"it's all in how you bypass the legally approved process of governing."
Kinda like how Obama fired that Inspector General, without following the law Obama himself voted in, where you have to give congress 30 days notice AND a written reason why the IG was being fired?
Nah...the govt. doesn't need a darknet or anything to bypass the legally approved processes...
They just count on the general public/press not caring, and so far, it seems to work.
"Could you tell me which gene is the logic gene and explain the causative relationship between it and choosing education over family? What you posted sounded rather elitist/snobbish and lacking in evidence."
There's pretty good evidence and more than a few studies showing trends towards more educated people having few kids, and having them later in life, while poorer class and less educated people have more kids, and start having them at a much younger age.
"Yes, I do. And as grotesque as China's one child policy is it was truly a step that needed to be taken as compared to the more horrible outcome of them continuing to grow at such rapid pace."
So maybe we just need to put the brakes on birthrates in countries like China, Africa...etc. that can't afford them?
I guess it is ok for the US and other 1st world countries to keep going, heck haven't we had declines in birthrates lately? And it isn't like WE are short on resources or wealth.
"I won't argue that, since I sort of agree. I might add, though, that putting time and funding into counselling for would-be parents and/or smoothing the path to adoption, fostering or whatever might be a better use of resources than pursuing IVF."
Most people don't want to adopt, because it is WAY too hard to make the kids look like you.
:"Funnily enough, you were all of those things at one point. Given your attitude though, I wish your parents had been sterilized."
Not the parent poster, but, if you were saying all of us were young and obnoxious while out in public as kids, I'd have to argue with you on that one.
Back in the day when I was a kid...
A. You did NOT get taken out in the general public (especially not a nice restaurant or adult venue) until you were old enough to behave yourself.
B. If you did get taken out when old enough to know better, and you STILL tried to pull something, your parents didn't just sit there while you threw a fit, and make the others around you suffer too, they jerked your ass up, and took you outside and usually wore your ass out. You didn't come back in till you had recomposed yourself.
Bad behavior by children in the public arena...is a fairly 'new' and horrible aspect of our current society.
"I made my children the usual way, by fucking and waiting. And they look like me. And I like them the way they are. Sure, they have their quirks, but who doesn't?
If you can't breed children, adopt some. There's no lack of children in the planet. "
I don't think there will be any shortage of people doing it the 'old fashioned' way like you. Hell, if I had a kid, I've often thought I'd want to be suprised at the sex of it, when it hit the atmosphere. I'm the kind of person, ever since being a kid, that I WANT to know where the Xmas gifts are hidden, so that I don't accidentally find them and ruin the surprise.
That being said...I do want tests run on a potential child, especially at the age I'm getting to, to find out if it is malformed, genetically sick (such at down's syndrome, etc)...so I can get rid of it early, and try again for a normal kid.
Aside from the mental and fiscal headaches a deformed or retarted child would provide...I am getting a bit older, and don't have the time and stamina to take care of a bad seed, and also try to keep having a normal one. I'm getting to the age soon to where I might have only one shot at a kid I'd keep...so, I want to start with the best I can start with.
Mind you...I'm not that big on having a kid, but, if I ever decide to settle with a chick that wants one, I'd be thinking that way. I've spent most of my life to this point to avoid having them...got rid of a few of them in fact.
So choosing what comes with one if I had one...really isn't that big a deal to me, especially if the choice is made pre-implantation.
"I believe we will see some real outrage with "We can guarantee your baby will NOT be gay"
Really?
I doubt seriously that you'd see any 'outrage' expressed at all. At least, not in the US. Being gay isn't exactly that popular, and still carries a pretty heavy stigma in society. Attitudes have come a long way, sure, but, it isn't accepted by the general public...especially not in private conversations amongst straight people. They may state one thing to be PC in public, but what they say out of the spotlight...much different.
Heck..you can see what they do when they can vote and have that vote be anon.
"I think the only way not to get the eye color or hair color you don't want is to abort the fetus after finding out it does not have the eye color or hair color you want.
It'd be one thing to abort because of genetic propensity for cystic fibrosis... but because of eye color?"
Correct me if I'm wrong..but, I was under the impression that the screening was still at the in-vitro stage.
It isn't aborting until it is implanted in the womb.
What's wrong with trying to get the eye color or hair color you want? What is the difference with that and picking the sex?
I mean, if you can get just the kid you want...why not? What are the objections? Hell, when they can start letting you pick if you kid is going to be smart and/or athletic...are they gonna can that choice too?
"I've come to believe (from anecdotal experience in rural Australia) that that might be something to do with the angle of your windscreen: seems to me that the closer your windscreen is to the vertical, the more likely it is to be cracked by stones from truck tyres. So normal sedan cars seem to be less vulnerable to this than vans or 4WDs."
Not from my anecdotal experience. After hurricane Katrina...there was debris on all roads leading out of NOLA for a couple years it seemed....falling out of trucks hauling it out of the city.
I have a turbo miata...this has a very raked windshield. My first year back down here, I went through 4 windshields, from cars kicking up rocks on the highways (and even on normal streets). Heck, I had to change my windshield twice in one week.
I'd have thought my angled windshield would have helped me out too...but, not the case.
"Real ID is a total failure, like the rest of the Bush administration. One hopes the current one can implement something more realistic and something that would actually accomplish the task of making IDs a little less like Monopoly Money."
What ID!?!?
I thought a drivers license was a document that showed you were allowed to drive a vehicle on public roadways. Why should the federal govt. have a damned thing to do with them, much less dictate they be used as a state or national ID.
"My license had been expired for six months. Renewal, pay a late fee and they hand it over. Easy. It's funny but on that day I heard on the radio some
Republican senator saying: "If we have national health insurance, we will have healthcare like the DMV."
Now I'm a right wing kind of guy, but I couldn't help but immediately think:
"I wish my health care was as good as my DMV". I would say Republicans should shy away from DMV arguments, because right now health care is so screwed up that
making it like the DMV would be an improvement. Imagine an emergency room where they had different lines for different ailments, actually gave out numbers like the DMV does, had friendly people and a nice building... and only cost $50."
Consider yourself lucky. Where I live...when I have to go in for anything DMV related, I just count on wasting at least half a day bare minimum.
These days, I just go ahead and take the whole day off, doesn't matter if it is drivers license renewal, or changing plates, etc....you can count on being there no less than 4 hours. And God help you if you forget one thing, or they have an error in their system. That calls for another day.
To me, NOTHING scares me worse than DMV styled healthcare. If even you discount the wait times, the incompetence, and the lack of service...the 'attitude' from the workers there alone would scare the hell out of me. I'd likely REALLY go in for health ONLY if I was about to die under a DMV health type system.
And to help simplify things, rather than this hodge-podge of laws. Just make one. Without expressed permission of the individual, none of their personally identifiable information can be transmitted/transferred between companies.
The information about an individual should be the property of the individual, not the company (or govt. agency) that holds and collects it.
"You ride your bike to work in the rain? You were lucky! I used to dream of riding a bike to work in the rain. It beats the hell out of trying to ride a bike to work in -25 C with driving snow and a wind-chill of -60 and exposed flesh freezes in 30 seconds.
"
Just the opposite down here in New Orleans. Today...mid to upper 90's...high humidity. You get sweatsoaked walking from the house to the car.
Just try riding a bike to work in weather like this even early in the morning, and looking 'professional' when you get there.
Let's not even talk about the usual afternoon rain showers, with occasional street flooding here and there along your route.
Frankly, too damned hot to ride a bike here unless it is dawn, or late dusk on your day off IMHO. I pretty much turn on the AC in my home about early to mid March...and don't shut it off till mid November.
There is also, the "car culture" that the US has...that car (much like a motorcycle) gives one a feeling of independence, etc. And to many in the US, a car isn't simply a means to get from point A to point B as efficiently as possible.
A car can be something fun to 4-wheel/offroad with. With me...I like a car that looks good, has a good exhaust note, and is a performance car.
I can't imagine getting a keeping a car for 20years?!?! The body style would be way out of style way before the lease was up.
Hell, about the only body style I know of that looked that timeless was the Porsche versions of the 911 from the 70's through the 90's or so....
Other than that, not many cars look at good that long.
"My experience with both, and T-Mobile is that they do not offer reduced rates if you intend to use a phone you acquired from another source. Their rate plans are all designed with the intent that they should subsidize the purchase of a new phone for much less money based on the entering of a long duration contract. In effect, the telecoms are financing your cell phone-except that if you already have one, you dont get a reduced rate.
The entire business model for the mobile telecoms revolves around contract pricing to subsidize reduced price phones, giving them extraordinary power over mobile handset manufacturers."
ON the other hand, this probably also led to the quick uptake of cell phones by the general populace in the US...with 'cheap' phones.
"This way criminal can be hunted down by any means necessary while still giving honest people some means to keep the police in check."
Trouble is, in this day in age, with the many laws on the books, so many no one can possibly know what they are (not to mention recent cases where they stretched laws to get people that did something bad but broke no directly applicable law)...EVERYONE is guilty of something.
If the police for whatever reason want to get you...with no protections like we have now...they can and will find you guilty of something.
"There are a large amount of people who are anti-immigration and anti-Islam, especially in areas like the UK and USA where people have been attacked by Islamic radicals with governments which increasingly stress the "war on terror"."
I'm not for anyone being anti- anything really, but, there is growing concern with the unregulated influx of muslims into EU, that if unchecked, the Europe as we know it culturally, will disappear...what happens when the muslims there become the majority and vote their way of life into law?
"The point though is that this was NOT the cops. If it were, it would definitely (or rather, should definitely) be an open and shut case if they didn't have a warrant to search his computer."
But, what's to stop law enforcement to start outsourcing more and more and more to 'private' businesses to spy on people and do their work for them?
We see this type thing already with the feds...they have trouble getting their own 'national big brother database' going (at least publicly), so they use private companies to get around this, like Acxiom. They used them in a big way for sure shortly after 9/11...and they're a good source too. They have lots of info on at least 98% of the people in the US, and I have no idea how much on peoples outside the US borders.
"Had the Government not take over Chrysler and GM, those companies would have ceased to exist several months ago. If the Government is going to waste several billion dollars on each company, I think it's rather fair that they have a say in how they are run. After all, it's rather clear that neither company's board or management have any clue as to how to run a profitable company."
That's the problem in the first place. There should have been no bail out,and these companies SHOULD have been allowed to have failed and gone into normal bankruptcy proceedings (which these are not). That way, they could have shed their debts and contracts, especially the union contract that have been strangling the car companies for decades. That last reason is the real reason the Obama admin has come in and interfered as they did....political reasons, they own the unions big time.
If these companies had gone through normal bankruptcy...they'd not have disappeared. I mean...remember all the people flying on bankrupt airlines in recent years? A large company can go through bankruptcy and never shut its doors.
No, this whole thing has been a sham, and worse, it has really damaged contract law, and faith in loans. The secured bonded debt holders should have been paid off first, but they were put at the bottom of the list (unprecedented), and unsecured debt holder, UAW was put at the top, and essentially given the company. And those strangling contracts? Essentially still in place. How do we expect these car companies to ever come back to compete with world manufacturers, if they can't truly 'start over'...?
"If the government is unable to enforce its laws (tax evasion being among those laws), "
Who said these gamblers were going to commit tax evasion???
I mean, there are spots right on the tax forms to fill in for gambling losses, etc. As long as you declare your winnings as income, there is no invasion.
So in this case...they're seizing it because someone might tax evade?
For that matter...should they now take money from independent business..like a contractor, who collects money with no taxes taken out of it...because he might not pay the appropriate tax?
I mean, I know the govt. makes it hard to be an indie business because they don't like it when they don't get their cut first like with a w2 employee, but, really....should we seize the funds first now? That's the analogy I see here with your example.
"I think you're showing your own bias in how you interpreted that AC's post. You read it as bashing the Democrats, and point out that it's just a continuation of a Bush policy--which was exactly what he was criticizing!
Since when is "But the Republicans were doing it to!" a defense of the Democratic party? If anything, they should be doing absolutely nothing the Republicans were doing, but unfortunately we're just getting more of the same."
Well, let's see....the Republicans started it...so we shouldn't bitch about it when the Dems do it??
Geez, after only a few months into the new admin, they seem to be willing and anxious to run roughshod over more of the constitution than the previous admin, of whom I was angry at too. I mean, the current ones don't even make the pretense to care about the consitution or rule of law. The latest instance in the Chrysler and soon to be GM 'bankruptcy' cases...where they bypassed the laws that have been in place for hundreds of years of who should be paid off first. They screwed over the bond holders, and in lieu of paying them off first like they should they handed the company over to the Unions, that didn't have secured claims to monies....
And from the article:
" He added that it was not clear what law would cover the seizure of money belonging to poker players, "
IF they're easy to throw away the laws regulating contracts and investmens in the US, what makes you think they have any reservations about taking any monies from individual citizens. Hell, what scares me...this is just the start.
Apparently laws mean nothing anymore to the govt....it is a huge power and money grab, and we're just pawns in the game.
I'm afraid America as we knew it, is going away fast...and by the time the general populace notices it....will be too late to turn it around.
Slashdot Mirror
Kinda like how Obama fired that Inspector General, without following the law Obama himself voted in, where you have to give congress 30 days notice AND a written reason why the IG was being fired?
Nah...the govt. doesn't need a darknet or anything to bypass the legally approved processes...
They just count on the general public/press not caring, and so far, it seems to work.
There's pretty good evidence and more than a few studies showing trends towards more educated people having few kids, and having them later in life, while poorer class and less educated people have more kids, and start having them at a much younger age.
Do a little googling....
So maybe we just need to put the brakes on birthrates in countries like China, Africa...etc. that can't afford them?
I guess it is ok for the US and other 1st world countries to keep going, heck haven't we had declines in birthrates lately? And it isn't like WE are short on resources or wealth.
Most people don't want to adopt, because it is WAY too hard to make the kids look like you.
Not the parent poster, but, if you were saying all of us were young and obnoxious while out in public as kids, I'd have to argue with you on that one.
Back in the day when I was a kid...
A. You did NOT get taken out in the general public (especially not a nice restaurant or adult venue) until you were old enough to behave yourself.
B. If you did get taken out when old enough to know better, and you STILL tried to pull something, your parents didn't just sit there while you threw a fit, and make the others around you suffer too, they jerked your ass up, and took you outside and usually wore your ass out. You didn't come back in till you had recomposed yourself.
Bad behavior by children in the public arena...is a fairly 'new' and horrible aspect of our current society.
If you can't breed children, adopt some. There's no lack of children in the planet. "
I don't think there will be any shortage of people doing it the 'old fashioned' way like you. Hell, if I had a kid, I've often thought I'd want to be suprised at the sex of it, when it hit the atmosphere. I'm the kind of person, ever since being a kid, that I WANT to know where the Xmas gifts are hidden, so that I don't accidentally find them and ruin the surprise.
That being said...I do want tests run on a potential child, especially at the age I'm getting to, to find out if it is malformed, genetically sick (such at down's syndrome, etc)...so I can get rid of it early, and try again for a normal kid.
Aside from the mental and fiscal headaches a deformed or retarted child would provide...I am getting a bit older, and don't have the time and stamina to take care of a bad seed, and also try to keep having a normal one. I'm getting to the age soon to where I might have only one shot at a kid I'd keep...so, I want to start with the best I can start with.
Mind you...I'm not that big on having a kid, but, if I ever decide to settle with a chick that wants one, I'd be thinking that way. I've spent most of my life to this point to avoid having them...got rid of a few of them in fact.
So choosing what comes with one if I had one...really isn't that big a deal to me, especially if the choice is made pre-implantation.
Really?
I doubt seriously that you'd see any 'outrage' expressed at all. At least, not in the US. Being gay isn't exactly that popular, and still carries a pretty heavy stigma in society. Attitudes have come a long way, sure, but, it isn't accepted by the general public...especially not in private conversations amongst straight people. They may state one thing to be PC in public, but what they say out of the spotlight...much different.
Heck..you can see what they do when they can vote and have that vote be anon.
It'd be one thing to abort because of genetic propensity for cystic fibrosis... but because of eye color?"
Correct me if I'm wrong..but, I was under the impression that the screening was still at the in-vitro stage.
It isn't aborting until it is implanted in the womb.
I mean, if you can get just the kid you want...why not? What are the objections? Hell, when they can start letting you pick if you kid is going to be smart and/or athletic...are they gonna can that choice too?
Not from my anecdotal experience. After hurricane Katrina...there was debris on all roads leading out of NOLA for a couple years it seemed....falling out of trucks hauling it out of the city.
I have a turbo miata...this has a very raked windshield. My first year back down here, I went through 4 windshields, from cars kicking up rocks on the highways (and even on normal streets). Heck, I had to change my windshield twice in one week.
I'd have thought my angled windshield would have helped me out too...but, not the case.
What ID!?!?
I thought a drivers license was a document that showed you were allowed to drive a vehicle on public roadways. Why should the federal govt. have a damned thing to do with them, much less dictate they be used as a state or national ID.
Now I'm a right wing kind of guy, but I couldn't help but immediately think:
"I wish my health care was as good as my DMV". I would say Republicans should shy away from DMV arguments, because right now health care is so screwed up that making it like the DMV would be an improvement. Imagine an emergency room where they had different lines for different ailments, actually gave out numbers like the DMV does, had friendly people and a nice building... and only cost $50."
Consider yourself lucky. Where I live...when I have to go in for anything DMV related, I just count on wasting at least half a day bare minimum.
These days, I just go ahead and take the whole day off, doesn't matter if it is drivers license renewal, or changing plates, etc....you can count on being there no less than 4 hours. And God help you if you forget one thing, or they have an error in their system. That calls for another day.
To me, NOTHING scares me worse than DMV styled healthcare. If even you discount the wait times, the incompetence, and the lack of service...the 'attitude' from the workers there alone would scare the hell out of me. I'd likely REALLY go in for health ONLY if I was about to die under a DMV health type system.
And to help simplify things, rather than this hodge-podge of laws. Just make one. Without expressed permission of the individual, none of their personally identifiable information can be transmitted/transferred between companies.
The information about an individual should be the property of the individual, not the company (or govt. agency) that holds and collects it.
Yep....it's called a "Republic".
Quirky indeed...
Just the opposite down here in New Orleans. Today...mid to upper 90's...high humidity. You get sweatsoaked walking from the house to the car.
Just try riding a bike to work in weather like this even early in the morning, and looking 'professional' when you get there.
Let's not even talk about the usual afternoon rain showers, with occasional street flooding here and there along your route.
Frankly, too damned hot to ride a bike here unless it is dawn, or late dusk on your day off IMHO. I pretty much turn on the AC in my home about early to mid March...and don't shut it off till mid November.
A car can be something fun to 4-wheel/offroad with. With me...I like a car that looks good, has a good exhaust note, and is a performance car.
I can't imagine getting a keeping a car for 20years?!?! The body style would be way out of style way before the lease was up.
Hell, about the only body style I know of that looked that timeless was the Porsche versions of the 911 from the 70's through the 90's or so....
Other than that, not many cars look at good that long.
Got any links on how to do this with the iPhone?
ON the other hand, this probably also led to the quick uptake of cell phones by the general populace in the US...with 'cheap' phones.
Trouble is, in this day in age, with the many laws on the books, so many no one can possibly know what they are (not to mention recent cases where they stretched laws to get people that did something bad but broke no directly applicable law)...EVERYONE is guilty of something.
If the police for whatever reason want to get you...with no protections like we have now...they can and will find you guilty of something.
I'm not for anyone being anti- anything really, but, there is growing concern with the unregulated influx of muslims into EU, that if unchecked, the Europe as we know it culturally, will disappear...what happens when the muslims there become the majority and vote their way of life into law?
But, what's to stop law enforcement to start outsourcing more and more and more to 'private' businesses to spy on people and do their work for them?
We see this type thing already with the feds...they have trouble getting their own 'national big brother database' going (at least publicly), so they use private companies to get around this, like Acxiom . They used them in a big way for sure shortly after 9/11...and they're a good source too. They have lots of info on at least 98% of the people in the US, and I have no idea how much on peoples outside the US borders.
That's the problem in the first place. There should have been no bail out,and these companies SHOULD have been allowed to have failed and gone into normal bankruptcy proceedings (which these are not). That way, they could have shed their debts and contracts, especially the union contract that have been strangling the car companies for decades. That last reason is the real reason the Obama admin has come in and interfered as they did....political reasons, they own the unions big time.
If these companies had gone through normal bankruptcy...they'd not have disappeared. I mean...remember all the people flying on bankrupt airlines in recent years? A large company can go through bankruptcy and never shut its doors.
No, this whole thing has been a sham, and worse, it has really damaged contract law, and faith in loans. The secured bonded debt holders should have been paid off first, but they were put at the bottom of the list (unprecedented), and unsecured debt holder, UAW was put at the top, and essentially given the company. And those strangling contracts? Essentially still in place. How do we expect these car companies to ever come back to compete with world manufacturers, if they can't truly 'start over'...?
Who said these gamblers were going to commit tax evasion???
I mean, there are spots right on the tax forms to fill in for gambling losses, etc. As long as you declare your winnings as income, there is no invasion.
So in this case...they're seizing it because someone might tax evade?
For that matter...should they now take money from independent business..like a contractor, who collects money with no taxes taken out of it...because he might not pay the appropriate tax?
I mean, I know the govt. makes it hard to be an indie business because they don't like it when they don't get their cut first like with a w2 employee, but, really....should we seize the funds first now? That's the analogy I see here with your example.
Since when is "But the Republicans were doing it to!" a defense of the Democratic party? If anything, they should be doing absolutely nothing the Republicans were doing, but unfortunately we're just getting more of the same."
Well, let's see....the Republicans started it...so we shouldn't bitch about it when the Dems do it??
Geez, after only a few months into the new admin, they seem to be willing and anxious to run roughshod over more of the constitution than the previous admin, of whom I was angry at too. I mean, the current ones don't even make the pretense to care about the consitution or rule of law. The latest instance in the Chrysler and soon to be GM 'bankruptcy' cases...where they bypassed the laws that have been in place for hundreds of years of who should be paid off first. They screwed over the bond holders, and in lieu of paying them off first like they should they handed the company over to the Unions, that didn't have secured claims to monies....
And from the article:
" He added that it was not clear what law would cover the seizure of money belonging to poker players, "
IF they're easy to throw away the laws regulating contracts and investmens in the US, what makes you think they have any reservations about taking any monies from individual citizens. Hell, what scares me...this is just the start.
Apparently laws mean nothing anymore to the govt....it is a huge power and money grab, and we're just pawns in the game.
I'm afraid America as we knew it, is going away fast...and by the time the general populace notices it....will be too late to turn it around.
Ok..I'm a little lost. What is PVP or PVE? What is 'camping'?