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LOL...I find myself referencing it more often than I thought I would!

By the way, when I opine that I think you are mostly wrong on this, I am not talking about the relative merits of any devices, but the way in which you think people should judge them.

That’s all.

I think you are mostly wrong on this. There are a percentage of people who use Apple products because “they are cool”. However, there are many of us who use Apple products who think the cool hipster angle is pretty stupid too.

There are a lot of people who like using Apple products like the iPhone and iPad over the competition, and it has to do with good engineering, reliability, predictability, and maintainability, not “the cool factor”.

A spec sheet cannot explain the success of an iPhone any more than an ingredient list can explain the success of a dinner in a restaurant. The success of Apple products isn’t due to the low cost of the components or the muscularity of the individual components that make up the device.

It is due to the way they are put together, the way it its software is distributed and maintained, and the way people have to interact with it to use it.

The mistake you make is thinking that eight cores is makes the entire device inherently better than a device with only two cores. I get the impression you think it makes the device four times better than the one with fewer processors. But if the translation into everyday use is to redraw the screen a split second or two faster than the other device, and you are still waiting for streaming information over a wireless data connection, does it really make that much difference?

I sense a fair amount of anger and personal angst in your analysis, and I don’t really understand why you feel that way. It is only a tool, a device.

I had to go to Dead or Alive? to take a look.

Exactly. I would never go on someones house, fence or anything else except dirt or grass in a relatively inaccessible area so they would never know. Avoiding personal property should be key...I would stop on some back road and run into the woods if I had to.

This all assumes that you HAVE to go.

That was what I thought too...

Sometimes when people gotta go, they gotta go. You would hope he would be more discrete.

But throwing the packages over the fence? I think that is far more egregious.

Trying to separate the Bush Derangement Syndrome from the rest of anything else in this isn’t worth a cup of warm spit.

Very cool...one lucky primate!

"...but the rest of them don’t even understand the laws they’ve passed..."

No, those laws are for US to observe.

That is very cool.

It isn’t a given in England these days, but right enough.

Preferably rabid!

Hahahahahahaha! “balut topping”...I used to live in the PI when I was a kid, so that would be gagu-inducing indeed!

So true. That’s why I don’t get involved with it...she is far better at it because it interests her. Me, it is a chore.

Always give the job to the person who is interested in it...:)

LOL...if they wanted to poke through my trash, I could make that far more interesting to them...:)

Hahahahaha...I know. I convinced my wife years back to buy Apple when it was $12 a share...heh, she sold it when it got to $25!

I didn’t find out until later when the stock got up around $50 and I commented on how great that was and she said she had sold it at $25...well, I couldn’t complain. In general, that stuff doesn’t interest me, and she is good at it.

I just had an emotional tie to it, liked saying I had a stake in a company whose product I really liked, but to her, it was just stock. Better that way...:)

I ginned this up in Photoshop a few years back:

Heh, People’s Republic of Massachusetts...transmitting from behind enemy lines! (I do love it here, but the politics makes me ill...)

I was talking to my brother this morning, and said, yeah, we got a lot of snow, but we’re a bunch of wusses, comparatively speaking. The people who live in Buffalo get a boatload more than we do, all the time not once every five years, and theirs is often heavy and wet.

They just shrug it off, but if you live in Buffalo, what are ya gonna do?

This was my side yard this morning...that is a four foot high chain link fence:

I figure we got close to 30 inches, and there was a lot of drifting. Good thing though, fluffy and dry,not heavy and wet. Big, BIG difference.

My wife and I went to a lecture at the Boston Museum of Science back around 2000, I think, where they had some bigwig from the National Weather Service talking about computer models, and how in 3-5 years, they would be able to predict weather down to city block size areas up to two weeks in advance with high accuracy.

I think of that often, and there is one word it brings to mind every time: Hubris.

"Good Heavens, Miss Sakimoto, you're Beautiful!"

This was my side yard today:

(Chain link fence is four feet, my wife made me lower the flag pole because she thought the wind might damage it!)

I had the opportunity a couple of years ago to burn some vacation time (my wife gets far less than me) so I took this unplanned road trip all by myself:

I had no agenda or plan...just got in the car and went! Did it all in six days...:)

I admit to lucking out on the first one...I immediately thought it was the correct state, but then started thinking about it...bad move! But went with my instinct!

10 out of 10, baby!

(How y’all doing?)

LOL, it was a surprise to me too, and a pleasant one.

I will say that I am very concerned about what health care will be like if we continue down this road. Liberal policies certainly want to destroy the relationship between a physician and a patient. They want the relationship to be patient to government.

That was my guess as well.

I am sure his skills had everything to do with his ending up in the capsule at that time.

No way...really? That is great...but must have been tough for you as a kid.

Good gosh. I remember that so well. I recall watching the television for what seemed like hours, with the video of the rocket on the gantry with the spotlights on it.

I agree with the sentiments about Grissom.

As great as that line is, I think this line is the more powerful and appropriate one, that sets the stage of that time (and this one as well):

"...Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science..."

I think he liked being half-American...

I have always been a huge fan of Churchill. One of my heroes of the 20th Century. He had no problem with drawing things in black and white, because he knew that shades of gray gave people an out.

Two years ago, I had just finished a crazy stretch of work, and had to take time off to unwind. I had a lot of vacation time, my wife had far less than me, so I took a road trip. No plan, just packed a bunch of things, jumped in my car, and took off for a week with no destination.

How rare and wonderful is that? I went to do some horseback riding in the Shenandoah mountains, but it poured rain for the two days I was there, even the people who ran the place went off and left me there all by myself!

After two days, I was bored out of my gourd, no horseback riding, no phone, no Internet, and it was pouring rain constantly and I was all alone. So I got out a map, and picked the Four Corners Monument in Utah as my destination, and started out at 0400 the next morning. I got as far a Louisville, KY, and when I sat down to have dinner, I realized there was no way I could make it to Four Corners and get back home again. I only had a four more days. So I pulled out a map, and said "Where do I want to go? Hey...I've never been to Nebraska!" I put my finger down on the state and landed on Falls City, NE. But as I read more, the small town looked like it was best known for a murder of a transsexual there. The article I read said it was a destination for some in that part of society (oddly enough) so I figured I might take another stab at a different small town. When my finger came down, it was on Tecumseh, NE. Population 1,677. That is where I was going to go.

I tried to drive straight through from Louisville to Tecumseh, but at around 0100, I could see that wasn't going to happen, so I stopped about 20 miles north of St. Louis for the night.

Early the next morning, I left around 0700 to drive north, and as I drove north, I saw the sign for the National Churchill Museum! I didn't even know there was such a thing, and with the freedom that being on the road with no destination has, I veered off the exit to make that my destination. I may never get a chance to be that free in my life again...:)

It was just the coolest thing! Great museum and beautiful church.

I made it up to Tecumseh the next day, and it was Small Town USA, said as a compliment. (The town was originally named Frances who was the mistress of a married Army Officer who fought Tecumseh, and the town changed the name to Tecumseh a few decades later after they had a spat with the same old Colonel whose mistress the town was named after...there is some interesting small town bitter politics in THAT name change! (The official story was that Frances was his wife, but the historic record is...muddled!

It was great. I just stayed there two nights at the Super 7 Inn, and the morning I left, I had breakfast with the Mayor of the town who I just struck up a conversation with (didn't know he was the mayor) in a dinky little breakfast place!

His mother was an American.

When the person talks about it, whether it was snake, gator, hippo, bear, whatever, they usually say something like “I couldn’t believe how quickly it moved...”

Better than being turned into a newt!

I see THESE kinds of "discussions" going on: Here is what will happen first:

"...I'm sorry sir...we cannot schedule that appointment for you next week to have that melanoma removed because you have not undergone your mandatory annual counseling after age 65...oh, of course you are right. I know you are only 62, but they did move the age down again this year...we have an opening in three months with the counselors office...would you like that?"

This above conversation is fully expected, but It will not be the people you will be FORCED to talk to in order to receive your care, nor the intentional delays in care that will be the most insidiously evil facets of this. It will be the conversations like this one below that will become commonplace that ONLY BEGIN to illustrate what it is all about:

FRIEND OF "JANICE" DISCUSSING "END OF LIFE COUNSELING" IN OBAMACARE : "Hi Jan, how are you? I heard your father is resisting counseling. It must be difficult, I know. There just seems to be so much of that lately. I know I am only 40 years old, but I don't understand why people like your father are so opposed to this.

I went with my mother to her counseling session, and while she was angry because she was supposed to have another five years before she had to go but they moved the age down again, she went anyway. I thought she was really rude to the counseling agent, who was just a young woman only doing her job. Hm.

Someone told me they are only hiring young women as counselors now, because the men who were doing it just got angry too easily and shouted at people to just "sign the damned papers". Hm. I tried to tell my mom why they have to do this, but she said they do it just to get rid of old people to save money.

The counseling agent gave my mom a copy of the book "Death is Joy". I read it, and it makes a lot of sense to me. Of course, when I was going to school, we didn't have to read it, but now they have required classes they take every year beginning in first grade.

Suzie is in third grade and is taking the course this year that deals with the chapter on keeping birth rates down, and Tommy is in his senior year where they cover the financial aspects of care for the elderly. He was so excited, he said that since they have implemented this national care program, the number of elderly people has dropped dramatically, so they can spend more money on programs such as monthly equality checks for the economically disadvantaged and reparations for the descendants of slaves. I think it is wonderful.

He asked me why so many elderly people are so selfish and refuse to accept counseling...I didn't really have an answer for him. Hm. Now, don't be defensive, I am not criticizing your parents.

I am just saying, it is a problem.

They had an hour-long program on PBS about this the other night, and they were saying how the people who are being selfish about this and refusing to take advantage of early exit programs that pay cash to their children are being so self-centered because they grew up in a time where everyone was self-centered and were interested only in money. You know, they showed films from the days of the capitalists where there were people who had what they called 'gas-guzzlers", and they used to make so much more money than they needed to live comfortably, so many people were going without health care because they were taking all the money..."

Then, just wait until they pass legislation for a "Death Benefit" that will be paid to the families of elderly people. That will be the icing on the cake. It will be presented as a compassionate gesture to help the families with their grief, and will put at ease those people slated for "end of life" counseling. I can see the conversation on this as well:

COUNSELOR: Thank you for coming in today, sir. Now, let's see...you have high blood pressure, rheumatoid arthritis but more importantly, positive genetic tags for vascular/heart disease, Alzheimer's, matricular degeneration and three types of cancer, prostate, esophageal and colon. Prostate and colon are very high. We see one of these two expressing itself in the next three years.

ME: Er...really?

COUNSELOR: Yes. This is all very scientifically based, and the results are incontrovertible. There is no mistake.

ME: Ahhh...could I speak to a doctor about this?

COUNSELOR: I am afraid not, sir. The rules are physicians are for direct care only, and nothing else. Federal Statue HCR23.1771-b mandates that I communicate this information to you, and inform you of the various options.

ME: But you don't know anything about medicine! You are a clerk, nothing more! How can I discuss this issue with you?

COUNSELOR: Sir, I have taken all the courses coming through High School, and attended the Life Counseling University courses offered by the government. I graduated in the top half of my class. I do understand the issues here.

ME: But...but...

COUNSELOR: Look, sir. You are getting old, and are soon going to be a burden on society. You don't have cancer right now, and can still think and get around, but for how long? You need to think about your children and their children. We offer a special financial compensation package that will help them bear the grief of your passing, to be paid out upon your death. With your approval, we emailed them an official forms packet before this meeting.

ME: I approved that?

COUNSELOR: Well, yes sir. The electronic copy is right here with your esignature (TURNS SCREEN TO FACE ME).

ME: I never signed that!

COUNSELOR: Sir, didn't you read the codocil that was automatically added at the bottom of your government supplied Will and Last Testament session that we finished up your first End of Life session you had with us last year? You did click the button that said "I approve all the changes" and you did use your voice authentication to say "I do approve".

ME: What! What is going on here? I...

COUNSELOR: Your two sons and your daughter who came in with you today have been in communication with our department on this. (Smiles) I think it is great that the government approves time-off pay for employees to attend these End of Life meetings for their parents. I'll call them in...

ME: Hey! I am not finished discus...

(DOOR OPENS, CHILDREN ENTER)

SON 1: Dad, I am so glad you signed up for the Early Exit Death Benefit. I was really behind on my tax payments for last year, and that will put me over the top...

ME: You...what?

SON 2: Yeah, dad. Billy is graduating from high school, and we want to send him to a quality college, but we could never afford it. But now we might...thanks to you.

Daughter: Oh, Daddy (tears in her eyes) I know none of us live forever, and I will miss you so much, but this money will allow me to pay th license fees to the government so I can open my dream business! Without you...

ME: HEY! WTF is going on here? I am not "ready to die", I feel pretty good, I could live for another twenty years! I didn't sign that damned thing, they just threw all this stuff in front of me! This is effing stupid! (TURNS TO COUNSELOR) Look, I don't know what kind of crap you set in motion, but undo it. I didn't sign up for this.

COUNSELOR: (PRIGGISH, TIGHT LIPPED LOOK ON HIS FACE) Sir...you have already been scheduled for next year, and your family has been paid that benefit in advance as the law allows. We cannot undo it. See the text that you signed (TURNS SCREEN) states explicitly that this if final and cannot be remanded...

ME: (SMASHES SREEN WITH HAND) LOOK! I DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS IF YOU HAVE TO BURROW THROUGH THE WIRES BACK TO THE CENTRAL COMPUTER SYSTEM YOURSELF, USING YOUR SLIMEY PENCIL NECK AS A LEG TO DO IT SO YOU CAN UNDO THIS ROYAL F*CKUP ON YOUR PART...

COUNSELOR: (HAND CUPPED OVER SPEAKER, EYES ON ME, WHISPERING) We have a 22-22 in here...get in here right away...

DAUGHTER: (WAILS) How could you be so selfish?

SON 1: Great. I might as well go down to the Tax Police right now to get fitted for the volunteer industry uniform...

COUNSELOR: How am I going to tell Billy he can't go to the Barack Obama University? How?

DOOR OPENS, BURLY UNION GUYS IN BLACK COVERALLS RUN UP TO ME AND TASE ME. ALL GOES BLACK

Then it would take a very short time to squander that wealth that you took from the people you shot...as the Soviets did.

Thanks, CM...

All you say is true.

It is emotional validation liberals want for these issues.

They don't want people to get out of it on their own, they want government action to make it happen.

That was hilarious!

Well, I can imagine they would keep their heads down, knowing how militant muslims treat secular muslims as apostates, and there are few things that Islam views as negatively and violently as apostasy.

Even unbelievers are given more leeway than apostates.

I don’t believe that is the issue. I believe that many (not all) view things that should be considered luxury items as staples that they are entitled to.

Houses, computers and internet access, cell phones, cable television, large flat panel televisions, cars, fancy clothes, jewelry, lobsters, cigarettes, alcohol, etc. are considered by many their due, regardless of income.

Obama is throwing college education in there as well, if he can.

My wife and I have tried to live our lives in a way that we could get by if one of us was incapacitated. If things go south for us, we will begin to get rid of things, paring away items until we are eating beans from cans, if we can get that. We are prepared to do that if we are put in a situation where we have to.

I think there are many people who would never think of paring back on even one of the things I listed above, and it is a choice. You may not have a choice about having a job and income, but you do have a choice what you do with money that does find its way into your hands.

"...From what I can tell the author is an idiot who thinks poor people are morons..."

In other words, she is a typical liberal.

I think many conservatives understand all too well how people fall into poverty.

The difference between us and liberals is that we, as conservatives, believe fundamentally that we have free will to exercise in conducting our affairs and can contribute to deepening or alleviating to a degree poverty we might find ourselves in.

Liberals believe that your choices and actions have no impact on your status, and that you have no choices to make that can affect your poverty level in a positive way. They believe that government can do that for you, what they believe you can never do yourself.

The entire thing was stupid from beginning to end. It is the typical result when people paint themselves into a corner as the NFL did.

If you have laws that are meaningless and unenforceable, the only purpose they serve is as a cudgel against people or entities you wish to persecute.

Beria, who ran the Police State for Stalin, knew this all too well: “You bring me the man, I’ll find you the crime.”

Americans should wise up to it, because any one of us is likely in violation of some law at any given time, even if it isn’t enforced.

Yet.

I have to say, the “Death to France” and “Death to Unbelievers” thing is not doing their “Religion of Peace” meme any good.

My original take on this was that the Patriots inflated all of the balls to the lowest allowable level, and placed one at the top of the bag inflated to above the upper level with the expectation that the lazy refs would grab the top ball, turn it over in their hands and throw it back in.

I place this tempest in a teapot at the feet of Goodell and the idiotic rules. Belichick has a saying you hear all the time from him: “We do business the way business is being done.”

And the handling of footballs in this fashion by teams is how things are being done in the league. I didn’t hear that about Jackson and the ball.