Nightingale

Nobody's forcing you to watch television. Just turn it off or turn the channel if you don't like it. Put a lock on your TV if you're concerned about your kids. I don't have cable/satellite/antenna. I just rent videos. I have no idea what's on television now. Don't like raunchy billboards? Take your kids to an art gallery like the Getty that has some of the classic nude paintings and sculptures. Get them to compare it to what they've seen on television and examine the difference between art and not-art. You can use the opportunity to teach them about the body being sacred and about why you want them to respect their own bodies. My mom's a pretty hard-core catholic. I remember watching Ghost with her when I was I guess about 12-14. She didn't know that there was a sex scene between Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. She let the scene play, and then stopped the movie and had a discussion with me about the scene, what she thought, what I thought, and why. Seeing something not-so-appropriate became a bonding experience between us and a chance to have a discussion that we wouldn't have had otherwise, at least, not in that context. You control what your kids wear, what they watch, and what they do. There may be some information that they get that you don't approve of. Locker room talk, magazines passed around at school, whatever. You can't protect them from everything. What you can do is keep an open relationship with them, and let them know that it's okay to talk to you about absolutely anything at all. What kids see isn't nearly as important as the context in which they see it. It isn't your right to decide what is good or isn't good for me and for my family. It's my right to make that choice. Things can be good, things can be not good. It's all in the context. Example: When I was twelve or so, a girl my age in gym class said that you can't get pregnant the first time. Some girls believed her. Others didn't. Some, like me, went home and said "Mom, can you get pregnant the first time?" For the girls that believed her, what they heard was not good for them. For the ones that didn't, the experience had no effect. For the ones that went home and were comfortable enough to asked mom or dad, the experience became a very positive learning experience, both about sex, and about not believing everything you hear. You cannot protect your children from everything, and it isn't your place to protect my family from ideas you personally disagree with. Honestly, I think I'd prefer if my future kids were exposed to ideas like porn and sexuality while they're living at home rather than when they're out of the house and in a place where I can't guide them quite so easily. Maintaining an open relationship with your kids is the absolute best thing you can do for them. If your kids feel they can talk to you about absolutely anything, they will. If not, then no matter what you do to change society, you'll have lost the chance to shape your child. If that's what makes you happy, awesome. Live where you want, do what you want, teach your kids what you want. That's part of what the USA is all about. If people want to "wade around in a mire of muck," that is their decision. It's not my place or your place to pull them out of that muck against their will. Honestly, I've never even seen a porn film. However, I'm not going to tell someone else they can't watch one, produce one, or star in one. It's just not my job to make someone else's choices for them.

Cats are weird. Mine loves to watch the Lakers. I hate basketball. Go figure.

Depending on where you're transferring to, you may not need math. I didn't. My major (and all other majors outside of science/engineering/computers) had a math OR science requirement. Two maths, two sciences, one math one science. didn't matter. I took oceanography and genetics, and avoided all math classes. That said, I tutor in algebra, so if you get stuck, you've got my phone number and I'd be happy to help you if I can.

A woman has control over what happens to her OWN body. The fetus is changing the woman's body, and she has the right to stop those changes. At the time when the fetus no longer depends on the woman for survival, the fetus should be considered a separate entity. When life begins doesn't even enter the equation for me, because it's quite obvious a fetus is alive. However, as long as it cannot survive outside the womb, it can't be considered separate from the woman.

The kind of society you describe is contradictory to the first amendment of the US constitution. Why not take the situations you describe and use them to teach your child? When a child's school teaches actual scientific theories you think are wrong, use the opportunity to present any evidence you may think is contradictory. I oppose teaching creationism in science class because it isn't science. I do, however, believe it should be (and often is) taught in a religions or sociology class. When you see a billboard you don't like, explain that you don't agree with the message, and why not. Tell your child why you think it's disrespectful to the people in the billboard, and why, and ask him/her what she thinks. Use the opportunity to open a dialogue. I don't believe in telling someone else that they can't say or do something I disagree with. It isn't my decision. I'm not sure what you mean by "unbaby" other than it's not a baby at that time, which it isn't. I agree with you. I don't believe abortion is the right choice in most situations, and I would never have one myself except to save my own life (and in that case, I'd call it self defense). However, I recognize that it isn't my right to make that decision for someone else, because I don't walk in their shoes and I don't live their life. They could be facing medical or emotional difficulties that I'm unaware of, and it simply isn't my place to make a decision like that for them. If you disagree, you can talk to your child about why, about what makes people choose abortion, and why you disagree with those choices. You can also use the opportunity to tell your daughter that if she becomes pregnant that you will do everything you can to support her, won't be angry, will be disappointed, but really, truly want her to come talk to you before making any decisions. Same conversation for a son regarding a girlfriend. Society is always going to behave in ways you don't agree with, simply because people don't agree with you. I think the main difference between us is that I want to allow other people to make their own choices, while you want to decide for them along the lines of what your faith teaches. I don't have any problem at all with you allowing your faith to guide your life, or about you teaching your faith to others. I don't like it when you presume to make choices for other people. It is your place to teach. It is not your place to force.

What lindsey said.

From what I've seen, it isn't that people are trying to make other people feel like jerks for what they believe. It's that people are upset and angry that the religious beliefs of another person are influencing the way they live their life. Certain Christians upset me, because: I don't want to have to homeschool my kids in the future because creationism is being taught as science. I'll teach them about it myself as a religions or sociology lesson. I don't want my twelve year old cousin to have to carry a child to term because she was a victim of a violent rape. I don't want to see people denied life-saving or life altering treatments because there is a very slim chance that there might maybe be some small damage to the embryo that provided the stem cells, and that chance isn't any greater than the chance of injury when doing routine genetic testing on an embryo. If there were people that were trying to tell me I had to wear a burka and pray to mecca five times a day, I'd be pretty pissed off at them also. However, the religion that is having the most profound affect on american politics today is christianity, and I've found that the effects are extraordinarily negative. And yes, that's my opinion. I recognize that some people are very happy when the state forces twelve year old girls to have their rapist's baby. I'm just not one of them.

Very Nice! I'm glad she was able to protect herself, and had the presence of mind to do so rather than freeze or freak out.

What works for me: On a friday after work, put those cotton moisture gloves on your hands with a lot of lotion inside. Only take the gloves off to shower, etc, for the whole weekend. If you can't get to your nails, you won't chew them. Doing this friday, saturday, sunday will break the cycle of biting, and allow your nails and cuticles some time to heal so you won't be so tempted to bite. Next, file your nails and oil your cuticles. Even if your nails are still really bitten, use a file as best you can to smooth out the rough edges. Finally, and most important, paint your nails bright red. Fire engine red. It looks awful if they're all bitten up, but the bright color acts like a stop sign to your brain. Then, as a topcoat, use the nail biter polish you can buy in the grocery store. Every so often you might relapse if you're really stressed out about something, and that's okay, because stopping the second/third time around is much easier than the first, and you'll look at your hands and be annoyed with yourself for ruining your pretty nails. Once you get used to having nails, and having your hands not hurt, it's a really big incentive not to bite again. Course, having a friend around to smack your hand out of your mouth if you're biting and don't realize it is helpful too. Edited to add: keep your hands busy. Learn how to knit, cross stitch, crochet, whatever. Just have something else in your hands while you're watching TV, because you're more likely to bite when you're not doing anything else with your hands. Keep the gloves around for times like finding yourself biting while you're reading a book/magazine or something else where you do need to use your hands a little bit.

Go to college. If it turns out you hate it, you can still go to beauty school later. Beauty school limits your options to cosmetology. A college degree opens a lot more doors.

Even if they're not on the immunization card, they should be in your medical records. Contact your current doctor (who's probably gotten your records from your past doctors) and see if the vaccine record is accurate in there.

Gawain, if trying to keep drugs out was actually working, I'd agree with you. However, it's not working. People are still using, still going on week long meth binges, and still extraordinarily uneducated about why that's a bad idea. Education has had more of an impact on smoking than all the taxes, laws, and underage-smoker stings. There's no reason to think it would be different with drugs. As a personal example, I don't use drugs. None of my friends use drugs. None of us avoid drugs because they're illegal or because we can't get them. All of us avoid them because they do dangerous and scary things to your body and the risks aren't worth the benefits.

I wouldn't have a problem if the government legalized all drugs. After all, it's not the job of the government to protect us from our own stupidity. As for the concerns about potential increased crime rates related to drugs, well, burglary and theft are already illegal. If they steal for drug money, do what they do now... charge them with theft. The "war on drugs" simply hasn't worked. I'd like to see the money that is currently being spent on enforcement to instead be spent on education. People are going to use drugs until they understand why they shouldn't. "Drugs are bad" isn't a reason. I doubt I could find many high school students who could explain to me the physical effects of ecstasy on the human body. Now, most high schoolers can tell you that smoking causes bad breath, bad skin, and cancer. That's why the rate of teen smoking has been dropping. We need to approach drug use the same way. In Florida, beginning in 1999, the state began a "comprehensive tobacco control program, which helped prove that an all-encompassing approach was needed to reduce teen smoking. It included in-school and after-school education at every grade level, programs to help teens quit smoking, enforcing the laws against shopkeepers selling tobacco to teens, and much more. After four years, smoking rates among Florida middle school students dropped by 47%, and there was a 30% decline among high school students." -cancer.org Education is the key to reducing drug use. Making drugs illegal simply adds in the additional problems created by a black market.

Yes. The job of the government is to protect people from outside threats. It is not to regulate what we do with our own bodies. Plus, the only thing a pothead is a danger to is a bag of cheetoes. Regulating marijuana is a waste of law enforcement time and resources.

Kona, Hawaii Key West, Florida Jackson, Wyoming

Matters of faith should be matters that are not scientifically testable. Science isn't going to be able to tell you the purpose of life. Applying philosophy to faith makes more sense than applying science to faith.

If they're swelling that bad, you might be having a reaction anyway. Go see your doc.

If they'd been prosecuted out of the office I worked for over the summer, a first offense trespass would've been 0-30 days in jail depending on circumstance, fines, and 3 years informal probation (no probation officer, just don't screw up again in the next three years). I don't know the whole story, beyond what's in the posted article, but it sounds like prosecutorial blackmail. "Take this rediculous plea bargain, or risk having a felony on your record that will haunt you the rest of your life." Sure, prosecutors offer plea bargains like that all the time, but when the felony charge isn't deserved to begin with, it's abuse of the system.

What vocabulary would you use to describe the observations? To me, science explains what happens in the world around us and why, while faith explains the purpose behind it. When faith and science clash, it happens when faith is trying to step into the realm of science, since it is impossible for true science to step into the realm of faith. Science will never be able to accurately explain why we exist, and it doesn't try to do so. Faith will never be able to accurately explain how we came to exist, and it shouldn't try to do so. To apply science to things that are matters of faith does both faith and science a disservice. Applying faith to things that are matters of science is equally foolish.

The 10 inch stinger data came from the animal planet website article about the accident.

It's pretty close to being stabbed with a sword. The barbs can be up to ten inches long, and this one went under his ribcage and into his heart. It was a freak accident. People swim with stingrays all the time, get stung all thet time, and walk away with a puncture wound, a band-aid, and a good story.

I'll just be happy when people stop abusing apostrophes.

That can be very vehicle dependant. Stopping distance 60mph-0mph Audi A4 - 122 ft BMW M3 - 110 ft BMW R1150RT - 105 ft Ford Excursion - 167 ft source - motortrend

That's right! It's all about lying and cheating your way out of accepting responsibility for our actions! Why? Because it's the American way, dammit! It's our right! LOL. First, I'd like to see the government accept its responsibility to use its tax/fine dollars reasonably. Responsibility goes both ways.

If your kids are in school, you can buy them the education version of photoshop, which is a lot cheaper.