Don

Personally, I think it was retarded to bomb London both from a moral perspective (duh), but also from a strategic perspective. You remember what happened once the Germans went after the English in WWII and the London Blitz happened, and the Battle of Britain? The English aren't exactly pushovers (especially if you ask the French). So.. give terrorists a round of applause, they have now given two of the leading nations in the world a moral obligation to bring the fire to their doorstep.

Anyway, moving on(to a rant). I'm not a big fan of patriotism. It's a very fine line, and a lot of people end up being more nationalistic than patriotic.. and that's never fun. So I prefer not to walk that line. Annnnd it becomes a bit dangerous as part of a justification for your actions and reasoning for blind trust.

Besides.. which reaction would scare you more after you threw a haymaker at a bigass dude and managed to connect completely?

(a) He gets angry, and begins to jump up and down yelling "OH! GRR! THAT DIDN'T HURT! I'M GONNA GET YOU GOOD NOW!"

or

(b) He calmly shakes it off, wipes away some of the blood, begins to roll up his sleeves and cracks a few of his knuckles.

I came across this. I heard it's supposed to really good for basic capping.

You have better luck than I did.

Very, very pissed off.

No no, not extra stuff. Extra bullshit. Having to deal with the batteries and the sensor and all that. I had a cordless one time and I just got so frustrated with it once things started going wrong.

Why can't he just make a simple operating system that doesn't break every five seconds.

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Because there's no money in it. "Here, let me sell you an initial operating system. Oh, it has bugs? Let me string you along with updates and support and new versions to it every few years for a nominal fee!"

Cord > Cordless

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Why? Is it because cord is much lighter?

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Because you don't have to deal with all the extra bullshit that comes with a cordless.

Wondering if I'm going to have to resort to vicodin and vodka for my shoulder again, or if it's going to get better.

AIM: ebaucher

Marvin. Period. No contest. And I listen to Marvin a LOT.

The last time I listened to Barry White would probably be with my uncle, and he was just playing it so he could make fun of himself, but then it was time for Judas Priest.

I mean.. no disrespect to Barry. He's got an awesome voice that makes women want to swoon (or just go horizontal, heh), but Marvin is definitely a bigger legend, and in my opinion a better singer. Sexier voice? Hmm.. I dunno. That's too close to call.

One part this (Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen), one part this (Polonius giving out general advice in Hamlet):

Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!

And these few precepts in thy memory

See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportioned thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,

Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

And they in France of the best rank and station

Are of a most select and generous chief in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all: to thine ownself be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

..and one part John Donne, when it started talking about God and the metaphysical stuff. Good, general advice, but unoriginal.

Nice idea, but it won't matter. If you want to go after a problem you should address the causes, not the symptoms, and that'll involve a lot more than banners on the internet.

Anyway, my mom has/had to go through lots of emotional/verbal abuse from my dad through the years, but it's starting to get better (and a divorce is on the horizon, I hope). He never hit her though, because both of them knew a .357 would get involved if that ever happened.

Same site.

"Give me a break. I've got to deal with Stool and the Gang here."

Half-German, half-English.. utterly caucasian. *attempts to dance to verify this*

How do you know when you've gotten old? It's when you have more memories than dreams.

I usually don't like modern R&B, but I like her stuff. Not to mention she seemed to be such a chill, modest girl. It's a shame.. R.I.P.

Hahaha.. look at his little sleeves flap when he kicks her.

Yay for Eastern philosophy.

Wow. I've never heard of him before, but those pictures are incredible.

General photography that you like.

He's usually reknowned for landscape work and his use of large format cameras, but he is incredible at portraits, too (in this case, with a 35mm). This is probably one of the most saddening and touching pictures I've seen.

Haha, nah.. yours are sexy, but even more so if they maybe had some time-lapse in there so you could see the "TRIMSPA, BABY!" take effect.

Anyway, made a thread for general photography in the Art & Literature forum.

Website.

Seems like a neat enough show, but I don't agree with the peoples' choices for the top 25.

I'm going to make up my own list. Jump on in and do the same! Yay. I guess you can do either 5 and/or 25. Include reasons for your picks, and for your non-picks that seem like obvious choices if you want.

Muhammad Ali - loud-mouthed, brash, arrogant, but he could back it up. Later, an incredible man who transcended beyond the boxing world as a diplomat and a truly magnanimous person.

Andrew Carnegie - what a capitalist should be.. serves as a replacement for Henry Ford because of his generosity/charity and because I can't stomach anti-Semitism.

George Washington Carver - humble, brilliant man (he actually turned down a six-figure job from Thomas Edison just to keep on doing what he loved on his own terms).

Frederick Douglass - an MLK before there was one. I usually think of him as the symbol of the struggle for civil rights, even if it was 100 years in the making.

Thomas Edison - simply a genius who was pretty crafty as well.

Albert Einstein - a genius as well, and an incredibly sensitive guy, too (read some of his thoughts about religion and war).

Benjamin Franklin - sort of sagely, in my mind. I consider him a sort of grandfather of America.

Billy Graham - impeccable character and integrity.. one of the few men who if you say something bad about, you're actually saying something about yourself rather than your target.

Bob Hope - simply a great man who can make you laugh at the world.

Katharine Hepburn - image of what a proud, strong woman should be.

Thomas Jefferson - LA purchase, Declaration of Indepence, and their effects.

Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis - in a similar vein to Katharine Hepburn.

Martin Luther King Jr. - civil rights, so strong but subtle with his ideas and delivery.

Abraham Lincoln - excellent politician, lots of perseverence, didn't hold a grudge against the South.

Malcolm X - King appealed to peoples' minds, Malcolm appealed to peoples' hearts.. more a man of the people.

Marilyn Monroe - American icon, sex symbol.

Audie Murphy - greatest war hero, in my opinion.

Jackie Robinson - broke the color barrier, but only able to because he was courageous and smart about it.

Theodore Roosevelt - brass balls, conservation, extension of federal powers, social justice, foreign policy.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt - bit the bullet and pulled the nation out of the Great Depression.. good policy-maker in my opinion.

Babe Ruth - symbol of American culture.

Frank Sinatra - same as above.

Jimmy Stewart - great personality, symbol of American culture again.

Mark Twain - personal hero.

George Washington - Cincinnatus, incredible leader, father of America in my opinion.

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Top 5:

Frederick Douglass

Albert Einstein

Benjamin Franklin

Thomas Jefferson

George Washington

[Edit: added reasons, to keep up with Robinson ]

i had a feeling no one was going to touch that one.... i just read a little fact in details magazine saying this about the american justice system:

"90 percent:  accuracy of a computer program developed at loyola university in predicting whether death-row convicts will be executed.  the program uses criteria such as age, race, and gender but not details of the cases themselves."

there's another one that "makes you go hmmmm...."

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My bad. I'll try to answer it.

I guess this is just the "nature vs. nurture" question, just with a limited scope? Okay..

In my opinion, you can't really put all the blame on people. Until globalization kicks in (maybe with it a more liberal view of races and differences), you can't really hold people completely accountable on a personal level, since they can't really control their environment (e.g. their neighbors in general, their parents, their background, thus the ideas and cultures they're exposed to).

And yes, people do have free will.. so they could reject what they're exposed to. But maybe they aren't aware that there's even a choice to be made? What if this is just the way things are, the way things have always been? Most people have a hard time thinking of a world in terms that they haven't been exposed to.

It's also an issue of comfort and familiarity. People, for the most part, drift toward (and stay around) what they're familiar/comfortable with (people, habits, etc.). And people also have some pride about certain aspects of themselves, and this is where it's a slippery slope. It's possible for different peoples to coexist with respect for one another, but if people are sheltered, then they've only really had a chance to develop a sense of pride for themselves and the things they represent, and they rarely have an appreciation for things that are different.

So, are humans inherently racist? In a broader sense, yes. They have an inclination to stick around things they're familiar and comfortable with (in this case, their "own kind," which is often the only thing they're exposed to), and they usually have pride in who they are and what has contributed to what they are (internal qualities, environment), but they aren't born with a disdain for other races. Can they become utterly racist? Yep, thanks to the environment. More pride + less exposure/appreciation/perspective = bad.

lol of course u are 

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I guess I'll refrain anyway. I was going to post an Ansel Adams photograph (and no, it's not a landscape, it's a portrait).. but it would seem a little out of place.

couldn't think of anything to say.

Ha-ha!!! What I meant was I did a driveby on you eastsiders, WEST COAST STYLE!!! Now, do you wanna step in the ring for a few rounds?!

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Don't you know anything about violence? It escalates. You're not supposed to go down to a boxing match from a drive-by. Next it's supposed to inter-coastal gang wars. Duh.