I'm glad that posters are getting the point here. No one advocates NEVER learning the names of things, just learning names as a substitute for a real experience!

I would go further and say experiencing something first, then learning about it is more meaningful.

And yes, field guides can greatly limit the scope of your observation. I rarely take field guides into the field... I look up the critters when I get home!

I will say, I'm tired of hearing "soccer-mom" as well as

Generation X

Alpha Males

Something-Americans

Tweens

Liberal Elitist

Nanny-state

...and jillions more over-simplified pigeon holes, but I don't freak out when I do hear them...

...and I like it, but let me say this.

Get the computer that makes sense for you. I am a musician. I need to work with audio, and sometimes graphic design. The Mac is better at that stuff and more importantly, the people I need to share files with use MAC OS.

Whenever I have to deal with someone in the music biz that uses a Windows machine I'm like "why the hell would a musician buy a Dell?" They need to get compatible.

Also, most musicians who wind up with a Windows machine are 1) older 2) asked someone who wasn't a musician what to get 3) can't do even basic computing, much less converting things between platforms.

An example of this for me: I hate Word. I think it has the clunkiest interface ever. I don't don't need half its features. AppleWorks was so much better for the kind of documents I create, but you know what? Everyone uses Word, esp. people who aren't musicians (but may be important for the funding aspects of the biz). So guess what: I got compatible.

If you can't call Santorum a "F***tard" on Salon, who can you call a "F***tard?" Granted, it's really unfair to all the other "F***tards" out there to associate Santorum with that word, but c'mon...

It's not like it was empty rhetoric, there was a stat at the end that was relative to the conversation.

"Santorum was defeated 59% to 41% in the 2006 U.S. Senate election by Democratic candidate Bob Casey, Jr. This was the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent Senator since 1980."

--wikipedia

Sheesh.

Why is this fucktard getting press? God, I wish with guy would drown in a puddle of his namesake. Oh wait, he did in the 06 elections...

Fucktard.

Produced this...

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

Yeah, when Obama was spouting all that "reach across isle" stuff I was like, "We'll, I'm cool with him saying that, as long as it's total bullshit."

Reach out to Hillary supporters? Sure. 17 Million votes earn a voice in my book. Policies aren't that different anyway.

Reach out to Neocons? F**K NO! It's time we tell them that they've been wrong about EVERYTHING for a decade now, and they need to STFU!

"In "Zohan," Sandler is a Jew playing a Jew, but we also get another Jew (Schneider), an Italian-American (Turturro) and a Canadian of Jewish French Moroccan descent (Chriqui) playing Arabs."

Any white people playing black people? With some paint and a little sand on the floor...

I mean, it's cool if they really are reveling in the stereotypes for the purpose of exposing them and all, but I've never thought having people portray other races (esp. as terrorists) as something to be hopeful about.

But you've seen the movie and I haven't yet...

...but I will say that is a great speech, and exactly what the country needs to hear. I have felt the whole time that both candidates should fight like hell, and boy did they. For all the press this primary has gotten for being divisive, I think it is paced exactly right. Start out with no punches pulled and end in unity when the time for unity comes.

Vigorous debate should always be encouraged and shouldn't preclude civility and forward motion afterwards.

I think we need to get over to some conservative websites and post lots of racist (and otherwise) garbage. What will be great about that is this: if the posts make it on, most rightwingers will agree with them!

Y'all aren't going to play fair THIS time are you?

"he thinks that at some point violence in Iraq will have basically ended and U.S. troops will stop taking casualties, but that there may still be an American presence in the country, as there is in countries like Germany, Japan and South Korea. And there has really been no major outcry from the American public about the continued deployment in those countries. (This position of McCain's was also the genesis of the "100 years" remark that's gotten him so much flak.)"

This is what he is trying to suggest, but it's not true!!! We haven't "maintained a presence in Germany and Japan" as a relic of WWII! The armed forces are their as a relic of the cold war. We are basically renting space (at a high cost) to be close to the CCCP (whatever that was). Don't let McCain claim it's the same as not bringing active combat veterans home!!! Our bases in Germany and Japan are not a "continued deployment."

He took out some loans in the 90s? That's his crime?

I was hoping they would have dropped him for picking VPs that totally sank their ticket, but loans will do.

Does anyone really are? I say that with no irony. I can't imagine anybody getting riled up about that. I could see someone who doesn't understand it, and is against Obama, pointing to it and saying "um, yeah, that thing their about the loans and stuff." I can't see this as the issue that pushes someone who has been on the fence into McCain's far more obviously hypocritical camp.

But whatever. Obama can certainly make it without this guy's input.