Amentep

Sadly, Poncey is long gone...then again I'm not sure the center field magnolia tree would have went over well with modern viewers.

I've always seen likes on a message board as a way to cut out the "me too" posts.

Everybody's a critic.

Better?

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...or know how to get things printed at Kinkos*... HEEEEYYYYY-OOOO! I'll be here all week, be sure to tip your waitstaff. *yes, its FedEx Office now, but that looked weird in the sentence.

Yeah, not 100% sure, its been a long time since I tried to fake translate things into Japanese and I used an English-Japanese dictionary then...!

Rippanamusuko?

Artist interpretation of what Neolithic life was like:

*puts away ban button*

You say that like its a bad thing. I still remember how Harmony Gold, because of the success of Robotech, took the 70s Queen Millennia and Space Pirate Captain Harlock animes and merged them into a single show called Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years to meet syndication requirements for number of episodes. That said, I love Leiji Matsumoto's stuff, and I wish more of it was translated here. (cue someone telling me about official manga releases that I missed over the years). Theme song with lyrics allegedly by Stan Lee himself. ♫ Defenders of the Earth (De-fennn-dersssss!) ♬ I think that US production companies or the network/syndication heads tended to think of teenagers as less accepting of complex storytelling in cartoons than happened in Japan, which for many years made action series somewhat dumbed down versions of live action TV shows (which also, for many years, were done-in-one-episode types of storytelling).

I'm currently re-watching DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH which is similarly a US show animated in Japan (and later Korea). In this case the writers and character designers/storyboarders from Marvel Productions animation (previously DePatie-Freleng, who did the Pink Panther titles and theatrical shorts) and Toei (later Daewon and Sei Young). Like a lot of US television animation, its aimed for, at best, a teen audience and the writing shows. I've enjoyed it for what it is, not expecting it to be a particularly nuanced show as it was a few years too early to benefit from the BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES breakthrough in television adventure cartoons*. I think that's one of the big differences from this kind of show and, say, Tom & Jerry which was pulling from a theatrical model that appealed to families (ie it was multilayered with gags for adults and kids) even after they moved to television (at least for awhile). *Yes, it does come post Robotech, but Robotech severely altered the source material to make it suitable for a teen audience and ultimately didn't lead to the breakthrough that many thought it would of more serious TV animation. And anyway, the model for DOTE seems to be GI Joe: A Real American Hero.

It is, but I think it has more to do with time investment (US football game is now as long as a baseball game on tv; my memory may be cheating me but I don't recall that being the case back a few decades ago) and the fact that football is more similar to basketball which is probably as popular as its ever been.

Good question, I believe it is actually state laws that codify this. But I'm not certain without doing more research.

That's why I said it is in the eye of the beholder; obviously one who lives in a small town and 90% of the jobs are tied to a single employer will not feel like they really have a choice not to comply. But rightly, or wrongly, that's the way the laws are set up.

In the US a number of vaccines are required* for enrollment in elementary and high schools and college (college is almost entirely for encephalitis). Most of these are for major diseases (mumps, rubella, etc). So that by the time the person is employed, they're already inoculated against a number of things. TB vaccine isn't recommended in the US, no vaccine for colds. That really just leaves the seasonal flu as the only thing they could require**, but its probably considered more trouble than worth in a benefit analysis. *but with exemptions for religious belief and such **Actually some jobs which work in places bacteria or virus may be fostered might have inoculations required to protect the person from the environment they'll be working in, but these would be unique to those jobs and something not even on the radar of other employers

"Land of the Free" typically would apply to freedom from governmental or religious compulsion to do/not do things, not necessarily that one would have no restrictions whatsoever; the idea would be any restriction you have is one you voluntarily agreed to place upon yourself. With the caveat, of course, that voluntary may be in the eye of the beholder. This is an important distinction because the relevant laws in the US around medical information (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act aka HIPAA) is that your medical provider needs your consent to disclose your information, not that your employer cannot ask you to provide medical information (putting the choice on the employee as to whether the benefits of employment are worth the loss of privacy inherent in the terms of the employment). Note that in all of the cases I'm aware (which is a very limiting caveat), things like drug tests are *not* conducted by the employer, they're *required* by the employer. Typically a third party administrator (picked by the company or allowed to be the choice of the employer) would work with the company to perform a drug test, and you would have to sign a legal document allowing the third party provider to release the results to your employer. These results would route through Human Resources and be handled by Human Resources with confidentiality, much as background checks would be done when hiring an employee. Hilariously, though, since your HR record isn't legally private, any medical records contained within your HR record wouldn't be covered by HIPAA's privacy rules. The only instance I know of personally involving an intoxicated employee didn't need a breathalyzer as the person also had a bottle of alcohol on them which wasn't allowed on site, so was an automatic dismissal without needing to prove intoxication. However, I'm not sure the employer could have legally required a breathalyzer, though, as there'd be questions regarding whether the intoxicated employee could consent to release the results (and, AFAIK, the police would decline involvement unless there was evidence an actual law was being broken, like DUI/DWI). All that said, not every business is big enough for an HR department, and also unionization adds an extra layer to everything, so everything can end up being different depending on where you work. Heck, just working in a right to work state where you can't be required join a union as a point of employment is a different experience from working in one where you could be. Anyhow, if you're interested here is a couple of links regarding HIPAA for the US that might help understand the distinctions the US makes regarding medical record privacy: https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-individuals/employers-health-information-workplace/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-individuals/faq/index.html

TNG - Aquiel Apparently no one in the production had seen THE THING. Also, when quarantining people, the crew forgot that they needed to quarantine the dog (and possibly should have done the same for Riker and LaForge even though take over was unlikely in Riker's case as he'd never really been alone on the station).