Frenchy68

Go Reds! "You'll never walk alone" (unless you play Lyon...) "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

It is now one of my favorite as well... "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

Is this relevant, or merely a coincidence? All 5 sequences are in there... "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

"For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

Lucky you... "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

Anyone got floor 14 yet? I brushed up on the DNA part, but still clueless... "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

Roll her over.

Stuck on 69. Heeeeeeeelp...!!! "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

I don't think too many people are refuting the possibility that the government has evidences he was up to something. The issue is more about the fact that due process was not followed. The danger is to have our executive branch take over the judicial. It is not up to the government to decide whether one is guilty or not of something. It is up to the government to assemble evidences, arrest the suspect, charge him and turn him over to the judicial system. 5 years between step 2 and step 3 is highly alarming to say the least. "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

Sure you can. It works the same way. Say Hillary Clinton is running for POTUS. You think she's gonna put any energy into campaigning in Lubbock Or Oklahoma City? No. What's the point? Will she campaign in LA, SF, NY, Boston or Miami? No, not really. She will be in those places frequently, though - for fundraising. She WILL be campaigning 500 miles east and west of the Mississippi River. She will be campaigning in Florida and Pennsylvania. That's where she'll get the bang-for-her-campaign bucks - the opportunity to gain the most votes. And all the above, I believe, she will be doing anyway in the next 17 months. Or do you reckon she will be campaigning (not only fundraising) in LA, SF, NY, Boston or Miami in her current campaign? I think she would be more likely to do so if she had to fight for every vote. On a tangent, I am not necessarily a big fan of the popular vote. But I believe that, in the case of the US, if the "EC" system is to be kept, states should be given more autonomy from the Fed than they currently have, so as to somewhat turn a state popular voting system into a meaningful vote. "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

One would argue that looking at the current "political" map, it's already quite polarized... "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

Looks like you and Kim Jong Il agree on this point!

Unless you win a very tight race in LA, and lose by a lot in Omaha. What matters is not whether you win in LA, Omaha, NYC or Monkey's Eyebrow, KY (my favorite!), but whether you have one more vote than your opponent. GWB did not win LA, NY, Chicago or SF in 2004, yet won the national popular vote. In a national popular vote system, it is not about winning cities or state, but individual votes. You can not afford to totally neglect parts of the country during the campaign like you can with the current system. "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

The issue is that we have a system which was developed at a time when the States had more power than the federal government. In that regards, there was (and there still is) a popular vote, but at the State level. However, today, the States have lost much of their initial power and autonomy (albeit not all of it), yet the electoral system has remained the same. I am not convinced a national popular voting system would necessarily mean ignoring the majority of the country. Winning LA by 20,000 votes would be irrelevant if losing in Omaha, Nebraska by 25,000 votes. There would still be battle grounds, although they may shift from where they stand today. "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

I haven't bought gasoline since December 2005 (other than when on trips overseas)... "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

Unfortunately, things are not always that clear cut, and that is where individuals rely on the constitution and laws. As an anecdote: a friend of mine was, for a week, the national suspect #1 in the Anthrax events of late 2001. Why? Because: 1/ he ordered large quantities of Cipro from overseas (his daughter is diabetic, and since the Anthrax scare created a shortage in Cipro stocks, he had his father in law, who is a doctor, ship some to him form Europe) 2/ he owns breweries 3/ after September 11, he traveled (on business) to Florida and NYC 4/ his birthday is... 9/11 The FBI visited him several times, and finally ruled him out as prime suspect after checking facts. These events occured prior to the notion of "enemy combatant" appearing in our vocabulary. Whether or not he would have been taken in as a suspected terrorist will never be known. But it is in these types of cases that due process is the difference between an innocent man being incarcerated and this same man laughing about the ordeal with friends... "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

They have NOT been held as prisoners of war, but as "enemy combatant", which is very different. I respect your right to agree with such process, but regardless of its value, I find it greatly at odds with the principles on which the United States of America were founded. "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

Actually, I thought the term "enemy combatant" had been created to differentiate the status from POW, for which the Geneva Convention's rules would apply. "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

I suspect the bong had already been used by the interior decorator. How else to explain why the table, which is rather large, would be set across an otherwise long but narrow room? "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

Funny you should mention this... "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

What is it about liberals, losing, and temper tantrums? On the US political spectrum, Sarkozy would walk alongside a McCain. In France, the term "Liberal", meant pejoratively, is used by the left to describe pro-capitalist politicians. So rationalizing the French political spectrum to US standards is misleading. Sarkozy's platform, if applied, will greatly affect the fringe of the population which is most likely in France to take to the streets. That is the public sector (which is huge in France), trade unions, etc... So there will probably be some compromises, and there will also be demonstrations. To try and spur growth, unlike his predecessors, he will probably be focusing more on helping small and medium businesses, than on the employees. His notion that growth should be lifted from the top (businesses) and not pushed up from the bottom (employees) is somewhat of an experiment in contemporary France. But how many of his promised policies he is able or willing to apply will make things interesting... "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

Voila I tend to stay close to water... It occurs to me that the map is counting US States as "countries". In this case, I wonder if French Departements would count as countries as well. Just getting on the belt highway in Paris would probably raise my score to having visited 80% of the world's countries... PS: I assume airport transit does not count as visiting a country... "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

The way I looked before I grew up... "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

Politically, I am not quite convinced that Sarkozy is any more conservative and to the right than Chirac and some of his previous governments were. However, for the first time, France has a baby boomer at the helm, which brings a new perspective to French society. IMO, France needed to get rid of the political "elephants", being from the right or the left, who were not always in touch with today's realities, being on economics, social, and foreign affairs matters. (I believe the US is faced with very similar issues, and it will be interesting to see how things develop over the next 1.5 years). In that regards, having a runoff between Sarkozy and Royal was already a huge step forward, as both of them are somewhat political "newcomers". Let's see what happens... "For once you have tasted Absinthe you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the gutter, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

YOU SUCK MONKEY NUTS I'm jealous