Teen pregencies are at there lowest rate overall in the USA for a long time.
The two teens in question did not decide to "get into porn" they sent each other "racy" photo's. The child-porn laws should have included an exception for this behaviour. Where I live the age of consent is only 14 years. It is going to be raised to 16 to make it easier to prosecute pedophiles, but the new law will explicitly include provisions that make sure horny teenagers do not get caught be this law. Basicly the law will include an exception for anyone that is within 5 years age of each other. Where I live people are rational about sex. We accept that teenagers do have sex, even if it may not be in their best interest. When we write laws we make sure that we do not criminalize normal teenage behaviour.
I am the parent of 3 teenagers. As the kids reached the appropriate age we have a frank talk about sex and birth control. I am very explicit so there is no confusion on how women get pregnant and how birthcontrol works. It is a bit embarassing for the kids, but it is important to make sure the kids are informed so that they do not make mistakes out of ignorance. I encourage my kids to hold off on having sex until they are older, but I also make sure they know there is nothing "dirty" about sex, that sex is normal healthy part of an adult's life. I emphasize the adult part. Follow up talks take place as the kids get older. I don't want to be a grandparent, and I don't want my kids to be parent when they are too young.
Teens WILL make their own descisions. Making them criminals for these harmless mistakes is not in the childs best interest. Society and parents should try to teach and lead youth, not bludgeon them over the head.
Parents do kick their kids out for being pregnant, but I think this is appalling behaviour. The kids should take responsability for their actions, but a good parent should still help their kids out.
Unfettered sexual exploration only leads to pregnancy if the kids are brought up ignorant of simple fact like how conception happens, and how birthcontrol works. Yes, teens can be clueless, they will ignore good advice, but they have no chance of making good decisions without good information.
Making these two kids criminals is a bizarre miscarriage of justice. Only a society that is completely screwed up on the subject of sex could do this.
It is very unlikely that the teacher will actually be sentenced to 40 years for this "crime". The actual harm is very small, it sounds like a first offense, and it wasn't intentional. Any sane judge will sentence her to a wristslap.
Of course, if this happened in a sane society the parents would be notified in case they wanted to talk to their children about what they saw, the teacher would be told to be more careful, the anti-spam software would be updated, and that would be the end of it.
There is no "probably" about it. They save money. I switched all the high use lights in my house to CFL's 10 years ago. One bulb lasted ten years, the average is about 5 years. They do use less electricty.
The fact that more people don't switch just shows how short sighted most people are - they won't spend a little more money now to save money over the long haul.
You are confusing genetic engineering with cloning. Genetic engineering may produce an organism without a nervous system. Cloning only gives you a copy of what you already have.
Canada is the only country in the world where beef consuption increased after a case of "mad cow disease" was reported. This makes me proud to belong to a country where average citzens do not fall prey to hysteria, and actually bought more beef to help out local beef producers.
We are not running out of oil. We are running out of cheap oil. Global warming is only a threat to poor people (callous but true). These are NOT life threatening problems for most people on the Earth. Running out of oil is not a problem at all as we have lots of time to switch to other energy sources. Global warming is not going to be fixed in the short term, if ever, unless it starts to directly affect lots of rich people.
This whole "we should fix all problems on the Earth first" attitude drives me crazy. The major problems on the Earth are not technological problems, they are purely political. People die of starvation because of politics not technology. We have the technology to feed everyone. We already grow enough food to feed everyone. So why do thousands of people die every day from starvation? Politics. We will NEVER fix all the problems on the Earth. Waiting to fix them all means waiting forever.
We should be excited, enthused, and willing to spend money on space exploration because it is the future of humanity. We need to expand to other planets. We need to move out of the parents home. We need more than one basket of eggs. In the long term there is nothing more important than space exploration that leads to people living, permanently, on other planets or habitats.
The problem is that that the CIA review board OK'ed the article, but the Whitehouse decided to censor it - likely for political reason, not security reasons.
Where I live many people own guns, but unless you live outside of the city the guns are generally locked up. Not much use for home defense. NO ONE, except crimminals and police, carries hand-guns around, and even the crimminals usually leave them in their car unless they need them. So why are me and all my neighbours completely unconcerned about gun toting criminals? We are unconcerned because the average criminal goes about their crimes unarmed. When an armed crimminal does strike they have made themselves the local police's top priority, and they are hunted down and arrested in short order. The huge numbers of unarmed theives are virtually ignored by the police as long as they limit themselves to stealing stuff without confronting people. We have a very low rate of violence against people, but a stupidly high rate of car thefts and other "property" crime (mainly driven by drug addicts getting money for their habit). It sucks to expect to have your car stolen every couple of years, but it sucks less than worring about being mugged etc...
90% of gun murders are crimminals killing each other. Most of the others are crimes of passion. Most years only 1 or 2 honest citizens are murdered by criminals in a city of 2 million.
The problem with guns, especially handguns, is that it makes it so much eaier to kill someone. If no one is armed with firearms a drunken argument will result in bruises, or a bit worse. A drunken argument where one or both sides has a firearm can easily result in death.
Where I live owning a long gun is very common, but owning a handgun is extrememly regulated. Still, anyone who wants to, can get a handgun. There are also strict regulations controlling transporting firearms and storing them. Any gun being transported must be in a locked strong box. It is very rare for anyone, except some drug dealers and punks going night-clubbing, to carry a handgun. Guns deaths outside of drug dealers killing each other is quite rare.
You are correct that guns are never a problem for law abiding people. But it is much easier for the police to keep the idiots unarmed with a blanket ban on carrying weapons. We also would not put up with the brazen displays of crimminal activity you depicted.
It is my opinion that the root cause of the high death rate due to guns in the USA is due to cultural issues more than just the fact that there are lots of guns floating about. The USA simply has more sub-cultures than most countries that do not frown on using lethal violence to settle problems. No one locally would think that buying a gun would help "defend" their home, for example.
Freedom of speech exists to protect the "antagonistic little shit". The good citizen who proclaims his love for everything middle of road rarely needs protected.
Speech you disagree with is exactly the type of speech that needs to be protected. We don't need "freedom of speech" to protect things we all agree with. We need it to protect the free discussion of important and trivial topics that we disagree with that are key to a healthy democracy.
Anyone interested in the truth cares who funded it. As an outside, it was pretty clear that the whole impeachment thing was driven by right-wing nutjobs who just didn't like Clinton or the democrats, and had only the most tenuous connection with reality.
It's like asking if I should care that Exxonn is funding a climate study, or big tobacco is funding a health study.
Clinton was lying to answer a question that should never have been asked. Only his wife should be asking about his relations with females. It had nothing to do with his job as president.
Anyone who thinks all lies are equally wrong has obviously never been asked by their wife if they think they are getting fat.
I'm not quite sure I understand what is being asked. Are you saying that there are people who take vactions then still call the office and check their work email everyday? Why would you do that? Unless it's a very small company, every job has at least one competant backup. Management signed off on your vactions time, that means everything is under control and you can forget work and enjoy life. Even if it isn't under control, it isn't likely isn't your responsability. Do I sound cynical? Hey, my company has zero loyalty to its employees. They get what they pay for from me, and nothing else. I'm not spending my time on work when I know work spends zero time worrying about me. Even if you have a more enlightened employer, you should STILL not worry about work. A good vaction makes you a better employee. You get to "recharge the batteries" on a good vaction. If you are calling in everyday it isn't a vaction - it's telecommutting.
Unless you own the business, what could possibly motivate you worry about work, much less actually take time out of your day to login and check your email? I like my job, but it is still just a way to earn money so I can enjoy my life outside of work. Some lucky people might have jobs they truly find fufilling, but I'm not that lucky.
Now, I have to admit that I do carry a cell phone and work can get a hold of me in an emergency when I'm on vacation, but it has never even ocurred to me that I might want to contact work while on vaction. Why would I? I'm on vacation - the point of which is enjoy myself, not worry about someone else's business.
So, what kind of person does this odd thing? Why do they do it?
But there is NO reason for people to fear terrorists attacking with anthrax, nuclear weapons or even airplanes. You do realize that terrorists would have to pull off a 9/11 once a month to kill as many people as die in car accidents in the USA. Are you going to start a war against car accidents?
It is extremely difficult to use anthrax as a weapon. It just is not going to be used as a weapon by anyone other than nations. Ditto for nukes.
Personal or not, terrorist attacks are not something the average USA citizens needs to fear. Your politicians like to overstate the problem to garner votes.
While things are improving in India, many people in India do live in poverty. The middle class, if defined loosely, is about 250 to 300 million people. The middle class should be about 50% of the population in 2025 if it continues to grow at its current rate of about 1% a year. This is out of a population of about 1.1 billion people.
Only one third of rural homes have electricty.
10% live under the "poverty line", as set by the Indian government.
40% are illiterate
You can read short stories that need work at Critters, critique them, and send the critique to the author. You gets points for writing critiques and when you have enough points you can submit your own story. It is a real eye opener to get what you though was a good story critique by 4 or 5 strangers. If you take their advice you can greatly improve your writing.
I would say that becoming a better writer requires WRITING a lot - not reading more. Reading helps you know what works in a general way (and to avoid ideas done to death in your genre), and you do need to know grammer. But only writing and more writing truly improves the craft.
Do NOT sign up unless your are serious about doing critiques. It is a fair bit of work.
The Bush administration was well aware that all their "eveidence" linking Iraq to international terrorism was made from whole cloth. They taold verious agencies what the "truth" was and told them to find evidence to support it. Any facts not conforming to their views were ignored.
The usa is very lucky that no major war has been fought on its soil since the civil war. The crazies who brought down the two towers were very lucky, and the tactic of using airliners as missles will never work again as the passengers will kill the terrorists. The terrorists are in the most part a small band of crazies that have no power to hurt anyone in the USA. Everyone expects the government to work to prevent terrorists acts, but I for one am not willing to give up EVEN ONE CIVIL liberty for this important work.
What is the point of fighting fanatics if we just stoop to their level? Why are you so scared of them? You are much more likely to die in a car accient in the next year than to even see a terrorist, much less be harmed by one. Car accients kill 40,000 people in the USA every year - where is the war on cars? There isn't one becuase it would make a terrible political slogan, it wouldn't generate any fear, and it wouldn't allow any politician to use it as an excuse to trample on your rights.
Stop living in fear. I can hardly belive that the USA is trying to pass laws to allow TORTURE and there isn't massive demonstrations calling for the recall of any politician involved in it. How can the USA pretend to have any moral authority to tell any other country how to tend to its affairs if it allows torture? If it suspends habeous corpus? If it does things associated with the vilest regimes in the world?
The Taliban was the only government in the world that suported these fanatics. The Taliban has been defeated. The "network of training camps" was a handful of primitive camps. No evidence that any terrorist has gotten closer to a chemical or biological weapon than reading about it has ever been found. They are not going to get their hands an a "russion tactical nuke". Studies have shown that a dirty bomb would only kill about 100 people IF they stayed in the zone of radiation for a YEAR.
In short, stop living fear. Your government does not need any more powers than it has to effectively fight terrorism. People may die from attacks, but we accept much greater risks every day (drive a car, go skiing) than we face from terrorists. Do not hand your government a blank cheque out of fear.
PS whatever happened to "you have nothing to fear but fear itself".
Slashdot Mirror
Racy photo's are not "dirty". They are erotic, and in this case should only be viewed by the two young lovers.
Teen pregencies are at there lowest rate overall in the USA for a long time.
The two teens in question did not decide to "get into porn" they sent each other "racy" photo's. The child-porn laws should have included an exception for this behaviour. Where I live the age of consent is only 14 years. It is going to be raised to 16 to make it easier to prosecute pedophiles, but the new law will explicitly include provisions that make sure horny teenagers do not get caught be this law. Basicly the law will include an exception for anyone that is within 5 years age of each other. Where I live people are rational about sex. We accept that teenagers do have sex, even if it may not be in their best interest. When we write laws we make sure that we do not criminalize normal teenage behaviour.
I am the parent of 3 teenagers. As the kids reached the appropriate age we have a frank talk about sex and birth control. I am very explicit so there is no confusion on how women get pregnant and how birthcontrol works. It is a bit embarassing for the kids, but it is important to make sure the kids are informed so that they do not make mistakes out of ignorance. I encourage my kids to hold off on having sex until they are older, but I also make sure they know there is nothing "dirty" about sex, that sex is normal healthy part of an adult's life. I emphasize the adult part. Follow up talks take place as the kids get older. I don't want to be a grandparent, and I don't want my kids to be parent when they are too young.
Teens WILL make their own descisions. Making them criminals for these harmless mistakes is not in the childs best interest. Society and parents should try to teach and lead youth, not bludgeon them over the head.
Parents do kick their kids out for being pregnant, but I think this is appalling behaviour. The kids should take responsability for their actions, but a good parent should still help their kids out.
Unfettered sexual exploration only leads to pregnancy if the kids are brought up ignorant of simple fact like how conception happens, and how birthcontrol works. Yes, teens can be clueless, they will ignore good advice, but they have no chance of making good decisions without good information.
Making these two kids criminals is a bizarre miscarriage of justice. Only a society that is completely screwed up on the subject of sex could do this.
no he's not - he back to making snowballs.
It is very unlikely that the teacher will actually be sentenced to 40 years for this "crime". The actual harm is very small, it sounds like a first offense, and it wasn't intentional. Any sane judge will sentence her to a wristslap.
Of course, if this happened in a sane society the parents would be notified in case they wanted to talk to their children about what they saw, the teacher would be told to be more careful, the anti-spam software would be updated, and that would be the end of it.
"probably still worth getting a few".
There is no "probably" about it. They save money. I switched all the high use lights in my house to CFL's 10 years ago. One bulb lasted ten years, the average is about 5 years. They do use less electricty.
The fact that more people don't switch just shows how short sighted most people are - they won't spend a little more money now to save money over the long haul.
You are confusing genetic engineering with cloning. Genetic engineering may produce an organism without a nervous system. Cloning only gives you a copy of what you already have.
Canada is the only country in the world where beef consuption increased after a case of "mad cow disease" was reported. This makes me proud to belong to a country where average citzens do not fall prey to hysteria, and actually bought more beef to help out local beef producers.
We are not running out of oil. We are running out of cheap oil. Global warming is only a threat to poor people (callous but true). These are NOT life threatening problems for most people on the Earth. Running out of oil is not a problem at all as we have lots of time to switch to other energy sources. Global warming is not going to be fixed in the short term, if ever, unless it starts to directly affect lots of rich people.
This whole "we should fix all problems on the Earth first" attitude drives me crazy. The major problems on the Earth are not technological problems, they are purely political. People die of starvation because of politics not technology. We have the technology to feed everyone. We already grow enough food to feed everyone. So why do thousands of people die every day from starvation? Politics. We will NEVER fix all the problems on the Earth. Waiting to fix them all means waiting forever.
We should be excited, enthused, and willing to spend money on space exploration because it is the future of humanity. We need to expand to other planets. We need to move out of the parents home. We need more than one basket of eggs. In the long term there is nothing more important than space exploration that leads to people living, permanently, on other planets or habitats.
The problem is that that the CIA review board OK'ed the article, but the Whitehouse decided to censor it - likely for political reason, not security reasons.
Finding the lawyer in contemp IS enforcing the rule.
In the USA guns kill more people by suicide and accident than murder. Statistics!
90% of gun murders are crimminals killing each other. Most of the others are crimes of passion. Most years only 1 or 2 honest citizens are murdered by criminals in a city of 2 million.
Where I live owning a long gun is very common, but owning a handgun is extrememly regulated. Still, anyone who wants to, can get a handgun. There are also strict regulations controlling transporting firearms and storing them. Any gun being transported must be in a locked strong box. It is very rare for anyone, except some drug dealers and punks going night-clubbing, to carry a handgun. Guns deaths outside of drug dealers killing each other is quite rare.
You are correct that guns are never a problem for law abiding people. But it is much easier for the police to keep the idiots unarmed with a blanket ban on carrying weapons. We also would not put up with the brazen displays of crimminal activity you depicted.
It is my opinion that the root cause of the high death rate due to guns in the USA is due to cultural issues more than just the fact that there are lots of guns floating about. The USA simply has more sub-cultures than most countries that do not frown on using lethal violence to settle problems. No one locally would think that buying a gun would help "defend" their home, for example.
Freedom of speech exists to protect the "antagonistic little shit". The good citizen who proclaims his love for everything middle of road rarely needs protected.
Speech you disagree with is exactly the type of speech that needs to be protected. We don't need "freedom of speech" to protect things we all agree with. We need it to protect the free discussion of important and trivial topics that we disagree with that are key to a healthy democracy.
It's like asking if I should care that Exxonn is funding a climate study, or big tobacco is funding a health study.
Anyone who thinks all lies are equally wrong has obviously never been asked by their wife if they think they are getting fat.
Unless you own the business, what could possibly motivate you worry about work, much less actually take time out of your day to login and check your email? I like my job, but it is still just a way to earn money so I can enjoy my life outside of work. Some lucky people might have jobs they truly find fufilling, but I'm not that lucky.
Now, I have to admit that I do carry a cell phone and work can get a hold of me in an emergency when I'm on vacation, but it has never even ocurred to me that I might want to contact work while on vaction. Why would I? I'm on vacation - the point of which is enjoy myself, not worry about someone else's business.
So, what kind of person does this odd thing? Why do they do it?
It is extremely difficult to use anthrax as a weapon. It just is not going to be used as a weapon by anyone other than nations. Ditto for nukes.
Personal or not, terrorist attacks are not something the average USA citizens needs to fear. Your politicians like to overstate the problem to garner votes.
That is just bizzarre.
Only one third of rural homes have electricty.
10% live under the "poverty line", as set by the Indian government.
40% are illiterate
I would say that becoming a better writer requires WRITING a lot - not reading more. Reading helps you know what works in a general way (and to avoid ideas done to death in your genre), and you do need to know grammer. But only writing and more writing truly improves the craft.
Do NOT sign up unless your are serious about doing critiques. It is a fair bit of work.
The Bush administration was well aware that all their "eveidence" linking Iraq to international terrorism was made from whole cloth. They taold verious agencies what the "truth" was and told them to find evidence to support it. Any facts not conforming to their views were ignored.
What is the point of fighting fanatics if we just stoop to their level? Why are you so scared of them? You are much more likely to die in a car accient in the next year than to even see a terrorist, much less be harmed by one. Car accients kill 40,000 people in the USA every year - where is the war on cars? There isn't one becuase it would make a terrible political slogan, it wouldn't generate any fear, and it wouldn't allow any politician to use it as an excuse to trample on your rights.
Stop living in fear. I can hardly belive that the USA is trying to pass laws to allow TORTURE and there isn't massive demonstrations calling for the recall of any politician involved in it. How can the USA pretend to have any moral authority to tell any other country how to tend to its affairs if it allows torture? If it suspends habeous corpus? If it does things associated with the vilest regimes in the world?
The Taliban was the only government in the world that suported these fanatics. The Taliban has been defeated. The "network of training camps" was a handful of primitive camps. No evidence that any terrorist has gotten closer to a chemical or biological weapon than reading about it has ever been found. They are not going to get their hands an a "russion tactical nuke". Studies have shown that a dirty bomb would only kill about 100 people IF they stayed in the zone of radiation for a YEAR.
In short, stop living fear. Your government does not need any more powers than it has to effectively fight terrorism. People may die from attacks, but we accept much greater risks every day (drive a car, go skiing) than we face from terrorists. Do not hand your government a blank cheque out of fear.
PS whatever happened to "you have nothing to fear but fear itself".