Nightingale

Bad idea. If I was a soldier in a war, I would want someone who's supposed to be watching my back to have the commitment, drive, and belief of someone who has agreed to be there.

I don't think the republicans or the democrats are fiscally responsible.

It affected me. It was a colossal pain in the ass. The mess got straightened out several months later, and it took a congressional inquiry to do it. What happened (pasted from something I wrote at the time): I discovered, when attempting to E-file my taxes, that the social security people had my birthday wrong. They thought it was the 2nd, and its the 1st. a simple typo from when the card was issued. I can guarantee that my mom wrote the right birthdate on the application. She's my mom. I think she knows what my birthday is. So, I go down to the SSA with the following: my birth certificate my passport my drivers' license my social security card my LA Fire Department ID even my freakin' library card. Every single little piece of info I can think of to verify my identity. the lady at the counter says, that while she believes me, the "security measures we're required to implement by the patriot act" require that they get the ORIGINAL microfiche of my birth certificate from LA County to verify my date of birth. The problem here is: I was adopted. The copy of my birth certificate that I have is altered. The original records are sealed. SSA does not want to accept an altered version. They'll probably have to get a freakin' court order to open them, which, in the case of ANY adoption information, is a royal PITA and usually denied. So... I'm grumbling about the mess, but figured it wouldn't be that big a deal, since, other than not being able to e-file my taxes, the issue hasn't caused me any trouble thus far. HOWEVER... the lady then looks at my drivers' license and says "oh... we might have a problem here." She tells me that now, the DMV is required to verify personal information with the SSA before issuing or renewing a drivers' license. My license expires in December. They're claiming it will take them at least six months or so to work through this mess to unravel the birth certificate issue, so, I will probably not be able to renew my drivers' license when it expires. and suddenly the department of education can't seem to allow me to access my financial aid file due to "information does not match." So, basically: Because of the patriot act and some moron's typo, come December, I won't be allowed to legally drive a car. As of now, I have no idea how I'm going to pay my school tuition, since I can't access my government financial aid records. someone please tell me how this is protecting America? (and no cracks about my driving. I have a perfect driving record from day 1, thanks much.)

Well, when I was a kid and picked up a swear word (don't remember which one), my mother sat me down and we had a talk about it. She said that there is a time and a place for curse words, and the point of using a curse word is to make an impact, and that curse words, when used too often, lose their impact. We'd just watched gone with the wind, and she pointed out that if Rhett had been cursing all through the movie, his parting shot of "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." wouldn't have had nearly the impact. She talked to me about using insults to hurt people, and said that when you insult someone, you put them on the defensive, which makes it a lot less likely that you'll get what you want. I was then threatened with having to copy a page from the dictionary to improve my vocabulary if she ever heard that word again, since she would assume that if I did it again, it was for lack of knowing a better word.

Do you have other numbers? Like I said, all I've got is a class handout with a NIC stamp on it from 2003. I'm sure costs have probably risen since then. However, my chart was what the state spends on the trial, not the entire cost of the trial on both sides, as the cost of the defense (provided it's a private lawyer) isn't one that is paid by the taxpayers.

Personally, I don't care whether recruiters are on campus or not. I do care when they bother me, as they're wasting my time and theirs. There's nothing wrong with them having an office or a table or whatever, or putting up posters. Contacting students personally, by telephone, email, or in person is inappropriate when the student has expressed no interest whatsoever. I'd be just as pissed off if it were McDonalds or the fire department recruiting in this manner. I don't care about the job itself, but high pressure recruiting tactics that invade privacy are never appropriate, by anyone. A military recruiter got every student's email address at my school and spammed each one of us about joining the army. A few of the undergrad students started a bit of a movement, and many of the students (more upset about the fact that they were being spammed, especially being spammed by the government, rather than the subject matter) replied with two words and two words only: "Fuck off." I didn't hear about this until after the fact, when, a few days later, the recruiter sent out a rather apologetic email and stated that all students that had replied with "please remove me from your list" or an otherwise "negative response" would be immediately removed from his list and he was very sorry for the inconvenience. We never heard from him again.

Given the way you've described your assignment, the opinions of people of today don't seem as relevant to it as the opinions of people living at the time. If I were writing a paper on this topic, the first place I'd go would be to newspaper editorial pages from the time in question. You'll get a lot of fairly well constructed opinions on both sides of each issue, which should give you a starting point to compare and contrast them. Your school reference librarian should be able to help you out. Of course, there's always google and wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment That should give you a start.

I don't care. Let them vote for whoever the hell they want to vote for. Doesn't affect me one bit.

From what Stan (the rancher) was saying, it doesn't work well at all, because they're only reimbursed for confirmed wolf kills, and often, wolves eat so much of the animal that they have trouble determining for sure what killed it. He'd had some cattle killed too, but the only thing they could confirm was the bison (I'm guessing because bison tend to be a lot bigger, so there was more left).

A portion were released because DNA evidence excluded them. Others were released because evidence other than DNA indicated they were innocent. Others were released because a jury couldn't convict them based on available evidence. If someone can't be convicted of a crime because a jury believes there's "reasonable doubt", the state has no business executing them. If we're not 100% positive that they DID commit a crime, execution cannot be a reasonable option. Killing an innocent person is murder. I don't know about you, but I don't want their blood on my hands, and, as we live in a government that is "by the people", we are all some way responsible for the actions of our government.

I've never looked up statistics. What I do know is that I was working on a dinosaur dig on a ranch in Wyoming, and while we were there, the rancher lost four bison to wolves (verified wolf kills). According to wolftrust.org: Table 1. Verified Wolf Depredation in the USA State Years Wolves per state Cattle killed Sheep killed Dogs killed Fowl killed Arizona - New Mexico 1998 22 0 0 1 0 Idaho 1995-2001 261 56 170 10 0 Michigan 1991-1998 245 4 0 1 0 Minnesota 1979-2001 2500 1200 879 173 1251 Montana 1987-2001 84 91 68 10 0 Wisconsin 1976-1998 250 45 11 27 142 Wyoming 1995-2001 218 41 256 23 0 WolfTrust admits that the actual number may be up to six times higher, since the above are only verified wolf kills, and sometimes if a carcass is eaten or decomposed, verification isn't possible.

I love the wolves. I sat in yellowstone every night for two weeks just listening to them howl. I had one look me right in the eye when I watched him through a spotting scope, as if he knew I was watching. They're incredible. That said, I see both sides of the debate. They kill a lot of livestock and cost ranchers a lot of money. I hate the idea of wolves being killed by ranchers, but I do understand how they feel.

Because, as we discovered in Brown v. Board of Education, separate but equal isn't equal. Giving it a different name allows companies to discriminate and offer benefits for marriage and not civil unions if they want to. It allows people to say "this is ok for marriages but not civil unions" or vice versa.

It took me a minute of looking at it before I figured out what it was. The jumpers kinda blend into the background.

Did you see the chart I posted? The average trial is SO much more expensive on average. Just the trial, not the appeals.

People have been known to confess when they're not guilty, either to protect someone else, or because they take a plea rather than risk the death sentence with a jury.

Sigh. Personally, I'd like to see them bring in some water management consultants from the Netherlands before they do anything else. If anyone can figure out the right way to rebuild the levees, or figure out that it can't or shouldn't be done, the Netherlands is the place to find an expert.

BEER!

I quit my job a year and a half ago.

Yes. I'd describe my boss that way, though. my co-workers were great.

My dad sent me this: Sometimes nature is cruel but there is also a beauty in that cruelty. The crocodile as one of the ultimate predators can fall victim to the kind of implemented 'team work' strategy which is possible due to the pack mentality and social structure of canines. See the attached and remarkable photograph courtesy of Nature Magazine - but not if you're squeamish!

I've got the new 60g video ipod. I love it. I've got about 7000 songs on it now, and I still have room for whatever photos I feel like storing, and I can download an episode of a tv show (usually CSI in my case, but there's a lot of options) to watch at lunchtime.

Well, a big part of the cost is that death penalty trials have two phases, the guilt phase and the penalty phase. The courts do this for a good reason: They don't want juries deciding guilt or innocence based on whether or not the defendant is going to be executed. The separation allows juries to decide first whether the defendant is guilty or not, and then to decide separately whether the defendant should receive life without parole or the death penalty. During the penalty phase, both sides can present witnesses who will testify about the seriousness of the crime and any mitigating factors, such as the defendant's life experiences and lack of a prior criminal history.

State costs, I believe. The study was looking at what the death penalty cost the taxpayers.

I scanned the chart I'm looking at. See attached. It's a bit fuzzy, but you should be able to read it. It's from a study that was handed out in a class, and dated 2003. the stamp on the bottom of the page says it's from the National Institute of Corrections.