Jon in Pasadena

Why, it's right here: smack in the middle of the 'Zarks Don't think they have the population base to support an NFL team, though. Unless ghosts like football.

Where you gonna play her? Tight End or Defensive End?

As the husband of a LEGAL immigrant, who was made to jump through innumerable hoops in order to obtain her green card, here's how I'll feel if amnesty is granted to illegal immigrants: like the bulldog in those old Tom and Jerry cartoons, where he sees a thought bubble of himself transmogrifying into an ass (donkey). We did everything by the book, spent uncountable hours waiting in line at INS, drove downtown multiple times at 4:00 a.m. to be sure and get there in time to get processed before the hard-working bureaucrats took their mid-morning/cigarette/coffee/bathroom/lunch/telephone-breaks, etc., and they still left us dangling for nearly three YEARS before finally issuing the permanent resident card. I will also mention that the fact that my wife is NOT hispanic meant that we were repeatedly shafted during our encounters with L.A.'s INS offices. Announcements given only in Spanish, preferential treatment/scheduling given to spanish-speakers who cut the lines and had rapid-fire exchanges with the (coincidentally?) spanish-speaking clerks, having our application forms mysteriously "disappear" only to be magically found after all the other (spanish-speaking) applicants got processed, and on and on. All of which we gritted our teeth and endured. But if it turns out that all we had to do was breed a lot and loudly complain about racism, then we really missed out on some fun times by wasting all that time and money playing fair. And IF that turns out to be the case, well maybe I ought to smarten up and start ignoring whatever laws might cramp my style in future.

Sure. The Polk was one of our SSNB's (Polaris/Poseidon missile subs)

Non-proliferation goes the way of the Dodo

750K doesn't get you all that much house out here.

Gee, thanks! (That was actually pretty funny! ) Come to think of it, I have some (second-hand) stories about Carlos, too...

I sent you a PM.

Like others have said, it depends on what kind of cry it is (not much you can do for colic; usually it fixes itself), but if you suspect that's she's getting hungry more often than you'd like, here's a little trick we learned from our first. My son would start to doze off mid-way through his feeding only to wake up 1.5 hours later all hungry and start crying again. Once we started nudging him to stay awake throughout the whole feeding (mid-feeding burp helps a lot for this) he could take 50-75% more milk, and sleep an extra hour or two at a stretch. Saved our sanity. (Well, my wife's anyway; "Forward Lateral" had pretty much 86'd mine a few years prior. )

With the lights turned kinda low, you could make a case for her working out your Britney Spears fantasies. Not that I have any. I'm just saying.

Has anyone here ever checked out these guys to get some simple legal documents drawn up? Supposedly your documents are prepared by, or at least under the supervision of, licensed attorneys. (Disclaimer: the only on-line law-related service I've ever used was an on-line traffic school -- what a friggin' hilarious mockery of justice that was. )

While I am right there with you in your disdain for the radical Islamists and their !@#$ed up world-view, you should know that, although power-hungry, evil and, in many cases, quite nuts, most of the powerful ruling clerics are not retarded in the ordinary sense (in another sense, like socially, yes they probably are); but they've been immersed in an evil brain-washing program since birth. They are well aware of the consequences of an Israeli or American first-strike. Some of those consequences would be to convince even more Muslims that the Islamists were right all along in their characterization of the West as seeking the destruction of Islam, hence bringing even more people under the sway of the most violent and regressive leaders. The Iraqi insurgency IMHO has emboldened them immensely by providing a working model of a way to successfully prosecute a modern war of attrition against the Western powers (mainly us & UK)

For what it's worth, I was talking to an Iranian friend of mine who recently came back from a lengthy visit, and she told me a couple of interesting things about the current regime. According to her: Most of the middle class of Iranian society view Ahmadinejad as a blustery fool. They usually refer to him by a rather undignified nickname. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Iranians who are not in the middle class. He has a big following in the Revolutionary Guards. Ahmadinejad is, apparently, a "true believer" who really thinks that the Mahdi is coming in two years. (I liken it to having someone like Pat Robertson elected president.) If left to his own devices, he *might* try to actualize some of his loonier fundamentalist beliefs, but remember that under the insanely convoluted Iranian political system, he really doesn't have all that much power. If he goes too far, there is a good chance he'll get smacked down by the mullahs who hold the real power. My take: The mullahs stand to benefit by anything that seems to increase the importance and relevance of Islam in the world. On the other hand, they risk losing stature whenever the Islamic world suffers any kind of large setback, so they are relatively cautious about moving openly, until they are positive they have a winning hand. On the other other hand, they are also playing the game within a game, vis-a-vis their Sunni neighbors. I think right now they are allowing Ahmadinejad to run his mouth in order to gauge the West's reaction. If we make concessions, they'll let him keep upping the ante. If they ever think they're losing face because of their President's rhetoric, they'll dump his ass and replace him with another goober. I'm still waiting to hear what they need all that heavy water for, that's being produced at Isfahan*. It's not like they can use it in Bushehr. *Whoops, brain-fart; I meant Arak. Isfahan is where they're gonna be making metallic Uranium. (Gee I wonder what that could be used for. )

Royal Air Maroc ain't bad. No pork in Islamarchycracies.

If you like a tasty Welsh ale, I always thought Felinfoel did a reasonable job with their Double Dragon. Seems hard to find these days though. If you want more kick, their Festival is 6% ABV

You're absolutely right. "The Chemistry of Powders and Explosives" by Tenney Davis *is* pretty good.

Pathetic. We used to launch pick-ups like 30' straight up, out in the desert near Edwards AFB. Funny thing was, the good townsfolk in California City assumed all the booms were just the flyboys having fun, while the guys on base were scratching their heads saying "what the !@#$ was THAT?" Ahh, good times indeed.

Hmm, seems to me you'd want to be increasing traction, (rather than bounciness) to reduce the 40 time. On the other hand, end-zone hurdles and JPL sky-balls would be cake!

Congratulations on an excellent job of re-pirating this thread, btw. Both the original thread and it's first pirating were colossally stupid. Your version is much, much better.

Oh, I'd definitely eat it.

Word.

Stupid sea-weed. Grrrrr.

Good job, Bluechipper. You're going to have a lot of fun. Can't believe my first is gonna be 3 years old in a couple weeks, and he's getting a little brother about the same time. (Hey what can I say, I get frisky around July 4th ) You're going to try to impregnate R.Rich?

Disclaimer: I have never watched an episode of "Survivor", and have only seen a couple of photos from this season in TV Guide magazine... I know Bruce Kanegai pretty well, as we are both black belts in the same Karate organization. I think it would be more accurate to say that Mr. Miyagi was trying a little too hard for the "Bruce" look! Despite his small stature, Bruce is as tough a sumbitch as you'd ever hope to meet. In real life, he regularly out-runs, out-climbs, and out-fights pretty much everybody. I am constantly amazed at how much freakin' energy the man has. He's a mutant, I swear. It's like how kids have this infinite reservoir of energy, but Bruce somehow never lost that. And his Karate kicks ass, too. True story (sorry if they covered it in the Survivor bios): Couple of years ago, Bruce somehow got himself nailed good in the lower leg by a rattlesnake. By the time he got to a hospital the venom had done a lot of damage, he was pretty well out of it, and the docs wanted to amputate. A whole posse of Bruce's fellow black-belts (including my current instructor) took the docs aside and, how shall I put this, strongly suggested to them that they reconsider. Needless to say, Bruce healed up pretty good!