Hawks

It's a fish. If you feel the need to half fry it and eat it alive, go ahead. I find it strange, but I hate fish anyway. You shouldn't be able to kill 'important' animals (that may go extinct) but go ahead and kill random ones if you're going to eat them. Not a fan of blatant torture, it's pointless, but I don't classify eating fish alive as torture.

United States of Eurasia (+Collateral Damage) by Muse Just finally bought the album, and I must say I love it.

I know how it is to try to make deadlines, and how hard it is to come up with topics to write about, but last week there was one, that means the following week there should be more or longer/stronger articles. In my opinion, advertising doesn't count as an article. Need moar fiction plz. I'm going to do my best to write up something for you guys. I dunno what on yet. I'm also going to attempt a fictional saga. :P Dunno how it'll work. If it's decent, I'll send it to you.

A couple $2 bills, some Susan B. Anthony $1 coins, some bicentennial quarters, some Red Wings paraphernalia of the sort that's limited-edition giveaways at games and such, a used goalie stick signed by Marty Turco... The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit from the 1960s... in bad shape though, nearly all of the covers are falling off. I've got some strange Chucks, a pair of purple high tops (They sell those at Journeys, but I've seen one other person with them + I got mine at an outlet store in CA), and a pair of black/gray double uppers with a guitar pick motif (found at a ritzy shoe store, but they were on sale)

I have an old computer (Win2000 with 512MB RAM) running FF3.5 and GIMP at the same time, and I have never had any crashing problems. I do have AdBlock Plus, so I don't have any of the ads...

I have very weak and pretty flabby arms. No upper arm strength to speak of. I need to get some muscle in them so I can hold up my goalie glove in the proper position (atm I kind of lean it on my hip :P) and keep the goalie stick straight and on the ice all the time and whatnot. So. We've got some random free weights about, and those little aerobic weights, as well as a bench set (that no one uses). We've got an elliptical as well as a treadmill and one of those exercise balls. I'd rather start with easier stuff because I'm lazy. Also because I can do curls and such with the aerobic weights whilst watching television (or more likely using the computer) Suggestions you have about exercises and how many reps and all that are great.

So. Been posting probably the past two yearsish on and off. Haven't been up to much lately.

Yesterday... Two hours of pucks and butterflies. For the most part it was good, very sore now, and my foot is still having issues from the skate insert that moved sideways a lot about 20 minutes before the end of practice. Today nothing, planning on getting some sort of routine involving attempts to increase my arm strength though.

As in after 2008, no longer forcing updates? Does anyone know for sure when they were ending support for it and what exactly that means? I read it to mean no more automatic updates, but that is apparently not the case unless I've got the year of end-of -service wrong. ie, I was forced to restart (a 10 minute debacle) after it downloaded some random update. I know you can turn that off but I'm not at liberty to do so. And is there any place you can find out exactly what was in it and why it was a required automatic update, and not an optional patch?

I love skiing, only been once though. :P I can't snowboard to save my life. If we have a ski club this year again I'm joining.

Parents are the number one issue here. The fact that That 70's Show is on television while your kid's home doesn't mean they can watch it. Just because Halo 2 exists is no excuse to let your five-year-old play it (I kid you not, I have seen kindergarteners with this game and knowledge of what happens in the game). Parents nowadays see TV and video games as babysitters. Here you go kid, here's the remote! Watch whatever you want. Oh you want this game? Okay, just be sure you let your friends play it too! Music is crap too, although this plagues more the teens than the children. Most of the popular music (3OH!3 [which sure as heck is not any kind of good alternative], any kind of that rap crap, hip-hop, pop) nowadays is not fit [explicit lyrics much?] to be played on the radio. My 21 year old cousin has a 2 year old (and is not married... :roll: ) and plays all sorts of rap with the booming bassline, the child's going to go deaf. I do wish my parents were less restrictive (I used to get yelled at for playing Super Smash Bros. Melee [at a friend's house] when I was 12, because it's rated T. OMG). To this day (sophomore in HS) I've seen one R rated movie (The House on Haunted Hill :P) and the number of PG-13 ones I can probably count on both hands.

Even though I'm in the high-risk group (teen with type 1 diabetes) I'm not getting it. If I get it, it's not going to kill me any worse than normal flu would. I don't trust the government as far as I can throw them these days. I know even if my mom or doctor or endo said I should get it I'd fight getting the vaccine. Luckily, none of them told me to get it (though my endo got it herself), and my doctor called to ask if I wanted it. I've gotten a normal flu shot for the past 5-7 years every year. But I don't trust this H1N1 vaccine and I don't think it's necessary.

TV nowadays sucks. I loved Angry Beavers (have to go to Hot Topic and buy one of the shirts!) and CatDog, Hey Arnold, and Doug were great. Once upon a time I watched the Powder Puff Girls, it was an okay show, though definitely better than anything on today. And they actually ran Looney Tunes on Saturday mornings, none of this 'we can't play those, they're too violent and bad' crap. Toys I remember not much of, besides LEGOs and Toy Story stuff, which is and always has been and will be great. The problems with the kids are mostly parenting problems. You can try to pin it on the big business (what with all the food ads, no wonder kids are fat :roll: ) but it's really the parents. Allowing a five-year-old to play Halo is just plain wrong. That's realistic killing, not the 'let's shoot fireballs at walking mushrooms!' gameplay of 90's games. (also one of the reasons I love Nintendo. Pure gameplay. No unnecessary (besides SSB) violence). Letting your 5 year old watch Family Guy is also a no-no for obvious reasons. I can't stand any of that crap TV anyway.

I shall speak to Sam about getting you a winner's userbar. Congrats!

a) netbooks -jr high. why? -why in general b ) certain programs -gimp on netbooks? -ps and gimp on same computers? -internet exploder c) open office -why? -why? -why? d) prep for real world -so why no ms office? -its frickin world standard -aka oo frickin sucks -wanna know why? -why personal netbooks to jr. high? Any other details I should include?

I am afraid everything is not as simple as "reducing taxes". Yes in certain cases decreasing taxes will help, but in other cases, it will not. If the economic crisis is easily solved with decreased taxes, then why the hell didn't the government do it before? You gave an example of how tax cuts may work out in favor of the economy, but what about a different situation. For example because the government has to spend money on certain things such as maintenance, loans to commercial banks, the two freaking wars we are having right now, money is absolutely required. Now if the government decrease tax income, they would have to do other things to raise income such as releasing bonds or print more money, which in return can lead to massive inflation. Of course the situation which you have described may happen as well, but it is very wrong to assume that somehow only tax cuts can magically fix the economy. The government must handle certain things in which the people cannot, and to do them, they require money. You can't spend money to save money. The way to get out of a depression is not to spend more money. It's to keep the money that's in the economy in the economy. Spending 3 trillion dollars to get out of a depression only leads to more depression in the future due to high taxes because the government will have to pay back all that money [to China :roll: ] somehow. If we need the tax money to keep fighting the war, why doesn't Obama just get us out of it so he can cut taxes. There's nothing the federal government truly needs to do except provide a military and a higher judicial court. If we want something else we can pay for it ourselves. The [federal] government needn't handle 'certain things in which the people cannot', besides a collaborative military and a high court. States could do that themselves but it wouldn't work. Why the hell didn't they do it before? Because they have ulterior motives? Because they can't run a country?

@FOX News comment: I said 'attempted', I didn't say they actually did, I know they're conservatively bent, why else would I watch them? Fox might go overboard on somethings but the other news channels don't even mention them. Plus he's only half-black if you really want to get technical. There are better ways to save jobs than by spending money. There's this thing called 'lowering taxes'. It works by lessening the amount of money businesses and people have to pay to the government, therefore giving them more money to spend; businesses can pay their employees more or hire more, or offer more benefits to them. People can spend more, therefore giving the businesses more money to spend, and since there's more money for consumers, businesses [theoretically] also make more money, so the government still gets their taxes in the end [although they're slightly less]. I live in what is probably the worst state in terms of unemployment and the whole car company debacle (Michigan). We have something like a 11% unemployment rate, not counting those underemployed and who have stopped looking for work. Our governor promised to 'blow us away' when she was reelected and she's done just that by completely missing the point of her original comment. She's wasted taxpayer money going overseas to then bring back jobs numbering just hundreds, when the jobs lost in the manufacturing sector alone total thousands. Our budget is completely f'ed up, we're losing all sorts of funding for our schools (which were and are the only thing we've got going for us less tourism) and the state scholarship is gone, even for this year's college freshmen. What has 'The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act' (whatever the heck it is) done for us? Repaved hundreds of roads that didn't need to be repaved! And left hundreds more that did untouched! We have freaking signs EVERYWHERE that say this project (which is unnecessary) was funded by it; the signs alone probably burned a fourth of the budget. There's a reason the National Recovery Act was repealed in the 1930s! IT DIDN'T WORK! American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on Wikipedia <-- look at the excessive spending in the healthcare and Social Security benefits. IT GAVE 1.3 BILLION TO AMTRAK! Boo hoo, the feds have less money to spend. Then SPEND LESS! The only ways the depressions have ever ended is a ) worldwide war [which better not be happening anytime soon] and b ) lower taxes and lower spending by the government. And the picture reminds me. American cars are nothing but crap and can't really be called American either. Obama didn't save any jobs by bailing out the car companies, they still laid off and fired thousands of workers. He just prevented them from disappearing forever, and a bunch of brands are doing that anyway. The real problem with the car companies is the unions; why weren't the car companies making money? Because they were paying excessive benefits to their retired workers (something like full health benefits for free plus a pension) and the unions kept trying to up their wages. My parents work(ed) at jobs requiring 4 year college degrees and won't get that when they retire. We don't need unions anymore. The Teamsters union is one of the hugest problems. Trucks pollute a lot more than trains. Yet a most of the over-land transport is done by truck. Oh guess what? They support Obama. So Obama won't do anything to bother them even though they pollute a great deal, directly and indirectly (clogging up highways and city streets resulting in longer idling and commuting times for everyone) and he's all about 'going green' with crap-and-trade and all of that.

That's the question. How cheap can I get it for/what's the average price of such a machine?

A computer/laptop (preferably laptop) with: Wireless network card Windows 7 Graphics card that can run RuneScape on HD Enough RAM to easily run GIMP and 2-3 other apps at once At least 8GB HD Just an estimate, I need the money first before customizing and whatnot. For future reference, what are the lowest cost models of graphics cards that can currently run RS on HD/fullscreen mode?

1. Credit card bill of rights. Stimulus package. Ordering the end of the Iraq war the first day in office (although this is progressing rather slowly). Closing Guantanamo Bay. Fund high speed rail projects. Reverse restrictions on stem cell research. I've provided the link twice now, not my fault you aren't clicking on it. 2. So if every single person with health insurance is happy then that statistic would be accurate. However I know of a few people personally with health insurance who are not happy, so it is already wrong. Look at the link you provided, it said many of those insured are under insured and I am sure they aren't happy. 85% of Americans being insured and 85% being happy with current health care are two completely different things, so yes, it is 100% false. Just because two statistics have the same numbers doesn't mean they are equivocal. 3. You can get fair and balanced, like I said earlier I can't claim anything about other TV news stations since I don't watch them. However NPR is a good example of giving both sides their time to talk. 1) None of those things have been achieved yet, (besides stimulus package, which is arguably the worst of them) it's the same as him saying he'll do something and he still hasn't. Either way the things you mention aren't the biggest problems facing America today. People are stupid, we shouldn't be making it easier for them to be stupid (which is what the credit card bill is); and the rest of the things you mention only help certain areas of the United States/are highly controversial and aren't logistically probable; one could also argue that most of them are things that state or city jurisdiction should cover, not federal. 2) Either way, 85% being insured is still supporting the fact that Obama needs not to go about national healthcare in this way. If 85% of people are insured, that implies they're happy enough with their current care to be insured by it. One could suggest that the 15% uninsured are unemployed or underemployed and perhaps all of this 'work' could be better spent creating jobs for them. 3) Semi-unrelated; I can't stand NPR. Either way, Fox is the only national news channel to attempt to offer both sides, as stated before the rest are blatantly liberal. Obama done nothing. 85% approve of current health care. FOX News being fair and balanced. Three 100% false statements. I would rather assume someone is trolling than they believe blatantly false information. EDIT: Plus mentioning the President's race, which is completely irrelevant. Race isn't irrelevant, many people voted for him because he appeared black, and that was the only reason. Now these people are realizing their mistake, as the man can't run the country. Heck, [technically] he's not even supposed to be making laws. That's the House and Senate's job, he just signs them into law or vetoes them. There's a reason there's an executive branch and a legislative branch.

This has nothing to do with the rest of it, just the Columbus bit. He did not discover the 'new world', and was not even the first European to set foot on the continent. That honor goes to Lief Eriksson/Erikson/Ericsson/Erickson, who was a Viking and landed in what is now Newfoundland some 200 years prior to Columbus. Which is the main reason I don't like Columbus. Doesn't matter if he killed a bunch of Native Americans (well it does, but you get my point).

Some color concepts, waiting for zaaps' OK on these:

The guy's done nothing, just ruined any respect I had for him to begin with. He most definitely doesn't deserve the Nobel Prize. So what, he's half-black? OMG! :roll: The whole thing's stupid, next year the entire Congress is going to be overrun with Republicans because the people are beginning to understand that the man can't run a store, let alone a country, and does stupid things with the things that really need to be fixed (we need Tort Reform, not Healthcare for All). Obamacare (for lack of caring, even though he doesn't even know all of what's in it) is truly FAIL. At least 85% of the people in the US are happy with their healthcare, whether they have insurance or not. And yes, I watch Fox News because they aren't following the president around and going 'OMG! It's Sasha's birthday!'. There's a reason it currently has the highest ratings of the mainstream news channels. Maybe they're not 'fair and balanced' to you, but they are to many, many people nowadays.

It's freaking MySpace (and your profile is private. :wall: ). Post it on PhotoBucket or TinyPic or something.