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I have a theory on this.

The Infinte Jenga Theory.

The theory is simply this. The United States' involvement in the Middle East is such, that, for every action taken in the Middle East, the negative consequences will outweigh the positives.

It's like a infinitely huge game of Jenga. For every block, there is an infinite number of blocks above it. This means that
1) It's hard to move any block out
2) The game is, by nature, unstable
3) When a wrong move is made, a large number of blocks come falling down, obscuring and knocking over the blocks that remain standing.
4) It takes a long time to rebuild the blocks.

The U.S.'s problem: You can't win, and you must play the game.

I have a confession to make.

I...
like that game Second Life.

It's strange. Naked midgets, people floating in mid air, gremlins, Linux Penguins walking around, cardboard boxes going through walls.

It's what I imagine an acid trip to be like, only with more lag and chat.

Frankly, I don't see why anybody would spend real money on this place. But, at the same time, you don't have to spend any money whatsoever for hours and hours of entertainment.

It's like watching a prima ballerina get crushed under a collapsing building--there's a certain beauty to it, while there's enough disaster to keep you enthralled.

At 8/3/07 06:03 AM, Ultimate7777 wrote: It was rush hour.

That doesn't tell me anything. Traffic speeds could have been anywhere from 0 to 50 mph.

You should join me. I hardly ever go to malls. All the stores are more crowded and more expensive than the same stores outside the mall. But then again, I don't really care for shopping, there are lots of interesting places around here, and traffic around the mall is horrible.

At 8/3/07 05:18 AM, Tibyrius wrote: I was there when it happened, I was just about to cross the bridge when suddently I heard a giant
rumbling sound than cars started to disappear a few cars up.

Wow, that must have been a scary sight. How fast was traffic moving at the time?

At 8/2/07 11:48 PM, bbs-addict wrote: thank god i live in canada.

Canada has plenty of unsafe bridges too.

anyway, if 12.7 percent of the bridges are in need of repairs, and the MN one was supposed to be repaired in 2020, then your only soloution would be to reorganize and refund the transportation department, because we can't just reorgainze without refunding the department. Nor can we refund the department without reorgainzing it.

Organization isn't that big a problem, IMO. Many DOT's, especially at the state level, are actually better organized than many government agencies.

Oh yes, of course he was. The government also doesn't want you to know that 9/11 was planned and carried out by the Warren Commission and Jimmy Hoffa to cover up Jack Ruby's ties to the CIA, who shot Oswald to prevent him from leaking the fact that Oswald was hired by LBJ as a scapegoat to cover up the JFK assassination.

In a freak coincidence, the thermite-loaded missle hologram piloted by a cabal of Jews and Illuminati agents hit the north tower of the WTC mere seconds after the silver bullet fired from Ruby's gun.

At 8/2/07 08:21 PM, Emulous wrote: The problem isn't just the transportation department getting its funding cut. The same thing happens when you cut the funding in any department. The real problem is that the government as it is structured now is just so inefficient that when ever you cut the spending problems will arise because no one can figure out how to fix a problem with less money.

While that is somewhat true, this isn't a problem that can be solved with the amount of money being invested right now, regardless of how efficiently it is spent. Not only do governments have to repair these bridges, but build new ones, upgrade roads, build new roads to meet demand, etc.

Just look at the U.S. postal service it is a sinkhole for money and inefficiency.

Actually, the Postal Service is quite profitable. It made a profit of $1 billion the past 5 years according to an article on about.com.

What needs to be done is a whole new restructuring of the various departments and put more regulations that put the people in charge responsible for their decisions. e.g. If Bob the education president of Podunk county wastes money on new computers when older and cheaper computers do just as good of a job, then he should be accountable, and if he keeps screwing up then he should be fired. If a company went by the standards the U.S. Government uses then they would go out of business.

Again, while more efficiency is good, without more funding, we're just rearranging chairs on a slowly sinking Titanic.

Unless your Walmart which is itself a foul and bureaucratic company thats wasting money.

That much for what rapidly is turning into a YouTube clone, only with less content and more idiots?

While Eric Bauman may be a douchebag, he's by no means stupid.

It should be noted that there are only 592,000 bridges in the bridge inventory in the U.S.
This means that 12.7%, or roughly 1 out of 8 bridges is structurally deficient.

Here's an example of one of these in my state. It shows just how bad some of these bridges are.

At 8/2/07 02:22 PM, escudo0 wrote: Won't somebody think of the children?!

No. No one cares about the children.

Obviously, I think that one's works should be protected while the author of those works are still alive. Of course, that would stifle creativity of the elderly to produce any works, so an alternative 50 years would be in order--your works are copyright protected for your life, or 50 years, which ever is longer. That way, you have all your life to take in the profits of your work and use/invest them, or if you die shortly after, then you would get to leave those profits to your family.

As you know, Wednesday evening, the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed. It was rated structurally deficient, and a combination of construction and heavy rush hour traffic may have led to its demise.

Next time you go out for a drive, consider this:

There are 75,000-plus bridges in the U.S. that are also labeled structurally deficient.

Of course, this doesn't mean that 75,000 bridges are about to fall down--there is a safety buffer built into the measurement.

What this does mean, though, is that it is imperative that these bridges are fixed, and soon. The I-35W bridge was scheduled to be replaced in 2020. Obviously, it couldn't wait that long. And if we procrastinate that long replacing or fixing the other 75,000 bridges, we could have more serious problems like the one in Minneapolis.

With transportation dollars being mismanaged and misused, and diverted to other things, bridges and road infrastructure gets neglected.

Structurally deficient bridges is just one problem. The same report lists 80,000 functionally obsolete bridges, bridges that are no longer able to sufficiently serve the traffic that uses them.

The U.S. has dropped the ball on transportation funding. In many places, road infrastructure is the same as it was 40 years ago. The very same system that helped the nation grow and prosper now stands to choke it.

At 8/1/07 09:40 PM, Proteas wrote:

At 8/1/07 04:08 PM, SevenSeize wrote: I spent $168.00 today....

You just spent that much and you still have $400 left to go?

*gets out soapbox, hops on*

MY FELLOW AMERICANS, IF ELECTED TO THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, I WILL TAKE A 10 POUND AXE TO ANY POLITICIAN THAT SUBMITS A PORK PROJECT AND USE THAT MONEY TO HELP OUT OUR TEACHERS!!!!

Thank you. Proteas/JHMX 2008, y'all.

*hops off soapbox*

No! It is imperative we build that rain forest in Iowa!

Y'all want to talk about crazy sleeping schedules, working overnights is the worst. Going from being up from 7 pm to 11 am on the weekdays to 7am to 11 pm on the weekends and back is rough, rough, rough. Either way, it calls for either staying up for 24 hours plus straight, or sleeping for 16 hours straight, neither of which I can easily do.

[LINK]

I've always been a fan of chemical reactions. I found this site through the Wooden Periodic Table table website.

These are part of a chemistry lesson set on CD's. Most of them are pretty fun to watch. Especially the thermite video. Who knew you could make something so cool from rust, aluminum, and a 4th of July sparkler?

At 8/1/07 12:49 AM, Imperator wrote:

At 8/1/07 12:46 AM, RydiaLockheart wrote: One thing that's interesting is to throw whatever flavor your ramen is in. For example, if you have chicken ramen, throw in some precooked chicken and cook it with the ramen, It's awesome. Or, if you're feeling like something Japanese, put some kelp on top.

I'm smelling a cookbook coming....."1000 Ramen recipes for the undergrad palate". Who's with me?

I've found that a couple packs of ramen, with a small can of tomato sauce, and some garlic salt, makes a pretty good impromptu spaghetti. Just leave out the seasoning packet.

Tropical Storm Chantal has formed out in the Atlantic. It currently has 50 mph winds and is expected to hit Newfoundland, perhaps as an extratropical storm.

If you live in the Canadian Maritimes, you should be watching this storm, and taking appropriate precautions.

At 7/31/07 06:50 PM, Der-Lowe wrote: I've been playing for a short while; can't get past 125k people in a city :/

Check out www.simtropolis.com. They have all sorts of mods. They have some that allow you to adjust the parameters of a game to more or less realistic levels. They also have aesthetic stuff, like parks, gardens, waterfalls, etc.

I usually play Sim games for like a month, before I get bored with them and start modding.

At 7/30/07 10:46 PM, Der-Lowe wrote: I was playing Simcity 4 RH,

What kind of cities do you have?

Bush doesn't have as much to do with this as you think. Nor has any President in the past. The economy is cyclical, periods of expansion and growth followed by recession, and is for the most part, uninfluenced by presidential policy. Even all the New Deal programs FDR created really didn't help end the depression--it took a war to really recover from it.

Why would someone forsake $800,000 to destroy MMORPG's?

At 7/30/07 04:18 AM, Duffi wrote:

At 7/30/07 04:15 AM, POIZIN wrote: So paris is done with being a dumb bitch?

No. She's just going to actually earn her monet.

With all those marketable skills she has, that shouldn't be too hard.

Of course, with the exception of that "Simple Life" show, she's never seen chickens, so she wouldn't know that you don't count your chickens until they hatch.

You Have a 52% Chance of Survival.

A little better than 50-50.

I'm much better prepared for non-fantasy disasters, such as tornadoes, floods, or Ashlee Simpson concerts.

At 7/30/07 04:38 AM, 36Holla wrote: In all of Toms photos, hes drinking a beer.

Miller Lite, at that. I wonder if he has an endorsement deal?

It should be noted that Tom has a Bacon number of 2, a Connery number of 3, and a Burt Reynolds number of 2.

National Geographic

At 7/29/07 12:43 PM, Grammer wrote: Fuuuuuuuuck.... I just replaced the batteries in my keyboard but it still types slowlu. Even now my keyboard is a good two seconds behind what I'm typing

You sure it's not just NG? I've had that problem here as well. I've also seen the text bouncing up and down as I type.

I assume you mean "mulligan", because "mullian" isn't a word.

A "mulligan" is essentially a "do-over", it has it's origins in golf, where the term describes ignoring a bad shot and doing it again, usually only in practice or non-competitive rounds of golf.

At 7/28/07 09:39 PM, RedSkunk wrote: Did the redesign make the forums better?

It depends on your criteria of "better".

Most of the changes were aimed at the flash and audio portal and user pages. Most of the stuff done to the BBS was aesthetic, although you do get a larger range of emoticons, and you can post 595x700 images now in all forums, not just the art forum.

At 7/28/07 06:43 PM, Proteas wrote:

At 7/28/07 06:35 PM, SevenSeize wrote: I'm actually making a real ban stick btw.....

I'm actually thinking of buying a Singapore Cane and writing "BANSTICK" across the handle for shits and giggles.

A 2 x 4 would be a far more suitable banstick, IMO.

But you gotta get with the technology. Ban buttons are far more easy to use.

At 7/28/07 01:57 AM, Innocence-Lost wrote: When it comes down to it, I do not like people knowing I can sing.

Yet you post the fact that you can on one of the most active forums on the internet? Hmm...

Hey it could be worse. They could have recorded you.

Welcome to the Kwik E Mart. Would you like a squishie?