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[IS THEY PEOPLES, OR IS THEY AINT?]

IS THEY PEOPLES, OR IS THEY AINT?

Ah, the joys of the Free Market™.  You have the choice to use their service and not complain, or not use their service and go out of business.

Dunno. What would happen to me if I killed one?

You might get to run for president.  Mitt Romney was pretty much a serial killer of corporations.  They're a bit harder to kill than the human sort of people though.

The problem with alternative currencies is that at the end of the day, it's still just a virtual representation of goods or services. Exchanging one for the other has no benefit that I can think of.

It takes control of the printing press away from the government.

And gives it to WHOM?

Depends on the currency.  From what I understand about Bitcoin it gives out new money in a random lottery.  For stuff like Ithaca Hours it gives the printing press to a local organization.

Appreciated.

I think part of the infatuation was borne from an idea of "alternative currencies creating alternative economies". The problem is I've not really thought any further on this than when I was about 15 so I'm inclined to file it under "Bullshit"

If anyone can give an example of alternative currencies "working" I'd look at it with fresh eyes and see just how stupid 15 year old me was.

Bitcoins work, if by work you mean "make it much simpler to buy drugs on the internet"

The problem with alternative currencies is that at the end of the day, it's still just a virtual representation of goods or services. Exchanging one for the other has no benefit that I can think of.

It takes control of the printing press away from the government.

I want to know which Mexico has better Pulque.

The idea that babies are an ORGAN let alone the largest . . . it just makes my head hurt. They're, for all intents and purposes, parasites. And . . . I'm not going to rant. But DUDE. Organs?

Don't we have the option of removing our own organs?  Seems like they are arguing against themselves on this one.

Do you have a blog where you collect your 5 part series by any chance?  I have seen a few bits and pieces but this is the first one I have seen whole.  I'd love to see more.

If you said anything other than 'fetus', you're wrong!

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/19/alabama_goper_a_baby_is_the_largest_organ_in_the_body/

In defending her bill to crack down on abortion clinics, Alabama state Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin argued that abortions should be more strictly regulated because "When a physician removes a child from a woman, that is the largest organ in a body."

McClurkin, a Republican, added: "That's a big thing. That's a big surgery. You don't have any other organs in your body that are bigger than that."

O.o Sorry if this is a repost. I did look through the forums to see if there was another post but I admit to being brain dead right now. This shit is crazy.

And until later stages of development this isn't even close to true anyway.  A fetus is smaller than the lungs or hearts for a lot of its development

There's something in my head about Immigrant populations and a tendency towards higher birth rates for the initial generations.

I'm sure that there's no possible solution here. It would involve giving a shit about people from another country. Possibly with a different skin colour.

The US is really good at assimilating immigrants.  I can't see low birth rates being a problem here in the foreseeable future.

I know, I just couldn't think of a good Rat pun.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100464841

What if there was a Ketchup War, yet no one showed up to fight?

The surprise deal that saw Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital Management swoop in this with a $28 billion bid for ketchup maker H.J. Heinz, came with an interesting wrinkle that links two of the world's biggest burger behemoths.

Call it two degrees of supply chain separation: 3G owns a majority stake in Burger King, which is a direct competitor of McDonald's. Heinz — now partly owned and likely to be run by 3G — supplies red sauce to both fast food giants.

Heinz new ownership structure raised an improbable, yet plausible, possibility. If the new bosses at 3G wanted to squeeze Burger King's competition, it could terminate the agreement to supply Heinz ketchup to McDonalds.

Ketchup war sounds so much more interesting in my head.

Not supplying ketchup might squeeze them, charging McDonalds more than they charge Burger King seems like a more likely tactic though.

I was thinking about exactly this not too long ago. Among the wide variety of things that are fucked up about the way society treats women, the fact that a woman may have to resort to accepting the label of "bitch" just so she can justify drawing a line in the goddamn sand once in a fucking while is gross.

Weirdly enough, when a man does that, it's called "not being a bitch."

So the definition of what being a "bitch" is changes depending on what's most degrading to women.

Don't kid yourself. A guy does it he's called a cunt or a fucking bastard. Woman does it at least she's called something that's her own gender. The trick, for either gender, is to take the label and own it. Some whiny little fuck totally loses their shit at me and resorts to "you're nothing but a cunt" I've won. Fuckhead has finally worked me out. Do not fuck with my beach scribbles or you'll find out just how much of a cunt I'm more than happy to be.

Well that's probably a matter of whom you're telling to not cross your line.   If someone's being inconvenienced or not getting what they want because of a line drawn (by a man), then they call him a cunt.

An outside observer will more likely praise the man for not "being a bitch," i.e. for not rolling over and submitting.

Maybe it's just a difference in colloquialisms across the pond, or I'm just being obtuse about what I mean (totally possible). Calling a man a bitch here implies that he is weak and submissive, while calling a woman a bitch implies that she is being selfish and/or obstinate.

Now there's a bit of context-based language I'd hate to have to explain to a non-native speaker.

My social group uses bitch, when referring to a man, to imply that he is whining a lot.  A guy who lets himself get pushed around is usually a pussy (no less mysoginistic, just different words in different places I guess)

ODD, if I recall correctly was pretty much opening the door to the early Ritalin style drugs. I'll try and dig out some stuff on this, I'm sure i've got something.

I thought Ritalin was mostly prescribed for ADHD originally.

Yay! Psychiatrists finally starting to admit they have no fucking clue what they're doing 

Drug development for complex psychiatric illnesses is misguided, they argue, stuck churning out slight variations on therapeutic themes that didn't work all that well to begin with.

ETA: oh, yeah, and while we're at it...

One historical example, a century before the first DSM, of a clearly invalid mental illness is drapetomania. Louisiana physician Samuel A. Cartwright was certain he had discovered a new mental disease. After studying runaway slaves who had been caught and returned to their owners, Cartwright concluded in an 1851 report to the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal that these slaves suffered from drapetomania, a disease causing them to flee.

While virtually all psychiatrists today rightfully mock the idea that fleeing slavery could be considered a valid mental illness, it was not until the 1970s that cultural upheaval and political protests persuaded the APA of the invalidity of homosexuality as a mental illness.

And while homosexuality was dropped from the 1980 DSM-3, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) was added, and ODD is now a popular child and adolescent diagnosis. The symptoms of ODD include "often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules" and "often argues with adults." Is it any more valid to label teenage rebellion and anti-authoritarianism as a mental illness than it is to label runaway slaves as mentally ill?

OOD sounds like it has a lot in common with drapetomania

Poll fixed.

Thank you.  I voted for the cat with the broken penis and the on fire head.

And, let's be honest, there are long histories of institutionally racist police down there.

Even when decent people do manage to join, they'll be ostracized by racist superiors, denied promotions, given shit jobs, harassed etc and will eventually leave.

You'd need to shitcan the entire officer level of the border police just to make any kind of progress.  And the politician who did that would be hounded out of office for being "weak on illegals".

Up in Oro Valley, the prevailing opinion is that "the illegals deserve it" and "that's no reason to ruin someone's career".

Because, up in Oro Valley, Hispanics aren't actually human, you see.  They're a bogeyman.  They exist only to rape fatass White women, and steal our cars.

And do yard work.