^There's no accounting for taste. George Michael/Wham! Careless Whisper Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

^^Careful KK, this thread has made me realize some SOLers might actually enjoy that sort of thing

Adam, I see that Yasmin Warsame has gone from being the most beautiful woman EVER to second place over a mere few weeks. How inconstant man is

And other tips from the Department of Homeland Security. This cracks me up no matter how many times I see it.

A hundred and forty billion dollars* a year. What's the weirdest thing you ever ate? Would you eat it again? Go be a troll somewhere else, this is a very earnest thread. *Zimbabwean dollars, that is

Call it a hill. Do you listen to the radio?

^LOL. And when they've finally reached the pinnacle of hotness, they stare fixedly at the ground while mumbling something about cherry blossoms and how snow falls on Mount Fuji. Then they go home and play with their robot dogs. There's a reason why Japan's population growth rate is negative.

Geeljire, maybe if you show you're willing to participate she wouldn't balk so much. Put on your dancing shoes Geeljire

Only if the answer to 2 + 2 is that the length of the hypotenuse is the square root of the sum of the lengths of the two other sides squared.

Why does every other movie title have at least one word repeated 2 times? Is it a peculiar feature of the language?

^Sorry Sheh, that blows.

Stoic, this surprises you? Didn't you read Lord of the Flies in high school? That book is the reason I'm unfailingly polite to children. Kids, despite what others think, have all the violent impulses of adults but without the ability to think through to consequences. The only thing saving us all from a daily armageddon is that they're so puny. EDIT: I'm positive we hated our 3rd grade teacher in Xamar too, the only thing that saved her is her ingenious divide-and-conquer technique. The possibility that, today, you could be picked kabir meant she got a daily stay of execution.

You understand these are 8 and 9 year old who were placed in a special ed class! I think the regular ones must be getting away with their plots. People should look into unexplained teacher disappearances...

I think these kids showed more planning and preparedness than the Pentagon. They should all be made 5 star generals ------------------------------------ WAYCROSS, Ga. - A group of children ages 8 to 10 apparently were mad at their teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, authorities say. That led the third-graders, as many as nine boys and girls, to plot an attack on the teacher at Center Elementary School in south Georgia. Police Chief Tony Tanner said the students apparently planned to knock the teacher unconscious with a glass paperweight, bind her with handcuffs and duct tape and then stab her with a broken steak knife. The scheme involved a division of roles, Tanner said. One child's job was to cover windows so no one could see outside, and another was supposed to clean up after the attack. "We're not sure at this point in the investigation how many of the students actually knew the intent was to hurt the teacher," Tanner said. School officials had alerted police Friday after a pupil tipped off a teacher that a girl had taken a weapon to school. Tanner said the teacher told detectives the children weren't known as troublemakers. "You can't dismiss it," Tanner said. "But because they are kids, they may have thought this was like a cartoon — we do whatever and then she stands up and she's OK. That's a hard call." The purported target teaches third-grade students with learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity, friends and parents said. Two of the students were arrested on juvenile charges Tuesday and a third arrest was expected. District Attorney Rick Currie said other students told investigators they didn't take the plot seriously or insisted they had decided not to participate. "Some of the kids said, `We thought they were just kidding,'" Currie said. "Another child was supposed to bring a toy pistol, and he told a detective he didn't bring it because he thought he would get in trouble." Currie said the children are too young to be charged as adults, and probably too young to be sentenced to a youth detention center. "We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely," Tanner said. "We feel like if they weren't interrupted, there would have been an attempt. Would they have been successful? We don't know." Currie said he decided to seek juvenile charges against two girls, ages 9 and 10, who brought the knife and paperweight and an 8-year-old boy who brought tape. He said they face charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and both girls are being charged with taking weapons to school. Nine children have been given discipline up to and including long-term suspension, said Theresa Martin, spokeswoman for the Ware County school system. She would not be more specific but said none of the children had been back to school since the case came to light. School system policy says any student who brings "anything reasonably considered to be a weapon" is to be expelled for at least the remainder of the school year.

Nephthys, let's face it. The older women might not have been there at conception, but they most certainly knew more of what was going on than the loving partner. At least going by the merciless teasing, winks and guffaws the poor brides in my family were subjected to. 'Course, since then those "X for Dummies" books have enlightened the brothers somewhat. I'm not looking forward to being an old lady anymore, all the fun has been taken out of it

I wonder if entering any of those parameters into the software returned the golden ratio.

Wait, Naden. We can make up some of the organs and hormones right? I don't want to lose any real ones! As far as female plumbing goes, it's a black box anyway. "I had to have my celiac palencium removed when I had little Abdi. And to this day the levels of rofurestren released by my opthalmic nodults haven't been normal."

Interesting URL name for the image. Pretty much sums up your sentiments.

I dunno, I like the idea of preserving female mysteries. Firmly pushing the guy out the door (as if any Faarax would be around anyway), gathering the older women in the inner sanctum, doing whatever secret rituals need doing (eg, something involving foox?). Then coming out carrying the little bundle and watching the men cower against the wall. Power.

I take exception to that Naden. Donkeys don't kill each other over make-belief, and grave robbers made important contributions to medical research in their heyday. And somehow I can't picture donkeys arguing over whether they resemble zebras or not...

Is it pricey? A mechanical fault, did you try hitting it a couple of times?

Odey, there's a picture of the gentleman in many an immunology textbook Endeavour, the BCG vaccine is a pet peeve of mine, so you'll have to forgive me I'm not deadset against it precisely, it's just that I'm surprised the current thinking in your experience is that the BCG works to a significant degree. No offense to your colleagues, but I suspect that many physicians rely on what they learned in medical school 20 years ago to inform their decisions. In the 1950s, the BCG vaccine was found to be highly effective in the UK. But since then study after study has shown that it is NOT particularly protective against pulmonary TB in Asia or Africa, with studies in Malawi and India showing 0% vaccine efficacy. Even in places with vaccine efficacy in the 10-35% range, protection lapses after 15-20 years. So individuals who were given the vaccine as neonates would be vulnerable as teens and, as I mentioned, the BCG vaccine is not at all protective if given to adults. Sadly, someone who ran a clinical study in Nigeria told me that parents are more likely to let their children come into extensive contact with people with active tuberculosis if they think their child is protected by the vaccine. This may be dangerous thinking, and could explain why one trial found that vaccinated people were slightly MORE likely to get active pulmonary TB. 1. P. E. Fine. 1995. Variation in protection by BCG: implications of and for heterologous immunity. Lancet 346: 1339-1345. 2. J.M. Ponnighaus et al. 1992. Efficacy of BCG vaccine against leprosy and tuberculosis in northern Malawi. Lancet 339: 636–639. 3. L. Brandt et al. 2002. Failure of the Mycobacterium bovis BCG Vaccine: Some Species of Environmental Mycobacteria Block Multiplication of BCG and Induction of Protective Immunity to Tuberculosis. Infection and Immunity 70: 672–678 The first paper summarizes many other studies up to that point in a nice table. The last paper gives a mechanistic explanation that is widely held to be true.

LOL @ Zafir. That gave my abdominal muscles a good work out thanks.

Malika, I just found out from someone that there's an Africana library just down the block from my apartment (I got a disapproving look from the Jamaican who was telling me, I think I lost some authenticity street cred). I will check out some of your suggestions. I've only read Crooked Rib and Things Fall Apart.

Nephthys, are you well on the way to becoming a Stepford wife? *shudders* Ngonge, I read The Trial and really liked it, so I bought a collection of short stories. He's not boring, precisely. A Hundred Years of Stifled Yawns, now that is boring. Kafka fills you up with hopelessness about the human condition, which is OK sometimes but can make it difficult to digest dinner