Skeptical

Not that I have a problem with Obama...

Exhibit A: Saru does not like Mexican food. Saru dislikes peppermint ice cream. Saru dislikes pie. Saru is Christian and gay. First Witness: TIF OT. Your Honor, I accuse this man of trolling in the first degree. The suggested sentence: shock correction treatment and thought repatterning. With any hope, he can still be semi-normal someday. OT: This essay outline that I'm supposed to be doing. I know about the topic. I know what I want to prove. How do I write eight pages about it, including as evidence, according to the teacher, "Everything"? LSD and shock therapy was found to be a particularly effective combination by the CIA. - Use lots of quotes and stretch out everything. What topic is it on?

Disproven. http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden-Everything/dp/006073132X Confession: I still need to read this one. And Skeptical is right to post it. Everyone who I've heard about it from has had good things to say. I highly recommend it, along with everyone (literally) I know that has read it.

You actually bothered asking a teenage girl what was wrong? Only two outcomes are sufficiently likely to warrant listing: A) She won't tell you. B) It's your fault. Which is why I don't have any girls added on Facebook. :grin: :smile: :mellow: :sad: Awesome. Deleted my Facebook: it was hard for the first 24 hours, but the extra time and lack of annoyances was wonderful. Did Diaspora just end up dying? I haven't seen any news about it in quite a while.

Disproven. http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden-Everything/dp/006073132X

You actually bothered asking a teenage girl what was wrong? Only two outcomes are sufficiently likely to warrant listing: A) She won't tell you. B) It's your fault.

That's a bad idea, always go alone and never tell people you know. Family and friends will look down at you and will lose their trust for you if they know you steal and can be used as evidence against you in court. The most I've ever stolen before is a book out of Barnes & Noble. Good book, but that was essentially the only thing I've ever stolen before (and most likely the only thing that I will steal besides music). Also: 1) Steal alone, because you don't want others to get in trouble if you get caught 2) It's actually much easier to get caught in larger establishments because they usually have higher security. You can steal from things like gas stations or smaller stores owned by big chains simply because they have blind spots to their cameras and/or they don't always have the tag-sensing thing. There's actually a game store at our local mall that doesn't have the tag-sensing things, so it would actually be ridiculously easy to steal from there -- the only problem is that the store employees watch you all the time. 3) Don't dress sketchily. Just don't wear baggy clothing and attempt to steal small things. If you can, dress nicely but have a coat to wear -- it helps if you steal when it's either cold or raining out. 4) Stay away from places that sell very expensive things (i.e., Best Buy), because they will have higher security as well. It's best to steal from places that have a mix of very cheap items and moderately-expensive items. 5) Stealing is bad, mmk. You'll continue doing it until you get caught, going after larger, more expensive and more difficult items. Whether or not you can justify it to yourself will also hardly be taken notice of by the law. It's safe to assume that you're a minor, but even then I doubt that a couple hundred dollars worth of food and paper is actually worth it If you're going to steal, do it from large corporations: it's still a crime, but it's the thieving equivalent of white collar crime, and store employees are less likely to actually care: it's not their stuff that you're jacking. That's false. We've had quite a few cases this year in teen court dealing with teenagers stealing from Seers, Wal Mart, etc. Most of them got around 60 hours or so of community service, and it was around 30 dollars worth of merchandise. The Employees did come to testify. I said less likely! Does everyone on TIF think in absolutes? (See what I did there?)

Idiocracy. One clip has become somewhat of a meme within my social circle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8zNsUTWsOc&feature=youtube_gdata

Word. Also, Sceptical, in some cultures it's considered polite or even intelligent to be careful how you word things. You know, because being unnecessarily offensive is unnecessarily offensive. It's Skeptical. Did I say that he should be careless in his wording? I didn't say that he needed to be offensive, and it's his choice how he words it, but if he agrees that they are mercenaries, why not say so? Softening words is something that you do at the enemy's request, not something that you should offer out of concern for offending someone. My opinion though: freedom of speech governs your right to phrase it as you wish. in response to Dupin & Yguy: [hide] People have stopped even reading what I post, which I take as a compliment. Did I say that Blackwater (or even the United States government) had unilateral support from Christians residing on American soil? Absolutely not, and it would be ridiculous to suggest that either organization did. However, Erik Prince founded and runs Blackwater on a platform of supporting Christian ideals. If you wish to respond to Scahill's work, I would be very interested to read what you produce. More likely, though, I think you will find yourself disgusted by the corruption, murder, and blatant violation of both US and international law that follows Blackwater (and to be fair, the majority of other mercenary forces) around the world. [/hide]

That's a bad idea, always go alone and never tell people you know. Family and friends will look down at you and will lose their trust for you if they know you steal and can be used as evidence against you in court. The most I've ever stolen before is a book out of Barnes & Noble. Good book, but that was essentially the only thing I've ever stolen before (and most likely the only thing that I will steal besides music). Also: 1) Steal alone, because you don't want others to get in trouble if you get caught 2) It's actually much easier to get caught in larger establishments because they usually have higher security. You can steal from things like gas stations or smaller stores owned by big chains simply because they have blind spots to their cameras and/or they don't always have the tag-sensing thing. There's actually a game store at our local mall that doesn't have the tag-sensing things, so it would actually be ridiculously easy to steal from there -- the only problem is that the store employees watch you all the time. 3) Don't dress sketchily. Just don't wear baggy clothing and attempt to steal small things. If you can, dress nicely but have a coat to wear -- it helps if you steal when it's either cold or raining out. 4) Stay away from places that sell very expensive things (i.e., Best Buy), because they will have higher security as well. It's best to steal from places that have a mix of very cheap items and moderately-expensive items. 5) Stealing is bad, mmk. You'll continue doing it until you get caught, going after larger, more expensive and more difficult items. Whether or not you can justify it to yourself will also hardly be taken notice of by the law. It's safe to assume that you're a minor, but even then I doubt that a couple hundred dollars worth of food and paper is actually worth it If you're going to steal, do it from large corporations: it's still a crime, but it's the thieving equivalent of white collar crime, and store employees are less likely to actually care: it's not their stuff that you're jacking.

Ah. Why would you feel the need to do that?

Who needs a furniture mod when you have a cozy library? Has Notch said anything about eventually adding any more function to the books?

Lies. They lied, they cheated, they violated basic scientific principle, and pretended that they were men of logic. It's a religion - have you ever noticed how vehemently people defend it with surprisingly little in the way of actual evidence? http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Gary-Taubes/dp/1400040787

Is that a bad thing? I'm assuming that you're not referencing the bribery, so yes, allowing pharmaceutical companies to operate without any restrictions is something that I am opposed to. Why? (honest question) Simple: the goal of the pharmaceutical corporations is to provide the maximum amount of profit to their shareholders. This is accomplished through the externalization of the costs of their profit. Pollution (which has serious health risks) unnecessary medication (paper) obscene drug costs (link) and downright lies. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100924/04264711150/drug-rep-accidentally-admits-there-s-no-justification-for-massive-markup-over-generics.shtml EDIT: And, just to confirm exactly who's side they are on - http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101207/18030712173/nih-wont-let-others-supply-life-saving-drug-even-though-genzyme-cant-make-enough.shtml

They're not "private security companies". In the case of Blackwater, they are not only mercenaries, but Christian warriors who are in it to help people. I'm not kidding, either. http://www.amazon.com/Blackwater-Rise-Worlds-Powerful-Mercenary/dp/1560259795

Is that a bad thing? I'm assuming that you're not referencing the bribery, so yes, allowing pharmaceutical companies to operate without any restrictions is something that I am opposed to.

Personally, I'd prefer the research end of it. :razz: Oh look, Alg's idealism crept out, what with assuming that science to better mankind is a valid career. 6 more weeks of winter. But wouldn't it bother you to completely lack control over anything that you were responsible (at least in part) for producing? Or to find out that the elderly are being tricked into taking it for corporate profits? (As happened to both sets of my grandparents multiple times). Alg?

The first Spiderman movie. I was disappointed: the Spiderman & Iron Man vs. Carnage were so awesome that I forgot how crappy the movies were.

Dam - System of a Down This song makes me wonder if they hadn't been listening to a bit of tool for that album.

I have a close family member who is a pharmaceutical representative. It's a despicable career with many duties tantamount to bribery, but she can shrug off any criticism with a (not entirely inappropriate) reference to it being the result of the wonders of the free market.

Ricky Ray Rector and Monica Lewinsky (potentially more women as well). Clinton is a sick man, who cares for nothing but his own political career and genitalia, perhaps not in that order.

Aside from the occasional anti-histamine (dependency is a brutal cycle), I don't agree to use the majority of them, and I have refused them when suggested. Interesting, is it not, that the number of kids "diagnosed" with ADD and ADHD climbs every year, and yet no one has postulated a cause bearing Occam's Razor in mind, and a solution that does not involve drugs? I'm certainly not suggesting that nobody requires such drugs as are prescribed, simply that they are over-prescribed for the benefit of pharmaceutical companies (along with schools, doctors, and parents.) Something wrong with your arteries? Your heart, liver or longs? Don't worry: we have a pill for that! Never mind diet, we'll skip straight to the statins! Can't sleep? Unhappy, tired, or just plain bored? We have a drug to fix that as well! After all, we are completely aware of every function of every chemical and all of their myriad reactions and complexities in the human brain and body. Diet, exercise, and external factors rank secondary to Glaxo-Smith-Kline's latest advertising blitzkrieg.

95% of my browsing is in Firefox: yes Chrome feels fast (I read, but have since forgotten the source, that it is only slightly faster: it's the way that it loads the page that gives it that blazing-fast feel), but it simply lacks the extensibility and customization possible with 'Fox, as well as the fact that it's from Google. You're using a closed browser when a superior open-source alternative exists... I do find though, that Chrome loads faster than Firefox on Ubuntu 10.10, so there is a place for it on my laptop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8zNsUTWsOc

After reading this, I'm pretty sure that all they'll be able to do is drag the case out for a while. http://radsoft.net/news/20101001,01.shtml