Pain_Man

Except for apothecary tables. They were quite the item a few years back.

Dude! Where do u find this shit?!

You buy beer by the gallon? Don't they sell six packs? What pisses me off is the trick the breweries started pulling a few years back. A case of beer used to be 24 bottles (or cans if you prefer your beer to taste like metallic goat piss). Now it's 18/case. The price, of course, is still the same (factoring in inflation). Fortunately, I am long retired from the Psychic Wars. And I used to drink imports anyway (esp NZ's Steinlager, Sapporo or Liffey water). 'Cept when I was out in a bar. Then I'd drink Budlight. Granted it's got less alcohol in it than mouthwash and has no taste to it, but it doesn't get you drunk. Which was the point. $8 bucks a gallon for gas still amazes me. I know your taxes are much, much higher than ours but goddamn. My wife works for an architecture firm and they have a number of European employees: German, Italian, Norwegian & Bulgarian (since Bulgaria's a third world shit hole, he's very happy to be here). Given the taxes 'cross the Pond it's no wonder why professionals come here. (What pisses me off is the ones that come here and then start bitching about our country; if ya don't like it, take your ass back where ya came from!) Gas taxes are a big problem here as well. In some states, nearly a buck a gallon could be knocked off if there was a tax moratorium on gas until oil prices return to sanity. Or we do and start drilling our own friggin' oil. We've got more than enough. But the tree huggers keep getting in the way. They'd rather our nation be dependent on foreign sources of energy, thereby endangering national security (didn't we used to call that giving aid and comfort to the enemy?) and forcing us to use the military to keep oil flowing at market prices for the rest of the world. We don't defend the Persian Gulf states for our economy. The vast majority of our oil comes from Mexico, Venezuela & Nigeria. We keep the Persian Gulf oil flowing for Japan (99% of their oil imports come from the Gulf), China (80% I'm not sure on that one) and Europe (varies by country). That's the bitch of it. Even if we did start drilling our own oil, we'd still have to control the Gulf. Our allies simply don't have the miliary capability to do it. The Brits are doing a brilliant job in Iraq, but Britannia no longer rules the waves. If we let our trading partners' (i.e. Europe, Japan, China) economies eat shit, then who's going to buy our computers, software, electronic goods, cars, machine tools, pharmaceuticals, investment products, etc? Since there is no viable alternative to oil and natural gas even in the long term, we're stuck with oil boys and girls--no matter how much the tree huggers whine or invent bullshit like the fictional "global warming."* *The concocter of the global warming hoax, a professor named Schneider, was warning of the imminent return of the Ice Age as recently as the mid-80s! he's also been quoted--and I have the article--as saying that faking the science is ok in order to advance his "theory." His ultimate goal (and I am not making this shit up)? World communist government controlled by the UN. Sorry, but the UN already takes my wallet for a huge ride every year. And then busts our balls for actually implementing its decisions. not petrol, but draught BEER works out at 9 Uk pounds a gallon !!! actually thats wrong, i worked it out at 4.54 but 4.54 is the litres to gallon conversion . 8 pints at 2 quid a throw = 16 uk pounds a gallon !!!! x $1.90 = $US 30 a gallon petrol is cheap in comparisson at approx 4.20Uk pounds a gallon or $US 8 a gallon , most of that is Tax that maggie and tony and any other daft prick in charge allows the treasurer to keep increasing

Hey Pain_Man, good to see your name back on the board. Can you clarify how the above quote works as my girlfeind lives half a block from a school and they have numerous handguns and rifles in the house. Does this mean they are breaking a Fedreal Law? Or does it only relate to firearms in a public places? Thanks, 'rush. There is, at present, no Federal law banning guns near schools (last time I checked). Congress tried to say it was a matter of "interstate commerce" but SCOTUS rejected that. (That's Supreme Court of the United States.) To spare a long explanation of the commerce clause, suffice it to say, SCOTUS determined that such a ban was beyond Congress' powers. A number of states have similar laws. Mine, to my knowledge doesn't not. I believe there are exemptions for homeowners (otherwise the laws would run up against the 2nd amendment; also most state constitutions have a right to bear arms clause). To be sure, I'd contact a criminal lawyer. In most states, the local bar association has a program where lawyers sign up in a database and give a free telephone consultation. That way you get the advice you need without having to shell out $200 to $500 for an hours of the shyster's time. (And should one find one's self in trouble, one usually remembers the lawyer from whom one got the free advice.) They should be able to set you straight on the particulars of your state's laws. If memory serves, don't you and your girlfriend live in VA? Sorry, Virginia? It's a very Republican state (tho' it does elect conservative Dem governors) and has concealed carry laws. You can also check the NRA website. They used to have a page about such laws but I don't know if it's still up. http://www.nraila.org/gunlaws/

Guess we'll be agreeing to disagree over the good Baroness. But I never wanted to discuss politics on this site anyway. It's nice to have ONE place to go where one's not smothered in it. Lemme guess, you're a Leftie? I'd hardly consider Tony Blair (who's turned out to be far better than I dared hope) a yes man to the US. He's leading the charge on the utterly baseless and ridiculous Kyoto Treaty. He was one of the leaders on the Israel-Islamofacsist asshole ceasefire. On terrorism he's been tight with us. And why shouldn't you be? You guy's have suffered from terrorism a lot longer than we have. You have expertise we don't. You've also got military experience in the kind of house to house, counter-terror than we've profitted from. We are the biggest and the best, but that doesn't mean we can't learn. Britain's our closest ally. Personally, I think you should ditch that Franco-German conspiracy and sign a Free Trade treaty with us. Give the finger to the Frogs and the Boche. After all, which country do you have more in common with? France or America? No leader is perfect. Ronald Reagan is another hero of mine; he too made mistakes. The "war" on drugs being the biggest. Coke and Heroin cost the same as they did in 1980, which means their price has actually declined by %250-300 due to inflation. I could write volumes about the abuses of the "war" on drugs. We now have 115 Federal laws under which the government can take your shit (houses, cars, cash, investments) not only without a conviction, but without trial, without arrest, without even a warrant. And YOU have to go into court with a lawyer and PROVE your shit was bought with legit money! (Not all of these laws were passed under Reagan it should be noted.) We're paying $3/gal for gas (about 1.60 pounds). At first people were losing their minds, but people are used to it. Britain is oil self-sufficient (which we would be if we actually drilled our own friggin' oil!) so how the HELL do you pay US$9 a gallon??? There would literally be rioting in the streets over here. (The exchange rate, as of Friday, was $1.90 to the pound.) so why she killed off the small shops I think Lord Sainsbury (sp?) has probably had more to do with the decline of what we call Mom & Pop stores than the government. But don't feel alone. Our Federal government hates small business too. 60% of a small business' revenue--not profit is taken by government taxes and fees and forced mandates like worker's comp insurance. Every year thousands of families lose their small businesses because of the Death Tax. My father-in-law just had to close his gas station after 35 years because he could no longer make a profit. ahh , preparing for war then ?? hate to think what you have in the large arms locker then wishfull thinking about 2 pound a pint now, or $3 a pint . its dearer than petrol is at 9 pounds a gallon petrol is approx 4 pounds ( ish), in fact , bottled water is dearer than petrol these days sadly i cant agree about the wicked witch of the commons,"haggie twatcher" she was the worst thing that ever happened for the average man in the street. she killed off trade unions rights to strike . In saying that the current labour leader Tony "suck up to George dubya" Blair is just as bad ( trade unions formed the labour movement and got the labour party on there feet , but now theyve turned conservative as well , just like haggie thatcher was ). as for chemistry, all she did was conjour up potions to get more money out of the people of England !! . she didnt have a company car when in governtment, she had a broomstick she was a grocers daughter, so why she killed off the small shops with taxing , we will never know

...the very publicized shooting and death of 6-year-old Kayla Rolland in her first grade classroom near Flint, Michigan, Moore's home town. If memory serves, the kid that shot this poor girl was living in a Crack House with his pipe head father who left a gun laying in the bed the kid was sleeping in. The kid took the gun to school, unaware, like most kids his age, of the permanence of his actions, probably unaware it was a real gun. I don't let my 6 yr old daugther play with my lighter and the can of gasoline in the garage for a reason. Heston still gave a controversial speech despite the heightened sensitivity of the Denver and Littleton communities Overall, a rather stunning example of wikipedia actually being fair to a conservative. Be still my beating heart. "Sensitivity of the...communities"? What kind of mush-brained, Left-wing kook crap is that? Since when does some imaginary "sensitivity" override the right to self defense. Jesus H. Tap-Dancing Christ! I'm going to have to edit that nonsense out of that article. My God, no wonder the Islamofacsists think we don't have any balls! (Nuthin' personal, of course, crule...)

What could you possibly have against Moses? Michael Moore is liar, something that's been proven beyond doubt. He has the veracity of Joseph Goebbels (whose techniques he emulates eagerly). Both of his "documentaries" have been shredded for the bullshit Lib propaganda they are. Checking, IMDb, he's still alive. He's 82 (two years older than my grandmother). Alzheimer's terrifies me. It runs in my family. It's killed at least three members on the maternal side and my grandfather probably had the early stages b4 he died in a car accident in '86. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000032/

Guns do not make you a killer. I think killing makes you a killer. You can kill someone with a baseball bat or a car, but no one is trying to ban you from driving to the ball game. --Andy Rooney Relax, Shamus. I meant nothing personal. I no longer have the article on Australia that was the source of the info. I'd like to be able to whip out (so to speak). I hope we're all friends here. I would also hope that even if you disagree with me and even if I am incorrect in this or that fact, that's no reason to assume bad motives on my part or any kind of malice against either the Brits or the Aussies. I'm both an Anglophile and an Australo-phile (if that's a word). I could go hunting for the statistics on both Austrailia and the UK but since no one seems to want to accept statistics that diagree with their preconceived notions, what would be the point? I'm not sure that living in a country makes one an expert on every aspect of that country. I certainly make no such claim about my own country, whose area and population are larger (the latter, far larger) than the UK and the Land Down Under put together. The simple fact is that gun ownership and concealed carry keep people safe. They reduce crime. I'll say it again: 2,000,000 times a year Americans use firearms to defend themselves. I'm never going to accept having one of my loved ones raped and murdered to give someone else an abstract sense of safety. That's just common sense. In Texas, where tens of thousands of concealed carry permits have been issued, only 150 permit-holders have been convicted of violent crimes. And I never said that Britain (or Austrailia's) murder rates compare to ours. They don't. Both countries murder rates are, I believe, is in the low hundreds. There are roughly 20,000 murders a year in the US, about 11,000 from firearms. (We've discovered, in this country, that actually locking up violent criminals reduces crime. An amazing concept!) What has gone up in the UK is the rate of violent crime overall--while it has declined in the US (except for last year, when it went up slightly; I have no problem with facts even when they are uncomfortable). There is no "pro-gun" lobby. There are pro-self defense groups, the largest of which, the National Rifle Association, I happen to be a proud member. Probably the Brits will remember when a number of tourists from the UK were murdered in Florida. Does anyone know why they were murdered? It wasn't a surge of Anglophobia. (Simon Cowell was still the unknown son of a millionaire real estate broker back then.) The state of Florida has a concealed carry law (pass a background check and take a gun safety course and you can carry a concealed firearm). They also used to give dramatically different license plates to rental cars. The murders of tourists (not all of whom were British) occured because the thugs knew that people in rental cars were very unlikely to be carrying concealed firearms. So they struck the easiest targets. Why take a chance on jacking a Florida resident who might fill your ass with lead when there are these nice, unarmed tourists loaded with cash, passports and credit cards? Oddly enough, when Florida eliminated the special license plates for rental cars, these tourists murders almost completely stopped. If that doesn't convince you of the wisdom of the right to bear arms, perhaps this will. The first in the string of school shootings (only in perceptions, shootings at schools go back a lot longer than the 1990s, unfortunately) of which Columbine was merely the most spectacular, occured in Pearl, Mississippi (I'll avoid the postal abbreviations as someone once requested...). I can't remember the kid's name, but after he'd shot several of his schoolmates, the assistant principle of his high school ran out to his car and took his hunting shotgun from the trunk (boot?). He used the shotgun to disarm the kid and hold him until the Fuzz showed up. (Late, as usual.) This A.P. faced Federal charges for having a firearm within 1000 yards (about 900m) of a school. Showing a rare burst of common sense, the US Attorney for that part of Mississippi decided not to charge the assistant principle. (Later, the Supreme Court, in an equally rare burst of common sense, throughout that stupid law.) If that A.P. hadn't had his shotgun who knows how many kids and teachers that little punk would have wounded and killed? Banning guns from schools merely makes schools safe targets for maniacs like the Columbine Duo. The fact is, this is a violent society. Before anyone gets all puffed with a sense of superiority, remember that our talent for violence is the reason that this planet is not singing the Soviet national anthem or saluting portraits of Hitler whilst chanting Deutchland, Deutschland, uber alles! After all, my family has shed blood to protect your countries. My great-grandfather in WWI and my my great-uncle in WWII--who took a bullet to the head and spent three week in a coma. One of my grandfathers fought in the Pacific to keep the Japanese from doing to Austrailia what they had done to a dozen other countries. My Dad's youngest sister spent many years in the Air Force serving in Britain (she retired 2 yrs ago after 26 yrs as a Lt. Col). I hope you?re joking as this sounds like the sort of garbage that a ten year old would regurgitate, not something I?d expect from an intelligent, mature adult with the ability to draw conclusions based on research. I live in Australia. Would I not be more qualified than your friends to have an opinion on this? Secondly, in a single stroke you have painted all Australian towns and cities as equally dangerous which is ridiculous. You are comparing places like Cabramatta in Sydney (one of the most violent places in Australia) to the suburb in which I live in Brisbane (which is not). Would you say that Backwater, Arkansas is just as dangerous as Detroit because they are both in the USA? Even my airhead of a niece wouldn?t swallow that tripe. Ah yes. Instead of people beating the crap out each other to settle disputes, they shoot each other instead. A brilliant concept. Any supporting evidence to back this up?

We no longer have to worry about $2 either. Nor do we have to keep a hawk's eye on the checking account. A very nice feeling. And we, too, are very far from rich. I haven't used compression since I got my HDTV. (Well, ours since I do let the wife borrow it now and again...) I do use compression when I make copies of my six yr old's discs. I'm not given her DLs to trash. Other than that one exception, if I like the movie enough, I use a DL. If I don't, then I split to two SLs. With an HDTV, compression is absolutely glaringly noticeable (like Hillary Clinton's ass, oh, the wife say's that was an eclipse, my bad). I've got 35 Verb DLs in the Small Arms Locker, along with 400+ SLs, mostly TYs. I don't know if I'll ever use them all. But since I've got so many, I've been able to run a number of comparison tests. I did buy a 3 pack of -R DLs--against lfcrule's good advice--and, sho' nuff, neither my Sony nor my Philliips set-tops will read them. Only my daughter's Apex! So I've got two more in Locker I'm not sure what to do with. Probably store music on them. I started buying them at $7 and I will buy more as they go below $2. I never compress my DVDs any more. If they are too big to fit single layer for the movie itself, I use a dual layer. Always. I have not been satisfied with the quality obtained by compression - even slight. Over-burning is also handy. A lot of movies are just 30-150 MB over single layer size. They can easily be over-burned. I've burned up to 4600 MB with ImgBurn, BenQ 1640, and MCC or TY discs. Why are people so upset about $2? It's not that big a deal to me. I am not rich, either. $2 is nothing to me. I'll burn 50 dual layer DVDs and won't even flinch. The price is low enough now. It will probably NEVER get as low as single layer media.

Beers cost 40 cents in England? Cool.

She's one of my personal heros. She was the one who had to stiffen the Elder Bush's resolve with the classic line, "Don't go all wobbly George." She also gave a very moving tribute to Reynaldus Magnus after his death. She no longer appears in public due to illness. But there's no reason to argue politics, at least not on this site... (And I don't think that Britain can fairly have been described as a dictatorship since Henry VIII....) Checking wikipedia... She was a chemist...since y'all rather confusingly (to us anyway) call pharmacists chemists that's probably why I was confused. She got a degree in Chemistry from Oxford and was a member of the team, at British company, which developed the first soft serve ice cream (!). Nope . she was an evil witch / dictator / snob , and her father was a grocer , but i dont think she was a pharmacist , unless as a witch with her potions qualified as a pharmacist

Unfortunately, Shamus, they are but the bare truth. People I've known who've been to Austrailia tell me that thugs simply walk into stores and steal what they like knowning that the shop owners are powerless to stop them. Supporting the right to bear arms is nothing more than protecting the right to self defense. 2,000,000 times are a year Americans defend themselves with firearms, mostly handguns. If the anti-self defense nuts get their way and strip Americans of their right to defend themselves, millions of people would be murdered, raped, robbed, assaulted, etc. My own great-aunt avoided being raped--and probably murdered--by shooting a home-invader dead. While the massacre at Dunblane was horrible, the banning of handguns was an even greater tragedy. Far more Britons have been victims of crime as a result. To repeat: Britain now has a higher rate of violent crime than the US (where violent crimes have been declining for the last 10 years).

You're stastistic are spot on, as our British cousins say. You can also add that US cities that have enacted gun control (in reality outlawed self-defense) have the highest murder rates in the country. American gunowners are far less likely to be murdered, raped, assaulted and robbed in their own homes. Since Britain outlawed and confiscated handguns Britain now has a higher violent crime rate than the United States. (meaning no offense to my cousins, but if our government attempted such thing there would be a bloodbath; however the vast majority of cops and soldiers would refuse to enforce any such confiscation order. They know it would mean civil war.) Oh, to correct one mistake: It was Lenin who banned private ownership of firearms, not Stalin. And it was in 1919, not 1929. Lenin personally issued order than anyone found possessing a firearm was to be executed. And countless were. Although after Stalin people in rural areas were allowed to own hunting rifles, when Gobachev decided to crack down on the Baltic Republics' drive for independence, the first thing he did was order all hunting rifles to be turned into Soviet authorities. Hitler also banned the ownership of handguns and all rifles except hunting rifles. In the pre-gunpowder age, peasants throughout the world, with few exceptions, were not allowed to possess weapons. In China, this led to the peasants turning agricultural tools (e.g. nunchuks, three part staffs, et al) into weapons to evade the governmental ban. Gun control never works. Ever. Under any circumstances. It only benefits criminals. Crime always increases. These facts are absolutely irrefutable. As enshrined in our Constitution's Second Amendment, the right to own guns is the most important right of all. Without it, all the other rights are utterly meaningless. And.... It's just that simple.

You buy your media from a chemist? Chemist? Oh yeah. That's what you guys call pharmacists. Wasn't Baroness Thatcher a pharmacist? Anyway. Yes, I do, when they're on sale. Today they had Maxell DVDs and CDs on sale but I don't think so! here usually carry all manner of goods, a mini grocery store, greeting cards. Even USB cables, jump drives, telephones. They also develop film and, strangest of all, sell cigarettes.

I was just checking to see if they were still carrying them and, lo & behold, look at the price! My pharmacy was carrying Sony -/+Rs for $10/25pk spindle for several months in a row. The +Rs are actually TY Yuden00-T-002 (I'm too lazy to grab one to make sure ). I managed to brab a 200 of both kinds before they went off sale. 75 of the TYs.

...of course, I'm sure my British cousins have had it available for a month. Y'all always get the good stuff before we do. Something I've never understood seeing that most of the good stuff comes from American studios/production houses/record companies. (I realize that might sound arrogant but those of you who know me know that I am big-time Anglophile . And that the last thing I am is an Ugly American. ) Oh yeah...Season 8, South Park Season 8 is out on the 28th. "I'm a soldier, not a diplomat gentleman, I can only tell you the truth." --Kirk Seems James T needs to read some history...

Just 20.99/10 pk US ONLY They're getting closer and closer to $1... If you've got a premium membership as I do, it qualifies for free two-day air. See y'all later.

....it is kinda funny. (After all, how does one know an animal is "gay"?) http://borndifferent.org/ (Yes, I'm back. Disability's had me down, but I'm feeling better.)

Thanks guys. I'd require a pretty basic explanation. I had only two math classes in high school and I took them twice. Math ain't my forte. I know a helluva lot more about English history than I do algebra, let alone calculus and higher math.

I've been wondering how the Quality Rating is computed? What weight is given to each metric that's scanned for. The following to scans are two discs of the same ''home'' DVD-Video. Note that the Quality Rating are exactly the same for both scans. The drive and discs were the same (the DW1655, YUDEN000T02). D1 has lower PIE/C1 & PIF/C2 scores and D2 has a lower jitter score. Yet they both have a quality rating 98.97%.

javacool's spywareblaster is also a must, imo. It prevents many types of malware from installing themselves in the Registry. (Spybot-SD has a similar featuer in its latest version.) http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/ I also use a mix of free/payware for malware protection. ZoneAlarm Security Suite The anti-viral component is Computer Associates EZ-Trust anti-viral/anti-spyware product. (And CA uses ZA for their firewall.) ZA's a great product, but there have been some problems with version 6.x. The latest update, 6.5 caused me so many problems I had to roll back to 6.1. But it still catches viruses (caught one two days ago in the IE Temp file) and the Fire Wall's still rock solid. To test any firewall, got to http://www.grc.com and click on "Shields Up". It will test all of the IP ports to see if you're firewall's doing it's job. Beware if you're using BlackIce's firewall. They altered their code to cheat the grc test because it had failed so miserably. This is from the site and not my opinion. I've never used any BlackIce products. Ad-Aware (full version) Spybot-SD SpywareBlaster javacool's site also has an older program called MRU-blaster which removes all kinds of records that Windows keeps that most "privacy" programs don't even touch. I very much recommend it. You'll be amazed at just how many different things that XP keeps track of. I also think that a "trace destroyer" is a must. A program like East-Tec Eraser (my personal favorite), Steganos Security Suite (another one of my favs) that erases not internet traces but also the records kept by many types of progs and the OS. East-Tec is great because it has 13 presets for digital "shredding", everything from a simple one-pass overwrite all the way up to Peter Gutmann's 35 pass method that prevents any method, hardware or software from recovering data from a HD. You can also create your own methodologies.

Maybe. What's it pay?

R30 is good. It's not Rush in Rio--there's certainly not 10,000 screaming, gorgeous Brazilian babes who know all the lyrics. The German crowd is rathering subdued, but the boys are certainly on their game. It's quite cool that they included the CDs with the package. I've now watched all the concerts in the Replay package and the sound is awesome. Alex did a helluva job on the audioremixes. The video, unfortunately, isn't up to the quality of R30 and RIR. It's certainly watcheable. But if these were new concerts, it wouldn't be acceptable. Exit Stage Left sounds much better than I remember. The original LP/CD mixes didn't sound good but this DVD sounds much, MUCH better. I know you're a big fan, so I highly recommend it to you or to any serious Rush fan.

The best line in the article: given a choice between Blu-ray and a less-restrictive DRM format, I'll go with the latter That's what's going to happen. I'm not going to buy a BR or an HD-DVD player or burner until there's a way to defeat Rights Destruction Technology. The article writer makes another point, one which I've long made: the studios don't want use to make any copies, ever, whether legal or not. Their REAL goal is charge for EVERY TIME WE WATCH. The "Bill bill" revivied. Well, I'm not playing. Regular DVDs look just fine on my HDTV. And until consumer rights are respected by these choadswallowers, they aren't getting any more of my money, I don't give a fuck how good BR or HD-DVD looks. But let's not panic. As I said before (and as the article writer also says) the encryption will be broken not matter what it is, not matter how sophisticated the scheme. Despite the cable and satellite companies best efforts, you can easily acquire equipment to steal cable or intercept satellite signals. Even if some company invents a player that forces consumers to "phone home" to Big Brother's server, some fifteen yr old kid, in his bedroom, will figure out a way to fool the player. I guarantee it. I'll got even further than that. I'll lay a $20 down that AACS has already been cracked. And we'll see the programs soon...

There is absolutely one thing we CAN do. NOT BUY THESE FUCKERS!! If they don't sell, then they won't make them. These are corporations. If they can't sell these Stalin boxes, then they'll quit making them. It doesn't matter what the "content owners" want. The CE manufacturers aren't going to make equipment people aren't going to buy. Frankly, I'm not too worried. Every encryption scheme of any kind has been broken. That's not going to change no matter what they do. And if a company were to "deactivate" every player because of the hypothetical Singeporean, then there would be legions of American lawyers just waiting to jump on the company's ass with dozens of class action lawsuits. There are factors working for privacy, as well as against it. The biggest one, to reiterate, are our dollars. We do NOT have to have DVDs or CDs to live. In fact, for 200,000 years we did just fine without them. Hollywood's going to put itself out of business with this kind of shit. I keep thinking of a line from an episode of Star Trek: TNG: "Television, as a form of entertainment, died out in the early 21st century." Data may have been closer to the truth than the writer realized...