Michael Hopcroft

I have always called figure skating "the cruel game" and wondered why young teens and even prepubescent children are thrown into that pressure cooker. It's the perfect way to break your child. Most top-level sporting systems that involved young teens like Vlieva have a tendency to be horribly abusive. I did not see the event, but reports of the coach's behavior spark so much outrage that I feel she should be up on charges for felony child abuse. Many programs in other Olympic sports are as bad or even much, much worse. If there is a point to crippling young bodies and psyches for a moment of fleeting glory that will be forgotten two weeks later, what is it?

I didn't learn how to write a term paper really until college, and I wrote some pretty bad ones that nonetheless got good grades. Thing was I was a natural procrastinator. In my junior year, when I was clearly disintegrating, I was studying Sociology, and had very poor impulse control. Finally I stopped coming to class because I was making everyone uncomfortable, including myself, but I still did the homework and took the exams. I took down an A for the term. Not that it did me a wholelot of good, since I didn't get to finish my degree. For the active teachers on the list -- what would you tell a student with a great gift but a severe mental illness to help them succeed as best they can and get the most out of the experience possible, even if you know they will not get to graduate?

Faces filled with joy and cheer What a magical time of year Howdy Ho! It's Weasel Stomping Day! Put your Viking helmet on Spread that mayonnaise on the lawn Don't you know it's Weasel Stomping Day? All the little girls and boys Love that wonderful crunching noise! You'll know what this day's about When you stomp a weasel's guts right out! So, come along and have a laugh Snap their weasely spines in half Grab your boots and stomp your cares away! Hip hip hooray, it's Weasel Stomping Day! People up and down the street Crushing weasels beneath their feet Why we do it, who can say? But it's such a festive holiday, So let the stomping fun begin! Bash their weasely skulls right in! It's tradition, that makes it okay Hey everyone, it's Weasel Stomping We'll have some fun on Weasel Stomping Put down your gun, it's Weasel Stomping Day! Hip Hip Hooray, it's Weasel Stomping Day! Weasel Stomping Day

This album includes the classic "Veronica", which is a standout piece of music and lyrics, but this one really hit me hard. Elvis Costello showed a b it of compassion for eveeryone involved in one of Britain's most tragic events of the 20th Century, which many could have been prevented but nobody made that choice. This is, of course, a true story. The film Let Him Have It also about this case, and starred a young Christopher Eccleston as Bentley.

I am even more tired of people who were close to me at some points in my life up and dying, and my not finding out until five or even ten years later. The deaths of artists and athletes hitting me hard I am used to. But only finding out about the death of a friend who helped me through the darkest years of my life passing away fifteen years ago, and my not knowing until last year -- that's hard.

New Biblical Calculus CBN

The NSA persuading the Beholders to work for them, while not realizing that they are now working for the Beholders. NT: The Last Beholder schemes his revenge on all Humanity. He's been gaming it out for twenty-one centuries. So what's his first move? EDIT: Normally at this time of year I would have made this a joke about Petey the Stone Cold Penguin, Mascot of the Sport of Curling. But, I could not think that anything one could say about the Beijing Olympics would be funny. I apologize for missing out on what has become a sort of NGD tradition here.

Violent Cupcakes REM

Rhinoceros-Ostrich Football League EIEIO

Q: But "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and :"God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" don't even scan! Or will you somehow take that as a challenge? A: You can tell everybody this is your song, because no way in heck do I want the credit for it!

Is it all in that pretty little head of yours?What goes on in that place in the dark?Well, I used to know a girl and I could have swornThat her name was VeronicaOh well, she used to have a carefree mind of her ownAnd a delicate look in her eyeThese days I'm afraid she's not even sureIf her name is VeronicaDo you suppose that waiting hands on eyesVeronica has gone to hide?And all the time she laughs at thoseWho shout her name and steal her clothesVeronicaVeronicaVeronica (veronica)Do the days drag by? Did the favors wane?Did he roam down the town all the while?Will you wake from your dream with a wolf at the doorReaching out for VeronicaWell, it was all of sixty-five years agoWhen the world was the street where she livedAnd a young man sailed on a ship in the seaWith a picture of VeronicaOn the Empress of IndiaAnd as she closed her eyes upon the worldAnd picked upon the bones of last week's newsShe spoke his name out loud againDo you suppose that waiting hands on eyesVeronica has gone to hide?And all the time she laughs at thoseWho shout her name and steal her clothesVeronicaVeronicaVeronica (veronica)Veronica sits in her favorite chairShe sits very quiet and stillAnd they call her a name that they never get rightAnd if they don't then nobody else willBut she used to have a carefree mind of her ownWith a devilish look in her eyeSaying, "You can call me anything you likeBut my name is Veronica"Do you suppose that waiting hands on eyesVeronica has gone to hide?And all the time she laughs at thoseWho shout her name and steal her clothesVeronicaVeronicaOh (oh) Veronica

I would be interested in reading an explanation of Japan's alcohol culture and why it is acceptable to go out with all the co-workers you already spend too much time with and get utterly smashed together.

I woujld never do that in a theater -- it's been decades since I've actually walked out on a movie. I sat through all of Super Mario Brothers. Home is different, and I get too easily distracted. I have yet to finish Soul because I was engrossed at the time in conversations with my mother. I saw both Godzilla King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs. Kong in theaters because I know I could never sit through them at home and wanted to lose myself in big goofy spectacle. I might want to give Eternals another chance, just as I want to finish Soul which is a much better film (the parts I saw were really good). But I really need the distraction-free environment a theater provides.

Q: What were Hugh Hefner's favorite kind of people? A: I'm Kang the Conqueror. Fly me.

That as a false equivalency, because in the US, the Head of State add Head of Government are the same person. Elizabeth does not have to run the country — that is the job of the Prime Minister. In the US, the President has the ultimate responsibility for just about everything that happens, and access to the Nuclear Football — which is the most awesome and terrifying responsibility any human being on Earth must bear. If you compare the appearance of Barack Obama in 2008 to his appearance in 2016, the effect looks obvious. The responsibility and stress wore down on him, and it showed on his face. He has been recovering ever since, out of sight of the public. The Queen could retire, but she can't be voted out. She does not have to campaign, and she does not have to decide most of the significant questions of the day. Most public criticism of the Queen, such as it is, is about how she handles her family life. And while having every facet of how you live and how you deal with your grandchildren be major public concerns is not an appealing prospect, it's not as unappealing as the power to destroy human civilization in a matter of hours.

"Corporal, we do not use Fuel-Air Explosives to fry a chicken! Do we?" "Sir! No, Sir!"

I could only watch about four minutes of Eternals the first time I tried. The MCU was inevitable going to run out of creative steam from making the same movie over and over again with different actors, and without adding anything signficantly thematic. At its best, it could fit any type of story (Black Panther was a political drama that worked spectacularly well, and Guardians of the Galaxy remains the best Star Wars movie of the 21st century), but now the producers are fatigues and seem to be going through the motions on an endless stream of sequels and origin stories. The problem is how easily they have pushed other genres and other fantasy films out of the spotlight and compelled other producers to emulate them.

It almost didn't -- they were rechristened the Redlegs for a few seasons, until the end of McCarthyism enabled them to return to their traditional name. Changing the team name was not uncommon in the early years of Major League Baseball. Nobody now alive remembers the New York Highlanders, now better known as the Yankees, and even fewer know that they had originally been the original Baltimore Orioles, who sold off all their best players in a false-flag operation to sink the American Leaguer in its infancy. The hatred of the new league was so intense in NL circles that there was no 1904 World Series because the NL champions refused to play their counterpart from what they considered a "minor league". The obvious joke is moot because there are no other top-flight teams in Jacksonville.

Three words: Superhero Reality TV. NT: Unexpected consequences of Tony Stark announcing he is Iron Man after all.

Q: Sorry I can't make it to your funeral. I have a date with your ex. A: I didn't think living in an opera would be so exhausting.

Q: Hey, Foxbat? I hear you've stored yur entire Master Plan on an Apple ][. How will you get it off? A: I thought you wanted to rule the world, but it looks like you're not enjoying it.

Its people are safer, saner, and more intelligent than anyone in the United States. NT: If the JLA were real, how would they deal with modern America?

That looks like something that bears absolutely no resemblance to a gorilla. They could only draw it on National Gorilla Suit Day. And he viewed obviously packing heat as the sign of a rank amateur.

Q: How do we do proper homage to the guy who defeated both Particle Man and Person Man? A: When they meet, it's Happyland!

This poses one of the great ethical quandaries in animal rights. On one hand, living in zoos, away from their natural communities and activities, is considered terrible for animals. It leads to the wild animal equivalences of mental illness and lead to shortened lifespans compared to their wild brethren who have a far more interesting social environment. And wolves are especially social creatures. Even being born and raised in captivity does not help much. On the other, wild animals in captivity need not fear predators or starvation. For a rare or critically endangered species, the care of trained zoologists can be a bulwark against extinction. But if they can't breed in captivity or survive out of it, what is the gain? Which side am I on? If you ask me, prepare for me to say I do not know.