When I was spending a lot of time on Slashdot back in 1999, my boss used to say "Talking to your friend Commander Taco again?"

We canceled cable about 6 months ago. We have SlingTV (and pay extra for the sports package during NFL season), Netflix, Hulu+ and HBO. All those together are still cheaper than cable was.

Even better, we cancel HBO when there's not a series on that we watch, and it's a simple matter of a website click. When it's time to turn it back on, same thing.

With the addition of a $30 digital antenna, there is nothing we used to watch that we can't get now.

Stuff that matters.. I don't even have a TV, to avoid this nonsense news.. eff off Slashdot!

Fortunately, the embassy IS in London, and protected by that British Explosives Suppressing Field. No bombs can go off there, so the embassy is safe. That's why we know that the subway bombings a few years ago were faked. No explosions in London!

The food part? Dogs are carnivores. They like meat and meat products. That kind of food is rather expensive. The most expensive feed for horses, miniature or otherwise, would be alfalfa. A miniature probably doesn't eat a lot more than a couple of sheep or goats. Since you don't actually "work" a miniature, you probably aren't going to give him much grain, if any. (added benefit of alfalfa is, it is high protein, very well digested, so there is less waste to deal with)

I realize that a service animal will probably be spoiled to some degree. His owner will buy apples, sweet feed, or grains. I'm quite certain that the service animal doesn't "need" any of that. Just plain old Bermuda grass hay, and a quarter cup of oats should be sufficient.

I think it's a close draw between the cost of feeding a miniature horse, or a dog.

Before I hit "submit", it occurred to me that the majority of service animals are used in cities. So, maybe I'm not entirely right about the cost of feed. In the city, you probably don't have room to store a huge round bale hay. Probably don't have ready access to a market. So, you'll to to some special pet care store, and pay more for a 120 pound square bale of hay, than I can buy a two ton round bale for.

The last bales I bought were 1100 pound rolls of mixed bermuda and coastal grass, paid $25 each for them. That is the "standard" size around here.

Depends on your location, I guess. A lot of horses around here are owned by lower middle class, and maybe upper poverty class. Some people DO still actually work horses.

I'll admit, most horses are owned by people who don't really have any use for them. My younger stepson has two. One was given to him, the other bought at such a low price it might as well have been a gift. In the past year, I've only seen his wife on a horse once, not seen him or the kids astride a horse. Pets - just big expensive pets.

I've owned horses in the past. My horses were part companion, part work, part social, and part chick bait. I never really NEEDED a horse, but I found occasional uses for them.

No, I've not owned registered thoroughbreds or anything like that. Only one of my rides was registered, and he was an Appaloosa. His papers didn't mean anything to him, or to me.

Seriously, if you visit my part of the country, you can find horses for a couple hundred dollars. Or, you can shop for the popular breeds, and try to find a 'Best of Show" horse for tens of thousands.

But, I'm not offering BS explanations. I'm stating, flat out, that our police state is fucked up. Kids don't need an excuse to act like kids. Cops need a rational reason for shooting a kid to death. In the case of Tamir Rice, we get no rational reason, only bullshit excuses. Have you watched the video? The cops all but drive over him before exiting the car. There is no two second, or five second, certainly not enough time to shout commands. They jump out, and shoot. Their minds were made up before they arrived at the scene. Get on top of the "nigga with a gun" and kill him. There is no other rational explanation for what we see on the video. Lots of excuses, but no rational explanation.

Many? You must have about a thousand links to back that up then?

https://www.theguardian.com/us...

What really gets me is this link - https://nypost.com/2015/10/11/...

So-called "experts" are telling us that it is reasonable that children with toys are shot and killed. I insist that it is NOT reasonable for children with toys to be killed.

How 'bout that latest incident, in which a mentally handicapped boy was holding a TOY TRUCK, the officer shot at him, and instead hit the boy's caretaker/guardian/counselor?

Yeah, stupid kids get killed all the time, but it is unacceptable that we allow idiot cops to do the killing.

You seem to be quite adept at calling everyone racist. Three people have already responded, and they are very much on target. One of the AC's suggests that you've bullied and browbeat me, but that part is inaccurate. You have ATTEMPTED to bully and browbeat me, but failed.

Any violent person is subject to having lethal force used against them. It's the "violent" part that qualifies them. Some AC below suggests that the person punching another person shouldn't be subject to a violent and/or lethal response. Context matters, though. Some street tough is swinging on another street tough - there is no convincing reason for me to intervene. Same street tough is beating up on a woman, I should probably defend the woman, but probably not to the level of using lethal force. Same street tough on a different day is assaulting an elderly person - let's make this person female again. Two or three punches may well kill the feeble old gal. A higher level of response is called for, IMHO. Potentially lethal force is in order. Finally, in another scenario, the same rat bastard is using a hammer to hit a bunch of little kids in the head. He is definitely using potentially lethal force against people who are entirely defenseless. This time around, lethal force is clearly justified. I can, and will, pull whatever weapon is at my disposal, and do my damndest to ensure that he is no longer able to swing that hammer. In fact, I would be in favor of the famous "double tap". One bullet to the head, and another to the heart, to ensure that he doesn't get back up again.

What's that you say? I should have only shot him ONCE, so that the hospital might save him? Oh - sorry, he didn't fall fast enough after the first shot, I thought I had missed him, so I took the second shot. I didn't really MEAN to kill him, but it was necessary to stop him hitting any more little children in the head with that hammer.

And, finally, I don't give a flying fuck what color that bastard was. Nor do I care what color, race, or religion his victims were. Even if I know him, he's the same color, race, religion, and culture that I am, and he's attacking innocent people who are all different from me, I defend the innocents.

And THAT is what the police should be doing.

It is very unfortunate that the police are NOT doing that very thing. Race figures into their decisions very much. We don't read about young white males being killed in the playground because they are playing with a toy gun. We don't read of young white males being shot dead when they reach for their identification. We DO, however, read about young white males who are shot dead when they assault a police officer.

Now, you can make another stab at parsing words, correcting grammar, and making up bullshit excuses why no one should ever be shot dead by a cop. But, you cannot paint me as a racist. Trying to do so only marks you as an ignorant fool.

Sometimes, young black men perform actions for which they should be shot down. Other times, young black men are gunned down without justification. If you choose to defend BOTH GROUPS, then you are indeed a racist.

Dozens of young black males have been killed pointlessly by the police. Other young black males have been justifiably killed by the police. If you can pretend that all of their killings were UNjustified, then you are no less a racist than those who claim they were all justified.

Each and every case must be examined individually. Yes, it is reasonable that some of the most violent blacks are "put down". Some of them have less value to society than a stray dog. Others should result in the cops spending the rest of their lives in prison. First and foremost among those, is the killing of Tamir Rice.

Again, only a racist can fail to see the difference between Tamir Rice and the animal killed in Ferguson. It depends on which flavor of racist you happen to be, which side you come down on.

The whole "Black Lives Matter" failed to actually offend me, early on. Because, well, Black lives do matter. But when BLM hit back against "all lives matter", and again hit back at "blue lives matter", that set them apart as a bunch of racists.

ALL LIVES MATTER, or you're just another racist.

https://www.grc.com/never10.ht...

https://voat.co/v/technology/c...

http://ultimateoutsider.com/do...

https://www.safer-networking.o...

Any, or all, of those seem to be safe to use. Try one, or try them all. They mostly duplicate each other's measures, but they aren't quite all the same, either.

Jesus Christ - it is YOU who is bizzare. You don't understand the difference between buying a company, and owning slaves? And, you want to shit on everything. Bizarre is an appropriate word for you.

Oracle didn't do any work on Java. Sun did. Sun invested a lot of time and money into Java, then ultimately, turned it over to outside developers. Sun still held "title" to Java, I suppose, but they did little to nothing to "protect" their copyright. Open sourced, freely distributed, outside developers encouraged to develop, and tacit consent given to use Java however the hell you want to use it.

Let's put this in perspective. You make something, and you allow all your neighbors to use that something. Let's say it's a water park. All the kids in town come to your place to play in the water. After a few years, I come along, and offer you some money for your water park, and you take the money. With the water park safely in my possession, I start suing all the families in town for using the water park.

Does that scenario make ANY sense to you? I sure as hell hope not.

In my most honest opinion, Oracle has no claim to anything that has been done with Java. If, and only if, Oracle develops some new aspect of Java, then Oracle will have full right and title to those newly explored aspects of Java. At least until someone reverse engineers it, and reproduces the results with different code.

Be careful with making absolute statements. Oracle has done a few things that seem to be worthwhile. Oracle has given in to pressure from outside groups. I don't like Oracle at all, but they can sometimes be reasoned with. Not much, but some, anyway. As I recall, SCO couldn't be reasoned with at all, on any issue. So, no, Oracle is not the most useless ever. I don't care to research historical companies that might have been worse than either Oracle or SCO, but I would guess that they can be found. You and I are simply unaware of them because they didn't affect us.

Not good enough an excuse, Bubba. The spouse of this Clinton signed a bill that established mandatory minimum prison sentences for crimes commonly committed by black folk - but didn't sign any similar bill for crimes more commonly committed by white people. As a result of those racist attitudes, millions of predominantly black young men have spent years, even decades, in prison.

The Clintons are far more racist that Trump.

BTW - "illegal alien" isn't a race. Get a clue, alright?