seriously, i didn't read all 544 of the other comments so maybe someone has made this comment before me, but i have not read in any other news organization that polanski is being charged with RAPE.

and it's not just polanski. i've read, in the not so recent past, ridiculous sentences like:

so-and-so forced the victim to have sex with him even though he knew she was unwilling.

so-and-so is charged with coercing the victim to have sex with him.

so-and-so is charged with having sex with a five year old.

so-and-so and five other adults allegedly held the victim at gunpoint and forced her to have sex with them.

google it. you'll find these sentences, and many others like them, in the so-called liberal media outlets of MSNBC, CNN, ABC, Huffington Post, and well, everywhere but here.

men (and women) are not charged with "having sex". they are charged with RAPE. but for some reason, it's like this word no longer exists.

welcome to rape culture.

google it. in a 1984 interview with diane sawyer, he said it took him a long time to realize he did anything wrong, and to realize that someone had been hurt.

so who knows how many other young girls he raped before coming to his senses?

so those of us who are lucky to not know anyone who is struggling to find work should keep that in mind.

that said: i personally don't know anyone who is trying to find a job, but i know lots and lots of people who are working part time where they used to work full time, or have been given involuntary pay cuts to do more work than they used to in order to pick up the slack for their colleagues who were laid off.

i know a person who is sellign all of her stuff and moving to oakland because she found a part time nanny position, and it's the only thing that has been offered to her and her unemployment benefits are about to run out. i also know people who are chronically underemployed and under-paid as a result, and people who are going back to school because they were laid off and don't think they will be able to find a job.

something's got to give because this is not sustainable in the long term...

never benefits from anyone else's education.

sure, no one "made" any of use get educations. but the next time you, or anyone else, needs a doctor, a lawyer, a mechanic, even a decent haircut, you will be thankful that someone risked her time and money to get the skills that you, and the rest of society need.

once upon a time, we encouraged people to get an education because we realized that having an educated, skilled population was a good thing. and again, the next time you or anyone else you care about is benefitting from the work of a structural engineer, a doctor, a computer scientist, a pharmacist, i guess you should keep in mind that if they wrote shitty books for $20 a pop, our country would be better off. or something.

medical marijuana falls into the kinda sorta legal category in CA...

Los Angeles County D.A. prepares to crack down on pot outlets

Cooley says the vast majority of medical marijuana dispensaries in the county are operating illegally.

...Cooley and Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich recently concluded that state law bars sales of medical marijuana, an opinion that could spark a renewed effort by law enforcement across the state to rein in the use of marijuana.

nope, not unemployed.

whether you know it or not, your posts have disparaged higher education, disparaged people who are groaning under the weight of student loans, and insulted people who are shedding blood and sweat and tears just to go try and get one more chance to work hard. what a shitty thing to do.

and your tone, as well as your words, indicate that these people are in the position of being unemployed because they somehow "chose" to be.

you actually at one point said that the country is going down the tubes because of people like "them"--people who went to school, worked hard, and now find themselves middle aged and betrayed by the system that they trusted. this "system"--the one you say is easier to blame than engaging in introspection? my introspection tells me that my choices have been good, sure, but it doesn't hurt that i come from a middle-class background, that i took risks during a time of economic prosperity and found my market niche when there wasn't a massive credit crunch. it also didn't hurt that i knew people who were in a position to help me financially and otherwise. i'm not "better" than anyone here; just luckier. perhaps if you engaged in some of this introspection you'd draw similar conclusions.

also, you might realize that the market isn't big enough for everyone to start their own company. and that people who need health insurance wouldn't be able to...oh fuck it. it would take to long. you get the idea.

oh by the way, this country was actually not founded on an "entrepreneurial spirit", by the way. it was founded by a bunch of pilgrims who thought that the anglican church was not conservative enough for them.

another fun fact: our first president, Washington, was not an entrepreneur. he was the wealthiest landowner in virginia.

site design can't be cheap.

no one likes change so there's that.

but it's also really cluttered.