Well, well, Mr. Grumpy... You can try flashing your highs at them once... Maybe they've zoned out. (we've all done that, especially on long trips). Are you really ready to possibly kill them and yourself and possibly three cars behind you for slowing you down by 10 or so minutes in your commute?
And if this happens every day to you, maybe it's the road? Of you could try leaving at different times? There are many ways around the problem, and tailgating is about the least useful of them all.
God I wish I was a millionaire. Then every time somebody did tailgate me, I'd slam on the brakes, and it would teach them a fucking lesson.
Has it occured to you that there may be other reasons for going slow in the left-hand lane? Like your engine isn't strong enough to handle that hill the highway is climbing? Or your car is having difficulties? Or you're trying to make that ramp on the left side of the highway? Or (as has happened to me) there just aren't any spaces in the right hand lane to move into, and some jackass is up my ass trying to go 90 in a 65 zone?
I mean, do you honestly think that people drive that way just to piss *you* off? Road rage? If you're upset by somebody driving too slow, you need therapy, my friend. Take a few deep breaths. Turn the radio on, sing along. Tell yourself that you may be going slower, but if your tire blows out, at least you'll be able to stop more safely.
There's no reason to tailgate. None. Ever.
Re:Looks... pretty much the same as everything els
on
Review: Darkwatch
·
· Score: 1
I thought it made sense? Sure, they never said what speed Titanic is travelling at, but you can guess cruise speed, for an entire day. It takes a certain quantity of coal to do that, and with that coal you could produce X KWh of electricity. You compare that vs. the 300W/h * 24 = 7.2KWh that an average computer would use (and I'm making up the 300W/h). So yeah, you could compare it? My gut feeling is that titanic wins by a landslide.
It's not like we're Luxembourg. Ever driven across the US? There's plenty of land to go around. Use some of those imminent domain rights, set up the panels in Nevada... (it's nothing but surface-of-the-moon-dirt there anyway), and we're done.
Yeah, why would that surprise you? SUVs = old school tech, just bigger. Hybrids = new, sexy tech.
Of course slashdotters are for hybrids. You can always build a bigger engine, that's been done numerous times before. But building a more aero-dynamic car with minimal fuel usage, that's really hard.
Hey are they still copy-protecting the install CD's? If I remember correctly, 9.1 package had CD's that were copy-protected. Which would be totally ridiculous since you can install the same thing from FTP... but you go out, pay to get the CD's, and you can't even make backups. If I remember correctly.
No they shouldn't. There's a real value to knowing how to listen, synthesize information, and write stuff down in real time.
When you go to a client meeting, and the clients are throwing out all sorts of ideas, wishes and requirements, you need to be able to listen, participate in the conversation, (offer ideas), and at the same time sort all this out in your head by many categories (price/time/importance) and write it all down, all at the same time.
College should not be like high school, where you just get handed every last piece of information... If you can get it all from the materials, then what's the professor doing there?
"I believe given the tools most would progress at a far faster rate than what they do today"
Maybe so... given the best tools and most optimal conditions. But life doesn't happen at your pace. It happens as it happens and you need to learn to deal with it. Lecture too fast? Write down as much as you can and look stuff up later. Lecture too slow? Instead of playing games, think of the questions to ask... nothing is 100% clear coming out of the professor's mouth. If it is, think of how you could build on top of the information you're given... how to tie it in with other stuff you know.
"I believe that one day soon most corporations will have their own place to study"
Corporations already do... it's called "on the job training." You learn as you go, or if something is urgently needed, they'll send you for a week-long training somewhere to learn the most important stuff about X... the rest you'll learn as you do. It's amazing how quickly you can pick stuff up with a short project deadline.
Ah, the devil's always in the details. Environmentalism, diversity and social justice can all be practiced to their extremes. But so can weapon ownership (fully functional Abrams tanks for sale!), capitalism, Jesus-worship, or any other issue near and dear to the right.
So I think it's important to focus on dictionary definitions and see if we're cool with those.
Environmentalism, Wikipedia: It is a social movement which seeks to influence the political process by lobbying, education and activism in order to protect natural resources. Some of the issues of concern for the environmental movement are pollution, species extinction, waste reduction and genetically engineered foods. Webster dictionary: advocacy of the preservation or improvement of the natural environment; especially : the movement to control pollution
Ok, pollution kills us, and that's bad, and we should be against that. We shouldn't be mass-killing whole species with what we do... cause chances are, in the long term, it's bad for us too (example: frogs and air/water pollution). Waste reduction - most people don't want to live on landfills, so yes, that's good. And finally, genetic modification... I'm the most wobbly about that one; on one hand, genetically modified crops feed *so* many people that to go natural would mean starvation for a lot of people. On the other hand, what if those crops get hit by something really bad (like a disease), and since they're all coming from the same gene pool, that might mean really bad mass starvation, all at once. For now, it's good.
Diversity: hard to precisely define. To some, it's meshing incompatible people at the point of gun, to others, it's simply trying to get more people of different opinions/characteristics together. There's no harm in expanding the advertising for your college to some traditionally black/hispanic/other neighbourhoods, is there? There are so many ways to accomplish this, some more and some less voluntary, but I think people should in principle be for exposing their children and themselves to people different than them. Definitely helps the society be more tolerant.
And social justice... ah, a gem of a phrase, and nobody is really sure what the hell it means. Go ahead and type "What does social justice mean?" in Google. Out of the top 6-7 relevant articles, people have some WIIIIDELY varying definitions. Therefore, it's impossible to say whether you're for or against. To some, it's communism and utopianism. Other definitions are more down-to-earth: http://www.oswego.edu/~prusso1/Russos_what_does_it _mean_to_teach_for_s.htm
What does it mean to teach for social justice?
It means recognizing oppression in its multiple forms, and then taking action in the classroom to interrupt the cycles of oppression. When teachers teach for social justice they are working to end the cycle of oppression.
Hey, we can't be for oppression, can we?
But really, one should never be throwing out just those two words, without saying what they mean by them. So let's park that one then.
So... what do we have? Don't pollute, kill things, or produce a lot of garbage... Do talk to others, and try to learn about them... mingle. And finally, something we all learned in kindergarden: share your toys.
Now I can live with my kids being taught that, can you?
Yup, agree 100%. But if they ever manage to pass this Creationism crap, I think we should start demanding other creation myths be taught alongside with creationism. For instance, I want my child to hear that earth is probably a flat board resting on four elephants who are standing on a giant turtle.
Personally, I think that's a much more imaginative story than just 7 freaking days. Then again, even a 6-year old can tell you that's just the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard.
Yeah, that's just fucking loony. The notion that we need to quit poisoning the planet is just outrageous! I demand more lead and arsenic in our water supply!
Also, promoting a learning enviroment where one is exposed to people different than us so we learn some tolerance in our younger days is also just absolutely ridiculous.
And social justice? Don't even get me started on that! Those pinko commie bastards are out to ruin our children!
We must fight this scourge with all means at our disposal. We must explain to these people that the good Lord wanted us to rape the Earth (says so right in the Bible), didn't intend for us to mix, and indeed, that Jesus's message was all about amassing personal wealth. Once this message gets through to those god-hating commies, we'll all be able to rest easy in our perfect world.
Thanks for chiming in, Mr. Molecular Biologist guy. It was about time I read an informed scientific opinion on this topic. My gut feeling was pretty similar to what you said... minus the polymerase initiation factors.:)
You know, it's not like they would rip up all the roads, and rebuild them with X-access in place. In most cities I think, you'd be surprised how much can be done with how little money.
Trails usually already exist... it's just that they're connected so poorly. If I wanted to bike to work now, I'd have to make like a 15 mile one-way trip for what could be a 5 mile trip if a few over-the-highway ramps were built and a few smaller streets were safe to bike on.
As for using a variable X... it's walking and cycling... there aren't any more things people are asking for... everybody can use those trails.
We're in for such a rude awakening when the oil runs out.
Oh my sweet god. You want to put garbage collection in C++? That's about the only thing C++ has going for it: more control. With java, you still need to know what the language is doing with its memory, only there's not a damn thing you can do about it... you can only "hack", like have reusable objects. (when I heard this, I went: HUH?... talk about an ugly freaking hack...)
Yes, it gives you more to worry about in C++, memory leaks, and segment errors, but when coded properly, C++ is a thing of beauty.
Now don't give me that "it's just BMI" crap. Have you seen the offensive and defensive tacklers on TV? Big fat fucks... that's an athlete? You've got to be kidding me. Next thing they're going to start introducing sumo wrestlers into the NFL.
Then look at tennis players. Sure, they get injured a lot (from overplaying), but each is as fit as you get... The top couple hundred players in the world are perfect examples of what an athlete should be.
And you know what... people don't do homework because the tests in the US are so fucking easy. For my senior HS year, I went from an East European country, a pretty good high school, to a public HS in Wheeling, WV.
The tests were so formulaic, they were all multiple choice... the teachers practically gave you the questions before hand. The problem with the US is that kids don't fear the tests... Tests should never be multiple choice. You should never tell kids precisely what'll be on it, down to each problem. Tell em one sentence: "it's what we covered in class, kids." Have essay questions for just about everything (not for math, but social sciences/history cannot be tested with punching holes in the paper). Have oral exams, for kids to understand that you cannot just barely know the material and give a convincing on-the-fly answer. You must *gasp* study for it! You have to own the material to do that!
Back to my point - it's not that kids don't fear failure, they do. But if they know they can't fail the class as long as they take the test, the motivation for studying will be minimal.
Tough love, you know. Now, I know it's not like this in the entire country. There are tough, good high schools. But what I went through is what the "heartland" is learning. No wonder this country isn't leading shit anymore. Except in dropping bombs on people's heads, and being violent pricks overall.
Ok, so if you were that smart, it must have taken you all of 15 minutes, right? There are ways to rage against the machine, but not doing your homework is probably the dumbest. Even if you don't learn anything new, you still gain speed at solving the same problems. Which can only help you when you have to visualize a trig problem while doing calculus.
"Blade Runner instead of Alien? Are you kidding me???"
Nope. The first one is a beautiful movie, with great atmosphere, great acting and a superb story. It dwells on so many questions, such as our own humanity. Aliens? The only questions are "what's that goo" and "will I ever eat spaghetti again". It's a run-of-the-mill horror flick. Good for its time, but nothing spectacular.
Oh, and BR has never been ruined by sequels. Thank god it never amounted to anything in the theaters, otherwise I'd be watching "Blade Runner 5: Carnage at the Tanhausser Gate" right now.
Rod of God? How about something less holy, like "the Diggler"?
It means the same thing, you know, and it's nowhere near as ominous sounding...
And I thought the republicans were good at Orwellian speech... Then again, these days they seem more terrified of good sex ed classes than they are of "nucular" weapons. Go figure.
Recently had a 250Gb hard drive fail, after about 6 months. They gave me a new drive, but the warranty on that is only another 6 months. What a great way to say: "Yeah, we fucked up, we apologize for the inconvenience. Oh, btw, our bottom line is more important than your data, and we don't guarantee the new drive at all really."
1) With representative democracies, you elect people to do the right thing on your behalf. (However you define the right thing). If you elected Mr.X to Congress, and he's always told to vote a certain way by Mr.Y, who did you really vote for? The smaller the group of people who really call the shots, the smaller the likelyhood there'll be a cool head among them.
2) Yachts, whatever. The point is that they'll be buying expensive items, and foreign items. They won't buy $100K worth of groceries or Made-in-US T-shirts.
3) Biggest single expense... yeah, by whatever spreadsheet you look at. Comparing the sizes of departmental spending, DOD=$419bn + (a few times the discretionary $80bn). SSA = $9.5bn. And why would you ever cut SS? Don't you think younger people have some sort of a responsibility to those older? If it squeezes our wallets a bit, so what - wouldn't a moral imperative demand we help them, even at a cost to ourselves?
When the party unity takes presedence over everything else, we're in trouble. Because that means that we don't have 500+ people (in the entire congress) making decisions, we have a handful. Do you feel that is right and/or in the spirit of the constitution?
Hoplophobic - yeah, definitely. I think it's a healthy fear... fearing things that are designed to kill you is probably among the healthiest of fears.
Cutting taxes - might work that way to a certain degree. But doing away with the estate tax? Tax cuts on dividends? Tax cuts in the latest budget... all designed so the rich people wouldn't have to pay taxes. Do they need any more money? If you had millions, and you get an extra 100K, you're not going to be spending it on made-in-USA stuff. You'll be spending it on fine European furniture, or nice foreign cars, yachts... foreign luxury items, because that's where the prestige lies.
If there were surpluses, I'd say certainly, let's have them back. But right now, instead of a bit of spending discipline, we have the gov't borrowing money in our name, spending it on shit we don't need, and then telling us we'll have to repay it with interest later. Great.
That anon coward wasn't me. So let's get back to your answer:
The fact that the Reps primary goal is to get their people elected is one of the big problems. There's no dissent allowed within the party, it's one big monolith. There's no reason or critical thinking anymore, it's just what the party leaders decide. (there are honorable exceptions to this, but they're exceptions, not the rule. Plus those people do shut up when it's something that's deemed too important to dissent on).
They get candidates elected. They get their agenda addressed.
My point was also that their agenda is stupid and irrelevant. I just asked questions about half a dozen things that should be of much much higher priority than what the Republicans are wasting their time with.
Getting Bin Laden? We could have had him 6 years ago. Need I remind you of who wasn't interested?
Yeah, if we're going to look into the past, let's go to the beginning - we probably shouldn't even have trained him to begin with. That goes right into the CIA's lap, that one. Not sure during what administrations this was happening, but I'm guessing the Republican hawks were much more inclined to fight the commie fire with fire of their own than the Dem. presidents (or president, since Carter was the only one between Nixon and Clinton).
I won't even go near the Jesus, Guns and bigotry part. You can guess where I stand on that.
You're an agnostic, hoplophobic sodomite?
Yup. You guessed it.(if hoplophobic means "fearing guns")
"Deficit spending is an unfortunate reality in today's America"
That "reality" is going to ruin this country. If there's a time for leadership, this is it. Yet all we're hearing from the current "leadership" is how and where to cut taxes. Spend, spend, spend. Stock market is going up! Life is rosy! Well guess what, rosy it's not. And it's getting worse.
Slashdot Mirror
Or from the reverse perspective, what prevents consoles from finally killing off PC gaming?
The almighty mouse. Consoles don't have mice.
Well, well, Mr. Grumpy... You can try flashing your highs at them once... Maybe they've zoned out. (we've all done that, especially on long trips). Are you really ready to possibly kill them and yourself and possibly three cars behind you for slowing you down by 10 or so minutes in your commute?
And if this happens every day to you, maybe it's the road? Of you could try leaving at different times? There are many ways around the problem, and tailgating is about the least useful of them all.
God I wish I was a millionaire. Then every time somebody did tailgate me, I'd slam on the brakes, and it would teach them a fucking lesson.
Has it occured to you that there may be other reasons for going slow in the left-hand lane? Like your engine isn't strong enough to handle that hill the highway is climbing? Or your car is having difficulties? Or you're trying to make that ramp on the left side of the highway? Or (as has happened to me) there just aren't any spaces in the right hand lane to move into, and some jackass is up my ass trying to go 90 in a 65 zone?
I mean, do you honestly think that people drive that way just to piss *you* off? Road rage? If you're upset by somebody driving too slow, you need therapy, my friend. Take a few deep breaths. Turn the radio on, sing along. Tell yourself that you may be going slower, but if your tire blows out, at least you'll be able to stop more safely.
There's no reason to tailgate. None. Ever.
I thought it made sense? Sure, they never said what speed Titanic is travelling at, but you can guess cruise speed, for an entire day. It takes a certain quantity of coal to do that, and with that coal you could produce X KWh of electricity. You compare that vs. the 300W/h * 24 = 7.2KWh that an average computer would use (and I'm making up the 300W/h).
So yeah, you could compare it? My gut feeling is that titanic wins by a landslide.
Really? You'd trade cricket and afternoon tea for some beheadings shown right on TV?
Wow.
It's not like we're Luxembourg. Ever driven across the US? There's plenty of land to go around. Use some of those imminent domain rights, set up the panels in Nevada... (it's nothing but surface-of-the-moon-dirt there anyway), and we're done.
Yeah, why would that surprise you? SUVs = old school tech, just bigger.
Hybrids = new, sexy tech.
Of course slashdotters are for hybrids. You can always build a bigger engine, that's been done numerous times before. But building a more aero-dynamic car with minimal fuel usage, that's really hard.
We love a challenge here.
Hey are they still copy-protecting the install CD's? If I remember correctly, 9.1 package had CD's that were copy-protected.
Which would be totally ridiculous since you can install the same thing from FTP... but you go out, pay to get the CD's, and you can't even make backups.
If I remember correctly.
"All lectures should already be on a dvd disc"
No they shouldn't. There's a real value to knowing how to listen, synthesize information, and write stuff down in real time.
When you go to a client meeting, and the clients are throwing out all sorts of ideas, wishes and requirements, you need to be able to listen, participate in the conversation, (offer ideas), and at the same time sort all this out in your head by many categories (price/time/importance) and write it all down, all at the same time.
College should not be like high school, where you just get handed every last piece of information... If you can get it all from the materials, then what's the professor doing there?
"I believe given the tools most would progress at a far faster rate than what they do today"
Maybe so... given the best tools and most optimal conditions. But life doesn't happen at your pace. It happens as it happens and you need to learn to deal with it.
Lecture too fast? Write down as much as you can and look stuff up later. Lecture too slow? Instead of playing games, think of the questions to ask... nothing is 100% clear coming out of the professor's mouth. If it is, think of how you could build on top of the information you're given... how to tie it in with other stuff you know.
"I believe that one day soon most corporations will have their own place to study"
Corporations already do... it's called "on the job training." You learn as you go, or if something is urgently needed, they'll send you for a week-long training somewhere to learn the most important stuff about X... the rest you'll learn as you do. It's amazing how quickly you can pick stuff up with a short project deadline.
Ah, the devil's always in the details. Environmentalism, diversity and social justice can all be practiced to their extremes. But so can weapon ownership (fully functional Abrams tanks for sale!), capitalism, Jesus-worship, or any other issue near and dear to the right.
t _mean_to_teach_for_s.htm
So I think it's important to focus on dictionary definitions and see if we're cool with those.
Environmentalism, Wikipedia:
It is a social movement which seeks to influence the political process by lobbying, education and activism in order to protect natural resources. Some of the issues of concern for the environmental movement are pollution, species extinction, waste reduction and genetically engineered foods.
Webster dictionary: advocacy of the preservation or improvement of the natural environment; especially : the movement to control pollution
Ok, pollution kills us, and that's bad, and we should be against that. We shouldn't be mass-killing whole species with what we do... cause chances are, in the long term, it's bad for us too (example: frogs and air/water pollution).
Waste reduction - most people don't want to live on landfills, so yes, that's good. And finally, genetic modification... I'm the most wobbly about that one; on one hand, genetically modified crops feed *so* many people that to go natural would mean starvation for a lot of people. On the other hand, what if those crops get hit by something really bad (like a disease), and since they're all coming from the same gene pool, that might mean really bad mass starvation, all at once. For now, it's good.
Diversity: hard to precisely define. To some, it's meshing incompatible people at the point of gun, to others, it's simply trying to get more people of different opinions/characteristics together. There's no harm in expanding the advertising for your college to some traditionally black/hispanic/other neighbourhoods, is there? There are so many ways to accomplish this, some more and some less voluntary, but I think people should in principle be for exposing their children and themselves to people different than them. Definitely helps the society be more tolerant.
And social justice... ah, a gem of a phrase, and nobody is really sure what the hell it means. Go ahead and type "What does social justice mean?" in Google. Out of the top 6-7 relevant articles, people have some WIIIIDELY varying definitions. Therefore, it's impossible to say whether you're for or against. To some, it's communism and utopianism. Other definitions are more down-to-earth:
http://www.oswego.edu/~prusso1/Russos_what_does_i
What does it mean to teach for social justice?
It means recognizing oppression in its multiple forms, and then taking action in the classroom to interrupt the cycles of oppression. When teachers teach for social justice they are working to end the cycle of oppression.
Hey, we can't be for oppression, can we?
But really, one should never be throwing out just those two words, without saying what they mean by them. So let's park that one then.
So... what do we have? Don't pollute, kill things, or produce a lot of garbage... Do talk to others, and try to learn about them... mingle. And finally, something we all learned in kindergarden: share your toys.
Now I can live with my kids being taught that, can you?
Yup, agree 100%. But if they ever manage to pass this Creationism crap, I think we should start demanding other creation myths be taught alongside with creationism. For instance, I want my child to hear that earth is probably a flat board resting on four elephants who are standing on a giant turtle.
Personally, I think that's a much more imaginative story than just 7 freaking days. Then again, even a 6-year old can tell you that's just the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard.
Yeah, that's just fucking loony. The notion that we need to quit poisoning the planet is just outrageous! I demand more lead and arsenic in our water supply!
Also, promoting a learning enviroment where one is exposed to people different than us so we learn some tolerance in our younger days is also just absolutely ridiculous.
And social justice? Don't even get me started on that! Those pinko commie bastards are out to ruin our children!
We must fight this scourge with all means at our disposal. We must explain to these people that the good Lord wanted us to rape the Earth (says so right in the Bible), didn't intend for us to mix, and indeed, that Jesus's message was all about amassing personal wealth. Once this message gets through to those god-hating commies, we'll all be able to rest easy in our perfect world.
Thanks for chiming in, Mr. Molecular Biologist guy. It was about time I read an informed scientific opinion on this topic. :)
My gut feeling was pretty similar to what you said... minus the polymerase initiation factors.
But seriously, thanks for sharing the expertise.
You know, it's not like they would rip up all the roads, and rebuild them with X-access in place. In most cities I think, you'd be surprised how much can be done with how little money.
Trails usually already exist... it's just that they're connected so poorly. If I wanted to bike to work now, I'd have to make like a 15 mile one-way trip for what could be a 5 mile trip if a few over-the-highway ramps were built and a few smaller streets were safe to bike on.
As for using a variable X... it's walking and cycling... there aren't any more things people are asking for... everybody can use those trails.
We're in for such a rude awakening when the oil runs out.
Oh my sweet god. You want to put garbage collection in C++? That's about the only thing C++ has going for it: more control. With java, you still need to know what the language is doing with its memory, only there's not a damn thing you can do about it... you can only "hack", like have reusable objects. (when I heard this, I went: HUH?... talk about an ugly freaking hack...)
Yes, it gives you more to worry about in C++, memory leaks, and segment errors, but when coded properly, C++ is a thing of beauty.
There, I said it. What's with all the anon coward BS? If you wanna call football players girls, do it right: GIIIIIRL!
l -players-obese_x.htm
I have to add that they're some mighty girls...
56% of football players are obese
26% are severely obese
3% are morbidly obese
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-03-01-nf
Now don't give me that "it's just BMI" crap. Have you seen the offensive and defensive tacklers on TV? Big fat fucks... that's an athlete? You've got to be kidding me. Next thing they're going to start introducing sumo wrestlers into the NFL.
Then look at tennis players. Sure, they get injured a lot (from overplaying), but each is as fit as you get... The top couple hundred players in the world are perfect examples of what an athlete should be.
And you know what... people don't do homework because the tests in the US are so fucking easy.
For my senior HS year, I went from an East European country, a pretty good high school, to a public HS in Wheeling, WV.
The tests were so formulaic, they were all multiple choice... the teachers practically gave you the questions before hand.
The problem with the US is that kids don't fear the tests... Tests should never be multiple choice. You should never tell kids precisely what'll be on it, down to each problem. Tell em one sentence: "it's what we covered in class, kids." Have essay questions for just about everything (not for math, but social sciences/history cannot be tested with punching holes in the paper). Have oral exams, for kids to understand that you cannot just barely know the material and give a convincing on-the-fly answer. You must *gasp* study for it! You have to own the material to do that!
Back to my point - it's not that kids don't fear failure, they do. But if they know they can't fail the class as long as they take the test, the motivation for studying will be minimal.
Tough love, you know.
Now, I know it's not like this in the entire country. There are tough, good high schools. But what I went through is what the "heartland" is learning. No wonder this country isn't leading shit anymore. Except in dropping bombs on people's heads, and being violent pricks overall.
Ok, so if you were that smart, it must have taken you all of 15 minutes, right? There are ways to rage against the machine, but not doing your homework is probably the dumbest.
Even if you don't learn anything new, you still gain speed at solving the same problems. Which can only help you when you have to visualize a trig problem while doing calculus.
"That's a goodly majority of all humanity."
Yeah, suck it, Nebraska!
"Blade Runner instead of Alien? Are you kidding me???"
Nope. The first one is a beautiful movie, with great atmosphere, great acting and a superb story. It dwells on so many questions, such as our own humanity. Aliens? The only questions are "what's that goo" and "will I ever eat spaghetti again". It's a run-of-the-mill horror flick. Good for its time, but nothing spectacular.
Oh, and BR has never been ruined by sequels. Thank god it never amounted to anything in the theaters, otherwise I'd be watching "Blade Runner 5: Carnage at the Tanhausser Gate" right now.
Rod of God? How about something less holy, like "the Diggler"?
It means the same thing, you know, and it's nowhere near as ominous sounding...
And I thought the republicans were good at Orwellian speech... Then again, these days they seem more terrified of good sex ed classes than they are of "nucular" weapons. Go figure.
Recently had a 250Gb hard drive fail, after about 6 months. They gave me a new drive, but the warranty on that is only another 6 months. What a great way to say:
"Yeah, we fucked up, we apologize for the inconvenience. Oh, btw, our bottom line is more important than your data, and we don't guarantee the new drive at all really."
Greedy fuckers!
1) With representative democracies, you elect people to do the right thing on your behalf. (However you define the right thing). If you elected Mr.X to Congress, and he's always told to vote a certain way by Mr.Y, who did you really vote for?
The smaller the group of people who really call the shots, the smaller the likelyhood there'll be a cool head among them.
2) Yachts, whatever. The point is that they'll be buying expensive items, and foreign items. They won't buy $100K worth of groceries or Made-in-US T-shirts.
3) Biggest single expense... yeah, by whatever spreadsheet you look at. Comparing the sizes of departmental spending, DOD=$419bn + (a few times the discretionary $80bn). SSA = $9.5bn.
And why would you ever cut SS? Don't you think younger people have some sort of a responsibility to those older? If it squeezes our wallets a bit, so what - wouldn't a moral imperative demand we help them, even at a cost to ourselves?
When the party unity takes presedence over everything else, we're in trouble. Because that means that we don't have 500+ people (in the entire congress) making decisions, we have a handful. Do you feel that is right and/or in the spirit of the constitution?
Hoplophobic - yeah, definitely. I think it's a healthy fear... fearing things that are designed to kill you is probably among the healthiest of fears.
Cutting taxes - might work that way to a certain degree. But doing away with the estate tax? Tax cuts on dividends? Tax cuts in the latest budget... all designed so the rich people wouldn't have to pay taxes. Do they need any more money? If you had millions, and you get an extra 100K, you're not going to be spending it on made-in-USA stuff. You'll be spending it on fine European furniture, or nice foreign cars, yachts... foreign luxury items, because that's where the prestige lies.
If there were surpluses, I'd say certainly, let's have them back. But right now, instead of a bit of spending discipline, we have the gov't borrowing money in our name, spending it on shit we don't need, and then telling us we'll have to repay it with interest later.
Great.
That anon coward wasn't me. So let's get back to your answer:
The fact that the Reps primary goal is to get their people elected is one of the big problems. There's no dissent allowed within the party, it's one big monolith. There's no reason or critical thinking anymore, it's just what the party leaders decide. (there are honorable exceptions to this, but they're exceptions, not the rule. Plus those people do shut up when it's something that's deemed too important to dissent on).
They get candidates elected. They get their agenda addressed.
My point was also that their agenda is stupid and irrelevant. I just asked questions about half a dozen things that should be of much much higher priority than what the Republicans are wasting their time with.
Getting Bin Laden? We could have had him 6 years ago. Need I remind you of who wasn't interested?
Yeah, if we're going to look into the past, let's go to the beginning - we probably shouldn't even have trained him to begin with. That goes right into the CIA's lap, that one. Not sure during what administrations this was happening, but I'm guessing the Republican hawks were much more inclined to fight the commie fire with fire of their own than the Dem. presidents (or president, since Carter was the only one between Nixon and Clinton).
I won't even go near the Jesus, Guns and bigotry part. You can guess where I stand on that.
You're an agnostic, hoplophobic sodomite?
Yup. You guessed it.(if hoplophobic means "fearing guns")
"Deficit spending is an unfortunate reality in today's America"
That "reality" is going to ruin this country. If there's a time for leadership, this is it. Yet all we're hearing from the current "leadership" is how and where to cut taxes. Spend, spend, spend. Stock market is going up! Life is rosy!
Well guess what, rosy it's not. And it's getting worse.