taks

no part in the definition of a crime requires prosecution. if you violate a law, even one as innocuous as jay-walking, you have committed a crime. taks

if they are 7.62 mm rounds, they are 0.30 calibre. taks

and getting sued for $63,000,000,000 Billion dollars. that's one quintillion for you and me... taks

exactly how many years does a country have to be considered 3rd world or "developing" without any signs of progress before such "over-generalizations" are valid? i think their history proves my point. taks

nigh unto impossible. the people themselves have to want it first, and it seems they'd rather take the easy route and simply walk across the border. taks

hehe, i got "popped" by the TSA recently at the denver airport because i was looking around "suspiciously" and they made me get into the extra special search line. in fact, i wasn't being suspicious (at least, not intentionally), i was simply counting the number of TSA agents that were required to man the two metal detectors in operation at the time (the one being the extra special detector, with a bomb sniffer). i got to 18 before the guy noticed me (the guy politely asked me to step into the other line and i asked if there was a problem, he said no, and told me how much he loved my grateful dead t-shirt)... there were more that i had not yet counted. this was also at the smaller terminal reserved for frontier flights. the other security checkpoint is much larger, probably with an exponential increase in bodies manning the detectors. taks

that's why nothing is getting done now, which is a good thing (nobody can make the situation worse), and very little got done during clinton's presidency (republican house). win-win when there's a split. one of the biggest reasons bush looks so bad compared to many others is that the house, senate and presidency were all republican. not a veto in sight and they all spent like they were democrats (there's never a difference between parties when they have control). taks

people eating tasty animals. taks

unbelievable. taks

yeah, i've played a dozen of the top-rated NWN1 mods and most are at best, so-so. some of the better ones were really only released in the past couple years, looong after the OC was released. taks

yes, all the hub-ub about the US immigration problem rarely recognizes that our system is _much_ less restrictive than the rest of the world's, even for legal immigrants. illegals aren't tolerated in most other places, yet we're the racists/bigots? double standard if there ever was one. taks

and... i left out the rest because it is merely factual support for your question, and eventual position. there are plenty of instances in which the media should be limited, even denied. they don't have access to classified discussions, for example, and war-time activities above all qualify as classified, often even top-secret or better, compartmentalized (i can't explain what that means other than "higher than TS"). even the freedom of speech has its limits - you cannot yell "FIRE" in a crowded auditorium, nor can you publicly tell someone to harm or kill another, while claiming protection under the freedom. the side effect of having a military conduct operations, presumed legal, on foreign ground is that any misconduct will take a while to get to the public scene. it has to be that way else the enemy knows what we know, so to speak. taks

i have, and all i needed to do was question the hypothesis. there's nothing to support his claim. this is true. are you an illegal immigrant? if not, then if i were you, i'd be pissed at all the illegals that reside in the country. as a legal alien, you have to go through quite a mess to get in... the illegals simply walk across the border and get even more protections than you, here legally. taks

no, instead it just pays the bills for them... wait, that's the communist model, isn't it? that's nonsense. certainly we need legal immigrants, but not illegal. like it or not, if there weren't illegal immigrants, there'd either be a) more legal immigrants in order to deal with the jobs or b) higher pay which would result in more US citizens taking the jobs. take the excess surplus out of the market and the wages will naturally rise. in either case, to justify letting millions of undocumented law breakers into the nation simply because "we're too elite" to take the crap jobs is even more nonsense. you're justifying breaking one law, i.e. illegal immigration, with the breaking another? uh... hello, you're lecturing us on reality? there's a difference between needing immigrants and simply allowing anyone to walk in to the country. and bush is pushing for republican votes, hoping to get some of the "swing" while keeping the heat off of the republicans from mouthy democrats. the polls are in, well over a super majority of US citizens favor closing the borders. why doesn't mexico work on its own issues first? we have enough problems of our own that we shouldn't be worried about supporting our corrupt neighbors. canada is doing fine... no, but it is pretty apparent much of the rest of the world is attempting to tear down ours. i agree, why should we be any different? why should we be asked to do what others refuse to do, hmmm? taks

ayup. taks

hehe, so it's OK to exploit immigrants to do labor that you, with such elitist notions, refuse to do? thanks for proving my point. edit: of course, now that i read the sarcasm, perhaps you aren't the elitist here... sorry dude, but that statement is horribly incorrect. i grew up in missouri and yes, believe it or don't, there are plenty of illegal immigrants in the midwest. curious if you know how many unemployed, or living on welfare, there are that refuse to take such low paying jobs? hmmm... edit #2: sarcasm rule would apply here, too. yet still the government thinks it is OK to set a minimum wage for jobs that don't deserve it... jobs pay what they're worth, and without the excess surplus in labor from illegal immigration, they'd pay more for all those unwilling legal citizens. edit #3: with sarcasm included, i think i understand the point. taks

that's hardly justification for allowing illegal immigration. part of the reason our economy relies on it, btw, is because many of the unemployed citizens don't want the jobs the illegals are filling, particularly the seasonal stuff. the illegals represent a cheap labor force, and their presence reduces the value of the labor to begin with. it's sort of a feedback mechanism. taks

never heard of mike pence. of course, i've only been in CO for 4 1/2 years. i only marginally pay attention to state politics, so it'll be a decade before i notice who's running our affairs. the fact that legislation must be passed to enforce what is otherwise covered in the constitution bothers me. not only is freedom of the press "covered" by the constitution, it is done so _explicitly_. things such as the fairness doctrine or any executive order limiting the press are incomprehensible in that regard (i'm 50/50 on gov't restrictions of war-time news from the field, since there is a necessity to keep some things quiet... geraldo and the BBC notwithstanding). taks

such a story is actually told with plenty of sardonic wit (my phrase for the day), so i guess we agree! taks

probably true. the media tend to fabricate interest by repeatedly pushing what limited groups (e.g. your narrow focus groups) are interested in. i still fault journalists, however, as they are the ones that take on these pet projects out of their own ideological view of the world (right, left, center, wherever). the newscaster. it is difficult for the average person to even make a judgement on good/bad news if only one side is presented. it is the journalist's responsibility to present it all, for better or worse. unfortunately, there is only a limited amount of bandwidth, which limits news to what is "newsworthy." that last term gives them a lot of latitude in determining what is and isn't important enough to air. as a result, they cherry pick their own pet projects. keep in mind, too, that "bad" is a very relative term. sometimes the media releases _only_ the bad w.r.t. some situation, to further their own basic belief that whatever the situation may be, it is undesirable and the people need to agree. of course, i prefer this to the old days when the government had a larger role in what the media was allowed to report. taks

first? i prefer sarcasm... well, sardonic wit. you can't be a 39 year old engineer without some heavy cynicism in your daily rhetoric. probably not ESL speakers that hacked in, btw, so be understanding of their poor grammar. taks

i believe it is an IRS requirement that a charitable organization be 100% open to audit, i.e. all their numbers _should_ be public. finding the data, however, may not be a simple task for the hoi polloi. walsh, what i was getting at was in reference to an earlier statement by calax that an org. needs to donate 50% to be considered a "charity." in fact, percentage has nothing to do with it. the scam charities simply set their operations and fund raising costs extremely high to account for the deficit. i.e., we (the fundraisers) are sitting around calling people asking for donations. of course, we did it in a posh hotel, with room service, and took limos to get there. the fact that we only called on one day, from some hotel on miami beach, and used the limo service as well for the whole week, is immaterial. we raised $20k and spent $19.4k "fundraising." the sea turtle folks are simply barking up a tree that nobody cares about... (their efficiency was listed as $3.40 cost per $1 raised... poor sods). taks

the problem of assessing what constitutes "good" vs. "bad" in terms of what percentage goes to the charitable cause itself is not necessarily one of operational costs, but fund raising costs. certainly there's a lower limit where operational costs are the majority, particularly with those charitable organizations that operate at a loss (the sea turtle one operates at a loss, for example). above that point, say an order of magnitude, efficiency comes down to how much money it takes to raise $1. some have such poor methods (often the ones associated with law enforcement, btw, which constitutes half the bottom 10), they have very little left to actually give to the cause. some have such a strong name in the community (be it local, national, or even international), such as the red cross, that they don't really have to spend a lot to make a lot. the larger ones will obviously have more to spend on their cause _unless_ they're operationally inefficient, which is sometimes the case. taks

btw, i should add, i'm running an audigy 2 zs (er, something like that) with the 5.1 surround. i'm not sure how much better it can get. it sounds amazing, quite frankly. i just ordered a new receiver for my home theater that's 7.1 but i can't even use the extra speakers yet (the other two were not pre-wired into my house, and i don't feel like running wires along the floor). personally, i've never understood the reason to go from 5.1 to 7.1... no, i wasn't one of those guys that thought 2.1 was good (or even just "stereo"), i like 5.1... taks

in such an instance, yes, the 7.1 sub would be different than the 5.1 sub. the speakers themselves, however, are otherwise identical (well, depends upon the brand, but all 5 of my logitech 5.1 speakers are identical, with the mid-range, i.e. front-center, simply turned on its side), which is what i was getting at. so, yes, you'd need a 7.1 decoder on your x-fi output if you wanted to pair a 5.1 system with two additional speakers. taks