Money relates to happiness like to intelligence. They have NOTHING in common...
I remember when I was 15 I longed to buy a record (yep, no CDs then...) and had to save for it several weeks. When I finally got out of the record-shop, LP under my arm I felt so absolutely happy, that feeling stayed for over a week.
Nowadays I buy CDs almost as naturally as candy. I still enjoy music a lot but THAT feeling from back then never came back.

Yep, exactly, what I wanted to say, Jill!
This person should better think twice before having kids...
But on the other hand.. I used to be like that before I had kids and now, with two of them, I kind of grew with the task (AND it IS more rewarding to raise kids than having to go to the bank!) :-D

Go Bambi!!

Well, don't mess with moms with babies!

It's interesting how the dog takes a
submission pose (dog-speak for: I'm no threat!) and Bambi just doesn't get it, as dear do not use submission poses for obvious reasons...

Uahgh, creepy! *shudder*

I wonder what you have to pay for heating in such a building...

Looks like they have wrapped the beams (?) in some kind of a photo-foil (see in pic one the last seven beams - those white things between the beams - are they paper? and then beam 5 (counting from the right)misses some of the foil below. It looks like someone ripped off a foil or paper...)
What do you think?

Seriously, it happened to a friend of mine, while we were traveling together through Greece. On the ferry-boat to Patmos (I think), she crawled into her sleeping-bag and dozed off. I was awake all the time, reading, when out of a sudden she jumped up screaming like hell - I almost died of a heart attack -. Getting out of her sleeping-bag she lifted her t-shirt and there was a small red spot (like from a cigarette) on her hip, only that none of us is or was ever smoking (and there was certainly nothing like a candle or a lighter or anything inside her sleeping bag). We were totally at loss what could have caused that burn-mark.
I don't know if that was a combustion or not. But to me it is the only explanation for that incident...

SPANK a 3-year old? Wow, I bet that is a safe way for them to learn how to fight fair! *irony off*

Children are always interested in learning new stuff, the smaller, the more interested they are.Why? Because they have not yet been told by the school-system, that you are a loser, if you don't learn the way they explain or teach to you.
What I want to say is that rather than bribing them it would be wiser to motivate them otherwise, or rather, not demotivate them. I at least do not want my kid to grow up into the idea that he will only do something if there is "something in it" for him.

It is our imagination that makes these tales "horrifying". As a child I never thought that these stories were in any way too cruel (and, being German, I was told the original version. No Walt Disney there...). As an adult I do see the spookiness in the tales.
There is an whole scientific branch (Psychology) researching the effects of (cruel) fairy-tales on children and they found out that kids need these stories. No,not necessarily the Walt Disney versions (it is quite terrifying to me, each time they start singing).

Originally the Brother Grimm-Tales were intended for adults (in times before TV) and got understood quite differently (more symbolically) than today.

Ha, now it's there again...
Hmm. I should check my muesli for hallucinogens...
Sorry for these off-topic comments!
:-/
:-)

Hey, what happened to my comment? First it was here, needed moderation, now it's gone. I can't imagine that there was anything written there offending anyone...

As an outsider - not being American nor Russian - I must say that the comments here prove that there are massive prejudices on both sides.
Not all Americans have a "Two-week-return-guarantee"-mentality. And it IS silly to ban ALL Americans from adoption just because this ONE case.
But calling ALL Russians criminals just because adopted children are in emotional trouble (isn't that true in most adopted children - coming from troubled backgrounds, families...?) is pretty short-sighted, too.
Do you seriously think that adopting and raising an older kid from say, Brazil or Guatemala or just anywhere in the world would be easier because Brazilians are "less criminal?

Adoption is different to having an own child. Nothing new there.
Authorities should inform adoptive parents-to-be better as to what adoption means for the whole family, especially if the child comes from a totally different cultural background.

Still there is no excuse for acting like that as parents. There must be places in the US where to turn to in such a situation.

My God, who makes the clothes for those people?!

I always thought that the bad clothing style of Russians all over the world is due to lack of money. Then I saw those super-rich Russians in Nice and I understood that it is rather due to a lack of taste (sorry). But now this video takes it to a whole new level: Clothes that are ugly AND don't fit...

Aaaahhrrg!

This is a total gem!
It would be great (for maybe some of us not-londoners)to see a comparison to these places nowadays... :-)