Phi for All

Polymerase Chain Reaction, I presume. http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/AB/IE/PCR_Xeroxing_DNA.html

A crowded United Air Lines flight was cancelled. A single agent was assigned to rebook a long line of unhappy inconvenienced travelers. She was doing her best when suddenly an angry customer pushed his way to her desk. He slapped his ticket down on the counter and shouted, "I don't want to stand in line. I HAVE to be on this flight and it has to be FIRST CLASS and RIGHT NOW!" The young agent replied, "I'm sorry, sir, I'll try to help you but I've got to help these folks first. I'm sure we'll be able to work things out for you." The angry passenger was unimpressed and unrelenting. He asked loudly, so that all the passengers could hear, "I don't want to stand in line! Do you have any idea who I am?" Without hesitation, the agent smiled and grabbed her public address microphone. "May I have you attention, please," her voice bellowed through the terminal. We have a passenger here WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him identify himself, please come to the gate." With the crowd laughing hysterically, he glared at her and swore, "Screw you!" Without flinching, she smiled an said, "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to stand in line for that too!"

Three guys enter a disabled swimming contest. The first has no arms. The second no legs and the third has no body, he's just a head. They all line up, the whistle blows and *splash* they're all in the pool The guy with no arms takes the lead instantly but the guy with no legs is closing fast. The head of course sinks straight to the bottom. Ten lengths later and the guy with no legs finishes first. He can still see bubbles coming from the bottom of the pool, so he decides he had better dive down to rescue the head. He picks up the head, swims back up to the surface and places him at the side of the pool, where-upon the head starts coughing and spluttering. Eventually the head catches his breath and shouts, "Three years I've spent learning to swim with my ears, then ten seconds before the whistle, some asshole puts a swimming cap on me!"

Very flattering, cat, for you to lick me, but unsanitary. Why, you ask, kitty? It's because you lick your butt, cleaning kittily.

And did you notice that with all that, the light bulb still didn't get changed?

Pendejo (pen DAY ho) means asshole, jerk, coward. Puta (POO tah) means whore or slut. I can't believe I'm teaching someone from Hong Kong how to insult people in Spanish. I hope there is no international fallout over this.

I don't think you learned it very well. Can't you ask your teacher for the word again? There are no Spanish words exactly like that that I know of. Padre y Madre means Father and Mother, piedra means stone. Buena suerte.

We are certainly the only creatures who exploit and manipulate our environment to such a huge extent, and I believe that puts us outside of nature's intent. We could choose to be more like other animals but don't. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just that we are unique in that respect. I would disagree with this since we have the choices and abilities NOT to be destructive or invasive' date=' but we do it anyway. And since the discovery of the power of element 92 we have increased our destructive/nature-invasive capabilities by a millionfold. I tend to make a distinction between what we do to our habitat/home world and what we do in relationship to the universe as a whole. What happens here should be in accordance with nature as much as possible. Whatever happens with the planet will be in accordance with a universal balance, until we start being capable of affecting more and more of the universe. You could, but I don't. I think we are responsible for the damage we have done to our environment, not damage we have done to the Earth. The Earth will be just fine, no matter what state it is in. That state may eventually be inhabitable by some or most, but it will still be the Earth.

Osama the fox, burning Bush ignites Islam (eight years of terror). Negotiation is the way to fight terror, not four more, war more.

Seated before a kneeling intern, I believe. And Roosevelt was elected to a fourth term, but died early into it in the spring of 1945.

Personally, I think it all came down to the bin Laden tape. That played exactly the way bin Laden would have wanted it, since diplomacy is the only way to stifle terrorism. Bush will keep us fighting in the Middle East (next stop: Iran?) and that will only insure a high degree of terror and a fanatical terrorist following for years to come. I'm glad you don't post in the Jokes thread because you aren't funny at all. That's one of the most callous things I've ever seen posted about a fellow member. What an evil way to spend your hope.

Once Gilded walked into a Arctic Ice Bar in Finland, got a drink and had a seat. He's a good looking guy, so during the course of the evening he tried to chat with every single woman who walked into the bar, but he had no luck. Suddenly, a really ugly guy, and I mean R-E-A-L-L-Y ugly guy, walks into the bar. He sits at the bar, and within seconds he is surrounded by women. Very soon he walks out of the bar with the two of the most beautiful women you ever saw. Frustrated by all this, Gilded says to the bartender, "Excuse me, but that really ugly dude just came in here and left with those two gorgeous women. What's his secret? They all passed me by and took up with the Hunchback of Helsinki there. What's up with that?" "Well," Said the bartender, "I don't know how he does it, but he does the same thing every night. He walks in, orders a drink, and just sits there licking his eyebrows...."

A bear and a rabbit are out in the woods taking a shit together. They finish and the bear leans over to the rabbit and says, "Tell me, do you ever have a problem with the shit sticking to your fur?" The rabbit says "No, I never have." The bear says, "Good," and he wipes his ass with the rabbit.

A woman who had terrible luck with men decided to place an ad for the perfect man in the personals section of the newspaper. She specified that she wanted a man who wouldn't beat her, wouldn't run out on her, and was fantastic in bed. Any many fruitless replies via the post and email, one day her doorbell rang. When she answered it, she saw a man with no arms or legs lying on her doormat. "Hi," he said, "I'm here to answer your ad. I'm the perfect man for you!" Looking down at him, she asks, "What makes you think you're the perfect man for me?" He says, "Well, I have no arms, so I can't beat you, and I have no legs, so I can't run out on you." She says, "Yeah, but are you good in bed?" He winks and says, "Hey, I rang the doorbell, didn't I?"

There was no one reason. It was a combination of need, greed and opportunity, as most modern warfare usually is. Some probable reasons: 1. Saddam Hussein's oppressive, murdering regime. 2. A visible lack of closure for 9/11. 3. The possibility of nuclear weapons in the hands of an uncontrollable Middle East leader. 4. The need for a smokescreen to deflect attention away from: a. the fact that Osama bin Laden had not been captured. b. Bush gave away his chance to capture bin Laden to Afghan warlords. c. Unocal was taking over construction of the Trans-Afghani pipeline. 5. We did not spend enough money on the war in Afghanistan and defense contractors wanted us to use more expensive ordinance. 6. The American public did not feel safe enough from terrorist threats. 7. The chance to declare a democracy in a region that could use some decent representative government. 8. A boost for a sagging economy. Just wait until tomorrow or Thursday and I'm sure you will see a major offensive in Iraq since no damage can come to the elections from heavy casualties or lack of results. I pray for our troops.

I'm not the author but nothing in the title suggests that. What does the UK spend on defense? Do you feel your tax dollars are fairly spent?

For half a trillion dollars, you'd think every HumVee could have armor, wouldn't you? I don't think most people are aware of how much defense spending has gone up. When I mention Pangloss' figures about how it took us over 200 years to go from $0 to $250 billion, and just 10 years to double that, most people just blink rapidly while trying to keep their jaws from dropping. Most of it, I'm sure, goes to folks like Lockheed Martin, the world's largest arms dealer, for high-tech/high price tag goodies that the public gets to ooh and aah about while viewing the CNN footage. Meanwhile, soldiers get to ride underarmored convoys and scrounge for body armor. I read in USA Today over the weekend where something like 250 of the 1100+ American troops who were killede in Iraq died from non-combat related means. The article didn't go into more depth. What non-combat related means did we lose over 20% of the casualties to, does anyone know?

We actually had troops there at Al Qaqaa shortly after the invasion who inspected the site, but apparently were so intent on WMD that they left material used in nuclear weapons manufacture behind. Reports say they saw the material in bunkers but didn't inspect it to discover whether it was HMX or not. I don't blame the soldiers. They do what they are ordered to do. But why wasn't an order given from the top that if you actually find a cache of high-power explosives that you destroy it? I'm sure there is a lot I don't know about the logistics of destroying munitions, but it would seem prudent not to leave them in enemy hands if you find them, can't secure them and could conceivably destroy them.

I haven't looked at anything from MoveOn in over a year. I think I covered that by saying Afghanistan was less a conspiracy and more taking advantage of opportunities. I'm not being partisan on this. The Unocal deal was begun under the Clinton administration. In fact, I only register Democrat to vote in the primaries. I'm very disappointed in both major parties right now. They both make deals with immensely wealthy corporations that have a small amount to do with protecting this country and a great deal to do with protecting their cashflow. I think it's a small step to go from taking advantage of opportunities to actually engineering them, and when the return on investments approach 500% and the money involved is in the trillions, I trust big business about this much.

I find it extremely hard to be unbiased when it comes to this war. George Bush Sr. found Saddam to be a great scapegoat when the entire country was looking to crucify his son Neal after the Silverado S&L scandal. I find it very interesting that, in late April of 1999, Afghanistan, Pakistan, & Turkmenistan reactivated the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline project, excluding Unocal, the US contractor. I've heard estimates that this pipeline is worth $12 trillion in oil and natural gas. After 9/11, we attack Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, which Unocal had asked a House Committee to do back in 1998, and now Unocal is back working on the pipeline under the auspices of the new Afghani leader, Hamid Karzai, who just happened to be a top advisor to Unocal. And here is the American public, too busy arguing about whether or not we should be in Iraq, and we have taken it for granted that we should be in Afghanistan. The magicians wave one hand so you don't pay attention to what they're really doing with the other. This probably has less to do with conspiracy than with taking advantage of opportunities, but I think we are being played like fiddles here.

I think it is extremely necessary to determine for legal purposes when the life of a human being starts, and it simply can not be at conception. As mentioned already in this thread, there are too many ways to miscarry between when the ovum is fertilized and when it attaches itself to the uterine wall and begins to grow. Even after that there are many risks and the mother can't be held responsible for them all. I think the beginning of the second trimester is the best time limit. After four months, the option of abortion should not be allowed unless it puts the mother at great health risk.

A friend sent me this, Pangloss. If you haven't seen it, I thought you might get a kick out of it. Florida Voting Machines

So was it the UN weapons inspectors who let that much slip through their fingers? Why did Mohamed ElBaradei wait until now to report the matter to the U.N. Security Council? If they had been missing since before the war, why did Condi Rice get a warning this month?