tvashtarkatena

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I didn't post this to argue about who's unsubstantiated, unpublished report says what about the detainees at Gitmo, or argue how the Russians or Japanese or whoever else treated their prisoners worse than we have.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?

This kind of 'historical snapshot' response is fairly typical of Americans, who tend to react to headlines as is, rather than try to understand the motivations (and factionalization) of both sides in this long and convoluted conflict. Perhaps its a form of salve on one's conscience when many innocent civilians are being carelessly slaughtered in a conflict between two grossly mismatched opponents; something America has quite a bit of previous experience with.

Any discussion involving the term Big Government is likely to be a generic circle jerk all around. The world and history are just a bit more complicated than that. Regarding the NYT, which I've read every day for decades, it's probably accurate to say that the editors are centrist to liberal, but, to it's credit, the editorial section regularly prints all viewpoints, including the most extreme neocons. Their columnists are also varied in their viewpoints. What strikes me about the paper is that it's quality of journalism and opinion is much higher than most others. You tend to get opinions and news from the source more often; the paper has a deep, worldwide, on the ground reporting presence, and access to those making the news is as good or better than anywhere else. It is not without its flaws, and it has had its embarrassments, but it remains arguably the most respected newspaper in the world. In any case, a well informed person should read more than one source, but, personally, I don't waste too much time with sources that have an agenda (as think tanks invariably do) or blogs, where anything goes and there is are no consequences for conjecture or inaccuracy.

....given the current environment. Rapid environmental changes can and have thrown a monkey wrench into this process: winners suddenly become losers. Early methanogens, which may have once been the dominant organism on early Earth, and are now anomalies relegated to a few hot springs, come to mind. Paleolithic megafauna are a more recent example. What's interesting about the evolution of intelligence is that it enables all species, not just the intelligent one, to transend their physical boundaries. By way of example, the genomes for all life on earth could be transmitted to another star system and 'reconstituted' there (presuming there is someone on the other end to do the reconstitution). Even more interesting than biological evolution, which is amazing but a product of a fairly well known and well tested mechanism, is the inorganic evolution of the universe to create the conditions of life. Why do we live in a universe of physical laws and constants that just happened to have created galaxies, stars, supernovas, organic molecules in amorphous interstellar life, solar systems, earth like planets....? What mechanism created or selected such an ideal universe (from many other hostile universes)?

I can only imaging that was said with a choking Ghhhrrgggg sound there? I think T must have actually been reading our stuff or something different, cause he's starting to agree with what we say and also make sense as well. :-) I've always made sense. You've just evolved to the point where you can comprehend it.