I'd love to hold society to the standard that no child should have to risk death due to parental stupidity. That's just not California. If you really want to uphold this ideal, you'll have to crusade for myriad causes, including gun control, obesity-fighting measures, tighter distribution of driver's licenses, promotion of breastfeeding, etc, etc. On the list of annual deaths in California caused by parental stupidity, lack of vaccination is near the bottom of the list.

All of this is true. However, lack of vaccination will rapidly climb the lists if America's current anti-science, anti-education and anti-logic trends are allowed to continue.

Son, it sounds to me like you're ready to play Saint's Row.

I don't think there's a downside to a minimum wage, or at least, not a compelling one.

As to specific implementation details. I really don't know. Not my field. My lay opinion would be that, well, it needs to be tied to the local cost of living and what not, but it would be a bitch to administrate. But no, having the minimum wage in Buttfuck Arkansas and Los Angeles be the same is probably sub-optimal.

I intended more to point out that while a small increase is basically a cost-of-living raise, a large increase will, indeed, likely do more harm than good.

I don't think there's any downside. But there are all sorts of upsides to working towards eliminating preventable, fatal diseases.

No child should have to risk death because their parents are stupid.

Since apparently there is no downside to drinking water, some, why not drink a bunch?

If some is good, more is better, and much more is much more better, right?

Why not a minimum water intake of 5 gallons/hour?

I'd support a bill like this if it also included provisions for criminal charges against parents who 'opt out' and their child winds up having long-term effects, or dying, of preventable diseases.

Say, do you also believe that, say, seatbelts are a matter of personal choice?

So, my ideological transition went from Reagan Republican to Goldwater libertarian to Rothbardian Anarchist.

Personally, I am socially boring, somewhat socially conservative, and evangelically religious. I don't (politically) care what other people do to themselves; as long as they and their government don't do it to me or my family.

I've really given up on government as an entity that can create moral good in the world; it seems that historical attempts to have government play that role have turned out poorly, both for the people involved and the morality being coerced.

I've tried to explain where my head is at so you can try and tailor the message in a way I might understand.

Can you help me understand what the "war on women" rhetoric is about?

Assume that I'm an intelligent person, with degrees in Math and CS, and extensively educated in history, medicine, politics, and economics.

Yet, despite this, I cannot for the life of me understand how people with different ideas came to those ideas via any plausible mental process. It seems to me that there are fallacies all around - why aren't they seeing them?

I want to assume that they are acting with good intentions, but I am unable to debug or understand them and their decision making process.

So, this is a legitimate request for help, and not a thinly veiled attempt to demean or attack someone.

Will you explain what the "war on women" is in a way that will cause me to want to listen? Explain what things are included in this war, and what things aren't.

I mean, my inclination is to throw a flag on the play before it even begins; a political "war on women" appears to suppose that all women should think and want the same things politically, which is self-evidently insulting to women and denies their essential individuality.

For instance, the only people I know personally who are tireless anti-abortion activists (and I know several) are all women. Are they part of the war on women?

I'll stop, and hope you craft a well-intentioned response.

Thanks.

The one thing I want to point out is that you should recognize the name "Cass Sunstein"; he's not some random academic, he was part of the Obama administration, and has a bunch of ideas that you will find either kooky or great, depending on how you align politically:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

He's also good about co-opting terms he disagrees with as a way to try and attack intellectual opposition. He calls a bunch of things libertarian that are flagrantly NOT libertarian, for instance.

I think the idea is that it would eventually render bad cops uninsurable, and thus, unemployable.

Really, though, these are all suggestions to get around the central issue; cops look out for their own, even in the face of blatantly criminal behavior. It's a cultural issue, more than anything.

Not being a Christian isn't a provable health hazard. Not being vaccinated is.

Put this another way:
If measles goes through a small town public school with a thousand kids, three of those kids will die. Several will have life-long aftereffects.

If you vaccinate every human being in a large city, *1* will have *some sort* of adverse effect.

If 'reducing possible harm to children' is actually your end goal, there's no way in hell you'd argue against vaccines.

The problem, really, is that there are entire generations who've never seen a playmate die of measles, or have the polio leg braces, or the like.

Sorry, but that's all on the level of pointing out that dihydrogen monoxide is a universal solvent, causes horrible burns in it's gaseous state, induces tissue necrosis in it's solid state, will suffocate you in it's liquid state, and that excessive doses will cause seizures, among other problems.

Totally agree. We put feeders on the hives in late winter / early spring for the same reasons. It's especially important here since blooming can be so variable.

my point was - bees don't freeze in winter, they starve.

Yes, this. It seems like the logic here is 'to get a gov't job, you must pass a polygraph test. This man taught people how to skew the results of that test.'

Note that the requirement to get the gov't job isn't 'be truthful and accurate when answering questions about things like criminal history,' but 'pass the polygraph.' Validity of the polygraph doesn't enter into it.

Someone else covered this but is buried.

Bee colonies do not freeze in the winter. They starve.

We've been keeping bees in North Dakota, which is colder than wherever you are, for 7 years. All 3 of our colonies survived last winter. One is strong enough that we've split it this spring to try and prevent a swarm.

The way that bees operate in winter is amazing. The bees form a sphere, with the queen near its center. They vibrate their wings and bodies to create heat. The bees on the outside of the sphere obviously lose heat the fastest. The bees on the inside stay the warmest. The sphere of vibrating bees constantly turns itself inside out, over and over, so that the cooler outer edge bees return to the warm core and replenish their warmth, while the warm bees from the core circulate out towards the edges after they've recuperated.

This consumes lots of energy (and food).

As the cluster of bees does this, it moves upwards in the hive, consuming stored honey.

When they get to the top of the hive, they stop migrating. If they run out of honey, they die.

We use 2 deep supers and 1 medium honey super to over-winter our bees.