But the same is true for gun advocates. The most extreme voices become the face to those of us who think guns and our current laws are PART of the problem. And it is hard to take gun owners seriously when you hear what some of them, the loudest usually, are saying and when you see the way they behave. I grew up around guns too. My father and brothers hunted. My SIL is an avid hunter. My uncle bought a gun after a home invasion robbery where he was tied to a chair and beaten very badly. He lived alone in a rural area. After that he bought a handgun, not an assault rifle, and he didn't feel the need to wear it openly everywhere he went as some sort of show to intimidate people. He bought what he needed to protect himself. And thankfully he never needed to use it.

In my lifetime I have seen guns go from being tools (for hunting, for the military, for the police...) to something else that is just hard to describe. We have had a change in our culture. We have states making it fine for groups of people to carry huge guns openly into restaurants, to little league games, to stores. The NRA is afraid to censure them. They are losers who think a gun makes them not losers anymore. A gun, a big scary one, makes you important, at least to yourself and others like you I guess. We have state laws that basically say that if you can provoke or frighten someone into confronting you then you get to shoot them. And I think that is a fair description of how stand your ground often works. We have people wanting and believing in some sort of revolution and stockpiling weapons, the Las Vegas shooters for example, two police officers, husbands and fathers, are now dead. And I feel the need to point out that they were armed and trained. But unless the whole good guy with a gun solution to bad guys with guns means we all need to go about our daily lives carrying guns with our fingers on the trigger (which would not actually increase my feelings of safety, or my actual safety). This is not about safety, or protecting yourself with guns. We have politicians and the media defending vigilantes who point guns at law enforcement officers at the Bundy ranch. They are made into heroes, how about tackling the media portrayal there lol. I am all for enforcing the gun laws we have. I am all for having better ones. But until we look at the people who think they need all these guns and why, and deal with that, I am not sure we will be successful, not without even more violence.

Gun ownership rates and deaths, by country, per capita: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/gun-homicides-ownership/table/

Yes.

For shade perennials I like woodland poppies, lady's mantle, and bleeding heart. We have a very shady yard and are in zone five so plenty of snow. I also have hostas and we do have deer who venture into the neighborhood occasionally and I have not had any problems. Maybe they are just full after eating all the tulips.

I would go with the second group.

Here you go lol. Do it for all of us! http://www.jesuschristdiet.com/

That must be from the overall secularization of the country though lol.

Damn hippies! They must be the reason I am fat. I think I am getting the hang of this new science lol.

Deviancy and degeneracy?

Where is the link to secularism? Capitalism unfettered by common sense regulation, corporate personhood, the policies spawned by the war on drugs, and changes in farm subsidies under Nixon, just to name a few, are more direct/reasonable explanations for the many of the problems described in your links. Would you blame religion for child labor then? Would you blame religion for the widespread lynchings of African Americans in this country. We were a much more religious country then so I guess it is the fault of religion. I think a fairly good case can be made for religion being responsible for women not being allowed to own property or vote though lol. "The science is clear"!? Where is the science? Correlation is not causation.

What time frame would you choose though? Because I am not convinced that the America of today is worse than the America of twenty years ago, or thirty years ago, or fifty or seventy-five. When I hear or read of people longing for some past America it seems like it is usually some sort of idealized version. When did his more wonderful, less secular, America exist? Where would you want to take us back to?

I am just talking about what is (IMO) and you are talking about the reason that it is. I have always felt (believed, intuited...lol) that individuals have different levels of comfort with uncertainty. Those with the least comfort are going to be drawn to religion because religions generally claim to have THE TRUTH in some fairly complete form. And as you say we are programed, so to speak, to want/need these explanations. The body of scientific knowledge will never be complete. It will just grow. So there is more, what I would call, uncertainty, or things yet to discover. I envy scientists because they are the ones at the forefront of those discoveries. They are DOING THE DISCOVERING and I can only be part of the audience really. Dd and I just saw the documentary "Particle Fever". Have you seen it? I highly recommend it. Part of the reason it interests me is because I am solidly agnostic. I can't get to belief and I can't get to atheism. And I do not feel the need to get to either, or that I am missing anything by not doing so.

Well, one sugar doughnut and one croissant later I have finally finished reading this entire thread. I feel the need to contribute in some small way, so here goes nothing. In my opinion there is one thing all human beings have in common. It is our discomfort with uncertainty and mystery. It drives science and religion, the need for explanations for everything, including ourselves. Dd16 and I are going to watch The Great Courses" Science and Religion" course together this summer. I find the interaction between science and religion, historically speaking, to be fascinating.

I watched the first two last night too. I want to try to ration myself now, but I am weak.

I guess when we were deciding what our first dog would be I went for companion breeds because that is what we were basically looking for, no sheep to herd here lol. I wasn't looking for a watch dog or guard dog either. I narrowed it down to the cavalier and havanese. Dd really wanted a golden retriever but I was talked out of that by a friend who had one. She told me hers never outgrew chewing up everything. I think I chose well for out needs and even dh has come around to liking the dog. I will be interested to see what you choose and how it works out. Good luck.

After spending time with my sister's dog it is hard to imagine a hyper Brittany. He was so mellow. I guess that is the thing though. Dogs aren't just their breed. They have individual personalities too and if they aren't getting what they need in terms of exercise/attention, well, yikes. We have friends who rescued a golden doodle after the previous owner left it alone all day. It was super destructive and hyper. And it is the size of a small donkey lol. It took a long time before it calmed down.

Ours is a Black and Tan so wearing white is the problem here lol. The furminator brush/comb helps a lot. All we wanted from a dog was love, snuggles and devotion lol and so the cavalier is perfect. I also wanted a reason to get out and walk more and that has been great too. My sister had a Britney spaniel that was a really lovely family dog. That would be my second choice. I just love that spaniel face. I would love to get a second dog, another cavalier or another type of spaniel but dh is being all stubborn about it.

We have a cavalier King Charles spaniel. He meets all your requirements except the protective and he is full grown and looks like a puppy. He has soft, silky fur. He loves all children. He has been a breeze to train except for jumping on people, which he does out of excitement (progress is happening but it is slow) and he pulls on the leash if he sees a squirrel, rabbit, cat, or ground squirrel. He wants one badly lol. He is not a high energy dog. We do a walk every day but he doesn't need to be run or anything like that. He is a medium shedder, but he is small enough that I don't notice it on furniture or rugs. If he is on my lap though I will notice it on me, but the cat is way worse. He doesn't need a professional groomer but does need to be brushed and combed once or twice a week. He is feathered so with burrs that can be a bit of a pain. We have a fenced in yard, way less than an acre and he is fine with that much space. And today he caught a fly that had been bugging the crap out of me all morning, snapped it right out of the air. I was very proud.

Have you done a quiz? http://www.animalplanet.com/breed-selector/dog-breeds.html

I am in a university town and put ads on the U's jobs website. Some were great and some were good. I never had bad experiences with college students. I think it helped that I worked around their class schedules. But it was helpful. I also just had one quiet, well behaved child. My dh was traveling a lot at the time and I just needed a break once in a while.

The same thing happened to our dog after I pulled a tick off him. He got a lump about the size of a marble. It didn't seem to be causing him any pain or anything. The vet said we should just wait and see and it sort of slowly got smaller and went a way.

If it was winter I would do French onion soup or onion panade.

I went to a podiatrist for a sliver that had been healed over. Other than, as you say, a needle or razor, I think you are stuck with a doctor. I hope I am wrong though and someone else has a solution. Good luck, digging things out of feet is my least favorite mother/first aid challenge.

I made a daily list and laminated it with packing tape and then tabbed it. This is so I can cross off every day with a dry erase marker. I have sort of a thing for my daily list. Some days it is the one thing standing between me and chaos, or maybe total mental breakdown.