Nightingale

Translation - I was once fucked up on drugs, now I'm fucked up on religion. You just changed your crutch is all. Using marijuana or not using it should be his choice. Ditto with going to church. Whether or not you think that's f-ed up is irrelevant.

The Jonas Brothers. Dueling banjos. Bagpipes. The Irish Rovers. Julie Andrews. Ride of the Valkyrie Gregorian Chant and the ultimate torture - Disney Songs. You can only hear "It's a Small World After All" so many times without going insane. Make sure you have earplugs. um...is it bad that all of that is on my iPod? Except the Jonas Brothers. NEVER THE JONAS BROTHERS!

We don't speak English. We speak American. And Californians do have an accent. We just think we don't because it's the same one everyone on television uses.

if I have a PhD in Chemistry, why would the country require me to go to school? Edit: How's your political run going so far? If you were Doogie Howser over there, here they'd still want to make you get a GED in English. As for politics, still trying to refrain from stealing the signs.

LOL. When you come up with a way to close the border that we can actually accomplish, let the government know. If it could be done, they'd have done it. Only reason places like North Korea manage is that people don't want in.

But if I move to Sweden and fail to get a job in chemistry because I won't learn Swedish, then I'm responsible for that, not the Swedish government. Absolutely. But you are not required to work. We do require school attendance, and if we are going to require it, we need to at least provide an environment with an opportunity for success.

See other thread on immigration reforms.

Exactly. If someone was brought here when they were a small child, it's not really their crime, it's their parents' crime, and they should not be punished for it, and should be given the chance to apply for a student visa like anyone else. I'm all for punishing people for their crimes. I don't like punishing someone for what somebody else did.

They are "ILLEGAL".... Yeah... that makes them non residents. sure - now it makes them illegal and non-residents if they want to go to school - there's a legal way to be here in terms of student visas - then they can be legal non-residents That is an awesome idea. And if you make it so someone can apply for one while inside the US, great. Otherwise nobody's going to do it. Allow it, and it's an incentive for the whole family to return to the home country afterward, because they now have someone capable of supporting them.

Nah... Even when it comes to alcohol, there's always a market for small vineyards and microbrews. There are always people willing to pay for quality, which would allow those mom-and-pop pot farmers to charge a premium, and let the Coors Lite chugging stoners buy the cheap stuff.

Actually, studies indicate this isn't the case. We're better off providing educational support in the primary language so the student doesn't fall too far behind academically, while also providing tools to learn English. What they should NOT be is isolated in "ESL" classes where they are kept from English speakers. When it comes to withholding support in an effort to force someone to learn a language, you have to be very careful that it doesn't negatively impact a student's academic progression while they learn. For example, if I gave you a chemistry test written in Swedish, you may be a PhD chemist, but if you don't know Swedish, you're still gonna fail the test. There's a phenomenal school here in Los Angeles called Edison Academy. Charter school providing true bilingual education in English/Spanish. Half the kids are native English speakers, while the other half speak Spanish at home. By sixth grade, 100% of the student body is 100% bi-lingual. The English speakers now know Spanish, and the Spanish speakers are fluent in English. And academic test scores are very high.

Sure... Nutrition is important, and we have more options. Just downstairs, I have to choose between Chinese food, Greek food, Mexican food, Japanese food, Italian food, Lebanese food, and Irish food (hey, Guinness has vitamins!). Multiculturalism is good! And tasty!

There have been a bunch of studies on language acquisition in the US. What usually happens is that the first generation learns enough to get by. Shopping, basic conversation, stuff like that. They're not going to write a novel in English, and they're probably going to be more comfortable around others who speak their primary language. The second generation is bi-lingual, because they learn English from their playmates, but they serve as translators for their parents. The third generation can't have a meaningful conversation with their grandparents.

As there are a lot of documents required for college that aren't required for high school, they probably will be stuck at the international rate, which is just fine with me. Even private student loan companies usually require you to fill out a FAFSA form, if only to show that you aren't getting anything from the government, and for a FAFSA to go through, everything has to match, and the banks can reach the feds through the computers. You can't just flash a forged document and walk in the door like you can at an elementary school. And frankly, with the mess this state is in, I've got more important things to worry about than some kids that were dragged here by their parents and didn't have any choice in the matter. I'm not going to begrudge anybody an education if they want it and have a way to pay for it.

You know, when we can actually define a dominant society here, maybe people might want to think about integration.

They are "ILLEGAL".... Yeah... that makes them non residents. I don't care if they want to go to school, I just don't want them doing it on my dime. If they wanna pay the full cost of tuition, doesn't bother me, and perhaps when they return home they can help raise the standard of living there so we won't have so many here.

Jennifer Petkov was arrested on an unrelated incident for assault. She tried to run another neighbor over with her car. And Scott Petkov was fired. http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/woman-who-taunted-kathleen-edward-is-arrested_jennifer_petkov_20100915_dk

As long as they're paying non-resident tuition...

I'm voting yes. My prediction: The mists are clearing from Nightingale's crystal ball.... I see..... The same thing will happen that happened when we legalized medical marijuana. The feds will shriek and howl, people will make dire predictions about how the state will go to hell in a handbasket. The feds will demand California enforce federal law. California will say "It's your law. YOU enforce it." The feds will try, probably busting a few distribution locations. Then, they'll realize it's prohibitively expensive and adopt an unofficial policy of "we can't see you!", which will eventually become an official policy. And people will look around and find that there are no lakes of fire or handbaskets in sight. And then another state will legalize. And another. And eventually the federal government will want a piece of the pie too, so it will be removed from the banned list and there will be an import tax. Everyone will be, if not happy, accepting of the situation, and the world isn't going to end.

People are still dying from it. Modern medications are better, but they're far from perfect and they don't work for everyone. There are also highly aggressive strains of HIV. We have HIV treatments, not cures.

I really wish I could say the same. I wish I didn't have to hear the filth that Christians were screaming at me and those I was with yesterday at the AIDS Walk. They were shouting terrible things at us, cursing at us in the name of Jesus. We Walk to help those that are victims of an awful disease. I don't care if they got it from sex or what kind. I don't care if they got it from a needle, whether they were a drug user or a hospital nurse, or whether they were a child that got it from their mother. I don't care if they're gay or straight, male, female, adult, child, black, white, purple or green. We walk to raise money because people are sick and need help. Seems like the Christian thing to do.

Thank you, Ron!

Can't get it to load on the blackberry.

Thanks! That is a relief. I will not steal her signs... I will not steal her signs... I will not steal her signs... until five seconds after the polls close. Then I'm just helping take them down, right?

Can someone tell me why my street and a good chunk of my neighborhood is plastered with these signs? The website on the sign won't load on my blackberry and the stupid internet is down. It appears that either there is a third party candidate that has great taste in names, or one of my friends is very creative and has WAY too much time on their hands. I am very much hoping it is the former, as the latter would be just scary and wrong.