Everyone is right - this is terrible
582585
I couldn't agree more with all the poor reviews of this product.  From the misplaced drain hole that leaves an inch of water in the tub when in infant tub mode, to the slippery seat in bath seat mode.  This product should not be on the market it is so poorly designed.  Don't buy it, if you bought it - return it.
4968978
I don't even read this book to know that I will be deeply insulted by it. Why? Books like this do nothing but add fuel to the fire which divides us as a nation. We need to focus on how we can work together instead of trying to force one way of being on everyone. It is unrealistic and uneducated to think that everyone, or even a majority, in America will ever have the same beliefs and ideas.

Also, I am tired of people who know nothing about paganism using the word to basically mean "evil people who want anarchy, death, and the demise of Christianity." The decsription states the books talks about how "those who don't believe in a God or a supreme being are revolting and stealing the next generation of Americans out from under Christian believers." The problem is, I am pagan, I do believe in a supreme being, and I have strong moral values (largely to do with kindess, the importance of family, and the Golden Rule). Attempting to attribute all of America's current problems to a reduction in fundamentalist Christian values and their presence in our culture is not only ridiculous, it shows a complete lack of any real understanding about how culture, economics, history, the uniqueness of America, etc. all play into creating the situation we are in.

Furthermore, a book like this has no business discussing how "forces not friendly to the American constitution and the fundamental beliefs of its founding fathers" are harming America because the principles of our Constitution and founding fathers are based on freedom and liberty. This is clearly not what fundamentalist Christians value since they are trying to limit people's freedoms by imposing their religous beliefs on other. What's more, the majority of our founding fathers were NOT fundamentalist Christian (many were actually Diests, not technically Christian at all).

I have nothing against Christianity, in fact, I think if you follow the teachings of Jesus, you will likely be a wonderful person. I know and am close friends with people from a variety of religious backgrounds, and I think there are very few religions where the actual message is one of hate or destruction. However, fundamentalists of all religions are infamous for their ability to take a wonderful, uplifting message and twist it into something dark and cruel. Even though I am not Christian, I feel bad that people have distorted Jesus' message of love, caring, nonjudgement, and nonviolence into a message based on hate and force. I have to wonder what Jesus would do if he came back and saw what people do in His name, because I don't think for a moment that He would be even remotely happy about all of it.
3149151
I like these new Amazon "tag" things. "Manufactured Outrage", indeed!!Absolute dead-on there. I mean, Good grief! Here we go again! The right-wing victim propoganda machine is at it again, just in time for Christmas (excuse me, I mean "The Holidays"--after all I'm just an evil secular humanist liberal and that's

what I'm supposed to call it, right???). Why was this book written at all? First of all, it is badly written, full

of the same incredibly tired whines and cliches over and over... crying foul at the same old same old "enemies": Those damn secular leftists, those damn colleges and their pointy professors, that damn ol liberal media, those damn coasts, that are "out of touch with the majority of Americans"(TM). I have had enough. Absolutely HAD ENOUGH. As a liberal, I take it personally. I wish more liberals did the same. These people crave persecution so much, we almost expect them to slander us. I mean, THINK about what you are saying..  We are Godless. We are un-American. We are un-Patriotic. We are immoral. To which I quote from the BIBLE, (yes, believe it or not we liberals can be CHRISTIANS too and read the BIBLE too!), "Judge not, lest ye be judged". . I'm calling a spade a spade. You religious rightites are MEAN-SPIRITED AND HATEFUL. Yes, you are. You all wouldn't know Jesus' example of peace, love, inclusion, and compassion if it came up and bit you in the you-know-what. John Gibson quotes a small handful of "local officials" in a few areas but never even identifies them as liberals. No, he simply takes these grossly overblown (and incredibly few) examples and just assumes that they are. Then he plays to the victim card of the Religious Right by hysterically proclaiming that you will be jailed if you say "Merry Christmas". Why do we even HAVE books like this? Why do we spend countless hours of radio airtime, TV airtime, newsprint and more on this pathetic non-issue? WHY? Because a handful of right-wing hacks with ZERO concept of reality have deemed that it gets great ratings and that knee-jerk pseudo-"victims" will eat it up. And they do. And they all watch John Gibson on Fox News.

I tell you what: I dare challenge ANY conservative (heck, or liberal or ANYONE for that matter!) to go out on the street, go to work, go to a bar, go to a church...whatever and scream "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" at the top of your lungs and see if you get arrested. Go ahead, do it. So tell me if some gestapo comes after you and I'll gladly join your cause. Otherwise, SHUT UP and STOP SLANDERING US. I have HAD IT HAD IT with all of you. I have news for you. JESUS IS A LIBERAL! There is not a liberal I know who cares about this whole stupid "Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays" non-issue. We have more important things to worry about, and I wish you did too.
4893952
Wow, how bad can you get?  This music is pure-garbage, then they sing about a political view that almost everyone (Except the sheep who watch Fixed Noise) want nothing to do with.  There is just no saving some people.  Hopefully if enough people go out to vote from here on out, we won't have to put up with their facist/tyrants being elected into office!  Take a good listen to this album people, then remember, Meth=bad.
4949939
Riddled with negative female stereo-types that are perpetually reinforced and a total absence of likeable characters, save maybe two. I have watched the entire series hoping for some redeeming value since everyone is always going on about it, but found only terrible decision after terrible decision being made by people I would just assume see eaten. The only redeeming value is the quantity of ridicule derived from this absolute trash burger!
3921876
I had a lot of trouble believing this book from the very beginning. (Incidentally, it's the same reason that I have a lot of trouble believing a lot of psychiatric diagnoses.)

1. There is no clear causative agent (no marker in the blood, etc.).

2. It seems like authors rely a lot on the testimony of other, non experts to make the diagnosis. (So, adult ADHD is  made with the input of a person's partner. And child ADHD is made with the input of a child's teacher. But what happens when there is a diagnosis fad-- and they *do* happen and everyone thinks that everyone else has ADHD? Does that lead to diagnostic parallax? Does anyone remember how everyone is autistic nowadays after Jenny McCarthy read an internet blog and because a self-styled Autism Apostle/ Advocate. Then everyone else was a liberation therapy/ CCSVI expert after a couple of quacks cooked that up. )

3. Even within the first couple of chapters, the authors start out on wobbly ground. There are characteristics X, Y, and Z. Some ADHD children have them and others don't. No attempts at quantification. Like: "90% of ADHD children have them" or "there are 5 symptoms that are criteria for this diagnosis and if this child has 4 (AS OBSERVED BY A LICENSED CLINICAL PSYCHIATRIST), then that is enough for a diagnosis." When I was diagnosed with Behcet's syndrome, there was a checklist of symptoms and the doctor went about gathering labwork in a matter-of-fact way and came back with a diagnosis. I do know the difference between a disease such as pneumonia (where every single person who has this disease will have a causative agent that is isolated/ isolable from the lung) and a syndrome ( where there are a host of symptoms to choose from and people will have some number of this list of symptoms to be considered as having this syndrome), but these diagnosis strained credulity/plausibility.

4. There is not one single reference in this book. Not one. And it has been through five publications, so some references might have been updated between the 1st and the 5th publication. But then, they will never even put here in the first place so the author did not even have to bother with that much. On page 47, the author states that ADHD has been associated with difficulty at birth and loss of oxygen. But if I wanted to follow up with that, I would not find his source anywhere in this book.

Verdict: This book has been in print a long time, but it does not tell me anything that I really believe all that much. Or does not tell me anything in a way that I can believe it. If it was written in a way that it could have been published by the Basic Books label, then it might have been something that was a bit more useful to me. Not recommended.
4732155
I believe in free speech and expression but this goes way past decent discussion of different opinions. This is obscene. It is pornography of the highest order. I have been a customer of Amazon's for may years. This is the worst I have ever seen
2204833
I wanted to like this new album, I really did.  However, after several sessions on the stereo, it just sounded worse each time.  Is AFI trying to play some horrible joke on their fan base?  Do they really think this is a good release?  This is nothing but silly pop music for the pre-teen MTV set.  It's seriously bad stuff, folks.  Very painful to see a band like AFI stumble so badly and hit the wall.  It's not just different.  It's poorly constructed music being performed by a group of soul-less "pod-people" (formerly known as AFI).
2413613
I really tried to give Geoff the benefit of the doubt, but I'm sorry, this album is horrible.  I've listened to it 10 times today, trying to like it.  I was even excited about the re-recordings, but sadly, his voice is going.  Jet City Woman was horribly remade.  Several times in the song, he goes off key and it made me shudder, like listening to a bad karaoke singer.  I'm very sad to hear this.  The songs sound like a hate letter to the rest of the original band that has their album coming out soon.  Even the rings on the fist on the album cover say it all.  I'm sure he wanted to use the other word instead of Frequency.  In fact, this sounded like it was thrown together to get it on the shelf to spite them.  We all know the back story of what's happened, we all know that these kind of things happen in the music world, but this whole story just makes me sad.  I'll still always admire the old Queensryche and probably like the new singer as well, but not this release.  I'd even qualify this as worse than Q2K.

On last note about the remake of Silent Lucidity, it sounds like Katherine Hepburn singing it.

Buy it if you want folks, but I can't listen to it anymore.
2432061
The whole premise that stats based analysis tries to fully predict all outcomes in baseball is absurd and nobody, especially not Billy Beane or Bill James, holds it.

The funniest thing is that when stats based analysis of baseball first came out, it was ridiculed precisely BECAUSE they liked to say a lot of baseball is pure luck.  The old school train of thought was that there was little luck in baseball and that a .300 hitter was almost always better than a .285 hitter.

The writers of this book seem to be mainly writing for a crowd of individuals who don't understand statistics, don't like anything that's not pure "gut instinct" and hate, without ever having read, Moneyball.

Basically this book is the equivalent of the following conversation:

Stat person: well, ERA isn't a good measure, because a lot of it is based on luck.  We should use this other stat that takes into account only things that the pitcher can control, so that we can better understand what is skill and what is luck.

Short Hop person: Wait, you're not taking luck into consideration with your statistical analysis!

Stat person: Did you listen to anything I just said?

Short Hop person: what about when a ball hits a pigeon?  How do your stats take that into account?

Stat Person: *walks away, shaking head*
3680348
Yes, we are over-diagnosed and over-medicated. Yes, many of us are all in jobs and lives that do not fulfill us. Yes, we can all use a little cheerleading, and we should identify our strengths and focus on them, rather than on fitting in and being "normal" -- but there is nothing here that is both worthwhile and new. I especially take exception to Archer's claim that psychological traits lie along a continuum. For example, he says that intuitive thinking, which he calls "magical," can help you act on faith and take risks that pay off. Too little of this trait and you are overly rational. Too much and you are schizophrenic. Wrong. Schizophrenia *is* a mental illness, not a psychological trait. If you are too prone to magical thinking, you're a space cadet, not a schizophrenic. This kind of simplistic thinking is neither helpful nor accurate, just an example of the author trying to make everything fit his continuum framework, which I believe not to be at all useful. Another example would be what he calls "shy" -- anyone who wants time alone, in his opinion, has the "shy" personality trait. He suggests that "shy" people team up with "adventurous" types, so that the adventurers can have someone at home taking care of things while they jaunt around the world. Excuse me, but, like many others, I like some solitude, am not "shy" in company, take care of things at home *and* go for occasional world jaunts. This book is a lot of nonsense, imo.
4136410
This is atrocious. everyone knows you need only one thing: be a cunning linguist, and oh yea, don't be broke-ass. but really, how shallow and generalised and stereotyping is this? i wish people wouldn't even buy it as a gag-gift.
2295382
Just for you to know: I already know what's going to happen. As soon as the Simple Plan fans come and see this negative review on this site, they're going to press "Not Helpful" so this review becomes one of the less popular, just because they don't like that other people's opinions don't match their own. So please don't press "Not Helpful" unless you honestly haven't bought the CD and it really isn't helpful to you. Keep in mind people, be honest whether the reviews are helpful to you or not helpful, as it's being helpful to the person who wrote it.
Now onto the CD: I bought this CD a month ago because one of my friends said that it was awesome "punk rock" and since I liked Avril Lavigne I should listen to this. I don't know what this is, but it isn't punk or rock. It's pop/rock. They're tying to pull this Smashmouth + Good Charlotte thing which isn't working.
There's only THREE songs that I could listen to over and over again, and that's "Addicted" and "God Must Hate Me" and "My Christmas List." Most of these songs on the CD are whiny about not wanting to grow up (i.e. "Grow Up", "I'm Just a Kid" and "Perfect"). The song "Perfect" is irritating to me because it's whiny and annoying, and what is this thing that "Daddy I can't be perfect!"? Like the anonymous reviewer said they are 25-ish and singing about being 'kids.'
The other problem with this CD is more than one song carries the message of "life sucks" (i.e. see lyrics for "God Must Hate Me", "The Worst Day Ever" and some of "Perfect"). If you like a boring CD with every track repetitive of one another, then this is for you.
And the rest of the CD? It's filler. Some of the songs' lyrics sound like they rushed through to get their CD done and released. If you really want to know the 'grades' for this, look below:
1. I'd do Anything -- 9/10
2. Worst Day Ever -- 5/10
3. You Don't Mean Anything --4/10
4. I'm Just A Kid -- 4/10
5. When I'm With You --3/10
6. Meet You There -- 3/10
7. Addicted -- 9/10
8. Alien -- 1/10
9. God Must Hate Me -- 10/10
10. I Won't Be There -- 3/10
11. One Day -- 2/10
12. Perfect -- 4.5/10
13. Grow Up -- 1/10 *YAWN* Don't we get the idea now that you're 'kids'?
13. [Hidden Track] My Christmas List -- 9/10
I'm a teen and I don't find most of this very interesting. I don't why teens or anybody finds thing great music to listen to; it's just another CD that the media is throwing in your face. Maybe if the media gives us some good music to listen to we will buy CDs that cost...dollars, rather than downloading it.
2638696
What. This makes no sense. Nobody acts like this. This is ridiculous. They're trying to get a message across, but they're doing it by depicting an unrealistic scenario. You can't do that; it doesn't work. It doesn't have a bad message; it just fails utterly at getting that message across.

Mama stubs her toe, the baby screams, and people aren't polite to each other at the breakfast table and call each other names. Everybody's mad. They get in fights. Mama takes the television away. Everybody's basically just hanging out and holding a grudge against each other, just glowering all day. Then Sister starts laughing at Mama for trying to read a magazine upside-down. Then instead of taking that as an insult, Mama starts laughing too and everybody else starts laughing like insane people, and they make up. Even the illustrations look like the Bears are forcing the laughter.

"But it's hard for folks who love each other to stay angry all day, especially if they really don't have anything to be angry about." No it's not! And when people are done being mad at each other, it usually takes a long time for them to get over themselves enough to accept, or offer, an apology. This type of deus ex machina resolution just irritates me.

The best part: "Who are you calling a slowpoke, you dumbhead!" Or, "'I wouldn't sit next to him if he were the last bear on earth!' said Sister. 'That goes double for me!' said Brother." What, if she was the last two bears on earth? What? I also appreciated when they were "looking daggers at each other" and the illustration actually had little daggers floating in the air between them. And how you could tell Sister is really upset because she is failing at staying within the lines as she's coloring in her coloring book. Furiously.

For more children's book reviews, see my Amazon profile for my website.
3824082
Bad, awful, terrible, dreadful, ridiculous...give me a moment while I break out a thesaurus! Just about everything that can be done wrong here is, except for maybe the CGI killer ostriches, which simply do not make sense anyway as they appear in the middle of a bamboo forest. Oooookay. Prepare to suspend ALOT of disbelief as the stilted dialogue (spoken in perfectly stilted English) drags us through a plot device weve seen 10,000 times before. Worse, this movie rips off everything from Last of the Mohicans to Rambo to Braveheart to Stargate (yes, even Stargate) and not in a remotely clever way. But, hey, they're cave people, right? What do they know about film making? The only thing that kept me awake through this epic disaster was to see if it could get any worse. It did, right til the very end. If these were my ancestors, like a Bible literalist  I'd be arguing that modern human beings popped out of thin air, too!
889519
[...]

I can honestly say I have never heard more dreadful music, and I like my music soothing and ambient (I often fall asleep listening to 'Music For Films' by Brian Eno). This sounds like everything that is bad about Enya, Enigma, ERA, Gordon Summner and Deep Forest, all rolled into one. The awful, pseudo-celtic pap of the first wrapped in the jokey cod-religious / fauz-latin of the second and third, with the anachronistic soundtrack of the Geordie fourth and the marketed spirtuality of last (and all of them, ultimately). This really is terrible stuff.

[...]

But this stuff? God, no. Only buy if you think 'Chicken' should be followed by 'Supreme'...

[...]
273087
Toxic In-Laws is definitely a flawed title as well as using flawed psychology. I would give it 0 stars if that were an option.
1. The author makes too many presumptions on all sides. She presumes all young people to always be in the right and all parents to always be in the wrong. That is flawed logic and results in flawed counseling.
2. The author never puts balance to things by showing both sides nor does she interview the in-laws for another point of view yet she projects intent upon the in-laws. This is called a closed system and not a sign of a good counselor.
3. The author does nothing to define a toxic person whether young person or parents.
4. The author does nothing to define what a good in-law would be like. In most of the cases, the in-laws are not in the wrong, but she never points that out. Anyone who does counseling would agree.
5. The author does nothing to show how to get along with others. Instead, her only solution is to cut off all contact with people with whom you disagree. That does not show maturity in conflict resolution.
6. The author does nothing to show that although a person is an in-law to one person in the couple, he/she is a parent to the other and deserving of respect, love, and an opportunity to express his/her side. She also tells men and women that they should be upset with their parents when they are not. This is bad counseling advice and gives family counselors a bad name.
7. The author does nothing to point out how communication, on an adult level and presuming the best in the other first, accomplishes more good than evil.
8. The author did nothing to show skill in counseling, but rather the immaturity of a child who is a persistent bully and negative personality.
If following this advice, one would be accused of being an immature junior high schooler, not a justified, mature adult. Save your money and time on this one. Had I (or any of the couples I've worked with) followed this advice, I would have missed out on many good memories and wonderful times with both my parents and in-laws.