Honestly, I would take my chances with a "less than perfect" justice system that offers greater deterrence rather than have career criminals laughing at the current system, and revolving door prisons. And, as Terry Pratchett once said, the death penalty combines the maximum deterrence with the minimum chance of recurrence.
And comedic authors laying in England distributing pithy thought-terminating cliches* are no basis for a system of government**!
[*though in Terry's case they are in fact usually pithy thought-inducing cliches, and because of that I'd not assume that anything he said was a recommendation for something without further context than you have provided... actually I'd tend to presume the opposite and work from there]
[**which, being built by (a) humans and (b) committees, and run by (c) bureacracts and (d) politicians, should be presumed imperfect - if not insane - and given as little authority to wield deadly force as is still pragmatic to get away with in a world full of the things]
Is it odd that I find disturbing that a school for grades "6-8" would have such a strong need to forbid "Prolonged or heavy kissing" and "Fondling/inappropriate sexual contact" that it gets its own prominent section in a school policies summary?
Here in Aus that'd be ages 11 to 13 and back then my peers and I were still getting used to the novel idea that the opposite sex didn't actually have cooties - the hormones only really kicked in around 14 and even then we didn't get carried away (at least, not most of us and certainly not in front of the teachers). Do kids in San Diego start school later? Puberty earlier? Are the adults scared of their own reflections?
a) True (mostly; e.g. infertility, lack of education; pedantry, I know)
b) True
c1) Ah. The OP notes that Piotr "would provide the best nourishment to his children and wife, while during tough times he would eat grass, paper and sawdust." Piotr chose that *he* would eat the worst, giving his children the best.
c2) Poverty vs Abuse - is it better for a child to be happy and hungry or sad and fed? At what points in the emotional/nutritional space would you draw a line, if any, and how thickly, if so?
d etc) I am uncertain - that reads like you are suggesting we should have no sympathy for those who lived in 1950s Hungary?
Your statement that the use of Hungary wrt US is pointlessly abstract - would comparing the US in the 1930s be of value? The OP was using comparative analogy; your approach appears to rely on absolutes?
In regards to your last line: you and me both. Trouble is, some don't care what anyone else thinks. What then?
The year affects the answer, because it helps define the context, and the context is 1950s Hungary - so you need to replace all occurrences of "one" in your question with "everyone".
If that doesn't help - are you asking me as a biologist, an economist, a spiritualist, a historian, or in some other framework?
Biologically, there were only five offspring, and two died before maturity, so that's an achievement of positive population growth despite adverse environmental conditions.
Economically, he was able to maintain and even increase his assets in the long-term despite limited income, periods of debt, and two collapsed ventures, whilst operating in a severely depressed location.
Spiritually, he had the moral strength to risk his own health so that his wife and children could eat enough to survive (we presume the infant death and the drowned child were beyond his control) rather than resort to robbery or worse, setting a good example of how people should act in times of adversity.
Historically, the country was *systemically* poor (as what WW2 didn't ruin, Soviet occupation post-WW2 did). If the "poor" shouldn't have children, and "everyone" is poor... well, math doesn't get much more basic than that.
Consider that the Piotr in question was apparently an impoverished resident of 1950s Hungary (i.e. just-post-WW2 europe, near to poland and austria)... and that of his five offspring, which one cannot assume he had simultaneously, one died in infancy and another drowned in childhood. Consider also the links between subsistence living, mortality and birth rates, etcetera. Do I need to explain further?
Terrorists love commercial passenger planes because they are high profile, high reward, low expectation targets.
Humans are herd animals (or near enough), and the herd still thinks of planes as dangerous, scary things... it expects planes to be at risk of falling out of the sky, whether by accident or bomb, and it expects the people who fly on them to be at risk of dying. Yes, the loss of the WTC was terrible, but from the herd POV, it was "planes did it".
So "smart" terrorist masterminds do NOT want to hit Congress or nuke NYC or a blow up a bunch of schools... because the reward isn't worth the risk of actually angering The Herd rather than profitably terrorising it.
Quotas for law enforcement are a Really Bad Idea. For just a mild example, the morons in my state government tried this with roadside DUI tests. The result was that after their complaints about the quotas were ignored, cops starting faking the tests (repeatedly blowing in the breathalyser themselves!) so they'd still have time to do the rest of their jobs.
Now imagine the consequences of your suggestion that the politicians mandate actually arresting, not just checking, X people per month... "you're innocent? too bad, I need to meet my quota!"
How good is it at seeing inside walls? Because - while $14K is still way too expensive unless you're a big firm - being able to see the wiring/plumbing/vermin inside walls would be fantastic for a lot of tradespeople.
Note also that I am not saying one should never buy foreign goods. Just that one should avoid preferring foreign over local solely on face value (which sadly a lot of people base their buying on) when local is good enough and within your budget.
Replace "American" with "local" and the GP's position might become clearer to you.
If not: because if a local product is "good enough", buying the foreign product risks damage* to the local economy in any situation where foreign trade is subject to hostile interests**, which is unfortunately all too common.
*flesh wounds add up, see also: tragedy of the commons **anyone more interested in their own profit than your wellbeing, or worse at the expense of your wellbeing***
***see also: dunbar's number, corporate psychopathy
As an Aussie, I'd never seen that kind of traffic light - and upon tracking down the linking page found that it hasn't been used here since the 1970s...
The CEO does not work for the employees, he makes money for the shareholders, and as such gets rewarded. He ain't there to make you happy.
Perception isn't truth. The CEO is as much an employee of the shareholders as the rest. And if I'm one of the shareholders, that CEO should be there to make me happy or he shouldn't be being rewarded.
We could have just sat back and let them feel the consequences of their risks.
No. Sitting back would not have let them feel any consequences, only made the mess worse. The window was broken; we had to repair it. That the billions we had to spend went to the wrong people, and that we didn't put the asshats in jail, is a different set of mistakes.
Oh, what the hell. I'll say it. That "good CEO" couldn't do the job without standing on the shoulders of everyone underneath. And emotions are *important*, because otherwise we'd be a bunch of robots (and some CEOs would love that, darling little sociopaths that they are).
Ability to shoulder risk? Stability? How many billions have we had to throw away on bailouts because a bunch of those CEOs turned out to be incapable of giving a damn about the risks - to other people - of destabilising the economy?
Frankly I don't think many here would mind that CEOs can make many times average worker pay if they didn't also see CEOs sailing off in their new yacht/plane/limo while the company retrenches a quarter of its workforce because times are "tough"...
Gross disparity during adversity (whether real or PR snow job) is poisonous to morale - and, for those who insist on "rational analysis", also to productivity.
Finally, I do think there are good CEOs out there. More than the bad. But it doesn't require a lot of bad ones to break the system, and when the system itself rewards sociopathic behaviour, that's not good and does not bode well.
That same AMSR-E graph you cite also shows that 2007 was the worst (as in least) ice extent for the eight years it covers (2002-2009). What were you claiming it contradicted again?:)
Now, I know you're not really trying to claim "more ice now than the previous 2 years" = "proof of no global warming", but even so you've chosen a poor graph to use in debating the AC - who furthermore never took any "we are all gonna die" position. And speaking of 2007 AMSR-E data, the fact that commercial ships can now navigate the formerly-fabled Northwest Passage is kind of disturbing... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2007_Arctic_Sea_Ice.jpg (also from AMSR-E data).
I'd rather they joke about it out loud and not do it, than wear a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-their-mouth expression as they do. Some anonymous coward in my physics class used one of the bunsen burners to heat a metal pencil sharpener and left it on my desk for me to pick up. Second degree burns are not pleasant.
I read the article. Both articles, actually. I think GP's point stands - which is that they called police first and talked to the student second. The first the student knew about it was being met by police at the lab for a patdown and questioning. As for protecting her privacy, her name is now in the newspapers (and it's not that they ethically won't discuss her case, it's that they legally can't... important distinction).
IMO the only thing they wanted to protect was themselves, and tough luck for anyone else; not pressing charges / voiding transcript / whatever etc is just damage control after realising they've gone overboard.
Seriously? You (and those people) underestimate the impact. Severely. Half a continent does not burn without consequences; a superpower does not fall and avoid a power vacuum.
First, there are over three hundred million people living in the USA (most of them innocent or oblivious of their govt's wrongdoings, for a start sixty million under the age of fourteen). Many would die, many slowly. There would be horrors to match the worst nightmares of WW2.
Second, the indirect effects on climate, agriculture, finance, industry, politics and war would be felt worldwide. Take war alone: the US MIC may keep many fires lit, but it allows none to spread. The Middle East. India/Pakistan. East Asia. South Asia. Africa. Etcetera. If Yellowstone blew up, I would take no bets on WW3, presuming the world economy didn't crash so badly as to make the Great Depression look like a dimple.
TLDR: people think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. If Yellowstone blew, there'd be no grass.
Even if an eruption rivaled Krakatoa, we are not really talking about the destruction of a nation.
You might want to check the VEI link on that page you cite - first section, "Historical Significance".
Yellowstone's eruptions do not merely rival Krakatoa. They exceed it by two orders of magnitude. There have been no volcanic blasts of comparable size in the past twenty six thousand years of Earth's recorded history. See also this picture and this post's commentary.
That's very interesting reading. The testimony reported contains IMO some layperson assumptions/mistakes/spin, but still, on skim reads as a classic sysadmin implosion with paranoid/obsessive behaviour etc. I wonder how toxic (socially, not physically) his work environment at SFC DTIS was.
Slashdot Mirror
But don't also forget to buy a bluetooth headset too, because I can't see a mic on that iPad...?
And comedic authors laying in England distributing pithy thought-terminating cliches* are no basis for a system of government**!
[*though in Terry's case they are in fact usually pithy thought-inducing cliches, and because of that I'd not assume that anything he said was a recommendation for something without further context than you have provided... actually I'd tend to presume the opposite and work from there]
[**which, being built by (a) humans and (b) committees, and run by (c) bureacracts and (d) politicians, should be presumed imperfect - if not insane - and given as little authority to wield deadly force as is still pragmatic to get away with in a world full of the things]
Is it odd that I find disturbing that a school for grades "6-8" would have such a strong need to forbid "Prolonged or heavy kissing" and "Fondling/inappropriate sexual contact" that it gets its own prominent section in a school policies summary?
Here in Aus that'd be ages 11 to 13 and back then my peers and I were still getting used to the novel idea that the opposite sex didn't actually have cooties - the hormones only really kicked in around 14 and even then we didn't get carried away (at least, not most of us and certainly not in front of the teachers). Do kids in San Diego start school later? Puberty earlier? Are the adults scared of their own reflections?
a) True (mostly; e.g. infertility, lack of education; pedantry, I know)
b) True
c1) Ah. The OP notes that Piotr "would provide the best nourishment to his children and wife, while during tough times he would eat grass, paper and sawdust." Piotr chose that *he* would eat the worst, giving his children the best.
c2) Poverty vs Abuse - is it better for a child to be happy and hungry or sad and fed? At what points in the emotional/nutritional space would you draw a line, if any, and how thickly, if so?
d etc) I am uncertain - that reads like you are suggesting we should have no sympathy for those who lived in 1950s Hungary?
Your statement that the use of Hungary wrt US is pointlessly abstract - would comparing the US in the 1930s be of value? The OP was using comparative analogy; your approach appears to rely on absolutes?
In regards to your last line: you and me both. Trouble is, some don't care what anyone else thinks. What then?
The year affects the answer, because it helps define the context, and the context is 1950s Hungary - so you need to replace all occurrences of "one" in your question with "everyone".
If that doesn't help - are you asking me as a biologist, an economist, a spiritualist, a historian, or in some other framework?
Biologically, there were only five offspring, and two died before maturity, so that's an achievement of positive population growth despite adverse environmental conditions.
Economically, he was able to maintain and even increase his assets in the long-term despite limited income, periods of debt, and two collapsed ventures, whilst operating in a severely depressed location.
Spiritually, he had the moral strength to risk his own health so that his wife and children could eat enough to survive (we presume the infant death and the drowned child were beyond his control) rather than resort to robbery or worse, setting a good example of how people should act in times of adversity.
Historically, the country was *systemically* poor (as what WW2 didn't ruin, Soviet occupation post-WW2 did). If the "poor" shouldn't have children, and "everyone" is poor... well, math doesn't get much more basic than that.
Consider that the Piotr in question was apparently an impoverished resident of 1950s Hungary (i.e. just-post-WW2 europe, near to poland and austria)... and that of his five offspring, which one cannot assume he had simultaneously, one died in infancy and another drowned in childhood. Consider also the links between subsistence living, mortality and birth rates, etcetera. Do I need to explain further?
I'd presume the "and let them do it" part would include providing the authority needed to get the job done. Sadly... yeah.
Terrorists love commercial passenger planes because they are high profile, high reward, low expectation targets.
Humans are herd animals (or near enough), and the herd still thinks of planes as dangerous, scary things... it expects planes to be at risk of falling out of the sky, whether by accident or bomb, and it expects the people who fly on them to be at risk of dying. Yes, the loss of the WTC was terrible, but from the herd POV, it was "planes did it".
So "smart" terrorist masterminds do NOT want to hit Congress or nuke NYC or a blow up a bunch of schools... because the reward isn't worth the risk of actually angering The Herd rather than profitably terrorising it.
Quotas for law enforcement are a Really Bad Idea. For just a mild example, the morons in my state government tried this with roadside DUI tests. The result was that after their complaints about the quotas were ignored, cops starting faking the tests (repeatedly blowing in the breathalyser themselves!) so they'd still have time to do the rest of their jobs.
Now imagine the consequences of your suggestion that the politicians mandate actually arresting, not just checking, X people per month... "you're innocent? too bad, I need to meet my quota!"
How good is it at seeing inside walls? Because - while $14K is still way too expensive unless you're a big firm - being able to see the wiring/plumbing/vermin inside walls would be fantastic for a lot of tradespeople.
Note also that I am not saying one should never buy foreign goods. Just that one should avoid preferring foreign over local solely on face value (which sadly a lot of people base their buying on) when local is good enough and within your budget.
Replace "American" with "local" and the GP's position might become clearer to you.
If not: because if a local product is "good enough", buying the foreign product risks damage* to the local economy in any situation where foreign trade is subject to hostile interests**, which is unfortunately all too common.
*flesh wounds add up, see also: tragedy of the commons
**anyone more interested in their own profit than your wellbeing, or worse at the expense of your wellbeing***
***see also: dunbar's number, corporate psychopathy
As an Aussie, I'd never seen that kind of traffic light - and upon tracking down the linking page found that it hasn't been used here since the 1970s...
(see also information aesthetics and wikipedia for more information)
And he does so by leveraging the power of the rest of the company's employees. Take away them, and he has no leverage.
Perception isn't truth. The CEO is as much an employee of the shareholders as the rest. And if I'm one of the shareholders, that CEO should be there to make me happy or he shouldn't be being rewarded.
Alas, that isn't as true as I'd like either.
No. Sitting back would not have let them feel any consequences, only made the mess worse. The window was broken; we had to repair it. That the billions we had to spend went to the wrong people, and that we didn't put the asshats in jail, is a different set of mistakes.
Oh, what the hell. I'll say it. That "good CEO" couldn't do the job without standing on the shoulders of everyone underneath. And emotions are *important*, because otherwise we'd be a bunch of robots (and some CEOs would love that, darling little sociopaths that they are).
Ability to shoulder risk? Stability? How many billions have we had to throw away on bailouts because a bunch of those CEOs turned out to be incapable of giving a damn about the risks - to other people - of destabilising the economy?
Frankly I don't think many here would mind that CEOs can make many times average worker pay if they didn't also see CEOs sailing off in their new yacht/plane/limo while the company retrenches a quarter of its workforce because times are "tough"...
Gross disparity during adversity (whether real or PR snow job) is poisonous to morale - and, for those who insist on "rational analysis", also to productivity.
Finally, I do think there are good CEOs out there. More than the bad. But it doesn't require a lot of bad ones to break the system, and when the system itself rewards sociopathic behaviour, that's not good and does not bode well.
That same AMSR-E graph you cite also shows that 2007 was the worst (as in least) ice extent for the eight years it covers (2002-2009). What were you claiming it contradicted again? :)
Now, I know you're not really trying to claim "more ice now than the previous 2 years" = "proof of no global warming", but even so you've chosen a poor graph to use in debating the AC - who furthermore never took any "we are all gonna die" position. And speaking of 2007 AMSR-E data, the fact that commercial ships can now navigate the formerly-fabled Northwest Passage is kind of disturbing... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2007_Arctic_Sea_Ice.jpg (also from AMSR-E data).
I'd rather they joke about it out loud and not do it, than wear a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-their-mouth expression as they do. Some anonymous coward in my physics class used one of the bunsen burners to heat a metal pencil sharpener and left it on my desk for me to pick up. Second degree burns are not pleasant.
I read the article. Both articles, actually. I think GP's point stands - which is that they called police first and talked to the student second. The first the student knew about it was being met by police at the lab for a patdown and questioning. As for protecting her privacy, her name is now in the newspapers (and it's not that they ethically won't discuss her case, it's that they legally can't... important distinction).
IMO the only thing they wanted to protect was themselves, and tough luck for anyone else; not pressing charges / voiding transcript / whatever etc is just damage control after realising they've gone overboard.
Seriously? You (and those people) underestimate the impact. Severely. Half a continent does not burn without consequences; a superpower does not fall and avoid a power vacuum.
First, there are over three hundred million people living in the USA (most of them innocent or oblivious of their govt's wrongdoings, for a start sixty million under the age of fourteen). Many would die, many slowly. There would be horrors to match the worst nightmares of WW2.
Second, the indirect effects on climate, agriculture, finance, industry, politics and war would be felt worldwide. Take war alone: the US MIC may keep many fires lit, but it allows none to spread. The Middle East. India/Pakistan. East Asia. South Asia. Africa. Etcetera. If Yellowstone blew up, I would take no bets on WW3, presuming the world economy didn't crash so badly as to make the Great Depression look like a dimple.
TLDR: people think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. If Yellowstone blew, there'd be no grass.
You might want to check the VEI link on that page you cite - first section, "Historical Significance".
Yellowstone's eruptions do not merely rival Krakatoa. They exceed it by two orders of magnitude. There have been no volcanic blasts of comparable size in the past twenty six thousand years of Earth's recorded history. See also this picture and this post's commentary.
Replying to myself in lieu of edit capability, it's also very one-sided reading. All prosecution and no defense.
That's very interesting reading. The testimony reported contains IMO some layperson assumptions/mistakes/spin, but still, on skim reads as a classic sysadmin implosion with paranoid/obsessive behaviour etc. I wonder how toxic (socially, not physically) his work environment at SFC DTIS was.
You'd prefer the alternative?