Crap Throwing Monkey

Because he's blindingly fast. Faster than sound in a vacuum, even...

Or...maybe that I don't understand means you're not making any sense. I don't see anyone defending Michael Irvin...I don't even see anyone defending Tom Delay, for that matter. Just lots of "Well...you do it too!" Then you come barrelling into the mud-slinging like an elephant with diarhhea blathering about Irvin and the Minnesota Vikings. And it's my fault you don't make any sense? You have multiple personalities or something? You have an amazing ability to go from making coherent and good points to spewing total nonsense in the space of a few days. I'm going to have to start calling you Sybil.

I want the five seconds of my life back that I just spent reading your stupid-ass post.

Is this some sort of bad existentialist riddle? I swear, I have no !@#$ing idea what point you're trying to make. I don't think I'm the only one, either. I'm not even sure you know.

Michael Irvin? What?

Little known fact: it was the Poles who broke the German Enigma codes, in the mid-30s. They gave all their work to the British just before the Germans invaded. I'll be glad to have Poland on our side any day of the week.

AiO? Can I borrow some cash?

Who wrote that? Joe Theisman?

Clinton shut down the government in a pissing match with Congress over the budget (okay, technically Clinton AND Congress shut it down). Does that count?

If I were near your parts, I'd disappear too.

You sound pretty psychotic anyway...

Well...if we're throwing out evil political leaders from the past, I thought the driving force behind Clinton's Afghanistan policy should be given props. Hey, Clinton...:fyou:.

Mavis Leno.

This statement screams for a ridiculous response like "So you supported Hitler and the Nazi Party, as well?"

Technically, it's not. It's transparent. It just scatters light most efficiently at a particular frequency that happens to be blue.

There's no global regulation thereof that I know of, and no central tracking of ships/boats that would make it practical. In other words, it's up to the owner of the boat to install such a device, if he chooses to, and in most places in the world up to the owner to track it, as well (a notable exception is certain beacons designed to broadcast on frequencies that the US Coast Guard monitors; The Perfect Storm - the book, not the movie - outlines that pretty well.) And even then...like I said, the Andrea Gail was lost with no communication, and she WAS equipped with such a beacon that broadcast on the USCG frequency. No one heard a thing. Batteries died, buoy was out of range, buoy was welded to the back of the wheelhouse and the Andrea Gail took a wave on the beam, rolled, and the buoy never released. Who knows? Lots of things can go wrong when a ship sinks; it's usually a very rapid process. And other boats...I've never heard of such a device on an ocean-going ship (though ships that sail high-piracy waters such as around Malaysia and Indonesia have a lojack-like device installed), and though you wouldn't think you could just lose a ship of several tens of thousands of tons without a trace, it's not infrequent. Nowadays, it's often piracy (the area around the Malay peninsula and South China Sea averages nearly one hijacking a day; a good number of those disappear without a trace), but the sudden, catastrophic, and inexplicable loss of a ship happens, world-wide, probably a few times a year on average. Maybe as often as once a month. Certainly once a year, at a minimum.

I'm very prone to kidney stones; I've had about seven in my life so far. They hurt in the back when they pass out of the kidney. When they pass through the ureter to the bladder, I believe you'll feel it through the lower abdomen to the groin (at least, I know I do). Depending on the stone, the pain can pass quickly (my quickest went in about five minutes) or very, very slowly (my slowest took about three days.) Typically, it's a diffuse cramping sort of pain, not in my experience something that doubles me over (though I guess it can be). The real check for a kidney stone isn't pain, it's urinary problems. Either trouble taking a leak (frequent need to urinate with little production), or blood in the urine (not necessarily red, either...probably brown if it's coming from high up the ureter). You have either of those, it's a good bet it's a stone. Otherwise...I've never had a hernia, so I don't know.

What, a tree? A garland? Balls?

It happens quick. Actually, it's not all that unusual. Edmund Fitzgerald went down without a signal; had she not been sailing with another freighter, she'd have gone down as a "disappearance". The Andrea Gail disappeared without a signal. Flight 19 "disappeared" after much communication with the mainland...but one of the PBM search planes went out and was never heard from again - likely because it exploded (as PBM's were prone to do). Payne Stewart's Learjet, had it been over the ocean, would have "disappeared without a trace". In the '70s, a charter flight on approach to Chicago "undershot" the runway by a few miles and flew straight into Lake Michigan with no hint of a problem (until it hit the water, of course). About a decade ago, an Air Force A-10 disappeared on a training flight; they found the wreckage in the Rockies something like a week later with no indication of what happened. The USS Indianapolis in 1945 sunk without time to radio what happened. Hell, name a ship or plane accident that HAS time to radio in. Only ones I can think of are the Andrea Doria and Titanic, and a handful of airliners that had failures not fatal to their airworthiness (e.g. one plane several years ago that lost all hydraulics in mid-flight and crashed on landing an hour later.)

Yeah, sure. News flash: influenza comes from birds. Not finding it would be a story.

Of course, the fact that you refer to "exceptions" indicates in and of itself that the rule is that it's a Republican thing. It's not; it's actually rather evenly bipartisan...although if you really pressed me, I'd point out that the screwing of GIs started with the democratic-controlled Congress' "Peace Dividend" under King Bush I, and really gained steam under the Clinton administration.

Actually...that was a pretty good one. Not great, just good.

Can't tell. What happens in Denver, stays in Denver.

Because they never do anything? I mean, really..."How come we never lose guys like Coy Wire to injury?" How about: because the benches are aluminum, so it's not like he's going to get a splinter in his ass?