JamesSavik

There are two examples of this issue in the publishing world: the unfinished works of J R R Tolkien and Frank Herbert's Dune series. In both cases their heir is the driving force behind continuing the work. I have no idea whether Tolkien or Herbert discussed their wishes for either series with their heirs. As far as net authors go, if they are still alive, it shouldn't be done without express permission. Following the work of deceased authors should only be done with prior arrangement.

Bear in mind that when the constution was written, there were several huge cans of worms left completely undisturbed because those issues were simply too devisive: slavery of course was number one on the list pitting North vs South. Others were the status of debts owed to foreign companies incurred before the revolution, Indian affairs, alcohol (abolition or management), land policy and a host of others. The issues tended to be more of local than national interest. eg. Land policy was a no brainer in original 13 colonies but how do you handle it in newer territories like those gained by the Louisannia Purchase or the far West? The Indian nations in the east, the so called civilized tribes were a sedate lot. The plaines indians and those further west however were quite fierce. Eastern states were generally apathetic about indian affairs but to the territories, it was a matter of life and death. These were issues on which no national consensus could be reached and were handed off to the various states for the most part. States weren't given carte blanch to do just anything they wanted. The early supreme court spent a great deal of its time defining the limits and bounds of both federal and state powers. Some of these matters were returned to the Fed by the Court. In 1812 Congress created the General Land Office which eventually became the Bureau of Land Management. In 1824 the Bureau of Indian Affairs was created to curb graft and corruption in dealing with the independent tribes by oppertunists in the territories. Other powers were returned to the states- like the imposition of various taxes, the granting of franchises and licenses , etc. Point being: historically these powers have been shifted from state to federal levels and vice versa typically after one or both of those entities had royally screwed it up. A good case could be made for a national age of consent: as it stands now, it is confusing, contradictory and so uneven from state to state that the issue begs for oversight. This is not something that can be done by congress alone. It would involve a supreme court decision followed by congressional action. Last but not least, the state laws that we seek to superceed have to be proven discrimitory or unconstutional and struck down. I would suspect the the broadest type comprimise would be made where the federally recognized age of adulthood is defined as 18 with 16 being the age of consent for partners 3 years. Nothing radical but some states would raise hell over it.

Don't forget to set aside a lot of time in your schedule for REAL LIFE. It has an ugly habit of making hash out of our best laid plans. James

I still say wait untill they are thirty. The Neo-Puritianism that is taking hold here in the States is really quite frightening. With all of the grandstanding politicians, judges and prosecutors lining up for soccer mom votes, before long if you are accused of a sex crime, you'll be shot without a trial and your rotting corpse will be left in the street. As it stands, sex crimes are the only exception to innocent until proven guilty. The problem is that we have created a monster that can easily be mis-used to destroy almost anyone with the thinest of circumstantial evidence.

Oh... nothing much really. Just something to warm the winter's chill... ...like an enemies heart in a box or perhaps his head on a pig pole. Things like that just make me feel all warm inside.

Just be safe and wait till they are thirty. What they lose in cuteness & hotness, they gain in stability and knowing who they are.

Another definition of fag is a small piece of wood used to start a fire. How fag ever came to be a euphemism for homosexual, I just don't kn... unless they refer to the flaming variety.

What about other offensive words? the N word? Kike? Honkie? Whop? Spic? Rican? Wetback? Guido? White-bread? Doush-bag? Dingle-berry? Scatologist? Twirp? the K word? Drunken Paddie? In for a penny, in for a pound I would think... and probably why the BBC backed off.

Sigh. We English speaking peoples are separated by a common language. You are Ron White's youngest son??? Ron "Tater Salad" White

I don't know about the kindle per see but I've got ~300Gbytes of ebooks of all sorts: vast majority of which are pdf, lit or djv. Since I am a tekkie, my library is slanted that way (nonfiction, science & technical)) but there are tons of hard sci-fi, fantasy, westerns, mysteries, etc that I simply don't collect. I keep it on a Seagate usb drive and backed up on a second. I have a serious indexing and management system to keep track of it all. It is impossible to tell what its monetary value is but it is an exceptionally powerful information repository that is jammed full of topics of interest to me.

There's an old joke that says that it wasn't radium or polonium that killed Marie Curie (aka Madam Curie): it was a decades old fruitcake that had been gifted and regifted around the world.

All my best to Jan- a great editor and an even better guy. James

I used to keep on around the shop to drive nails with in case I mislaid my hammer.

I have a recipe for fruitcake that removes the candied cherries and stuff that makes it suck. Oh yeah.. I add choclate chips too. However it is no longer a fruitcake. It is more properly called a nutcake which is, IMHO, much better than ordinary fruitcake and entirely appropriate for me to make.

marauding orcs start laying waste... Yeah, that always livenes things up.

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room!" Excellent quote from Dr. Strangelove or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb BTW- what do shrinks know? They talk to crazy people all day. Just tell her to STFU and give you her best drugs. That's how I put mine in her place.

It just ain't the age of Aquarius anymore.

I drove a 1979 280Z for 4 years. It was the one and only stick I ever drove. Preparing for it I played a lot of a driving video game in an arcade with a 5 speed overdrive just like the Z car. I guess you can call it cheating. I prefer to think of it as learning in a simulator rather than inflicting that experience on my car and the public. No problems with the stick. The car was ~7 years old when I got it. It was more of a mechanical hobby than reliable ride.

The best comedian ever: Sam Kinnison. They used to call him the heavy metal of comedy. His routines were characterized by intense, angry rants and punctuated by his trademark scream. Kinnison was close to Rodney Dangerfield, Rosanne and Chris Rock. He often appeared in a supporting role in his friends work. Sam died in a car crash in April 1992- way too soon. A putz like Will Ferrell seems to stink forever like a pot of bad clams. Go figure. You kids too young to have seen Sam live out to look him up. Sam's Site After seeing real comdey, you'll want to feed Will Ferrell to the angry raccoon too.

I have been a hard-core geek for a very long time. I put my first computer together from a heathKIT. It had a cassette tape drive, 4 K of RAM and only spoke Z-80 assembler. I can use a soldering iron like a ninja blade. I was on the net when it had three nodes and the one domain was dot MIL. In 1987 I wrote a letter to Trent Lott and told him that Gore's NREN bill was worthwhile and he would look good supporting it. In 1988 Mississippi's big four unies got their first internet feeds. I can write FORTRAN, assembler, Pascal, Delphi, C, C++, a little Java and COBOL (but only at gunpoint). I speak IOS like a second language. I can terminate copper or fiber cable in the dark in parts of buildings that you don't want to know about. I've done everything in the business and done it successfully and now that I don't want to work regular, I've got more consulting business than God could keep up with. I don't do 1337 because those of us that actually are elite don't have to tell anybody. Only pygmy pricked little internut troll poser boyz that couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions written on the heel do that crap. All 1337 really stands for is gomer and the idiots who use it are too stupid to know.

Methinks we are kindred misanthropic spirits. w00t was today's urban dictionary word of the day. Huzzah!? What are you in the British navy???

Last year I was forced to watch the movie Elf by my knieces. I managed not to claw my eyes out but only barely. There was one bright spot in the movie: when the racoon jumped on Will Ferrell's dumb ass. I could have watched THAT for hours. Raccoon eats Will Ferrell

LOL... a wide stance. Last frame should be exchange of handcuffs.

I hate Will Ferrell. His brand of idiot humor just grates on my nerves. I can't really think of anything he has done that isn't idiotic. He should be neutered so it won't spread.

Yeah, well, that's amazing. Celebrities often annoy me. Especially when they come out and feel compelled to act like a f*ck-up. These people often confirm bigots worst opinions of gay people by their behavior when it has nothing to do with being gay and everything to do with being a putz. Just don't be a putz and we won't have a problem Jodie. Welcome to the club.