Wow, that's a lot of anger you're carrying around!
I'd like to address this comment specifically though:
"This is how the Afghanistan mis-adventure is seen by "the other side" and it is of little wonder that the fight will likely go on indefinitely, Taliban having quite a bit (and growing by many accounts) of local support and very able to present itself as the victims of a belligerent, arrogant, foreign, religiously-motivated, supremacist aggressor, victims who will defend their ancestral homeland, their religion and their "way of life" against that aggressor to the bitter end. "
If the peoples of Afghanistan want to continue living an oppressed lifestyle controlled by the most backwards religious zealots on the planet they are WELCOME to do so. All the rest of the world, not just America, asks is that you keep your crazies within your borders.
If this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban , is really how they want to live then then I feel pity for them. I mean really, these guys were so great that they even managed to piss off IRAN. Of course they had to slaughter several thousand civilians and a bunch of Iranian diplomats in their own embassy to do it.
Also, the U.S. didn't have to provide proof of Osama's connection, and responsibility, for 9/11 attacks as he did that himself. If you can't trust the words from the horse's mouth then you're a hopeless tinfoil hatter. http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2004/10/29/binladen_message041029.html
I know that it's great when the U.S. is the bad guy, it's gives people a real sense of satisfaction when we fail, especially when we fail through mistakes of our own doing. We do it enough though that you really needn't go out of your way to make stuff up. Just wait a day or three and we'll provide you with something new to froth about.
At Columbine and Virginia Tech the perpetrators had made public statements like this and it was blown off by the authorities.
What if had happened in THIS case? I'll tell you what, "The Authorities", would have been publicly eviscerated for "ignoring the clear warning signs that this student was disturbed and homicidal".
So if you're in Authority you're damned if you do and damned if you don't! In the end the only safe way is to err on the side of caution and have the situation checked out.
I apologize if that came across as condescending. It wasn't meant that way.
I've had this discussion with many people since the Kindle came out and you're the first person whose asked this question who, apparently, has actually used an e-reader.
What the FCC is proposing is making the DCTV systems function like the ACTV system used to. You know, it's the reason why every new TV / VCR / ETC that came out had an analog cable box built right into it. I don't see why this ended when DCTV systems appeared on the scene. CableCards where a completely unnecessary and unneeded detour AWAY from the functionality and choice that the consumer previously had.
You've never used one so I understand that it's difficult for you to comprehend.
First off I don't HAVE to remember to charge it. This is a biggie. I may not use my Kindle every day. In fact it may sit for a week, or more, between uses. When I do want to read I don't want to find that it's battery is dead.
Second, yes you can charge and read at the same time but it is inconvenient to be tethered to the wall with a cord while your reading.
Third, the incredible battery life virtually assures me that I'll be able to read a book all the way to the end without the battery crapping out. Ever tried to read an entire novel in two to four hours? That's what you'd have to do with a netbook / laptop if you were somewhere you couldn't plug in...like when you're travelling on a car, plane, bus, train, or by horseback.
To be honest I wouldn't have either, if I had thought about it first.
Unfortunately I was new to FB when I stated with Mafia Wars and by the time I figured out what adding all of those people was doing to my privacy I was in too deep to want to start over.
Because in many of the Facebooks games, Mafia Wars for example, having a larger clan is a tremendous benefit and the only way people can be in your clan is if you are FB friends with them first.
I assigned all of my "game friends" into their own group and then used Facebooks group security to limit the personal information that they can see. It took all of five minutes to setup. Someone in that group can see as much information about me as someone who isn't my friend at all, which is to say not much.
Now I'll accept every friend request that comes my way. If I don't recognize the name and the friend doesn't leave a note saying how they know me then I push them into the game friend group. Problem solved.
I really like Monoprice.com. I've ordered from them several times in the past couple of years and I've been satisfied with the quality of the product, the speed of shipping, and of course the price. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, I'm just a happy customer of theirs.
Low velocity handgun cartridges, like.38, with hollow points will provide the satisfaction that you're looking for..22 JHP works brilliantly as well.:)
Second. For office environments I'm a total "laser printer ONLY" Nazi but last Christmas I bought a Kodak ESP-7+ and I couldn't be happier with it. The ink is cheap, cartridges last a reasonably long time, and so far this thing hasn't had any problems. Even the wireless printing and scanning works!
Here are two ideas of what to do with your donated printers:
1) Donate them to a children's museum or science center. They put them on display along with an assortment of screwdrivers and let the children tear them apart for fun.
2) Donate them to a local college or university. Printers contain MANY electro-mechanical and opto-electrical parts that are useful in electronics laboratories. Students involved in projects will often willingly take old printers simply for the parts.
If you were involved with the engineering of these things I suspect you'd find that the "hold up" is combination of serviceability and safety regulations.
I think that an electric heating wand that goes up your ass would tend to decrease the cars popularity rather sharply, except perhaps in San Francisco.
Why would we HAVE to upgrade the infrastructure? Another possibility would be to invest some of that money into local, perhaps down to the neighborhood or residential, level power generation using wind and solar. Shocking.
Okay, you perhaps picked off the easy one. Now how about you address the other 9 points that mschuyler made?
It's those nine points that are really relevant to this discussion, not the perhaps debunking of the debunking of the hockey stick graph.
I'm swayable on this argument so I'm worth the time investment but I should warn you that like mschuyler I'm not impressed with links to realclimate.org and here's two reasons why:
1) Using them in defense of CRU is a circular reference. Much of RC.Os "stuff" comes from CRU. 2) They get things wrong and then hide the devil in the details.
For instance Myth #1 from your link : MYTH #1: The "Hockey Stick" Reconstruction is based solely on two publications by climate scientist Michael Mann and colleagues (Mann et al, 1998;1999).
They go on to argue that a dozen other proxy tests have been performed and that most of them show similar results. What they DON'T tell you is that of the dozen other proxy tests performed all but three of them were done either by Mann himself or one of his students! More circular proof and this time RC.O keeps it hidden from you.
So please address points one through nine without using RC.O links. I'm interested in what you have to say.
Your information is inaccurate. Read the post by Shakrai up towards the top in this thread for an upgrade to your "Newsweek" knowledge of cell phone tracking.
Hold on, you think that Televangelists shilling for dollars on your TV are in the same league as a "Religion" that allegedly deals in human slaves, has infiltrated governments and influenced their decisions, and threatens the free flow of information on the Internet?
Wow! I'm curious, where exactly would I find you on Sunday morning Mr. Martian? Do you attend the "Gold Bunker" or do you call another facility home?
Is that a prison to the south surrounded by Sublette Road? Because that's sure as heck what it looks like! It follows all the classic prison design rules.
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Wow, that's a lot of anger you're carrying around!
I'd like to address this comment specifically though:
"This is how the Afghanistan mis-adventure is seen by "the other side" and it is of little wonder that the fight will likely go on indefinitely, Taliban having quite a bit (and growing by many accounts) of local support and very able to present itself as the victims of a belligerent, arrogant, foreign, religiously-motivated, supremacist aggressor, victims who will defend their ancestral homeland, their religion and their "way of life" against that aggressor to the bitter end. "
If the peoples of Afghanistan want to continue living an oppressed lifestyle controlled by the most backwards religious zealots on the planet they are WELCOME to do so. All the rest of the world, not just America, asks is that you keep your crazies within your borders.
If this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban , is really how they want to live then then I feel pity for them. I mean really, these guys were so great that they even managed to piss off IRAN. Of course they had to slaughter several thousand civilians and a bunch of Iranian diplomats in their own embassy to do it.
Also, the U.S. didn't have to provide proof of Osama's connection, and responsibility, for 9/11 attacks as he did that himself. If you can't trust the words from the horse's mouth then you're a hopeless tinfoil hatter. http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2004/10/29/binladen_message041029.html
I know that it's great when the U.S. is the bad guy, it's gives people a real sense of satisfaction when we fail, especially when we fail through mistakes of our own doing. We do it enough though that you really needn't go out of your way to make stuff up. Just wait a day or three and we'll provide you with something new to froth about.
Yes, but how do you know the difference?
At Columbine and Virginia Tech the perpetrators had made public statements like this and it was blown off by the authorities.
What if had happened in THIS case? I'll tell you what, "The Authorities", would have been publicly eviscerated for "ignoring the clear warning signs that this student was disturbed and homicidal".
So if you're in Authority you're damned if you do and damned if you don't! In the end the only safe way is to err on the side of caution and have the situation checked out.
I apologize if that came across as condescending. It wasn't meant that way.
I've had this discussion with many people since the Kindle came out and you're the first person whose asked this question who, apparently, has actually used an e-reader.
What the FCC is proposing is making the DCTV systems function like the ACTV system used to. You know, it's the reason why every new TV / VCR / ETC that came out had an analog cable box built right into it. I don't see why this ended when DCTV systems appeared on the scene. CableCards where a completely unnecessary and unneeded detour AWAY from the functionality and choice that the consumer previously had.
You've never used one so I understand that it's difficult for you to comprehend.
First off I don't HAVE to remember to charge it. This is a biggie. I may not use my Kindle every day. In fact it may sit for a week, or more, between uses. When I do want to read I don't want to find that it's battery is dead.
Second, yes you can charge and read at the same time but it is inconvenient to be tethered to the wall with a cord while your reading.
Third, the incredible battery life virtually assures me that I'll be able to read a book all the way to the end without the battery crapping out. Ever tried to read an entire novel in two to four hours? That's what you'd have to do with a netbook / laptop if you were somewhere you couldn't plug in...like when you're travelling on a car, plane, bus, train, or by horseback.
To be honest I wouldn't have either, if I had thought about it first.
Unfortunately I was new to FB when I stated with Mafia Wars and by the time I figured out what adding all of those people was doing to my privacy I was in too deep to want to start over.
Because in many of the Facebooks games, Mafia Wars for example, having a larger clan is a tremendous benefit and the only way people can be in your clan is if you are FB friends with them first.
I assigned all of my "game friends" into their own group and then used Facebooks group security to limit the personal information that they can see. It took all of five minutes to setup. Someone in that group can see as much information about me as someone who isn't my friend at all, which is to say not much.
Now I'll accept every friend request that comes my way. If I don't recognize the name and the friend doesn't leave a note saying how they know me then I push them into the game friend group. Problem solved.
"The Empire" being every shipping company and country _in the world_ of course.
I really like Monoprice.com. I've ordered from them several times in the past couple of years and I've been satisfied with the quality of the product, the speed of shipping, and of course the price. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, I'm just a happy customer of theirs.
Low velocity handgun cartridges, like .38, with hollow points will provide the satisfaction that you're looking for. .22 JHP works brilliantly as well. :)
Second. For office environments I'm a total "laser printer ONLY" Nazi but last Christmas I bought a Kodak ESP-7+ and I couldn't be happier with it. The ink is cheap, cartridges last a reasonably long time, and so far this thing hasn't had any problems. Even the wireless printing and scanning works!
Substitute "bashing" with "shooting" and I'm there.
Here are two ideas of what to do with your donated printers:
1) Donate them to a children's museum or science center. They put them on display along with an assortment of screwdrivers and let the children tear them apart for fun.
2) Donate them to a local college or university. Printers contain MANY electro-mechanical and opto-electrical parts that are useful in electronics laboratories. Students involved in projects will often willingly take old printers simply for the parts.
If you were involved with the engineering of these things I suspect you'd find that the "hold up" is combination of serviceability and safety regulations.
I think that an electric heating wand that goes up your ass would tend to decrease the cars popularity rather sharply, except perhaps in San Francisco.
Why would we HAVE to upgrade the infrastructure? Another possibility would be to invest some of that money into local, perhaps down to the neighborhood or residential, level power generation using wind and solar. Shocking.
I do it because I don't want to use the root DNS for forwarding.
While he's at it he should sue Zynga for gross criminal negligence and crimes against programming!
Before you go defending them too much, read this:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/24/the-people-vs-the-cru-freedom-of-information-my-okole%E2%80%A6/
If this is really how the CRU crew did business then no one has any reason to defend them. They're as bad as any oil company could ever be.
Okay, you perhaps picked off the easy one. Now how about you address the other 9 points that mschuyler made?
It's those nine points that are really relevant to this discussion, not the perhaps debunking of the debunking of the hockey stick graph.
I'm swayable on this argument so I'm worth the time investment but I should warn you that like mschuyler I'm not impressed with links to realclimate.org and here's two reasons why:
1) Using them in defense of CRU is a circular reference. Much of RC.Os "stuff" comes from CRU.
2) They get things wrong and then hide the devil in the details.
For instance Myth #1 from your link : MYTH #1: The "Hockey Stick" Reconstruction is based solely on two publications by climate scientist Michael Mann and colleagues (Mann et al, 1998;1999).
They go on to argue that a dozen other proxy tests have been performed and that most of them show similar results. What they DON'T tell you is that of the dozen other proxy tests performed all but three of them were done either by Mann himself or one of his students! More circular proof and this time RC.O keeps it hidden from you.
So please address points one through nine without using RC.O links. I'm interested in what you have to say.
I didn't think you really felt that way. For the record I think that Televangelists are lower than a worms belly.
Your information is inaccurate. Read the post by Shakrai up towards the top in this thread for an upgrade to your "Newsweek" knowledge of cell phone tracking.
Hold on, you think that Televangelists shilling for dollars on your TV are in the same league as a "Religion" that allegedly deals in human slaves, has infiltrated governments and influenced their decisions, and threatens the free flow of information on the Internet?
Wow! I'm curious, where exactly would I find you on Sunday morning Mr. Martian? Do you attend the "Gold Bunker" or do you call another facility home?
Is that a prison to the south surrounded by Sublette Road? Because that's sure as heck what it looks like! It follows all the classic prison design rules.