Watermonkey

That's exactly right, Mike. And it's one of my favorite things to do, too (laughing and pointing at morons, that is). Since the sun and any other star, for that matter, is really a giant nuclear inferno, adding a little nuke or even every nuclear weapon on planet Earth, to the mix would be virtually undetectable except by the most sensitive of instruments. If you really wanted to damage or in some way alter a star, you'd need a pretty large quantity, say ten thousand pounds, of anti-matter, somehow devise a way of containing it, then somehow send it to the star's surface without melting or vaporizing the container. Upon contact with the matter of the star, the anti-matter would cause a catastrophic explosion that would be quite noticeable, I would think, to the casual observer. But, let's be reasonable here. The dolphins would never forgive you if you did something like that to our star, so don't do it.

It's not a theory, it's a "conspiracy fact". Roosevelt neglected to inform certain high ranking Navy officers the 6th fleet was about to be decimated by the Japanese and even managed to place some planes and ships in a nice row so as to make the targets easier to hit for the Japs that December 7th, a day which would live in infamy. The Japanese Empire was provoked to attack, at least in part, due to a naval blockade by the Americans which prevented much needed supplies such as raw material goods and fuel from reaching their country. All this was to get into war against Nazi Germany according to declassified documents. It's also not a theory that the World Trade towers were mostly empty the day they were hit by airplanes, a day in the middle of the work week. Many people were, apparently, warned to call in sick that day. Some California Congressman or Senator, too, was told by a close friend to avoid commercial aircraft that day. Similar thing happened the day the Murrah Federal Building in OKC was bombed, supposedly, by McVey some twelve years or so ago. By some kind of queer coincidence or act of God or something all the Federal Law Enforcement Agents, every last one of them, didn't go to work that day, in their offices in the Federal building that was blown to bits. The day care center was full as usual though... I'm sure that was just luck, fate, Koincidink, Devine intervention....

I need to build a list of pros and cons regarding the best players out there and my concerns include: Compatible with Mac computer OS? Will it play MP3, WAV, WMP, and other popular music formats? Are popular accessories like the Bose docking station built for it? Storage capacity? Battery life? Removable battery? Durable? It's better if people who actually own and use an MP3 player write their opinion based upon their personal experiences, but if someone knows a close friend or family member who owns one and wants to relay that experience, that's fine as well. I'm currently torn between two: The classic ipod (overpriced, singular format) and Creative Zen Vision:M (not Mac compatible and fewer accessories to choose from???) Am I right in assuming you can't play music you didn't purchase at itunes.com on the ipod, even if you've purchased it elsewhere such as ripped it off a CD or converted audio files from LP to MP3?

I'd think it'd be a good investment to buy a 500 gallon reserve water tank for the dogs. Or a backup generator. Either way, I think I like the sound of the quartering wood splitter and my Arctic Cat diesel would look pretty good with one hitched to the back of it. I just split a whole trailer full of wood today and brought it down to the wood pile to be burned. It took a couple hours whereas maybe only fifteen or twenty minutes for a splitter I suppose. I've been getting all Western Larch or, what the locals call, tamarack so far this year. It's a semi-hard wood that burns real clean and hot, high BTUs per volume. Seems like I'd better think about putting that on the priority list after all. We are wanting to move come spring time, though, so I'm not sure I should be acquiring more stuff at this point... Regarding the ATV, I've got a snow plow on it as well as the trailer so it's become maybe the most useful vehicle around here. It just keeps on going and going on a tank of fuel. I haven't filled it once since September but I use it two or three times a week for plowing or wood gathering. We've got about two-thirds of a mile of easement/ driveway to plow plus another three quarters mile in to the woods if I need to go after another tree to burn, which I seem to need to do every three weeks or so, and let me tell you, with ski goggles and gloves and good insulated overalls plowing is actually quite painless! I'd even call it "fun" on some days! I'm just waiting for this most recent storm to pass to plow again. We're suppose to get a half foot of snow before all is said and done. I'm starting to actually look forward to snow! I hate it when it melts, though. Makes for a slippery, messy, muddy drive.

Friend, if you're talking about these two countries not signing the Kyoto Protocol, please take some time and go read it. There's a very very good reason (actually many) for not signing it. Not signing it doesn't mean people don't want to do their part in cleaning up their air emissions and other pollution, it just means we don't want to sign on to something that does nothing for the environment, throws masses of funds at a huge bureaucracy giving up national sovereignty and getting nothing in return but higher taxes to pay for it all. Please read the trash we didn't sign on to. It's easily found with your favorite search engine.

Yeah, but that little B&S motor must be about as loud as they get. Too many similar engines around here running other things like power washers and generators. I wonder if there's a quieter model. I've often thought of buying a wood splitter but I've been pretty put off by the price. What kind of maintenance (other than the engine) do they require? Are they hydraulically operated or what? I just recently blew ten grand on a diesel ATV and trailer to tow behind it for transporting small loads of wood out of the forest and for snow plowing as well. That's a real time-saving combination right there. I bet it'd tow the wood splitter just fine thank you very much. I'll have to consider it for next year. Any idea who makes the better splitter out there?

Yeah... I can see why you wouldn't consider a Mac... Especially if price doesn't matter and you could buy a 250GB HD, partition it for Windoz and Mac and have the best of both worlds and have a Hi-def 17" display, 4GB of RAM, and an absolutely powerful and beautiful machine the whole world would envy. Yeah, that would suck. Buy a Panasonic military spec machine. You can drop kick it and use it ten seconds later. Never mind the weight...

I just had a cigarette. Mmmmm.... I allow myself an average of one a day. I used to smoke more when I was on the job, but on this last job, I realized I actually didn't smoke at all unless I was trying to stay awake on the long drives. I think you can be addicted to whatever you do, or not. Really, it's a matter of proper education (turn away from the TV) and research and making the choice where you're going to spend your money. An educated, informed person might realize that the major tobacco companies are poisoning you with all the hundreds of chemical additives they put into their apparently unregulated product. It's not unlike food, really. Look at that list of ingredients. That's not food! That's a chemical concoction that's meant to resemble food in flavor and texture but contains no real nutrition. I'll tell you something: After eating the strawberries from a store, go up to the rural areas above 2700 feet in the late summer months, around July, and find yourself a wild strawberry patch and taste one. You wouldn't believe the difference! Night and day! Find real tobacco wrapped in plain old ordinary paper (American Spirits is my brand) and smoke tobacco and drop the rest. You'll find yourself needing less and enjoying the one you're smoking much much more. At the store, find real food; organic and free-range. Start a garden, grow your own tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, and green beans. The people are being poisoned in this "modern" world and all they care about is the next sale on a gallon of udder-puss... I mean milk! The blue-bloods don't consume that garbage, though! The queen of the British Kingdom and her kin have their own controlled food sources including all organic non-GMO, free-range non-pasteurized living wholesome FOOD. Wonder what they might know that you don't.

Hope you can learn to use spell check!My limited understanding of this topic is this: (in simple terms)A supercharger uses more energy from the engine resulting in lower MPG and is ultimately the larger air compressor of the two giving you the best 1/4 mile, but that's only for racing, not for everyday driving. Even though GM and others have incorporated this method of air compression in their vehicles from the factory, it doesn't seem to have caught on as turbos have.A turbo charger can be more or less simple depending upon your budget and you can even use two; one with a smaller vane and one with the larger one. The smaller vane will spin up quickly and the driver should realize little if any "turbo lag" while the larger vane will take some time to fully spin up but will be capable of much higher air pressure. There is also the option of the expensive VGT or Variable Geometry Turbine which adjusts the pitch of the blades depending upon RPMs starting small like the first option, then backing off for higher air flow like the second option. (It's the same concept of a variable pitch prop a single engine prop airplane uses; the prop is positioned to cut into the air more aggressively when taking off or when more thrust is needed, and flattens out when higher speeds at cruising altitude are needed.) This is the best of both worlds. While you're just tooling around or idling, these two devises really don't use any extra fuel, thus they are the more fuel efficient of the two methods of compressing air to increase the virtual size of your engine without actually having to stuff an entire 6.8L hemi under the hood. Hope this helps.

I've got several years training in Aikido. I trained with one of the founder's students who has actually trained with the founder's son, Ueshiba Kisshomaru, as well. The gentleman's name is Walter Von Krenner (Von Krenner Sensei) and you can see the Dojo website here. Aikido, in its original form, can't be used to start a fight, it can only be used to quickly end one. By using the attacker's own momentum and inertia the martial artist can create a vacuum where his attack is aimed and help his body follow the attack by gently guiding it along and to the ground. With some grappling moves one can encourage the attacker to roll over on to his stomach and become absolutely immersed in complete blinding pain which sometimes has the effect of removing his desire to continue his attack. The sword and other sticks are simply extensions of the arm and are used in training extensively. I know most people, me included, think he's not much of an actor, but Steven Sagal is actually a high level black belt in Aikido and if you really want to see the art in action, albeit highly scripted, just watch one of his many movies. The Aikido black belt can be highly persuasive against an attacker and it's a real pleasure to watch the fluid movements of the pro. It's like art in motion and looks completely effortless watching it, but I assure you, many years of training go into it. On a side note, Aikido is one of those things that doesn't rely upon the size of the individual practicing. The slightest woman can overwhelm an attacker as long as she's well trained, no matter how big the attacker is. The original master was a small Japanese man of slight build and modest presence, Morihei Ueshiba, who could send the most monstrous attacker flying in the air without so much as the slightest movement. It's truly the art of the lazy person who really doesn't want to fight, but wishes to be able to disable or terminate the attacker with minimal contact and effort. Yes. An attacker can face his own death at the hands of the black belt in Aikido. We're trained how to kill, and how to disable, and we're mentally prepared to do either as a situation calls.

That's pretty good information, Shree. Kinda sick about the recorded crying baby... reminds me of a scene from the book Wolven by Whitley Streiber. The "Wolven" (a wolf-like wild dog with the intelligence of a chimpanzee and opposable thumbs or something like that) would lure their unsuspecting human prey by "calling" to them and mimicking the sound of a lost child or baby. Creepy. I'm disappointed the article didn't mention the "great equalizer", the short barrel .357 Magnum revolver. Nothing says "No means NO!" like a two inch exit wound out the back of the head. Seriously.

I was thinking that the original poster must be from some third world country and didn't think much of it. But, out of curiosity, I looked at the original post and saw he's from east TX. Now it all makes perfect sense. Pack your things and move north if you know what's good for you!

Wow. All these posts and I didn't see one mention of the most obvious tool of self-defense against a bear attack there is. Actually, there are two that are quite powerful and effective. There's a product out there made especially for bears. It's a potent cayenne pepper spray that shoots its contents something like fifteen feet or more. The nose of a bear, touched upon in the previous post, is the most sensitive organ readily available to strike that a bear bears. (good pun, eh?) If you're completely caught unprepared, I'd recommend standing up to the beast and if he gets within striking distance, give that beak of his a good closed fist hit, like you mean it. He'll be stunned that you actually countered his attack (most humans lie down so the bear can eat his meal without too much work) and in so much pain as to be quite put off by the whole thing and would retreat post haste. Multiply that many times if he inhales a good nose full of concentrated cayenne pepper. That stuff will actually stun him like a taser stuns a human. Knocks him right out for five minutes or more. And he's going to be disoriented for a while after that. There's plenty of time to make your getaway after stunning your would-be prey. The more lethal option, of course, if things got downright ugly, would be the common pistol of at least .44 Magnum caliber. I'd actually recommend a .454 Casull in a Raging Bull (?) revolver if you knew you were going to have a high likelihood of encountering a polar or Kodiak Brown (Grizzly) because, lets face it, even a .44 isn't much against a charging mass of 1400 pounds. The .454 would drop him right now as long as you hit him somewhere on the head. Even the thick skull of a polar bear isn't too much for a .454 to smash apart and it's still not too much dead weight to strap to your hip either. Personally, since I like bears and think they have every right to consider me a meal (after all, I'm the one invading his territory), I'd prefer the spicy method to the lethal method unless he just doesn't seem to get the hint with the cayenne.

Happy birthday Jimsta! I predict many great things for you in the year ahead. I drank a glass of wine in your honor tonight! Cheers!

I stand corrected. While I maintain that something still stinks about this story, in re-reading it I can imagine the scenario they're selling to the public. While it's a bit disconcerting that something like this could happen, I stress there was never any danger of the nukes actually exploding at any time. So, while interesting, it's little more than a trivial diversion from real news that's going on that actually matters like, for instance, there is a housing bubble like ours in China that's collapsing just like ours and that could add to the depressed state of the global economy....

Well all I got was this lousy T-shirt. Now that I've worn it for two weeks non stop, I'm going to stuff it in an envelope with some magic white powder and mail it off to Mike. Happy birthday Mikey!

Isn't Prison Break on Monday?Wrestling is like a soap opera for men of average intelligence (though I confess I've enjoyed seeing it in the past when Sting and others were the hot thing). The thing about wrestling, and it's explained pretty well if you watch the Bret Hart (or Heart?) biography (I think he's the one, he's from Canada, right?), you'll understand that while the script is written, it's still an incredibly difficult feat to make the match look real and make it exciting for the audience while all the while avoiding injuring your opponent. Like Hart says, it's easy to injure someone. It's difficult to make it look like you've injured someone without actually doing it. He's had serious injuries before too. Anyway, weather or not it's "fake", it's good entertainment, or at least it used to be before all the sluts and sleaze became so prevalent. That's when I stopped watching.

Wait... Oh crap! I just remembered! I forgot to have a shot of vodka with my beer tonight with dinner! Excuse me for a minute, I need to smoke a cigarette... There. I feel better now. What were we talking about? No. Really. I don't believe in "addiction". It's all just an excuse to behave badly until someone either kills you, puts you in the hospital, or jail. Some children just need more discipline growing up than others and when they don't get it, they grow up to be that guy who mugs others in alleys until he mugs the wrong person and gets shot. But in the end, I don't care what kind of childhood you had, there are two absolutes I can think of off the top of my head. 1: Someone else who's not a complete societal failure like you are had it much worse in their childhood. 2: You are the only person responsible for your actions. Oh, and as a bonus: GET OVER IT! Have a nice day.

I just want to clarify or point out that you're confusing American U.S. government policy makers and politicians with the rest of us who've lost control of our own government. We're not alone in the world in that regard, of course, but our government's assault on free people all across the planet seems to be leading the charge. Most of us in the United States are like anyone else: We just want to be left the hell alone to get on with our lives and make gains so the next generation can do something remarkable. Instead, the globalists have nearly taken complete control of the world's food supply and seeds, they've gotten us into a perpetual cycle of senseless wars we'll be in debt for generations over just so a few can rake in billions of dollars in no-bid contracts, and now, for the first time in history, the next generation is expected to have it less good compared to their parents. They're expected to die younger on average too. That would be your generation. I fear nothing short of a violent revolution will stop the madness, but I also fear it's too late; for the third, and final, act in the WWIII saga is brewing right now in Persia and that light in the sky over Tehran won't be the sun rising...

Dear God, man! After all this time I thought you Krazy Kanooks were loyal [to hockey] to your friends [fans] and would never consider dumping an entire [meaningless] list of friends [sociopaths with nothing but a broadband connection, endless supply of pizza and beer, a computer, and massive amounts of TIME on their hands] just for the convenience of a little speedier menu. How I've underestimated the culture that is Canada [51st state] [red-headed step child of USA] .

It's a silly company. BTW, There is no "free lunch". Not even at Xisto.com or Xisto. The people who work at the physical office get paid real money (except Opaque. I hear he'll actually do an entire shift for a six-pack ) to maintain, monitor, and resolve trouble with all the servers that are there serving your "free" sites and it all requires capital, quite a lot I'd imagine, to keep it all working. What it all comes down to is interesting content and insightful discussion are a valuable commodity in today's information starved world. So what you need to do in return for your web hosting is contribute in a meaningful, informative, and regular basis. With this, your hosting is paid.

I've never noticed it spelled on the show. Since I haven't read any news articles until now, I didn't know how it was spelled. Since it's pronounced the same way, I don't believe for a second you knew what I was talking about. However, now that you do, do you also believe that torture should be an accepted method of extracting information from people? Where did I ever indicate that I thought Americans were better than you, wherever you are? How is it anything but a compliment to you that I assume that you're American based upon your English writing skills? (Notice above I specifically said "American English".) There are plenty of examples of people on this board who actually are from America who don't have as good a handle as you have on the written English word. I give them grief all the time about it. One of the very best writers on Xisto is actually from India. So, in no way should you take that as anything but a compliment. But, for future reference, I'm quite sure I'm not the only one who might assume that you are either from the U.S. or Canada unless you indicate otherwise. Canadians are usually quite proud to state they're from Canada in their Avatar space for the whole world to see, though, so it actually didn't occur to me that you might actually be from there. No, now you really ARE hiding your country of origin. Why? Ok. Fair enough. Will you volunteer to be one of those innocent people who are mass-murdered to create your "omelet"?

I was not trying to insult you. Why are you hiding your country of origin? Right there, to the left of this, it says what country I live in. If you don't list your country and you speak good American English, then I'll assume you're from America unless it says otherwise under your avatar. The TV show, 24, is a reality-like show about 24 hours of the life of a fictional government agent, Jack Bower, who works for a fictional government agency, Counter Terrorism Unit (something like what you'd find under the Homeland Security department for real), and tries to out-think and foil terrorists' plots. During the last season of the show various methods of torture were used in nearly every episode in order to desensitize the audience (American public) to the whole idea of torture. The goal is to make us all agree that torture, even to children, is good because it's a means to an end and the end justifies the means no matter how horrendous, painful, even terminal they may prove to be. Very recently Slick Willy (President William Jefferson Clinton) came out on some news show (Meet The Press) and said he agreed that torture such as that portrayed on "24" is an acceptable means of extracting information (or something to that effect). See here for yourself. I stand by what I originally posted. The countries of the world such as France, USA, UK, India, Pakistan, China, Russia (USSR), and most recently, North Korea have all tested nuclear weapons above and/or below ground. Since the first atomic blasts were conducted in New Mexico (or was it Nevada?) there has been a dramatic rise in cancer rates and birth defects/ mutations throughout the world. The last thing this planet and the biological entities contained therein need is another nuclear blast.

Yeah... I don't know what cave you were raised in, but last time I checked nuclear explosions not only affect those in their immediate vicinity including every biological thing, you know, cats, dogs, horses, snakes, spiders... EVERYTHING, but everything down wind all the way across the planet, including YOU and ME. Wake up man! Start thinking critically! You're completely wasting your meager brain power thinking up garbage that CAN'T happen without giving us all CANCER! And how is it ever right to kill innocents anyway? I suppose next you'll be telling us fictional characters like Jack Bower are GOOD. Go spew your ignorance elsewhere. Or grow a pair.... of brain cells.

We've got a Russian Blue called "Vlad The Impaler" or "Vladimir Putin" for short. He was quite a hand full when he was younger and it's a good thing we've got lots of room for him to run and be crazy, but now that he's older, he's mellowed with his maturity and even has something of a goatee and mane. At 16+ pounds he's on the larger side for a domestic altered male. If the boys were to die tomorrow, though, I think I'd buy or acquire a pair of male Pixie-Bobs. The Pixie-Bob breed is a newer breed made to resemble a wild bobcat in appearance without the need to feed them an expensive diet of raw meat and worry about them shredding any visitors or their dogs who may come around. The mature male of the breed will weigh anywhere from 25 to 35 pounds and they seem to be more trainable then most other domestics. They'll walk on a leash, use the toilet, fetch, and generally obey commands much like a dog. I wonder if they could be trained to be "attack cats"... ?