ChasingBlueSky

Very cool invention that should help reduce landfill and lessen the oil burden a bit for some companies. http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn12141-giant-microwave-turns-plastic-back-to-oil.html _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Interesting thought on the life-debt....but the pattern of them in the books have only come if someone saves a life. Wormtail owes Harry a debt because he saved his life, Most of Harry's Friend's owe him that, technically Harry owes one to Dumble and maybe even Snape for what happened at the tower in Half Blood(wouldn't that be interesting). IIRC, the Prophecy happened around the same time as Riddle coming to ask Dumble for the teaching position. The Death Eaters were known of, and there were hints of evil coming from that entire group, but he wasn't outright killing people just yet, but it was soon after. Snape's worst memory that we saw in OOTP made me think he was in love with Lily....I'm curious as to why James and Sirius said that Snape desreved their treatment. And it was Lupin in Half Blood that proclaimed at the end of the book "BUT HE HATED JAMES!" of course leaving out Lily's name. So, like you, I've thought that the motivation for Snape switching sides would have been the thing that Voldemort can't understand: love. All comes around to the same thing that way. Despite how dark all 6 books are, love is the main theme thru all of them. edit to add: Anyone else get annoyed at the end of the last book with the anti-climatic revelation of who the Half Blood Prince was? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

That wouldn't make sense really, esp since only Dumble was the main person suspecting what Riddle could be at that time.....the dark lord wasn't in full power yet when the prohecy was made. Besides, who would be the parents? And then who are the two people in St Mungo's? My first guess was that Harry was a Horcrux, but after further thinking that doesn't add up. Riddle went to kill Harry due to the Prophecy....a prophecy, as Dumble reminded us is only true because of Voldemort and no one else. Lily proteced him with the one thing Riddle could never come to understand and didn't expect the protection since no one had ever lived past the death curse. Also, Riddle only makes a Horcrux out of a Trophy - Harry is more of a bane to him him, something that stands to weaken him; a dead Harry Potter is what Voldemort needs. My guess is that Harry will live, Voldemort will die. Bela has a big part to play as well. JK says there will be two major deaths in the book....if you count Voldemort as one of them, that leaves only one of these four: Ron, Hermoine, Ginny, Neville. But wouldn't it be a bit more bitter if Snape was revealed to be true to Dumbledore and in the end died to save Harry and his friends? I do think the Dumble murder was planned out (remember the argument that Hagrid overheard? maybe Dumble was begging Snape to kill him instead of begging for his life?). I also think he is dead and we will only see him via the painting and pensieve. Remember at the end of Book 1 Dumble tells Harry that for a person that has lived such a good long life that death is merely like going to bed at the end of a very long day. Death is something the prepared mind is ready for and it is the next logical adventure. I also think that RAB is Regulus Black, someone that Sirius talks about when looking at the family tree in OOTP....remember he was a Death Eater that tried to get out when he realized too late what he was involvoed in and Voldemort had him killed. He owned the house in OOTP and he also happened to have a locket in the house that no one was able to open. Now, did Kreacher take the locket? Did Mundungus take it when he was stealing? Now, here is a question for you: Why did Dumble have a GLEEM in his eye at the end of Goblet when Harry told him how Voldemort was able to touch him? What was the smoke in the shape of two snakes all about (Dumble says: Ah, but in essence divided!" that came out of the silver object? On the title of Book 7 - Deathly Hollows. Hollows has a few definitions: It means Saints, or those who have passed before us....most holidays around this term celebrate those who have died....esp the malevolent and restless spirits of all the dead, a day where we could communicate with those that had passed thru the veil (i found that last bit interesting if you think about the object in OOTP). (btw, I read all 6 book in the last three weeks for the first time) _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

All life is sacred! Those little stems could grow up to be strong US citizens that could be sent off to war for Bush's "legacy." Then those stems could die violent horribe deaths that can be used as propganda for more Defense contracts to make Bush, Cheny, Rove and the rest that much richer. You know, the circle of life....I think they made a movie about it. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

There will still be some in denial. Come on now John....you mean telling the world "We are America and we will prevail over evil" isn't a good enough exit strategy? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I said this in the other thread....there are so many "what if" scenarios that it is impossible to come to any solid ground on this topic. There will always be THAT person who throws in one more argument just as everyone is happy on finding middle ground. It is those who are not secure with just making up their own mind on this topic that makes it such a violent discussion. Those that need to stand on a soap box about THEIR choice just annoy the fuck out of me. I don't care either way what your choice is, just don't tell me I have to agree with it. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

And I doubt a 100% solid answer will be available to anyone to help sway everyone to their side on this argument. Therefore, it should come down to a personal choice on what you believe. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I don't see how you can make that conclusion. Since women are also quite divided on the issue, I don't see why men would be unanimously one way or the other. I can see how he makes that conclusion...there is a very strong aspect of control associated with this topic. It is very possible that some men want to maintain control over something they feel disconnected from. It isn't every guy of course, but I'm sure it would be the group that don't want women at their golf course and want to make sure that women make smaller salaries. Never under estimate the stupidity/ignorance of others. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

...or when they will damage the rights of someone I care about. Pretty much sums it up. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Do you conclude that there should be no laws on such morality issues? Do you think abortion the only such morality issue that should be outside the jurisdiction of the legal system? This is the reply I was expecting...it almost feels like the next question is: Do you feel that murder should be allowed? I've seen the Pro Life media enough to know that is where that line of questions leads to. Don't assume my stance on anything else. Too many times people try to confuse one issue by trying to draw comparisons to another one. I was asked about abortion and nothing else. I've given my answer on abortion and I won't give it on anything else. There are a lot of 'what ifs' and 'but what about...' questions you could toss out there....so where do you stop throwing out those questions and just accept a persons opinion on this topic? I don't know where to draw the line on when a fetus becomes human or has a soul. I don't care about the religious beliefs behind it and I've never once done the medical studies myself. I also can't get pregnant and I go out of my way to make sure that I won't father a child. Therefore this topic really doesn't get much effort beyond that for me. I know what I would do if a child was to come along, but that doesn't impact my posted opinion. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Not my baby, not my life, not my place to choose for others. There isn't a good set standard of rules that work for this. Who's science do you believe? Who's religion do you believe? Who are you to force your interpretation of the truth onto anyone else. Got an issue with kids having babys? Then make sure you educate your own on how to avoid such a scenario. Let the rest sort out their own personal issues and never give the government that much control of your life/body. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

According to this, Tony Snow is of the opinion that they have done their best to follow the law. Of course its a bit interesting how 100k emails were thought to be lost have suddenly turned up. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=alwTfX67vh5M&refer=politics Bush administration spokesman Tony Snow said Waxman's report was being reviewed by White House Counsel Fred Fielding and there would be no direct comment until that was done. ``This is an administration that's been very careful about following the law,'' Snow said. ``We take it seriously.'' Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee looking into the White House's role in the political firings of U.S. prosecutors, said he has been told the White House has recovered many of Rove's e-mails previously believed lost. ``Now that we know more than 100,000 of Mr. Rove's secret e-mails have not been destroyed, I hope the White House will respond to my request for any e-mails from his account that are relevant to the Judiciary Committee's investigation,'' Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said in a statement. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

That ruling was about illegal searches of personal emails IIRC.....preventing authorites to search ISP records....thus making personal email much like private personal phone calls. This RNC issue is about official emails exchanged and erased and wouldn't be covered by that ruling I would think, but then again I am not a lawyer. Part of the PRA states: Requires that the President and his staff take all practical steps to file personal records separately from Presidential records. Those emails would be covered by the 6th's ruling. There is a procedure in place for the disposal of official communication within the White House and it seems that these 88 individuals have ignored that process. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Looks like up to 88 White House officials were using the RNC email accounts....meaning even more emails that were deleted thus violating the Presidential Records Act http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070618105243.pdf _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I hope to hell there is nothing there that prevents me from spending my freakin' money wherever I wish. If you see that as a "loophole", I hope you are a minority of one. If you find ways to avoid paying a tax, they will find ways to penalize you. In IL and NC fines of $2,500 have gone out to individuals using veggie oil in their cars (at a greater cost than using traditional fuel). Both states have cited them as "avoiding paying the fuel tax." DEMs in IL have pushed to change that and NC is in discussions about it as well but at the moment those fines are still out there. As to the OP: Would I? Maybe. At this point I won't support any one candidate from either side. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

That is a very common reaction.... many people do that the first time they see something like that.... I realize that. What I'm saying is that it didn't feel like it helped the story at all. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

You can see three images right here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/magazine/features/2007/documenting-atrocity-061107/gallery.html Story here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/05/AR2007060501701.html?hpid=topnews Here is the start of the story Before December 2005, the Chadian village of Bir Kedouas was a tidy collection of huts in walled compounds and cultivated fields. A later satellite image shows what is left: The former homesites (marked with red circles) and fields are now a charred scar in the earth. The entire population was either killed or fled. Such images may be providing a powerful new weapon in the struggle to stop genocide. ON THE CORNEROF JEREMY NELSON'S L-SHAPED DESK AT AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL'S WASHINGTON OFFICE SIT TWO 17-INCH MONITORS. Both have an extra-tall base, and even then they rest on phone books to get them close to eye level for the 6-foot-3 researcher. At 7 on a Thursday night in April, an exhausted but upbeat Nelson is staring at two satellite images of the same area in South Darfur, Sudan, one on each screen. One was taken in December 2004 and the other in February 2007. They show a region that was targeted by what Sudan's government called a "road-clearing offensive." Amnesty reports indicate that last November, while officials were engaged in peace talks in Nigeria, military ground and air forces and Janjaweed militias burned dozens of villages. This is just one incident in a violent conflict that has killed between 200,000 and 450,000 people in the Darfur region since 2003. A major obstacle to international intervention has been the Sudanese government's refusal to acknowledge the level of violence and its own complicity. In late March, for example, Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir said in a TV interview that the U.S. State Department map showing 1,000 Darfurian villages as burned was a fabrication. The Sudanese government also holds that only 9,000 people have died in the bloodshed, and that local Janjaweed militias -- the same Janjaweed that gained notoriety for atrocities in Sudan's recent civil war -- are independent actors, despite the fact that they've been seen attacking with military support, raping women and girls, pillaging and sometimes burning entire villages to the ground. Amnesty had been documenting the violence, but last year, the government stopped letting Amnesty's researchers into the country. Then last month, Sudan cited lack of evidence in refusing to comply with the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for the minister of state for humanitarian affairs and a Janjaweed militia leader. Which is where Nelson comes in. The 31-year-old researcher is an associate with Amnesty's Crisis Prevention and Response Center. Normally, he tracks hot spots and brewing crises, handles logistics and develops graphics for postcard and poster campaigns. Now he's also learning to analyze satellite images. The catalyst is a partnership between Amnesty and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that's pioneering a new kind of human rights observation: the use of high-resolution satellite imagery -- commercially available only since 2001 -- to document atrocities in areas made inaccessible to watchdog groups. The unusual collaboration started about a year ago, with test projects looking at Zimbabwe and Lebanon. The Darfur effort is by far their biggest yet, and the most politically significant. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I actually found the reaction from those around to see head get squished as odd. I don't know why, just didn't feel like it fit. I get what Chase was doing. He was not giving a clean ending, he was not going to wrap all all lose ends. The idea of the show was life in the mob and it doesn't just stop when the show finale ends. However, I feel it was a piss poor finale all around. So much wasted time on story lines I just didn't fucking care about. The cat? Tony going back to Uncle Junior? Meadow parking the car? The car on fire? Joining the army (including the 3 second shot of Tony telling her in the tub that AJ wanted to enlist - wtf was that?). I really could have done without all those story lines. The major stuff was the fluff tonight. One of Tony's guys going snitch, the meeting of the two families in the neutral location, Tony lapsing back to where he was in Season One in front of AJ's shrink, the story line with the FBI guy, etc. I didn't need the final scene in the diner either. I get it. I get that this is their life and that it could happen at any time. I've had 7 years of watching that. It was a cheap ending and I expected something better. I guess you could even go so far to surmise that Tony IS dead and the last thing he saw was Meadow walking in the door (Bobby: Do you think you see it coming?). I even saw someone say that it was the viewer that got 'whacked.' in the final moment. Well, guess we have a few months before the DVD is out to see the optional endings that Chase filmed. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Ok, that is interesting. I will swear to you and others will back me up that this was NOT the case a few months ago when we looked at that time. The direct links to the speeches were removed the last time I looked....which was back in Jan 07. Google had direct links to them back then as well as they are still on the White House website. As to the OP...what's that cliche? History is written by the winners. Sad but true _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

heh...someone needs to be watching them to get offended and report them....when I studied FCC violations in college I was informed back then that the FCC couldn't pursue action until the public requested it. Also, CSPAN is on cable only and thus has a different set of regulations to follow over broadcast air. There is a good chance that someone DID report the swearings as there are groups that hold my beliefs and report evertyhing to bog down the FCC and to show them how out of date they are. Due to the FOIA you should be able to request a report on what happened to any of those complaints. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Is Ollie North involved in this one? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

So you're in favor of allowing words like "shit" and "fuck" to be used freely on entertainment television shows during prime kid-watching hours? You are not going to like my thoughts on this, as it doesn't fall into the popular mindset. Yes, any word should be allowed at any time on television as long as the show is rated to show it will have those words in them. The FCC is not there to parent or choose when/where your children become exposed to the real world. That is up to the actual parents. This forces them to be active in raising their children and learning what their kids are watching....and then proactively choose whether they want to have their kids view these programs. Show ratings and parental controls on televisions help the parents out. That being said, show ratings must be followed and that is where fines should come in if broken. A children's show should follow a predefined set standard of 'safe' programming. Does the time of day matter? Not really, just follow show rating standards. If a show is going to be LIVE, then there should be the obvious realization that ANYTHING can happen during that time. My conern is the slippery slope the FCC is on. How long before swear words start getting fines on pay channels, movies, or even outside of television(yea, a bit of a reach...but...)? Should the cashier at my local Jewel be fined for saying FUCK as she dropped a bottle of peanut butter during my checkout last weekend? Why is this any less of an impact on the children around her than if a reporter or someone on MTV lets the f-bomb slip. Are swear words really that damaging? No, they aren't. The power behind those words are quite subjective and if someone reacts strongly negative to them, children will learn from that. Not every paretnt holds the same belief as the FCC on swear words either. Why should the gov't extend their own close-minded beliefs on how the population should be raised? I personally have been saying FUCK since 4th grade, had my parents take me to see R-rated movies as a kid (ie Creepshow), and even snuck watching HBO/Showtime afterhours growing up when my parents didn't know (there was no parental lockout in 82). Despite all that 'bad' stuff the FCC would frown upon, I'm quite the successfull individual. Also, I do not want the close minded beliefs of the FCC to rob me of my entertainment as well. A selfish thought, but a motivating one as well. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Because the FCC has turned this into a partisian type fight...claiming the leftist media/hollywood will destory the world with swear words. IDK about you guys, but in the early 80s long before cable TV was huge (only 1 house had it on my block up till '83), kids on my grammar school playground were calling each other 'jerkoffs' and 'shithead' and often used the word 'fuck.' The FCC is not there to be a parent. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I prefer cigars from Honduras or Dominican. But I agree, the law is a bit over the top. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

...from the article. I'll have to call bullsh*t on that one. I'll mark that one up to Canadian media hype. They're just trying to make sound like we have it soooo bad here. I believe it is in the fine print of your passport. You are bound to all US laws when you travel outside the country. Depending on the severity of the crime, they may pursue you when you return. This is used to snag major offenders (slave trade, abuse of minors, drug trade, etc etc). During the cigar hype from a few years back, the US reminded people just what the laws were around Cuban cigars, and this did include smoking them while in Canada or Mexico. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....