A discussion of place names (some of them are not actually cities) over on Absolute Random which focuses mostly on ‘naughty’ place names has turned into a discussion with nationalistic overtones. In fact, it took that turn on the very first comment with disparaging (and inaccurate) remarks regarding Americans. This, of course, led to rebuttal and debate … strife. And strife may have been all that the first poster was looking for.

Do you see yourself as being more a citizen of a geo-political state or of the world at large?

Click here to read on, my friend.

We’ve pretty much all seen photos of the damage at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We’ve read of the toll they took of the humans (civilians, mostly) caught up in their fury. We’ve seen the shadow of a man forever etched in stone by the light of these blasts.

And we’ve been told that these were small nuclear bombs.

The current class of weaponry are all several orders of magnitude larger.

Go to this web site (.:SonicBomb:. – Content ) and tell me if technology is actually leading mankind toward better things. These devices really DO have the ability to end life on the surface of this planet and, quite possibly, the planet as a whole.

Observers on another planet would see a series of flashes and hear a weird electronic cacophony. Then the planet would go silent and its surface would be obscured by dust in its atmosphere. Any who survived the blasts and the radiation would succumb to starvation. The dust would clear to reveal a lifeless and uninhabitable planet.

Ladies take note. Men too. This is not the answer to the problem of rape. Active enforcement of existing laws is the answer.

This has been likened to an internal chastity belt; but that is a faulty analogy inasmuch as the chastity belt, while preventing rape, also prevented consensual intercourse in the absence of either a key or a good lock picker. Moreover, the chastity belt made it plain that entry was forbidden. This device gives no such warning.

Click here to read on, my friend.

Do you have an affiliate agreement? What happens if you direct plenty of traffic to the advertiser, but you never seem to see a check? What happens if such an agreement directs plenty of traffic to you … but you never reach for YOUR checkbook?

If you are going to buy or sell in the United States, you need to read the Uniform Commercial Code or, at the very least, skim it and file it away for future reference. It can not only help you press your claims against others, but prevent you from doing business in a way that will give them valid claims on you.

Recently I had cause to reach for the UCC (Uniform Commercial Code ) at Cornell University because I do bookkeeping for a small company and many of its customers are refusing to pay because their invoices did not get submitted when they should have (I just started).

What do you think … can they do that and get away without paying anything? They don’t argue that the work wasn’t done or even that it was previously paid for. They don’t dispute the amount being billed at all. They just don’t want to reach that far back into their records to verify the invoices from their own records.

The UCC or ‘The Code’, lays the foundation principles for many, many other regulations regarding the conduct of commerce. For instance, let’s say that you sold me something valuable, say an old baseball trading card worth a few hundred dollars. When it got to me, I declared it junk and refused to pay for it, notifying my credit card company that I had been had. I have your stuff AND I have your money. Short of violence, what recourse do you have?

Education won’t solve every problem … but it will take care of more of them than ignorance will.

Uniform Commercial Code

[ad#468x60]

The US government has cut the Iowa National Guard lose from their Iraq duty ONE DAY SHORT of their G.I. benefits.

That’s what happens when people blindly buy into nationalism.

thisisby.us – Vulgar post title cleaned up for the kids.

[ad#468x60]

E-Commerce News (with whom I have an on-again / off-again relationship), posted a list of 10 business technologies that ‘just work’ for small to medium businesses.

I’ve summarized their list here, but I want to ask you which technologies you have found useful but were left off the list.

Click here to read on, my friend.

It wasn’t very long ago that I recommended that you read "The Measure of a Man" by Sidney Poitier. Have you read it yet? Have you read anything since then? Aren’t you even a TINY bit concerned that, in the English speaking world, print news comes from, essentially, two sources?

Well, then, have it your way.

Dedroidify

[ad#468x60]

U.S. officials: Navy to shoot down satellite due to disaster risk – CNN.com

Authorities said the fuel tank likely would survive re-entry and could disperse harmful or even potentially deadly fumes over an area the size of two football fields. Hydrazine is similar to chlorine or ammonia in that it affects the lungs and breathing tissue.

True, but hydrazine boils at roughly 235 degrees F. (113 C.) … quite a bit less than it takes to bake a cake.

Click here to read on, my friend.

As part of looking for some relief from my ADHD, I am presently taking the generic form of Adderall … specifically amphetamine. Moreover, I am taking what I consider to be a fairly high doseage of it … 40 mgs. a day. Its effect, for me, is to actually slow down a part of my thinking … the one that flits from thought to thought to thought too fast for most folks to follow. Such flitting about makes me ’socially objectionable’ because, coupled with a higher IQ than most, it makes me seem cocky and impatient with others.

I am through with a problem before they have grasped the question. They do not find this endearing. So I take amphetamine to limit the number of thoughts I can consider simultaneously. Optimistically, some people call this ‘focusing’. I call it ‘putting blinders on’ / ’shuttering’.

I fantasize of a day when I can have electrodes strapped to my skull and simply be allowed to think at warp speed and have all of the thoughts available for others to use at the speed they can handle them.

Until then, I ‘throttle back’ as much as I can without stalling completely … hoping to finally have a few friends. So far, it’s not working.

http://nootropics.com/smartdrugs/braindoping.html

Guys, (and this post is basically addressed to single men hoping to marry well) I followed one of those ubiquitous links at the top of my Gmail page to a “Russian Bride” web site half-expecting to find a bunch of gals looking like the taxidermist had knocked off work early. Think of a “Saturday Night Live John Belushi as a Russian ballerina” spoof.

I am sitting here with a bib on and fork in hand, ready to eat my words.
http://www.russianfeme.com/russianbrides/bride.htm?l=e&id=8593&p=1

Click here to read on, my friend.