Someone once said something to the effect that "we should be careful whom
we allow to waste our time".

Judging by the some of the discussions going by here, a number of people
don't realize that taking rhetorical bait, they are allowing their opponent
to waste their time. That, or they just have so much free time they don't
care.

Either is rather sad. And that's all the time I'm going to waste on this.

/kenw
Ken Wallewein
K&M Systems Integration
Phone (403)274-7848
Fax (403)275-4535

www.kmsi.net

Either is rather sad. And that's all the time I'm going to waste on
this.

Are you experienced in the art of quick put downs? This ng is the kind
of Olympic Games of the withering one liner. The knack is to put the
poster down without reading his post at all, or if that can't be
attained, at least reading the post with only one eye in no more than a
nano-second while simultaneously doing three other things. Hitler, as a
matter of fact, was extremely good at multi-tasking.

wrote in message
...
Someone once said something to the effect that "we should be careful whom
we allow to waste our time".

Judging by the some of the discussions going by here, a number of people
don't realize that taking rhetorical bait, they are allowing their
opponent
to waste their time. That, or they just have so much free time they don't
care.

Either is rather sad. And that's all the time I'm going to waste on this.

/kenw
Ken Wallewein
K&M Systems Integration
Phone (403)274-7848
Fax (403)275-4535

www.kmsi.net

What's this I hear, Ken? Just because many of us Rodents are independently
wealthy, who don't have to punch the Taskmaster's time card, is no cause for
jealousy. It's no shame to have to work and buy your suits off the rack, as
long as you're honest.

west

"Andy Evans" said:

Either is rather sad. And that's all the time I'm going to waste on
this.

Are you experienced in the art of quick put downs? This ng is the kind
of Olympic Games of the withering one liner. The knack is to put the
poster down without reading his post at all, or if that can't be
attained, at least reading the post with only one eye in no more than a
nano-second while simultaneously doing three other things. Hitler, as a
matter of fact, was extremely good at multi-tasking.


Oy......Godwin.
You *must* have heard of him, Andy :-)

--

"Audio as a serious hobby is going down the tubes."
- Howard Ferstler, 25/4/2005

Oy......Godwin.
You *must* have heard of him, Andy :-)

Hi there - no I haven't! Do spill the beans..............

"Andy Evans" said:

Oy......Godwin.
You *must* have heard of him, Andy :-)


Hi there - no I haven't! Do spill the beans..............


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

--

"Audio as a serious hobby is going down the tubes."
- Howard Ferstler, 25/4/2005

Oy......Godwin.
You *must* have heard of him, Andy :-)
Hi there - no I haven't! Do spill the beans..............

Good one! thanks for that. Andy

(seems the law says I killed this thread....)

west wrote:
wrote in message
...
Someone once said something to the effect that "we should be careful whom
we allow to waste our time".

Judging by the some of the discussions going by here, a number of people
don't realize that taking rhetorical bait, they are allowing their
opponent
to waste their time. That, or they just have so much free time they don't
care.

A lot of us are working part time or have downtime at work...they
won't let us bring a soldering iron to work! The manufacturing economy
in the US blows goats right now thanks to our immigration,
****-us-in-the-ass "free trade", and regulatiory policies.

See below:



1. Richard Riley
Dec 11, 11:50 am hide options
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.homebuilt
From: Richard Riley - Find messages by this
author
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 09:50:19 -0800
Local: Sun, Dec 11 2005 11:50 am
Subject: Strike one more vendo - Clark Foam is gone
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Anyone who's built a Vari Eze or a KR knows how nice Clark foam is to
work with. They've shut down.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...g_news/1336134...

GILLIAN FLACCUS

Associated Press

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. - For more than 40 years, everyone from casual
weekend waveriders to top competitive surfers has shared one thing:
Customized boards that began as nondescript foam blocks mass-produced
by one Southern California company.

Clark Foam, an icon in California surf culture, enjoyed a virtual
monopoly on the blocks that have been shaped and hand-painted by
everyone from backyard do-it-yourselfers to design shops that churn
out thousands of handcrafted boards each year.

That's why the company's sudden closure this week has the laid-back
and thriving cottage industry fearing a wipeout.
Boards which cost between $300 and $800 have soared by as much as $200
at some smaller shops. Manufacturers are scrambling to secure the last
supplies of the polyurethane foam blanks, customers are hoarding
custom-made boards and thousands of specialty board shapers, air
brushers and workers who coat boards with fiberglass face unemployment
almost overnight.

"Everybody's figuring how they're going to get on with their life,"
said Chris Mauro, editor of Surfer Magazine, which first broke the
story on its Web site Tuesday. "There's probably a shortage of 2,000
boards a week globally now. It'll be months before things are back up
to speed where any Joe Blow can get a blank - maybe even years."

Clark Foam supplied the unshaped blanks for about 90 percent of all
custom-made boards purchased worldwide - and those boards make up
nearly three-quarters of the total international market, said Bjorn
Deboer of Stewart Surfboards, a major custom-made retailer and
designer in San Clemente. The rest of the $200 million U.S. market is
comprised of machine-produced boards mostly churned out at factories
in Asia and Eastern Europe.

A handful of small U.S. companies also produce foam, but Mauro said
not in great enough quantities to fill the gap. Australian companies
that make foam blanks turn out enough to meet Australian demand, but
not much else, he said.

"Everyone's scrambling to find new suppliers, foreign suppliers,
anybody," Mauro said.

Customers reacted by hoarding boards at stores up and down the coast -
and some requested multiple boards.

Jefferson Wagner, owner of Zuma Jay Surfboards in Malibu, upped the
price of his custom boards by $100 within a day of Clark Foam's
closure. He said people were calling with requests to buy 12 or 15
boards at a time.

"I've got every dealer in the book calling me, I've got customers
running into the store buying them," said Deboer, who said he sold a
record of 14 boards in one day. "It's a panic mode."

Making a custom board is a painstaking process that holds special
meaning for surfers. Foam blanks - which resemble rough surfboards -
are first smoothed and shaved with sandpaper and handheld electric
grinders and shavers. Painters then add intricate designs and color
before the board is covered in fiberglass and polished.

At Stewart Surfboards, shaper Geoff Madsen worked Thursday on one of
the last Clark Foam blank orders placed before the company's sudden
shutdown. The customer, a longtime surfer, has asked Madsen to shape
the edges - or rails - of a 10-foot-3 longboard blank so it will move
more slowly in the water like "old-school" boards.

A fine spray of white foam dust shot from the board like a miniature
Fourth of July sparkler as Madsen used an electric shaver to peel away
layers of its face. Thick slabs of foam fell away as he pushed the
hand tool down the length of the board in smooth motions, leaving the
unshaved portion sticking up like a half-mown lawn.

Across the hallway, airbrush artist Tom Cervantes trimmed the edges of
a nine-foot board with black paint, then blew neon blue coloring on
its front with an airgun.

Madsen, a 25-year veteran shaper, said he couldn't understand why
Clark Foam shut down so suddenly - especially because it had just
started a new business in shaping tools and machinery.

In a letter to customers Monday explaining his closure, company
founder Gordon "Grubby" Clark said he has increasingly been in trouble
with state and local government because of his nonstandard production
machinery - most of which he designed himself - and his use of toxic
and polluting chemicals such as toulene di isocynate, or TDI.

He said he spent $500,000 in fire code fixes, another $400,000
defending himself against an employee's lawsuit and faced buying a
multimillion "scrubber" to comply with emissions law. He also battled
with the Environmental Protection Agency over pollution issues at his
Laguna Niguel-based company.

"They simply grind away until you either quit or they find methods of
bringing serious charges or fines that force you to close," he wrote.

Local and federal officials said Clark was in compliance with all laws
and rejected the claim they were to blame for his demise.

Clark, who opened his company in 1961, revolutionized the surfboard in
1958 when he and surfing pioneer Hobie Alter poured resin over foam to
create an all-foam board. The foam boards were durable, but had better
flexibility than wooden boards that had previously been the hobby's
standard.

"He was kind of like the father figure and this came out of absolutely
nowhere," said Chas Wickwire, who custom makes about 500 boards a year
out of his Westminster factory. "He took us all, put us in the back of
a wagon and basically drove off the cliff."

The most practical surfers said they would take better care of their
existing boards, which can last up to 10 years with excellent care -
but much less without it.

"I'm hanging onto my good one as long as I can to make it last," said
Mauro, also an avid surfer. "I'm taking my board out of my car every
day now and storing it in a nice cool place and washing it off after
every ride."

Associated Press Writer Robert Jablon in Los Angeles contributed to
this report.
************************************************** *********************************

It's happening all over. While I don't swim well enough to surf (as
well as being 1300 miles from salt water) and have about as much
respect for the Rutans as I do for an idiot savant who can memorize the
phone book, it's still sad.

Some people here have far to much time on their hands

Unless the fellow who started this thread own good printing plates for
hundred dollar bills, he didn't make as much last year even as I made
out Pinkerton, never mind the extraordinary payday the Magnequest Scum
turned out to be.

Sander deWaal wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Three important points require to be made:

1. It is possible to shout "hitler nazi ****" as a way of escaping
further argument because some idiot will invoke the rule and give a
debater a cowardly out. I used this out myself recently because that
thick berk McKelvey was boring me rigid and McKelvey himself, a right
thicko, invoked Godwin, as did Graham Poopie Bear, another insenstive
idiot it is almost shamefully easy to jerk around.

2. There are some of us knowledgeable of the facts involved in the Nazi
rise to power and atrocities, and capable of correctly invoking the
emotions associated. That is why Godwin's law relates to "most"
newsgroups, not all, certainly not a newsgroup like RAT which is
inhabited by decently educated and decently intelligent people.

3. Godwin's Law can itself become a tool of oppression on newsgroups
when it is wielded by control freaks with fascist methods to escape
accusation. For instance, Godwin would have stopped my useful and
entertaining and widely quoted article, which won me a nice lifetime
fellowship with research grants attached, in which I explained why Ian
Iveson's favourite commie murderers were fascists just like Hitler's
lot.

I don't want to make a big argument about it -- I have Arny to play
with -- but there is more to Godwin than the soundbite headline.

Andre Jute