FlaSoxxJim

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jun 17, 2005 -> 08:06 AM) God is warning the sinners not to vote democratic again. Note that the wrath is aimed squarely at the land of Governor Terminator though,

Note to all Mr. Frosty Ice Cream Truck Drivers: We will no longer be stocking rum raisin.

QUOTE(Steff @ Jun 17, 2005 -> 09:03 AM) No way Tom Cruise didn't try the milk before buying the cow.. I got a li'l change in py pocket goin' jingle-ingle-ieeng... And shes's no virgin. As my students like to keep me up on things, I know for a fact that Dawson and Pacie both nailed her.

So where were you a week ago when I was trying to get people to notice this monemtous occassion, Yatzee? http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?sh...5174

Uhm... yeah... we really..... uh, missed you? Anyway, you and I both know you just came back to finally get the drubbin' that's coming to you in Useless Trivia.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jun 17, 2005 -> 06:54 AM) One point Nuke and I can agree on Although we could probably trace this back to Martin Luther who perverted Catholicism to start his cult.* *just pointing out defining cult is nearly impossible. That it is, as a good number of Christian fundamentalists - most notably of the Jack Chick variety - consider Catholicism and worship of its 'Wafer God' to be a cult. Getting beyond these extremists, there still is a lot that is quite cult-like in Catholocism: all of the emphasis on the saints, elevation of the Apocrypha and other non-canonical sources to the level of dogmatic, near idolotry of the blessed virgin - even by mainstream Catholics, and the general abundance of mystical religous vestiges that post-Reformation Christian denominations renounce. I highly respect Catholic traditions despite my own falling out with the Church of Rome, but I wanted to add this in support of your statement about the difficulty in defining waht is and isn't a cult.

QUOTE(sec159row2 @ Jun 16, 2005 -> 08:56 PM) these people don't practice Islam... A religion that says it is OK to kill whoever some mullah tells you to kill is not a religion... it is a cult... or the US government.. Thank you. I was concerned you were dismissing the entire Muslim faith outright.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Jun 16, 2005 -> 08:55 PM) Islamic fundies who preach "death to America" and the like pervert what is really a peace loving religion. Those who pervert a religon as they do certainly qualify as a cult. You'll get no argument out of me; precisely as you say, the extremists have twisted a peaceful, faith to their own ends. I only want to know where 159 is coming from because the breadth of sweep of his statement was unclear.

QUOTE(sec159row2 @ Jun 16, 2005 -> 08:37 PM) 2. These prisoners have more freedom to practice their "cult" ( I can't refer to what they worship as a religion) in gitmo than they would if they were on the other side of the island in havana... 5. And it is nice to see the california and florida members agreeing/defending/supporting these comments from Durbin, 'cause YOU DON"T VOTE HERE!!!! the democratic party in illinois is in deep do-do... the democrats in Chicago are going, if it hasn't already started, to chop up the Daley empire so bad and all the RED to Chicago's south will not put up with Durbin. :banghead :banghead :banghead Sec159, if you don't mind, please clarify point 2: is it just radical Islamic fundamentalism you refuse to elevate to the status of a religion or all of Islam? As for defending Durbin the person, I for one am doing no such thing. I'm defending the statements made by an elected official that have been twisted to make it sound like he said something he did not. It could have been Durbin, Daffy Duck, or anyone else, and I don't care if he's from Illinois or Idaho or whether he is red, blue, or whatever.

The story corroborates others suggesting that we were more interested in looking successful than actually being successful those first days rounding up people in Afghanistan. We bought a lot of Joe Shmoe ham-and-eggers from folks looking to make a quick buck, and that's who we're holding now.

OK, it started bugging me that there had to be defined categories of tsunamis, and a visit to NOAA's International Tsunami Information Center suggested that was the case. Certainly not as cut and dried as storm or earthquake magnitude categories because so much depends on water depth and distance from the source etc., but lots of different tsunami categories: atmospheric tsunami -- Tsunami-like waves generated by a rapidly moving atmospheric pressure front moving over a shallow sea at about the same speed as the waves, allowing them to couple. internal tsunami -- Tsunami wave manifested as an internal wave and traveling along a thermocline. local tsunami -- A tsunami which its destructive effects are confined to coasts within a hundred km, of the source, usually an earthquake and sometimes a landslide. microtsunami -- A tsunami of such small amplitude that it must be observed instrumentally and is not easily detected visually. [The very definition of a very, very 'minor' tsunami, no?] near-field or local tsunami -- A tsunami from a nearby source, generally less than 200 km away. A local tsunami is generated by a small earthquake, a landslide or a pyroclastic flow. Pacific-wide tsunami -- A tsunami capable of widespread destruction, not only in the immediate region of its generation, but across the entire Pacific Ocean. [i'd call this type a major tsunami] regional tsunami -- A tsunami capable of destruction in a particular geographic region, generally within about 1000 km of its source. Regional tsunamis also occasionally have very limited and localized effects outside the region. teletsunami or distant tsunami -- A tsunami originating from a distant source, generally more than 1000 km away. Looks like these are the mac daddy tsunamis: Far less frequent, but potentially much more hazardous are Pacific-wide or distant tsunamis. These occur when the disturbance that generates the tsunami is sufficiently great. Usually starting as a local tsunami that causes extensive destruction near the source, these waves continue to travel across the entire ocean basin with sufficient energy to cause additional casualties and destruction on shores more than a thousand km from the source. In the last two hundred years, there have been at least seventeen destructive Pacific-wide tsunamis.

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Jun 16, 2005 -> 04:48 PM) Wow, I didn't know that. Enlighten me.........how do the ycategorize tsunami's? I'm not the expert – perhaps Balta will chime in – but I don't know, how about MEASURING THE HEIGHT OF THE WAVE?!? You know, smaller waves = minor tsunami and bigger waves = major tsunami..

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Jun 16, 2005 -> 04:43 PM) There is no such thing as a minor tsunami lol. It's callud a tsunami for a reason. Little know fact: My baseball nickname is Tsunami because I sweat a lot when I pitch. But just like there are categories of earthquakes and hurricanes, there are tsunamis of varying magnitude. Also, the further removed a coastline is from the epicenter, the smaller the tsunami is goin to be when it arrives. I'd say casually categorizing tsunami events as major or minor is acceptable.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jun 16, 2005 -> 04:40 PM) My fiancee has called me like 4 times already... As long as you don't have to ask her, 'did you feel that?', then it's OK.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jun 16, 2005 -> 04:23 PM) Incidentally, I wrote a bit last night on why earthquakes are nothing out of the ordinary last night for the tsunami alert thread. Thanks for the heads up or I would have missed that post - lots of cool info.

Dang, Balta, I had forgot that you mentioned you were a GeoGeek a few days ago. Thanks for the rundown. Do you know what is really cool from what you shared? It's striking that the logarithmic nature of the Richter Scale (a 7 being 10x stronger than a 6, etc, for the non-GeoGeeks) is also so beautifully reflected in the frequency of occurence of quakes of each magnitude. In one year you'll typically see 1 magnitude 8, 10 mag 7s, 100 mag 6s. And going the other way, a magnitude 9 event - 10 times stronger than a magnitude 8 - is also 10x less frequent. Wild symmetry. The pH scale is the only other log10 scale I have much familiarity with, and I don't believe it has nearly that kind of perfect symmetry as you go either up or down from nautrality at pH 7. [/done being a nerd... for now]

QUOTE(TheDybber @ Jun 16, 2005 -> 04:06 PM) Yes, I believe a flood AND a blizzard would count toward a natural disaster. See: Mississippi River flood of the early 90's...Blizzard of '78 in Chicago. Or was it '79? '79

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Jun 16, 2005 -> 04:04 PM) I have never experiences a natural disaster..........thank god. Unless floods and blizzards count? Yeah they count -- but they're like the wimpy younger siblings to earthquakes and volcanos and hurricanes.

QUOTE(Cali @ Jun 16, 2005 -> 03:58 PM) Just had another one a few minutes ago. That's way too many lately. I think we're gonna be breaking off of the country pretty soon.... Island life... SWEET!

I suggested a few weeks back that one of the tangible results from the backlash against Newsweek for the 'flushed Koran story' was that the factual sources for future stories of this nature were going to become more concrete and more damning. This is the only way that the media is going to be able to overcome the current syndrome of crucifying the messenger because we don't care to hear the message. The story below got about as much attention as the Downing Street Memo (= next to none) when it was released yesterday. Importantly, it notes that there were top Pentagon officials who back in 2002 were very concerned about the legality of the Guantanamo interrogation techniques. It also shows that there was an awareness by Pentagon legal counsel that top brass could face criminal prosecution under US anti-torture laws. Clearly, Alberto Mora was the Alberto the Administration SHOULD have been listening to. And, I wonder why the Pentagon lawyers never got that 'get out of jail free' letter signed by Bush that they decided they needed. Wait. No I don't. Full story: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=852458&page=1

Perhaps the greatest feat I pulled off last Christmas was convincing my wife that when I was buying this self-contained classics video game console (Pac Man, Galaxian, Dig Dug and a couple more on in), that it was for my kid and not for me. Since then me and the boy have become video game buddies, and he begs Mom to get each new classics console when they come out - that way I don't have to do it!

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 16, 2005 -> 01:16 PM) 13 Hours and 14 Minutes. I have no will power. Not Lord of the Manor any more, huh?

I particularly like Arianna Huffington's quips on Frist:

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Jun 16, 2005 -> 01:11 PM) It's not really that it's strong, it's just nasty as all hell. Well, I hope you were still able to 'handle business' My wife used to work with a lot of Polish people. One of them gave me a bottle of moonshine vodka to try as a X-Mas present. No lie, my throat was not the same for like 2 days after just ONE shot. My voice was hoarse, I couldn't taste my food. It was rocket fuel. A high school friend has been living in Moscow for a couple of years. Got married over there (mail order bride in reverse I guess), and has become fairly assimilated. He was a pretty formidable drinker before, but now that he's been drinking vodka like water with the Moscovites he's got to be Olympic class. He moves back to the states in August. I won't be challenging him to a drinking contest.