Thats because of the major clash in cultures. As we can see in Iraq, if we can not unite a single nation...we can never unite the human race!

Because the aliens haven't 'landed' yet, thus allowing us to form that ultimate 'Hollywood' bond that the movies love to hype so much.

I hate to have to defend the govenrment, but I will in this case. My wife teaches at a public elementary school in a poorer neighborhood. She has kids that know about using counterfeit money because their parents do, or live with their grandparents because their parents were arrested for making meth, and one kid whose dad is not allowed to come to school because he is a convicted sex offender. These kids are 7 years old, and this is what they have to deal with.

Unfortunately, there is only so much you can do. School can be a positive influence in these kids lives, but my wife is only one person who has 23 kids for 6 hours a day. On top of that, real teaching isn't allowed anymore with the "no child left behind" act. What teachers are told to do is cram for standardized exams so that the school can get a passing grade and keep receiving aid money(Man, it just keeps coming around to politics and money, doesn't it?) Top that with people bawling to their politicians to lower property taxes, which means less money for schools, which means fewer teachers and aides to support these kids, and the schools simply don't have the resources to undo the social hardships these kids face at home.

Bottom line, you just can't expect the school district to "fix" bad parenting. The influence that school has is trumped by the influence that home has, at that age anyway. And the young age is where they are most vulnerable to the influences around them.

On another note, has anyone seen the movie "Idiocracy"? It's a bad movie, but has a humorous point. It shows what might happen if the theory were true that the amount of intelligence in the world stays the same, but gets spread thinner and thinner as more people are born.

There was such a time? I don't think I've ever seen traffic worse than that on 495. And things only get more fun when you get to 95 at the NH line, especially on a weekend.

Yes. From 1990 to 1994 I commuted from North Andover, MA to Boxborough, MA for a total distance of 30 miles and never once took as long as 30 minutes to get to/from work. Of course, not many weekends were involved in my commute.

95 North to New Hamster has always been crowded, but Route 3 North was always the biggest disaster, however it's been much better since they widened it from 2 lanes in each direction to three lanes with potential expansion to four.

Oh, I wasn't disagreeing with you, I was adding! Both versions of stupid driving are incredibly dangerous.

Okay, now I'm really smokin'.

I'm so fed up with PC's. Exhausted. By "PC"'s I mean personal computers - first the Amiga, then the intel "PC", and even Macs. I've been wrestling with their problems for over two decades now. Always applications that refuse to run, crash, require extraodinary tweakage to get right . . . OS problems. . . . incombatabilities . . . . I'm worn out.

You don't have to put up with this crap with other products. If you bought a car, and it had crash problems like computer games, the manufacturer would go out of business! Or at least have massive recalls. What if airplanes crashed as often as computer applications did? What if your cable TV had outages due to constant crashing problems with its software?

I think I'm never going to upgrade my current box. Exorcise Evil Bill off of it and install LINUX, to have a word processor and internet browser. Then start sinking my money into a console, Xbox, Nintendo Wii, whatever. Grrrrr

I think the memory write error is driving Popcorn Avenger insane. It's okay there big fella, just vent a little and practice some "ohms" (little poorly timed joke there, ahem). I know how you feel, believe me, and I am pretty much computer illiterate. I can just imagine how I'd feel if I knew these machines inside and out.

If your in the slow lane already then those people are pretty dumb. They should save their abuse for slow drivers that sit in the fast lanes - don't you just hate those pricks!!

I have never been abused for being too slow myself. If i am driving below the speed limit (single laned road) and somone comes behind me, i make an effort to speed up to the speed limit, you know, it's called common courtesy!

I have been abused for stopping at a stopsign quite a few times!!! If i'm driving late at night and there is no traffic around, and i still stop, then that seems to annoy people. In a way i don't blame them, stopping when there is no traffic is pretty stupid, but that is the nature of stop signs, they are stupid!!

If computers didn't break all the time, some of us would be out of a job. And remember, computer years are about 20 to 1. Your 2 year old computer is hitting a mid life crisis.

It is amazing that an object designed to make work easier makes so much extra work. But however fed up you get, you still don't stop using them.

And for my rant, why do people leave their car running in the parking lot to keep them warm/cool, and then bitch about high gas prices?

Because western society folks have a poor concept of what it means to conserve recources, time and money.

Recently i started working with a guy from India, and they do have a very different concept of money and waste. It is kind of frustrating how tight assed he is about money and stuff but on the other hand it is kind of enightening as well. Because i know he comes from a country where every little tiny bit counts towards servival, and us westeners can learn allot from them!

I have another rant... (Sorry, getting these things off my chest makes me feel oh so much better.)

I really hate stupid questions. No I am not talking about the ones where people do not know the answers. How do you do this or what is that.

I am talking about those clowns that ask questions just to ask them.

For instance. I had hair down to the middle of my back a few summers ago. One day I decided I had enough and went to the barber to cut it off. I drove to the shop, waited in line, and sat in the chair. The barber asked me how I would like my hair done. I told him to take my hair to an inch on all sides, off my neck and ears and do not leave the side burns. Part it in the middle and call it good.

Are you sure? He asked! Of course I am sure Duh.

Then I go to McDonalds to grab a bite to eat and they ask if I would like to super size my meal. More cholesterol... Yum... Did I ask for it to be super sized? Do you think I am dumb and don't know that I could super size my meal? After that they ask if that would be all. Did I say anything else? I know some of this stuff is supposed to be courtesy but man it can get taken to far and just burn daylight.

I walk into work and the first person that sees me asks...

Did you get a Hair cut?

Dude has seen my bright smiling face in the morning during the week for the last 9 years. Watched my hair grow from a flat top (courtesy of the military) to a long flowing mane.

No you Moron... I have this weird hair disease, you see, my hair grows in.

Those are the types of questions I am referring to.

None of those questions would bother me.

A dumb question that would bother me would be more along the lines of asking somone who just had their leg bitten off by a shark if their ok?? now that's a dumb question!

questions that do bother me usually start off with "why havn't/have you done..."
hehehe lol

The ones that get to me are when the same person is asking the same question for the fifth or sixth time. If it's someone in my own group I have taken to giving them final warnings...AKA the fifth time around, I say, "This is the last time I will answer this specific question from you, so you had better write down the answer this time" Since I have actually refused to answer it the next time around it has started to work...

Hah! I know what you mean but from the opposite side. Had long hair for fifteen years, cut it all off a few years ago, then decided last year to let it all grow back. Friend of mine I've known for 10 years just recently asked me, "are you letting your hair grow?". Now come on... how could someone even begin to justify asking that?
I actually told him no, I'd just gotten my hair cut... sarcasm can be such an eye opener at times, can't it?

indeed!

I have heard people say that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. However when asked to justify this saying, they always stumble!

Sarcasm is an art form. No doubt in my mind.



The people who say this have no clue on how to use it or decipher it.

Annother rant: a new cell phone comes out every two seconds, and it's always the same as the last one!

AGHENGH! i hate cellphones! I like them, but people use them sooo unresponsibly. You get some blonde who talks on her cellphone in the car and applies her make up at the same time whilst drinking coffe! Plus they are addicting people. Sometimes they can talk for hours on the cell at home, why don't they use the phone. This text message stuff is garbage except teens who are in school who "Illegally" text to their friends. I also hate the fact that every teen must now have a cell phone! When I have kids I'm not going to spoil them with cellphones and all this other crap companies shove out!   

I hate cellphones too. My wife insisted that we get them, saying she was tired of paying $50 a month for long distance, when we could pay $60 a month and get long distance free. I argued that they say $59.99 a month, but that's not what they end up charging you. In the end I finally caved. My last cell phone bill: $122.00. I think I put in 32 minutes of talk time.

It's not because of beauraucrats. It's because we are still so primitive as a species that we are too jealous and insecure to unite.

We generally stick close to our familiar land, people, etc. We kill each other over religion, money, land, or perceived slights.

Imagine an interstellar species observing our society today. I'd be embarrassed to be human.

Not to say it's ALL bad but we are savages in need of some evolution...providing some idealist/theist doesn't start nuclear war and end all life on Earth.

The mobile fone is brilliant here in Australia! I have a zero dollar plan with Optus - so if i don't make any calls it costs me nothing. Carn't say the same for my home fone - if i don't make any calls it still costs me $40.00 per month for so called 'line rental'.

Okay folks here is my rant...what ever happened to plain old common sense? In my life time it seems to be an item most of us have tossed out the window. Come on Blaming the government for what our ELECTED officials do over and over again...WE elected them for petes sake. Blaming corporations for wanting to get rich...please. If you do not want them to get richer stop buying their products. Being responsible for our actions every time is too hard it is just easier to blame someone or something else. Nobody likes taxes, but nobody wants to help educate our children unless they get something out of it for themselves. As a former history teacher I have seen this first hand not just from the teachers but from the parents and the community as well. When you try to help somebody you are accused of anything but being helpful. So until we start taking resposibility for our own individual actions, start using common sense again, then things will just get worse not better.

Do you really want to know?

Because the government has been busy trying to stamp out people thinking for themselves by legislating everything up the wazoo!

because wright and wrong no longer exist, there is just obeying the law or dissobeying the law.

But still, it is not the governments fault, it is the fault of all the morons that go on tv and complain about crap which leads to more laws being made,,, and thats just the tip of the iceberg that we can see in the media - the main part of it are all these courtrooms full of idiots and their lowyers.

So basically speaking, common sense has been replaced with legislation.

My other rant:

WALMART! For the people who don't know whats wrong with walmart...look it up! They have all this crazy crap that they pull. To many to think of specifically.