Phi for All

Another effect that is even more insidious is the erosion of self-esteem due to advertising. Thousands of images of "You're too fat/smelly/poor/ugly, you need THIS!" type of ads make for a very poor image of ourselves. This type of thing might even make us pick on others to make ourselves feel better, or go invade a sovereign country or something. I also picture someone from Nike in a meeting unveiling a mock-up of a new cross-promotion ad for Colt showing an M-16A2 assault rifle with a swoosh on the stock and the caption, "Just do it." I think that was the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz motto for the invasion.

You mean they actually edit out advertising references in the UK shows? That's more refreshing than the drinks could ever be! Rule Britannia! *edit* In the US, when I was growing up, they would give away free T-shirts and logoed products to advertise. How they managed to get people to PAY EXTRA for the privelege of advertising for these huge corporations and even consider logoed merchandise as better than the plain stuff has me completely at a loss. I can't prove it, but with all the media attention a good war gets, I am certain some ad exec has approached the military with an offer to put logos on tanks and uniforms and rifles, oh my.

It's not just the news over here either. Our television shows are peppered with propoganda as well, with the main character in a shitcom getting a healthy applause from the "live audience" sound track when he makes a patriotic statement about going out and kickin' some ass. They also use the shows to hype products, not just with placements, like showing Donald trump drinking Pepsi on his show, but actually building products into the plot, like having Ross and Rachel buy identical apothecary tables from Pottery Barn on Friends. You can imagine how insidious this type of hype is. At least with the news, you can wiegh it against other outlets. Your guard is down when you're watching your favorite program.

My mom and dad were 16 and 17 when the Great Depression hit. They did pretty well for themselves, getting married about three years later in 1932 and eventually having 6 kids. Dad was an electrician at the Naval yards in LA during WWII and used to tell a story about having to shut the power off on a whole destroyer in drydock because the Coast Guard ordered a blackout and threatened to open fire on dad's ship if they didn't douse their lights. He'd shut down everything he could see but missed a spotlight that was pointing away from him out toward the harbor. Figuring the CG wasn't bluffing but baffled as to which light the CG was talking about, dad threw the master switch and plunged the entire ship into darkness with all the workers below decks. Man, they cussed him out. Mom was the glue for our family. I was the youngest, and she made sure my brothers and sisters and their families got together as often as possible, hosting huge dinner parties for everyone. She was one of those good cooks who would ask you if you wanted more and then gave you another ladle full when you said no. Our house was always full of joy and laughter when the families got together. We lost them both, mom slowly to cancer and dad quickly to a massive infection. Their is no good way to lose your parents. Dad died about two months before I got married, almost 12 years ago. I wish I could hug and kiss them both a few more times and tell them thanks for everything.

Holy user-options, Batman! You rock the cave!

It could be set up where members after a certain date had to have 12 characters or less. I know the avatar max has changed from 100 x 100 to 75 x 75. Older members can keep them, but if they change avatars, they must use new size restrictions. Have you considered Yummiredbat, or Yummigraybat? I know everyone would get a kick out of talking to the Yummiyumabat! Sorry, just trying to soften the blow if 12 is max.

Omnipotence is not mine. I have many phenomenal cosmic powers, but I can't change your user name. I have PM'd an Admin about this and He will respond. Did you want yummifruitbat capitalized, while we're at it?

So you want me to change it to yummifruitbar, right?

If you EVER get flamed in the Homework Help forum, don't hesitate to report the offending post using the little red triangle with the black ! in it at the lower left of the post. The staff fully realises that people stop asking questions if they are being made fun of. I can't guarantee your flaming safety for opinions expressed elsewhere in the forums, but here in Homework Help, bullies will get suspension.

I firmly believe in the existence of psychic powers, but whenever someone claims to have them, I immediately doubt them. I believe it's possible, but it's never reproduceable. As with anything supernatural, I'm a hopeful, yet skeptical believer. This will most likely turn out to be a parlor trick. I'll bet he can only do this with more than one witness, and one of them is the ringer.

If he can do it with just him and the pointer person, no accomplices, 100% of the time, anywhere, he's got to be psychic. I realize body language can be powerful, but if you knew that might be the key, you could affect it by holding perfectly still, not looking him in the eye, etc. If he is psychic, why's he just messing around with colored cups?

I guess the Mujahedeen are learning from Osama bin Laden, who got us to spend billions when he only spends enough to buy video tapes and flying lessons. The media is a bit jumpy, imo.

You make it sound like he gets it right most if not all the time. I don't think body language would get you much better than 50%, and the results would vary with different people. My vote is technology. Tell your friend to watch out where she undresses, her brother has the house wired for video.

Minicam. Without an informant, visual confirmation or telepathy seem to be the only other answers.

NPR's site only gives a brief catalog of story topics in print. Their audio links to the stories themselves may prove more fruitful.

Going out of your way to cause trouble is one definition of trolling. And I don't care if it's a member, a Mod or an Admin, trolling people on this forum drags our credibility down and scares away posters who are interested in thread content. Please stick to the topic, it's much more interesting.

After nine years, a stripper in Toronto who was mauled by a tiger at a safari park has finally won C$650,000 in compensation for work she could no longer perform due to scarring. Jennifer-Anne Cowles and her boyfriend were driving through the park when a tiger bumped into their car. The couple claims that, although their windows had been rolled up, they panicked and rolled them down after the alleged bumping. Cowles' boyfriend, David Balac, was awarded C$1.7 million to compensate for work he was unable to perform as an accordionist. A worker at African Lion Safari, who requested anonymity because I made him up, commented, "This is really a shame, a travesty of justice. I mean, who in their right minds would give an accordionist almost three times as much as a stripper?" This has been Views on the News, please resume thinking.

That certainly would make editing easy for the mods. How are you planning on posting the novel, Cap'n? Have you given any thought to logistics?

American non-voters are so jaded! The typical answer to, "Why don't you vote?" is always something like: 1. All politicians are the same 2. My one vote doesn't really count 3. I don't get into politics I think these people are also the ones who gripe loudest about how terrible things are. I sincerely hope the Iraqis get the government they really want.

The book I got from my library is Seeing yourself see : eye exercises for total vision by Jim Jackson. Google had several hits for eye exercises as well, but some are pay sites. Most of it was just looking in various ways, stretching your eye muscles the way you'd stretch any other muscle. The question is, do you have the time and the discipline to do them? If you'd like to see without corrective lenses or surgery, it's a great way to go. Most of us are lazy, I'm sad to say.

Has anyone ever tried the eye exercises that supposedly strengthen the eyes so that glasses and contacts would be unneccesary? There is a whole school of thought that says glasses are like crutches and if we simply kept our eyes in shape we wouldn't need them. I checked a book out of the library once. The exercises are not hard, but it is something you'd have to do pretty religiously, just like a bodybuilder would have to do to maintain olympic form. I guess that why a lot of people just wear glasses.

You took the words right out of my mouth. But then that's why they pay Sayo the big bucks. Come to think of it, I've never seen a photo of Demosthenes and Saddam together, nor ever heard of them attending the same party. Coincidence?

And I found some links that stated it was Iranian ordinance that gassed the Kurds in Halabja. Other theories state that it was Sadaam, who was pissed that the Kurds had given shelter to Iranian soldiers. He was actually gassing the Iranians but didn't care if the Kurds got in the way because he considered them traitors to Iraq for helping the enemy. Tell me Bush wouldn't justify doing the same thing if he had evidence that Utah was harboring Osama bin Laden. Remember, gas like the type that was used in Halabja is meant to flush out an enemy. If you leave the area, you don't die. If you stay, you die. If Sadaam had wanted to kill everybody, normal explosive munitions would have done the job. The purpose of gas is to make entrenched forces leave cover and run. Then your forces can shoot the ones who pose a threat, like those carrying weapons. I'm not trying to defend Sadaam. But I try not to listen only to sound bytes like "tyrant", which automatically pass judgement, then go on to be jury and executioner as well. From the CIA's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iraq/Iran war in question: http://www.propagandamatrix.com/a_war_crime_or_an_act_of_war.htm

Papyrus made by the Egyptians predates what we now call paper, but I believe the fibrous type of paper you're referring to was first made in China. Parchment and vellum were actually made from animal skins, iirc.

Answering a question with a question is not good form. It makes us think you have no good answers and are being evasive, which I hope is not your intent. It's clear you've been eating what the media has been feeding you, but your digestive process is producing the same old crap. Next you'll accuse me of not supporting the troops because I don't support the war. I was raised to believe that questioning the intent of the leaders was the duty of the civilian, just as the soldier's duty is to follow the orders of those leaders. You sound like someone who wants to win at all costs. You're hiding behind your patriotism with phrases like "American lives" and "war on terrorism" but the issue that has been brought up here is how much is too much? If someone else cheats does that make it OK for you to cheat? Since they are beheading people it makes it just for us to torture? All of the torture assumes we'll get answers we can use to save lives. If you torture a prisoner and he still tells you nothing, will you just shrug and say, "It was worth a try"? Just like we said there's a chance Sadaam has WMDs, let's invade. Oh, well, he doesn't, but it was worth (billions of dollars) a (thousands of lives) try. Flippant, definitely. Did you know the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline Time Traveler refers to in his decidedly more informative post is worth $12,000,000,000,000 (yes, trillion) in oil and natural gas? I think this may be why we're in Baghdad instead of in Darfur.