Phi for All

Wings? Or genetically altering the mind to tap into EM or GR fields?

They may be only one fearless leader away from that. There was a conspiracy theory in one of the other threads which I'll flesh out further: China smuggles millions of troops into every major country in specially designed COSCO containers, then has them all Trojan Horse on the same day, spreading the retaliating troops too thin to be effective against them. Once they are on your native turf they become very hard to deal with without extensive collateral damage. Instant world domination!

This is the most secretive administration there has ever been in the US. Even the president's Texas driving records were locked up in daddy's library.

Politics-Guns: 483 Replies, 4491 Views. We've gotta beat that! Do your part, tell us a joke! Second that!

A guy driving a Yugo pulled up to a stoplight next to a Rolls-Royce. He rolled down his window and shouted to the driver of the Rolls. "Hey, buddy, that's a nice car. You got a phone in your Rolls? I've got a phone in my Yugo!" The driver of the Rolls looked over and said snobbishly, "Yes, I have a phone." The Yugo guy said, "Cool! Hey, you also got a fridge in there, too? I've got one in my Yugo!" The driver of the Rolls, much annoyed, says, "Yes, I have a refrigerator." The driver of the Yugo said, "That's great, man! Hey, you got a TV in there? You know, I got a TV in my Yugo!" The driver of the Rolls, quite irritated by now, replied, "Of course, I have a television. The Rolls-Royce is the finest luxury car in the world!" The driver of the Yugo said, "Yes, a very cool car! Hey, you got a bed in there? I got a bed in my Yugo!" The driver of the Rolls, upset that he did not have a bed, sped away and went straight to the dealer, where he promptly ordered a bed to be installed in the back of his Rolls-Royce. The next morning, he returned to pick up his car, and the bed looked superb! It came complete with silk sheets and a brass-trimmed headboard. It was clearly a bed fit for a Rolls-Royce. The driver of the Rolls went out searching for the Yugo. He drove around all day and finally found the Yugo late that night, parked, with all the windows fogged up. He got out and knocked on the window of the Yugo. When there wasn't any answer, he continued knocking until finally, the owner of the Yugo lowered the window, and stuck his head out. "I now have a bed in my Rolls-Royce," the driver of the Rolls stated arrogantly. The Yugo guy looked at him and said, "You got me out of the shower to tell me that?!?!"

A man and his wife were driving their RV across the country and were nearing a town in Florida spelled Kissimmee. They noted the strange spelling and tried to figure how to pronounce it: KISS-a-me, ki-SIM-ee, or kiss-a-ME. Since they were hungry, they pulled into a fast-food place to get something to eat. The man said to the girl behind the counter, "Excuse me, my wife and I can't seem to be able to figure out how to pronounce this place. Will you tell me where we are and say it very slowly so that I can understand?" The girl looked at him and said: "Buuurrrgerrr Kiiiinnnnggg."

I'm not arguing that intelligence needs haven't changed since the Cold War. What I object to is using undisclosed budgets for reasons of National Security on one hand, then turning around and saying the funding is inadequate in an internationally available document like the 9/11 Commission Report on the other hand. This is a very common tactic with any government. Secure the funding, which was supposed to be adequate, then when something bad happens they say it obviously wasn't enough, they need more. Sometimes you have to admit that it just isn't possible to prevent every bad thing from happening. Some people say that Reagan outspent the Soviet Union, causing them to ruin their economy in order to compete with the US during the Cold War. Has it occured to you that terrorism is having that same effect on us now? Has anyone heard how much it might have cost bin-Laden to arrange the 9/11 attacks? I'm betting it wasn't in the billions. Bush gave the Taliban $43 million in the spring of 2001 to fight the heroin trade. I bet 9/11 cost them a fraction of that.

Excuse me? I didn't mean to speak for you, and I'm certainly not buying into the whole paranoia thing, but the majority of Americans are. We don't need to be cowering under the table as long as we're cowering where it counts, allowing those who are supposed to represent us use our fears for our family against us. Every time they play with the alert level people here get a little more paranoid, a little more likely to let the politicians vote in something like the Patriot Act, eroding our civil rights in the name of security. Secret, as in undisclosed for reasons of National Security:http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2000/12/ciaig.html http://www.fas.org/irp/budget/index.html http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/intel-funding-pr.cfm I would have expected someone with hands-on experience in that field to be more sensitive to its needs. Instead, all we hear about is how the intelligence community is so outdated. The main threat is still nuclear war, with countries like North Korea/South Korea and India/Pakistan still uneasy with each other & also nuclear-armed. The means for staying abreast of what is going on in the world don't need to change just because the secrets and the people involved are different. Terrorism is a different threat, to be sure, but what have the CIA & NSA been doing with all that money if not trying to learn about it? My point is that with fear of terrorists with WMDs looming foremost in our minds, we are less likely to ask where the money has been going, and also more likely to throw even more funding to intelligence to fix the "problems" that were supposed to be covered by the last round of funding.

A man sitting on a park bench notices two men dressed in county worker overalls digging with shovels. One of them digs a hole two feet deep, then moves about twenty feet away and starts digging another hole. The second one follows behind the first, filling up the hole after a few minutes have passed. The man on the bench finally says, "Why are you wasting taxpayer money by digging holes and filling them in?" One of the workers looks over at him and explains, "The guy who puts the trees in is off sick today."

Over here, they are using the 9/11 Commission reports to further secure tax funding for beefed up security. With fear and terror in mind, Americans forget to ask, "Why is it that the intelligence agencies, with multi-billion dollar (secret) budgets, are so far behind the times? Wasn't George Bush Sr the CIA director at one point? Why didn't he and Reagan, during the Cold War, keep the security services well-stocked with state-of-the-art goodies? What did they do with all that money Reagan & Bush I spent? Why isn't it part of their budget to upgrade regularly, the way most people who work on computers do?"

Our lovely Homeland Security Secretary, Tom Ridge, did a series of horrific commercials urging Americans to protect their homes from biological terror attacks. One of the ways to do this was to use duct tape to seal up cracks in your windows and walls. It resulted in increased duct tape sales across the country.

People who are afraid turn to their leaders for support and assurance. Unfortunately, even if the leaders were the ones who turned up the "naked flames" on those fears. I think it's deplorable, dehumanizing and insidious when governments use terror tactics as an excuse to fight terror tactics.

Never done Haiku; Can't understand it at all- Not jiggy wit it.

Do you mean favorite joke? If you meant thread, why the past tense? This thread has to continue until it's longer than the "Guns" thread! You owe us a joke for that comment, you know! A man finds a genie in a bottle. The genie tells him he can have whatever he wants, provided that his mother-in-law gets double. The man thinks for a moment and then says, "OK, give me a million dollars and beat me half to death."

In Contact, Carl Sagan suggested life in a zero-G environment would greatly increase your lifespan due to less stress on the body caused by gravity. Is that true? Zero-G would be really cool once you got used to it. I grew up with a trampoline, so I'm sure I could get into the bendiness of it. The action/reaction thing and keeping your food down would be the hard parts, I suppose.

I saw the 2nd season on DVD as well. I can't imagine how it would be to wait a week between episodes and endure the commercials between scenes. Bleh!

Watch him in Benny & Joon, Donny Brasco & Chocolat. He's one of those rare actors that is never the same way twice.

Depp is an insightful actor and Edward was one of his most brilliant characters. I saw Depp on Inside the Actor's Studio and apparently he always has producers biting their nails over his characterizations. Disney almost wet themselves over Jack Sparrow until he tested through the roof. I love the fact that he turned down another lucrative season of 21 Jump Street to take a chance on Burton's Edward Scissorhands. Winona was his girlfriend then, did you know? The chemistry showed through.

I'm feeling so clubbed over the head these days by previews and trailers for TV programs and movies. I hate that they show some of the best scenes. It alwasy pulls me out of the experience when I'm watching a movie and a scene comes up that's already been splashed across the TV a thousand times. I try to stay away from commercials but it's not easy. The best movie and TV watching experiences, IMO, are the ones you go into with no preconceptions. A friend handed me the first season of Keifer Sutherland's "24" on DVD (6 discs, 24 episodes, 42 minutes per episode, no commercials!), and told me I have to watch it. The only thing I knew about the series was that it was set up in real time, the entire season taking place in one 24-hour period. I was blown away! What a wonderful experience with no prejudices or expectations. My wife and I devoured those discs, watching 2 or 3 episodes an evening. I feel like entertainment advertising treats us like we won't watch unless we know half the story beforehand. Any thoughts?

Amen.

Wish I'd thought of that!

Why clear? The eye works better with a background to focus on. I believe the dry erase technology is all in the markers. Save money and get some plexiglass in the size you want, then buy the markers. Use an old T-shirt to erase. No, not the one you're wearing!

I have clients who haven't budged since Windows 98. I beg them to come up to XP, that it's not like the intervening horror stories, but they are frightened and spook easily. What are the best reasons (besides compatibility) for them to upgrade?

When I had 0.9 the favicons (including SFNs) would appear after I had used a bookmark, but would disappear when I closed out a Firefox window. Since I got 0.9.1 I get no favicons at all.

I was referred by someone from Physics Forums. I hardly go there anymore....