FlaSoxxJim

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Nov 21, 2006 -> 12:25 AM) Have to admit, I didn't expect this reaction from you. Ah, but you have to focus on the standup-as-art form point of view as presented by someone longing for the next Lenny Bruce. I've always liked Richards, from way back in the days of Fridays. But he's no Lenny Bruce. There were no scatological yet brilliant social commentaries in Richards' tirade. There was just a guy onstage losing it in a situation where he'd obviously been able to hold his own hundreds of times before that night.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Nov 20, 2006 -> 11:23 PM) You grew during in the 80's, no? Talk about good living -- right between Vietnam, Gulf War, and the current conflicts. Atleast with the Soviets you were only under the threat of complete annihilation at the hands of thermonuclear weapons. I didn't take any personal offense at your post, but I did want to emphasize that this is a long-held belief for me. Yeah, 1985 was when I registered for selective service on turning 18. And back in those relarively halcyon days even a straight military option would have been a safe tour, but one that in a draft situation I still would have been a conscientious objector to as an avowed pacifist. You're able to check the objector status box when you register so that's fair enough, but it was still frustrating because I wanted very much to have an opportunity to perform national service in a non-military capacity.

That was painful to watch. He does seem sorry, but I think it may really just come off as him being sorry that he may have fµcked up his career pretty badly. I don't know that that's fair either – potentially losing so much with one awful incident, but that's the business.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Nov 20, 2006 -> 06:42 PM) If a draft were reinstated and non-military options were available, you bet your ass I'm entering any division which doesn't require combat. As would any sensible person. Although it must be easy for anyone outside the draft age -- such as yourself -- and without children within the appropriate 18-24 age range -- such as yourself -- to support such a decision. What I said was, "i would have been in favor of compulsory service back when I was eligible and I'd be in favor of it now." As for my kids, when they are of age and tell me they want to do an Americorps or Peace Corps tour (or some cumpulsory equivalent if adopted by then), I'll be elated, supportive, and extremely proud of them. I would have benefited extremely from participation in either between college and grad school and had a knock-down dgargout with the old man about it, and bottom line I declined the opportunity when it was available to me and will always regret it.

QUOTE(SnB @ Nov 20, 2006 -> 05:21 PM) Anyone else excited for the Tenacious D movie? Much to my wife's dismay, yes I am.

Photo taken at the recent highly successful "World Presidents Come as Your Favorite Jedi Knight Slumber Party" or Pre-audition jitters at the Memoirs of a Geisha casting call.

Putin on the Ritz? Dumbledore called, he wants his robes back. I don't know, whatcha got?

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Nov 20, 2006 -> 02:03 PM) I wouldn't pay 80 bucks for anything that didn't a) teach you to play guitar B) make you an actual hero Hero, eh? How big a bottle of those little blue pills can you get for $80?

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Nov 20, 2006 -> 01:25 PM) I support bringing back the draft. Something similar to what Germany's done in the last fifty years. You serve a year in the military or two doing civil service a la Americorps. I agree completely, and as long as there are non-military service tracks like AmeriCorps, Red Cross, or Peace Corp equivalents then i would have been in favor of compulsory service back when I was eligible and I'd be in favor of it now. Particularly if college opportunities were bundled into those tracks in the way the GI Bill provides a path to higher education as a reward for military service.

I also always thought the big bulbous head thing was artistic license. It was interesting to see from the novel phorensic reconstructions that the mis-shaped head really was a family trait that at least he and his sister (iirc) and some cousins shared.

QUOTE(knightni @ Nov 20, 2006 -> 01:14 PM) HOORAY FOR PA! Ah Hah!! A candidate endorsement if ever I saw one!!

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 20, 2006 -> 10:40 AM) Well I gotta be honest and say the exhibit was fairly disappointing. For what the tickets cost, and the hype behind the show, it was a dud. Most of the exhibit was objects that weren't even related to Tutenkamen, and instead they showed a lot of stuff from Amenhotep, and a bunch from some friends of the royal family who were buried in his tomb as well. Akhenaton also got plenty of mentions as Tut's probably father, and because Tut restored the old gods, which Akhenaton had gotten rid of. We caught it when we were up in Chicago this summer and your comments mirror those of my wife and kids. I knew it was a lot of bait-and-switch and that most of the original touring stuff from the 1977 tour were in the Cairo national Museum and were not back on tour, but explaining that to the family beforehand did not avoid their disappointment. I thought what they showed was pretty cool - and I really did gain an appreciation for Tut for having overturned his Dad's laws regarding worshiping the traditional Egyptian gods. The funniest thing from our experience was that my (at the time) 6 year old was talking to Grandpa on the cell phone in the lobby after seeing the exhibit, and at the top of his voice he yells, "It was a BIG GIP! Tut wasn't even there!!"

By way of Cokey Roberts' commentary this morning, Rangel of course doesn't believe the idea will have any more traction now than it did in 2003. Now, as then, his point is that children of the privileged are not doing their share of the fighting and dying in the all-volunteer military and maybe this is something that should be examined.

Belated happy happy!!

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Nov 18, 2006 -> 07:07 PM) how do they catch the genomes? aren't they tiny and ride around on foxes? Heh. Heh. Uhm. Well, coincidentally, the synctactual language mediating gene they are interested is called the "FoxP2" gene, so I guess you're not so far off, are you.? QUOTE(bmags @ Nov 18, 2006 -> 05:40 PM) yes i read this. Pretty cool how fast they can map genomes now isn't it? Amazing, to be sure. Venter changed the face of the science when Celera got involved in the game.

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Nov 18, 2006 -> 12:06 AM) Such a fantastic movie/book combo. A very underrated film as well. And a damn fine sammich too.

Very cool reports coming out in Science and Nature about a sequencing Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (with a companion US study) demonstrating that ot is possible to sequence and reconstruct Neanderthal genes from DNA fragments contained in fossil bones. The entire genome should be completed in two years. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/15/news/gene.php The central questions the researchers hope to answer focus on when and where certain behavioral traits emerged in the hominid lines. About 6 million years ago the hominid line split from the great ape line that gave rise to bonobos an chimps. Much more recently (0.5 million years ago) the line giving rise to modern humans split with that leading to the Neanderthals. If there is a high homology between human and Neanderthal DNA in a key gene known to be instrumental in mediating spoken language, then the conclusion would be that Neanderthals also spoke. If the Neanderthal gene looks more like the chimp version, then they probably had no spoken language. Also of interest will be if there is any evidence of Neanderthal and modern human interbreeding. During 500,000 years of independent evolution, measurable differences in teh two genomes will have accumulated. Presumably the approach to looking at this question will involve looking for evidence of some of the unique Neanderthal sequences showing up in modern humans after they began to co-occur in Europe 45K years ago. It's compelling that Neanderthals were wildly successful throughout Europe for hundreds of thousands of years, and that they then disappeared within a span of 10-15 thousands of years after the arrival of modern humans. Anthropological records show Neanderthals' east-to-west disappearance to be basically in synch with the spread of modern humans across the continent. Dang cool stuff.

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Nov 17, 2006 -> 03:02 PM) I'm not sure exactly how we got here, but I'm having a real difficult time deciding between the better beer and the Peppermint Pootang. Didn't the Peppermint Poontang open for Cream and The Buffalo Springfield at the Fillmore in '68?

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ Nov 17, 2006 -> 06:14 PM) Heh. It's random how many pics there were of cats in computers. They're after the gerbils, duh.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Nov 17, 2006 -> 05:48 PM) I can't connect to Yahoo! and a host of other top internet sites. But I can post here and a bunch of other less frequented sites. I don't understand WTF is going on. I think Tech Support has it figured out. . .

I think it should be renamed "Steel Cage Death Match" or "STFU"

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Nov 17, 2006 -> 03:49 PM) so that's your excuse? Damn skippy. Like I need an excuse.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Nov 17, 2006 -> 03:28 PM) Gay Animal Zoo and so has eating their children....but I don't see a zoo exhibit about that Actually, I bet the number of zoo species who consume their young is quite a bit less than 1,500. As far as homosexuality in animals, in the vast majority of cases it is the males of the speceis seen engaging in those behaviors. Such reproductive miscues occur for the same reason boy dogs want tohump your leg and the same reason teenage boys end to spank it on the hour, and that is because SPERM IS CHEAP, BABY. So cheap that natural selection has not weeded out the reproductively inappropriate behavior as deletarious to the overall fitness of the errant individuals.

It's cheating if you do any Christmas shopping before December 23rd. Furthermore, going anywhere else other than K-Mart is going above and beyond the call of duty. This year, everybody's getting tube socks and underwear. Ho Ho Focking Ho

QUOTE(Texsox @ Nov 16, 2006 -> 03:49 PM) I really doubt, even the most hardcore party faithful, would vote for a candidate because they call themselves a Dem/Rep/Ind On the contrary, a Dem/Rep/Ind would be my kind of guy. A real uniter, not a divider.