Everyone brings up that scene as if Vaikman was messing up his experiment just to flirt with the chick, but that ignores his true brilliance. Sure, he fudges the test for her -- she clearly is not psychic, she's just there as a control, so it really doesn't matter if she ever gets shocked or not. It isn't like he's testing electrocution of normal folks. But as for the guy, how is seemingly shocked for giving the right answers -- that's the whole experiment. Vaikman even says so: "I'm studying the effects of negative reinforcement on ESP ability." In other words, will you keep being psychic even if you get electrocuted for it.

As someone who was prescribed Percocet after reconstructive surgery (my arm is full of plates and pins) the effect they might have on my liver was the furthest thing from my mind. Even had I known of this risk, I'd have not been at all hesitant about the drug.

Its also pretty hard to read that list and not assume the FDA is banning some of the more commonly abused pharmacuticals. Because, ya know, prohibition is totally what people want from their government.

I've been watching TOS reruns since I was a kid, I've seen everything from Wrath of Khan forward in the theater, and I've tried to watch all the TV shows -- even when they were bad. It's when they were morbidly shitty (Voyager, I'm looking at you) that I had to bail out. So...

Many of us bored fans were bored senseless with how Rick Berman and been trolling in circles with the Star Trek canon in the last several outings.

I had gotten to the point of not caring if this movie was any good or not, because the entire franchise had gotten so moldy and booring but now, having seen the movie, I believe that he dumped everything shitty. Everything I used to like in Star Trek is still there, just without the baggage.

Also, might not need to assume that the entire canon is gone. The details of it are no longer set in stone, so things might play out differently, but the same events can still take place. As a for instance, I'd LOVE to see Carol Marcus in the next one...

Only among those who do not kiss girls and those who kiss multiple girls simultaneously.

What's the legalistic way to say, "Naw, fuck y'all?"

Seriously, I'm tired of trying to be outraged or logical about the weekly media rights crap. Let just ignore them and break the "laws" as we see fit, and just keep on keepin' on. Fuck 'em.

I'm no more interested in the quality of another customer's service with this product than any other -- when I go out to eat, I'm not going to let them overcook my steak to be sure they get your souffle just right. Why should this be different?

On the overselling, why should they be allowed to be anything less than totally honest? Again, just because its internet doesn't make it special.

As a further point, if you expect them to do it correctly you must have been dealing with some cable company other than mine.

It shouldn't.

They sold us both a product with a given set of expectations, in this case a reasonable amount of bandwidth. We should both be able to get what we paid for.

Or, put another way, why should my porn download suffer for your Warcrack addiction?

Or, put yet another way, why should either of us give a damn how over sold or under financed Cox is? They should give us both the product they advertised, sold, and (almost) delivered.

We didn't think anything because most of us weren't born yet.

But the same groups of people emerged at the time -- folks who thought the first A-Bomb might start a chain reaction and burn off the atmo, or that the first H-Bomb detonated underwater might punch a hold in the ocean and drain it.

Stupid? Sure, and very easy to dismiss in hind sight. Which doesn't say anything one way or the other about current concerns about LHC, but that these concerns have, in fact, come up before under similar circumstances.

English may not be the native language of this land, but it is the native language of this nation. As governments deal in nations and not real estate (well, at least not normally) the original language of the land is irrelevant. Should the Ojibwe people again take a leadership role in affairs foreign and domestic this situation may change, but for now they are stuck in the same historical bin as every other nation-state to loose a war bad enough to no longer exist.

I am in no way saying that white people in America treated the native Americans as anything other than shit. That doesn't change the fact that their language and culture are next to irrelevant at this point.

I'm not really sure if I support multi-lingual resources, and certainly not in a universal kind of "Everything the government can possibly do is available in every language on Earth." Yes, the government should be accessible to its citizens, and some stuff like the cops reading a Mexican his rights in Spanish are pretty obvious. On the other hand when, as you pointed out, I can't find the English because its been crowded out by 27 other languages on the off chance one of their speakers wanders by, something is wrong.

Now, if I was looking for a place where, "you frack off too" would fit into this, what I was REALLY driving at is this:

"at the counters, you only get english and a card with a phone number on it that says "go somewhere else." "

What, exactly, do you think should be the case instead? The sub-humans who typically inhabit the kind of gubment job you describe are barely competent at their basic tasks, even in their native language, and you think the government should be hiring translators to just hang out in pretty much every government office, ready and waiting?

Come the hell on. I'm not hard core about immigration, or a sealed border, or any of that. But people should learn the common language of the land wherein they live, and 'round here that's English. The government should provide materials in all major languages, but they should emphatically NOT be in the business of enabling people to get by without language skills.

If the government actually required literacy, we might actually start improving things around here...

ya dude.

we so need a sarcasm emoticon, though a reference to "hard-working CongressCritters as they work for the good of the common man," might suffice in some circles.

On the other hand, I was only half kidding. Politicians who suck should find it next to impossible to avoid the discontent of their constituents, and I can think of far worse punishments for my governments various crimes than listening to YouTube style comments read to them in a droning computer voice all friggin' day. Well, I can think of worse, but not necessarily more appropriate punishments.

I'm not sure what you're complaining about here. The first bit, I get -- YouTube looks like crap and its a pain to save. Got it. But is the second bit:

1. The signs have too many languages
2. The signs are written poorly
3. The card at the counter doesn't contain these other languages

or (and I suspect its this one)

4. The person at the counter only speaks English

If it is 4, I will pull up just short of saying, "Folks living in America really outta learn English," and instead I'll go with, "My tax dollars can and should be better spent on things other than multi-lingual DMV clerks."

I'm all about government transparency, but I'm also all about folks speaking English in America.

This would be AWESOME if it came with a feed back loop, something like the cellphone services that transcribe voice mails into text messages. Only this would work in reverse, so that all the wonderfully insightful YouTube talkback comments could be enjoyed by our hard-working CongressCritters as they work for the good of the common man.