Johnny Coli

I'm with you, brother. TV went to hell when "Cop Rock" ended.

And....she said they changed after "The Black Rock", which until last wek we all thought was a black rock. It's all adding up to a Treasure Island/Smuggler thing.

or Mole people, either.

Exactly. They were there for research, found something of value, and fought each other over it. The "others" are the greedy bastards that won, and are trying to get the thing of value (which is undergraound) off the island.

I think the "supernatural" stuff is not as supernatural as the writers would have you believe, and a lot of it can be explained away as coincidence and/or paranoia on the part of the castaways. Danielle is insane, and is clearly feeding the castaway's paranoia, but not maliciously. I think the original research team (the others) found something of value on the island, split into two camps (ie those who got greedy, and those who didn't...with the greedy ones killing off the other group, except for Danielle). The monster is just a machine used for digging/mining and ripping down trees. Notice that none of the trees were pulled up into the air, but were pulled down. The chain sound is the winch used to drag the trees down to the mine, where they are needed to fuel the machine, or for other reasons. Locke just got caught in one by accident. The smoke is the exhaust...could be coal or deisel exhaust. They need kids because the shafts are too small for an adult to get through. Walt was chosen because he is older than Aaron, and clearly more usefull now.

I recall an NPR story/interview with a retired gentleman (may have been CIA, haven't been able to find a link) who said they/he used it quite a bit in Vietnam. The long and the short of it was that you didn't really get much out of a prisoner, and the longer the torture continues, the less usefull they become (for both obvious and not-so-obvious reasons). I'm sure their are actual percentages that we will never see.

I'm not defending terrorists. I'm not defending anything that they did that got them sent to Gitmo. Let's just assume that every single one of the detainees there is the worst of the worst. Every single one of them deserves to be there. 1. What is the USA's obligation to hold itself to a higher set of standards than how these people, and how other people/governments treat their own prisoners, or their own people, or innocent civilians? People on this board are very quick to shoot down the "They do it, so it's OK for us to do it" arguement in other debates...why should it apply here? 2. Does the use of "torture" (not very easily defined if you really think about it) actually lead to usefull intelligence (historically), or are they just giving up anything that pops into their heads to stop the torture. Has torture/prisoner abuse ever been a usefull tool? 3. Is there any reason to believe that prisoner abuse/torture/whatever may actually have a negative impact on how the US is viewed globally? If we are to believe that the Bush foreign policy plans for the mid-east include the spread of Democracy and Freedom, how does any prisoner abuse, justified in the eyes of the US or not, help to spread these ideals? Extra credit if you leave "Who the !@#$ cares" out of your response. Lastly, anyone who thinks that the "Liberal" mantra is "Be nice to the TERRORISTS, and they will be nice to us" is a complete idiot.

My intention wasn't to comment on Amnesty's claim, nor was it to defend PTR. My point was that these threads are becoming pretty damn predictable. He knew he was going to get flamed, yet posted anyway. All these threads end up the same.

Should be easy to predict the responses from the right in this thread. "You're not in the military/government/defense department, so you don't know what you're talking about." "What Saddam did to his people is far worse than anything we've ever done." "I can't believe you would defend those animals, you commie/liberal scumbag." "Amnesty International has an anti-US agenda." "This is the kind of crap that shows why the left will lose another election. Support the troops, my ass." "These animals are terrorists, and therefore don't fall under Geneva convention rules." "These animals are trained to say they are being tortured if captrured." Anybody got any others to add? Which one's am I forgetting?

Since when is being pregnant an ideology? Blzrul's original post was pointing out the hypocrisy of a catholic school (a religion whose ideology has been pretty clearly anti-abortion) banning a student who is pregnant (who chose to carry her baby to full term, rather than abort it, going along with the schools ideology, so-to-speak) from getting her diploma along with her peers, simply because she is pregnant. Seems like text-book hypocrisy to me. I fail to see how your attempt to jam the "military recruiters in schools" debate into this thread makes any sense.

An article on media bias...by ANN COULTER!

I was a fry cook once. Wasn't worth the money.

It has to resemble the Pope, the dead one, not the new Nazi youth one.

That teacher probably has solid union representation, and will definately land on his feet.

I'm not saying the UK beers weren't around. They just weren't around where I grew up. I grew up in upstate NY, as did my father, his father, etc. They weren't drinking Bass, I can tell you that.

I guess you could say I have a soft spot for the classics. Pabst, Schaefer, Schlitz, Utica Club...our fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers drank these beers. I enjoy a Bass/Harp/Guiness as much as the next guy. But when I'm standing in front of a hot grill wearing a hawaiian shirt (and sometimes pants), I want the same beer in my hand that my anscestors had in theirs. Added: It's like drinking in a little bit of americana with every swig.

I love Carling Black Label. The distictive Red and Black can...I think it was the originator of the 15-pack. When everyone else burned through their 12-pack, you always had a smile on your face because you knew you had three more cans waiting in the wings. I get shivers and goosebumps when I think about it (though it's more than likely the DTs and a rash).

You'll be in my thoughts, Chris. Best of luck, man.

They only had eyes for Doc. The man sweats class.

Right back at you, my man. Look at that. Pabst Blue Ribbon, making friendships between people 3000 miles away from each other.

We were there a couple years ago, as well. A couple weeks after the big Harley celebration. We stayed at the Phister. Sat next to Doc Severenson down in the hotel lounge. I thought he was dead long ago, but there he was, a few feet away surrounded by a harem of mid-50s divorcees, dressed in his pinstiped suit and loud tie. The Diamondbacks were staying at the same hotel, and we got to talk to Bob Brenley in the lounge (what a shocker, huh?). That's a drinking town, for sure.

Me a couple buddies made a baseball trip to Millwaukee, former home of Pabst. The brewery is abandoned and fenced off...pretty sad. Miller bought it out and ran it out of town, we were told. It was a tough beer to get in that town. Anyway, a bartender in this joint near our hotel found a few in the basement and dusted'em off for us, and let us have them for free. We drank them warm, but we drank them with our heads held high.

It's a drinking man's beer...never lets you down...never complains about stuff not getting done...never asks you about project deadlines or where you've been for the last three hours.

Grolsch...I think it smells like feet and when you're loaded that special bottle they have might as well have a child-proof cap on it. Carona...Why drink soemthing if you have to add something to it to make it tolerable. Aside from the extra labor involved in getting the wedge to fit through the mouth without squirting lemon/lime juice in your peepers, why don't they just add in there when they bottle it, like the worm in mezcal?