Doom Shepherd

I don't think he's crazy. I think he's evil. I know it's currently popular to believe that the two things are one and the same, but I don't and never will.

So is this one still going, or on hold pending review? I don't have a lot of time I can budget to writing, so I need to know before I start.

With two exceptions (Voyager #16, and the "Seven of Nine" book), I own a copy of every Star Trek novel ever written. I have a collection of 53 different versions of Optimus Prime, from the original G1 all the way up to the latest Ultimate Optimus Prime from the "Dark of the Moon" toys. (And a bunch of other Transformers of all eras.) My dream is to have a Fortress Maximus.

Personally, I consider the guy the worst sort of chicken$h!t. If you're gonna carry the fight to "the enemy," fight the damn ENEMY! Not a bunch of kids who have squat-all to do with anything. I think he did what he did because he didn't have the COURAGE to fight any actual Muslim grown-ups. Brevik is a lunatic, a fool, and a coward. He should be exhibited in clown makeup with a sign around his neck that reads "Brevik the Weak.". And people should be encouraged to taunt him and spit in his eye.

It's the only thing I could find on the internet as scary and creepy and menacing as I am. Also, I'm a fan of Larry Niven's "Known Space" series of SF books, in which the Kzinti (a race of what are essentially 9' tall, 800-pound intelligent tigers with attitude problems) figure prominently. My avatar is a portrait of a warrior of said race.

Heya. I'm not sure but this may be the first topic I've actually started. Anyway. I have a bunch of video files, mainly downloaded from YouTube via Realplayer, that I want to convert to some other format, most likely wmv. Why? So I can watch them on a computer that doesn't have Realplayer or Internet access. (Also because the videos I really like keep getting deleted because they tend to be mashups that infringe a little on copyright, and I want to preserve them for my own use.) I tried using Realplayer's own converter to do this, but while the video comes out OK, the audio becomes HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS with the original audio just barely hearable underneath, if at all. Gimmie some recommendations... another converter I should be using, or the "right" options to select when using the REalplayer converter. Whichever. As an incentive... delicious cakes?

But to be fair, that's just because I haven't perfected the facial recognition software on the hunter-killer cyborgs yet. Ah yu Jay Cee?

I really should have paid more attention to the charter before I agreed to participate in this election. I mean, at least two of those judging criteria are entirely subjective. For example (were I a judge), I am so disinclined towards certain subjects, say football, or ponies, or German theatre, that no review, no matter how it is written, is capable of making me find anything about them "likable" or "engaging." How are we supposed to deal with that? Grozit, maybe I'll just review MYSELF. That'll show 'em. "Doom Shepherd: How He Got To Be So Awesome."

Passed the House, 269-161. On to Senate.

I just LOVE bad analogies, and this one... gets a gold star. You have another baby, it doesn't mean that you have to doubhle up on mommies. And if you were doing things right, it doesn't even mean either parent needs a new job or extra revenue. There's this awesome thing called "living within your means" that folks REALLY oughtta try sometime. Sure, maybe it means having a little two-bedroom instead of a McMansion, but it's a lot more sustainable in the long run. And of course the fact that government spending is outpacing population growth AND inflation combined is just... an inconvenient fact we can ignore in this analogy. But let's look at the ACTUAL math, and see if we can't support DSG's position. IN 1790, the population of the US was 3,893,374. So it's grown about 100-fold since then. The Government in 1790, having just assumed the Revolutionary War debt, was in deficit for $75 million. Times 100... hmm, something doesn't add up, there. You multiply by 100, you just add two zeroes. But that would be $7.5 billion, not 14 trillion... Incidentally, the "Progressive" (a word that should always be put in massive sarcasm quotes when used in this context) Caucus (roughly 75 House Democrats) has come out against any form of compromise bill on raising the debt ceiling. "Let us spend without limit, without consequence" seems to be their new mantra. An honest person would have to allow that that attitude is just as obstructionist and counterproductive as that of their opposing numbers among the Tea Party. I won't hold my breath. All that crap said... I get that it's time for some tax reform in this country. But we can do that in ways that don't actually raise apparent rates. Closing a few loopholes and taking out a few pointless giveaways would save us a lot of money. For example, it's past time we acknowledge that ethanol (expecially corn ethanol) is a dead end that does nore to raise food prices and help Big Corn than it does to help the environment, and $6 billion in subsidies a year isn't going to change that.

After a slow start, improvement is progressing nicely. Moved him out of cardiac care and into a regular room today.

Oh, heck no. I'll be back at work next week, regardless. Good news, I just saw him in the hospital, and he,s awake and communicating. (Surgery was Saturday.) He's already annoyed that I cancelled my vacation for him - not that I could have enjoyed myself anyway. He'd want me to keep on keeping on.

In government terms, raising spending only 5 percent instead of the 10 percent you'd planned on raising it counts as a "spending cut.". In democrats' terms, it counts as a "drastic and unacceptable" cut. It also doesn't help that the dems keep almost reaching a compromise agreement with the reps, then saying "oh, now we're gonna want an additional $400 billion in tax increases over the $800 billion we just got you to agree to." --- Barack Obama, 2006

Hey. My "vacation week" turned into a "My dad had a heart attack" week. He's currently recovering from a triple bypass. So my free time is basically shot. As was my vacation. So... Yeah.

Actually, as this Red Vs. Blue video explains,

The Planetary Society will be launching a tag-along mission on the Russian Phobos mission, which will hopefully launch in November. It will contain samples of several different kinds of hardy Earth life - including tardigrades, I believe - to Mars's largest moon and back, in an attempt to see if life forms can survive a journey of such length. Also, the LDEF (Long Duratuion Exposure Facility) satellite exposed spores of the bacterium Bacillus subtilis to space for six years and some survived.

Normally, I'd be against the concept of "mystery judges." Whose pockets are they in? But since they scored me high enough to get 2nd place, I'm going to overlook it. (Because that's how politics REALLY works.) Also, please no new contests until August 1. I'm going to be on vacation at the beach from 7/22 - 8/1, and the whole point of being on vacation is not having to be working on anything - even fun stuff . Also, the fact is that being tied to a computer greatly lessens the chance of my being able to engage in the kind of scandalous liasons with nubile (but legal!) bikini-clad temptresses which could lead to my impeachment later, so it's also in my opponents' best interests to grant this hiatus.

Hi, Librarian here. I had to take a class in copyright law. Generally, when a company copyrights and trademarks something, there's a clause somewhere in the copyright that includes the words "and all derivative works." It matters very much whether or not that clause is in there. I'll give you an example: Paramound owns the rights to Star Trek, and all derivative works. That means that if you, say, create your own Starship design, kitbashed from or otherwise based on the ship designs seen on the show (a LOT of people did this in the 70's, making blueprints and models and books and whatnot, and selling them), all of that work ACTUALLY belongs to Paramount, and they can sue you and recoup the money you make, if they choose to do so. But if someone copies the design YOU made, maybe dresses it up and posts it as their own? You're SOL, because you don't actually own the rights to it, Paramount does. You can threaten to sue, which may work, since even fighting a winning lawsuit against an invalid claim costs money, but you're very unlikely to ever have a chance of winning such a suit. And if you live where "loser pays" is the rule, you're even more SOL.

Again, this issue should depend on the cultures. But, does anyone feel creeped out by the fact that all the african countries like Nigeria, Niger, Zimbabwe are not on any lists. Does the government hide the statistics....? If so, then our situation is much better than it appears to be, at least we are honest. Most likely they are among the countries that don;t even bother trying to gather the statistics, because they're too busing doing the actual killing. Or trying not to starve because their governments keep all the food for their soldiers (that was a large cause of the Ethopian famine.) Or both.

This. SO badass.

Japan banned guns... And in recent years had a number of mass-stabbings. They seem to like going after schoolchildren.

I'm sorry, but I can't explain to anyOne who isn't Old.

Currently testing my new iPad2.

Both of you are banned for mentioning a game that has the same name as a hackneyed plot cliche.

Who needs Adam Baldwin when you've got Jayne Cobb?