The problem isn't people tweeting things I don't want to read. I have no problem with those people. However, this person would not only send me @ messages multiple times (hard to ignore since Twitter helpfully alerts you to these - a useful feature most of the time), but would try to contact anyone I was working with online. It wasn't just simple name calling either but claims that could get one fired from one's job or that could get the police to raid your house. You would hope that your boss and the police would ignore random Internet idiots, but all it takes is one person who thinks "random Internet claim = credible anonymous tip" and you'll be seriously inconvenienced.
Thankfully, this person seems to have moved on to other targets, but there's always the possibility that she'll loop back around and target me again.
I'm bad a foreign languages and took Russian in college. (Same semester I took Quantum Mechanics. College me was a glutton for punishment!) Today, I remember less than five Russian words. The overall experience was decent enough (my required classes ended just as I hit the wall I always hit with human languages), but I'm not sure whether there was any lasting effect on my life.
Or one person with too much time on their hands who doesn't mind creating a hundred different accounts and hopping from one to another as you block them.
My problem with block are the users who keep making new accounts to get around blocks (or in response to being kicked off).
I, and a bunch of other people, were harassed by this individual on Twitter who thought herself a prophetess of god. She claimed that god told her that we were criminals and so she was determined to report us - or at the very least make our lives as hellish as possible. Arguing that she was wrong was pointless. Her source was god and you can't argue with that logic. (Seriously, there's no way to argue against someone who sincerely believes "God told me so." You're just wasting effort if you try.)
She would get reported for harassing behavior, get banned, and then re-appear under a new username. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes several times a day. Of course, when she came back under a new username, our previous blocks were useless and we needed to block her new account. Twitter seemed either powerless to stop her or not interested in stopping her.
In both, Mississippi's autism rates seem much lower than other states. However, this could be because of lack of testing or resources for parents of autistic kids. So autism incidences don't get reported and autism seems rate in the state. Better detection and resources are the main reason for the autism "spike", not vaccines or some mysterious "toxin."
Full disclosure: My son was diagnosed on the spectrum - Asperger's Syndrome. I'm also likely autistic, though undiagnosed. (Getting a diagnosis for me now won't help me - I've developed my own coping mechanisms - or my son so there's no reason to pay for the diagnosis.)
they wont' play by the rules, they keep changing them and they do everything they can to swindle cheat and lie to us.
I was about to comment that they play by the rules, but keep open the option to change the rules at any point if it suits them. Then, I remembered that the big content companies have repeatedly been found to ignore copyright law when they feel like it. So it isn't even a matter of "everyone follow these laws we've written" but one of "everyone else follow these laws we've written but we're going to do whatever we feel like doing."
Not only that, but the FCC originally had set in place extremely weak net neutrality regulations. Keeping those rules would have essentially meant the big ISPs would have had free reign to do whatever they wanted to do. Verizon didn't like this though. 99% free reign wasn't enough for them so they sued and forced the FCC to make new rules.
So not only would it have been preferable for the corporations to do this on their own, but one of them is to blame for these stricter regulations because they got too greedy.
This is a great idea, but if a company wanted to "own" a section of the moon, their CEO would need to travel there, lick it himself, and return to Earth.
*cue clueless CEO walking on the moon, removing his helmet, gasping, and collapsing*
Next up, any lawyer that could successfully deliver (in person) a letter of intent to sue to the planet Venus gets a billion dollars. (They need to deliver this to the surface and return to Earth.)
constantly replenished over time by the Solar Wind
If He3 is in the solar wind, wouldn't it be easier to set up a helium 3 collector (or group of them) on the Moon's surface (or in space) instead of trying to get it out of the regolith?
Another great example of this is school testing. It does absolutely nothing but it makes looks something is being done.
As someone who is hip-deep in the school testing battle, I've got to disagree. The high pressure standardized tests do exactly what they were designed to do: Show that kids are failing so that corporations like Pearson can make more money "helping kids succeed." (And government officials can keep getting their lobbyist cash to help the corporations help themselves to our kids.) In New York State (and in many other places), the tests are also used as "proof" that public school teachers are universally horrible and all public schools should be closed to make way for company-owned charter schools. (Our governor has gone so far as to claim widespread instances of public school teachers having inappropriate sexual relations with their students but being allowed to remain in the classroom.)
What the testing doesn't do is help kids or teachers in any way.
They e-mailed her name, address, date of birth, social security number, drivers license number and bank account information to someone else. With the first four of those, you could easily open a credit card in the person's name. I know. I happened to me. I was lucky that the thieves paid for rush delivery of the card and THEN changed the address. The card arrived at my house. If they didn't do this, the first I'd have heard of it would have been when the collection agency banged on my door demanding the $5,000+ that I owed them. (No, collection agencies don't care that you weren't the one who opened the account. Your name is on the list so you'd BETTER pay or they'll make your life a living hell.)
As someone whose identity was stolen, this is spot on. My name, address, SSN, and DOB somehow ended up in someone's hands (never did find out how) and they opened up a credit card in my name. Mother's maiden name was wrong on the web form but that didn't matter to the credit card company (*cough* Capital One *cough*). By sheer luck, the thieves paid for rush delivery of the card BEFORE changing the address so the card wound up at my house. Still, the wrong mother's maiden name, immediate address change, and call by "me" asking for a $5,000 cash advance before the card was activated weren't red flags. When I called to report the issue, the card company first tried rationalizing that I or my wife actually did open it (yes, they actually argued that my wife must have opened it under my name without telling me), then admitted that it was fraudulent but wouldn't give me any details ("If we tell you what the new address on the card is and you go and shoot the people, we're liable" --- I was actually told this). Even after cancelling the card, though, they stonewalled the police. (Police have to call a special line that goes right to voicemail and is never answered.)
All of this isn't even getting to the big credit agencies who treat your credit report like a revenue source - spreading it around to anyone who asks for it so long as they pay - and yet treats you like a liar if you report fraudulent items. YOU have to prove to THEM beyond a shadow of THEIR doubt that the item is fraudulent before they'll take it off.
The big financial institutions simply don't care. Identity theft, to them, is a minor nuisance to be (at worst) written off as a business expense at tax time. To the rest of us, it can shatter our lives. (There are no words to express how violated I felt knowing someone did this with my information.)
As an aside, my credit is now frozen. I can't open up new lines of credit, but neither can anyone else. If I want to get a loan or new credit card, I need to first pay each credit agency to thaw my credit file for a limited time. It's a huge pain, but is better than hearing from a collection agency one day because I wasn't as lucky the second time.
Wait... so your argument "proving" that the measles vaccine doesn't work is that people just decided not to spread measles but before they intentionally spread it? Why do you think people intentionally spread it? Because they thought it was fun? And they just *happened* to all decide to stop at once at exactly the same time the vaccine was introduced?
And I thought the level of conspiracy needed for "fake the moon landing" was large! A whole generation must have been in on "the vaccine conspiracy!"
I'm leery about random people in DC making these choices too. Luckily, it's not random people but trained medical professionals who determine which vaccines people should get and when for maximum effect.
As an aside, I'm also against random celebrities and politicians both of whom have no medical training influencing people into making decisions that medical professionals are for.
Actually, the reason for the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is that vaccines tend to be very low-profit endeavors. You cure a disease with a set of shots that brings in about $50 total? That's chump change when you could sell a $200 a pill treatment for the disease. (You'll need to take two pills a day for two weeks.)
Without the NVICP, the drug companies could face big lawsuits over the tiniest of imagined slights (my child has autism and also got a vaccine! SUE!!!). Making vaccines would become a high risk, low profit venture and so drug companies would stop making them. We'd wind up without vaccines at all (or such a small supply that not everyone could be vaccinated) and the diseases would come back.
The NVICP allows for lawsuits against the drug companies without exposing them to repeated massive lawsuits. Yes, it's a "protect the big drug companies" thing in a way, but it's more a "protect the big drug companies so they'll keep making the stuff that's protecting the people" thing.
I'd add in that the number of exemptions that physicians grant should be monitored because there are some doctors who, sadly, are all too willing to help anti-vax parents get around vaccination requirements by attesting that the child is allergic when he or she isn't. If it's proven that a doctor has done this, he should lose his medical license.
Most of the anti-vax people seem to have moved past the autism claims (though they're not above bringing it up) and are now in the "scary ingredients and 'toxins'" arena. They list a bunch of things that sound scary but either 1) aren't really in vaccines, 2) are used in the production of vaccines but are removed before the final product, or 3) are present in the shot but at such low levels that other "natural" sources contribute more. (An example of the last one is formaldehyde. Sounds scary to inject into you except a banana has more in it than a vaccine.) They also use "toxins" but don't define what these are. Since they never really say what scary substance they think is in the vaccine, you can never prove it's not in there. By their logic, they win.
And, to address the GP poster: I'm a parent X2 also. One of my kids has autism. Both of my kids are fully vaccinated and thus I've given them the best chance I can to avoid many vaccine preventable diseases (measles, mumps, whooping cough, etc). The protection isn't 100% - we still rely on herd immunity in case one of the shots didn't quite "take" - but it's close. I couldn't live with myself if I refused a shot and my child died of that disease. (And this doesn't even get into my child infecting another child if I refused vaccination. Being a parent means that I can't stand seeing ANY child suffer.)
Vaccines are effective enough that if everyone who could be vaccinated was vaccinated, many more diseases would join smallpox in the "diseases vaccines eradicated" club. Here's hoping that club expands soon.
Giving prior thought implies using ones brain. Once one uses their brain, they risk becoming a liberal intellectual elite that hates America. That's why you should never use your brain and just react to everything without thinking one bit.
To be fair, Ronald Reagan - who many in the GOP seems to have turned into an idol to be worshiped - would be considered too liberal to run in the GOP nowadays. As a voter who generally does lean left, but has some conservative ideals also, I seriously hope that whatever rational minds are left in the GOP jump ship, form a new centrist party, and let the rest of the GOP crash in a fiery explosion. I would love to have a major party challenge the Democrats without tossing science aside and courting the craziest elements of society.
Exactly. If the consequences of the decision not to vaccinate ended with your child, I'd be supporting choice in vaccination. I'd still question the judgement of those who didn't vaccinate, but I'd fight for their right to make that choice. However, not vaccinating your child doesn't just mean your child can get sick. It means your child can pass vaccine-preventable diseases to other people who are too young to be vaccinated, can't due to valid medical reasons, or were vaccinated but whose vaccine didn't "take" (even if a vaccine is 99.9% effective, there will be a lot of people who get the shot but don't get immunity).
When the anti-vax movement started, they were able to not vaccinate without major negative repercussions because (perhaps ironically), they were actually relying on herd immunity of the vaccinated. Now, though, we're getting large enough pockets of anti-vax that herd immunity is breaking down and we're getting vaccine-preventable disease outbreak.
Choosing not to vaccinate means someone else's child might get sick and/or die. You might have many freedoms to choose how you raise your child, but your freedom to raise your child ends at another child's well being.
The kids might not recognize the difference between a credible and noncredible threat, but the adults should and should react accordingly. Suspension shouldn't be an option when the only "threat" was to make someone invisible via magic ring. At most, explain to the child how it's not nice to threaten (even if it's an imaginary threat), have him apologize (not that the apology will really be sincere, but to show that this is the proper behavior), and have him write an essay about why it isn't nice to threaten people.
Call me crazy, but adults should act like adults when dealing with children. They should use their grown up brains to devise a proportionate response, not freak out like panicky kids jumping at every bogeyman.
I'm all for teaching kids that threats (and other mean things said) have consequences. As a father, I have to do this more often than I'd like. (Mostly from my boys getting on each others' nerves.) However, your response needs to be proportionate to the actual threat. If a child brings a gun to school and threatens another child with it - even if the gun was unloaded - suspension could definitely be considered. If a child is threatening another child with a "magic ring", though, perhaps you should just talk with the child about how it's not nice to threaten people even with imaginary objects. At most, have the child write an essay or something to drive the point home. However, a suspension over "my magic ring will make you invisible" is really going over the line.
No, no, no. It's just going to align with us and make it so we can jump and stay aloft for five minutes. I know it's true because I read it online somewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem isn't people tweeting things I don't want to read. I have no problem with those people. However, this person would not only send me @ messages multiple times (hard to ignore since Twitter helpfully alerts you to these - a useful feature most of the time), but would try to contact anyone I was working with online. It wasn't just simple name calling either but claims that could get one fired from one's job or that could get the police to raid your house. You would hope that your boss and the police would ignore random Internet idiots, but all it takes is one person who thinks "random Internet claim = credible anonymous tip" and you'll be seriously inconvenienced.
Thankfully, this person seems to have moved on to other targets, but there's always the possibility that she'll loop back around and target me again.
I'm bad a foreign languages and took Russian in college. (Same semester I took Quantum Mechanics. College me was a glutton for punishment!) Today, I remember less than five Russian words. The overall experience was decent enough (my required classes ended just as I hit the wall I always hit with human languages), but I'm not sure whether there was any lasting effect on my life.
Or one person with too much time on their hands who doesn't mind creating a hundred different accounts and hopping from one to another as you block them.
My problem with block are the users who keep making new accounts to get around blocks (or in response to being kicked off).
I, and a bunch of other people, were harassed by this individual on Twitter who thought herself a prophetess of god. She claimed that god told her that we were criminals and so she was determined to report us - or at the very least make our lives as hellish as possible. Arguing that she was wrong was pointless. Her source was god and you can't argue with that logic. (Seriously, there's no way to argue against someone who sincerely believes "God told me so." You're just wasting effort if you try.)
She would get reported for harassing behavior, get banned, and then re-appear under a new username. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes several times a day. Of course, when she came back under a new username, our previous blocks were useless and we needed to block her new account. Twitter seemed either powerless to stop her or not interested in stopping her.
These reports seem to be a bit old (from 2011 or so), but here are a couple:
http://graphics.latimes.com/usmap-autism-rates-state/
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/hea_aut_num_of_chi_wit_aut_percap-autism-number-children-per-capita
In both, Mississippi's autism rates seem much lower than other states. However, this could be because of lack of testing or resources for parents of autistic kids. So autism incidences don't get reported and autism seems rate in the state. Better detection and resources are the main reason for the autism "spike", not vaccines or some mysterious "toxin."
Full disclosure: My son was diagnosed on the spectrum - Asperger's Syndrome. I'm also likely autistic, though undiagnosed. (Getting a diagnosis for me now won't help me - I've developed my own coping mechanisms - or my son so there's no reason to pay for the diagnosis.)
I was about to comment that they play by the rules, but keep open the option to change the rules at any point if it suits them. Then, I remembered that the big content companies have repeatedly been found to ignore copyright law when they feel like it. So it isn't even a matter of "everyone follow these laws we've written" but one of "everyone else follow these laws we've written but we're going to do whatever we feel like doing."
Not only that, but the FCC originally had set in place extremely weak net neutrality regulations. Keeping those rules would have essentially meant the big ISPs would have had free reign to do whatever they wanted to do. Verizon didn't like this though. 99% free reign wasn't enough for them so they sued and forced the FCC to make new rules.
So not only would it have been preferable for the corporations to do this on their own, but one of them is to blame for these stricter regulations because they got too greedy.
I don't think they are there, but the lost episodes of Doctor Who might be.
Actually, I'd say he has such a penchant for being a pedant that he ought to win a pennant.
This is a great idea, but if a company wanted to "own" a section of the moon, their CEO would need to travel there, lick it himself, and return to Earth.
*cue clueless CEO walking on the moon, removing his helmet, gasping, and collapsing*
Next up, any lawyer that could successfully deliver (in person) a letter of intent to sue to the planet Venus gets a billion dollars. (They need to deliver this to the surface and return to Earth.)
If He3 is in the solar wind, wouldn't it be easier to set up a helium 3 collector (or group of them) on the Moon's surface (or in space) instead of trying to get it out of the regolith?
As someone who is hip-deep in the school testing battle, I've got to disagree. The high pressure standardized tests do exactly what they were designed to do: Show that kids are failing so that corporations like Pearson can make more money "helping kids succeed." (And government officials can keep getting their lobbyist cash to help the corporations help themselves to our kids.) In New York State (and in many other places), the tests are also used as "proof" that public school teachers are universally horrible and all public schools should be closed to make way for company-owned charter schools. (Our governor has gone so far as to claim widespread instances of public school teachers having inappropriate sexual relations with their students but being allowed to remain in the classroom.)
What the testing doesn't do is help kids or teachers in any way.
They e-mailed her name, address, date of birth, social security number, drivers license number and bank account information to someone else. With the first four of those, you could easily open a credit card in the person's name. I know. I happened to me. I was lucky that the thieves paid for rush delivery of the card and THEN changed the address. The card arrived at my house. If they didn't do this, the first I'd have heard of it would have been when the collection agency banged on my door demanding the $5,000+ that I owed them. (No, collection agencies don't care that you weren't the one who opened the account. Your name is on the list so you'd BETTER pay or they'll make your life a living hell.)
As someone whose identity was stolen, this is spot on. My name, address, SSN, and DOB somehow ended up in someone's hands (never did find out how) and they opened up a credit card in my name. Mother's maiden name was wrong on the web form but that didn't matter to the credit card company (*cough* Capital One *cough*). By sheer luck, the thieves paid for rush delivery of the card BEFORE changing the address so the card wound up at my house. Still, the wrong mother's maiden name, immediate address change, and call by "me" asking for a $5,000 cash advance before the card was activated weren't red flags. When I called to report the issue, the card company first tried rationalizing that I or my wife actually did open it (yes, they actually argued that my wife must have opened it under my name without telling me), then admitted that it was fraudulent but wouldn't give me any details ("If we tell you what the new address on the card is and you go and shoot the people, we're liable" --- I was actually told this). Even after cancelling the card, though, they stonewalled the police. (Police have to call a special line that goes right to voicemail and is never answered.)
All of this isn't even getting to the big credit agencies who treat your credit report like a revenue source - spreading it around to anyone who asks for it so long as they pay - and yet treats you like a liar if you report fraudulent items. YOU have to prove to THEM beyond a shadow of THEIR doubt that the item is fraudulent before they'll take it off.
The big financial institutions simply don't care. Identity theft, to them, is a minor nuisance to be (at worst) written off as a business expense at tax time. To the rest of us, it can shatter our lives. (There are no words to express how violated I felt knowing someone did this with my information.)
As an aside, my credit is now frozen. I can't open up new lines of credit, but neither can anyone else. If I want to get a loan or new credit card, I need to first pay each credit agency to thaw my credit file for a limited time. It's a huge pain, but is better than hearing from a collection agency one day because I wasn't as lucky the second time.
Wait... so your argument "proving" that the measles vaccine doesn't work is that people just decided not to spread measles but before they intentionally spread it? Why do you think people intentionally spread it? Because they thought it was fun? And they just *happened* to all decide to stop at once at exactly the same time the vaccine was introduced?
And I thought the level of conspiracy needed for "fake the moon landing" was large! A whole generation must have been in on "the vaccine conspiracy!"
I'm leery about random people in DC making these choices too. Luckily, it's not random people but trained medical professionals who determine which vaccines people should get and when for maximum effect.
As an aside, I'm also against random celebrities and politicians both of whom have no medical training influencing people into making decisions that medical professionals are for.
Actually, the reason for the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is that vaccines tend to be very low-profit endeavors. You cure a disease with a set of shots that brings in about $50 total? That's chump change when you could sell a $200 a pill treatment for the disease. (You'll need to take two pills a day for two weeks.)
Without the NVICP, the drug companies could face big lawsuits over the tiniest of imagined slights (my child has autism and also got a vaccine! SUE!!!). Making vaccines would become a high risk, low profit venture and so drug companies would stop making them. We'd wind up without vaccines at all (or such a small supply that not everyone could be vaccinated) and the diseases would come back.
The NVICP allows for lawsuits against the drug companies without exposing them to repeated massive lawsuits. Yes, it's a "protect the big drug companies" thing in a way, but it's more a "protect the big drug companies so they'll keep making the stuff that's protecting the people" thing.
I'd add in that the number of exemptions that physicians grant should be monitored because there are some doctors who, sadly, are all too willing to help anti-vax parents get around vaccination requirements by attesting that the child is allergic when he or she isn't. If it's proven that a doctor has done this, he should lose his medical license.
Most of the anti-vax people seem to have moved past the autism claims (though they're not above bringing it up) and are now in the "scary ingredients and 'toxins'" arena. They list a bunch of things that sound scary but either 1) aren't really in vaccines, 2) are used in the production of vaccines but are removed before the final product, or 3) are present in the shot but at such low levels that other "natural" sources contribute more. (An example of the last one is formaldehyde. Sounds scary to inject into you except a banana has more in it than a vaccine.) They also use "toxins" but don't define what these are. Since they never really say what scary substance they think is in the vaccine, you can never prove it's not in there. By their logic, they win.
And, to address the GP poster: I'm a parent X2 also. One of my kids has autism. Both of my kids are fully vaccinated and thus I've given them the best chance I can to avoid many vaccine preventable diseases (measles, mumps, whooping cough, etc). The protection isn't 100% - we still rely on herd immunity in case one of the shots didn't quite "take" - but it's close. I couldn't live with myself if I refused a shot and my child died of that disease. (And this doesn't even get into my child infecting another child if I refused vaccination. Being a parent means that I can't stand seeing ANY child suffer.)
Vaccines are effective enough that if everyone who could be vaccinated was vaccinated, many more diseases would join smallpox in the "diseases vaccines eradicated" club. Here's hoping that club expands soon.
Giving prior thought implies using ones brain. Once one uses their brain, they risk becoming a liberal intellectual elite that hates America. That's why you should never use your brain and just react to everything without thinking one bit.
To be fair, Ronald Reagan - who many in the GOP seems to have turned into an idol to be worshiped - would be considered too liberal to run in the GOP nowadays. As a voter who generally does lean left, but has some conservative ideals also, I seriously hope that whatever rational minds are left in the GOP jump ship, form a new centrist party, and let the rest of the GOP crash in a fiery explosion. I would love to have a major party challenge the Democrats without tossing science aside and courting the craziest elements of society.
Exactly. If the consequences of the decision not to vaccinate ended with your child, I'd be supporting choice in vaccination. I'd still question the judgement of those who didn't vaccinate, but I'd fight for their right to make that choice. However, not vaccinating your child doesn't just mean your child can get sick. It means your child can pass vaccine-preventable diseases to other people who are too young to be vaccinated, can't due to valid medical reasons, or were vaccinated but whose vaccine didn't "take" (even if a vaccine is 99.9% effective, there will be a lot of people who get the shot but don't get immunity).
When the anti-vax movement started, they were able to not vaccinate without major negative repercussions because (perhaps ironically), they were actually relying on herd immunity of the vaccinated. Now, though, we're getting large enough pockets of anti-vax that herd immunity is breaking down and we're getting vaccine-preventable disease outbreak.
Choosing not to vaccinate means someone else's child might get sick and/or die. You might have many freedoms to choose how you raise your child, but your freedom to raise your child ends at another child's well being.
The kids might not recognize the difference between a credible and noncredible threat, but the adults should and should react accordingly. Suspension shouldn't be an option when the only "threat" was to make someone invisible via magic ring. At most, explain to the child how it's not nice to threaten (even if it's an imaginary threat), have him apologize (not that the apology will really be sincere, but to show that this is the proper behavior), and have him write an essay about why it isn't nice to threaten people.
Call me crazy, but adults should act like adults when dealing with children. They should use their grown up brains to devise a proportionate response, not freak out like panicky kids jumping at every bogeyman.
I'm all for teaching kids that threats (and other mean things said) have consequences. As a father, I have to do this more often than I'd like. (Mostly from my boys getting on each others' nerves.) However, your response needs to be proportionate to the actual threat. If a child brings a gun to school and threatens another child with it - even if the gun was unloaded - suspension could definitely be considered. If a child is threatening another child with a "magic ring", though, perhaps you should just talk with the child about how it's not nice to threaten people even with imaginary objects. At most, have the child write an essay or something to drive the point home. However, a suspension over "my magic ring will make you invisible" is really going over the line.
No, no, no. It's just going to align with us and make it so we can jump and stay aloft for five minutes. I know it's true because I read it online somewhere.