Azalin

oh, flock off.

well, when your leader has multiple chins, then of course you're obviously going to look down on anybody with just one.

you're still plagiarizing, but I suppose nobody can really blame you since your original material is so incredibly lame.

if the act playing the halftime show is some popular young upstart-type act, then it may well be in their best interest to pay the NFL for the opportunity to perform. on the other hand, when the Rolling Stones played a few years ago, they probably caused a lot of people to tune-in that might otherwise have not bothered, increasing the value of the commercial time for the network. none of the halftime shows ever have anyone performing that I like, anyway.

Perry speaking outside the Travis County court house before having his mug shot & finger prints taken:

man, ain't that the truth. I spent several years working in a kitchen with one of those things, and it took me years to learn how to lacerate my hand properly before I finally gained the confidence to use one at home.

well, at least we know he's not one of the ones that the president released from Gitmo.

come on, where's your spirit of adventure?

but can you do it while playing a mandolin?

it sounds to me like you're confusing being taken into custody with access to a good attorney. it isn't that rich kids or white kids don't get arrested, but it's much more a question of their being able to get off with a lighter sentence due to better representation. if this is the case, then I think most people here would agree with you, since we've all seen incidents in recent memory dealing with priviledged people getting an outrageously light sentence for a serious crime (the 'affluenza' case being one example) based on their wealth and/or connections. I don't see race as much of a determining factor in cases like this in this day and age.

you link to an opinion piece in which the author describes Obama as 'pragmatic'?

without Cartman around my life would have far, far less laughter in it. he deserves a statue in his honor for his treatment of hippies alone.

especially his name.

to be honest, it seems to infect just about anyone taking up public office nowadays.

dammit.....I knew I was going to regret asking.

that's awesome....I've never seen that, and I live in Austin.

I know I'm going to regret asking this, but TJ?

the inspiration for the term may have originated as a mockery of an idiot school board, but it's subsequent applications, at least as far as I've seen it used, are most often as a counter to monotheism, and almost exclusively toward the 'Christian' God. I'm not a very religious person, and not even close to being a 'holy roller', and by my own personal experiences and conversations, I've found that the great noodled one to be consistently used as a barb toward Christians. many people who believe in God find their deity's comparison to Italian pasta to be offensive, regardless of the origin of the term. laughter works pretty well, too.

let's just go ahead and forget that he was trying to remove the state district attorney (whose office prosecutes drunk drivers) for getting a DUI and having an open bottle of vodka in her car after rear-ending another driver. I'm not a fan of the governor, and his actions may or may not have exceeded his authority, but Lehmberg should have been fired. whether or not this turns out to be a big deal for him, Perry won't win the party nomination either way. his speaking skills are so bad as to make GW sound like James Earl Jones.

the church of the flying spaghetti monster is as much a religion as the Darwin fish with little feet on it is an expression of faith. both are based in mockery, from what seems to me to be a condescending, and an ironically 'holier-than-thou' point of view. if someone was to truly believe in the avian pasta deity, they'd be placing exactly as much faith in something unprovable as those they mock for their belief in God.

Bieber killed by Cartman and Cuthulhu:

I know someone who takes out these loans frequently, and he's always dogged with phone calls from collectors (but I don't know of the collectors are with the payday loan company or if they're someone else). this guy makes pretty good money, but he has an ex-wife and son, and a new wife and another three children, so his situation is completely self-made. I've never had to resort to taking a payday loan myself. I hocked my guitar amplifier for one week about 18 years ago, but I've otherwise pretty much been able to at least get by. from my point of view, the people doing the borrowing are just as responsible for their situation as the payday lenders that profit from them. it's not a very ethical business to run, but I don't think it should be made illegal.

I understand that part of it, but I guess I'm assuming that the payday lender bases the amount of the loan eligibility on the amount shown on the pay stub that the borrower shows them. if the amount is within the means apparent on the pay stub, then 10% over two weeks might be a bad rate, but not nearly as bad as people are making it sound.

I've never taken a payday loan, so I don't know about the interest rates, but I had been assuming the rate would be higher than 10%. that's a better rate than many credit cards offer, so it would seem to me that a payday loan could cost the borrower less than other options might, provided they paid it back on time.