Well I will consider you the winner of first prize, by default, and send you those bacon cookies if yours is the only response to this contest resembling an entrant-

What happened to the good-old days, eh??

It's not that easy, @chingalera. I am one of those progressive liberals who are supposed to be twee about every life.

And I share your horror at medical costs that are poured into the days of our eldest citizens.

It is different when it is your loved one. My dad almost died seven years ago, was in ICU for a week, rehab hospital for a month, then to a nursing home. He would have died, too, if he had had a DNR. But how could I sign a DNR for someone who was going into the hospital for a simple gall bladder operation?

He has one now, but he didn't at the time. He survived and went from being miserable living with his second wife to having seven years of great quality of life. Seeing five great grandchildren born, two of whom were named for him. Winning just about every fishing tournament they had -- most fish, biggest fish, smallest fish -- one prize, if not all three of them. Finding his way into being a more loving person with his family than he ever allowed himself to be before.

And he "should have" died, by every practical financial measure.

These seven years have been the greatest blessing our family could have received.

Is that gross negligence and fraud, for the hospital to have saved his life at an enormous cost? Because in many ways, we got a father we never knew before.

And he has a DNR now. If it repeats, he is a goner. And we are all fine with that. But damn if I am not thrilled that I failed to get it before.

and we Thank you darlin', from the very topper-most of the heart!

Won't you be the first to offer-up a tasty cookie-plan alien-gal??? Just like yer granny used to send ya in the mail should you be the first thru third to five and perhaps the only goer at this rate....-Love a challenge, and remember, "There's a prize in every package!"




Times-a-wastin' folks, I'd like to get this bakin' ball-a-rollin' downhill before June, got those summer evil-twin birthday packages to get out y'know....

Snowden should be in prison for life, if not shot. Sure, he did a good thing by revealing the spying on American citizens. That is true whistleblowing. Good on him.

But then he dwarfed that good act by giving away our (I am speaking as an American, here, obviously) secrets, in the form of the terabytes of data on those 4 laptops, to our biggest rivals, China and Russia. He has also revealed tons of national secrets and techniques to the whole world that have absolutely nothing to do with Americans' 4th Amendment rights. His acts have put American lives and American industry at risk and has definitely harmed American stature and American industry.

So, yeah, give him the Nobel prize and the Medal of Honor. He can admire them in his Supermax cell.

Virtually everything political is a choice between the lesser of two evils. That's why I can't stand people who dismiss it and wimp out of the process, claiming that both sides are equally bad. It's a cop out. Everyone has a internal value/judgement system and one side is going to be the slightest bit less-detestable than the other and that's the one you pick. If you don't like it, write someone in.

Too many people treat elections like horse races as if you get some sort of prize for picking a winner. A friend of mine a while back told me that he hadn't picked a winning president in the last 2 elections.

My response: So?

He (supposedly) picked the person he thought would do the best job. It's not a bet on who will win.

Hell even in my utopia I described earlier where private money has successfully been excised from elections and parties are abolished, we're still going to have candidates we don't completely agree with. Nothing is going to change there, but you still pick the one you think will do better or you write someone in.

There are no shining white knights, nor are there villains with furled mustaches and black top hats. Life is hard and complex with countless grey areas, deal with it.

So are you 'glad' about the current president, whose rap sheet of abject failures trumps more than that of 2 dozen administrations in history? Not saying any other would have done more for the elite who put all presidents in place but seriously....What the FUCK has the not-black president done worth a fiddler's fuck bareboards? Your comment sounds like the same2 rhetoric taught the masses from years of programming and fantastic confabulation.

Gitmo? Name-Calling and cry-racism at any opportunity? Appointing complete cunts to czar posts? Expanding surveillance and promulgating police-state? Debt to $4.939 Trillion since taking office (not that we'd pay back any debt anyhow, another confabulate issue, completely meaningless)?
Nobel peace prize (meaningless)?
Cult of personality antics that would make any dictator green and covetous?
Media-whore first-lady?
Blah, blah, blah green energy after the BP spill?

A real piece of work, but so's frikkin' Mitt Mormonite

Jesus man, get a grip on that shit!?

He's right in that Democrats think everyone (except themselves, the elitists) are helpless and can only make it with the help of the gov't.
Huckabee is just making the point that women don't need help from the gov't.
Actually, Democrats don't really believe women are helpless, they just want women to think they are helpless w/o the gov't to help them. It makes them more likely to vote Democrat, and this empowers that one political party, which is the ultimate prize for politicians.

@chingalera
/chuckles
oh i know man.

my comment was with tongue firmly planted in cheek but my basic point remains the same.

some people have to make concessions in order to survive in this fucked up system.
maybe they have children.
maybe they are married with an asston of debt hanging over their heads.

i am an anarchist.
so i have arranged my life in a way where my participation in this zombie system is shaved to a bare minimum but i also have to recognize that some people do not have that luxury.since i am not living their lives i refuse to judge them.

just look at the comments here.
your assertion of an imagined polemic plays out in this thread,quite conveniently making your point.

we have @bobknight33 posting the heritage foundations position almost verbatim (thanks for responding bob,i like when you participate.sincerely),in regards to capitalism.

then we have @Sagemind posting a more "left" leaning comment.

and then we have the always ironic @lantern53 bemoaning the ills of government.yet his salary is provided by taxpayers,and hence the very government he is deriding.he is such a closet socialist.(loooove you lantern../hugs).

yet all these positions have validity.

the governments role should be criticized and examined.
corporations should be exposed for their undue influence.

this is not a simple issue and it is where i think you and i totally agree.
i too get frustrated when people talk about this subject in a binary way.
it is NOT just a black/white,good/evil,right/left matter.

and when people engage in this form of perception they also tend to demonize the "other" side.
so if someone posits an opinion that happens to be contrarian to ones views,they are automatically dismissed as "wrong" and anything they have to say is discarded as being stupid,ill-thought or just plain downright wrong.

this is the fundamental flaw in this binary thinking.
and it is not by accident but rather by design.

divide and conquer.

in the developed western world we have 30 choices for toilet paper but when it comes to things that TRULY matter?
we get two.

so the true elite and powerful of this country pick their prized horse and offer up to us,the american public,a choice of TWO rich fuckers.
would you like democrat?
or republican?

doesnt really matter who you choose because either one is going to serve their masters.
who of course are wall street and corporate america.
not you or i.

we are fed a constant stream of populist bullshit that gives the appearance of solidarity and nationalism but in reality serves only the corporate masters in fleecing the american people of more and more of their own hard earned:money,rights,liberties and ultimately our independence.

the problems with un-fettered capitalism are well known and well understood.
just as the problems with socialism are well known.

it is the SYSTEM that needs to be challenged and questioned,examined and ultimately discarded if we find it lacking.

and i find it lacking.
morally,socially and financially.

it is time we kill the beast.
because it is feeding on itself and putting us ALL at risk.

bah..you fucker.got me ranting.

let me conclude with this:
i find all structures of power and authority to be illegitimate until proven otherwise.
i find the system of plutocracy currently in place to be illegitimate.
it serves only the upper eschelon and commodifies the poor.
the poor have become fodder for the military industrial complex as well as the private prison system.
the working poor have become cogs in a machine that is slowly crushing them under the weight of the hubris of those who feel entitled to their fortunes and that somehow they are more deserving then their fellow man.

the beast is sick with its own arrogance and needs to be put down.
the only recourse us normal folk have is to stop feeding the beast.

if only 5% stopped going to work and took to the streets you will see a very frightened beast begging us all to the negotiating table.

thats my 2 cents anyways.

Lol, I love when people put all these human concepts like love or nobility onto animals.

Animals are just as fallible as humans. They fight over females, and in many cases forcibly mount their "prize".

I remember watching an Attenborough documentary on walruses and how the females have to try to run past males in heat to get to the sea to get food for their cubs. A friend of mine watching it with me was horrified. "That's disgusting" she said. "Walruses are rapists!"

So glad that War Criminal was murdered. If there was any justice the person/s who killed him would be given Nobel Peace Prizes.

Shame Dota is so impenetrable to spectators that haven't played the game. I imagine a lot of the excitement from this clip needs context beyond even the simple mechanics of the game. I've mostly stopped playing Dota now but its such an enjoyable game to watch atm. Great casters/production, lots of prize money and teams with a lot of character. Winning formula.

I was screaming like a girl when I watched it live. Unashamed Navi fanboy here. I think this was more misplay by iG though, and some smart drafting by Navi. They consistently gave away Siren knowing that as long as they could get Enigma or Tide the Song was as much a set-up for them as it was for their opponents. Dendi's Rubick play in that tournament was the standout for me. Stealing Ravage after Ravage was amazing to watch. Nice to see Enigma getting some more play again recently now that Magnus fell out of the pool a little. Isn't anything quite as hype as 3/4/5 man Black Hole.

Only reason I have a google+ account is because it nets me a chance to win prizes from androidpolice.. nothing more, nothing less.

Wow, of all things unlikely this has to take the prize!

It would be like the titanic crashing into an iceberg, starting to sink but after taking in some few tons of water just stops sinking.
Why?
It hit shallow waters and just lied there in the middle of an ocean broken and stuck.

That's what this is, improbable!

Unfortunately the process of discovery didn't exactly lend itself to a dramatic announcement. One imagines Archimedes lowering himself into the bath over several months waiting for a statistically significant volume of water to be displaced.

I imagine that pretty much everybody knew he was going to be getting a Nobel Prize at this point as well.

Generally, I would agree with you, but not in this context and not to this degree. Every region in American has their own little dialect and is commonly accepted.

The point of the game is to figure out what the phrase is. The parts of the phrase he supposedly mis-pronounced were already revealed so it's not an issue of him trying to "guess" his way through the game.

same with the southern woman. The G she dropped in swimming was already revealed on the board, so to harp on that particular part of the word was bullshit. gee she said "swimmin'" what other word could she have possibly meant?

had the contestants been trying to mumble their way through some part of the phrase that hadn't been revealed, I would be on WoF's side, but that clearly is not the case.

It was a dick move on their part, probably motivated by not wanting to award prize money. end of story.

What's next? They going to screw over someone with a heavy Boston accent? I guess they screen out anyone with a foreign accent if they are that anal about pronunciation. Guess Joe Pesci won't ever be a celebrity contestant.