Displaying comments 1 to 50 of 62
MeFi post:
Fast Food Apartheid
Prohibition doesn't work. Drugs, alcohol, tobacco, guns, trans fats, dangerous toys, skateboarding, fireworks, fast food...good grief. Let adults do as they wish.
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 11:17 AM on July 31, 2008
MeFi post:
Can iDrag be far behind?
Meh. I'll wait for cigarette 2.0 to come out to take up smoking. I'm really looking forward to Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man poking my friends on Facebook and the inevitable cigarette/toilet paper mash-up.
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 5:46 PM on July 17, 2008
MeFi post:
Three times as many killed as once thought in 50 years of conflicts, new analysis suggests.
No war is justified.
Really? What about intervening to prevent genocide? Does the moral bankruptcy of a person who sets out to eliminate as many other people as possible not render them less worthy of continuing to live than their prospective victims?
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 1:04 PM on June 21, 2008
You're much more likely to prevent genocide by following a pacifist policy than to by giving yourself the moral loophole of fighting a war to prevent genocide.
This seems to me to be blind speculation. How exactly would a person sitting on his hands prevent a murder?
In any case, you can't commit a real murder today to prevent a hypothetical murder tomorrow.
What's hypothetical... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 3:14 PM on June 21, 2008
Anyone who thinks WWII was fought to avert the Holocaust needs to study a little history.
Well, by definition it couldn't have been because the Holocaust had already begun. But it was certainly fought in large part to end the Holocaust. Inaction was not then an option. Chamberlain should have been imprisoned.
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 5:43 PM on June 21, 2008
Once again, you're confusing lifestyle with life.
Your standards for "life" are rather low. "Life" to the majority of the world's population means more than merely eating, sleeping, pissing, shitting, and cowering in fear when they see people with machetes and AK-47s. Your conjecture about total lives lost is wholly unsupported and does nothing to decided the ultimate question. You've effectively extended "lifestyle"... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 8:10 AM on June 22, 2008
MeFi post:
The world’s worst disease
Coincidentally, I just finished Richard Preston's Panic in Level 4 last week. It works pretty well as a collection of anecdotes about the people he's encountered and their different problems, including a chapter about two men with Lesch-Nyhan. It probably isn't as rich in detail as his other writing, though I have no basis for comparison. Good travel reading.
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 5:57 PM on June 5, 2008
MeFi post:
Poor people drive our economy, okay? Poor people ... with checks.
Bullshit..we'd still have the liquor stores per block ratio and Kennedy Fried Chicken per block ration to tell us.
I live near a block bookended on one side by a liquor store and on the other side by a Popeye's. The homeless people with the sob stories hang out in front of Popeye's, while the ones that don't even bother hang out in front of the liquor store.
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 8:48 AM on May 22, 2008
MeFi post:
"the latest issue to arise for the McCain campaign involving aides' ties to foreign interests"
Power can't simply be dissipated into thin air, it has to go somewhere.
It definitely can be so dissipated: people can pressure their congresspeople or vote in new ones specifically to rein in what sort of private behavior government can reach. The reason it won't happen is because every group in this country has some stupid little thing they feel compelled to control about other people. Don't like pot? Regulate. Don't like gays? Regulate. Undies... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 8:23 AM on May 15, 2008
MeFi post:
Spongebob Rectal Thermometer
"Did you know that the average fish contains as much mercury as a rectal thermometer? WOULD YOU EAT A RECTAL THERMOMETER? ANSWER ME, DAMN YOU!"
"Well...uh...no..."
"Well I would."
om nom nom sounds
"Ah, mercury, sweetest of the transition metals."
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 8:45 PM on May 14, 2008
MeFi post:
Cover Vs. Original
If you're ever combing an old bin full of punk CDs, look for a band called Terminus City's cover of "Folsom Prison Blues". It may only be on the random compilation CD I heard it on, but it's one of the best covers of that song I've heard.
While we're on "Breadfan", how about RHCP's shameless ripoff for the intro of "All Around the World"?
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 7:54 PM on May 13, 2008
MeFi post:
In the Wake of the Floods
No one can imagine legitimate suspicions the Myanmar leadership might have that Western aid may be used for political leverage?
And? A government doesn't have the "right" to deliberately starve its citizens. Even if influence were a major factor in Western aid it wouldn't justify excluding it where people are starving and exposed to various potential epidemics that make SARS look like the common cold.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 5:53 PM on May 9, 2008
MeFi post:
CeaseFire
Maybe I'm misreading what Faze said, but it seems to me he might have been abstracting "genes" to something similar to culture in the same way that he used this epidemiologist's abstraction of violence to a disease. While it's a poor metaphor, as the most appropriate like object would have been bacteria, I think its preferable to read it that way so as to avoid construing what he said as trolling. Of course, there's still the matter of his larger point, which I'll avoid discussing... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 5:39 PM on May 3, 2008
I'm not sure that I'll ever understand the ways in which Americans subtly encode their anxieties and fears about race in their discourse.
A few important observations that I think might not be obvious to non-Americans (I don't mean to be condescending, and you might already know more about all these issues than I do):
1) Violent crime in this country is committed disproportionately by young, poor, black men. People vary tremendously (as... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 6:36 PM on May 3, 2008
Sometimes stones get thrown, sometimes it is about injustice, sometimes it is about something a whole lot simpler.
And it is ALWAYS assault. If they made fun of him for looking like a douche trying to be black, that's one thing. But you don't fucking throw rocks at people. Good job condemning someone for being goofy instead of condemning people for trying to injure him.
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 8:18 PM on May 3, 2008
MeFi post:
Is it Sweeps Week already?
It appears to me that an occasional smiley face graffiti appeared somewhere in the general area of some of the crime scenes.
"In Michigan, they found something strange among the group's graffiti: the word 'Sinsiniwa.' They couldn't figure out what it meant until a few months later when they arrived in Dubuque, Iowa to investigate the death of Matt Kruziki. His body was found on Sinsiniwa Avenue. Plus, they've discovered the nicknames of people... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 1:26 PM on May 3, 2008
MeFi post:
Kids These Days
If this kid isn't on FARK next to the dumbass tag at least 3 times in the next 20 years I'll eat my keyboard.
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 1:35 PM on May 1, 2008
MeFi post:
'cause what would they say if they ever knew?
I never got along with the girls at my school
Filling me up with all their morals and their rules
They’d pile all their problems on my head
I’d rather go out and fuck the dead
‘Cause I can do what I want and they won’t complain
I wanna fuck I wanna fuck the dead
Middle of the night so silently
I creep on over to the mortuary
Lift up the casket and fiddle with the dead
Their cold... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 2:13 PM on April 30, 2008
MeFi post:
You're doing it wrong.
The obligatory teenage-dirtbag mustache cracks me up every time. Repeating a comment I saw elsewhere: "If you're the sort of person that believes in Jesus, how could you possibly believe yourself capable of killing him?"
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 2:10 PM on April 30, 2008
MeFi post:
"Let's be careful out there"
On the Saw Mill Parkway (NY) near the Chappaqua/Reader's Digest building exit I saw a cop car with a reinforced bumper cage (not really a brush guard) hit a deer, who subsequently became caught in it and dragged for the entire deceleration from 80 to 0. On the return trip there was about an eighth of a mile of one lane that was covered in blood and pieces. Some redneck could have come along and basically just picked up individual servings.
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 3:42 PM on April 29, 2008
MeFi post:
How to destroy 4,700 new cars?
What a waste. Why didn't they just sell the cars cheaply with a heavy-duty warranty/waiver combination? The senseless destruction of 4,700 news cars obviously caused far more pollution than the total of the cost of all the parts that could possibly need replacement. There are plenty of cars on the road with more invisible hazards than these Mazdas.
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 11:23 AM on April 29, 2008
MeFi post:
My chrome is shining just like an icicle
DC has an issue with people riding on the sidewalk. My neighborhood has separate bike lanes marked out on a number of the major traffic arteries and people still ride on the sidewalk for whatever reason. I don't think this program is likely to increase that problem, though, especially if DC gov't has thought ahead enough to realize that they'll need to carved out more bike lanes even without this program. That said, bike theft is also a big issue. I'm curious to see how this turns out.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 1:15 PM on April 27, 2008
MeFi post:
Studying Really Pays Off!
Just because wealthier families "pay" their kids to do well doesn't mean it is a good idea. Those kids don't end up any more motivated because of the payment: the motivation is very much a family and cultural thing. If anything, payment works against the teachers and parents trying to instill the idea that education is good for its own sake.
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 8:20 AM on April 22, 2008
It might very well be the bandaid that some of these kids need to be able to say to themselves "Holy crap, I might get to graduate high school" or "Wow, I could go to college".
Do we want people that are motivated only by short-term money to go to college? A college degree is wortwhile in part because it sets the recipient apart from people without another four years of education - if we were to encourage otherwise uninterested... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 10:04 AM on April 22, 2008
Bourgeois pig. You prefer people to be motivated to go to college because it's the default choice among people of their class? Or because it's four years of drinking and fucking?
How terrible for you that your class distinctions are being threatened. You might have to- *gasp* judge people on their merit and not on class signifiers!
Jeez, Marx, calm down. I don't think well-to-do people that aren't... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 11:14 AM on April 22, 2008
Dear god yes, I want poor kids going to college. The value of a college degree is that it proves you passed the courseload. That's it. That's how it's been for decades. Having poor uninterested people go to college isn't going to dilute the value of a college degree, because colleges routinely give degrees to non-poor uninterested people.
I think everyone interested in college should go to college. I don't think everyone, including people who aren't... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 11:23 AM on April 22, 2008
That's wonderful and all, but people need education, and as time goes on and technology improves more people need more education.
I don't disagree at all. I don't think we want the guy that spends most of high school skipping class to get paid to stop doing that so he can get into college, no matter how much his parents make. Where, then, is the incentive to do any better in higher education?
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 11:31 AM on April 22, 2008
I'm essentially annoyed by the idea that we should pay individuals to take advantage of an institution that is already free to them for an end that our society reveres so thoroughly you would have to be living under a rock to miss it. That creates exactly the wrong incentives and promotes only the basest kind of self-interest: not self-betterment, not planning for the future, but instant gratification.
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 12:14 PM on April 22, 2008
...but is the moralism in your comments apparent to you?
Absolutely. I don't think reducing everything to a flimsy conception of "pragmatism" is the best way to solve problems. There is absolutely no reason to pay people not to be stupid by ignoring the real benefits of education.
Well, I think the state of Georgia can safely ignore your self-satisfied indignation in considering how it seeks... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 1:17 PM on April 22, 2008
Pot, kettle.
Show me where I implied that your opinion as it pertains to the subject at hand, rather than your jibe at mine, was irrelevant. You lead first with an ad hominem and it went downhill from there.
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 1:35 PM on April 22, 2008
"The children should want to learn for learning's own sake!" Give me a break.
The children should want to learn because it is clearly in their own best interest to be educated for a whole host of reasons.
When people use it as a reason not to help people, I pretty much shut down, since there's nothing to be done but call names at that point.
This is hardly the only way... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 2:02 PM on April 22, 2008
but for kids whose parents can't you don't think the state should help out.
Not true at all. If a person is genuinely interested in learning, than we shouldn't allow them to be held back by poverty. There are plenty of other programs better suited to dealing with poverty that don't involve changing the incentives to actually finish high school. I don't think that this program is particularly well-suited to helping people for whom poverty, rather... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Inspector.Gadget
at 2:06 PM on April 22, 2008
