confused04

Well, you have two options... if this does occur. A) Opt out now B)Stay in and wait for Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar's Cell Phone Bill of Rights to pass which would make this illegal (among many other things). Also emailing your representatives could help. This is a travesty and a blatent disregard for consumer rights. I believe they shouldn't be allowed to change the Terms and Conditions of the contract at their will. Its not like we can change our end of the contract however we feel. Just because you have 30 day notification, I don't think its fair saying that you already purchased a contract months or years ahead of this decision and now they can suddenly change the terms. Thankfully I have T-Mobile.

I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan but I did find it interesting that one of the most important characters in a popular fiction novel turns out to be gay. What does everyone think about this? I think its pretty interesting but I'm afraid that he'll be identified as "the big gay wizard" and not for his actual character. On top of that, although doubtful, I don't want Dumbledore to be some poster child of homosexuality. Although I do think its pretty cool that Rowling has included a gay character although I do not know how it adds to the plot having not read the books. Click here to read the story

We do have a thread for dreams. Its called "Don't let the bed bugs bite" or something to that effect. I have posted several of my weird dreams. My friends love it when I wake up in the morning and I say "I had the weirdest dream" cause they know its true. Not many people can incorporate a tornado, a satellite guided flying elevator (whose purpose is still to go straight up and down just without a shaft) aliens, and Minneapolis-New York with a futuristic motif. Or Bill Clinton, Disney, Survivor and a dragon.... Edit Here's the link

Why is it that "evil" is always a human creation but "good" is always the will of God. That is picking and choosing again. How about both evil and good being a neutral thing or both caused by humans. You can't use one thing to support your point and discount its counterpoint for no real apparent reason.

Just to add... For those saying that the existence of God is proven through daily miracles, can you explain the daily tragedies that plague the world? In terms of evidence, you cannot just look at the point that supports your view and ignore the negating factors. Miracles are just the good side of a flipped coin, tragedies being the other. Being optimistic doesn't mean God exists.

A good scientists knows that you cannot deal with the metaphysical. It cannot be proven or disproven, but that being said, it does not mean religion and science are mutually exclusive. It just means that science has no right to dive into things it has no hope in addressing. As someone said, science is not a collection of contradictions, its a coalescence of theories to explain the natural world. Yes, not all of science is perfect and its not pretended to be. Are there questions to be answered like "where did the first cell come from?" Of course, otherwise science as a discipline would cease to exist. There are attempts to answer the aforementioned question as is the big bang. We can't offer you a solid answer, but at least science is attempting to do it with logic. Now it doesn't mean science and religion are mutually exclusive, unless you are a literal interpreter of the Bible. The easy thing to say is "God created the laws of nature, therefore science is religion". Science can be viewed as a an attempt to explain God's workings.

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/i35wbridge/rebuild/index.html Just a quick update. The new bridge design has been selected as well as the people who will be building it. They will also be receiving compensation for finishing early (and penalties for finishing late). Light Rail will be an option for the new bridge thankfully for an eventual Central Corridor Light Rail Line. Bridge is pretty simplistic but functional. Not sure about any specs for a memorial.

Originally posted by: Voar Tok Originally posted by: El Burro Seen this before. Only thing I found interesting about the date 9/11 is that 911 is the US emergency number... as if to remind eveyone what the hell they should dial on the phone.quote> That actually reminds me of a thing by a comedian once. The way the joke basically went was this: "Ya know that guy that always interrupts our programs with emergency broadcast messages when nothing is going on? Where was he on 9/11?"quote> I believe the comedian would be Wanda Sykes, but I could be mistaken.

Originally posted by: Psycho_Teddy So if high temeratures cause the decreased air quality, and not the billions of cars on the road, then why is the air quality so low around major metropolitan centers? Certainly, if it were temperature that causes these problems, then Arizona would be one huge slab of deep orange on that map, not light yellow and blue. "American", whether you like it or not, has become the international laughing stalk. Mostly because of our wonderful government. I just call it as I see it. It is a fact, that America does not have as nearly a developed mass transit system as the rest of the world, simply because our "freedom" has made us so lazy that we refuse to use mass transit, unless absolutely necessary. Panther: please, let's not bring religion into this discussion, read the thread rules... This is a political discussion.quote> The reason why it occurs in metropolitan areas and not in the stifling desert south west is because you need a SOURCE of pollution to create the bad air quality, temperatures just make it worse. As the desert southwest is for the most part relatively empty, there isn't much in the way of source pollution to be exacerbated by high temperatures. As I said earlier, UV and temperatures can cause the creation of toxic chemicals, but they need reactants to make a product. In the clean air of the desert south west, you only have natural ingredients such as nitrogen, oxygen, CO2 and other trace gases to work with where in Ohio, you have many chemicals such as methane, sulfuric acid, other sulfates and many many many more that kinda create a soup of sorts for temperatures to make a little home made chemistry set out of. If you flipped the population density, it would easily occur in the middle of the desert. Although you might be correct about the lack of mass transit in America, using the nationality as an insult is still highly offensive and we'd like to move beyond that at Simtropolis, especially since it doesn't help solve the greater threat of environmental degradation and global warming. And to be fair, Europe's density is condusive to mass transit. No one wants to take a 4 hour train ride in the US which in American terms is actually a "short ride" where in the UK, 4 hours can get you from London to Middlesbrough clear across the country. In terms of urban mass transit, yea, I agree, we suck at it but we are improving. It all had to do with dollars and cents and because the US and room to expand its cities beyond reasonable limits by building cheaper highways and have ridiculously low gas prices, it only made economic sense. By the time we realized we might have a huge problem, the interstate system had already been completed and in use.

Please refrain from using "American" as a negative term, its offensive and ignorant. Second... ignorance is not limited to Americans, I have found that it is global and European policies are highly quite misleading anyway. I do agree that sourcing would really help any arguments made. Originally posted by: Psycho_Teddy Allow me to further explain my point. Listed below are links to two different sites on the NOAA website. The first is a map for Air quality for the US, the second is a temperature readout, in ferenheit. Take note of the ares with poor air quality, and those with high temperatures, and you will see quite a trend. Ohio, North and South Carolina, and Colorado, all have fair and poor air quality today, and also abnormally high temperatures today. I hope this drives the point home, here. The Air Quality map: http://www.weather.gov/aq/ The Temperature map: http://www.weather.gov/climate/ [EDIT: When you look at the air quality map, have a looksee at the 11am reading, then mouse over to 5pm, you will notice that the Dayton/Springfield area of Ohio (southwest Ohio) as some of the highest concentrations in the nation right now, and we are setting record temperatures today] Enjoy...quote> Your argument actually falls flat factually. You are linking air quality as the independent variable where the temperature varies in response to air quality. If you intend otherwise, please reword your paragraph. But as written, you are saying that the air quality causes higher temperatures. This is not true. It works the other way around. High temperatures reduce air quality. If you note air quality versus season, air quality decreases in the summer due to the temperature. I don't exactly know the mechanism at this instant, but many of the chemicals that cause low air quality form at higher temperatures and in the presence of high UV (photo-oxidation of ozone).

Originally posted by: beebs Originally posted by: saltandsaucei hate apple and microsoft and all other gates owned enterprisesquote>Last time I checked, Apple was independent from Microsoft.. confused: Is the touch awkward to use? I was thinking of getting one, myself.quote> The touch isn't too awkward,especially if you turn the ipod to the side. Typing is somewhat cumbersome but otherwise it is idiot proof. You cant highlight, copy and paste, or do any right click to my knowledge. There will be hacks and apps in tge future so I'm not terrible concerned. You will be doing a lot of zooming for the internet but it does allowing for decent zooming that a convential computer will never allow without saving and editing. For being a wireless handheld device, limitations are expected but none are debilitating.

Originally posted by: Rymac91 @LivingInThePast: problobly not. @ilikehotdogsalot: Most Companys are terrible when it comes to replacement support (though Microsoft seems to be good about replacements), and Apple sells replacement cables and earbuds rather costly, so they wont give free replacements. @ confused04: 2 questions actually, which size did you get and how does ST look on a iPodT(Touch)? @ Palpatine001: About the iPhone, Why do you think so many nerds are switching networks with ethier hardware or software mods? @ zelgadis: I'll problobly do the same when something dies on my Video iPod(with the exception of the screen, I just don't want to try to fix that). Now that I've commented to most of the comments in this thread ...I'll just comment on the iPods I saw a few days ago at CompUSA... I like the new nano, but I kinda feel it lost the nanoishness of it from getting a bigger screen, though it's still suprsingly small and I still think it's cool. I really like the iPod classic, since it's case wont scratch as baddly as the other iPods...and the interface is really nice and smooth, though the split thing kinda feels weird, but coverflow is really cool. Saddly, they didn't have a iPhone or iPod touch on display...so I can't comment on them quote> To answer your question.... A) I got the 8 gb iPod touch. It was too expensive to buy the big one since I have a relatively small music library. B) Simtropolis looks largely the same. The only problem which is actually annoying is that the iPod touch currently does not support flash player or shockwave. So the banner doesn't display properly and I can't use chat. I imagine that someone will hack it soon. The iPod can play youtube clips so it might not be too problematic to get that working.

The ipod touch is awesome. In fact i am typing this very response on it. I have a friend who works at apple and they can sell it early if they want. The battery life is far better than the ipod video. Its amazing how much a touch screen streamlines many functions. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

"Two dimes a dozen" "Just my five cents"

I'm from Delmarva so I'm intimately aware of Delaware. I must admit that I'm not too familiar with anything in Newcastle County as that is hardly Delmarva. I know areas like Rehoboth, Dewey, Cape Lewes, Seaford, Georgetown, Laurel, and of course Dover and such. I remember driving from Philadelphia to Salisbury, MD about a month ago while there was construction on 95 and we went 5 miles in just two hours. It was painful. I hope its done.

The images of what happened six years ago today still haunt me. I was a sophomore in high school when the attacks began. During the break between classes, someone passing by mentioned planes hitting a building but they weren't really bright enough to know what the WTC was. But it only took me another minute to walk into chemistry and I saw both the towers shrouded in thick black smoke. Immediately I thought of my brother who doesn't live in NYC proper and shouldn't be in lower Manhattan, but you never know. The seriousness of the situation was apparent to me but I was sorely disappointed at the initial apathy from the others students. That changed instantly when the south tower collapsed. The collapse had little to no sound but the sight of it collapsing was the most heart breaking thing I've seen to date. We later saw the second tower collapse and that was when things began going crazy. The chaos that ensued fueled many erroneous reports of bombs and missing planes. News had come from the Pentagon and that it had been hit, but details were sketchy at best. The shock only built once we saw live images from the Pentagon. At that point all flights were grounded and I was amazed to see the first completely blue skies absent of airplanes ever while I lived on Delmarva (which is situated in a particularly busy flight corridor). I later read the Commission Report which turns out that we technically didn't have clear skies as jets were scrambled over our area to intercept a plane that had already crashed. Maryland declared a state of emergency and said all counties had the right to close school early at their discretion. Local news outlets assumed that all counties would, including Wicomico County. This lead to some angry parents who understandably wanted to be with their kids but the county had decided to not close early. Throughout the second half the day, over half the school was picked up by their parents. Which pretty much obliterated any attempt to instruct the students who were already preoccupied by the terrorist attacks. I finally got to go home and see my parents. I will never forget September 11th as long as I live. I remember every moment I went through and every accompanying emotion. It took me several years to go a single day without thinking about what happened. God bless the victims and their families on this dark anniversary.

Progress continues around the disaster site in removing the thousands upon thousands of tons of rubble. There is one very interesting note in the collapse investigation. The I-35 W bridge was the FIRST major bridge in the United States to be installed with an automatic de-icer system in 1999 to combat ice build up during storms and the mist that settled on the bridge from near by falls. This was heralded as a marvel since this bridge was named the most problematic icing spot in the state with significant reduction in vehicular accidents by 60%. However, this system used potassium acetate as the de-icing agent. A recent FAA memo from Portland's airport reveals that potassium acetate corrodes concrete and lead to cracking and even crumbling of the runway in Portland. The National Academy of Sciences recommended a study into the affects of CH3COOK and its corrosive effects which the proposal warns "at risk (are) concrete bridge decks and supporting structures." This alone is not necessarily the cause directly, but a comprehensive study from 2001 revealed that the storage tanks for the CH3COOK performed poorly and leaked 3,100 gallons of the compound into the foundation of the bridge. The scariest part of this story..... I 35 E in St. Paul features the same system, less than ten miles away. I was going through my collection of photos and I noticed something that caught my attention. Just two weeks before the collapse I took a photo of Minneapolis AS I crossed the bridge. As all Twin Cities residents have felt, it's scary to think that disaster was imminent and that we used that bridge not knowing the impending doom.

I just wanted to note that because you are doing a voluntary participation poll online, there will be sampling bias. If you ask people in person by random, they will answer you and you will get an unbiased sampling. However, since you are relying on people coming to you on a message board, you will have a sampling bias. In this case, people who have traveled outside of the country will be more likely to answer (people want to show they've traveled a lot). If you are relying on people coming to you in a study, one set of responses will be higher than a true unbiased sample as different surveys will attract different people. But if this is a highschool project, I don't think its that big of a deal

Originally posted by: RABicle I live in Perth. [Edited for content] Marc hadn't heard of it before. But why follow the World Rally Championship or the Red Bull Aire Race when the left hand turn at Daytona is so much more exciting? Anyway, I haven't picked up the local paper yet but no doubt they'll be bragging about this crap, I wonder how we won this award. But then again Adelaide made the lsit so it is only natural for us to do better than Adelaide. Perth has probably the poorest train network of the cities listed (but it's better than Adelaide) and the freeway only encourages the outer suburbs to sprawl out endlessly. The Swan River is pretty much dead, nothing lives in it anymore except for algae every summer. They're arn't enough footpaths outside of the western suburbs which is probably why bogan Australia continues to gain weight. Our water also tastes horrible and yet soccermums, bogans and their friends the health department refuse to allow us to drink treated, recycled water. But we're still better than Adelaide. And beaches are nice.quote> That's HIGHLY inappropriate in many ways... But back on topic... I do not think the threat of terrorism strongly affects ANY population, how they life and function. To be honest, this is true for all terrorist sites, life returns to normal after tragedy. People will remember what happened, but Bali has returned to pre-bombing tourist levels, New York City (and the US as a whole) have returned to pre 9-11 conditions. It doesn't affect livability, at all. No one wakes up in the morning and says "I hope there isn't a terrorist attack." When people hear of an increased threat or a change in the terror level, nothing changes. In the US, the threat of terrorism has a funky side affect of HELPING the economy (neat ain't it) through Homeland security funds.Pumping ANY money into a local, in any shape or form, tends to increase economic output of that region. The economy only suffers when there is an actual attack, or a calculated aversion of a threat (i.e. closing facilities down which hasn't really happened yet).

I'm Male and I'm of mixed ethnicity. I generally consider myself half-filipino half-white. I'm a generous mix of Filipino, Spanish, Japanese, Scot-Irish, and German

1A 2.A (in fact, I flew on Sat and I'm flying on Wed.) 3. 3 4. 75 5. 10 6. Kenny

For Fall semester I'm taking then one more semester til graduation with my degree! Invertebrate Biology Research in Environmental Studies Research in Biology (my Honors Project) Politics and Society in Developing Areas American Foreign Policy autoVino: Wow, your school offers all those AP classes?!? My school only offered, AP Environmental, AP English Lit, AP Enlgish (the other one, I forget) AP Calculus AB, AP Biology, AP European History, AP Government and Politics, and AP US History. I ended up taking all that I possibly could and I even managed to get Calculus BC in by getting two other students to drive me to another school. You're sure lucky to get all that. I found the BC Calc test WAY easier than the AB as I believe the test is 60% AB and 40% BC (hence why you get a AB subscore). I didn't even know that AP Chemistry II was a course at all. Oh well, good luck.

After about of week of below average temperatures in Maryland (where I'm currently on vacation), temperatures are going to be above 95 F (35 C) with heat indices around 105 F (40C)... Heat advisories. I can't wait to go back to Minnesota and go back to lower temperatures.

Speaking mostly on statistics... there are many reasons why Americans seem to cause a large amount of friendly fire incidents... A) There are more Americans: Quite simply, there are many many many many more Americans to commit acts of friendly fire. Friendly fire has not always been Americans accidentally killing Allies, but Americans killing Americans. There are just many many more Americans out there. If there are friendly fire incidents for every 25,000 people, only one military force present in Iraq or Afghanistan surpasses that number... the US. 166,000 American troops are in Iraq with only 5,500 British troops in southern Iraq as of May 2007. B) Americans tend to patrol more violent zones and are battle weary. Compared to the Polish and British zones in Iraq, the Sunni dominated central Iraq area is much more unstable lending to more frayed nerves in the American forces. I have had friends who come back that duck when a car trunk (boot) is slammed shut, who still look at building tops even while on American soil. Although Polish and British forces have suffered casualties, their areas are relatively calm perhaps leading to a lower chance of opening fire. These are just possible explanations. It's sad to here these stories and they will only continue until the occupation is over.

Oh jeez.... Lets not forgot that this is a horrible tragic incidence and end the cloaked (or not so cloaked) America bashing.