Talk about delusional. Complaining because no one thanked God??

When will people understand that just because they believe in something it does not mean that we all do?

I don't know about the effects of artifical sweeteners on your health, but according to some studies I've heard about, diet sodas are actually worse for your waistline than regular. Something about how your body expects the calories that should come from that level of sweetness, and when it doesn't get it you actually end up eating more, because you're unsatisfied.

I, for one, have never had a diet soda. I drink mostly water, sometimes lemonade, once in awhile a regular soda. If you feel that you have to have soda each day my suggestion wouldn't be to switch to diet, but to try to wean yourself off that dependency completely.

There must be something more going on with this kid. No one, children included, just get up one day and decide to kill someone, especially your father.

No one normal, that is.

The way I see it is this: either this kid is one of those psychos they always have on "Law & Order" that kills cats, tortures neighborhood kids, and just seems to come out of nowhere, or he was severely abused.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I have a 10 year old nephew and I could never imagine him doing something like this. I think someone seriously screwed this kid up.

That's a nice idea, but not realistic. Everyone should have their own farm? In order to grow enough food to feed your family year-round, that's what you'd have to do. And taking care of the crops and the animals takes time...so no one would have a job? I already wouldn't, since there would be no need for grocery stores, but what about the doctors, the lawyers, the teachers? When would they find the time to both work and tend to their animals and crops? I guess they could exchange their money for some of a local farmer's goods, but don't you think that where the modern grocery got started? We'd just start the cycle all over again. I think a much more realistic (well, not much more, lol) solution would be to fix what's wrong with our system now.

I can see where they get the racism in this cartoon, though I do think it's undermined a bit by the fact that Obama didn't actually write it...

I can also see what the cartoonist was actually trying to get at about the chimp. In all honesty, when I first saw it I thought of the "infinite monkey theorem", which states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. But maybe that's just me?

I still think the cartoon was in bad taste though. No matter the intention, anyone reasonably intelligent should have been able to see it being interpreted from a racism-sensitive angle.

That being said, I really don't think it's worth much of an uproar. Sometimes I feel like everyone is on the lookout for discrimination a little too much; whether it be about race, sex, age, religion, etc. I took a Women's Studies course awhile back, and some of my assignments were to listen to popular country songs and watch popular TV shows and look for underlying messages, stereotypes, etc. against women. What surprised me was how easy it was to turn EVERYTHING into something suspicious.

Don't get me wrong, watching out for discrimination is definetly important. But what people need to keep in mind is this: if you go looking for something offensive to you, you're going to find it. I just think we need to keep the intention in mind as well.

Ok, last one (I think). I don't think the solution is to cut out government oversight completely. There is a reason these programs exist. Once upon a time we needed them.

I, for one, don't believe that the situation would be better without the FDA. If no one was watching and testing the product, how could we catch something like this? It's possible the company itself could catch it...but would they fix the problem if it would cut into their bottom line? You'd like to think so, but it's definetly not likely.

And yes, if someone's product ended up killing hundreds of people I'd assume that no one would continue to buy it (and only then after extensive media coverage)...but at what cost? And when it's something like this, something so insiduous, whose effects may not be known for decades, if ever...how would we even catch it without that oversight?

The bottom line is this: we do need something. Leaving these businesses completely alone would only further endanger all of our lives. I believe that there are many, many, MANY ways that our country could be better, but I will never believe that it's through completely stripping away everything.

Awhile back my mother read some health book that told of the "horrors" of HFCS. Well, we decided that we wouldn't buy any more foods that contained it.



It was insane! Yogurt, salad dressing, lemonade...the list went on and on. We cut back a lot, but I still don't think we eliminated it completely

Did you read the article?

"Although the makers of HFCS like to claim that it’s natural, it’s actually a highly refined product that would never exist in nature. Its manufacture involves an extensive process, one step of which is to separate corn starch from the corn kernel.

Caustic soda is used, among other things, to do this, and for decades mercury-grade caustic soda produced in industrial chlorine (chlor-alkali) plants has been used for this purpose.

Because mercury cells are used to produce some caustic soda, the caustic soda may become contaminated, and ultimately transfer that mercury contamination to the HFCS in your soda, salad dressing, soup, cereal, and so on"

I understand this is just written as a possibility, but it's still a possible explanation. Does that make me Batman?

I don't get it.

She claims she was fired for "religious discrimination" because she herself discriminates against other religions by not recognizing other holidays?

If you're so stubborn and closed-minded that you refuse to follow company policy out of some misguided "Christian belief", I have no sympathy for you. If the person in the next cubicle were allowed to say "Happy Hanukkah" however...well, then I could see the point.

And another thing...

You said "If...there was no pay difference between those who become the nuclear physicists and those who can only do simple math, do you think people would abandon education or stop trying to achieve? Do we seek knowledge because it means more money and power? Is that what you think education is for?"

Let me answer, though it was not me you asked: Hell yes I think we seek knowledge because it means more money and power! Do you think Thomas Edison invented the things that he did simply because he was curious? You don't think he intended to make as much money as possible? How long after early man used his first spear to kill an animal (money, in a way) do you think it took him to use it against his fellow man (power)?

I'm sure most people who go into medicine truly have a passion for science and helping people, but I do not believe, even if you took away all the costs of the education (which I think I have explained already why you can't do that, lol, but for arguments sake let's say that you can), that most would still pursue the job if you got no more recognition or pay than they guy who mopped the hallway.

For one thing, even if the education itself were free, you would still have to invest all those years of your life. It's like I was saying in my prior post: labor has a cost. How long does it take to teach the janitor his job? Probably not seven years (I would hope ).

Then there is the actual job, and all that it entails. Many doctors work crazy hours, with crazy pressure. Make the wrong diagnosis? Cut a centimeter too far? You could kill someone. That guy mopping the floor? I really don't think he has to deal with that day-to-day.

And what if you do make that wrong diagnosis? Or you do kill someone? Well...doctors have been sued for a lot less. This country seems lawsuit crazy sometimes, and that's reflected in the outrageous cost of malpractice insurance...which the doctor has to pay (at least in part, if not completely, I believe) for. Kind of hard on a janitor's salary.

I do think that we, as a species, sometimes pursue knowledge simply for knowledge's sake. But most everything one chooses to learn or achieve or be educated in has a purpose other than just enrichment. To make us better than the other guy; to give us a leg up in the world; to put us in a position of power or relative comfort. If it was not in our nature to be competitive and strive for more, more, more...well, we'd probably still be living in caves. I think the person who wears the stethoscope has earned the right to more money than the guy holding the mop, no matter his reasons for pursuing the title of "Dr."

Ok Redykeulous, I just had to get in on this...

You asked "Why is there a charge to learn?" Well, I'll tell you why...it takes money to pay teachers and administrators, janitors and librarians, cafeteria workers and counselors. Resources, such as paper and copy machines, computers and chalk, toilet paper and books, even water and electricity cost money as well. How could a school pay for these things if they didn't charge for the services they rendered?

You seem to believe that education should be free, which is an ideal that I can get behind. But it's not realistic. It's a basic principle that we are forced to learn, a kind of out-of-the "classroom, lecture hall, or lab of a building" lesson you probably weren't talking about(lol): you can't get something for nothing.

Let's take a sheet of paper, for example. You can't expect to get even something as simple as that for free. Someone has to chop down the wood. Someone has to haul it to the factory. Someone has to work the machines in that factory, as well as pay for the electricity, etc. Even if the gasoline and that electricity and every other resource that goes into the creation of that sheet of paper were somehow free, you would have to pay the people for their labor. Because, really, who would want to spend their day cutting down the tree, driving to the factory, working that machine when, for the same amount of money (none), and probably waaaay more pleasure they could spend the day at home with their family, or read a good book, or go to the beach, or...well, anything else more enjoyable than work. In the end, everything costs, because somewhere along the line someone had to put in the effort to create it for you.

You can list your ideals all you want, but in the end you and Drivin are having two different conversations. At least on this topic. You're talking about making something free that never could be...and he's giving realistic ideas to improve the system at hand. A voucher system makes sense. Free education for everyone does not. A voucher system doesn't change the amount of money going in to the system, it simply allows you to have a choice in where your child goes to school. That creates competition, which gives schools a real incentive to be better. More money.

I love, love, love this movie...

...especially Simon Baker

Don't be silly...take responsibility? Don't you know we live in an "It's not MY fault" culture? We couldn't possibly be screwing ourselves into the ground, it must be someone else's fault!



(I think I've had a bit too much caffeine this morning...)

Christian Bale

That's what I'm thinking. There are different levels, sure, but if you're so bad off that you can't do you're job, disability or not you shouldn't be keeping that job.

It's like hiring a blind guy to drive a taxi.

I used to be a cashier, and where I worked they kept a log of all the registers that weren't within a $5 range everyday. There were usually two or three people on the registers in a day, and if you showed up on that log so many times they put you under restriction, where you were the only one on that register that day. If it kept happening after that, you were removed from that job completely. It didn't matter what your excuse was. That's the way a responsible, money-handling company should be run, imo

That same thing happened to me one time, though the woman realized I didn't work in that particular store after I said "umm...probably not..."

Oooooh! Me! Me! Me!

With Drivinmenutz

Drivinmenutz!