FlaSoxxJim

QUOTE(KipWellsFan @ Mar 8, 2006 -> 11:13 AM) I've heard all kinds of spoilers too, of course I have no idea as to their validity. I hear some guy gets whacked. . .

And here it is: getting a look at it, externally I'm surprised it has been deemed distinct enough to warrant a new family designation. The family name given in the CNN report – Kiwaida – has to be wrong. Zoological family designations all end in -dae, so I'm sure it's actually been designated Kiwaidae and that is a typo. The family and genus and species are derived from Kiwa, who is apparently the Polynesian goddess of crustaceans. The species name (hirsuta) refers of course to the hirsute (hairy) appendages. Cool indeed.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 7, 2006 -> 08:11 AM) I hate musicals. I really, really hate musicals. I don't get them, I don't pretend to be cultured, and "get the message". I hate musicals. For the most part, I really like musicals. And I don't think it's really a matter of being cultured or not, because some of my favorite musicals are completely campy. It's more a matter of willingly suspending disbelief and allowing that characters can and do break into spontaneous song (backed by an unseen orchestra no less) and that is a key way in which plot and story and character davelopment advances. I think it also helps to flipflop the way you perceive musicals. For most people who don't like them, the musical bits get in the way and they just wait for that part to be over so they can get back to the story. For people that like musicals I think it's often the non-musical story parts that get in the way and it just seems like filler to get from one musical number to the next. West Side Story, for example, is forever going to to be thought of as the work of Leonard Bernstein (composer) and Stephen Sondheim (lyricist) and not as readily that of Arthur Laurents (playwright). Good musicals just pack so much story and character advancement into each number I find it hard not to be impressed by them.

Holy Crap!??! I did not even recognize him. I can't believe I lost my teenage heart-throb Valerie to THAT! And I think Eddie's demon was almost entirely booze and very little drug use (Kid Gleason please correct me if I'm wrong)

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 7, 2006 -> 11:47 PM) BTW, Flaxx, that is a hysterical avatar. Thanks, I filched it from some lefty-anarchist-moonbat-wiccan-tofu-dolphinsafe blog or another. . .

QUOTE(Balance @ Mar 7, 2006 -> 11:16 PM) (And kap, don't even think of making a clever retort. You're in the Dem thread now.) You make it sound like there's never been any clever here in the Dem thread . . .

Pretty dang cool. Not just a new species or even genus, but an entire new decapod family. I [heart] zoology.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 7, 2006 -> 10:40 PM) Congress needs to ask the right questions. For sure. But, Congress doesn't set the policy for these items in wartime. That's the only thing. So where's the balance? After the fact like this, I'd say the only recourse for balance is an inquiry to see if the actions square with the authority reasonably understood to be vested in the executive. Not trying now to "fix FISA" to allow the program to continue without addressing its legality/constitutionality at the time it was authorized.

Trying soooo hard not to be cynical about all of this. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060308/pl_nm/...avesdropping_dc Kap and others repeatedly said, 'let's wait and see after we get to the bottom of all of this.' Reasonable enough advice, if Congress ever had any inclination to actually get to the bottom of any of it. happy thoughts. . . happy thoughts. . .

QUOTE(hammerhead johnson @ Mar 7, 2006 -> 05:54 PM) Well I finally started thinkin' straight And I ran out of things to investigate I couldn't imagine doing anything else So now I'm sittin' at home investigating myself I hope I don't find out anything hmm. . . great God!!!

QUOTE(bmags @ Mar 7, 2006 -> 05:17 PM) i really wanna get the jokes thou...cause...everyone is laughing except for me. OK, here's a primer. Start with what the John Birch Society is -- an ultra-conservative society formed in the late 1950s to fight the "growing threat" of socialism/comunism in America. All the "looked for Commies under my bed. . . refs in that song are based on that Birch/McCarthyism paranoia about comunists. The line about taking a shot of malaria to cure a cold is lampooning the notion that fascism ala' Hitler is better than communnism. The bit about quitting his job to become Sherlock Holmes is about the Red Scare paranoia causing neighbors to turn in neighbors family to turn in family etc., as suspected Commies. The George Lincoln Rockwell refs are to the founder of the American Nazi Party. The last lines about him sitting home and investigating himself and hoping he doesn't find anything (ie, turn out to be a Commie) is the over the top absurdist conclusion of the paranoia of that time.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 7, 2006 -> 03:02 PM) The reason I asked is because sometimes you can get them to review based on medical necessity if they changed the policy during/before the end of the treatments. And Balta, sorry dude. Hope things get better. Yeah, we're keeping all the bills and plan on going through the submit/denied/appeal tango with the insurance. We shall see.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 7, 2006 -> 02:45 PM) Why, what happened? For me, Blue Cross just decided to revisit what procedures are allowable claims, and they decided the procedures my daughter requires are not allowable anymore. The bean counters, rather than the doctors, are deciding what is a necessary procedure. But when you see my daughter struggling to read because she has one eye not playing nice with the other and inverting letters, etc., you know damn well that she has a medical need. So we're shelling out about half my wife's takehome pay for 14 weeks to get her the treatment she needs because Blue Cross considers it elective therapy now.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Mar 7, 2006 -> 02:07 PM) I have dealt with the French and German health care systems. I'd take my bloated bill with good treatment over six weeks in the hospital for a broken arm anyday. Ach, try staring at $5,000 worth of pediatric vision therapy that would have been covered by Blue Cross a year ago but isn't now. Tht's the bloated bill I'm trying to contend with.

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Mar 6, 2006 -> 05:02 PM) I finally heard these guys and I totally agree with your assesment. Decent start for 19 year olds, but time will tell. I enjoy Bloc Party SO much more. They'll be on SNL next Saturday if anyone cares to hear the band with like the third best (I think) selling debut record in the history of the UK. I like them, but I admit I don't get a lot of the local vernacular in the lyrics. but that is supposed to be one of the things that is making them really click with the local UK fans.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 7, 2006 -> 12:54 PM) I guess what my point of contention is, instead of debate, it's "let's post it in the clubghouse so we don't have a bunch of whiney ass opposition posts"... that's the difficulty in all of this. I agree when Rex said ... there's been some really good debate. Flaxx, you're the ultimate gentleman and a beer connseiuer (sp) that we'd all be glad to kick back a few with I'm sure, if the opportunity presented itself. It's just so trying - when you read nothing but beat down after beat down after beat down of things - and I'm not talking about just a Dem response to a Bush thing but also a Repub response to a Clinton thing. These are certainly trying times we live in. I'm going to split this out of the thread. the respect is mutual, which is what makes the fighting and flaming so frustrating for all. Ditto with SS2k6. And though he's not in this current discussion, dittto with YAS. There are a lot of things we all don't see eye to eye on, but disagreement shouldn't be construed as a lack of respect for the individuals involved. We're living in really divisive times, that is certainly true. The whole country is edgy, and we reflect that here. I agree sometimes "my side" looks like it's got nothing but "beat down after beat down after beat down" to offer. But honsetly, with revelation after revelation about the way things are done and how the public has been intentionally misinformed about so much, it's hard not to sound like a broken record. Then if you continue to post new verses of the broken record you get slammed. If you don't post you run the risk of looking like you are past the point of caring when really you are just tired of the :banghead and the and the . Really, most times I'd be better off concentrating on the and the and especially the

I missed that announcement as well. Damn.

Wow, the SoxTalk Kings of All Media!! Great start. Looking forward to watching (er, hearing) this evolve.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 7, 2006 -> 11:50 AM) *crickets* And it's because it's in the Dem only thread. This post is exactly what I was getting at earlier, and I got the usual gauntlet throwdown of "this is MY thread"... and that is so not the point. It's easier to talk about how wrong the other side is, but there is virtually no talk of how the other side is better. And I say that from both sides of the spectrum on this site. Time and time again, this has been proven here, and the lack of a response to this proves it yet again. I'm really disappointed in this. Lack of response? Isn't Rex' response a response? He addressed SS specifically, it indeed seems like a response. I think he spoke in very straightforward terms and echoed a lot of the sentiments I feel. As far as a response from me, I thought I'd try the "if you can't say something nice. . . " approach. Not that I can't say all kinds of genuinely nice things about SS, yourself, ar anybody else. I've enjoyed way more of the interactions between all of us than not. But, I will say I agree with Rex that if sparring on the board here is the deciding factor in turning anybody into a straight-ticket [insert party ailiation here] then that's not a particularly rational response. SS talks about how the administration-critical posts here attack the things he holds dear, but I quite honestly have the exact opposite opinion. THIS ADMINISTRATION has attacked the values we hold dear, and it deserves to be called out on it. The Adminsitration, in its push for its Unitary Executive, has tossed aside the idea that governmental checks and balances are by necessity at the heart of our system of government. But to post something saying as much here makes the poster the bad guy, and not the Neocon powermongers who look upon congressional oversight and judicial review with such disdain. You attack the messenger, and pay no attention to the message. Sure, posts from "our side" sound like a broken record at times, but again that is the fault of the pathological power abusers and not the people expressing their concerns over the abuse of executive power. I don't envy you your chosen task of continually trying to defend the indefensible, but attacking the messengers is not truly a defense. It is a way to derail the chance for meaningful dialog, though. You don't like the message so you snipe and snipe and snipe. Pretty soon it becomes plain that "preaching to the choir" is the best that can be hoped for here anymore so anything we previously hoped would foster meaningful discussion out in Filibuster at large gets put into the clubhouse threads instead. If the clubhouse thread is going to devolve into s***storm threads because you think it needs an alternative viewpoint' then that is unfortunate. But this is all a grand experiment anyway. It's going to become what it's going to become. That is my response.

That's a cool way to end the SMART1 mission. I remember when they crashed Lunar Prospector and ended up not seeing much of anything of the impact.

Pentagon, Homeland Dept., and the Coast Guard objected to UAE port deal, concerns promptly ignored. Full Story: http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/ports.htm

QUOTE(Steff @ Mar 7, 2006 -> 08:36 AM) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060307/ap_on_...G9mBHNlYwMxNjk3 SHORT HILLS, N.J. - Dana Reeve, who fought for better treatments and possible cures for paralysis through the Christopher Reeve Foundation, named for her late actor-husband, has died, the foundation said. She was 44. Reeve died late Monday of lung cancer, said Kathy Lewis, President and CEO of the foundation. "On behalf of the entire Board of Directors and staff of the Christopher Reeve Foundation, we are extremely saddened by the death of Dana Reeve, whose grace and courage under the most difficult of circumstances was a source of comfort and inspiration to all of us," Lewis said in a statement. I didn't even know she was ill. Was her cancer diagnosis made while Chris was still alive? If so, then her having to struggle with both of their conditions and with all the media and public scrutiny showed quite a bit of heroic grace.

A bit of 'this day in history' levity and truth from DKos Cheers and Jeers this morning"

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Mar 6, 2006 -> 09:14 AM) I just read this thread through and realized that Kap, Yasny, Balta, and Rex all agreed on the same point. In a political thread. I shall now repent and await the end of the world.

Make it a good one, guys!