MsGuy

Hmmm, cannabis? You don't suppose that Palin ... ?

The really weird thing is how well it actually works.

TY, what does it mean when the board's statistics section shows "google.com" as a named visitor? That some guy is accessing this site by means of a google search? Sorry to be such a newbie, but once a puzzle like this gets into my head, it's like some pop tune that won't go away.

TY, when I ran across this paper I recalled your past posts on net neutrality and thought you might be interested in reading it. Posting the link here because I can't remember the original thread. Vinton Cerf (V.P. Google): position paper to Commerce Committee

Thanks for the post, StuCotts. Mid-South newspapers don't devote a lot of column inches to this kind of story. Frankly, I'm glad that folks are putting the brakes on a 2010 rematch on Prop 8. This is one of those things that is best done right or not done at all. If nothing else, the electorate in 2010 will likely skew older and more conservative than the one that turned out for Obama. Besides in 4 years time natural attrition will have tilted the voter pool 2 or 3 per cent in our favor.

Thought you guys might be interested in how the engineering types are catching up with the SF writers. This type technology would make manned space exploration a lot more feasible, maybe even out as far as Jupitor orbit. Mars in 39 days! ions on steroids

I've had several people tell me about listening in on conversations going on around them while they were in a comatose state. It can't hurt to keep that in mind when discussing the patient with family & friends. Personally I make an effort to include the seemingly out of it patient in the conversation as far as I can w/o it seeming forced. Not quite the same thing, but a cousin-in-law had one of those out of body experiences in the ER after a motorcycle accident. She reports watching the ER team working on her unconcious body from a POV up around the ceiling. The last thing she heard before she actually blacked out was a surgeon shouting "We're losing her! We're losing her!" Not exactly what I'd want to hear in that situation. AdamSmith: You really do need to quit reading "Tales of the Crypt" type stuff. That or peel the organ donor sticker off your drivers liscense.

No dudgeon here, low or high, just frustration at my own blindness to the steel behind the cape. Back in the day I had another friend with a flair for deadpan. When he was in top form, the SOB could string me along for hours. These last few posts have brought him back to mind, and the mental tricks I eventually learned to parse out his humor are starting to come back to me. Oh well, I suppose every good comedy needs a straight man. On reflection, I agree smilies don't suit your style at all & would spoil the effect. As to Ms Frietchie, Old Stonewall was way too scary a son of a bitch to cross openly, but had I been sore-footing it along with that "famished Rebel horde," I would have made time to take a dump in her front yard.

One rarely sees the rationing of health care discussed in the media with any semblance of reason. Aside from conservative rants and industry attack ads, it's rarely even mentioned. This piece from the Gray Lady touches on most of the important points that must be resolved in the process of rationalizing our health care system. Health Care Rationing Considered

I realize MER usually leaves all that celebrity memorial b.s. to the other board, but I thought Frank McCourt's passing was worth a mention. Honest and unsentimantal, he introduced me to the fine art of Irish story telling. He's best known for "Angela's Ashes" but "Teacher Man," stories taken from his 30 years as a NYC public school teacher, was my favorite. I can still remember the acute envy I felt at his knack at spinning out humorous tales. Frank McCourt

Meanwhile back at the space ranch, factions savage each other over NASA's shrunken budget. Reality Reeks

Well, since I'm not so inclined, we will just have to work this out between us. I suspect the principal problem I have with your humor is that I am cursed with the most literal minded brain imaginable. Understated deadpan tends to sail right past me unnoticed. For instance, I had to read over your last post 4 times before I realized it could be read as a sly jab at Lucky. Intended? Not intended? ARRG! Way too subtle. For a clod like me an occasional smilie would go a long way to cueing a recognition of the humor. As to putting a bullet through your head, see my last post to AdamSmith. Years ago I gave away my last pistol (.357 four shot derringer style), to avoid just such choices.

Not projecting, just romanticizing away the raw face of necessity, which is, of course, another deeply ingrained trait of Southerners. In a different context, I once told TY that OZ's gracious sense of humor probably derived from exigencies of life in the deep South. If we didn't search out the humor in each others antics, likely we would wind up in the sights of each others rifles.

Come on StuCotts, that NYS senate of yours is a hoot and a half. If you tell me you can't see the humor in their bravura comedic performance this month, I'm going to have to look up that alias/airport security thread and publicly apologise to Lucky! You've got a front row seat to the finest political farce since Clinton spilled come on his intern's dress!

Oops, the drunken Rep./Gov. was John Bell Williams. My brain's stuck in first gear tonight. And my memory really is shot to hell when the oxygen levels tail off. Funny how I would remember a name like Nick Galliafanakas and forget ole John Bell's.

Here's a new slant on medical cost containment. Sorta like a drunk telling his friends to hide the key to the liquor cabinet. Health care cost commission

I hate to admit it, but some of those guys look like young lesbians to me. Maybe I need to get my bifocals changed.

Funny how our memory plays tricks on us. I would have sworn Nick Galifianakas, congressman from Raliegh/Durham & a New South democrat, ran a dismissive, complacent campaign while failing to make much effort to heal divisions in the Democratic party accentuated by a hotly contested primary. Durned if I don't recall poor naive Nick walzing his way into a buzzsaw of hot button attack ads portraying him as a half foreign, minority loving, commie McGovern clone. Did I forget to mention that Nixon carried N.C. that year by an overwhelming margin? That Helms' out of state fund raising machine enabled him to saturate the media during the last month of the campaign? So it was mostly the fault of all those Yankee Republican transplants? If I didn't know your memory to be better than mine, I'd have said TY had the better of this one. I love (& respect) my homeboys too, so I can sympathise with your impulse to excuse goofiness in the land of your birth. Better though to just sit back and enjoy the show. My own home state once elected a one armed drunk as governor solely on the basis of his being stripped of his senority and congressional committee assignments by his fellow democrats. P.S. Gov. Colmer was first elected to Congress as a wounded war hero. Few of his constituents knew that he lost his arm by walking into the spinning prop of a parked plane while drunk on duty. His only noteworthy activity as govenor was wandering around the mansion grounds in his underwear drunk out of his gourd. Used to be quite amusing watching the capitol police trying to herd him back inside.

The shit will soon hit the fan (& your tv screen). While I doubt the attack ads will tell us much of value about the substance of various proposals, they will be an invaluable guide to whose iron rice bowl is being threatened. Health care industry begins to split on reform bill It wouldn't hurt to occasionally e-mail your congressman this summer. This is one fight we all have a dog in.

LOL! That part caught my attention too. Aldrin was born in 1930 so he would have been about 72 when he punched Sibrel. Nice to know that he's kept himself in good shape.

After the first moon landings, the Charlotte Observer (N.C.) surveyed it's readers and found that about 1/3 believed the whole thing had been faked up by the government. I guess it's progress if the numbers have been reduced to 6%. Moon landings a propoganda fake

Human political constructs tend to be fairly short lived. Even the underlying civilizations tend to poop out after a couple or three thousand years. I'm not sure how an ultra high tech space based species would survive that kind of periodic instability.

An alternative explanation advanced for Noonan's rant. GOP elite contemplates a divorce from the lumpen middle class Edit: The above link does not necessarily reflect the views of this station.

"If you defile the land, it will vomit you out..." Lev. 18:28 Ms. Noonan's jeremiad is a tiny bit disengenous. Where was her voice when conservatives were cheerfully herding creationists and nativists to the polls? As the Good Book says, "Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind." "She makes the party look stupid, like a party of the easily manipulated...She show [our] cynicism." Isn't this the heart of Noonan's argument, that Palin lets the cat out of the bag? That she too openly personifies that part of the base that the consevative elite would rather keep locked in the attic (always excepting election days)? The GOP's problem isn't Palin, it's the millions of lackwits who recognise her as one of their own.

On the other hand, a furry back just doesn't do it for me. Different strokes and all that.