taks

24 years for me with bouts of no smoking in between. right now i'm in a bout of breaking down when i'm out on friday evenings (read: drinking with my friends), to the tune of 6-8 smokes once a week. taks

btw, IMO, the closest one you have a chance with is the JFK assassination. the OKC boming and 9/11 attack are the difficult ones primarily because it is difficult to refute hard science and they were recent enough that memories haven't faded into obscurity. there are clearly some serious inconsitencies with the JFK thing, which is the only reason i say "you have a chance," but that was so long ago that the truth is all but impossible to find. furthermore, the truth does not require conspiracy to be at odds with the official record. taks

no, you haven't even come close to providing proper falsification. consider all other plausible explanations for every connection you've made, then you get to throw the ball back after you've legitimately ruled them all out. your statements always assume one outcome, one possibility, i.e., conspiracy. that's not science, that's pseudo-science. i'm sure you don't believe you have done this, though i would guess it is likely because you don't know how to do it properly. it is not a natural thing to do as humans desire patterns and connections between obscure events. it takes training. lots of training. taks

don't feel so bad, diogo. i quit buying in may. taks

i did the hdtv thing last year. need to figure something out for myself for this year, however. we still need to do cards since we have about 30 people that send them to us from all over the country now. most of my stuff is either inbound, or already in hand. my wife's first gift arrived today (shipped to the office). i have one more gift to buy her, and maybe something toyish for the boy. we have movies and video games already, plus some discovery store stuff on the way (arrives tomorrow i think), but he needs a TOY, not educational stuff. taks

anything with john wayne in it i've seen. my dad was a fan, to say the least. they didn't list any laurel and hardy or abbott and costello movies, however, which i've probably seen all of. either way, i too was amazed at some of the old movies i had seen, but forgotten. live 40 years and that happens i suppose. oh, i was something like 55.6% or similar. taks

one of the methods of conspiracy theorists (along the lines of stuff you point out, walsh) is to flip the burden of proof back onto those that discount their views. they don't properly apply falsification methods (read: the scientific method) and expect skeptics of their position to essentially "prove us wrong," i.e., prove a negative, when in fact, the burden of proof is on them to rule out all other plausible hypotheses. they simply label any dissenting opinion, expert or otherwise, as disinformation without even the background to make such a claim. basic scientific principles, learned when we were all children, are merely hindrances when deeply held ideological* beliefs are at play. taks * i was reading something on the wiki from popper maybe that conspiracy theorists aren't really ideological in the same sense as the term is normally used. i don't recall seeing another term.

you can't ask those saddam was killing, either. you have to make educated guesses. ^wrath: yes, exactly. assuming that overseas wages eventually reach parity with those in the US, it won't be much of an issue anyway. in fact, they don't even have to reach absolute parity when you take into account shipping costs, infrastructure costs, etc. if it were cheaper to do these jobs in the US, companies would, but US workers don't want to work for wages that low (and in some cases, can't due to wage laws). taks

so you guys try to stay away from sterno shops, eh? i'm mulling an xmas dinner with friends saturday night. not sure what to do. taks

okie, it is called the terracotta soldier aka the "dragon blade." Fighter 12, Weapon Master 7, RDD 10, Bard 1 i tinkered with it a bit because, as i said, i don't like disarm/iimproved disarm and this build lists an early feat of luck of heroes or something like improved unarmed strike. i took power attack and then cleave and great cleave instead, and pushed off able learner to a later level which resulted in some skill sacrifices as well. i sacrificed on spot and spellcraft i think (going off memory here), and perhaps even tumble (it seems broken, IMO). oh, and i gave my self two more CON points than listed, trading from STR. taks

yeah, i think there's one bard level in there somewhere. lemme look it up and see... taks

dragon disciple. sorry, forgot about dwarven defender, but yes, the fact that he was an earth genasi would have ruled that version of dd out anyway. taks

i think he meant that if there were no outsourcing in the US, it would help our employment situation, i.e., jobs wouldn't be going overseas. taks

dang. i just checked the snow reports. wolf creek has been getting a foot a day for the last 5 days or so, copper has 93" total, with 3-5" expected during the day, crested butte, where we're spending xmas, is jamming as well with 5" overnight, snow expected all day and through xmas. nothing in the springs but some is expected. taks

unfortunately, these two things will actually hurt the economy in the long term. unfortunately number 2, as long as there is disparity between wages here and wages overseas, particularly in places like china, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. from what i understand, however, china is closing the gap, which will help. taks

perhaps, but this is the internet you know. this is one area in which you can be a total ass and get away with it. besides, i'm taks... ahem. thanks. i was truly upset at your comment as i thought it was clear that i was singling out specific behaviors for my wrath! taks

yeah. it kinda cycles like that. CO mountains have had back to back record years for snow. last year was ridiculous for northern and southern mountains (central got average). this year is shaping up like last year but everywhere, not just north and south. taks

not the conspiracy. sorry, but that's what i'm talking about. your statements immediately assume cover-up when a more plausible explanation is incompetence. particularly when ascribing conspriatorial motives to news agencies. the average journalist does not have anywhere near the education required to cover any topic that involves scientific findings. it is most often the right one, contrary to your belief. uh, that's an easy one and has been debunked more thoroughly than the original two towers. more going on does not equate to conspiracy, particularly one as deep as described in that video. the simplest answer is basic incompetence. still does not equate to conspiracy. that's where your conjecture comes it. you instantly assume it is and any of your follow-up analysis begins under the assumption of a conspiracy. you just did it right there for god's sake! evidence of a second gunman is not "proof" of anything other than oswald acting with someone else. you made the leap to huge conspricies then tied all the other little inconsitencies together with conjecture. man, how many times do i have to point this out? now we're at a point, 40+ years later, where it would be impossible to get everyone involved to speak to what really happened. the same goes for timothy mcveigh, for example, "confessing" that the FBI made him do it. he was a documented whack job long before OK city, and now (er, then) he's facing the death penalty, yet somehow he's credible? give me a break. taks

and it's supposed to stay strange for a while. heck, galveston got snow, and they're on the freaking gulf of mexico! woohoo for snow! taks

sorry, taks<-nvidia fan. hmmm. i'm going to upgrade my home monitor soon though i'm waiting for prices to come down before doing it. since 4x3 is my preferred aspect (for a computer) as well, i need something big to get the same feel in a 16x10 (or 16x9). as you note, 4x3 in anything even remotely close just don't exist. i'm guessing 4x3 is a goner in general within a couple years. sigh. i have a buddy that did a 35" 4x3 CRT monitor back before monitors that large were affordable, like in 1996. he dropped a bundle on it, but it looked good (the only furniture in his living room, actually). taks

clearly you don't understand how compartmentalization works, nor why. i cannot be more specific other than "you just don't get it." that's the point. just because you assume such a conspiracy can occur, you're implication is that it must have. you said specificallY: like i said, just because it "could have been" does not mean it did. it's all conjecture. every single connection is either coincidence or an assumption. people like you do not understand occam's razor, nor the concept of the scientific method. every major piece, for example, of the conspiracy claim regarding 9/11 can and has been explained with simpler and more plausible alternatives. obvious to you. that is, by definition, conjecture. ah, that's how it starts. you begin with the above possible inconsistency, then claim a conspiracy, then reach to a cover-up. it continues downhill from there till you get to another piece, misconstrue it or attribute some more complex than necessary explanation, then continue again filling in the gap with more conjecture. the persistence of conspiracy theorists is, to say the least, commendable. their lack of rigor, however, is shameful. taks

there's an earth genasai f/wm/dd build that i followed a while ago that i really liked. it's listed somewhere in one of the guilds or maybe the nwn2 wiki. after act 1 in motb, he was untouchable for all practical purposes. i tinkered with the build since i had no use for improved unarmed strike and i don't play the disarm route. instead i took on cleave and great cleave and one other thing that i can't recall. i also made him with more CON than the build lists purely so that i could beat the berserker cold tests. taks

actually, yes. this pretty much sums it up. taks

just did. i think it helped. taks

this is the point at which you get into pure conjecture. you don't know anything about how the black world works (not directly at least) except from what you read on conspiracy sites. you draw one weak link after another then use the final point to "prove" everything you've said. it's all conjecture. since they can they must be. sheesh. the quote immediately above this is a perfect example. "ask yourself this" and "why" are nothing but conjecture in which you start off with an answer then phrase your questions to support that answer. when you extend your physical evidence to come to a conclusion which is only one of many possibilities said physical evidence becomes circumstantial. you've provided a bunch of points of evidence (you confuse the terms evidence and proof rather often) then filled in the gaps between these points with your own pre-conceived notions. that is all circumstantial. taks