shirgall

It's true that it was never the intent to have both an Income Tax and a Business Tax at the same time in the USA... but that sure didn't work out.

Because if people can read cursive, they can read the Declaration of Independence! Honestly I think it's because the time it expected to spent on other things, like carbon sequestration fight songs and oaths of fealty.

1921 -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover

I have to say some of the recent podcasts have been very good, including improved lighting setup.

I struggle with this one too. I prefer to have "natural consequences" to good and bad behavior and not rewards and punishments, esp. since it seems inevitable that rewards and punishments are unevenly applied. But some "natural consequences" take a *very* long time to manifest. Empathy and explanation haven't gone far enough with my own interactions with my teenagers, but I get the occasionally spark of "you know, you were right a year ago when you said 'x'."

But Hobby Lobby only refused to fund abortifacients, not things like "the pill" which people can use to regulate their periods. While it's true that RU-485 can be used to treat Cushing's Disease, I'm not sure Hobby Lobby is refusing to pay for THAT prescribed use.

Software development project manager.

Nah, now we go to the Supremes again and get the law thrown out for unequal treatment. Still aggravating that we have to spend some much time, effort, and money to undo such things.

Did they not read the bill. If the companies refuse to pay for contraception, the cost is to be borne by the insurance company. None of these straw men and disasters are on the table, what happens is that the insurance company simply raises its rates for everyone else.

"Know Your Customer", but in a good way. You have to understand what motivates them to come to you, what your compelling reason is for them to buy what you are selling, and what key things will keep them coming back for more (since it's six times easier to retain a paying customer than it is to attract a new one). All of these things require, and benefit from, empathy.

I'm just across the river in Washington.

I got a vasectomy after I got married. I have had no problems with it, but sometimes I regret deciding not to have children of my own. It usually passes pretty quickly. And, yes, most of the time it's a feeling of a removed burden.

Amen to the party. When it comes to the 4th, I celebrate the Independence and not the martial stuff. That doesn't mean I can't blow something up though.

I was actually more bothered by the Dad not being in the picture and then being a surprise that he showed up. I saw it more as a cautionary tale of "you want it so badly you can have 1000% percent of it" for period envy, honestly, not as humiliation. Humor has to be an exaggeration to work.

Sure, they resent being obligated, and they don't buy my explanations and stories about how I had to go through it too, but in the end they need these skills and they need to do the work to graduate, and by graduating they will have a great deal more options than if they don't.

Again, look into the UPB book for help on the framework. In American law this particular problem is addressed with the "Reasonable Person" standard. If a reasonable and prudent person, knowing what the defendant knew, would perform the same action, then that action might be okay. This standard is adjudicated by the jury, drawing on their beliefs on what is reasonable. This is considered "good enough" for the law. Morality has more time and more call to be absolute and universal. If you perform an action that harms another you are responsible for that action, no matter how unlikely the harm might have been. This is why people buy insurance, because things happen that you cannot predict or expect.

Are you are claiming that the chances are vanishingly small that your conscious action leads to a particular result that you are not responsible for that result? You will be judged by others in how you handle that responsibility. Recklessness is noticed and people will react accordingly. Your question about the morality of the matter requires universally applicable actions. Must all babies be brought to term? Must none? There are arguments against both positions, so it gets incredibly complicated almost immediately. Some things do become universal. Once born, parents must care for and guide children until they are mature enough to be independent, for example. This is because they are dependent on those parents and those parents chose to bring them about. This is murkier before they are born. My recommendation is to read the UPB book, as it can give you a little more framework to work on this knotty problem.

It's a silly argument. There are few people that don't know that a common result of unprotected sex is pregnancy. Heck, it's even common knowledge that the rhythm method doesn't work. May as well speed the wrong way down the oncoming lane of traffic because a head-on collision is an unwanted side-effect of that, too.

Forgive the viral advertising, but this was pretty funny: Of course Mom went too far, that's what makes it funny. Is a First Moon Party a natural consequence to lying? Is it empathic? Even better, is it empathetic. (sigh)

The cost of lobbying as a percentage of revenues goes down, and you end up with two big competitors in a particular industry who do their part to erect barriers to entry into their markets so they can happily co-exist with the other and keep the riff-raff out. It's no surprise that regulations hurt small businesses but where they *really* hurt is the mid-sized businesses that try to get traction. That painful turning point is enshrined at 50 employees in so many laws and regulations it's hard to count.

Continued adventures of the Enterprise, very well done with a new cast. This episode's topic is about the Empire of the alternate universe.

This was first tried in Greece, and recently the European Central Bank. We'll see how it flies.

I tried homeschooling and doing the tutoring myself, and they got more frustrated with me than anything. When it's telling stories at the dinner table it's one thing, but when it's buckle down and really master something it's another. I won't claim to be perfect. I don't hit, but I was raised by a yeller, and I yell when I get angry too. Been really working on that. Yeah, I am making them go to school, but at least it's a private one with a smaller class size. I tried homeschool and a online program called "Washington Virtual Academy" before settling on this.

They don't want to do anything! It's quite frustrating. I managed to talk the daughter into it today. My son (14) just doesn't want to do anything schoolish. He is going into High School, has a delayed development learning disorder (due to ADD), amd barely scraped by 8th grade. My daughter (17) is a little better, and she has an independent study she has to do to make up for previous grades, so that at least is in motion now.

The great thing about that scene in particular is that it's echoing Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and performed by an actor famous for performing Beckett: http://observationdeck.io9.com/waiting-for-got-dot-1578297724 When in doubt, you can be sneaky and stick in some philosophy when they aren't expecting it.