confused04

I can't believe this thread had a "chest hair" discussion :\ I do however find back hair disgusting. Sometimes I wanna get some wax and just making some carpets when I go to the beach. But eh... your prerogative. Nice pics folks.

Just wanted to point out two short things... A) For those people referring to blue collar jobs as "Crummy manufacturing", I'd advise you change your words. It comes with an air of arrogance and is an ugly name. Its a job and its what some people like to do. What might be crummy to you is dinner on the table. Most users on this site (being less than 18) haven't had to try and provide for themselves and pay bills. Don't refer to these jobs so negatively, I personally find it offensive even though I myself am not in the manufacturing industry. B ) What most Americans fail to realize (it might have been said up there ^^^^^) that the US is actually the benefactor of insourcing and it has been for ages. The US has gained more jobs from overseas markets then its lost to those same markets, specifically in healthcare and technology. Most people see the shuttered windows of the Rust Belt but the US has actually benefited from having people outsource from foreign countries to here. The US and the UK have the highest net gain in jobs from insourcing in the developed world, specifically in the business services area. So yes, even though 100 jobs were closed with the gas pump manufacturing plant, 200 could have been moved in by corporations looking to establish in the lucrative American market.

Originally posted by: Duke87 Originally posted by: IDS2 It won't look any better in Toronto, which has about 20 supertall buildings, all about 1000 feet of less. The CN Tower would look silly next to the spire anyway, since the CN is already a centerpiece and would be one of two...the Spire will look great in Chicago IMO, but that's just me.quote> Erm... Toronto has exactly zero supertalls. The tallest building in the city is 327 feet tall, not even a third of supertall height (The CN Tower doesn't count since it's technically not a building). ...also, a supertall is at least 1000 feet. "about 1000 feet or less" doesn't describe a collection of supertalls.quote> Just wanted to point out that Emporis has broke All towers above 100 meters (at least in the US) have disappeared... They no longer exist. Quick, check outside your windows!... Yea, Toronto does have buildings over 327 feet (thats approximately 100 meters is). So just to warn everyone. For the time being you're gonna have to use something else.

Congratulations! Double-U zero zero Tee shift+one shift +one.... Well deserved for both members

Originally posted by: Duke87 Actually, that reminds me of something else. You can't pour concrete if it's below about 40ºF. It messes with the curing process if water is near freezing. And obviously if it's below 32 the water actually will freeze.quote> Yes, that was a problem they had to overcome saying that the majority of winter has an average high temperature below 32 F (0C). This was worked around by having heating tents that heated the air around the concrete sites to 90 F. Quite a site to behold these massive white tents. Looked almost like FBI decontamination. Now, I'm not familiar with "typical" bridge construction of this magnitude, but if it were on a normal schedule under normal budgetary constraints, would they typically halt construction for winter? I mean, this year alone Minneapolis had snow on the ground for 103 days straight (my guess would be 120 total). Edit: Okay, I guess it was technically blankets that did the job, not the tents themselves. The tents were merely there for sheltering the pour site and the workers.

Originally posted by: packerfan386 hay, just saw CNN (USA) will have a one hour special about the bride collapse Tonight (8-1) at 8/7 central time (GMT -6).I personally still can't even put what happened in to decent words a year later. However it is nothing short of amazing how fast MN and the greater upper Midwest came togther that night and the graceus (sic) out pouring if support and help for the family's directly and indirectly involved in this tragic loss of life. It is also amazing how fast the new 35W bridge has gone up and will be open 12 months ahead of the planned date (Christmas eve)! Matthewquote> Actually it'll be open September 15, about 100 days early. Originally posted by: SkiGeek I saw bits and pieces of this ceremony on the news. An impressive way to mark a very sad anniversary. Sorry you missed being there, confused. I know how important that can be. (I needed to attend the memorial ceremony at the Pentagon a year after 9/11 even if it did get my bleepity-bleep of a boss upset at me. Hey, the President had given all of us an hour off to go. I was working for an idiot too clueless to realize it. This from a guy who saw the plane go down.) But, never mind all of that. I'm glad to see that Minneapolis is rebuilding. I am concerned that "incentives were given for the company to hurry up". Sometimes things can be hurried up and sometimes they can't. I don't know much about building bridges but I can see how, in certain phases, having X +Y workers could speed things along faster than just having X workers. But I imagine other phases are like that old adage: Nine women working together are not going to produce a baby in a month. Some things just take the length of time they take. Some construction phases (like setting concrete, for instance) can't be rushed beyond a certain point. quote> Its true that speed shouldn't and can't be sacrificed for safety. Although the officials assure us that the quality of workmanship is extremely high and that the bridge was over designed (its said that fully loaded semis could load the entire thing from end to end and there wouldn't be a hint of stress, come back to me in 50 years and say that :\). The good news about this is that there have been multiple agencies from different levels and independent groups overseeing the construction and no alarm bells have been raise. I do like that baby saying though. :-) Yea, its amazing how a single event can really be engrained into your psyche. 35 W is one of those days that I will remember everything from hearing the news from my roommate to going to bed very late at night. Its been a rough year on the roads without it but at the same time, this tragedy helped reaffirm that Minnesota Nice still exists and that when push comes to shove, Minnesota knows how to get its act together. Even though businesses near 35W were facing economic despair in the year following the collapse, they still donated food and supplies to the relief effort. And the shear number of bystanders who helped hundreds of people (notably the kids on the bus) escape disaster. Minneapolis Police (as well as departments from across the Twin Cities) were applauded for superior responses by the federal government due to changes made from 9/11 and Katrina. I can't wait to see that bridge open.

Today marks the one year anniversary of the I-35 W bridge collapse. For many people, its an emotional day. Its hard to believe a year has passed since the collapse and the report has still yet to be officially released. At 6:05 today, at exactly the time the bridge collapsed last year Minneapolis will hold a moment of silence after a procession of first responders and victims families cross the Stone Arch Bridge. Its pretty hard to go back through the memories of not knowing where your friends and family are and on that day I had several close calls. One of my friends drove over the bridge 5 times that day and another took the 10th Avenue bridge to avoid construction, she saw the bridge collapse. 13 people died that day and over one hundred were injured. Minneapolis will be marking the tragedy with a multi-faith ceremony. Whats amazing is that so many faiths were represented in the bridge collapse. Not only were there protestant and catholic Christians, but the victims were also Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Bhuddist and Greek Orthodox. This tragedy in a way show cases the diversity that is Minneapolis. Here is the story regarding the actual memorial. Of special note is the ringing of all the bells in Minneapolis which I unfortunately will be missing as I'm still on vacation in Maryland. In the year that has passed, Minnesota (and the USA) has inspected and re-evaluated its many many bridges and now the issue has become an election-year talking point. Since the bridge debris has been relocated (much of it is still on the banks of the Mississippi downstream), a new bridge has appeared and is nearing completion. It should be finished in just six more weeks. The bridge began construction on October 29, 2007 after the debris had been removed. The official completion date was December 24, 2008 but incentives were given for the company to hurry up. Without this bridge, the Minneapolis economy estimates that it loses $400,000 per day (this estimate was using Aug 2007 gas prices as well so its likely higher). The Bridge is now expected to be open on September 15, 2008. This bridge is amazing in that it will allow us to expand our light rail system and is currently 10 lanes wide. Additionally, this bridge was built at a break neck (but safe) speed with construction only being stopped twice, Christmas and today. Otherwise there were 200 to 450 construction workers on the scene day and night 95 F(35 C ) to -25 F (-31.7 C) with windchills at a bone chilling -40 F and lower several times this winter (those numbers are conservative). Amazing I say. The new St. Anthony Falls Bridge. The Bridge in late September 2007, and yes, the leaves are changing colors. St. Paul's Aug 2nd Front Page. The view just a week or two prior to the bridge collapse (from the bridge). This is could have been someones last view before the tragedy. A very comprehensive collection of interviews of first responders, victims and journalists.

Nashville's Signature Tower is in critical condition, but it is not officially dead. The original plans for the tower had a significant condo element which due to market conditions have scaled back. They are however trying to find anchor tenants to replace 150 of the condo units as well as a hotel component (which they have already lined up). Do I think Nashville should have a supertall? No... Its tallest tower (including the spires) is a meager 188 meters. This is what you call the classic "Vulgar Hand Gesture" skyline. Signature has a lot of hurdles to jump and its quite possibly and likely that it won't happen. Really the city should work on density over height. The one problem this tower is gonna do is KILL demand. Minneapolis has rumors of supertalls, naturally the market is only going to support one supertall. This is not all on one site (For Minneapolitans, its the TCF Bank Site, Hennepin between 10th and 11th , and Marquette between 9th and 10th). The Nicollet site (200 m proposed tower thats considered to be just about dead) might get a commercial element to push this to supertall. One of these rumors has people scratching their heads because they claim its the biggest project since the 60's (our largest office/retail/tower complex, the IDS Tower was built in 1973). So we don't exactly know what they mean to build the largest project since the 60s since the largest was in the 70's! The only thing that some people have thought of was the destruction of the Gateway district which destroyed much of downtown Minneapolis. Perhaps the biggest factor is what Target decides to do with with its lease in another local tower. If it decides to consolidate, a supertall is likely (although it'd be called Target Tower, which would almost be asking for it). I'll post if and when the supetall is announced... supposedly soon.

Minneapolis - St. Paul used to have a very bitter rivalry. Around the turn of the century (the 20th that is), the two cities entered a period of heightened contest. Both cities were booming population centers (both roughly just 5 decades old) and were experiencing influxes of immigrants (which only exacerbated the rivalry). This contest has resulted in much duplication. Both cities boast campuses for the University of Minnesota (but Minneapolis won this one). St. Paul was the first to build an ostentatious cathedral with Minneapolis to follow with its basilica (I think St. Paul won this one). Both cities even had a "Minnesota STATE Fair"... yea... two state fairs :\, this one ended in a tie by putting it in Falcon Heights (straddled between the two downtowns roughly). Both had minor league teams that HATED each other and periodically erupted into violence. The Cities even had an argument over Daylight savings time and Minneapolis was for several weeks one hour AHEAD of St. Paul (despite being further west). Businesses were often limited to serving just one city as they were often not allowed or shunned by the other city. Additionally, both cities fought hard in the theater industry and both have world renowned theaters (the Guthrie and others in Minneapolis and the Fitzgerald, Ordway and others). Now the Metro area has the second highest theater sales per capita (next to unbeatable New York). Thank God THOSE days are over. Now the Cities work together for everything (even a 2020 Olympic Bid). Now-a-days, Minneapolis-St. Paul tends to compare themselves to Denver and Seattle (both very demographically close and hubs of information technology, education, and banking). This has only intensified in the NHL and even in politics where Denver is hosting the Democratic National Convention and the Twin Cities are hosting the Republican National Convention (s). As to the additional S, ask Ron Paul and his near 10,000 supporters who are snubbing the real convention to have one in Minneapolis. Perhaps the M-SP rivalry ISN'T quite dead.

The refinery issue isn't an environmentalist one, its purely economic. The oil companies have many times in front of Congress testified why they haven't spent their record profits on increasing refining capacity. Their answer was "it wouldn't pay off". Purely economic... The oil shale issue is environmental, that I didn't even discuss at all.

A news story came out today showing that the dip in driving has lead to a dramatic loss of funds in just Minnesota alone. The State estimates it will lose $180 to $250 million dollars in federal funding from the loss of revenue from federal gas taxes. Additionally, take a look at this opinion piece from Newsweek In summation: The government heavily subsidizes infrastructure for vehicles and despite increased ridership, conservatives decry the use of federal funds for mass transit. The author basically says that highways and roads are the result of federal subsidizing that the conservatives decry. Additionally, he points out that privatization has not picked up and doesn't work on highways so why do conservatives fight mass transit. Bush also has removed some money from mass transit to go back into highways because revenue is down. I.e. since more people took mass transit and less money went to gas taxes, the shortfall must be made up using mass transit funds... HUH?

About building refineries.... Thats not actually an environmental issue thats stopping corporations from building refineries (granted NIMBY's are another issue altogether). Its purely economic as to why refineries aren't be built in the US. The return on investment is deemed very low with current prices (yes, even at the astounding $150 per barrel). The costs of building a refinery and maintaining a facility isn't cost effective because the time it takes to recover the costs of these refineries is well past peak oil production. Its theorized that the peak oil production is just about to occur or coming within the next decade. So if production is not going to increase, there is little justification in building refineries while the current refining capacity is sufficient. In other words, marginal cost is greater than marginal revenue (the cost to build and maintain the next refinery is greater than the additional revenue that next refinery will produce). Once The oil companies refuse to waste money (despite their massive profits) and demand the US government to fund refinery construction. But, no politician would realistically admit to handing over billions to the top earning companies in the world. Besides, the current equilibrium in this market is much higher than it was just 10 years ago. The oil companies have no real desire to drop prices. Why spend money to drive the price of oil down? Because petroleum is such an essential item in daily life, the equilibrium (on a super simplified supply and demand curve) is much higher than "luxury items" i.e, people will buy it as long as possible until its financially impossible. So asking oil companies to work on lowering the price of gas despite the super high level of demand is like asking them to just give money away. Now, this argument can change if oil shale were to miraculously be mined in super massive quantities in a short period of time (a very short period of time).

Speculation is just a small (but none the less significant) part of the reason why gas prices have dropped. This drop in demand has led to a higher supply of gasoline as well. The dollar has had a slight (but modest) recovery which also helps in in the pricing of gas (both here and abroad in a rather backwards mechanism). As the dollar devalued against most major currencies, it allowed the prices of gas to be relatively cheaper than it should have been in Europe despite high demand in China in India. Since gasoline is exclusively priced by the dollar, a dip in the dollar allows other major currencies to buy gas for cheap. The upturn in prices hit the US FIRST even though it doesn't appear like it when you see gas prices in Europe (but thats mostly do to high taxing and less on supply/demand/economics). But within the last year (particularly in the last 6 months), the dollar has leveled off \ no longer concealing the higher demand in gas from developing countries in European markets. A lot of pricing is merely psychology. "Whats Iran doing?" "The Hurricane forecasters said an active season!!" which plays amongst the biggest roles in determining the price per barrel. Prices can actually be followed within minutes of world leaders opening their mouths. It only takes one well placed hurricane or a certain administration to open their mouth to send the prices back up. If a Hurricane Rita or Katrina hit the Gulf, $5 a gallon is not out of the question. (Some analysts said $6, but that was when gas was $147 per barrel, so I assume they'd back off that number). Some POLITICAL analysts, and I capitalized political just so that you don't take their thoughts too seriously if at all, say that once Bush leaves office, particularly in an Obama win, the dollar will recover modestly (again, politics plays a lot into currency markets). Now, what does this mean.... Sorry Europe, you're the one that gets hit with gas prices as the dollar recovers. If the price remains at $125 and the dollar goes from a conversion of $1.58 per euro to just $1.30, instead of being 79.11 Euros per barrel, it'll jump to 96 Euros per barrel. The price of gas in Europe might not have topped out yet so many of the gas protests you seen may just be the beginning... Ironically, if the political analysts are right, the US candidate of choice for Europeans (by a 5 to 1 margin), Obama, might be the thing that can hurt European wallets the most. Gas markets are dizzying :\

I'm just wondering, and I haven't taken the time to read through this thread so I may be repeating.... But... With the added clarification of a planet having to "clear its neighborhood," would that make reclassify Earth in the far flung future when the barycentre of the Earth-Moon system is no lunger just under the Earth's surface due to the outward movement of the moon? What makes a double planet different from a "dwarf" planet that hasn't clear its neighborhood". I mean, based on that criteria listed above, I kinda find it hard to believe that Pluto would be called a dwarf planet and that Earth (which is slated to have more of a dance around the barycentre with the Moon in the future) would also fit the definition of "dwarf planet". It just seems that at some point, there must be an arbitrary point that size alone can be considered a planet. Earth (in the future) -will be a sufficient mass to be spherical... -orbits only the sun -technically will not have cleared its neighborhood (Moon being 1/6 the mass of the Earth and being far enough away that the common center of mass lies between the two). Would this not make Earth suddenly a double dwarf planet system as there is no size or mass limit to the definition? Mercury -sufficient mass to be spherical -orbits only the sun - has nothing to clear and defaults to planet status The mere happenstance of not having enough objects in the neighborhood shouldn't default planets that are marginally larger than Pluto. Something seems amiss about the definition. I really don't care anymore what they call Pluto. I'm more excited by exoplanets and moons these days anyway.

80 F = roughly 26.7 C to be nearly exact (I'm not going into to the hundreths place). Bah... 10 C. Doesn't even require a jacket. Maybe just a long sleeve shirt. Then again, 10 C in the depths of winter (January) where I live has never occurred, that'd be too hot.

Hmmm... interesting. Regardless of his touted credentials, I think he's a nut case. But I guess technically I have no less evidence than he does, I'm just using my own rationale. Quite honestly, I always find it mind boggling that almost all aliens share a strikingly similar anthropomorphic form to humans. I mean, look at our own biological diversity. Just looking the mammalian group, we see anthropomorphism is rather limited. Its probable that there is a high degree of cephalization (pretty advantageous to have a centralized nervous system and sensory system). A few years ago some researchers claimed that the stereotypical alien image was actually a near match to how babies viewed their parents (specifically the mother) shortly after birth. I.E. the image is a latent image from our infant days that remains buried in our subconscious. Additionally, I find the idea of a saucer quite inefficient for atmosphere flight (as many people have discovered trying including certain governments). And in terms of space flight, it doesn't really matter what shape you pick. If you're gonna argue that UFO's are using levitation technology, why a saucer shape? Humans are creative enough to make thousands of different shapes for their starships, why does the vast majority claim that saucers are the galactic preferred mode of transportation. Finally... if aliens could travel thousands upon thousands of light years or even if they took the long snail method of actually taking some several hundred years from the nearest star (which would make their Terran encounter COMPLETELY coincidental since our electromagnetic presence is not even a century old), why are they so silent. I guess I can go ahead and argue against the coincidental encounter by a sleeper ship do to the sheer number of UFO encounters (i.e what are the chances of thousands of extremely unlikely coincidences?). I'd figure ONE alien would have taken the initiative to come down and say hi to the masses. Hijack our airwaves... study us in a non-orifice probing manner. I mean, just because Star Trek has a prime directive, I'm sure the galaxy would have a varying set of moral beliefs. But noooo all the aliens are the same... scared little men who would rather abduct primarily rural people. The idea of aliens visiting us via UFO's and studying us etc.... is just far beyond me. I guess I TECHNICALLY can't say its "impossible" but I dare say its the little line just NEXT to impossible on the probability scale. Do I believe in alien life, for sure. I mean, we formed, I don't see why someone else can't form. Besides, if there is a deity, perhaps he wanted to test us in our devotion on a scale that doesn't just involve different cultures, but different species... but I do doubt that they've been here, that they've even heard us (only the stars and their respective planets in the nearest 70 light years will have received our messages). I also doubt that they have the ability to get here so quickly and that they are all 5 ft 3 skinny extra white big black beady eye practically featureless beings who apparently have adopted the Prime Directive. Originally posted by: Easy Bakes Since this solar system was calloused ( is that a word?) out of the same cloud of matter the terrestrial plants should have similar mineral/chemical make ups. quote> Not necessarily. Without going into great detail (specifically cause I don't have the text in hand), planetary make up does not have to be similar just because we are terrestrial or in the same solar system. Much has to do with the distance the planet forms in relation to its host star. Many chemicals cannot persist closer to the sun due to their volatility (water is the most quoted example). But there are other examples. Since chemicals have different volatilities, they will form bands of higher concentrations going in to out (less volatiles closer to the sun than higher volatiles). This is why the Oort could objects are very water rich (and likely why we originally weren't). It is argued that without the gravity wells of Jupiter and the other gas giants that many of the water providing comets would not have hit Earth making us significantly drier. But ignoring water, even "rocky" material follows this principal. The composition of the inner four planets do differ significantly. Theories have suggested that Venus' carbon dioxide filled atmosphere was possibly due to increased concentrations of carbon. This is taking a lot of what I read and summing it up probably using incorrect terms, but the point is that our planetary composition isn't necessarily that close. Besides, 1% differences in one element can have huge complications for a variety of processes, particularly because 1% of a planet can be measured in the trillions of kilograms. All this comes from I believe "Rare Earth" by Brownlee and Ward. They do a much better job of explaining it (in far more pages). Some it up... Complex life is rare due to a list of some 50 factors (some of which immediately eliminate 25% of stars off the bat).

Yesterday, Obama gave an impassioned speech in front of approximately 200,000 people in Berlin. My take? Ehhhh..... Besides the fact that it was nothing more "lets work together speech", it just wasn't that memorable or that important. I really don't think it'll have any bearing on the America presidential race nor will it change European attitudes towards Obama. Europeans already prefer Obama by an amazing 5 to 1 margin as it stands. The news networks have been debating "Does this make him look presidential and was it worth the risk?" For being an Obama supporter, I say no, it doesn't make him look presidential but at the same time, I don't think it really hurt him either like the McCain camp would like to spin things. I think McCain is taking some blunders by not monopolizing the spotlight with something else. His attempts to redirect attention to him were quit frankly idiotic. So Obama's in Berlin... I know, I'll visit a German restaurant in Ohio and make a few remarks.. and today while Obama is meeting with Sarkozy, McCain will be talking to Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong. Just seems to me that McCain shouldn't have even bothered with the German restaurant and Lance, it makes him look rather petty. If McCain really wanted to steal Obama's thunder, he should have announced a shortlist of VP candidates or his actual VP pick. He TRIED this by dropping a few lines about my governor, Tim Pawlenty, which was quickly withdrawn and quiet again. He tried it AGAIN by announcing an unscheduled meeting with the governor of Lousiana, Jindal. Again... it was a lackluster story. Obama's speech wasn't even rhetoric. It was largely empty and covered with sugar. But then again, some people like eating teaspoons of sugar. It wouldn't have been appropriate to condemn the current administration (generally a faux pas in American politics while over seas). He didn't mention McCain, he didn't mention specific policy matters.... in fact he just gave a first grade speech on togetherness. BUT, this empty speech may not have been completely useless. Was his speech good, yea, it was decent but not his best. But perhaps hearing the cheers of Berliners and the massive crowd could help convince a small (1 to 5%) segment of the American population that he is capable of handling foreign affairs. 1 to 5% might not be much, but since current polls have them separated by about 2 to 3% it could help Obama. It likely won't hurt him as McCain needed to really hound on him and steal the spotlight, which he failed to do. Likely this will be forgotten in 4 months. Edit: Additionally, while Obama was in Israel, McCain took the oh-so-ingenious thunderstealing move of speaking in Bethlehem, PA. He also played ads in three US towns by the name of Berlin while Obama was... guess where... Berlin. Seems almost childish :\

One show... CSI... baloney baloney baloney!!!!! Oh, I just amplified and sequenced this sample by putting it in this here machine in just 5 mins!!! BALONEY! Oh, we have this statue but we have this magical program that can read contours of a statue FROM A PHOTOGRAPH and match it with this COMPLETE database of statues (is this where our tax dollars are going?!). Never mind that the interface (all like, 2 buttons) for "scanning" the statue was like, instantaneous and didn't require the cops from rotating, sizing, tilting, deforming or anything... it just HAPPENED to do what they wanted by waving their mouse over the statue... BALONEY! The fact that someone murdered someone with a block of sodium.... cool, very unique way to kill, but what they didn't know was that sodium has a flame when its exposed to air (reacts with moisture very readily). So people were just holding this block like nothing. Never mind moisture on your fingers. Besides you'd think that a person ready to hop into the shower would here a hissing from combusting sodium inside their shower head (btw, the killer didn't use gloves either). Sodium can't be handled so freely X(. BALONEY! CSI has a lot of cool things that I like... but its still entertainment. If genetics were that fast, OMG I could have done 2 years of work in a month. HAHA doesn't happen...

The Forecast discussion by the NWS has indicated very favorable conditions for moderate intensification. Convection has increased as well as developing eyewall, low shear, and favorable upper level conditions to promote intensification. They have gone a little above guidance and have forecast a landfall of 80 knots (92 mph), just shy of Category 2 so its not entirely implausible that Dolly will not just be a Hurricane, but a category 2. This is not likely, but not impossible. Forward momentum has decreased from 17 mph from last night to 10 mph giving it more time over open waters. The landfall site has shifted south just a little bit to around the US, Mexico border. Rainfall estimates are between 6 to 10 inches with 15 in isolated areas. EDIT: Hurricane Dolly got its act together and is now a Category 2 hurricane with sustained winds at 100 mph. Its continual slowdown and a rightward shift (to the north) allowed it to strengthen. Landfall is JUST north of South Padre Island.

Hurricane Warnings have been posted from Brownsville, TX to Port O'Connor, TX. Mexico has issued its own Hurricane warnings from the US border to Rio San Fernando. This includes Corpus Christi and obviously Brownsville. Good news is that this soon-to-be-hurricane will make landfall in very unpopulated area of Texas (some 400 people live in one county).

I make one cool Gangster-nor!

Tropical Storm Cristobal is one of those very common "tail-end-of-a-stalled-coldfront" kinda tropical storms that forms often and early mirroring MANY hurricanes. Often a cold front will push off the coast but lacks the energy to keep going and there's just a bit of a stalled disturbance off the Southeast Atlantic Coast. Over a period of a few days to a week, this can organize into what we see now. Generally these are relatively weak or don't hit land, or both. Weak because they sit over the same spot for long periods of time churning up the waters and sapping it of heat potential. Second, they sometimes run into things very very quickly, sometimes within 6 hours of being named and in a few rare cases aren't even named until the post season analysis. And another common thing to occur is that it just leaves the coast through a variety of mechanisms, likely another cold front. Yesterday, Delmarva got one of the extreme outer bands that dumped a lot of rain in a short period of time. Cooled us off for like 25 seconds before the heat was turned back on. Tropical Storm Dolly Residents of Texas need to be paying very close attention to Dolly. Although it has struck land, (the Yucatan), it has re-emerged only very slightly weakened. The Yucatan is very low and very moist and one of the areas where tropical storms and hurricanes can survive very relatively unscathed and still prove problematic for the coasts on the other side. The storm is over decently warm water, and shear is supposed to be pretty low. Right now winds are at 50 mph and likely to intensify. This will likely become a hurricane and has the potential of becoming a major hurricane before possibly making landfall in Southern Texas around the Corpus Christi area. Still, as pointed out, forecasts can change rapidly so just to be safe, all interests in Texas and northern Mexico should be watching out. Oh by the way. The physically larger and stronger this storm gets, expect a proportional increase in gas prices.

"Haych" is British pronunciation for "H". Much like how they say "zed" for "Z".

I only put the punctuation outside the quotation marks if I'm using a sentence or fragment as a non-dialogue piece. I can't think of a good example, but usually its when the phrase is not standard vernacular but no one is actually saying it either. Not sure if that made much sense.... In terms of citations, you still need to put a comma inside the quotes, then your citation, then a period. I'd dare say that the "outside the quotation mark" thing is even newer than 15 to 10 cause when I was going through school we ALWAYS put punctuation for ANY dialogue. If the the sentence that a person speaks is complete and the end of the dialogue, the period goes inside. If its not the end of the sentence, then there's a comma. If as Duke puts it, the sentence (and not the dialogue) is being exclaimed, I was taught that it was not proper to put the exclamation point at the end. In order to emphasize that the its not the dialogue but the sentence that requires exclamation, then the proper technique is to choose a different word other than "said". So instead of "I said, 'Go away'!" it would be "I yelled 'Go away.'" Whatever the case, if the dialogue is the end of the sentence, the punctuation had to go inside. Is it weird that I still put an in front of words like "historic". (There thats what I meant... its not dialogue so I put the period after, thats the only time I put punctuation marks outside.) It just seems weird to say "a historical event." Just seems right to say "An historical event ..."

LOL! Nice! Too many bars to count!!! Unsavory people indeed. I can't wait to see the Miller Brothers!!!