DifE-Q

Well...there are no Bedouin neighborhoods. I am talking about Bedouin that are still Bedouin traveling around in the desert. So yes...meet them, befriend them...sleep the night and get fed. But sometimes you can stay a week or so and help work, etc. Let them know where you want to go and they will tell you how to get there..and hook you up with more contacts. Sometimes those are family that live in towns and you stay with them at their house. The monasteries and convents were about $10 to even 7$ a night in Syria and Jordan and included a clean room and a breakfast. Convents were generally about $5 more expensive and the women there were kind of mean.....so we went to the monasteries most often.

We did meet people on the road that helped us out too...but most of the time is was from walking around in the remote parts of a town or area and looking lost or walking up to a Bedouin tent.

I travelled around the middle east for 6 months spending $100 per month in 1997. I hitch hiked and slept with Bedouin or in monasteries. It is possible in other parts of the world too - maybe not Europe though. Save Europe for when you are rich.

You do realize that the Norman French were Vikings right? The area was settled by a massive group of Vikings under Rollo. They became the Normans and from Rollo would eventually come William the Conqueror? These Normans were in no way French.

Yes it is. Herein lies part of the problem; the way GDP is calculated and what is meant by GDP. The whole GDP idea has little merit. Essentially the health of the economy is measured by how much money is spent. We should stop relying on GDP to measure economic health and measure wealth and lack of debt instead.

There are more complex things at play here. Some foods actually contain compounds that reduce or prevent tumor growth. Cabbage for example has highest levels of two anti-cancer glucosinolates and protects against breast cancer and bread crust; has highest levels of Interlukin-B which protects against colon cancer.

As a real world example; Polish women have the lowest incidence of breast cancer and the highest consumption of cabbage.

Sage advice, and yes it IS possible to follow (and I know it is too late for you now but here it is anyway): 1. Do not have sex if you do not want a baby. 2. Do not get married unless you can support a baby.

If you are a parent are you entitled? -- The answer is Yes. You have certain rights, responsibilities and trust vested in you by society for that child. WHEN you give your child up to the school system, you divest those rights, responsibilities and trust to the school system.

And it is true, respect is earned - for people; but not position. I respected very few of my teachers individually. However I respected the office that any one of them held and I gave respect to all of them no matter if I respected them as a person or not. This is both right and wise.

This does not make sense. You are willing to send your child away for more hours per day than you spend with him and place him with adults you don't trust? If you are not going to divest your authority and trust these teachers with it, which you must if you send your child to a public or private school, then you should home school your children.

Also, your job as a parent is only to protect your children from things they can not protect themselves against - and to eventually empower/teach/train them to be able to protect themselves. If you hover over them all the time they will, as the article said, end up 25 and still in your house. For instance, if the child got a 79 on an assignment...tough; it was within his power to get an A if he worked hard enough. If he is somehow being targeted by a malicious mean teacher and purposefully given a low grade...tough as well. In reality, it won't affect his chances at a happy and successfully life. Plus, life is not fair and he will meet people like that in real life that he will have to learn to deal with when you are dead and gone. It too is a learning lesson - and nothing you need to protect him against.

Interesting analysis grasshopper. I have noticed though that you and many others assailing this idea offer no path or insight of your own to develop character. Just meaningless statements such as, "but that's not how it works in real life." SO wise one, please tell us how it works in "REAL LIFE".

You sound like someone that is afraid of cold water - if it seems so easy an puerile to you; why don't you try it.

So can you explain to us how one builds character then - how else is it (character or self-discipline) built but by resisting against a natural pull, thought, or reaction?

The Spartans to General Patton used similar techniques in building the character of their troops and their fruits cannot be disputed.

The author is not claiming that this only will build character, but this is a small tool to to work on building character yet another way. Alone perhaps it would be meaningless, but taken together with his other approaches it can lead to significant results. It may be only a tree in the forest and it takes trees to build a forest; this method can be one of those trees.

Or if you like, to return to the analogy of resisting something in order to become stronger: This is just another exercise, like the plank (among many), that used alone may not produce much; but taken together with a whole exercise program WILL make ones whole body stronger.

"few things about history and don't get the exact dates or details right."

This is exactly what a person needs to get right - the Chronology. Otherwise things do not make any sense.

For instance these facts:

Fact: The U.S. dropped two Nuclear bombs on Japan. Fact: Japan became the largest debt holder for the U.S.

..can be misconstrued to say something that did not occur, such as, "The U.S. dropped bombs on japan so they did not have to pay back their debt to them."

Now I know this is an extreme example, but the reasoning is the same. History is a study of facts that occurred; who, what, where - chronology provide the "why".

The previous and current nuclear strategy consists of a concept called TRIAD. Land, Sea and Air nuclear weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_triad

They all have their advantages and disadvantages and strategic uses. Taken together they are a complete package of nuclear strike capabilities. Nothing about it is obsolete as the author suggests.

Battleships also are hardly obsolete and also have advantages and disadvantages. For instance, when the Missouri class battleships were retired in the 90's, it was met with a great deal of opposition by the marines. No other weapon in the military arsenal could provide beach bombardment like the battleship; and certainly not for the low cost. The marines were promised a replacement - they are still waiting.

I believe interleukin is also made as a byproduct of the baking process in bread...where the crust has 8x higher concentration of interleukin than the other part of the bread. It is thought that bread crust can be a buffer in helping to reduce the chances of colon cancer.

I don't know though if interleukin-22 is the same as the interleukin made in the baking process.

I think one should take a few minutes and write an email and/or call:

DHS, TSA, all the major U.S. airlines, along with their state and federal Reps and let them know what we thinks of this.

If we all do this...perhaps our voices will help turn the tide of this stupidity.

I experienced this at home and at work.I deleted my Mozilla directory (after backing up my bookmarks, etc.) and that cleared the speed problem up for me on both machines.

I have curtailed my domestic flying personally or with my family due to these asinine security theater exhibitions. In all it amounts to about $5000.00 in lost revenue to the airline industry every year. So if enough people do this then hopefully that will send a message to these people.

Now there may be a time when I or my family have to fly and for sure I will be opting out my entire family. When they go to feel-up my children I will ask the person doing it if he/she has a history of child molestation...since they are getting all personal with me and my children I plan on getting personal with them.

I will try and remember to report back when with the results...

I know many home school children, and the common idea that they are not socially educated, or well adjusted, is a myth. Most home schooled children do not sit at home all day - cordoned away from the world. They are usually involved in as much, if not more, activities outside of the home as public schooled children. They have friends in their neighborhoods, and friends they meet in home school groups and their home school activities. As a matter of fact the home schooled children I know are not only generally smarter, and the adults (home schooled) more successful and happier in life, but the kids are far more socially adjusted than the kids that go to public schools.

Public schools by in large create social constructs that do not exist in the adult world. The home schooled children can converse and interact in a healthy way with both young and old - instead of their exclusive peer group.

I home school my children. Yet we have an active church social life, they take piano, wrestling, archery and numerous other peer group events. Plus, on beautiful fall and spring days - when most public school kids are shut up behind brick walls wasting their time in classes with 30+ children learning all of nothing - my kids are outside riding their bikes, exploring the neighborhood, etc.

The other advantage is that if I see other children mistreating my children, or if I see my children mistreating other children (or adults) - I can provide the proper discipline and education in the matter; whereas a teacher wouldn't even think to take the time and deal with the problem. This is not to say I helicopter my children - but I am more aware of issues than a single teacher might that has to keep track of 30 to a 100 or more students at a time and I care more than a teacher would. And thus we come to why we are having this discussion in the first place. The article was written by a guy who had a teacher that was not really connected to him, and his parents were not aware enough of the problem to notice and do anything about it. And the bully's parents the same...

What could have happened with this guy? Had something not turned in his life, he, like many others may have committed suicide and our world would be at a loss for whatever service and good he has thus far rendered.

I think the question really should be this: How is it possible that public school education can teach PROPER socialization - when the evidence and or track record is that these schools produce anti-social behavior and dysfunctional children at such a high level?

As somebody who knows...skip the traditional martial arts and get them into wrestling and Brazilian Jui Jitsu. Anything else will just turn into an embarrassing situation.

I think you are very much right about this. Bullies stop bullying almost always after they have been beat down or at least stood up to. No amount of reasoning will change them. As an anecdotal example: I knew a kid that was bullied in High School constantly by another kid. I and a few others told the bully many times to lay off and nobody thought it was funny. So the bully wasn't doing it to impress anyone else or anything like that - he was just a dick. Then one day the kid being picked on snapped and pushed the bully...knowing full well a fight would start. The kid also knew the bully would most likely beat his ass. Well, unbeknown to the kid pushing back (and fortunately), there was a ledge with a shallow guard rail behind the bully that the bully fell back against and over the guard rail and then fell over the ledge. The bully fell about 15 feet to the ground and got hurt pretty badly. Had the bully not been hurt...not only would he have beat the kids ass but he would have continued to bully the kid - that I have no doubt in my mind. However, the bully never bothered that kid again after he recovered from his injuries.

I would give them a chance to improve somewhere else.

While the many points of this article are true...I would like to point out that an SLA provides a means to punish the service provider...in hopes of better behavior.

I run an IT department with a massive MPLS network from ATT. When a circuit goes down - it is true that I don't regain MY costs by enforcing the terms of the SLA and collecting the remuneration that is due. However, I do many times collect a significant amount of credits at times...and that causes regional managers at ATT to take notice and start making infrastructure improvements to improve actual up time...which is what I want - and then that allows me to actually pay them for their circuit - which is what they want.

This is fascinating. Thanks for looking it up. I too have now learned something new!

I have often wondered why people would attribute this and other events where one has super human strength or super perception (where time slows down) to adrenaline. This is becasue it is a hormone that is released from the adrenal gland..it would take some time to get to the parts of the body where it would make things function this way would it not..at least longer than the times we are considering would allow. So if I am right, what else could be the "switch" to switch these functions on?

"arguing that fear of Soviet invasion persuaded the Japanese to opt for surrender to the Americans, who they believed would treat them more generously than the Soviets."

Well you can't argue with this statement. The soviets would have treated them far worse. However, according to the Japanese - it was the bomb that drove them to surrender. Additionally, though the Soviets were right next door, the U.S. had Japan essentially blockaded and completely surrounded. We would never had allowed the Soviets to close in and conquer Japan; nor did the Soviets have the ability to mount an invasion of mainland Japan. This blockade of Japan, and the fact that their forces in Asia were essentially cut-off, led to the weakening and thus capitulation of those Japanese forces when it came time for the Soviets to attack. The Soviets essentially attacked a weaken and already beaten Japanese army in Asia - a small feat, not a great decisive one.

Best practices are a template, they are general rules, meant to be coupled with a human brain so they can be applied appropriately...or not applied depending on the use case. The problem is not in the best practices; the problem is their literal interpretation. Just because people do not really understand what they are for does not mean that they are an non-valuable tool that should be dispensed.

Sally will have a job...the article essentially provides that because of health care and other burdens, Sally will not have a job.