Just because morals and ethics aren't absolute doesn't make them trivial. There are very good reasons why we find it immoral to have sex with a 14 year old today, just as there were very good reasons 40 year old men were marrying 14 year old girls hundreds of years ago.
Obviously there should be a better way than taking a gun into a closet, but immediately jumping into legalizing euthanasia would be inappropriate and dangerous.
Why? The state of Oregon has had legalized euthanasia for twelve years. The Netherlands has had it for almost ten. People aren't exactly lining up to off themselves. Most people like living and you can still kill yourself whether or not your local government lets a doctor assist you.
And the Hippocratic Oath is not some immutable law of ethics. As I understand it, most graduating medical students don't even take it. It alsoclearly states in the oath that you aren't supposed to give abortions, and that's still legal and performed by doctors, so I don't see why it's relevant to the conversation.
Right now OTHER is a bunch of camel jockies from Saudi Arabia hiding along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. We could spend 1% of our current budget and still massively outspend those clowns, but that's a completely ridiculous way to measure our spending.
Currently our defense budget is largely spent on massive weapons programs that are unfeasible and highly unlikely to be used in the current geopolitical climate. Even in the 80's when the Soviet Union was a legitimate threat our budget was ridiculous, and as the risk of large-scale conflict with a world power has *diminished* our defense budget has *increased*.
And it has less to do with security than with padding the pockets of defense contractors. See the recent example of the F-22 Raptor program where the *military* wanted to cut the program but congressmen fought tooth and nail to keep it, simply because it brought jobs and revenue to their districts and campaign contributions from defense companies.
Those charts show the US has a significantly higher percentage of immigrants and foreign population (whatever that means) than the UK. Did you actually read them?
Also, frankly, the average American diet is awful. To give just one example; we don't test cattle for BSE (Mad Cow) because "it's never been found on this continent" though the lack of testing would make it impossible to find it so it's kindof a circular argument. US cows are slaughtered younger, so symptoms wouldn't appear in infected animals. Also, wild deer have been found with a BSE like prion, indicating that it is, in fact, on this continent. (Avoid US beef like the plague that it is.)
Stop spreading lies and poor science. Chronic wasting disease (the BSE like prion you refer to) is a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. There are many types of TSEs, one of which is BSE or Mad Cow disease. They are also found in other animals (most commonly scrapie in goats and sheep). A lot of research has been done on CWD, and there is no evidence that it comes from BSE. There is no evidence that CWD can be passed to any other animal other than in the deer family (including moose and elk). There is no evidence that BSE can be passed to animals in the deer family.
As for the mad cow testing, it is false to say that we have never found BSE and that we don't test for it. Three cases of BSE were found and recorded in the United States in 2003. After these cases, extensive testing was done and no other cases were found. And while the FDA doesn't require it, some companies and research institutions do regularly screen for BSE. It's just not mandated. And the US has had regulations in place since 1997 that restrict mammalian byproducts from being fed to cattle, which was found to be the main cause of BSE.
You know, I've been to some nice fancy grocers that specialize in all organic foods and such, and I've also been to a lot of run down supermarkets in bad neighborhoods. While the ratio of healthy to unhealthy food is certainly different in each case, I've NEVER seen a since store that didn't have healthy items. Pretty much everywhere has a produce section. Pretty much everywhere sells oatmeal, or cereal (health stuff like bran flakes - not Golden Crisps or the other mostly sugar cereals). Everywhere sells bread and cold cut meat.
The selection of a grocery store is not the only thing to take into account. There is also distance and accessibility to consider. For example, in a big, sprawling Southern city like Atlanta or Dallas, a poor urban area might actually be a pretty large space, often without proper pedestrian walkways. Most poor urban areas have seen a dramatic loss of population over the last 30 years, and the amount of grocery stores has dropped dramatically, such that there might only be one or two grocery stores within a few miles. Contrast to suburban or more affluent areas where you might have 20 grocery stores in a 5 mile radius. If a person lives three or four miles away from a grocery store but close to convenience stores and fast food, they are significantly more likely to go to the places that sell crappy food. When you also take into account the decline of simple, vital skills such as cooking meals out of basic ingredients, it's obvious why some places suffer shortages of nutritious food.
That's not to say that is the major cause of obesity in this country. The vast majority of people have access to quality food. But it definitely is a real issue.
the west coast and the east coast should join with canada and just let the fat lower middle of the usa (pun intended) descend into the third world fundamentalist hell hole it is
Can you guess which state has the lowest obesity rate for adults? Colorado. Which state has the lowest obesity rate for children? Utah. Both of these are a thousand miles away from the ocean.
It's supremely ironic that you claim "the morons in flyover country" are ignorant and yet you can't grasp basic data comprehension.
It may also surprise you to know (shock! horror!) there are conservative evangelicals and reactionary politicians in the coastal states as well as in the center of the country. The most powerful evangelical groups in the country come from California (see an example of their political influence in the passage of Proposition 8).
Fox News is based out of New York. The Discovery Institute is based in Seattle. The National Organization for Marriage is based in Princeton, NJ. Disturbing, I know. But you'll continue to marginalize most of the country simply because you're an ignorant fucktard. After all, hyperbole and oversimplification are much easier than reasoning and actually understanding the subtleties of these extremely complicated issues.
Poor people eat unhealthy because healthy food is really expensive. live on a budget for your whole life to find out.
This is largely bullshit. I was raised poor (still am by most measures although I live comfortably) and we ate *very* healthy, and I still do. Rice, potatoes, pasta, beans, all of these things are *very* cheap, even compared to fast food. Canned fruits and vegetables are very cheap. In season fruits and vegetables are very cheap.
You don't have to eat market fresh organic produce year round to eat healthy. Poor people eat badly because of a mixture of ignorance and laziness. One of those is fixable through public policy, but the other certainly isn't.
While there are some places where it is difficult (although certainly not impossible) for poor people to find certain types of food, that is not an excuse for the US obesity rate. The vast majority of people have access to good food at a cheap price, but they prefer to eat shit because it's easier.
How does a straw-man like this get modded insightful? GP never said we shouldn't have a serious military.
If we cut military spending by 50%, we would still spend more than twice the total defense budgets of all those countries you mentioned.
If we cut it by 50% three years in a row (that could never possibly happen, but go with me), we would still have the largest military budget in the world. We spend more money on "defense" than (approximately) the next twenty countries combined. And most of those countries are our very strong allies.
Anybody that doesn't think we should drastically cut our defense budget is crazy and should be thrown in the loony bin. There is no need in the current geopolitical climate for anything remotely approaching the size and strength of our military.
Make it 3D and add more/different units that enable strategies that were not possible in the first game. People forget that Starcraft was pretty poorly balanced (relatively at least) when it first came out. Only after Brood War and a bunch of patches did it get to the point it is today.
Even if Starcraft 2 is extremely popular and well-balanced don't expect it to overtake competitive Starcraft for at least a couple years. I doubt that will happen, but Blizzard certainly has the skill and reputation to pull it off. But whatever happens, the original Starcraft will still be around for a very long time.
It was called Warcraft Adventures. Although as I understand it most of the storylines for that game were rolled into Warcraft 3 and WoW, so it wasn't a complete loss. I expect Blizzard to throw a couple nods to Ghost in SC2, as a *ton* of information about that game was pretty well known among Blizzard addicts.
What they ARE interested in is controlling coverage of the game that competes with that of CBS. If you happen to be working for a newspaper, Web site, TV station, blog, or podcast that hasn't been blessed by CBS and/or the SEC, they're gunning for you.
Bingo. This is all in reaction to something that happened last year (sorry but the details are fuzzy and my internet-fu failed to bring up the story). Someone (a student I think) was liveblogging a football game, and basically giving a play by play of what was happening in the game. Officials found who it was, tracked them down, and kicked them out of the game. The person of course protested, saying they didn't have the grounds to eject him. Now they do.
The real issue is that college sports have gotten completely out of sync with their stated goal. I say this as a big Division 1 sports fan. The people in charge need to forget about the sports arms race and instead remember that their focus is on education and community.
Of course the US is a democracy. Democracy and republic are not mutually exclusive terms. What the US is not is a *direct* democracy, which is why there are so many barriers to changing fundamental laws like the Constitution.
Republic refers to the composition of the government (no monarchy), democracy refers to the fact that all citizens have rights and liberties and can influence the government, usually through voting. Compare Iran or Russia, which are also Democratic Republics, but have controls on how much power the people can wield directly by voting.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
That's in the bill of rights my friend. No evidence has ever shown that abusing prisoners and treating them poorly reduces recidivism. Not one single piece of evidence (if you have one, please come forward). Sheriff Arpaio abuses a marginalized portion of society in order to make people *feel* safer.
It's about time so-called "conservatives" in this country realize that the most important laws we have are in the Constitution.
I prefer tall nuts, gatling peas, and flame bushes. Of course you have to strategically place some magnets to defend against football players and diggers, but you should be able to last 12-13 levels at least.
That exact setup is fully within the Army's grasp, and they should pursue it wholeheartedly. What seems intuitive in battle is rarely the most effective choice, and resources like this can drastically reduce the time it takes to becoming a veteran, as well as increase odds of survival until they reach that level of expertise.
It's a good idea, but you are wrong. First of all, it is significantly harder to perform statistical analysis on combat procedures in real life. It's easy to record data off a computer program, you already have a large amount of the information in the correct form stored electronically, and even if you have to write something down or take a screenshot you're already sitting at a computer connected to the internet. GI's in a firefight aren't going to have perfect comprehension or recollection of specific details (especially regarding things like enemy troop placement, movement, etc.) and they can't really be expected to.
The armed forces already do a ton of statistical analysis on various things, but gathering good data about specific encounters is much more difficult in wartime than you seem to understand. As I understand it, most analysis they do is at a higher level.
Second, the armed forces are extremely conservative about experimenting with combat tactics, for obvious reasons. While you might consider trying some different configurations and tactics risky in EVE, the risk of losing some ISK over losing a squad of men aren't really comparable.
The whole Syfy thing is misunderstood. The main reason why they changed the name is because SciFi is a generic term and can't be trademarked. I don't know why they chose a weird spelling of the same phrase instead of just rebranding the channel, but it's probably a good decision from a business perspective.
Additionally, his party had control of congress and the presidency.
No. The Democrats lost both houses of Congress in 1994, so for most of Clinton's presidency (including when the WIPO treaty was signed and the DMCA was introduced and passed) Republicans controlled the legislature. Not that this matters, as both parties were unanimous in support of the bill.
But if you're poor, you don't automatically get a bad credit score. You may start with a lower score than a rich person, but your score will only go bad if you do something irresponsible, like buying something on credit which you don't pay back.
Or if you get sick and have to finance your medical expenses. Or if you have to buy a car to get to work, lose your job and have no way of making the car payment, or a thousand other things.
If we're talking about legitimately poor people and not "poor" idiots that make enough money but don't know how to live within their means, circumstances are quite often out of their control.
A credit score is a probably a fair indicator of responsibility, but that doesn't make it a *measurement* of responsibility. It's a very imprecise rating of an individual's likelihood to turn a profit for lenders. People make mistakes and people have unfortunate things happen to them. A couple of my (crazy libertarian) friends have mediocre to bad credit scores because they refuse to take loans or use credit cards. I know more people who have good jobs and great credit but are living paycheck to paycheck and are one bad decision or small twist of fate away from being financially ruined. YMMV.
all this "intuitiveveness" of Mac OS X is just apples reality distortion field at work. won't fall for that anymore, just like i don't buy golden bling.
FWIW it also has to do with UI consistency. Most programs on OSX have consistent interfaces, menus, commands, etc. while on other operating systems there is more variance. This is easier for the user and is often interpreted as being more intuitive to use.
What if your business runs proprietary software only available on Windows? In my experience this is what most small business do, mostly because they have to. Even if you dual boot or use a VM, you're still going to be running Windows as admin 99% of the time so the benefit is negligible. Once you factor in spending the extra time and money on training/IT as well as the increased cost of Mac hardware, there's usually not a business need for IT to be that solid. Doing it quick, dirty, and cheap is usually the best solution for small businesses.
Fox News is *extremely* successful, but it's also on cable/satellite, where it competes with the more mainstream CNN and the liberal MSNBC. A lot of people watch it, but it's getting more marginalized as the country moves a tiny bit to the left and Fox News gets even crazier. For example, Glenn Beck is one of the most popular personalities on the channel, and he's completelyfuckinginsane.
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Carbon nanotubes are significantly less toxic to the human body than a 150 grain piece of lead traveling at 3000 feet per second.
Just because morals and ethics aren't absolute doesn't make them trivial. There are very good reasons why we find it immoral to have sex with a 14 year old today, just as there were very good reasons 40 year old men were marrying 14 year old girls hundreds of years ago.
Obviously there should be a better way than taking a gun into a closet, but immediately jumping into legalizing euthanasia would be inappropriate and dangerous.
Why? The state of Oregon has had legalized euthanasia for twelve years. The Netherlands has had it for almost ten. People aren't exactly lining up to off themselves. Most people like living and you can still kill yourself whether or not your local government lets a doctor assist you.
And the Hippocratic Oath is not some immutable law of ethics. As I understand it, most graduating medical students don't even take it. It alsoclearly states in the oath that you aren't supposed to give abortions, and that's still legal and performed by doctors, so I don't see why it's relevant to the conversation.
Killing me won't bring back your goddamn honey!
Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to sign up for your newsletter.
Right now OTHER is a bunch of camel jockies from Saudi Arabia hiding along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. We could spend 1% of our current budget and still massively outspend those clowns, but that's a completely ridiculous way to measure our spending.
Currently our defense budget is largely spent on massive weapons programs that are unfeasible and highly unlikely to be used in the current geopolitical climate. Even in the 80's when the Soviet Union was a legitimate threat our budget was ridiculous, and as the risk of large-scale conflict with a world power has *diminished* our defense budget has *increased*.
And it has less to do with security than with padding the pockets of defense contractors. See the recent example of the F-22 Raptor program where the *military* wanted to cut the program but congressmen fought tooth and nail to keep it, simply because it brought jobs and revenue to their districts and campaign contributions from defense companies.
Those charts show the US has a significantly higher percentage of immigrants and foreign population (whatever that means) than the UK. Did you actually read them?
Stop spreading lies and poor science. Chronic wasting disease (the BSE like prion you refer to) is a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. There are many types of TSEs, one of which is BSE or Mad Cow disease. They are also found in other animals (most commonly scrapie in goats and sheep). A lot of research has been done on CWD, and there is no evidence that it comes from BSE. There is no evidence that CWD can be passed to any other animal other than in the deer family (including moose and elk). There is no evidence that BSE can be passed to animals in the deer family.
As for the mad cow testing, it is false to say that we have never found BSE and that we don't test for it. Three cases of BSE were found and recorded in the United States in 2003. After these cases, extensive testing was done and no other cases were found. And while the FDA doesn't require it, some companies and research institutions do regularly screen for BSE. It's just not mandated. And the US has had regulations in place since 1997 that restrict mammalian byproducts from being fed to cattle, which was found to be the main cause of BSE.
The selection of a grocery store is not the only thing to take into account. There is also distance and accessibility to consider. For example, in a big, sprawling Southern city like Atlanta or Dallas, a poor urban area might actually be a pretty large space, often without proper pedestrian walkways. Most poor urban areas have seen a dramatic loss of population over the last 30 years, and the amount of grocery stores has dropped dramatically, such that there might only be one or two grocery stores within a few miles. Contrast to suburban or more affluent areas where you might have 20 grocery stores in a 5 mile radius. If a person lives three or four miles away from a grocery store but close to convenience stores and fast food, they are significantly more likely to go to the places that sell crappy food. When you also take into account the decline of simple, vital skills such as cooking meals out of basic ingredients, it's obvious why some places suffer shortages of nutritious food.
That's not to say that is the major cause of obesity in this country. The vast majority of people have access to quality food. But it definitely is a real issue.
Can you guess which state has the lowest obesity rate for adults? Colorado. Which state has the lowest obesity rate for children? Utah. Both of these are a thousand miles away from the ocean.
It's supremely ironic that you claim "the morons in flyover country" are ignorant and yet you can't grasp basic data comprehension.
It may also surprise you to know (shock! horror!) there are conservative evangelicals and reactionary politicians in the coastal states as well as in the center of the country. The most powerful evangelical groups in the country come from California (see an example of their political influence in the passage of Proposition 8).
Fox News is based out of New York. The Discovery Institute is based in Seattle. The National Organization for Marriage is based in Princeton, NJ. Disturbing, I know. But you'll continue to marginalize most of the country simply because you're an ignorant fucktard. After all, hyperbole and oversimplification are much easier than reasoning and actually understanding the subtleties of these extremely complicated issues.
This is largely bullshit. I was raised poor (still am by most measures although I live comfortably) and we ate *very* healthy, and I still do. Rice, potatoes, pasta, beans, all of these things are *very* cheap, even compared to fast food. Canned fruits and vegetables are very cheap. In season fruits and vegetables are very cheap.
You don't have to eat market fresh organic produce year round to eat healthy. Poor people eat badly because of a mixture of ignorance and laziness. One of those is fixable through public policy, but the other certainly isn't.
While there are some places where it is difficult (although certainly not impossible) for poor people to find certain types of food, that is not an excuse for the US obesity rate. The vast majority of people have access to good food at a cheap price, but they prefer to eat shit because it's easier.
How does a straw-man like this get modded insightful? GP never said we shouldn't have a serious military.
If we cut military spending by 50%, we would still spend more than twice the total defense budgets of all those countries you mentioned.
If we cut it by 50% three years in a row (that could never possibly happen, but go with me), we would still have the largest military budget in the world. We spend more money on "defense" than (approximately) the next twenty countries combined. And most of those countries are our very strong allies.
Anybody that doesn't think we should drastically cut our defense budget is crazy and should be thrown in the loony bin. There is no need in the current geopolitical climate for anything remotely approaching the size and strength of our military.
Figures taken from wikipedia, although they are easily found in many places.
Make it 3D and add more/different units that enable strategies that were not possible in the first game. People forget that Starcraft was pretty poorly balanced (relatively at least) when it first came out. Only after Brood War and a bunch of patches did it get to the point it is today.
Even if Starcraft 2 is extremely popular and well-balanced don't expect it to overtake competitive Starcraft for at least a couple years. I doubt that will happen, but Blizzard certainly has the skill and reputation to pull it off. But whatever happens, the original Starcraft will still be around for a very long time.
It was called Warcraft Adventures. Although as I understand it most of the storylines for that game were rolled into Warcraft 3 and WoW, so it wasn't a complete loss. I expect Blizzard to throw a couple nods to Ghost in SC2, as a *ton* of information about that game was pretty well known among Blizzard addicts.
Bingo. This is all in reaction to something that happened last year (sorry but the details are fuzzy and my internet-fu failed to bring up the story). Someone (a student I think) was liveblogging a football game, and basically giving a play by play of what was happening in the game. Officials found who it was, tracked them down, and kicked them out of the game. The person of course protested, saying they didn't have the grounds to eject him. Now they do.
The real issue is that college sports have gotten completely out of sync with their stated goal. I say this as a big Division 1 sports fan. The people in charge need to forget about the sports arms race and instead remember that their focus is on education and community.
Of course the US is a democracy. Democracy and republic are not mutually exclusive terms. What the US is not is a *direct* democracy, which is why there are so many barriers to changing fundamental laws like the Constitution.
Republic refers to the composition of the government (no monarchy), democracy refers to the fact that all citizens have rights and liberties and can influence the government, usually through voting. Compare Iran or Russia, which are also Democratic Republics, but have controls on how much power the people can wield directly by voting.
That's in the bill of rights my friend. No evidence has ever shown that abusing prisoners and treating them poorly reduces recidivism. Not one single piece of evidence (if you have one, please come forward). Sheriff Arpaio abuses a marginalized portion of society in order to make people *feel* safer.
It's about time so-called "conservatives" in this country realize that the most important laws we have are in the Constitution.
I prefer tall nuts, gatling peas, and flame bushes. Of course you have to strategically place some magnets to defend against football players and diggers, but you should be able to last 12-13 levels at least.
It's a good idea, but you are wrong. First of all, it is significantly harder to perform statistical analysis on combat procedures in real life. It's easy to record data off a computer program, you already have a large amount of the information in the correct form stored electronically, and even if you have to write something down or take a screenshot you're already sitting at a computer connected to the internet. GI's in a firefight aren't going to have perfect comprehension or recollection of specific details (especially regarding things like enemy troop placement, movement, etc.) and they can't really be expected to.
The armed forces already do a ton of statistical analysis on various things, but gathering good data about specific encounters is much more difficult in wartime than you seem to understand. As I understand it, most analysis they do is at a higher level.
Second, the armed forces are extremely conservative about experimenting with combat tactics, for obvious reasons. While you might consider trying some different configurations and tactics risky in EVE, the risk of losing some ISK over losing a squad of men aren't really comparable.
Real war isn't a videogame :)
The whole Syfy thing is misunderstood. The main reason why they changed the name is because SciFi is a generic term and can't be trademarked. I don't know why they chose a weird spelling of the same phrase instead of just rebranding the channel, but it's probably a good decision from a business perspective.
No. The Democrats lost both houses of Congress in 1994, so for most of Clinton's presidency (including when the WIPO treaty was signed and the DMCA was introduced and passed) Republicans controlled the legislature. Not that this matters, as both parties were unanimous in support of the bill.
Or if you get sick and have to finance your medical expenses. Or if you have to buy a car to get to work, lose your job and have no way of making the car payment, or a thousand other things.
If we're talking about legitimately poor people and not "poor" idiots that make enough money but don't know how to live within their means, circumstances are quite often out of their control.
A credit score is a probably a fair indicator of responsibility, but that doesn't make it a *measurement* of responsibility. It's a very imprecise rating of an individual's likelihood to turn a profit for lenders. People make mistakes and people have unfortunate things happen to them. A couple of my (crazy libertarian) friends have mediocre to bad credit scores because they refuse to take loans or use credit cards. I know more people who have good jobs and great credit but are living paycheck to paycheck and are one bad decision or small twist of fate away from being financially ruined. YMMV.
FWIW it also has to do with UI consistency. Most programs on OSX have consistent interfaces, menus, commands, etc. while on other operating systems there is more variance. This is easier for the user and is often interpreted as being more intuitive to use.
What if your business runs proprietary software only available on Windows? In my experience this is what most small business do, mostly because they have to. Even if you dual boot or use a VM, you're still going to be running Windows as admin 99% of the time so the benefit is negligible. Once you factor in spending the extra time and money on training/IT as well as the increased cost of Mac hardware, there's usually not a business need for IT to be that solid. Doing it quick, dirty, and cheap is usually the best solution for small businesses.
Fox News is *extremely* successful, but it's also on cable/satellite, where it competes with the more mainstream CNN and the liberal MSNBC. A lot of people watch it, but it's getting more marginalized as the country moves a tiny bit to the left and Fox News gets even crazier. For example, Glenn Beck is one of the most popular personalities on the channel, and he's completely fucking insane.