AdamSmith

Today's Doonesbury Flashback may be relevant... http://assets.amuniv...605001dd8b71c47 (Sorry, that image format is not postable here as an image, thus the link instead.)

Yeah, Zuckerberg's claim of copyright on all our wit, wisdom & images posted there galls. Even tho what can you do other than avoid the thing. Although didn't he get challenged on that by some European government(s)? Anyone know if I'm recalling right, and if so, how it came out? (I have no objection of course to the fine gents who run this estimable site claiming whatever they want. As my ceaseless babbling makes obvious! Contributing what wit, charm & dirty pics we can muster is the least we can do in thanks for all the resources provided here at free levels of membership.)

Yeah, about 10 minutes after my 8:09 am EDT post, FB became accessible to me again. The apparent outage did, though, make me realize I had drifted into treating it a bit as an archival tool for photos, and that this is maybe Not A Good Idea.

Adding to what lookin said: What you say, hitoall, is not really accurate even in purely economic terms, let alone the human-cost factors. Unlike most manufacturing supply chains (automotive, commercial aircraft, agricultural and construction equipment, medical devices, general precision machinery, consumer and industrial electronics, etc.) that spread out quite quickly beyond the OEMs into multiple-industry-connected tier 1, 2 and 3 suppliers, the defense contractor industrial complex is quite narrowly contained. As for a number of evident reasons it has to be. So its spillover benefits to the general economy are rather small compared with other manufacturing industry sectors. Because of that, for instance, the government rescue of the auto industry also saved many suppliers whose collapse would have caused havoc in many other manufacturing industries than just the car business.

I know from my software consulting biz several center-leftist (much more centrist than lefty) types who live in Tel Aviv or thereabouts, and they all to a one salivate over how to find a way to break family and business ties so as to move to NYC and get away from the inbred self-inflicted lunacy they live amidst.

I despise it almost as much as TV, but I do use it regularly: Facebook looks to have crashed. Can't log in thru any of my browsers. All other Web services are working, so not a local issue. Anybody else seeing this? ...After their IPO debacle, this is the last thing they need.

Our Persons, Ourselves! (Germaine f*ing Greer!)

I knew I should have spent more time loitering the High Line! ...Reminds a bit of the lobby restrooms in the pre-renovation Paramount hotel in Times Sq. (the renovation couple years back ruined it): Every inch of wall surface was MIRRORED. Whenever staying there, I would always run down to the lobby when I needed to pee.

I like and agree with everything you said about Romney except the above. You know the concept of the Golem...?

Their helpful hints on how to detect lesbos were even more uproarious. Only thing they omitted there was "Arguing loudly over nothing while standing in the grocery checkout line" (indirect props to my idol Peter de Vries for that one).

Pretty hideous indictment. ...Is there an argument to be made that the entire country deserves a Detroit-style bailout, wherein we get to (1) wash out 60% of our overhanging debt and (2) fire the 60% of our constituents who are value-sucking idiots?

Like, wow!

LOL. (Not really though.) One time in jr high I was staying over a Friday nite at my best friend's house (he & family an IBM transplant from Poughkeepsie to NC's Research Triangle). So Saturday morning over breakfast the convo led his mother to say to me, "What? Your grandparents raised hogs just to kill them and eat them?" Point being, her sentiments were expressed over top of a mouthful of bacon she had just cooked & partaken of. My 13-year-old self fell on the floor in hilarious disbelief, just about literally. Her husband's joining me in laughing uncontainably at her sealed the deal.

Damn. Too late to this thread. Of course Devo. ...Are we not men?...

Second time just lately you've said that about a pic here. Wonder if one of those expensive lifelike sex dolls from Japan is the solution for you? No odor there, except the faint whiff of Eau de Latex.

Nice moldings!

Venom of T'Sagguoth! I literally haven't looked at TV in four years (YouTube excepted) but now I may have to.

Too soon to gloat, and not to take anything for granted before the shoats are counted, but for sure the Romney team starts to make the Kerry organization look like well-oiled machinery. How can a proven executive surround himself with such klutzes? ...Maybe a comment on how middling-low he has to reach, to find people willing to throw in with him and his cause. Separate question: how is Bibi polling in his own country? Are his citizenry frothing for an Iran Armageddon as he is? I get the impression not, which of course would further press him to do as he wishes sooner rather than later.

...getting moist here... (As Eddie Murphy's 'grandmother' said of no less than Mike Douglas -- 'Only white man can make me moist'!)

Agree with lookin. Also, weapons spending containment begun by Gates continues under Panetta, nobody's fool. He, like Hillary (and like Obama come to think), does not make a lot of noise, just goes about the job. The defense contractors I follow in my consulting biz are tripling down on their lobbying, desperate to use their Congresspeople to thwart or at least blunt the cuts that the Administration is pushing. Time for yet one more prime-time re-airing of Ike's farewell speech?

Let me propose (as I and others have before) that orientation is less what gives us a stiffie than whom we fall into romance and love with. I one time had (this is not realy Germaine to what follows) to calm down my frantic hubby who came home from a weekend helping one of his college girlfriends' (yes, sexual; I met most of then, and regretted he and they were not wide-minded enough for 3-ways!) seek a condo to buy, and one night she came onto him with manual stim; so he responded like. When he 'condessed' to me, about one eve when I was not in town, he was horrified when I asked him why he did not follow thru.

You are too generous. Read the "Methods" section of this report. If I published and tried to sell such a thing in my biz, which is pretty similar in method, I would be laughed out of the solar system.

Funny. When I "came out" to my longtime business associates, they just laughed -- very affectionately. Collectively (I mean each one as he or she individually did) said to me, in effect, You know I love you, don't you? (And, in many cases, 'Sister, did you not think I knew? Where were you?!') It was like nothing else in my life.

One trusts lookin wit one's life, or any of the critical components thereof. Nae wurries.

Yeah, right. You can have yer alien brat. But Tay is MINE. Hands off! (His wife is of course welcome to join in. )