jfields

I agree with Bill. Facts are facts. They are indisputable and immutable. It is like a crowd of people each looking at the same object through different types of lenses. Some through convex, some concave, others through prisms, others as reflections in mirrors. Everyone will see the object differently, but the object is the same. The specifications of the object itself are fact. What everyone sees differently is perception. Only when people can either see clearly or derive a basis for understanding not formed on distorted sight can they really see the facts. When multiple people get to that true understanding of the facts, it will be the same, because the facts only exist in one form.

Now, if only Clay could make it. Then the trinity of moose, poodle and sheep would all be covered.

You are saying that our local NBC4 nightly news is the same as a talkshow-format opinion show?

True, but in some cases, a real doctor will even recommend a chiropractor, because the problem lies in the small area where chiropractors may have some real skill. But like you, I would not recommend one for the actual diagnosis of a problem. If you don't know what is going on, see a real MD.

You buyin'?

Depends on the issue. Chiropractors are good at some things, but should not be mistaken for regular doctors. In their specialty, they can have insights and experience regular doctors don't. I won't say they are all quacks, but they definitely belong in an alternative niche.

I'll probably have a mini-van within a year to complement our boring-ass Toyota Camry. Minivans are evil, but they are good for hauling around munchkins and their related junk. I can't get my wife to go for either a full-size van or a so-retro-it-hurts station wagon. We can't afford some gigantic SUV. So a minivan it will be. But at least it will have skydiving stickers on it.

I think the talkshows on Fox (which have had the biggest impact on their ratings) are as much entertainment as news. So if you compare "news reporting", Fox isn't number one as claimed. So it isn't as apples to oranges as you think. Neither. I don't agree or ignore. I refute it. Our country's media really is market-driven. They show what we want to see. What we (as a nation) choose to watch is pretty damned pathetic, but they cater to us. Do they ram Reality TV down our throats? No. They air one and watch the ratings. If we eat it up, they offer more. And more, and more. When we get fed up with something and the ratings tank, they eventually pull it. We watch crap, but the method of the programmers determining what we want to see is pretty refined. The same thing applies to the political slant they put on things. There are enough channels and time slots to view damned near anything you want, any way you want, and they try giving us everything in their effort to find new marketing avenues. So, if the media has basically given us what we have wanted, through a process of constant evolution, how can it be drastically left of center as you claim? It can't. It is pretty close to the center. There is a lag time between how the media reports the news and pitches their programs and the general preferences of the public. The media responds to the public, rather than the other way around. They try programs on both ends of the spectrum, and the ones more attuned to what we want to see do better, gradually shifting the effective centerpoint of what the media is portraying. Rinse and repeat. But at no time is the media really out of touch with the preferences of the country. A station may be, or a show, or even an entire network. But the media behemoth is too big, too complex and too efficient not to evolve based on the public wishes. So people that see some big left-slant to the news are probably just farther to the right of average than they think. Yes, Fox is shifting the media-wide centerpoint slightly right, based on what we want to see. It is on the far right fringe, but it does change the average. Being right of center doesn't mean that the center is too far left. But Fox is hardly in response to some nebulous left-controlled left-leaning media problem. It is just gradual amorphous evolution.

As long as you don't have hot coals near the mirror, you're probably right.

There are also differing theories. Some say dry feet, some say sweaty. Neither rely on mental powers. It may also depend on the length of the walk, the temperature of the coals/rocks, etc. People have done it successfully with both wet and dry feet, and been injured with both. So I suppose you really take your chances.

I think not, honestly. If more people watch Friends than the news, does that mean there was a media conspiracy against clueless yuppies hanging out in New York coffeehouses until it went on the air? I'm glad that has been remedied. Or how about the Food Network offering up television to the millions of people that must have been starving? Aside from all of that, the very existence of Fox disputes the assertion that the liberals are totally in charge of the media. How about all the "liberal media" coverage of Democratic scandals? Surely the mouthpiece of the Democratic Party would have silenced all information and media negativity about those incidents. The "liberal media" sure kept quiet on the scandals of the Clinton era. Nothing against the liberals ever made the news then. Like I said, the facts just don't support the conspiracy theory unless you twist them to for other purposes. That I agree with.

Of everyone in this thread, she isn't the one with the brain of a Muppet. That insult is fucking pathetic.

Thanks. I'll try to get some more pictures of Lucy up soon. [rubbing hands together & Brain voice] How can I use my daughter's cuteness for world domination?

And WE are waiting for you to put up your old avatar of your smiling face.

He is probably busy killing kittens.

Well, yes, but I just didn't want to be the spoilsport to point that out.

And supposedly true. http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/dammed.htm

Yes, it is wrong. Not on your part. On his. He should know better. He should respect the position he is in as your instructor and keep it professional. If it "was going to happen anyway", then he should have had the maturity to either get someone else to instruct you or wait until you were out of his care as a student before initiating anything romantic. An instructor is paid to be fully attentive to your safety. Not your eyes in freefall or any other cheesy line. Your safety. It is his responsibility to train you, watch out for you, critique you and help you have good safe skydives. He simply cannot maintain his focus on those mandates if he is hitting on you or sleeping with you. If you two met and instantly fell in love, that is fine. He should ask another instructor to take his place in your training. It is the same as a judge recusing himself from a case because of a relationship with some party in the trial. If he cannot be impartial, his duty is to remove himself from the case because he can't do as good a job. The same holds true with a skydiving instructor. It is for your safety. To put it bluntly, if he can't keep his dick in his pants with his students, he should not be an instructor. PERIOD! None of that is a criticism of you. YOU are under no obligations not to flirt with him, go after him or whatever. It might not be wise, but you are not in a paid professional role that requires you to refrain from those behaviors.

Right.... [sarcasm] It is a huge conspiracy. Hundreds of millions of card-carrying liberal citizens using secret handshakes and spycraft with hundreds of thousands of propaganda-spouting liberal media-controlling executives in a colossal psychological operation to undermine democracy and take over the world. [/sarcasm] Get over it. Quit using media-bashing as an attempt to deny, distort and diffuse the truth. The media is quite happy to dig up dirt and bash anyone. They have plenty of faults, but being the dedicated servant of the Democratic Party isn't one of them. The facts don't support your claims.

No mental preparation is necessary. Just be nervous and have sweaty feet. Of course, that assumes the fire walk area is generally smooth enough to walk on barefoot, which is a separate issue from the heat. A makeshift skydiver pit might not be the best place to go barefoot, fire or not.

I don't. It is probably a bible-thumper. You know, all holier-than-thou.

Okay. Let's leave the constitutional issue aside for now and just say we disagree. So, based on your take on it.... Shouldn't guns be free, so as not to further opress poor people by denying them the right to a firearm? That goes to all the tangential things required to responsibly own a gun. Do you really think it is the government's responsibility to provide them all so that everyone can take advantage of their right? Isn't that the logical extension of what you are saying. Do you want to pay for that? Is it fair to demand that everyone pay for that? I don't think so.

A new sport.... X-Treme Envelope Licking. So, like I was going after this X-Tra difficult mint-flavored-glue manilla 9x12 envelope with metal clasp, when I got this really gnarly, nasty cut on my tongue, but that didn't stop me. I kicked its ass anyway.

But he wouldn't be able to stay there for very long. So then we'd have Bill coming back out of the closet, and that is a totally different humor thread.

Thanks, Jeanne. I didn't want to have to read through all that sludge again to dig up the references.