But, that's not fair!  You didn't include any money for free cell phones.  Isn't that a right?  How will "poor" Americans order pizza during their big screen-satellite fed-HD Super Bowl if they don't have free cell phones?  You racist.

Bourbon.

Regarding the bullet in the drawing attached to the post: I think his load is a bit light.

I was eight.  Dusk was falling on New Year's Eve.  In 1969 there were no family friendly New Year's festivities.  I was despondent. It was too cold to play outside, to early to settle in.  TV barely existed, video games not even imagined.  All the Christmas chocolate was gone. Woe is me.

I am a middle school teacher, which makes me something of an expert on the subject. This is a topic that I have considered at some length.  Shame is extinct.  To feel shame is an antiquated idea. To cause it, or suggest another should feel it, is a hate crime. Anything a student does that would have once been shameful, is now the fault of society. If the student gets pregnant at 13, it is society's fault for making her feel worthless and seek solace in sex. If the student curses his teacher in class it is the teachers fault for not building a deep relationship with the misguided child. The student who refuses to do any work is merely a victim.  The teacher should have created a special lesson to engage that child specifically.  The student who threatens violence against his teacher has surely been mistreated at home.  You see, shame is tied to personal accountability.  To be a shamed, one must be responsible for their actions. I used to be proud to say that I am a public school teacher.  Now I mumble the fact with, well, shame.

I recently spent a rainy Sunday with my 19 year-old daughter and we watched Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katherine Hepburn).  She loved it-said she was going to make her girlfriends at school watch it.  There may be hope for our future after all.

Often they are looking for specific demographics that might need some attention.  The internal polls sometimes will ask the same questions as the others, but tweak the pool to mimic a certain demographic or area of the country.  Then they look for differences.  

I will be moving to Denver on Aug. 16.  Count me in!  (Thanks Del Mar Dave for pointing me to Ricochet.)

I will always love "Diamonds are Forever".  Connery (then too old) returned for one more stint after the agony of a sissy bond played by George Lazenby.  OK, it isn't the best Bond film by a long stretch, but who can forget Plenty O'Toole!

I cannot believe that more than an ignorant few believe that the TSA is "for our own good or security".  It is kabuki.  It is designed to add union employed minions (ie  Democrat voters) to the government payroll.  We have two avenues of recourse: the courts and the voting booth.  Nobody is going to sue for their 4th amendment rights under this administration.  The only outcome would be to add another layer of blasphemous Supreme Court constitutional precedent.  That leaves the polls.  I also have concerns there.  We elect so-called conservatives to represent us, but what happens?  Can anyone name a significant program or department that has been cut in the last 25 years?  The day the TSA is abolished, the DNC will hire Taliban bombers to board airplanes so they can say "I told you so".

King Prawn is on the mark.  Not only was self defense against crime not the founders' whole purpose in the 2nd amendment, it was not the purpose at all.  It is well past time to remind Harry Reid and all like him that my right to bear arms is for protection from him.  When a fresh faced smiling Obamatron comes to your door to check your electricity use, or the amount of fatty food in your fridge, or to sort through your recycling bin in search of Big Gulp cups, it will be too late.

I think that the tipping point is the scale of Obamacare.  Certainly, the TSA is an outright infringement of our 4th amendment rights.  I cannot imagine how it would stand the scrutiny of any court.  (At least I used to think that!)  The problem is that most Americans don't fly often, if at all.  The people who fly rely upon air travel to do business.  They cannot afford to be detained by some government rent-a-cop who possess the power of a dictator.  On the other hand, Obamacare will hit us all: every age, every socioeconomic strata, every philosophy.  It is much easier to approve of a burden that someone else will bear.  It gets a lot heavier when it's on your own shoulders.

This is always where the spotlight shines.  Where did the nut get the guns?   I don't care where or how!  Each year tens of thousands die in car crashes.  Nobody says, "Where did the drunk buy his car?"  This was a tragedy and a crime...period.  We cannot get bogged down in ways to limit our liberty to try to stop unhinged nuts.  It cannot be done.  There are no more nuts now than ever.  We just have cable news and youtube.  This instant media coverage makes us feel like the problem is everywhere.  It is not.  I don't wish to sound harsh, but in a nation of 330 million, this incident is statistically insignificant.  Do we really think that this guy would not have killed if he didn't have guns.  He would have used a knife, or a rock.  He's a nut.

I am an 8th grade science teacher, and I agree with much of what is being said here.  One aspect that you do not consider is that you are (probably) all educated people.  My students' parents are not.  Many have no computers, no parental guidance, and come to me reading 3 to 5 grade levels behind.  So, I teach them how to think.  I would agree with no tenure (yes, I have tenure) if a few changes were made.  We need to throw out the vast majority of educational bureaucracy and divert that money back to the classroom.  Pay the good teachers what we are worth, and kick the bad to the curb.  I do not think that the internet is the big solution.  It is a marvelous tool, but only a tool.  This one-room school house to which some keep referring usually had one book: the Bible.  I don't need computers to teach.  I need the State to get off my back.

I recently attended a financial presentation at UBS in which the speaker was all about our bright energy future.  He believed the real boom is and will continue to be natural gas, not oil.  Natural gas is the key to cheap electricity and cheap electricity is the key to the resurgence of manufacturing.  Unfortunately, I fear that both the energy boom and manufacturing may push revitalization of the unions.

If the Olympics are not a time to display national pride, what is?  How can we go out and kick everyone's butts if we look like Disney tour guides?