Yeah yeah, it's always America's fault. Never any need for being responsible for one's own actions. Sure.
With a few rare medical exceptions, people who can take responsibility for their own actions generally don't get fat in the first place. If they do at all, it's only a little, then they say "oh guess I need to correct this" and it never becomes a real problem.
To me, the moral position here seems very simple. If someone is obese for a genuine medical reason they can't avoid then everyone should try to accommodate them in reasonable ways. If someone is obese for any other reason, perhaps they should try going to the park or the gym instead of going to court.
Carbohydrate-laden food is physically addictive, and depression is a common reason for chronic overeating which can lead to obesity. You're blaming victims. Congratulations! You have managed to pick on the only groups it's still permitted to pick on, the fat and the depressed! You win teh prize! Teh asshole prize.
It's a truly weak and spineless person who cannot take charge of their own life, including identifying and effectively working to change one's own weaknesses and shortcomings. Excuses and explanations for why something's not your fault (as though fault and blame had anything to do with what needs to be done) are so much less effort. This childish preoccupation with blame and how to escape it prevents people from realizing how much an individual can change.
This is one of those things the older generations generally understood that the younger ones generally do not. This represents a devolution of the society. And yes, I have personally made major changes in my life. I did this more than once precisely because I didn't give a shit about blame and fault. What I cared about is what actions I could take to manifest real change. I was proud to call something "my fault" because that meant I had the power to change it. What I can do, I can also learn not to do. I didn't have this infantile desire to escape blame and garner sympathy from others to make myself feel better. I felt better by fucking doing something about it.
It's called growing up and being a man or being a woman, taking responsibility like actual adult people do. Why, this might even include the foresight to take a hint and embrace a healthier lifestyle when you're only a little overweight, instead of waiting until you're morbidly obese to conclude that what you are doing isn't working. This kind of adulthood is an increasingly rare sight. This does not bode well. You now have an entire culture that rejects this idea rather than viewing it like a best friend and an ally. The culture can feel however they want; no one escapes the actual cause-and-effect. There is no way a morbidly obese person feels better day-to-day than a healthy person. All of the "fat acceptance" in the world won't change that reality. But you can work with reality instead of demanding that people make you feel good about denying it just for the sake of inoffensiveness and phony blamelessness.
There are plenty of ways to get research funding that don't involve a trillion dollar bureaucracy.
"Plenty," such as....
The OP was talking about specific areas of the ocean where plastic accumulates due to currents, not the entire ocean itself.
Further, you start with the big stuff and all those critters would fall through the mesh. You could still have a person or two check what comes up and toss the wiggling stuff back into the water, but the amount of life that would be impacted is essentially zero compared to the amount of life which is currently being affected by these islands of plastic or ingestion of all those micro beads from facial scrubs (I use a type which has natural* scrubbers mixed in for this very reason).
* This is probably the only time you will ever hear me say I deliberately use something which has "natural" ingredients.
In a true democracy this argument should not bear much weight, since MOST (over 50%) of all stock is owned by only 1% of citizens. Most of us have a tiny slice, and I (for example) would benefit much more from higher wages in the tech sector than from a little more growth in my 401K. But in general, we small-potatoes shareholders (that is, almost all shareholders) are too short-sighted to take a hit now for the long-term economy.
More ominously, real influence is proportional to the wealth of a group rather than how many people are in it. Even if you convinced the bottom 99% of voters, you would still only have a minority of shares.
The reason I dwell on this is because I think the same logic, exactly, explains why the bank bailout occurred and the implosion of Wall Street had no real corrective result on the US economy or the distribution of wealth.
Certainly it is on its deathbed at least.
Clearly people want to be monitored at all times, they just haven't been convinced properly yet.
No, but there will be political hell to pay if there is another 9/11.
Don't you mean the illegals are coming to Texas from Central and South America?
"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead stuff." -- Dave Enyeart
