The best advice I have ever received is to not lick the person you are talking with.  Their reaction is just too much of a wild card.

Claire,

We are covering Social Stratification, Racism, Genocide, Discrimination, and there causes/cures as it relates to an introductory sociology class.

This is an American school catering to mostly Bahraini's.  Their knowledge and language skills are all over.  My students are 11th and 12th grade, though their reading level is mixed between 8th grade to post graduate.  I have students in the same class who are hard core Sunni Royalists and Shi'a revolutionaries and everything in between.  Their Israel sympathies range from a very strong detest for anti-jew propoganda, to the Israelis are to blame for everything, to the Illuminati control the world and helped the US government stage 9/11.  They know that human trafficing is a big problem in Bahrain (I told them), though their attitudes about the mistreatment of maids mix between "that's awful" to "those filipinos deserve what ever treatment they get."  

On the bright side, my students think very highly of me and I have their trust.  I think I have more room to wiggle than some teachers working in this part of the world.  It's a large target, I know.  Do you have a shotgun?     

Oh, I consider it.  I get a daily reminder just by waking up in this country.  Unfortunately, that topic is as off limits as a discussion about antisemitism.

Ha!  Good point!  Like I said.  Not easy.  Its been 2 weeks though, only a few slips.

Would it be a bad idea or anti-conservative to suggest that the State include a financial incentive to do an ultrasound before the abortion?

More informed minds than mine, please help:
If Obama had decided to give some kind of aid to the Green Revolution three years ago, and the results became that of Egypt et al.; would we now be dealing with a different strain of Islamism running Iran or would it have been a more peaceful governing leadership?

Rob, 

I'm voting that you're being a squish.  It's his computer, let him pump holes in it.  
Moreover, for those who wonder how he let his family get to this point.  There might be something to it, but really, some kids are going to disrespect their parents no matter what is done.  I remember my own father throwing my sisters bed out on the lawn when she tried to steal from him.  Completely justified I say.   

I would like to concur with the general sentiments being put out here.  As a resident of Bahrain, I can also say that the average Jack, Zainab, and Ahmed is not talking about Iran.  

Granted, since Bahrain is strategically important as the home of the US Navy in The Gulf the thought is at least in the back of my mind that my home is a target.  Iran, for all it's real danger, is perceived by many here as a revolutionary conspiracy created by the government as a justification for harsh reprisals against Shi'a protesters.  

Wonderful analogy.  I think I will use it with my friends of the left, especially the ones who still think Obama plans well.  At best, he's reckless.

47 - Teacher at an international private school, though I have worked a factory and a farm job.  Parents were a stay at home mom and an avionics engineer.  I have always lived in a city over 50,000. 

I need to strongly recommend the book "Hitler Youth" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.  The book is at a high middle school to high school reading level but it is so rich in detail and facts.  No other book has more clearly or simply captured the disaster of statist, fascist Germany and its cult of youth.  

Last year, this was the perfect book for my 8th grade US History students that never happened.  I say it never happened because I teach in a country that bans discussion of Jews or Israel in the classroom (Bahrain).

Good point Claire, this decision is fundamentally undemocratic.  It should not be uncommon knowledge that much of our troop strength is merely being adjusted to another area of the same region.

Should we as conservatives be happy though that the President isn't completely removing our military power from The Gulf?  Certainly it is what his base really wants.

In a different direction, I've always wondered what political Europe would look like if we had pulled most of our troops out after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Would they have been financially able to engage in every state project or welfare program enacted today?  

In the same way I wonder what the GCC states will be able to attempt because they will not need to fund as much of their own military presence in the region?

L-U, L-U, L-U-T-H, T-H, T-H, T-H-E-R...