The USA is the only country that thinks it is in a post-industrial environment. The rest of the world's nations still have factories, and those that didn't do now. America's youth drank the Kool-Aid into believing that the magic of a college degree would alter the economics of supply and demand, as though all we would have to do is sit around buying and selling stocks and bonds to each other and spend the profits on cheap imports from the third world.
Hear in Texas we only need ONE textbook. It learns you readin, histry, grammer, patience, human relations, sience, or anythin else youd ever need to no. But the FEDRAL govinmint wants to ban it from our scoohls!
Where to begin? Denial of reading the classics. The elimination of poetry and Shakespeare....
Just as long as they continue to teach kids to read, write and speak Latin and Greek then Americans will remain the smartest and most educated in the world.
But the TSA does this every day and yet most people continue to fly, knowing that the agents gather at the terminal lounge after each shift to exchange tales of their voyeurous exploits. Surely women, and Scotsmen, must know that there are ample opportunities for undergarments to be viewed, such as stairs, mezzanines, getting out of a car, sitting and standing, bending over, jumping, turning quickly, windy weather, long-legged women in the company of short men, and so on. There are garments with clearly defined boundaries, such as trousers and culottes, and garments with loosely defined boundaries, such as skirts, dresses, and robes. When wearing such "incomplete" clothing there are still options to protect modesty, such as wearing "shorts"-style underwear, or even gym shorts or biker shorts. I've come across such women a few times in my life. Most women though seem to prefer to wear sexier underwear when they are wearing shorter skirts. Whether conscious or subconscious, it seems that there is an expectation that undergarments could be observed by others under the right circumstances, especially by less scrupulous men. The way some women wear VERY short skirts seems almost like a game to test the virtues of men they come in contact with, either teasing men to position themselves inconspicuously to get a higher glimpse up their thighs, or alternatively in the judgmental perspective of "all men are perverts. See! That guy keeps turning his eyes toward my butt every time I twirl in my flared mini-dress".
Now, is it fair for a photographer to hide a camera facing upward from a busy public walkway? No. But is it illegal? No, or at least it should not be. It's also not fair to have to pay thousands of dollars in medical bills when you are injured by a criminal with no means to pay restitution. It's not fair that you have to work 80 hours a week to afford treatment for your sick child when you need to be spending those hours being there for your sick child. It's not fair that if you're going through a rough patch in your financial life that your interest rates jump from 4% to 30% when you could have got caught up and avoided default if the rates had stayed at 4%. It's not fair to be a single mother on welfare who has to chose between working full time and having no money left to buy diapers or having another kid and staying on welfare for another few more years. It's not fair to be faithful to your spouse and a good father to your children only for your wife to leave you, take away your kids, car, house, dog, and 401k, marry a guy who makes more money than you, but then get a judge to take 30% of your gross pay and give that to her as well until your kids are adults out of college. It's not fair that someone bumps into your car and drives off, leaving $986.00 in damages when your deductible is $1,000.00.
So I guess my point is that up-skirting is not a nice thing to do. It is behavior that is entirely inappropriate and immature. But like with many pranks, there is no direct harm to the "victim" other than embarrassment or humiliation, all of which could have been avoided had the "victim" chosen garments that did not so easily reveal undergarments. Now, in the workplace this would constitute sexual harassment. If the photographer leaves his camera in the women's locker-room, or physically assaults her in order to get the photo he is trying for then he should be prosecuted, as this would be a crime.
No, that is absurd. But at the same time I am under no legal, dare I even say ethical, obligation to turn my gaze upon seeing you experiencing a revealing wardrobe malfunction, though it may be considered polite and kind to do so. In fact I might even gawk and make comments, possibly lewd comments, so long as I don't violate any local obscenity laws, though truthfully that would not be in my character. The exception is if this occurred in the workplace where sexual harassment laws apply. Others with morals derived from their religion or culture should follow their own conscious and answer to their own deities or communities for their behavior. But protecting American freedom is more important than protecting someone else's modesty. People need to take personal responsibility for their own modesty choices. That means if you want to push the edges of your local obscenity laws and wear the most revealing clothing possible, you should be able to do so and feel safe doing it. There is never an excuse for anyone to violate another based solely on their choice of clothing or lack thereof, even if they willfully violate all applicable obscenity laws. But in a public space you really have no right to demand that I turn my head and look away or stop taking pictures for my own personal use. As Americans we have the freedom to show it off and the freedom to see it all. I think most of my European friends would agree as well. To attempt to regulate morality, politeness, appropriateness, family values, religious beliefs, artistic expression, sexual expression, blasphemy, speech, political views, or published works would in the best case lead us to a situation like Northern Ireland in the 1970's, and in the worst case like Afghanistan under Taliban rule, which is why we do not do it.
This case seems to have been taken the wrong direction from the very beginning. People shouldn't be able to photograph you in public and then publish those photographs without your permission. However, if the photos were for personal use only, then I don't understand what the concern is here. What are they going to ban next, the air jet bursts coming up from the floors of carnival funhouses?
And yet there is no law to protect me and my two fiancees when we are seeking wedding bakers and photographers. I don't hear any outrage to stop the discrimination we face constantly, from "couples nights" that bar us entry to the adoption agencies that don't consider our loving family to be "suitable" for raising young orphans.
And yet if I take both of my wives to a restaurant the staff can refuse to serve me. Nobody is standing up for our rights to be treated as equal. How is that fair?
Ya, old white people are all so racist, sexist and bigoted. And agist too! Always making over-reaching generalizations about other classes of people. I've never met an old white person that wasn't constantly berating minorities. What's really scary is that there is evidence that old white people are controlling the Federal Reserve and keeping inflation low, which mainly helps old white people living on fixed incomes. Voter turnout among old white people is higher than any other demographic, and this is proof that old white people are undermining minorities in all our elections, even though whites are the minority in many U.S. cities. Those old white people also vote against Obamacare for younger people while clinching to medicare like it was an inalienable right. We should make old white people pay more taxes to punish them for their hatred. That would show them!
But if I have to spend $100k on lobbying before I get public funding, I don't want to have to share the results with freeloaders who didn't pony up the lobbying cash and didn't put the manpower into the research. The rest of society benefits from the public funds after they have bought my product. Take Google, for instance.
In Dallas neighborhoods like Oak Cliff might be considered blighted suburbs. Though most people relocating to "Dallas" may likely be buying a home in the Exurbs, such as McKinney or Frisco.
No, Facebook will ban you if you LIE about your gender identity. It is now their policy to "out" their user base. They need this information to sell to third party advertisers and the NSA. And yet there is still no plural option for marital status.
So in other words Facebook wants to "out" its user base and share this data with third-party advertisers and the NSA. I think FBs terms of use makes it a violation to use anything other than real, actual details, so the need for every possible term one would apply to oneself.
Given how bad the economy has been for lower wage earners, it might be tempting to "confess" after one's spouse or loved one "informs" the FBI just to claim the $10k prize. 2-3 years in prison with with heat and A/C, soft beds, warm blankets, 1 hour of outdoor recreation each day, free health care for even the most expensive medical conditions, a public defender to advocate for early release or to appeal a conviction, job training programs, GED classes, fitness facilities, job programs to earn cash and rewards while in prison, networking opportunities to line up shady "opportunities" after getting out, cable TV for good behavior, the chance to join a gang that "has your back" for life - this all might sound like a good deal to many, not entirely unlike those desperadoes in the UK who would steal a loaf of breed just at the chance of winning an all expense paid trip to Australia, far, far away from their creditors and ex-wives back home in cold and foggy London.
Onions? Those weren't onions, son, those were balls. Men used to have those back before Twitter and nerd camp. It took a real man to type 80 WPM on a mechanical typewriter, or one sturdy broad. That is nothing like a wimpy keyboard or even an electronic typewriter like your hippie father used to fondle. And you had to pay attention to what you were doing or you could lose a finger! Today's brats might lose a finger from atrophy since they only use their thumbs now on a piece of touch sensitive glass. Now they're talking about an internet of things were you don't use any fingers at all. That's like asking your horse to do your taxes--Which I did in 1998. Now fingers aren't just for typewriters. I used my fingers as a boy to wash my turkey, which in those days was known as a walking bird. We'd always have walking bird on Thanksgiving with all the trimmings: cranberries, injun eyes, and yams stuffed with gunpowder. Then we'd all watch football, which in those days was called baseball.
But if I want to impulsively spend $0.99 to download the new pulse based toasting algorithm that leaves the surface extra crispy while leaving the bread beneath soft and chewy, that is my right and darn you for standing in the way of progress. Plus, I need IoT to give me ideas for stuff to post on Twitter and Facebook. "I downloaded my new toasting algorithm" is going to be way cooler than "I'm eating another veggie delight - guess where I am!".
But that's where IoT can change the world. Imagine TV dinners that cook themselves and text you to remind you to eat. I'll be able to focus on Slashdotting all night instead of putting my box dinner in the 1980's TV shaped box just to make my food warm. Now if I could just wire my muscles to the IoT to get some scheduled EMS workouts while I'm slashdotting all day I wouldn't be so fat from those boxed dinners. This is what progress is all about. Smartphones, texting, Facebook, iTunes, TeVo, etc. have all liberated us from those horrible times when people had to lug around heavy machinery and walk all over the place just to get things done. Imagine how envious primitive man would be to see how we live today rather than spending all of our time outdoors running around, hunting, fishing, putting up with multiple wives, making our own music, and sleeping under the stars.
It really depends more on if we get another vice president like Dick Cheney. (Why do I think of Niccolò Machiavelli writing "Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions").
Slashdot Mirror
The USA is the only country that thinks it is in a post-industrial environment. The rest of the world's nations still have factories, and those that didn't do now. America's youth drank the Kool-Aid into believing that the magic of a college degree would alter the economics of supply and demand, as though all we would have to do is sit around buying and selling stocks and bonds to each other and spend the profits on cheap imports from the third world.
Hear in Texas we only need ONE textbook. It learns you readin, histry, grammer, patience, human relations, sience, or anythin else youd ever need to no. But the FEDRAL govinmint wants to ban it from our scoohls!
Where to begin? Denial of reading the classics. The elimination of poetry and Shakespeare....
Just as long as they continue to teach kids to read, write and speak Latin and Greek then Americans will remain the smartest and most educated in the world.
How DARE they have the AUDACITY to try to build a better world for THEIR children! Selfish jerk-wads! Humph!
640 kB ought to be enough for anybody.
But the TSA does this every day and yet most people continue to fly, knowing that the agents gather at the terminal lounge after each shift to exchange tales of their voyeurous exploits. Surely women, and Scotsmen, must know that there are ample opportunities for undergarments to be viewed, such as stairs, mezzanines, getting out of a car, sitting and standing, bending over, jumping, turning quickly, windy weather, long-legged women in the company of short men, and so on. There are garments with clearly defined boundaries, such as trousers and culottes, and garments with loosely defined boundaries, such as skirts, dresses, and robes. When wearing such "incomplete" clothing there are still options to protect modesty, such as wearing "shorts"-style underwear, or even gym shorts or biker shorts. I've come across such women a few times in my life. Most women though seem to prefer to wear sexier underwear when they are wearing shorter skirts. Whether conscious or subconscious, it seems that there is an expectation that undergarments could be observed by others under the right circumstances, especially by less scrupulous men. The way some women wear VERY short skirts seems almost like a game to test the virtues of men they come in contact with, either teasing men to position themselves inconspicuously to get a higher glimpse up their thighs, or alternatively in the judgmental perspective of "all men are perverts. See! That guy keeps turning his eyes toward my butt every time I twirl in my flared mini-dress".
Now, is it fair for a photographer to hide a camera facing upward from a busy public walkway? No. But is it illegal? No, or at least it should not be. It's also not fair to have to pay thousands of dollars in medical bills when you are injured by a criminal with no means to pay restitution. It's not fair that you have to work 80 hours a week to afford treatment for your sick child when you need to be spending those hours being there for your sick child. It's not fair that if you're going through a rough patch in your financial life that your interest rates jump from 4% to 30% when you could have got caught up and avoided default if the rates had stayed at 4%. It's not fair to be a single mother on welfare who has to chose between working full time and having no money left to buy diapers or having another kid and staying on welfare for another few more years. It's not fair to be faithful to your spouse and a good father to your children only for your wife to leave you, take away your kids, car, house, dog, and 401k, marry a guy who makes more money than you, but then get a judge to take 30% of your gross pay and give that to her as well until your kids are adults out of college. It's not fair that someone bumps into your car and drives off, leaving $986.00 in damages when your deductible is $1,000.00.
So I guess my point is that up-skirting is not a nice thing to do. It is behavior that is entirely inappropriate and immature. But like with many pranks, there is no direct harm to the "victim" other than embarrassment or humiliation, all of which could have been avoided had the "victim" chosen garments that did not so easily reveal undergarments. Now, in the workplace this would constitute sexual harassment. If the photographer leaves his camera in the women's locker-room, or physically assaults her in order to get the photo he is trying for then he should be prosecuted, as this would be a crime.
Didn't Versace come out recently with a tall belt that could be worn with or without anything else below the waist?
No, that is absurd. But at the same time I am under no legal, dare I even say ethical, obligation to turn my gaze upon seeing you experiencing a revealing wardrobe malfunction, though it may be considered polite and kind to do so. In fact I might even gawk and make comments, possibly lewd comments, so long as I don't violate any local obscenity laws, though truthfully that would not be in my character. The exception is if this occurred in the workplace where sexual harassment laws apply. Others with morals derived from their religion or culture should follow their own conscious and answer to their own deities or communities for their behavior. But protecting American freedom is more important than protecting someone else's modesty. People need to take personal responsibility for their own modesty choices. That means if you want to push the edges of your local obscenity laws and wear the most revealing clothing possible, you should be able to do so and feel safe doing it. There is never an excuse for anyone to violate another based solely on their choice of clothing or lack thereof, even if they willfully violate all applicable obscenity laws. But in a public space you really have no right to demand that I turn my head and look away or stop taking pictures for my own personal use. As Americans we have the freedom to show it off and the freedom to see it all. I think most of my European friends would agree as well. To attempt to regulate morality, politeness, appropriateness, family values, religious beliefs, artistic expression, sexual expression, blasphemy, speech, political views, or published works would in the best case lead us to a situation like Northern Ireland in the 1970's, and in the worst case like Afghanistan under Taliban rule, which is why we do not do it.
This case seems to have been taken the wrong direction from the very beginning. People shouldn't be able to photograph you in public and then publish those photographs without your permission. However, if the photos were for personal use only, then I don't understand what the concern is here. What are they going to ban next, the air jet bursts coming up from the floors of carnival funhouses?
And yet there is no law to protect me and my two fiancees when we are seeking wedding bakers and photographers. I don't hear any outrage to stop the discrimination we face constantly, from "couples nights" that bar us entry to the adoption agencies that don't consider our loving family to be "suitable" for raising young orphans.
So being hateful toward folks for conditioned adult sexual preferences is OK?
Let me get this straight...
Why do you have to get this "straight", you insensitive, homophobic flame-baiter!?!
And yet if I take both of my wives to a restaurant the staff can refuse to serve me. Nobody is standing up for our rights to be treated as equal. How is that fair?
Ya, old white people are all so racist, sexist and bigoted. And agist too! Always making over-reaching generalizations about other classes of people. I've never met an old white person that wasn't constantly berating minorities. What's really scary is that there is evidence that old white people are controlling the Federal Reserve and keeping inflation low, which mainly helps old white people living on fixed incomes. Voter turnout among old white people is higher than any other demographic, and this is proof that old white people are undermining minorities in all our elections, even though whites are the minority in many U.S. cities. Those old white people also vote against Obamacare for younger people while clinching to medicare like it was an inalienable right. We should make old white people pay more taxes to punish them for their hatred. That would show them!
But if I have to spend $100k on lobbying before I get public funding, I don't want to have to share the results with freeloaders who didn't pony up the lobbying cash and didn't put the manpower into the research. The rest of society benefits from the public funds after they have bought my product. Take Google, for instance.
In Dallas neighborhoods like Oak Cliff might be considered blighted suburbs. Though most people relocating to "Dallas" may likely be buying a home in the Exurbs, such as McKinney or Frisco.
No, Facebook will ban you if you LIE about your gender identity. It is now their policy to "out" their user base. They need this information to sell to third party advertisers and the NSA. And yet there is still no plural option for marital status.
So in other words Facebook wants to "out" its user base and share this data with third-party advertisers and the NSA. I think FBs terms of use makes it a violation to use anything other than real, actual details, so the need for every possible term one would apply to oneself.
So with all of our coal, oil, timber, and metals we should not end up any worse off than the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Comforting.
Given how bad the economy has been for lower wage earners, it might be tempting to "confess" after one's spouse or loved one "informs" the FBI just to claim the $10k prize. 2-3 years in prison with with heat and A/C, soft beds, warm blankets, 1 hour of outdoor recreation each day, free health care for even the most expensive medical conditions, a public defender to advocate for early release or to appeal a conviction, job training programs, GED classes, fitness facilities, job programs to earn cash and rewards while in prison, networking opportunities to line up shady "opportunities" after getting out, cable TV for good behavior, the chance to join a gang that "has your back" for life - this all might sound like a good deal to many, not entirely unlike those desperadoes in the UK who would steal a loaf of breed just at the chance of winning an all expense paid trip to Australia, far, far away from their creditors and ex-wives back home in cold and foggy London.
Onions? Those weren't onions, son, those were balls. Men used to have those back before Twitter and nerd camp. It took a real man to type 80 WPM on a mechanical typewriter, or one sturdy broad. That is nothing like a wimpy keyboard or even an electronic typewriter like your hippie father used to fondle. And you had to pay attention to what you were doing or you could lose a finger! Today's brats might lose a finger from atrophy since they only use their thumbs now on a piece of touch sensitive glass. Now they're talking about an internet of things were you don't use any fingers at all. That's like asking your horse to do your taxes--Which I did in 1998. Now fingers aren't just for typewriters. I used my fingers as a boy to wash my turkey, which in those days was known as a walking bird. We'd always have walking bird on Thanksgiving with all the trimmings: cranberries, injun eyes, and yams stuffed with gunpowder. Then we'd all watch football, which in those days was called baseball.
But if I want to impulsively spend $0.99 to download the new pulse based toasting algorithm that leaves the surface extra crispy while leaving the bread beneath soft and chewy, that is my right and darn you for standing in the way of progress. Plus, I need IoT to give me ideas for stuff to post on Twitter and Facebook. "I downloaded my new toasting algorithm" is going to be way cooler than "I'm eating another veggie delight - guess where I am!".
But that's where IoT can change the world. Imagine TV dinners that cook themselves and text you to remind you to eat. I'll be able to focus on Slashdotting all night instead of putting my box dinner in the 1980's TV shaped box just to make my food warm. Now if I could just wire my muscles to the IoT to get some scheduled EMS workouts while I'm slashdotting all day I wouldn't be so fat from those boxed dinners. This is what progress is all about. Smartphones, texting, Facebook, iTunes, TeVo, etc. have all liberated us from those horrible times when people had to lug around heavy machinery and walk all over the place just to get things done. Imagine how envious primitive man would be to see how we live today rather than spending all of our time outdoors running around, hunting, fishing, putting up with multiple wives, making our own music, and sleeping under the stars.
Last I checked my wet laundry didn't start to mold after just six hours. But I guess the IoT could be helpful for people with early state Alzheimer's,
It really depends more on if we get another vice president like Dick Cheney. (Why do I think of Niccolò Machiavelli writing "Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions").