I already have the perfect format for reading a book - it's called a "book". I just picked up the entire collected works of several authors last night - grand total? $30 (including tax). You'll be lucky to get three ebooks for that price, yet I got 47 (just counted).
Things in Europe normally DO cost a lot more. Also, as every dumbass always forgets when talking about driving in the US vs Europe, SIZE MATTERS. The longest drive across a country in Europe is easily done in a matter of hours, as opposed to the days it takes to drive across the US. Of course transportation costs don't matter as much if you're moving it 200 miles as if you're moving it 2,000 miles. Why is that such a hard concept to understand?
Except rail is only efficient if you're only going from point A to point B. Points C through infinity are less efficient because you still have to use a truck to get it from the train station to where it's going. Not to mention I'm sure there's a trucker's union that'll raise hell about it if companies or governments tried to change over to rail.
No, it's not, because then the cost of every goddamn thing you buy will increase dramatically. We already saw prices increase a few years ago when gas was only $4 a gallon due to higher costs of manufacturing and transporting goods. Your ignorance is a shining example for why Economics (and common fucking sense) needs to be part of the required curriculum in all schools.
Depends on what your goal is. Their goal is to minimize exposure to crime and pollution. Your goal is to "save the earth", even if more people have to die each year to do it. Sorry, but I'd say that their goal is much better than yours.
I mean, why bother living in a small apartment downtown when I can get a sprawling, waste of space out in the 'burbs, and drive 20 miles each way?
That "sprawling waste of space" usually costs about 1/3 of what a sardine can sized apartment in a city costs. Even driving 20 miles each way, five days a week, 50 weeks a year for 40 years won't make up the difference in costs - that's before you factor in all the other expenses of city living.
People raise kids in NYC and in other big cities.
Yes, those same cities are also the ones with the absurdly high crime rates and where all the gangs are. Ever notice the lack of gangs in less densely populated areas?
And we do not live out in suburbs, and even live in neighborhoods which are well connected with good, public transportation.
Yes - public transportation that's subsidized to hell and back by everyone else. Tell you what, we'll pay a tax for miles driven if you pay the full cost of public transportation AND you pay a mileage tax (significantly lower though, due to less wear and tear) for riding your bike as well. Deal?
No, suburbs were built because people wanted to get away from the noise, crime, pollution, and cost of city life. I'm going to take a guess and say you went to college and probably lived in a dorm - remember how crappy that was? Do you really want to live essentially that same existence for the rest of your life just because you have some irrational idealized version of cities in your head?
You're kidding, right? The suburbs (where the majority of people with good paying jobs live) subsidize the shit out of cities. Cities are high crime, high tax, high pollution (in every sense of the word - noise, air, litter, etc), and absurdly expensive to purchase housing in. That's why cities tax based off of where you work - not where you live. Hence where I live (suburbs outside about 20 miles out from the center of a major city) you have to pay an additional 2% income tax if you work in the city proper to subsidize the city.
You also get all those wonderful "benefits" of city life - absurdly high levels of crime, ridiculous traffic (not just of vehicles, but foot traffic as well), high noise levels, high levels of pollution, and paying several times more per square foot of housing (not to mention hearing your neighbors through the walls). I'd shoot myself before I lived in a city.
P.S., we've had a deficit for several decades - are you trying to claim that we've been in a recession for the last 60 years? That would be news for everyone in the world.
Oh, and as for the "lack of decent jobs", there are plenty of decent jobs - what we lack is people to do those jobs. It's really annoying hearing that something that a trained monkey can do is a "decent" job. Just because the world moved forward from the 1800's and many Americans refused to get an education and adapt to the new world doesn't mean there's a "lack of decent jobs" - it's a lack of decent Americans.
Because civilized society has agreed that the burden of providing some essential needs for those who cannot afford them should be shared by everybody.
No, a minority of the population who are controlling assholes (we call them "politicians" in polite conversation) decided that your money doesn't belong to you and that it can be stolen by politicians at will to do whatever they please with and if you try to resist, they'll jail you (and if you resist going to jail, they'll kill you). Yup, sounds real civilized....
No, you clearly don't find consensual sex fine. You find consensual sex amond people who you approve of to be fine. You are trying to claim that teenagers (who have gone through puberty and are given plenty of responsibility on their own) are "children" purely because you're a dick and want to control others. Your claim of being a social libertarian is an utter joke - if you were one, you wouldn't be trying to decide what others can consensually do.
"My two year old mumbled something that sounded like 'sex', so I molested him." This would be fine, right? He "asked for it", therefore it is consensual".
Jesus fucking christ you're retarded. We're not talking about toddlers or pre-pubescent children, we're talking about fucking teenagers (no pun intended). You are no different than the religious wacko's saying "pre-martial sex is the Devil's work". Only instead of pre-marital sex, you're picking arbitrary ages and deciding that those people aren't allowed to decide if they want to have sex or not.
You are not god. You don't get to tell people that they don't have the right to make decisions about what they choose to do in their own time that affects no one but themselves.
Having sex with one, no matter what mouth noises they make, is rape at best, and pedophilia at worse.
Ok, seriously, do you have a mental disability? If a person says they want sex, it's not rape. Also, it's impossible to be a pedophile for having sex with a TEENAGER who's gone through puberty. Use a goddamn dictionary you moron. Pediphiles are people who like pre-pubescent CHILDREN.
No, there's no legal difference. There is however a huge difference. Like it or not, there are 13 year olds who want sex. Just like there are 13 year olds who want chocolate cake - yet you fail to realize there's a huge difference between anyone (regardless of age) saying "I want chocolate cake" and someone forcing chocolate cake down their mouth against their will.
Like so many other things (drugs, gay sex (well, used to be on this one), saying certain words on TV, etc) it's only illegal because a subset of the population deems it "bad" thus no one should have the freedom to make their own choice about it as long as no one is hurt. I'm sure I could find at least half a dozen things that you like that many people dislike - yet you don't see me demanding you be jailed for it. Unlike you, I have the ability to understand that as long as no one is being forced to do something against their will (or harmed in some other way against their will), then it's up to people to make their own decisions on what they want to do. People like you are exactly why gays used to be murdered - because people like you deemed it "gross" and think that everyone should be forced to follow your preferences.
I know that no about of logic is going to get you to accept that there's a difference between a person choosing to do something and someone forcing them to do it. Knowing that, I'm consoled by the fact that with the rapid growth of the police state across the world, eventually one of the things you like will become a criminal offense even though it harms no one. Then you'll learn not to be an asshole with dreams of absolute power over others.
Would you say it was OK and shouldn't be a criminal offense if it was a 60-year old pervert sending your 13-year old daughter pornographic videos and telling her all the things he wanted to do to her?
Depends on if she wanted him saying / doing those things. If she did, then he's not doing anything wrong (though I'd have a chat with her - not about no sex or "follow this prescribed code for who you should be attracted to", but a "be careful, don't make rash decisions, blah" type of chat).
You have to remember, even with adults, the only difference between flirting and sexual harassment (a crime) is whether or not the girl likes you back.
Those "skills" are just another word for "bullshit". If only women didn't desire liars (they're well aware that the guy is lying, but they don't care, they just want him to say what she wants), then it wouldn't be an issue. Sadly, honesty is considered a crime in relationships.
Except there's a HUGE difference between a 13 year old going after an adult and willingly initiating sex and an adult coercing a 13 year old into sex. It scares me that you lack the ability to understand the difference in the situations.
Your claim is analogous to saying that because a guy meets a girl at a bar and she says "Want to go to my place and have sex?" and he agrees, that he's dangerous because he might go out find a random girl and rape her.
Uhm, yes it is because they're the ones bringing up sexual stuff with a minor. Hence why they always lie on To Catch a Predator and say "The subject initiated a sexual conversation", despite their chat logs clearly showing the officer starting things towards sex.
Slashdot Mirror
I already have the perfect format for reading a book - it's called a "book". I just picked up the entire collected works of several authors last night - grand total? $30 (including tax). You'll be lucky to get three ebooks for that price, yet I got 47 (just counted).
Things in Europe normally DO cost a lot more. Also, as every dumbass always forgets when talking about driving in the US vs Europe, SIZE MATTERS. The longest drive across a country in Europe is easily done in a matter of hours, as opposed to the days it takes to drive across the US. Of course transportation costs don't matter as much if you're moving it 200 miles as if you're moving it 2,000 miles. Why is that such a hard concept to understand?
Except rail is only efficient if you're only going from point A to point B. Points C through infinity are less efficient because you still have to use a truck to get it from the train station to where it's going. Not to mention I'm sure there's a trucker's union that'll raise hell about it if companies or governments tried to change over to rail.
No, it's not, because then the cost of every goddamn thing you buy will increase dramatically. We already saw prices increase a few years ago when gas was only $4 a gallon due to higher costs of manufacturing and transporting goods. Your ignorance is a shining example for why Economics (and common fucking sense) needs to be part of the required curriculum in all schools.
You're not from the US, are you? Our public schools are an utter joke.
Is it a good idea? Probably not.
Depends on what your goal is. Their goal is to minimize exposure to crime and pollution. Your goal is to "save the earth", even if more people have to die each year to do it. Sorry, but I'd say that their goal is much better than yours.
I mean, why bother living in a small apartment downtown when I can get a sprawling, waste of space out in the 'burbs, and drive 20 miles each way?
That "sprawling waste of space" usually costs about 1/3 of what a sardine can sized apartment in a city costs. Even driving 20 miles each way, five days a week, 50 weeks a year for 40 years won't make up the difference in costs - that's before you factor in all the other expenses of city living.
People raise kids in NYC and in other big cities.
Yes, those same cities are also the ones with the absurdly high crime rates and where all the gangs are. Ever notice the lack of gangs in less densely populated areas?
And we do not live out in suburbs, and even live in neighborhoods which are well connected with good, public transportation.
Yes - public transportation that's subsidized to hell and back by everyone else. Tell you what, we'll pay a tax for miles driven if you pay the full cost of public transportation AND you pay a mileage tax (significantly lower though, due to less wear and tear) for riding your bike as well. Deal?
No, suburbs were built because people wanted to get away from the noise, crime, pollution, and cost of city life. I'm going to take a guess and say you went to college and probably lived in a dorm - remember how crappy that was? Do you really want to live essentially that same existence for the rest of your life just because you have some irrational idealized version of cities in your head?
You're kidding, right? The suburbs (where the majority of people with good paying jobs live) subsidize the shit out of cities. Cities are high crime, high tax, high pollution (in every sense of the word - noise, air, litter, etc), and absurdly expensive to purchase housing in. That's why cities tax based off of where you work - not where you live. Hence where I live (suburbs outside about 20 miles out from the center of a major city) you have to pay an additional 2% income tax if you work in the city proper to subsidize the city.
You also get all those wonderful "benefits" of city life - absurdly high levels of crime, ridiculous traffic (not just of vehicles, but foot traffic as well), high noise levels, high levels of pollution, and paying several times more per square foot of housing (not to mention hearing your neighbors through the walls). I'd shoot myself before I lived in a city.
Yea, who wants a good song that's relevant to the story?
P.S., we've had a deficit for several decades - are you trying to claim that we've been in a recession for the last 60 years? That would be news for everyone in the world.
Oh, and as for the "lack of decent jobs", there are plenty of decent jobs - what we lack is people to do those jobs. It's really annoying hearing that something that a trained monkey can do is a "decent" job. Just because the world moved forward from the 1800's and many Americans refused to get an education and adapt to the new world doesn't mean there's a "lack of decent jobs" - it's a lack of decent Americans.
Because civilized society has agreed that the burden of providing some essential needs for those who cannot afford them should be shared by everybody.
No, a minority of the population who are controlling assholes (we call them "politicians" in polite conversation) decided that your money doesn't belong to you and that it can be stolen by politicians at will to do whatever they please with and if you try to resist, they'll jail you (and if you resist going to jail, they'll kill you). Yup, sounds real civilized....
You're confusing wacko cults which happen to practice a form of polygamy with polygamy in general.
He's not a bigamist. He's someone who got married, they split up, but never legally divorced before getting married again.
Even if he was a polygamist or bigamist, where's the crime?
No, you clearly don't find consensual sex fine. You find consensual sex amond people who you approve of to be fine. You are trying to claim that teenagers (who have gone through puberty and are given plenty of responsibility on their own) are "children" purely because you're a dick and want to control others. Your claim of being a social libertarian is an utter joke - if you were one, you wouldn't be trying to decide what others can consensually do.
"My two year old mumbled something that sounded like 'sex', so I molested him." This would be fine, right? He "asked for it", therefore it is consensual".
Jesus fucking christ you're retarded. We're not talking about toddlers or pre-pubescent children, we're talking about fucking teenagers (no pun intended). You are no different than the religious wacko's saying "pre-martial sex is the Devil's work". Only instead of pre-marital sex, you're picking arbitrary ages and deciding that those people aren't allowed to decide if they want to have sex or not.
You are not god. You don't get to tell people that they don't have the right to make decisions about what they choose to do in their own time that affects no one but themselves.
Having sex with one, no matter what mouth noises they make, is rape at best, and pedophilia at worse.
Ok, seriously, do you have a mental disability? If a person says they want sex, it's not rape. Also, it's impossible to be a pedophile for having sex with a TEENAGER who's gone through puberty. Use a goddamn dictionary you moron. Pediphiles are people who like pre-pubescent CHILDREN .
No, there's no legal difference. There is however a huge difference. Like it or not, there are 13 year olds who want sex. Just like there are 13 year olds who want chocolate cake - yet you fail to realize there's a huge difference between anyone (regardless of age) saying "I want chocolate cake" and someone forcing chocolate cake down their mouth against their will.
Like so many other things (drugs, gay sex (well, used to be on this one), saying certain words on TV, etc) it's only illegal because a subset of the population deems it "bad" thus no one should have the freedom to make their own choice about it as long as no one is hurt. I'm sure I could find at least half a dozen things that you like that many people dislike - yet you don't see me demanding you be jailed for it. Unlike you, I have the ability to understand that as long as no one is being forced to do something against their will (or harmed in some other way against their will), then it's up to people to make their own decisions on what they want to do. People like you are exactly why gays used to be murdered - because people like you deemed it "gross" and think that everyone should be forced to follow your preferences.
I know that no about of logic is going to get you to accept that there's a difference between a person choosing to do something and someone forcing them to do it. Knowing that, I'm consoled by the fact that with the rapid growth of the police state across the world, eventually one of the things you like will become a criminal offense even though it harms no one. Then you'll learn not to be an asshole with dreams of absolute power over others.
Wow, you really aren't able to understand that there's a difference between a girl saying "I want sex" and a girl being raped?
* Death > seeing goatse
Would you say it was OK and shouldn't be a criminal offense if it was a 60-year old pervert sending your 13-year old daughter pornographic videos and telling her all the things he wanted to do to her?
Depends on if she wanted him saying / doing those things. If she did, then he's not doing anything wrong (though I'd have a chat with her - not about no sex or "follow this prescribed code for who you should be attracted to", but a "be careful, don't make rash decisions, blah" type of chat).
You have to remember, even with adults, the only difference between flirting and sexual harassment (a crime) is whether or not the girl likes you back.
Those "skills" are just another word for "bullshit". If only women didn't desire liars (they're well aware that the guy is lying, but they don't care, they just want him to say what she wants), then it wouldn't be an issue. Sadly, honesty is considered a crime in relationships.
True, arms trade can result in people dying. Instant messaging can result in people seeing goatse.
Death seeing goatse
Except there's a HUGE difference between a 13 year old going after an adult and willingly initiating sex and an adult coercing a 13 year old into sex. It scares me that you lack the ability to understand the difference in the situations.
Your claim is analogous to saying that because a guy meets a girl at a bar and she says "Want to go to my place and have sex?" and he agrees, that he's dangerous because he might go out find a random girl and rape her.
Uhm, yes it is because they're the ones bringing up sexual stuff with a minor. Hence why they always lie on To Catch a Predator and say "The subject initiated a sexual conversation", despite their chat logs clearly showing the officer starting things towards sex.
16? Eh, that's really more of a 4chan thing.
No, 12 is more 4chan's preferred age group.