Should be really easy to study - are aircrew more likely to suffer the ill effects of ionizing radiation, whatever those are.
It would be the sort of thing that an established Airline and staff (or air force) would probably already have noticed, particularly any that fly through and around the intense storms in the tropics. The fact that they haven't leads me to think that this may be a non-story.
I have an uncle who used to drop nuclear bombs for the USAF when they were doing all those open bomb tests in Nevada, the Bikini islands, and what not. According to him, every survivng man in his unit has had to have the major arteries in their legs some 30-40 years after they did those bomb tests.
I used to work down the flight line for a company that does scheduled maintenance for airlines and freight companies. FedEx seems to do all their maintenance there. They also seem to do more maintenance for foreign airlines than domestic.
A macbook air doesn't weigh that much and it will play diablo 3 just fine (assuming I have an internet connection!). But yeah, if you take off in the woods for a couple weeks or more backpacking, it is nice to be able to have a laptop, what can I say. I could bring a lot more with me if I wanted to, I've carried as much as 100 pounds while backpacking before (which included transporting supplies to a remote cabin), but if you are in shape and have a nice pack it is very easy. Typically I probably carry about 30 - 40 pounds and I hardly notice it. My folding solar panel generates more than 80 watts on a nice day which is enough to power the laptop and charge it at the same time. Folds up to about 6 inches and only weighs a couple pounds.
Its probably not for everyone, but I like it. I can even get work done while I camp in the wilderness if I find a spot with good cell reception.
Yeah I include the air in the ultrabook category. I have been backpacking myself, and I know a good pack makes all the difference. Its just not something I would add to my list of items to throw in the bag. I'd rather have extra food, but then I am always hungry.;)
Also the reason you have not been murdered yet probably has more to do with your general niceness, averageness, location (not in a slum) etc.. but I know nothing about you to make such assumptions, the law has a lower bearing then many factors on whether you get murdered or not =P
Hah. I was just being facetious when I made that comment. But I do try to be courteous.
I don't recall them checking into what video games Ted Kazynski or Timothy McVeigh were playing when they did their mad, but politically motivated, acts. This seems to be a new thing, and it is pretty troubling.
Pong. That's right. Ted Kazynski wrote his manifesto after an evening of marijuana and pong. That's the real reason that marijuana is so feared.
I suspect that these people who whine about Video Games are low IQ types who don't really understand the real issues facing the US but think they have wrapped their pea brains around an issue and then go off on their moral quest. Their parents were probably on about rap music and their grandparents had their knickers in a knot over satan's rock and roll.
The ironic thing is that these same people were probably all wound up about a tiny rule stating that the president has to be born in the US while ignoring the most important, and first, amendment in the constitution they claim to hold in nearly the same esteem as their bibles. What I think it all boils down to is that people that drive laws like this don't like people having fun that they don't understand.
I find it ironic that you suggest that these people are conservative idiots when Feinstein is one of the most liberal senators in the US. How about we just call them idiots and not right or left wing idiots?
No matter how justified that deterrent is made (by creating it as a law). To stop the most determined people from doing what they will do.
Should banks be protected from attack? I would say in a perfect world were banks were innocent and served a purpose other then gambling on your own investment into them. Maybe.
But as it stands now, banks should be left out in the cold to defend themselves, and in ways that don't violate our laws. They need no more special justifications placed in our society for them.
What are you talking about? Murder is illegal. I haven't been murdered! Therefore the law is working!
No, I believe that my statement falls directly in line with the definition of camp provided by MW:
a place usually away from urban areas where tents or simple buildings (as cabins) are erected for shelter or for temporary residence (as for laborers, prisoners, or vacationers)
It doesn't sound like a simple shelter when you have a TV, playstation/xbox/computer, and a LAN set up to play games with friends. That sounds like a LAN party or a hotel room. Maybe to you, a simple shelter includes these things, but to me, it does not. I've walked through camps in the 3rd world, where people live in shanty towns and their homes are much more in-line with the definition of camp than people hosting LAN parties.
I bring my laptop backpacking all the time. Solar power. Also, you might be surprised how far out into the wilderness you can go on expeditions with a fully equipped 4x4 like a Land Rover, Jeep, Hummer, etc, and you can carry a lot of battery power with you. Don't forget to bring lots of tools and spare parts too so you don't end up stranded in the middle of nowhere in canada hundreds of miles from the nearest town, not that this has ever happened to me:)
Why do you bring your laptop to go backpacking in the wilds? I mean, I could understand if you were backpacking across Europe. But I just don't grasp the purpose of lugging around an extra 7-10lbs (unless you have an ultrabook) just to fiddle away on the computer for a few hours. And I've been 4 wheeling, I know you can go lots of places that way. It's a lot of fun, too. I just don't grasp the computer part.
It's not uncommon to have electricity at camp sites. It really wasn't difficult in the 80s (you could use it for cooking, for electric lighting, possibly for the radio), and it's even less difficult now in an age when cellphone coverage while camping is a plausible safety feature.
Why do you care about people having fun the wrong way anyway? Some people may go camping to "get away from" these things. Some people go camping to go to other things they like, or as a common meeting place between individuals who don't live super close together. But you can do more than one thing in a day, and some of the things you can do when camping are much more dangerous at night.
Playing board games and card games while camping has always been incredibly common, and those things have no "outdoors-only" requirement either.
I'm not saying they are having fun the wrong way. I'm saying they aren't camping. I don't care what they do to have fun. I would not go camping somewhere that had an electric plug in the campsite. The point of camping is to escape from the grind of daily life and to feel closer to nature. If all I can hear all night is the neighboring campsite playing call of duty, then it would drive away the sounds of nature that i want to hear. That may be a vacation, and it may be fun, but it is not camping. You can play board games, card games, etc without drowning out the sound of the wilds. You can also do so without disturbing the neighboring campsites (if there are any). I do not go to high density campsites like they have at yosemite, Zion, etc. Of course, there are people who camp halfway up the trail to Half Dome, and I understand that completely.
Where do you get electricity to play video games while camping? Do you have someone carry a generator on their back instead of a backpack? Who gets that unpleasant duty?
Some people have strange definitions of camping, which include large diesel-powered vehicles, which are driven to "campgrounds", in an effort to remove all of the peace and quiet that camping generally includes.
Do they use these large diesel powered vehicles as part of their lean-to or something? I mean don't get me wrong, I don't mind a campground that lets me drive my car right up to my tent. It sure eases the logistics of a long camping trip. But most of the fun in camping involves doing so much stuff during the day that you're just too tired to want to stay up all night playing video games. Unless there is severe weather, I don't even like to bother with a tent. Though as I get older, those foam pads become more and more attractive.
See, I've always expected people like this don't ignore our concerns, they just can't comprehend we HAVE concerns. "I don't understand why you're all 'Argh, I'm starving!' Why don't you just get some food?"
I work with a guy exactly like this: "I don't understand why you guys are concerned about working 100 hours a week. It's not like there is anything else to do..." And other such nonsense.
video games on a camping trip?
that just seems so...unnecessary. so wrong.
After a long day of hiking / rafting with your friends, it's pretty fun to spend the evening drinking and gaming. I don't see the problem.
Where do you get electricity to play video games while camping? Do you have someone carry a generator on their back instead of a backpack? Who gets that unpleasant duty?
I was going through security one time and had to be patted down. The guy behind me in line decided to be a joker and made a comment along the lines of "they could at least give you a drink for this!". I was really expecting them to unleash the dogs on him for that, but they let him through with just the usual scan. I'm not sure if he would have been so lucky had we been at a larger airport.
So I would say the TSA agents do have some latitude on what they do - but I wouldn't recommend testing it if you want to make it on time to your flight.
They're usually pretty tolerant of that. Sometimes I ask the guy if he's going to call me the next day. Believe it or not, most of those people would rather not be doing pat downs!
I was on CA-127 or CA-178. 395 is near Ridgecrest, which is the town where all the engineers live who work at China Lake (which is a Navy weapons development and testing facility) and that explains the A-7. I dated a girl in college whose dad worked on the physics package for things developed at China Lake. Fascinating work out there, but a terribly boring part of California.
I think that's the B-2. We've only lost one (IIRC, too lazy to search tonight) and that was due to equipment failure. As near as we know I don't think a B-2 has been detected and, as far as I know when it was last announced/praised, certainly hasn't ever been engaged.
I was driving thru the California / Nevada desert in between Edwards AFB and Area 51 (small state highway, about 50 miles north of I-15) one day when all of the sudden I saw a big black object buzzing the highway. Turned out it was a B-2, and I didn't see it until it was almost on top of me (it came in directly towards me). I didn't hear it until about 10 seconds after it passed me. About 1 minute behind it were two F-16's screaming through the pass as though they were attempting an intercept drill. It was pretty awesome. I estimated that the B-2 was about 200 AGL when it passed me. It was broad daylight, around 9am.
There is a book where a supervillain delivers nukes into the US mainland inside of new cars. The A/C unit of the car is replaced with a nuke; then ships are filled with those cars and sent to US ports. The cars are perfectly functional, except that the A/C is not working - but who is going to test that? Not the dealerships; they are owned by the said supervillain.
There is a lot of large machinery that can contain a nuke, or parts of a nuke. You cannot even take that machinery apart. Consider a large electric motor, for example... that is 10' or 20' in diameter. How would customs agents even power it up? it is absolutely impossible. But that mountain of metal can have plenty of space inside to hold contraband. The shipper does not even need to damage the product. If the container is inspected, the agents see what they expect to see - a bulldozer, for example. How would they know that 90% of its fuel tank is already taken by a contraband? How would anyone know what is hermetically welded inside the steel chassis of that machine? You cannot X-ray it; you have to destroy the product - and the agents will do that only if they have specific information.
My guess is that it would be obvious that your tractor weighs a whole heck of a lot more than the previous tractors. The cranes that lift the containers off the boat all have load sensors. They know the exact weight of every shipping container as it comes off. If there is a discrepancy between the expected weight and the actual weight, they would definitely take a look. If you're smuggling a little bit of uranium in each container, it may not be noticeable. But I believe that a fully assembled MIRV warhead weighs about 1000kg. That would be noticed quite easily.
Fixing (neutering) bullies and rewarding fair play would do a lot towards fixing (neutering) our military-industrial complex and maybe even our money politics.
You're joking, right? You're trying to claim that bullies are the reason this country is the way it is? It's at best a symptom, and not the cause. Lets face it, children are mean to each other. They can be way more cruel than the average adult. Your problem probably was that you were not smart enough to learn to fit in. And no, I don't mean be a cookie cutter mold of the bullies, but you probably openly shamed them and embarrassed them in class and you were too socially inept to see that. Mental reasoning is not the end all, be all of life. Brains do you no good if you can't work with others. Social skills are an important part of a child's education. You probably showed them up with your mind, and they decided they would show you up with their aggressiveness and physical actions. Both are wrong. I'm not saying that either is right, and that they had any right to treat you the way they did. However, you obviously did something to draw their attention and ire.
Or maybe god is not evil, but he's doing whatever he's doing to prevent even greater suffering. Maybe man's believe in god (tenuous as it is) is the only thing keeping unspeakable evil from reining down on earth and whatever cruel acts we see in god are actually part of his efforts to save us from the greater evil.
Looking at the atrocities committed in the name of religion, I for one would rather take my chances with that other evil.
Oh please. We all know that those atrocities committed in the name of religion had more to do with power and greed than religion. They used religion as a tool to justify their means. You could say the same thing about law. There are plenty of people that twist the law and use it to gain power and wealth. How many people here deny that patent trolls abuse the law to make money? Does that make law and order worse than anarchy? There will always be people that try to take advantage of others, of the system to their own benefit. I have no problem with men being egoists. But it is when you harm others willfully and without concern that it becomes a problem. And there are plenty of supposedly religious, and non religious people who do that.
Chapter 1 - Male and Female are created simultaneously.
Chapter 2 - Adam and Eve are created in that order.
One of the two accounts must be false - they are mutually exclusive factual statements.
Genesis is a collection of myths with no more truth to them then the parables.
You act like you are the first person to ever notice this discrepancy. If you read the bible, you'll see that God indicates that a day unto him is like unto a 1000 years for mankind, or some such thing. People who believe in Genesis believe that chapter 1 is a basic overview of the entire creation process. There is no need to separate out the act of creating Adam and then Eve because its a basic overview to allow the reader to understand the big picture as things get a little more detailed.
I don't really care one way or another what people believe on the matter, it doesn't change my beliefs (or lack thereof as the case may be). But you have to stop and think that books have used this same format since the beginning. Go run to the store and buy an intro to chemistry or physics, biology, history, or politics and you'll see that chapter 1 is almost always an intro to the subject matter that they want you to learn. It's no surprise that the oldest known collection of books would start the same way. Genesis itself spans thousands of years.
In fact, if you look at the Mormon faith, they believe that Adam and Eve passed an indeterminate amount of time in the garden of Eden before they became aware of good and evil, life and death. But how long does Genesis actually spend going over that portion of the story? Very little time at all, because its insignificant whether it was one day or a billion years. So no, I would not say that your little contradiction proves or disproves anything. It just proves that chapter 1 is clearly a very brief and general summary of creation.
See I read the quote from the guy as "Giving Guido $100 might keep your business safe. Bad things can happen in this neighborhood. $100 isn't that much money."
Way to restate the same thing about 5 times to make it looks like there's any real content.
It's a bug in his algorithm, he obviously condensed the article incorrectly. Oh wait, you mean he doesn't work for slashdot? Does that mean the editors are real people?
As a Texan (Houstonian), we do not want Yankees. Their like locusts that bring their failed urbanite liberal voting policies with them and blight out the local economy. Besides, they drive like assholes! And the honking is a new thing around here. Six years ago, the traffic was a lot more quite.
As a Western transplant to the South, I can say that people do not honk here enough! I've seen people stop (on a green light) to let someone make an unprotected (read w/o right of way) turn across a major road. You could sit at the front of the line for a green light for the entire cycle and no one would honk and wake you up from your day dreaming spell. There is a time and a place for courtesy, and there is nothing wrong with a polite honk to remind a person that there are things going on outside of their car.
One time I was flying on American and I was in the very last row of the plane (booked last minute). The flight attendant came up to me and asked me if she could put an unaccompanied minor next to me during the flight. She asked if I could just keep an eye out for him, and make sure he didn't disappear on the flight. I said it was no problem. When they closed the cabin doors and asked people to turn their devices off, he neglected to do so. He was still texting who knows who when the flight attendant made it back to us for the safety check. She gave me the worst tongue lashing ever because I didn't make the kid put his cell phone away. I am not his father, I am not there to tell the kid what to do. She can do that. Why she thought it was up to me to make sure the kid followed the rules is beyond me. She threatened to kick me off the flight for that. It was ridiculous. I'm not a big fan of the cell phone ban either.
As a European I was horrified to see that prescription medicines are routinely and frequently advertised on television in the USA instructing the viewer to ask their doctor to prescribe the medicine.
As an American I am equally horrified. Advertising by big pharma companies is one of the reasons medications are so expensive here. Also, I can't imagine telling a doctor what to prescribe. If he/she doesn't know already, then I'm going to the wrong doctor.
I am equally horrified by those ads but I actually had something beneficial come of one of those ads. I have had a bad cough for 3 months and nothing seems to be helping with it. I went to my PCP and am finally going to see a specialist about it... Well I was watching TV the other day and saw a medication advertisement for a pill I've been taking for years. Turns out the pill can actually cause the problem I'm having! I had no idea, and would have never suspected it. My doctor didn't either. I mentioned the commercial and he looked up the side effects and lo and behold it was on the list. I just barely stopped it a few days ago though, so it may or may not have a positive effect on the cough.
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Should be really easy to study - are aircrew more likely to suffer the ill effects of ionizing radiation, whatever those are.
It would be the sort of thing that an established Airline and staff (or air force) would probably already have noticed, particularly any that fly through and around the intense storms in the tropics. The fact that they haven't leads me to think that this may be a non-story.
I have an uncle who used to drop nuclear bombs for the USAF when they were doing all those open bomb tests in Nevada, the Bikini islands, and what not. According to him, every survivng man in his unit has had to have the major arteries in their legs some 30-40 years after they did those bomb tests.
I used to work down the flight line for a company that does scheduled maintenance for airlines and freight companies. FedEx seems to do all their maintenance there. They also seem to do more maintenance for foreign airlines than domestic.
A macbook air doesn't weigh that much and it will play diablo 3 just fine (assuming I have an internet connection!). But yeah, if you take off in the woods for a couple weeks or more backpacking, it is nice to be able to have a laptop, what can I say. I could bring a lot more with me if I wanted to, I've carried as much as 100 pounds while backpacking before (which included transporting supplies to a remote cabin), but if you are in shape and have a nice pack it is very easy. Typically I probably carry about 30 - 40 pounds and I hardly notice it. My folding solar panel generates more than 80 watts on a nice day which is enough to power the laptop and charge it at the same time. Folds up to about 6 inches and only weighs a couple pounds. Its probably not for everyone, but I like it. I can even get work done while I camp in the wilderness if I find a spot with good cell reception.
Yeah I include the air in the ultrabook category. I have been backpacking myself, and I know a good pack makes all the difference. Its just not something I would add to my list of items to throw in the bag. I'd rather have extra food, but then I am always hungry. ;)
Also the reason you have not been murdered yet probably has more to do with your general niceness, averageness, location (not in a slum) etc.. but I know nothing about you to make such assumptions, the law has a lower bearing then many factors on whether you get murdered or not =P
Hah. I was just being facetious when I made that comment. But I do try to be courteous.
I don't recall them checking into what video games Ted Kazynski or Timothy McVeigh were playing when they did their mad, but politically motivated, acts. This seems to be a new thing, and it is pretty troubling.
Pong. That's right. Ted Kazynski wrote his manifesto after an evening of marijuana and pong. That's the real reason that marijuana is so feared.
I suspect that these people who whine about Video Games are low IQ types who don't really understand the real issues facing the US but think they have wrapped their pea brains around an issue and then go off on their moral quest. Their parents were probably on about rap music and their grandparents had their knickers in a knot over satan's rock and roll. The ironic thing is that these same people were probably all wound up about a tiny rule stating that the president has to be born in the US while ignoring the most important, and first, amendment in the constitution they claim to hold in nearly the same esteem as their bibles. What I think it all boils down to is that people that drive laws like this don't like people having fun that they don't understand.
I find it ironic that you suggest that these people are conservative idiots when Feinstein is one of the most liberal senators in the US. How about we just call them idiots and not right or left wing idiots?
No matter how justified that deterrent is made (by creating it as a law). To stop the most determined people from doing what they will do.
Should banks be protected from attack? I would say in a perfect world were banks were innocent and served a purpose other then gambling on your own investment into them. Maybe.
But as it stands now, banks should be left out in the cold to defend themselves, and in ways that don't violate our laws. They need no more special justifications placed in our society for them.
What are you talking about? Murder is illegal. I haven't been murdered! Therefore the law is working!
I'm not saying they are having fun the wrong way. I'm saying they aren't camping..
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/camping
You're wrong.
No, I believe that my statement falls directly in line with the definition of camp provided by MW:
a place usually away from urban areas where tents or simple buildings (as cabins) are erected for shelter or for temporary residence (as for laborers, prisoners, or vacationers)
It doesn't sound like a simple shelter when you have a TV, playstation/xbox/computer, and a LAN set up to play games with friends. That sounds like a LAN party or a hotel room. Maybe to you, a simple shelter includes these things, but to me, it does not. I've walked through camps in the 3rd world, where people live in shanty towns and their homes are much more in-line with the definition of camp than people hosting LAN parties.
I bring my laptop backpacking all the time. Solar power. Also, you might be surprised how far out into the wilderness you can go on expeditions with a fully equipped 4x4 like a Land Rover, Jeep, Hummer, etc, and you can carry a lot of battery power with you. Don't forget to bring lots of tools and spare parts too so you don't end up stranded in the middle of nowhere in canada hundreds of miles from the nearest town, not that this has ever happened to me :)
Why do you bring your laptop to go backpacking in the wilds? I mean, I could understand if you were backpacking across Europe. But I just don't grasp the purpose of lugging around an extra 7-10lbs (unless you have an ultrabook) just to fiddle away on the computer for a few hours. And I've been 4 wheeling, I know you can go lots of places that way. It's a lot of fun, too. I just don't grasp the computer part.
From the plug.
It's not uncommon to have electricity at camp sites. It really wasn't difficult in the 80s (you could use it for cooking, for electric lighting, possibly for the radio), and it's even less difficult now in an age when cellphone coverage while camping is a plausible safety feature.
Why do you care about people having fun the wrong way anyway? Some people may go camping to "get away from" these things. Some people go camping to go to other things they like, or as a common meeting place between individuals who don't live super close together. But you can do more than one thing in a day, and some of the things you can do when camping are much more dangerous at night.
Playing board games and card games while camping has always been incredibly common, and those things have no "outdoors-only" requirement either.
I'm not saying they are having fun the wrong way. I'm saying they aren't camping. I don't care what they do to have fun. I would not go camping somewhere that had an electric plug in the campsite. The point of camping is to escape from the grind of daily life and to feel closer to nature. If all I can hear all night is the neighboring campsite playing call of duty, then it would drive away the sounds of nature that i want to hear. That may be a vacation, and it may be fun, but it is not camping. You can play board games, card games, etc without drowning out the sound of the wilds. You can also do so without disturbing the neighboring campsites (if there are any). I do not go to high density campsites like they have at yosemite, Zion, etc. Of course, there are people who camp halfway up the trail to Half Dome, and I understand that completely.
Where do you get electricity to play video games while camping? Do you have someone carry a generator on their back instead of a backpack? Who gets that unpleasant duty?
Some people have strange definitions of camping, which include large diesel-powered vehicles, which are driven to "campgrounds", in an effort to remove all of the peace and quiet that camping generally includes.
Do they use these large diesel powered vehicles as part of their lean-to or something? I mean don't get me wrong, I don't mind a campground that lets me drive my car right up to my tent. It sure eases the logistics of a long camping trip. But most of the fun in camping involves doing so much stuff during the day that you're just too tired to want to stay up all night playing video games. Unless there is severe weather, I don't even like to bother with a tent. Though as I get older, those foam pads become more and more attractive.
See, I've always expected people like this don't ignore our concerns, they just can't comprehend we HAVE concerns. "I don't understand why you're all 'Argh, I'm starving!' Why don't you just get some food?"
I work with a guy exactly like this: "I don't understand why you guys are concerned about working 100 hours a week. It's not like there is anything else to do..." And other such nonsense.
video games on a camping trip? that just seems so...unnecessary. so wrong.
After a long day of hiking / rafting with your friends, it's pretty fun to spend the evening drinking and gaming. I don't see the problem.
Where do you get electricity to play video games while camping? Do you have someone carry a generator on their back instead of a backpack? Who gets that unpleasant duty?
I was going through security one time and had to be patted down. The guy behind me in line decided to be a joker and made a comment along the lines of "they could at least give you a drink for this!". I was really expecting them to unleash the dogs on him for that, but they let him through with just the usual scan. I'm not sure if he would have been so lucky had we been at a larger airport. So I would say the TSA agents do have some latitude on what they do - but I wouldn't recommend testing it if you want to make it on time to your flight.
They're usually pretty tolerant of that. Sometimes I ask the guy if he's going to call me the next day. Believe it or not, most of those people would rather not be doing pat downs!
I was on CA-127 or CA-178. 395 is near Ridgecrest, which is the town where all the engineers live who work at China Lake (which is a Navy weapons development and testing facility) and that explains the A-7. I dated a girl in college whose dad worked on the physics package for things developed at China Lake. Fascinating work out there, but a terribly boring part of California.
I think that's the B-2. We've only lost one (IIRC, too lazy to search tonight) and that was due to equipment failure. As near as we know I don't think a B-2 has been detected and, as far as I know when it was last announced/praised, certainly hasn't ever been engaged.
I was driving thru the California / Nevada desert in between Edwards AFB and Area 51 (small state highway, about 50 miles north of I-15) one day when all of the sudden I saw a big black object buzzing the highway. Turned out it was a B-2, and I didn't see it until it was almost on top of me (it came in directly towards me). I didn't hear it until about 10 seconds after it passed me. About 1 minute behind it were two F-16's screaming through the pass as though they were attempting an intercept drill. It was pretty awesome. I estimated that the B-2 was about 200 AGL when it passed me. It was broad daylight, around 9am.
There is a book where a supervillain delivers nukes into the US mainland inside of new cars. The A/C unit of the car is replaced with a nuke; then ships are filled with those cars and sent to US ports. The cars are perfectly functional, except that the A/C is not working - but who is going to test that? Not the dealerships; they are owned by the said supervillain.
There is a lot of large machinery that can contain a nuke, or parts of a nuke. You cannot even take that machinery apart. Consider a large electric motor, for example... that is 10' or 20' in diameter. How would customs agents even power it up? it is absolutely impossible. But that mountain of metal can have plenty of space inside to hold contraband. The shipper does not even need to damage the product. If the container is inspected, the agents see what they expect to see - a bulldozer, for example. How would they know that 90% of its fuel tank is already taken by a contraband? How would anyone know what is hermetically welded inside the steel chassis of that machine? You cannot X-ray it; you have to destroy the product - and the agents will do that only if they have specific information.
My guess is that it would be obvious that your tractor weighs a whole heck of a lot more than the previous tractors. The cranes that lift the containers off the boat all have load sensors. They know the exact weight of every shipping container as it comes off. If there is a discrepancy between the expected weight and the actual weight, they would definitely take a look. If you're smuggling a little bit of uranium in each container, it may not be noticeable. But I believe that a fully assembled MIRV warhead weighs about 1000kg. That would be noticed quite easily.
Fixing (neutering) bullies and rewarding fair play would do a lot towards fixing (neutering) our military-industrial complex and maybe even our money politics.
You're joking, right? You're trying to claim that bullies are the reason this country is the way it is? It's at best a symptom, and not the cause. Lets face it, children are mean to each other. They can be way more cruel than the average adult. Your problem probably was that you were not smart enough to learn to fit in. And no, I don't mean be a cookie cutter mold of the bullies, but you probably openly shamed them and embarrassed them in class and you were too socially inept to see that. Mental reasoning is not the end all, be all of life. Brains do you no good if you can't work with others. Social skills are an important part of a child's education. You probably showed them up with your mind, and they decided they would show you up with their aggressiveness and physical actions. Both are wrong. I'm not saying that either is right, and that they had any right to treat you the way they did. However, you obviously did something to draw their attention and ire.
Or maybe god is not evil, but he's doing whatever he's doing to prevent even greater suffering. Maybe man's believe in god (tenuous as it is) is the only thing keeping unspeakable evil from reining down on earth and whatever cruel acts we see in god are actually part of his efforts to save us from the greater evil.
Looking at the atrocities committed in the name of religion, I for one would rather take my chances with that other evil.
Oh please. We all know that those atrocities committed in the name of religion had more to do with power and greed than religion. They used religion as a tool to justify their means. You could say the same thing about law. There are plenty of people that twist the law and use it to gain power and wealth. How many people here deny that patent trolls abuse the law to make money? Does that make law and order worse than anarchy? There will always be people that try to take advantage of others, of the system to their own benefit. I have no problem with men being egoists. But it is when you harm others willfully and without concern that it becomes a problem. And there are plenty of supposedly religious, and non religious people who do that.
Chapter 1 - Male and Female are created simultaneously.
Chapter 2 - Adam and Eve are created in that order.
One of the two accounts must be false - they are mutually exclusive factual statements.
Genesis is a collection of myths with no more truth to them then the parables.
You act like you are the first person to ever notice this discrepancy. If you read the bible, you'll see that God indicates that a day unto him is like unto a 1000 years for mankind, or some such thing. People who believe in Genesis believe that chapter 1 is a basic overview of the entire creation process. There is no need to separate out the act of creating Adam and then Eve because its a basic overview to allow the reader to understand the big picture as things get a little more detailed.
I don't really care one way or another what people believe on the matter, it doesn't change my beliefs (or lack thereof as the case may be). But you have to stop and think that books have used this same format since the beginning. Go run to the store and buy an intro to chemistry or physics, biology, history, or politics and you'll see that chapter 1 is almost always an intro to the subject matter that they want you to learn. It's no surprise that the oldest known collection of books would start the same way. Genesis itself spans thousands of years.
In fact, if you look at the Mormon faith, they believe that Adam and Eve passed an indeterminate amount of time in the garden of Eden before they became aware of good and evil, life and death. But how long does Genesis actually spend going over that portion of the story? Very little time at all, because its insignificant whether it was one day or a billion years. So no, I would not say that your little contradiction proves or disproves anything. It just proves that chapter 1 is clearly a very brief and general summary of creation.
See I read the quote from the guy as "Giving Guido $100 might keep your business safe. Bad things can happen in this neighborhood. $100 isn't that much money."
Way to restate the same thing about 5 times to make it looks like there's any real content.
It's a bug in his algorithm, he obviously condensed the article incorrectly. Oh wait, you mean he doesn't work for slashdot? Does that mean the editors are real people?
As a Texan (Houstonian), we do not want Yankees. Their like locusts that bring their failed urbanite liberal voting policies with them and blight out the local economy. Besides, they drive like assholes! And the honking is a new thing around here. Six years ago, the traffic was a lot more quite.
As a Western transplant to the South, I can say that people do not honk here enough! I've seen people stop (on a green light) to let someone make an unprotected (read w/o right of way) turn across a major road. You could sit at the front of the line for a green light for the entire cycle and no one would honk and wake you up from your day dreaming spell. There is a time and a place for courtesy, and there is nothing wrong with a polite honk to remind a person that there are things going on outside of their car.
One time I was flying on American and I was in the very last row of the plane (booked last minute). The flight attendant came up to me and asked me if she could put an unaccompanied minor next to me during the flight. She asked if I could just keep an eye out for him, and make sure he didn't disappear on the flight. I said it was no problem. When they closed the cabin doors and asked people to turn their devices off, he neglected to do so. He was still texting who knows who when the flight attendant made it back to us for the safety check. She gave me the worst tongue lashing ever because I didn't make the kid put his cell phone away. I am not his father, I am not there to tell the kid what to do. She can do that. Why she thought it was up to me to make sure the kid followed the rules is beyond me. She threatened to kick me off the flight for that. It was ridiculous. I'm not a big fan of the cell phone ban either.
As a European I was horrified to see that prescription medicines are routinely and frequently advertised on television in the USA instructing the viewer to ask their doctor to prescribe the medicine.
As an American I am equally horrified. Advertising by big pharma companies is one of the reasons medications are so expensive here. Also, I can't imagine telling a doctor what to prescribe. If he/she doesn't know already, then I'm going to the wrong doctor.
I am equally horrified by those ads but I actually had something beneficial come of one of those ads. I have had a bad cough for 3 months and nothing seems to be helping with it. I went to my PCP and am finally going to see a specialist about it... Well I was watching TV the other day and saw a medication advertisement for a pill I've been taking for years. Turns out the pill can actually cause the problem I'm having! I had no idea, and would have never suspected it. My doctor didn't either. I mentioned the commercial and he looked up the side effects and lo and behold it was on the list. I just barely stopped it a few days ago though, so it may or may not have a positive effect on the cough.