Nightingale

Do you have any neighbors on vacation? sounds like he might have gotten locked in a garage.

Hoax. Remember, television is edited. Heavily edited, in the case of talk shows. Sylvia Browne is one of those dangerous people who really believes in her own "powers". She agreed to allow James Randi to test her "abilities" and failed spectacularly. From James Randi's letter about the situation: "We tested Sylvia Browne in 1989, on live TV, and she failed miserably. On that occasion, she was not allowed to speak to anyone in advance, or to be asked or told anything in advance. The audience was told to only answer "yes" or "no," when asked a DIRECT question, and Sylvia bombed out big-time. She blamed it all on bad vibrations...." You can see the YouTube video of that failure here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVsNsUBpPrw and read all about it here: http://www.stopsylviabrowne.com/articles/exploringpsychicpowerslive.shtml There is an excellent article about how to cold read here: http://www.wikihow.com/Cold-Read Learn how. Try it on your friends. Once you know the cold reading techniques, it is very, very easy to spot them in someone else. There is another technique used by "psychics" known as "hot reading". Unlike cold reading, the psychic can't deceive themselves into thinking it's real, because it requires information to be found out beforehand and fed to the psychic. Psychics used to get a name and address for their appointment books, and send an accomplice over posing as a magazine salesman or something to scope out the person, talk to them, take note of cars and pictures on the walls, so the psychic has information to dazzle the person with when they arrive. Now, they mostly use google. These people are not psychics. They are, in the best cases, deceiving themselves along with you, and in the worst cases, outright scam artists.

Psychics use a "hook" or a "buy in" to get their subject to participate. They'll say something like "I don't understand how this works anymore than you do. I'm just a tool and the cards speak through me. Sometimes what they're saying can seem fuzzy, so I'll tell you what I see, and together we can work to discover the meaning." At that point, the subject starts nodding, understanding that their participation is required, and they're eager to help, which makes them all the easier to cold read.

The people who work as "psychics" are phenomenal at cold reading and take advantage of the selective memories of human beings. When they say things like "I'm getting something...name...begins with P" and watch your face and get no reaction, they go "no...getting clearer...D" and then you go "Danny?" providing them with a name and something to focus on to lead you through the rest of the reading. By the end of the reading, the "psychic" has figured out what you want to hear and is feeding it to you, and when you leave, you've forgotten all about "P" and everything else she said that was inaccurate and are focusing on "Look towards your work... there will be a promotion soon". And then, you really focus at work because of the suggestion she's just planted, get your promotion, and think "gosh...the psychic was right!" Cold reading is a technique that can be learned on purpose or accidentally. The people who learn it accidentally start playing with palm reading or cards, and think that they "get better" at it, because their readings get "more accurate" when all they're really doing is getting better at cold reading and vague statements that their subjects can attach to almost anything in their lives. Learning it on purpose is easier, but learning it accidentally is more dangerous, because these people actually believe in their own "powers". I used to read tarot cards as a party trick in college. Sometimes I'd have people come tell me "OMG you were so right!" and I'd laugh and tell them about cold reading, and that their recent achievement of "Put your personal energy toward what you are struggling for... you will pass the final you are worried about" was nothing more than their own hard work. If you want to know how to do it, there are books on cold reading on Amazon. If you want to go to a psychic for amusement and to see an interesting parlor trick, go and have fun, but don't deceive yourself into believing it's any more than that.

The Aflac guy who comes around my work brought a whole box of little stuffed ducks wearing Aflac t-shirts and gave them to the front desk receptionist. When he called a week later to make an appointment to talk to people, he said "I'm the one who brought the ducks!" and because he was now familiar, got to make his appointment, and more people talked to him because "hey, the duck guy is here!" Dunno if that will work for you...

Picking Rice as a VP candidate would be a mistake. To win this election, McCain needs to distance himself as far as possible from the Bush administration, and bringing one of the most notable figures from that administration on board as VP would probably completely ruin any chance he may have had of winning.

All I know about are the browser with the world icon (just labeled "browser") and opera mini.

I need to access http://webct.fullcoll.edu:8900/ on my blackberry. It doesn't seem to work with the blackberry browser, and with Opera, I can get to the login screen, but the screen after it is blank. Anyone have any ideas?

That's cool!

Your link is broken. Try this one. http://news.aol.com/health/story/ar/_a/parents-pick-prayer-over-doctor-girl/20080327161309990002

Yes. I believe the NRA has preconceived conclusions and spins the facts accordingly. They link to their sources right on the website. BATFE studies, crime statistics, and accident statistics are all right there if someone wants to bypass their conclusions and go straight to the source of their information. Or are you saying that BATFE is doing the spinning?

Why? Why is sticking obstinately to a particular point of view praiseworthy? There's a difference between "sticking obstinately to a particular point of view" and examining the available information, drawing an educated conclusion, and working to promote that conclusion. The NRA does the latter. THAT is a matter of OPINION, not fact. So you disagree that the NRA examines information (for example, the Constitution and writings from that time period), draws conclusions from that information, and promotes their conclusions?

Why? Why is sticking obstinately to a particular point of view praiseworthy? There's a difference between "sticking obstinately to a particular point of view" and examining the available information, drawing an educated conclusion, and working to promote that conclusion. The NRA does the latter.

It looks like the hot spots along the California coast are the ports in Long Beach, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Maybe it has something to do with the ability to do wrong now and get forgiven for it later?

If the meat is eaten every time, especially if it's given to people who are hungry, and the killing of the animal is no different from a regular hunt (no torture), I don't have a problem with it. The animals are being bred to be killed, and are livestock, not wild creatures. Taking them from the wild for a canned hunt would be very different. That said, I couldn't bring myself to kill anything... I even escort insects outside rather than squish them. If I had to kill it myself, I'd be a vegetarian.

It wouldn't "auto-pardon" them unless the law was specifically written to make it retroactive. At the time the act was committed, it was illegal, so the people in jail will probably stay there (but people don't typically stay long on marijuana charges, depending on your state).

Use the quick method on the back of the package, and replace the cool water with alcohol. My favorites: Pineapple Jello with Malibu rum Peach Jello with malibu rum Peach jello with vanilla vodka raspberry jello with vanilla vodka raspberry jello with 99 blackberries And of course, the irish cream pudding shots...

Yeah, I know. Guess why I'll keep my kids away from him. I remember being at Perris in 04, and here comes billvon. He was one of the most intimidating guys I ever met because within ten seconds I knew that his intellectual firepower could take down the Death Star. It's a good thing that he's about as good of a person as you could ever meet. As Clownburner said at Prairie last year: "We are all lucky that Billvon uses his mighty brain for good and not evil."

Ooooh! That's a good one.

I put a warning on the pic.

If you don't have a tolerance to hydrocodone, you probably won't be able to drive on the 5/500s.

Television said they don't think it's a snakehead. More pics here: http://www.nbc11.com/slideshow/news/15780864/detail.html

According to the link, it was found in Utah, and apparently ate every other fish in the pond it was in.

http://www.nbc11.com/news/15781098/detail.html A mackinaw? some bizarre trout/piranha cross? Pic attached. warning: eew.