JamesSavik

What a cutie! So are the kitties!

I can't see it. I get an error message: Invalid Message or Archive We're sorry, the message you tried to view does not exist anymore. This usually means the message expired, but can be caused by other reasons. Perhaps you misspelled something?

There have been a number of studies which are somewhat similar but not definitive. The problem with this one is that its sample size is too small to avoid statistical error. It needs a lot more work and I think that it was published prematurely.

If you

Welcome Luc! I look forward to reading more of your writing.

Luc- good authors know how to write. Great authors know how to rewrite.

When my cat of 17 years had kidney failure in 2002, I was heartbroken. He was great- he pratically raised me and had me very well trained. The vets told me that it needed to be soon on a Friday and I spent one last weekend with him. I think that he knew that his time was near. He sat in my lap the whole weekend. The vet gave me the option- cremation or have the body to take home. I took him home and buried him in his favorite sunny spot in the garden. I have never forgotten that cat. He was old and wise- far more so than me. He ate when he felt like it, slept when he felt like and didn't worry about a damned thing. If I could learn that trick, I would be a lot better off.

Harsh Reality Check I am a gay guy. I don't LOOK like a gay guy- i.e. I'm not stereotypically effeminate or catty. A lot of "bi" or "questioning" guys have seen me as "safe". As a result, I acquired the nickname LabRat in college because so many str8, bi or questioning guys experimented on me. Most people thought that LabRat meant that I stayed wasted all the time. That wasn't it at all but yeah, I stayed wasted most of the time. You see- to them it's an experiment. To you, it's your heart. Do it over and over again and see if you don't end up wasted all the time. Been there, done that, don't want a part-timer. This is why when someone crawfishes about their sexuality, I don't care how cute they are, a relationship just ain't going to happen.

EWWWWWW! Thanks for the nightmare Chaz.

Way to go Xan! Best of luck with the photography business. One thing that you might want to consider is to create a web site as a showcase for your work. It's the cheapest advertising you can get.

So the other day my mum says "Your Dad and I are going to drive to Dallas Monday." You see, this is really my Mum's tactic for getting me to drive them to Dallas. Two 80 year olds, 1 car, ~500 miles = recipe for disaster. Dad says he can drive just fine. The Parkingstons shakes and the inability to stay awake for longer than 20 minutes at a strech? Heck, I guess he'll walk it off. My Mom says she can drive just fine- despite being scheduled for cataract surgery in July and being unable to read street signs. OK- whatever- I give into the guilt trip. If I let them do it themselves... oh the horrors. How bad can it be right? As soon as we're on the road, my dad turns on his new toy- a CD changer full of classic country music. My Mom poits at every baby she sees and says Oh how darling! By the time we reached Shrevesport, I remembered why I did drugs in the first place and wondered why I ever stopped. We get to the concrete maze of Dallas finally about 3:00. They both tell me I'm going the wrong way- untill I finally pull up in my brothers front yard. They are playing with their grandchildren. I am hiding. And planning an unexpected glitch for a certian CD changer. I will fix later and appear heroic. Someone in Dallas owes me big time! Otherwise they would have been smashed into by a blind woman with cataracts or a 80 year old asleep at the wheel. Perhaps this is accumulating a little good karma? -------------------------------------------------------- BTW- Boo the Cat is spending the week at Sargent Rock's Doggie Dicipline Summer Camp[/i]. Tune in next time as we see how Boo fared. Last time he came back with tats and a harmonica.

Someday Out of the Blue is one of the best new online stories to emerge in a long time. I'm hooked on it. It really is excellent! A standing-O to Little Buddah and his editor Kitty. Little Buddah has got to be rookie of the year.

I'll be looking forward to it to!

I have to agree with you. The "nuclear bunker-buster" is probably necessary for specific targets. It is pretty scary to consider since everybody on the planet knows who and what they are being built for. If you go after a regime like Iran or NK with these weapons, then you had better nail the targets on the first volley. Once it starts, either one will let fly with all they have. Their countries are toilets. What have they got to lose?

You are right you know. The president always gets way too much credit or blame. The truth about the government is that it is composed of zillions of bureaucrats with just as many agendas and it's a frickin miracle that anything gets done. The Iraq war protesters like to claim that Bush killed all those people in Iraq. I happen to know that Chaney is the maniac shooter in this administration.

I had to read this blog entry to find out which pup named Xander it was about.

Woo Hoo! Ghostrider and the Combat Kids are back!!!!

The Bush Administration has proposed creating a new generation of small, clean tactical nukes for use against super-hardened bunkers in places like Iran and North Korea. I've always thought that small, tactical nukes were a very bad idea. A small nuke that doesn't lay waste to a continent is much easier to justify using. How is an enemy going to respond to one? What is really sad is that so few people understand the science behind these beasts. Sure- there are significant engineering challenges to building them and nuclear fuel is difficult and dangerous to process. What we forget is that the original nukes were conceived in the twenties. A critical mass of uranium was achieved, at the cost of the lives of several brilliant physicists, in the 1930s. A working bomb was used in the 1940s. This technology is NOT that difficult to do- it is merely expensive. Below is a snip from a conversation between myself and someone with misconceptions about nukes. ____________________________________________________________________________ The last serious redesign of the atomic bomb produced the fusion bomb, which gave off less radiation for the same bang. Ummm, no. A fusion bomb is called a staged thermonuclear weapon. It uses a plutonium trigger to ignite a fusion reaction. The yield of the weapon is adjusted by manipulating the amount of deuterium injected into the weapons core milliseconds before the trigger is set off. It is in reality a fission bomb augmented with fusible hydrogen. Fission bombs typically yield in the kilo-ton range. They produce fallout of radioactive decay products (radioactive strontium, iodine, etc) and unspent plutonium. They also create what is known as an electro-magnetic pulse which is deadly to computers and electronics. H-bombs are every bit as dirty as fission bombs. They yield in the mega-ton range. As they are souped-up fission bombs, they have similar fall-out. As the fusion reaction is much more energetic than a fission reaction, there are even worse effects. If the H-bomb hits the ground, ordinary materials- dirt, bricks, motor, etc- is irradiated causing even more problems. The gamma-flash of an h-bomb will kill any exposed persons for a radius of many miles. The optical flash will blind anyone looking in its direction for 10s of miles. EMP effects from H-bombs are equally impressive creating massive power, electronic and computer disruptions. The biggest h-bomb ever set off was ~50 megatons by the Russians on a small island off Kamchatka. That particular bomb could theoretically yield as much as 100 megatons. They toned it down for testing purposes. There was a big difference in the design philosophy between nukes of the US and USSR. American missile technology was much more precise than the Soviets with the early ICBMs so the US made smaller, cleaner warheads. The Soviets on the other hand designed their nukes for the biggest possible bang. Although Soviet missile accuracy improved in the late 70s and 80s, their warheads were essentially the same- big, honking H-bombs. Another type of nuke was designed in the 70s called a neutron warhead. It was designed not for its explosive potential but the ability to cause a deadly pulse of radiation which would kill all humans (I've always wanted to work that into a conversation somehow.) who aren't in hardened shelters. This is a very "clean" but ghoulish weapon designed in anticipation of a super-power conflict in Europe. [since Europeans were tired of being bombed flat, I suppose being zapped like a frog in a microwave was an easier sell.] As an old Cold War era fossil, I hate nukes. They suck in every conceivable way. They are NOT a warrior's weapon. They are weapons of indiscriminate murder killing warrior and innocent alike. Their cost is obscene considering all the other uses that money could be put too. IMHO there is no such thing as a good nuke, only the ones necessary to make retaliation to an attack suicidal. It seems reasonable that another redesign would try to produce more efficient fusion bombs The nukes that are being considered are small: 20-60 kilotons. NOT fusion weapons. They are essentially bunker busters on steroids. which is only a good thing. I don't think it's a good thing at all. Creating a small, battlefield nuke makes using one more likely. Nukes aren't battlefield weapons. They are political weapons. Using one could start a chain reaction that no one could possibly predict.

We have all heard the stories of course- kids taken, tricked* or worse by internet predators. If you were to believe what the media and the alarmists were saying, there was a freak hiding behind every virtual bush. That's what the media and politicians do- hype, fear monger and grandstand. It gets viewers for the media and allows politicians to appear progressive as they pass more and more quasi-unconstutional do-nothing laws. YES- internet predators exist. NO- you don't have to live in fear of them. Think about it this way: how many people have MySpace pages vs how many people have actually had a problem with some wack-job looking them up? 6, 12, 24? Truthfully this crap is becoming something of an urban legend hyped up by people with their own agendas- like companies that make content monitering and filtering software. I won't name names but last year a consortium of six of these companies paid 1.2 M$ to a lobbying firm and 5.5 M$ to a Madison Avenue firm for a public awareness campaign. You can bet your farm that they didn't do this out of the goodness of their hearts. They have conveniently created an atmosphere of fear and now they are profiting from it. The TRUTH is that sex crimes as a function of population have been remarkably stable after exploding exponentially in the late 70s- early 80s. That spike was because of mandatory reporting laws started kicking in. Statistically, you are much less likely to be sexually assaulted via the internet than you would be in school or at church. The world is no more rotten today than it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago. In fact a lot of things are a lot better in many respects. For instance, police departments can't look the other way in the case of hate-crimes or sexual assaults. They are required by law to investigate them and the liability that they face if they don't is astronomical. My point is that these things are, thankfully, relatively rare. If you take a few common-sense precautions, the threat is almost non-existant. *- tricked as in fooled

Sigh... there's always that pesky La Resistance. And why the F* are they always FRENCH!?

So is removing the labels from mattresses. Money is actually written on by banks and vendors all the time. Those new, goofy looking twenties- if you've got a brand new crisp one and hand it to a teller or clerk, the first thing they'll do with it is authenticate it with a special marker. As the content and nature of the marks that I suggest are political in nature and represent a protest, they are protected free speech.

I want to be in a LittleBuddha story- snuggled in between two cute redheaded brothers.

You and Taylor be careful Nick! Young drivers do have a learning curve. That being said, do have fun!

LB- I can really relate. I'm from Mississippi and race is like the 800 pound gorillia that everyone doesn't want to talk about. Not long ago I met a guy at the gym that is mulatto. He's a nice guy so we started working out together. He's very handsome and as nice as he can be. Anyway we started hanging out and it really pissed me off the way people treated him. He's not a big guy so blacks and whites pushed him around a lot- which of course, considering my temperment, like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Well- to make a long story short- we're manfriends now! We're both men so boyfriends doesn't really cut it. Anyway it seems that people being racist/obnoxious/meddelsome is a universal. What's wrong with staying the hell out of other peoples business? [unless you are invited in.] It works for me. JS

There are a couple of books on this subject that you may want to look into: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Browne & King. It is by Harper-Collins, 2004. ISBN# 0-06-054569-0 The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman. Simon & Schuster, 2000. ISBN# 0-648-85743-X Both are highly regarded and are sometimes used in writing classes and seminars.