Crap Throwing Monkey

As though the past two presidential elections - hell, the friggin' primaries - have featured candidates with Churchillian oratory skills. Maybe that's the problem: American politicians don't slam a quart of scotch before giving a speech. Maybe Congress needs a three drink minimum.

Judging by that pathetic joke, sounds more like you need to stop.

Murtha had a thoughtful approach to the situation? When did that happen?

IIO? OAYSDTEITD?

Define "survive"? The response to a hypothetical u-boat attack in the Great Lakes would have been late, haphazard. and uncoordinated at best, considering every meaningful asset was in the Atlantic. But regardless...a u-boat would have maybe a week's endurance at that point, before it had to run home. Another thing to consider is that a lot of smaller ships (US submarines, Coast Guard forces, destroyer escorts) were worked up in the Great Lakes prior to deployment. Screw commerce, imagine the damage to the war effort by the disruption of training. Moot point anyway, since a u-boat never would have penetrated to the Great Lakes. It couldn't have made it's way up the St. Lawrence against the flow of the river. Hell, Prien barely made it into Scapa Flow against the tide. Moot point as well. Lots of that ore that got shipped over the Great Lakes got shipped over the Atlantic as well...and sunk there.

True...but the question then begs, why even hear the case? Why not just say "This is an issue between the school board and parents, and will not be considered by this court"?

I miss the :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: smiley sometimes...

Isn't it about time for you and your girlfriend - er, fiancee - to break up again?

So you weren't sure, until someone else told you what to think? Never mind the fact that Murtha's entire statement (yes, entire statement, not just the parts that got media play) was pretty damned stupid and ignorant. But then, you could relate to that, couldn't you...

Not a problem at all, considering the anti-sub effort off the East Coast amounted to something like six entire ships. Standard doctrine at the time was night surface attacks anyway, in which case the shallowness of the water and confined sea room hardly matters, considering that U-boats were actually fairly fast (18 knots clean, probably 16 in practice) on the surface. Which was the original thinking, too...until they realized that it hardly mattered either way if the cargo was at the bottom of the ocean. Probably just over-cautious - better to have and not need than need and not have, and all that. Part of the motivation was undoubtedly that u-boats had penetrated "impenetrable" places before, such as when Gunther Prien entered the anchorage at Scapa Flow and sunk the battleship Royal Oak (I believe. One of that class, at least).

I remember that from the movie "Ali". Jamie Foxx really bulked up for that role.

That's right...it's not my birthday today!

Does anyone follow that paragraph? Not a "Nobody else does so why should we?" observation; more of a "Holy sh--, what a spineless, !@#$ed-up organization!" observation. Why on earth would anyone worry about the Caps?

Once, when I first moved to DC, I gave a homeless guy a buck. Then I did a quick and dirty calculation and figured if a dollar was his average donation, the guy was probably pulling down about $40/hr...basically, making more than I did, and tax-free. That was the last time I gave a panhandler money.

How about Israel? I mean, I'm pretty sure it's stupid to deny the Holocaust occurred in Israel...but illegal?

Actually...the more I think about that argument, the more specious it seems. When I flip it on its head - does the school have the right to exclusive control over every lesson, every book, everything else... - I keep hitting up against the simple fact that the school specifically requested permission from parents with regards to this survey. That in itself is a de facto admission of parental control over this specific survey (and I'm still not clear that the survey was officially within the school's curriculum or administered by a third party...but whatever, the court clearly established the school's responsibility for it. Good enough for me, even from those chimpanzees on the Ninth Circus.) I guess the problem I have with this whole thing is that, to me, the issue is one of informed consent: I don't see where the school clearly outlined the nature of the questions on the survey to the parents when requesting their consent. It would have been a relatively simple thing to include in the consent letter something along the lines of "Some of the questions will deal with the subject of sexuality in children" or something. That it didn't - that the consent wasn't fully informed - is the root cause of the issue that some parents ended up with their children being exposed to ideas they would rather not have had them exposed to. I do not see where THAT would involve establishing the exclusive right of parents to determine school curriculum; rather, it seems no different to me from the parental right to confirm or deny a child's participation in a field trip. If your expression of the case - that the parents were asking the court to legislate from the bench a new parental right - is correct, then I believe the parents are idiots for bringing the wrong case to the bench. Which does not excuse the school from their idiocy, or the Ninth Circus from theirs...even if they happened, this time around, to not apply it.

I'm disappointed. I really thought you'd hammer the irony of me calling someone else condescending.

I'll teach you some more... Oh no, wait...I'm married...

"Operation Drumbeat". Actually, the U-boats stuck around well into 1943 (and longer in the Caribbean and off Brazil)...but the Navy introduced coastal convoying in mid-42, which significantly decreased sinkings. I believe Johnny Cash wrote a song about it, before he converted to Buddhism...

Yeah. I'm not sure I agree with her methods, but I applaud her for being involved.

Not that you're condescending about it or anything...

If I were badly injured in that Chicago and needed to go to an ER, I'd be begging them "Please, please, anywhere but County!" Just look at how often doctors die in that ER...

I've seen reasonable "analysis" (not scientific, but better than anecdotal) of electoral patterns of their membership that suggest it's about 90+% far left.

Yeah, you play your xylophone...In the meantime, I'll mind-!@#$ the bastard and get better results.

Amateur.