Pot grows wild all on its lonesome in most of North America. They can bust grow-ops (which wouldn't exist in their current form) but they can't burn _all_ the fields.
Actually, a good lot of the law is concerned with arbitrating disputes. Contract and tort law in particular do not reflect tyranny, they give a system for resolving disputes between contracting parties (contracts) and providing compensation to people who have been wronged (torts). They do in some sense reflect a society's morals, but not in the sense most people think of, not in the sense of punishing evil or upholding virtue.
Also, some of the most tyrranous laws can be reflections of a society's standards and morals. I won't risk a Godwin by providing examples.
Actually, think of the law and morality as a Venn diagram, and you are closer to the truth. There's an awful lot of law that doesn't have much to do with morality, and a lot of morality that is not regulated by law.
Further, the law is not as binary as you seem to think it is. Many sectors of law are undergoing a great deal of change. Tort law for example, where less than %5 of claims filed ever see the inside of a courtroom, both parties choosing to settle or mediate their differences rather than fight it out in a trial. Or in criminal law, where (here in Canada anyway) courts are more and more accessing alternatives to prison sentencing. Urban centres here are getting drug courts, mental health courts, aboriginal courts, etc., where the judges have access to non-penal sentences and/or community based solutions.
The problem with the drug war is that your government has added special exceptions to the legal system ("three strikes" rules, mandatory minimum sentences) to keep a steady stream of poor people headed off to jail. Normally, the legal system would have options for these people, but the government has taken those options away, creating what you perceive as the binary system.
Well first to clarify, she didn't know it was autism at 18 months, she just knew something was wrong. Or maybe she "knew" this in retrospect, by tracing back to the earliest onset of abnormal behaviour, after she got the diagnosis. I won't pretend that she--or any other parent in a similar situation--is capable of being wholly rational and dispassionate in a situation like that.
As to when a diagnosis is possible, I believe that the current wisdom is to start screening at 18 months, and again at 2 years, and by 2 years, it should be detectable in most circumstances. But I'm not a doctor, so don't hold me to that.
I share your suspicion, incidentally, that it's bad timing that makes people believe the two are linked.
Thanks for the insight. I live in Canada, incidentally, but the situation is similar. The government pays on a per-visit basis, not by time, and so it benefits a GP to squeeze as many visits into a day as possible.
There seems to be something else at work though. My doctor, who sounds a lot like you in some ways, is not very popular where I live (a small community of about 10,000). To some extent this can be attributed to his bedside manner, which isn't great, but also I think it's because people know he won't give pain meds at the drop of a hat. He's also been so indiscreet as to suggest that people with chronic pain disorders might benefit from seeing a psychologist, something that doesn't fly too well with the auto-accident litigation industry here.
I think that there is a strong push to prescription-pad medicine from the patients' side as well. People want the quick fix that makes them better. They don't want to hear that pain relief won't fix their problem. They don't want to hear that exercise and a healthy diet are really the only way to lose weight safely. They want magic.
Go back and RTFA. The study referenced therein concluded that children who were vaccinated had less problems with Asthma, not more, than the non-vaccinated group.
Why, because Western medical practitioners are conspiring against us, didn't you know?~
But a little more seriously, I think many people are getting suspicious of doctors who are too quick with the prescription pad, and don't spend much time actually doing preventative, or even curative, medicine.
Anecdotes factor in to the story as well. A friend of the family has a son who's autistic. The boy is 13 years old, handsome, has some artistic talent, and wears a diaper because he's totally incontinent. His mom swears up and down that she can trace the changes in him to the very day he got his 18 month MMR. Even if it's anecdotal, a story like that puts the fear into you when you have your own baby.
My wife and I thought about it carefully, and did consult with our family doctor, who is very strict about research-based medicine, and doesn't like to pull out the prescription pad for the least little thing. He recommended going with the shots, but also told us that he takes extra precautions with the vaccines (this was before the latest research). Him, we trust.
Also, and this really bothers me, many parents who don't vaccinate their kids are trading on the fact that the rest of us do. The risk of their kid catching one of the MMR diseases is much lower because everyone else has their shot. This of course eventually leads to a "tragedy of the Commons" situation where, as we see, those diseases become more prevalent.
Maybe the anon got modded Troll because it was meant as a goddam joke. Next time I make a joke I'll make sure to edit it for historical and technical accuracy.
"'...You promised BASIC for the Apple I, and most dealers haven't sold the boards they bought from you. If you come out with an improved Model II they will be stuck. Put it on the back burner until you deliver on your promises.'"
And lo, the hardware/software upgrade cycle was born.
Speaking as a happy switcher, I have to agree with you. The ad campaign rubs me the wrong way, it's a little too elitist and glosses over important issues. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I guess) it's working. I know in my extended family (including several die-hard PC users that aren't interested in switching) everyone thinks the Apple commercials are great. Clearly, the Apple message is getting through to the people it's aimed at. The campaign may have turned you off of Macs, but I'd bet it's sold more macs than the kind of campaign you suggest would. Most people are not wholly rational actors.
Actually, I meant "assessed", as I meant that the judge, having ruled in Apple's favour, would assess damages (if Apple counter-sued, which I expect they did), and that the judge would also make a costs ruling in Apple's favour. I'm not sure what you mean by "adjusted", is this the term more commonly used in US jurisdictions? Or are we thinking about different kinds of costs and damages?
Hint: 'fairly zippy' sounds like sluggish. Why couldn't you commit to just 'zippy'? Or better still, 'blindingly responsive'?
Thanks for interpreting my post to suit your personal agenda. It must not have occurred to you that I avoided using superlatives to describe my experience because I wasn't interested in encouraging flame-wars among the fanatics. Of course, you've come out of the woodwork anyway, so I guess I lose.
The long and the short of it is that I'm happier with my mac than I've ever been with a new computer, or with a computer running any other OS. Is that a firm enough statement for you?
But rather than dig endlessly at your tacit admission that its not all it could be, I'll counter your anecdote and raise you a press release...
Care to speculate why they'd focus an entire release cycle on "performance" if it wasn't an issue?
Maybe, just maybe, because they feel that adding value to the OS is a great way to justify getting people to buy an upgrade version. Or maybe because they recognize that making a fast OS faster is a good thing, not a bad thing. Or maybe they recognize some shortcomings that they want to correct. Wouldn't it be great if Microsoft felt the same way, instead of feeding us the same shit release after release? Wouldn't Linux be a better OS if the community spent more time working on the weaknesses instead of polishing up the cool stuff? Of course, the Linux community continues to improve the OS, and the benefits are obvious. What exactly did you think Apple should do, if not improve performance?
Is there an OS out there that couldn't benefit from more improvements? I haven't heard of it. Maybe you could enlighten me.
Just to throw in some anecdotal story-telling here, my MacBook isn't sluggish at all. Of course I don't do developing on it (I'm not a developer), but for everyday normal tasks, it's fairly zippy. I only ever have problems with it when I open Office, and I suspect that has more to do with the clash between the Microsoft Way and the Apple Way.
Actually, with the urbanization of Africa, South America, etc, and the rise of the superghettos, most of the modern world is now urban. Of course, much of that urban space is not served by sewer systems.
This was the year that the urban population of the world exceeded the rural population.
Communism in the form espoused by the Soviet Union was certainly authoritarian, unavoidably so, since the Communist policy was not to benefit the majority, but to benefit the State. I do agree that Communism in its pure form (which may or may not actually be achievable) is functionally equivalent to anarchy, and is thus contrary to authoritarianism.
I agree that socialist policy can be either authoritarian or libertarian. I would go so far to say that socialism is policy beneficial to the people as a whole (not necessarily to the State), and that where the interests of the whole and the individual coincide, the related socialist policy is libertarian. Conversely, where the interests of the whole and the individuals conflict, the socialist policy tends to the authoritarian. But
Yes, but during the war, there was a good deal of inflation (not to Great Depression levels), as the Nazi's printed more and more money to pay for the war. The collapse didn't take the form of a traditional currency deflation, it took the form of the collapse of the war.
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I couldn't have said it better myself. Which is why I didn't say it. Thanks.
Pot grows wild all on its lonesome in most of North America. They can bust grow-ops (which wouldn't exist in their current form) but they can't burn _all_ the fields.
Actually, a good lot of the law is concerned with arbitrating disputes. Contract and tort law in particular do not reflect tyranny, they give a system for resolving disputes between contracting parties (contracts) and providing compensation to people who have been wronged (torts). They do in some sense reflect a society's morals, but not in the sense most people think of, not in the sense of punishing evil or upholding virtue.
Also, some of the most tyrranous laws can be reflections of a society's standards and morals. I won't risk a Godwin by providing examples.
Actually, think of the law and morality as a Venn diagram, and you are closer to the truth. There's an awful lot of law that doesn't have much to do with morality, and a lot of morality that is not regulated by law.
Further, the law is not as binary as you seem to think it is. Many sectors of law are undergoing a great deal of change. Tort law for example, where less than %5 of claims filed ever see the inside of a courtroom, both parties choosing to settle or mediate their differences rather than fight it out in a trial. Or in criminal law, where (here in Canada anyway) courts are more and more accessing alternatives to prison sentencing. Urban centres here are getting drug courts, mental health courts, aboriginal courts, etc., where the judges have access to non-penal sentences and/or community based solutions.
The problem with the drug war is that your government has added special exceptions to the legal system ("three strikes" rules, mandatory minimum sentences) to keep a steady stream of poor people headed off to jail. Normally, the legal system would have options for these people, but the government has taken those options away, creating what you perceive as the binary system.
blah blah blah Draconian measures blah blah blah exterminating 20 million Americans blah blah blah open the death camps and lite up the ovens.
Well first to clarify, she didn't know it was autism at 18 months, she just knew something was wrong. Or maybe she "knew" this in retrospect, by tracing back to the earliest onset of abnormal behaviour, after she got the diagnosis. I won't pretend that she--or any other parent in a similar situation--is capable of being wholly rational and dispassionate in a situation like that.
As to when a diagnosis is possible, I believe that the current wisdom is to start screening at 18 months, and again at 2 years, and by 2 years, it should be detectable in most circumstances. But I'm not a doctor, so don't hold me to that.
I share your suspicion, incidentally, that it's bad timing that makes people believe the two are linked.
yes, thank you, I understand that. Evidence or not, it's an appeal to the emotions that many people find very hard to ignore.
Thanks for the insight. I live in Canada, incidentally, but the situation is similar. The government pays on a per-visit basis, not by time, and so it benefits a GP to squeeze as many visits into a day as possible.
There seems to be something else at work though. My doctor, who sounds a lot like you in some ways, is not very popular where I live (a small community of about 10,000). To some extent this can be attributed to his bedside manner, which isn't great, but also I think it's because people know he won't give pain meds at the drop of a hat. He's also been so indiscreet as to suggest that people with chronic pain disorders might benefit from seeing a psychologist, something that doesn't fly too well with the auto-accident litigation industry here.
I think that there is a strong push to prescription-pad medicine from the patients' side as well. People want the quick fix that makes them better. They don't want to hear that pain relief won't fix their problem. They don't want to hear that exercise and a healthy diet are really the only way to lose weight safely. They want magic.
That's great, can you point to any studies showing that vaccines cause increases in asthma?
No, seriously. If you can, I'd love to read them. If not, then I'm going to trust the Danish studies for the time being.
(nice herring there, by the way, it's a lovely shade of red).
Go back and RTFA. The study referenced therein concluded that children who were vaccinated had less problems with Asthma, not more, than the non-vaccinated group.
Why, because Western medical practitioners are conspiring against us, didn't you know?~
But a little more seriously, I think many people are getting suspicious of doctors who are too quick with the prescription pad, and don't spend much time actually doing preventative, or even curative, medicine.
Anecdotes factor in to the story as well. A friend of the family has a son who's autistic. The boy is 13 years old, handsome, has some artistic talent, and wears a diaper because he's totally incontinent. His mom swears up and down that she can trace the changes in him to the very day he got his 18 month MMR. Even if it's anecdotal, a story like that puts the fear into you when you have your own baby.
My wife and I thought about it carefully, and did consult with our family doctor, who is very strict about research-based medicine, and doesn't like to pull out the prescription pad for the least little thing. He recommended going with the shots, but also told us that he takes extra precautions with the vaccines (this was before the latest research). Him, we trust.
Also, and this really bothers me, many parents who don't vaccinate their kids are trading on the fact that the rest of us do. The risk of their kid catching one of the MMR diseases is much lower because everyone else has their shot. This of course eventually leads to a "tragedy of the Commons" situation where, as we see, those diseases become more prevalent.
No problem.
Maybe the anon got modded Troll because it was meant as a goddam joke. Next time I make a joke I'll make sure to edit it for historical and technical accuracy.
"'...You promised BASIC for the Apple I, and most dealers haven't sold the boards they bought from you. If you come out with an improved Model II they will be stuck. Put it on the back burner until you deliver on your promises.'"
And lo, the hardware/software upgrade cycle was born.
I'm afraid it's a little too early to mod him "funny."
Speaking as a happy switcher, I have to agree with you. The ad campaign rubs me the wrong way, it's a little too elitist and glosses over important issues. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I guess) it's working. I know in my extended family (including several die-hard PC users that aren't interested in switching) everyone thinks the Apple commercials are great. Clearly, the Apple message is getting through to the people it's aimed at. The campaign may have turned you off of Macs, but I'd bet it's sold more macs than the kind of campaign you suggest would. Most people are not wholly rational actors.
I, for one, would welcome our upgrade treadmill overlords more if I were delivered faster performance with my upgrade.
Actually, I meant "assessed", as I meant that the judge, having ruled in Apple's favour, would assess damages (if Apple counter-sued, which I expect they did), and that the judge would also make a costs ruling in Apple's favour. I'm not sure what you mean by "adjusted", is this the term more commonly used in US jurisdictions? Or are we thinking about different kinds of costs and damages?
There was a lot of upside for hardly any downside.
Until damages and costs are assessed in Apple's favour.
Hint: 'fairly zippy' sounds like sluggish. Why couldn't you commit to just 'zippy'? Or better still, 'blindingly responsive'?
Thanks for interpreting my post to suit your personal agenda. It must not have occurred to you that I avoided using superlatives to describe my experience because I wasn't interested in encouraging flame-wars among the fanatics. Of course, you've come out of the woodwork anyway, so I guess I lose.
The long and the short of it is that I'm happier with my mac than I've ever been with a new computer, or with a computer running any other OS. Is that a firm enough statement for you?
But rather than dig endlessly at your tacit admission that its not all it could be, I'll counter your anecdote and raise you a press release...
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/06/09snowleopard.html
"Rather than focusing primarily on new features, Snow Leopard will enhance the performance of OS X,..."
Care to speculate why they'd focus an entire release cycle on "performance" if it wasn't an issue?
Maybe, just maybe, because they feel that adding value to the OS is a great way to justify getting people to buy an upgrade version. Or maybe because they recognize that making a fast OS faster is a good thing, not a bad thing. Or maybe they recognize some shortcomings that they want to correct. Wouldn't it be great if Microsoft felt the same way, instead of feeding us the same shit release after release? Wouldn't Linux be a better OS if the community spent more time working on the weaknesses instead of polishing up the cool stuff? Of course, the Linux community continues to improve the OS, and the benefits are obvious. What exactly did you think Apple should do, if not improve performance?
Is there an OS out there that couldn't benefit from more improvements? I haven't heard of it. Maybe you could enlighten me.
Just to throw in some anecdotal story-telling here, my MacBook isn't sluggish at all. Of course I don't do developing on it (I'm not a developer), but for everyday normal tasks, it's fairly zippy. I only ever have problems with it when I open Office, and I suspect that has more to do with the clash between the Microsoft Way and the Apple Way.
Actually, with the urbanization of Africa, South America, etc, and the rise of the superghettos, most of the modern world is now urban. Of course, much of that urban space is not served by sewer systems.
This was the year that the urban population of the world exceeded the rural population.
Great article.
Communism in the form espoused by the Soviet Union was certainly authoritarian, unavoidably so, since the Communist policy was not to benefit the majority, but to benefit the State. I do agree that Communism in its pure form (which may or may not actually be achievable) is functionally equivalent to anarchy, and is thus contrary to authoritarianism.
I agree that socialist policy can be either authoritarian or libertarian. I would go so far to say that socialism is policy beneficial to the people as a whole (not necessarily to the State), and that where the interests of the whole and the individual coincide, the related socialist policy is libertarian. Conversely, where the interests of the whole and the individuals conflict, the socialist policy tends to the authoritarian. But
Yes, but during the war, there was a good deal of inflation (not to Great Depression levels), as the Nazi's printed more and more money to pay for the war. The collapse didn't take the form of a traditional currency deflation, it took the form of the collapse of the war.