birdlike

Hahaha, not normally a fan of rap music, but this was more like a public television education special. It's a rap about the Large Hadron Collider. It's quite amusing. (Especially if you're a little bit of a science geek.) Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

He says his name means "the beef" in French, but I remember from my high school French that beef is spelled "boeuf" in French. His name is spelled "beouf." What a maroon. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Its more like the victim of a crime bears responsibility for a further crime. That's even more ridiculous. Why is it more ridiculous? If, for example, a construction worker at the end of the day leaves the keys in the ignition of a bulldozer and someone then hops in the bulldozer and, because of the keys being in there, joyrides and does a ton of damage..why *shouldn't* the construction worker bear some responsibility? maybe not criminal charges, but certainly some kind of civil liability. I think that with certain rights/privileges comes a heightened level of responsibility that applies in the exercise of those rights/privileges. I am sick of the attribution of criminal wrongdoing to the people who did not commit the crime! It's not a crime to leave the keys there, right? So whatever someone does after criminally taking possession of those keys is the one responsible. There can be no logical end to the path you are attempting to put us on with this. Soon, if a woman is walking around with a diamond necklace, and it's snatched from her neck by a mugger, and he sells it for cash with which he buys a gun on the black market, you'll say that she bears responsibility for the killings he commits with that gun because she did not safeguard the diamond necklace that got him the cash to buy the gun to use to kill people! WHERE [I]CAN[/I] THIS ABSURD "LOGIC" END? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

I agree with your innanity, Obama is responsible for every Democrat and their mouth in the world OMG, why are you having such a hard time staying with this concept?? I did not say nor imply that Obama is responsible for what anyone else says. My point was only that what you are attributing to Obama's "class" can just as easily be attributed to his satisfied knowledge that any number of leftist pundits will be denigrating Palin on his behalf, even if not with his official sanction. The net benefit (if there is one) to him and his party will remain the same. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

The beauty is your naivete, if you really believe that Obama is not confident that HE HIMSELF can sit back and not say anything, while assholes like James Carville or Marie Cocco will carry the ball for him. I'm not naive, you're over-inclusive. A former campaign manager for Clinton, a decade ago cannot speak for Obama. BTW, Marry Matlin is the scum. This has nothing to do with confodence, this has to do with a guy's class. Apparently you feel Obama is responsible for every Dem pundit on earth The issue is not whether Carville speaks for Obama. The issue is your unfounded attribution of Obama's reluctance to condemn or speak out about this pregnancy situation to his "class." He knows that others will do the work of whipping up antipathy toward Palin without him saying a word! That's why he can give the illusion of "class" by not saying anything! He knows it'll still get done, and it won't matter if it's done by those who don't have license to speak for him. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Why don't you ask Ken Lay? OH, that's right, he's dead. He died while awaiting sentencing to prison for the Enron scandal. I guess you have some arcane rationalization why his many millions of dollars shouldn't count against your assertion that the rich get different rules. Or how about Dennis Kozlowski? So much for your bullshit theory, not to mention your bullshit assertion of, and then backpedaling away from, the claim that "the courts have 'different rules' for the rich." Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

And that's the problem, it's not codified, it's realized tho. If we took a poll here about $$$ giving greater protections in the court system, I know the result would be that people believe that $$$$ leads to more immunity from the rules and the laws. Disagree? YOU SAID, and I QUOTE, "And in US Capitialism the people who design and run the rules of the system aren't subject to many of the nuances of it. For example, the court/penal system, has different rules for the rich who write the system than the poor." That is not ambiguous. YOU STATED that the COURTS "HAVE DIFFERENT RULES FOR THE RICH." And now you are engaged in the disgusting process of attempting to weasel out of what you said. I can barely watch, I find it so sickening. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

You'll be happy--no, ecstatic--to know that your car can now run on carbon dioxide and water, since that what is the immediate byproduct of running its internal combustion engine. If Capitalism runs on greed, and we agree greed is bad, counterproductive, unfair, evil... blah blah, do you call yourself an anti-Capitalist? Are you an avowed Socialist? Please state for the record. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Why on earth would you "wish" that pigs would fly? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Sigh. I'm not sure if you're deliberately denying the obvious, or if you've actually convinced yourself of that. But because I've heard it so many times in my lifetime, to me the thrust of the OP was blatantly obvious: to cast aspersions on the dialect spoken in particular by uneducated black people, ostensibly for an "innocent" purpose, but in reality with a clearly racist agenda. Yes, in spite of my direct disavowal that it was race-based (which means you're just taking the long route to calling me a liar), and in spite of the fact that I stated clearly that there are whites and hispanics in my vicinity who do these very things I bemoaned. How do you manage to keep a straight face while so blatantly misrepresenting what you see? I just can't fathom it. Why do you continually misrepresent what I have said? Did I start those threads?? I started this one. How do you attach the motivations for those threads to the motivation for this one?? Imagine our consternation, as the people who know what our own motivations actually were, constantly having people such as you trumpeting that we are really just deplorable racists and are lying to cover it up. What ad hominem? If anything, you are the one making the veiled ad hominem attacks by pre-accusing any rebuttal of being "horseshit"! Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Hmm, not what I said. Plus, I didn't call anybody anything. There's a technical term for what BikerBabe just did. It's called "boiling down your meaning." Is that what's happening? The kids and inner city urbanites who are butchering normal English are not in fact butchering it but are modfiying it according to a plan to make it more streamlined and efficient? Yeah, right. If we were truly elitist, we would be snobbish and condescending toward those who use the bastardized forms of English but wouldn't want them to join us in using the standard form. I would truly prefer it if everyone used a standard form of English and didn't, through laziness or ignorance or both, deform it and degrade it. That would mean fewer "lower class" people would be kept out of decent jobs because they made a shitty impression on the college-educated, articulate interviewer. Can't you see the good that would come from our society not being divided into "those who know" and "those who do not know"? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Capitalism does not actually "operate on greed." Greed is just an extreme degree of a desire to possess some wealth. It's like a person with a compulsive eating disorder compared with someone who eats normal amounts of food. You take a guy who owns and runs a hardware store. He is not necessarily operating based on GREED. Just a desire to do business to earn a living! Calling it unmitigated "GREED" that drives capitalism is simply wrong. It operates on competiton, greed is just the automatic byproduct. Then please inform Billvon. He is the one who stated that "capitalism runs on greed." He's your comrade. Surely he will join forces and cooperate with you, da? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

That sounds like a call for us to turn our attention inward, fix our own problems with a full application of 100% of our resources, while we tell the entire world to fuck itself after the next tsumani, famine, genocide, etc. and withhold all foreign aid. I'm on board. Count me in. Is there anything that a person cannot afford that you do not feel he should be entitled to nonetheless? If a guy wants to take six months off from work and drive in a Baja road rally, but he's been living from paycheck-to-paycheck and has three kids and a wife, should he be entitled to do that? But not lose his job or his car or his home? Who should pay for the things he WANTS but CAN'T AFFORD? I would love to be a helicopter pilot, but at the moment I can't afford to get myself trained to be one. Gee, our system is so mean. Over in France of England, I guess anyone can go and do it, huh? Canada, maybe? I guess you have not spent much time around Americans when something needs doing in a community. I'll bet those Communists were really friendly and cooperative with each other when standing on bread lines when rumors started that there would not be bread for all. This must be an easy thing for you to copy and paste to show me. WHERE IS IT CODIFIED IN OUR SYSTEM OF LAWS, that there is one set of laws for the rich, and another set of laws for the poor? That is an outright lie. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Wait wait wait wait wait. Does communism afford him any better housing, or any better job, than capitalism does?! I don't live under rulers who just kill people wantonly. In fact, if I wanted really bad to become one of those rulers, rising up from a middle-class background, I am free to try to do that. OBAMA did it, didn't he? Despite America being such a racist place that keeps the black man down... It's benevolence, not socialism. We are not under orders to do it. That's the difference. But I'll accept your concession on the point that we are not bereft of compassion just because we are capitalist, as was argued. You believe that wanting more than you "need" is GREED? Unmitigated GREED? It's no different from Dennis Koslowski's $60,000 shower curtain? Yes, but that is not tantamount to GREED, Billvon. "Excessive or reprehensible acquisitiveness." That's what my Webster's Collegiate Dictionary lists as the definition of greed. Only those four words. Nothing more. You are attempting to equate a desire for material comfort, security, and affluence with "excessive or reprehensible acquisitiveness"! You might as well come right out and say it: "If you wish to live at anything greater than a subsistence level, you're GREEDY." That's absurd. There are many millions of people in the U.S. who are capitalists but who are neither obese nor even overweight. How can that be, Billvon?! I mean, according to you, capitalism EQUALS overindulgence! Then that's Wal-Mart's greed, not capitalism's greed. You failed to address the fact that the store owner was a capitalist but not specifically greedy. Just a guy who was trying to earn a living and live comfortably. You skipped right on past that to point to a COMPANY that is arguably greedy, without proving that CAPITALISM equals greediness. You do not allow that anyone can be capitalist but also exercise self-restraint, moderation, cooperation... You might as well have called it unmitigated greed. And if not that, then greedy because it is unmitigatedly acquisitive. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Cool! You have managed to be WHOLLY DISINGENUOUS with this statement. I did not "find the loophole," Billvon. Their lawyers evidently did. This stemmed from an actual case at law. But thanks for giving me the credit for being a legal genius. Oh, besides, once again I have to point out to you that the crimes they commit with the guns do not fall under this "protection"; ONLY their failure to register them does. Why do you do this kind of thing, Billvon? Why do you regurgitate outright falsehoods when my text made it perfectly clear before you wrote them that your words would be flat-out erroneous? You're not. Couldn't you tell that the quotation marks meant I was "holding up my fingers and wiggling them *like this*? Meaning, I was saying that in humor and sarcasm? Then we are in agreement, Billvon! But the fact is that IT IS THE U.S. CONSTITUTION that protects the felons from being prosecuted for failure to register firearms. Criminals do not self-report, Billvon. Not for gun crimes, not for rapes, not for vehicle thefts. Perhaps you want to criminalize a car thief's failure to register the car he stole. And then I'll point out that lawyers have already proven to a court's satisfaction that he can't be compelled to bear witness against himelf like that. And then you'll criticize me as though he couldn't be prosecuted for the very theft of the car. Fortunately, your fear of the gun-criminals going free becomes an issue in very very few jurisdictions, because MOST places do not require firearms be registered in the first place. And in the few cases where it may be an issue, it is a trifling one, because these guys are not only felons who failed to register guns (unprosecutable), they are felons in possession of guns (wholly prosecutable, and likely felons who just committed crimes with them (also wholly prosecutable) -- Google "Operation Exile") See, when I point that out, it gives lie to that crap you just spewed about how I should be congratulated for keeping armed felons out of prison. Come on, Billvon. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

From the symphony to a BBQ? Next you'll be off to the launching of a yacht, and then on to a pig-wrestling contest! Gout, huh? I hope you feel better right quick. I have no idea what that feels like but I know I don't want to know! A guy I used to work with also got it occasionally, and he couldn't walk when he did. Uric acid crystals in the tissues?! Holy crap!! Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

You want to believe his "class" even though it's obvious that he can stand by and say nothing, and posture himself as Palin's defender while other Democrat attack dogs and spindrivers make the insinuations and jabs and character assassinations. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

The beauty is your naivete, if you really believe that Obama is not confident that HE HIMSELF can sit back and not say anything, while assholes like James Carville or Marie Cocco will carry the ball for him. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Obama's statement was not unlike Kerry's offer to take a paternity test. He gets credit for it, but it has no real value. Did you mean John Edwards? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

OH SHIT, he's gonna HACK THE MAINFRAME and download all of the U.S. Treasury's funds into a numbered Swiss bank account! Only Keanu Reeves can stop him now! Or maybe Shia Labeouf.! Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

There, fixed it for ya! Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

The last time I was pulled over, it was about 3 a.m., and I had just rolled through the stop sign at the edge of the Walmart parking lot at the street. I happened to pull out in front of a marked Palm Beach County Sheriff's cruiser. He hit the lights, and I pulled into the lot of a 7-11 gas station (which was where I was headed anyway). I stopped the car and shut it off; I reached up and turned on my overhead dome light; I sat there patiently with his light blasting me in my rear-view mirror, with both of my hands on the steering wheel at 11:30 and 12:30 positions. When he approached, I was polite and he was businesslike. He had a full-on tactical vest load including a TASER stuck over his abdomen. He got my license and other stuff after I informed him I'd have to open the glove compartment to get them. He said OK, so I did it, and slowly. I didn't get a chance to give him my, "I'd really appreciate a break, officer" speech before he turned around and went back to his car. He came back a short time later, and handed me back my materials but no ticket. He said, "This is your lucky night. That's an expensive ticket you could have had." (meaning for running the stop sign, which he'd really have had to be a dick to give me, since I had NOT cut him off, or even made him have to slow down, although he played it up like he had. I didn't argue the point. I save that shit for SC.) Before he left, he said THANK YOU to me for having my hands on the steering wheel when he approached! He must have actually understood that I was doing what a cop hopes a subject will do during a traffic stop: be predictable, calm, and visible. But it was amazing, he actually thanked me specifically for that. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

"NORM!!!!" Woody: "Welcome back, Mr. Peterson. Whaddya say to a beer?" Norm: "Nice known' ya, beer!" *gulp* Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Of course! About the only thing I have that is truly "vintage" is a 1971 7-UP frisbee, which was the very first item I ever bid on and won on eBay. (Heh, still in the package. ) These are just gonna be repros, no doubt. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Hillary Clinton's probably available. edit: She definitely wants to force the country to hear the sound of her cackling voice! She'd probably do the job for scale. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire