taks

i don't know, maybe by stopping the spending? btw, tax increases rarely increase the actual revenue. it's a feedback system, ya know. taks

from what i understand, not anti stem-cell research, but anti fetal stem-cell research. big difference. while i don't agree with he positions on these issues, it hardly makes her a nutjob. taks

btw, today started on a rather humorous note. well, humorous for anyone other than me. see, i'm still suffering from this stomach thing. the GI docs don't have a clue and have given me the "functional dyspepsia" diagnosis which, when translated into human speak, means "we don't know, but your belly aches." no kidding. anyway, after having the myriad tests all come back negative, i asked that they test for h. pylori again and they obliged ordering a blood test and a stool test. the blood test looks for antibodies which doesn't tell you if you have h. pylori, only whether you've been exposed. of course, a positive for me would indicate that i actually have the danged bacteria since a) it does not go away without treatment and b) i've never had treatment for it. the stool test actually looks for the dead carcasses of the bacteria, or some remnant, and a positive means you actually are infected. yay. the thought is that maybe the biopsy was a false negative (and i'm certain he did it wrong based on the research i've done). anyway, i got the blood work done yesterday... the vampire actually stuck me good this time and it hurt. so i get a little cup for the stool. this ain't something i'm comfortable doing at the office so i held out till i got home yesterday. great. so now i got a cup 'o poo sitting on the toilet overnight (sealed, fortunately) waiting for me to drop it off at a lab. i leave the house this morning dutifully remembering to bring mr. hankey along, but brilliantly forgetting to check the whereabouts of the nearest lab. after dropping my son off at school, i called the wife since she gets lab work done regularly (diabetic). she'll know where to go, right? huh, last time i trust her. the place didn't exist. so here i am driving around town with an already aging cup of poo, looking for a lab so i can drop it off. fortunately, i remembered that one of our doctor's offices also has a lab in the building so i called and sure enough, paydirt (pun not intended). i pull up to the counter and explain to the nurse that i need some lab work done and i handed her the order. of course, she wanted to suck my blood again and i politely let her know that i was bone dry and needed no more taken. she then went off to get me a poo collection kit when i said i didn't need to do that. "oh?" she replied, "do you want to bring it in later?" "no, it's right here" i said. at this point i thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head and she said "oh, you have it HERE!" yup, mr. hankey was ready for delivery, all i need to do was put him in the little bio-hazard baggie she had scrounged. i explained that there was probably some humorous story involved with my arriving there after driving around for half an hour with a cup of poo in my car... she agreed. i still had to deal with the payment gal, and she pulled up all my paperwork (i've been a regular with memorial the past 6 months so there were no issues) then asked me to wait and i'd be called shortly. for what i inquired, "your blood draw" she replied. ahhhh, no more! the other gal chimed in that i was done, so they both agreed i could leave. phew. taks

yeah, but that all stems from an extreme capitalist view, which means very little intrusion from gov't. i also don't think the gov't should intrude on our personal lives, either. hard to fit me anywhere, really. he wants to raise taxes, though he isn't calling it that (sorry, but a "cut" funded by "oil profits" still gets funded by the taxes we dolts pay, it just gets laundered through the oil companies before getting rebated back to us, and they simply raise their prices to offset the tax... corporate taxes are such a joke). if he gets to keep a democratic congress, it'll be no different than when bush had a republican congress, except there won't be tax cuts. taks

i never understand why so many in here think i'm some gun-toting, hard-core, christian conservative. quite the opposite. the only things i'm die-hard about are capitalism and atheism. taks

i hate mccain. i hated bush and i preferred him to mccain. i'm not the right person to ask. i think he looks like a child molester. i just hate socialists in disguise even more (though mccain is somewhat of a socialist in disguise, too). oh, ^moat, recall how badly quayle got ripped to shreds in his veep "debate," yet still he got to be veep and not lloyd bentsen. ripped to shreds is an understatement, bentsen's win was considered one of the most convincing and lopsided ever. taks

he was ex-CIA and scared the hell out of everybody, but nobody cared (and reagan was elected anyway), which is ultimately my point. keep in mind with GHWB, reagan didn't even want the guy. the party "chose" bush for him. i've got history on my side: everybody talks like it matters yet it never does. i'm guessing that a) given that you aren't american you haven't paid that close of attention the past 30 years and b) you might not be old enough to have been paying close attention anyway (i have been, and i'm 40). there aren't that many that really care, actually. she may sway a percentage or two that want a woman only, but might piss off a few here and there as well (a net zero, in other words). however, i've already noted that there isn't much a veep can do other than a few points anyway so it doesn't matter. the only choice that i think DID matter was the "obama-clinton" camp, which obama definitely alienated. my guess is that those folks aren't going mccain, but they're going to not vote at all. either way, my ultimate point is that veep doesn't matter except in extreme cases. taks

uh, not sure what part of my comment you missed, but the most important was that nobody cares about veep experience. ever. obama's lack of experience is much more important since he has to stack up against mccain directly. veeps are side items that sway only a few percentage points, if that even. i can't recall the veep debate ever making a difference. it'll be hard for biden to rip apart a woman, too. she'll get sympathy points if he does. mccain/palin is the republican ticket, why does hillary matter? she has no mandate on being the first woman in office, and if anything, she's tainted by everything that happened with bill. had the dems wanted her, she'd be up front now, not obama. if anything, the fact that the dems snubbed hillary, and then obama didn't pick her may sway the "i want a woman in power" voting bloc (which does exist) towards mccain. you've already stated that you're no expert on america, so i guess i couldn't care less about your opinion on how this helps/hurts mccain. hint: my point is that yours is just an opinion, but american opinions are more important since they are the ones voting in november. no. obama may try to make it one, but it's not that big of a deal. it didn't matter with reagan, and his second in command was scary (remember, too, biden isn't exactly a spring flower at 65). taks

the veep doesn't need XP points. he/she can be a first level politician. veeps don't do anything worthwhile in office since they hold no real power. their sole purpose is PR, and a chick veep counters the whole "first black candidate" thing since no matter what, we get a "first" out of this election. taks PS: i should modify: the primary purpose of the veep is to be there if POTUS takes an early dirt nap. nobody ever considers that as the role unless the candidate is highly controversial. for example, had mccain picked billary, he'd win the election and then get shot dead the day after inauguration.

upper 20% income bracket with a degree? if you say so. taks

what you failed to mention is that this drawing is to scale... not nearly as scary when you realize that bit. taks

well, pr0n leads to sex without a partner, most often, hehe. taks

it's easier that way. no arguing, no let downs, nearly always a satisfactory result. yup, replaces. oh, in typical mathematical formulations capital letters represent matrices, and matrix multiplication commutes only when the two (or three as in this case) matrices are a) diagonal and b) of the same dimension. taks

you assume A, B and C, and of course romance, pr0n and sex, commute. taks PS: pr0n replaces romance, i said.

no, not hot anywhere i'm going. even in COS it's only going to be in the low 80s. i guess eastern CO, aka west KS, might be hot, pueblo too, but i don't do much below 7000 feet so neither of those regions qualify as "fun" in my book. in fact, where we're going it's 9800 feet (i live at 6900). taks

i haven't seen much mention of pr0n in this thread. hmmm... i thought a lot of you guys/gals were married, right? pr0n replaces romance once married. taks

dragonshard. yes, actually, it was OK, though not stunning or memorable in any way. it was certainly fun enough, particularly the dungeon romps which were more diablo-esque than RTS-ish, though at one point the difficulty of managing the army against the advancing hordes of enemies overwhelmed my willingness to concentrate on the game any further and i simply quit playing. i just entered suldanesselar in BG2, btw. my party is already at or around 3.5 million exp (easy to do when you've played as many times as i have) and i recall there being a solid million or so in the elven city alone (eh, maybe half a million). unfortunately there is a crash point when i kill the nabassu in the street (one of the first encounters after the golems) and try to tackle the drow wizard that's hanging out with it. i know how to trick the game into not crashing, i just haven't had time to do it yet. taks

hehe, ultima 8. super mario ultima. taks

you in OK? sorry... nothing fun in that state that i know of. i live in CO, see, which has lots of fun stuff to do. we're going back up to collegiate peaks to camp this weekend. oh, i still owe some pics of my last visit. cottonwood pass is incredible. i still favor some other locales in CO but collegiate peaks is only 2 hours away and mostly consisting of the local population, and the other places are either much farther (rio grande resevoir is 5 hours), or huge tourist attractions (rocky mountain national park). unfortunately, tomorrow is the last week of the current pool session (billiards) so i have to be there (being the team captain and all). that means we can't drive up till saturday morning. oh well. maybe if i stay sober tomorrow night i can get some of that "romance" (ahem) that walsh is discussing in that other thread? aw, who am i kidding. i'd rather get drunk. taks

when the irish get a "tan," it is usually referred to as "burn and/or blister" followed by a visit to the hospital. taks

Copy protection iirc. yeah, they're waiting for the CP scheme to get released but it is apparently planned for patch 1.14 now, and 1.13 was just released (i think that's the order). grrr. taks

you MUST have the same taste in games/writing/art/movies/etc. as ME else your opinion is stupid! wow... sometimes i am amazed in here. good retort, MC. taks

heck, i just got to suldanesselar yet again in my latest BG2 romp. took 2 weeks and i was gone (in OH, testing) for a week of that. sheesh. taks

taks

i assume mkreku is referring to the inxile version? taks