FlaSoxxJim

QUOTE(Soxy @ Aug 12, 2007 -> 02:08 PM) . . . disciplining gay pastors. . . Must. . . fight urge. . . to make bondage joke. . .

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Aug 12, 2007 -> 01:31 PM) Ha, I know. But after reading that, wouldn't you agree that Tony is dead? Good stuff. I especially like his picking up on the Tiger mascot as a stand-in for the orange death cat in the diner. and the fact that all of that was intentional set dressing lends a lot of weight to the argument. Or, at least, it shows the degree to which Chase wanted to align the stars to point to an inescapable end for Tony. That said, I think there was true brilliance in not showing an on-screen demise for Tony. Whether it happened there in the diner, or whether it happens one year from now or 10, all of those ominous portents still hold true. And Tony's perpetual need for paranoia about every stranger he sees out of the corner of his eye almost makes death sooner rather than later the more appealing prospect. Stepping back to motive here, who would have ordered the hit? Or would it have been a grudge killing or an internal power grab. If so, by who? That pert of it is less well laid out for me than the all of Chase's death imagery and foreshadowing, but it's enough for me that I'm still open as to what happened.

QUOTE(Soxy @ Aug 12, 2007 -> 01:52 PM) Hey, hey, the Anglicans are quite progressive too. You're right, I spoke too quickly. With the Canadian Anglican bishops recently rejecting same-sex marriage blessings, I think the U.S. Anglican bishops are showing a lot of bravery in their support of same-sex marriage blessings and the ordination of gay ministers. I guess they have until the end of September to back down or the Archbishop of Canterbury says they'll be kicked out of the international union, so I applaud them for standing up for what they believe in and standing against church-condoned bigotry.

Make it a good one.

A bright spot in the darkness of American Christian leadership woes. Whatever version of the Bible the ELCA is using, it must be the only version that hasn't had that bit about "love your neighbor" redacted.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Aug 12, 2007 -> 02:29 AM) I don't know who this guy is... Ain't that a kicker. 10 years before the invasion he was able to anticipate all of the the things 'nobody could have anticipated' before the war started.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Aug 11, 2007 -> 03:46 PM) Again, in my brief comments following the article, I didn't really say WHAT I believed about all of it and was particularly vague for a reason (but you all assume I'm some bible thumping creationist). Honestly, I just find it amusing christian or pre christian when people think they have it figured out. I guess that's just it. Nobody in the field is suggesting they have it figured out. New discoveries and new tools beget new avenues of inquiry and the science continues to come of age. That's how it works.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Aug 11, 2007 -> 03:53 PM) btw... Christopher Guest is the answer without giving away the answer, I don't want spoil the competition for others who want to guess. R.J. Parnell. Now you're just screwing people up.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Aug 11, 2007 -> 03:30 PM) Back to the Future part III I said 'cool'. Nothing about back to the Future III was cool. Wrong Marty.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Aug 11, 2007 -> 12:09 PM) seriously though. If he doesn't go to a different barber every time, I'm sure there's an "oops" moment each hair cut. don't mess with food servers or hair cutters. That's my creedo. Have a good time all the time. That's my philosophy, Marty. Mega cool points for identifying the quote WITHOUT Googling.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Aug 11, 2007 -> 03:12 PM) Lord, I thought Yuenglings were over priced.... could that beer ACTUALLY taste any good? That would be a half-million dollar question at the moment. But, no, after 150 years even a high-strength beer is going to be a bit past it's prime. Hey, wait. . . somebody check the freshness date on the bottle! I'm not sure I buy the seller's contention that this is the oldest known sealed bottle of beer in the world. Oldest industrial age commercial beer, perhaps, but Egyptologists have turned up sealed (not particularly well inmany cases) earthenware pots of beer that are thousands of years old.

QUOTE(CrimsonWeltall @ Aug 11, 2007 -> 02:57 PM) Although I do not agree with the people complaining, to clarify: part of the issue was that, unlike most zombies, the African ones in RE5 don't look particularly zombie-like. The protestors think that it looks like a white dude shooting up a bunch of angry black people. Of course, the Spaniard zombies in RE4 were also fairly human-ish. I've not played the game or seen any screenshots, but I was struck by the irony that the zombies of voodo folk tradition from which the horror and video game zombies are descended were black, largely from a Hatian bastardization of west African Vodoun traditions. Just thought I'd toss out that observation.

I remain proud of the Darwin's Bulldogs. And I fundamentally disagree with Tex in equating faith in the existence of an untestable divine agent with faith in the scientific process as a means to critically examine that which testable. These are polar opposites.

Anybody wanna go halvsies with me?? Museum Quality ALLSOPP's ARCTIC ALE 1852 SEALED/FULL!!!

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Aug 11, 2007 -> 10:48 AM) so at least this explains the silly hair cuts... :stick

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Aug 11, 2007 -> 11:18 AM) Jim, are you familiar with Michael Porter? No, other than he's some sort of corporate economist or other. I could see Gordon Gecko speaking in that line-up: The point is, ladies and gentleman, that God, for lack of a better word, is good. God is right, God works. God clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. God, in all of its forms; God for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And God, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.

That actually sounds like a pretty cool initiative. On the whole, church leadership can do with some pointers. Do me a favor though, if you're listening to a speaker you really disagree with, give him the slow jerk.

Know the feeling?

QUOTE(Sonik22 @ Aug 10, 2007 -> 12:06 AM) Toshiba, but the IBook is sweet! I'd just get a windows Operating System to feel more comfortable though. Now that they are Pentium-based, you can boot the Macs to run Windows native with BootCamp or Parallels, so you can do the Windows stuff you need to do that way. My PowerBook Core 2 Duo runs XP better than a lot of PCs. If you go PC, either stay the hell away from pre-loaded Vista altogether make the service people sell you one loaded with XP if they can, or have both systems installed on partitions. My wife tried for 3 months to learn to like Vista on her new laptop and she just gave up, but it has been a real hassle uninstalling and getting a clean XP on the machine.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Aug 10, 2007 -> 12:59 AM) Not saying there is or isn't a divine planner, that's a much differnt argument that isn't worth debating here. What I am pointing out is many people believe there is scientific proof of the beginning of life, and there isn't. There is a theory, but at this point in time, it can not be proven. So it takes faith to believe either in a random series of events coming together to create this great diversity of life, or faith to believe in a bigger than us planner. The choice is simple for most people. But either side you believe in, it is a matter of faith, not scientific fact. Tex, I don't know who these people are who believe there is scientific proof of the beginning of life, certainly not scientists. The how it all got started part is still seriously murky stuff. But the mere fact it's murky doesn't necessitate a divine agent either. I get your point, of course, and certainly there is something bigger than us. It's the vast universe, and the trillions of little physical and chemical experiments playing out in its far flung corners, according to the rules of the physical and not the metaphysical.

Whitest Kids is some funny stuff.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Aug 9, 2007 -> 05:45 PM) For science to accept a fact, I believe, it has to be repeatable. So far we haven't created life. Imagine that primordial soup and all the variety of life that emerged. Amazing. You don't think it takes faith to believe that all that stuff could somehow be placed together in the exact right proportions, under the exact right conditions, for life to begin? There has to be a beginning of time. Matter was created somehow. Why? How? Since no one alive was there, it takes faith to believe in whatever you believe. Faith in the slow but steady step-wise process fo scientific inquiry, sure, but no need for faith in the knowledge that there is some goal-oriented grand plan of Grand Planner. The "but what are the chances. . . " arguments often used (I'm not saying you are here) to suggest a need for a plan or a Planner is a logical fallacy. If we use a conservative estimate of 10^22 stars in the universe and allow that most of those stars have planet sassociated with them, then the number of times the universe has had to get the in the "exact right proportions, under the exact right conditions" is staggeringly large. Our planet is at least one of the pinpoints in the universe where the right conditions and elemental components converged and it seems so miraculous as to require a Planner. But the universe has had billions upon billions upon billions of chances to roll the dice and mix and match variables and that kind of replication obviates the need for divine explanations.

Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste. A taste of honey tasting much sweeter than wine Spill the wine, take that girl Take your car, yes we will, we'll take your car and drive it. I've been waiting...I've been waiting for this moment all my life...but it's not quite right Something is wrong here! I don't belong here! My daddy he disowned me cause I wear my sister's clothes, he caught me in the bathroom with a pair of pantyhose. I see you shiver with antici... pation! Stop right there! I gotta know right now before we go any further. Do you love me? Will you love me forever? I'm in love but I sure picked a bad time to be in love. Even the bad times are good, as soon as i get to you, baby. Sixteen I fell in love with a girl as sweet as can be. Only took a couple of days till she was rid of me. Well, she used to run around with every man in town. Oooh Jackie, what fun you have had. Freaked out for another day. No fun, my babe, no fun. This is no social crisis. Just another tricky day for you, Fella. Mister America, try to hide the emptiness that's you inside. Forget about the brotherly and otherly love. Motherly Love is just the thing for you. The things that I used to do....Lord, I won't do no more. You know the sky, the sky's been cryin - Can't you see the tears roll down my nose? Oh, set me up with the spirit in the sky, that's where I'm gonna go when I die. You've blown it all sky high. And you can fly high as a kite if you want to. I want to get away, I wanna fly away. Straighten up and fly right. Cool down, papa, don't you blow your top. It's a family affair, it's a family affair. When you see me again I hope that you have been the kind of person that you really are now. But I always thought that I'd see you again. I thought I could feel (feel, feel, feel) music touching my soul, something warm, sudden cold. But it was just my imagination running away with me. Have I got a long way... to run. Running away to get away. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! You're wearing out your shoes. Time marches on I start to trip I start to fall. And now I'm running from something, running from something on my tail. I'm as 'bout as helpless as a leaf in a gale; and it looks like I've got a tiger by the tail. A dinosaur Victrola listening to Buck Owens. Doo doo doo, Lookin' out my back door. I'm a back door man. The men don't know, but the little girls understand. Li'l Sister, don'cha do what your Big Sister done. The only one who could ever reach me, was the son of a preacher man. We sat and talked about things on our mind and now this man he is a friend of mine. What your friends all say is fine but it can't compete with this pillow talk of mine. You talk a lot, but you're not saying anything. Oh well I'm sittin' here la-la waitin' for my ya-ya, uh-huh If I don't get some shelter Lord, I'm gonna fade away. Really want to see you Lord, but it takes so long, my Lord. He's so fine – Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang! Wish he were mine – Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang. Come on-a my house, my house-a come on. Now everything is easy 'cause of you. It seems so easy - ho ho so doggone easy - mm mm, it seems so easy. As simple as do-re-mi, ABC, 1 2 3, baby you and me. Baby, there's nothin' hard about love. Basically, it's as easy as pie. Easy not to judge you, Easy to betray, Easy to adore you though you want to run away. Do you only care about the bleeding crowd? How about a needing friend? I know many fine feathered friends. But their friendliness depends on how you do. Oh, baby, baby, it's a wild world. I'll always remember you like a child, girl. My name is Michael, I got a nickel, I got a nickel shiny and new. Money, its a hit. Don't give me that do goody good bulls***. And in the middle of negotiations I break down. Breakdown, go ahead and give it to me. Breakdown Honey, take me through the night. See my lonely life unfold, I see it everyday. See my lonely mind explode when I've gone insane. I'm ridin' high upon a deep depression, I'm only happy when it rains. If the rain comes they run and hide their heads. Sdaeh rieht edih dna nur yeht semoc niar eht fI. And the white knight is talking backwards. Yeah but in your head, baby I'm afraid you don't know where it is. Now that it's said and we both understand, let's say our goodbyes before it gets out of hand. We've already said...So long. I don't wanna see you go, oh you'd better go now go now, go now (Go now). This indecision's buggin' me.

Wow, get a load of all of Dawin's Bulldogs here in SLAM. You do me proud. The nice, neat ladder-like depiction has, of course, always been the pop culture view of human evolution – a quaint popular icon of scientific culture but way too teleological (end-point oriented) to have ever been given much credence by actual evolutionary biologists. Hominid evolution is absolutely of the bushy variety, and we've had som good discussions on here about it. The notion that there was a time when several hominid lines with common descent co-occurred on Earth should be no more surprising than the idea that there are now several different lines of great apes, or penguins, or dung beetles. In fact, that's at the heart of organic evolution by means of natural selection. Each species line is a natural experiment carried out over tens of thousands to several millions of years. Are the genes contained within the gene pool of the species sufficient to produce phenotypes (the physical organism and its expressed traits) that are well-suited to survive the gauntlet of environmental filters at a given point in time? If so, the line persists. If not, the line dies out. And there are no ladders involved. It's dendritic, haphazard, life's off the cuff solutions to changing environments with no clearly defined end point. The 'surgeon-turned-evolutionist' in that piece PA posted doesn't quite seem to get it.

QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Aug 7, 2007 -> 11:51 PM) I'm a nice guy. I even share my beer. oh. . . cr@p. The Beast has yet to be drunk if that means anything. Probably not. I = teh sux0r