"I'd be very, very, surprised to see a belief bred out of a population in a species with such (admittedly flawed at times) high levels of general-purpose cognition"

Why? It's a parents job to teach their children their beliefs and values. Even if they don't ACTIVELY try, kids will absorb much of it anyway. If you remove someone from the pool of "parents", those folks wouldn't be able to pass on those beliefs and values as readily.

Is it a "given"? No. But it certainly would lead to a decline and contribute to it being "bred out".

Friend, I had more police bodies on my property than any two "family gathering' bodies combined. And we have a big family. "What ever you need to do, do it. What ever you need to take, take it."

One thing you never think about -- finger print dust is a PITA to remove. We just painted our house a few weeks prior and that stuff just embedded itself in the paint. The windows of my 30 year old truck still have the "dust" sheen on them (old glass was pitted, I guess).

They parked two mobile crime labs on our block -- one IT specific, the other finger prints and other physical evidence related. When the police returned us home after being interviewed at the local station, the shear MAGNITUDE of what resources were being expended was humbling. Think that would have happened if we acted like "privacy nazis"? Feh.

"Don't talk to the police. Ever" is just crappy advice. Police come knocking on your door and say "a little girl is missing from next door -- did you see or hear anything" and if you have information you withhold, how can you NOT be seen as being in part responsible for what happened/happens to the little girl?

In the grand scheme of things, my wife and I would much rather have faced and continue to face the challenges such an event has wrought rather than the alternative. How many parents never find out what happened to their child? How many find out from a forensics report? We consider ourselves the luckiest parents on the face of the earth. We got to plan and enjoy our daughter's birthday rather than her memorial and burial.

What happened is bad -- it's part of the story of her life now. It's our job as parents to make sure it's just a footnote and not the plot. And our daughter has proven to be incredibly strong and resilient. How can we feel "poor me" or "poor us" when our daughter can smile and have fun after such a horrific ordeal? She gives *US* strength.

"A bit of helpful advice: If your daughter is kidnapped, call your lawyer BEFORE you call the police."

You must not be a parent and are probably incredibly young. The only response I have to offer this is: "What kind of fucking parent would do that?"

3am, your wife is in a panic, you daughter isn't in her bed and the side gate (which she can't possibly open) is open.

"Calm down, honey -- let me call Duey, Chetum and Howe".

Fuck you. I got "really really lucky" because the PD/FBI figured out REAL fast that we had nothing to do with this and had no reason to suspect us and tossed enormous resources to find our daughter.

"Never talk to the police, ever! Lawyer or no lawyer."

I hear this often and take issue with it. Last year, my daughter was kidnapped from our home in the middle of the night. My wife, son and I talked to high-heaven answering every question, letting them look at every thing they wanted. FBI, too.

My goal was to let them rule us out as fast as humanly possible (which they did).

I understand your sentiment, but those words "never" and "ever" that makes it just wrong.

(Daughter was recovered. Monster is about to go on trial)

Cute.

I live on this planet:

http://losangeles.urbdezine.co...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.co...

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/n...

http://articles.latimes.com/20...

http://articles.latimes.com/20...

This is my planet. Glad you can make a cute statement and run away without any effort to back it up.

If TWC doesn't perform to my satisfaction, I go to ATT. If ATT botches it, I can jump to a number of cellular or satellite solutions. And if it's REALLY bad, I can make sure next time I move I'm in a better area with better coverage.

If you want YOUR local government to take over more stuff, bully for you. Don't even THINK about making it manditory. This is an effing HUGE country with countless different needs and functions. My town has "again and again to cost-cutting in the interest of short-term profits, the neglect of upkeep, and the failure to maintain sufficient overcapacity in order to deal with surges and failures" while private services and businesses who wish to survive need to keep up with client needs -- or at least be better then their competition.

The cause doesn't matter. Because it cannot be fixed. If it could, it would have been already.

The rule of thumb is to keep as much out of government control as possible. It should fix roads, put out fires and protect people from crime. Anything beyond that and you get exactly this result.

The government is a huge arse hammer. The majority of problems we have historically ask them to solve are *NOT* nails.

If you want different results, don't ask the government to solve problems.

I disagree with the semantics. It doesn't MATTER the cause. I'm arguing the RESULT. The RESULT is that local government botches infrastructure.

"Regardless, I think you would find it much easier to complain to a local city alderman and getting them to take your phone call rather than trying to get some member of congress to help you out because the assets are owned by the federal government."

I currently find it easier to call up TWC and complain. And if they don't respond, I call up ATT and order DSL again. And if they dont respond, I move over a cellular solution for a while. All are less than $50/mo. Even the various cellular options out there are decent in my area. I live in an area where I have a few options.

It took me 5 weeks, numerous requests via the city's web interface and numerous phone calls before I FINALLY got my missing greens trashcan replaced. A process they CLAIM takes 2-5 days. My tax dollars at work. I logged the time I spent doing this. Took over 7 hours of my time. I've never been on the phone with twc more than 20 mins to get something resolved or scheduled. Or ATT (before I jumped ship to cable). Or any other service I subscribe.

Of course they do. The solution isn't to have the government take control.

Back in the day, ISPs would have usenet servers within their network and would update THAT rather than have users pull that kind of data across the peering connection. Let netflix or whoever is offering huge bandwidth service put hardware and pay for it within an ISPs network so high volume streams ("Walking Dead" for example) don't cross the peer.

"And please don't try to argue "government management BAD" in a municipal utility"

And why would you want to remove a valid argument from the discussion? Unless you have nothing to defend it.

"as a hole they are far better than their private counterparts".

I disagree.

DWP in LA is an example. Every year they kick back a ton of surplus cash to the city of LA that goes straight to the general fund. They keep demanding rate hikes due to increase costs. Yet they have money to kick back to the city?

http://www.citywatchla.com/arc...

"And there are pretty easy solutions to that sort of thing too. "

Come to California and implement these "easy solutions".

If there is an enormous amount of evidence of the public sector universally botching infrastructure, you are basically just wrong when you say they are "far far far" more accountable. It's simply not true.

Elected officials just need to finish their term and move on before a 'disaster' hits. Tony V, our ex mayor was in the hot-seat when a few "chickens" came home to roost on his watch. He lost his shot at moving on to Governor.

No I mean like the 90 years it'll currently take to repair the sidewalks of Los Angeles. Or the potholes in the roads and highways causing residents to sue city and state to repair car damages. Or the bursting of 100 year old water pipes that haven't been maintained.

Yes ... "far far far" more accountability at the local government level.

"This AC was modded as troll, but I think ve is just assuming that politicians would try to take advantage of the infrastructure... in my opinion improbable, as it would be a much more explicit level of corruption than the regulatory capture we have nowadays."

I'm less worried about direct corruption and much more worried about neglect. Privately owned, there is an incentive to fix damage and maintain infrastructure. Publicly owned, the money that would otherwise be used here would be redirected to someone's pet project.

Maybe they could all play "the hamster dance" song as they go down the street? Or maybe loop something from "what the fox says".

"Da ding ding dinga ding" -- "oh, here comes another Tesla!"

Or fraudulently claim certain documents had been authenticated.