Phi for All

We apologise for the fault in moving the OP without its replies. Those moderators responsible have been sacked.

I'm a member but I haven't posted there in years. Great site but it's so huge that I had no sense of community.

ROFL. I remember thinking that last year. Happy Holidays, Trip. Listen, kid, it's not that your opinion is the least bit important or interesting, it's just that it's not based in reality and from what I've seen of your posting habits, it lacks intellectual relevance and creative maturity. Perhaps some links to more accessible and esoteric venues for your personality type would help. * *Just some trolling tips I've picked up from the best.

Military intelligence, jumbo shrimp, awesome troll; clearly you two are just oxymorons.

Thanks Cap'n, we love you! Tequila for lunch?

... and then there were none. That house fire story is hilarious (I almost never get to say that). I'm going to steal that somehow, and none of you can stop me.

Perhaps I should have used the word synthetic. Even stevia is, by definition, a non-nutritive *artificial* sweetener. But it isn't a synthetic one that converts to methanol/formaldehyde like aspartame does, or is a suspected carcinogen like cyclamate. Sucralose may be OK, but as a brand name sweetener, Splenda uses a bulking agent that is mostly corn syrup solids, something else I'm trying to avoid. The Wikipedia article I linked to in the OP:

You're looking for the patterns that set up something to be funny, not the material itself, right? Because subject material is highly subjective. One of the funniest jokes I've ever heard is so horribly offensive in its subject matter that most folks can't look beyond that to see how brilliantly funny the joke really is. Triplets are always a good pattern (a priest, a lumberjack and a gynecologist walk into a bar...). Words with b, d, g, k, and p are generally funnier sounding than words without them (aardvark is a funnier word than anteater). The sounds of them are occluded vocally, making them start and stop suddenly, which is good for comedy. Exaggeration is always good, as is a vast disparity between objects and people (an ant walks up to an elephant...). Misdirection is a favorite as well (Steve Martin told this joke about being sad that his girlfriend died. "In a way, it was my fault. She'd been drinking heavily and wanted to leave the party. I told her I should drive and asked for her keys. She refused, we argued some more, she insisted on driving, so I shot her."). Lead the audience down the wrong path, make them think they know what's coming, and then spring something completely off the wall at them. There's more but that's a start. Thanks very much, ladies and gentlemen, I'll be here all week.

But Medicare has much lower administrative costs from what I hear, and they pay the hospitals sooner with fewer protests over procedure. Not waiting 90-120 days on payments is a big plus for most businesses, doctors included.

Does anyone have a figure on what each person would have to pay per month into Medicare if they removed the age requirement? I keep hearing this would be a great system but how does it compare to what we pay monthly for Insuracare-type services?

The typical scenario is to sink those funds into big business, since it's splashier in a PR sense to court them, and because it's probably owed from campaign financing promises. States often spend millions courting a large corporation to stimulate a few thousand jobs. If they were to spend half as much on small businesses, they could create tens of thousands of jobs, but the media rarely covers such cumulative efforts, preferring to concentrate on the big name big buck big deal.

Wish he were old enough to run? Read mine while you wait.

Why'd he oaPs on us? He claims he's so damn awesome! Let's give him some awwww. Wavy navy guy, stuck inside his own bulkhead. Which way did ego?

Before I spent that much time putting together such a huge database, I would have made a simple phone call to New Mexico State University and asked for the professor who teaches their surveying technology courses, and maybe ask him if he knows what those craters are. Or the state department of engineering and surveying, they've probably been all over those sites. I guess it's easier to sit hunched over a computer, totally in the dark, and just let your imagination run wild.

We don't give hermanntrude enough recognition for the great work he does here, so I'll give him some more for you.

In much the same way Jodie Foster liked seeing her name associated with John Hinckley Jr. Oh padren, truer words were never spoken. If only we had a thread for haikus....

Maybe ydoaPs should be king instead. * * Hey, if I don't feed the poor guy signature copy, who will?

Great point. We've been shot down, and the hunter is in the process of hacking off the choicest parts of the carcass. Do you want him to hold the knife in his right hand or his left hand?

Another possibility is that these are dried up lakes. There are a tremendous amount of sites in NM that are called tanks, as Mr Skeptic pointed out with Upper East Tank. This might explain the roads leading to these craters, and perhaps attempts to dredge them caused their squarish shape. More victims of AGW. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Actually, if you look at satellite images of NM you will find a very cratered landscape, most of them round but quite a few have a distinct square shape. There are also triangles and other shapes as well, but round and square seem to predominate. I still wouldn't call them any more than random occurrences though, and certainly not explosions that scientists are attempting to cover up.

Have some faith. Call him your champagne manager.

Unfair. I posted my polite request for clarification about the roads a full five minutes before you were so ruthlessly, brutally and cold-bloodedly... um, questioned by insane_alien. You could have answered me and ignored that filthy 50-year-old ex-RAF queen-meeter. I am offended and this will be my last post. In this thread. Unless you answer my question. So there.

I was quite careful not to use the word "natural" with regard to stevia, and I only used the word "artificial" to denote the synthetic blend of chemicals used in other types of sweeteners. I pointedly didn't want to imply that stevia was better because it was a plant (after all, some plants are poisonous). They are all non-nutritive sweeteners, and while I can appreciate you pointing out the controversial issues I thought I was careful to omit (though I rarely appreciate your signature uber-arrogant style), I just wanted some feedback on how others felt about its impact on their health. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Gah, I will never know. I will leave that experiment up to you. As with most sugar substitutes, stevia is actually much sweeter than sucrose, and a small amount goes a long way. I've tried putting more than one packet in my tea to increase the sweetness and found that I got a metallic, unpleasant aftertaste, which is very different from when I double the amount of sugar in a drink. I have some gastric troubles with sucralose, sugar alcohols and aspertame. Perhaps it's because I like to drink tea throughout the day, switching to water in the evening. I may have 4 or 5 10-12 oz cups a day, and I don't have the gastric troubles with stevia.

ydoaPs = Syndrome! So you'll be running on the Brown Party ticket?

DragonHunter, what's your conclusion about all the roads in and around the sites? If these alleged impacts happened that close to transportation routes, why weren't at least some of them reported?

Remember to include what you're going to do about energy. Gasoline will be $12 a gallon, Wal-Mart will have filed for bankruptcy, there will only be two commercial airlines left and Disneyworld will be closed.