I grew up in a world without TV (mom's rules: 2 hours a week only on nights without school the next day). When I went off to high school, we had no desire for a "class" TV because we were already busy enough without one. When I went to the commune for a few years we were still too busy, who cared anyways? When I went to work on the drilling rigs in the gulf, still no interest, even though they had TV, I didn't care When the kids were born, my mom gave my partner a small B&W tv because "she would need it" Later I bought a TV as a monitor for my TRS80 color computer, but never watched TV on it and finally threw it away in the 90's When I was in asia, every apartment came with TV, but the programs lost their luster as we understood more language When we returned to the US last summer, I bought a TV. Nice Vizio 42" VIA (internet enabled) got a netflix and a hulu plus account. We watch maybe a half-hour a day, sometimes the wife watches a movie, on the weekend wife and son might watch a movie. That's it. No cable, no dish, no nothing but a larger screen for the internet.
aside from the waste of profanity (its not like the people you are cursing will listen better if you curse) you also don't mention that this has been standard process for generations. I remember DDT, the factories that made DDT, after the western ban, just got torn down and moved to Asia. In 1994 i found DDT for sale in a farm supply store in Thailand, and being bought by the resort I was working for. The same resort that was claiming that "everything is grown organically on our own farm"
and they would be exporting too, don't think they wouldn't.
Afew years ago i was in Suzhou, a village (only 6.5 million people) near Shanghai. It was exam time and I was grading exams in a classroom and went back to the office to get some more hot water for my tea. There was the most insane industrial fire i have ever seen, lightening shooting up, bright flourescent colors streaming through the fire and into the air, black clouds exploding through the melee and fireballs shooting out from the center of the... well maybe it was a single building, maybe more.
I called my colleagues out and we were all dumbstruck by the amazing colors and lightening and fireballs. I asked my Chinese friends to find out what happened. They could find nothing.
Two hours or so later I was going over that way to a side job at Samsung and drove in the same area as the fire. I asked the Samsung driver if he had heard anything about it, not a peep. The next day my Chinese also had heard nothing. I asked them why it wasn't reported: "nobody wants to report bad news"
sorry, but the Chinese smokers are also the richer men (no women) who drive cars and eat high fat/protein/dairy diets. So they are both overfed and under-exercised as well as smokers. Death wish, eh what?
But you started with exercise as a factor and should have stayed with it. The last few years in China I could see the physical differences: Bicycle riders = ass fits on little bicycle seat Electric scooter riders = ass squeezes over the edge of a wider scooter seat Car riders = wide western butts
The other thing with car riders is that they can afford both apartments with elevators, and/or apartments in the "sweet spot" of 2nd or 3rd floor. (First floor means rat and mice, 5-8th floor is really good exercise without elevator-- there was a Chinese law that required elevators only when the building had MORE than 8 floors) When I lived on the 5th floor (and my office was on the fifth floor as well) I was getting some serious exercise every day.
But where I work now, in the US, I teach in a 4 floor building where many students won't even walk up a single floor. The school I taught in the last few years in China had a 5 floor building with elevator and the rich kids in that school refused to even walk down the steps to go home. That is the change and the difference
Another thing the article points to is the quantites of food eaten that have also increased (because of the glut of food, restaurant portions increased which increased portion expectation on the plate) and fed the obesity epidemic. My little bro, the uber-geek in the family, went on a diet a few years ago based entirely on increased fiber and portion control.
When I was living in Asia and we would come back to the US for visits we could only buy the kiddie portions, or buy a hors d'oervre plate or other small portion. Even today I eat about 1/3 of what my colleagues eat. And I still am not starving the least little bit, not to mention still being a little bit over weight by my own estimation. Even the American BMI is torqued to the "obesity standard".
I've got a Vizio Via that has all the above plus a bunch more. Apple is behind the curve, as usual. The question is can they spin the marketing to make it sound like they infuckingvented the 'iTV" before anyone else: like the mobile phone and the mp3 player that they invented before anyone else.
Excuse TFooM but how much would the iPad have cost without the obscene profit margin Apple builds into its shiny fashion accessories/ portable physics game machines/ consumption pads? Apple uses the governments of every country to supply roads, property for building, police and fire and rescue services for employees, health services (in first world countries anyway, like say China and Greece), communication services, and a complete and reliable infrastructure that is consistent and complete (again in those first world countries, not countries run by international corporations, you know, the banana republics where you have communication service lapses between competing companies, no universal health insurance, obscene corporate profits hidden from the paid corporate lackies that run the government).
Consider how much extra an iPad would cost in a real first world country that provides those services and uses taxes to maintain a first world infrastructure. Oh, it's the same price? how can that be? That must mean that the consumers in the US are being.... ripped off????
Actually it can be simply the third of that name in the line, not in a successive line. In other words John Q Public Sr.>>>John Q Public Jr.>>>>>>Anthony R. Public>>>>>>John Q Public III or John Q Public >>>Anthony R. Public>>>>>>John Q Public II>>>>>>John Q Public III or John Q Public >>Raymond A Public>>>John Q Public II>>>>>>Anthony R. Public>>>>>>John Q Public III
The system is simple and robust, it exists to make a clear differentiation of individuals over time. In countries where they don't have a similar system then there are restrictions on naming children (China) or ways to add information to the name based on generation (Spain)
But I would expect it all to break down soon. Back in the 80's I knew a woman named Nancy ______ who named her daughter "Nancy ______ Junior". The walls trembled.
the fax thing just pisses me off. Instead of being able to open and esign, do a simple scan and save to file, email. I have to print out, sign, find a stupid fax machine, and then pay to send it off. Or else buy a fax machine to use once a year or three times in one month and then not again for two years.
But you are not seeing what the GP was saying: this is not about change, or fear or "people" in general. It is about the oil industry recognizing that the world is changing in a way that affects their current and expected profit profiles. They see themselves (being "corporate entities" they are "selves") as fighting for their lives, or at least their health, in the near future. It does not matter if the effect on the rest of the world is negative and destructive, they are in a battle against forces (like us) who want to take away their sources of "fiscal nutrition" that allow them to grow and remain healthy.
Therefore, when considered this way, the Heartland institute and the many other still unknown sources of pushback against scientific and political forces that are clearly trying to reduce that fiscal nutrition are a logical response.
A modest proposal? How about the government offer the oil and energy industry a monopolistic opportunity to provide alternative energy equipment for, say, 5 years. During that time they have the chance to create the industry that they can use to replace their current nutritional base and thus will maintain their control of the energy market. This is all that they need to help them get behind the move, the clear vision that it will provide a revenue stream that can and will help replace their existing sources of income.
Why is this a "modest proposal"? Clearly this is anticompetitive and anti-capitalistic, bashing the ideals of enterpreneurship and free markets. But this is what would make "big energy" happier because it would maintain their monopoly on energy and control of the profit and revenue stream on which they feed. Big energy is an entity in and of itself. It is a "super-entity" in the same way that New York City or the United States are entities. While there might be competing interests inside the body of the entity, all the interests recognize that they must work together to provide for their long-term health. Recognizing this means that you recognize that the legislation and the understanding of the world that created the legislation that controls "monopoly" is doomed to failure. The entities are already bigger than the legislation proposed to control their parts. The immodesty of this proposal comes from the recognition that either we go to war against these entities ( and the "United Nations" of big international business corporations that would come about because of that war--think WWII) or we accomodate them in a way that they can accept: in other words we lay down on the ground and spread'em.
Grammar nazi alert!!! In your sig: "They that can give up..." "They" being a human actor calls the pronoun "who", not "that" which would be called by a non-human actor, as in " the tree that can give up all it's leaves"; vs. "the person who can give up (their) essential liberty..."
Sorry to nazi this poor little sig, but it really undercuts the value of a quote to have such a blatant example of poor understanding of the language. If the language is not completely controlled, then the ideas may be, and usually are, equally flaccid.
The thing that ticked me, was that I like and agree with the idea. But when presented so poorly it is cheapened.
Yeah, I got an sympatico IT guy at work to hook up fedora on my work box with win7 running in a VM for stuff that I must do with IE (HR and registration stuff for example-- go figure), you should see how people in the office ALWAYS turn their heads when they walk by my desk to see what my desktop looks like. Its not that it is always different, just that it is always working on something. I have projects alive and moving on my WORKspace, not the latest cute kittens or stupid video in my crapware browser. Windows has fallen victim to its success with xbox, it is overtaking Apple as the most used casual gaming platform in the office
I was playing kickball in a tournament with my co-workers last weekend and there was music blasting across 12 fields from a ginormous POS PA system. I am disturbed by this, and I would like to think about why.
I once taught a course in listening for a crisis hotline ( i was an experienced hand for the call center and was asked to teach the course for incoming volunteers). I quickly learned who would make it mnore than 3 months and who would not. It was a simple exercise: go home, turn off all your radios, TVs, any source of noise in your house that is not natural sound, then sit and listen for 10 minutes. Dn't listen FOR anything, just listen and see what you hear. People who said straight up that they could not do it, could not even think about doing it, usually dropped out before the end of the training. People who tried but failed to listen for just ten minutes usually could not last three months. The only ones who worked out as reliable volunteers could sit and just listen to nothing for ten minutes.
I remember going to baseball games, like triple and double A games, and there was no "extra" noise, just the crowd, the announcers and the play. Now it is just crashing noise.
Why are we afraid of just listening to nothing> Why do we need all that noise all the time? What are we afraid of that makes us have to have something to keep our thoughts at bay?
Everybody knows the OS seat cost is peanuts for companies, that is not any part of the issue. The issues for companies are:
1) cost for migration from from a win/mac environment to a linux environment vs. the savings over time in the conglomerate cost of OS seats per year + software seats cost per year + IT support for crapola proprietary systems + hardware upgrade costs for migration to win 7/8 + hardware costs for mac
2) Is the proprietary software that they (might) have spent beaucoup bucks training people on available for linux? probably not. Is there a decent replacement, probably. Is it acceptable to that a**hole someone who for unknown reasons is invested in that software?
3) While Ubuntu or Mint would be acceptable for a home system, Red Hat is a more reasonable business solution (disclaimer: I am a Fedora fanboy) the difference between business and home is minimal as far as the distros are concerned.
so, the people who are talking trash are obviously not linux people. well duh, and they obviously don't know anything about the costs of migration well duh, they are just afraid of the linux virus that might infect their children if they had to change over
What planet are u on? These are not real problems with linux: 1) distro, the company chooses one to support. Right now they choose windows. What is the difference, it is making a simple choice
2) infighting: we do everything in the open. O P E N. it works too! What does this have to do with a business that has chosen a distro to use for their company? Nothing.
You are obviously a woser who hasn't thought about what you are saying
I'm running a VM with win7 inside fedora 16 at work, i set my vm to full screen if i'm not in my office so if anyone needs to use it they can log in and not ever know they are really running "in" linux. It's just a quiet agreement with our IT guy who is happy to have a chance to work with a real OS
It is not a useless bag of bytes if it is stored in a picture, chainletter, video of kittens that the mac user passes on. This has happened with my linux boxes at home where the kids ot wife get a file with cuteness and, thanks to the AV that i run even on my linux machines , i caught it and killed it. No it is malware and it can be passed on.
My family has a story: An elderly family member decided to turn left across two lanes of oncoming traffic. One driver was forced off the road and crashed. the police came, summonses issued, court date arrives. Elderly peep admits in court that she didn't see the oncoming driver, and didn't stop before the turn and the judge took the case under consideration for about three minutes. He called elderly peep to the dock and told her:" This is a clear case of pilot error" she had to pay a fine and my mom took her home. Dad tried to remove license based on the judge's comments, she fought back: "But the judge said it was the pilot's error, not mine!"
The key words in the extended story is "retired" cop.
This argument has been used, let me explain why you are wrong.
The fatal flaw in your argument ( and it is not new to you,) is that you assume that, to follow your example, when someone says "does my bum look big in this?" they are not really asking what the question appears to ask. Their real question is , possibly, depending on person and circumstances, something like: "Do I look good in this?" or maybe even "Do you think I look good (no matter what I am wearing)?"
These are the real questions, the questions that the person doesn't feel empowered to ask, for whatever reason. If you answer the real question, with the real answer (something like: "you look great in that and it makes you look perfect" or " Noooo, that is not the right thing for you at all), and the person is someone you care about, then there is no problem. If you, for whatever reason, are so small and weak and sad that you have to use the occasion to hurt the person asking by "telling the truth" then you are not telling the truth, you are deliberately trying to make yourself larger by putting someone else down. You are being a pedantic bitch (or prick, whichever you prefer).
I am not saying that you personally are like that, but this is how the basic idea of truth-telling became besmirched by people who used the words "I'm just telling the truth!" because they weren't.
It takes someone thoughtful and caring to tell the real truth, most people have trouble caring or thinking that much, it is difficult, it is work and it is worthwhile.
The parasite argument is weak, for this reason. Parasites are ubiquitous in nature. They are in and around the hives all the time. They do not, normally, cause CCD. Let's use a human parrallel, like bedbugs for instance. Right now, bedbugs are in many homes. But they are not killing people, they are not leading to family or community collapse disorder. Why? because we have the strength to overcome the predations and secondary bacterial attacks that could come from bedbugs if we were already stressed by, hmmm, poverty, TB, overwork, famine, or massive doses of HFCS that rots our teeeth and puts us in continual pain from tooth decay.
So, the bees are being stressed, not in the pansy wansy way of people (oh my job is soooo stressful, i have to be at work before 9 every day or my boss gives me that look?) but in a real painful struggling way that puts the bees in danger of a number of possible CCD vectors.
Slashdot Mirror
I grew up in a world without TV (mom's rules: 2 hours a week only on nights without school the next day). When I went off to high school, we had no desire for a "class" TV because we were already busy enough without one.
When I went to the commune for a few years we were still too busy, who cared anyways?
When I went to work on the drilling rigs in the gulf, still no interest, even though they had TV, I didn't care
When the kids were born, my mom gave my partner a small B&W tv because "she would need it"
Later I bought a TV as a monitor for my TRS80 color computer, but never watched TV on it and finally threw it away in the 90's
When I was in asia, every apartment came with TV, but the programs lost their luster as we understood more language
When we returned to the US last summer, I bought a TV. Nice Vizio 42" VIA (internet enabled) got a netflix and a hulu plus account. We watch maybe a half-hour a day, sometimes the wife watches a movie, on the weekend wife and son might watch a movie. That's it. No cable, no dish, no nothing but a larger screen for the internet.
aside from the waste of profanity (its not like the people you are cursing will listen better if you curse) you also don't mention that this has been standard process for generations. I remember DDT, the factories that made DDT, after the western ban, just got torn down and moved to Asia. In 1994 i found DDT for sale in a farm supply store in Thailand, and being bought by the resort I was working for. The same resort that was claiming that "everything is grown organically on our own farm"
and they would be exporting too, don't think they wouldn't.
Afew years ago i was in Suzhou, a village (only 6.5 million people) near Shanghai. It was exam time and I was grading exams in a classroom and went back to the office to get some more hot water for my tea. There was the most insane industrial fire i have ever seen, lightening shooting up, bright flourescent colors streaming through the fire and into the air, black clouds exploding through the melee and fireballs shooting out from the center of the ... well maybe it was a single building, maybe more.
I called my colleagues out and we were all dumbstruck by the amazing colors and lightening and fireballs. I asked my Chinese friends to find out what happened. They could find nothing.
Two hours or so later I was going over that way to a side job at Samsung and drove in the same area as the fire. I asked the Samsung driver if he had heard anything about it, not a peep. The next day my Chinese also had heard nothing. I asked them why it wasn't reported: "nobody wants to report bad news"
yeah, like in gnome 3
sorry, but the Chinese smokers are also the richer men (no women) who drive cars and eat high fat/protein/dairy diets. So they are both overfed and under-exercised as well as smokers. Death wish, eh what?
But you started with exercise as a factor and should have stayed with it. The last few years in China I could see the physical differences:
Bicycle riders = ass fits on little bicycle seat
Electric scooter riders = ass squeezes over the edge of a wider scooter seat
Car riders = wide western butts
The other thing with car riders is that they can afford both apartments with elevators, and/or apartments in the "sweet spot" of 2nd or 3rd floor. (First floor means rat and mice, 5-8th floor is really good exercise without elevator-- there was a Chinese law that required elevators only when the building had MORE than 8 floors) When I lived on the 5th floor (and my office was on the fifth floor as well) I was getting some serious exercise every day.
But where I work now, in the US, I teach in a 4 floor building where many students won't even walk up a single floor. The school I taught in the last few years in China had a 5 floor building with elevator and the rich kids in that school refused to even walk down the steps to go home. That is the change and the difference
Another thing the article points to is the quantites of food eaten that have also increased (because of the glut of food, restaurant portions increased which increased portion expectation on the plate) and fed the obesity epidemic. My little bro, the uber-geek in the family, went on a diet a few years ago based entirely on increased fiber and portion control.
When I was living in Asia and we would come back to the US for visits we could only buy the kiddie portions, or buy a hors d'oervre plate or other small portion. Even today I eat about 1/3 of what my colleagues eat. And I still am not starving the least little bit, not to mention still being a little bit over weight by my own estimation. Even the American BMI is torqued to the "obesity standard".
I've got a Vizio Via that has all the above plus a bunch more. Apple is behind the curve, as usual. The question is can they spin the marketing to make it sound like they infuckingvented the 'iTV" before anyone else: like the mobile phone and the mp3 player that they invented before anyone else.
Does it have the most importantest feature of all???
The "off" button.
Excuse TFooM but how much would the iPad have cost without the obscene profit margin Apple builds into its shiny fashion accessories/ portable physics game machines/ consumption pads? Apple uses the governments of every country to supply roads, property for building, police and fire and rescue services for employees, health services (in first world countries anyway, like say China and Greece), communication services, and a complete and reliable infrastructure that is consistent and complete (again in those first world countries, not countries run by international corporations, you know, the banana republics where you have communication service lapses between competing companies, no universal health insurance, obscene corporate profits hidden from the paid corporate lackies that run the government).
Consider how much extra an iPad would cost in a real first world country that provides those services and uses taxes to maintain a first world infrastructure. Oh, it's the same price? how can that be? That must mean that the consumers in the US are being.... ripped off????
Actually it can be simply the third of that name in the line, not in a successive line. In other words
John Q Public Sr.>>>John Q Public Jr.>>>>>>Anthony R. Public>>>>>>John Q Public III
or
John Q Public >>>Anthony R. Public>>>>>>John Q Public II>>>>>>John Q Public III
or
John Q Public >>Raymond A Public>>>John Q Public II>>>>>>Anthony R. Public>>>>>>John Q Public III
The system is simple and robust, it exists to make a clear differentiation of individuals over time.
In countries where they don't have a similar system then there are restrictions on naming children (China) or ways to add information to the name based on generation (Spain)
But I would expect it all to break down soon. Back in the 80's I knew a woman named Nancy ______ who named her daughter "Nancy ______ Junior". The walls trembled.
the fax thing just pisses me off. Instead of being able to open and esign, do a simple scan and save to file, email. I have to print out, sign, find a stupid fax machine, and then pay to send it off. Or else buy a fax machine to use once a year or three times in one month and then not again for two years.
But you are not seeing what the GP was saying: this is not about change, or fear or "people" in general. It is about the oil industry recognizing that the world is changing in a way that affects their current and expected profit profiles. They see themselves (being "corporate entities" they are "selves") as fighting for their lives, or at least their health, in the near future. It does not matter if the effect on the rest of the world is negative and destructive, they are in a battle against forces (like us) who want to take away their sources of "fiscal nutrition" that allow them to grow and remain healthy.
Therefore, when considered this way, the Heartland institute and the many other still unknown sources of pushback against scientific and political forces that are clearly trying to reduce that fiscal nutrition are a logical response.
A modest proposal? How about the government offer the oil and energy industry a monopolistic opportunity to provide alternative energy equipment for, say, 5 years. During that time they have the chance to create the industry that they can use to replace their current nutritional base and thus will maintain their control of the energy market. This is all that they need to help them get behind the move, the clear vision that it will provide a revenue stream that can and will help replace their existing sources of income.
Why is this a "modest proposal"? Clearly this is anticompetitive and anti-capitalistic, bashing the ideals of enterpreneurship and free markets. But this is what would make "big energy" happier because it would maintain their monopoly on energy and control of the profit and revenue stream on which they feed. Big energy is an entity in and of itself. It is a "super-entity" in the same way that New York City or the United States are entities. While there might be competing interests inside the body of the entity, all the interests recognize that they must work together to provide for their long-term health. Recognizing this means that you recognize that the legislation and the understanding of the world that created the legislation that controls "monopoly" is doomed to failure. The entities are already bigger than the legislation proposed to control their parts.
The immodesty of this proposal comes from the recognition that either we go to war against these entities ( and the "United Nations" of big international business corporations that would come about because of that war--think WWII) or we accomodate them in a way that they can accept: in other words we lay down on the ground and spread'em.
Grammar nazi alert!!!
In your sig: "They that can give up..."
"They" being a human actor calls the pronoun "who", not "that" which would be called by a non-human actor, as in " the tree that can give up all it's leaves"; vs. "the person who can give up (their) essential liberty..."
Sorry to nazi this poor little sig, but it really undercuts the value of a quote to have such a blatant example of poor understanding of the language. If the language is not completely controlled, then the ideas may be, and usually are, equally flaccid.
The thing that ticked me, was that I like and agree with the idea. But when presented so poorly it is cheapened.
Yeah, I got an sympatico IT guy at work to hook up fedora on my work box with win7 running in a VM for stuff that I must do with IE (HR and registration stuff for example-- go figure), you should see how people in the office ALWAYS turn their heads when they walk by my desk to see what my desktop looks like. Its not that it is always different, just that it is always working on something. I have projects alive and moving on my WORKspace, not the latest cute kittens or stupid video in my crapware browser. Windows has fallen victim to its success with xbox, it is overtaking Apple as the most used casual gaming platform in the office
well at least you have windows in the room and don't have to use the "computer windows" to let in some light.
Old fart here.
I was playing kickball in a tournament with my co-workers last weekend and there was music blasting across 12 fields from a ginormous POS PA system. I am disturbed by this, and I would like to think about why.
I once taught a course in listening for a crisis hotline ( i was an experienced hand for the call center and was asked to teach the course for incoming volunteers). I quickly learned who would make it mnore than 3 months and who would not. It was a simple exercise: go home, turn off all your radios, TVs, any source of noise in your house that is not natural sound, then sit and listen for 10 minutes. Dn't listen FOR anything, just listen and see what you hear.
People who said straight up that they could not do it, could not even think about doing it, usually dropped out before the end of the training. People who tried but failed to listen for just ten minutes usually could not last three months. The only ones who worked out as reliable volunteers could sit and just listen to nothing for ten minutes.
I remember going to baseball games, like triple and double A games, and there was no "extra" noise, just the crowd, the announcers and the play. Now it is just crashing noise.
Why are we afraid of just listening to nothing> Why do we need all that noise all the time? What are we afraid of that makes us have to have something to keep our thoughts at bay?
makes more sense than the oxymoronic "business intelligence"
Everybody knows the OS seat cost is peanuts for companies, that is not any part of the issue. The issues for companies are:
1) cost for migration from from a win/mac environment to a linux environment vs. the savings over time in the conglomerate cost of OS seats per year + software seats cost per year + IT support for crapola proprietary systems + hardware upgrade costs for migration to win 7/8 + hardware costs for mac
2) Is the proprietary software that they (might) have spent beaucoup bucks training people on available for linux? probably not. Is there a decent replacement, probably. Is it acceptable to that a**hole someone who for unknown reasons is invested in that software?
3) While Ubuntu or Mint would be acceptable for a home system, Red Hat is a more reasonable business solution (disclaimer: I am a Fedora fanboy) the difference between business and home is minimal as far as the distros are concerned.
so, the people who are talking trash are obviously not linux people. well duh, and they obviously don't know anything about the costs of migration well duh, they are just afraid of the linux virus that might infect their children if they had to change over
What planet are u on? These are not real problems with linux:
1) distro, the company chooses one to support. Right now they choose windows. What is the difference, it is making a simple choice
2) infighting: we do everything in the open. O P E N. it works too! What does this have to do with a business that has chosen a distro to use for their company? Nothing.
You are obviously a woser who hasn't thought about what you are saying
I'm running a VM with win7 inside fedora 16 at work, i set my vm to full screen if i'm not in my office so if anyone needs to use it they can log in and not ever know they are really running "in" linux. It's just a quiet agreement with our IT guy who is happy to have a chance to work with a real OS
It is not a useless bag of bytes if it is stored in a picture, chainletter, video of kittens that the mac user passes on. This has happened with my linux boxes at home where the kids ot wife get a file with cuteness and, thanks to the AV that i run even on my linux machines , i caught it and killed it. No it is malware and it can be passed on.
My family has a story:
An elderly family member decided to turn left across two lanes of oncoming traffic. One driver was forced off the road and crashed. the police came, summonses issued, court date arrives. Elderly peep admits in court that she didn't see the oncoming driver, and didn't stop before the turn and the judge took the case under consideration for about three minutes.
He called elderly peep to the dock and told her:" This is a clear case of pilot error" she had to pay a fine and my mom took her home. Dad tried to remove license based on the judge's comments, she fought back: "But the judge said it was the pilot's error, not mine!"
The key words in the extended story is "retired" cop.
This argument has been used, let me explain why you are wrong.
The fatal flaw in your argument ( and it is not new to you,) is that you assume that, to follow your example, when someone says "does my bum look big in this?" they are not really asking what the question appears to ask. Their real question is , possibly, depending on person and circumstances, something like: "Do I look good in this?" or maybe even "Do you think I look good (no matter what I am wearing)?"
These are the real questions, the questions that the person doesn't feel empowered to ask, for whatever reason. If you answer the real question, with the real answer (something like: "you look great in that and it makes you look perfect" or " Noooo, that is not the right thing for you at all), and the person is someone you care about, then there is no problem. If you, for whatever reason, are so small and weak and sad that you have to use the occasion to hurt the person asking by "telling the truth" then you are not telling the truth, you are deliberately trying to make yourself larger by putting someone else down. You are being a pedantic bitch (or prick, whichever you prefer).
I am not saying that you personally are like that, but this is how the basic idea of truth-telling became besmirched by people who used the words "I'm just telling the truth!" because they weren't.
It takes someone thoughtful and caring to tell the real truth, most people have trouble caring or thinking that much, it is difficult, it is work and it is worthwhile.
The parasite argument is weak, for this reason. Parasites are ubiquitous in nature. They are in and around the hives all the time. They do not, normally, cause CCD.
Let's use a human parrallel, like bedbugs for instance. Right now, bedbugs are in many homes. But they are not killing people, they are not leading to family or community collapse disorder. Why? because we have the strength to overcome the predations and secondary bacterial attacks that could come from bedbugs if we were already stressed by, hmmm, poverty, TB, overwork, famine, or massive doses of HFCS that rots our teeeth and puts us in continual pain from tooth decay.
So, the bees are being stressed, not in the pansy wansy way of people (oh my job is soooo stressful, i have to be at work before 9 every day or my boss gives me that look?) but in a real painful struggling way that puts the bees in danger of a number of possible CCD vectors.