Watermonkey

I'm beginning to see a theme here: Start something cooking on the stove. Get distracted. Walk away. Come back to a bad bad scene. Let this serve as a warning, never leave your cooking until it's done!

Just one word of advice from personal experience. My step-father did this, not I, but it took weeks to clean up: Never leave a pot of honey on the stove with the burner on. Bad bad things can happen very quickly...

Nope! You've named a company and listed some interested facts and that's what we're looking for here. I don't think that earning a high wage or having high annual revenue makes you evil, though... I think you could draw up a huge list of companies that maintain those very same sweatshops oversees where the cost of labor is much less expensive. How about Nike, or Adidas or Liz Clayborne, the list could get quite long I'm sure... I just feel like you may as well be talking about Apple Corp. They design their products in house, but for all the parts and manufacture, they turn to a plant in China where pretty much all of the world's laptops are made now, for their labor and it makes me mad as hell, but it doesn't make them evil... Oh, and Steve Jobs was compensated even more then Eisner last year. Over $600M if I recall... Holy crap! 2/3 of a Billion dollars for a year's work??? That's what I'm talking about!

That wouldn't be relevant since the jet fuel burned off in just a matter of minutes, what little remained after the explosive fireball of fuel burned just after impact. According to NIST (a government agency) and independent structural engineers and physicists, even at half strength structural steel such as that used in the core of the WTC 1 and 2 could've stood stress two to three times what the load was during the event. Also, NIST determined no steel samples reached 600 degrees Celsius, indeed nothing exceeded 230 degrees Celsius. Someone has already probably told Rosie, and the rest of the world, the buildings one and two were designed to survive multiple impacts of Boeing 707 airplanes at the same time without failure. Finally, according to the Law of Conservation of Momentum, the buildings should not have even remotely fallen into their footprints. Only a controlled demolition can explain the implosion and free-fall in which the buildings were observed falling. Any other "official" explanation defies the laws of physics, but is standard fare for the lies of government. Yeah, I think Rosie is adequately informed. Want to see a good lecture? Go here: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ , maybe you'll learn something new... Hope you're not on dial-up, the lecture is a couple hours in length. It might prepare you for college lectures if you're not there yet.

Very great post, Smack! Unlike others you've actually taken some time and named a corporation, not an industry. Thank you. I didn't really regard DeBeers on my list... I suppose because it's not an industry I give much thought of very often, but you're absolutely right to include them! I learned from someone recently that diamonds aren't even all that rare and they're not really considered "precious" in many circles due to their abundant supply. The only reason the price is kept so high is due to the manipulated supply by companies like DeBeers. A real gem would be a ruby or emerald I suppose.As far as "evil" tobacco companies, they're not all the same. Some are actually very philanthropic and socio-economically responsible citizens of our community. There's actually one out there that actively promotes organic sustained farming and other environmentally friendly agendas. So, please, name the company that's evil, not an entire industry! Also, someone actually said that VW was the most evil corporation because they supplied cars to Hitler! That's so lame I don't even know where to start. Where did you expect Hitler to get his automobiles? From Bentley in England? One of the ways his Nazis or third Reich came to power was by stimulating the German economy and one of the big industries they needed to get going was, of course, the Automobile industry, and naturally VW was in the right place at the right time. Their supplying cars to the Nazi scum didn't contribute to the atrocities committed by the regime. Why not look up the manufacturer of the ovens used to toast the prisoners at Auschwitz? At least their product was used to kill people! (Yes, I own a VW!)

That's my point, Mike. I'll never be a victim because I carry concealed. And I practice very often with my firearms. Why do you keep telling me to become a victim? You trying to get me killed or something? The rest isn't worth commenting on. Your reading comprehension isn't up to par. Sorry, but that's the end of the discussion between you and I.

Mike, as far as I can tell, the entire cornerstone of your argument rests on the statement above. I will now proceed to counter this statement with the hard reality, aka: "facts", and you'll continue to spout your brainwashed belief that guns somehow cause crime because you're too lazy to learn the truth. Hopefully someone reading this will actually look into it a little further then listening to NPR and Sarah Brady. First, the "statistic" you're looking for is "...that a firearm in the home is '43 times more likely' to be used to kill a member of the household than to kill a criminal intruder." -From a small-scale study of firearms related deaths in King Co. WA (Seattle is in King Co.) for the period of 1978-83. The authors of the study clearly state, Read the article I'm looking at here. Now, read that quote again. The authors themselves state in no uncertain terms that their study can not be used for a "complete determination of firearm risks versus benefits". Now, since we've determined by the authors' own admission that this "statistic" isn't valid, let's look at actual statistics... (I know, you're so smart you don't need to pay attention to statistics that don't support your argument, but some of us actually know that statistics are produced by scientists who have actual 4 or 6 year college degrees and actually do this sort of thing for a living. Heck, many of the papers written on the conclusions of said statistics are by PhD s!) The second article I'm looking at which quotes 16 different documents including the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) can be found here. In it the author completely dispels the myth that a woman would be in more danger by carrying a concealed gun then without. By that I mean that actual real events of the lives of real people who've thwarted a criminal's attempt to victimize them were used to generate relevant, valid, statistics which in turn were used to draw the conclusion that in real life the weapon is taken from the defender about 1% of the time. Now to quote the crux of my argument put in a way I've not done: You dismiss, out of hand, a book written by a college professor, J.R. Lott, Jr., entitled More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun-Control Laws because you thought the title was a statement of fiction instead of fact. Instead of actually reading the book, which I have not done either, though now that I think of it, I think I'll check it out of my local library next time I get to town, you think it's intellectually honest to just dismiss something like that out of hand? I don't know who you think you're fooling, but it ain't me, mister! Another quote for your reading pleasure from the review of the above-mentioned book: One thing Mr. Lott looks at in the book (second edition -year 2000) is that in states where concealed carry is allowed violent crimes are lower then in adjoining states where concealed carry is not allowed. Further, the evidence states that when states allow concealed carry, their violent crime rates drop in subsequent years. The simple fact is that criminals are like any other line of work: They prefer to work in a safe environment with a minimum risk of injury or death. Why is that so hard to understand, Mike? There's another quote from a reviewer of the Lott book that I just have to include in here because it's so well stated, and absolutely TRUE:

Work on your grammar Mike or you'll never pass that English requirement. A word of advice: Don't pull statistics out of your anal orifice and pretend you know what you're talking about. That bit above about 99% becoming victims is absolute garbage, crap, and false. Look up the proper statistic, I recommend Lott's "More Guns, Less Crime" for a source of statistics like that one, also read the web site, http://www.keepandbeararms.com/ for further information and knowledge on the subject. And remember, Misa has been classically educated in private, Catholic institutions since grade school. You're trying to debate someone with an advanced degree from a Jesuit University - one of the best in the country. She won't let lies ruin a perfectly good point and I'm stepping in to try and buffer her wrath. When you have the truth on your side, you'll find her arguments reasonable and sound. Ask her if she has any personal experience in using the tactics she's advocating... You might learn something from her as well. Turn off the TV and read a book!

Take finance courses in school and learn the material to help you make informed decisions when you begin saving for retirement. Obviously the younger you begin saving in a Roth IRA or whatever, the richer you'll be when you retire or the younger you can retire. It's not very practical in most cases to really start saving that nest egg, though, until you've gotten that career job that you went to college for, but sometimes that doesn't matter either, as long as you've got decent income beyond your expenses, you should stash 10 - 20% for that day when you no longer want to work. Real assets like silver, gold, real estate, guns, ammo are all good things that won't lose their value over time like a car or clothes or computers will. Try and hold on to as much value as you can from an early age by investing in things that hold and increase in value with time and you'll be saving for your retirement. Invest in a good safe that'll bolt to a concrete wall and floor to hide your treasure too.

In a free market, people vote with their wallets. If this were truly a free market economy, things would be different, but the corporations and their lobbyists own the politicians to a great extent, so we're still stuck in the age of petroleum instead of the age of Hydrogen and bio-diesel and we're still forced to drive cars with inferior technology instead of driving cool cars like what they have in Europe like the 10 cylinder diesel VW Phaeton or the diesel powered BMW or many many other better cars then we can buy here.

I've got a degree in music and I'll tell you, you'd better have something else to fall back on or you'll likely regret it. Making it big time in the music industry is not unlike making it big time in pro sports or acting. There's always going to be many many people vying for the same job but it'll be the one who knows someone who'll get the job. Talent, while a good thing, won't alone make you get that lucky break, it's who you know. If you have a solid EE Engineering degree too, or maybe another science degree that you can work in parallel with the music gig, that'd be ideal. That way, while you're some kind of starving musician, you can still afford to put a roof over your head, food in your mouth, and buy new toys for your real passion: music. Also, I hope you don't think music theory is going to be a walk in the park. It's anything but...

I swore to myself I wouldn't buy another vehicle with a gas motor in it. It's all diesel from here on out. Even my new ATV, which I'll be buying very soon, will have a two cylinder diesel engine. I'll be buying a diesel holding tank for storage here and a smaller tank for the back of the truck to transport off-road diesel and bio-diesel from town. Bio-diesel is the way to go if you can, clean, cheap, and very nearly the energy per gallon that petro-diesel contains. Next on the list will be a truck to replace our Toyota but the new truck will have either a Cummins or Powerstroke in it. Then, the luxurious ten cylinder VW Touareg will occupy the space next to the truck in the garage replacing my old reliable Passat. Then we'll have 11.6 to 12 Liters (and 18 or 20 cylinders) of Diesel motor displacement and fuel economy to enjoy! I can hardly wait for my little revolution....

Rosie, love her or hate her, stuck to her principals with regards to her impending departure from The View, which will probably happen sooner then the end of her contract. The executive producers wanted to control her "view" and she wouldn't have any of it. They wouldn't allow her to bring on Professor Steven Jones regarding the physics involved with the destruction of the three buildings at the World Trade Center on 9/11 and they were trying to limit what she had to say on other aspects of current events too. They wanted her to continue because they know she's responsible for the higher ratings the show has been getting of late and they offered her a very lucrative contract but she had to agree to shut her mouth about 9/11 Truth and she turned it down. I never liked her before because of her anti-gun views and I still don't like her for that, but she's commanded my respect for standing up for free speech and not letting money get in the way of getting the truth out. She'll probably get her own show now... Stay tuned, she'll be back.

Go to Apple.com and look in the store and compare apples to apples, forgive the pun. Apple tends to use higher end hardware so they charge more, but they last longer and come pre-loaded with lots of software including the cult favorite, Garageband. As long as Leo Laporte doesn't use any anti-virus software, neither will I. He's the "Tech Guy" you know. I think you just get alot more for your money with apple and if you read consumer reports, you'll see, I'm not the only one.

1) Surprising 2) You must've been in the military or were you sniping for deer to put meat on the table? Why did dear old Dad own a gun? Self defense? 3) I'm not implying anything. I'm saying that it would take weeks or months to learn to handle a knife in a fashion or manner consistent with using it as a tool for self-defense for a smaller person (F) to defend herself against a larger person (M) successfully. To learn how to safely handle a firearm, one needs about an hour in the class room and an hour or so at the range. 4) very very wrong. All you need is cause for alarm. If perp is coming at you with the clear intent to do you harm and you fear for you life, you pull out that "smokewagon" and burn him down. That's the law, you are fearing for your life, and if you're a female, you'll not even be questioned by all but the most hateful of women-haters because you don't have any chance again such aggression. 5) that kinda proves my point right there! 6) Tasers are not nearly as reliable as guns as they require batteries and electronics to work, also, if you're talking about the kind that shoots the leads attached to wires, that's the only shot you'll get, when if you miss? What happens if there are more then one perps? Happens all the time. I'll take the good old reliable firearm with 15 rounds (plus one in the chamber) thank you very much. I'd be happy, ecstatic even, to go into a gun fight where I knew the other person is only armed with a taser! 7) That's exactly why I like to be armed around them. People are people and they're the most unpredictable, violent, unsavory animals on the planet! 8) That's if he was stabbed or jolted. I'd rather he didn't think at all after attacking me or my lady! I'd rather she were armed with the means to stop his terrible thoughts! 9) Already covered. If she's fearing for her safety, then she has the legal right and obligation to defend herself with any and all necessary means including lethal force. 10) Maybe? OK, you're right, perps are also gang members, bad LEO's (rare, but they're out there too), your garden-variety serial killers and so on. Any way you shake it, they're looking for the weak, defenseless sheep in the herd and they'll take them by force and do things to them if they (the prey) aren't packing heat. Walk lightly and carry a .44 Magnum!

It's slow??? Crap! Now you tell me... I was using the torrent to download a 1.6GB file and it's taking, like, forever... I think it'll be done in just a few more weeks... If I'd known bittorrent was faster, I'd probably only be taking a couple weeks to download the stupid thing instead of six!

Yeah, those viruses suck big time. That's one of the reasons I use a Mac. I don't even have anti-virus software on my laptop. Good luck with that Windoz computer.

Have you ever used a taser, knife, or gun? What experiences have you had with these three weapons? A knife requires more physical prowess then most women can muster. To properly wield one, you should also have quite a lot of training and still, it's only used for close fighting, a place where a women or someone small would just as soon avoid. I personally know of a woman who's had to draw a gun twice and just seeing the gun turned the perp away each time to go find someone less dangerous to hassle. Guns work. Do you think a perp would turn away and stop following a woman if he saw she was armed with a knife? Or a taser? I doubt it. The threat of gun fire will turn around all but the most heavily armed attacker and you're screwed no matter what if you happen to encounter that sort. -But at least if that's the situation, you've leveled the playing field or battle field and if you die, you can die shooting instead of die providing a target for someone else. Thankfully perps are usually just drunk, high, stupid men who are looking for someone to kick because they feel like they've been kicked around so much and there's no dogs around for them to kick. Don't be a target!

If you would bother to look at my post above, I defined "evil" for everyone. It's not a changeable definition based upon perspective, it's constant and everyone should know the difference between good and evil. There's nothing more basic in being a member of society as far as I know.

I have to admit I felt the same way after reading one of those rich dad poor dad books, I don't recall which now, but it's since been revealed that his story is a lie. He never had a "rich dad" as he describes in the book and I don't believe he even lived in HI as he also claims. His advice on real estate investing to make money is very poor advice in this day and age and I believe he also claims that your mortgage is a liability. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I've heard other economic advisers who say take your assets out of the banks and put it into gold, silver, real-estate (not as an investment, but as a safe-haven) or somewhere where it can't loose value as the dollar has! People think the stock market has been on a bull run since old man Bush Sr. left office, I say it's been a bear from hell all that time! Why? No one ever compares the buying power of a dollar in 1980 to the buying power of that dollar today. In terms of what a dollar is worth, the market has been loosing ground for many years! Gold, on the other hand, has gained, though not as much as it would appear for the very same reasons. What do you need when you retire and no longer need or want to work? You need to keep up with the cost of keeping your property in ever increasing property tax hikes, you need to be able to afford home maintenance and repairs, transportation and food/clothing. There is a real need to have a good retirement income and it can be quite tricky to build it when you're working when you don't know what the dollar is going to be worth in 30 or 40 years. One thing is for certain, buying silver and gold now along with a good safe anchored to the concrete foundation of your home is one of the very best things you can do with your assets. Gold is a real, rare commodity and an ounce should always be able to provide you with a formal suite of clothes and maybe a nice meal to boot. A hundred pounds of that bright shiny metal should be able to provide you with a very nice country home on acreage with a stream running through it (or a cardboard box on asphalt in some cities where the real estate market is way out of control). For a real good read, look for The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko. I've gained most of my financial habits from this book. And, not to brag, but I'm proud to say my credit score is around 813.

This response is way later then you'd have liked, but I think that adding in the swiftness of the punishment is crucial in the deterrent factor. The courts have proven they can take as long or short a time as they wish in carrying out the death sentence for a capital offense, example is Tim McVey who was terminated in a pretty small amount of time compared with some death row inmates who wait in many cases for 20 years or more before finally receiving their just deserts. I think the state is too careful about not causing undo pain and suffering to those who have caused so much themselves too. Why is it people care that someone who hangs might not die without pain when they've seen the gruesome details of the things some of these monsters have done to others? I personally think that such events would serve as a greater deterrent if they were broadcast to a wide audience including children. People, children especially, need to see the results of wickedness and evil and learn the lesson of "eye for an eye" and so on. Today people are glued to the TV or computer playing violent games and watching violent shows but in the two-dimensional world of the computer monitor or the Cathode Ray Tube of the television, none of the consequences are felt or even seen most of the time. It's like you can go kill whomever you want in a game without consequence and I believe sometimes people have a tendency to carry that with them when they live their real lives in the real world with real consequences. Why not show the consequences too? Even the news in Amerika won't show 99% of the graphic violence that happens in the middle east for fear the public will wake up to what's really going on over there and quickly loose their collective appetite for wars. Our society needs to see the bloody graphic consequences caused by people who do bloody graphic things to others. And they need to be dealt with fairly, and swiftly, with a wide audience watching. I think I'd personally prefer to watch a good old fashioned execution, wouldn't you?

About 17 or 18 years ago, I tried a triathlon and I was the first one out of the water, last one in from the bike part, and I didn't even bother to run. I blame it on my knee, but, I don't know... I guess it's just not for everybody. I hope it goes better for you!

Well, I don't know how to explain this phenomenon, but here in WA state, the most expensive gasoline can be found in the city that has all the refineries, Bellingham. Our gasoline is made either at the Bellingham refineries or in Billings MT from either Alaska oil or Alberta oil. Either way, the price, excluding tax, is a simple result of supply and demand. Demand hasn't gone down, but our refining capacity has. You can blame who you want, blame the oil companies for shutting down perfectly good refineries or blame the government for not prosecuting them for monopolistic practices or RICO Act violations. But *BLEEP*ing about it in a forum, while entertaining and informative, won't accomplish much. Now go call your local elected official and tell them what you think!

I've given this thread free reign for a while now but I feel I must interject for a moment to remind some of the posters that I'm asking for a Corporation, not an entire industry and certainly not an entire government, not even a branch of a government. No matter how evil you think the military industrial complex or the CIA or whatever is, they're not public companies. Please tell us all what public company you think deserves to be called "The most evil company ever". And please, no more Microsoft or computer manufacturers... No one's actually dying when they use MS Office! I haven't heard of an Intel CPU killing someone. And, though thankfully, no one's actually mentioned it yet, please don't say that Smith and Wesson or Glock or any other firearms manufacturer is evil. Any weapon or more accurately, potential weapon is an inanimate object (capable of being used for good or evil) until human contact is made, and it's still an inanimate object until a chemical reaction is initiated from the actions of said human (in a couple cases dogs have fired shotguns and rifles too, but only because the proper safety precautions weren't taken). Evil can be defined as So, now that you really have a good sense of what evil is, let's look at the definition of a public corporation: With both those words in clear definition, please proceed. I'll give my number two most evil company now: Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN) of AR (Little Rock, I believe), would be very high on my list. Politically they are implicated in the laundering of dirty Clinton money gained from the infamous Mena operation to supply arms for drugs and cash in South America and were highly influential in boosting the Clintonistas to the White House. Further, they are one of the biggest violators of humane animal husbandry, and a heavyweight political manipulator ever since their anointed representative in Washington, William Jefferson Clinton, was elected to the white house. Read more at http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ because there's just too much to quote for this post.

So I've done this twice now. If I keep it up, I'll never find another typo or misspelled word when I'm going through searching for them. When I right-clicked on the wrongly spelled word I accidentally clicked on the "save to dictionary" choice instead of the corrected word when it came up. Now, how do I go in and find that new addition to my dictionary and delete it? I'm using the latest version of OSX for Mac, by the way. I have a feeling if I go searching through the "library" file under FF, I might find the answer and if that's the case, I'll post back here and announce the solution, but if anyone already knows, please give me the answer! Thanks!