Grumpy

Bingo. and if 18, I would strongly discourage your daughter from attending so she does not get dragged into it. If she is 17 I would not let her go . These kids also need to learn a lesson about discretion. I cannot believe they are advertising it. Anyway if I were a parent to any of these kids, I would not feel comfortable doing nothing. It's possible if you drop off a copy of the invite to the police now, they could make a phone call to the parents, put the fear of God into them, and prevent the party from kicking off as planned and thus prevent any arrests during the party.

Maybe that would get our politicians on board!

I'd call the parents first and find out if they know what was on the invitation. If they do, then rip them a new one, and make a phone call to the police. If it were me, I'd rather not feel guilty if someone got drunk and did something stupid at a party like this.

How can you compare Kucinich and Plusquellic? What has Plusquellic done that you're so upset about? I understand not agreeing with everything he's done, but recalling the man from office should be reserved for extreme situations and IMO there's nothing justifying such action. Unless the city of Akron is in immenant danger or there's reason to suspect that Plusquellic is trying to defraud the city in some way, wait till the end of his term and elect someone else.

It's the Friday before Memorial day and I haven't really been feeling motivated today so I've been playing on the internet a bit. On another site I ran into someone with some really ignorant views of public transit and since I wasn't really working hard anyway I decided to go off on a rant at him. This seems like the most appropriate thread to share it in.

Well personally I'd rather never get another check from an insurance company, but if you feel differently that's your business. (Please stay away from me while driving though) Either way, what motivation do they have in trying to get people to drive slower, if it isn't, as they claim, safer?

Sherman, this might be a stupid question, but I'm curious, why shouldn't we trust insurance companies studies on road safety? I would think that of all organizations, an insurance company would have the least to gain by allowing bias to affect the outcome of a study on road safety. Please help me understand what I'm missing here.

I've always felt that the separate speeds for trucks was a safety hazard and that we're safer when we're all going the same speed. But I don't think moving the speed limit up to 70 is justified, it wastes gas, and I'm not convinced that allowing people to go faster just because some people already are is the best way to set highway speeds.

No. Tell me you didn't just blame Native Americans for making us smoke and get fat. Please tell me I'm reading that wrong.

While we like like to pick on Transportation Matters (usually for good reason) they seem to be trying to push for better funding for transit, which is definitely a good thing. Laketran handed out packs of the postcards mentioned in the article to every rider earlier this week that were pre-addressed with members of the state senate leadership. They did the same thing with house leaders' office addresses about a month ago. Ohio Senate Weighs Funding for Transit May 18, 2009 Act Now to Support Transit Funding! Lake County's state representative, Mark Schneider, and the leadership of the Ohio House Finance Committee have worked hard to insert into House Bill 1 a line item increase -- to approximately $19 million each year for public transit in the State's 2010 - 2011 budget. The legislation has now moved to the Ohio Senate Finance Committee. Recognizing there is a budget deficit, but a lot of "needs" in the state, it's going to be a battle to keep the transit funding levels intact. The only way to do it is for the legislators to hear from their constituents who need, use and benefit from public transit! Public transit advocates successfully helped increase the transit budget in the House by a mail campaign to the Finance Committee's leadership. Over 2,000 post cards were sent to state representatives and the leadership of the House Finance Committee from Lake County alone! Legislators heard from their constituents and home transit systems -- and were compelled ultimately compelled to help once they understood the woeful state of funding for transit. Use this sample post card Save Transit_May 2009 to write your own message to your representative. (LAKETRAN printed these on brightly colored card stock so that the legislators' office staffs would immediately recognize that it is a message concerning transit funding from their constituents.) It is crucial the Senate Finance Committee understands the human impact of these transit cuts and the disproportionate "hit" transit has taken in the state budgets over the past 9 years. Without personal knowledge of the human impact of service reductions and fare increases, Ohio's transit systems will continue to be overlooked in Ohio's budget. Please share your personal story of how you, a family member or friend has benefited from using public transit.

I don't feel knowledgeable enough to say anything about the phillipines, but as far as our treatment of native americans, I'm not sure I'd call it genocide specifically. Theft on a grand scale, with occasional acts of genocide seems more accurate. We were more interested in taking their land, and keeping them under control than actually killing them. If keeping them under control required killing some of them, so be it, but that wasn't specifically the goal like the holocaust. I think that our treatment of Native Americans is just one of many shameful chapters in our history, but I don't know why it gets so little attention.

Every kid is different, but I think that some people overdo the whole "get ready for hell" warnings. Its exhausting, and you won't get much sleep, but after a while you start to get used to being exhausted and so sleepy that you're dizzy. Just learn to laugh at things like projectile vomit, stock up on coffee, take lots of pictures, and try to enjoy the good parts of having an infant and you'll quickly get used to the bad parts. Good luck.

I wouldn't go that far, but I see your point that there's really not that much that this road will disrupt. If the road does cause some little bit of development of the neighborhood, which would require this road to be built with intersections and not be a freeway, it'll be an improvement to the neighborhood. If one factory opens, it'll be a success for the neighborhood, but still a waste of taxpayer dollars.

^I disagree. On most road trips I've been on, traffic has been going about 5-10mph over the limit (including 80mph interstates in TX). Pushing the limit up to 70 would just get people to do 75-80 instead of 70-75. I would rather see them keep the limit at 65 but forbid police departments from pulling you over for less than 5mph unless they see you commit some other violation. Sortof like they can't pull you over for not wearing a seatbelt unless you've committed some other infraction. Of course, that this would shut down Linndale, is a major bonus.

put it in off topic...(getting popcorn) Please tell us. You can't mention getting arrested for inciting a riot and not tell the story.

I think the only solution is going to have to come from the state or federal level, and it'll have to include some carrots and some sticks. Barring that, I can't imagine regionalization is ever going to happen on a significant level.

A Roth 401k is an employer provided plan, with or without matching funds, like a 401k, except that it uses after tax funds like a Roth IRA. They're somewhat new still (the last 3 or so years) so most employers haven't started offering them yet.

Jesus H Christ WTF kind of allowance did you get? I got a QUARTER every other week! I think I got $5 every month in allowance. I had 10 grand when I turned 16 because I worked weekends and summers starting at 13. $5 per hour (under the table and thus tax free) at the horse stable around the corner from my house, plus no one minded if we flirted with the cute girls that came there for horse riding lessons. :wink:

My parents tried to do the same with my brother and I. They started an account for each of us when we were born and tossed the cash that came in congratulations cards at our births into the account. (Gotta love having relatives on the other side of an ocean.) After we were able to do some chores, half our allowance was expected to be put in the bank account until we were old enough to be able to get a job. At that point we were still expected to put some money into the bank everytime we got paid. I'm pretty sure I was the only one of my friends with 10 grand in the bank when I turned 16, but by then I'd figured out how interest worked, so I only spent $500 on my first car. My wife and I did the same thing with our little tax exemptions, and they've each got a couple hundred dollars collecting interest now. Every month they get their own bank statement telling them how their savings is doing. At the moment those bank statements just get colored on, but in a few years the kids will get a good explanation of what they mean.

I'll jump on the "all people losing their houses were greedy idiots" bandwagon, but add that banks that are foreclosing like there's no tomorrow are run by greedy idiots also.

True, and I like your illustration.

I completely agree that responsibility is the bottom line, and buying without a solid plan of how to pay for the house was insane, though to some degree I understand how people get in over their heads with a house. When I got my house a couple years ago, my wife and I had done a pretty detailed budget of what we felt we could afford before even seriously looking at houses, (we didn't even pay attention to what the bank said we qualified for) but after moving in we found that our budget was a bit off. We hadn't counted on a second kid coming so soon, or that the house had been built without any insulation in the walls. Between heating the place, and buying all kinds of crap for the kid on the way, and a little DIY work to get some insulation in, our finances were really tight for a while. Fortunately we'd left a little wiggle room in our budget, or we could have ended up in real trouble. Also since we put down over 30% when we bought the place we were able to refinance to bring our payments down even further this spring.

I don't get it either, I went to UA and my wife went to Kent, but I never really noticed a rivalry. Then again, I never really noticed a lot of people paying attention to sports at either school. I guess when you hang out with the engineering nerds at Akron, and the Art History nerds at Kent, you don't run into the people that care about this stuff.

I said several pages back that there was some potential to this building and I stand by that. But now that they've started demolishing the structure, rather than just gutting it, it's getting to be too late to worry about the building. Time to bring it down.

Yeah, but he tells the Cleveland Plain Dealer that Ohio should spend $86-million to widen I-71 in rural Morrow County so he doesn't have to drive in a rush hour traffic jam to and from his district when the General Assembly is in session. Next time, Senator...take the train. Ooops, that's right... you think its a waste of $$$ :roll: Not even rush hour traffic. I'd disagree with him, but understand his position if traffic backed up there every day, but it only backs up on holiday weekends and weekends with an OSU or Browns game. That he seriously thinks its worth spending $86 million to avoid traffic jams for about 86 hours a year, plus the added maintenance of patching, and plowing it, but doesn't think that subsidizing the operating costs for the 3C is a good idea, astounds me. Especially since the the 3C will probably remove a good number of people from the traffic jam.