FlaSoxxJim

And there is no legal grounds to justify such discrimination either. Science is on the verge of discovering the "gay gene" or, more likely, multiple-gene suite, and that SHOULD put an end to the absurd debate over whether being gay is a choice. It won't but it should. There was some great research published a few months back that gave probably the strongest evidence to date that sexual orientation is hard-wired at birt and there is no choice in the matter. It involved looking at the startle response to an expected loud noise presented after an indicator signal was given. Women and gay men exhibited one type of startle response, while straight men exhibited a measurably different response. The key point is that the response is completely reflexive, ie, innate rather than learned. You are born with blonde hair, black hair, red hair etc., and there's no choice involved. Ditto here. As far as normal versus normative, the best analogies are normal people who fall toward the tails in the normal distribution (bell curve) in terms of any measurable, heritable attribute. There are far fewer people that grow to be 7 feet tall than grow to be 5'9", but these individuals still fall within the range of 'normal' human height. A growing number of learned peoplet believe it will soon be demonstrated that sexual orientation is similarly genetically coded for -- just a different flavor of normal sexual behavior.

That qualifies as all three Zach, because if you listened to Bush he was probably f***ing you with whatever it was he was saying...

That 'annoying chick' is home-grown, Evanstan-raised Joan Cusack. She's supposed to annoy, she's built that way on purpose. I usually like the off-center roles she gets. I thought she thought she was really good as Robin Williams robot sister in Barry Levinson's 'Toys.' Then again, I know I'm one of the few people who though highly of that film, so what do I know? Re, commercials, I like the Mike's Hard Lemonade ads like the one that has the invading killer aliens stealing a guys girlfriend and his buddy saying "Bummer... you look like you could use a Mike's Hard Lemonade." I liked the car commersial from 6 months or so ago that used the instrumental intro part of Jethro Tull's 'Thick as a Brick Edit 1,' because I never figured I'd hear a Tull song as part of a tv ad. I dislike the "Can you hear me now?" cellular commercials quite a bit, but I guess that guy is going to be this decade's equivalent of the "Where's the beef?" Selma what's-her-name.

"Oh Wally, well I wanted a dinner for two-o-o, but you sent me a scarf, Oh Wally..."

PA mis-identified the originator of the song as Bryan Adams at the very start of this thread. And he's the resident music expert??

I liked that.

Well, heck, you shoulda started this thread a month ago! Thanks, I'll just have to accept the stares at work while I'm listening to Christmas music into February..

I'd give pre-Infinity XRT the nod as one of the best in the nation. I agree with Tex that the Loop was never all that, even though Dahl and Brandmeyer (sp?) were pretty funny in their prime. I got to be friends with Terri Hemeret (sp?) through her hosting of Beatlefest through the years, and she, Marz, Lee, and the rest of the crew just had great personalities, ecclectic musical tastes, and the freedom to play some diverse stuff. They introduced me to the Replacements, Utopia, the Clash, and others at a suitably impressionable age, and I may have been one of the unwashed masses in regards to music consumption if not for them. I got to meet xtc after an in-studio acoustic set they did at XRT, get my copy of Oranges and Lemons signed by all of them and all that, so I'm indebted to XRT for that as well. I really wish they streamed in teh Internet. Does anyone know if they broadcast on XM? If they did it would be worth the price of a subscription just to get them, even if they are not as good as they were through the 80s.

That was supposed to be in green, right?

Yeah, but what about Chiliwak? Actually I always liked Go For A Soda AND Patio Lanterns, but I gotcrud about it from one of my Canadian friends. He's a Newfie, though, so what do you expect, right?

Yep, "fair and unbiased," they even say so.

The Danes were the first people to brew beer with hops, too, and for that I say Rock On, er..., Danelandia??

No argument here. Yep, it's old news for anyone who has wanted to know it. Thanks for the links, hope everyone takes the time to look at a couple of them.

Hellp, my name is FlaSoxx and I... like Allanis Morrisete. I know she started out on a kids tv show, and I know Canadians are more ashamed of her than Chiliwak and Kim Mitchell. Even though pop radio did its best to kill the first album with overplay, I like her. Can't help it.

The "selective" quote was in the interest of space - not making everyone scroll through again. The voters (black, white, or, green) unjustly taken off the rolls were taken off at the request of the Governer of the state who obviously had an interest in the outcome and obviously also way more influence in getting that outcome than could be justified by anyone. On the other hand, the media is the media, always looking to scoop the other sources and usually screwing things up along the way. I agree with you that when the media begins to make and affect rather than report the news it is a real problem. Still, there is a big difference between the media screwing up a story because there is a reward for whoever blabs it faster, and the Governer of Florida KNOWINGLY deleting 50K+ legitimate voters from the rolls. Gore was willing to see a statewide recount done and eventually it was started. Th ecounter-argument to a recount was the time it would take to manually count everything and so the Gore party selected the counties most in need of recounts. Eventualluy, enough irregularities (in both Democratic and Republican strongholds) opened the way for a state-wide recount, but the Supreme Court stopped it before it got off the ground. Again, some of my surprise at being called hypocritical centered around your wanting to put hanging chad and Pat Bucchanan arguments in my mouth, and they were not there.

I reread my post, Nuke, and was hard-pressed to find the hypocrasy (Nor did I make any comments about Buchannan or the dangling chads - in that issue I agree people are stupid and that's that). There is no hypocrasy when I bristle at many thousands of legitimate voters being systematically and knowingly excluded from teh voter rolls, while at the same time, late-filed and incorrectly filed absentee ballots were allowed. Gore and Bush both wanted those ballots in, even though Gore knew the overseas military vote woudlk swing for Bush, so there was no duplicity there in trying to keep those incorectly cast votes out. The same cannot be said about what happened in Florida.

The statement was not intended to be personal or any kind of attack, i apologize if it came off that way. It was directed at a general "you" -- an audience of people who, bless 'em, think the current Administration is ok or cares the least bit about the average American.

But the Florida situation was as systematic as it was insidious, invloving the Governor/Brother and his immediate underlings in issues that were obviously conflicts of interest. I defy you or anyone to find another voter fraud case involving people at the top level of elected government that disenfranchised this number of legitimate voters. As Apu pointed out, Jeb has a history of going to teh State Supreme court and being repeatedly told he is violating citizens personal rights with his actions. The (persistent vegetative) Terri Schiavo story is the recent one to make national news. Not making national headlines is Jeb's trying to rewrite local history at the polls relative to an education bill. Florida voters approved a reduced class size amendment last year, and Jeb has busy trying to convince the courts to throw it out because our 'yes' vote must have meant 'no', he knows what the voters want more than the voters do, etc. As an aside, Jeb has also taken a cue from Big Bro in screwing the environment by yanking $1 billion in state funds promised for Everglades restoration over the next 30 years. It's part of $8 billion the state HAS to commit or it will likely lose the $40 billion in federal money the restoration will rquire. At the same time, Jeb is taking a powder and letting Big Sugar derail the first $1 billion project to get the restoration going. Everyone come see what's left of the Everglades (what's left of it) now, while you can.

You took the word right out of my mouth.

Great call on Lawrence's. One of the places I really miss. As far as dogs, I like fat Johnnie's teh best and it's on teh way home from the park for my family. But near the park, we always get a couple from the stand right at Armor Square Park on the way from Jimbo's to the park. I think 3 bucks gets you a loaded Vienna Beef (I prefer David Berg) dog and an RC.

It goes sooo much deeper than that in Florida, and you either know that or you don't care to know it. The computer data company hired to purge the voting rolls of felons pointed out to Brother Jeb that their error rate was so high that thousands of people were wrongly taken off the rolls. Jeb said throw the names out anyway. Conveniently, most of these were black and more than likely not voting for Bush. Voters in black precincts (sp?) reported they were being turned away from the polls LONG BEFORE the voting was done, and before any of teh other stuff came to light. Several black precincts also opened late and closed early for 'unknown reasons'. At the same time, outside of Florida, a bunch of incorrectly submitted or late-receipt military absentee ballats were allowed in the count. Finally, the Florida recount WAS NEVER completed before the Supreme Court came in to hand the keys to Baby George. Two newspapers spent private funds to pay for the recount to be completed, and even that was blocked successfully for a time. Florida was an inside job, Jeb's present to his big brother. The night of the election when the already celebrating George was on TV and saw closing returns giving Florida to Gore, he gave his really confused Curious George look and then ran out to call Jeb because he knew Florida was a done deal.

As an environmentalist and, I don't need anything other (though there's lots more) than his environmental record to want him gone. Bush irreparably harmed the Texas environment with his policies as Governer, but that was just a warm up. Broad strokes only below in the interest of time. The Administration has yet to make a decision in which big buisness has not won out over the environment. In addition to gutting Clean Air and Clean Water, they given the EPA lawyers their marching orders to basically take a dive in court so that buisness can roll over them. They have made it possible to now get really objectionable legislation through with barely any public comment period at all. They swore they would continue to pursue ongoing and pending litigation against polluting power plants even if they could get the retrofit upgrade requirements relaxed (which they did, motherf***em), then guess what? They decided they should drop all the pending cases since now that the standards are relaxed it's no biggie... Not only limiting the liability of the sectors of the petroleum industry that produce carcinogenic compounds, but giving them a billion dollars to help transition them into other processes and products to boot. Repeatedly targeting ANWR even though a majority of Americans think it is unnecessary. Repeatedly spending a token amount on R&D for renewable and alternative fuels even though a majority of Americans think it is necessary. Using the Western wildfires of past seasons as a smoke screen excuse to allow additional logging in National Forests under the guise of protecting property (if that were the case, wouldn't the bulk of the efforts be directed near homes?). Clean Skies and Healthy Forests my ass. Insufficient EPA budget, allowing the EPA Ombudsman to be bullied out of office, basically giving the SuperFund criminals a pass, and eventually getting too slimy for even Chief Christie Whitman who was no great shakes to begin with. Gail Norton as Secretary of the Interior. Bailing on Kyoto, as if Kyoto was anything more than the first baby steps needed to curb anthropogenic climate change. Wrong calls on roadless rules, snowmobiles, fuel efficiency, drinking water standards, pine tree beetles. Underspending on the National Parks System. reduced funding Sea Grant, NSF environmental, and others. Continuing to be part of the stonewall to keep the energy policy documents and meeting details out of the hands of independent council. 30 years of environmental protections have been rolled back in less than one term. What's not to like I expect inane economic arguments supporting the Bush environmental policies, but that's not really what was asked. What was asked was why wouldn't Liberals be in love with Bush (my only assumption is this question came out of the proposed Immigration Policy changes or maybe the won't-really-happen recommittment to teh Space Program). I know several others will answer on other fronts so I stuck with the environmental record. When they started the short-lived blog function on this site I planned to use my blog to post daily Bush vs. the Environment news pieces (and a daily guide to good beer). Maybe they'll add that function back.

I might be speaking out of hand here, and correct me if I am wrong. But, the issue with Mock President Bush is NOT that he won while not carrying a majority of the votes (which is not unheard of as previous posts indicate), but that he won when he did not even have the most votes in the Popular Election, Gore did. Or did I miss something?

It's real important to remember that the Kurds got gassed because they listened to Papa Bush when he urged him to rise up and take on saddam after we gave up. Big Bush promised we'd be right there with the Iraqi people and fully support them if they rose to challenge Saddam. Oops.