Guard Dog

Watching the stock market with morbid facination today. I'm so glad I got out all together in 2008. Even commodities are suffering today (which sucks for me because that is what I mostly own now). As soon as Gold hits $2K (or drops below $1600) I'm selling it all. To hell with all this. From now on I'm only buying real estate. I've actually thought about subdividing my place and selling off half of it. Or all of it and move somewhere I don't have to face a court battle with Uncle Sam over 1/8 of it. Never mind me, I'm just in a rotten mood today. Nothing a steak dinner preceeded by a few highballs of good bourbon won't fix. Or even better a romantic tryst. But, unless something strange happens on the way home from work Raithe's puppy has a better shot at becoming the next PM of Great Britan than I do of getting any tonight.

I think you'll like these better:

Ah, there is a certain arrogance that comes with the title "brightest mind". Turn off our phone, surely he did not mean me?

The pleasure was all ours.

http://www.economist.com/node/21529062 I guess it's inevitable that lower education will begin to follow what some colleges/universities are doing here in the US and other places too I understand, a 100% online curricula with minimal or no face to face interaction with teachers. I really don't know if that is a good thing or not? I guess some people will do well that way, others may need the more traditional way.

Don't know if you guys have seen these but NASA has released some new hi-res lunar pics. The ones of the Apollo-17 landing site were pretty cool. Jeez, Cernan and Schmidt were a couple of pigs. If they left a campsite looking like that in a State Park they would get fined! http://news.yahoo.com/astronauts-tracks-tr...-171551736.html

I learned how to can my own vegtables today. And I learned how to make strawberry preserves. The internet.... it's really is good for more than free porn. Almost everything in the garden is ready to pick. I've got some very fat tomatos, about twenty bushels of black-eye-peas (too bad no Fergie) and about forty pounds of yellow squash (around 19 kg for you civilized folks) and a bunch of strawberries. I think I'm going to go bigger next spring. I have to admit, it's a little bit of hard work but I can see what they say it is relaxing.

Just bought Sharpe's Tiger which is the earliest in his career. I was torn between giving this one a go or trying the Master and Commander series by Patrick O'brien but I know Cornwell has the goods and I've heard mixed reviews about O'briens series (that is was highly improbable historically speaking). Still working on Whiskey Rebels though and enjoying it.

Nothing what so ever. But sorry Wals, had I not sidetracked this thread twice it would be on the bottom of page two now. It was going nowhere my friend. Al Qaeda is harmless, probably did not do 9-11 anyway, we should all just move on and forget the whole thing ever happened. Nothing to see here. At least thats what I hear and read in the news anyway.

I drank all my beer, used up all my shiners & night crawlers. I caught three fish (actually I think it might have been two, that third one looked very familiar) all too small to keep. I took a swim in the creek with the dogs, took them home and brushed & dried them. Now to fire up the grill, drink some fresh iced tea and catch the Rays game. Life is good.

Hurlie, you ever read any of Cornwell's Richard Sharpe series? If so are they any good?

I was not referring to you I think it was Gorgon, Pop, mkreu and others who wanted to bring back the days of feeding us to lions.

I have. I have also heard that dinosaur bones are the work of Satan and that if humans evolved from monkeys then we should have records of modern monkeys giving birth to humans. Do most Christians believe this? I would hope not. Hmmmm... That monkey thing would explain some of the humans I've met. I can't speak for all christians obviously but I would call myself one and no I'm quite sure dinosaurs were just animals and not one of them ever laid eyes on anything resembling a human. And while humans did not evolve from apes, apes and humans do come from a common ancestry. Heck just look at average height and weight of humans compared to 200 years ago. Now among men 6' is average, 200 years ago it was unusually tall. Evolution is still ongoing and not just in humans, in everything. If you believe God created all life, and I do and not just here but everywhere (once again, just because we are unaware of it does not mean it does not exist), why is it so hard for some to accept that evolution is the engine and process of creation? The Bible is a great refence book and it should be studied by anyone who wants to gain a pespective on life, judeo-christian philosophy and history. But it is not the end all be all source of knowledge and should not be treated as such. It should be taken with a little perspective because every word in it was written by men. Many of whom knew nothing of the world beyond their own field of vision and knew nothing of history except what they saw in their own lifetimes. Not the kind of folks I'd ask deep questions like "How did we get here?" There are only two thing I know for certain about God, 1) He does exist 2) I'm not him.

Uh, no? Oby's a Russian nationalist, while I think Putin's ****? Can't you differentiate between a non-American nationalist and a non-nationalist American? That's a quote of a line of the Soviet National Anthem. Specifically, one dealing with its unbreakable union. I can't read Russian. That did not work out so well for them did it? Ok fair enough, oby does sound like a real russian. You've convinced me your not oby. As for who you really are, everyone is an alt around here. I'll bet there are only around 10 real people who post here.

Now reading The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss. A little slow to start but I'm warming up to it.

They don't think you're oby because you have a different opinion than everyone else, they think you're oby because you post, literally, the same off the wall opinions he/she/you do. Plus the cyrillic in your sig, that is a little bit of a tell. I always just figured you were comic relief or something so I've never taken you seriously enough to figure out who all your alts are. But I'll bet there are a few. But if it makes you mad you should go check out www.democratunderground.com. They are all pretty much like you over there.

Ideally, they simply shouldn't be listened to when they make a big stink about how science curriculum doesn't conform to their laughable worldview. There's obviously nothing can realistically can (or should) be done to remove creationists (and their unfortunate ability to vote) from American society. Well at leat you don't want them rounded up and put in camps for political re-education as some around here have suggested, only half jokingly.

Hahahahahahahaha. Hah. The fact that people think "intelligent design" has any more validity than young earth creationism means that the fundamentalist nuts have truly run a great propaganda campaign. Intelligent design means exactly what it says. It is a theory that points to an intelligent being behind the creation and evolution of everything. I'm not sure why that is crazy, at least more than any other philosophy out there. Because it proposes an untestable explanation for observable phenomena, and thus is directly contradictory to observable fact. I'd say anyone willing to ignore proven science in favor of "faith" is hopelessly disconnected from reality, yes - this includes *any* fundamentalist faith. Not to perpetuate a debate doomed to go nowhere, but even the current knowlesge of the evolutionary process does not cover the leap from nothing to single cell orgsnisim and from single cell to complex organisims. I'm not going to throw the whole "God in the Gap" argument at you but perhaps it would be premature to rule anything out. Evolutionary science does a good job explaining how the current state of life came to be but it has nothing to offer on the origin of life. Just because you don't believe it does not make it impossible. Of course it would be foolish for a religious person to deny that the process of evolution is taking place even now. And it is not a strech to suggest humans an apes have common ancestors, these critters were running around at some point there is no denying that. That does not in any way rule out the existence of God. As for the 6000 year old earth, I don't think I've ever in my lifetime hear anyone assert that to actually be true.

Looks like the Wheel of Time will turn a bit longer. Tor has pushed the release date of A Memory of Light back until late 2012. Bummer.

Just packed up a sandwich, a 12 pack of Sam Adams Octoberfest, my fishing gear and I've got a pack of dogs in tow. Time to walk down to Cold Creek and spend the day fishing. You are all SO jealous! You don't have to say it, I already know!

Indeed. So what should be done with these miscreants?

Excellent news. Keep fighting, we're praying for you.

Hey LadyCrimson, how about them: