cactoblasta

Reply to Slavery for the government in Blogging JoeUser Forums

There's another way of thinking about it, Draginol - you're paying for the privilege of living in the US. You could move to a place with no income tax or sales tax if you wanted to. Dubai has neither and is also becoming a bit of a technology hub. But because you want to be American, with all that entails, you have to pay through the nose for the privilege. Everything has its price. Is a 47% tax rate an excessive price for living in the world's most powerful nation? Evidently not, becau

Reply to Student Complains After She is Kept Out of Men's Locker Room in Current Events JoeUser Forums

[quote]I don't feel comfortable with a woman with free access to a men's restroom (dire emergencies are understandable and excusable, but I'm talking about on a regular basis) and DEFINITELY not in a locker room setting. Nor do most men. And that's why such places have "Men" and "women" over the door.[/quote] I'm mostly with you on this. After at least 10 years of having women come in and use the men's cubicles whenever they feel like it (generally at public functions where the girls' l

Reply to If there's no war on Christmas, what is this? in Politics JoeUser Forums

Doc: Clearly Christmas comes once a year; clearly snow falls in areas with cold weather. But it's not so clear that being PC means being a subscriber to the Socialist Party Happy Fun Time Magazine. Righties can be mindless drones too. It's something to keep in mind when next you go swinging buzz words around. I mean, who defines the people who get to craft the terms of PC-ness? Is it a secret cabal of Jews, Muslims and card-carrying members of the UnAmerican activities Happy Fun Time Gr

Reply to If there's no war on Christmas, what is this? in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote]I don't know if I just live a very sheltered, isolated existence or what, but I've never encountered any "anti-Christmas" sentiments.[/quote] Neither have I. Admittedly if someone plays a christmas carol anywhere near me I'm likely to strangle them, but that's because I once worked in retail, where the same Christmas songs are played every hour. Non-stop. Throughout a freaking 12-hour shift. All these anti-Christmas claims are overblown. You get a handful of ludicrous an

Reply to Why do cartoon movies have bloopers and deleted scenes? in Movies & TV & Books JoeUser Forums

I'm with Tex on this one. The 'bloopers' during the credits are sometimes the best parts of the movie. I say they should keep putting them in.

Reply to Student Complains After She is Kept Out of Men's Locker Room in Current Events JoeUser Forums

[quote]Ok, but where's it going to stop? If you allow this, it will only take a very short time until you start to see men in the woman's bathroom. Then what? What about the women who don't want men in their bathrooms? What if some are ok but others are not? What if I'm one of those uncomfortable ones who desires NOT to see a man in the ladies room but the majority are ok with it? Do I now have no choice but to "hold" it? [/quote] You're getting on in years, so I'll forgive your ignoran

Reply to Student Complains After She is Kept Out of Men's Locker Room in Current Events JoeUser Forums

I think it depends on the other students. If they accept her as a man for the purposes of the locker room, she should be allowed to use the men's locker room. If they don't want her in there, perhaps another option should be investigated - she could use a third change room instead (eg if there's a disabled one). As for rape, it's possible, but guys also get raped in men's locker rooms. We can't let fear govern our actions.

Reply to A HUGE Monkey Off My Back! in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Congratulations! You blazed through that sucker - how long did it take? A year and a half? two years? Top work! I hope you find it useful, God knows mine has been, and often at the most unexpected times.

Reply to What can I say? I’m a taker in Blogging JoeUser Forums

[quote]I think it would be really intimidating to buy a gift for someone who is wealthy. You don't want to come off as cheap, but you can't afford to buy them something that probably fits the quality and expense of items they are used to. And what can you buy for them that they don't already have?[/quote] I always try and reach for the bizarre. It's very, very unlikely that the person you're buying a present for already has a cane toad that's been stuffed and dressed in a hunting jacket

Reply to Where your tax dollar goes in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote]The priorities of the federal government have shifted from national defense and interstate development to providing a social safety net.[/quote] It's a different world though. I'm not sure you can fairly compare then to now. Today the US has no real competition in terms of military might. It doesn't need to spend half its income on weaponry, so it can afford to maintain a heavier social security safety net. In times of peace governments are always going to spend more on their peo

Reply to Is Pre-Paid Legal a good thing to have? in Business JoeUser Forums

Unless you're going to have a single lawyer or a legal team on retainer, prepaid legal is unlikely to be much use even if you do face lots of legal issues (in which case you should probably consider shutting down the meth lab...Not that anyone's judging you!). You need to develop a relationship with your lawyer to get the most out of regular contact, and if you're going to be speaking to a different person every time what's the point?

Reply to Tragedy of the commons explained: Why socialism doesn’t work in Blogging JoeUser Forums

[quote]I find it interesting to see someone use a family analogy. Most of us do not view the government as something analogous to a mom and dad.[/quote] Which is in itself a strange and new thing. It's only a few hundred years ago that paternalistic/maternalistic forms of governance were the norm. There are governments now that offer the same level of paternalism - the most famous in the last century was probably Haiti under the doc or any of a number of nations boasting a 'father of th

Reply to The Death of the English Language Part 9999 in Ethics JoeUser Forums

[quote]They're using it to me a bastard, a stubborn person, or someone that doesn't agree with them and is not nice about it. Hence if you take me in the CONTEXT of what I said you'll get the meaning.[/quote] Give me some conversation examples and I'll believe you, but I've never heard it used without the assumption the ignorant person is ignorant of something in particular. eg some schmo makes a racist comment, the rejoinder might be, 'you're just ignorant.' You don't need

Reply to The Death of the English Language Part 9999 in Ethics JoeUser Forums

[quote]The flight will still take place, just at a different date! That's postponing something, not cancelling it![/quote] Not necessarily. There may already have been a flight on that different date, in which case the earlier flight was cancelled and its passengers moved to the new flight. It's only a postponed flight if the plane wouldn't have left at that later time anyway. And with most air travel I'd be surprised if that was the case. [quote]You can't just BE ignorant in g

Reply to The Golden Compass in Current Events JoeUser Forums

[quote]As an aside, I really hate the sheep comparison. Sheep are stupid and die if left alone in the wild. I prefer to be a goat- they know how to survive.[/quote] Ever read Terry Pratchett? I'm guessing yes, but I suppose I could be wrong. He gives a great analogy in his book 'Small Gods', where he explains the origins of religion based on what flock the shepherd happens to be herding. There's a great line there, something along the lines of "Sheep are obedient and servile; t

Reply to Why I Won't be Eating Veal Any Time Soon in Personal Relationships JoeUser Forums

I thought that was going one direction, but they blindsided me completely at the end. Nice little allegory there.

Reply to Westboro Sickos Plan To Picket In Omaha in Current Events JoeUser Forums

[quote]i didn't know you could smoke a fag of sticks. i thought they were burnable.[/quote] Fags = cigarettes.

Reply to Westboro Sickos Plan To Picket In Omaha in Current Events JoeUser Forums

[quote]What is wrong with these people?[/quote] Well if you look at the web address it says it all really - godhatesfags.com Why would it bother hating fags? It's a waste of time. People are still going to smoke them anyway.

Reply to Attention Admin: in Websites JoeUser Forums

Score! Thanks Andy, Zoomba!

Reply to Attention Admin: in Websites JoeUser Forums

I just cleared the cache then and the recent posts started working. Now to see if I can post...

Reply to CD Review: Radiohead in Music JoeUser Forums

I hate that album. All they do is moan along to some pretty awful synths.

Reply to Forum's gone wonky in Blogging JoeUser Forums

My issues seem to have been fixed with the regular forum page, but if I go to 'view recent posts' the screen is still printed with all the topics on the one line, but there's only one you can click on.

Forum's gone wonky in Blogging JoeUser Forums

Have there been recent changes to the forums? When I open them up every single article is printed on the same line, so it's just a thick black line with some confused dates at the other end. Makes it a little hard to read... Is this because I'm using Firefox 2 for mac or is has the system been possessed by Beelzebub?

Reply to Why Europeans reject religion in politics in Politics JoeUser Forums

The attitude of sceptical, humanistic Europe is 'people with their fingers on nuclear triggers should not talk to sky-pixies'. haha, great. I've always liked your turn of phrase. It seems to be the only place in the world where parents who swear they are agnostic, make sure their kids are christened, and (if there is a marriage at all), it is done in a church. Australia's the same, and from my experience

Reply to Break out the champagne, socialists! in Politics JoeUser Forums

Aye, and all I can think in reading this is to compare this to his rantings in 4 years. About how they Rudd government betrayed them. You might want to readjust your clothing, Dr Guy, your ignorance is showing. There's never been a Rudd government, and four years ago Latham was calling the crazy shots - or was it Crean? Either way Labor weren't exactly on a winner. Rudd's a bit of a me-too kind of guy, but my reading is that it was an act - we w