I recognize that they think it is more important. But the result of their actions is that more human children die. If they would focus for a single generation, they could eliminate many more diseases and reduce death and suffering for the rest of time. OTH, if they focus on outlawing abortion it has no effect.
And the bald statement that: "If it is a human life then you can't end it" is full of holes given trivial consideration.
I think you leave out a class of children's deaths (4) EASILY preventable (for pennies a day- much less if you put serious time into it) but allowed to happen anyway because that particular child isn't a priority.
Many people who are anti-abortion easily waste enough money on soda's a year to save a hundred children and see no moral conflict. Because abortion is their hot button- not really saving human lives.
Nonsense. We end human lives all the time for a variety of reasons.
Thousands of young, born, living children starve to death, are murdered, die of disease almost every day.
We spend resources every day trying to save premies that could be used more effectively saving children with certain kinds of cancer who basically only die because funds were not available early enough to save them.
Right now- we have ongoing genocide in Darfur.
For whatever reason, anti-abortionists have decided to focus their efforts on stopping these particular humans from being killed. In fact, some anti-abortionists are willing to kill other humans (or at least feel it is okay to do so) to stop abortions.
From here: http://childinfo.org/areas/childmortality/ The death of a child is a tragic loss. Yet, every year, almost 10.5 million children die before their fifth birthday. That's 30,000 children a day. Most of these children live in developing countries and die from a disease or a combination of diseases that could be prevented or treated if the means were there.
Interestingly, in a 1995 study: Abortion rates [were] no lower overall in areas where abortion is generally restricted by law (and where many abortions are performed under unsafe conditions) than in areas where abortion is legally permitted.
I don't know... 10.5 million born human children dying of readily preventable reasons vs a quixotic and apparently futile attempt to prevent abortions by outlawing them.
I have to respect President Carter because his work seems to be on target in this area. From my (poor memory) I vaguely recall that one of his programs is on the verge of eliminating those horrible burning worms and river blindness (which would be #2 and #3 after smallpox in the history of the world).
Set aside the abortion issue for 25 years and focus on diseases that really can be cured and then return to the abortion issue and the number of abortions will be almost the same either way but the number of children dying will be much less.
But I wandered off the basic point: We kill humans every day- for a wide variety of reasons. And it's only going to get worse as the population of the world goes up. There have been many times in history that life was very cheap.
I know that's the problem with Dyson for me to begin with.
$129 for a vacuum cleaner that will fill 1/3 of its cannister at high suction and the other 2/3 of its cannister at reduced suction.
vs
$529 for a vacumme cleaner that will have strong suction the entire way.
And I know it's only because of the way it is made - not because it is made of much more expensive parts (both are basically $10 of plastic, $10 of metal, and $10 of copper & misc stuff).
So the mindset that feels $500 is a reasonable price for a vacuum cleaner considers that $4800 is a reasonable price for a robotic one???? (vs $150 for a roomba).
Do roomba's currently empty their own bin yet? That's my issue. Small bin, and I wish it would go to it's charger, drop a little roomba pellet on the ground if it was full and then go get more.
Unless You are union You are a civil servant You have an employment contract that negates that right.
And it's risky if you are A woman A minority (and there are lots of slices of minorities these days)
For some reason, it is illegal to do it if you are old, but that law basically isn't enforced unless the company is stupid. I suspect it is going to become increasingly hard to fire old people as the baby boomer cohort FINALLY gets to be old itself and uses it's numbers to stop that shit. (I've eaten baby boomer leavings my entire damn life. But I do get some benefits like cures for disease and legal protections from that huge bump of asses just ahead of me).
However If the company fires you without cause it will have to pay you a large percentage of your salary for 6 to 12 months. (technically they pay the government unemployment premiums and then that money goes to you).
Walmart takes a lot longer to checkout form than Target about half the time because they staff their checkouts too lean and won't allocate staff if a huge line forms.
The strongly religious folks got into an unholy union with the rich and corporations because they hoped to overturn abortion and gay rights.
Consider some points: The "conservative" party has been remapped from "small government/pro business" to "anti-abortion/pro corporation". (i.e. small businesses are struggling under some of these laws).
The rich have had the rules changed so now the top 360,000 make as much as the bottom 150 million COMBINED.
Corporations have extended their rights to the point where "conservative" governments support taking people's property for use by other private citizens.
The business ruling class has gone from earning 20 times the average workers pay to earning over 300 TIMES the average workers pay in a single generation.
---
I spoke to a major democratic lawyer on a flight last year and he said privately that he wished the republicans would finish packing the court and overturn abortion so that we could get on with the fact that the business class is basically raping the country and now appears to be preparing to leave it entirely once it is drained. The unions have had many of their strike rights taken away so they business has all the power right now.
---
I HOPE AND PRAY that we slam back a 50% tax on everyone making over $300 grand a year and similarly lower the taxes on anyone earning under $44,000 a year (the "average" wage + 10%). I think business CEO's and so on should be taxed at 90% for everything over 20x the average salary (so currently about 800,000).
---
These are not unreasonable dreams. With 220 million of us getting the shaft from an increasingly small portion of the populace (now down to under 1%), at some point we must wake up and say, "Wait a minute. Screw ME? SCREW YOU BUDDY".
The last time we had layoffs at my company, it was in this order: a) people who had angered a manager (regardless of how good everyone knew they were) b) completely random people c) a few people who made big mistakes over the last couple years.
Since that layoff, we've lost about 20 more people (about 95% "A" folks) who figured if we were going to layoff anyway, they might as well take the higher pay that the oil field offers. (Sure you get laid off every 3 years, but while you are working you make 20% more per year).
With the addition of property taxes and reservation of medical insurance at reasonable rates for corporations- we are basically all slaves.
America as a "free" country is gone.
We need to vote someone into office that will at least put in basic medical care as a national plan (many examples of this being less % of GDP around the world). Sure- you get cancer, you are screwed. But EVERY american should be able to get a baby delivered, a broken bone set, and drugs that are out of patent (I mean come on- BP bills cost about $1 if you have insurance and $5.50 if you do not.)
Then we need to adjust these property tax rates so the average person isn't hit significantly by them. these days, I'm paying $350 a month "rent" to the government for the house I'm supposed to own.
And I believe the member of the public who turned them in was islamic. I salute that person for being a good citizen and for not supporting the perpetrators by remaining silent.
The last thing holding me to Windows is Everquest. And I haven't played it for a few weeks now. The rest of my software stack I've purposely shifted over to linux/windows software to ease the pain of transition.
My point is that it always looks easy after someone does it the first time.
Creating new stuff is not easy. As a person that struggles to create, when someone diss's one of my creations and says how easy it is, it irritates me.
I guess I agree to the point that once you have an original idea spontaneously or if you grind through 50 ideas to get 1 good one, it seems easy. But when you consider how many millions of people could have done it, it becomes apparent that something rare and unique is going on.
Also I suspect a lot of people could have had the idea and then lacked the drive to complete it or the technical skills to do something that wasn't so cheesy you couldn't watch it.
---
Don't use the friend... enemy stuff myself. Interesting to see some people do. Wonder how many friends and enemies I've made over time.
Slashdot seems so disconnected to me. I really dislike the editing restrictions.
You realize that it is easy to have a private pot garden (takes about 3'x3' and with the new bulbs doesn't even raise your electric bill or heat signature). The pot you grow is a hell of a lot safer than the booze you might try to make in a homemade still.
It is trivially easy to get pot anywhere.
It's a multi billion dollar business.
*Illegal* pot is absolutely destroying the governments, justice systems, and police officers in just about every country south of us and is starting to do a number on the local guys too.
We incarcerate roughly 1% of our society (and disenfranchise them) based on trivial drug offenses.
Pot has many benefits. Hemp has many benefits (including a much better source of artificial fuel than corn).
It could be a well integrated part of our society, producing tax income and strengthening all of the central and south american countries.
Opposing pot legalization is as stupid as proposing making alcohol illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
I recognize that they think it is more important. But the result of their actions is that more human children die. If they would focus for a single generation, they could eliminate many more diseases and reduce death and suffering for the rest of time. OTH, if they focus on outlawing abortion it has no effect.
And the bald statement that: "If it is a human life then you can't end it" is full of holes given trivial consideration.
I think you leave out a class of children's deaths
(4) EASILY preventable (for pennies a day- much less if you put serious time into it) but allowed to happen anyway because that particular child isn't a priority.
Many people who are anti-abortion easily waste enough money on soda's a year to save a hundred children and see no moral conflict. Because abortion is their hot button- not really saving human lives.
Nonsense. We end human lives all the time for a variety of reasons.
Thousands of young, born, living children starve to death, are murdered, die of disease almost every day.
We spend resources every day trying to save premies that could be used more effectively saving children with certain kinds of cancer who basically only die because funds were not available early enough to save them.
Right now- we have ongoing genocide in Darfur.
For whatever reason, anti-abortionists have decided to focus their efforts on stopping these particular humans from being killed. In fact, some anti-abortionists are willing to kill other humans (or at least feel it is okay to do so) to stop abortions.
From here: http://childinfo.org/areas/childmortality/
The death of a child is a tragic loss. Yet, every year, almost 10.5 million children die before their fifth birthday. That's 30,000 children a day. Most of these children live in developing countries and die from a disease or a combination of diseases that could be prevented or treated if the means were there.
Interestingly, in a 1995 study: Abortion rates [were] no lower overall in areas where abortion is generally restricted by law (and where many abortions are performed under unsafe conditions) than in areas where abortion is legally permitted.
I don't know... 10.5 million born human children dying of readily preventable reasons vs a quixotic and apparently futile attempt to prevent abortions by outlawing them.
I have to respect President Carter because his work seems to be on target in this area. From my (poor memory) I vaguely recall that one of his programs is on the verge of eliminating those horrible burning worms and river blindness (which would be #2 and #3 after smallpox in the history of the world).
Set aside the abortion issue for 25 years and focus on diseases that really can be cured and then return to the abortion issue and the number of abortions will be almost the same either way but the number of children dying will be much less.
But I wandered off the basic point: We kill humans every day- for a wide variety of reasons. And it's only going to get worse as the population of the world goes up. There have been many times in history that life was very cheap.
I got the impression that it meant "stupid, inane" in the current teen slang.
There are plenty of high quality $129 dollar bagless vacuums.
The new lime green model with a circular handle has monstrous suction and good beating power and is a canister. It may have been $149.
I use a 3 year old cannister hoover myself.
I know that's the problem with Dyson for me to begin with.
$129 for a vacuum cleaner that will fill 1/3 of its cannister at high suction and the other 2/3 of its cannister at reduced suction.
vs
$529 for a vacumme cleaner that will have strong suction the entire way.
And I know it's only because of the way it is made - not because it is made of much more expensive parts (both are basically $10 of plastic, $10 of metal, and $10 of copper & misc stuff).
So the mindset that feels $500 is a reasonable price for a vacuum cleaner considers that $4800 is a reasonable price for a robotic one???? (vs $150 for a roomba).
Do roomba's currently empty their own bin yet? That's my issue. Small bin, and I wish it would go to it's charger, drop a little roomba pellet on the ground if it was full and then go get more.
It is legal in many states in the US.
Unless
You are union
You are a civil servant
You have an employment contract that negates that right.
And it's risky if you are
A woman
A minority (and there are lots of slices of minorities these days)
For some reason, it is illegal to do it if you are old, but that law basically isn't enforced unless the company is stupid. I suspect it is going to become increasingly hard to fire old people as the baby boomer cohort FINALLY gets to be old itself and uses it's numbers to stop that shit. (I've eaten baby boomer leavings my entire damn life. But I do get some benefits like cures for disease and legal protections from that huge bump of asses just ahead of me).
However
If the company fires you without cause it will have to pay you a large percentage of your salary for 6 to 12 months. (technically they pay the government unemployment premiums and then that money goes to you).
Walmart takes a lot longer to checkout form than Target about half the time because they staff their checkouts too lean and won't allocate staff if a huge line forms.
Really it's this.
The strongly religious folks got into an unholy union with the rich and corporations because they hoped to overturn abortion and gay rights.
Consider some points:
The "conservative" party has been remapped from "small government/pro business" to "anti-abortion/pro corporation". (i.e. small businesses are struggling under some of these laws).
The rich have had the rules changed so now the top 360,000 make as much as the bottom 150 million COMBINED.
Corporations have extended their rights to the point where "conservative" governments support taking people's property for use by other private citizens.
The business ruling class has gone from earning 20 times the average workers pay to earning over 300 TIMES the average workers pay in a single generation.
---
I spoke to a major democratic lawyer on a flight last year and he said privately that he wished the republicans would finish packing the court and overturn abortion so that we could get on with the fact that the business class is basically raping the country and now appears to be preparing to leave it entirely once it is drained. The unions have had many of their strike rights taken away so they business has all the power right now.
---
I HOPE AND PRAY that we slam back a 50% tax on everyone making over $300 grand a year and similarly lower the taxes on anyone earning under $44,000 a year (the "average" wage + 10%). I think business CEO's and so on should be taxed at 90% for everything over 20x the average salary (so currently about 800,000).
---
These are not unreasonable dreams. With 220 million of us getting the shaft from an increasingly small portion of the populace (now down to under 1%), at some point we must wake up and say, "Wait a minute. Screw ME? SCREW YOU BUDDY".
The last time we had layoffs at my company, it was in this order:
a) people who had angered a manager (regardless of how good everyone knew they were)
b) completely random people
c) a few people who made big mistakes over the last couple years.
Since that layoff, we've lost about 20 more people (about 95% "A" folks) who figured if we were going to layoff anyway, they might as well take the higher pay that the oil field offers. (Sure you get laid off every 3 years, but while you are working you make 20% more per year).
It's getting harder as more "fake" reviews get out on the net.
In 1998 the net was much easier to search and the information was much denser and more helpful.
Hey!
You left out "and a mistress on the side".
I mean- if you are going to dream french, then keep the dream alive.
I was the 2 out of 3 for 20 years.
Lately, I'm starting to think being that 3rd guy is a better plan.
With SOX, they can't tell the difference between a lazy programmer and a good programmer.
With the addition of property taxes and reservation of medical insurance at reasonable rates for corporations- we are basically all slaves.
America as a "free" country is gone.
We need to vote someone into office that will at least put in basic medical care as a national plan (many examples of this being less % of GDP around the world). Sure- you get cancer, you are screwed. But EVERY american should be able to get a baby delivered, a broken bone set, and drugs that are out of patent (I mean come on- BP bills cost about $1 if you have insurance and $5.50 if you do not.)
Then we need to adjust these property tax rates so the average person isn't hit significantly by them. these days, I'm paying $350 a month "rent" to the government for the house I'm supposed to own.
Are you sure you didn't independently come up with the idea of first post?
And I believe the member of the public who turned them in was islamic. I salute that person for being a good citizen and for not supporting the perpetrators by remaining silent.
Not sure what it means but 1 of my 3 flash memory cards has gone bad in 2 years.
Looks perfect- but it reports a formatting error when loaded into my camera and reformatting it doesn't fix the problem.
And hard drives last a lot less than they advertise too (all those google related articles 2 months back).
The last thing holding me to Windows is Everquest.
And I haven't played it for a few weeks now.
The rest of my software stack I've purposely shifted over to linux/windows software to ease the pain of transition.
Actually, an equivalent of RIAA owns all large venues. And another equivalent of RIAA frequently owns all club venues in one or more cities.
So if you want to play live music, you can't get a venue unless you join.
And if you want live bands, you can't get them unless you join.
I don't see a probaalem with doing this. It sounds useful and baaenificial.
My point is that it always looks easy after someone does it the first time.
Creating new stuff is not easy. As a person that struggles to create, when someone diss's one of my creations and says how easy it is, it irritates me.
I guess I agree to the point that once you have an original idea spontaneously or if you grind through 50 ideas to get 1 good one, it seems easy. But when you consider how many millions of people could have done it, it becomes apparent that something rare and unique is going on.
Also I suspect a lot of people could have had the idea and then lacked the drive to complete it or the technical skills to do something that wasn't so cheesy you couldn't watch it.
---
Don't use the friend... enemy stuff myself. Interesting to see some people do. Wonder how many friends and enemies I've made over time.
Slashdot seems so disconnected to me. I really dislike the editing restrictions.
Just like corn.
There are some serious downsides to finding ways to use human food as fuel.
You realize that it is easy to have a private pot garden (takes about 3'x3' and with the new bulbs doesn't even raise your electric bill or heat signature). The pot you grow is a hell of a lot safer than the booze you might try to make in a homemade still.
It is trivially easy to get pot anywhere.
It's a multi billion dollar business.
*Illegal* pot is absolutely destroying the governments, justice systems, and police officers in just about every country south of us and is starting to do a number on the local guys too.
We incarcerate roughly 1% of our society (and disenfranchise them) based on trivial drug offenses.
Pot has many benefits. Hemp has many benefits (including a much better source of artificial fuel than corn).
It could be a well integrated part of our society, producing tax income and strengthening all of the central and south american countries.
Opposing pot legalization is as stupid as proposing making alcohol illegal.
So DO it. If it is SOOO easy to make a popular video. Then do it.
You'll be famous.
I agree with you and think you have a very good point.
I think a lot of crimes should not be felonies.
A lot of our laws have not adjusted with inflation.
$250 may have been a just bar for a felony when people made $500 a year. It's not when people make $500 a week.
Do you not have a chair?
You could sit corrected. It must be tiring to slashdot standing.