I peeled the quote out of a book many years ago, and it still amuses me no end.

As to folk who might take it more seriously... yeah, it's superstition if you take it literally, but it's really a way of assigning or relieving guilt.

And I've learned that when I find myself thinking in terms of "predicting will make it happen", I had best back up and proceed with care, because my subconscious has spotted something I'm not yet overtly aware of. For that purpose, it is very, very accurate.

As to prevention, I live 1/4 mile from the tracks those fuselages pass along, and MRL is out here doing maintenance and rebuilding once or twice a month, and I see the truck with sensing equipment go by at least once a month as well. Our MT climate heaves the ground and there is no keeping tracks (or roads) in perfect condition, but they do work at it. Places that lack our weekly freeze-thaw cycles have no clue how much damage that does.

I think it should be all right to publish something with the caveat, "This is what we found, but we couldn't reliably reproduce it. Let's have someone with new eyes take a look and see if we're on to something or full of shit."

Because it's just as useful to know what *doesn't* reliably work, and you can't know about it unless it's documented.

But publishing one-offs as reliable research precedents is, not to put too fine a gloss on it, lying.

I live next to the track that carries these fuselages through Montana. There's a siding here so it's a slow-speed area, thus subject to less than average stress. Even so MT Rail Link is out here once or twice a month repairing track, because our climate heaves it around pretty good no matter how well it's built. So yeah, there are going to be derailments once in a while.

I like someone's notion of salvaging a couple of 'em into the mother of all houseboats. :)

They pass about 1/4 mile from where I live all the time. I'd wondered about that green coating, and what kind of damage they might incur enroute...

Predicting made it happen, I didn't mean to do it!!

Sing: "Send me your money."

So you nicely repeat the lies they have fed to you ?

What lies? That there are a bunch of murderous thugs trying to take over the Middle East and impose a 1500-year-old fascist dictatorship on the 99.9% of ordinary people that live there?

The lies about the suicide bombers with surgically-implanted bombs?

The Isis thing is once again financed by the Sauds. YOUR friends.

Yes, I know who finances them. They're not "my friends." I've never met any of them personally, and I don't approve of any of it, whichever of the warring sides you care to mention.

One way to tell who is the "alpha" in an animal population, is that they're the one who NEVER has to "prove themselves". They just do their thing and expect the world to go well. They don't bully or beg, or solicit followers. Followers happen because the alpha provides security without risk. Alphas have initiative. They do things in life without seeking glory. They never worry about the pecking order. No one challenges their natural authority. They get along other alphas, too. They're sometimes mistaken for being "picked on" because they will graciously share their toys and food with underlings. But when they say jump, *everybody* jumps.

"Betas" have this need to constantly prove themselves. They tend to reject authority unless coerced. Since they're not true leaders, when they do find themselves in charge, they bully underlings (especially lower-level betas). They fight among themselves (but never with an alpha) and sometimes pick on the "nobodies". There's a spectrum from "Me tough, you dead" to the sort that constantly poke the lion from behind the safety of the fence. They cause the most trouble and they take the most risks. They don't share and may hoard resources. In a fight between two betas, the higher-status beta *always* wins. They are frequently mistaken for 'alphas' because of their aggression.

"Nobodies" are like alphas, but without the initiative. They have no clue socially. When there's a goal or a fight they're the ones who stand around going "Wha'happened?" and sometimes they make easy targets because they won't defend themselves. But they're easy to get along with, because they don't have an excessive need to perform for themselves or anyone else.

These types are inherited, not made or learned. And I've noted that my 'rules' apply pretty well across social predator species, including humans.

[I'm a pro dog trainer with 45 years experience, whence these observations.]

"...humans who take the risk of hunting big game due to arrogance..."

If you've got a family or a village to feed, and you have a choice, do you spear the elk or the rabbit? That's not arrogance; it's common sense.

Lets say the fantasy is about bombing or shooting up an airport. How far do the "making threats in an airport" laws go?

Repeating the AC's excellent post to make it more visible:
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Quote:
Orr had argued that the legislature gives a non-criminal penalty for refusing to take a breathalyzer test, so it would make no sense to turn refusal to take a field sobriety test into a more severe criminal offense. The three-judge panel concluded there was no case law supporting this position and upheld Orr's conviction.

AC:
In this case, if the facts as described are correct, the three judge panel violated their oaths to uphold the Bill of Rights: the ruling is illegal and actions taken pursuant to that ruling are illegal (and possibly criminal).

Acting according to reasonable expectations regarding the law is a right retained by the people under the 9th Amendment: failure to recognize this is not merely an accidental or minor technical violation of the judge's oaths to uphold the law, but unethical practice of law.

After all, if one can not act according to reasonable expectations regarding the law, that fact by itself automatically increases the demand for the services of legal professionals to "protect" one from one's own legal system. It is the equivalent of organized crime tactics of scaring people to get "protection" money.

Unfortunately, considerable evidence suggests expecting the average legal professional in the USA to understand ethics is like expecting a 19th century slave owner to understand morality.
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...and his side-kick Blair.

For the same reason we have weight categories in weightlifting and combat sports, the paralympics, etc.

When you were in grade school, did the 1st-graders compete against the 6th-graders?

Anyway, the new dude is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and he's assimilating Irag, Syria and probably Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Somalia, Nigeria... you name it... into his all new "proper" Islam state.

A number of armies in the region are already squaring up, including Iran and Saudi. There have been some murders of Israeli and Palestinian teenagers by terrorists too, probably trying to goad each side into action.

It's a bloody miserable state of affairs.

"You should not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered."
-- Lyndon Johnson, 36th President of the United States

In other words, don't assume YOUR side will always be enforcing those laws you want enacted.

An example of how determining guilt is being misused:

Idaho Court Criminalizes Sleeping It Off
http://www.thenewspaper.com/ne...