Croc

Don't know if you don't try.

Considering it's a Commonwealth and not a state, I'd say that they are either a) trying to raise awareness, or b) they want it to become a state.

Man, and here I thought Obama could only perform well with a TelePrompTer...???

If the grille weren't so damn spindly-looking, like I could snap or bend those by breathing on them, it wouldn't look half bad IMO.

The fries need to be blanched in cold water prior to being fried. This removes a lot of the starch so that too much oil isn't absorbed. Following, make sure your oil is hot, 350-400 F, and most importantly, make sure you have enough BTUs going in your heating source to prevent a massive temperature drop when you drop the fries in. When removed, use a slatted cooling rack on top of paper towels upon which to drain the fries. This way, when the fries are draining, the oil drips off of them and gets absorbed by the towels. If you drain/cool them directly on the towels, they will just sit on the oil-soaked towels and reabsorb the oil.

Don't forget that Wasilla was the only municipality in Alaska during her tenure as mayor that charged victims of rape and/or sexual assault for the rape kit DNA testing--until Alaskan legislature made that illegal specifically because of Palin/Wasilla.

SO?!? GO TALK TO THE GUY AND SEE IF HE'D LIKE TO MAKE A $100 PROFIT ON THE CAR!! He paid $500, and you're offering $600...he doesn't know you know all that.

I don't mind it in general, but that hood cutline is atrocious. Actually, the whole hood design is just bad.

Agreed. What pisses me off is people who just bitch without trying to do anything about it. I'm of a different generation, one that really doesn't get the whole "their kind" and "my kind" ways of thinking. Frankly, I don't give a $h! about ethnicity and culture when making friends because there's always something to learn from others. The sheer fact that I'm living in the same geographical area as someone gives us both access to the "local culture" that we have in common. If I looked at my background, a predominantly Irish/English Catholic (now nonreligious) American-born Hoosier (someone from Indiana), I don't have very many friends of THAT EXACT background. I can't even think of one. My closest friends are primarily Hebrew, nonreligious, American-born, non-Hoosiers. I have a handful of Protestant friends, but very few. I have a single friend with a Catholic background, but that's where the similarities end, and I have only a few friends from Indiana. And don't even get me started on the politics part of it...my friends are either progressive democrats or very conservative. Yet somehow we all seem to get along because despite no "on-paper" similarities, we enjoy each others' company, have mutual respect, and intelligent conversations. We also have a hell of a lot of fun. --- As for neighborhoods being "overrun" with new populations, the greater question is why you have stayed in that neighborhood while "your people" have moved elsewhere. The immigrants didn't just start kicking people out of their homes and taking over. Strong neighborhoods tend to have a lasting legacy. People who live in the ares and care about it tend to preserve its character. Either bad urban policy or other opportunities arising elsewhere (agglomeration economies, like Silicon Valley) caused the original population to shift elsewhere for reasons of jobs, schools, entertainment, etc. You want to preserve your neighborhood? Get involved. Get on the neighborhood council, and if one doesn't exist, create it. Set up a neighborhood watch to combat crime if that's a problem. But the whole whining and complaining about how everything sucks and you can't do anything about it is nothing more than you playing the victim. Are you helpless? Do you seriously want to tell me you have NO control over your own destiny--that everybody else makes life happen and you are just a passive receiver of the consequences of everyone else's actions? Baloney.

And being in construction, you should then know that very few construction workers go above and beyond what is asked of them. The CONTRACTOR of SUBCONTRACTOR is responsible for the work done by whatever labor force he chooses. If his goal is to make a quick buck by cutting corners, then that's how his contracted employees will do their jobs. My family's home was built in 1933, and I know exactly what you mean about construction from that vintage. My family's insistence on quality is also why we have so many subcontractors walk off the job because we DEMAND the quality.

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I've seen that clip several times, and in no way did I come to that conclusion. I wouldn't post here while lying for the sole purpose of sticking to a "talking point" or anything. As an aside, I missed the lead-in when I first saw the clip and was trying to figure out why the hell it was newsworthy, then I came here and figured it out. The context of that speech was that McCain was talking "all about experience" for months, and suddenly is trying to run on the "change" platform since the last two weeks. Then he made the you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig comment, followed immediately by "you can wrap an old fish in foil, but it still stinks." He was just using idioms, as he often does in his speeches. Agreed. I love Biden. Since a year ago June, when CNN had the 7-candidate debate, I wanted Obama at the top of the ticket, followed by Biden. I'm really stoked my top picks made it, and I haven't had to think twice over any of them since.

I'm glad you brought this up. Since you follow Biden so closely, do you not recall seeing Biden address this very point? Biden said (to paraphrase) that after he's seen the way Obama has handled his campaign so competently, and how he has endured all the stresses placed on him with Reverend Wright, and all the other silliness, and after he has read his policy proposals, he now feels that Obama is ready and that he underestimated him before. Biden addressed this just a week or two ago.

My family is from Indianapolis, IN. Not only does Indianapolis have signs in Korean in a couple Korean areas of town, but it just takes one walk down the "International Foods" aisle at the supermarket--and we're talking about Marsh and Kroger--to see Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese. IN INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA If it's there, it's pretty much everywhere.

Actually, I was thinking more about Asian immigrants. I'm also thinking of a lot of Jewish immigrants from the early 20th century who spoke only Yiddish while their children learned English. Or Indian immigrants. Or, yes, Mexican immigrants. Pretty much all non-European immigrants, because most Europeans speak some amount of English as their foreign language education requirements are much better.

Sorry, you're right about the military--that was in Dodgefan's initial post and not one of yours. As for the rest of your post...gardener? More like fast food worker around here. Or construction. Or nannying. There's also a lot of non-college-educated whites in those fields. I think the reason it's a stereotype is because it does not require much beyond manual labor...i.e. no diploma or GED.

Am I the only one who thought "$h!ty Fit" (South Park reference) when I saw griffon's post?

Hey now! I bet the Obamas are fans of those Fleetwood Broughams!! ...If you can't tell I'm being TOTALLY tongue-in-cheek, then you are not mature enough for this website.

Uh huh. That's like my father saying he isn't racist because he likes this one black family he met. Or the people who claim they aren't homophobic because they're friends with a token gay. No, you haven't said anything racist, but you most certainly have chosen to express your frustrations in a way that has a very clear undertone. You rant about Spanish language in billboards, then you bitch about the neighbors next door who play loud music and speak Spanish, then you rant about all the damn illegals coming into the country. Three questions: 1. Are your loud-music-playing neighbors there illegally? 2. Why are you equating military recruitment in Spanish with illegals? An illegal couldn't enlist, duh. 3. Why are you ranting about all these completely separate issues in the same thread? Illegal immigrants are not all Mexican. I'm sure there are a few Canadians who emigrate illegally every year as well. What about Americans emigrating illegally to Canada during Vietnam? The fact that you rant about illegal immigration, the new neighbors, and a spanish-language advertisement all in one thread seems to indicate that the real issue here is that you don't like people who speak Spanish. You don't want signs to accomodate them, you don't want to hear their music, and you don't want them coming into the country "illegally," though I'd love to know just how you determine their legality. If it smells like smoke, there's probably fire.

Really? Because immigrant neighborhoods sure seemed to have a lot of immigrant-language local newspapers, which had local immigrant-language ads in them. And as has been pointed out here in this thread, and in just about every article on the topic, immigrants tend not to learn English, but their children do.

McCain used the exact same expression against Senator Clinton and her health care plan back a few months ago. Also, Palin's whole joke was comparing herself to a pit bull. Now, had Obama said "you can put lipstick on a pit bull, but she's still a bitch" then I'd agree that there was something uncalled for. But "putting lipstick on a pig, and it's still a pig" while obviously referencing McCain and NOT Palin (if you see the clip within the context of what he was saying), it's moot.

If there's too much noise coming from next door, call the police and file a noise complaint. Except that...I don't think the noise is really the issue you have with them.

Final thought: Times change. Get used to it. You can either adapt and move with it, or you can get angry and pissed off while clinging to the past like Archie Bunker. Your choice.

Only if they were consumed with raging bigotry. There, I said it. Have you even BEEN to Mexico? They happily court the money of Americans. I've never heard anything other than English language music in the Mexican cities due to all the tourism. Of course, *I* thought that was a terrible thing and felt like I was being cheated out of experiencing much of another culture.

FALSE FALSE FALSE! Just because you disagree with the lack of an official language does NOT mean that what YOU WANT is the "rule of thumb." Try telling that line to someone who grew up in the Bronx years ago and he'll tell you Yiddish was HIS "rule of thumb." I see plenty of languages used in advertising on a daily basis. I see English, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, etc., but I know that's because I live in Los Angeles, which is one of the most diverse areas of the country. Open up your eyes and your mind to the world around you. What difference does it make when 1 out of every 100 billboards you see along the freeway aren't in your language? And what does the fact that it's along the freeway matter, anyway? The government doesn't coordinate all interstate advertising--that's done by local private landowners wanting to make a quick buck off their freeway-fronting property, barring any anti-billboard ordinance by the municipality.