Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad! Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah

Those hurricane pics you posted a while back turned up on the urban legends site as "Real photos, inaccurate description"

http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/storm.asp

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My vacation was - well - just marvellous. 14 nights with my daughter (a new record) - we stayed in hotels and holiday camps around the UK - two small hiccups in that I lost my credit card at one point (d'oh) and also got a flat tyre (or tire you write). As you may recall from a previous missive the STUPID GERMAN CAR that I have does not have a spare so we had to call the rescue wagon out. After 90 mins it turned up and began to load my VW, after 91 mins a second rescue wagon arrived from an entirely different company. Katherine vidoe'd everything and you can hear her muttering "idiots" over the scene - who did she learn that from then? So now I have guilt. It is not good to be back at work, but it's a living.

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Death of business travel? According to Google Earth there are quite a few private airfields in the USA, why don't you form a networking website for them, like a "park and ride" or a "park and fly"? The alternative is to lube up for the hand that is coming to search your orifices at the airport.

I agree with what you are saying about the loony left attacking the soft targets, which are invariably the middle-class, white male Christians. In the UK for example we are the group most hounded for child support, because we are the most likely to pay. I have never missed a payment for my daughter, and always pay much more than the state mandates, my daughters half sister on the other hand has a middle eastern muslim father and he has never MADE a payment and doesn't bother to see her at all. Admittedly this is one data point but it's not untypical (atypical?) from what I read, and see.

Anyway I am glad that China was an ok trip for you, is the Chinese food there as good as in the UK? Do folks still carry the Mao Black Book?

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50 funniest comedies - you have to see Some Like It Hot and The Apartment. Both of those movies are in my all time top 100. By coincidence , Katherine and I watched GroundHog Day during our vacation. She loved the idea of gaining knowledge about a person (through meeting them) and then using it to gain some kind of advantage - the next day when the person meets you for the first time but you know lots about them and they think you're wonderful - Godlike.

Then she was a little nervous that she was stuck in a Groundhog Day - but I assured her that most probably she was not.

One recent movie that has to be on such a list is Team America - World Police. For me, this is probably the funniest movie ever made. The protagonist puppet "Gary" walks up to the door of the terrorist stronghold he is trying to infiltrate, in "disguise" - dressed in a western leather jacket and jeans, but with a "valmoricafied" face (with black cotton wool stuck haphazardly to it) and has to "act his way in". Too funny.

Note: I was talking to an American who kept using the word "incentivize" - I asked him why he did not use the word "incent" for the same purpose> He had no answer and he carried on using "incentivize" - what a waste of 5 characters and so inelegant.

EVERYONE has seen Trading Places !

I realized that the 70/30 nature vs nurture split was only arrived at after raising the test subjects on the Earth. I go back to Heinlein's book and ask what would the difference would be in two identical twins raised by different species? Having said that, Tarzan was still an ok guy so I dunno maybe 70/30 is close to being correct :-)

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SOA - is it something that will last - or will it be gone gone gone by say 2010?

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Humiliation - I believe that one needs just enough self respect to know how to treat others as they wish be treated, no more or less. Many have much more - an unhealthy self respect, this often leads to exploitation, social classes and financial wealth. If we were really to follow the teachings of Jesus we would give up our self respect much more than we do, but we don't do we?

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Have you accepted your mediocrity yet?