Azalin

Couldn't agree more, couldn't have said it better.

That sounds like a reasonable way to handle it to me - if they're just little kids, it seems okay to me to let them all have a small trophy for completing their season, while awarding larger, more spectacular trophies for those who did the best. They receive a small award that they can be proud of, while being incented to go for the big one next year.

My goat has a better beard than mine.

You can't be serious - the one person here who continually evokes butts, poop, and toilets as a routine, and you're going to try to come off as mature? And then have the gall to tell others to 'grow up'?! Hypocrite.

I have no doubt that Putin would love to return to most, if not all of the old Soviet ways, but I'd be more inclined to place China ahead of Russia in terms of both economic and military power. Sooner or later, there will be other superpowers, and Russia and China are the most likely to emerge as such IMO.

I always though Friedman referred to himself as a 'classic liberal'. I've never heard him utter the term 'neoliberal'.

Grow up, little guy.

That's a shame. Imagine how many burgers you could flip at one time when you effectively have four opposable thumbs per cook.

They go crazy for accordianists, too.

I see an opportunity for fast food to avoid a $15 per hour minimum wage.

There's a bright side to that though - it means that once the gang/drug turf war settles down, the city will be mellow for a whole year. Sure, the looting will begin again once the drugs are gone, but that's a whole year from now.

I don't remember exactly, but I think you're right about the tsunami relief. They used to hound us every year here at work to contribute the the United Way. In fact, the union was involved in the effort as well as management (I rarely trust either one, but I'm always extremely skeptical of anything they're both involved with). They were very misleading about how they handled the donations. They had a massive list of charities that they contributed to, and would tell us to pick our favorites and they'd donate to them on our behalf. What they were actually doing was just collecting that money and dividing it up among all the charities on the list as they saw fit. That's why I stopped giving to them and just began donating directly to my choice of charities on my own.

There you go obfuscating with factual details again.

I remember both the Red Cross and United Way came under fire after the attacks of 9/11 for how little they paid out in aid compared with the amount donated by the folks. I don't know if either had done much to improve that since then.

Maybe, but we'll all be dead by then.

There's an oxymoron for you right there. Heavy emphasis on moron. Not to mention maturity.

Anyone not think that this poor girl will be scarred for life? http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/06/03/4-family-members-accused-beating-pregnant-teen-to-kill-baby/?intcmp=latestnews

Is Gatorman your mayor?

White privilege.

I know a couple homeless guys that live under a bridge near a bar I frequent. One is kind of 'twitchy' and potentially violent, but I don't see him too much. The other one is named Monk, and is just a burnout in his late 50's (if you ever see the TV show called 'Jail', they have an episode filmed here in Austin where Monk gets taken into custody by the Travis County Sheriffs - long messy dark hair, beard, and incoherent, drunken, Texas drawl - and gets attacked by another inmate). Whenever Monk sees me outside, he comes up and shoots the breeze and never asks me for money. One time when I had a flat tire late at night in the rain, he rode up on his bicycle and changed my tire for me. I gave hime the last 20 I had on me at the time, and then gave him another 20 the next time I saw him. I haven't seen old Monk in a while, but when I do, I'll usually offer him at least enough for a 40 without his asking. His problems are 100% self-induced and he admits it, but he's actually a pretty decent chap in his own way.

I didn't have the luxury of shopping around when I needed to have a stent placed in my left anterior coronary artery. The total cost out of pocket was $50, including the procedure and an overnight stay. I can't even imagine what that would cost me today.

That's not what you're doing. Your spelling and diction are accurate, and you didn't call anyone names.

That's your misfortune.

I've heard a boulevard described as a street, usually two lanes in each direction, separated in the middle by a lanscaped median. A quay is a type of dock for boats.