Amen!

I agree Nancy. A child is going to have to learn how to deal with disappointment at some point in life. Shielding them from everything prepares them for nothing.

I think that is where the problem comes in in England the parents maybe arent guiding the children once one of these milestone moments happen in thier lives, they are probably turned over to a nanny or governess and not getting the attention they need at that time. We all know how cold and standoffish Englanders can be.

I wouldn't describe any of the people I know in the UK as cold or standoffish.

Exactly!!

@Tammy Osier
Some of my best friends are right -wing conservatives who are the biggest wimpy crybabies I have ever known.

Wow. This was just sooooo schoolyard, even for a lefty. How about something relevant and that actually makes sense there, George....

Or how about ban dating. Just have arranged marriages so there will be no feeling involved at all..lol! Ive got a headache.

Hey citizens, you gotta do it. It's what king obama wants. It's the way he thinks.

@r patton....this has nothing to do with Obama...this is from England!

So much for staying on topic . . . huh? Not to mention, not at all relevant. SMH

Al Gore is in his 60s - pre-everybody-gets-a-trophy days.

Florida is still famous for its nightmare voter system. Al Gore won the popular vote by 500,000 nationally. It was so close in Florida, the outcome had to have a closer look. The Gore campaign owed it to its voters to get to the truth. But the means justify the end with the R party. Can't trust those voters to know what's good for them.

Just think, Tammy, if Jeb Bush hadn't handed the presidency to his brother on a silver platter there may not be a President Obama - the one you love to hate on - at least not yet, more into the future. We could have had Al Gore for 8 yrs instead of you know who. Wonder how that would have turned out - no Iraq war, for one thing, no crashed economy for another. That's two biggies. Very possibly no 9/11, early warning and signs of which were ignored by you know who, and then no Afghanistan war. Or, maybe it wouldn't have happened at all. The Bushes, even with all their Bin Laden coziness, were hated by the Arab world for their influence and interference in the Middle East.

Then, maybe, with the American electorate being a bit fickle and liking to change things up - you could have had a Republican president right now. :D

Let the food fight begin . . .

Wow. I'm trying to figure out which version of history you're talking about here.

Election results, yeah, not so sure about that. Not enough to complain about it or say that it was done correctly. Truth is, if it had gone the other way, the other half of the country would have been upset.

How do you arrive at the idea that no GW would have kept the economy from crashing? Last I heard, it was a loan thing, with a program introduced by Dems, and pushed forward by Clinton, and even decried by Bush, who said that the loans were a bad idea and we needed to take a close look at Fannie and Freddy. But, of course, the Dems said no. But you just live with your idea that Bush crashed the economy.

No Afghanistan war? Wait, didn't our current Messiah continue that on? In fact escalated it? And this was after he campaigned on ending it completely. hunh. Maybe there's something there that you and I just don't know. But I understand, Bush started it, so it must be wrong.

And last I heard, sometime this past week, is that Obama is liked even less in the Mideast.

Karsten, my version is the one that happened. George Bush is the one caught on tape promoting the American dream program for 100% and up home loans - saying everybody should own a house. That's the loan program that grew to a huge whopping housing bubble that popped all over the economy. And the Iraq invasion did nothing to help our economy, except it did help the war products contractors. The huge tax cuts did nothing to help the economy - and certainly never when the country is at war on two fronts. And, that big addition to the debt and deficit with his Medicare Part D program was another drag.

Did you think President Obama was going to pull the plug immediately on Afghanistan? Even though he's opposed to keeping it going for decades like McCain would do? That would be irresponsible. It has to be a gradual wind down.

President Obama supports Israel. The Palestinians don't like that, even though he is for them having their own state.

One other thing, with Al Gore, we would at least be slowing global warming and there would be less dependence on fossil fuels by now. He could have done a lot in 8 yrs with that huge dark cloud hanging over the globe.

@Karsten -

"But for much of Bush's tenure, government statistics show, incomes for most families remained relatively stagnant while housing prices skyrocketed. That put home ownership increasingly out of reach for first-time buyers . . .

So Bush had to, in his words, "use the mighty muscle of the federal government" to meet his goal. He proposed affordable housing tax incentives. He insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meet ambitious new goals for low-income lending.

Concerned that down payments were a barrier, Bush persuaded Congress to spend as much as $200 million a year to help first-time buyers with down payments and closing costs.

And he pushed to allow first-time buyers to qualify for government insured mortgages with no money down. Republican congressional leaders and some housing advocates balked, arguing that homeowners with no stake in their investments would be more prone to walk away, as West did. Many economic experts, including some in the White House, now share that view."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/worldbusiness/21iht-admin.4.18853088.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.lewrockwell.com/bovard/bovard8.html (James Brovard is a libertarian author and lecturer)

"The Bush administration and Republicans portray down-payment giveaways as if they were primarily targeted to minorities:

After Bush visited a black neighborhood in Atlanta in 2002 to hype his housing-aid proposal, his first HUD secretary, Mel Martinez, explained, “We sell it that way, as a program for minorities, because we want minority buyers for these homes, but it's available to anyone” who qualifies under income guidelines.
When the House passed the American Dream Down Payment Act on October 1, 2003, House Speaker Dennis Hastert hailed the bill: “We will help lift up our African-American and Hispanic communities.”

"HUD secretary Alfonso Jackson declared in February 2004 that the Bush administration efforts “will help more Americans, particularly minorities, achieve that dream” of homeownership.
If the down-payment program actually specifically targeted minorities, it would violate numerous federal laws and the U.S. Constitution."

continued . . .

continued . . .

"Bush's freebie hype could make the millions of low- and moderate-income Americans who are saving and scrimping for a down payment feel like fools. Bush talks as if the federal government is obliged to relieve all Americans from the nuisance of ever having to accumulate any personal savings.

"Down-payment handouts and zero-down-payments are a great political strategy for Bush. He gets the applause and the political credit now, and the defaults from the program may not surge until much later. He transfers the risk of homeownership from buyers to taxpayers and then pretends he has multiplied virtue in America. He preens as a great benefactor at the same time he undermines those virtues that he is claiming to multiply."

Karsten the problem I'm seeing is that you do a lot of complaining and finger pointing. You also seem to me to see everything wrong in this country as something brought on by "those on the left" whatever that means and those on the right can do no wrong.
If these things are happening in school systems and athletics across the state then I strongly suspect that there is some right-wing participation.
If a team is 32 points ahead of another team how many points do you want to win by? Even in Major League sports they don't rub the other teams noses in it. It's not a matter of fairness it's called sportsmanship. If you played team sports you should have learned that.

Karsten I just want to add that I also disagree with those practices. But I stood up against them when my boy were involved in any of those activities. You gotta get in there and get your hands dirty not just complain.

More or less, yes, the problem is more and more government intrusion. Which isn't completely the fault of those on the left, God knows Republicans have shot themselves in the foot plenty of times by expanding government. But typically these programs are more prevalent in Democratic controlled areas. California, New York, etc. Or, again, in districts like Dekalb or Clayton.

And I would say they need to win by however many points they're going to win by. If the team wants to hold back and keep it to 32 points, then fine. But to have a rule that that is the most they can get beat by seems to me to be ignorant. I still say that the first time a team gets shellaqued 75-0 will probably be their last - they may actually show up to play the next time.

And the idea that you call it sportsmanship to force teams to take it easy is just a prime example of why we are where we are. I was brought up to win, or to try harder the next time if I didn't. I didn't whine that it was unfair that nobody kept me from getting beat that badly. And I took some beating playing sports growing up. But then I just practiced twice as hard.

But maybe it would have been better for me to get a participation ribbon just for showing up. Maybe I would have learned how to just 'get along.'

Karsten I don’t understand what you consider to be “government intrusion” or what you mean by “these programs”. Your comments are so vague as to mean anything that you disagree with.
Don’t get me wrong I like to win big. But it’s kind of a code in the sports community that you don’t just run up the points just to run up the points.
Look up sportsmanship. Then get back to me.
There is nothing wrong with wining or trying harder. Those traits are admirable. But you seem to practice a kind of viciousness that has no place in sports. You were probably the one your opponents singled out to go after. You didn’t understand why them and you still don’t understand today.
And your snide remark at the end gives everyone a look into the makeup of your character.

That you don't understand is fairly obvious...

Karsten Torch
"That you don't understand is fairly obvious.."

This is a non-answer.

GGY when I was growing up we didn't need parents participation in sports to have fun. We just went to the park or playground picked up teams and had a great time.
Parents are the fly in the buttermilk.

That was the way I grew up - playing softball without mommy and daddy fighting with the coaches to put me in every inning. I was just having fun like the other kids. Nowadays, too many parents have dollar signs in their eyes, dreaming their child is going to be a big multi-million dollar star, or at the least get a free-ride scholarship to college. And, the ego trip drives that, too.

I agree 100%. Sometimes we don't give our kids a chance to find their own way. Which brings to mind one of my favorite movies. Finding Nemo.
Just keep swimming. :-)

Tammy "Schools are government run, and have no business telling people how many friends they can have."
I agree 100% with you here and I would be one of the first to confront whatever school official that tried to implement such a rule. You are also right on them needing to stick to what was called in my day the 3 Rs. Read'n "Riting" and " Rithmatic". Leave everything else alone. :-)