tvashtarkatena

Stop shoving golf balls up there and this won't happen.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the increase in solar output (yes, the sun is getting hotter) is an effect that is completely dwarfed in magnitude by the present asymptotic increase in human caused CO2. Now, the solar effect will matter a lot...250 million years from now. Given your track record on these matters, I doubt anyone on this board, least of all myself, will rush to their keyboards to check your facts.

I was out climbing, east of crest. P.S. Thank the FSM that Krispy Kream is on the way home from Mailbox Peak.

Unfortunately for you, my not-very-well-read young friend, the anomalies in the earth's motion you cite should be producing an ice age right about now. They are not. Wonder why? Hurry, get back on the interwebs for the next episode of INCOMPLETE ARGUMENT MAN!!!!!! You remind me the defense attorney I watched from the jury box admit, as evidence, a letter from a battered woman to her alleged batterer in an attempt to prove that she had violated a no contact order she had previously filed against the accused. The contents of the letter? A hospital bill for her injuries from the battering she sent him for reimbursement. Please stay away from all things scientific. You're your own worst enemy.

I agree......I just wanted to know if he had dug any holes as of late? He's digging a really deep hole right now over in the Gore thread.

Gore may have been awarded half a Nobel for making his little movie, but because of that little movie, morons such as KKK the world over are no longer denying that human caused global warming is happening and that it is a major threat to humankind (and nonhumankind). As for Raindawg and the few other befuddled stragglers still hanging around freeway onramps with magic markered cardboard placards that cry "NO!"...perhaps a robust appetite for Absolut provides an explanation.

The Phases of a Relationship, from Gottman and Gottman, et al: Courting Phase: Male pretends to be nice to obtain sex and allay guilt from the way he treated last S.O. Female rewards male by losing weight, improving appearance, and wearing Catholic School Girl outfits on demand in an effort to prove to last S.O. what a schmuck he was for letting her go. Consolidation Phase: Terrific blowjobs convince male that he must be irresistible to female, so he ignores her weird nipple bumps, snorting laugh, and other minor deformities. Desire on the part of male to occupy lowest energy state leads to an agreement to monogamy. Female begins planning how she will re-engineer male so he isn’t so much like her last S.O. Commitment Phase: Male acquiesces to initial attempts by female to re-engineer him in exchange for terrific blowjobs and a sense of finally getting a relationship right for a change. Through this re-engineering process, female convinces male that he is highly flawed, and couldn’t do any better anyway, so he might as well stick with her. Male convinces female that he is infinitely re-programmable, unlike the last asshole she was with. Honeymoon Phase: This can last from several seconds to a few months. When prolonged, it is an intensive period trying not to annoy the other person interspersed with slowly dwindling incidence of terrific blowjobs. Insurgency Phase: Male’s jokes are no longer funny. Feminine odor becomes repellent. Both partners start an internal resistance movement, complete with clandestine operations, coded communication, and the occasional ambush. Male begins mobilizing his buddies against female. Female mobilizes her Book Group, Mother, and their couples counselor in retaliation. Open Warfare Phase: Each partner now puts all of their resources towards total destruction of the other. No sacrifice is too great, no investment too daunting. Friends must duck to avoid the red jets of hate streaming from each partner’s eyeballs during social events. Eventually, friends are forced to choose sides or be eliminated. This continues until someone walks away with the home theater equipment. Reset Phase: Start process over with a new S.O.

ANOTHER YouroTube short of some Kraut in a flying rocket powered skateboard suit? Yaaaaaawwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnn.

Statistically speaking, I'm sporting one testicle, one ovary, and one C size breast. Will you marry me? Aggregate divorce statistics have little predictive value for the success or failure of a relationship. The more relevant question is: do couples in lasting relationships exhibit different behaviors than those in failed ones? It should come as no surprise that the answer is yes. As to the 'whys'; the most long term (30+ years) and successful (in terms of it's predictive capability) work in this area has come from Dr. John and Julie Gottman. Pretty good stuff for anyone contemplating entering into a committed relationship.

Most people don't need any plumbing experience to realize that a house knee deep in shit is not a good thing.

Fair enough - and the fact that I choose to not be preoccupied/obsessed with this particular issue isn't because I'm a conservative yuppie - but feel free to continue with your stereotypes if it makes life more entertaining for you. From my personal standpoint I have a limited amount of emotional/intellectual bandwidth that I can spend as I like. If I wanted to get really wound up about big-brother, that would certainly consume a good bit of it. I personally don't believe that the potential civil rights abuses enabled by the program being discussed collectively rank that high in the grand scale of international human suffering. For example, my wife recently spent 2-weeks in Zambia working with AIDS orphans, and we are trying to figure out how we can do more to help from both a financial and advocacy standpoint now that a baby will keep us stateside for the immediate future. It doesn't take much bandwidth to stop rooting for the wrong side.

Speaking of worms, Tvrash, might I suggest a dose of Albendazole for that "gut" issue you seem unable to beat? I've taken it already. It worked beautifully to get rid of the 'little friend' that hitched a ride back home with me after my last Himalayan climbing trip.

amen to that! orangutans are skeptical of changes in their cages and the zookeepers are always on the run For us old timers, there never was a bar called the Zoo. There is, however, one on Eastlake called the Ooze.

I approve of it Will you approve of it when is happens to you and your family? If they want to listen to my conversations, they are welcome. Who gives a shit? To them, I'm some nameless faceless John Doe who's talkin dirty to his wife. So I'm (in the nameless/faceless i.e. "some dude from seattle" sense) the topic of some lunchroom conversation in a basement pentagon lunchroom - I could give a rat's ass. It's a "civil liberty" I'd happily give up for the greater good and for the safety of my family. Spoken like a true worm. This issues for the 'innocent of any wrongdoing' are as follows: What happens if the government mistakenly catches you in their net (happens all the time... ask Khaled Al Masri)? What happens when the government targets deliberately for political retribution because of your legitimate, legal beliefs and actions (happens all the time; consider the monitoring of legal anti war groups during Vietnam and today). What happens when government officials, who have mistakenly caught you in their net, then lie to keep you there to cover their asses and improve their performance evaluations (happens ALL THE TIME)? Now, I don't expect a worm such as yourself, lying safe and sound in your suburban bed, thinking about whether or not you should switch to a greener lawnfood, to think about these contingencies. If you want a police state, OK. It probably won't affect the quality of your local schools much. I don't consider that a very admirable stewardship of the American values of freedom we were born into, however. If and when your doomsday scenario comes to pass for me personally, I'll recant to the readers here hat in hand. Until then, I will continue to be preoccupied with my lawn, and watch DVDs from the 3-row of my suburban. Some of us care that my doomsday scenario has already happened for others.

A solid comeback.

I wasn't aware that Blackwater employees provide security for the President because the government can't train any internal employees to do it.

I thought is was sex.....or lack of. Thats why people have affairs. Or at least why men have affairs. Dude, women have just as many affairs as men. True, but for different reasons. I love it when suddenly a man pretends to understand women's motives. It makes for a good laugh. Women don't have motives. They are pure and true in that sense.

You've summarized why a secular-leaning conservative like myself would rather put his political lot in with the hopeful religious - and why the faithless don't govern well. You've summarized why you might think about mail ordering a sense of humor.

"A successful marriage is a daily battle of wills that ends in the death of one or both combatants."

Atheists don't get divorced as much because we don't get married as much. We're too busy hating a God that doesn't exist and, hey, what's the point anyway? We're all doomed.

I approve of it Will you approve of it when is happens to you and your family? If they want to listen to my conversations, they are welcome. Who gives a shit? To them, I'm some nameless faceless John Doe who's talkin dirty to his wife. So I'm (in the nameless/faceless i.e. "some dude from seattle" sense) the topic of some lunchroom conversation in a basement pentagon lunchroom - I could give a rat's ass. It's a "civil liberty" I'd happily give up for the greater good and for the safety of my family. Spoken like a true worm. This issues for the 'innocent of any wrongdoing' are as follows: What happens if the government mistakenly catches you in their net (happens all the time... ask Khaled Al Masri)? What happens when the government targets deliberately for political retribution because of your legitimate, legal beliefs and actions (happens all the time; consider the monitoring of legal anti war groups during Vietnam and today). What happens when government officials, who have mistakenly caught you in their net, then lie to keep you there to cover their asses and improve their performance evaluations (happens ALL THE TIME)? Now, I don't expect a worm such as yourself, lying safe and sound in your suburban bed, thinking about whether or not you should switch to a greener lawnfood, to think about these contingencies. If you want a police state, OK. It probably won't affect the quality of your local schools much. I don't consider that a very admirable stewardship of the American values of freedom we were born into, however.

The Canadians and Mexicans? This is the kind of propoganda that keeps the military monkey on our backs alive and well. This country has a large military for power projection, not defense. If it had no military at all, and therefore no Middle Eastern military presence, it would not have been attacked on 911, nor would it have been targeted by a nuclear arsenal for 40 years. If, for the sake of a thought experiment, we switched to self sufficient, isolationist policies, we wouldn't need much of a defense establishment at all. I give you Canada; not really threatened by anyone; very similar way of life. There is not, nor has there ever been, another nation or entity that has seriously threatened our 'way of life'. That, my countrymen, is a fucking myth. Even the dreaded Adolph Hitler threatened only Europe and its neighbors. That is because our strength IS our way of life, not the military that supposedly protects it. It is intrinsic to who we are. We choose it. And we have chosen to give it up, through the squandering of our hard won civil liberties and wealth, to become slaves to precisely the kind of paranoia that Billcoe loves to expound upon on this forum. It is the militarized, police state we've created ourselves that threatens and weakens us, not drugs, or terrorists, or whatever other threat of the week (or weak) happens to be on the sound bite agenda.

Phi Beta Kappa logic: Against the Iraq War = Disbelief in the holocaust. Such shortcuts might be necessary when one's few available neurons must time share to keep one's sphincter from letting go while typing the word "assclown" over, and over, and over.

What a complete load of shite. The Iraq war was a necessity? It's not even a fucking war (who is the the enemy this week? where's the front?), for Christ's sake; it's a wholly unnecessary occupation. Our aggression has precipitated change all right, although it wasn't much needed, nor was it in the right direction. As is so often the case when a nation blows smoke up its own ass, the aggressor (us) incorrectly assumed that our adversaries would just lay down when our swinging cocks blew into town. "Get a LOAD of us!". Well, guess what; our aggression set off a more aggressive and probably unstoppable chain reaction; and now the bus we rode in on is on fire and in a ditch, and some of us are still too fucking full of ourselves to admit it. That fact that there is even a debate as to whether the situation is fucked or whether or not we should pull out is proof of the kind of national stupidity that, incredibly at this juncture, is still echoed by a dwindling true believers like Mr. Harpell. War is ugly...and it's almost always the worst possible course of action, out of many, that a nation can take. Harpell assumes that our character flaw as a nation is lack of will, apathy, or weakness, but perhaps what he's looking down on from his cliche addled perch is the first step towards recovering from any fuck up: the intelligence and maturity to accept that you've fucked up. Without this step, no recovery is possible.

Thanks for the info. Yes, I'm using plate loading dumbells. I'll also need to get a barbell bench press setup real soon...either that, or incur a back injury. Olympic hole size would be fine for that.