do with reforming the parole system. By contrast, I suspect if a US Attorney-General gave the same answer to that question they'd have to tender their resignation within the hour.

But that's nothing new. Michaelangelo's "Last Judgement" in the Sistine Chapel pissed off a lot of people in its day, and a certain amount of it was deliberate on Michaelangelo's part. Piccasso's "Guernica," and Goya's "The Shootings of May Third" both made a great many people angry - "Guernica" is still a bit of a flash point in Spain to this day. Works of Art that are intended to anger people are themselves born out of anger, more often than not. Michaelangelo was angry with certain individuals in the Vatican; Piccasso was angry with the Fascists; Goya was angry about War in general. All three caused considerable offense in their day, and the world is now that much richer for it. So yes, I can see this piece offending people, and making them angry. Perhaps they should be angry. Obviously this artist is angry with the Catholic Church, and certainly the Church has much to answer for these days. Perhaps this artist overshot his target, but maybe he's nailed it. Regardless, the Catholic Church has been attacked artistically for hundreds of years, and they've always protested vigorously. And then, strangely enough, many of the offending pieces find their way into the Vatican Gallery in Rome. So I'm not going to worry too much about the Catholic Church - this is chicken-feed compared to some of the stuff they've had to endure in the past, and in a couple of months it will have been forgotten - or bought by the Vatican.

Ummm, you may want to edit/update your link - it currently takes you to an item about cookies, and why they break apart after baking. Important stuff, for sure, but I don't sense that my world has changed as a result. At the bottom of the page there are links to a story about how Iraq now appears to be a "WMD-Free Zone." Is that what you were directing us to?

Great Balls of Fire

Doesn't necessarily have to be as Orwellian as you portray it. I live under a "single-payer" system, administered by the Government, and there's none of the loss of choice and/or freedom you describe. I choose my own doctor, I can change doctors any time I feel the need, the only thing I've given up doing myself is paying my doctor. Instead, I pay medical insurance premiums of $56.00 (Canadian) per month. A few years back, I underwent two separate abdominal surgeries (one emergency appendectomy, one hernia repair) that required a total of about 10 days in hospital. Total out-of-pocket cost to me? $10 (Canadian) for the two admitting fees of $5 each. And I didn't have to get permission from some "HMO" before seeking treatment. There are plenty of valid arguments for and against any system of health-care delivery you can imagine, but this business of "losing your freedom" under a single-payer system is a huge red herring.