Large, shiny reflective surfaces... it's a pair of Monoliths.

                        mark "would like to go there to investigate them...."

Unfortunately, so wrong that I don't know why I bother. See train, which has vastly fewer accidents than cars or busses, cruising by the traffic jams out of Philly and into NYC.

But then, let's also remember that
      a) after 9/11, for months, the pilots' union was saying that for trips under 300-400 mi, trains made *far* more sense, yet
      b) Congress loves throwing money to airports, and roads, but
      c) has yet to fully fund Amtrak.

And then there's outside the northeast corridor, which is where Amtrak owns the trackage and maintains it to high-speed passenger specs, the rest of the lines are leased from other railroads, who don't want to maintain them to the higher specs, and who frequently (there was just an article in mainstream media about this in the last week) will stop Amtrak to wait for their money-making freights.

                  mark

If that phone was on all the time... what *else* did he record? If I were her, I'd have a warrant for the records of what was stored on the phone, or uploaded. I mean, those things have cameras built in, and if it was tracking her all the time... AND HE KNEW WHERE SHE'D BEEN, so he was personally looking at what she was doing off-time, could he have turned on the phone and recorded her personal life?

                  mark

As I'm older than most of you, I remember when The Web!!! was the new big thing, in the mid-nineties, and how M$ went to destroy Netscape, because there *was* talk at the time about browser as desktop.

                    mark

Or just turn it off. Unless they were giving her a 110% for being available off-hours, and double-time on weekends....

                    mark "alternatively, give it back to the boss... as a suppository"

But I suppose almost everyone here is a twentysomething....

                mark

Another datum proving that what Americans know of socialism is exactly what a Good German (tm) knew of Jews in the late 1930's.

Yes, evil socialism. We know how nasty the socialist dictatorships are in, um, Norway and Sweden, and under the British Labour Party, and the French socialists (the ruling party).

              mark "there are two kinds of Republicans (and libertarians): millionaires, and suckers"*

* And since you're posting here, we know you're not rich....

It's that critter that William Shattner saw on the plane's wing....

                mark

From the party of "I'm not a scientist" (but I question what they all say, because I have the Real Answer, which involves God (tm) creating the world 6k years ago, complete with false fossils and strata and radioisotopes, whatever th' hayull they are).

                    mark

I have a friend who teaches at Catholic colleges around the US half the year. One of the classes he teaches is "science for non-science majors". Some years ago, he went down the food chain of the majors that take the course: next to the bottom were the business majors, who didn't get it, but didn't let that worry them. At the very bottom were the communications majors, who didn't get it, and didn't know that they didn't get it. Those, of course, are the folks who go into "journalism" (and HR, and...), which explains why we get so many idiot headlines. And the way they through around "intergalactic" and warp drive, I wouldn't be surprise to see them refer to a small airport for small private planes only as an intercontinental airport for supersonic planes.....

                    mark

Geez, is the idiot running this the same one who was going to have a Koran burning?

How 'bout I have a Bible burning? How would any of you feel about that (ok, I see the guns coming out, that answers that).

Wonder how fast I could burn a Bible... maybe add liquid O2?

                  mark

Or maybe I'll pirate views of them. Give Disney money for screwing the US?

                mark

... to come in on their side. I resent having to pay for a ton of channels that I will NEVER, EVER watch.

                      mark "interest in sports approaches zero as a limit"

These are Aggies, if not the ones at Bryan/College Station. I believe the professor.

Relevant points of information: when I relocated there in the late eighties, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that every sexist, racist, nationalistic, religious and every other kind of insulting joke was suddenly an Aggie joke. For example,
Q: How can you tell when an Aggie's doing word processing?
A: White-out all over the monitor.

And it goes downhill from there.....

                              mark "but then, what's led to the decline of the US is the MBA degree...."

That's really what this sounds like - you go to your lecture class, along with 200-400+ other students, get the lecture from the prof, phat chance to actually sit and talk to him, even in his "office hours", and go to your classes with the t/a.

This works *so* well in huge colleges, let's do it for kids and little kids.

Instead, say, of massively increasing funding for schools, and ensure NO CLASS IN THE COUNTRY in k-12 is over 24 kids.

                    mark