UConn James

Wonder what this portends for the bus driver choking the boy.... Newsflash! You don't grab someone else's kid in this day and age. But 'sex offender' labeling for that is a stupid application of law.

Interesting take. Like how he paid the old guy Six Large for the scooter. Hmm. Also in the ep, there was a passage where Locke mentions "Alice in Wonderland" which had me flashing on the finale where he's being dragged into the hole and he says, "Let me go!" A lot of the extra-textual references have been about some kind of hidden machinations (either underground, underwater, or complexity (what was the game the young Locke was showing the boy? Shoots and Ladders? __ Trap?). So I would say that those who've guessed at some underground mining system might not be far off.

The speculation, I believe, came in the form of a chat (don't remember which site it was on, sorry) where he was asked if he'd like to stay in Buffalo, to which he replied, "If they pay me." Several other answers were along these lines as well. This was around the time Rosen-ass was on the sports talk show circuit crying about how his clients weren't making as much as they should. 2+2=4. I think. I wasn't a math major. (Ganesh, just to be clear, I wasn't calling you out upthread. Those were general statements, not repudiations.)

If Rod Woodson said it, then it must be so.

And this is the Bills' fault because...? TD is supposed to give him a contractual sympathy !@#$ b/c he dropped out of the Top 5? That DT from Wisc. who was expected to go in the first-second and got picked in the 6th.... should he get first round money? It went the way it went, he gets paid what he gets paid, and he agreed and signed to two(!) years ago. If he holds out, I think and hope TD has the stones to hand Rosen-ass a note reading, "G_ F_ck Y__rs_lf" and asking if he wants to buy a vowel. Willis is not the end-all, be-all of the Bills O, and unlike the Dolphins and RW, I don't think they'd bat an eyelash.

The repeat episode last night (the one where Joanna drowns, Jack goes nuts seeing a man and being sent to get his father flashback) was one I somehow missed in the initial run. I saw probably half of it but heard the rest, as I was typing up a cover letter for a job (fingers crossed!). So, I'm catching on that most, if not all of the main characters have had stories where they were not supposed to be on the flight, according to their own plans (Locke being ousted from the safari, and as I learned last night, Jack didn't want to go find his dad, Sawyer getting put on the first thing smoking out of the OZ, Kate probably belongs here too) / got delayed (Sayid waiting until his acquaintance was buried, Charlie rushing off with the coke from the groupie's place) / didn't know if they should be leaving (Hurley unsure of which day to be back for his mum's b-day). Is there anyone I'm missing, or a hole in this theory? Anyone who would wager a guess as to why these circumstances might have caused(?) the crash? On edit: Oh, yeah. Michael and Walt -- both didn't want to be there or want each other. Sun and Jin -- Sun was going to skip out at the airport, Jin was going to get away from the f-i-l, only to learn he had the P.I. following him. All are there for circumstances they didn't want or that were more or less forced on them.

Be sure to get a 'ching-ching' bell system and the pink streamers, too. Very macho, that.

You mean like how Tom Ridge funded a lawn mower demolition derby in Texas? You just can't make this stuff up. Actually, if there were forced nail clipping on flights, supervized by the flight attendents, everyone would be too busy to hijack a plane. "Hey everybody! Complimentary emery boards!!"

Man, I hope there's three people on that BoS who were pissed at the ruling. What would be better is if someone who will be evicted from their property sets up a tent in the town/city offices; or if they rent a bulldozer and drive it over to the town offices with a writ they write up on their computer, making sure to include the word "fiat" as the reason and sign it, "President for Life ___. Because I said so."

Mmm. Is she Dutch? I'm half Dutch....

In some areas, I'll grant you. Electronics, cars.... But have you ever used the cheapo tool sets they make in China? I'd rather buy a quality Husky set (I did and they're friggin great) or Snap-on and never have worry again about stripping my sockets b/c they're made of cheapo alumo-steel. Same goes with the screws coming out of Japan. One really good thing Bush did was the steel import tarriffs, and then he dropped them.

Notes from The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor:

Too bad. He was a heck of a writer. "I'm privately convinced that most of the really bad writing the world's ever seen has been done under the influence of what's called inspiration. Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time." -- Shelby Foote

I can't see how that fabric sheet will stand up to a thoroughly soaked dog. Like bringing a squirtgun to a wildfire, if you ask me. Or do you dry them with a towel first? May be a good idea, and they won't have static cling, I gather. I just use some old Stetson on my dogs. Don't 'they' say that Gatorade shouldn't be consumed by people who aren't working out/exercising/working hard? This may have more to do with consuming "empty calories" tho. I try to lie down for ~15 min. in a dark room and with a cold compress and if it's still going, I turn to the Tylenol, etc. Maybe the honey thing and some others do work, or can't be proven/nobody cares enough to prove they work. But I can tell everyone here that the Listerine tips will make the problem worse, and that if you try treating bacterial/staph infections with Alka Seltzer, the results aren't going to be good. Meaning if they're not treated w/ antibiotics, you can die.

It goes into the "Seperation of church and state." They wanted a country based on the rule of law rather than a rule by the Bible. People are free to believe as they wish on their own time. I look at it much the same as I view the health care situation: if you want it, you can go pick a supplier of it, you don't show up at the Congress building to get a Band-Aid. I'm not stopping them from going to church or posting them in their own space. Hell, I'll give them directions. The things you listed are optional. There is no requirement to take oaths in court with the Bible -- most, if not all, courthouses don't do this. And all along, someone could refuse to, and also simply say, "so help me." Likewise, the President does not have to take the oath of office on a Bible, that is his choice, and it's his own Bible that he provides service of (it's not the George Washington Bible); it's not a gov't-owned Bible. "In God We Trust" and the one in the Pledge have been ruled to be generalized terms, altho the logic of that is beyond me. To make it a requirement that all people must pass under a 15-foot momument is to tacitly imply that everyone is Judeo-Christian, which is not the case.

Like GG said, for small-time artists, it's probably a good thing. Nothing prevents them from putting their songs on their websites, and I guess it would be fine for people to share those songs too. But we all know that isn't what's being done. SC's decision allows the industry to go after people who use it to break copyright law. In the long run, large-scale file-sharing would kill the industry. As much as people might think, that money doesn't go exclusively to the artist or the record label. A fair chunk of it might, rightly so since they take the most risk in the venture (those damn capitalists! ), but they also have to pay the people who design the CD cover, the promotional material, shipping costs, etc. When the money doesn't come in to pay the bills, the operation ceases to function -- the Invisible Hand at work, ladies and gents. Maybe an individual artist doesn't care, but they will care when the record company goes under or refuses to put their music out b/c it'll just be file-shared.

To be clear, I was not making a reference to the relative severity b/w those crimes. I was not equating file-sharing to paid murder. I think you're smart enough to know that. The point all along is the mentality that physical distance or not personally seeing the effects of a crime makes it seem all (or, more) right to the offender. This is probably a bad move to carry the analogy, but.... People/media generally view the dressed-in-black sniper assassin as merely being a professional doing his job, while the goon who knifes someone is, well, a goon. Similarly --- only as it pertains to physical proximity to the respective crime being commited --- there's been a mindset before that people who steal copyrighted works are better, or less worse, than someone who, say, steals a car or for a closer comparison, a CD. Stealing is stealing, no matter what tool or manner you use to steal. Good decision by the court to unquestionably clear this matter up, not that file-sharers didn't know they were breaking the law, just exploiting the absence (tho it wasn't the absence, rather than the interpretation and application of the law to the Internet) of law.

Pardon my English, but.... HUH?

Huh? I wasn't comparing the crimes, that was a smart*** remark along the lines that there's a similar attention/love/reverence of the implements and tools used to commit a crime.

"Your honor, it's not my fault I went off my meds and killed my wife and son, and the neigbor and his kids, Tom Cruise said they weren't helping me!"

It's kind of scary to think of how people came to try these things, and even scarier to think which of these are still in guinea pig stage. For the ones involving bacteria and urinary tract infections (Alka Seltzer to kill an active bacterial infection?!!? Some hick saying "...and I'm all right now!" qualifies in the category of Tom Cruise medical advice) and pouring Listerine on open cuts/blisters (the English carpenter guy on Extreme Makeover:Home Edition did this last week and then promptly had to go to the ER b/c it made the problem 20x worse), I wouldn't be taking grandma's advice. For the rest of them, similar to how they did bloodletting up until the 1800s, people get better in spite of the "cure."

There's a big consignment store, I think it's in Georgia, for lost luggage that can't be traced to anyone and/or isn't reported. Tho, who'd want to use other people's nailclippers?

Like the assassin loves his sniper rifle. Copyright infringement is a crime. Same as you walking into a chocolatier and popping coconut cremes without paying. Why does everyone think theft is okay if there isn't a face? If you think it's too expensive, don't buy it -- but don't steal it. Expect to be prosecuted if you continue.

Takeo? I'm not sure what you're referencing, Mr. Khan.

You're talking about sculprtures/busts of people compared to words? The examples have a much stronger tie with historic governmental process than any organized religion --- when you think of Justinian, you think Rome --> Constantinople, not "polytheism." The Magna Carta is a legal document outlining the powers of the king. A document that starts out with "Thou shalt have no other God before me" is religious in nature. And why such a display needs to be 15 feet high granite slabs in 140-point text...