Granberry's Parlor

has he gained more weight?

What a journey.

>has he gained more weight?

No, just increased his carbon footprint.

British drowning in debt and the difference with the continent.

again, housing boom is in patches, not everywhere. I'm not sure the number of credit cards matters. I don't even know how many I have.

Quote

“Rather than showing up at court you just fill in an online form and speak to someone on the phone,” said Mark Sands, director of personal insolvency at KPMG in London.

That's lovely.

I'm not a fan of ARMs.

Not a surprising story. Sounds a lot like areas over here, but not all areas.

What a journey.

whew ... our debt is almost more than our GDP!! And in the UK consumer debt IS larger than their GDP!

I save about 18% of my salary.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080401/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cuba_hotels_8

Cubans are going to be allowed to...spend money? In all seriousness, this is good news. I can't believe they prevented Cubans from using hotels in their own country. Hopefully, we'll wise up with the economic embargo in enough time, although they do have a long way to go.

Looks like those "just say no" sex-ed programs are just working a treat over in Texas.

One has to wonder if actual sex ed and access to contraception may have prevented this. Just very sad.

It can even get better.

Survey: Fla. Teens Believe Drinking Bleach Will Prevent HIV

I bet they don't even know who Bob Dylan is...

How can they not know who Bob Dylan is?

He wrote Every Song Ever Made!!!

Morg "Bet some people HERE didn't even know that!" anti

This just galls me...

He's your Gore?

What a journey.

rising?

in other news: oy.

ddt

Yeah, and ISLAMIC fundamentalists are the threat to our nation.

Hmmm... How do the states taxpayers feel about the state governor's decision to donate $1 million of their money to a Baptist church?

(Hint to Bill: In the above sentence substitute "baptist church" with "muslim madrassa" and see if you still feel the same way...)

bahhhhh. I have no horse in that race.

What a journey.

Politics in Illinois as of late make your average cesspool seem like a operating room in comparison...

Blagojevich is an inept, delusional, corrupt, petty, manipulative, grandstanding clown.
He promised the money to help restore the historically significant structure that the church lost to a tragic fire caused by low budget roofers, who literally ran home instead of calling the fire department. Wiser council in the governor's office suggested that even giving the church money for a good cause, restoration/reconstruction of the historic structure, might be a bad precedent to set re: separation of church & state. Thus the money was instead supposed to go toward a foundation that the church ran to support its campus. Unfortunately some trickster in the office made the check payable to a SCHOOL that was leasing space from the church. That school took the money and set up shop in other leased buildings and then 'went broke". SHOCKING! Meanwhile the deputy governor who all fingers point to in this mess claims she (an African American member of the church) has no knowledge of how this occurred even though it seems her family owned the building that the school leased after the fire. BTW there are NO paper records of who authorized the check...

You have no idea how messed up things are. Despite the fact the Blagojevich is the son-in-law of a powerful white Alderman who has long served as a fixer at the Chicago City Council Blago's incompetence has cased the f-i-l to turn his back on the idiot governor. Thus Blago has allied himself with the corrupt head of the State Senate who is deeply supported by the "Traditional Black Churches" of which First Baptist has the longest history.... The State House of Representatives is headed by a white guy who is allies with Blago's f-i-l. He has a a daughter who is Attorney General (and generally a good one, that is NOT corrupt and does not seem to have any skeleton). The head of the House just had his body pass a potential amendment for RECALL. Yee HA! The Head of Senate is opposed -- imagine that....

Sadly this is really not about separation of church& state, but about open bribes from the governor's office to the backers of the State Senate and a scheme hatched by people in the governor's office to misdirect funds to another group.

It makes China Town and the LA water project seem easy to understand by contrast...

I posted in Local> about the Muslim charter school here in the Twin Cities. I hadn't read the newspaper article that started the whole thing. I just thought it was funny that the head of the school said he didn't know how to operate the flagpole. I decided to read the newspaper story as well as the followup story where the school head avoids answering every question.

I'm a big proponent of the public school system but I have never been a fan of the Charter School strategy... and I used to TEACH at one. This just strengthens my opinion on the subject. I happily accept tax increases that are used to responsibly enrich our school system but I do not condone the use of my tax dollars to fund parochial schools regardless of affiliation.

I agree that if the rules for charter schools say "no religious stuff" than folks should stick to the rules. OTOH if the rules that are setup so that any religious groups are allowed to run the school and they don't exclude anyone I have no problem with that either.

There are too many crappy schools are that HURTS way too many kids and the overall city/state/country.

We need A LOT better schools for A LOT more kids. Badly.

I was lucky to have lived in an area with an exceptional public school system. Not perfect, but very good. I wish there was a way to make all public schools as good as the ones I attended.