frissonic

ahhh. quid pro quo. sorry, that's about as close to lawyer lingo as i get right now. :) well congrats man. that's awesome.

whoa. nice job man. what's your field, if you feel so inclined to answer? nice man. nothing like lazing around the weekend and just city hopping for the fun of it. i have another hour of work, then nothing until monday. oh. well, other than planning for this kick-ass trip my wife sprung on me!!! (i can't sit still for very long ... too excited.)

first off, bio, i'm seriously sad about your dog. we've lost two to road accidents (we live near a major street, and somehow two managed to escape the back yard), and it was devastating. i hope you can take solace and comfort in the memories you have of kirby. second, my F'N fantastic wife bought me four tix to the phoenix game on november 10. not just any tix, either: 6 rows above the sabres bench. she also wants to take two days before the game and go to moab for some late fall hiking (best time down there, when the average daytime high is only 60 as opposed to 90-95 in july and august. she also has been keeping up with my convos about the possible lockout, so playing the cautious card, she purchased "ticket insurance" for $7/ticket. and just when i thought there was no hope for her being a hockey fan ... F'N FANTASTIC!!!

great topic, weave. as far as my likes go, i have everything from anael, enya and yanni to opeth, in this moment, tool, etc.i like my music to be intelligent, sophisticated, and relatively complex. key signature changes, time sig changes (and not just 4/4 to 3/4 ... we're talking "lateralus" complex for time changes). favorite band of all time: rush. after that, i have no second place band; i like them all pretty equally. big into indie artists as well. met some of them. penny hill, samatha crain, and have aspirations to get marissa nadler out to the west side of things for a few tour dates. as far as instruments go, i'd like to play the drums, but my wife has already said that i'd need to rent a storage unit for that. :( i've seen barenaked ladies more times than i can count.

regardless of the issue of voter ID or what have you, my real concern about the upcoming elections isn't so much who wins, but what happens in between on a more global scale. benjamin netenyahu is on the record as stating that he and israel *will* take action against iran if the US/UN doesn't, and he plans on doing something well before the november elections. i think we're all aware of what obama's stance is on military funding. there will be massive cuts across the board, come january, if he's still in office. this means programs like globalhawk and f-35 will probably be mothballed and "bone yard"-ed (google, if not familiar with the term/location). globalhawk was designed to replace an aging U-2 program that has far outlived its capabilities, yet is still in service. globalhawk has a higher ceiling, is a faster aircraft, and a *lot* lighter, using a lot less fuel. it's more efficient and capable than the U-2, but of the two, GH will get the mothball treatment in a budget-slashing presidency simply to cut development costs. now ... think of the ramifications of an attack by israel on iran. targeting only the nuclear installations, iran gets pissed and attacks israel back. the rest of the muslim world gets all hot under the collar for israel's attack, and israel gets a pounding. we have been isreal's ally since WWII. however, under obama's watch, he has slowly been trying to distance the US from israel by promoting a more palestinian-friendly peace settlement for the west bank. "give up your current boundaries for the ones proposed in 1967," says obama. the problem with that is that it leaves israel on the low ground and exposed pretty badly ... against a hamas-based government that has demonstrated little to no desire for actual peace. why would netenyahu want to support that? why would he agree to that? he wouldn't. which is where the iran situation almost reaches critical mass before the first shots are even fired. scenario: israel attacks iran. iran strikes back and enlists the help of just about every other muslim nation. one of two things happens: 1. we either back israel, and in essence start WWIII. 2. we do NOT back israel, and the rest of the world sees us as back-stabbers who turn on old friends. england has always been a firm ally. what will their take be if we turn our back on israel? what about germany? what about every other ally we have? how will they view us? perception is power. we back down on having israel's back, we could be digging a very deep pit. but if we do back israel, it's almost guaranteed that there's a very ugly war. damned if we do; damned if we don't. and *this* is why the whole concept of "laissez faire" was such a good idea. but we ignored it wholesale, and now we're going to lie in the bed we've made. discuss.

if it's not a liberal vs. conservative issue, why won't the liberals support it right now? why is it that the conservatives are being demonized for this? because it very much *is* a liberal vs. conservative issue ...

i've given up on hockey news until october. in its place, i've taken to reading up on the social aspects of living in mozambique.

Stevens was a rabid liberal, and even HE saw the need for voter ID. So ...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/story/2012-03-19/voter-ID-Texas-fraud/53658158/1 Former SCOTUS judge John Paul Stevens disagrees with you. "“Unfortunately, the United States has a long history of voter fraud that has been documented by historians and journalists ..." In fact, 2/3 of the SCOTUS judges agree that voter ID is legal, defensable, and necessary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawford_v._Marion_County_Election_Board

they're not denying citizens the right to vote. they're asking them to have an government-issued identification in order for them to vote. it's not asking a ton. similar to our airports asking us to not meet loved ones at the gate, or that we stand in longer lines and not bring bottles larger than 4 oz on a plane ... it may be an inconvenience, but that's the reality you now live in, forced upon us by illegal voting. asking someone to have a government ID is not taking away their right to vote. not driving a car does not preclude someone from having a driver's license or a GI ID. many places (read: not nearly enough) require that you have some kind of photo ID to cash checks, use credit/debit cards ... and many of those require an actual DL. just this past weekened, my wife and i went to a movie, where the theater was located in a mall. when purchasing popcorn for the movie, i was asked for photo ID when i used my debit card. when we went to the cell phone store to get my phone "zagged," i was asked for photo ID when using my debit card. other stores also asked for our DL when we made purchases. this is not at all uncommon. asking that citizens present a valid GI ID to vote is not taking away their right to vote; it's asking that they demonstratively show that they are, indeed, legal citizens. to address your economic burden point, fine--find a way to subsidize getting a DL or any kind of GI photo ID. The government subsidizes low-income housing and hands out free money to laid off individual; why not cut $15 a year per person from that and use that to build an ID purchasing pot? Heck, it probably doesn't even have to be that--probably $5/person/year reduction in food stamps, WIC ... whatever. In Utah, photo ID is required when paying for a controlled substance from the pharmacy. Same with Arizona.

because myopic insinuates a very one-sided, closed-minded view of a situation. my comment was not.

Sure. No insult taken. Now ... don't take any from me, since my view was so "myopic." You don't live in the 50s or 60s anymore. This country is OVER-RUN with illegal immigrants. There is no reason why asking for an ID that every legal, of-voting-age citizen should be able to produce should be considered "myopic." I suppose you would also consider the extreme processes being taken by the FAA as far as regulating who can get on a plane these days is also "myopic?" or is that permissible because of the events that led up to it? Voter fraud has not been as in-your-face as 9/11; however, having a process in place that ensures ONLY legal US citizens can vote is just as necessary as increasing our security at airports, given the "frog in the boiling pot" nature of where we're coming from with the whole issue. Times have changed. You should consider changing with them. Unless you consider that too "myopic" a view to accept.

how does fixing what is already inherently broken "skew the election"? as it is, results are already skewed BECAUSE of voter fraud. i'm all for requiring IDs for being able to cast a vote in any election--be it presidential, city council, or what have you. why shouldn't IDs be required? legal citizens have a legal ID. the ONLY people that should be allowed to vote are legal citizens. period.

what's your gripe with mormonism?

here's something F'NFANTSTIC: i'm starting to actually make money off of these tie-dyed shirts. so much so that i'm adding a sub-domain to my site JUST to sell stuff. people are asking for onesies, hoodies, dresses, socks ... it's time to ramp it up. i figure if i can sell 20 shirts a day at $17 a pop, i could actually quit my job. now ... being a realist, i'm not going to cuz we need the health insurance (and, let's face it, actual steady income). however, i'm starting to see a light on the horizon.

one option i'm looking at this year is the NHL.com package. instead of going through a satellite/cable provider, i *believe* that i can watch the games through my apple tv box. there's an NHL app on there, but i'm not familiar enough with how it works to know if getting the package through NHL.com will work on there. i'll do some research and let you know what i find. my justification for this is that i'm sick of paying $80 a month for using literally 5 channels. at $960 a year, if i just pick up hulu+ and netflix, and combine that with the NHL CI package through the website, i can save almost $700 a year. So that's something to consider.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hniPVDz12bc

okay, fair enough ... there's no NHL hockey scene in atlanta. how's that?

ugh ... that seems awfully fishy.

"we are the champions ... of the world!"

because there *is* no atlanta hockey scene. (see also: winnipeg; jets; actual hockey fans)

aw, man! sorry. except ... well, at least you have a lot of free time! (?) (is that a good thing ...?)

getting chippy, too. come on, ladies!

if you don't end up regretting it, your co-workers most assuredly will.

they're starting to swarm. gotta compete with those wily japanese ...