Saffire

My guess is no explaining would be necessary - children would probably just laugh at it. Interestingly, that's the ad's intended purpose.

You're drunk?! Boobie pics please! :D (jk) EDIT: Oops you're 17. Wait that's legal in SC and Italy, right??

There's no way Nando figured that out on his own. Iker definitely taught him. :D In honor of Roddick falling out of Wimbledon, here's a couple shots of him (including a tumble): http://bp2.blogger.com/_Y-ag-Y1qgAo/R8hEz1cxl2I/AAAAAAAAGNQ/lhA2TrhXtxk/s1600-h/006.jpg http://bp3.blogger.com/_Y-ag-Y1qgAo/R8hO7FcxmUI/AAAAAAAAGRE/bUPPp1-ZuYI/s1600-h/andy+roddick+9.jpg

In an old red Corvette? Then you'd arrive at Las Vegas and gamble, lol.

Hah! Ok off the top of my head, here are a few: 1. Start a successful business. 2. Go sailing somewhere in the tropics. 3. Fire a jackass. 4. Take all my friends on a monthlong vacation in Europe. 5. Give an assload of money to charities for kids who are born with birth defects/health issues. 6. Teach a high school class on economics/finance.

Do you still live with them? Some family relationships only work well when you see each other maybe once or twice a year. As sad as it sounds, usually the people we treat the worst are the ones we're closest to.

Y'all should go swimming at midnight! ;) Bathing suits optional.

Beautiful work... I think you could sell these for a killing on ebay, lol. These aren't exactly realistic, which makes them more beautiful and emotional...

I'm absolutely saying that. I'm seriously considering leaving this country, and renouncing citizenship one day very soon (when I have some basic financial independence). The whole idea that we are citizens of one state, attached by ball and chain, is archaic in my view.

Marx makes the mistake most people do of getting confused about the source of value. His "labor theory of value" basically asserts that capitalists get rich from the work their employees do. This isn't exactly true. When you claim that value comes from labor, you open this whole can of worms... for instance, I can spend many hours, days, or years polishing a piece of elephant dung. I could put massive effort into this task. But all my labor adds no value to society, because there isn't a demand for polished elephant dung. Demand is the source of value. Money is just a tool to measure value. So when you wrap your mind around this fact, you can begin to see that government is incapable of adding value to society. It is simply a wealth reallocator. Ironically, the very process of reallocating wealth skews the ability of money (the tool we use to measure value) to accurately do its job. An example of this is paying for higher education. Over the years, scholarships and government aid programs have become available to students to help fund their college careers. This is all fine and dandy, but the colleges realized very quickly they could take advantage of this and get away with jacking up their tuition! Look at the pace of college tuition's rise over the last 30 years and compare it with inflation - it's gone up much faster. Similarly, when government tries to get in on the whole "solar energy" thing by giving people tax credit for buying solar panels, the companies that manufacture solar panels suddenly raise the price of the panels to match the tax credit - again, because they realize they can get away with this (as it won't affect the purchaser's decision to buy the panels in the end). Reallocation of money by politicians is a very dangerous thing, even if it is well-intended. EDIT - While I was brushing my teeth I thought of yet another example: Federal insurance for coastal development. For some brilliant reason, the government thought it was a good idea to make people in Kansas and other landlocked states help pay for the hurricane insurance of rich folks who own homes along our coasts. The result was beach house prices dropped dramatically, causing a sudden boom in coastal development in the 1960's and 70's. Not to mention the whole Katrina debacle. There's a reason coastal land costs more, and it's not just the view!

I think I'd like to see the government shut down for a few years. Why do we need Congress to keep making laws? We have enough law on the books to last us a good while. What further confounds me is how Democrats seem to love everything associated with European-style governance. Why do they try so hard to change America when their Disney dreamland is right across the Atlantic? Or just north of the border, in Canada? I'm being absolutely serious. In fact I've considered that the ideal situation for humanity would be if there were a spectrum of governments, thousands of them. Dictatorships, theocracies, anarchies, liberal democracies, etc. And you could just pick which you wanted to live under. It would be like picking between Coke or Pepsi. No more wars necessary, thank you! Sovereignty above all!

Thanks, thanks, I'm here all week. Try the veal! :D I'm just opinionated, is all. And right. ;)

You ladies are really into the Euro Cup. These past few pages give a whole new meaning to the term "fantasy football".

Also while I'm in political rant-mode (and I like numbers), let me go ahead and dispel another popular myth being thrown around in the media today: that oil companies are particularly profitable lately. Look at this page: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=XOM It shows that Exxon Mobil's profit margin for the last quarter was 10.85%. Hardly anything to write home about. If you had bought Exxon stock a year ago, you'd be up 3.36%. Congratulations, now you can buy that pack of socks you had your eye on! For comparison purposes, look at Apple's stock: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL Omg, their profit margin is 50% higher than Exxon's! This is highway robbery! Shut them down! If you had bought Apple stock one year ago, you'd be up 39.57%. Go enjoy a steak dinner at Ruth's Chris's, you earned it.

You are too cute, Aleja! :D

Obama is effectively a Marxist/Socialist. He supports federalizing so much of our lives, and increasing welfarism to the point it would cause New Deal style government growth. As for taxation, many Americans (the poorest) pay no income tax at all. This is extremely unfair, given they are usually the ones to benefit the most from government programs - they should be required to pay a fair share. The top 50% of Americans pay 97% of all income taxes. The top 1% of Americans pay 39%, up 2% from 2000 when President Bush took office. So it's a myth the wealthy don't pay their fair share of taxes. I disagree that the income tax is the right way to go about things, though, because a flat tax on consumption would make more sense - as it is impartial and doesn't punish success. And yes, there is something wrong with taking people's money. You don't justify robbing someone by saying "they're richer than me!" At what point is somebody too rich? And who should be allowed to decide that? Government is a necessary evil, and by extension so is taxation. Finally, I don't just toss my vote toward the lesser of two evils. That's stupid. Someone has to EARN my vote, because it's a right that was won for me by millions of American soldiers who spilled their blood on the battlefield over the course of the past few centuries. I'll give my vote to whoever I feel best deserves it.

lol Huckabee was all about mixing church and state, which is definitely not a good idea! I think Romney was probably the best "mainstream" Republican candidate but he's gone now. Ron Paul was my guy till he dropped out... so now I'm voting Bob Barr.

Oh yeesh... don't count on it. McCain is the ultimate politician, a chameleon capable of changing his positions depending on where the polls go. He supports keeping troops all over the world for no good reason, which is a huge expense to US taxpayers. Then there's Obama, who's a Marxist. At least he's honest about where he comes from, but he would jack up taxes so bad the economy would collapse and we'd have about 13 new government programs. Either way is a disaster waiting to happen... I'm voting for Bob Barr, the libertarian candidate.

Hi Chuck, I'm Jay. :) I agree with you on energy. I'm afraid of getting too political in this thread, but America seriously needs to stop dickering around in the Middle East as a means to keep the price of oil down. It's obviously not working. With the money we've put in the Iraq war, we could have paved the desert southwest with solar panels, which would ensure basically free energy for decades to come (along with jobs for people who would maintain the equipment). As time goes on we'll get more energy efficient. Some of the new computer processors that incorporate hafnium actually use 25% less electricity than the last gen processors. Add to that OLED displays, which will one day overtake LCD as the most common display format - those things use something like a tenth of the power, because they don't require a backlight. So maybe our energy usage (at least in first world countries) will plateau. Ideally the technology will spread rapidly enough to preempt the adoption of inefficient tech by growing states like Brazil, India, and China. Geothermal is another awesome place to get "free" energy. I'm not a fan of wind/wave energy because taking that energy out of the system can change weather patterns. In 7th grade I thought up a scenario where we'd cover the Moon in solar panels and have it automatically shoot charged batteries back to earth. That might cost a bit much. ;)

Iker can't count to ten with the MITTENS ON. Somebody get those things off, this is a violation of contract!

*barf*

This has got to be the most caloric orgy ever. I command you all to hit the gym when it's done!

whoa both those guys are hot. Nice find, ladies.

Use Listerine and ACT mouth wash. That combo (alternating days) along with flossing every night pretty much assures nothing bad will happen. My uncle never took care of his teeth and he's still having dental work done to this day and he's in his 50's. It's expensive and sad... EDIT: Yea, I know, I'm a geek.

I mean if you want to do the honors, I'm not stopping you. :wink3: