FlaSoxxJim

Revelations that BushCo was secretly financing Fatah sure came out at the wrong time, didn't they? Steve, when you get a chance, please tell everybody about the history of ISS support and nurturing of Hamas early on, in their believe that they would fight against the radical Palistinian nationalist organizations of te day. Note that previous Israeli PMs have acknowledged that Hamas was indeed a 'creature of Israel' as Afafat once accused, and have said it was one of the fatal mistakes of the Israeli government. A lot of that history gets lost in today's discussions.

YAS and Kap, I don't know that anybody is intentionally avoiding your questions as to what is going to happen to address it because I don't think anybody knows. Here's my understanding of it, and I welcome corrections, clarifications, and additions. The Dem informal hearings on Friday were useful because they got a number of constitutional scholars to voice their opinions and got congresspersons and citizens to be able to voice opinions as well. As has been pointed out, not of that is entered into the Congressional record so that certainly tempers its political value. February 6th is when the Senate hearings on the matter are supposed to begin. Although it has strong bipartisan support, the administration, the NSA, and Justice have indicated they do not plan on being particularly helpful. The NSA has gone so far as to threaten Russell Tice over testifying, saying the full Congress does not have security clearance enough to hear what he has to say about the NSA (not necessarily exlusively about the domestic spying issue which he did not work directly on). The big concern, of course, is that Specter is going to go through the motions, but will not really look to get to the bottom of any of it. As has been lamented here before, until the Dems have a majority somewhere so that they have sobpoena powers, they are dependent on the GOP majority to do the right thing and take the hearings seriously and then call for a full investigation if the findings of the hearing warrant it.

I think George of the Jungle is what partly ruined Brendan Fraser for me. But then again he did Airheads whicg I loved, and I also didn't mind him too much in the Mummy films. I'm not sure what the deal is with Shadow. I loved it, and also love both the original Murnau/Shrek and Herzog/Kinski versions of the Nosferatu films. I thought DeFoe did a great job as Shrek in Shadow. And the way they nailed the sets and such from the original was great. So, have you caught the Nosferatu cameo while watchinh Spongebob Squarepants with your little one?

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 11:35 PM) Her bones must have been really small, a human's average height was considerably smaller back then. Strange that they had to use radiocarbon dating to determine that she was so old, you would think bones that old would be obvious. What do I know though, Im no Gil Grissom. I thought the same thing about the bones being obviously old, but then again if a new remains were in the sea for a few years they would probably look pretty distressed.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jan 26, 2006 -> 06:27 AM) Here's a good site for ya Jim. Check out the Aussie Slang Dictionary on the right. http://www.barmyarmy.com/cricket/aus0607.asp You guyz shure talk funny-like.

Huh, that's a pretty cool story.

QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 10:19 PM) Hey Jim, ya ever drink up the Beast? No, but it calls to me in my sleep every night. And a pox on me because I haven't made it to UPS to drop some reciprocity in the mail to you. I am teh sux0r.

QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 10:15 PM) Ahem...is this where I blow my cover??? Ummm, I actually never saw it. Heh, umm, it never interested me for some reason. I'm just not much of a "documentary" type of film fan. I know I should see it. I really just need to be in the mood for it, I think. Maybe I'll throw it into my Netflix and watch it eventually. It's about as much documentary as Shadow of the Vampire is, so basically just a a period piece with a lot of attention to detail. Without giving too much away, I think the screenwriter and director did a great job of leveraging the fact that Whale suffered a stroke into an incredible storytelling vehicle. The stroke had left him basically unable to keep track of streams of thought or temporal awareness, so all the flashbacks, hallucinations etc. that get weaved in to tell the story find their basis in the fact that Whale can't keep any of the stuff sorted out in his brain. It's absolutely worth seeing. Even Brendan Fraser is less annoying than usual in it.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 09:37 PM) "legal" meaning making use of the FISA or other courts to obtain a warrant. It's pretty straight-forward. I see no fault or any grey area. That's just because you don't work for the administration or DOJ and so the reality distortion field doesn't affect you, silly.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 09:10 PM) I shared Amber Bock with my dad during the Rose Bowl and, let me say, he's now a fan. He's gotta start somewhere. Before long he'll be drinking Trappist Dubel out of a chalice at dinner.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 07:31 PM) Hey Jim, have you heard of a Belgium Beer called KWAK? My Dad's in Brussels at the moment and he's raving about it. Aye, I have. I've had it in bottled form, sadly never out of a cask. It's a Flemmish regional specialty. It's been several years and I can't recall many details but I remember it being a good, earthy but not too over the top farmhouse ale typical of Flanders (and similar to the French Country ales). If they are serving it correctly to your dad in Brussels (I'm terribly jealous, btw)then they are serving it to him in a "stirrup cup" muck like an English half-yard. The story is that however many hundred years ago the beer was sold out of a coach house inn to coachmen in a similar glass so that they could put it in the stirrups of their saddle to drink from while they were tending to their horses at night in the stables. The more you drink the more you (think you) know.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 02:36 PM) Agreed. Now, if only we had some mechanism in place by which warrants could be obtained so that such intercepts could occur legally and with judicial oversight. . . No, wait, we had that already.

QUOTE(Steve Bartman's my idol @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 02:32 PM) I would like for you or anyone else to top that joke...I'm in the mood for a good laugh. Nope, I would be banned for conduct unbecoming to a Soxtalker. . . I did, however, just read something interesting about a new beer that is being marketed exclusively to the gay community. I believe it is only going to come in cans.

QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 01:33 PM) ...and if you aren't gay...right? Or did you want to tell us something now??? Yeah, if the film was about Wallace Worsley I guess they could have called it "Hunchback Mountain." But, seriously, Kid, what did you think of Gods and Monsters? The imagery in homage of Bride of Frank, some very blatant and some very subtle, that was peppered throughout the film was great I thought.

QUOTE(Steve Bartman's my idol @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 01:44 PM) Reminds me of maybe the most offensive joke I know... A Priest and a rabbi are walking past a schoolyard, when they spot a 10 year old boy approaching them. The Priest says to the Rabbi, "Check out that boy, should we f**k him?". Rabbi replies, "Out of what?". We've identified the real problem here. You don't know nearly enough offensive jokes.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 12:53 PM) Actually, it was 24 hours, and I believe when FISA was amended after 9/11, the time was extended to 72 hours - although that might have been the 1995 amendments to FISA. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the 72 hours was in place befor 9-11, but I don't know when it was added.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 12:22 PM) Is 72 hours long enough to establish probable cause with respect to a FISA warrant? And if not what then??? 15 days is enough to bring these concerns to Congress and have FISA revised. Like Balta said, post 9-11 Congress would have made such concessions in a heartbeat had they been asked to and provided with just the littlest bit of rationale as to why the changes were needed. The administration chose not to do this. Several scholars have said as much, most recently David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center of a book on this subject (Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties for National Security) in response to Abu Gonzales' speech yesterday.

QUOTE(Wong & Owens @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 12:41 PM) Huh? "Antarctica is cold" may or may not be a statement of fact in 50-100 years. . . Try to keep up, eh?

I saw that and it's a pretty neat study. I do have one issue with it in that there is an alternative explanation that is not noted (at least not in this lit review – I have yet to read the actual paper). At least i don't think they have the whole story. I don't think the issue is entirely one of energetics – that metabolic resources allocated to fecundity necessarily limits metabolic resources placed elsewhere. Consider the chimpanzee that this report notes exhibits males with relatively larger testes related very likely to evolutionary sperm competition arising from promiscuous reproductive behavior. But the chimpanzee brain, like that of all the great apes, is conspicuously large, so if there is an energetic cost associated with increased gonadal mass it seems not to be paid for by a reduction in brain size. In fact Chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas and early hominids for that matter (Australopithecus have about the same brain/body ratio. What is lacking in this explanation is the need to keep total body mass down in bats, as they are flying mammals. Since keeping a minimal body weight is critical an increase in testis mass pretty much demands that the difference be made up in a loss of mass elsewhere. Yes, these authors show some of it is made up in the brain size. But without giving actual numbers (rather than relative percentages), a reader cannot tell if there is a 1:1 mass trade off between brain and testes. Perhaps some mass reduction is seen elsewhere in the promiscuous bat species. If the entire gamut of meristics and morphometrics is examined, that may well be the case. Even if it is not, I think a solely energetic explanation is lacking because it really could be the need to keep below a critical threshold weight so that flight is not compromised. ----- As an aside, Soxy, I have a bit of a bone to pick with you. You left me hanging a couple of months ago when you made a post about language (or lack thereof) in social insects. I took the time to note that the von Frisch "waggle dance" honeybee language hypothesis is as robust as ever, made a couple of quick citations, kicked the olfaction school of thought around a bit, and rolled up my sleeves for a good dialogue with you that, sadly, never came. Yes, this is a sad commentary on my social life, but I was looking forward to some stimulating bee talk.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 10:30 AM) Democrats and Republicans both adept at ignoring facts Well, I think you are half-right.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jan 25, 2006 -> 06:51 AM) So I've had too many beers tonight. It was my sister's last day at work, and of course me being the younger brother, forces me to shout everyone at the bar. And as for that Texas girl, well I wonder if she's been in a solarium lately. Flaxx' DBAHO to American Dictionary: shout = buy a round of drinks. Hope it didn't cost you gobs of Vickies, Mate.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jan 24, 2006 -> 11:56 AM) I was thinking they would be asked concurrently and have both asked before answering. Perhaps with the second question the order of asking could be reversed, in case there is a built in advantage I don't see. Yeah, you guys both have it figured out better than I. I was thinking the flow should be respond and then ask in the same post, but that is probably too loose to follow. I gues we should be trying to pretty much follow: Opening Statement A Opening Statement B First Question B to A First Question A to B Response A to B Response B to A . . . Rinse, Repeat. . . Closing Statement A Closing Statement B Even I shhould be able to stick pretty close to that.

I just finished watching Gods and Monsters on Showtime. It is an damn excellent film, even if you are not a James Whale/Universal Horror fan.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jan 24, 2006 -> 11:36 PM) I can think of a couple. Time was of the essence, and there are also some things that they might not have wanted to get out AT ALL. Even the FISA judges have talked to the media, as was proven when the story broke. The argument that "there are also some things that they might not have wanted to get out AT ALL" is only acceptable if you do not believe in judicial checks on exectutive power. That is, it should not be acceptable to Americans who think separation of powers is a good idea. What exactly did the FISA judges say when they talked to the media? As far as I remember, the first judge quit in protest since they didn't even know about the program, and then the remaining rotating judges requested a briefing because they were also concerned that the court was sidestepped. What was divulged here that is supposed to give me pause?