In "Mix-tape For Water Boarding-"

If I were in charge, I would just queue the Merzbox, and overlay it with the Judy Collins version of Send in the Clowns. Hit the repeat button... end of story. Open following two links: one two Crank volume on second link. Sit back and enjoy. I lasted about 45 seconds before I broke. More effective if you keep the terrible drag act on top and watch while listening.

In "Average Homeboy"

see also.

In "Greg Dulli Radio Interview"

That album is the only AW I ever cared for, but damn do I love it. I feel the same way as you. I gave the Twilight Singers a shot, and I was shocked at how good the Blackberry Belle is. Like a fine wine, he only gets more bitter with time (or, uh, a fine vinegar, I guess).

In "Animal researchers start petition to allow 'silent majority' to support them."

There is pointless research on animals going on, to be sure, but it's hard to figure out how to limit it, you probably can't block the pointless research without blocking some of the important stuff. And as Koant mentions there are already a lot of regulations. I think there has been some real progress over the last 20 years or so. There has been a great reduction in animal testing on completely unnecessary crap (e.g. cosmetics). There has been somewhat of a reduction in pointless animal sacrifices like high school/intro college class dissections -- although I'd like to see that done away with entirely. Unfortunately, the extremists like PETA (or worse) just seem to polarize people. I wish there was a louder voice that was more moderate and making reasonable demands that people might actually listen to. PETA just gets dismissed (rightfully), by the scientific community.

In "Kill Your Television 2006"

Addendum, just for fun, how does orococo comment sound now: Owned no books since late 2002. [...] A quick perusal of the bookstore confirmed that I hadn't missed a bit. (Uh, chicken soup for the teenage soul? Riiiiiiight.)

I'm always put off by how self-righteous people get about this. Always tied up with medium snobbery. Kid A spends 4 hours a day watching TV. Kid B spends 4 hours a day reading books. Kid B is a special little angel! Such a good kid! So healthy! Meanwhile, Kid A might be watching intricately plotted dramas, nature and history programs, while Kid B is reading the Left Behind series. There are hundreds of channels out there, and with bittorrents/on-demands/DVRs there's actually a lot of quality stuff. I don't mean to get all Steven Johnson, but first they come for your TV, and then they come for your video games. Screw them.

In "Why Did The British Spaz?"

The best example of this sort of thing, I think, is "Fanny Pack". A positively G rated term in the U.S., but not so much in, say, Australia.

In "The Ground Zero Grassy Knoll"

“I can see them wishing it would happen, secretly happy it did. But on purpose? Look at the way they’ve managed Iraq. They’re boobs. They couldn’t have pulled off 9/11 without getting caught. Not possible.” Ding! All conspiracy theorists are naive about human nature. Tin foil hatters obviously haven't spent much time working with actual human beings, no organization made up of human beings is going to pull off a conspiracy that big without it leaking out all over, least of all the Bush administration. Just for the sake of argument - purely as an exercise - how many people would it take to plant explosives in the buildings? Given unlimited time and resources? Theoretically, couldn't one do it? Two? Wouldn't they also fly the planes? It's not even worth the sake of argument, it's nonsense. Honestly, if you were just going to do a cover up, why bother with the whole planes thing? Just plant some bombs and arrest some arab guys afterwards. That would leak too, of course, but it at least makes a little more sense as a conspiracy theory.

In "Trancing Bunnies."

I've never had any luck trancing my bunny. She loves a good pet (demands it even), but any attempt to get her feet off the ground and she is very displeased.

In "A second evolutionary process at work alongside natural selection? "

Bah, too much time on other forums, sorry for the newbie [quote] tags.

I just don't see what separates his theory from Lamarckism. He doesn't even seem to suggest a new mechanism for how DNA gets modified either. He makes the same mistake creationists do: [quote]This is because NS relies on mutations which are known to be random. While this random mechanism can achieve simple levels of evolution (microevolution), there is a limit to what NS can achieve (I call this 'the random plateau') before it plateaus off. [/quote] The problem is people's inability to wrap their head around long spans of time, and just how much can change over hundreds and thousands of generations. Saying there is a plateau doesn't make it so. I'm going to have to go with crackpot.

In "The biggest buried treasure *in history* has been discovered."

1. Resembling the Cynic philosophers in contempt of pleasure, churlishness, or disposition to find fault; characteristic of a cynic; surly, currish, misanthropic, captious; now esp. disposed to disbelieve in human sincerity or goodness; sneering. I'm pretty descriptivist (as is, I'm fairly sure, the OED), so take what I say with that in mind. I think most people use cynic in the sense of the last part of that first definition "now esp. disposed to disbelieve in human sincerity or goodness". Which was really pretty central to Diogenes whole thing anyway, aside from the stoicism. "He used to stroll through the Agora with a torch at full daylight. When asked about it, he would answer "I am just looking for an honest man".". I think it's perfectly acceptable to use it in just that sense, without the "contempt of pleasure" part.

In "What kind of Target merchandise is this?"

A search on that ASIN number turned this Which lead to "Pacific Media Entert", searching on that turns up all kinds of weird amazon cross-linking. Including this amazon page. Which let's us know Starring: Jospeh Ph.D Kramer (Fire in the valley -- awesome!) Joseph Kramer Phd also shows up on some tantric sex lecture series sites Which, finally brings us here (Not Safe For Work) where you can see the DVD cover. The internet is fun.

In "FM transmitters for mp3 players- are there any that don't suck?"

Addendum: it's always possible ccrane changed their hardware, if so, all bets are off. I can attest that it worked as of a year or so ago.

I've got your solution, promise, no soldering. -buy this -then do this It's literally a little knob inside, I can't imagine why ccrane put it in there other than to let you make your own pirate radio station. Just a warning though, probably not legal in the U.S.

In "Surprising results in Florida. Again."

Aaronetc: Results from 2000 in same counties in same format http://ustogether.org/election04/FL2000.htm

In "Who's next?"

Well, that'd be one way to assure another loss in 2008. Hillary Clinton is despised (I have no idea why) in much of the U.S.

In "Kerry gets an endorsement he might not want."

Here, if someone tries to toss out the stupid OBL-wants-Kerry argument, run this one by them: Madrid Al Qaeda Cell endorses Bush: The statement tells American voters that Abu Hafs al-Masri supports the re-election campaign of President Bush: "We are very keen that Bush does not lose the upcoming elections." The statement said Abu Hafs al-Masri needs what it called Bush's "idiocy and religious fanaticism" because they would "wake up" the Islamic world. (FNC link for extra irony). Now, is it fair to hold the above against Bush? Nope... but if people are going to be idiots and try and claim this vague tape is some kind of Kerry endorsement, might as well fight fire with fire.

To me anti-Bush equals pro-Kerry on October 29th.. Or, you know, he's actually pro-Bush and knows full well that him coming out with a tape helps Bush in the American election. There are so many possibilities, but the important thing is we base our vote on the opinions of a murderous fanatic.

In "Every cable news site should have a 'conspiracy theory' section!"

They all seemed to be sourced from other places (check bottom), there's even a Fox News one at the top right now. It's definitely a bizarre idea: take all the crackpot stories appearing elsewhere, and dump them in one place. To be fair, the votes are more a sign of Al Jazeera's readers than their opinions. If you want a good perspective on Al Jazeera, I'd strongly recommend watching the documentary Control Room. I certainly didn't come out of it thinking they were unbiased, but they aren't the pro-al-qaeda nuts they get portrayed as in the american media.

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