Carlene

I am not at all bitter, and if you think I am "unpleasant" because I don't believe there is EVER a situation that makes it okay for a 12 year old to have sex, then I'm sorry you feel that way, but I just don't. I have nothing against large families. I had only one, much older sibling and very few cousins. I always wished I had grown up in a large family. I was a widow with 4 very young children when I married a man with 2 daughters. They were very close in age - not more than 2 years between any of them - and they all lived with us. People would frequently ask us, "Are all these children yours?" I never could figure out why they thought we would take 6 kids out to dinner if they weren't ours!

Denise.... I can so relate to your situation. I was widowed twice! My second husband died on our 25th wedding anniversary. It's not very uplifting, for sure.

Not so long ago....only 13 years. My children went to high school with a man who is serving time in prison for having sex with a 14 year old. He was in his 20's.

I am amazed that the 16 and 17 year olds were not prosecuted for sexual indecency with a child. Was this a very, very long time ago?

I was wondering about that 12 year old, too. Was the father of her child another 12 year old?

Josie, that is sooooo great. I have one adopted child (3 more that I got the "regular" way). I am currently raising a grandchild. I had fertility problems for several years and thought I would never have children. I promised God, if he let me be a mom, I would never turn my back on a needy child. Now I am wondering if I am ever gonna be kid-free! LOL...

Back when my kids were growing up, I took in a lot of strays....stray kids, stray dogs, stray cats. A few lived with us (a few kids....LOTS of dogs and cats) but most of them I just fed when they were hungry, rescued them when they needed a ride or a loan. I spotted many a ten or twenty til payday. Sometimes I got it back, sometimes not. Yesterday one of my stray kids ran into my youngest son. I had not seen him for about 15 years. He got my address and showed up on my doorstep, with flowers! He's married, with kids, and owns his own business. He told me that he has thought of me often and would never forget what I had done for him when he was a teen. He did not have a mom in his life and I was there for him, like a mom, he said. It made me feel great! Anything I invested in this kid, and a dozen others, I got back today - with interest.

I never thought I would hear myself say this, but..... ANYONE WANT SOME cheese?

I wish that worked for me, Debby. I just bring the food into my home office and eat at the computer! Bad Carlene!

I am in favor of legalized, physician assisted suicide, but not euthanasia. I couldn't tell for sure, Susannah....are you saying you support so-called "mercy killing"?

The following is the hottest thing on the internet and on Fox News today. Lizzie Palmer who put this YouTube program together is 15 years old. There have been over 3,000,000 hits as of this morning. In case you missed it, here it is.

I'm not hostile, nor do I expect everyone to agree with me, even some of the time. And thank you for your sympathy....I'm sure it's heart-felt and sincere. But please don't try and tell us you cannot believe anyone noticed your post. You obviously made an attempt at oneupmanship with your response to Musical's sarcastic post. Indeed, I think you are very proud of your repertoire of snappy come backs. You even made a point of posting this.... ...lest some of us mistake your "wit" for plain old bad manners. It is, as you pointed out, fine and fun to debate religion, politics, sex, and everything else in R&R. Jokes about killing people are not funny, however. No matter who makes them.....they are not funny. I think that if I had said I am opposed to the death penalty, except for Republicans, I would have received equally outraged responses. It's not about religion....it's about knowing where to draw the line and restraining one's self from crossing it. And yes....there IS a line. There is always a line. If you don't believe me, ask Don Imus.

Rest assured, Mark, that I would NEVER assume your offensive, tactless, tasteless remarks were anything but deliberate. And by the way....I've got your number. That's why I did not respond to your "kill the Christians" post with the kind of righteous indignation you expected/wanted. You HATE it when people don't rise to the bait, don't you? Write this down, folks.....the more you react to Mark's pointed little stick, the more he will poke you with it. Don't give him the satisfaction.

When I seriously feel that my religion has been ridiculed, I am not a bit bashful about calling anyone on it, and have done so quite a few times on LBT. But I knew from the get-go that Mark was being sarcastic when he made the remark about killing Christians. I agree that it was in poor taste, but that isn't the same as hate mongering. Lots of people are tactless, without being malicious. I think Mark is sometimes one of those people.

Hey, I'm used to it. I grew up Catholic in the Baptist Bible belt. If I had a dollar for every time some smug fellow Christian told me that I'm going to hell for worshiping statues, I'd be rubbing elbows with Donald Trump.

I was going to take the high road and not make any political nominations, but since you brought it up first.... The Shrubs....ALL of them.

I'm on board with Rosie (Although I loved her way back when....the original show when she was all sweet. Maybe she should have stayed in the closet.) Also Paris (gag) Hilton, her BFF Nicole, and Britany Spears.

Rape is not, to my knowledge, a capital offense anywhere in the USA. But be that as it may, the reason I have not spoken out regarding Mark's "kill the Christians" remark is because it's really not worth the effort to post a come-back. I rarely agree with Mark, but still...I am about 99.9% certain that he doesn't literally want Fundamentalist Christians executed for their beliefs. But assuming he does....too bad. It's not against the law to worship God in this country. PS....If you aren't adult enough to deal with a certain amount of profanity ("potty mouth people"), then I respectfully suggest that you are too thin-skinned for public forums. This board is way tamer than most, by the way, and I am extremely conservative when it comes to language.....must be my age and my Christian upbringing.

You cannot gain more than the weight of the item you eat. A five pound box of chocolates will produce a weight gain of no more than five pounds.

I think it's the subtle nuances that give it such realistic flair, don't you? The little kitty turds draped artfully across the edge of the pan are the perfect touch. Everyone who has ever owned a cat can appreciate that. They always manage to miss the pan and poop on the edge of the tray at least once a day!

NO....truly not. I don't do the cheese thing. I'm not the thread police.

Jasmine....(hijacking the thread here for a minute) I just noticed the line under your avatar...."I am what I eat". I once told my daughter if that's true, then she is fast, cheap, and easy....LOL

I don't know, but I would hope that any surplus money generated by the labor of convicts would go toward educating the prisoners themselves. I really think that is the most effective way to reduce recidivism. I had a Sociology instructor in college who taught primarily criminal justice courses, so we got a huge dose of that with our Sociology curriculum. He always emphasized that crime is a young man's game and given a few years and a decent education, most prisoners are perfectly capable of becoming model citizens. I think he was 100% right. When I was very young, I dated a boy whose father drank, and whose mother died suddenly when he was in high school. He knocked around for a few years, then ended up in trouble with the law (for forgery). He served two years in a state prison, where he learned sheet metal fabrication. After he was released, he got a job and has worked there for the last 35 years. In a way, prison was the best thing that ever happened to him. Prison is not all about punishment....it is (or should be) equally concerned with rehabilitation.

He's just yanking your chain, Funny D.

Texas may be unique, in that it has a prison system that is almost self-supporting. We have prison farms that grow most of the food served to state prisoners. The prisoners used to grow the cotton that was, in turn, used to make their clothing. In addition, the state contracts for all kinds of "outside" work. About 20 years ago I lived in a small town in East Texas and one summer a crew of convicts came and removed all the seats from the high school auditorium, took them to Huntsville and refinished them, then brought the seats back and reinstalled them - looking brand new. I can assure you that being a resident of the Texas Dept of Corrections is no vacation. I used to be involved in a prison ministry and have visited "the walls" in Huntsville - the old, original state prison. First of all, there is no AC...in Texas. Secondly, it is dismal personified. And finally, there are no big screen TVs and only rudimentary health care. A prisoner with an abscessed tooth is given antibiotics and then, a week or so later, scheduled for an extraction. Pain killers are rarely prescribed - for anything. Now federal prisons are a whole other ballgame. They are much nicer, and much more likely to be full of white collar Yuppies who crossed a line somewhere. So if you are thinking of crime as a free ride at the taxpayers expense, go for the gusto.....commit a federal offense.