11/18   http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,175927,00.html
        It is buyer's market now! Good news for first home
        buyers and investors alike. Good news for everyone!

11/17   http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051116/od_nm/life_prison_dc
        Why the jail system should be privatized.
        \_ "... the prison system received more money in its budget than it
           asked for ..."  Why would a govt department have receive more money
           asked for ..."  Why would a govt department have received more money
           than it asked for in its budget???
        \_ "... saying the prison system received more money in its budget than
           it asked for ..."  Why would a govt department have receive more
           money than it asked for in its budget???
           \_ Congress does this to the DoD all the time.  "You will buy
              this pork item that you don't really want, with this money."
              But all that's really necessary is that they direct the dep't
              to spend money on something they didn't plan for, but that the
              legislature wants them to do.
              \- you also see weapon systems that the armed services dont
                 even want or weapon systems whose compoenents are sourced
                 from 48-50 different states. the osprey is one example of
                 program with a bizarre history. obgoogle etc.
                 \_ Very often at the expense of things like spare parts,
                    operational supplies and training, according to several
                    officer type I know who left the army for this and
                    similar reasons (generally overpoliticization.)  -John

11/18   British MP: Stop the inbreeding!
        http://csua.org/u/e18
        \_ Charles Darwin, the Evolution guy and a Brit, married his first
           cousin Emma Wedgwood.
           cousin Emma Wedgwood.  Queen Elizabeth II married her third cousin
           Prince Philip.
           \_ and?
        \_ "First cousins face lower risk of having children with genetic
           conditions than is widely perceived"
           http://csua.org/u/e19 (http://www.washington.edu
        \_ Critics calling for legal incest in Germany:
           http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C13509-1867271%2C00.html
           \_ I should move there with my sister.
              \_ Did you see that guy had 4 kids with his sister. Would you
                 risk that, incestguy?
                 \_ The pill these days is very effective.  There are also
                    condoms.

11/18  "Tom cruise won't come out of the closet!"
        \_ How long before Scientoligy takes Trey and Matt to court?
           \_ WWXD?
              \_ Don't you mean WWLRHD?
                 \_ I work for the loyal opposition.
        \_ The end credits were great.
        \_ Link?
           \_ ???
           \_ http://cnn.com has a 3 minute video blurb about this weeks episode.
              \_ episode of what?
                 \_ South park, duh. Sadly probably the best political/social
                    commentary on TV today.
        \_ My DVR cut out the end.  What happened in the last two minutes
           of that episode?
           \_ Basically kyle or stan or whoever it was said scientology was
              a big scam then all the scientologists said they were gonna
              sue stan or kyle or whichever one it was for bad mouthing
              scientology then the credits ran and everyone in the credits
              were jan smith or john smith.
              \_ thanks.  it might be john smith - Mormons.  Did the
                 three celebreties get out of the closet?
                 \_ It was John and Jane Smith as a joke, so the scientologists
                    don't know who to sue.
                 \_ Um, the LDS founder was Joseph Smith, not John Smith.
                    -emarkp
        \_ Was the whole part about "This is what Scientologists actually
           believe" really what they believe?
           \_ Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology

11/18   One of my favorite webcomics.  It's fairly new, you might as well
        read from the beginning.
        http://www.uglyhill.com
        \_ Is this true for any other ethnicities besides Pakistani?

11/18     ____          ____                      _
         / ___|  ___   | __ )  ___  __ _ _ __ ___| |
         | |  _ / _ \  |  _ \ / _ \/ _` | '__/ __| |
         | |_| | (_) | | |_) |  __/ (_| | |  \__ \_|
          \____|\___/  |____/ \___|\__,_|_|  |___(_)
          http://csua.berkeley.edu/~tom/theplay_long.ram
        \_ if fans go onto the field during a play, does that incur
           a penalty on the home team?  What's the official ruling?
           \_ One of the officials from that game who threw a flag on the
              play said that they could have called Stanfraud for "illegal
              participation"; the ruling on that would have been to award
              a touchdown to the Bears.  -tom
        \_ Tom, we want hi-rez!
        \_ was the 15-yd penalty applied before the kickoff?  So normally
           they kick-off from 40 yd line?

11/18   http://movies.crooksandliars.com/cnn_rep_murtha_end_iraq_051117b.wmv
        http://movies.crooksandliars.com/cnn_rep_murtha_end_iraq_051117b.mov
        Murtha speech, transcript:
        http://csua.org/u/e1a (Washington Post)
        House GOP does a bait-and-switch and puts forward GOP version of
        Murtha resolution to vote
        http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/11/18/163220/03
        \_ A dailykos post from someone watching the C-SPAN debate:
           "Soms [sic] Republican jackass just referred to it as the 'Democrat
           resolution.' Jim McGovern then made a parliamentary inquiry--'The
           gentleman stated that this is a Democratic proposal. Could you tell
           me who introduced this resolution.' So Republican Jackass starts
           yelling for McGovern to yield and McGovern says, 'No, I have a
           parlimentary [sic] inquiry.' And the chair tells him Mr. Hunter
           introduced it.  'Mr. Hunter? The Republican?' says McGovern.
           That was great." -op
        \_ How is this a "bait-and-switch"?
           \_ Do http://cnn.com and http://foxnews.com think people are voting on Murtha's
              or the GOP resolution?
              \_ ??? How does the reporting mean GOP is doing a
                 bait-and-switch?
                 \_ As characterized by one poster:  "Republican Jackass starts
                    yelling for McGovern to yield"
                    It's not "classic" bait-and-switch, let's call it
                    Republican variation #69.
                    \_ Let's call it "you don't know what you're talking about"
                       \_ Nah, I think you don't.  Okay, I got it.  You want
                          me to call it a "strawman", right?  Okay, it's
                          a strawman as well.
           \_ yeah, yer right, it's a strawman

11/18   So anyone of you think we can get out of Iraq without leaving too
        much of a mess?  Realistically, what's the best possible outcome?
        \_ Civil war.  Shiites, backed by Iran, win and establish a theocracy
           more moderate than Iran's.  Sporadic unrest by Sunnis and Baathists
           for the a long time.
           \_ I think more than sporatic. And if Iraq looks like its going
              split, Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia all become major players
              in game.
        \_ We should take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way
           to  be sure.
           \_ Better yet, we can ingratiate ourselves with the Iranians by
              giving them enough parking space.  -John
        \_ The best (now very implausible but still) possible outcome hasn't
           changed.  The worst plausible outcome, on the other hand, has gotten
           much worse.
        \_ Who knows?  We're staying there until the mission is complete!
        \_ Isn't this just baiting the lions?  What sort of answers did you
           really expect from the motd?  Duh.  Nothing has changed.  History
           will look back long after the current politics of the situation
           are forgotten and decide how well or poorly things went, as always.
        \_ Best possible outcome? Cheney and Rummy are indicted for War Crimes
           and hung at The Hague. Bush resigns in disgrace. Howard Dean is
                       \- that's why Congress under DELAY and HELMS passed the
                          HAGUE INVASION ACT a couple of yrs ago.
           appointed President and asks for forgiveness from The Iraqis and
           promises reparations if they can come up with a working government.
           There is a World Summit in Baghdad where the rest of the world
           agrees to helping rebuild Iraq. The Arab countries supply peace-
           keepers and Iraq is rebuilt as a Democracy.
           keepers and Iraq is rebuilt as a Democracy. Probably too much
           to reasonably hope for.

11/18   To whoever posted http://urbandead.com here, you rule.  -John
        \_ Agreed. What's your handle and where are you? I wanna come kill you.
        \_ The game sucks!  I became a zombie already.
           \_ Who else plays this?  Is there a limit to how much you can carry?
              Is there any point keeping low value (0 value?) things like
              multiple wirecutters?

11/18   Bush's exit strategy for Iraq:
        2005: We Must Stay the Course
        2006: We Must Keep Our Resolve
        2007: The Fight for Freedom Continues
        2008: We Will Not Let the Terrorists Win
        late in 2008: Well it's Been Fun, Good Luck Cleaning up the
        Mess I Left You With!
        \_ You're cruel. Stop it. Don't you know you're making jblack
           mad? Therapy is getting expensive these days.
        \_ Just like how Clinton had fun with a bubble for years and then left
           a bursted one to Dubya.
           \_ I thought the bubble is the good work of Mr. Greenspan.
        \_ Hi there anonymous partisan!  Thanks for playing! -emarkp
           \_ What evidence to the contrary is out there? --erikred, !OP
              \_ Contrary?  The above barely qualifies as a bumper sticker.
                 "Staying the course" etc. includes things like free elections
                 (check), ratifiying a constitution (check), etc. -emarkp
                 \- i think bush only cares about his historical reputation.
                    i think his goal is to avoid major disasters and then
                    leave it to the next admin and is going to start working
                    on blaming the next admin for fucking things up. i think
                    the real question is the role iraq policy will play in
                    the next presidential election.
                    \_ nah, bush doesn't care about historical reputation.
                       he cares more about the reputation of America, as in,
                       if you're with the terrorists, America will never give
                       in regardless of how many citizens Dubya has to
                       sacrifice.
        \_ glad you people were not around during WWII or the Korean war.
           History tells us what you did to the Vietnam war, and let's
           hope the country has the prescience not to let that type
           of debacle happen again.
           \_ You don't think there's a slight difference between fighting
              back against a power interested in world conquest, that took
              over Paris and was bombing London, and overthrowing a podunk
              dictator with no army and no weapons?  -tom

11/18   In C, argv[0] is the command that invokes the program.  Is there an
        equivalent in Perl?  Thx.
        \_ $0
           I believe the perlrun manpage has all you would ever want to
           know on this subject.
           \_ It works.  Thx.

11/18   Laser "guided" pool cue:
        http://tinyurl.com/d3xtc (hammacher.com)
        \_ So... it shows you a dot for where you're aiming the tip.  That's
           not all that useful.  I think a $50 cue w/out a laser would improve
           one's game much more than a $50 cue with a laser.
           \_ seconded.  poor pool is rarely a problem of not knowing where
              you're supposed to be aiming.

11/18   Why does America hate Bruce Springsteen?
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051119/ap_en_mu/people_springsteen
        \_ Because he's a no-talent hack?
           Also, "Born in the USA" is an anti-american song, not an anthem.
             -tom
           \_ Is it an anti-war song or something?  Thx.
              \_ It's a ballad about the sad story of people who don't know how
                 to use google.
         http://www.lyricsdomain.com/2/bruce_springsteen/born_in_the_usa.html

11/18   Vatican comes out against ID:
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051118/ap_on_re_eu/vatican_evolution
        \_ You expect US fundamentalists to listen to a Jesuit astronomer?
           Don't fundamentalists hold Catholics in about the same regard as
           they do Satanists?
           \_ Remember, Atheists worship Satan.  I'm pretty sure Pat Robertson
              said so.
              \_ No, Atheists aren't citizens of the U.S.  George Bush Sr. said
                 so.  (No, really)
        \_ See, some day someone will find incontrovertible proof that God
           cannot exist or act in any form remotely similar to the God of the
           Bible.  On that day, Catholicism will have diluted itself to the
           point where it can say "eh?  what?  oh, we're just a social and
           cultural organization... we've always been.  God is within us, but
           that's just a philosophy!"