C.U.,

It's true. Dice do hate you. A nice set of old worn down polyhedrons snuck into my house last night. They informed me that they had escaped your Crown Royal bag and were demanding asylum. I asked why and they told me a horror story of a die being frozen and then shattered with a hammer. It wasn't clear whether this had actually been done, or if you had been reading the excellent book BONES by GameWrightPress.

Regardless, I welcomed them to my home and informed them that if they didn't perform up to snuff they would be melted down and reforged as Pig Farmer minis. They have been behaving so far.

Let's see...I found my father's underground comic books by the time I was 5 (likely earlier but the fog of youth prevents an exact date) which prominently featured acts that are banned by CoC, by the time I was 10 I had found copies of my father's hard core independent pornographic magazines, by 13 I had read cover to cover Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask (I checked it out at the library). Oh, and my parents walked around the house naked and weren't particularly silent about their night time activities.

At 26 I married the love of my life and we have been married for 16 years. Not once has my heart or body wandered. I don't expect our relations to mirror those of the porn I saw as a child or watched in the fraternity.

I find that most fear of children encountering sexual activity to be overblown. What matters is how we talk with our children about sexual activity when they discover it.

It has been my experience that teachers in CA teach -- as much as they ever do anyway -- only up to the point when the students take their standardized tests.  The remaining 4 to 6 weeks of the school year are made up of having students watch LAW and ORDER to see how our criminal justice system works, watching GLADIATOR to learn about ancient Rome (wait that was in the fall and in an AP Humanities class), filling up the time with visitors from volunteer programs like JA, field trips, and complaining that they hadn't had enough time to teach all the Standards and Content before testing...not that they would use the remaining time to teach what they missed or coordinate with the next grade level to jump start the students.

"Above all, we note the fact that the so-called rights of man, the droits de l’homme as distinct from the droits du citoyen, are nothing but the rights of a member of civil society – i.e., the rights of egoistic man, of man separated from other men and from the community."

"Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract citizen, and as an individual human being has become a species-being in his everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular situation, only when man has recognized and organized his “own powers” as social powers, and, consequently, no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of political power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished."
-- Karl Marx, On The Jewish Question

He wants to "Go full BULLWORTH?"

Mr. Obama [has a] desire to be liberated from what he sees as the hindrances on him?

Who is putting these limitations on him?  He's the President of the United States.  He has the Bully Pulpit for goodness sake!  If the President can't say "what he really believes," then why is he even President?

It is a disservice to the American people for the President to be disingenuous in anything he says.  He has a responsibility to go full BULLWORTH.  Not in the way that the character advanced "socialism," though that is largely what the character did, rather to say what he really thinks about the issues he faces and wants us to face.

I think it would have been better if Kevin had interjected himself into the conversation the woman was having.  He should have started giving his opinion regarding her statements and shared with the friend on the other side of the line his insights.

Uncle Buck -- When he slams his niece's "boyfriend" into the trunk of his car.

The various Studies programs have at their root the scholarship of the Frankfurt school academics.  They all essentially teach the same subject, but each gets a different department to advance the underlying socialist critique.

It's the equivalent of having a Political Science Department, an American Political Science Department, a Politics of California Department, a Voting in America Department, a Presidential Studies Department, and a Congress in America Department.  It is patently absurd that each of these "studies" areas gets its own department, not to mention that the Frankfurt school is a part of Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, the Film School, and English.
I'm fine with having the Frankfurt School taught in the various departments.  I'm fine with a single studies program with various foci.  I'm opposed to allowing a single discipline completely overwhelming the academy.

We are going to Disneyland on Mothers' Day.  We have gone to the Huntington Library, the Disney Concert Hall, the LA Zoo and other fun locations on past celebrations.

For us Mothers' Day is exactly a day to go out and spend fun time with the kids. 

Christiaan Füssen

Our new goal at Ricochet is to create a new Errol Flynn movie.  We will obviously need EJ Hill's expertise and an inciting incident that allows for medieval duels and wild west action.

If one were to amend the statement and replace "Monarch" with "Virtuous Men," I think the statement would be universally true.

The modern propensity for making the vicious virtuous and the virtuous vicious is one of the great crimes of the age.  When the "cast" of TEEN MOM 2 are viewed as celebrities, rather than case studies of the consequences of vice, that says a good deal about the souls of the polity.

I'm not typically one to decry moral decay.  I love violent films, fart jokes, and raucous music, but I have always viewed them through the lens of base entertainment and not things to be emulated.

One can honor God, one's Grandparents, Scholars, and Courage without need of a monarch or the honoring of one, but one must be taught the value of virtue to do so.

The portrait I use is a photograph of Leo Strauss and the name Nathaniel Wright is a reference to his work "Natural Right and History."

From the FDA's announcement:

"Plan B One-Step will be packaged with a product code prompting a cashier to request and verify the customer’s age. A customer who cannot provide age verification will not be able to purchase the product. In addition, Teva has arranged to have a security tag placed on all product cartons to prevent theft.
In addition, Teva will make the product available in retail outlets with an onsite pharmacy, where it generally, will be available in the family planning or female health aisles. The product will be available for sale during the retailer’s normal operating hours whether the pharmacy is open or not."

I'm not personally upset about the availability of Plan B to 15 year olds, but I am in favor of accurate information. If the FDA's press release is inaccurate, then please find the regulation that corrects it.

Saying "don't trust news coverage" is not the same as answering "where you heard that x is true." It is a side step.

I agree that it is the parent's role to teach morality and that SoCons too often favor statist solutions.

Mr. Bildo...

As much as I love Twilight Imperium, and I LOVE Twilight Imperium, may I recommend Eclipse as a starter 4x?  Maybe the old school Stellar Conquest.

Twilight Imperium takes a good deal of time to set up and quite a long time to play.  It is a robust and unique gaming experience, but if you have less than 12 hours there are other options.

As for Valiuth and his D&D... if he lives in SoCal, my group is recruiting.

Without Magic: The Gathering, there would be no LOTR Dice Building game, but duly noted.

If you log onto DEFIANCE anytime soon, let me know.