There's some of that, and then there's the gross stereotyping on TV. The best thing that parents can do is keep their kids away from kids' shows (or any shows) on TV. Think about it - dads are always portrayed as bumbling nincompoops, attractive girls are either bitchy or bubbleheads, smart kids are always pencil necked geeks, and the cool people are the stupid rebels without a clue.

No wonder our kids adopt those attitudes. You want to be attractive to boys? Be a bubblehead. Want to be cool? Ditch school. GAH!

Depends on the management. 7 months ago I inherited a dysfunctional department with morale in the crapper and a seeming inability to do anything. The organization brought in a new director (my boss) and new department manager (me). I got a lot of funding and a lot of resources to fix things. Net result is that we are now ahead of the game for the first time in 5 years, people like being here, and we're having a blast.

So if management is providing support and resources, I'd say go for it. If they're saying we like it the way it is, then leave.

You don't need a driver's license, nor is it forced on you. You probably need a license a lot less than you do a clean credit report these days, seeing as you can't get a job or an apartment without a clean credit check - even if you don't have a loan or credit card to your name.

Citation, please. Hard data, not more soundbites.

Experian? Other credit rating companies?

I'm sure I could come up with a lot of others that disprove your hypothesis. There are lots and lots of private companies that we have to do business with. We have no choice in the matter.

Great soundbite. Now expand on it. Tell us how, exactly, you would put your proposal into practice.

Fewer cops? Less regulations? Which ones? Fewer teachers? No DMV (and no vehicle registrations, or safety regulations, or license plates, or insurance?)

I want to know.

Actually, Islam had huge cultural advances. Algorithm comes from the arabic, Al-Khwrizm taught the Europeans how to do basic math. A lot of the European renaissance was fueled by Islamist intellectual input. True, Europe moved on after that and the Islamic cultures fell into their own dark ages.

I don't think he's a native speaker. Criticize only if you can write equally coherently in his/her language.

and get paid for lying through my teeth!

Hey! We're buying T-Mobile to keep it out of the hands of our rivals. We don't care about the customers or the service, in fact we just want T-Mobile gone. But we'll tell you that the merger will create tens of thousands of jobs! And fewer companies in the marketplace means more competition! Yeah, baby!

I'm glad someone in the FCC has the cojones to stand up to this sort of nonsense.

I look at anti-virus as a compression bandage. It staunches the bleeding, but does nothing to prevent the injury....

Maybe a more secure OS from the get-go might help? Although Win 7 seems to be a step in the right direction....

I agree that losing the game is pretty silly. Water polo is much like soccer; one goal is one point, but it's a higher scoring game than soccer. The sanction is against the coach and not the team. The coach is supposed to put in his/her second (third?) string or practice stuff his team doesn't know if the score gets lopsided.

Yeah, well....

Our water polo team had a match against a much smaller club. They could only field 7 players (that's what you need for a team) but one could not play because of injury. She "started" - got in the water and got out as soon as the whistle blew so the team could play.

Our coaches called a time out, and pulled one of our players to make the game even. At one point we were losing and our coaches stuck with it; they played fair. That taught all the kids a very valuable lesson; you win fairly. You play fair and on an even field. You don't take advantage of the other team.

There is a rule that if you are ahead by more than 20 points, it's "unsportsmanlike conduct" and you can get sanctioned. I agree with it - as there's no way to ensure an even field. When you have one high school that plays water polo year round, and does not have a swim team, and can field 3 times as many players as you, and another can barely field 7 players and plays 9 weeks out of the year, it's unsportmanlike to run up the score. Otherwise it becomes a $ game; the big and rich schools win and the poor schools lose.

The point of games is to learn; not to crush your enemy and hear the lamentations of their women. That's for Gengis Khan; not middle and high school.

My wife was a good distance runner - placed a lot in her age group and had a couple of top-three finishes in regional marathons. Me, I'm not so good. I have good endurance but no speed. I also don't like to compete (a result of a pushy parent - if you can't win, why bother doing it?) so I tend to pick events that have no prizes. I ride road bikes; 100+ miles, up mountains, etc. Neither of us is a swimmer (which is probably why our kids like it so much. :-) ) We have a really good swim club near our house (within walking distance) so it's a good after school activity. Maybe if we had a fencing club they'd be fencers; who knows.

My 14 year old daughter is more of an endurance type. She is competitive in triathlons with adult women; sprint times of 1:28 or so. My son is a fart in a whirlwind; typical for an 11 year old boy, he'll do anything and try anything. Full-contact american football is the only thing I won't let him do. He's small for his age, and he'd get creamed out there. Injuries at that age are too permanent.

I have to give a lot of credit to the head coach; he's been at it for 33 years and his goal is to create lifetime athletes. He doesn't care if you do well today; he wants your best every day, and he's willing to work at it. Our team has not won a relay ever (I think) since he puts one new/weak swimmer in every time. One time my son - then 9 - swam with the 15 year olds. They got their butt kicked but they all had a grand time; the high schoolers because they had no pressure to win, and my 9 year old because they all welcomed him and treated him as an equal.

Part of it is also that we're all athletes to some extent; my wife is a distance runner and I'm an endurance cyclist so we know how hard it is to push every day. We know that our kids need encouragement and time off. Sometimes you have a great day, and sometimes you have a crappy day.

No shit. My kid (who's a better than average swimmer) won't go to the State competition anymore as he's seen too many parents yelling at their kids. "How come you didn't win? You really screwed up!" - to a 7 year old.

I'm backing him 100% on that. Yup, he's qualified, he's fast, and he's good but it's just no fun to watch parents be assholes.

So where's the "I really want to do it" gene? My daughter is not as good a swimmer but she's highly coveted by her team because she really wants to be there. She'll never get above middle of the pack, but every coach wants her on their team - because she works harder than anyone else and loves it, and encourages everyone around her.

Where's the gene for that?

This will be used by parents to beat up on their kids; parents who never were more than middle of the pack anything, now are 100 lbs overwieght, but know their kid is the next Michael Phelps. Blech.