tvashtarkatena

There isn't anything a bunch of middle aged hippies are gonna show your average modern kid that they haven't already seen in copious quantities online anyway. Best you can do is hand out condoms and advise them not to be an idiot. As for becoming sex addicts, that feature comes standard on most models. Pop Quiz: Which region of our Great Nation has the highest teen pregnancy and divorce rates?

And I respect that. Just remember to ask your partner to remove any large rings beforehand, to avoid an impromptu education in colostomy bag use.

Next up: Small miracle on grain silo

Still sunny on Oct 10 - just in time to finish painting after many, many delays. I'm willing to entertain the existence of a personal deity. I suspect the rest of you miscreants may have been cut loose, however.

Winter train in the boots you'll climb Denali in. I saw an sponsored, extremely well equipped all women Italian team (matching uniforms, no less) explode because their (matching) new boots didn't fit everyone's feet, as, of course, they wouldn't. Boots are an expensive purchase - it's not uncommon to postpone it till late in the game. Hands are the other problem area in cold temps - easier to solve that one.

If pointing out liars is all you have left, take stock.

I watched, but remain pure. And now, for something a little more upscale: The Moral Mind

Guess who isn't writing columns for Fortune and Reuters anymore? Twitter: The root word should be obvious by now. It's not, apparently.

If ya can't be grateful to the Baby Jebus for penises, vaginas, and anuses, what can ya be grateful for?

This supports my anecdotal observations of the decline of religiosity in America, particular among younger folks... One in five (American) adults have no religious affiliation ...but is it really a decline or more of a transformation?... Decline of religiosity? America is fantastically more God fearing than any other first world nation - it is a distinct outlier in this regard - so it would make sense that, over the long term (and given today's much more fluid world of ideas), it would trend towards rather than away from the attitudes of its international colleagues. As religiosity declines, however, certain sects have become more extreme and politically organized - the Born Again movement comes to mind. This has produced a tidal wave of anti gay and anti abortion legislation at the state level over the past ten years. I wonder if this effort will survive the upcoming generation, however, or whether or not it will be thwarted or encouraged by court decisions.

My takeaway: very cool objective in a spectacular setting.

Pigs can go thru a full grown Oregonian in about 8 minutes

This is one area where the Gubmint should be shelling out some X prize money rather than building more roads that haven't a prayer of solving anyone's traffic problems. Go full auto and you won't need more than two lanes going anywhere ever again. Cars that break down will need to self destruct after an appropriately brief warning period to the passengers of say, 30 seconds or so. Here's where an orbiting particle beam weapon would come in handy. Alternatively, they could flip on their sides to allow traffic could squeeze past. Hell, other vehicles could even be commanded to push them off bridges. The future looks interesting indeed.

From sending your 7 year old to the store for cigarettes to getting shitfaced on the drive home from an outing: WANT. I'm thinking in 20 years full auto will be commonplace. Fuck sign pollution. Fuck stupid agro fat guys with goatees in roided out pickups. Fuck herbal tea sipping left lane blockers. Fuck auto insurance. Fuck, fuck da Po lice. FUCK YEAH.

Questions that may or may not determine black and white Wrightness in our rainbow colored world: How many of those lawyers have poli sci degrees? What is the statistical cutoff between "mostly" and "leastly"?

New rug needed.

Romney's bald faced lies to the voting public (yet another view into how much respect he has the Little People): Full responsibility. In contrast, Obama hasn't taken credit for the recent jobs report (or any other recent economic news). Romney has obviously calculated that a bunch of lies would get more media play than their inevitable corrections and less likely retractions. Dangerous strategy in this modern world: the exposure of his lies could easily backfire on him. The polls, for what they're worth, indicate what they always have: the debates don't really matter that much in the end. This makes sense: anyone who is brain dead or apathetic enough to remain undecided this late in the game sure as hell isn't going to make the effort to watch yet another dog and pony show moderated by a doddering old fool who should have been put out to pasture a long, long time ago.

yeah, but mostly they have a law degree...... just saying. Less than half of both houses of Congress have law degrees. You gotta stop getting your world view from the back of a matchbook, dood. For a guy who rails against the Republifuk's anti-Age-of-Reason agenda, you're not all that data driven yourself.

To GGK, every moment is an AMERICA, FUCK YEAH moment. We have the best colleges, and more of them, than any other country by any measure. They cost too much now to be accessible, however. Japan's cool, but the 80s and the age of Deming was a long time ago. Their economy has been in the shitter for many years, yes, even compared to ours. Japan has a budding class of new entrepreneurs/inventors, but that really hasn't been their cultural style. Good cars, awesome manga. When you take a real look around, America's not a bad gig. Decent real estate, even though we don't have a World Class Destination here in WA. Always lots to argue about. Great cultural scene. Sure, we've got some unique problems which have been discussed at length here, but in the end I remain ever the optimist about the joint.

If you wanna climb World Class Destinations, you gotta Take It To The Next Level.

The "value of our money" seems to be doing fine - inflation's really low, home prices are really low, borrowing costs are really low, exchange rates are stable (and excellent re: CAD). Sluggish job growth has a lot more to do with a popped real estate bubble (exactly the kind of thing that happens more regularly in an unfettered, Paulian economy), smaller, more urban (and thus less consuming) households, and technology's effect on individual productivity and the ability to share, rather than own, expensive assets. These are not conversations you'll see much on the tely - too intractable, real, and scary. They also poke pinpricks in the American Dream of owning a whole lot of shit and having that 2.2 kid family, which, of course, go hand in hand. There's no going back, so we're all going to have to adapt. Access to education one thing gubmint can help with - I noted that Romney wants us to have the best institutions (we already do), but fails to mention access to same - the real issue. Health care costs will eventually be brought under control by a single payer system. Delaying the inevitable will cause a lot more unnecessary pain, but we'll do exactly that, most likely. Bloated military spending is, of course, gubmint's other elephant in the room. Again, Romney fails to grasp a way forward, here. Tricky one, though. We've already seen higher unemployment among vets, and flooding an already shitty job market with same probably wouldn't make things too much better, right now. I wouldn't mind seeing some Tridents go commercial, though. Always wanted to con one of those fuckers, if only for a few paid minutes.

The media needs a story, and a comeback underdog is a sure bet. Obama sauntering over home plate doesn't make for riveting copy. The Great Re-Branding was an interesting twist. Looks like that Teabagger bowel movement has become somewhat impacted, and another VP pick has begun to sour. Romney badly needed a narrative, ANY narrative, to call his own. Now he's Friend to the Working Man, complete with apologies for everything he's said previously and everything. America love's a good public apology, too. Mitt couldn't quite muster tears, but still.

The web helps yet another climber overcome his shyness issues.

Is 'mixed climbing' included on purpose?

This is gonna make for one Xtreme Power Point presentation. Might I suggest a SlideTorial on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a finale.