"...saw it was not going to 'pan' out as planned. Get it, because they used pans to find gold? High quality wordplay right there."

Actually, this is precisely where the idiom came from!

Well, if there's one thing more icky than decomposing naturally via a "green burial", it's the horror that bodies become when they're embalmed and experience anaerobic decomposition in a sealed vault. Google "adipocere".

Having a mohel suck on your baby's freshly-mutilated penis can also cause your baby boy to be infected with herpes and die. Or just be infected with herpes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/nyregion/26circumcise.html

Circumcision is one of those religious ritualistic procedures that would never stand on its own, so it is just rationalized by touting negligible benefits. Good on a German court for recently recognizing this and basically outlawing the practice.

Not to venture off-topic, but circumcision is right along the lines of a certain motorcyclist demographic that wear patches on their leather vests proclaiming, "Loud pipes save lives!"-- while the helmets they refuse to wear are proven to save a lot more lives than the magical-thinking rationalizations behind how being noisy and obnoxious might theoretically save their lives.

Sure, circumcision might reduce incidences of certain filth-related conditions. You know what else would reduce incidences of filth-related conditions? Good hygiene. Just saying.

It's predictable that some folks would get their panties in a knot over this, but under the circumstances, it was a reasonable action to take.

First and foremost, it was essentially an impromptu roadblock checkpoint for a manhunt. At such things, police generally do have slightly elevated powers within a very narrow scope-- finding the person they're after. It's not a fishing expedition, they have a specific goal.

Handcuffing all of the adults was completely appropriate under the circumstances, for the safety of everyone there, not just the police. The last thing needed there was a cornered robber pulling a weapon and trying to take a hostage or shooting one of the bystanders while trying to escape the dragnet.

How is this any different than the police slapping the cuffs on everyone in a drug raid, and then figuring out who is a bystander (and releasing them) and who the criminals are? A credible eyewitness report gave them probable cause to narrow the search to just a few cars, they worked quickly to identify the suspect and release everyone else. That seems like pretty good police work. If anything, it's far superior police work to drug raids, since they're catching a real threat to public safety rather than serving in the capacity of morality police.

The only way I'd see what happened as not being permissible is if the lead was shaky, they didn't treat the folks they detained professionally and courteously, they detained them longer than necessary, or if the guy they actually arrested was not involved in the robbery after all. Seems like none of those conditions is the case, though, so even if the folks who were detained briefly had standing to sue, it would be completely reasonable for them to just waive the intrusion on a civil liberty for the sake of assisting police and thus performing a public service-- but only so long as it would remain their choice to do so.

Maybe their method was not as accurate as it could've been.

The dogs would absolutely have to associate the new "rule" with performing a specific action, rather than just greeting an owner in the lab setting. This is the biggest flaw, since dogs are extremely context-oriented and behaviors take some time to learn to the extent where they will feel "guilty" by not doing things correctly.

There's also plenty of baggage that comes with snatching food off a table. Some dogs don't control their urges at all, some control them when the eye of authority is around, some really do have the level of self-control that they just won't take the forbidden fruit. It has a lot to do with both training and the permissiveness of the owners.

Lastly, different breeds have different levels of social awareness with humans and intelligence. Assuming that "dogs are dogs" is kind of stupid. Different breeds generally do different things with different levels of social interaction with humans.

There are some misbehaviors that only the dog can be responsible for, an obvious one being having an accident in the house.

As far as my dog goes, it's super obvious from her behavior if she's had an accident-- she is bouncing-off-the-walls excited if she's been good, but tends to be really subdued or even just avoids contact for a while if she's had an accident. I'll add that I NEVER scold her after the fact, all that would accomplish is that she might associate me coming home with being scolded, or otherwise form an incorrect association of non-problem-behavior with scolding. Her reaction is almost always the first clue as to whether I need to start looking and sniffing around.

Seems like a great program. Look, it's not targeting people based on their genetic makeup, it's targeting those who have clearly demonstrated that they've made exceptionally poor life choices.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for someone who would get fixed for a fix. That's pretty much the best thing they could sell to society, do for themselves, and do for their potential future children in exchange for more drugs.

As for the notion that the program would be taking advantage of people in a diminished mental capacity, they willingly put themselves in that state. I'd consider them extremely fortunate if that's the worst long-term decision a junkie makes.

The only problem I would have with the program is if it focused primarily on women and not male junkies as well, even though the government is probably just trying to stop having to pay out child benefits to junkies who got pregnant. I bet men would take as little as $50 to get snipped, which would be perfectly fair considering how much more minor the surgery is.

Wow...that's pretty much the only thing the meteorologist has to remember. There also had to have been several folks in the studio who knew exactly what was going to happen, but let her go on anyway because it was going to be funny.

Then again, maybe it was all deliberate.

I find some of the controversy surrounding Planet Fitness to be amusing, they have "No Lunking" rules and set off an alarm if someone is grunting, slamming weights down, and otherwise behaving like a d-bag.

The d-bag bodybuilder demographic criticizes them for catering to fatties and losers, which is the sort of condescending criticism of others that the rules are theoretically supposed to end.

That said, I'm really not sure why a fitness club would provide free pizzas on certain evenings each week, or why they'd hand out candy (as Planet Fitness also apparently does) unless it's to keep their patrons in need of their services.

It would be idiotic unless the registry only included people whose offenses were so egregious that they are barred from having animals, such as hoarders, those who have exhibited extreme neglect (such as having their animals starve), and that sort of thing.

Otherwise, it'll be just another thing like nonviolent sex offenders. Someone who takes a leak in public, a minor who sends another kid a nude photo, or someone who just gets spotted being naked (but not acting in a lewd or perverted manner) is not a risk to society, and who cares where they are living?

People who have demonstrated they can't treat animals appropriately should be only on lists to make sure if they get caught having animals again, their animals are rescued from them without delay. The subset of a$$holes who abuse animals who become psycho serial murderers is so tiny that to say that the purpose of establishing a registry to protect the public from serial murderers is just foolish.

Oh, certainly!

While IKEA stuff isn't what anyone would consider "fine furniture", it's very utilitarian and elegant in its minimalist Euro simplicity. Okay, maybe it's a bit bland, but that's fine. There are more important things in life than to think about home furnishings, and there's no heartbreak when IKEA furniture gets damaged with use, as might come if a beautiful and irreplaceable antique gets worn or receives accidental damage.

Add to that, building your inexpensive flatpack Swedish furniture side-by-side with your neighbors builds your community. Or something to that effect.

Aerostich, a vendor of motorcycle touring clothing and accessories, has had leather gloves with conductive stitching in the index fingers for some time now. I like the idea of just selling the thread to make any gloves touchscreen-friendly though. That's the sort of thing that makes a good idea a GREAT idea.

I think the one thing I like about IKEA the most is the way most products are just so pragmatic and efficient. Yes, I've been sucked-in to the Yellow-and-Blue cult.