OT:US don't qualify for EU membership, don't spank children, WW2 history.

[Will]

Originally posted by Ruatha:
I was just wondering, how big is the current defecit in the US budget right now.
I now that it's big but so is the entire US budget, so in percantage it mightn't be that big.
3% is allowed in the EMU.

Well, IIRC...
... about 20% of the budget each year goes to paying interest on the national debt.
... annual US Federal budget is about 2.25 trillion dollars.
... current estimated US Federal budget deficit is about 450 billion dollars.

And that puts the deficit as about 20% of the budget. Which is quite a bit more than 3%...

And I don't like that at all... I think the current government of the US is completely incompetent. I would rather have seen no tax cuts, no expansions to medicare, etc., and devote the next several years to making the debt not so big. I don't want to be paying outrageous taxes a few decades from now because some selfish boomers want the Government to pay all their bills for them. I'm not happy about going into the workforce and paying a bunch of money to social security when I know it won't be there when I hit 70. And I don't like all the privitization crap they've thrown around with SS either. If I want to make myself a retirement account, I can make my own damned account, I don't need a bunch of pencil-pushing buerecrats making one for me. And if the "dot com" bust taught us anything, it's the fact that the average person has no ****ing clue on how to invest money wisely, so institutionalizing it in government is definitely a Bad Thing. Of course, eventually all of this will be passed in some sort of legislation, because the baby boomers want it, and they vote.

I guess that was a bit of a rant... I guess I don't like the feeling of virtual indentured servitude at the hands of the US Government if I choose to stay here.

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by DeadZone:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ruatha:

quote:

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Originally posted by DeadZone:
Well, I can say this, most Brits hate the fact that we are apart of the EU because of how they have decided to screw up our justice system, need I say more?

What do you mean ? (Will read the answer tomorrow)
Our justice system hasn't changed very much since joining EU (I voted against joining though)

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Cmon look at how weak our justice system has become, its laughable, the police are scared of criminals nowadays cos of how light sentencing is and the fact that police cant do anything to criminals incase it 'breaks' their human rights, and EU's human rights is stupid as it tends to protect the criminal instead of the victim.

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EU has not much to do with your justice system becoming weak, EU has nothing to do with criminal law yet, what do you mean that EU has made to it?

I missed a zero in the driving license, it should be $1000-2000, sorry.

About spanking, doing it when your angry is wrong but I can understand why you do it, (I've felt the urge myself from time to time, but never done it), I don't condone it, but understand it.
Doing it when you are calm is worse, then it is planned and executed in cold blod.
Simple learning theory tells you that any punishment (If you must use punishment, sometimes some kind of punishnment is needed (time-out, removing of positive enhancements etc), not often but sometimes), the punishment must come immediatly to the punished act/behaviour. If you must calm down, it won't be immediatly.

If not immidiatly the punishment isn't connected to the act/behaviour but with the punisher, and the next time they do it they make sure they don't get caught. Spanking doesn't show them how they should have handled this situation.
It's a simple stimuli/response thing, you must directly connect act/punishment.

If you discover that they have stolen it's to late to make a direct connection, so how would I handle that?
I'd make the child go back to his friend, return the cards, ask for forgivness, and make them ask their friend how they could make things right again (Buy their friends extra cards from their allowence?).
Try to premiate good behaviour, if they themself tell about bad things they've done, while being angry about what they've done praise them for coming forward aswell.
Encourage all good behaviour, use positive reinforcement, if they give pokemon cards away to their friends of free will, buy them extra cards or praise them for it, vocal praise is a strong positive reinforcer!
And they'll like you better and will be more prone to tell you when they've done something wrong.
If you spank them they sure won't tell you of their misbehavings of free will, and when they get older and starts with alcohol and such you won't know about it.
If they have been given positive reinforcements instead as primary raising method they will come and tell you about it, and then you can discuss the pros and cons of what they've done (There are pros to stealing and drinking, be honest, but also point to the cons wich are larger!)

About the cards, include a discussion about why they stole, was there some special cards they wanted, could they have gotten them some other way? trade? saving? Show altarnate ways to achieve the goal she had when she/he stole.

Read "Don't shoot the dog" by Karen Pryor, an animnal trainer, but animal training techniques work equally good at humans (kids, matess, friends, working collegues, all can be trained )

[ July 26, 2003, 09:18: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Unknown_Enemy]

edited and deleted due to misanderstanding.

[ July 26, 2003, 20:11: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]

[tesco samoa]

Unknown_Enemy I believe Oleg was talking about the number of missles vs SDI. Well that is what I read from it. So with not enough missles their program becomes obsolete vs SDI.

[Thermodyne]

Originally posted by tesco samoa:
Unknown_Enemy I believe Oleg was talking about the number of missles vs SDI. Well that is what I read from it. So with not enough missles their program becomes obsolete vs SDI.

600km's is the range being talked about. With HAVLY warheads that are all the rage these days.

Is it just me, or do some of you worry that very low yield devices will make it more likly that someone will use one?

[General Woundwort]

Amazing how far a thread can go in 24 hours...

Tell me, Ruatha, have you ever read Heinlein's Starship Troopers? What do you think of the way he portrays the use of pain as a moral deterent (in both children and adults) in that novel? I will qualify my statement by saying that I don't agree with the evolutionary basis he uses for that theory, but there seems to be a recognition of the non-rationality in people that sometimes can only be restrained by non-rational means.

[tesco samoa]

an interesting book starship troopers.

that government was scary. A combination of Hitlerism and Stalinism with a little bit of Sparta.