Mister P-Mosh

Good post. As far as my friend is concerned, he doesn't pretend to be super religious, he just doesn't let his dad know (his mom passed away a few years ago). I'm fine with that, because I don't tell my parents about my activities like that either. The only one I really have to get an ok from is my wife.

It should be pretty easy to get a serviceable translation from Babelfish, if Linda is interested.

Basically, I could say my wife and daughter, the curiosity to see what happens each new day, and trying to live well as a form of revenge against others that tried to hold me back.

So you feel that Muslims are not humans? I know it's difficult for you, but be honest -- Freerepublic has no credibility outside of the extreme right-wing politically, and anyone can post there, so there's no reason to believe someone there is an expert in anything. I also don't pay attention to neo-nazi politicians who are so well known for being full of hatred that they can't even get a visa to visit the U.K. anymore. In addition to that, I know that you can't name a single religion that hasn't been used to hurt people. Christianity is just as guilty as any other, if not moreso. I personally am opposed to religion overall, but tolerate it as some people seem to need it to feel better about their lives. Of course, you can come here and try to troll all you want, but you posting that filth isn't going to override my opinion of my friends. I'm as against the Taliban and al Qaeda as anyone and hope that they cease to exist. I'm just smart enough to not lump all Muslims in that group.

I agree with this completely. I don't want to see this turn into an electronic version of a mob with pitchforks and torches. I think we should all defer to pawtucket on this, and he's shown good judgment in his reluctance to ban people in the past unless they do something really bad. I disagree strongly with anyone that supports TWI or VPW even after the knowledge of how evil VPW and TWI were to so many of us. However, I think the worst thing that happened in this thread wasn't that someone supported TWI, because that happens in all sorts of other threads and doesn't rile people up as much. It was the personal attacks on a user who disclosed a personal story that caused them pain. Whether that is ban-worthy or not is not up to us, and there are other things that can be done (e.g. asking the offender to apologize) that don't require silencing anyone. I guess the bottom line is that WhiteDove and oldiesman p!ss me off, without question. However, I would be uncomfortable banning them from this site and if such a vote were put in front of us all, I would abstain from voting.

He doesn't look a thing like Jesus, but he talks like a gentleman, like you remember when we were young.

You should paint another wall to look like the devil from athletes of the spirit. Nobody would understand it except you and other ex-TWI folks and whenever another former TWI person went to visit, you two could have a good laugh. "Ooooh, I'm supposed to be frightened by an oversized rainbow-colored amoeba."

For decorating, don't just do the Winnie the Pooh stuff but also include some things to relate the party to the baby. In the baby shower we did before my daughter was born, I put the DVD of a 4D ultrasound we had taken on the TV. Obviously, this isn't always possible, but perhaps some pictures of ultrasounds printed out and blown up and used strategically could be cool. In our case, we hosted it in our house so we bought the food (mainly finger foods) and had cake that all came from one bakery/restaurant that we really liked. Not making the food yourself makes it a lot easier.

This probably doesn't deserve an entire thread, but I thought it would maybe turn interesting if enough people have their own crazy ideas. So a friend was recently harassed by the police for carrying a camera tripod. They thought it was a tripod for a gun (although in the history of this country, I seriously doubt many if any crimes have been committed with tripod-mounted rifles) and he was worried that he would be shot. Anyway, after hearing of this story and hearing from another friend how his dad made a gun's tripod into a camera tripod, I got an idea. Imagine this: Gun-shaped digital cameras. It would come natural to many of us, and techniques for holding guns steady already exist. While I imagine there would be a lot of negative points about such a camera, it is still an interesting idea. So what bad ideas like this can you all come up with?

This proves that you don't know what you are talking about. Nazism is a right-wing political movement, not a left-wing one. Socialism is considered to be left-wing, but the closest you would find at the time was communist Russia. Where in the Constitution was GM required to take bailout funds? The fact is, the government offered to help bail out the auto industry if they would agree to certain conditions. GM and Chrystler accepted. Ford did not. Guess which of those three companies aren't under control of the U.S. government? Most people agree that if an individual accepts money from the government, such as in the form of welfare, there should be certain conditions. People on welfare shouldn't blow their money on drugs or alcohol. They should try to get a job. We expect it to be temporary, and we expect the individual to be responsible with the help we are giving them. I don't see why you think corporations shouldn't be held to the same standards. Any entity that exists in this nation should be accountable, and moreso if they are the recipient of our tax dollars. The government should be accountable to the citizens, and that is where all the checks and balances come in. I don't see where this fits in with what Obama, or Bush before him, have done.

Whoah, you and I sound like we must have been brothers or something. I would have given the exact same summary of my conversations with my parents. It's funny how while I ended up not being a homo, I became the unbeliever and my wife is a believer in a different sect of Christianity than TWI.

This may be something that requires another thread, but where in the bible does it say that prostitution or even premarital sex (considering that harlots generally didn't marry back then) is sinful behavior? The reason I'm asking is because it's entirely possible that being a harlot wasn't considered to be as immoral back then as it is today. We all assume that it is sinful, but I don't know of anywhere in the bible declaring it to be sinful.

That's typically the problem with older computers. The video card probably won't support it, although you should still be able to find a resolution that you are ok with. I'd just play around and even try lower resolutions than the one you selected and see if anything looks ok. Depending on how old your PC is, it's true that you may want to just look at a new one. I just bought a Dell from Sam's Club that came with a monitor for around $800. It's fast, has Vista 64-bit, has a bluray drive, a big hard drive, lots of memory, and a 22" widescreen monitor. The only bad things about it are related to Vista not working with some hardware, but otherwise it's great.

Since I'm pretty sure most people here only hear about Islam and Muslims on TV, I wanted to post this to talk about my Friday evening hanging out with a friend who is a Muslim. My purpose in this is to show that like Christianity, various Muslims follow different portions of their religion differently. In the end, we are all human beings and generally have the same morals (or lack thereof) and the same goals and desires in life. Since my wife and daughter are out of town visiting family (I was there for a week but they are staying three weeks) I have been hanging out with my bachelor friends a lot more. On Friday, I went to lunch with a friend of mine who is Pakistani at a "Goode" BBQ place (pun intended.) We got to talking about older times, and we decided to have a big night out. Unfortunately, none of our other friends could make it, due to being married or being out of town on contracts. Anyway, later that evening we started out at a bar/restaurant and ate steaks and drank some good heffeweizen (sp?), and commented on some of the women in the bar area. We talked about other topics for a while, had a few more beers, then left the bar. Like old times, we went to the best strip club in Houston and went inside and ordered some more drinks. He immediately took off and got a private dance, while I ordered some more beers for us, and waited until I saw a girl I liked for a dance. We both drank, had our share of dances, and called it a night after a few hours. Here are the "sins" he committed according to Islam while we were hanging out: 1) He hate non-halal meat, twice. 2) He drank alcohol. 3) He was getting private dances in a strip club. 4) He is friends with an atheist. So the next time you hear on the news about some backwards al Qaeda, think about this. Not all Muslims, or even the majority, are of the variety that join al Qaeda. They vary and have many denominations and points of view just like Christians do. Try not to use blanket statements against them because there are lots of good people, like my friend, who share the same values that most Americans do. P.S. - If anyone wants to question why a married man would go into a strip club, my wife is ok with it. She knows that I wouldn't do anything bad. It's pretty typical for guys in their 20's and 30's to go to strip clubs with their buddies around here, and I'd say about half of the married guys I know have wives that don't mind it. The other half tend to have trust issues in their relationships. I don't want to make this the focus of the thread though.

I can't comment on Windows 7, but I am running 64-bit Vista and you can install most 32-bit apps. The main difference is that the 64-bit specific apps will have better performance because of the architecture, but the older apps run perfectly fine. I've even installed a few games like Grand Theft Auto Vice City, Diablo II, Unreal Tournament, etc. that all run fine. The only app I haven't been able to install was Adobe Photoshop, which is a pain because it's pretty expensive and I don't want to have to go out and buy a newer version. I imagine Windows 7 works similarly, so there will be apps that can't be installed.

I caught Ron Moore but didn't notice David Eick. That was interesting to know. That reminds me. Did you notice how much drinking the end had? I've heard a lot of comparisons to AA propaganda. Adama puking all over himself was not the finest moment, although I understand that they wanted to show the contrast between his life as it was and what he had become.

I agree completely, but I can see how someone affected directly, whether a mentally disabled person or a family member of someone who is, would take it as ridicule.

Obama's job also requires him to set a good example of what American values are. He can only define his own values, but those of us that elected him did so because we feel he shares our values and that he was the best of the available options to represent us. I personally don't want him, while representing me or my country, to ridicule mentally disabled people. It's true that it was wrong for the rest of the audience to laugh, but he should set a better example. However, he apologized long ago, it wasn't a huge deal, and I think we should all get over it.

Although inconsequential, they do make little purple pills to help with that.

I know Lorne Greene is dead so that may not have worked out, and I don't know about Terry Carter. I'm sort of glad that they didn't have the "Daggett" because realistically, they would have eaten whatever meat it had on it. Remember that they lost their food supply and had to eat a slop made from algae they got off of some planet. Also I seem to recall a kid named Boxie somewhere on there in maybe Season 1, but I don't recall the specifics. When I was a kid, I watched the original BSG on SciFi channel during the summers. I liked it, and I was glad to see the remade series. Fortunately, the new one was able to end while the original one was canceled before they could give it a proper ending.

I won't spoil the end for you. However, I downloaded it. If you want to watch it on your computer and have a way of receiving about 720MB send me a private message. Otherwise, you'll have to wait until at least next Saturday for "SyFy" (whoever came up with the name change should be shot) to put it online.

gc, If they ever make nutella with splenda, try that instead of the fruit sometime. My favorite crepes are the nutella filled ones like I would get in San Francisco. Delicious!

In some areas of Mexico they use a lot of lamb. I should post the birria recipe we made here, although the credit goes to Rick Bayless, as we used the one from his Mexican Everyday book and not some family recipe. One problem I've had with making good Mexican food in the U.S. is the lack of good meat. For example, on my recent trip I ate some tacos with arrachera, which is a cut of skirt steak that we in the U.S. call fajita meat. They cooked it by only putting salt on it and grilling it, yet it was as tender as if you had slow-cooked the meat. I haven't been able to find skirt steak 1) without much fat, and 2) that tender without any effort here. Other cuts of meat used there that seem impractical for things like tacos are NY strips and such, which are pretty expensive here and still tougher than what I've had there. That's one reason I like to use lamb, because there is a halal place nearby that has very fresh lamb. I'm not a big fan of pork, so I probably wouldn't use it like the original recipe here stated, but that's ok. Oh, and one other type of meat that my wife will hopefully bring back from her trip is called machaca. There is a low-quality clone of it here in Texas called machado, but it's still different. Machaca is what is used in the original burritos from Sonora.

I was specifically referring to children, although I may not have explained that well. You don't hear adults going around calling each other "retards" very often. It's usually children who throw around insults like that. Adults generally have more empathy than children, but you know as well as anyone that even many adults aren't capable of empathy. That's where things like racism, sexism, jingoism, homophobia and xenophobia come from too. Which is why I specifically stated "inferior in some way", rather than as a whole. You are correct that others are superior to all of us in many ways, including those with disabilities. However, disabilities are quietly looked down upon in our society. We "feel sorry" for people, which for some is empathy and for others is a feeling of superiority. I'm not really describing how I feel, but how I see society in general. Or to look at it another way, let's take this as a scenario -- if a 25 year old woman with Down's Syndrome was going to get married to a 40 year old man who didn't have any mental disabilities, how would you feel about that? If you wouldn't be totally supportive of it, why is that? What gives us the right to judge a consenting adult's relationship? If we question whether or not a person with Down's syndrome can consent or not, we are proving that we believe ourselves to be superior to them in some way.

Realistically, Pluto is still what it always has been, we've just defined it differently. So it doesn't matter that much I suppose. It's not like misunderstanding what a year is.