Guard Dog

Looks like Starcraft is getting remastered. I keep hoping FO1 & 2 will get an "enhanced edition". http://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/gaming/starcraft-remastered-coming-aug-14/ar-BBDv1iX?li=AAfq3b1&ocid=spartandhp

I enjoyed the story of Moby **** (if not all of the book) immensely. But with Fedallah and his role in the book, tempering a harpoon in blood, and a few other things, yeah it checks off a few of the fantasy boxes. I found the true story of the Essex to be even more compelling. Sperm whales attacking and damaging whaling boats and ships was pretty common. But that was a bloody big one to sink a ship. And of course what came next was the most compelling part of all.

In case anyone wonders why the Mets are a bloody mess? They are still paying Bobby Bonilla. 54 years old, hasn't played an inning in 16 seasons. Thry are still paying him $1.2M a year. Noah Syndergaard, their star pitcher, is only getting half that much. In other news Tim Tebow has been promoted to the Mets. The St. Lucie Mets where he's hitting .455 with 2 HRs and made this catch last night: http://www.milb.com/r/video?content_id=1557765683&topic_id=&sid=milb&tcid=vpp_copy_1557765683&v=3 And the Rays are now in possession of the 2nd AL Wildcard. Yes!

President (jeez i still can't believe it) Trump and Presdident Obama have on thing in common; they are both Post Turtles. In case you don't know what that is: He doesn't know how he got there. He doesn't know what to do now that he is there. He doesn't belong there. Nothing good will come of him being there. Well, we did get a decent Supreme Court Justice out of Trump. That's more then we got from Obama. Still a post turtle though.

Well... I'm glad THAT has been cleared up!

In just a few months you went from a company showing you the door to multiple companies fighting over you. You da man!

Well that's out then. I has last in the bay area in '91. I expect it's changed some since then.

Hmmm.. I'm curious. Do you have gap insurance? Because if you do I'm not saying you should drive it down to Tenderloin and leave it with the windows down and keys in the ignition. But I'm not saying you shouldn't either..

Starting in around 2009 the big Agra-businesses of western TN, KY, & AR began transitioning away from ammonium sulphate base fertilizer to a diammonium phosphate base product. Ammonium Sulphate is more soluable in water (70g/mL give or take vs 50g/mL give or take). The problem is the Ammonium Sulphte being more soluble tends to filter through the soil and enter the run off and ends up in the water table and rivers. That causes two problems. One it's a fertilizer so it causes accelerated alge, hydrilla, and other plant growth. The water here is very tannic (dark due to suspended natural solids) so UV light is lost after 2 meters or so. That means algae and plants below that consume O2 rather than produce it. So the accelerated growth causes the river water to become O2 deficient. That's problem A. Problem B is the formula for Ammonium Sulphate is NH4SO4. Now these plants that are growing like crazy in the nitrate enriched water have a property that is usually beneficial: they absorb ammonia. So NH4SO4 becomes SO4. Uh oh. Mix that with O2 deficient water and you get a 2% solution of H2SO4. Sulfuric acid. That causes the PH levels of the water to drop. So O2 poor environment + acidic water = no fish. And dead fish. To say nothing of the fact the plant growth becomes a navigational hazard. So the growers are using diammonium phosphate now. The upshot is being less soluble it stays put better and keeps soils nitrate levels higher for longer rather than dissolving and washing away (to cause problems elsewhere) so it requires less frequent applications. That means lower cost. At least until the Obama admin f----d that up. But that is another story. So anyway the diammonium phosphate still ends up in the water but in much smaller concentrations with much less effect. Maybe. In 20015 the University of Mississippi did a study that indicated my old buddy Cx. quinquefasciatus likes diammonium phosphate. They are showing a growth trend in that species that coincides with the increased use of diammonium phosphate. Now the State on TN is looking into it. That's where I come in. But first I have to learn everything there is to know about the Southern House Mosquito. Anyway, that's what I've been up to. Sorry it ran long.

I have spent the last two days learning more than I ever cared to know about Culex Quinquefasciatus, the Southern House Mosquito. Damn it Jim I'm an engineer, not an entomologist.

You and Shady have the same problems... too many options. But like Shady said it causes as much stress as too few.

Wheel of Time is a lot of reading. It's like eating a box full of peanut butter sandwiches. It great if you really like peanut butter sandwiches. The first seven books were good. Then is lost it's way for a while. Then is gets back on track for a pretty good finish. All the loose ends get tied up except for one. Malazan sucked. It's not about anything. It's a book of subplots. Old Man's War was OK. Well, book one was OK. Book two less so. It was out of gas by book 3. Don't bother with book 4. He just re-wrote book 3 from a different characters perspective. Obviously Scalzi signed a 4 book deal but only had enough creative juice for 3. More like 2.5 really. Some of the folks around here said good things about Black Company. I've never read it. The other's I'm afraid I don't know.

And yet the UK opposes the death penalty? I guess not for children. I find the doctor's position on this difficult to fathom. They have the money, what's the problem? Unless the UK does not consider their child to really be theirs?

It's not what is sounds like. They can't stop people from traveling, they just can't do it at State expense. It's a petty and petulant move that has no real impact on anything. I'm a state employee myself and almost nothing gets done at state expense.

Genocidal maniac? Don't get me wrong. I love and participate in good hyperbole and melodrama to spice up forum chatter. But that is a stretch. Let's see, Trump has been in office for five months now. He has ordered one cruise missile strike that killed 15 people according to Syria. The LA Times thinks is was more like 4 but whatever. Of course the attack was in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed over 70 including children in a US backed rebel group. Not that it was any better than the others but whatever. By July 4 2009 Barack Obama ordered drone strikes that killed over 241 in Afghanistan, Iraq, & Yemen (who we were not even at war with at the time. Of course we were not at war with Syria, Iraq, & Afghanistan either). 241 including non-combatants because air delivered ordinance does not know the difference. And he won a Nobel Peace Prize four months later! But Hitler and Arafat both had those in their trophy cases too so that does not mean much. By the end of 2016 the Obama Admin would order strikes that killed almost 4k people. Just to compare, in the first six months the body count of George W Bush, Bill Clinton, George HW Bush, Ronald Regan, and Jimmy Carter was 0. He is a buffoon and a fool no doubt. But genocidal maniac? Not even CLOSE! Obama came a lot closer. You liked him didn't you? But it's still early. Almost forgot, my source material: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/projects/drone-war And he dropped MOBA IIRC Yep, I forgot about that one. I stand corrected.

Genocidal maniac? Don't get me wrong. I love and participate in good hyperbole and melodrama to spice up forum chatter. But that is a stretch. Let's see, Trump has been in office for five months now. He has ordered one cruise missile strike that killed 15 people according to Syria. The LA Times thinks is was more like 4 but whatever. Of course the attack was in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed over 70 including children in a US backed rebel group. Not that it was any better than the others but whatever. By July 4 2009 Barack Obama ordered drone strikes that killed over 241 in Afghanistan, Iraq, & Yemen (who we were not even at war with at the time. Of course we were not at war with Syria, Iraq, & Afghanistan either). 241 including non-combatants because air delivered ordinance does not know the difference. And he won a Nobel Peace Prize four months later! But Hitler and Arafat both had those in their trophy cases too so that does not mean much. By the end of 2016 the Obama Admin would order strikes that killed almost 4k people. Just to compare, in the first six months the body count of George W Bush, Bill Clinton, George HW Bush, Ronald Regan, and Jimmy Carter was 0. He is a buffoon and a fool no doubt. But genocidal maniac? Not even CLOSE! Obama came a lot closer. You liked him didn't you? But it's still early. Almost forgot, my source material: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/projects/drone-war

I don't have anything nice to say about him either. If one roach ate a little of the bread and another ate all the cornmeal they are both still roaches

Looks like Senator Claire McCaskill (Democrat MO) is in hot water. In turns out in 2015 she attended a fundraising dinner at the home of Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The dinner was to raise money for some Russian-US cultural exchange thing. No big deal except.... she couldn't be bothered to pony up the donation. She stole... excuse me... misappropriated the money from a charity her husband administrates. It was like $800. She is making $180k a year with generous benefits, travel and housing allowances all paid for by people who work harder everyday for less money than she spends on pantsuits every year. And she can't pony up $800? She has to steal it from a charity? She also failed to disclose this to the Senate which is an ethics violation but is small potatoes truth be told. Politicians have to be the most disgusting vermin on earth. It's not enough that they are stealing your money in compulsory taxes which they squander without compunction. They also steal your charitable donations as well. And some of you guys criticize the Libertarians for wanting to take their power away? Some of you talk about how corporations can't be trusted but government can? Case in point: https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/tunedin/former-florida-rep-corrine-brown-guilty-of-stealing-charity-money/vp-BBB4edQ

Fecal bacteria found in Starbucks iced coffee in the UK: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40426228 I always said Starbucks tasted like s--t.

Please tell me this wasn't serious. People understand that Chernobyl is shut down. Right? And buried under a hell of a lot of concrete if I remember correctly.

I grew up in Ocala FL. It's a pretty big town now, but in the '70s it was a flyspeck. If they didn't have it at K-Mart, Pic-n-Save Drugs, Kash-n-Karry, or at the Seminole Feed and Hardware store, you didn't buy it. The old Ocala public library was my favorite that I've ever seen. It was a huge place. It was mostly underground, grass growing up the sides It was a 6 sided conical building with skylights at the top. The middle of the library with all the reading tables was bright but the book stacks went out from there like spokes in a wheel. And there were LOTS of them. Between the shelves it was dark and cool and smelled like old books. I loved it. It's gone now. Replaced by a nice, modern, sterile facility with nothing of the old places charm or mystery. I just searched the web, I couldn't even find a picture of it.

HA! Good Fun! ps @gd: the last thing we need is 8 more o' clarence thomas. fine judge but he will be quick forgotten as a Justice once he retires. judges should be shaped by the law, but like it or not, Justices shape law, and J. thomas will leave behind little evidence o' his impact 'pon the law. Gromnir, I have nothing but the highest respect for your intellect and opinion in most things but I'm going to disagree with you on this one. And I know we have discussed this before. Not to re-plow an old field here but Thomas has been the champion of the 10th Amendment and has been a consistent advocate for the Constitution as limiting government rather than empowering it. I thought his separate concurrence in Citizens United was both brilliant and spot on. I understand your reasoning for saying that. As you have pointed out in the past he has rarely persuaded other justices to climb out on the limbs of his own brand of jurisprudence. And he has seldom if ever been a swing vote on anything. But a man whose answers were right (factually and morally rather than politically) even if he couldn't get others to go along is worthy of being remembered. Maybe justices do shape the law rather than being shaped by it. Maybe that is how it is. That does not mean it's how it should be.

Right... because that is totally the same thing.

That's the one. I could not remember the title. That Han Solo book was in my school library. It was the only copy and there was a long line of names waiting to check it out. It's funny, I remember a time books were hard to get. K-Mart had a few and the grocery stores had a few. But mainly it was the library, both public and school where we got our books. I still use and even donate to the public library all the time. Not every book figures to be good enough to buy.

I trust corporations more than any government because the fear of liability is an excellent check on their behavior. One the government does not have.