Zixar

Radar: Here's one for you then... Bliss Ninny

Rick: Four times out of five, I'd agree with you. I just don't think Pawtucket deserves to be treated that way, regardless of any past run-ins I've had with him, and making light of the whole thing just gives a kind of tacit approval to what Rocky did to him. So, there's a hundred places I'd take that beer with you. Here's just not one of them. Sorry, I don't mean to be a prick about it, but this incident hasn't exactly kept me in a joking mood.

Radar: You did misunderstand. I was making a commentary on how certain things should not be swept under the rug. These "can't we all just get along" types mean well, I'm sure, but dismissing a problem without addressing it only makes certain that the problem will resurface at a later time, only magnified. It's where the Internet term "bliss ninny" originated. Of course the abuse is an extreme example, but just because this particular problem doesn't approach the other's magnitude does not automatically mean that it's frivolous, either. That was my point. Sorry if it wasn't clear to you. You can prejudge it as a "....ing contest" if you like, it's not like I can stop you. But, if that's all you feel this is, then why reply at all, seeing as how you want it moved off the page? That just brings it back to the top.

Some movies will fit on a single DVD-R, but most require at least 2, even if you strip out all the extras.

Garth: Halliburton, eh? That's getting to be a standard dodge now, isn't it? You can do better than that.

Isn't that the one about the Priory of Sion, the Knights Templar, and the Freemasons?

JF: Shh! He'll go all Godwin's Law on himself and vanish in a puff of smoke! Or soup.

Garth: What's a little sarcasm, between friends? Besides, it's hardly a weak argument, even though I was being facetious. Society makes seemingly-arbitrary decisions all the time, based on other factors the citizens cannot change, like voting at 18, or no Schwarzenegger for President. Even though they may not prefer it, homosexuals still have the same right as anyone to enter into a state-sanctioned civil marriage with persons of the opposite sex, provided they are of a certain age and past a certain blood relationship. Heterosexuals are just as barred by the law from entering into same-sex marriages of convenience for tax purposes and whatnot. No matter how emotional some wish to make the issue, it is by no means a question of civil rights being withheld. It's a question of whether or not some prefer to exercise the civil right they already have. You're single, Garth. Do you really want your taxes to go up to pay for everybody else's civil marriage benefits? How about widows? Let's say a hypothetical British subject emigrates to the US, but he prefers to drive on the left side of the road. Why should he be penalized? It's how he's driven all his adult life! Why should he be forced to do something that feels unnatural to him? Does the Constitution guarantee him a set of left-side roads? Of course not. The existing roads are adequate for what they're designed to do. If someone doesn't like the way they're laid out, he can either learn to drive on the right, hire a driver, or abstain from road travel altogether.

I think the 321 lawsuit was in Australia, not here. And all the ruling requires is that the CSS-removal portion (the encryption bypass) be removed. So, if you're Down Under and want to rip a DVD, you have to first get one of the "pirate" decrypters like DeCSS or DVDDecrypter, run the disc through that first to strip the CSS, then take the resulting file and burn it to your DVD. I think it also stripped out the Macrovision signal-degrader so now you can copy a DVDXcopied DVD onto VHS tape.

Because the hardware does not circumvent the CSS encryption on DVDs like the software does.

Soup? What happened to the snow cones? Why am I always the last one to get the new script dailies? Are we making fun of cripples yet? Or was that yesterday? Who's responsible for continuity on this turkey, anyway? MAKEUP!

That's what I love about this place. Good thing to know that no matter what the topic, you can always count on someone coming in and trivializing the whole thing. That's the GreaseSpot spirit, folks! All life's woes can be eliminated with drinking jokes and food fights! Derailing makes smooth sailing! 2,4,6,8! Everybody obfuscate! Yay, team! Way to be part of the problem! Why, if we could just get VPW's victims to eat Sno-Cones™ , they'd forget all this silly 'who-raped-whom' bickering, too! ...What? Not funny? Geez, what a buzz-kill! Guess some folks just have no sense of humor. :P--> (It couldn't be that some things just aren't funny, could it...? Naaah! On with the party!)

I thought the piece on the amendments was amusing--the author claims none were discriminatory, but the 26th Amendment CLEARLY and BLATANTLY DISCRIMINATES against all civic-minded, rational seventeen-year olds, and cruelly denies them the sovereign franchise. Fascist bastards! "Oh, sure, we can go out and kill ourselves in automobiles, but we can't vote to raise the speed limit? Bloody ageist goosesteppers!" :)--> Isn't it about time someone got bored and derailed this thread with talk of snowcones or some such? Let's have a leek for Trefor! Up the Welsh!

dmiller: Nah, it's just that sometimes people make statements they can't (or won't) back up. All you have to do is open a second browser window and research as you compose your reply in the first.

Linda: Ok, then help me out here. If you aren't accusing me of overusing the "Report" feature, then what exactly do you mean that I've "gotten carried away lately"? Here's all that really happened: 1) For reasons unknown to me, Rocky was banned from the Political Forums sometime after February 14th, the date of his last post there. 2) About 1:30am, February 26th, Rocky posts a political message in the Open Forum. In the first line, he acknowledges that there are other forums appropriate to this message, but apparently he feels since he can't post in the Political forums anymore, it's fine to post political stuff in the Open forum. 3) I read the message about 8am, noting that it takes a slam at the President, and in the ensuing exchange, Rocky uses his derogatory epithet "wingnut" for a right-wing think thank. Rather than start an argument with him, I press the "Report" button. 4) About an hour later, Paw presumably reads my request, agrees that the message does not belong on the Open forum, and moves the thread to the Politics Decaffeinated forum. 5) Rocky starts this thread at 11:25 am. 6) Not 15 minutes later, he starts making unsupported accusations of cowardice. 7) About 12:30, seeing Rocky railing against Pawtucket, I tell Rocky the circumstances surrounding what happened in detail, in the forlorn hope that Rocky will stop attacking Paw over nothing. 8) Rocky continues in his attacks, only now I'm part of Pawtucket's conspiracy against him. 9) About 2:15, Paw posts a succinct explanation of why HE did what he did. 10) Rocky dishes up more of his "innocent victim" routine, lashing out at Paw with his "arbitrary and capricious" mantra. 11) Et cetera. No point in recounting all five pages of the thread. I didn't do anything wrong, Linda. I followed the procedure Paw set up in the wake of Rocky's previous transgression over QQ's identity. Situations like these are exactly why the Report button is there. Where I made my mistake was owning up to reporting it. You'll notice that a couple of other posters pointed out the most likely place it was moved was the Decaf forum, too. It's just my opinion, of course, but I think Rocky knew full well where it had gone, and moreover, I think he knew full well that's what would happen when he tried to cheat around his political time-out. Why? Because if it truly were a colossal misunderstanding as to what had happened to his thread, the very least he could have done was to offer Paw an apology, regardless of how insincere it might have been. Of course, he hasn't done so. As soon as someone gives him the tiniest bit of support, it apparently vindicates him of all wrongdoing in his mind, and off he goes until he's ready to pull the trigger on his next tantrum. This is at least the third time this has happened in the past year, and I doubt very seriously if he will be here very long if he tries to go for four. Note well: Even after all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, he has his "lost" thread back now, nothing's even been posted on it for nigh on two days, and he took 4 out of the 7 posts he did post on it after the move into trying to pick another fight with me. Still, you can believe what you want to about the situation. That's my position on it, with the threads themselves providing sufficient documentation for anyone to check my side of the story. I doubt you'll ever find the same for Rocky's claims, like that he was banned for something OTHER people did. Personally, I'd love to see that one.

Linda: For your information, I've pressed the Report button less than ten times total in the past three years. I don't know where you got your "gezillion" figure, but they aren't coming from me. I'm concerned about Rocky's name-calling too. Did he apologize to Paw while I was away?

Well, I'm off to Florida for the weekend anyway, so you can have it all to yourselves.

P-Mosh: As I've said before, it wasn't a case of "taddling[sic]" anything. Paw is under zero obligation to do anything about any reported post, and if he had thought it appropriate to leave the Goldwater thread in the Open forum, I could have screamed at him until I was blue in the keyboard and it would have done no good. I know from a previous unrelated incident this to be the case in fact. And it's not just an ideological difference, I think you must be aware of that. If that were the motivation, I'd have been pestering Paw about you more than him! :)--> The difference is that while you and I are complete polar opposites in our political views, and ne'er the twain shall meet, you don't pull the ideological baggage into outside discussions. For what it's worth, I find you to be a rather genial fellow when we're not talking about politics, and it seems we share quite a few common interests otherwise. So, as long as you keep your Bush-hatred the same forum I keep my pro-Israel leanings, the rest of the site need never know how bad we go at each other in there, unless they go there by choice. So much of Rocky's vendetta against the "evil ones" exists where no one else can see it--between his ears. That just makes the bits that spill over here all the more indecipherable. Having it go on in less-traveled forums is one thing. Trotting it out in the Open forum is downright disrespectful of the whole site. That's how I see it, at any rate.

Tom: You'd better re-parse that codicil... ;)-->

Tom: I could tell you, but then I'd have to spam you... :D-->

P-Mosh: There is some debate as to whether the ancient Usenet laws spill over into web-based forum etiquette...

Ginger: A concern about where the post went is perfectly reasonable. Bashing pawtucket publicly as if it were some grave social injustice is not. If I showed half the cowardice Rocky claims, I would have let Paw take the rap and said nothing. Paw probably would have done it anyway had he read the thread before I. [shrug] Who knows? Even though the flap seems to have been settled, in that now Rocky can access his Goldwater thread where it got moved, you'd think that Rocky would at least apologize to Paw for flying off the handle. I'm not naive enough to expect one to me, but you'd think that someone who clamors for civility as much as he does would at least show some when it's clear he's made a fool of himself in public. But, as has happened on two other occasions, someone pipes up trying to equalize the blame, and Rocky skips off feeling completely justified in his tantrum. It's quite disturbing that this trend continues. It almost seems as if, when someone is condemning Hitler, that these "it's all good" types would chime in with "Well, Hitler was naughty, but the Jews were just asking for it." Simply astounding. I can't force people to read what I write without filtering it through their own feelings towards me, and no one else can, either. I would just hope that anyone who actually read what I wrote would try to do so objectively before jumping on my case. (Not that you were in this case, Ginger. Just people in general.) BTW, thanks for your kind words about the Millionaire thing.

Something just dawned on me... The flap is that if Mass. allows gay marriage, then other states will have to accept the Massachusetts Marriage Certificate, right? I have a Georgia concealed weapons license, but less than a third of the states recognize it under reciprocity agreements. What's different between the two? Honestly curious, Zix

Linda: Yes, Paw can decide when to enforce the rules very well, and often does. All "reporting" does is alert the moderators that something's amiss. Contrary to popular belief, Pawtucket doesn't read every single post, and he's certainly not on here 24 hours a day. Here's another news flash--Paw ignores most of the "reports" (including the majority of mine) because they aren't worth fooling with. He could have just as easily ignored mine this morning. He doesn't particularly listen to me over anyone else--surprise! In this case, however, it appears that he agreed with me, moved it to the proper forum, and restored Rocky's right to post there. AND THAT'S WHERE IT WOULD HAVE ENDED. But, no! Rocky just had to start screeching "arbitrary and capricious", playing his poor, persecuted martyr for his "truth" card again, accusing Pawtucket (and me) yet AGAIN for his own jollies. So, here we are with yet another nasty thread, and, yet again, Rocky has managed to suck in a few do-good enablers to stick up for him so he once again doesn't have to take the blame for being a spoiled child who throws a hissy fit at whoever doesn't let him run things. Yeah, I'M the bad guy here. --> Thanks a lot.

So, was it worth all the fuss?