100% correct. In addition, I wouldn't expect abusers to always be truthful after the fact.

The amount is higher than what normally happens with holds in the U.S., but yes, this practice is somewhat common in both the U.S. and Canada. You likely haven't been charged the $154+, but rather it is a hold against the account. The actual amount will go through at some point, and the rest of the hold will be released. http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/BetterBanking/HosedAtTheGasPumpByYourDebitCard.aspx BTW, for those who are suggesting this is due to a "card skimmer" device, typically the card information is stolen and used at other locations, not where the information was lifted.

A thank you card with a note from your son (and perhaps from you as well) would mean a lot. I just received one this week from one of my players who will be moving this summer, and it turned a crummy day into a nice one.

Ah, a subject near and dear to my heart. First, to the OP, I think your $20 contribution is fine. I have been coaching basketball for 20+ years, and in that time I have received a wide range of end of the year gifts. My wife and sons joke about the stash of restaurant gift cards I always seem to have that have been given to me by my teams and other teams in my organization (I am the director of a program with 800 or so players). As much as I always appreciate the gift cards, what I really treasure are the team pictures, signed basketballs, and other trinkets. Although my teams have won many trophies over the years, I only display the team pictures and other gifts from my players. I have also received personal notes from players that I will cherish forever. Thinking back, the best gift I have ever received from a team was a small photo album of game pictures taken during the course of the season. The father who took the photos even added little captions throughout the album which had me chuckling for hours. I took this spring off from coaching, and my co-coach did an amazing job with the boys in my absence. The team mom called me to ask for a gift suggestion for him, and I was finally able to share my views on gifts (my co-coach thinks the same as I do), so we settled on the parents making a donation to the V Foundation instead of buying him a gift card. When they presented the certificate for the donation to him at the team party, he said it was the best gift a team had ever given him.

My brother was born in 1963 with the same condition. A county nurse showed up at our house (I wasn't born yet) a few weeks later to take him away to a state facility. My mom declined, and was told that the nurse would be returning later with the sheriff to get him. Supposedly my mom walked the lady to the door by her arm, and was yelling something about somebody getting her shotgun for her. The county nurse didn't return, and my folks raised my brother the best they could. They also had some epic battles with the school system over what it was supposed to be providing for special education students.

1.) I don't believe you will find many people arguing that sex at age 13, even when consensual, is a good thing. 2.) It is reasonable to say that in the cultures that are practicing arranged marriages at these young ages, that yes, the education for women in general is not valued. Are there exceptions to this? Certainly, but they appear to be rare based on the opportunities for education given to women in those areas. 3.) Do some of these men love, or learn to love, their wives? Sure. That still doesn't justify or excuse arranged marriages for 12-year old girls. Just because some of the men don't mistreat their wives seems like a flimsy reason to try and defend the practice.

This baby died because a combination of arrogance and ignorance caused this mother and this "professional" to attempt a birth that they had been advised was not suitable for a homebirth. If Karen was a decent human being, which I sincerely believe she is not, she would not have agreed to participate in a homebirth like this just because the mother wanted it. She would not have placed some bizarre infatuation with the birth process over the life of the child. But she did, and sadly the baby died, and she is being let off with a slap on the wrist. A normal person would probably be affected by this for the rest of their life, but I have no doubt Karen will be back to putting herself above the law in no time.

I have no problem saying that I am very disappointed in the plea agreement. This woman's arrogance and illegal behavior contributed to the death of an innocent child, and the sentence she has received is laughable.

I have no problem saying that I am very disappointed in the plea agreement. This woman's arrogance and illegal behavior contributed to the death of an innocent child, and the sentence she has received is laughable.

Based on your post, this sounds like a competitive team, not a rec team. If there were no guarantees regarding minimum playing team, then you really have no standing to make a legitimate complaint. If the two girls are the weakest players on the team, then it doesn't sound like they are being treated unfairly, but rather they are not being treated the way you want. With this being a competitive league, I would argue that playing better players less in favor of weaker players is not fair to the team. Playing more does not make a player better. It is a piece of the puzzle, but the foundation of improvement comes from practice and skill development. If your daughter wants to play more, then she will need to put in the work meet her goals. You said that your daughter is not passionate enough to put in the additional work she may need, and playing less is a natural consequence of that decision.

Please list he "holes" you discovered from the transcript. :lurk5:

I have no problem saying that I am glad he is dead. While I did not celebrate in the street when I learned of his death, I did feel a sense of satisfaction that a man who brought pain and suffering to many, and who was still a threat to our nation, met his end. He chose the path that led to his death, and I simply cannot find any reason to have feel any compassion for this monster. There was nothing good about OBL, and the world is a better place without him. Samuel L. Jackson sums it up well for me in "A Time to Kill".

1.) Did you do any research on your DNA question? You are aware that an identity match can be done in a matter of hours with a large enough sample of DNA, right? 2.) Although we believe bin Laden was buried in the Indian Ocean, that has not been confirmed. However, some brief research would show you that it would not take record time for a helicopter to reach the Indian Ocean from Pakistan. The distance from Kabul, Afghanistan to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean is roughly 2800 miles (farther than bin Laden's body would need to be flown), and could be reached by a US military helicopter in roughly 14 hours. Again, that is using a much longer distance than what was needed. None of the above are weird facts, and over the years it has become painfully obvious that the worst offenders among the conspiracy theorists are simply ignorant. Although I am sure you can find a random Iragi to convince you otherwise.

And that has ZERO to do with this situation. This was clearly a high risk birth, and she was advised by her birthing center to NOT do a home delivery. She then searched until she found a midwife willing to engage in a risky delivery. This mother and midwife sacrificed that child, and yes, the chances of a safe delivery in THIS case would have been in the hands of a qualified OB and a hospital. A c-section isn't the end of the world.

From the WP article: "According to John Kenneth Zwerling, Carr’s attorney, BirthCare advised the mother that the case was too complicated for a home delivery, but she preferred to deliver at home. " She was informed that the birth was too risky for home delivery, and frankly, anyone with an ounce of common sense would have known that. She then went digging around to find an (unlicensed) midwife willing to do the delivery. This wasn't a seemingly normal birth with unforeseen complications. She and the midwife knew they were taking unnecessary risks with the life of the child, and let their arrogance overrule their common sense.

Choosing a midwife in this situation is simply ignorant. The mother placed her "desperate" desire for a homebirth over the life of her child. The midwife CHOSE not to be licensed in VA. She then combined that with participating in a delivery that would have been better served in a hospital. Hopefully the criminal justice system doesn't let her off lightly. She should pay, and pay dearly, for her arrogance.

Well then the midwife will have to suffer the repercussions for choosing not to have a license. Perhaps this will encourage others who choose to knowingly break the law to not participate in high risk births that would better served by someone else. Frankly, I hope she receives a harsh sentence. I only wish there was a way to charge the mother for valuing her birth experience over the life of her child.

Really? So I assume you believe he was a vegetarian as well? BTW, based on the culture at the time, there is no reasonable reason to believe that Jesus did not drink fermented wine, contrary to the fairy tales fabricated by certain groups.

No, not when we are talking about preteens, teens, and young adults. If you do not understand why what you stated here sounds creepy/inappropriate, then I simply am at a loss.

I am quite willing to wager that you cannot provide a single example of this actually happening outside of your own mind.

A publishing company is choosing to edit the word. No one is making them do so. FTR, many of those who are uncomfortable with the word being used in Huck Finn also are against the use of that word in music and comedy as well. I can also tell you that when you have been called that word in a hateful manner, that you can become more sensitive to its use around your children.

Please cite again specifically where slavery was still in practice in the North until after the Civil War. It was not in New Hampshire, and that was your earlier example. Yet tariffs and taxes were not listed as by the states as the reasons why they wished to secede. Odd.

Um, I think I quite clearly stated the north had its own issues, particuarly in regards to race, but they were significantly lesser than those in the South. I do not see why Grant being a slave owner at some point somehow makes the South's sins any less grave. You also pointed out nothing good about the south, you just tried to minimize the issues or deflect (ie new Hampshire). There is nothing positive to say about slavery or race relations in the pre- or post-civil war southern states. There just isn't. Your memories of Civil War history as taught in school may or may not be accurate. In the early elementary grades, a simplistic view of the war as a whole does not bother me, as I can't come up with a good reason to justify one side openly fighting to support keep slavery as being morally equivalent to the other. I know in my high school (in a border state) both sides were addressed, but in the end, I support teaching that keeping others as slaves is morally wrong. I am whacky like that. Both sides? Did you teach that the articles of seccession specifically cited slavery as a reason for breaking from the Union? Did you trot out misinformation about emancipation in the north not occurring until after the war? When you use isolated examples of a the wife of the Confederate President allegedly treating a black child as a member of the family, yes, you are idealising. When you cite the words of a racist Union general as being equivalent to the racism that kept blacks in bondage, you are idealising. The southern leadership, note I am not saying a word about the people in general, supported forming a new nation so that they could hold other human beings in bondage. They fought for years beforehand not for states rights, but rather to force other states to inflict their way of life on their residents. The same leadership supported the enslavement of free northern blacks when encountered in northern states during the war. Both sides committed atrocities before the war, but one side was fully aligned with trampling the rights and destroying the lives of African Americans under the guise of "states' rights". There is simply no excuse for that.

When it came to the treatment of African Americans, the South was evil. The North was by no means perfect, and had its own issues with racism (ex. the draft riots in New York), but you are clearly trying to minimize the evils of the institution of slavery when you trot out Mrs. Davis allegedly treating a black child like an actual human beimng (the fact that is noteworthy should be a hint), or try to excuse lee for fighting to keep slavery intact because he freed his own slaves. Grant was by no means a hero, and I have never seen him treated as such in any serious hsitorical works. You keep going on about the misinformation taught in northern public schools (which was rampant), yet I find the tales of "The War of Northern Aggression" and the outright lies trotted out about how the freedom fighters in the south were downtrodden by the northern industrialists much more disturbing, especially considering that line of thought was used time and time again to defend segregation. Oddly enough, even in northern public schools, Lee, Jackson, and many other Confederate leaders were often admired for being gentleman and honorable. They really weren't, but alas, history often takes short cuts. You do deny the evils of slavery when you try to claim that whites and blacks had a harmonious relationship in the South, which your "handshake" claim certainly implied. I stated Lincoln's primary goal was to hold the Union together. Of course there was more to it than that, which is why I said "primary". It is also proven that the southern states primary interest was protecting slavery. Their own documents, and the actions of those states for the next 100+ years, confirms that as well.

Trying to defend the ignorance that kept millions in bondage by pointing out that new hampshire banned slavery last (which isn't really accurate) accomplishes what exactly? Why does it matter if Lee freed his slaves, if he fought for a nation built around the purpose of keeping all others enslaved? Why did he allow free blacks in Pennsylvania to be pulled back into bondage when he invaded Pennsylvania for the Gettysburg campaign? Does Grant owning slaves prior to the war somehow absolve everyone in the south? If so, why? Also, a war can be fought with both sides having different reasons for the conflict. Lincoln wanted to hold the Union together, with slavery being a secondary issue. The Confederates States, based on their seccession documents, clearly saw slavery as a primary issue.