The beautiful thing about language is the inferences that can be naturally made and understood in certain phrases because of your continued use of a language. Saves everybody time, and it makes grammar snobs like you seem annoying, which hopefully keeps your arrogant ass out of the gene pool.

The thing about situations like this is that resolving issues ultimately comes down to who has more bargaining chips. If Iran all of a sudden realizes that push is going to come to shove BEFORE they have the capability to use their trump card, capitulation is suddenly much more likely.

Sometimes a good mediator isn't afraid to deflate one party's ego so that they can come to realize that their ass is grass if they don't sit down, shut up, and take the deal that's being offered to them. This is one of those situations where one party's ego is far bigger than the pile of chips they have in front of them. If efforts aren't made to knock that party's ego down a few notches, a peaceful resolution is not likely.

You're kidding, right? The US rolled up Iraq in less than a week not only once, but twice. As far as invasion is concerned, the US has the best track record of any modern military. The "problems" you hear about involve occupation. The fact that you're ignoring the fact that the problems we're facing in our occupation of Afghanistan or Iraq don't even hold a candle to the occupational efforts of other modern militaries is of course typical of the liberal mindset. We were in Japan for 40 YEARS, 4 Decades before they got back on their feet, we were in Germany for 30. We still hold the Philippines, Guam, Somoa, etc..

Iran would be rolled in less than a week just like Iraq was, twice. The only difference would be Israeli troops on the ground with US logistical and heavy arms support as opposed to a full American invasion with US boots, bombs and small arms headed inland.

Ultimately, it would primarily be the fault of the politicians that stir up fear and anger for political gain, ie., primarily conservative politicians.

While I'm not going to try and say that conservative politicians DON'T do what you just said, I am going to say that they are the least guilty of it.

Fear-mongering has been the mainstay of the Democratic party since its inception. Global Warming, Code Pink, AFL CIO, running the most racist presidential campaign in American history, Jim Crowe laws, segregation, the liberals in our society are always far more suggestive of extreme measures and even violence than conservatives. It may not be as outright as the religious fundamentalists can get on the right, but the liberal left has been on a campaign of indoctrination and demonization, teaching our kids and pushing in the media that conservative values are always mean and evil. They then ironically use the very will to do violence that most conservatives have to justify threats of violence or other extremes themselves. They point and holler about how evil the big scary conservatives are and then grimace their teeth thinking that they're justified, and try to do away with conservatism completely. Gun control is a big example of this. The hardcore green movement is another.

Instead of listening to what MSM has to tell you (this includes Fox News), try opening up a history book. The tally is pretty clear in the pages of history who the fear-mongers are, and who they always have been. FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, and now Obama have all tried to do the exact same thing, little by little. Either by going after property rights (FDR, Truman, Clinton) or taking away their ballots (Kennedy, Clinton, Obama), all the Democratic presidents in the last century have tried to minimize the voice or weight that the conservative silent majority holds. They did this by fostering fear, and using it to grab our liberties, one by one. The liberals are the ones that aspire to ruling elite status once only held by kings and despots (or at least those that pose as the leadership of the liberal ideal), at least the conservatives are actually concerned about what little they try to induce fear over.

You just haven't had it stimulated before. This is sadly an indicator of the poor work done by their sexual partners, and doesn't prove if it's there or not.
As a man who has researched very heavily into female anatomy specifically in regards to errogenous zones, I have never failed to find a woman's clitoris, g-spot or perineum. Most women are very surprised when it is stimulated for the first time, usually during oral sex. Using two fingers with the come hither gesture is generally the most effective, although stimulating it with the penis is easy enough if you modify the missionary position so that her knees are in her chest or her calves are on either side of your neck. Any position that makes the angle of entry point towards her pelvic bone towards the center will do so.
While I may not be a doctor or researcher, I can tell you with %100 certainty that there is a g-spot, I just can't tell you what it's does for every woman (I haven't slept with them :-p).

Not just generic steel or aluminum, Toughbooks have titanium cases, to keep them light, stiff, and strong.

Magnesium, actually. Just as tough, half the price. Titanium would have to be machined, which would double the price of the toughbook just in machine time. Magnesium can be formed and stamped.

My shop uses it, works pretty well. A full scan can take up to 6 or 8 hours (we set up hardware diags before leaving for the night, and in the morning on a 24-channel KVM), but it is THOROUGH. VRAM, RAM, HDD, CPU, everything is tested and thoroughly. First step should be testing the PSU, then running QT.

DON"T EVER OPEN A PLUGGED IN POWER SUPPLY. IF THIS DOESN"T APPLY TO YOU YOU ALREADY HAVE AN ELECTRICIANS LICENCE, A EE DEGREE, OR SIMILAR. DON"T OPEN A POWER SUPPLY UNLESS YOU KNOW THE LARGE CAPACITORS INSIDE ARE DISCHARGED - THEY CAN MAKE YOUR ARM MUSCLES CONTRACT HARD ENOUGH TO BREAK YOUR BONES. GIVE THEM AT LEAST AN HOUR TO RUN DOWN, THEN USE AN INSULATED TOOL TO CROSS THE PLUG PRONGS BEFORE YOU OPEN THE CASE.

I'd modify that to say "If you don't what P=IE means, don't ever open a computer case, PERIOD."

That aside, as a computer tech and salesman, the first thing I do when a customer brings a machine into my shop complaining of blue screens or anything that even remotely smells of hardware, I check the caps on their motherboard. It's actually a 50/50 shot that there's a popped or bulged cap or 2, usually accompanied by enough dust to smoke out a 10x10 room if a compressor is taken to it.

%90 of the hardware failures I see are cause by overheating, with 3/4 of those incidences caused by dust. A good rule of thumb is if you see dust bunnies, the machine is probably cooked.

Except that the measures to be taken are CAPITAL. You don't let a Kensington lock walk out the door with every machine. That laminated glass only gets replaced the once in a decade or so that someone tries to smash it. You only need to spend that $10K when you would normally need to replace capital which is not at all often. One lump sum at the beginning stages of the store's development and you prevent something like this from happening for a decade. In an average computer store (Usually clears $1M-$2M annually), that literally equates to minute fractions of a penny on every purchase, let alone the annual outlook.

When you make $50/Hr as a math tutor, you might have a leg to stand on talking to me about math. Take a business class or something.

As someone who works for a computer store............

I hope to god someone gets canned for this. There were so many ways to prevent this that cost maybe 1/4 of the value of the merchandise stolen. Laminated glass instead of plate on the doors, Kensington locks, or even just locking the product up in a cage or safe after hours. One of the most important rules of retail is control of the product. Further more, you can see that they don't even have pylons in the front of the store to prevent someone driving their car through the glass. The guard wasn't armed, either.

If these machines were insured, there is no way in hell an agent would approve the claim. Those products were pretty much offered up on a platter. I have worked for several retailers, most of them computer stores, and I have NEVER seen a laptop whether Mac or PC without a Kensington lock on a sales floor.

The effectiveness of guns, like that of any means of self-defense, is highly situationally specific.

Very true. However, anyone who is conscious about their safety (women in crime-riddled urban areas, perhaps), make sure to keep themselves in situations where their preferred method of self defense is viable.

Unless you were hoping to escape from him, then run to your bedroom, get the gun, load it, and manage to shoot the guy before he's on top of you again.

It's called a quicksafe or a slip, I have several. I can retrieve a gun from them in less than 2 seconds. For that matter, I keep my sidearm and "defense gun" (next to the front door, in a disguised quicksafe permanently attached to a small knick-knack table which is in itself permanently attached to the floor) fully loaded and ready to fire. And before you bring up the safety argument, keeping a snake or trigger locked handgun/rifle/shogun in a safe when you would intend on using it for self defense should the need arise is just plain stupid. If someone has defeated the first and second safety mechanisms (your presence, and your SAFE respectively), the third and fourth safety mechanisms are pointless, they already have access to the weapon.

Or do you load a couple rounds and have your gun in hand every time the doorbell rings?//...// Of course you don't, but then there goes its self-defense effectiveness.

Or like me, you keep it HOLSTERED (The holster is probably the most important gun safety device in use today). As a CCW holder, I can tell you as someone who usually doesn't undress until bed, I can keep even a full sized M1911A1 (my carry weapon) holstered, concealed, and at that even comfortably, myself at a whopping 175 lb, at 5'10" and a little bit of muscle to me. You have to be willing to wear a cover garment in the summer--in my case a Johnny Max 3-button breasted vest (not a hunting vest, a suit vest, classy yet fashionable given the current punk trend)--but it can be done if you keep your head about you. In my case even trained eyes don't scream "COVER GARMENT!" when I'm about town, they think I'm just another skinny college kid.

//Really? Do you leave your gun with bullets in it, lying around where your toddler can grab it readily?//

In all honesty I don't even know what to say to this, I've had the full 9 yards about this discussed with the type of people who were inclined to spit in my face just for voting McCain (and some have), and even they didn't say stupid things like this.

And if you wear your gun when you answer the door, and the guy on the other side means you harm, you'd better hope you can get the shot off before he's on you, because when he sees that gun he is not going to back down while you're conscious enough to shoot him in the back.

Unless the attacker is a hired hitman or someone trained to kill (I.E Military, Police, or Mall Ninja) this will not come to fruition. I've only ever made potential attackers aware of my gun, I've never had to draw. Unless you're dealing with multiple attackers or a trained killer, most critters are predators of opportunity and tend to work like electricity, they follow the path of least resistance. They're looking for an easy score, and the SERIOUS probability of death is not something they want to deal with. In the three instances in which I felt threatened enough to reach for my gun, it was the mere sight of blued steel that sparked a spontaneous dust trail as the would be attackers bolted. For your average citizen against your average crook which turns out to be about %90 of potential self defense situations the mere presence of a gun on the would be victim is all it takes to deescalate the situation almost instantly. For those that realize the fact that three instances in a lifetime is pretty high when I can pass for a college student: you're right, that is high. I happen to live in a bad area of town, I also happen to be white and wearing nice clothes (read: not $250 jeans, but nice enough to assume I've got cash). I've managed to perfect the look that gets the beggars and addicts to leave me alone, but for some reason I look like a perfect score to gang bangers and muggers.
As an aside, in the crook-at-the-door situation, that door is an EXTREME advantage on your part, it's easy to brace a door against entry, extremely hard to break down a braced door. Considering the state of construction in this country, even an underpowered 9MM could easily punch through your door and do damage to the attacker on the other side. Brace the door and put a couple of rounds angled downward (don't want the round going across the street and hitting a bystander in case of over-penetration) at neck height, and you've got a dead attacker. Now this situation this might change, if you were in an apartment building, you might want to pick underpowered JHP rounds to ensure noone in an adjacent apartment gets harmed, and aim in the safest direction while still putting a round through the attacker. There are ways to live life and have fun while still be conscious about your safety and your person, even in the worst ghettos of any given city.

I don't think guns are evil. I believe everyone should know how to shoot and how to handle a firearm, and I absolutely would want a gun in an obviously threatening situation where the firearm is ready and the violence is foreseeable (say, a riot down the street, or a war zone). I just understand that guns are far less effective in realistic self-defense situations than hoplomaniacs believe.

Consider the numbers. Guns have been used in self defense successfully 100 times more than they've been used in committing a crime this year. That's a conservative estimate considering none of the final numbers have been tallied, and won't be until about February next year, but http://actionamerica.org/guns/gun-web-widget.shtml this has been pretty dead on accurate for the couple of years I've been keeping track of it. In general, you see at least a million or so incidents of guns being used successfully in self defense (without convictions on the part of the victim, which can happen in hoplophobic states like new york and california, especially when the criminal being shot by the victim is a minority), with the gun ownership rate in the country growing a steady percent or two, with the violent crime rate going down that same percent or two. I poll my data from the CDC reports, FBI bi-annual crime reports, and some of the aggregated national studies performed by some of the more respected universities like Carnegie-Melon and Brown.

If anything would've kept the victim safer, it'd be having a big dog. Doesn't have to be a particularly vicious breed, just faithful and over fifty pounds. I can only chuckle at what would've happened if this goon had tried to pull a stunt like this near my stepmother's Lab.

I agree wholeheartedly with you on the dog for home defense part, although I will say your standards are a little to heavy. I have a 30 lb. Pembroke Welsh Corgi that stands all of a whopping 11 inches tall, that I've personally witnessed chase a 250 lb mail man down the street, with tears strolling down his face.

In the end, it comes down to how serious someone is about keeping safe and unharmed. The most successful form of self defense--the martial arts--mandate and require PRACTICE and THOUGHT. If you're conscious enough to be considering the use of deadly force in a self defense situation (which a gun IS), you better be willing to prepare a plan, a course of action, a practice regimen, and a mindset. Speak with your loved ones, come up with a plan for the most likely contingencies you can think of. If you decide to use a firearm, practice with it. Go to the range, practice at aiming, reloading, off-handed of the aforementioned, and of course gun safety. Teach your wife or your old enough children the same, and have them practice as well. You'd be surprised how much fun a day at the range can be, I have yet to meet a kid that didn't LOVE firing a gun. The wife, I guarantee, will love it too once she gets a compliment or two (women with guns are always hot). I would say the same of whatever form of self defense you wished to use. Pepperspray, buy a practice bottle and get your boyfriend to volunteer to get his face painted blue. Taser, take a locally offered police class on them and prepare to ride the lightning. In the end, any form of self defense can be useful and practical so long as you prepare and PRACTICE, so that you know the proper response in a self defense situation. Guns are great because they are the great equalizer. No matter what size you are, build, complexion, race, sex, or demeanor, you can be killed by, or defend yourself with one. I taught every girlfriend I've had since I've been old enough to own a firearm how to use one for that very reason.

At first I just harassed these guys. I had asked them not once, not twice, but 20+ time to remove me from their list. Their numbers changed constantly, and I often get called from out of state customers, thus I would have to answer the phone just to be sure it wasn't a customer.

When I figured out who it was and I had time, I would give them the impression that I was a wet dream of a sale. Several cars just out of warranty, BMW, Jeep, even a Range Rover; then I would tell them that I wanted to warranty all of them.......and that I'd be paying for it all right now with my credit card. I'd give them accurate VIN numbers (I've got several high-end cars parked up and down the street, and my neighbors would give me a beer for giving these guys hell), and spend at least 45 minutes on the phone with these guys just keeping them on the line with tales about how great these cars are. Then would come the credit card numbers.......which would all be canceled or expired cards that I kept around JUST for the occasion these guys called. This would of course be followed by at least ANOTHER 45 minutes of trying 1 number, ensuring it's correct, then trying another card, ensuring THAT number is correct, getting VISA customer service on the phone, etc.. After I hit the 90 minute mark:

Me: "How does it feel to have your time wasted?"
Salesman: "What do you mean, sir?"
Me: "How much trouble are you going to be in if you've been un-productive for the past hour and a half?"
Salesman: "Well, yeah I'd be in trouble, but we can make this work, don't worry."
Me: "You don't like being yelled at by the boss, do you?
Salesman: "No, I don't, but who does?"
Me: "*evil cackle* I'll tell you what, I LOVE it when guys like YOU get the proverbial boot to their ass."
Salesman: "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"
Me: "You've just been punked, remove me from your list or I will keep getting reprobate fuckheads like you fired for wasting too much time."
*click*

I did that 6 times before I thought they got the impression. Except they didn't stop calling. I think they intentionally put me in every robocaller they had and set it to hang up every time I picked up. They're lucky the FCC got to them first, because last week I got called 54 times in the same day. Yes, that's right, 54 times. I called the number back after the 20th time and left them a message threatening legal action, and was interrupted by them calling me....again. I have long weekends and expendable income, if I found out where these guys were I was going to fly there and take a baseball bat to every piece of electronic equipment in sight, and Miguel if I found out who he was because I'm certain he's the one that put me on every machine. Come to think of it, these guys are lucky they didn't pull that stunt on a much more distemperate guy than me.....people could have been killed.

Grammatical Gender. Meaning no pronouns or possessives with inherent gender. Another poster noted Chinese. This in no way means lack of gender. The beauty of language is that it has the same principles, it is just that they are accomplished in different ways. In Uralic languages, gender definition is taken care of in nomenclature, and inference. In a society where there is very little in the way of asexual nomenclature means that the need for a gender specific pronoun is non-existent, for the sex is inferred in the noun itself. Many Asian, Uralic, and even a few Slavic and countries with Cyrillic based languages have the luxury of concrete standards in the naming of their children and the inference of masculinity or femininity. Most Latin based languages are spoken in countries that aren't so conservative. Paolo is a feminine name in Spain and Guatemala, but not so in Mexico or Panama. In language 4 things are always conveyed: Sex, Possession, Existence, and Action. In Latin based languages, Sex and Possession are often taken care of by adjectives and pronouns in reference to their respective nouns. In Uralic languages, Sex is taken care of by the nouns themselves.

So yes, correct, Uralic and some Chinese dialects don't need sexual grammar, because pronouns and adjectives aren't needed to convey sexuality, the nouns do it for them. The sex is still there however, and is part of every day speech. As I said before, there are no languages without 2 sexes present, because no intelligent mind can come up with a way to communicate as we have without illustrating the glaring differences between men and women in the process.

The only war with enough hairball dogfights to matter militarily was WWII.

Except, you know, for Korea and Vietnam. The US Military had the same outlook you had at one time, it was called the F-4 Phantom II. After getting too many pilots spanked by MiG Pilots that had access to traditional dog-fight munitions (on-board machine guns), the Air Force has learned its lesson and hasn't bought an airframe without an on-board cannon since.

Truth is, dog-fighting is still around. Maybe not against American forces (we stress air superiority in all armed engagements), but it happens all the time. There's a reason we still train our pilots (Navy and Marines, at least) to use their on-board cannons, because dog fights still happen. Now maybe not in Iraq or Afghanistan (anybody ever hear of the Afghani Air Force?), but in Vietnam, two Medals of Honor were awarded for supreme valor during aerial dog fights. The only reason that valor was needed was because the Phantom was designed for everything BUT dog-fighting. It's turning radius was for ass, it only had shoddy munitions (AA missiles at the time were best described as hobby rockets), and 2 pilots to confuse and mess eachother up. Ever hear of Top Gun? Guess what, it's still around. Oh yeah, it's a dog-fighting school.

So, in essence, you want to eradicate masculinity in the English language completely. I'm guessing you're a feminist.

First problem: confusion. There are a plethora of unisex names in American society. Casey, Stacey, Aaron/Erin, Alex, just to name a few. The neutering of "he" and "his" when using those names as the subject of a sentence is only going to result in confusion when that name turns out to be masculine instead of feminine.

Second problem: identity. The presence of only one sex in a language never works. Hence the reason there are no languages that have only one sex. Russian, Spanish, English, Czech, and Slavic are all languages I know at least a few words in, and all of them have at least 2 sexes present, they have to. Sexuality is a major and important part of our identity, and is often how we personalize ourselves within our speech. You wouldn't appreciate it in the least if I referred to you as a handsome man (or handsome for that matter, it is a masculine adjective; whereas beautiful is unisex, and pretty is feminine), nor would I appreciate it if you referred to me as a pretty woman.

Third problem: sexuality. Sex is half of our identity. It drives our instincts and our demeanor. Masculinity in communication is just as important as neuter or femininity, for the simple reason that it needs to be communicated. Neutering the adjectives that describe men as men only alienates, and does not help facilitate communication. Women are vastly superior at communication on average than men, so it may not bother or hinder them as much, but men identify themselves in everything they do. From work, to play, to speech and even in nonverbal communication, they identify themselves as men. Taking away that ability to do so in speech serves absolutely no purpose, nor any service to a society as a whole.

On the other hand, I don't find any problem with simply eliminating the feminine form of most nouns, such as waitress or hostess or even actress, simply because the words that were feminized in the first place held no particular masculine form. The Marines did it in no distasteful fashion when they eliminated the term Woman Marine, because a Marine is a Marine, whether female or not. It's a great example of the seamless conversion from sexual centric speech to actual speech. A pilot is a pilot, a soldier a soldier, a man a man, and a woman a woman. Your job doesn't change because of your breasts, your sex does.

In conclusion, nothing will be served by neutering masculine adjectives in the English language, it will only make things stupid.