tvashtarkatena

Well, I have a little anecdote about Ralph Nader. I happen to know a videographer who worked for him...and never got paid for it. Nader's a non-democratic demogogue by nature. His management style is completely authoritarian. He would make a disastrous president. His assertions regarding the safety of the Corvair were also disputed in later studies. Still, he deserves credit for his work as a consumer advocate. Hey, I like seatbelts. But whatever good he did as a consumer activists was more than erased by the final result of his running for President in 2000. He still refuses to take responsibility for the dire consequences of his actions. But hey, that's our Ralph. A true progressive, to the core. What a fucking prick.

Mike, I'm going to continue doing exactly what I've been doing. All the posters here are big people who can take care of themselves without your help. You seem to be expecting a result here that you're just not going to get. Now, you can either have a sense of humor about it, like everyone else here seems to, or, if it bugs you too much, there are millions of other forums you can participate in. The choice is yours. And BTW, this is not a personal crusade, its an invitation to join a national campaign. If you're not interested in participating, feel free to walk on by. That's pretty much all I'm going to say on this subject. You may rant on about it, but I've said all I need to pretty clearly.

Who would man them? No training for that kind of fun in the merchant fleet. Plus, what if the deck hands get board and shoot up a beach resort?

CLARIFICATION: When I was in the Navy about 500 years ago marines guarded any movement (loading, unloading, etc) of tactical nuclear weapons. Not that I could confirm nor deny there were nukes on board. In any case, it wasn't the most exciting duty in the world.

900's pretty much as good as you can get.

You're not talking to me. You're on a public forum. I'd suggest taking your personal emotional problems elsewhere.

You're pissed off? That's your problem, brah, not ours. Deal with it like an adult. And nobody's glueing your eyeballs to the computer screen. You're free to post whatever you like here, as always, except threats, as you are well aware. Is that what's happening right now? Just to be clear about it, because that certainly sounded like a threat to me.

Not smart and not nice, perhaps, but not necessarily criminal. I'm inclined to believe the drunk story more the grand conspiracy story. It'll be interesting to see if and what the state charges him with.

That's the first time anyone ever called me a jock. I'm stylin'

I didn't post this to argue about who's unsubstantiated, unpublished report says what about the detainees at Gitmo, or argue how the Russians or Japanese or whoever else treated their prisoners worse than we have. I posted it to get people to sign this open letter asking the government to close the facility, and either try or free the detainees there, and clean up this stain on our national honor. If, um, 'reports' show there are bad guys in Gitmo, fine, try them. If not, let them go. Any jaggoff can blow whatever shit out their ass they want over the internet about who did or didn't do what, (and God, I've heard it all) but until it's presented in a court of law as evidence one way or the other, its all just so much bullshit. Anyone got a problem with that?

Aren't oxytocin enemas over the counter in Canada? Anyone?

I'd like to see more snaffle jokes.

No. The supposedly liberal establshment supported attacking Afghanistan because it got caught up in the post 9-11 jingoism (which is anything but "liberal") but the progressive position was to advocate police actions to catch the culprits and policy reforms to avoid nasty blowback. Right, they paid lip service to the environment and labor yet they endorsed NAFTA as is and bashed anyone who opposed it.

You'd have half the guys in the Tenderloin district jamming the ticket gate.

Dru, do you measure the love you receive in inches or centimeters?

Nothing says "I Love You" quite like an F18. I agree that you'd have to be insane not to trade your boring gig guarding the nukes with a chance to drink your way through a few cases of Bordeaux with a chance to blow some Somalian ganstas into the bright equitorial sunshine for a digestif. Still, these jokers took in over $50 million in booty last year (from a remembered radio report, sorry, no linky); that could buy them some fancy fireworks on the black market. What the pirates are really after is ransom, actually; that's why they've been jonesing for a cruise ship lately. The problem would be jarheads killing each other for that duty. If it makes you feel any better, the laws on the books I could find call for the death penalty for piracy, but that shit might also be a bit dated...internutz and all. Anyway, the problem is circumvented if the pirates accidentally on purpose take a bit of well placed ordnance. Gotta be careful, though. Last year a Thai fishing boat was mistakenly sunk by an Indian naval vessel in just such an exchange.

probably just the particular models then.

If you want to keep the opposite sex away, all you need is a mullet or an active Mounties membership.

Many of you have expressed your distaste for the military prison at Guantanamo and the human rights violations that go on there. This is an open letter to Prez Elect Obama to follow through on his campaign promise to close that facility and either release the detainees there or charge them and bring them to justice. You can join this effort by signing it and, if you wish, sending to someone else who cares about this issue. linky I expect the predictable comments from our two resident Gitmo cheerleaders, but I hope some of the rest of you who've commented on this subject will join the effort to do something about it. NOTE: This is just a part of a much larger concerted effort involving litigation, legislation, public education, and legal representation to close Gitmo and make many other changes to restore the Bill of Rights.

Any of you...HOMOS try to slip that oxytocin shit in my drink....I'll kill ya. Be careful, Rob. All human behavior is a result of chemical/electrical activity; that's a given. How that chemical/electrical activity arises and changes over time is the complicated part. It's like; "yeah, wine is old grape skins and alcohol. We got that shit figured out." The question remains, however, why there seem to be a never ending variety of them.

I agree and like to hear both sides as well (but don't bother to listen to Rush and a few other assclowns, including some liberal types). The link I posted above claims to be an "Activist" link which I'm sure JB would totally agree with had he bothered to read it instead of immediately arguing the next point that popped into his head. As he rarely posts no links to document what he says, and appears to not even read others links, having a discussion with him looks to be pointless, although he has some valuable insights, they often seem to come out as just "off topic and not germain to the point or discussion at hand spew". I even listen to Rush and the televangelists, sometimes, if only to marvel at the techniques they employ (and the sad fact that, for millions of people, they seem to work). Rush, like Ann Coulter, is an amazing habitual liar. It's fascinating. I'm not referring to his opinions, most of which are just borrowed from other pundits (he presents little if any original information on his program), but to his tendency to change his story after he's been called on something he said after the fact. Coulter does the same thing. They seem to have absolutely no ability to admit to being wrong or fallible in any way, even when caught red-handed with a replayed tape of their program. (Take your shot here, kids!) Some of the televangelists are the same way; their entire body language practically screams "I'm here to fleece you", but others seem more earnest in their intent. In the end, however, all of them can be cooked down to a few tried and true propaganda tricks which exploits the basic unfilled needs of their self selected audience.

What is the prime motivator in human affairs? Love. Have fun measuring it.

what is the editorial position on so-called free trade? NAFTA? assymetric globalization? attacking Iraq, Afghanistan? and on , and on. I challenge you to tell us which editorial positions on economics and foreign policy can be qualified as liberal. The NYT editorial board was quite critical of the invasion of the Iraq, as I recall. Regarding Afghanistan, that military effort received broad support from all political viewpoints; both because the Taliban were so violently anti liberal, particularly in their treatment of women, and because that's where Al Qaeda and OBL were based immediately after 911. Regarding NAFTA, the board urged environmental and job protection safeguards that were largely not put into place. There are ideologs of every political stripe who lose the ability to rethink viewpoints because they refuse to taking in new information or filter their information to sources that agree a priori with their world view. I like reading conservative columnists (the pros, not the ass clowns) for example, to better understand the various perspectives that make up a politically mixed and often divided society. Plus, I don't go in much for the grand theories or grand conspiracies; two things ideologs the world over seem a bit too fond of.

There have been at least 5 major mass extinctions previously, and it seems that rapid environmental change outpaced evolution's ability to cope with it, resulting in periods where many niches were relatively empty for a time. Basically, the reset button was pressed in many locales. This resulted in previously dominant species becoming extinct or being marginalized, replaced with every different forms of life. Ocean acidification is one such mechanism that can reset the global environment very quickly; either due to volcanism or due to carbon emissions...or both, if Yellowstone suddenly decides to say I Love You. I think viral gene migration (there are other mechanisms as well) is more prevalent in plants; hence one of the primary hazards of GM crops, many of which are sterile. I larger organisms like mammals, it seems like cross breeding competes with mutation as a major evolutionary driver, hence the bushiness of many family trees. Goldbar, WA comes to mind.

There are small electric motors and gas motors for kayaks that require no outriggers, but they are mounted in the stern. I couldn't tell from the photos how your bigger outboard was mounted; on the ama, maybe? I'm a bit confused about your sailing reference: you can sail dead downwind or close to it without a keel (centerboard, skeg, leeboard, etc), but you can't sail at any other point of sail without one or the boat slips sideways. I don't know what you mean by 'leeward wind'. 'windward' is into the wind and 'leeward' is down wind, regardless of the point of sail. I'd be interested in checking out those FL racing boats you mentioned. Do you have a link?