Hmm... fleeing the country and be free or staying and getting locked up but having your full moral support ... decisions, decisions...

Someone should've told that prick Washington and his cronies, then the Brits would still have a nice big colony.

You're right, I guess there are a few too many "nots" in the construct to be clear.

I should not write my messages the way I write my code for the IOCCC. :)

As I stated before, of course these indies exist. On a municipal level where they have little, if any, influence on the grand scheme of things, or if at a higher level, then they're embedded in enough members of The Party to be kept under control. How many independent senators/congressmen are there? And, please, REALLY independent ones only, not some R or D that decides to go "indie" because he lost the primaries.

If you suggest that kids are little angels, pure and unable to be sinister little bastards, then yes, you are. They are quite capable of being little scheming assholes worthy of being kicked hard enough to fly half a week past Wednesday.

Sadly, yes, the problem has arrived on this side of the pond, too. For quite a while now, voting meant that you vote for a predetermined coalition. Though I already see this trend in decline, at the very least since the German FDP dropped out of the Bundestag (their Parliament) completely because they tied themselves for good or ill to the CDU/CSU. The reaction from voters was mostly to shift over to the CDU/CSU entirely, essentially cutting the FDP out of the parliament altogether.

The German Greens were facing a similar fate and are already trying very hard to present themselves as something other than the "SPD-light". Which is admittedly easier now that they got a big coalition government.

I can't talk about France, since I don't know whether there has been any movement over there as well, but there are quite a few countries where you don't really have predetermined coalitions, where voting for "your" party does actually make sense.

It loses a bit in the translation but essentially it says "When you're living with wolves, you better learn fast how to howl, lest they might think you're a sheep".

Content "owners".

A comparable example would be to go against Smith&Wesson for robbery and murder.

Technology is neither good nor evil. Its application is.

However, if there is anything in which I have confidence, it is this administration's commitment to slow, methodical, blame-laden screwings of the lower- and middle-class.

In what way has the lower and middle class been screwed by the present administration? I'll agree that the previous administration was great for the rich and crappy for everyone else, but I posit it's slowly improving.

The lower and middle classes have been getting royally screwed for at least half my life, and I retired earlier this year. The screwings started with Reagan's Capital Gains cuts, which caused an orgy of hostile corporate takeovers leading to layoffs and lowered hours. I was hurt badly when my employer staved off an attempted corporate pirate raid.

No, that suppository arrives with the Clinton Administration. I reckon she's wreckin'.

I certainly hope so, it would be nice for the US to raise to the level of the rest of the industrialized world from our historically barbaric health care "system". American health care is far from #1 in any measure except cost; ours is the most expensive. It's neither logical nor rational.

As to Clinton, if she's elected and half as good as her husband the country will be in fine shape. It would be incredibly hard for her to be anywhere as bad as George Junior, the worst President in my lifetime (AFAIC we've really only had two good Presidents in my lifetime, Eisenhower and Clinton, and as I was very young I could be wrong about Eisenhower but love that interstate highway system, as well as his cautions about a military industrial complex).

I'm more worried about Illinois. Dillard was Chief of Staff under Thompson and Edgar, and Illinois did pretty good until Ryan got in, and it deteriorated worse under Blago. It hasn't gotten much better under Quinn, but unfortunately Dillard lost the primary and the stupid Republicans nominated the only one of the four candidates that would get me to vote for Quinn.

Liars always lie. I think people mistrust statistics because they don't understand statistics, or worse, understand a little, just enough to be dangerous.

I worked with data and statisticians my whole career. I'm not a statistician, but learned a lot about the discipline from working with them. One of my co-workers had written a textbook on the subject that was used in colleges. Very interesting discipline.

I can't speak for the detective, but I'd have approved.

Oh yes, please send the poor little bully into counceling, the poor little misguided soul should be shown just how much pain he caused his victim so he learns just how much better it would be not to hurt someone. But we shouldn't make him apologize, it would probably humiliate him too much and shatter his precious little soul.

Like that?

Why so complicated? Hold schools responsible for bullying, including any and all costs for medical bills, psychological and otherwise, that can be linked to it, payable by the school's budget. Unless they can show that they did their best to get rid of the bullies instead of the usual tactics of turning a blind eye to it so the bully doesn't find other targets (like school property or faculty) they are responsible, fully. In public schools you can also fire anyone who could have responded and didn't. Private schools should be sufficiently motivated by the fact that the fines can make up a multiple of the tuition fee they lose by throwing the bully out.

The main mistake the parents made was assuming the school had any interest in the bully being stopped. Far from it. The school has an interest in the bully having an easy target. It means that a potential troublemaker (i.e. the bully) has an outlet for his aggression and won't take it out on school property, faculty or outside the school where they don't have such an easy way to contain it. Bullies seem to understand that "unspoken contract" between the school and them and play along those rules: You get to beat up your victims as long as you don't cause any trouble to the school itself.

Once the victim of bullying starts to report it or (worse even) fight back, the school has a problem. As perverted as it may sound, from the school's point of view the victim is the troublemaker when he doesn't want to be a victim anymore. Because as long as he's "willingly" the victim there's no problem the school would have to take care of.

So yes, the school sides with the bully. And as long as there is no responsibility for the school not to, this will continue.