The Czech Republic

Oh God, it's the same fucking thing. If you're bothering to split hairs over it, you're a nerd, geek, AND dork.

Jingus is the one poster here I'm afraid of, or rather, afraid of becoming. When I become some fat creepy mope living in his parents' basement who has squandered all his limitless intellectual potential and regressed to just some Robitussin-swilling lowlife on the fringe of society, that's it for me, I'm outta here. Judging by the fact that I have an unadulterated post count in the 17,000s, I'm already traveling down that road. If I don't right this ship, I'm hopeless. What a fucking mess.

This thread is not complete until we submit our Upright Man PMs

Whoa, it's that Sarcaustic guy! He's been gone for like three years.

Whenever some of these immigration reform bills are discussed on talk radio (which I had to hear over break...ugh), my fellow right-of-center guys are like "okay...hey...but wait a minute.........THIS AMOUNTS TO AMNESTY!!" with no lack of righteous indignation. 1) Why don't I have any righteous indignation? 2) Do they even, really?

So I love Key Lime Pie, in which direction should I go next w/r/t Camper Van Beethoven albums?

Oh yeah, classic cliche right there. Brings back memories of when I cleaned my PM box! #: Soup

That fucking sucked. Don't post.

God, I've squandered all my potential in life. I think at this point my responsibility to myself is to cut my losses before it's too late. What about English classes? Don't you think it's important in life to know how to communicate well? I think at this point we're overcompensating in our reaction to the problem at hand, and now we're acting as if sit-ups are more important than anything in North American school curricula. P.E. is a necessary respite from the traditional academic subjects over the course of a seven-hour school day, which leave us sedentary and stressed. It needs to be there, but my God, people, it's not more important than American literature or European history unless you have no aspirations whatsoever to amass knowledge in life.

I'm not sure if you're arguing against gerrymandering or this silly "I only want to vote for someone just like me" mentality we seem to have in this country. I'm sure it's a little of both. The latter was a big part of Carol Moseley-Braun winning a Senate seat in IL: "I think we should have a black woman in the Senate."

You joined the Marines, not known for cuisine. What we're talking about here--or were before all the tangents--are underprivileged children of low-income families who rely on their public schools for some modicum of nutrition that they cannot get at home, and instead of providing what growing kids need, they're getting greasy pizza slices and fries. There's a reason why people are upset here.

It just hit the scene right after I memorized it all! Velvet partition, December '92. Ah, the fall of the Communist bloc. Those were fun times for geography!

lols u said music is key!!!! Just a quick note (I did it again!): in our fervent and correct defense of physical education in our schools, we're saying "I MEAN GEEZ KNOWING HISTORY AIN'T SHIT CUZ U GONNA DIE, FATTY." There's still something to be said for the pursuit of knowledge, which is being ignored almost as much in public schools as everything else. Nobody is learning for learning's sake, and few teachers that I've had have even tried to foster that. It's just assessment, assessment, test, exam, quiz, ace it, lose it, next chapter, repeat. There's no retention there. It's bad enough with the IBs and APs and ACTs and SATs and XYZs and SOLs and on and on and on, now throw in the NCLBs, and education has been completely reduced to bubble sheets, it seems. If I have kids, I don't care how maladjusted they end up (they're half me, so they're already fucked), I'm keeping them out of public school as long as I can. Just hand them some World Books, atlases, and let them go nuts. That's how I learned the countries, their capitals, and languages of Europe at age 6.

Maybe because heterosexuals haven't been a villified minority for 2500 years? Idiot. Neither have homosexuals?

Sure explains the lisp.

Barron's is pretty stagnant too.

They're saving him for the home opener. By the way, if Williams can't cut it as a 5th starter, I dunno what the hell to do with him. He's too fat and lazy to be ready for the call from the dugout. I guess he needs inordinately long warmups and a lot of rest days.

Bulls need to beat the Sixers twice, the Raptors, Magic, and Hawks. They never beat the Nets, ever, so I'll concede that one. Heat will probably win, as will the Wizards. It'll take a lot to earn getting swept by Detroit in the first round, won't it?

Cubs allow seven unanswered runs and the life has alreayd been sucked out of them. EDIT: Spoke too soon! Back to within one run. Jerome Williams is still a tub of lard literally unfit to make relief appearances, though.

ok back Anyway, you're right that we need our gym classes, and we should be eating much healthier, but to ban all vending machines and stuff won't work, because the occasional bottle of Coke never hurt anyone, and all that jazz. You're absolutely right that the school lunches are disgusting. My high school had a Subway, which was good, and most people took advantage of, but beyond that kids were eating French fries by the metric ton, dozens of processed chicken varieties, horrible stuff. No salad bar in sight. However, if you want to make some correlation between extracurricular participation and academic achievement, I think music is a better bet than sports, because there's always more than meets the eye when it comes to athletics. Also, Jingus, stop whining about gym classes, you loaf.

I missed a good thread here. I was never a student-athlete, but I mostly enjoyed PE, except for 5th grade when we just played dodgeball every single day. Physical fitness, swimming, track, you have to do that stuff in high school. I was away from any strenuous activity my freshman year of college and I put on weight, most of which I've taken off by now. As for Smitty's "athletes do better in class" theory, I don't think it's that simple. The illustrious model high school students who do two or three sports and lots of clubs, yeah, they do well, but there are many more student-athletes who get free passes on academics because it's easier for teachers to do that than deal with eligibility committees and pissed-off coaches that have been at the school longer than they've been alive. brb class I'll finish this

What?

It's Glendon Rusch vs. Brandon [sic] Arroyo today. Little worried about this one, since it's pretty one-sided on paper. Maybe Rusch can rebound from a bad spring and a bad 2005 and keep the Cubs in the game. I'm predicting a Cincinnati rout, though.

Sea of empty seats at Miller Park, by the way. I'd go to a game for the hell of it, but Walworth County doesn't get a 50% discount this week. fuck