tvashtarkatena

My wife dissapproved of the black backround, but I had the power of the veto. For ice pics, there really isn't any other choice. Thanks all for checking in. I added a 'Forest' gallery last night. Personally, I think forests are the most difficult subject to capture. Oregon (lived there for 2.5 years) has some amazing flowers, for sure. The Gorge alone has about five climatic zones between Hood R and Portland, both E to W and top to bottom. The variety is incredible.

Your ward finally got Wi Fi?

It can be difficult to determine how Bill's mind works. Or if it works. Regarding Prole's debt repayment strike: we could call it the March of the Deadbeats. I happily paid my student loan back, on time, at 10% interest (a decent rate in those days), during a recession, so kindly STFU, you fucking little whiner.

Personally, as a voter, I've seen nothing that Obama's done so far that contradicts what he campaigned to do. He's picking a Lincoln style cabinet; a philosophy I agree with. It's probably helpful to remember that he hasn't been sworn in yet, so he actually hasn't really done anything as president. Still waiting for that list of Prole cabinet picks. Love to hear who you think would better represent me and everyone else here who voted the ticket.

That ain't nuthin. My wife (before she became my wife) had over 500 OW dives and several advanced certifications (night diving, wreck diving, cert. divemaster, cert. OW instructor, etc.) before she got bored with it all and took up windsurfing and climbing. Unless you were being sarcastic, Rudy, in which case, forget everything I just wrote. Yeah, well, I found the Titanic on a free dive, after I'd lost a fin, so fuck off.

Obama's tax plan had a break even point of about 250K - above that you pay more, below you pay less. I voted for him fully believing that he would not be able to cut mine nor anyone else's taxes, given the current situation. I never vote for anyone based on tax policy alone, or even tax policy as a primary reason. That's voting your pocket book, and that's bullshit. I voted for him because I believed he'd be an asset to this country in that job, given the challenges we face, and his rival would have been a liability.

Just finished. So far, there are three photo galleries: Alpine, Macro, and Ice, and I plan to add a fourth: Forest, pretty soon. There are also some videos and other stuff. linky Pat

I'd be interested in seeing who Prole's ideal cabinet picks would be.

The Wrath of Khan sucked donkey dicks at ten cents a herd. Why didn't Scotty have the courtesy to die BEFORE that series of movies was made, and save us all the horror of seeing the ravages of the aging process overstuffed into their original Go Go unies? The original Star Trek was great kitch. Some say every situation in life is covered by at least one episode. Remaking it, however, was beating a horse that should have stayed dead.

Not to mention that every time we torture we violate U.S. law (we have ratified the Geneva Conventions, which explicitly prohibits mistreatment of prisoners, including humiliation, anywhere, anytime. Under the Constitution, ratified treaties become federal law). Question: are there those among us who do not believe we should abide by the rule of law? If so, how would our democracy function if our rulers can do whatever they feel like?

The South African experience proves you dead wrong. Crime rates in Joburg are among the world's highest. Because of this many homeowners are armed. Because of this, many burglars enter and shoot the first person they see, assuming the owner is armed. Out of desperation, homeowners contract with private security firms, who respond to tripped alarms. They fire two shots in the lawn, then come in blasting. Many homeowners are shot by their own private security firms every year due to false alarms. The proliferation of guns has turned what would be simple property crimes (which suck, admittedly) into homocides. Just sayin. The 'common sense' that's behind many of these gun arguments is very often 180 degrees wrong. Almost everyone I knew in Montana growing up loaded their own ammo. I see this as a corporate run for monopolistic practices. The essence of this law will make large weapons corporations the only place to get ammo and they will then control the price more easily. I am talking about keeping gun laws and ammunition access pretty much the way they are. I doubt that you are arguing that if we keep going with the laws that currently exist, we will end up like South Africa. Right? I would argue that there are other variables in the mix that make S Africa a different scenario. No, that wasn't my argument. I simply gave an example of a society where the popular wisdom that 'an armed society is a polite society' has seriously backfired. Our own society did the experiment as well; during the 'winning of the west', when the habit of carrying a personal firearm was at a it's all time historical high...and so were violent crime rates, at least in as much as they were iomperfectly tracked at the time. Of course, there were other factors, such as the dearth of women (to mitigate the violence levels) in many western settlements at the time. Mods, it's really about time somebody fixed the fucking quote problem. Is it really that hard to pre-place the cursor after the last

Fortunately, we are soon to be lead by a more principled person with higher moral values than FW, JayB, and their low culture friends. American torture will become a shameful memory rather than a nightmarish reality.

$2000 worth of unmarked ammo.

MY best friend is from the UK, we've discussed this issue at length, and, yet again, you're dead wrong. The problem in the UK is a) Much laxer laws against violent crime, which allows all kinds of hooliganism; bar fights, muggings, etc, to take place there that wouldn't fly here and b) The greater difficulty of bringing civil suits, which produces the same result. Gun ownership has little or nothing at all to do with it. If gun ownership were more lax in the UK, the result would be utterly predictable: the hooligans would be the first to own them, and more innocent people would die.

I'm surprised a supposed libertarian like you would espouse such a cavalier opinion about your privacy rights and the danger of giving them up, particularly the naive "I've got nothing to hide" argument. This argument makes several wrong assumptions: The government never makes a mistake. They won't misinterpret your conversations and ruin your life. The government is always well intentioned. FBI agents get promoted by convicting people. If you look enough like a terrorist duck, some special agent just might use you to advance his career. Terrorism cases take on a momentum of their own, at some point. Once you're past that point, you're fucked. Their typical modus operandi, successful in many cases, is to threaten you with designation as an enemy combatant. Your lawyer then strongly advises you to take a plea bargain for, say, 5 to 10 years, and you know what? Everybody takes that deal, because Enemy Combatant status means deep dark hole forever. The government won't intentionally build a false case against law abiding dissent groups (it has, many times). For example, we now have a democratic administration. What it they DO decide to confiscate your guns, and use all of their surveillance powers to ensure you comply? If their were a large scale attack, such as the one that just occured in India, do you really think this is such a remote possibility? "Can't happen! 2nd Amendment!" you cry. BULLSHIT. Bush has trampled all over the Constitution since he took office. Any president could do the same. The final argument has to do with the health of democracy. Democracy depends on a free and unfettered press to inform the public as to what it's government is doing. For example, what's really happening in Iraq? If the government listens to every overseas conversation (which it currently has the legal power to do), and has security intel ties with other governments (which it does), then in certain sensitive areas, do you really think anyone on the other side of the phone is going to speak freely and openly, knowing that they may be detained and tortured by their own government for doing so? Invasion of privacy without probable cause, aside from being in direct violation of our highest law (we're supposed to be a nation of laws, right?), has a chilling effect on the freedom of the press. Freedom of the press is at the very core of a voting public's ability to know what's actually going on, and make informed voting decisions as a result. Think about it a while. You're little, extremely unlikely "what if my ammo get's jacked" issue is nothing in comparison.

The South African experience proves you dead wrong. Crime rates in Joburg are among the world's highest. Because of this many homeowners are armed. Because of this, many burglars enter and shoot the first person they see, assuming the owner is armed. Out of desperation, homeowners contract with private security firms, who respond to tripped alarms. They fire two shots in the lawn, then come in blasting. Many homeowners are shot by their own private security firms every year due to false alarms. The proliferation of guns has turned what would be simple property crimes (which suck, admittedly) into homocides. Just sayin. The 'common sense' that's behind many of these gun arguments is very often 180 degrees wrong.

"Captain, there be whales in here." Probably some of the worst movies of any genre ever made.

Pacific Fabrics on Aurora Ave

fluoridation removes melamine.

My favorite Sci fis (not necessarily ahead of their time, though, and not in order): War of the Worlds Forbidden Planet Robinson Caruso on Mars A Boy and His Dog Blade Runner Alien Pitch Black Supernova Dark Star I'd love to see The Forever War and some of Greg Bear's stuff make it to the screen.

Saturn does make a kewler backdrop. I wonder if there were snaffles on board?

WTF is this, SEVENTEEN MAGAZINE? Discuss this situation with your parents, and, while you're at it, you might think about getting a night job for some extra cash. You're gonna need it.

There's not much to say about the India attacks other than the fact that they were horrific. The situation in Kashmir is horrific. The partition of India was horrific. The colonial rule of India was horrific. The lesson here is that war nearly always begets more war. The "we surrender, we'll be nice now" ending in Germany and Japan were extreme rarities. Much more common is the ongoing, never ending situation in Kashmir, which has come close to, and and may one day, play a central role in the nuclear devastation of both sides, in addition to being a prime motivator in the recent attacks. If you push people around, as several on this forum continually suggest we continue to do, they usually find a way to push back. Best just not to push them around at all and find a better way to establish a more positive, stable, and reciprocal relationship.

One thing I always wondered about Silent Running; isn't pretty fucking cold out near the orbit of Saturn for even hardy trees? How about an orbit around the earth, for example? Just sayin.

While we're talking about 'forcing' other religions and societies to conform to our idea of what we think they should be, based on our misperception of what they actually are, it's probably helpful to keep in mind that the United States is one of the most violent societies in the world. Of the 60 nations tracked by the U.N., we rank #1, by far, in the total number of crimes committed and #8 in the per capita crimes committed, for example. We have proven our willingness to use extreme violence to start 2 regional wars in the past 5 years. We currently our infamous for kidnapping and torturing our prisoners, whom we've completely stripped of any semblance of human rights. We are the only nation to use nuclear weapons on completely civilian populations, or populations of any kind, for that matter. We purchase 40% of the world's weaponry, and produce a similar percentage. We have, by far, the largest aresenal in the world, spending more on weaponry than the next 10 countries combined. I think if any reform is to take place, we might look at ourselves first to make the badly needed changes for providing a more wise, just, and moral example for the rest of humanity.