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So I talked to a Ukranian guy today, and he was pretty much under the impression that it was Georgia's fault. They pre-emptively moved troops into Ossetia even though there were Russian-Georgian agreements made in the Kremlin against such actions. Something like that.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LEO AND TIM HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LEO AND TI HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LEO AND T HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LEO AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LEO AN HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LEO A HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LEO HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LE HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO L HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HAPPY BIRTHDAY T HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDA HAPPY BIRTHD HAPPY BIRTH HAPPY BIRT HAPPY BIR HAPPY BI HAPPY B HAPPY HAPP HAP HA H

In my junior year of high school, I took AP US history, which was the most rigorous class that my school offered by far. The teacher, Doug Johnson (Dougie, Doug, D-dog, Big D, or Dougie J for short), introduced himself as kind of this funny fat man whose ringtone was "Margaritaville." As time passed on, the workload became increasingly difficult and his grading was so hard-assed that only 1 person managed to get an A the entire semester. Everyone kind of hated him. Then he threw us a big party after the AP test and we were best bros again.

Kind of just the mentality of Berkeley. Everyone's 100% sure that the government is a big man-penis meant to keep minorities in the south and women in the kitchen and our boys at war, etc. It's kind of a lot of bullshit. Also, my men's & women's psychology class. It's so ridiculously biased. Every class there are at least 10 examples that the professor uses to convey the message that all social scientists and psychologist are men that just want to be on top of the hierarchy no matter what.

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Drinking with or without the community doesn't matter. If you have a whole community drinking and getting into car crashes, then you're still drinking and crashing with the community. I don't really see the connection between drinking with a community and causing less harm to yourself and the people around you. There is totally a legitimate reason to assume that allowing kids to drink would increase in drinking. That's just how it works! I can't really break it down more simply that than. It will happen. If it's legal, people will do it because the stigma of having it be illegal in the first place has been removed. Quid pro quo. Sure, a person should have a right to control their own body, but drugs are illegal for a reason, and I don't even think you can disagree with me on this one. They're dangerous to a lot of people, period. Parents feel a very strong responsibility for their children and keeping them safe. There's no good way to approach the subject. Parents don't want their kids to drink, but some know that their kids do, and what are you supposed to say to that? It's just a dangerous thing to put in a kid's hand. I know from experience. Sorry, but the irrationality is from you, saying that everything should be completely legal. That's a fringe opinion, and just leaving things up to people typically doesn't lead to the most optimal destination. And the burden of proof is on you. If you present arguments, you should back them up. "Harm reduction and education" is also pretty ineffective. Most of us have been to DARE, we know what it does and doesn't do for us. Kids want to be social drunks, that's just what it is. I'm 17. I've been to all the high school parties, that's just what it's all about. There's a lot of information about why the age limit is 21 at MADD and why21.org.

None.

Present some data on that and I'll believe it. The burden of proof is on you, dude. Because there's no way I can wrap my mind around that. You can rhetorically and hypothetically back that up to hell's end, but that doesn't make it any more true in real life.

There was a rift in the republican party? McCain won pretty much by a landslide. He didn't have to deal with an opponent with rather feverish supporters until he clinched. The only divide in the Democratic party are those fringe Clintonistas that are viciously opposed to Obama and the Democratic party for expediting the inevitable. I want Obama to win, but I do agree with McCain on some things. Free trade and health care, but those are pretty big things for me... and that's about it. Speaking of agreeing with McCain on free trade and health care, those two things came up in my class on globalization today. It's hard to be a conservative when it comes to those things when you're the only one. I pitched "people living in China today have better lives than they did in any time period because of the market economy." Turns out that's something everyone considers themselves an expert on in the bay area.

So, what was the point of that post right there? Moving on.

I believe that universal health care is socialism and bad, does that mean that I should vote for McCain now?

I thought Japan's notably high suicide rate, at least among youth, was related to the rigorous secondary-educational system and culture of shame. I know nothing about Japanese culture, unlike you, so help me out, but I wouldn't be surprised if alcoholism was an outgrowth of the aforementioned. As I understand it, the high school years are so intense that if you make it out alive (literally), college is sort of a letdown before settling into a career as a faceless bureaucrat. Kind of like what we have, but with less variation and to greater extents. That's definitely one of the contributors, no doubt about it. But the high school years are only 4 years long. It's kind of worse when people go into college, because college is supposed to be seen as a break between the rigorousness of high school and a lifetime of monotonous work afterwards. So there are a lot of alcohol-related deaths then, too. Japan's got social problems abound.

Oh, well it's obviously because the age limit is 21. "repressive, puritanical"? Right. WE'RE REPRESSING THE YOUTH BY NOT LETTING THEM GET SLOSHED AAAAGH SOMEONE CALL CHE GUEVARA. Would you rather have a drinking culture like Japan, where suicide rates have (by no coincidence) begun to skyrocket in the same way that alcoholism has begun to skyrocket? Where getting drunk is a nightly activity for salary men? Where on the 20th birthday holiday, there are widespread reports of alcohol poisoning deaths? I mean, fuck, I look like a 13 year old Swedish immigrant and I bought 4 handles of vodka from a bakery when I was there.

I'd believe the whole "illegality is one of the reasons people do things" if there was actual, quantified data to back that up, but there's not. It's a fallacious argument and an ace in the hole that rears its ugly head every time a pothead wants something to be legalized. We'd like our kids to be good decision makers and have plenty of experience, but, from personal experience and speaking from inside the slaughterhouse, those odds are wildly stacked against that possibility. There is a very large gap in maturity from the teen years to the early twenties. It doesn't matter if you know some 18 year old who's pretty mature for his age and some 21 year olds who aren't. As Czech said, our drinking culture is so irreparably damaged that the only choice is to keep the status quo and hope for the best. Tzar's also right, kids are gonna get fucked up legal or not, but it's rather irresponsible to make it legal for obviously inexperienced kids with a shitty sense of judgement to buy dangerous shit. As for the "learning lessons" argument, that's just fucking ridiculous. Learning a lesson comes in the form of arrests, car accidents, and injuries, not from throwing up a couple of times. I've said this before, but kids are pretty stupid. I've made dumb decisions that I regret, but not many teenagers have a good sense of right from wrong. That's just how it is, and lowering the drinking age would make that even worse. The only reason these colleges want to lower the age is so they don't have to deal with security all the time on the campus.

Swish.

All that woman is saying is that she's ashamed that a woman didn't get nominated, barring people, you know, disagreeing with her or not.

Yeah, I suppose if your consistently binge drinking with your parents at 16 its probably not a good idea. But I think, in general, kids are less likely to start drinking recklessly once they have the ability to do it if they have learned something about alcohol and drank it with parents, rather than the kid whose parents said "No booze until you're 18! Then you can do what you want and I don't care!" That's some pretty inverted logic right there.

I liked when she quoted the Seneca Falls Convention, which was a largely unsuccessful meeting that only about a hundred or so attended. But it really wasn't anything that I didn't expect from Clint-dog. Every speech she's ever given was about HOW HISTORICAL IT WAS THAT SHE WAS RUNNING.

Collarbone is broken. I'm in a sling, no meds or anything () My nurse was this old scottish lady who swore like a sailor. Awesome.

Pee Wee!

GUYS I JUST GOT SHOT

I think I broke my collarbone today. Went over the bars on my bike. I'm in excruciating pain. Even went to class afterwards for an hour and a half.

"If your cashier doesn't hand you a receipt, kill him."

You can't really look at the fact without the consequences. Otherwise, that's just being short-sighted. And if a 18 year old kid wants to get drunk in his room, that's fine with me, but that's another one of those in a perfect world scenarios. Most young kids are social drunks, and rarely, if ever, drink alone at home. That's when bad decisions get made, and that's why the law is in place.

I'm not a morning person, but I'm still getting your signals crossed here, VX. What do you mean by "anything, at all."?