Perhaps by making sure their locally-controlled school district doesn't sell shit to their kids in the first place? If the only food being offered by the school to kids is healthy in the first place you don't have to come up with hare-brained schemes like this one. It won't matter what they choose to eat, none of it will be bad for them.
But I guess taking control of your school is a tad too much effort for the average parent....
why shouldn't the adolescent period expand to encompass the entirely of the teenage years and even much of the 20's?
Because adolescence is a physical condition, not a social construct. You might decide to pretend that these folks are still adolescents, but our biological sciences are still well below what's required to turn this illusion into a physical reality.
We also need to take into account that aging (by our current Western standards, at least), was an accelerated process. You take into account tainted food and water, a complete lack of treatment for diseases, infections, parasites, wounds, starvation one out of every three years, and so on, and you get a human body that's under far greater strain than anything we in the richer nations experience today. Humans did age faster, and although in the literature it's referred to as "premature aging", it's only "premature" in the sense that our own aging process today is delayed compared to the norm throughout most of human history. Someone who was 40 in 10,000 B.C. would clock in as being physiologically 60 or older by today's standards - and with the stresses at the time they really couldn't be expected to last much longer without an incredible amount of luck (most likely combined with a very privileged position in society).
People grew older faster because they wore out faster. To make up for this they started breeding around the age of 14, a strategy which worked brilliantly for the species. And while we've changed enormously in terms of our command of technology, physically we're little different from our tribal ancestors that walked the Earth 50,000 years ago.
As a teacher I call bullshit. School DOES teach incompetence, along with a host of other bad behaviors. Part and parcel of the school system is producing kids that can be controlled, who will do what they're told without argument (and lately, will be drugged for "antisocial behaviors" if they won't comply), who won't stray outside the norm, who won't ever get creative (unless it's in an 'authorized' fashion), and who most certainly won't act like adults except when it comes to the aforementioned behaviors (which are defined as 'adult' behaviors, something that kids are supposed to strive for).
Kids are dumbed down, made conformist and controllable, stripped of any real decision-making power, told to Trust Authority(TM) and mindlessly punished whenever they question said authority, and essentially reduced to semi-robotic status whenever possible (pharmaceuticals are your friends!). This despite the fact that for the vast majority of human history high-school aged kids WERE adults by any reasonable measure (and were often breeding the next generation at this age), so the whole artificial edifice flies in the face of physical reality.
The school system is part of the problem. The parents who are such fucking losers today (the whiners and moaners who blame everyone else for their own failures) are products of this very system, which they turn around and inflict on their own kids in ways even more controlling and immature than anything they ever experienced...teaching their kids to do the same thing to their children on down the line, only worse (second-gen RFID tags with GPS chips, anyone?). And so on, and so forth.
But don't worry; Daddy government is here to take care of you. When all is said and done you don't really *have* to grow up anymore; in fact, if you try it's probably a sign of dysfunction....
Nope. You'll just pay for it in the form of higher insurance costs. You and everybody else, for that matter.
I don't remember the Constitution granting you the right to restrict what your neighbor can and cannnot do based upon YOUR insurance rates. Nope, don't see it anywhere. In fact, it appears that an amendment or two spells out (quite clearly, I think) that any power not specifically granted to government is retained by the people. Which means that "the people" here can get as fucking fat as they like, and whining over your insurance premiums doesn't count for shit.
The poster is right. For 99.9% of the history of the human race adulthood began the moment you started breeding the next generation - which for most people was around 14 years of age or so. The system worked so well it hasn't changed one iota in all that time. Yet suddenly and very recently we've arbitrarily decided (those of us in the affluent Western nations, at least) that adulthood now begins at 18 - at least legally - although many now contend that it actually starts considerably later than this. This despite the fact that the human race hasn't changed in any appreciable fashion in the last 50,000 years or so.
I'd say that if your 17-year-old is childish enough to need parental guidance on what is or is not good to eat that this isn't a symptom of physical immaturity, but rather an imposed mental immaturity reinforced by both parents and society for reasons which aren't entirely clear (although I could hazard some guesses). But then I'm speaking of societies which don't trust adults with the simplest of decisions, e.g., whether or not to wear a seatbelt or helmet, so I'm guessing the culture of 'indefinite adolescence' is symptomatic of some fundamental flaw that no one cares to address, at least realistically.
Then they should not have gotten involved with bell telephone, standard oil, US steel, or any of the mariad other monopolies.
Monopolies which, for the most part, were made possible by legislation specifically designed by Congress to protect vested interests against competition. In case you somehow missed it, the government actively aided and abetted the formation of all of the major monopolies until the voters started tossing congress critters out on their asses over the issue, or threatened to do so. Much of the journalism of the day obsessed over how much government and business were in bed.
The government wasn't the 'good guy', no matter what a bunch of under-educated college kids think. The government was part of the problem. And still is, come to think of it.
And who are you to decide that Paris Hilton deserves every single penny that she did not earn herself?
It's her money because it was given to her by her parents. You don't have any business telling people whether they can or cannot give their money to their children. It's that simple.
I'll answer both questions: I'm a voter in a democracy.
No, you aren't. You're a voter in a republic. If this were an actual democracy, we'd all be well and truly fucked.
If I and enough people like me decide that Paris Hilton is undeserving of receiving all her fortune, then we can push that decision.
Real swell of you. Again, I thank the gods we don't actually live in a democracy, but rather a Constitutionally-bound republic.
Oh please... the inheritance tax already exists.
A sop to pseudo-socialist shits who hate the wealthy because they aren't one of them. I'd do away with that piece of liberal tripe in a heartbeat, if the support could be drummed up.
Fortunately, I can always bequeath the vast majority of my wealth to my child prior to kicking the bucket without paying any "inheritance" tax at all. Which is what most of us with money are doing, in case you haven't figured it out.
There is no right to take a picture of whatever and whomever you want.
Sure there is. Any right not specifically granted to the feds is retained by the people (unless said people grant it to their individual state). Says so right there in the Constitution. In fact, two amendments were passed specifically spelling that out, just so some band of (future) idiots wouldn't go around claiming that the only rights folks had were those explicitly outlined in said Constitution.
Not that that seems to matter for shit anymore....
I don't play multiplayer crpgs, but in single player games I still choose a female character every time. As many have said, one of the reasons is that the female avatars are more pleasant to look at.
But another reason, at least for me, is that when I was growing up there were exactly two female superheroes of note on TV: Wonder Woman, who always wore an incredibly stupid-looking outfit on a show that even my young and imaginative mind thought was utter tripe; and the Bionic Woman (Lindsay Wagner), which I loved mainly because Lindsay herself was believable and yet super-heroic at the same time. The male 'heroes' were always the same macho, dick-measuring fuckwits who beat, smashed, and kicked their way to victory every week, using their sheer, overwhelming masculinity to cow enemies into submission. Good christ, but that crap sucked.
When computer games came along the heroes were invariably male - and invariably the same overmuscled buffoons and twits I saw on TV when I was young. Been there, done that - bored now! So when games started giving folks the option to choose a vaguely female-looking set of pixels over an equally blurry male-looking set of pixels, I jumped at the chance of doing something different. And there I remain because I just can't see playing a guy anymore; it reminds me far too much of the bad TV of my youth. The girls, on the other hand, evoke fond memories of Lindsay not only kicking ass and taking names, but actually using her brain every now and then to resolve that weeks crisis.
but at least she's not quite as constantly pointlessly melodramatic as Tayla
Tayla is eye candy. Wonderful, muscular, ever-so-yummy eye candy. Most straight males could give a rat's ass how well she acts so long as we get to see that fine, fine body in a variety of tight outfits. And good Christ! Is she ever so sweet to look at!
Besides, I think she's a decent actress. She does fairly well, given the utter shit she has to vomit up on-screen. The writers have really managed to fuck up just about every line they've given her, and there isn't much any actor can do about that. The only characters they seem to get it right for more often than not are Rodney and McCain, while everyone else is left to hang in the wind with horrid dialogue.
I think you're confusing "libertarian" with "Libertarian".
The former believes in a minimalistic government whose primary goals are centered about freedom. This cannot be achieved if your property can be taken by force at any time by some external party (including the government) for whatever reason suits their fancy. It also can't be achieved if we own our property in name only, bound by a thousand laws telling us what we can't do with what we own, or what we have to do with what we own - many of them completely inane in a so-called free society (e.g., not being allowed to let your grass grow to 6" because it affects the 'property values' of your neighbors). Since property rights violations are so obvious, so prevalent, and so near and dear to the hearts of pseudo-socialists everywhere (who apparently hate with a passion anyone who dares to own a single square foot of land), they're the ones most talked about (or argued over).
A real libertarian also believes that no person should ever be enslaved; their 'property' includes their own physical body, and nobody else has any business telling them what they can and cannot do with it. The Libertarian Party, with it's new push to be "inclusive", no longer likes to discuss this topic since anti-choice legislation is directly antithetical to core libertarian values. One CANNOT be a libertarian and at the same time support enslaving pregnant women and forcing them to carry unwanted fetuses to term. And yet the anti-choicers, who're practically rabid over just this idea and are more than willing to enslave women to their own moral values (claiming it's for "the (unborn) children", of course), represent a large and wealthy chunk of the Party's newest membership.
Which means that libertarians argue over property rights because their natural enemies, the pseudo-socialists, attack those rights (or what's left of them) the most often. The Libertarian Party does the same because those sell-out cocksuckers threw out the very heart of libertarianism the moment they decided that they wanted a chance to go mainstream - and that a focus on property rights was the best way to convince disenchanted anti-choice Republicans with money to switch sides. So far as I'm concerned the Libertarian Party, which is no longer libertarian by any stretch of the imagination, is just the Republican Party as it used to be back in the heyday.
And then, of course, you have the stupid fuckers in college who don't know shit about real libertarianism (pro or con, neither seems to bother with boring pursuits like 'reading' these days), and the con men who claim to be members of group x so long as it suits them to do so - usually when they're defending their own amoral behavior.
Fuck, now that I think about it I doubt there are enough real libertarians in the entire country to fill a small town. Talk about depressing....
Yes, Ayn Rand was over the top. No doubt about it. She herself admitted that very fact on numerous occasions, although her detractors here on Slashdot and elsewhere either a) conveniently seem to forget that little gem, or b) do what most slashdotters do and mouth off about crap they know nothing whatsoever about. Not exactly surprising, especially when it comes to what passes for college students these days, but disappointing nonetheless.
Ayn Rand was very *deliberately* fanatical in part because of the society she grew up in (Soviet Union), and in part because the people she was arguing against (the self-proclaimed "intelligentsia" of the '50s and '60s) were equally fanatical. In case you're completely bereft of historical references, Ayn Rands foes at this time were what I technically label "fucking douchebags", of the sort who were utterly convinced that their particular brand of socialism would bring eternal happiness to the masses - and those who couldn't see it were just plain unenlightened. Worse, they advocated FORCING their perverted dystopia on everyone else at the point of the government gun, for the 'greater good' - so long as THEY were the ones calling the shots, of course. All things capitalistic were evil, all things socialistic were good, the individual had a "duty" to sacrifice themselves for others (except the self-described intelligentsia, of course - they would "sacrifice" by running the whole show), and anyone who disagreed with them ranged from deluded to downright evil.
Rand overexaggerated her points to make herself heard. And guess what? It worked. Here we are in 2006 and she's STILL pissing off the same pseudo-intellectual socialist scum, long after she and her original enemies are dead. Her books sell better now than they ever have before.
Mission accomplished. A brilliant bit of PR, when all is said and done.
What's amusing is that the Rand-haters don't realize just how well they've been played. As vociferous and vocal as they are, they even unwittingly act as the sales force for a woman more than twenty years in the grave! Makes me chuckle every time I think about it.
The nice thing about living in a democracy is that the people decide what rights to give corporations and what that minimum wage is.
We don't live in a democracy. We live in a constitutionally-bound republic wherein the government is supposed to have extremely limited powers. The 'government' here being people like you and your neighbors who think it's your solemn duty to tell everyone else how they should live - and enforce that view at the point of the government gun, no doubt chanting horseshit about an illusory 'greater good' all the while.
Democracies are just another kind of dictatorship, with the majority doing whatever the hell they like to the minority. Our founding fathers had a great many things to say about democracy, most of them quite bad; which is the reason why you don't live in a democracy today. And I thank the gods for that, otherwise we'd being suffering through the worst fucking dystopia this planet has ever seen.
Riiight. So, my argument that people should receive a portion of the profits they generate instead of having the CEOs take all that profit for themselves means that I "detest freedom".
You can do that any time you like. It's called an "employee-owned" store. There are quite a few examples of this sort of enterprise in the U.S., and it's a perfectly legal way to set up a business. What you're advocating, however, is FORCING this situation on everyone at the point of a government gun. It's hard to get more anti-freedom than that.
The person here who really detests freedom is you: the supporter of corporations modelled after dictatorships.
Corporations aren't governing bodies, and are therefore incapable of being dictatorships. You're always free to stop living as a 'wage-slave', or whatever rhetoric you and your buddies whinge about on the weekends, and set up your own business on the employee-owned model. You have the FREEDOM to do so, at least; not sure whether you have the brains or the guts.
The states that have raised the minimum wage above the federal minimum wage have created jobs at a far faster rate than the states that have not.
I'm sure you have cites and sources published in accredited, peer-reviewed journals for this statement. And no, I don't mean support for a CORRELATIVE effect but a CAUSATIVE one. As in, proof positive that raising the minimum wage is a direct and root source of an immediate and measurable improvement in the economy, rather than an improvement in the economy leading people to be more comfortable with voting for an increase in the minimum wage.
No, these CEOs walked in when the company was already established and running. So, they decide to give themselves a million dollar raise while paying their workers minimum wage. The "freeloader" here are not the workers asking for more money, but the CEO who raids the corporate bank account for the 2-3 years they work for the company
The CEOs answer to the board, who in turn answer to the shareholders. The shareholders decide how the company will run, not you. You don't get a vote, nor should you. If they make bad decisions by dropping multi-million dollar salaries on idiots, this will eventually show in the bottom line and convince them to take another tack, or go bankrupt. Apparently their assessment of a CEO's worth differs from yours, but in this case it really isn't your business, nor do you have any right to interfere. If it bothers you, you can either suck it up and deal with it, or buy some shares in the company and vote at stockholders meetings. Put your money where your mouth is, and all that.
Minimum wage wasn't even a livable wage when it was set at $5.15 in 1997. Doubling the minimum to $10.30 gets close, tripling it to $15.45 would actually be more reasonable. And yes, we certainly COULD do that with the salaries these CEOs and other managers make.
Ah, I see: just another fucking pseudo-socialist with a hate hard-on for the rich. Take from all those 'evil' money-grubbers and give it to the poor! You must think you're a regular Robin Hood, fighting the good fight.
Paris Hilton did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to earn her fortune
So the fuck what? Who are you to decide that Paris Hilton doesn't deserve the money her parents have given to her, and that it should be taken from her by force? No one, so far as I can see.
Newsflash, junior: I'm going to be leaving behind a fair bit of cash for my kid, too. If she invests properly she'll never have to work a day in her life, and can do whatever the hell she pleases. Those are the fruits of MY labor, and that's what I choose to do with it. If it bothers you, I couldn't give a shit. It isn't up to you to interfere with that. If you try, I and millions of other parents will stomp all over you for trying.
Just remember that most of these morons are pissed over the fact that they don't have anything like the talent or ability of the people they're complaining about, and for them this is as close as they'll ever get to 'payback' for the fact that they're insignificant nobodies grinding out the day in obscurity. Y'know, the same sort of people who're convinced that if it weren't for thing X,Y, and Z (oh! the unfairness of the universe!) they'd be rich, famous, and and sexually experienced with something a bit more humanoid than a RealDoll.
Unfortunately, I have a hard time believing that this is what is intended by the majority (or even a large but minority percentage) of people who I see use this.
I don't. The more interesting form of this expression is "I could give a shit", the meaning of that little gem being plain even to grammar nazis with their panties bunched too tight. It's obvious that the statement itself is dripping with sarcasm. The phrase "I could care less" is just "I could give a shit" translated to something a bit more socially acceptable, at least to the folks who get themselves in a tizzy over 'foul' language.
No, they're just snidely suggesting that it's a done deal while taking the opportunity to suck the cock of the FBI for their 'cunning' and 'wisdom' over arresting the guy in a public place, all the while denying that our poor, valiant feds would stoop to anything as base and crass as grandstanding. Oh, no! Gods forbid that a government agency would *ever* be involved in such childish behavior!
Only on Slashdot will you see conspiracy whackos going off on the government over news item X one day, then see another equally idiotic group of douchebags bending over, grabbing their ankles, and begging the government to give it to them in the ass over that very same news item the next day.
To treat journalism as if it were anywhere on the same level as physics, or medicine, or (as you pointed out) engineering is just fucking ludicrous.
A poet doesn't need a degree in poetry to be a poet. A writer doesn't need a degree in literature to be a writer. A painter doesn't need a degree in art to be a painter. And a journalist (who's simply another kind of writer) doesn't need a degree to be a journalist. Journalism isn't even remotely close to rocket science.
And a good thing, too, given the state of 'professional' journalism these days.
Forget the link; here's a direct quote from the 2004 crime reports I cited (rather than the 2003 report you used):
"The UCR Program collects weapon data for murder, robbery, and aggravated assault offenses. An examination of these data indicated that most violent crime (30.7 percent) involved the use of personal weapons, such as hands, fists, feet, etc. Firearms were used in 26.4 percent and knives or cutting instruments were used in 15.5 percent of violent crime. Other dangerous weapons were used in 27.3 percent of violent offenses. (Based on Tables 2.9 and 19.)"
You'll note that NON-FIREARM weapons were used in 73.6% of all violent crimes.
It's easy to kill with a gun. Its a LOT harder to kill with a knife or a baseball bat. Get rid of the guns, and you get rid of the "easy kills"
Oh, what fucking twaddle. You have no proof of that claim whatsoever other than your dubious assertion that somehow removing guns from the hands of every single citizen in the United States would magically make those who want to commit murder less inclined to do so. None. Nada. Zip. People kill just fine with blunt and sharp objects. Those who want to kill, can and will do so. And it's far easier to protect yourself from them if YOU are armed.
as well as making it a lot riskier for someone to try to kill someone else.
No, it'll make it incredibly easy to kill anyone who's smaller and weaker than you are. Which covers just about every woman in the U.S., compared to the average man. And as for evidence, I present the ENTIRE FUCKING HISTORY OF THE HUMAN RACE for your perusal. Guns level the playing field. Good for women, bad for fucking twats who think that owning a pair of balls gives them the right to do as they please to anyone who isn't as large as they are.
In any event, you still haven't provided a single shred of evidence that handguns promote violence. Not one.
Yeah, just so long as it doesn't upset or offend anyone. Just try talking about the Nazis in a positive light in Germany, or engaging in any of the various "hate speech" topics in Britain - you'll see the inside of a jail right quick. For these two countries it's "the right of freedom of expression except for anything on the appended list, subject to change at the whim of the government...."
It would appear that my country is the most violent, per capita, on the face of the planet.
No, it's the most violent First World nation on the planet. Most Third World nations have us beat hands-down when it comes to any sort of violent crime.
Except during the Clinton administration, when the FBI's list tracking violent crimes showed a decline, the level of violence has increased every year since my birth.
According to the FBI, violent crimes have been declining in the U.S. since the '80's (google is your friend here). The Clinton administration years are not atypical. The press, however, is far more likely to play it up these days since their primary goal now seesm to be fear-mongering in any form.
Per capita, Canada has more firearms, but WAY less hand guns, than the US. There's the causative difference - pretty much unregulated hand gun ownership.
If you think that your unsupported conclusion is somehow causative, you need to go back to school and learn a bit about the scientific method. Especially that part about "empiricism".
According to the FBI, in 2004 16,137 were murdered in the United States. That's a murder rate of 5.5 per 100,000 people. Note that these are actual murders, which do not include manslaughter, suicides, accidents, or justifiable homocide (e.g., killing someone that's trying to kill you). More than half of these murders were committed with what are known as 'weapons of opportunity', which means whatever blunt or sharp object happens to be available at the time.
In Canada during that same time their were 548 homocides, for a murder rate of around 1.67 per 100,000 people.
Taking just these two bits of data in hand, it's rather clear that even if you removed every single hand gun from every single citizen in the United States, and assumed that deprived of a handgun the people who committed murder by firearm would suddenly decide NOT to commit murder (a ridiculous notion at best), the murder rate in the U.S. would still be far higher than it is in Canada. Realistically we'd have to assume that many of the murders that took place via handgun will still be committed by 'weapons of opportunity', or by other kinds of firearms, since my countrymen seem to be far more fond of killing each other than the citizens of other First World nations are. We're the paragons of domestic peace in comparison to just about any Third World nation on the planet, but rather violent by, say, Dutch standards.
Handguns aren't causative here. Handguns don't incite folks to start killing each other any more than hunting rifles or steak knives or baseball bats do.
Handguns do, however, even the score. Without handguns the larger, heavier, stronger person can do pretty much anything they please to smaller, lighter, weaker people. Arm both parties and the odds suddenly shift; strength, size, and the ability to take physical punishment no longer matter for shit. A bullet kills Arnie just as easily as it kills your 80-year-old Grandmother. To paraphrase someone rather famous: "God created Man, Smith and Wesson made them equal".
Which could explain why more than 60% of all handgun sales are made to women in the United States. Perhaps they're well aware of this fact, and don't care to leave their personal safety up to the whims of men, or of society, or of law enforcement. It might also explain the quickly climbing upward trend of single women in Canada purchasing and carrying illegal handguns; perhaps they, too, realize just how much at the mercy of others they are, and are no longer interested in playing victim just to appease their easily-frightened neighbors.
The perception from outside the wall is that the USA is barbaric.
As someone who's actually traveled outside the country (and is in Korea as I post this), I call bullshit. Views of the U.S. vary from place to place, just as the views on anything else do. And no country is in any way united behind any one extremist position (e.g., "the U.S. is barbaric").
The slow decline of the US has been going on since the 50s.
The slow decline in what? Whether or not a bunch of has-been European powers approve of how we do things? Cry me a fucking river. I'm far more interested in what up-and-coming powers think of us - y'know, the people who'll actually matter during the 21st century. Like Japan, China, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, etc. About the only European nation worth listening to these days is Germany.
Ironic, in an Alanis Morrisette sort of way.
Since then you've done everything possible to make the rest of the world hate you
If by "rest of the world" you mean "Europeans pining after their former place in the sun", perhaps you're right. If you mean certain Islamic countries in the Middle East, I can't really get worked up about that, either. But neither of these regions are remotely close to comprising "the rest of the world".
ignoring the United Nations
I fail to see how this is a bad thing. I'm not interested in anything remotely close to a one-world government, nor in having foreign nations dictate the affairs of my country. I'm quite fortunate to live in a country that can say "fuck you" to the UN and make it stick.
you're honestly looking not much better than one of those tinpot dictatorships in South Africa.
What an ignoramus. Why don't you haul your pasty, fat ass off to one of those "tinpot dictatorships", live a few months there, and then get back to us how how closely the U.S. compares to it. Assuming you get back alive at all, of course.
The only thing this statement tells us is just how bloody ignorant you are when it comes to the rest of the world.
But don't you dare get all holier than thou while allowing the current administration to get away (literally) with murder.
We'll dare anything we like, thanks. Not much you can do about it other than whine here on Slashdot. If you're expecting some outpouring of "American Guilt" you can forget it - most of us have had enough of that, and we're done now.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps by making sure their locally-controlled school district doesn't sell shit to their kids in the first place? If the only food being offered by the school to kids is healthy in the first place you don't have to come up with hare-brained schemes like this one. It won't matter what they choose to eat, none of it will be bad for them.
But I guess taking control of your school is a tad too much effort for the average parent....
Max
why shouldn't the adolescent period expand to encompass the entirely of the teenage years and even much of the 20's?
Because adolescence is a physical condition, not a social construct. You might decide to pretend that these folks are still adolescents, but our biological sciences are still well below what's required to turn this illusion into a physical reality.
Max
We also need to take into account that aging (by our current Western standards, at least), was an accelerated process. You take into account tainted food and water, a complete lack of treatment for diseases, infections, parasites, wounds, starvation one out of every three years, and so on, and you get a human body that's under far greater strain than anything we in the richer nations experience today. Humans did age faster, and although in the literature it's referred to as "premature aging", it's only "premature" in the sense that our own aging process today is delayed compared to the norm throughout most of human history. Someone who was 40 in 10,000 B.C. would clock in as being physiologically 60 or older by today's standards - and with the stresses at the time they really couldn't be expected to last much longer without an incredible amount of luck (most likely combined with a very privileged position in society).
People grew older faster because they wore out faster. To make up for this they started breeding around the age of 14, a strategy which worked brilliantly for the species. And while we've changed enormously in terms of our command of technology, physically we're little different from our tribal ancestors that walked the Earth 50,000 years ago.
Max
Wrong, High School doesn't teach you incompetence
As a teacher I call bullshit. School DOES teach incompetence, along with a host of other bad behaviors. Part and parcel of the school system is producing kids that can be controlled, who will do what they're told without argument (and lately, will be drugged for "antisocial behaviors" if they won't comply), who won't stray outside the norm, who won't ever get creative (unless it's in an 'authorized' fashion), and who most certainly won't act like adults except when it comes to the aforementioned behaviors (which are defined as 'adult' behaviors, something that kids are supposed to strive for).
Kids are dumbed down, made conformist and controllable, stripped of any real decision-making power, told to Trust Authority(TM) and mindlessly punished whenever they question said authority, and essentially reduced to semi-robotic status whenever possible (pharmaceuticals are your friends!). This despite the fact that for the vast majority of human history high-school aged kids WERE adults by any reasonable measure (and were often breeding the next generation at this age), so the whole artificial edifice flies in the face of physical reality.
The school system is part of the problem. The parents who are such fucking losers today (the whiners and moaners who blame everyone else for their own failures) are products of this very system, which they turn around and inflict on their own kids in ways even more controlling and immature than anything they ever experienced...teaching their kids to do the same thing to their children on down the line, only worse (second-gen RFID tags with GPS chips, anyone?). And so on, and so forth.
But don't worry; Daddy government is here to take care of you. When all is said and done you don't really *have* to grow up anymore; in fact, if you try it's probably a sign of dysfunction....
Max
Nope. You'll just pay for it in the form of higher insurance costs. You and everybody else, for that matter.
I don't remember the Constitution granting you the right to restrict what your neighbor can and cannnot do based upon YOUR insurance rates. Nope, don't see it anywhere. In fact, it appears that an amendment or two spells out (quite clearly, I think) that any power not specifically granted to government is retained by the people. Which means that "the people" here can get as fucking fat as they like, and whining over your insurance premiums doesn't count for shit.
Max
The poster is right. For 99.9% of the history of the human race adulthood began the moment you started breeding the next generation - which for most people was around 14 years of age or so. The system worked so well it hasn't changed one iota in all that time. Yet suddenly and very recently we've arbitrarily decided (those of us in the affluent Western nations, at least) that adulthood now begins at 18 - at least legally - although many now contend that it actually starts considerably later than this. This despite the fact that the human race hasn't changed in any appreciable fashion in the last 50,000 years or so.
I'd say that if your 17-year-old is childish enough to need parental guidance on what is or is not good to eat that this isn't a symptom of physical immaturity, but rather an imposed mental immaturity reinforced by both parents and society for reasons which aren't entirely clear (although I could hazard some guesses). But then I'm speaking of societies which don't trust adults with the simplest of decisions, e.g., whether or not to wear a seatbelt or helmet, so I'm guessing the culture of 'indefinite adolescence' is symptomatic of some fundamental flaw that no one cares to address, at least realistically.
Max
Then they should not have gotten involved with bell telephone, standard oil, US steel, or any of the mariad other monopolies.
Monopolies which, for the most part, were made possible by legislation specifically designed by Congress to protect vested interests against competition. In case you somehow missed it, the government actively aided and abetted the formation of all of the major monopolies until the voters started tossing congress critters out on their asses over the issue, or threatened to do so. Much of the journalism of the day obsessed over how much government and business were in bed.
The government wasn't the 'good guy', no matter what a bunch of under-educated college kids think. The government was part of the problem. And still is, come to think of it.
Max
And who are you to decide that Paris Hilton deserves every single penny that she did not earn herself?
It's her money because it was given to her by her parents. You don't have any business telling people whether they can or cannot give their money to their children. It's that simple.
I'll answer both questions: I'm a voter in a democracy.
No, you aren't. You're a voter in a republic. If this were an actual democracy, we'd all be well and truly fucked.
If I and enough people like me decide that Paris Hilton is undeserving of receiving all her fortune, then we can push that decision.
Real swell of you. Again, I thank the gods we don't actually live in a democracy, but rather a Constitutionally-bound republic.
Oh please... the inheritance tax already exists.
A sop to pseudo-socialist shits who hate the wealthy because they aren't one of them. I'd do away with that piece of liberal tripe in a heartbeat, if the support could be drummed up.
Fortunately, I can always bequeath the vast majority of my wealth to my child prior to kicking the bucket without paying any "inheritance" tax at all. Which is what most of us with money are doing, in case you haven't figured it out.
Max
There is no right to take a picture of whatever and whomever you want.
Sure there is. Any right not specifically granted to the feds is retained by the people (unless said people grant it to their individual state). Says so right there in the Constitution. In fact, two amendments were passed specifically spelling that out, just so some band of (future) idiots wouldn't go around claiming that the only rights folks had were those explicitly outlined in said Constitution.
Not that that seems to matter for shit anymore....
Max
I don't play multiplayer crpgs, but in single player games I still choose a female character every time. As many have said, one of the reasons is that the female avatars are more pleasant to look at.
But another reason, at least for me, is that when I was growing up there were exactly two female superheroes of note on TV: Wonder Woman, who always wore an incredibly stupid-looking outfit on a show that even my young and imaginative mind thought was utter tripe; and the Bionic Woman (Lindsay Wagner), which I loved mainly because Lindsay herself was believable and yet super-heroic at the same time. The male 'heroes' were always the same macho, dick-measuring fuckwits who beat, smashed, and kicked their way to victory every week, using their sheer, overwhelming masculinity to cow enemies into submission. Good christ, but that crap sucked.
When computer games came along the heroes were invariably male - and invariably the same overmuscled buffoons and twits I saw on TV when I was young. Been there, done that - bored now! So when games started giving folks the option to choose a vaguely female-looking set of pixels over an equally blurry male-looking set of pixels, I jumped at the chance of doing something different. And there I remain because I just can't see playing a guy anymore; it reminds me far too much of the bad TV of my youth. The girls, on the other hand, evoke fond memories of Lindsay not only kicking ass and taking names, but actually using her brain every now and then to resolve that weeks crisis.
Max
but at least she's not quite as constantly pointlessly melodramatic as Tayla
Tayla is eye candy. Wonderful, muscular, ever-so-yummy eye candy. Most straight males could give a rat's ass how well she acts so long as we get to see that fine, fine body in a variety of tight outfits. And good Christ! Is she ever so sweet to look at!
Besides, I think she's a decent actress. She does fairly well, given the utter shit she has to vomit up on-screen. The writers have really managed to fuck up just about every line they've given her, and there isn't much any actor can do about that. The only characters they seem to get it right for more often than not are Rodney and McCain, while everyone else is left to hang in the wind with horrid dialogue.
Max
I think you're confusing "libertarian" with "Libertarian".
The former believes in a minimalistic government whose primary goals are centered about freedom. This cannot be achieved if your property can be taken by force at any time by some external party (including the government) for whatever reason suits their fancy. It also can't be achieved if we own our property in name only, bound by a thousand laws telling us what we can't do with what we own, or what we have to do with what we own - many of them completely inane in a so-called free society (e.g., not being allowed to let your grass grow to 6" because it affects the 'property values' of your neighbors). Since property rights violations are so obvious, so prevalent, and so near and dear to the hearts of pseudo-socialists everywhere (who apparently hate with a passion anyone who dares to own a single square foot of land), they're the ones most talked about (or argued over).
A real libertarian also believes that no person should ever be enslaved; their 'property' includes their own physical body, and nobody else has any business telling them what they can and cannot do with it. The Libertarian Party, with it's new push to be "inclusive", no longer likes to discuss this topic since anti-choice legislation is directly antithetical to core libertarian values. One CANNOT be a libertarian and at the same time support enslaving pregnant women and forcing them to carry unwanted fetuses to term. And yet the anti-choicers, who're practically rabid over just this idea and are more than willing to enslave women to their own moral values (claiming it's for "the (unborn) children", of course), represent a large and wealthy chunk of the Party's newest membership.
Which means that libertarians argue over property rights because their natural enemies, the pseudo-socialists, attack those rights (or what's left of them) the most often. The Libertarian Party does the same because those sell-out cocksuckers threw out the very heart of libertarianism the moment they decided that they wanted a chance to go mainstream - and that a focus on property rights was the best way to convince disenchanted anti-choice Republicans with money to switch sides. So far as I'm concerned the Libertarian Party, which is no longer libertarian by any stretch of the imagination, is just the Republican Party as it used to be back in the heyday.
And then, of course, you have the stupid fuckers in college who don't know shit about real libertarianism (pro or con, neither seems to bother with boring pursuits like 'reading' these days), and the con men who claim to be members of group x so long as it suits them to do so - usually when they're defending their own amoral behavior.
Fuck, now that I think about it I doubt there are enough real libertarians in the entire country to fill a small town. Talk about depressing....
Max
You've read too much Ayn Rand
Yes, Ayn Rand was over the top. No doubt about it. She herself admitted that very fact on numerous occasions, although her detractors here on Slashdot and elsewhere either a) conveniently seem to forget that little gem, or b) do what most slashdotters do and mouth off about crap they know nothing whatsoever about. Not exactly surprising, especially when it comes to what passes for college students these days, but disappointing nonetheless.
Ayn Rand was very *deliberately* fanatical in part because of the society she grew up in (Soviet Union), and in part because the people she was arguing against (the self-proclaimed "intelligentsia" of the '50s and '60s) were equally fanatical. In case you're completely bereft of historical references, Ayn Rands foes at this time were what I technically label "fucking douchebags", of the sort who were utterly convinced that their particular brand of socialism would bring eternal happiness to the masses - and those who couldn't see it were just plain unenlightened. Worse, they advocated FORCING their perverted dystopia on everyone else at the point of the government gun, for the 'greater good' - so long as THEY were the ones calling the shots, of course. All things capitalistic were evil, all things socialistic were good, the individual had a "duty" to sacrifice themselves for others (except the self-described intelligentsia, of course - they would "sacrifice" by running the whole show), and anyone who disagreed with them ranged from deluded to downright evil.
Rand overexaggerated her points to make herself heard. And guess what? It worked. Here we are in 2006 and she's STILL pissing off the same pseudo-intellectual socialist scum, long after she and her original enemies are dead. Her books sell better now than they ever have before.
Mission accomplished. A brilliant bit of PR, when all is said and done.
What's amusing is that the Rand-haters don't realize just how well they've been played. As vociferous and vocal as they are, they even unwittingly act as the sales force for a woman more than twenty years in the grave! Makes me chuckle every time I think about it.
Max
The nice thing about living in a democracy is that the people decide what rights to give corporations and what that minimum wage is.
We don't live in a democracy. We live in a constitutionally-bound republic wherein the government is supposed to have extremely limited powers. The 'government' here being people like you and your neighbors who think it's your solemn duty to tell everyone else how they should live - and enforce that view at the point of the government gun, no doubt chanting horseshit about an illusory 'greater good' all the while.
Democracies are just another kind of dictatorship, with the majority doing whatever the hell they like to the minority. Our founding fathers had a great many things to say about democracy, most of them quite bad; which is the reason why you don't live in a democracy today. And I thank the gods for that, otherwise we'd being suffering through the worst fucking dystopia this planet has ever seen.
Max
Riiight. So, my argument that people should receive a portion of the profits they generate instead of having the CEOs take all that profit for themselves means that I "detest freedom".
You can do that any time you like. It's called an "employee-owned" store. There are quite a few examples of this sort of enterprise in the U.S., and it's a perfectly legal way to set up a business. What you're advocating, however, is FORCING this situation on everyone at the point of a government gun. It's hard to get more anti-freedom than that.
The person here who really detests freedom is you: the supporter of corporations modelled after dictatorships.
Corporations aren't governing bodies, and are therefore incapable of being dictatorships. You're always free to stop living as a 'wage-slave', or whatever rhetoric you and your buddies whinge about on the weekends, and set up your own business on the employee-owned model. You have the FREEDOM to do so, at least; not sure whether you have the brains or the guts.
The states that have raised the minimum wage above the federal minimum wage have created jobs at a far faster rate than the states that have not.
I'm sure you have cites and sources published in accredited, peer-reviewed journals for this statement. And no, I don't mean support for a CORRELATIVE effect but a CAUSATIVE one. As in, proof positive that raising the minimum wage is a direct and root source of an immediate and measurable improvement in the economy, rather than an improvement in the economy leading people to be more comfortable with voting for an increase in the minimum wage.
No, these CEOs walked in when the company was already established and running. So, they decide to give themselves a million dollar raise while paying their workers minimum wage. The "freeloader" here are not the workers asking for more money, but the CEO who raids the corporate bank account for the 2-3 years they work for the company
The CEOs answer to the board, who in turn answer to the shareholders. The shareholders decide how the company will run, not you. You don't get a vote, nor should you. If they make bad decisions by dropping multi-million dollar salaries on idiots, this will eventually show in the bottom line and convince them to take another tack, or go bankrupt. Apparently their assessment of a CEO's worth differs from yours, but in this case it really isn't your business, nor do you have any right to interfere. If it bothers you, you can either suck it up and deal with it, or buy some shares in the company and vote at stockholders meetings. Put your money where your mouth is, and all that.
Minimum wage wasn't even a livable wage when it was set at $5.15 in 1997. Doubling the minimum to $10.30 gets close, tripling it to $15.45 would actually be more reasonable. And yes, we certainly COULD do that with the salaries these CEOs and other managers make.
Ah, I see: just another fucking pseudo-socialist with a hate hard-on for the rich. Take from all those 'evil' money-grubbers and give it to the poor! You must think you're a regular Robin Hood, fighting the good fight.
Pathetic.
Max
Paris Hilton did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to earn her fortune
So the fuck what? Who are you to decide that Paris Hilton doesn't deserve the money her parents have given to her, and that it should be taken from her by force? No one, so far as I can see.
Newsflash, junior: I'm going to be leaving behind a fair bit of cash for my kid, too. If she invests properly she'll never have to work a day in her life, and can do whatever the hell she pleases. Those are the fruits of MY labor, and that's what I choose to do with it. If it bothers you, I couldn't give a shit. It isn't up to you to interfere with that. If you try, I and millions of other parents will stomp all over you for trying.
Max
Just remember that most of these morons are pissed over the fact that they don't have anything like the talent or ability of the people they're complaining about, and for them this is as close as they'll ever get to 'payback' for the fact that they're insignificant nobodies grinding out the day in obscurity. Y'know, the same sort of people who're convinced that if it weren't for thing X,Y, and Z (oh! the unfairness of the universe!) they'd be rich, famous, and and sexually experienced with something a bit more humanoid than a RealDoll.
Max
Unfortunately, I have a hard time believing that this is what is intended by the majority (or even a large but minority percentage) of people who I see use this.
I don't. The more interesting form of this expression is "I could give a shit", the meaning of that little gem being plain even to grammar nazis with their panties bunched too tight. It's obvious that the statement itself is dripping with sarcasm. The phrase "I could care less" is just "I could give a shit" translated to something a bit more socially acceptable, at least to the folks who get themselves in a tizzy over 'foul' language.
Max
Very few posters are accusing him of being guilty
No, they're just snidely suggesting that it's a done deal while taking the opportunity to suck the cock of the FBI for their 'cunning' and 'wisdom' over arresting the guy in a public place, all the while denying that our poor, valiant feds would stoop to anything as base and crass as grandstanding. Oh, no! Gods forbid that a government agency would *ever* be involved in such childish behavior!
Only on Slashdot will you see conspiracy whackos going off on the government over news item X one day, then see another equally idiotic group of douchebags bending over, grabbing their ankles, and begging the government to give it to them in the ass over that very same news item the next day.
Max
To treat journalism as if it were anywhere on the same level as physics, or medicine, or (as you pointed out) engineering is just fucking ludicrous.
A poet doesn't need a degree in poetry to be a poet. A writer doesn't need a degree in literature to be a writer. A painter doesn't need a degree in art to be a painter. And a journalist (who's simply another kind of writer) doesn't need a degree to be a journalist. Journalism isn't even remotely close to rocket science.
And a good thing, too, given the state of 'professional' journalism these days.
Max
Forget the link; here's a direct quote from the 2004 crime reports I cited (rather than the 2003 report you used):
"The UCR Program collects weapon data for murder, robbery, and aggravated assault offenses. An examination of these data indicated that most violent crime (30.7 percent) involved the use of personal weapons, such as hands, fists, feet, etc. Firearms were used in 26.4 percent and knives or cutting instruments were used in 15.5 percent of violent crime. Other dangerous weapons were used in 27.3 percent of violent offenses. (Based on Tables 2.9 and 19.)"
You'll note that NON-FIREARM weapons were used in 73.6% of all violent crimes.
It's easy to kill with a gun. Its a LOT harder to kill with a knife or a baseball bat. Get rid of the guns, and you get rid of the "easy kills"
Oh, what fucking twaddle. You have no proof of that claim whatsoever other than your dubious assertion that somehow removing guns from the hands of every single citizen in the United States would magically make those who want to commit murder less inclined to do so. None. Nada. Zip. People kill just fine with blunt and sharp objects. Those who want to kill, can and will do so. And it's far easier to protect yourself from them if YOU are armed.
as well as making it a lot riskier for someone to try to kill someone else.
No, it'll make it incredibly easy to kill anyone who's smaller and weaker than you are. Which covers just about every woman in the U.S., compared to the average man. And as for evidence, I present the ENTIRE FUCKING HISTORY OF THE HUMAN RACE for your perusal. Guns level the playing field. Good for women, bad for fucking twats who think that owning a pair of balls gives them the right to do as they please to anyone who isn't as large as they are.
In any event, you still haven't provided a single shred of evidence that handguns promote violence. Not one.
Max
the right to freedom of expression
Yeah, just so long as it doesn't upset or offend anyone. Just try talking about the Nazis in a positive light in Germany, or engaging in any of the various "hate speech" topics in Britain - you'll see the inside of a jail right quick. For these two countries it's "the right of freedom of expression except for anything on the appended list, subject to change at the whim of the government...."
Max
It would appear that my country is the most violent, per capita, on the face of the planet.
No, it's the most violent First World nation on the planet. Most Third World nations have us beat hands-down when it comes to any sort of violent crime.
Except during the Clinton administration, when the FBI's list tracking violent crimes showed a decline, the level of violence has increased every year since my birth.
According to the FBI, violent crimes have been declining in the U.S. since the '80's (google is your friend here). The Clinton administration years are not atypical. The press, however, is far more likely to play it up these days since their primary goal now seesm to be fear-mongering in any form.
Max
Per capita, Canada has more firearms, but WAY less hand guns, than the US. There's the causative difference - pretty much unregulated hand gun ownership.
If you think that your unsupported conclusion is somehow causative, you need to go back to school and learn a bit about the scientific method. Especially that part about "empiricism".
According to the FBI, in 2004 16,137 were murdered in the United States. That's a murder rate of 5.5 per 100,000 people. Note that these are actual murders, which do not include manslaughter, suicides, accidents, or justifiable homocide (e.g., killing someone that's trying to kill you). More than half of these murders were committed with what are known as 'weapons of opportunity', which means whatever blunt or sharp object happens to be available at the time.
In Canada during that same time their were 548 homocides, for a murder rate of around 1.67 per 100,000 people.
Taking just these two bits of data in hand, it's rather clear that even if you removed every single hand gun from every single citizen in the United States, and assumed that deprived of a handgun the people who committed murder by firearm would suddenly decide NOT to commit murder (a ridiculous notion at best), the murder rate in the U.S. would still be far higher than it is in Canada. Realistically we'd have to assume that many of the murders that took place via handgun will still be committed by 'weapons of opportunity', or by other kinds of firearms, since my countrymen seem to be far more fond of killing each other than the citizens of other First World nations are. We're the paragons of domestic peace in comparison to just about any Third World nation on the planet, but rather violent by, say, Dutch standards.
Handguns aren't causative here. Handguns don't incite folks to start killing each other any more than hunting rifles or steak knives or baseball bats do.
Handguns do, however, even the score. Without handguns the larger, heavier, stronger person can do pretty much anything they please to smaller, lighter, weaker people. Arm both parties and the odds suddenly shift; strength, size, and the ability to take physical punishment no longer matter for shit. A bullet kills Arnie just as easily as it kills your 80-year-old Grandmother. To paraphrase someone rather famous: "God created Man, Smith and Wesson made them equal".
Which could explain why more than 60% of all handgun sales are made to women in the United States. Perhaps they're well aware of this fact, and don't care to leave their personal safety up to the whims of men, or of society, or of law enforcement. It might also explain the quickly climbing upward trend of single women in Canada purchasing and carrying illegal handguns; perhaps they, too, realize just how much at the mercy of others they are, and are no longer interested in playing victim just to appease their easily-frightened neighbors.
Max
The perception from outside the wall is that the USA is barbaric.
As someone who's actually traveled outside the country (and is in Korea as I post this), I call bullshit. Views of the U.S. vary from place to place, just as the views on anything else do. And no country is in any way united behind any one extremist position (e.g., "the U.S. is barbaric").
The slow decline of the US has been going on since the 50s.
The slow decline in what? Whether or not a bunch of has-been European powers approve of how we do things? Cry me a fucking river. I'm far more interested in what up-and-coming powers think of us - y'know, the people who'll actually matter during the 21st century. Like Japan, China, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, etc. About the only European nation worth listening to these days is Germany.
Ironic, in an Alanis Morrisette sort of way.
Since then you've done everything possible to make the rest of the world hate you
If by "rest of the world" you mean "Europeans pining after their former place in the sun", perhaps you're right. If you mean certain Islamic countries in the Middle East, I can't really get worked up about that, either. But neither of these regions are remotely close to comprising "the rest of the world".
ignoring the United Nations
I fail to see how this is a bad thing. I'm not interested in anything remotely close to a one-world government, nor in having foreign nations dictate the affairs of my country. I'm quite fortunate to live in a country that can say "fuck you" to the UN and make it stick.
you're honestly looking not much better than one of those tinpot dictatorships in South Africa.
What an ignoramus. Why don't you haul your pasty, fat ass off to one of those "tinpot dictatorships", live a few months there, and then get back to us how how closely the U.S. compares to it. Assuming you get back alive at all, of course.
The only thing this statement tells us is just how bloody ignorant you are when it comes to the rest of the world.
But don't you dare get all holier than thou while allowing the current administration to get away (literally) with murder.
We'll dare anything we like, thanks. Not much you can do about it other than whine here on Slashdot. If you're expecting some outpouring of "American Guilt" you can forget it - most of us have had enough of that, and we're done now.
Max