We got her counseling, but when she turned 18 she refused to keep up with it. The source of her guilt is internal, not external. She's never received any condemnation from us for her decision. We figured she was going through enough torment without any guilt being ladled out by us.
She took a life and she's still punishing herself for it almost 20 years later. She married an abusive guy, most likely because of it all, and just figures she deserves it as no one can convince her to leave him. That's why I said it would have been more merciful if the asshole had just killed her.
Right now that's the only party they can even begin to identify with so I wouldn't read too much into that. The Democrat's philosophy is antithetical to what tea partiers believe in.
I'd like to see you give evidence for the assertion that anyone thinks that the Constitution gives corporations the same civil rights as individuals. I know we now have a law that says it, but I have never heard of anyone ever saying what you are.
The biggest reason SS is broke is because politicians starting with LBJ started robbing from it. Both parties have done it. My first personal memory of it was back in the 70's. I was sitting in my car eating a gut bomb for lunch and listening to the radio when the news came on and the main story was about politicians taking several hundred million dollars out of the SS "surplus" to pay for something else. I got mad because I thought then that I was getting ripped off, and time hasn't lessened the intensity of that thought. The memory is so vivid 38 years later I can still remember what the weather was like, where my car was parked, what it was I was eating, and what I was wearing.
Yeah, the ratification of the constitution was so secret that it was printed in all the newspapers and on pamphlets distributed throughout all the states for a period of almost a full year, and the pros and cons argued in public the same way as well as at the conventions in each state that were mandated by the then Congress.
Ever heard of The Federalist Papers? That's a collection of what was publicly written answering the opponents of the Constitution and giving us great insight into the thoughts and reasoning of the writers of the Constitution. The Anti-Federalist papers give us the reasoning of the opponents and clearly outline their ideas.
Contrast that process of government to the way Obama and the Democrats have governed since Obama came to power. Now we have legislative bills 2000 pages long published for 3 days before they are voted on, and the 3 days is a compromise because Obama and the Democrats wanted the bills voted on before anyone even wrote them. They act as if the three day time period is a generous privilege granted because of their great desire for transparency, but it is nothing more than the destruction of our form of representative government, as no one can fully understand a 2000 page bill in 3 days, let alone have intelligent debate about what is actually in it.
The actors in this entire sorry incident are tied together in their responsibility. If they weren't these two guys wouldn't be getting charged with statutory rape after the victim died.
I've seen the morals and attitudes of guys this age and it's pretty sickening. My stepdaughter had her life changed forever by one of these self-absorbed "studs" that just don't care. He knocked her up, bullied her into getting an abortion and drove her to an out-of-state abortion clinic without either my wife or I knowing about it. He then just dropped her off at the curb afterwards and had nothing to do with her for the next six months.
My stepdaughter has never been the same since. He ruined her life. The emotional consequences destroyed her self-respect and she's just never recovered. She despises herself for killing her baby, and is very self-destructive. It turned a friendly, pleasant, artistic, talented girl with a bright future into someone who will never reach their potential. It would have been more merciful if that asshole would have just taken her out and shot her.
They won't find it laughable to have their political careers cut short, and that's the power that we the voters have. If they don't keep their word, they're fired. If they force through laws we don't want, they're fired. Period. Politicians will not find that laughable.
Why the lust for power? How many motivations are there? Power for its own sake? The doors it opens for personal enrichment? Power to enact a political agenda? Power to force other people to do what you want them to? It doesn't really matter what the motivation is it's the end result that's the problem.
To me the solution to the problem is finding honest people who want to get involved and vote them into power. If you vote someone in and they turn out to not be who they claim to be, vote them back out. It won't take long until politicians learn that they will be held accountable for their actions.
Can *you* tell the difference between a 15 year old and a 16 year old?
I sure have the ability to ask, and the responsibility to know for sure if I am thinking about getting into a sexual relationship. Not doing that is completely irresponsible. Once again, a 17 year old is old enough to be responsible.
Poor impulse control is no excuse. Hey, I have a bad temper, so if I kill someone it's just poor impulse control and I shouldn't be held responsible. A very bad argument for me, and for anyone else....
Yes. If it's done to degrade a person. In this case it's quite possible that was the purpose. The place for whether or not it was is in court, and if it is proved that it was then someone at 17 knows it's wrong. If they don't, they have no conscience, and never will because the conscience is developed by that age in all normal people.
It's redistricting geographic locations to take advantage of specific voter preferences. I don't see how that is a result of polarization, as gerrymandering is an effect of polarization, not the cause of it.
The cause of polarization is the lust for power to the extent that it replaces the desire to advance the cause of the nation with the desire to advance the party with no regard to the costs to the nation.
Yeah, holding people responsible for their barbaric actions is just so wrong. If a kid can't distinguish between right and wrong by age 17 he never will. He's without a conscience.
The Dems/Reps have gerrymandered their districts so heavily that the only possible end result is the massive polarization we see now.
I'm not sure of your meaning here, but I see the real root of polarization as the viewing of power as more valuable than the good of the country. Thus the good of the country becomes secondary to policies that will buy votes, and the hard decisions required to keep our country fiscally sound are not made. All that happens is that politicians keep on spending money that we do not have to make promises of entitlements that we will not be pay for on one hand, and subordinating the rights of the individual to the power of business and government on the other.
Who you gonna vote for? I don't know. I know who I will vote for. I will stop abandoning my responsibility as a voter and begin carefully researching those asking for my vote. I will then vote for the candidate who most closely represents my views regardless of party affiliation. I'm an independent, and have been for a long time, but I have not always voted or done much research into candidates. That has changed.
Back in the mid 1800's voting rates were about 75% and people were very invested in their government. Europeans coming here to visit were astonished at how active the citizens were in the political process. That's what finally brought down slavery in this country, and that's what we need to get back to as a people. Politicians back then had to adapt to the will of people, not the other way around because the public educated themselves and were very involved.
Political parties were both formed and disbanded because of informed public opinion. That's the result of an informed and active citizenry, and that's how we take our country back to a truly representative republic.
Ummmm... No, I didn't say Obama had made himself king. I said he "basically" had done that. That's a big difference. How did Obama "basically" do this? He, and the Democrats, knowingly ignored an overwhelming majority of US voters. If that isn't "king-like" behavior, it simply doesn't exist.
And, the fact that you do nothing but mock those who have a different opinion on things than you do show you to be arrogant. Why? You would shut down any dissent to your point of view through attempted intimidation, and your lack of respect for those with a different opinion when that opinion is based in fact.
Really? Made up? Have you read any of the bill, paid any attention to the news? Before you start flaming me, I'm somebody who is going to benefit from this law, if all the assertions made by the Democrats are true, and from everything I see in it I am going to be hurt by it, not benefited.
Would you like to seriously discuss this, or did you just want to hurl an insult at Fox?
I'm not so sure about that. A few years ago I would have agreed. However, I listen to the talk in restaurants, coffee shops, supermarket lines, and talk radio, and I hear a great deal of anger over Obama basically declaring himself king and decreeing laws against the expressed will of the American people.
If this continues to be the way he governs, I don't doubt if there will be a revolution. It will be a political one in which the entire mass of the silent majority expresses its will at the voting booth this next election, but if that doesn't stop government spending, look out.... The old saws about this are "don't awaken the sleeping giant" and "let sleeping dogs lie", and Obama has violated both. My prediction is: He's going to have quite a rude awakening as he has vastly underestimated the power of an awakened, riled, American citizenry.
I'm sorry, but I can't believe your simplistic view of corruption. From what I gather from your responses to me, in your mind the possibility that a corrupt city official could require kickbacks to himself from the consulting firms as a cost of them doing business, and as a way of extending their contracts, simply can't exist. To that I say, Huh?
This type of corruption exists world wide, and is very common. It's probably the most common type of corruption where government is involved. It's the corrupt official who takes money to allow contractors to use substandard materials and workmanship, while at the same time allowing them to string the job out so that it takes far longer to complete than it should. The recent mess in Boston where chunks of the roofs of the underpasses were falling on the roadway due to a combination of shoddy materials and workmanship. In addition to that the project took far longer than it should have. All this led to the project going far over budget and is a perfect example of corruption in city projects.
That is exactly what I perceive to be going on here. All the same characteristics exist: shoddy work, extended period of time, greatly in excess of original budget. The consultants are paying off someone to allow them to continue to suck at the public's hind teat on an ongoing basis. And, they are doing that at the behest of someone who is high up in the city government's hierarchy. He's lining his pockets with a share of that 3/4 of a billion dollars by colluding with the corrupt consultants.
So, you really think incompetence alone can explain a 10 year old failed time management system costing 3/4 of $1 billion? I don't think so. What has kept project management from being help accountable? More incompetence? What about their boss? More incompetence? In your estimation, by your defense of this, the entire chain of command in this is incompetent. That once again stretches my credulity beyond the breaking point.
A much more likely explanation for this is corruption with kickbacks to someone with the authority to cover the entire thing up. Someone who can order his subordinates to keep on going, and doesn't have to give a strict account of his spending to his bosses.
So, your project has now gone on for 10 years with no end in sight? There's also a major difference between spending $10 million on a project, and 3/4 of $1 billion on a failed project.
Are you sure you really want to defend that kind of behavior as just the "normal cost of development" for nothing more than a time management system? Just how can those costs ever be recovered? That no one is standing up in that project and looking out for the public good, as it's public money being wasted, spells nothing but corruption to me.
Hmmmm.... So you think that perpetrating fraud on the general public by not delivering a product, or in the case of those in charge of the product, not requiring a time limit for a working product, isn't stealing?
No matter what your excuse this is corruption, plain and simple. If the project is impossible to complete because of conflicting requirements, for the developers to not state that it's impossible to deliver a working product and quit, but just continue to accept money for a decade is fraud. They know they aren't going to deliver but keep on taking money as if they are. It's plain old theft from the general public and a blatant example of the problems created where both consultants and project management are ethically-challenged, to put it politically correct term. In real life it's just called theft through a collusion of a bunch of crooks.
Slashdot Mirror
You assume an awful lot.
We got her counseling, but when she turned 18 she refused to keep up with it. The source of her guilt is internal, not external. She's never received any condemnation from us for her decision. We figured she was going through enough torment without any guilt being ladled out by us.
She took a life and she's still punishing herself for it almost 20 years later. She married an abusive guy, most likely because of it all, and just figures she deserves it as no one can convince her to leave him. That's why I said it would have been more merciful if the asshole had just killed her.
Right now that's the only party they can even begin to identify with so I wouldn't read too much into that. The Democrat's philosophy is antithetical to what tea partiers believe in.
I'd like to see you give evidence for the assertion that anyone thinks that the Constitution gives corporations the same civil rights as individuals. I know we now have a law that says it, but I have never heard of anyone ever saying what you are.
The biggest reason SS is broke is because politicians starting with LBJ started robbing from it. Both parties have done it. My first personal memory of it was back in the 70's. I was sitting in my car eating a gut bomb for lunch and listening to the radio when the news came on and the main story was about politicians taking several hundred million dollars out of the SS "surplus" to pay for something else. I got mad because I thought then that I was getting ripped off, and time hasn't lessened the intensity of that thought. The memory is so vivid 38 years later I can still remember what the weather was like, where my car was parked, what it was I was eating, and what I was wearing.
Ummm.... Where's your proof of those assertions?
Yeah, the ratification of the constitution was so secret that it was printed in all the newspapers and on pamphlets distributed throughout all the states for a period of almost a full year, and the pros and cons argued in public the same way as well as at the conventions in each state that were mandated by the then Congress.
Ever heard of The Federalist Papers? That's a collection of what was publicly written answering the opponents of the Constitution and giving us great insight into the thoughts and reasoning of the writers of the Constitution. The Anti-Federalist papers give us the reasoning of the opponents and clearly outline their ideas.
Contrast that process of government to the way Obama and the Democrats have governed since Obama came to power. Now we have legislative bills 2000 pages long published for 3 days before they are voted on, and the 3 days is a compromise because Obama and the Democrats wanted the bills voted on before anyone even wrote them. They act as if the three day time period is a generous privilege granted because of their great desire for transparency, but it is nothing more than the destruction of our form of representative government, as no one can fully understand a 2000 page bill in 3 days, let alone have intelligent debate about what is actually in it.
The actors in this entire sorry incident are tied together in their responsibility. If they weren't these two guys wouldn't be getting charged with statutory rape after the victim died.
I've seen the morals and attitudes of guys this age and it's pretty sickening. My stepdaughter had her life changed forever by one of these self-absorbed "studs" that just don't care. He knocked her up, bullied her into getting an abortion and drove her to an out-of-state abortion clinic without either my wife or I knowing about it. He then just dropped her off at the curb afterwards and had nothing to do with her for the next six months.
My stepdaughter has never been the same since. He ruined her life. The emotional consequences destroyed her self-respect and she's just never recovered. She despises herself for killing her baby, and is very self-destructive. It turned a friendly, pleasant, artistic, talented girl with a bright future into someone who will never reach their potential. It would have been more merciful if that asshole would have just taken her out and shot her.
They won't find it laughable to have their political careers cut short, and that's the power that we the voters have. If they don't keep their word, they're fired. If they force through laws we don't want, they're fired. Period. Politicians will not find that laughable.
Why the lust for power? How many motivations are there? Power for its own sake? The doors it opens for personal enrichment? Power to enact a political agenda? Power to force other people to do what you want them to? It doesn't really matter what the motivation is it's the end result that's the problem.
To me the solution to the problem is finding honest people who want to get involved and vote them into power. If you vote someone in and they turn out to not be who they claim to be, vote them back out. It won't take long until politicians learn that they will be held accountable for their actions.
Can *you* tell the difference between a 15 year old and a 16 year old?
I sure have the ability to ask, and the responsibility to know for sure if I am thinking about getting into a sexual relationship. Not doing that is completely irresponsible. Once again, a 17 year old is old enough to be responsible.
Poor impulse control is no excuse. Hey, I have a bad temper, so if I kill someone it's just poor impulse control and I shouldn't be held responsible. A very bad argument for me, and for anyone else....
Yes. If it's done to degrade a person. In this case it's quite possible that was the purpose. The place for whether or not it was is in court, and if it is proved that it was then someone at 17 knows it's wrong. If they don't, they have no conscience, and never will because the conscience is developed by that age in all normal people.
OK, but gerrymandering is a specific action.
It's redistricting geographic locations to take advantage of specific voter preferences. I don't see how that is a result of polarization, as gerrymandering is an effect of polarization, not the cause of it.
The cause of polarization is the lust for power to the extent that it replaces the desire to advance the cause of the nation with the desire to advance the party with no regard to the costs to the nation.
Yeah, holding people responsible for their barbaric actions is just so wrong. If a kid can't distinguish between right and wrong by age 17 he never will. He's without a conscience.
Good for you. We need more responsible citizens like you.
The Dems/Reps have gerrymandered their districts so heavily that the only possible end result is the massive polarization we see now.
I'm not sure of your meaning here, but I see the real root of polarization as the viewing of power as more valuable than the good of the country. Thus the good of the country becomes secondary to policies that will buy votes, and the hard decisions required to keep our country fiscally sound are not made. All that happens is that politicians keep on spending money that we do not have to make promises of entitlements that we will not be pay for on one hand, and subordinating the rights of the individual to the power of business and government on the other.
Who you gonna vote for? I don't know. I know who I will vote for. I will stop abandoning my responsibility as a voter and begin carefully researching those asking for my vote. I will then vote for the candidate who most closely represents my views regardless of party affiliation. I'm an independent, and have been for a long time, but I have not always voted or done much research into candidates. That has changed.
Back in the mid 1800's voting rates were about 75% and people were very invested in their government. Europeans coming here to visit were astonished at how active the citizens were in the political process. That's what finally brought down slavery in this country, and that's what we need to get back to as a people. Politicians back then had to adapt to the will of people, not the other way around because the public educated themselves and were very involved.
Political parties were both formed and disbanded because of informed public opinion. That's the result of an informed and active citizenry, and that's how we take our country back to a truly representative republic.
Ummmm... No, I didn't say Obama had made himself king. I said he "basically" had done that. That's a big difference. How did Obama "basically" do this? He, and the Democrats, knowingly ignored an overwhelming majority of US voters. If that isn't "king-like" behavior, it simply doesn't exist.
And, the fact that you do nothing but mock those who have a different opinion on things than you do show you to be arrogant. Why? You would shut down any dissent to your point of view through attempted intimidation, and your lack of respect for those with a different opinion when that opinion is based in fact.
Really? Made up? Have you read any of the bill, paid any attention to the news? Before you start flaming me, I'm somebody who is going to benefit from this law, if all the assertions made by the Democrats are true, and from everything I see in it I am going to be hurt by it, not benefited.
Would you like to seriously discuss this, or did you just want to hurl an insult at Fox?
I'm not so sure about that. A few years ago I would have agreed. However, I listen to the talk in restaurants, coffee shops, supermarket lines, and talk radio, and I hear a great deal of anger over Obama basically declaring himself king and decreeing laws against the expressed will of the American people.
If this continues to be the way he governs, I don't doubt if there will be a revolution. It will be a political one in which the entire mass of the silent majority expresses its will at the voting booth this next election, but if that doesn't stop government spending, look out.... The old saws about this are "don't awaken the sleeping giant" and "let sleeping dogs lie", and Obama has violated both. My prediction is: He's going to have quite a rude awakening as he has vastly underestimated the power of an awakened, riled, American citizenry.
I'm sorry, but I can't believe your simplistic view of corruption. From what I gather from your responses to me, in your mind the possibility that a corrupt city official could require kickbacks to himself from the consulting firms as a cost of them doing business, and as a way of extending their contracts, simply can't exist. To that I say, Huh?
This type of corruption exists world wide, and is very common. It's probably the most common type of corruption where government is involved. It's the corrupt official who takes money to allow contractors to use substandard materials and workmanship, while at the same time allowing them to string the job out so that it takes far longer to complete than it should. The recent mess in Boston where chunks of the roofs of the underpasses were falling on the roadway due to a combination of shoddy materials and workmanship. In addition to that the project took far longer than it should have. All this led to the project going far over budget and is a perfect example of corruption in city projects.
That is exactly what I perceive to be going on here. All the same characteristics exist: shoddy work, extended period of time, greatly in excess of original budget. The consultants are paying off someone to allow them to continue to suck at the public's hind teat on an ongoing basis. And, they are doing that at the behest of someone who is high up in the city government's hierarchy. He's lining his pockets with a share of that 3/4 of a billion dollars by colluding with the corrupt consultants.
So, you really think incompetence alone can explain a 10 year old failed time management system costing 3/4 of $1 billion? I don't think so. What has kept project management from being help accountable? More incompetence? What about their boss? More incompetence? In your estimation, by your defense of this, the entire chain of command in this is incompetent. That once again stretches my credulity beyond the breaking point.
A much more likely explanation for this is corruption with kickbacks to someone with the authority to cover the entire thing up. Someone who can order his subordinates to keep on going, and doesn't have to give a strict account of his spending to his bosses.
So, your project has now gone on for 10 years with no end in sight? There's also a major difference between spending $10 million on a project, and 3/4 of $1 billion on a failed project.
Are you sure you really want to defend that kind of behavior as just the "normal cost of development" for nothing more than a time management system? Just how can those costs ever be recovered? That no one is standing up in that project and looking out for the public good, as it's public money being wasted, spells nothing but corruption to me.
LOL. I see that either the Apple fan boys or the I_dislike_irony_as_humor guys have mod points today.
Hmmmm.... So you think that perpetrating fraud on the general public by not delivering a product, or in the case of those in charge of the product, not requiring a time limit for a working product, isn't stealing?
No matter what your excuse this is corruption, plain and simple. If the project is impossible to complete because of conflicting requirements, for the developers to not state that it's impossible to deliver a working product and quit, but just continue to accept money for a decade is fraud. They know they aren't going to deliver but keep on taking money as if they are. It's plain old theft from the general public and a blatant example of the problems created where both consultants and project management are ethically-challenged, to put it politically correct term. In real life it's just called theft through a collusion of a bunch of crooks.
Well, I, for one, find it ironic that the maker of the iPhone, the iPad, and the iPod is abandoning the iByte....