Posts by Stephen Judd
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I'm boggled that cloning, adultery and polgynous marriage are the things that have the most unanimous disapproval.
Clearly the male outrage artists of the future will clone their wives, marry them and then encourage them to have sex with someone else.
More seriously, I'd love to see age and regional breakdowns for all these questions. Also, I applaud that they quote the questions verbatim: I am often irritated by accounts of surveys that purport to say what people think without telling you what they were asked. Let's see if our newspapers can be bothered including this important information when the report the results...
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"carron" = "carry-on"
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Burgess' Alex may have been correct for the Anglo-Celtic culture, but other countries with cheap alcohol seem to avoid this sort of carron.
As Tom was hinting, drunkenness is socially constructed. Plenty of "this flavourless water is vodka" experiments to demonstrate that.
At some level, in our culture a lot of people think that being smashed gives you a license for activities that aren't ok if you're sober.
I wonder if it would be more successful to try to spread the idea that macho people can hold their liquor and that vomitous violence is shameful, than trying to persuade people to drink less.
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John Vavasour de Quentin Jones
Was very fond of throwing stones
At horses, people, passing trains. And
Especially at window panes.Like many of the upper class
He liked the sound of broken glass*.
It bucked him up and made him gay
It was his favourite form of play*(A line I stole with subtle daring
From Wing-Commander Maurice Baring.)"When I get home I'll dig up my copy of Cautionary Tales and find the rest.
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I don't like minorities having any say
Ben, that is an unfair reduction. My objection is twofold: that they have a disproportionate say, and that their numerical size is often correlated with their unpleasant beliefs. You may feel that one or both of those claims is factually untrue, but it is not the case that I object to minorities participating in principle.
I am well aware that it is discriminatory to set any threshold -- I'm open to one lower than 5%, I simply want to set a considered compromise.
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I haven't been tempted by school reunions -- I subscribe to the A group B group theory too. I have accepted Facebook "friends" though. If people want to find out what I'm up to, I don't mind.
I know of a couple of people from my year at secondary school who are very diligent about keeping tabs on everyone, but I really don't understand why.
The notion that your teen years are the best ones of your life and that you would want to sit around reminiscing about them is very odd to me. Even if they had been consistently super-awesome, I want my life to get better, and not be a downward slope from 18 until death.
(Is it a coincidence that Paul B and I and perhaps Public Servant all went to the same secondary school?)
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And it's not ARBITRARY, in the sense that it has a point.
Eg, the speed limit is an arbitrary number -- 104, or 95 kph would do about as well as the current value -- but the purpose is not arbitrary.
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Or to be slightly less flippant in answering that fallacious appeal to slippery slopes and how many hairs make a beard and shit: if you accept the idea of a threshold at all, then having chosen a number n there will be a number n-1 where the group comprising it is not appreciably different to a group of size n.
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If 120,000 people want a party represented in Parliament, they get it, but if 115,000 voters want a different party they're extremists?
Yes.
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This certificate confirms that
LUCY STEWART
has demonstrated competence in
Internet Telepathy Level One
by means of practical demonstration.Given this day
etc etc