In 1999 we reached at the point, federally, where the bottom 50% of the income curve pays 4% of the taxes, yet can outvote the top 50% of the income curve footing the other 96% of the bill. I believe that to be a recipe for long-term disaster for prudent fiscal policy - regardless of the party in power.
Hey, I'm all for a free market! Wish I actually lived in a country that had one.
But what are you asking for here? Less taxes for the rich, or votes based upon income?
JUST Cut the money and the GOOD parts of the government are going to suffer as much or more as the BAD parts of government.
This is more right than you think. When Measure 5 was passed in Oregon I had ringside seats, the inside scoop, on how budget cuts at several different levels of government were being apportioned.
The fact is, administrators were pissed because the public dared to cut into their pie. Since the prevailing view among management in the bureaucracy is that citizens are sources of cash and should simply shut the fuck up and pay out when they're told to, the very idea of the citizenry taking charge to cut the budget made the tin-pots go ballistic. They *deliberately planned* cuts that weren't necessary but would affect the public in a very real, demonstrable way, a form of 'punishment' for messing with the sacred cow. The idea was that the citizens would be properly chastened and would repeal property tax limitations.
It's been my experience since then that this is common when budget cuts occur. Unnecessary 'services' like 'administrative overhead' never suffer; necessary things like road repairs do. The idea is to torture the citizenry for their foolhardiness until they give up altogether. And since most of these administrative types tend to be vindictive egomaniacs they're willing to play this game for *years* if need be.
Budget cuts alone won't reform the system. You'll need a far more radical solution if you want to enact *intelligent* budget cuts aimed at benefiting the people.
If you or the people you know are in a position where they cannot simply say 'no' to sex, it is rape - plain and simple.
Oh please - stop being a deceptive little shit. I never said anything about rape. Your attempt at painting me as someone who condones rape is malicious and evil. If you tried that crap in real life I'd bitch-slap your pathetic ass.
If you are meaning to suggest that it is not possible to go through teenagedom without having sex then you are very sorely mistaken and I can site literally hundreds of examples that prove you wrong.
So what? What does this have to do with anything? The problem here is that you want to impose your own narrow view of morality on everyone else, whether they agree with you or not. And I'm pointing out that even if you try people - including most teenagers - are just going to laugh at you and continue on with their lives.
Note that the average age of first sexual intercourse is still 15 in the U.S. Just as it's been since anyone's bothered to record it, just after World War 2. The religious right and their 'just say no' campaigns have had no effect on teenage sexuality whatsoever, no matter how many instances of anecdotal evidence they wish to present as poster children.
Please explain to me in a moderately logical way how the American revolution relates to the current 'war on terror''
I can't see how it does. The U.S. 'war on terror' makes about as much sense, and will probably be as effective as, the oh-so-successful 'war on drugs'.
No, the Constitution had already been accepted. The Bill of Rights was added *after* acceptance because the original Constitution was found to be flawed. This is why the Bill of Rights are embodied in *Amendments* and *not* in the original Constitution itself.
The first 10 amendments are different from all that follow in the sense that the First Congress was aware that the Constitution was flawed and worked quickly to eliminate those flaws, passing these ten amendments in just two years.
Would that future Congresses had found these ten amendments to be so critically important.
Someone could argue with equal logic that the people who oppose Ashcroft the most are the terrorists.
Given some of the things that Ashcroft has said, I'm rather sure he believes that this is the case.
When the question is framed this way, the debate is over what approach leads to the minimum loss of freedom.
No, the debate extends to whether or not any proposed loss of freedom is both worth the consequences and will have any real effect on terrorism. The rabid 'safety before all else' folks have fundamentally failed to prove that any of the legislation passed or considered will do anything to stem terrorism.
And then we could go further to ask why we're a target in the first place and if there's anything we could do to not make ourselves a target in the future. I don't see anyone hankering to to blow up Canadians; maybe they're doing something right that we're doing wrong....
It seems to me that if the ISP promises you a certain upload/download limit in the contract and doesn't specifiy exceptions within that contract then they're in breach. The problem here isn't the 24/7 use of peer-to-peer applications, but the fact that the ISP didn't take this into account when they made their extravagant promises.
My own ISP has promised me 1.5m/128k download/upload with no restrictions in the contract. It's one of the reasons I signed with them in the first place. Telling me after the fact - after the signing - that certain applications or uses aren't allowed because they actually take advantage of the promise to it's fullest extent is a breach. The blame doesn't lie with me if I wish to run Gnutella 24/7, but with the ISP for making promises they can't keep and then reneging on their agreement - especially when they do so only for certain users.
Son, please note that 'juvenile' in this case, as with all primates, is the stage that would be referred to as 'teenage' in humans. That is, sexually mature but not yet considered to be an adult within the troop. Bonobos and chimps mature along the same lines as humans, which is understandable given that there's only about a 1.5% difference in our genes.
It's the same way we refer to juveniles in American society. As pedophilia refers to sex with *prepubescents*, not *postpubescents*, the sexual activity within the bonobo troop isn't an example of pedophilia.
Most psychologists, board certified and otherwise, do adhere to the fact that many "un-normal" activities are, at least in part, due to genetic predisposition. For instance, alcoholics, rapists, child molesters [as well as the long list of many types of sexual abusers], and all sorts of addicts have been shown to have genetic predisposition for these things.
No, I specifically requested a cite for an empirical study published in an accredited, peer-reviewed scientific journal indicating that a genetic predispostion for pedophilia exists. Provide one if you can. Don't dilute the issue by referring to illnesses which have nothing to do with the topic at hand.
You see, I am a psychologist and I do keep up with the journals even if I don't practice. And if such a thing had ever been published it would've rocked the field of psychology. As this hasn't happened I'm pretty damned sure I didn't miss the find of the decade somewhere along the line.
Discovery Magazine is *not* a scientific journal, and it sure as hell isn't peer-reviewed. Try again, or admit that no credible empirical study published in an accredited, peer-reviewed scientific journal exists.
There's no need to be sexually active at 16 any more and there's nothing particularly great about being sexually active at a young age.
Your opinion. One that most of the world doesn't hold, as evidenced by laws on consent. The point was that other people believe other things, and there's no evidence to support your view as the superior one.
Why is it so important to you that underage sex be legal?
Again, the point was that it's only "underage sex" in those parts of the world that declare it to be so. This is a social constraint, not a biological one. People who claim otherwise are deluding themselves.
a 16 year old mother is usually not in a good position to care for her child.
Please note our ancestors, and again most of the rest of the world, are not of the same opinion. In fact, for most of human history this wouldn't have been true.
But that's why in the modern world we have birth control and abortion.
Society has changed a lot in the past few centuries, you can't expect the same rules to apply, nor the same logic.
This isn't about logic, it's about arbitrary social constraint. I never said the social constraint was wrong, merely that it wasn't grounded in empirical assumptions that the entire human race somehow missed until recently, and which aren't the operating rules for most of the rest of the world.
Look at the number of people who have screwed up their lives (by their own admition) by getting pregnant early in life and you'll see what teens not being capable of handling sex means.
This applies to anyone of any age. Which, again, is why we have birth control and abortion. The mistake was in carrying the pregnancy through when it could have been aborted. If personal views prevented the use of abortion to solve the problem, that's their choice and says nothing about others who aren't so constrained.
If you think there's no harm, you don't know enough about what you're talking about, plain and simple.
Unlike you I'm not trying to peddle a particular brand of morality. Nor am I stupid enough to believe that abstinence is viable, especially for teenagers. This is the bailiwick of the religiously naive, who think that 'just say no' is both feasible and desirable simply because they claim it is.
In Oregon it's the law. It's called 'mandatory reporting' and applies to individuals in certain occupations that work with children. Try educating yourself before commenting.
Once you've been in the field a bit and have had to sit on a hiring committee, you'll quickly come to realize that a CS degree on a resume means *absolutely nothing*. The ability to code effectively and under pressure doesn't seem to correlate with the possession of the degree.
Most of the folks that I've hired or sat on a committee for are people who often had no degree at all. Their work samples and recommendations spoke for them. Jobs in the can are worth gold when it comes to reviewing candidates for a position.
I've had some truly embarrassing moments with CS majors who, when presented with a job, couldn't even begin to code. Worse, they couldn't learn how to begin, even if given the resources to do so. This is especially bad if the boss hired the kid on his own and you had to tell him on the kid's second day that his new hire was a waste of company chair space.
Primates (chimps, especially) and doplhins have a relatively high percentage of pedophiles (ie, individuals that seek sexual contact with sexually immature partners)
Provide a cite published in an accredited, peer-reviewed scientific journal. You will find none, because there is no evidence of this whatsoever.
Please note the full sentence here: "most molestors have no interest in restraining themselves."
Some do. They take the drugs and go to therapy and exert self-control to avoid raping children.
Most, however, don't. They have the option to exert self-control; in fact they do it all the time to avoid getting caught and thrown in jail. But when the opportunity presents itself they take it. There usually isn't any agonizing over the decision at all. They see there chance and inflict life-long psychological damage upon their victims without a shred of remorse.
I'm not speaking from an "I think" viewpoint. This is an "I know this for a fact" statement. And you can, too, if you want to review studies done on the subject. Most child molestors (please remember the word 'most' this time) are damned frightening folks; the vast majority of psychologists won't work with them because this is one of those things, like homocidal psychopathy, that can give one nightmares for years to come. They're truly chilling human beings, only interested in 'remorse' when caught and trying to avoid excessive punishment by friends, family and the court. Very cold, very calculated, almost sociopathic.
And pedophilia isn't a 'compulsion', as evidenced by the fact that molestors exercise control virtually all the time (until a proper opportunity presents itself). The word 'compulsion' is another piece of apologia for horrific behavior consciously chosen by the attacker.
I subscribe to the competing theory that pedophilia, like homosexuality, is an innate sexual orientation present from birth to one degre or another. It may remain latent or it may surface, but I believe it's part of a person's genetic make-up.
There is no scientific evidence that supports this belief. Nor would any serious psychologist buy an explanation involving a genetic predisposition. This is dangerous ground you're treading as it provides apologia to child molestors.
As for the rest of your argument concerning prehistory, there is not a single solitary shred of evidence for this either. It doesn't make any biological sense and it isn't mimicked by any mammal alive, including our closest relatives - primates. On the other hand, homosexuality is. This provides some scant evidence to believe that orientation could be in part genetic, while at the same time disproving it for pedophilia.
There is nothing good about pedophilia. This is not an 'orientation'. I'm disturbed by your willingness to provide child molestors with excuses or rationalizations. If they touch a child they deserve - and rightly so - to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Personal fantasies don't enter into the equation unless they're acted on, so that point is irrelevant.
I think it might qualify as a "dumb ass bug" because despite having been informed of the problem last November MS failed to fix the exploit - even after their two-month 'security review'.
So the bug went from 'subtle' in November to 'dumb ass' today because the lackwits in Redmond completely ignored it - hence the label. As in, "only a dumb ass would ignore this bug".
Whatever makes a pedophile *always* occurs very early in life, and it appears to be immutable (there is no cure for pedophilia - none whatsoever). You can't take a normal adult, or even a normal teenager for that matter, and turn them into a pedophile. This is an established fact in the field of psychology, although no one is really quite sure what that 'thing' is in early childhood that does the trick.
The child molestor is formed in childhood. No amount of porn will turn an adult into a molestor. No number of 'alternatives' will keep a molestor from molesting. The only thing that can stop the molestor is the molestor himself, and most molestors have no interest in restraining themselves.
Please note that pedophilia involved *prepubescents*. Having sex with a postpubescent is *not* pedophilia. Arguably stupid given the consequences if you're caught, but not an act of pedophilia.
Not true. The human life span during the middle ages was the same as it is now. However, due to nutrition and disease it was common to die sometime around the age of 50.
Not 26 as you would have us believe. The human race has *never* been that short-lived.
And "The New American" is known throughout the field of psychology as being an accredited, peer-reviewed journal of unimpeachable integrity and great scientific value.
Although it's good to know that you're so hell-bent on protecting virtual children. I'm sure their virtual parents, and the whole virtual community, will applaud your efforts enthusiastically.
Slashdot Mirror
In 1999 we reached at the point, federally, where the bottom 50% of the income curve pays 4% of the taxes, yet can outvote the top 50% of the income curve footing the other 96% of the bill. I believe that to be a recipe for long-term disaster for prudent fiscal policy - regardless of the party in power.
Hey, I'm all for a free market! Wish I actually lived in a country that had one.
But what are you asking for here? Less taxes for the rich, or votes based upon income?
Max
JUST Cut the money and the GOOD parts of the government are going to suffer as much or more as the BAD parts of government.
This is more right than you think. When Measure 5 was passed in Oregon I had ringside seats, the inside scoop, on how budget cuts at several different levels of government were being apportioned.
The fact is, administrators were pissed because the public dared to cut into their pie. Since the prevailing view among management in the bureaucracy is that citizens are sources of cash and should simply shut the fuck up and pay out when they're told to, the very idea of the citizenry taking charge to cut the budget made the tin-pots go ballistic. They *deliberately planned* cuts that weren't necessary but would affect the public in a very real, demonstrable way, a form of 'punishment' for messing with the sacred cow. The idea was that the citizens would be properly chastened and would repeal property tax limitations.
It's been my experience since then that this is common when budget cuts occur. Unnecessary 'services' like 'administrative overhead' never suffer; necessary things like road repairs do. The idea is to torture the citizenry for their foolhardiness until they give up altogether. And since most of these administrative types tend to be vindictive egomaniacs they're willing to play this game for *years* if need be.
Budget cuts alone won't reform the system. You'll need a far more radical solution if you want to enact *intelligent* budget cuts aimed at benefiting the people.
Max
If you or the people you know are in a position where they cannot simply say 'no' to sex, it is rape - plain and simple.
Oh please - stop being a deceptive little shit. I never said anything about rape. Your attempt at painting me as someone who condones rape is malicious and evil. If you tried that crap in real life I'd bitch-slap your pathetic ass.
If you are meaning to suggest that it is not possible to go through teenagedom without having sex then you are very sorely mistaken and I can site literally hundreds of examples that prove you wrong.
So what? What does this have to do with anything? The problem here is that you want to impose your own narrow view of morality on everyone else, whether they agree with you or not. And I'm pointing out that even if you try people - including most teenagers - are just going to laugh at you and continue on with their lives.
Note that the average age of first sexual intercourse is still 15 in the U.S. Just as it's been since anyone's bothered to record it, just after World War 2. The religious right and their 'just say no' campaigns have had no effect on teenage sexuality whatsoever, no matter how many instances of anecdotal evidence they wish to present as poster children.
Max
Please explain to me in a moderately logical way how the American revolution relates to the current 'war on terror''
I can't see how it does. The U.S. 'war on terror' makes about as much sense, and will probably be as effective as, the oh-so-successful 'war on drugs'.
Max
No, the Constitution had already been accepted. The Bill of Rights was added *after* acceptance because the original Constitution was found to be flawed. This is why the Bill of Rights are embodied in *Amendments* and *not* in the original Constitution itself.
The first 10 amendments are different from all that follow in the sense that the First Congress was aware that the Constitution was flawed and worked quickly to eliminate those flaws, passing these ten amendments in just two years.
Would that future Congresses had found these ten amendments to be so critically important.
Max
btw, you should be aware that sabotage of railroad tracks is not uncommon in germany to fight transports of nuclear waste.
Okay, what kind of idiot thinks it's a good idea to derail a train full of nuclear waste???
Max
Someone could argue with equal logic that the people who oppose Ashcroft the most are the terrorists.
Given some of the things that Ashcroft has said, I'm rather sure he believes that this is the case.
When the question is framed this way, the debate is over what approach leads to the minimum loss of freedom.
No, the debate extends to whether or not any proposed loss of freedom is both worth the consequences and will have any real effect on terrorism. The rabid 'safety before all else' folks have fundamentally failed to prove that any of the legislation passed or considered will do anything to stem terrorism.
And then we could go further to ask why we're a target in the first place and if there's anything we could do to not make ourselves a target in the future. I don't see anyone hankering to to blow up Canadians; maybe they're doing something right that we're doing wrong....
Max
n America you can kill people because it's religiously protected (Scientology) free speech.
You need to talk to your crack dealer. Whatever he's cutting your supply with is making you hallucinate something fierce.
Max
It seems to me that if the ISP promises you a certain upload/download limit in the contract and doesn't specifiy exceptions within that contract then they're in breach. The problem here isn't the 24/7 use of peer-to-peer applications, but the fact that the ISP didn't take this into account when they made their extravagant promises.
My own ISP has promised me 1.5m/128k download/upload with no restrictions in the contract. It's one of the reasons I signed with them in the first place. Telling me after the fact - after the signing - that certain applications or uses aren't allowed because they actually take advantage of the promise to it's fullest extent is a breach. The blame doesn't lie with me if I wish to run Gnutella 24/7, but with the ISP for making promises they can't keep and then reneging on their agreement - especially when they do so only for certain users.
Max
Son, please note that 'juvenile' in this case, as with all primates, is the stage that would be referred to as 'teenage' in humans. That is, sexually mature but not yet considered to be an adult within the troop. Bonobos and chimps mature along the same lines as humans, which is understandable given that there's only about a 1.5% difference in our genes.
It's the same way we refer to juveniles in American society. As pedophilia refers to sex with *prepubescents*, not *postpubescents*, the sexual activity within the bonobo troop isn't an example of pedophilia.
Max
Most psychologists, board certified and otherwise, do adhere to the fact that many "un-normal" activities are, at least in part, due to genetic predisposition. For instance, alcoholics, rapists, child molesters [as well as the long list of many types of sexual abusers], and all sorts of addicts have been shown to have genetic predisposition for these things.
No, I specifically requested a cite for an empirical study published in an accredited, peer-reviewed scientific journal indicating that a genetic predispostion for pedophilia exists. Provide one if you can. Don't dilute the issue by referring to illnesses which have nothing to do with the topic at hand.
You see, I am a psychologist and I do keep up with the journals even if I don't practice. And if such a thing had ever been published it would've rocked the field of psychology. As this hasn't happened I'm pretty damned sure I didn't miss the find of the decade somewhere along the line.
Max
Discovery Magazine is *not* a scientific journal, and it sure as hell isn't peer-reviewed. Try again, or admit that no credible empirical study published in an accredited, peer-reviewed scientific journal exists.
Max
There's no need to be sexually active at 16 any more and there's nothing particularly great about being sexually active at a young age.
Your opinion. One that most of the world doesn't hold, as evidenced by laws on consent. The point was that other people believe other things, and there's no evidence to support your view as the superior one.
Why is it so important to you that underage sex be legal?
Again, the point was that it's only "underage sex" in those parts of the world that declare it to be so. This is a social constraint, not a biological one. People who claim otherwise are deluding themselves.
a 16 year old mother is usually not in a good position to care for her child.
Please note our ancestors, and again most of the rest of the world, are not of the same opinion. In fact, for most of human history this wouldn't have been true.
But that's why in the modern world we have birth control and abortion.
Society has changed a lot in the past few centuries, you can't expect the same rules to apply, nor the same logic.
This isn't about logic, it's about arbitrary social constraint. I never said the social constraint was wrong, merely that it wasn't grounded in empirical assumptions that the entire human race somehow missed until recently, and which aren't the operating rules for most of the rest of the world.
Look at the number of people who have screwed up their lives (by their own admition) by getting pregnant early in life and you'll see what teens not being capable of handling sex means.
This applies to anyone of any age. Which, again, is why we have birth control and abortion. The mistake was in carrying the pregnancy through when it could have been aborted. If personal views prevented the use of abortion to solve the problem, that's their choice and says nothing about others who aren't so constrained.
If you think there's no harm, you don't know enough about what you're talking about, plain and simple.
Unlike you I'm not trying to peddle a particular brand of morality. Nor am I stupid enough to believe that abstinence is viable, especially for teenagers. This is the bailiwick of the religiously naive, who think that 'just say no' is both feasible and desirable simply because they claim it is.
Max
In Oregon it's the law. It's called 'mandatory reporting' and applies to individuals in certain occupations that work with children. Try educating yourself before commenting.
Max
Once you've been in the field a bit and have had to sit on a hiring committee, you'll quickly come to realize that a CS degree on a resume means *absolutely nothing*. The ability to code effectively and under pressure doesn't seem to correlate with the possession of the degree.
Most of the folks that I've hired or sat on a committee for are people who often had no degree at all. Their work samples and recommendations spoke for them. Jobs in the can are worth gold when it comes to reviewing candidates for a position.
I've had some truly embarrassing moments with CS majors who, when presented with a job, couldn't even begin to code. Worse, they couldn't learn how to begin, even if given the resources to do so. This is especially bad if the boss hired the kid on his own and you had to tell him on the kid's second day that his new hire was a waste of company chair space.
Max
If they were worried about money, they would let anybody go into higher CS.
They don't do that now? Could've fooled me....
Max
Primates (chimps, especially) and doplhins have a relatively high percentage of pedophiles (ie, individuals that seek sexual contact with sexually immature partners)
Provide a cite published in an accredited, peer-reviewed scientific journal. You will find none, because there is no evidence of this whatsoever.
Max
Please note the full sentence here: "most molestors have no interest in restraining themselves."
Some do. They take the drugs and go to therapy and exert self-control to avoid raping children.
Most, however, don't. They have the option to exert self-control; in fact they do it all the time to avoid getting caught and thrown in jail. But when the opportunity presents itself they take it. There usually isn't any agonizing over the decision at all. They see there chance and inflict life-long psychological damage upon their victims without a shred of remorse.
I'm not speaking from an "I think" viewpoint. This is an "I know this for a fact" statement. And you can, too, if you want to review studies done on the subject. Most child molestors (please remember the word 'most' this time) are damned frightening folks; the vast majority of psychologists won't work with them because this is one of those things, like homocidal psychopathy, that can give one nightmares for years to come. They're truly chilling human beings, only interested in 'remorse' when caught and trying to avoid excessive punishment by friends, family and the court. Very cold, very calculated, almost sociopathic.
And pedophilia isn't a 'compulsion', as evidenced by the fact that molestors exercise control virtually all the time (until a proper opportunity presents itself). The word 'compulsion' is another piece of apologia for horrific behavior consciously chosen by the attacker.
Max
I subscribe to the competing theory that pedophilia, like homosexuality, is an innate sexual orientation present from birth to one degre or another. It may remain latent or it may surface, but I believe it's part of a person's genetic make-up.
There is no scientific evidence that supports this belief. Nor would any serious psychologist buy an explanation involving a genetic predisposition. This is dangerous ground you're treading as it provides apologia to child molestors.
As for the rest of your argument concerning prehistory, there is not a single solitary shred of evidence for this either. It doesn't make any biological sense and it isn't mimicked by any mammal alive, including our closest relatives - primates. On the other hand, homosexuality is. This provides some scant evidence to believe that orientation could be in part genetic, while at the same time disproving it for pedophilia.
There is nothing good about pedophilia. This is not an 'orientation'. I'm disturbed by your willingness to provide child molestors with excuses or rationalizations. If they touch a child they deserve - and rightly so - to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Personal fantasies don't enter into the equation unless they're acted on, so that point is irrelevant.
Max
I think it might qualify as a "dumb ass bug" because despite having been informed of the problem last November MS failed to fix the exploit - even after their two-month 'security review'.
So the bug went from 'subtle' in November to 'dumb ass' today because the lackwits in Redmond completely ignored it - hence the label. As in, "only a dumb ass would ignore this bug".
Max
Whatever makes a pedophile *always* occurs very early in life, and it appears to be immutable (there is no cure for pedophilia - none whatsoever). You can't take a normal adult, or even a normal teenager for that matter, and turn them into a pedophile. This is an established fact in the field of psychology, although no one is really quite sure what that 'thing' is in early childhood that does the trick.
The child molestor is formed in childhood. No amount of porn will turn an adult into a molestor. No number of 'alternatives' will keep a molestor from molesting. The only thing that can stop the molestor is the molestor himself, and most molestors have no interest in restraining themselves.
Max
Please note that pedophilia involved *prepubescents*. Having sex with a postpubescent is *not* pedophilia. Arguably stupid given the consequences if you're caught, but not an act of pedophilia.
Max
Not true. The human life span during the middle ages was the same as it is now. However, due to nutrition and disease it was common to die sometime around the age of 50.
Not 26 as you would have us believe. The human race has *never* been that short-lived.
Max
And "The New American" is known throughout the field of psychology as being an accredited, peer-reviewed journal of unimpeachable integrity and great scientific value.
Although it's good to know that you're so hell-bent on protecting virtual children. I'm sure their virtual parents, and the whole virtual community, will applaud your efforts enthusiastically.
Max
Blue Lagoon. The kids are supposed to be about 14. There was an uproar over it at the time.
Max