Mike Gaskey wrote:

To just what extent do you believe society should go to protect everyone from everyone?

I don't find any of your suggestions appealing. The basic questions are: 1. What is the benign use of the object in question? 2. To what extent would that benign use be compromised by the proposed safety measure? 3. What safety benefits might be expected to flow from that safety measure? There is a very wide range of violent offenders, from the professional killer through to the bumbling incompetent who is just temporarily in a bad mood. Nothing stops the professional killer, but some other types of offenders may be discouraged some of the time. Depending on the answers to the above three questions, safety measures may be justified.

John Carson

fred_ wrote:

I applied, doesn't seem to let me see anything , unless I'M considered one of the "trolls"

It is not instantaneous. Applications are reviewed by a human being.

John Carson

Oakman wrote:

To make them really safe, shouldn't they have their edge blunted, too?

Yes, but that would rather inhibit their function as kitchen implements, whereas blunting the point would have minimal effect in that regard.

John Carson

Oakman wrote:

No, it assumes that you won't know whether or not the thug with the knife knows how to cut your throat or not.

I don't follow. My point is that if you cut someone's carotid artery, then they die (unless they get very speedy and effective medical attention). Thus attempting to cut it signifies an intent to murder.

Oakman wrote:

And if one is threatening you, are you going to ask him if he knows how?

You seem to be analysing this from the standpoint of the person threatened with a knife, as in: "Should I shoot this person before he attacks me with a knife". In a British context, that is almost never the question since very few people have guns. In a British context, the question is more likely to be: if one or more parties to a fight has a knife, what can we do to make the fight less lethal? Blunting the point is a suggested answer.

Oakman wrote:

You might be surprised and dismayed to realize how much damage can be done with a slashing attack. The concept of not being able to cut your opponent's throat until he's disabled is best labeled, 'simply a matter of time,' even for an amateur.

This is not one of my areas of expertise, but I would think that a would-be killer would generally prefer to have a knife with a sharp point so as to increase the killing options. Taken over the whole range of knife attacks/fights (skilled and unskilled, those with murderous intent and those only wishing to harm, those interrupted and those allowed to proceed to their conclusion...), I would tend to expect less fatalities if knives lacked a sharp point.

John Carson

Oakman wrote:

As if everyone in Britain needs to know where the carotid artery is - or maybe only the inventor. . .

1. That assumes an intent to murder. 2. Cutting a very specific target on a person not already disabled takes a skill that not every knife-yielding thug will possess.

Oakman wrote:

Prediction: this won't go anywhere and even the government will laugh at it.

My prediction: 5 years hence, all kitchen knives sold in Britain will look like this (assuming it really does make stabbing with the "point" non-lethal).

John Carson

Largely fantasy. Plimer has been campaigning against belief in anthropogenic global warming for years. His book has barely registered here in public debate, notwithstanding that the usual suspects have been excited by it. It is true that the government is having something of a struggle to get its legislation through the Senate. That is nothing new and is simply a reflection of the political makeup of the Senate and of the politics being played. The true position is that the governing Labor Party believes in anthropogenic global warming without qualification and the opposition party has moved from outright scepticism to a position where it basically accepts anthropogenic global warming but is against Australia getting ahead of the rest of the world in its policies due to concern about the economic consequences of doing so.

John Carson

Oakman wrote:

Since I found the ugliness associated with the Stan Shannon wing of the republicans during the election and since equally reprhehensible and speak/spoke out against it, I hope you don't mind if I say that any attempt to play the "He started it!" game works better with 5 years olds than with adults.

I hope you don't mind me pointing out that I was responding, not to an ethical argument, but to a claim of fact, namely that "there's no way in hell that there would even be a debate on whether something should be done, much less actually letting somebody get away with this, if they were aiming it at the other side of the aisle".

John Carson

Ilíon wrote:

But what do *you* think about it?

I think "it advances some interesting ideas". I have no more fully formed opinion than that.

John Carson

This comes from an organization with a reputation as climate change sceptics. Nevertheless, it advances some interesting ideas. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/12/AR2009061203453.html[^]

John Carson

BoneSoft wrote:

Or maybe we should just hold accountable anyone who feels it's OK to crap on the innocent child of a political figure on national television...Maybe there's no way in hell that there would even be a debate on whether something should be done, much less actually letting somebody get away with this, if they were aiming it at the other side of the aisle. Just a thought.

Google John McCain gorilla Then Google John McCain Chelsea Clinton I'm not defending Letterman's comments, merely pointing out that the assiduously nurtured sense of victimizaton on the right involves a fair bit of selectivity.

John Carson

CaptainSeeSharp wrote:

It is the other way around. People believe the media is a reflection of society, so when they see something on the media they believe that is the norm. This is how they manipulate people into thinking a certain way. It is a one way conversation, there is no debate to it, no other points of view, they are the authority on society's viewpoint.

Incredibly enough, I think there is a lot of truth in what you say on this point.

John Carson

There is just a very slight chance that you might find this of interest. http://www.asa3.org/ASA/RESOURCES/WIENS.html[^]

John Carson

Oakman wrote:

What was that about "that what matters is faithfulness to some admired ideological goal --- is what underpinned the worst excesses of. . ."

I'll replace "entirely fraudulent" with "largely fraudulent". That is my best offer. :-D

John Carson

Stan Shannon wrote:

or Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Harry Truman, US Grant, Ronald Reagan and many others one could name who probably could not have competed with many far less able intellectuals. The only thing Stalin, Hitler and Mao have in common is that they all were proclaimed at some point or other as great intellectuals because they believed in a strong centralized state - you know, just as you do.

The issue is not one of IQ, though some minimum IQ (comfortably north of Nelson's) is necessary. The issue is a commitment to logic and to facing the facts squarely. When inconvenient facts get swept aside and inconsistent reasoning is tolerated as unimportant, that is when thinking becomes untethered from reality and monstrous behaviour comes to be seen as acceptable. Stalin, Hitler and Mao --- and the movements they led --- exemplify the attitude that truth can be safely disregarded in pursuit of a cause.

Stan Shannon wrote:

No it isn't. Send all the illegals back home and start teaching in English only would probably save half their budget. There is plenty of things California could do to fix its problems - such as opening the oil fields off its coast for development.

A perfect example of lazy bullshit offered in support of ideological dogma.

Stan Shannon wrote:

The notion that a political party that simply tries to emphasis traditional American concepts of freedom and self reliance scares you so much is very telling, however. My 'real interests' cannot be managed or preserved by the state, they only be destroyed by it.

What scares me more than anything is proud, willful ignorance. Self reliance is a virtue. Ignorance-based refusal to recognise the need for goverment as a coordinating mechanism to supplement the market is not. Nor is the illusion that any individual's prosperity is the result solely of their own efforts and not utterly dependent on the society of which they are a part.

Stan Shannon wrote:

The truth, John, is that you are horrified by the notion that common people are fully capable of living their lives without direct, persistent control from their intellectual superiors. The American experiment proved that was possible and that is precisely why people such as yourself have put so much effort into destroying it. You simply cannot tolerate the notion that some

Stan Shannon wrote:

Trouble is they tend to hang out in the same kinds of places people like to hang out in, so just taking your 22 out and bagging a couple is a bit problematic.

Now what would Dick Cheney say to a wimpy attitude like that. :-D

John Carson

Stan Shannon wrote:

I never said Nelson's appeal was an intellectual one. He can work on his message until he finally gets it right. You know, they way liberals do.

This is just about the worst kind of attitude imaginable. The idea that rationality and coherence are optional --- that what matters is faithfulness to some admired ideological goal --- is what underpinned the worst excesses of Stalinism, Nazism, Maoism and many of the other horrors in history.

Stan Shannon wrote:

One of his main points is that he was offended that one of the first things California has cut is school funding. He isn't against taxation or spending, he simply believes the priorities are entirely out of whack.

Yeah, and a lot of people don't like funding wars. The idea that one can just opt out of society because you don't like its choices is a sign of arrested intellectual and emotional development. By the way, education accounts for more than 50% of the Californian budget; it is a bit hard to leave it untouched when the state is facing a massive deficit and tax rises are made extremely difficult by the State Constitution --- and by dopes like Nelson. Nelson wouldn't know a priority if it bit him on the arse.

Stan Shannon wrote:

Yeah, John, keep ridiculing the hard working common folk who care more for freedom and liberty than bureaucratically managed security. We will take all of those you can throw our way.

Yeah, actors like Nelson are your archetypal "common folk", just like George born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-his-mouth Bush was a "regular guy". The Republican party's interest in "common folk" is entirely fraudulent. What the Republican Party is interested in is anyone dumb enough to vote against their real interests.

John Carson

Stan Shannon wrote:

Have you been listening to Craig T Nelson's [^] tax revolt ideas?

More evidence that conservatives really are dumber. "I've been on food stamps and welfare. Did anyone help me out? No." :wtf: In the same interview he expressed outrage that people weren't supporting teachers. What does he think funds the salaries of public school teachers? I guess there is no minimum level of intelligence required to become a conservative hero. Joe the Blockhead and now this guy.

John Carson

Oakman wrote:

During the next eight years, the U.S. deficit is projected to increase by an amount greater than it grew under the first 43 president combined. To somehow suggest that Obama - the man in charge, the man with a plan, the leader of the free world - is not to be held responsible for this is, prima facie, ridiculous. For Leonhardt to ignore where we'll be in eight years because the worst happens after the entire stimulus package is spent but the entitlements it creates continue, is disingenuous, to say the least.

Well, he does quote Auerbach as follows:

Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and an author of a widely cited study on the dangers of the current deficits, describes the situation like so: “Bush behaved incredibly irresponsibly for eight years. On the one hand, it might seem unfair for people to blame Obama for not fixing it. On the other hand, he’s not fixing it.” “And,” he added, “not fixing it is, in a sense, making it worse.”

I think the article provides a useful corrective to the tendency of some to act like the national debt/deficit is a new problem. But clearly Obama is responsible for what he does about it.

John Carson

Ilíon wrote:

Even if John Carson's claim should be true ... the US *also* has more babies per capita than the European countries do.

This is relevant because...? Surely you are not suggesting that if one woman has an extra child, then that morally cancels out an abortion (of her own or someone else's child).

John Carson

CaptainSeeSharp wrote:

Percentage or raw numbers?

I think you mean percentage or absolute. I mean percentage. The figures vary significantly from one European country to the other and different sources given somewhat different figures. From the source below, Holland has less than 1/3 the abortion rate of the US (abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44). Overall, the rate for Western Europe is about 1/2 the US rate. (Eastern Europe, by contrast, has much higher abortion rates than the US.) http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/25s3099.html[^]

John Carson