Are you kidding? Why do you want to mess with min. wage fast food jobs? I mean...these are NOT meant to be living wages. They are they are there for high school and college kids to earn extra money while in school. [...] Hmm..I don't eat fast food very often [...]
It shows. I mean, when's the last time you saw a fast food restaurant that was mostly staffed by teenagers & college students? For me, it was the 90's, and it was a Chick-Fil-A that made a point of hiring kids from the local foster homes they sponsor.
The vast majority of fast food workers I see are low-income wage slaves who do not (and will not) have a college education, just trying to get by. This is true even if you cut out the kitchen staff (which stopped being kids and started being immigrant labor as far back as when *I* was a kid). I'd say that I only see someone in that high school to college age group maybe 1 in 5 times I eat at a fast food restaurant, and I almost never see two people in that age group.
I have mixed feelings about unionizing fast food, but stop believing the fantasy that kids are the only people working McJobs. It's just not true anymore in the places where I've lived.
Contracting parties can arrange in the contract what remedies are available to each side in case the other side is in breach of the contract. If you violate the terms of the contract, AT&T simply invokes the clause in the contract (which is now the only remedy available to them).
Simple, clean, and extremely well supported in caselaw.
You act like there's only one restaurant in the world, or bar. Maybe your world is that small, but around here if the ban were lifted, just as before... we'd have some smoking, and some non-smoking establishments...
The only non-smoking establishments where I grew up before a county-wide ban were fast food restaurants that were too small to have separate nonsmoking sections. However, all of the places that had segregated seating smelled like smoke even in the nonsmoking sections. So, yeah, technically you had a "restaurant choice," under the "let's all pretend" theory that all restaurants are equal.
But if you wanted Mexican, Chinese, Italian, or any of dozens of other choices, you had to put up with smoke. It was even worse if it was after 9:00 when you were pretty much limited to Waffle House and thus either to choking on smoke or nothing. I still remember in college finding the first nonsmoking Waffle House (thanks to a county-wide ban) and feeling like I'd found the late-night promised land.
I digress, though. I return to the great unanswered question: if all a smoker has to do is step outside, then why should I have a great number of my choices cut down to avoid smoke? Why is it so important that smokers be allowed to smoke around nonsmokers? Why should the smokers be the ones to get to "push" when there's conflict over who gets to use a space?
Just like it should be with consenting adults all 'round.
Again, you pretend like the choice occurs in a vacuum. Why should I have to choose between self-harm and free use of my money? Why should I be prevented from eating for the sake of a rude jerk who indulges in an activity that harms people around him? Why should he be allowed to force me to accept the harm he does as a cost of admission to something else unrelated?
Choice #3 DID exist here. What back-woods dumb-ass place do you live?
Did you and your friends try asking the establishments to ban smoking themselves BEFORE taking it to full blown facism?
Freedom in the United States, baby. Only as long as you don't want to do anything interesting, dangerous, or fun.
Your right to engage in self-destructive behavior is absolute, in my opinion, so long as it's purely self-destructive. If you want to sit at home alone shooting up heroine, I don't really care. As soon as you start forcing other people to come along for the ride, it's you that's robbing them of freedom.
When your choices constrain the choices of others, you are taking their freedom from them. It is people like you, who poison the air around them, that are the real thieves of freedom -- just as assuredly as a blackmailer robs freedom while still giving their victim a "choice." (And, yes, I'm assuming you're a smoker. No one gets so hostile in defense of a vice without it being personal.)
Your right to swing your fist (or blow your smoke) ends at my face. You seem to think that putting up a sign that says, "I get to punch anyone who walks within arms length," gives free reign to punch anyone walking by because they "consented." That's all smoking is really -- a callous disregard of the freedom of others to avoid harm, and in your case, a self-righteous attitude that people can either put up with it or shut up.
I've asked you repeatedly to justify why society should favor the smoker over the nonsmoker. You haven't. You can't. All you've said is "smoking is freedom, baby!" and tried to wrap public poisoning in the flag and pretended that knuckling under to bad behavior to get something you can't get otherwise is the same as free and full consent.
I'm frankly fed up at this point. All those questions I asked above? I'm not really expecting an answer at this point. I had a good fee
You make up a lot of shit. I said that public smoking in places where the OWNER, the PATRONS, and the STAFF all agree -- should not be BANNED by LAW.
How do you define that consent? Take the restaurant industry before smoking bans.
Where, as a patron, could you go to enjoy a smoke-free restaurant? Nowhere, where I lived. Where, as a prospective employee, could you go to work as a waiter or waitress without having to work around smoke? Nowhere, where I lived. Your choice to avoid smoking was to completely abstain from going to restaurants. (What kind of "choice" is that?)
So, this is why I brought up that the government's choice is to either ban those who want to smoke indoors or those who want to avoid smoke. The first is what we have when smoking is allowed in restaurants. The second is what we have when smoking isn't allowed in restaurants. One or the other.
You're pretending that the choice to be around smokers is completely unencumbered and the nonsmokers are freely (and happily) making the decision to breathe smoke when they go to such a business. That's nonsense -- your choice is suck it up or do without. That's not a free choice.
In practice, what we have is either nonsmokers holding their noses (not literally, mind you) and dealing with smoke because they'd rather still have a social life. The choice is more stark when you consider the market for low-skill jobs (like being a waiter) that present a person with the choice of either accepting smoke or going unemployed. How can you really say that the staff was "willing" to put up with smoke instead of just desperate?
So if we have to make people make a choice between "____ or abstain from an activity," why should the blank be filled with "subject yourself to smoke" instead of "hold off on the cigs while indoors?" Justify that policy, please.
Your agenda is a ban on all public smoking? Why? Do you feel that freedom is not worth defending for all?
Freedom does not include the right to hurt people who have done you no harm.
The right to bear arms does not include the right to shoot them at people without restraint. Free speech does not include the right to slander or commit fraud. Etc. Smoking can be phrased as the freedom to enjoy your legally purchases property, but how is this different from any other form of pollution, of public nuisance, or of negligence where your use of your property does harm to those around you?
So don't pretend a pro-smoking stance is "pro-freedom" and pull out the old saw of "why do you hate freedom?" It's as dishonest of an argument as telling people they hate freedom for not wanting people to crank up a boombox on the subway or drive drunk.
I never said I want non-smokers exposed to smokers. Please re-read and explain why LAWS banning smoking amongst people who are WILLING to smoke and/or be exposed to second-hand-smoke, are appropriate here in the United States.
You haven't explicitly stated, "I want nonsmokers to suck on smoke," but that's the net effect of the policy you're advocating -- that people who don't smoke should have to make the choice between breathing smoke or not getting to patronize a business unrelated to smoking, like a bar or restaurant. (All while you demonize my stance the smokers should have to make a similar choice as being "against freedom.")
Again, your idea of "willing" pretends that the choice is really: 1) Don't go out. 2) Go eat somewhere with smoke. 3) Go eat somewhere without smoke.
Choice #3 didn't really exist before laws prohibiting smoking in restaurants. Your choice was breathe smoke or abstain from eating out. Just like today for smokers the choice is step outside to smoke or abstain from eating out.
I don't really have much of a problem if there's actually a business oriented around attracting smokers and giving them a place to smoke. (Prohibiting people who can't legally smoke or cons
Interesting that you remove the part of the quote that notes that they duplicated existing indexes as well -- i.e. that the parent poster knew what indexes were for and was already using them where appropriate.
Of course, it wouldn't be as much fun to get on your high horse about something they were doing right, would it?
You know, the interesting thing about scripts is that there are ways of understanding them other than executing them -- like, say, I dunno, READING THEM FIRST.
So many bored, lazy, or stupid admins don't think to try that first. I'll bet that's what happened here.
Ahh so you're just collecting some second-hand smoke data you're not planning on USING for anything then, like namby-pamby parental laws for adults or anything.
Good. Glad to hear it.
Oh, I wouldn't mind an outright ban on smoking in public. It's not what I was talking about. I was merely correcting the view that SHS is harmless; no one in their right mind should believe that at this point unless they have a powerful motivation not to do so (like, say, a certain nasty habit). I'm reminded of Upton Sinclair's observation: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it." I find the same thing is as true about the enjoyment of one's vices.
But since you seem intent on starting this argument, why not humor you?
Public smoking is clearly an example of people doing harm to others thanks to a sense of entitlement. They believe it's their *right* to smoke and that it's all those *other* jerks that should simply take it or leave -- I believe you said something to this effect two posts ago.
Well, no. That's not how things work when your actions harm other people.
When you swing your arms around, is it the fault of someone who doesn't dodge for getting hit? When you play loud music at night, is it the fault of those who are woken up for being "light" sleepers? When you build a hog rendering plant near a suburb, is it the fault of all the people complaining about the smell for not moving?
Smoking, like any other harmful nuisance, is not the responsibility of the victims to avoid but is the responsibility of the one doing harm to avoid. That's just common sense and deceny. Most smokers know this and try to avoid lighting up around people who mind. These people are kind enough to step outside, to stand downwind of friends when smoking and chatting, to ask before lighting up, etc.
A belligerent minority, however, consider smoking to be a right to which they are entitled and consider anyone asserting a right to trying to impose a "nanny state" on them. Rather than acknowledge the health risks of smoking, they often justify their stance by considering people who don't like smoke to be whiners and assert that the risks of SHS are overblown.
Sound familiar?
As the links I've presented show, the debate on *if* SHS is harmful was settled decades ago. We've long moved into the debate over cataloging all the hows and whys.
So, what should our public policy be? If an act is harmful to others, then should someone have the right to do it whenever and wherever? (Ignore for a moment the "debate" over medically harmful vs. merely causing discomfort and pain.)
The answer in several hundred years of Anglo-American law is clearly no. Torts such as assault, battery, private nuisance, negligence, etc. all hint that one has a duty not to carelessly do harm to others and to avoid deliberate offensive contact (including by smoke). At the same time, there is such a thing as "coming to a nuisance," as "assuming the risk," and as consenting to be touched. So clearly, as long as smoking is legal, one can't say that any time a smoker and a nonsmoker meet, the nonsmoker should win.
This makes for two very easy policy decisions on the fringes of the public-private spectrum: 1) Ban smoking in public places around nonsmokers. 2) Allow smoking on your own property around other smokers.
The thorny area is where you draw the line in between. Clearly, you should be able to allow other people to smoke in your house and to make, say, a smoking club or an establishment that specifically welcomes smokers.
What about private establishments where smokers & nonsmokers are expected to mix, but where there are next to no alternatives in the market for nonsmokers to avoid smoke, like a small town's grocery store or bank? Should the fact that it's privately owned mean that nonsmokers should be forced to endure harm when going about their daily lives to preserve the alleged rights
It was a well-intentioned attempt at education turned adversarial after my first post because Valdrax seems intent on proving the hilarity of what has been previously debated where the AC whose flag I took up was initially himself trying to simply explain others' viewpoints on humor and why they conflict with some 'nerdier' tendencies.
It goes to show again that you missed my point. After all, I did support modding down such comments as redundant and did support one's right to boo humor your don't like. I never said that I personally found senseless movie quoting funny (especially in a very out of context situation, like above).
My actual points were that (1) there is no objective measure of humor, so attempts to universally declare something as "not funny" are nothing but an arrogant attempt to declare your own subjective values as universal truths (i.e. that your tastes are always superior), and (2) while the AC thought that quoting movie lines was pathetic and embarrassing because of how "normal" people react to it, I'm of the opinion that it's even more pathetic to restrain your sense of humor for fear of not fitting in or being "cool." If that's the kind of thing you find funny, then let your freak flag fly, and let peer pressure be damned.
And what's that got to do with the recent trend to not only stop second-hand smoke in public places where the majority need to go, but privately owned businesses where anyone who doesn't want to be there, can LEAVE?
I dunno. I'll answer that question after you tell me what it has to do with my reply. Can't spend all my time putting out other people's burning strawmen.
He is not defining a whitelist of humor wherein only certain jokes are permitted. He is attempting to describe a single item from what should be a universal comedic blacklist.
Then you missed mine completely. Any attempt to make such a blacklist is just elitist arrogance.
It's not humor. It's not a joke. It's pathetic attention whoring borne of an insecure ego, and your getting so defensive at it getting the derision it deserves leads me to believe you're part of the problem.
If that person finds it funny and someone else does too (as seen by the Funny mods), then it's humor whether you like it or not. It's not your place to be the high holy watchguard of humor who tells the little people what is funny or not.
(And "if you defend it, you must be just as bad" is a 3rd grader's argument. What's next, "I am rubber, you are glue?")
It's redundant because just quoting movie lines at one another is pointless and stupid. You know how normal people tend to regard geeks as losers? It's because a hell of a lot of us do lame shit like this. It's an embarrassment.
Humor would be greatly stifled if the only jokes that were permitted to be considered funny are those that a majority of the public would like. Humor is personal, and if two people find a joke funny (and it hurts no one else), then who are you to say that those two people should stop laughing?
If the masses don't like that, then screw 'em. What kind of pathetic, inhibited loser stifles their own laughter for fear of not being "cool" enough?
(That said, marking Monty Python jokes Redundant is a valid reaction. You are allowed to boo other people's jokes after all. I'm just saying that fear of that shouldn't stop you from making them in the first place.)
Or just use Speakerphone. Rather than annoying everyone around you with 1/2 of a conversation, why not annoy them with the whole thing?
Better yet, use Push-to-Talk. Why annoy everyone with both halves of a conversation when you can also add loud chirruping and have one half of the conversation in patented Squawky-Sound?
(I can't be the only one who wants a license to punch PTT users in the face, right?)
Actually, there is NO absolute proof of the so called "second hand smoking" (passive smoking). Everything said about it is based on a single, very questionable report release way back (70s ? 80s ?).
Would you like to hear some more recent studies? No? Too bad.
The last one in particular contains a great number of references by which you can better educate yourself. Penn & Teller can go to hell for all I care; the data is out there for people who don't get all their scientific information from comedians.
Try spending 5 minutes on scholar.google.com before blathering about "no studies" and "no research."
Some of the things you list are in fact illegal, if rarely enforced (such as playing excessively loud music in your car). But that's largely irrelevant.
Most of the things you list, unlike smoking, do not cause physical discomfort (like coughing and irritated eyes). This puts it in a class beyond mere annoyance and into causing deleterious physical effects to people.
There are things that annoy and things that cause pain to people. Those things in the latter category are not your right. Your right to swing your fist (or puff your smoke) ends at my face.
You know what is confusing me about these aliens? Why do they always contact governments when they come to Earth so they can cover it up?
Unless you're planning on overtly taking over with military force, then it would probably be irresponsible to reveal yourself openly. Just think of the social chaos that might cause. That part is at least consistent.
I can only applaud our governments, they are doing an excellent job. If they are capable of covering up moon hoaxes, 9/11 plans and aliens crash landing, I'd just wish they were able to do their job just as fine with, say, the war in Iraq?
Ah, you don't think properly like a conspiracy theorist.
First, you must assume the conspiracy. Then, you must fit all the data into the model instead of refitting the model to fit the data.
Thus, us not doing well in Iraq can only mean that either the conspiracy wants us to fail in Iraq for some larger reason, the conspiracy is uninterested in Iraq, there are competing conspiracies, the conspiracy's goals in Iraq are unrelated to political or military success (such as capturing a specific site), etc. Never should you think that data can actually contradict the existence of a conspiracy -- just your understanding of its shadowy goals.
Remember, conspiracy is the plural form of confirmation bias.
This is what always gets me about these people, they talk as if the government is a body of competent people. Last time I checked, they aren't! Private corporations could run most countries better.
When is the last time you really paid attention to the news? (Or to how large companies are run, frankly? Bureaucracy is bureaucracy regardless of where the paychecks come from.)
Just think of the US government's hybrid private-public model as all of the profit skimming of a private corporation with all of the competition of an oligopoly, all funded by a captive market that has to pay up or go to prison and whose votes are filtered through men and women beholden to the large partner corporations for the money to get themselves elected thanks to our campaign financing system.
We need less of that. At least, less non-competitive private firms acting as growths off of the body public, performing the same functions government would except that they have built-in skimming off the top to go to executives and shareholders -- kind of a perverse, reverse income tax.
Unfortunately, all the UFO buffs who would be delighted to hear this information are also the same people who believe that the moonwalks were a sham, so they won't believe a word he says.
Clearly, that makes him more credible to conspiracy nuts. After all, he was in not one government conspiracy to hide the truth, but two! It clearly shows how interlinked the plans of the secret masters to hide the true face of the world from the greyfaces is.
Slashdot Mirror
DN3D != DNF
Article Summary == Wrong
Editors == Fail
Yes, but who tagged it "epicfail?"
It's "3D Realms" that failed, not Epic.
Clearly, that's an entirely different company.
God, I hope this "post anonymously" button works, or else the wife is gonna be pissed...
You could always just let their air out of her.
That's what she said!
Do articles written by the editors themselves even go to the Firehose?
You say that like the gameplay was the bad part of Kingdom Hearts.
Illicit does not necessarily mean self-destructive. It is a matter of law, not health.
"Self-destructive" is not always a matter of bodily health.
Are you kidding? Why do you want to mess with min. wage fast food jobs? I mean...these are NOT meant to be living wages. They are they are there for high school and college kids to earn extra money while in school.
[...]
Hmm..I don't eat fast food very often [...]
It shows. I mean, when's the last time you saw a fast food restaurant that was mostly staffed by teenagers & college students? For me, it was the 90's, and it was a Chick-Fil-A that made a point of hiring kids from the local foster homes they sponsor.
The vast majority of fast food workers I see are low-income wage slaves who do not (and will not) have a college education, just trying to get by. This is true even if you cut out the kitchen staff (which stopped being kids and started being immigrant labor as far back as when *I* was a kid). I'd say that I only see someone in that high school to college age group maybe 1 in 5 times I eat at a fast food restaurant, and I almost never see two people in that age group.
I have mixed feelings about unionizing fast food, but stop believing the fantasy that kids are the only people working McJobs. It's just not true anymore in the places where I've lived.
Contracting parties can arrange in the contract what remedies are available to each side in case the other side is in breach of the contract. If you violate the terms of the contract, AT&T simply invokes the clause in the contract (which is now the only remedy available to them).
Simple, clean, and extremely well supported in caselaw.
Sorry, until I see more exposure of bad cops from within their departments, I'm lumping the 'good cops' in with the bad cops.
Sympathizers you know? Kinda like how we bomb the houses of people who help Iraqi Insurgents, even if they aren't actually insurgents themselves.
I'm sorry, but are you suggesting that bombing the houses of civilians who themselves don't take up arms is a moral and just thing to do?
i.e. "We had to burn the village to save it?"
You act like there's only one restaurant in the world, or bar. Maybe your world is that small, but around here if the ban were lifted, just as before... we'd have some smoking, and some non-smoking establishments...
The only non-smoking establishments where I grew up before a county-wide ban were fast food restaurants that were too small to have separate nonsmoking sections. However, all of the places that had segregated seating smelled like smoke even in the nonsmoking sections. So, yeah, technically you had a "restaurant choice," under the "let's all pretend" theory that all restaurants are equal.
But if you wanted Mexican, Chinese, Italian, or any of dozens of other choices, you had to put up with smoke. It was even worse if it was after 9:00 when you were pretty much limited to Waffle House and thus either to choking on smoke or nothing. I still remember in college finding the first nonsmoking Waffle House (thanks to a county-wide ban) and feeling like I'd found the late-night promised land.
I digress, though. I return to the great unanswered question: if all a smoker has to do is step outside, then why should I have a great number of my choices cut down to avoid smoke? Why is it so important that smokers be allowed to smoke around nonsmokers? Why should the smokers be the ones to get to "push" when there's conflict over who gets to use a space?
Just like it should be with consenting adults all 'round.
Again, you pretend like the choice occurs in a vacuum. Why should I have to choose between self-harm and free use of my money? Why should I be prevented from eating for the sake of a rude jerk who indulges in an activity that harms people around him? Why should he be allowed to force me to accept the harm he does as a cost of admission to something else unrelated?
Choice #3 DID exist here. What back-woods dumb-ass place do you live?
Did you and your friends try asking the establishments to ban smoking themselves BEFORE taking it to full blown facism?
Look, are you incapable of holding a civilized conversation? Maybe you should lay off the cigs.
Freedom in the United States, baby. Only as long as you don't want to do anything interesting, dangerous, or fun.
Your right to engage in self-destructive behavior is absolute, in my opinion, so long as it's purely self-destructive. If you want to sit at home alone shooting up heroine, I don't really care. As soon as you start forcing other people to come along for the ride, it's you that's robbing them of freedom.
When your choices constrain the choices of others, you are taking their freedom from them. It is people like you, who poison the air around them, that are the real thieves of freedom -- just as assuredly as a blackmailer robs freedom while still giving their victim a "choice." (And, yes, I'm assuming you're a smoker. No one gets so hostile in defense of a vice without it being personal.)
Your right to swing your fist (or blow your smoke) ends at my face. You seem to think that putting up a sign that says, "I get to punch anyone who walks within arms length," gives free reign to punch anyone walking by because they "consented." That's all smoking is really -- a callous disregard of the freedom of others to avoid harm, and in your case, a self-righteous attitude that people can either put up with it or shut up.
I've asked you repeatedly to justify why society should favor the smoker over the nonsmoker. You haven't. You can't. All you've said is "smoking is freedom, baby!" and tried to wrap public poisoning in the flag and pretended that knuckling under to bad behavior to get something you can't get otherwise is the same as free and full consent.
I'm frankly fed up at this point. All those questions I asked above? I'm not really expecting an answer at this point. I had a good fee
You make up a lot of shit. I said that public smoking in places where the OWNER, the PATRONS, and the STAFF all agree -- should not be BANNED by LAW.
How do you define that consent? Take the restaurant industry before smoking bans.
Where, as a patron, could you go to enjoy a smoke-free restaurant? Nowhere, where I lived. Where, as a prospective employee, could you go to work as a waiter or waitress without having to work around smoke? Nowhere, where I lived. Your choice to avoid smoking was to completely abstain from going to restaurants. (What kind of "choice" is that?)
So, this is why I brought up that the government's choice is to either ban those who want to smoke indoors or those who want to avoid smoke. The first is what we have when smoking is allowed in restaurants. The second is what we have when smoking isn't allowed in restaurants. One or the other.
You're pretending that the choice to be around smokers is completely unencumbered and the nonsmokers are freely (and happily) making the decision to breathe smoke when they go to such a business. That's nonsense -- your choice is suck it up or do without. That's not a free choice.
In practice, what we have is either nonsmokers holding their noses (not literally, mind you) and dealing with smoke because they'd rather still have a social life. The choice is more stark when you consider the market for low-skill jobs (like being a waiter) that present a person with the choice of either accepting smoke or going unemployed. How can you really say that the staff was "willing" to put up with smoke instead of just desperate?
So if we have to make people make a choice between "____ or abstain from an activity," why should the blank be filled with "subject yourself to smoke" instead of "hold off on the cigs while indoors?" Justify that policy, please.
Your agenda is a ban on all public smoking? Why? Do you feel that freedom is not worth defending for all?
Freedom does not include the right to hurt people who have done you no harm.
The right to bear arms does not include the right to shoot them at people without restraint. Free speech does not include the right to slander or commit fraud. Etc. Smoking can be phrased as the freedom to enjoy your legally purchases property, but how is this different from any other form of pollution, of public nuisance, or of negligence where your use of your property does harm to those around you?
So don't pretend a pro-smoking stance is "pro-freedom" and pull out the old saw of "why do you hate freedom?" It's as dishonest of an argument as telling people they hate freedom for not wanting people to crank up a boombox on the subway or drive drunk.
I never said I want non-smokers exposed to smokers. Please re-read and explain why LAWS banning smoking amongst people who are WILLING to smoke and/or be exposed to second-hand-smoke, are appropriate here in the United States.
You haven't explicitly stated, "I want nonsmokers to suck on smoke," but that's the net effect of the policy you're advocating -- that people who don't smoke should have to make the choice between breathing smoke or not getting to patronize a business unrelated to smoking, like a bar or restaurant. (All while you demonize my stance the smokers should have to make a similar choice as being "against freedom.")
Again, your idea of "willing" pretends that the choice is really:
1) Don't go out.
2) Go eat somewhere with smoke.
3) Go eat somewhere without smoke.
Choice #3 didn't really exist before laws prohibiting smoking in restaurants. Your choice was breathe smoke or abstain from eating out. Just like today for smokers the choice is step outside to smoke or abstain from eating out.
I don't really have much of a problem if there's actually a business oriented around attracting smokers and giving them a place to smoke. (Prohibiting people who can't legally smoke or cons
Interesting that you remove the part of the quote that notes that they duplicated existing indexes as well -- i.e. that the parent poster knew what indexes were for and was already using them where appropriate.
Of course, it wouldn't be as much fun to get on your high horse about something they were doing right, would it?
You know, the interesting thing about scripts is that there are ways of understanding them other than executing them -- like, say, I dunno, READING THEM FIRST.
So many bored, lazy, or stupid admins don't think to try that first. I'll bet that's what happened here.
Ahh so you're just collecting some second-hand smoke data you're not planning on USING for anything then, like namby-pamby parental laws for adults or anything.
Good. Glad to hear it.
Oh, I wouldn't mind an outright ban on smoking in public. It's not what I was talking about. I was merely correcting the view that SHS is harmless; no one in their right mind should believe that at this point unless they have a powerful motivation not to do so (like, say, a certain nasty habit). I'm reminded of Upton Sinclair's observation: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it." I find the same thing is as true about the enjoyment of one's vices.
But since you seem intent on starting this argument, why not humor you?
Public smoking is clearly an example of people doing harm to others thanks to a sense of entitlement. They believe it's their *right* to smoke and that it's all those *other* jerks that should simply take it or leave -- I believe you said something to this effect two posts ago.
Well, no. That's not how things work when your actions harm other people.
When you swing your arms around, is it the fault of someone who doesn't dodge for getting hit? When you play loud music at night, is it the fault of those who are woken up for being "light" sleepers? When you build a hog rendering plant near a suburb, is it the fault of all the people complaining about the smell for not moving?
Smoking, like any other harmful nuisance, is not the responsibility of the victims to avoid but is the responsibility of the one doing harm to avoid. That's just common sense and deceny. Most smokers know this and try to avoid lighting up around people who mind. These people are kind enough to step outside, to stand downwind of friends when smoking and chatting, to ask before lighting up, etc.
A belligerent minority, however, consider smoking to be a right to which they are entitled and consider anyone asserting a right to trying to impose a "nanny state" on them. Rather than acknowledge the health risks of smoking, they often justify their stance by considering people who don't like smoke to be whiners and assert that the risks of SHS are overblown.
Sound familiar?
As the links I've presented show, the debate on *if* SHS is harmful was settled decades ago. We've long moved into the debate over cataloging all the hows and whys.
So, what should our public policy be? If an act is harmful to others, then should someone have the right to do it whenever and wherever? (Ignore for a moment the "debate" over medically harmful vs. merely causing discomfort and pain.)
The answer in several hundred years of Anglo-American law is clearly no. Torts such as assault, battery, private nuisance, negligence, etc. all hint that one has a duty not to carelessly do harm to others and to avoid deliberate offensive contact (including by smoke). At the same time, there is such a thing as "coming to a nuisance," as "assuming the risk," and as consenting to be touched. So clearly, as long as smoking is legal, one can't say that any time a smoker and a nonsmoker meet, the nonsmoker should win.
This makes for two very easy policy decisions on the fringes of the public-private spectrum:
1) Ban smoking in public places around nonsmokers.
2) Allow smoking on your own property around other smokers.
The thorny area is where you draw the line in between. Clearly, you should be able to allow other people to smoke in your house and to make, say, a smoking club or an establishment that specifically welcomes smokers.
What about private establishments where smokers & nonsmokers are expected to mix, but where there are next to no alternatives in the market for nonsmokers to avoid smoke, like a small town's grocery store or bank? Should the fact that it's privately owned mean that nonsmokers should be forced to endure harm when going about their daily lives to preserve the alleged rights
It was a well-intentioned attempt at education turned adversarial after my first post because Valdrax seems intent on proving the hilarity of what has been previously debated where the AC whose flag I took up was initially himself trying to simply explain others' viewpoints on humor and why they conflict with some 'nerdier' tendencies.
It goes to show again that you missed my point. After all, I did support modding down such comments as redundant and did support one's right to boo humor your don't like. I never said that I personally found senseless movie quoting funny (especially in a very out of context situation, like above).
My actual points were that (1) there is no objective measure of humor, so attempts to universally declare something as "not funny" are nothing but an arrogant attempt to declare your own subjective values as universal truths (i.e. that your tastes are always superior), and (2) while the AC thought that quoting movie lines was pathetic and embarrassing because of how "normal" people react to it, I'm of the opinion that it's even more pathetic to restrain your sense of humor for fear of not fitting in or being "cool." If that's the kind of thing you find funny, then let your freak flag fly, and let peer pressure be damned.
And what's that got to do with the recent trend to not only stop second-hand smoke in public places where the majority need to go, but privately owned businesses where anyone who doesn't want to be there, can LEAVE?
I dunno. I'll answer that question after you tell me what it has to do with my reply.
Can't spend all my time putting out other people's burning strawmen.
He is not defining a whitelist of humor wherein only certain jokes are permitted. He is attempting to describe a single item from what should be a universal comedic blacklist.
Then you missed mine completely. Any attempt to make such a blacklist is just elitist arrogance.
It's not humor. It's not a joke. It's pathetic attention whoring borne of an insecure ego, and your getting so defensive at it getting the derision it deserves leads me to believe you're part of the problem.
If that person finds it funny and someone else does too (as seen by the Funny mods), then it's humor whether you like it or not. It's not your place to be the high holy watchguard of humor who tells the little people what is funny or not.
(And "if you defend it, you must be just as bad" is a 3rd grader's argument. What's next, "I am rubber, you are glue?")
Or even better, don't tell them that they're banned. Just let them keep posting, but they're the only ones who sees their posts.
You are a genius. That's the best idea I've ever heard for dealing with trolls.
Why has no one done this before?
It's redundant because just quoting movie lines at one another is pointless and stupid. You know how normal people tend to regard geeks as losers? It's because a hell of a lot of us do lame shit like this. It's an embarrassment.
Humor would be greatly stifled if the only jokes that were permitted to be considered funny are those that a majority of the public would like. Humor is personal, and if two people find a joke funny (and it hurts no one else), then who are you to say that those two people should stop laughing?
If the masses don't like that, then screw 'em. What kind of pathetic, inhibited loser stifles their own laughter for fear of not being "cool" enough?
(That said, marking Monty Python jokes Redundant is a valid reaction. You are allowed to boo other people's jokes after all. I'm just saying that fear of that shouldn't stop you from making them in the first place.)
Or just use Speakerphone. Rather than annoying everyone around you with 1/2 of a conversation, why not annoy them with the whole thing?
Better yet, use Push-to-Talk. Why annoy everyone with both halves of a conversation when you can also add loud chirruping and have one half of the conversation in patented Squawky-Sound?
(I can't be the only one who wants a license to punch PTT users in the face, right?)
Actually, there is NO absolute proof of the so called "second hand smoking" (passive smoking). Everything said about it is based on a single, very questionable report release way back (70s ? 80s ?).
Would you like to hear some more recent studies? No? Too bad.
A study examining the method by which SHS triggers allergy attacks.
Demonstration of how SHS promotes the growth of existing lung cancers.
How SHS impedes the ability of fibrolasts to respond to a wound.
The last one in particular contains a great number of references by which you can better educate yourself. Penn & Teller can go to hell for all I care; the data is out there for people who don't get all their scientific information from comedians.
Try spending 5 minutes on scholar.google.com before blathering about "no studies" and "no research."
Some of the things you list are in fact illegal, if rarely enforced (such as playing excessively loud music in your car). But that's largely irrelevant.
Most of the things you list, unlike smoking, do not cause physical discomfort (like coughing and irritated eyes). This puts it in a class beyond mere annoyance and into causing deleterious physical effects to people.
There are things that annoy and things that cause pain to people. Those things in the latter category are not your right. Your right to swing your fist (or puff your smoke) ends at my face.
Don't worry - you're a Democrat. Just choose whichever reality is most convenient for you at the moment time and go with it.
So, how goes that search for WMDs, or was that never the point, really?
You know what is confusing me about these aliens? Why do they always contact governments when they come to Earth so they can cover it up?
Unless you're planning on overtly taking over with military force, then it would probably be irresponsible to reveal yourself openly. Just think of the social chaos that might cause. That part is at least consistent.
I can only applaud our governments, they are doing an excellent job. If they are capable of covering up moon hoaxes, 9/11 plans and aliens crash landing, I'd just wish they were able to do their job just as fine with, say, the war in Iraq?
Ah, you don't think properly like a conspiracy theorist.
First, you must assume the conspiracy. Then, you must fit all the data into the model instead of refitting the model to fit the data.
Thus, us not doing well in Iraq can only mean that either the conspiracy wants us to fail in Iraq for some larger reason, the conspiracy is uninterested in Iraq, there are competing conspiracies, the conspiracy's goals in Iraq are unrelated to political or military success (such as capturing a specific site), etc. Never should you think that data can actually contradict the existence of a conspiracy -- just your understanding of its shadowy goals.
Remember, conspiracy is the plural form of confirmation bias.
This is what always gets me about these people, they talk as if the government is a body of competent people. Last time I checked, they aren't! Private corporations could run most countries better.
When is the last time you really paid attention to the news? (Or to how large companies are run, frankly? Bureaucracy is bureaucracy regardless of where the paychecks come from.)
Just think of the US government's hybrid private-public model as all of the profit skimming of a private corporation with all of the competition of an oligopoly, all funded by a captive market that has to pay up or go to prison and whose votes are filtered through men and women beholden to the large partner corporations for the money to get themselves elected thanks to our campaign financing system.
We need less of that. At least, less non-competitive private firms acting as growths off of the body public, performing the same functions government would except that they have built-in skimming off the top to go to executives and shareholders -- kind of a perverse, reverse income tax.
Unfortunately, all the UFO buffs who would be delighted to hear this information are also the same people who believe that the moonwalks were a sham, so they won't believe a word he says.
Clearly, that makes him more credible to conspiracy nuts. After all, he was in not one government conspiracy to hide the truth, but two! It clearly shows how interlinked the plans of the secret masters to hide the true face of the world from the greyfaces is.