Nightingale

Sometimes being apart for a little while makes you appreciate the other person a lot more.

You might want to consider a condo. The association, (under most circumstances) would be in charge of all the outside maintenance, like trees and roofs, and all you'd have to be concerned with is inside. You'll have to deal with stuff like unclogging toilets, changing lightbulbs, broken appliances, all the stuff you'd normally call maintenance for. Keep in mind that you'll probably get a pretty big tax deduction because of your mortgage interest. I'm closing escrow on my condo tomorrow, and even though I'll be paying out something like $2400 in taxes, mortgage and association fees, when you factor in the tax deduction and the extra money that will be in my paycheck because of it, the overall cost will be around $1600, which is less than I was paying to rent my apartment.

It sounds like you're confusing civil and criminal proceedings. In civil court, if you don't show up to respond, you lose (default judgment for the other side). In criminal court, you have a right to be in court, but you also have the choice to waive that right and not show up if you're not required to (waiver). The charges were dropped because of a lack of evidence. Sure, he was going 95 at one point, but the article specifically says that his speed at the time of the accident was not recorded. Accident investigators believed he was going 50mph, which is pretty reasonable in a 45 zone, considering he was responding to a call. A conviction of murder requires intent or reckless disregard for human life (different jurisdictions define it slightly differently, but they're all pretty close). There is no evidence that the officer intended to kill anyone, or that he was behaving recklessly at the time of the accident. Therefore, charges should be dropped, and, since he was speeding, he should get a speeding ticket. We have standards for findings of guilty. Here, it is "beyond a reasonable doubt." If the prosecutor doesn't feel s/he can prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, then the prosecutor made the right choice to dismiss the charge. It's really funny that you've taken the position you have... the liberals have been protesting the government putting people in jail or on trial without proper evidence, and here, the prosecutor dropped the charges because of a lack of evidence, and you're pissed.

Um... ask her? If it's for a gift, take a picture of a sleeping bag and put it in a card, and then go shopping for it together. the right sleeping bag is really a matter of personal preference.

And how many other dogs have their own purple velvet pillows?

I figure that if your child is 1. responsible enough to ask for birth control, and 2. comfortable enough talking to you to ask you for help getting it You've probably been a damn good parent.

If it's your name, what's wrong with insisting people use your name rather than the wrong name? Why would you think that someone would be okay with being called something that isn't their name? How is someone named Robert insisting "don't call me Bob." any different from Katie Smith insisting that you don't call her Katie Jones? Bob isn't his name, and Jones isn't hers. Other reasons, beyond the ones previously mentioned by others: Sometimes his last name just won't work. For example, I had a college friend with the last name of Wiener (pronounced Wee-ner). He married an elementary school teacher. You really think she's going to change her name to "Mrs. Wiener"? That's a classroom-management problem waiting to happen.

I have. I didn't even know it was homeopathic when I took it. It didn't work.

As is anyone willing to put up with someone who's taking it. Well, if you were completely sane, you'd be boring and I wouldn't be dating you. And thank you so much for your support through all of this! I have the most wonderful boyfriend on the planet!

So - they could tell black people that they have to use a different water fountain because it is private property and civil rights don't apply? Civil rights don't stop when you enter a freaking mall. This is why I hate "the analogy game". I agree with you that "civil rights don't stop when you enter a mall", and I think Nightingale does, too. Her post doesn't address whether civil rights are suspended in a mall, it addresses whether entering a mall without ID is a civil right. Exactly. It is a civil right to be able to enter a place of business regardless of your race. It is not a civil right to enter a place regardless of whether or not you have your ID with you. Business owners have a right to regulate who is on their property, provided they are not regulating by race, disability, gender, sexual orientation (in some states), etc...

From the Mayo Clinic: Pink eye (conjunctivitis) is an inflammation or infection of the transparent membrane (conjunctiva) that lines your eyelid and part of your eyeball. The cause of pink eye is commonly a bacterial or viral infection, an allergic reaction or — in newborns — an incompletely opened tear duct. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pink-eye/DS00258

I think anyone willing to put up with law school and the bar must be at least a little nuts.

She's got so much plastic in her that I'm not sure she'd actually decompose.

Since everything my family has bought new from dell has been a disaster, I wouldn't touch a refurb.

Well, I'm going to be taking a bar exam in july no matter what, so while I certainly hope I passed (and I have a pretty good feeling about it so far... the questions were easier than the ones from bar review), I'm still going to be doing it again in six months. If I pass California, I'm taking New York in july, and if I don't, I'm doing california again. Regardless, I still need to keep studying, and I do appreciate the sentiment behind Cocheese's post. =)

Just to clarify, I believe the first words of my PM to you were "this is not legal advice" =p I just gave you some general impressions of the way the special ed system works and referred you to some places where you could find a lawyer and get legal advice. edited for a really stupid grammatical error.

Sure it does... when a volcano on the other side of the sea errupts and displaces water. Google "Santerini"

Actually, pinkeye (conjunctivitis) can be bacterial, viral, or even allergic reactions.

No. Smacking your thumb with a hammer is what cures a headache. The harder you hit it, the longer the headache disappears. You're right. =) Causing pain prompts the body to release endorphins, which activate opiate receptors in the brain, alleviating severe pain. You end up with a sore hand, but the headache goes away.

I think these are what you're looking for: "The first cases asserting free speech rights in privately owned shopping centers were successful. In the 1946 case of Marsh v. Alabama, the Supreme Court held that the business district of a privately owned "company town" was the same as a public street for First Amendment purposes, finding that "the more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it." A 1968 case—Amalgamated Food Employees Union v. Logan Valley Plaza—held that a privately owned mall was the "functional equivalent" of the business district in Marsh. But realizing they had overreached in the early cases, and sensitive to what they had done to private property rights, the Supremes reversed course in Hudgens v. NLRB, a 1976 case holding that the First Amendment guarantees no free speech rights in private shopping centers. And in an important 1980 case, Pruneyard v. Robins, the court upheld the general notion that citizens have no First Amendment rights to express themselves in privately owned shopping centers while still agreeing that a group of California students had the right to hand out leaflets and collect signatures in a private California mall. The magic bullet in Pruneyard? The high court found that state constitutions may confer upon citizens broader speech rights than the federal Constitution, and the broadly worded California Constitution gave citizens the right to speak freely, even in private malls. The court dismissed the shopping center's claims that such a rule infringed on its free speech rights, by forcing it to tolerate unwanted speech on private property, and rejected the argument that forcing them to open up to public debate constituted an unconstitutional "taking" of private property." -Dahlia Lithwick

I've been to the doctor many times and not been prescribed anything. Often it's "you have a virus. antibiotics won't help. go home, rest, eat right, and you'll feel better in a few days." If I've sprained or broken something, the doctor always asks if I want painkillers or anti-inflammatory drugs before she prescribes them. If I go to the doc with a bacterial infection (strep throat, for example), then, yes, she'll prescribe something. And yes, I live in the US. I just have a good doctor who takes the time to figure out what's wrong before deciding whether or not to prescribe something.

... My concern is that they are not going to just be looking at ID's but rather taking record of the people going into the mall. This is something that would be easy because wisconsin drivers licenses are bar coded. I recently had to let them scan my license to buy cough medicine. I would have protested but I was sick. More and more we are seeing our personal freedoms and rights violated and people are allowing it to happen in the name of "public saftey." The problem that we are going to start to see is that eventually, they wont even bother drawing a line, they will just do whatever they feel is nessecary to protect us from us. (Not a new thing, I know, I just feel like complaining about it today) I seriously doubt that a mall is going to start scanning your license. They just want to look at it to make sure you're the right age to go in, just like any bar or nightclub. This has nothing to do with personal freedom or civil rights. It's a private business on private property, and they can restrict who their customers are, just like a nightclub. Going to the mall without ID isn't a civil right.

Yep. Mine starts tomorrow. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! I'm going to go panic now. =)

I would imagine that the purpose is to look at a woman dancing naked. Ultimately, men are pretty simple.

Ah. I don't think that looking at other women is disrespectful under most circumstances (strippers at bachelor parties included). Now, a guy turning around to stare at someone else while you're in the middle of a conversation, that's disrespectful. Having a stripper at a party in a room full of other men... not so much, IMO, but everybody's got different limits as to what's cool.