ChimmyChai

I don't think Charles' bachelor scavenger hunt was crappy. Jake and company just didn't realize what it was. Because what Charles had set it up as was a real life version of a Die Hard movie (Jake would have to find the kidnapped Charles like McClane had to find his kidnapped daughter in Live Free or Die Hard, solve puzzles like in Die Hard With A Vengeance, gold coins like in Die Hard With A Vengeance, etc.) in which they also visited important Die Hard sites and people. But Jake and company wanted a drunken steak-fest more.

Here is Schwarzenegger's tweet in response to Trump's gloating about the Apprentice ratings: "I wish you the best of luck and I hope you'll work for ALL of the American people as aggressively as you worked for your ratings."

We have to be living in an alternate universe right now. Or maybe Trek's evil Mirror universe. Because in the original universe I never said, "Wow, I agree with Glenn Beck/Lindsay Graham." And yet now I seem to say it all the time.

Interesting (or perhaps the better word is horrifying) story in Mother Jones on how school vouchers are destroying public education in Indiana. Mike Pence's Voucher Program in Indiana Was a Windfall for Religious Schools

Privatization isn't about efficiency, it's about private profit and reducing services. Private companies have a profit overhead to cover that the government doesn't. In most areas that difference is too big for just "efficiencies" to bridge. The only way to cover that gap is to provide less. I will use the privatization of schools as an example. In public schools today, the schools are required to provide free lunches to students in poverty and to provide special services to learning-disabled children. Free lunches are an expense on the schools. Extra teachers and aides and special accomodations are an extra expense on the schools. Charter and private schools are not required to provide free lunches. They are not required to take all students as public schools are. They do not have those expenses. So if the state pays a public school $1000 per student and a charter school $1000 per student then the charter school will have much more of a profit because they don't provide all of the services that the public school does. For those trying to convince the American public that privatization is a good thing they will say that instead of paying $1000 per student, they will pay the charters $900 per student, saving the taxpayers $100. They don't mention that the expenses at the public school are $1000 and the expenses at the charter are $700 per student so the charter is still making a huge profit. Meanwhile, as the charter schools cherry-pick the "cheap" kids from the public schools (those students without learning disabilities for example), that leaves the public schools with a greater percent of "expensive" kids. Now the public school's expense is $1100 per student. The lawmakers complain about the public school's budget and point to the charter's $900 cost and change the laws to move more kids to charter (for example, by providing busing services to the charters or just establishing new charter schools). Charter schools are still cherry-picking so once again the public school is left with the more expensive students and the cost goes up again. It is a death spiral that is meant to destroy public education while making the owners of charters and private schools rich. No one's taxes are going to go down. They never do.

Wildfires around Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/29/us/gatlinburg-fires/index.html The Ober Gatlinburg ski resort has been reported as completely destroyed.

It's normal for kids to crush on adults because the adults are supposed to be unavailable. It's a way for kids to try out their social skills in a safe environment. They can't do it with kids their own age because those kids don't have any better social skills. The adult is supposed to know that it's just kids being kids and not get involved and 99.9999% of the time that's how it works.

My husband realized during S02 Episode 3 that Richard's Mr. Stabby is the Sword of Charlemagne from the Franklin Mint. It's just had the fake goldwork on the blade rubbed off. That sword is supposed to be a reproduction of the one in the Louvre. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyeuse