riddler

Sen. Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield), who I believe is the subject of this thread, and known to support anti-gay politics. I don't know much about the democrat you are referring to - maybe you could tell us about his anti-gay votes? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ashburn9-2010mar09,0,5423366.story To be fair, he never himself said that he is anti-gay. He just happened to be a married father of four that never, until recently, admitted publicly that he is gay, posing as a heterosexual, who was elected to a conservative district, and voting in the interest of his constituents, who are supposedly anti-gay. In other words, he was so far in the closet that he was having tea with Mr. Tumnus in Narnia. Did anyone really expect a politician to tell the truth? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

It's a bit silly to have an entire menu full of non-vegetarian options, and complain about the single one on the menu. I ate a BK veggie burger once. I've been a vegetarian the last four years. Sometimes you're on a road trip where the only food choices are fast food. Not many veggie options at the standard american fast-food chains. I applaud BK for offering one - although it sucks pretty bad, at least it's a choice. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

That really is the problem with insurance when it comes to modern sports. They have no clue how to handle them, so they use statistics from decades ago. If the insurance industry saw the relative statistics today, I think they would have much less of a problem with skydiving. I wouldn't be surprised if they asked "do you use a belly-mount reserve for safety?" Another question you see in scuba - do you ever go below 30 feet depth? If so, it's considered "deep diving". Well, that may have been true forty years ago, but the RSTC has defined deep as 60 feet today, and unless you only dive in your backyard pool, you're probably going to at least 80 feet on a given dive trip. Doesn't make it any more dangerous statistically - better training and equipment keep divers safer at depth today. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

All of this talk about wanting more trolls is the subconscious result of not having adequate boobie threads. There used to be boobie threads GALORE on this site - that's definitely something that changed right around the time the site was about to be sold. And not having them is probably a lot of the reason there's fewer people on here - trolls included! Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I hear that the makers of the "Shazam" phone app are now creating an app that listens to conversations, checks facts against the Internet, and rings a "bullshit detector" if someone is passing around an urban legend. In the beta version, if you say the words of the above paragraph into the phone, it goes off. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Sounds more like territorial pissing. "Stop flirting with the guy I like" "Don't come to Texas and dance with our women" Boys and girls compete for sex in exactly the same way. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Well, you can't sacrifice the ones that are putting out! They're too important. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

However, those statistics on car accidents are balanced out by the increased chance of getting stuck in a revolving door, and dying a cruel death. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Pictures, please

My school was a small engineering school (about 3,000 students, total), with eight engineering degrees, one chemistry and one geology. But our football team did pretty well - going to the national championship for 2A. No one noticed, because, well, it's 2A. Our secret - our cheerleaders were the third-string - these girls were like tanks. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Considering that it's "medically necessary" and prescribed by a doctor, I think we're going to see some interesting lawsuits in the near future regarding this issue. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

We're a fear-based society, so if we can find a way to be as scared about outer space as we are of foreign cultures, we'll be on every planet before you know what's going on. Maybe we can replace the "terrorist" jargon with "alien" jargon. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Come to Denver! You can do both. In fact, there are now more medical marijuana dispensaries in Denver than there are Starbuck's franchises. There are cafes here that sell brownies, hash lollipops, and all sorts of other goodies. By comparison, it seems that California's usage laws are quite strict. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Feeding animals and turning your back on them - brings back some distant memory for me. I was scuba diving in Belize, and the dive master was this real jerk of a macho asshat that strutted around the boat in a bikini, and acted like he as god's gift to diving, women and pretty much everything else. My girlfriend and I had already had a bad entry with him, she was freaking out a bit and aborted the dive. I went down solo and he was at the bottom feeding some nurse sharks. Strike 2 in my book - I don't feed or touch animals - just observe. This dude would grab the sharks, flip them over and try to lull them by rubbing their bellies - a technique that shark researchers have been known to use on smaller species (deprives them of oxygen, so they get tired). In the middle of feeding them, he turned to me and gave me the OK sign, with his little fingers extended. A nurse shark was hovering behind him, and thought his fingers were more fish, quickly swam over his shoulder and bit his fingers. After that, he grabbed the shark and punched it. The wound wasn't a big deal - it was like a dog bite, but what was really cool was the blood looks green at depth. Watching that woman feeding the orca and then turn her back on him was pretty intense for me. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I heard the neighborhood on the east side of West Kill isn't so bad. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

- Total cost of Apollo program, which spanned 14 years, and landed men on the moon (in 1969 dollars): $25 billion USD. Adjust for inflation in 2007 dollars: $140 billion USD - Cost of one single year of war funds for Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010: $130 billion I vote we suspend our wars for one year, and use the money to send several more people to the moon. And this time lets get some women on the moon. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Now your secret is out! Next time I see a group BASE jumpers walking past the authority to the site, I'll just quickly walk behind them, and they'll never catch me Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

So you're saying that it was OK for humans to put Orcas in captivity so that humans did not kill them all in the wild? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

In general, I am against animal captivity for entertainment purposes. I think people that do that deserve what they get. Yeah, I know they love the animals, yadda yadda. I just think it's wrong. But I'll say this - Orca is one of the few things I will never plan to scuba dive with. I was on a boat in New Zealand watching two of them tear apart a grey shark from only an arm's length away. They were incredibly vicious. I do not think they are dumb animals, in fact, they may be the smartest animal that lives naturally in the ocean, and they deserve our respect (not cages). Supposedly, they are playful and curious with scuba divers that do dive with them. But just seeing that other side of them makes me never want to get in the water with one. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Consider skydiving as training for when the airlines start making seats 20% smaller to get more people aboard. We'll still think we have a huge amount of room. I have never flown anything commercial, except coach. Don't need to - coach seems like first class to me Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Nearly every engineer I know has kids. Fortunately, for us engineering types, there are plenty of the opposite sex out there with low standards. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Yeah, that's where I learned everything I know about Canada, too. With your beady little eyes and your square heads Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Wow, an entire piece about how Canada is where the Winter Olympics are being held. So, it's just like the US, only better? Here's a summary of the US feelings toward Canada. You're like another state. You just spend a lot of time talking about how great and different you are - a lot like Texans. Personally, I've been to Canada, and think it's a fine country. I could do without all the rhetoric. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

It's better than that! First, we vilify other countries for doing it (China and Internet content), then we do the EXACT SAME THING, under different pretenses. Well, it's OK for us to do it, because 9/11, God said it was OK, Apple Pie, blah, blah blah. Oh yeah, and the Russians were devils for occupying Afghanistan for 10 years - but it's OK for us to do it. And those stupid Europeans with their outrageous taxes, our citizens wouldn't stand for crazy taxes. People die in Canada waiting for healthcare - we would never do that shit! And Americans still buy the rhetoric. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD