taks

i actually would have passed ron's test. taks

cool. do you mind telling us who with? also, have you checked out that consulting website i posted in the other thread? just curious. good luck with the interview either way. we used to buy for everyone, i.e., my two brothers and their girlfriends (at the time), my parents, aunt (dad's sister), uncle (mom's brother) and cousin (the aunt's daughter). besides being expensive, one year it got to the point that we couldn't even walk into the room at my aunt's house and had to stand in the hall with runners going in and fetching gifts. that ended. then we went to the gift draw which ultimately ended when we started having kids. now we just buy for all the kids in the family. since i'm in CO, that means mad shipping rushes at the last minute between here and st. louis. taks

conspiracy theorists spend more time focusing on inconsistencies in the official record than they do proving their own point. they simply assume we're all bought or intimidated and lying, incompetent, or just plain wrong and certainly dishonorable. they never bother to assume the burden of proof on themselves, i.e., prove that someone placed bombs in the towers, prove that the crash site in pennsylvania isn't from a plane, etc. paranoia does that. taks

in theory rumsfeld had a good idea, one that was designed to save lives: use our tech advantage. in practice, however, our tech advantage is not an advantage when you have people running around with bombs strapped to their torso. stealth terrorism is one of the things they are working furiously to detect. i've looked at several SBIRs, several out of a hundred or more, that are focusing on such things, e.g., the ability to pick a vehicle or human out of city streets, separating humans from animals, etc. rumsfeld would have fared better had he just accepted early on that his policies weren't working, but he refused, and it made things worse. taks

yup, it was all faked. all the witnesses are lying and every one of the thousands of experts that took part in the official records don't know what they're talking about. folks like me with too much education (less than 0.1% have a hard science phd) and the obvious ability to critically examine evidence are either bought, which implies we're also lying, or incompetent. yah, the government that can't seem to get anything right has either fixed it all or silenced those that found out. prove i'm lying, btw. taks

we'll just say i'm helping with the economy this year. taks

well, that was my point, too. there shouldn't be separations like that, but there are. i think the specific examples you're mentioning aren't really rights, btw, but common courtesies, actually. a holdover from the chivalrous days of yore (uh, hehe, that's a "friends" joke). taks

just for the graphics solution. we got our train up last night. well, by "we" i mean michele though i did fix a problem with the track. i also proclaimed that after xmas we would work together to get the full western scenics kit finished. it's pretty big and will require a lot of work. i started it before my dissertation work was fully underway and abandoned it when i determined i was overwhelmed and losing my mind. i lost my mind anyway so i'm guessing i should have just kept at it. taks

actually what i said is that by definition group rights don't exist, not that governments don't try, because the concept means one group would end up with rights that supersede another group's rights. furthermore, we shouldn't legislate as if there are group rights, but the circumstances as they are dictate that we must, i.e., we created the need through unnecessary government involvement in the first place. by recognizing marriage, this example in particular, this singled out problems with gays and for that matter, singles. some groups have more rights than others? some groups are more equal than others? senseless. why should men and women have different rights, btw? taks

i keep hearing the one song on the radio and i don't really care for it. of course, i'm from st. louis and i have a pretty good memory, too. my roommate at the time was at that concert in one of the rows effected, btw. taks

i liked iron man enough to get the blu-ray version. got transformers, too, but that was more for my son since he seems to like the movie. heck, we got a dozen or so movies for xmas this year due to some gift cards and stuff from amazon/barnes and noble. taks

i disagree. i have no problem with gay couples calling their unions marriages any more than any other union. calling them marriages is entirely about the legal aspect when it comes to "gay rights." religious (or otherwise) people that believe homosexuality is a sin will continue to see it that way irrespective of any laws that are passed, and they are fully within their rights to think that way. furthermore, married people don't walk around with signs on their backs declaring "we're married," so the social aspect is rather a moot point. besides, people tend to hang around with those that share their views, or at least accept them. a couple is a couple is a couple. heck, if someone wants to have a threesome so be it. not my personal cup 'o tea but it's neither my position to pass judgment. taks

um, that doesn't make sense. the definition of individual rights is rights that apply to individuals. if you come up with "group rights," then you absolutely must acknowledge that said rights will inevitably violate the rights of another group. they are no longer rights, but privileges granted by the state*. once the state has the power to give privileges (under the moniker of "rights") it also has the power to take them away. they are no longer rights by any definition, not just some "ideal." the people have given the state this power, not understanding that they have ultimately given away their own rights. the gay rights issue is no different. ultimately the issue comes down to benefits provided by the government. there should be none. it is the government's job to protect individual rights, not provide benefits at the expense of another, i.e., to violate one man's rights in favor of another. the entire debate centers around tax breaks given to married couples, e.g., property passes to a spouse without the so-called "death tax," income tax rules favor married couples, etc. government gets out of marriage, these problems are history. taks * "the state" not meant to imply states of the US but, in general, the government.

i was only responding to xard's nonsense, and i did tie my comment in to discrimination in general. that's what you don't get. "individual rights" do not apply to groups of people. there are no "gay" rights, "libertarian" rights or any other group rights. do you know the definition of the word individual? that's why this gay marriage issue is a crock. as soon as the government rules on something one group has over another, it is discriminating. there is no other definition. prop 8 is as discriminatory as the damn laws that created government sanctioned marriage in the first place. rights apply ONLY to individuals, to people. only one defintion, which means only one meaning. taks

valkyrie doesn't even seem the least bit interesting to me, but i sort of lost it for tom cruise when he went off the deep end. taks

i've done very little today. i was waiting on some java code from one of our contractors so i could extract the method he's using to put our antenna into tracking mode. he sent the code, as well as instructions for compiling the java code. unfortunately, i needed instructions on compiling his C++ code (my system uses the C++, another system was using the java) since i'm going to move the tracking stuff over to what we're already running. now i'm waiting again. as a result, i'm not doing much. i did turn in my "acceptance letter" for teaching the lab again this coming semester. i'm undecided whether i'll put the hammer down and make the students call me doc. taks

true. and if it's going to happen anywhere, it's going to happen in CA. as for the previous comment: don't you wish! taks

which, i still don't understand. deep down i guess people are simply afraid of the slippery slope argument of gay and lesbian partnerships leading to an increase of the gay population, and what it would ultimately lead to for society, i.e., an erosion of their moral belief system. good point. do you think they see it that way, however? taks

i think you need to go back and revisit what you said to me about forcing certain behaviors. protecting individual rights does not qualify. i could care less why you were gone, you have completely missed my point. i simply point out the hypocrisy of your position. you argue, repeatedly, regarding matters of individual rights yet you really don't understand what the phrase "individual rights" means. uh, duh? what, are you really that stupid that you think a lack of regulation created this mess? for god's sake, where on earth do people like you get your information? have you ever had even the most basic economics education, or do you simply read chomsky and marx and think they're right? the UN thinks that discrimination is OK if it is done to help out someone that is less fortunate. in order to do that, they must violate someone else's rights. at that point, they are no longer rights, but mere privileges that can be taken away at the whim of the state. yeah, it's pretty easy to sit back without much fortune and wish that you could legislate away someone else's. guess it's not stealing if the government grants you the right to another's pocketbook, eh? and i'm the one with a philosophy based on greed? hypocrite. uh, yeah. government sanctioned stealing from one person to pay for another is oppression, i.e., tyranny. what, that you're a hypocrite and don't understand rights? excuse me? you replied that you could not, as i recall. you cannot, btw, because your view requires theft from one to give to another. you didn't get anything wrong. my view is rational, and consistent. your view is based purely on what you "think is right" regardless of what it means in the long run. discrimination is discrimination, whether it is the government excluding gays from tax breaks or providing health care to someone at the expense of another. wake up hypocrite. taks

not sure what you mean about this, but you told me that if your government would not implement your form of oppression (which you clearly stated that you wanted to enforce certain behaviors) you would go somewhere else where the government would. i wasn't resurrecting a many months old topic, i was resurrecting your hypocrisy. because the UN advocates oppression within its own constitution. the UN wants a socialist world, that is, as i've stated on many occasions, evil by any standard. while the US practices it, at the very least we have a document that does not. that our government chooses not to abide by said document is something i truly detest. taks

THIS is where we're going for xmas! taks

you don't mess with the zohan. well, talk about your strange movies. all in all it was worth the rental price ($4.99), but in general, it was a pretty dumb movie. there were some scenes that were absolutely hysterical and through most of it we (my wife and i) were chuckling a bit. waaaay too much focus on sex, but it was sort of indirect, which kinda made it a bad one for my 5-year old (mostly because he couldn't understand the jokes). taks

not anymore, actually. it is a temporary reprieve i think, which could be bad. bush rescinded the "marriage penalty" right when my wife stopped working (pregnant) and we no longer had dual incomes. we ended up with one income two people (eventually three), which wasn't the problem with the marriage penalty anyway. now that she's working again, figures that the moratorium is about to be lifted... sigh. taks

my suggestion, actually. the UN is evil, btw, if there is a such thing as "evil." the UN caters to evil sorts such as xard: those that want to oppress and will go anywhere to get oppression forced on people if his country won't sign up for the oppression. at least, that's what xard told me in another thread. taks

should read "that's not necessarily correct." taks