I got spanked a lot growing up, mostly by my mother but my dad would also take off his belt sometimes.

This was fairly common back then and nobody thought of it as abuse, just a normal part of growing up.

We did worse things to each other playing football.

Note that "US Intelligence" does not publicly release what it does or doesn't know. What you read in the press is released by other branches of the Administration which presumably leaks only that which is in its interest to be released.  Other countries disagree. This document was publish...

2.  That said, I am far from certain that Iran's nuclear weapons should not be an exception.  Unlike many in a previous thread, I am not certain that there will not be a mushroom cloud down the line and history will hold Obama and whoever else was complicit responsible.  I'm speaking of a surgical ...

I've read quite a few stories of asset forfeiture like this and yes they do leave you incredulous. How could it have been more plainly written in the constitution than "No man shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law"? In most of the cases I've followed, t...

I had zero experience buying U.S. government debt before starting the PP a few years ago and had no clue about how LT's actually respond to various economic conditions. Since then I've observed not only the effect of a government shutdown as MT has described but also the S&P downgrade in 2011, i...

If Islam is the existential threat you believe it to be, coming to a mall near me, then why stop at drone strikes? Why not nuke them all and be done with it? If I genuinely believed what you believe I think I would be in favor of that.

I also dont want to be stock heavy since im really trying to pursue the PP and I also believe the stocks are riding on thin air ATM. It's all riding on thin air. Always. The fact that you are thinking so deeply about these things at age 23 tells me you'll be just fine unless you drive yourself craz...

This is why I could never be a Libertarian. We would be pledging allegiance to Adolf Hitler's successors if this line of reasoning won out in the past. Didn't we enter WWII because we were attacked? It actually seems like a very good libertarian reason to engage in war. Interesting that you brought...

Reub wrote: This is why I could never be a Libertarian. We would be pledging allegiance to Adolf Hitler's successors if this line of reasoning won out in the past.

Do you seriously believe that, or is this just Godwin's law having its way with us and you were the chosen mouthpiece this time?

It's always our fault with you guys.  It doesn't matter how heinous their behavior, because they can't be held accountable for their actions, because it's always "our fault." Somewhere along the line, not sure where, I decided it was best when looking for faults to start by looking in the...

Thats another option, but I would then have to either put a ton of money into taxable accounts or put the $17.5k into the 401k fund, which I would then be very heavy in stocks. Assuming you are not going to spend it until retirement, at age 23 I think there is absolutely no way to predict whether t...

Due to the age 59 1/2 provision mentioned above I don't personally have much of a problem with the 401k/PP juggling act but I think if I was in your situation, and especially at your age, what I would do is just leave the 401k in the low cost 2040 fund you talked about and build my PP outside of it....

Taking steps to avoid another war with a another middle east country that poses no threat to us is one of the smarter things the Obama administration has done. I hope they handle it less amateurishly than they've handled the entire Syria thing. Agreed. Personally, I don't like the idea of economic ...

if I lived in a place prone to devastating natural disasters, I would probably split my allocation between paper gold and physical bullion directly held at home. At least then I could always bring it with me if I ever had to evacuate. Of course this would require living in a relatively safe area, o...

The plan has provisions for in-service distributions, but only after age 59.5. Our plan has this and it's a great feature once you hit the age limit. It allows me to put all my contributions into a low-cost index fund and then roll it over into my SEP-IRA if/when the re-balancing band is hit (which...

I've lived through a few hurricanes in Florida.  Me too, but if you're in South Florida you've probably seen more than me. I can also tell you that MT's advice to get a safety box away from the coast doesn't work so well in Florida. When I received a mandatory evacuation order during Charley I pack...

There could be fraud going on, but I find it hard to imagine that iShares would risk the reputation of their entire company and all of their funds... I would have though IM Global had enough incentive to not blow itself up and steal its clients' money, but that obviously wasn't the case. Yes, you w...

That would be like closing the grocery stores and hardware stores when a hurricane hit. Banks do close when hurricanes hit and they may not open for a long time. Quite a few have suffered flooding during recent hurricanes (Katrina and Sandy). That obviously isn't going to damage gold but I can't he...

Certainly she has party machinery behind her, and she might have Obama behind her. She will also have the Media behind her (or was that included in party machinery). As I understand it, they already have created three flattering documentaries about her life that are ready, or getting ready, to be s...

So there you have it. And if you want to double down you can make it Sarah Palin with a black male conservative in the VP slot. From the office of "It's so crazy it might just work:" Palin / Cain 2016! Yeah, a real "two-fer". I would love to see the look on Hillary's face when s...

I think the era of the moderately conservative white male Republican candidate is over and has been since Bush the first. Bush the lesser was an anomaly because he ran against two insufferable white male opponents (Gore and Kerry). Given the changing voter demographics as evidenced by the last two e...

I was raised by parents who didn't go to church but sent me to the local Quaker church to get some religion so I wouldn't "grow up to be a heathen" as my mother put it (she was raised Catholic but was excommunicated for marrying my father). I was not religious at all growing up and the onl...

I remember when some unfamiliar students asked me to join their bible study at Boston University. A friendly girl wanted to talk about Joshua commanding the sun to stand still, and quickly added that there are astronomical records which confirm that something odd happened. I asked her if it was pos...

Hmm, now I'm back to being curious about your screen name. I was using a different screen name when I first joined the site but I changed it for a combination of two reasons. The first was that it was too close to my real name which I decided was unwise and the other was because somebody perceived ...

Just read a fascinating article on Pope Francis. I would describe my current state of religiosity as someone who has gone from being a fervent Christian in my early years to very much of a doubting Thomas in my latter ones. I have never been Catholic and always thought the teaching of the "real...