ZimZam

Wish they had Aussie Rules Football here. No tights, no helmets or pads. Smear the queer. A few punters in the NFL have come from there. They aren't like a typical P in the NFL, they'll get in there and lay out the return man. The Celtic game of hurling is fun to watch too. ...

Six more weeks. Pitchers and catchers report. Was Hernandez the only highlight of the M's season?

Thanks gents. Much appreciated. For Pete.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor sure doesn't mind handing out handsome government raises of his own.Cantor, the Virginia Republican who has led the GOP charge this year to freeze federal salaries, has boosted his congressional office's payroll by 81 percent since coming to Congress in 2001 - about 8 percent per year through 2009. When he became minority whip last year, the office's personnel expenses went up by at least 16 percent. Cantor and other GOP leaders are now pledging to cut their budgets by 5 percent when they take over the House in January - a symbolic gesture aimed at showing a commitment to slowing Washington spending. But the lawmakers suddenly calling for wage cuts often haven't practiced what they're preaching. Overall, congressional payroll expenses have climbed much faster than the civilian federal work force costs that lawmakers are now clamoring to freeze. Many of the most vocal federal critics have overseen growth that rivals or outstrips the executive branch's, according to data from Legistorm, a website that tracks congressional salaries. For example: - Firebrand Republican Michele Bachmann of Minnesota has for months pushed legislation to freeze what she calls "unconscionable" federal salaries. Meanwhile, her own payroll jumped 16 percent between 2007, when she came to Congress, and 2009. - Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Republican set to chair the House subcommittee overseeing the federal work force, says Washington must "figure out how to do more with less." But the freshman lawmaker gave his own employees an average raise of about 9 percent this year. - Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who has long criticized federal pay, has overseen an average jump of 8 percent per year in his office employee costs between 2006, his first full year in the Senate, and 2009.

DADT was a compromise - a backlash to Clinton's first salvo in office - to allow gays to serve unrestricted, which met with such fierce REPUBLICAN backlash that DADT, a compromise, was struck Clinton's compromise (DADT) was so strongly opposed by the rank and file military, that some left the service rather than serve with fairies.

What's the big deal Johnny? I served with numerous "alternative lifestyle" folks. They were just as effective as the straight Marines. No one gives a damn about sexual orientation when the shit hits the fan. Sweetie was one of the most savage warriors on the planet. McCain's rantings lend one to believe he has repressed tendencies.

If it gets three votes it goes on the list. Start your campaign. i second or third it. i vote that krakhead goes to the dumpster,

I just found out that my cousin's son came home (his third tour) and shot his self. He was twenty three. When I was young, I was naive enough to think that killing dinks was for a good cause. I was wrong. When I came home I was naive enough to believe that we would never again be drawn into a worthless conflict. I understand realpolitik, just remind me again what we're doing there, and like the song says, "What so civil about war? RIP Lil Pete. [video:youtube]

X2. Great read written by a pretty humble man. Krakauer's a krakhead.

I found a pair of Asolo's in the yard sale forum for $30. Just keep an eye out. Thanks again Max!

Enjoy it while you have it Peter. Halliday, Lee, Hamel, and Oswalt.

VW Vanagon Syncro. Google syncrodemayo. I can go most anywhere. The Unimog is badass.

since they came in at #2. the sleeping tiger awakes. this is the most significant one of the pack. The rise of China as an economic and political juggernaut has become a familiar refrain, but now there's another area in which the Chinese are suddenly emerging as a world power: education. In the latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) comparative survey of the academic performance of 15-year-olds around the world — an authoritative study released every three years — Chinese teenagers from Shanghai far outscored their international peers in all three subject matters that were tested last year: reading, math and science. In reading, the main focus of the PISA survey, more than 19% of the Shanghai students attained the top two grades, almost double the proportion in the U.S. and nearly three times the average of major developed countries. At the bottom end, just over 4% of the Shanghai students failed to make the grade that is considered the baseline for reading literacy. Elsewhere, on average, four times as many students struggled below that level. This is the first time that China has participated in the PISA tests, and the results are especially stunning because they are so unexpected; only a generation ago, the Chinese school system was ravaged by the Cultural Revolution. But as the tests showed, education in China has been spectacularly rebuilt as a modern, high-performance and egalitarian system, at least in some cities. Even Finland and Korea, the two countries that in recent years have been at the pinnacle of international education, were left in the dust with average scores that were considerably behind those of the Shanghai teenagers. And the stunning performance was confirmed by the results of Chinese students in Hong Kong, who came second in math and science and ranked fourth in reading. Some nations that have put in place school reforms in the past decade, including Germany and Poland, did show improvement in the survey. But the U.S. and France, among others, had at best mediocre results that were lower than their reading scores in 2000, the first year of the PISA survey. Conducted by the Paris-based Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the PISA study tested teenagers in 34 OECD nationals and 31 others in 2009. Even without the startling Chinese scores, the latest findings upend some traditional notions about education and should give pause for thought to policy makers everywhere. One surprise is the suggestion that there's little difference in the performance of students from private schools and those from public schools, once socioeconomic differences have been factored out. Another is that paying teachers well is a more effective tool for improving school performance than small class sizes. The survey also raises doubts about the overall effectiveness of aggressive competition between schools. It found that this could trap the most disadvantaged students in the least successful schools, thereby exacerbating social inequality and negatively impacting a nation's overall performance. When it comes to reading skills, rather more predictably, the survey confirmed that girls almost everywhere read significantly better than boys, unlike in math and science, where the tendency is reversed. It also demonstrated conclusively that adolescents who enjoy reading and curl up with a novel for 30 minutes a day score better than those who don't, or who only read comic books. But the big revelation was the spectacular performance of Asian nations, especially those adolescents from China whose reading comprehension was tested. Four of the top five reading performers in the survey are Asian, with Singapore and Korea joining Shanghai and Hong Kong at the head of the class. Among non-Asian countries, only Finland kept up at the very top, although Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the Netherlands were not far behind. Japan also ranked in the top 10. In mathematics, the Chinese results were just as spectacular as in reading: more than one in four of the Shanghai 15-year-olds showed themselves able to conceptualize, generalize and creatively use information, including modelling complex problems, compared with just 3% of students in the OECD area. (Comment on this story.) Two Chinese cities, of course, don't constitute the academic performance of an entire nation of more than one billion people. But in a policy-implications brief for Arne Duncan, the U.S. Education Secretary, the OECD tried to explain why Shanghai and Hong Kong had such high-performing schools. Among the lessons to be learned was that authorities in both cities abandoned their focus on educating a small elite, and instead worked to construct a more inclusive system. They also significantly increased teacher pay and training, reducing the emphasis on rote learning and focusing classroom activities on problem solving. In Shanghai, now a pioneer of educational reform, "there has been a sea-change in pedagogy," the OECD said. It pointed out that one new slogan used in classrooms today is: "To every question there should be more than a single answer." "The stunning success of Shanghai-China, which tops every league table in this assessment by a clear margin, shows what can be achieved with moderate economic resources and in a diverse social context," said OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria in the report. The big question now is whether the Shanghai and Hong Kong results can be repeated across China as it emerges as a superpower.

Did expect any less? Fuck the rich, then eat them. They taste like shit though. But hell, if you're unemployed and the family is hungry.

and the rich get...eat the rich. http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/11/congressional-members-personal-weal.html

Further cement http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101118/ap_on_re_eu/nobel_peace_prize

In short, we spent two trillion dollars to aid and abet Iran and China's interests in the region in ways they themselves could only have dreamed of. Invading Iraq was the very definition of insanity in terms of attempting to use that action to restore and reassert America's superpower status. I can't agree more. Saddam was contained. The real war was two doors to the east, and the gov't. abandoned it, and now it's way out of hand. Not that Glenbeckistan was winnable either. Hope y'all like wonton soup, cause your children will be slurping down that instead of Obama's kool-aid. Re-read the list JH posted up. Al-Qaeda not withstanding, China is the country that is on the verge of fucking shit up. xie xie nie.

Happy Birthday man! Get ripped!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and the winner is, "America's best days are in front of her." ...

and then hopefully you and your avatar can be the new hood ornament for Mack.

Although they shoot off at the mouth about the yuan. They're far more interested in their corporate pimps interests to do anything about it. They and their pimps are primarily concerned with the bazillion consumers in China, and to actually thinks that the PRC will kowtow to US pressure is fantasy. As long as the consumer nation continues to buy the products, the Chinese will continue to take a dump in the US market. Xie Xie.

Bag up your leaves and dump them in front of the councilmen's home.

i'd rather just see them burst into flames. It would be fun for the rest of us.