Nightingale

That's pretty much what I was trying to say. I'd reather see money go to things that will benefit the community/world as a whole rather than one individual. i guess that's more of a personal preference thing, though... do you want to make all the difference for one person, or a little difference for a lot of people?

I probably would donate the money, but I don't think I'd want it to go to one kid. My charitable donations go to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, because the donations not only benefit the children directly, but they go to benefit everyone with cancer, because St Jude's is one of the research hospitals that's been making some pretty incredible cancer advances. I'd like my money to contribute to changing many lives rather than just one. I think it's important to balance charity and personal needs... It's your money; you earned it, and you have the right to keep it if you want to. I don't think you have an obligation to give it away. I donate not because I think it's "right" but because I want to help. I do little things to get some pocket money, and usually about 50% of the net profits get donated, and 50% goes to pay for some occasional tunnel time or a something fun. Sometimes, St. Jude's sends letters from the kids, or cards or something, and those go up on my fridge with the other holiday cards.

Is this about work projects? Instead of criticizing plans, I like to ask questions. If I'm thinking "This isn't going to work, because they're not taking X into account." I'll ask "how are we compensating for X?" You don't sound critical or pessimistic, because the questioning style has an implied acknowledgment that someone might've thought of it before you. Be optimistic when you don't see any kinks. Ask questions otherwise.

Nah. The courts are over-crowded as it is. I'd like to see us streamline our laws a bit and stop putting potheads and prostitutes in jail. Might not be great for my job security, but better for the world in general.

LOL. Nope. I'm a libertarian. I'm all for fewer laws and fewer taxes. I'm (hopefully) going into criminal law, so I'm not worried about job security.

I've been seeing some of that. People being intolerant of intolerance. One of the things people often forget is that the first amendment also grants freedom of speech to people who don't agree with you. I think one of the reasons that people get so upset about people speaking out against personal choice, whether it's the choice to own a gun or the choice to have or not have an abortion, is that they forget that the USA is supposed to be a nation of freedom, and with freedom comes the responsibility for making your own choices, whether they're good or bad. I think people would be much more tolerant of each other if we stopped trying to outlaw things we don't agree with. The pro-gun people would be much more likely to listen to anti-gun people if the anti-gun people weren't putting the pro-gun people on the defensive by actively trying to take away the ability to own guns. People don't listen when they're threatened, when they're pushed. They push back. And nothing productive takes place. I have no problem with someone explaining to me why I shouldn't make a certain decision. I'll probably sit down and listen. However, if you try to take away my ability to make the decision at all, I'll probably be pretty ticked off and less likely to actually want to listen to you. If we all stopped trying to outlaw the things we don't like, we'd probably get along a lot better, because we could agree to disagree without the threat of the other party trying to legislate their point of view.

I disagree. Look at the huge fuss the press made over Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes's baby, just because they didn't mention the baby and didn't take her out in public. The headlines reading "What's wrong with baby Suri?" disprove your point, I think. All keeping quiet about a kid does is encourage the press to sneak around and spread rumors and try to sneak photos. I think Madonna is intelligent enough to figure out that when there's a hint of a rumor, it's best to just tell the press what's going on, or they'll just make something up that fits with the meager facts that they have. I think that the press has been given way too much leeway when it comes to publishing trash about celebrities.

You think $3 million dollars isn't going to make a difference in a third world country? At least she's doing something. She doesn't have to do anything, and she'd still be all over the news. She's not "taking a kid away from his family." The family put the kid in an orphanage to be adopted. The family has said they're thrilled that Madonna is doing this for their child. I don't see a problem here. Kid's happy and cared for, Madonna's thrilled to have him, and the biological father is grateful that his son will have a better life than he could have in Africa. What's the issue?

She didn't "circumvent the adoption rules." The only thing that was waived in her case was the 18 month residence requirement (which exists to allow the courts time to investigate families to prove they have the financial means to take care of a child. Finances aren't an issue in Madonna's case, so there's no need for this requirement, which is why the government waived it). The adoption isn't final for 18 months from now, and during that time she's going to be evaluated under Malawian law just like any other potential adopting parent. Madonna didn't circumvent the rules. The government which set the rules in the first place chose to modify them because of unusual circumstances. People here seem to be focusing on how the adoption will benefit Madonna. Honestly, do you really think she needs any more publicity? She'd probably have made the news just as much simply through her donation and charity work in the country. I'd like to see people consider what publicity like this will do for Malawi. How many of us had even HEARD of Malawi before now? A lot of charity is going to pour into that country because of this, because now people know that there is a problem there, what the problem is, and that they can help fix it just by opening their checkbooks. Before now, hardly anybody here knew.

Here you go: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/10/16/koinange.adoption/index.html Twelve-year-old Koketso Motshoane is just one of many millions of children in Africa orphaned by AIDS. She has five other siblings scattered across various orphanages whom she gets to see just once a year. She's never heard of pop star Madonna but says she'd jump at the chance to be adopted by anyone willing to give her a home, celebrity or not. "I would feel happy," she says. "Because I have no mother."

The nanny is probably the same one who looks after Lourdes and Rocco, so I'm not surprised that the nanny was "already hired." I don't have a problem with people with the means to hire a nanny doing so. It's no different than putting your kid in daycare while you're at work, except the kid gets to stay at home with someone working with them one-on-one, and probably get some interesting outings as well. Nobody made this kind of fuss when Angelina adopted Maddox or Zahara. I think that people are thinking that this is a bad thing just because it's Madonna. I'm happy that she's adopting someone who needs a family rather than just having another baby. The baby's father is alive and has said he's very happy to have his son get a chance at a better life than he could ever give him in Africa. http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/10/17/malawi.madonna.ap/index.html

I did too. They included it as part of DARE. Pretty much all they covered was the four rules of what to do if you see a gun, but for most kids, that's probably enough.

They didn't need to spell out that marriage was between people of the same race, because, of course, back then, everyone knew that marrying someone who was a different color was Just Not Done. Not everyone else went through "legislation" as you claim. The courts have usually been the ones preserving our rights while legislation tries to take them away. The Supreme Court has struck down legislation such as the Missouri Compromise, New Deal economic recovery acts, the post-Watergate campaign finance law, statutes to curb pornography on the Internet, the line-item veto, and provisions of anti-gun laws. -D. R. Tarr, & A. O'Connor (Eds.), Congress A to Z. Courts have struck down legislation such as "grandfather clauses" aimed at preventing certain people from voting. I can't think of any legislation that has been passed saying that it is okay to do something, and a court striking it down. They certainly strike down a lot of "you can't do that" legislation, though.

Sounds good to me. Kids should know how to do both. I think 3rd grade is a bit young for the condoms, but kids are having sex younger and younger, so maybe 3rd grade is a good time? I'd teach them gun safety in pre-school or kindergarten, tho, at least the four major things to do when a kid finds a gun: STOP! Don't Touch. Leave the Area. Tell an Adult. The NRA has a program called Eddie Eagle that teaches kids about gun safety without making any value judgments on guns. They're presented to kids as any other danger (pesticides, etc...) that might exist around their house or their friends houses. http://www.nrahq.org/safety/eddie/ I'd love to be able to say that sex and guns shouldn't be taught in schools, but the only way I'd be comfortable saying that would be if I was confident that parents were giving kids the information they need. As evidenced by gun accidents and teen pregnancies, apparently they're not.

There are gun safes that can be accessed in seconds using a push-button combination. Good enough to keep the kids out, but easily accessible in an emergency.

Sounds like those people should've had the sense to lock their guns when they had someone visiting. If they'd done that, OR if the parents of those kids had taught them about guns, those kids would probably be alive today.

You might have a correlation with kids who aren't good swimmers having easy access to a pool when nobody's watching.... I think the same prob'ly holds true for guns. I bet you see the problems when you have 1) kids who haven't been taught how to handle a gun safely 2) in a home with unsecured guns while they're 3) not being watched. linz Exactly. you list three factors, and without any one of those factors, a gun accident isn't going to happen. If you have a kid who knows gun safety in a home with unsecured guns while not being watched, that kid is a lot safer than one who doesn't know to leave a gun alone.

you say that 56 kids were killed by guns... however, you didn't say WHOSE guns. If those guns belonged to intruders, drive by shooters, or people otherwise not in the home, your statistic doesn't demonstrate any correlation between guns in the home and shooting deaths of children. I think far too many parents who don't own guns don't bother to gun-proof their own kids, thinking that guns aren't a danger to that kid, because, after all, there aren't any guns in the house. Sure, you may not have a gun in the house, but your neighbor might. Or your kid might find a gun somewhere outside of the home, perhaps a weapon ditched by a criminal. Kids that understand guns are going to go running for the nearest adult. Kids that don't understand guns are going to pick it up and investigate it themselves. IMO, kids are much more likely to play with guns when they don't understand that guns are not toys to be played with. My brother and I would NEVER touch my dad's guns when we were little, because we knew they were not toys and we knew what guns were capable of. Dad didn't teach us to shoot, but he certainly made us gun-safe. We were taught about the power of guns, and that you never, ever touched one without permission. We never had toy guns, and we weren't allowed to play with other kids' toy guns, because guns are not toys.

16 is the age of consent in most of Europe, IIRC, as well as several US states, and it's pretty well acknowledged that many teenagers have had sex by that age. Many states that have set the age of consent at 18 have "romeo and juliet" statues which allow someone between ages 16 and 18 to legally have sex with someone no more than three years older. In Iowa and South Carolina, the age is 14 for females and 16 for males, and everywhere else it's at least 16 for both genders. So, yes, I guess it could be said that 16 is more socially acceptable than 13.

Mucinex for the cough and chest congestion (the green bottle, not the blue one). Helped me so much when I was sick a few months back.

I don't think I've moved more left or right... more like I've moved further away from both. I don't like the financial controls of the left, and I don't like the social controls of the right. However, if I'm left with the choice of giving up one freedom or another, I'd prefer to keep my social freedom.

If I can find one, I'll let you know. One of the art students here was wearing a t-shirt of David with a big "CENSORED" stamp across the sculpture's penis. If I see him again, I'm going to ask where he got it.

It's so sad that people have become so phobic of human anatomy. ...currently searching for sticker of Michelangelo's David to stick up in my car window...

We've had more fatalities in Iraq than we did in the War of 1812 or the Spanish-American War, and are rapidly approaching the number of fatalities in the Revolutionary War.

If the teacher is doing a good job, a no-homework format can be very successful. The AP Calculus teacher at my high school didn't believe in giving homework and had a 90%+ pass rate for his students on the AP test. In his math book, there are probably the answers to the odd or even numbered problems in the back of the book. Use these (or have the tutor use them) to review the day's lesson. That way, you can have him do a few problems, and then check the answers to make sure he's got it. Another thing that can be done is you can order a copy of the teacher's manual for his textbook (or ask the school if they have an extra that you can buy or put a depost on that you get back when you return it). In the manual, there will be more detailed explanations, as well as teaching techniques, plus the answers to all the problems in the book. I think one of the main reasons I finally managed to pass Algebra II was that I badgered my mom into getting a copy of the manual.