That's the American Dream. An election in which neither candidate cares about your civil liberties.

I don't get why people are so upset that coffee shop employees take coffee seriously. The physics and chemistry of espresso is a really cool real-life application of science.

Calm down.

I understand that you don't want your barista to make you feel like you're inadequate because you're not a coffee nerd, that's fair. But stop hating on coffee nerds (TAKUAN AND KIBBLE). It's our right to obsess over espresso the way other people obsess over sound systems or shoes or whatever.

Everyone just needs to take a deep breath. Okay, and exhale. Feel better?

(This comment has less to do with the story and more with the thread. Sorry.)

Sorry DON. You're totally right. Now I have to figure out where the hell I've been going. Any Washingtonians know the name of the place that replaced Murky at the corner of Pennsylvania Ave and 7th Street SE? They sell excellent Absinthe flavored pastilles.

Anyway, even if I'm not speaking from personal experience as I previously thought, I stand by my position. They have the right to make whatever policy they want and the barista has little say in whether or not he follows that policy.

This guy was a jerk. Was it necessary to be so rude?

Screw it. I'm siding with Murky. I haven't been to the VA location, but at Eastern Market they're always very polite. The barista should have been more helpful when explaining the policy, but it is the right of the store to make and carry out that policy.

Jeff Simmermon sounds like a jerk who yelled at the guy who didn't write the policy and who will get in trouble if he doesn't ask customers to respect the policy.

I'm going way out of my way to murky today to buy a drink because I think that this public lambasting is unfair and that Jeff Simmermon's behavior was unacceptable.

As an Ohioan, I am so proud that one our senators, Sherrod Brown, was one of the fifteen to stand up and vote against cloture.

I thought that what I saw of the book was totally lovely. I don't smoke pot (as the farmer said, 'it just makes me sleepy'). But, if I had kids I think I'd like to talk to them about weed like the mom in this book does.

I fully agree with this post. I'm a college student in the Midwest and I look at my peers and I swear, this is the first time away from supervision for them. Needless to say, they don't handle the heady freedom all that well. Children need to experience the fear and exhilaration of wandering.

Brilliant. I'm going to embroider all of my biology notes from now on. I'm currently studying flatworms, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Thank god. This story was so sad and has made me so angry with our government. Oops. I shouldn't say that. I'll be packed off next. I'm learning Arabic, that's probably enough for the DoD to put me in Guantanamo.