JamesHackerMP

I still don't have a clue what you're talking about, eyeball. Clarify yourself?

Well, getting back to the main topic... What do you mean "Elizabethan knock offs"?

Thanks. What the hell does that have to do with anything? Especially star trek?

huh? Htrae?

spoken like a true leftie

Anyone own a telescope? I've owned one for a few years now and enjoy looking at stuff in outer space. Any other astronomy junkies out there?

To add, my fav Next Gen episodes: (or just the ones I actually enjoyed) Encounter at Farpoint (pilot) The Big Goodbye (s1, e11) The Neutral Zone (s1, e 25) Q-Who? (s2, e16) Who Watches the Watchers (s3, e4) Deja Q (s3, e13) Yesterday's Enterprise (s3, e 15) Captain's Holiday (s3, e 19) Menage a Troi (s3, e 24) Devil's Due (s4, e 13) First Contact (s4, e 15) Qpid (s4 e 20) Unification (s5, e 7-8) The Inner Light (s5, e 25) - a bit sad, though Time's Arrow (s5, e 26/s6, e 1) A Fistful of Datas (s6, e8) Face of the Enemy (s6, e 14) All Good Things (s7, e 25) There are a few more that might have made my mental cut, but I think this is enough for now. Anyone else?

BTW, do any of you believe Tolkien's assertion that he has no allegory in his work? Or is he full of crap?

Have to disagree with the first sentence. The second is more accurate.

what kind of "loose union???

Well, that saves a trip across the border then.

You have that luxury. Enjoy it.

seems we have better weather for it though.

From us? LOL

Is it true you've run out of marijuana in the first few days of legalization? I heard that rumor somewhere and was wondering if it's accurate.

Your opinions are perfectly valid, but I have to disagree.

Altai, your "hate" for Western people has long since shown. If you hate us so much then why do you continue to post here? You're well short on information about us, yet you know that you hate us. Maybe it's time to move on. We tolerate a lot at MLW, differing opinions and so forth, that sometimes make our blood boil. That's part of democratic debate. But you don't seem to realize that. Again, maybe it's time to find a debate group that agrees with everything you say.

Of course WWI would be the destruction of "old europe". But the replacements of those regimes were less than desirable as well.

I think in a fantasy literature I'd want to know who's actually good and bad. People who set an example and people who don't. Otherwise I'd read fifty shades of grey. (I haven't read that but I understand the title is accurate.) Tolkien doesn't get too deep into characters, though, except for the good guys, like Frodo and Sam. Although he does get into Saruman a bit, as a Judas-type. You're right it's pretty clear who is good and who isn't. Maybe George RR Martin, then, writes that way out of the late 20th, early 21st century culture, whereas Tolkien wrote LOTR between the late thirties and early fifties. Different culture back then, I suppose, where "right" and "wrong" were concerned. Anyone have a favorite character out of LOTR? Mine is Pippin. Younger guy, seems less serious but turns out to be pretty ballsy. Gandalf picks on him a lot (in the movie he says "FOOL OF A TOOK!" a lot) but it was for his own good of course.

Like GAme of Thrones, I guess? Probably no coincidence that the author is George R.R. Martin (like Tolkien's full name). Competition follows success as surely as night follows day, I've heard an economist say. Seems it works in literature too. I understand that Tolkien was very popular on college campuses in the 1960s thanks to an unauthorized paperback version that began to circulate in the United States at the time. The only complaint I have with LOTR is that it begins so damn SLOW. The movie cut out the part with Bombadil, the old forest and the barrow-downs. Good idea, in my opinion. Even the director's cut of the movies, which I have, move faster than the book in the beginning. Speaking of which, i think the movies were pretty faithful to the novel. (I hate it when it's called a "trilogy"; it isn't.) Anyone know why Dwarves and Elves hate each others' guts in the novel (and movie)? How can you piss off an elf anyway?

I read that, constitutionally, Mr Trudeau doesn't technically exist. I am told there is actually no mention of a prime minister in the 1867 Act: just the Queen, a GG, the privy council and parliament; and the provincial governments. Is that actually true? I think the last British monarch before the UK became a "crowned republic" was Victoria. Any thoughts?

Today it's called the National Guard. The CINC of the state's national guard is the governor of that state, until a unit is put into service of the United States by order of Congress. (Then, the president is its CINC.) There are national guard armories everywhere in the U.S. The national guard usually gets called up by the governor to prevent rioting or maintain order after a natural disaster, for example, to help provide aid after one (like a hurricane or tornado). There is also an air division of the national guard called the Air National Guard. There are national guard units in Afghanistan, for example, and in Iraq. The members train for "one weekend a month, two weeks a year". They have the same regulation as the active duty forces, as the constitution mandates Congress will prescribe its discipline and regulation, as with the regular armed forces.

Anyhoo, right now I'm at the "Council of Elrond" (Book II, Ch. 2) and I wish they'd just give me the bloody minutes of the meeting. Long chapter. Some of that material seems repeated from Book I, Ch. 2, "The Shadow of the Past". I also love the part where they're at Galadriel's mirror and it says that it showed Frito Bugger successfully completing the mission. They walk away, then the mirror shows "the safe arrival of Titanic at New York harbor, the inaugural ball of Harold Stassen (nine times unsuccessful seeker of the GOP nomination for president in the 60s) and the repayment of the French War debt." ROFL

Yes, they were expensive. Which is why the government didn't want to have to pay for them. Better to let the guys who show up to join the militia already have one. Never said it extinguishes their right to own them, however, I don't believe in unlimited gun ownership (i.e., no gun control). But I don't believe in banning them either.

OK, but it still doesn't contradict my view that it's to preserve freedom by maintaining the state militias to prevent a centralized standing army. The bill of rights was written by the First Congress (1789-91). Are these quotes from members of that Congress, the one that wrote the 2nd amendment? Tenche Coxe's quote seems to back me up, as do Elbridge Gerry's.