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A mathematical goat is fine. Just don't put Descartes before the horse.

There's an old saying, "Be careful what you wish [or pray] for. You might get it." That's not necessarily inconsistent, and probablly represents the opinions of a broad segment of the population. I know some gay guys who would vote that way. OK, so here's what will happen: Eventually the guy will say that while nothing sexual happened (he just got a massage and bought drugs he threw away without taking), he does have some tendencies he's been struggling with. He's been strong so far, and even in the hands (literally) of a male prostitute, he did not give into temptation. He'll check himself into Exodus or some similar group for treatment and emerge cured of his homosexual tendencies. (While there, he may minister to the cute young guys who are being held against their wills.) He emerges as the poster child for the organizations cures, and has more street cred than ever with the evangelical Christian subculture. His church gives him a retroactive pay raise and he gets viewers from around the country, and not just in Colorado. He picks the next President. His former accuser joins the White House press corps. His wife's book becomes a best seller. His book is sent as a premium for those who pledge more than $50. Maybe some of the cute young now-ex-gays do internships at his church. James Dobson denounces the new President. Dick Armey calls Dobson a thug.

"Grandma, what a big . . ." Maybe we shouldn't go there.

Speaking of writing and doing auto mechanics, one of my favorite bits of writing involves doing an auto mechanic named Jude.

And be sure not to miss the website of America's Favorite Church. And take the quiz to see if you can identify which of America's Founding Fathers are burning in Hell right now.

It will be better then, anyway. We'll be able to use superscripts and be able to include footnotes.

Some high school kids that I knew were taking French. They used an expression "d'accordokie."

Well, they had to do something. Osama seems to be running late with his video. He got the timing just right in 2004. The Virginia proposal is so broad that there could be lots of unintended consequences to straight couples, seniors, health care implications, etc. People have to decide if their hatred of gays is strong enough to risk the other effects. Still, it could motivate enough folk to come out to vote to reelect their idiot senator. As to the base issue at hand, somebody remind me, why is it that we give tax breaks to people for having sex?

I've only heard it as an ethnic slur, akin to "Arkies."

That's two of the possibilities. Measuring electro-magnetic stuff can lead to complex results, so I'm not surprised that little particles that behave like waves and such might be similarly measured and described. It all seems weird to those of us who don't go around measuring such things, plus calling something "imaginary" is not likely to inspire confidence in its existence. My main encounter with complex numbers since school came from working with synthesizers. I used some FFT routines to analyze sounds I wanted to imitate, and needed to use complex math to get to the data in which I was interested. On top of that, I had a Yamaha DX7, and needed to expand my math repertoire to program the thing. And infidelity.

Maybe that explains the obsession with goats on a TV show last night. First they talked about Carl Sandberg and his wife's goat farm (showing pictures of the herd), and then they did a piece on the state fair, and other than the midway rides showed mostly goat pictures. They didn't mention the birthday directly, but hope you had a happy one.

Sounds like something that gay folk would not like. In my head I can just hear Carson going on about them.

How true!

Probably teachers could read this stuff and completely miss the humor, since it will just seem like more of the same drivel they have to read when they grade term papers and essay exams. They might react with despair and tears may be shed.

They were the same idiots who believed that Proctor & Gamble was owned by Satan because of their logo featuring the moon and the stars. [i guess as gnostics they must have believed that the moon and the stars, etc., were created by or under control of Satan.] In large numbers they convinced themselves that they had seen the P&G president on one of the afternoon talk shows telling that it was true. The logo had 13 stars, and we know that any enterprise associated with 13 stars has to be satanic, right? :2hands: The rumor was apparently started by some Amway dealers in Georgia and developed a life of its own. People all the way from Ann Landers to Jerry Falwell spoke out against the rumor to no avail. P&G eventually gave up and dropped the logo, I think. AFAIK, there are no major corporations directly owned by Satan, even if some of them act like they are.

Parents should definitely discourage their kids from levitating. They're too immature to know when it is appropriate and when it isn't.

Interesting concept, but then you were talking about cars.

At least one was English: "soaps," pronounced as we say it.

Yogi Berra supposedly commented on a restaurant, "Nobody goes there any more. It's too crowded." My reasons for not playing were a lot like the others. I hadn't read most of the stories involved, didn't have time to catch up on them in the time frame of the game, and I figured that others who read a broader selection would have it all figured out first anyway.

Maybe that comes in when you don't have anything to say.

Just read the letters. "Absolutely Free" is my all-time favorite Zappa album, even if it doesn't have a song about moving to Montana to raise dental floss. As an album, the whole is somewhat more than the sum of its parts.

I'm aware of all that. I was quoting from a song, "Lady Marmalade." You obviously don't know "Call Any Vegetable," either. They don't make songs like they used to. Anyhow, why did you assume I was using the singular? Yes, and "come with" as per Kevin. I would have guessed maybe Pennsylvania Dutch, but Scandanavian Minnesotan would make sense, too. Oh, and pardon my mentioning that whenever I see the Upper Midwestern category in these listings, I think of the awful old joke that goes, "Hey, Tony, where are the Great Lakes?" "Uppa US."

A lot of good stuff in this thread. I'll quibble with a few things anyway. Vowels don't really carry meaning in Semitic languges the way they do in English. Because of the structure of the languages, native speakers can understand what they are reading just fine in unpointed Hebrew or in Arabic, for example. It's sort of like "sit" and "sat" in English. They both mean the same thing, and the vowel just shows the tense. Of course, in English, we also have unrelated words like suit, suet, sot, sate, site, etc., etc., where you do need the vowels to distringuish them. There are Bible passages where there is some question where to break the words and such, but they are not that common, and I don't think there are any of those kinds of issues in the OT passages about homosexual prohibitons. So those arguments are pretty much beside the point. And yes, Christianity is a choice, unless you are a conservative Presbyterian. Unfortunately, a lot of folk choose to call themselves Christians, but then choose not to follow anything that Jesus taught. How or why people would say that they are the follower of someone whose teachings they completely ignore completely baffles me. I admit that homosexuality is a very minor topic in the Bible, but look at it as a gateway sin. I mean one day you're gay, and the next you might wear a linen and wool blend suit. Before long you might start eating shellfish. Eventually, you might even not be welcoming to all immigrants, and ultimately, if your brother dies childless, you might refuse to marry his widow.

Would it be all right to test things on animals as long as they had tried them out on humans first?