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Geez, the city elders in Cape Cod get it. I wonder when the mayor and city council here in Houston, a city literally awash with illegals, will. (not holding my breath)

Best,

Michael

Looks like they already have :)

At this point, I believe legal action against this professor is warranted. And I also believe that it is he who is in dire need of psychiatric counselling. The isolation of academe has done this fellow in.

btw, Foothill College is not exactly a heavyweight school. I think our young Kuwaiti friend deserves much better.

I'd like to know what those dimwits plan to do about water vapor, probably the "worst" greenhouse gas of them all? Read The Satanic Gases by Michaels and Balling for something closer to the truth.

Most likely two words can be used to account for this: Online Shopping.

Dunno about you, but I can't stand getting out into the traffic snarls this time of year. It's mayhem here in Houston.

Built in slums, guaranteed.

I don't believe we ever did invest in the space program with the hopes that something useful -- other than space exploration -- ever would come out of it. The spinoffs are a happy benefit, and should be considered whenever discussing the totality of the value of space exploration.

The true value -- and to me necessity -- of space exploration is to ensure the survival of life on Earth by giving us the capability of extending our habitat beyond it. To paraphrase a greater thinker than myself, whose name now escapes me -- Arthur C. Clarke, perhaps? -- "Life is too precious to leave all our eggs in a single basket."

Yeah and Columbus could have discovered the New World with homing pigeons, I guess.

I am absolutely sick of reading and hearing repeated justification for not investing in space exploration as needing to spend the money here at home in ever-more bloated and failed social programs.

These idiots either refuse to believe or are just too stupid to see the tremendous range of benefits that have come from spinoffs of research and development related to space programs. Somebody take away their cell phones, their satellite TV, the ease with which they can communicate with others all over the globe, their Palm Pilots and PCs (and the list goes on, including I'm sure many medical advancements), and see how much they like it then. Idiots.

Why not robots? Sure, they can pave the way in some circumstances. But there is still no real substitute for having "feet on the ground."

A map showing county-by-county voting results is one thing. A map showing voting results by congressional district is something else entirely. Personally, I think this is a great idea. But I wonder just how much it will matter in the end? Is there a map available that shows the voting results for the 2004 presidential election broken down by congressional district?

I don't have a problem with the Electoral College -- it has served us well. But I have a question about "revamping" it. For all I know, this might have been bandied about ad nauseum already, but I'll ask it anyway --

What if, rather than a winner-take-all situation, the electoral votes were assigned by congressional districts? I think the benefit of this would actually be improved voter turnout since many folks would believe that their individual votes have a greater chance of actually counting. Seems to me that, based on the county-by-county map that frequently appeared here in the days immediately following the election, Bush's margin might have even been greater.

It also seems like it might be a workable compromise that those who would like to abolish the EC might accept.

Hmmm . . . I have a couple of degrees in linguistics and have had several classes in historical linguistics. I even addressed the possibility of improved reconstruction methods in my Masters thesis. So, just based on what I've read, lectures I've attended, and research I've conducted, I have a couple of serious doubts.

First, the 8100 BC date seems way out of line. Most Indo-Europeanists agree that the Indo-European diaspora began 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. To suggest that a proto-Celtic appeared some 10,000 years ago is stretching things beyond the bounds of credibility. I don't know of any archeological data that would back up such a claim.

Second, basing such a conjecture on a mere 30 words is extremely doubtful. In linguistics, we have something called the Swadesh List (named after Maurice Swadesh, a linguist who first came up with the idea). The Swadesh List is a listing of either 100 or 200 of the most commonly used words in a language. The usefulness of a Swadesh List to a historical linguist is this list of words will have a greater retention time in a language than other, less used words will. Even if these 30 words were absolutely the most common words used in ancient Celtic -- extremely doubtful -- the total number of them is so small that there is a significant chance that loss due to language change would have reduced any sample to the level of background noise in only a few millenia. And given the almost certainty that these 30 words were simply those that were available due to archeological discovery, it once again stretches the bounds of credibility beyond the breaking point.

Dr MacMahon sounded like she was being polite and non-confrontational. When stating that it was reasonable to base a language family tree on a few well chosen words, she was most likely referring to the Swadesh list. Not 30 words that were unearthed by chance.

It bears pointing out that Merrit Ruhlen is not a mainstream historical linguist. Known as one of the "Long Rangers" for his claims of being able to reconstruct protoforms back into the very distant past, his views on language reconstruction vary starkly from almost all other historical linguists.

It is likely -- virtually certain -- that Drs. Foster and Toth's research will be shredded to pieces in the process of peer review.

Excellent choice. I prefer the one chambered for .357 Sig myself.

Sure, I remember where I was. I was watching Fox News, wondering when the post-election Algore insanity would end, and chugging Maalox to calm my ulcerated stomach. Yeah, I was that upset over the mess. Election night turmoil gave me an ulcer, literally. Thanks a lot, you leftist pukes.

Ho-hum. Let the marketplace decide. Not one penny of gummint funds should be spent on the creation of this channel/network.

Look to the Constitution. Muslims have the same right to express their religious views as the Trinity Broadcasting Network does . . . unless they attempt to bring Wahabism to our shores. If that occurs, then, as far as I'm concerned, it's off with their heads!

Sir, I resemble that remark about the lousy SKS. Criticize the 7.62 x 39 round, but not the weapon. And remember that Ruger offers its classic Mini-14 in the same caliber as the SKS

Hmmm -- well, if it were a Chinese-made SKS, I'll let my comments stand. I've owned a bunch of the Russian ones and they were quite well made. Anyway, my point was more that it seemed the writer of this hit piece was attempting to demonize an import, as if banning imported "assault weapons" would solve anything. Hence, my pointing out my belief that the AR-15 and Mini-14 are superior. As for the round, I have little criticism for the 7.62x39 round. It has been demonstrated to be extremely effective at its intended use.

Follow the money. Turkey and Russia are neighbors. What with all the trouble Russia has been stirring up recently, I wouldn't be surprised if their stinky fingers are in this somewhere.

Those same hunters, armed with bolt guns, one must presume, would be no match for an AR-15 or Mini-14, either. They're just as deadly, if not more so, than a lousy SKS.

Man, I hate this crap. The anti-gunners are gonna gin up their rhetoric for the next several months over those evil, dastardly pretender-to-be assault weapons. You just wait -- real soon now, some gun-grabbing glory mongering politician's gonna call a news conference to show what effect an SKS has on a watermelon and the MSM will go gaga.

Time for us to hang tough on this one.

These horses are not adoptable and will starve to death or force out native species. We either round them up and keep them in holding pens for the rest of their lives or sell them for dog food. If you want to save these horse, go adopt them or volunteer to pay for them. Don't use my taxes for you to have a Disney moment.

No thanks on the latter -- I've pretty much held Disney in contempt ever since realizing that the whole point of Bambi was to demonize hunters. :)

One of the points of my post, which you apparently missed, is that horses are, in fact, a native species and disappeared from the American continent because of humans. If BLM has any intelligence left, it would introduce the horse's natural predators back into its present environment (which were NOT humans, by the way), and that would take care of the problem, by and large.

Sorry, wild horses are not indigenous to North America. They were introduced by the Spanish and are crowding out native vegetation and other wild life. They are inbred and most of them are not pet quality.

Hmmm, well let's take a closer look at Equus cabalus. It might interest you and others to know that the horse first evolved on the North American continent some 55 million years ago. It vanished from this continent only about 8,000 years ago -- due both to environmental changes and human predation. See this link for more details:

http://www.pbs.org/wildhorses/wh_origin/wh_origin.html

Further, if we want to measure worth based on breeding, then I guess the cheetah isn't worth protection either, since it is severely inbred. Many, including myself, would even argue that we humans would have to include ourselves in that number, since there is more genetic variation in a single troop of chimpanzees than there is in the entire human clade. I don't have the citation for the last statement handy, but I can dig it up, if you insist.

Finally, we are spending many millions more on an even bigger nuisance -- illegal aliens -- than we ever will on horses. We need to get our priorities straight.

I lived in California from 1975 to 1998. The collapse of the Soviet Union put Southern California real estate prices into a seven-year-long tailspin. Prior to the Soviets' demise, SoCal employed a tremendous number of highly paid defense industry workers, whose jobs just went away once the US gummint stopped buying all those expensive defense systems. Real estate values dropped 30 - 50%. But once they began to recover, they took off like a rocket.

During the mid-1980s, I felt that there was no way real estate prices could continue going higher, but they did. Now, twenty years later, I'm inclined to think the same thing once again, but if history is any indication, there might still be another five to six year run before CA sees a reversal, and even then prices will probably only fall back to where they were in the late 1990s -- which were still higher than just about everywhere else in the nation outside NYC.

Evidence emerged at a Senate subcommittee hearing last week that climate skeptics are losing their rearguard action challenging the science of global warming. That evidence and the scientific consensus on the issue have become so compelling the skeptics might have to shift their emphasis to climate policy actions or risk losing their credibility.

The "science of global warming"? Maybe so, but it's junk science. "Risk losing their credibility" should really read "risk losing their research grant funding." Follow the money. That's what this is all about.

For a glimpse at something closer to the truth, I highly recommend the book The Satanic Gases by Michaels and Balling.

That's because even in L.A. it's possible still to own a firearm. It's just about impossible to do so in London. And the theives know it.

I know a few Texas women who'd be willing to duke it out with those candyasses up there in Vermont, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Washington. Texas women are tough and damn proud of it.

Time for Goldman to hire a coupla goodfellas, perhaps?

I have a question:

Why is it that, if you're a Mexican here illegally, but paying into the Social Security system, this money is "savings" that can be withdrawn, but if you are here legally and paying into the system, the money goes into the general fund to support those who are already on Social Security? There is something deeply wrong with this picture.

Once those poor, desperate, hard-working folks south of the border realize that the US government will store their SS taxes in a savings account that they can cash in when they leave, they'll be crossing the border like locusts moving across the African Savanna.

I teach an SAT Prep class at a local private school. As you may know, beginning next March, the "New" SAT will replace the old one. Among other differences, it will include a Writing section, which will be scored on the same basis as the Critical Reading (formerly Verbal) and Math sections, i.e., 200-800.

Here in Texas, the state average is hovering right around 1000. Dismally low. The school in which I teach is predominantly Chinese. Most of the kids were born here, and most of their parents are immigrants. These kids are already taking the SAT for practice in the 9th grade. I think that anything less than 1300 for them would be the sort of situation where you wouldn't feel like going home for a while, out of fear of your parents' wrath. :)

As smart as these kids are, though, they score somewhat lower than the average on the (old) Verbal. Why? Because they don't read enough. They may be brilliant on the math section of the test, but they have difficulty on the Verbal section. So here's my take on things -- and my advice to kids who will be taking the SAT and their parents:

To improve your Critical Reading scores, read. Read books. Start now. Always have a book going. Some of the books should be just a bit above your comfort level. Always have a dictionary handy. Use it. Ask your parents questions when you don't understand something you read. Who knows, they might just know the answer!

To improve your math scores, start behaving like your math class matters. Study. Ask questions. Seek out extra help guides. Ask questions. Join study groups. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Ask questions. Study for your exams. It pays off in more ways than you can imagine.

Based on my experiences, it has become my opinion that it is easier to improve ones math scores than Verbal/Critical Reading scores. There are no significant short cuts to improving ones vocabulary or understanding of the language, which is why I stress reading so strongly. With Math, it is possible to improve ones score somewhat by cramming for the SAT, but that is because math is a rules-based discipline that is considerably more finite in scope (as pertains to the SAT, at least) than the Verbal. Nonetheless, a sure and steady approach to both subjects is always the best approach.

Bottom line -- consistency is best. A child should be challenged and encouraged in both areas, and this practice must remain consistent.

I don't know of her, but Clarice Feldman must be tough as nails. I'm sure her email inbox is already flowing over with hatemail accusing her of being a racist.

This is actually a complex problem and not easily solved. But to deny its existence does nothing but worsen the situation. For sure, affirmative action has to go. But then so does the almost universal practice of undeserved promotion in public school. The problem is only exacerbated by the lack of any sort of scholarly setting in the home, due in large part to a culture of welfare dependency, which discourages the nuclear family. I could go on ... One thing's for sure, though -- what we've been doing for the past forty years definitely has NOT worked. It's past time to try something that makes sense.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't both the US and Iraqi forces tell ALL civilians (including, one must assume, non-imbedded journalists) to LEAVE?

Too effin' bad. He's lucky he's alive.

It's never, never about him, is it? What a boob.

MBNA is one of the worst CC outfits, if not THE worst. I'd rather go hungry than apply for an MBNA card.

I hate to say "I told you so" but I did. When Rathergate exploded and everybody here was pounding their chests, predicting Rather's imminent demise, I posted a comment stating to the effect that he wouldn't be going anywhere, that the news media would sweep the whole matter under the rug and that they would depend upon America's notoriously short attention span. And that Rather would continue being Rather for as long as he wanted.

I was flamed by folks here for that statement. I was called a troll. I resented it, especially because I knew I was most likely right.

Well? Well?

Am I wrong? Wish to F I was, dammit. But it doesn't look like it, does it?

"Partisan redistricting in Texas"? A bipartisan redistricting commission??? What sort of claptrap is this? If the Texas State House would have been controlled by Dims -- the way it has been for the vast majority of the years Texas has been a state -- would this jerkoff reporter have used this same language? Would he be calling for this same bipartisan commission? To this lightweight whiner, I say: Too effin bad! Yeah, I'm from Texas. We won, you lost. Go piss up a rope. You may write for a Texas paper, but you're no Texan. Candyass whiner.

I don't know why this should surprise anyone. Imminent domain and all. The ownership of private property is an illusion. If the government can take away your land, then you don't really own it in the first place.

Man am I glad this guy has to put "former" in front of his CIA credentials. He is a fool. It is impossible to use the word "Great" without its being assigned a positive connotation. Stalin was NOT great. Hitler was NOT great. Arafat was NOT great. Evil is NEVER great.

HT wishes Bush is afraid to take her questions. More likely, he realizes her for what she is -- a loon -- and has decided not to lend her any more undeserved credibility.

If Hitler we in power today, what would be YOUR answer?

See my post #26 in this thread for your answer.

First, repeal the 16th Amendment and abolish the IRS. THEN we'll talk about what sort of tax we want to replace it with. I like the NST idea, but it is a non-starter with me until I see that the 16th Amendment is first eliminated.

You know, I read these crybabies' whinings and I ask, "Where are the journalist heros like Ernie Pyle? Men who were willing to risk their lives without cringing to get the truth out to the people back home?"

If they're that worried about their sorry hides, they should just leave.

You'll note that the developers of the game are in Scotland. Way to go, laddies.

Watched the show on the History Channel last night about the Kennedy assasination. The reconstructions using computer animation were very illuminating. I've believed all my life that there was not a lone gunman, but after watching the evidence, I must admit that I've changed my mind.

It wasn't the computer animation that showed the alignment of Kennedy and Connelly that did it for me, although that was most telling. No, rather it was the reconstruction of the scene from the sniper's nest at the top of the TX School Book Depository, specifically the view through the scope, showing at which points the shots were taken and the time lapses between, in real time.

I'm a good shot. In the Army, I qualified on the M16, receiving an Expert marksmanship badge. I'm an even better shot with bolt guns. But after seeing what the shooter saw, I realized that even a person with mediocre skills and only a passing familiarity with that Manlicher Carcano could have made those shots. It would not have required an expert. After the 2nd shot, the limo was moving directly away from the shooter's position and downhill, so there was no left to right adjustment and almost no elevation adjustment necessary. The shooter had virtually all the time in the world between the 2nd shot, which wounded both K and C, and the 3rd, which killed the President.

I never thought I'd see myself saying it, but Oswald was the lone gunman. There is no further doubt in my mind.

This smells. Where is the proof that these masked people were indeed CIA?

Hmmm, the way I see it, just about the only thing that Chile has going for it is the fact that they supply large quantities of summer fruit to the US during our winter months. I wonder what were to happen if we were to say, stop buying their fruit? Yup, thought so.

I've never cancelled a subsripton before, but that's what I'm doing after I post this.

Hehe. What took you so long? :P

He's ALWAYS with the President. It appears the President cares for him as well.

Makes sense, doesn't it. Take care of those who take care of you. Probably part of the Cowboy Code that the left has such contempt for and all :)

Methinks the Hildebeast is counting heavily on Americans' notoriously short attention spans. Let's do our part to help keep reminding them.

Lessee -- I managed to make it through 3rd grade math. Um, 28% of LIBERAL voters figure Dean would have beat Bush. Uh, well, uh 100% - 28% = 72%. That means that 72%of LIBERAL voters feel that Bush would have DEFEATED DEAN. Why do those boobs even waste newsprint on this drivel?

Well, it's the "in a manner which will not bring embarrassment to the President" part which got the agent hung up, apparently, after the Chilean security people closed ranks in front of him. If his superior chooses to chastise him, I would submit that the superior is being petty, given the constraints the agent is required to follow.

Very unsettling news indeed.

I'm confused. I heard on the radio today that California is thinking about instituting a mileage tax and that Oregon already requires that all its vehicles are equipped with GPS systems. Either way -- whichever is the case -- it's further incremental insinuation of Big Brother into all of our lives.

Far from being an Iranian sympathizer here, but I would have to disagree. It doesn't matter what vehemence their parlaiment chants. They are sovereign. But then so are we, and we have the right to self-defense. We have also established the 21st Century version of the Monroe Doctrine, the Bush Doctrine -- if we feel endangered, we will strike first. So, the way I see it, why waste the time and energy in negotiating with anyone who wants to kill us when we know it will likely do more harm than good because it buys them time? Don't talk; do. Take them out. Now.

Some years ago, I read an article in which it was theorized that humans' long-distance endurance was the key to the evolutionary development of their predatory abilities. When it came to dealing with large prey, they could wound an animal and then follow it until it succumbed. As I recall, in this respect, human endurance was even superior to that of other predators, which is what gave them an additional edge. Wish I had a cite for you, but it is interesting nonetheless to see confirmation of this coming from an altogether different source.

I have a simple question:

Does a sovereign nation have the right to enrich uranium?