thundercleetz

Really good to hear. I cannot have gluten so being a vegetarian would be hard for me as I cannot eat a lot of the carbs and protein substitutes most vegetarians eat. I was actually a vegetarian for almost a year when I was trying to figure out what was wrong with my stomach (it was gluten). I don't have an aversion myself to eating meat. However, my goal for when I graduate and hopefully get some more disposal income is to make sure my meat consumption at home is entirely free range and ethically produced, and my eggs are cage free. It really kills me right now the type of meat I consume, but it's what I have to do for now.

Wow that is an incredible story. Hard to believe stuff like that is still happening in the world.

I know exactly what you mean, max. I am amazed every morning there aren't MORE fatal accidents with how aggressive people are. I rarely drive above 70 on my daily drives. Isn't worth it in the long run.

I think we are on the same page here. I agree with what you're saying I just have two cautions: 1. I don't buy any sort of moral obligation argument our government gives us. We know very well who benefits when we go to war. 2. When intervening you run the risk of saving one group of people at the risk of another group. So all I am saying, we better he sure of what we are doing or we could end up causing more bloodshed. Who are we to play God and say who lives and who dies? I am not confident at all our government understands how these cultural and political dominos fall in the Middle East. All things considered, with no outside variables, I agree with what you're saying.

Like you said, the Ukraine situation is more clear cut than the Syria situation. I heard that story too. If God forbid, the Jewish registration situation escalates to something more I'm certain there wouldn't be any problem gathering NATO forces collectively to prevent something terrible from happening. Information disseminates too easily nowadays. Until then, us acting alone is not in the best interests of anyone. Then again, native Africans in Darfur are still waiting for help. So if we do intervene in Syria or Ukraine, don't fool yourself by thinking we are doing this out of any moral obligation. The moral obligation to act is at the point you have your facts straight enough to understand the full consequences of your actions. We don't have that in Ukraine now, and certainly not even close in Syria.

Sorry max I don't have sympathy for us humans. We have all the tools we need to change this thing and are not making it happen. As humans we have the mental ability to determine whether or not to bring life into the world. If we get to the point (let's say a few generations down the line when the planet is really hurting) where we know we are unable to provide our children a certain quality of life, whether that is in the parent's control or not, we shouldn't bring them into the world. We have this type of consciousness as humans. Animals do not have this ability. They truly cannot help themselves and are suffering right now. No doubt in my mind, we deserve what we get as humans. Humans have performed disguisting acts throughout all of history, whether it has been to each other, the planet, or other forms of life. Karma is bound to catch up with us. While on the topic of animals, our current system of producing food is absolutely disguisting and the worst form of humanity. Every individual has a finite amount of resources. Me personally, I value consciousness of animal rights and ethics very high, more than the environment. If I had the resources to spend that's where I'd allocate them to make a change.

Haha I forgot all about this. This is awesome.

There are a lot of people in my office who are from the Baltimore area too. Luckily we are closer to Gaithersburg than Bethesda, so the ICC is a huge help. In fact you could get from Fed Hill to our area in Rockville in 45 minutes, it's a straight shot down 95 to the ICC. Anywhere else in Baltimore and it's much more difficult. I couldn't even imagine trying to commute to the NRC or FDA areas of Rockville where you have to use 495. Or even worse going to NIH in Bethesda.

I take 695W-70W-29S-200W. In the morning it is not bad, takes an hour. Going home it can take up to an hour and a half with 29N traffic, the bottleneck on 70E to 695N and 695N traffic past Pikesville. I have at least tried to make the commute time productive by doing Pimsleur Spanish lessons.

I agree. So for the lost revenue from two games, would you have these scrimmages held at the home team's stadium and charge an open admission price for the scrimmage?

Also Johan Santana is ahead of schedule with his rehab. I know the expectations are low with him, but any production would be a nice bonus.

I certainly see where you are coming from better now, thanks for clarifying. Now I would be more inclined to your line of thought if we knew 100% who was doing what in Syria. We don't know who is using the chemicals weapons. I've heard this before with Iraq. We get involved, then later find out the rebels were the ones using the chemical weapons and now Al-Qaeda runs Syria with guerrilla tactics massacring ethnic and religious minorities and are completely un-negotiable with. Since we cannot rule this likely scenario out with any certainty, any action would be irresponsible and rash. Getting involved is a no win situation, do we let Russian and Iranian interests dominate? Or do we get involved and let Turkey manipulate us for their interests and push Russia, Iran, and China closer to each other? I don't like the sound of either. And this all ties back to democracy, does intervening in Syria really promote democracy? It further alienates Russia and Iran in diplomacy talks, gives risk that a terrorist organization could run the Syrian government, as well as rewards Turkey for promoting anti-democracy characteristics such as restricting freedom of speech. To clarify, what I meant by not meddling in globalization is the whole war machine and monitoring of the rest of the world aspect.

I agree, it is a very difficult job. My question is, why was the school looking at this student's twitter? It was in no way related to the school. Did another parent or student complain? If not, I am not sure if I agree with the school having that sort of reach. My little brother had something similar happen to him with pictures at a party. The school threatened a few different actions, but ultimately they were not able to do anything. I realize that these people who make these decisions are employees and not politicians. The current principal at my old high school I have a lot of respect for, I know he is genuine. The previous couple principals however, these guys were all about getting to that next job and impressing this and that person. In that case, I would argue those individuals are essentially politicians.

On Global Warming, here's my perspective: what gets me passionate about it is not whether us humans will be able to live on the planet. If we kill ourselves off because of our own choices, then we deserve whatever we get. However, it is the harm that we are doing to those who cannot help themselves, animals. While as a society we worry and debate what will happen to humans, the effects are already being felt by other species. Sure, right now we are putting it off until we actually need to take action. However, that is completely neglecting our responsibility to protect or at least respect the life of other species. Just my thoughts at least. So I do not know the exact details, but what are the exact hardline dates on Global Warming? For example, if we put on a full scale transition, what is the latest we could do that before the world goes to hell?

Really good article. Seems like we are getting to that point where some of these transitions are cost efficient, if we aren't already as Krugman pointed out. Heck, we are seeing it with a lot of these new energy star housing and building developments. Developers would not be doing this if it didn't make business sense. The only thing we have to work on is to make sure these costs do not windfall directly on to the consumers. Going back to Energy Star communities, people pay a significant premium to live in these type of housing developments. Are we in a position as an economy to absorb some of these costs?

Going back to the discussion on commutes, 55-mile commute each way here! I work in Rockville. Btw, going back to trains, I took the MARC train to DC for the Cherry Blossom festival. Wow is it convenient for getting to DC. I did not want to pay $20 for parking at Penn Station so we left from the newly renovated station just south in Halethrope. $6 each way, you cannot beat that!

Extremely gutsy performance by Tillman. He got out of a bases loaded situation early in the game and took 120 pitches to get through five innings. Tillman did not have his best stuff but Buck stuck with him in the difficult fifth inning and Tillman came through with a strike out on a 3-2 count with the tying run at bat. Despite the high pitch count and walk number, he still only gave up three runs and got us the win. The guy is a horse with ice in his veins. By the way, Schoop has some awesome power. If he can stay at second base long-term (he's a big boy), having that sort of bat that can crank out doubles and home runs will be a real premium for us.

http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/830/article/p2p-79955753/ Lots of good quotes here from Cody.

Ugh I always think of Jamal Lewis and the scrimmage against the Redskins.

@AKinkhabwala: Rolando McClain got his workout w the Ravens and I'm hearing it was NOT a roaring success. Didn't finish conditioning test, didn't do drills

This is where I see the cable industry going. Right now Comcast has a hold on the industry because they control cable internet for the most part (some neighborhoods have two providers, my neighborhood only has Comcast). Soon enough the big three AT&T, Verizon and Sprint will expand their 4G/LTE network large enough where people can use that for their home network for a reasonable price, and like you stated choose their ala carte services via the internet. In the meantime Comcast will continue to be in the game, especially with cable network sports contracts. Eventually the money for the major leagues will be in over-the-top services however. Long-term thinking but it's going to happen.

Another factor in the Comcast Time Warner merger is Apple was set to release a new Apple TV model that streamed live Time Warner content. With the success of Netflix and other over-the-top services, this was a desperate move by Comcast to keep a hold on the cable TV market as it is definitely moving away from a traditional connection.

I agree with papa, I do not think the school had any ground to suspend the student. In addition to what papa stated, let me pose a philosophical question here. The tweet was very short, saying "Marijuana is my favorite." There is a lot unsaid there, such as his reasons for posting the tweet. It was proven the student did not smoke marijuana. Would you think differently of the suspension, if say, he posted that in support of medicinal marijuana for cancer patients? For example, maybe marijuana helped a family member get through chemo. Once again, purely a hypothetical situation and a philosophical question. All I am saying, the student didn't smoke the drug and we don't know his reasons for posting this. With that said, is a school allowed to punish a student for a political statement when the student did nothing illegal? Additional reading on a situation of how medical marijuana helped a cancer patient through chemo. http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2009/06/16/9820341.html

I heard him on Stern, seems like a really cool guy.

Why don't you tell us how you really feel about him? I would like to try and keep this topic on Syria though as opposed to debating who stands for what or who does what (in other words, my polite way of saying I respectfully disagree with you). I really think Syria is an important topic that ultimately has many interconnected, geopolitical consequences. If you wanted to you could even connect this issue to Ukraine. Everything is intertwined in this game of globalization we shouldn't be meddling in. IMO it's scary.