I was wondering why I was so creeped out by every picture of her during the 2008 election. Those eye... wowzers. She looked like an android from a movie.

You're right, people DO confuse Fox's news and pundit commentary, but I feel that's how Fox likes it.

Also, Fox seems big on the whole "some people say..." line of introducing an idea that they want out there, but don't want to be directly blamed for introducing. "SOME PEOPLE SAY.... Obama is a socialist Muslim born in Kenya. But we'll let you decide!".

To be fair, I don't personally find the other channels much better and I don't watch any of them (I don't have extended cable). I just listen to NPR on the radio when I'm in the car, and read some newspapers online.

Interesting. Well, thanks for your take on it. It's always fun to ponder these sorts of questions.

And you're very right, it does depend on who you are talking to, like most anything.

Oh, and sorry to reply to myself, I forgot to add the obvious joke in my previous post:

Are you a cunning linguist? Or just a master debater?

Thanks folks, I'm here all night!

OK, my reply is going to be off topic, but your comment quoted above reminded me of an argument I had with some friends.

I had one friend who had started dating a mildly religious women who didn't like cussing, so he was working to cut cuss words out of his speech. He would sometimes use silly or weird words in their replacement, such as "ferk" in lieu of "fuck" if he accidentally hurt himself, for example.

My argument was that he was *still* cussing, despite the change in word. The new stand-in word retained the original meaning, use, and inflection and was understood by all as a replacement for the original word. Therefore, it was still cussing.

Many of my friends did not agree with my assertion.

As a linguist, I would be interested in your take.

The only people I see this of being a real use for, in any quantities making it worthwhile to pursue, is the military market, with researchers that operate in very remote areas being a smaller secondary market.

Who else is really going to be away from a traditional cellular network for long enough to need such a phone, outside of military and research folks? It just doesn't seem like a reasonable product for 99.9% of the population.

So you follow every single societal norm, every where you go, at all hours? You must be the most amazing human on earth.

It was hot. I'm not going to dehydrate. I'll be sure to ring you up before my next trip so I can have your input.

Yeah, and they enforce it by not having recycling bins or trash cans ANY WHERE except right by the vending machines, yet somehow there isn't litter all over the place. When I was there it was incredibly warm and humid, so I'd walk around with a bottle of water or whatever just to stay hydrated, despite the lack of manners it displayed.

No wonder your post looked sideways.

Those without houses are just SOL. :) I don't live in a house, so it's not something I've done, but will consider once I have a place of my own.

It's in Portland, Oregon (the Laurelhurst Theater). As another poster said, we also have the independent McMinamin's chain as well.

Yeah, there are a LOT of used projectors on ebay for only a few hundred dollars. If you have a house with an extra room, get one of those, some surround sound speakers, some chairs from Ikea, and run it all off of your laptop and you're getting 99% of the theater experience without the overpriced, crap junk food or the rude patrons.

+1 to this. I rarely see first run movies anymore, just because it's expensive and annoying to fight the crowds, sit through the commercials, and all of that garbage. My local independent theater shows movies a few months after they originally come out (I can wait), and will also run older films and cult classics (I've been able to see Blade Runner and Star Trek II there).

The best part is that tickets are only $3, they have real food available if you don't want popcorn, and they have beer. They limit the previews to 5 minutes, and don't show commercials.

It makes Regal (and whoever else operates the big chains these days) seem like a bunch of jerks.

Wow, I just want to comment on how nice it is to see someone who actually understands how water rights in the west (which is much more arid than the eastern US) work.

I work in a related industry and it's not often that people understand why water rights even exist, or how they operate. I'm with you on not totally agreeing with how it works, but from what I understand, many places are allowing the collecting of rainwater by residents now, because they realize that it probably won't impact the recharge rate of the local aquifers. If I have a 55 gallon bucket hooked up to my gutter at my house that I use to water my plants, I'm not doing much harm. I just don't think they want to see expansive rainwater harvesting system constructed that could divert serious quantities of water.

I always have location services off because I don't often need the GPS... I just turn it on when I need to use it with the Maps app. However, I imagine they can still get a pretty good fix on where you are at by triangulating the cellular signal, or even turning on "location services" silently in the background when they need a better fix on the location (I wouldn't put it past them).