I assume almost all of you are male, so this should give us a good idea of the average male height of the forum members. Also, what height do you wish you were if you're unhappy with your current height?

The key question then becomes (at least for me): how do you know when your feelings make you ready for a relationship that goes beyond friendship? And I'm talking about myself here. When do I know that I have feelings for someone? This is the part that has troubled me the most.

Difficult say, because we are not you. Myself, often time I know when I meet a girl that she is someone I could see myself with, and other times I know that she isn't someone I could see myself with. Generally, not to sound clique, but you will know when you meet someone who you actually want to date. I always trust my instinct. That isn't something you can really teach though.

That's what everybody's been telling me. And yeah, of course It's certainly true. Then the question becomes whether I am so picky that I haven't found anybody in 20 years of life, or whether I actually have but I'm just bad at interpreting my own feelings. I naturally err on the side of caution for this kind of things, so the latter seems plausible.

Obviously the biggest fear we all have is being rejected, but it happens to all of us, we learn, move on and are better people for it. I imagine you may have met someone you actually liked, but were too afraid to go for it and just settled for friends, but maybe not, I don't know.

The love game is a stressful one, but it gets easier after that first time, and it always burns when you lose a person that means a lot to you. Don't rush it though. Eventually you will find someone since you're a good guy. Just don't over think things, trust your instinct. That is my best advice.

All right, I don't want to get too specific about my private life (the Bushie Syndrome really doesn't tempt me), so I'll put it in vague and generic terms. I am pretty sure that I would indeed be strongly subject to fear of rejection, being in some respects extremely fragile emotionally. However, I can say in all honesty that this so far hasn't played out at the conscious level at least, because I think I'm still one step behind that. What I mean is that I haven't yet really seriously considered even the possibility of bringing up this topic, because there is an even deeper fear I have, which is the fear of starting a relationship only to realize later that my feelings weren't actually as deep as I thought they were. Again, I'm not talking of a concrete episode that happened to me but only about vague thoughts that have crossed my mind. I just would like to be sure I actually have feelings that go beyond a "very very very good friendship" before actually thinking about what to do about it.

Yes, I know, my mind is so messed up.

I think what you're feeling doesn't just apply to romantic relations but all human interactions in general. We all deal with insecurity and the fear that people will reject us, whether it's in the form of sexual advances, trying to get a date or just starting a friendship. We are always our own biggest critics, so we fear that everyone notices our insecurities as much as we do, but that's not really the case. Everybody is looking for companionship but we're all hoping the other person makes the first move. You just have to have the confidence to know that you're a great person and anybody would be lucky to get to know you. Don't be conceited, but be fully aware of your own self worth. We're constantly surrounded by things that make us feel bad about ourselves. It could be hurtful comments that make you feel terrible about yourself, or a commercial that highlights your own flaws for monetary gain or simply walking around town and looking at people who just seem better than you. It's terrible because it crumbles our own self esteem. You just have to know that YOU are a valid person and love yourself no matter what anybody else says. When you exude that kind of confidence, people notice it. Trust me.

I have obsessive compulsive disorder, diagnosed and everything. Most people don't realize it because I'm good with people and have no trouble in social situations, so nobody pegs me as somebody with those kinds of issues.

The problems come at night before I have to go to bed. The obsession is the fear that I will die in my sleep. The compulsions are the crazy things I do before I go to bed to feel "protected." I check my door several times to make sure it's totally locked. Sometimes I check the windows as well. When I leave my apartment I always check the stove and burners to make sure they're turned off like 5 times at least. I have a bunch of cleaning products underneath my sink and I'm terrified that they'll all fall over in the middle of the night, spill all over the floor and create toxic fumes that will suffocate me in my sleep. I'm dead serious, that was my biggest fear for a long time. Finally, a few nights ago, after checking the cabinet for the 6th time, making sure nothing had fallen over, I got so mad that I put all the crap in a box and shoved it in my car so I didn't have to deal with it anymore.

So anyway, living the dream.

http://qz.com/71515/former-us-official-north-korean-leader-is-one-of-more-pathetic-heads-of-state/

Christopher Hill, a former ambassador to S Korea who also met with North Korean officials for nuclear talks basically answers our question by calling Kim Jong Un one of the more pathetic heads of state. He thinks this whole "show of strength" is a ploy to make him more popular with North Koreans who haven't fully embraced him and think he's weak.

Although since nobody in North Korea can express that opinion without the possibility of death by firing squad I wonder how anybody at the top can gauge public approval in the first place...

Over: White working-class, women
Under: Blacks, men

Rick Santorum

Overperform: Closeted Pastors
Underperform: Everyone else

Chris Christie

One quick nitpick. You've highlighted Fayette County, Georgia as a black majority minority county. As of 2011 it is only 21% African American. The black population has been increasing there but not enough to be a majority or a plurality now or any time in the near future. Other than that the map looks pretty accurate!

Ranch on pizza is very common here.  I wouldn't slather my pizza with ranch, but I love dipping it in ranch, or even better, a ranch/marinara mix.

It seems to be more popular in the south, don't know why though.

It's funny you say this, because for years, my sister-in-law and I have done this, while everyone else in our family thinks it is weird. I love sauces - ketchup, barbeque, and ranch, specifically, and dip a lot of stuff in one of those three. My Subway subs often have barbeque sauce and ranch dressing on it.

It's not as bad on sandwiches. I mean I love to put a little ranch on a BLT. It's just weird to me to put it on pizza.

[A FEW]

I just started a job at a pizza place. I start graduate school next fall so I just needed a job now to keep me going until then.

The place is really cool. It's one of those trendy, hearth oven places where customers can make their own custom personal pizza with lots of fresh ingredients. They have stuff like sun dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, capicoa, buffalo mozz, fresh vegetables and your typical meat toppings, so you can pretty much make any kind of pizza you want.

You'd think that when one has the ability to customize their pizza exactly to their liking, they wouldn't need to wash it down with any condiments. Oh how very wrong I was. I quickly learned that the most frequent customer request was, "can I get some ranch with this?" or even better, "can I get A FEW cups of ranch with this?" Literally almost every time I give someone their pizza, they want to drown it in ranch dressing. And they know our ranch is free so they let it flow like running water.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of ranch dressing, not necessarily the bottle stuff, but when you make it fresh like many restaurants do then it's delicious. I love it on a hearty salad and of course it's great with raw vegetables. But pizza?? I remember back in grade school a lot of kids would slather ranch dressing over their pizzas, but I always chalked it up to something that kids do. As it turns out old habits die hard. People LOVE ranch dressing on their pizza. We even have a marinara ranch sauce that's really popular, cutting out the middleman altogether.

Has America's love affair with this calorie and msg laden condiment gone too far? I mean, I just don't understand why people are putting it on their pizzas now. I imagine the Italian immigrant street vendors of yesteryear are spinning in their grave at the thought of it. Ranch is no longer a guilty pleasure of Americans. I believe it has become an addiction, and I am now an enabler.

Do YOU enjoy ranch dressing on pizza and other dishes or do you think it's simply gilding the lily to use it excessively?

They're doing it wrong.  The white people are supposed to set up a seperate Christian "academy" for their kids to attend instead of the public schools. That way Prom can be just as white as in Minnesota and nobody writes unkind blogts about it.

Bingo. It's not surprising how many private schools popped up in the south in the late 60's and early 70s, including one near my hometown called The Heritage School. Hmmm.....I wonder what kind of heritage they were thinking of...

The people keeping this "tradition" alive in Wilcox County should be constantly shamed and criticized until they get their s**t together. I live in Georgia. I love my state and I love the people here. We're not all horrible racists, but I am horribly embarrassed by this. While I hate to see this community deal with such negative attention, I still want to see every reporter in the country down in Wilcox interviewing the people responsible and forcing them to explain to the rest of America why this is still acceptable in 2013. They'll probably change their minds real quick after a few days of that.

The rural south has a strange relationship with the rest of America, deeply insecure and desperately seeking widespread acceptance yet steadfastly clinging to an antiquated set of values in the name of pride. Once again the rest of the country will have to drag the south into modern times kicking and screaming.

I don't see Nixon truly supporting gay marriage. Maybe he would have if there was overwhelming support for it, just to be on the right side of the issue. I mean, we know EXACTLY  how Nixon felt about the gays. Remember all those tapes?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPb-PN9F2Pc

Cool map, but where are the 2020 predictions from?

Humphrey wins in a landslide, given how hated Nixon is today and how blatantly racist Wallace is. Thanks to vote-splitting, Humphrey would also sweep the South. Perhaps something like:

I'm not saying that Nixon and Humphrey are also running. The Rep and Dem candidate are different. It's only George Wallace's candidacy that's the same.

George Wallace won 5 southern states in the 1968 election. His criticism of liberalism and integration was appealing to white southerners at a time when the region felt the issue had been forced upon them.

Let's say George Wallace is running today. Obviously his platform is different, retrofitted to a more 21st century style of thinking. He's no longer an ardent segregationist, but he's still a rogue cultural conservative, railing against abortion, gay marriage, affirmative action and liberal ideas.

In the 1968 election he wins pluralities in Georgia, Louisiana and Arkansas while winning strong majorities in Alabama and Mississippi.



Let's say in the future, we have a situation similar to 1968. Sweeping changes, turmoil and a three way race. The Democrat is too liberal for the south while the Republican inspires no confidence in the region. George Wallace 2.0 comes into the picture. Can he still win the same southern states?

Here's my prediction. Wallace still wins Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana but by a much lesser margin, due to the large black vote. He wins Arkansas by a stronger margin this time around. What's different is that he wins Tennessee, Kentucky and maybe West Virginia this time around. Still, he doesn't win Georgia. The minority vote combines with the 25% of the white Democrats in Georgia, and their support for the Democrat overpowers the other 75% of whites who are split between Wallace and the Republican.

I'll try to post a map later on.

Did anybody really think that a Southern Republican governor in this day and age would be moderate?? I pray that what happened in Georgia a decade ago isn't beginning in North Carolina today.

I'm guessing the religiosity in a lot of southern metro areas is aided by a large black population, so you're not going to get a perfect correlation between religiosity and Republican support.

Although there is definitely a correlation!

Maybe they feel like they really have to prove themselves to be taken seriously.

Also, most of these black Republicans are from the south. Speaking as a southerner, I would say that they don't have a lot of room for moderation. Most of them represent constituents who are white and very conservative. It's taken these people 50 years just to get used to black people holding elected office! If they do or say anything perceived as moderate then their base might turn on them and brand them as just another Obama loving, welfare giving, corrupt black politician. They have to move twice as far to the right to get half the amount of respect. I don't want to say Uncle Tom, but I think it applies here.

This guy will never have the success that the Cain Train had (at some points).

At least Herman Cain made my home state more interesting. It was great to watch a native son crash and burn so spectacularly. By the way, Cain was actually not well known in Georgia before he ran for president, even though he briefly ran for the senate in 2004. When he burst onto the scene, Georgians were thinking the same thing as everyone else..."uh....Herman who???"

Ugh, I'm so sick of this guy. The only reason conservatives love him so much is because he had the nerve to publicly criticize the President at a non partisan prayer breakfast. They were kind enough to invite him to speak, and he uses the opportunity to score a few cheap points with the Fox News crowd. But I guess the more disrespect you show to Obama, the more popular you become with those people.

I really really really hope he decides to run for president. He'll crash and burn fabulously.

People don't realize this, but Kennedy's approval ratings had been dropping throughout 1963. Right before the assassination he was hovering in the upper 50s. By itself that doesn't look so bad but it was a steep drop from approval ratings in the 70s and 80s during the first two years of his term. I suspect a big reason for the drop off was dwindling support among white southerners. So yes, in my opinion that's a sign that some serious turmoil was occurring at the time, at least concerning civil rights. Vietnam on the other hand was still just a simmer, as the war hadn't escalated yet.

I feel like in the long run Kennedy's death was great for his legacy. Had he served eight years he would have faced the same problems Johnson had to deal with and he probably would have left office with a tarnished reputation. I guess in the end it was Kennedy's death that ignited the powder keg later on in the decade.

(Also, I don't see the 1964 election as a byproduct of national unity. Plain and simple, Barry Goldwater was viewed as an extremist, and he ran a very bad campaign.)

The poll I saw done by Washington Post and ABC shows that 41% of people believe that gay marraige should be legal, and 55% feelt hat it should not be legal.  But there is an encouraging sign in this poll.

This poll shows that 18-29 year olds favor gay marraige legalization, and 42% oppose.  But for those 65 and older, only 21% favor gay marraige and 75% oppose.

What this all means: the next generation is a generation whose majority is not a bunch of family values idiots.  In 50 years, when the family values idiots die out, say hello to gay marraige.

Have you ever heard the phrase "Ignorant youth"? The youth are always radical. They grow out of it though.

Exactly. The liberal counter-culture of the 60s and 70s became the biggest share of the Romney 2012 electorate.

Incorrect. 

The liberal counter-culture of the 1960s was a very loud minority made popular by its radical and newsworthy nature.  For every hippie dancing in the Bay Area, there was a kid in Mississippi protesting busing and school integration.  For every veteran who tossed his medals in protest, there's a Vietnam vet angry we didn't keep going until we won the war. 

Here's a young Mitt Romney protesting Vietnam protestors

It should be noted that Tester's son is openly gay. Probably one reason for his support

http://clairecmc.tumblr.com/post/46209857472/and-now-abide-faith-hope-love-these-three-but-the#_=_

Funny how she waited until AFTER the election to have this "epiphany". Can't let those pesky voters know how she really felt!

And yet, Missourians, which voted at the ballot box to define marriage, voted her in anyway because they didn't like Akin's speaking skills.

Well, I'm sure they all wanted a Ted Kennedy Democrat in there --- who didn't have the courtesy or guts to explain her SSM views during her campaign.

LOL, I don't know your game Country Class. I think you're a sock but I kind of feel you on this one. Politicians have been having lots of "evolutions" on this subject lately, haven't they? And McCaskill had it at a very convenient time.

Of course the difference between you and me is that I support this kind of evolution while you think evolution of any kind is the work of Satan.

She doesn't look bad on paper. Six years in Congress. Governor since the 2010 elections (and it's Oklahoma, so she'll probably be reelected.) She was also the Lieutenant Governor in Oklahoma for twelve years, so she has some practice as the #2.

But there would be a lot of scrutiny regarding the reasons for her divorce. And she wouldn't come with significant geographic advantages, nor is she seen as an expert on any policy issues.

Oklahoma has one of the lowest Unemployment rates in the country which she frequently touts on the Fox News circuit. If she was placed on the ticket she would try to sell herself as some amazing job creator. I'm sure anybody on here could poke a million holes in that claim, but I'm not an expert on the subject so I'll sit that one out.

Oklahoma is, to paraphrase Steve Stockman from another thread, one of those places on the Earth where oil and gas comes out when you poke holes in it. Unless Mary Fallin sprung from God's head in some epic creation myth, descended from the heavens and auspiciously placed oil and gas under what would become, thousands of years later, Oklahoma, I don't see how anything she has or hasn't done figures into all the jerbs in her state.

Well that was easier than I thought! I actually didn't know that Oklahoma was a big fossil fuel state, I figured most of the oil and gas was in Texas.

Of course she'll take credit for it though. I can't stand politicians representing oil states who somehow think they had anything to do with millions of years of geology. So you happen to represent an area or land that spurts oil when you poke holes into it and you let people build a business around it? Wow, you must be some job creating wizard...