Phi for All

Prohibition will just encourage a black market. Humans want what others tell them they can't have, especially when younger. Leave them legal but restricted and educate people about the short and long-term effects, preferably in grade school. Semi-off-topic, I quit smoking twelve years ago this month, and I can tell you that, like alcoholism, no pack+ per day smoker can make a rational argument for or against until they've quit for a few months and flushed their system completely. You can't possibly imagine how much better you feel, how much more flavorful food tastes, how much better the whole world smells until you've experienced it in contrast to when you were smoking.

Limericks! There once was a guy named JustStuit whose outlook on life was, "Oh, screw it!" But compared to a few, this guy had a clue, and that was what helped him get through it!

"Infinite_gir?" That's a lot of Gir!

A young man and an old man were having lunch. The young man asked, "So what do you do all day now that you're retired?" The old man said, "Well, I try to have a little fun each day. For example, the other day I went into town and went into a shop. I was only in there for about 5 minutes, when I came out there was a cop writing out a parking ticket. I went up to him and said, 'Come on man, how about giving a senior citizen a break?' "He ignored me and continued writing the ticket. I called him a Nazi turd. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires. So I called him a sh*thead. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started writing a third ticket. This went on for about 20 minutes. The more I abused him, the more tickets he wrote." The old man chuckled and said, "Personally, I didn't care. I came into town by bus."

Welcome to all the new folks! We're glad to have you and hope you enjoy, learn and share in equal proportions.

I was a very happy person. My wonderful girlfriend and I had been dating for over a year, and so we decided to get married. There was only one little thing bothering me...It was her beautiful younger sister. She always wore miniskirts, and generally was bra-less. She would regularly bend down when she was near me, and I always got more than a pleasant view of her private parts. It had to be deliberate. She never did it when she was near anyone else. One day her "little" sister called and asked me to come over to check the wedding invitations. She was alone when I arrived, and she whispered to me that she had feelings and desires for me that she couldn't overcome. She told me that she wanted to make love to me just once before I got married and committed my life to her sister. Well, I was in total shock, and couldn't say a word. She said, "I'm going upstairs to my bedroom, and if you want one last wild fling, just come up and get me." I was stunned and frozen in shock as I watched her go up the stairs. When she reached the top she pulled off her panties and threw them down the stairs at me. I stood there for a moment, then turned and made a beeline straight to the front door. I opened the door, and headed straight towards my car. Lo and behold, my entire future family including my fiance was standing outside, all clapping! With tears in his eyes, my father-in-law hugged me and said, "We are very happy that you have passed our little test. We couldn't ask for a better man for our daughter. Welcome to the family." I learned a valuable lesson that day: Always keep your condoms in your car.

When threads straddle different disciplines, I have no objections to moving threads around to garner specialized input (and sometimes taking politics out of the picture makes responses less hostile).

Objective reasoning doesn't apply when we can't know all the subjective underlying motivations. Politicians have so many reasons for what they argue for that may involve deals and considerations that aren't part of public information. Some of those reasons may actually be logical, but unless we know the whole story we can't judge them.

Bravo JohnB, masterfully done.

Start some threads in General Science and if there is enough interest anything is possible.

Oh, now THERE'S a practical skill set.... If you're wondering why people don't invite you to parties anymore, I think I know the answer.

Ben tian sheng de yi dui rou!

Have you seen Serenity? Shiny.

His old socks must have been pretty disgusting. Why do socks have more friction once you've washed them a few times? Soap? You'll do well in your new home. It's like Birk capital of the world.

It is quite a feet, but if Illuminati pulls on this thread, heel soon unravel it.

Yes, and people with hanger dimples on the tops of the shoulders of their shirts will hopefully seem more attractive to the opposite sex. By the same token, faded jeans are a sign that a man actually knows how to do laundry, also making him attractive. However, tight-fitting shrunken clothes on women, which should imply that they are laundry-challenged and make them less attractive, will continue to bring in guys in droves. Go figure.

Anything important takes lots of practice. Collaborating artists rarely sculpt a masterpiece on their first few tries. If making that first move is tough you should try approaching a friend you're interested in knowing better and say, "I don't know a lot about relationships but I'd like to learn more with you." Then shut up and let them talk.

So heavy they make you pigeon-toed.

I thought size didn't matter!? Oh well, I do feel that a man's feet should fill his socks. One of the reasons guys like tubesocks so much is for the marginally longer neck. That way they still cover the ankles after repeated washings have shrunk them to Lilliputian proportions.

Tubesocks are a conundrum. When wearing long pants I pull the socks up, when wearing shorts I push them down. I actually like wearing the jogger (no show) kind when it's hot out. Nothing says tourist like shorts with tubesocks pulled all the way up. I like the evolution angle. Since the invention of the clothes dryer, natural selection will probably kill off the tubesock in favor of shorter ankle lengths. Tubesock mating suffers when static causes one of a pair to cling to the dryer door. Less surface area means less cling and thus more successful post-dryer mating. Crews and joggers (no-shows) will eventually dominate the species.

All parts of life are just parts of life. The sucking or shining is what you bring to it. I see every day through the eyes of a six-year-old (she'll be seven tomorrow). I quit a six-figure job two years ago because I was sick of being micromanaged by people who could never do what I did. Now I work from home, I spend a lot of time with family and friends, I'm finally meeting the neighbors, I'm learning great science from this forum. The really funny part is my home business is starting to make me more money than the old job did. Life is shiny. So much of being a teenager is knowing what is right but finally feeling the burden of what is wrong. You see injustice everywhere and realize you won't have the power to fix things for a few years yet... if then. You are caught between doing what you want and doing what you're supposed to. You find yourself spending too much time on what other's think and not enough on who you want to be. If you're shy because you don't want to look foolish, just remember that everyone else is waiting for you to speak up. Chances are you might say what they've been dying to say. And they'll thank you for it. And those who don't aren't worth the worry.

Sounds like some great topics for our Ecology and the Environment sub forum. When that one fills up with enough animal conservation threads, we can spin them off into another sub forum.

Are there similar Doomsday vaults with human and animal "seeds"? Did Norway buy any Murphy-proof mousetraps?

Distinguishing between a need and a want is one step towards wisdom, imo. Recognizing that part of what drives your purchases is simply a desire to acquire marks a milestone in your maturity level. I used to collect museum replica swords until I finally realized I was more excited by the prospect of shopping for my next one than I was when my current acquisition arrived. Shouldn't I have been more thrilled to receive something I'd been waiting for? But within a few days I was back with my nose in the catalog looking for what I wanted next. And don't forget the power of persuasion. Part of the "bang" is how good it sounds to you. I've noticed in the US that calling something by a French-sounding word makes it more desirable. I've lost thousands of dollars to the word "gourmet". Regular coffee comes pre-ground in a steel can with a plastic lid. Gourmet coffee comes in a paper bag as whole beans you have to grind yourself and costs more than regular. And what is a "buffet"? It's a cafeteria where you pay more and serve yourself. Pschologically, we often go out of our way to defend these types of purchases, more so than others. This tells me we probably know they're wrong and require justification. But those chemicals are hard to ignore.