4/8     Somewhat amusing talk on Urban Design by James Howard Kunstler.
        He has some interesting things to say, but he thinks he's more
        clever than he is. (video) (anti-suburb rant)
        http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/121

4/8     Not getting laid guy, maybe you are too masculine:
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080409/sc_nm/britain_faces_dc_5
        \_ This is stupid. The great Chinese Empire spent a large % of
           their GDP researching this already. It's called Mian4Shian4
           or in English, Physiognomy Face Reading. It PISSES ME OFF
           that you fucking Westerners keep stealing our ideas and
           claim it without attribution.
           http://chinesefacereading.blogspot.com
           http://www.face-and-emotion.com/dataface/physiognomy/physiognomy.jsp
        \_ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24036673

4/8     Jews cannot afford to not support Obama
        http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/ikey-galacticca/gGggBH
        This is an interesting thing to find on Obama site...
        \_ There's some good lines in there:
           "[The Clintons] should retire because their brains are old and dried
           up and devoid of any new and fresh ideas."
        \_ ERROR: invalid page requested
           \_ Aww, they took it down.  (It's been up for a month.) I googled
              around and found another copy on craigslist of all places
              http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/pol/633548733.html
        \_ http://my.barackobama.com is a social network.  Any loser can create a
           page there - the campaign can't police all the content there.
           Just like any other social network that's full of both good and
           crappy content.  Get over your feigned outrage.
           \_ I know that.  I'm not outraged at all. This is a pretty good
              example of a poorly thought out and managed political
              strategy though.  Plus, this rant is funny.
              \_ Yeah, the rant is funny.  Do you think the social network
                 is a poorly thought out campaign strategy?  From what I can
                 tell, he's raising unprecedented amounts of cash and
                 getting huge numbers of volunteers.
                 \_ I don't really think that's related to his own social
                    networking site, although I could be wrong.  digg and
                    dailykos are serving the same purpose for him.  Having
                    his own offical social networking/blog site allows nut-
                    cases to post wocky stuff that looks official.

4/8     Worst. President. Ever.
        http://harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002804
        \- I am hoping for two things:
           1. the us govt torturers [JYOO, DADDINGTON, DRUMSFELD etc]
              get arrested in some EU country
           2. The BUSHCO legacy is one of incompetence, such as being
              labelled "the worst president in US history". Some presidents
              were labelled as losers because they didnt win a second term
              and since BUSHCO was inconceivable re-elected, he wasnt tainted
              in the same way as JCARTER and GHWBUSH, eventhough he is vastly
              worse. Second, I dont think DRUMSFELD or DCHENEY give a rats
              ass about being called "evil", but I think mass opinion that
              they are fools and incompetent would bother them [ALBERTO on
              the other hand was so stupid apparently even universally being
              condemned as a moron doesnt seem to have affected him much.
              Like an amoeba, he probably only reacts to extreme hot and cold
              or beatings.]
            \_ I love when you put stuff in ALL CAPS as if that MEANS SOMETHING
               IMPORTANT.  Since you brought it up, by torture do you mean lap
               dances from hot CIA chicks and having underwear put on your
               head?  Terrifying stuff, truly evil.
               \_ More likely he's referring to waterboarding, stress positions,
                  and the numerous people that have been murdered in custody.
                  Not to mention all the people we rendered to Egypt where
                  they were tortured by Egyptian security into producing
                  false information:
                  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Shaykh_al-Libi
                  \_ Being strapped to a board, beaten, then sodomized by a
                     big hairy Egyptian policeman sounds like a good time to me.

4/7     this has it all.  Nazis, nazis, and nazis:
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/4j3jh2 [nyt]

4/9     Oops, Obama's *oder* spiritual adviso' be also some racist
        anti-American. 'S coo', bro.
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM2M11BsA3g
        (Note da damn 'house-nigger' usage, 'typical honky man', etc.)

4/8     Anyone witnessing this event?
        http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/24024416

4/8     http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24032411
        Middle class angry that they're not going to be able to afford
        LearJets and big mansions even though their quality of living
        has improved drastically since 1964.                    -ilyas
        \_ "Let them eat cake!"

4/9     Oops, Obama's *other* spiritual advisor is also a racist anti-American.
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM2M11BsA3g
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Meeks
        blamed "Hollywood Jews for bringing us Brokeback Mountain"
        \_ Hey jerkoff who keeps runnin' dis drough ' JIBE', ya' some racist
        \_ Hey jerkoff who keeps running this through 'jive', are you racist
           too?
           \_ No, but I think your feigned outrage is very funny to mock.
              \_ "feigned"?
                 \_ feign
                    verb [ trans. ]
                    pretend to be affected by (a feeling, state, or injury) :
                        she feigned nervousness.
                    * archaic invent (a story or excuse).
                    * [ intrans. ] archaic indulge in pretense.
                    \_ I know what it means, just wondering why you think it's
                       apropriate.

4/8     What defines upper class, middle class, and lower class? Income?
        Post tax income? Post tax deduction income? How about asset and
        liabilities? I mean, don't most homeowners with mortgages have
        LIABILITIES since they OWE money? If we count mortgage and
        credit card debts, wouldn't most Americans be lower class?
        \- YMWTR: PFUSSEL: Class. I personally think that is a crappy
           book, but YMMV. You cannot use income alone because of the
           "well known" "graduate student problem" ... i.e. the wealthy
           harvard/bennington classic major with no income but a lot
           of wealth. I think the Robert Nozick "life chances" approach
           is not a bad one, but ultimately these kinds of definitions
           depend on what kinds of questions you are trying to answer.
        \_ Hey dumbass, it's 4/9 not 4/8
        \_ Assets - liabilities, dumb ass. I owe hundreds of thousands of
           dollars, but my property is worth more than I owe by a long shot.
           \_ Your property is worth more than you owe the moment you sell
              it and make profit. Until then, you're just a theoretical
              paper millionaire.
              \_ Spoken by someone who doesn't have the first clue about
                 investing. Do you think that the wealthy keep their
                 assets in their savings accounts?
                 \_ Have you been keeping track of this housing bubble
                    thing?
                    \_ All investing involves risk, that is why you get
                       a premium for it.
                       \_ Homes are not investments.  They are shelters.
                          \_ "My property" is a multi-unit investment. How much
                             investment property do you own?
        \_ Upper Class - People whose daddy paid for them to go to an Ivy
                         league school and get a non-technical education
                         and/or people whose daddy was a "Lord," a "Sir,"
                         a "Duke," blue-blood from Massachusetts, &c.
           Middle Class - People who went to public school and got a
                          technical education and in all likelihood ended
                          up working for someone whose daddy paid for them
                          to go an Ivy league school for a non-technical
                          education
           Lower Class - People who went to state school for a non-technical
                         education which qualified them to make overpriced
                         coffee
           Under Class - Everyone else.
           \_ Interesting that you define it by education level.  What about
              someone who worked through a good college?
              \_ Upper Middle Class - Worked his/her way to a technical degree
                                      at a good school or a professional
                                      degree (jd, md, cpa) at a decent (above
                                      3d tier) school
                 Note: This does not include those who worked at daddy's law
                       firm, daddy's IB, daddy's congressional staff
                 \_ Those who funnel a constant supply of fresh interns for
                    daddy's consumption.
           \_ What is "public school" vs. "state school"?  Are you using UK
              terminology here?
              \_ I am using ther terms interchangably. My perspective is that
                 someone who went a public (state run/funded) school for a
                 technical education is most likely middle class, i.e. your
                 average engineer, scientist, &c. If you went to a top public
                 school (e.g. Cal), you are probably upper middle class, as
                 below.
                 I think that someone who worked their way through a technical
                 degree at a good school (public or private, i.e. Cal, MIT,
                 CMU, &c.) or worked their way through a professional degree
                 at any decent school is likely upper middle class. Basically,
                 if you are upper class, why would you have to work your way
                 through school? And if you worked your way through school, it
                 probably means you need to keep working to keep your life,
                 family, &c. going. If you are upper class, you don't need to
                 work to keep things going.  Well, unless you are one of the
                 impoverished aristocracy. But, I've already covered that.
                 \_ What if you work your way through school, get a job at
                    Google pre-ipo and are suddenly worth $40M and retire
                    at 30? Are you upper class or middle class or what?
                    \_ I think such people fall into the "lucky bastard"
                       class. But if they let the money go to their head,
                       I think they end up in the "pompous ass" class,
                       which has some essential similarities with the upper
                       class.
        \_ Family background, education, wealth, manners.
           http://www.csua.org/u/l93 (NYT)
           \- i think the appropriateness of this "quintile" model depends
              on what question you are trying to answer or what phenomena
              you are interested in. for example i suspect there isnt
              a lot of competition or rank consciousness between the students
              ranked 80-90th in a graduating class and the students ranked
              60-70th out of 300 ... compared to the people in #1-5. the
              wealth axis is the interesting of there w.r.t. to sloda people.
              \_ It should actually be the manners axis that sodans should
                 be concerning themselves with.
                 be concerning themselves with. But some people wouldn't have
                 any class, even if they made millions.
              \_ Most amusing is that in order of prestige, they have doctor,
                 lawyer, DBA, system administrator as 1, 2, 3 and 4 (out of
                 hundreds). I never knew that system administration was so
                 well respected.
                 \_ Oh, it is very well respected to people who are not
                    in tech. They think that sys adms have "root" and thus
                    are the almighty ones who rule the tech world.
                     \_ Are we not?  I'm surprised that DBA was ranked
                        higher.  DBA is even more blue collar than Sys Admin
                        in my experience.
                        \_ Wall Street DBAs are very very well respected.
                           \_ No, not really. They are well compensated, but
                              pretty far down the totem pole in Wall Street
                              firms.

4/9     I'm il-yas and I'm ghey.

4/9     You know what I love most about stun-guns and tasers? It makes
        me feel like I'm in Star Trek. Set phaser on: stun. BZZZZZZ.
        I love Star Trek.

4/9     [signing my name to shit i didn't write will get it nuked.] -- ilyas

4/9     I didn't write this.  --ilyas
        \_ I did. Suck my libertarian balls!            --ilyas

4/9     I sign my name like shit and I love getting my balls nuked. -- ilyas

4/9     Permanent occupation of Iraq just like America's permanent occupation
        of American South
        http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/occupying-iraq-just-occupying-alabama
        \_ this site's commenting system looks cool. What are they using?
        \_ Cf. recent moronic comparisons between PRC occupation of Tibet
           and US occupation of Texas.
        \_ I'd like to meet the Southerner who thinks their state is being
           occupied.  That's a good laugh.
           \_ The South Will Rise Again
           \_ You would've met a lot more of them in the 1860s. They are
              all dead now. In the same way, if we wait 100 years Iraqis
              will probably eat at Chick-Fil-A and watch NASCAR.
              \_ They already believe pro-wrestling is real.

4/9     "Australian man fathers a baby with daughter"
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080407/wl_nm/australia_incest_dc_1
        \_ "I've always admired Lot..."
        \_ Forget it, Jake.  It's Chinatown.
        \_ At least that is a much lower inbreeding coefficient than say,
           two siblings of the same parents. Still safer, and actually
           done very frequently in breeding of animals in order to
           preserve certain characteristics (conformation competition
           where duplicates, not diversity, is highly desired). Look up
           COI or coefficient of inbreeding, linebreeding, etc. It's
           done all the time, and when done well, your line of Championed
           studs and bitches can earn you millions of dollars from breeding
           programs, sponsorships, etc.
           \_ Also, read Survival of the Sickest. Genetic disease, or
              genetic "feature"? You decide.
           \_ Purebred dogs and horses have numerous genetic problems.  -tom
              \_ Short version of below: pure bred dogs (I don't know anything
                 about horses) have genetic problems because the breeders will
                 destroy an entire species to win some lame dog show prize.
                 There is no natural reason for pure breed dogs to have so
                 many problems if they were left to choose their own mates from
                 a larger pool in the same way mutts can.  The other problem
                 for pures (as mentioned) is they often keep a lesser animal
                 for breeding because it has the right look.  The runts will
                 normally die off in a batch of mutts.
                 \_ The key then seems to be whether you kill and/or let die
                    the weak specimens. That's normally how nature works. But
                    We don't do that anymore: we save people as far as we are
                    able and develop technological remedies for weaknesses.
                    I don't think you can extrapolate purebred animal breeds
                    to a single case of incest; that case isn't part of some
                    orchestrated program.
                    \_ Hitler's super Ayran race is purebred.
                       \_ Aryan
                       \_ Purebred Aryan race is genetically predisposed
                          to 21st century obesity.
              \_ No doubt, the potential for genetic related problems is
                 much much much greater in purebreds. Breeders need to take
                 in account of alleles and heterozygous individuals in
                 order to breed a stock that they think will give them
                 more advantages than genetic disadvantages. Case in point
                 a breeder breeds a Champion mustang that wins millions of
                 dollars on the horserace, but it may have a lot of skin
                 allergies and requires a lot of expensive vet treatments.
                 Purebreds are purely mankind's creations, and thus the
                 breeder needs to be very careful about genetic diseases.
                 In many cases a good breeder will breed stocks that are
                 much healthier than mutts. There's also a notion that
                 mutts are much healthier, and while that may be true, it
                 is really a result that mutt breeders tend to discard
                 (neuter, spay, destroy) stocks that are unhealthy, whereas
                 purebred breeders really want to preserve certain physical
                 attributes so they can compete in breed Conformations.
                 Unfortunately, 95% of the breeders out there are BACKYARD
                 breeders (you know, those ignorant neighbors in your backyard)
                 that don't know or care anything about genetics, and they
                 really mess up the gene pools of animals.

4/9     Hypothesis: for any given topic, roughly 20% of Americans will have
        an incredibly ill-informed or ridiculous opinion.
        \_ Agreed.
        \_ Yes.
        \_ Exactly.
        \_ Me, too.
        \_ No, you're wrong!
        \_ Which 20% of the above responses?
        \_ Last I saw, something like 16% believe the US gov't was involved in
           9/11.
           \_ No it was the Jews and the Neocons, according to the UN Human
              Rights Commission: http://www2.nysun.com/article/74465