That double standard will continue to exist so long as (too many) women continue to use sex appeal as a weapon of manipulation and a means of getting what they want.

If the significance of a woman's body and a woman's sexuality were to decline and become equal with mens', both effects would happen. It would be less useful as a tool of manipulation by unscrupulous women (the ones a wise man avoids) AND people would stop making a big deal out of every time a woman's body is exposed.

It's a win for people who view strife and chaos as a means to achieve power. Historically, a peaceful prosperous nation with no crises and no serious threats has never been a means of expanding political power. "All lose" in the general sense, because the few who do gain are so tiny in number that they are less than a rounding error compared to those who lose, so I don't think your statement is generally false.

You probably noticed my post contained no such recommendation. Personally, I really don't want to rely on the government to protect me from things that I can protect myself from merely by using good judgment and not taking stupid and unnecessary risks. If I do take a stupid and unnecessary risk and it results in regret and humiliation, I don't view that as a law enforcement problem.

Then there's the whole topic of how one actually gets to be a major political candidate and why no one who wants to strongly reduce the size and power of government is likely to ever get the financial backing it takes to win an election.

Actually I'm more of a small-'l' libertarian. Force, threat of force, and fraud are the major things a government should protect you from.

What the law should say and what constitutes a good, rational decision are two separate issues.

It's not slander if it's factually correct.

Because telling other people how they must live is an irresistable urge among the small-minded. All of the reasons boil down to that. Drugs are hardly unique in this sense.

If the intention were to reduce harm as much as possible, prohibition is one of the least effective methods and all of the research shows this. But these are not people who are interested in facts, in measuring the effectiveness of their own solutions and no longer using methods that don't work. That would lead to conclusions that would interfere with pontificating to others about how they should live.

"Live and let live" and the notion of "consenting adults" do not occur to the small-minded.

I'm not an atheist and I sincerely believe that one of the most immoral things we tolerate today is the effort to tell other people how they should live. That desire is the primary motive behind the War on (some) Drugs. What other people read, watch, think, believe, ingest, and generally anything (anything) consenting adults wish to do is absolutely none of my fucking business. Government has no case for its involvement unless a third party is victimized in some way.

I believe your problem is with organized religion, not with the concept of God itself and certainly not with any kind of genuine spirituality as practiced by thinking individuals. Incidentally I also can't stand the people who must win a convert and cannot respect that you believe what you believe (or not) for your own reasons. It's again a desire to control and make others like oneself and it's just plain evil trying to masquerade as good.

It would be like Grey Goo, only produced without nanotechnology.

Yes! Thank you. It's a nuisance when you can so clearly see something in your mind's eye and know it should be easy to find, but not be able to find it because of not remembering its name. Good work.

It's just yet another proof (as though more were needed) that security isn't something you can bolt-on after the fact. It would probably have required of them less effort to have done a rewrite from scratch, designed from the beginning with security in mind, than to have issued so very many patches and updates throughout the years.

Do they never consider that? Or I suppose it doesn't matter until something really embarassing like this happens?

We live in a society that, as Bill Hicks noted, is at about an eighth-grade emotional level collectively (he was being generous). Few people acknowledge the logical consequence, and seem to believe it magically goes away if they really, badly, truly wish hard enough or get upset enough.

I suspect the government understands the situation, however. Malicious attackers and other criminals exploiting mandatory backdoors only provides an excuse for more laws regulating the Internet and expanding executive powers. To protect you from those evil hackers, of course. If nothing else, the NSA gets their little back-door so they can more easily betray their own countrymen in the name of safety; if that goes wrong in the worst possible way, then: bonus! For the evil men who love power and know no loyalty, it's a win-win. Sadly.

Do you mean that literally, or do you merely observe that few social conventions actually make any sense? Some of them even seem deliberately designed to inhibit personal growth.

Because in a way, that's a great big joke all by itself. It's just not nearly so funny as it could be.

The way that you say this reminds me of a photograph I saw in a history textbook back in high school. I have searched and (not remembering its name) cannot locate the image or else I'd provide a link, but I believe it comes from the time of the Industrial Revolution.

It's an old black-and-white photograph. It shows a man using a large wrench or spanner on a machine. The man's back is bent into an arc and his body contorted so that he may use the wrench on something not designed with ergonomics in mind. The purpose of the photograph is to show a man bending and yielding to a machine that was nominally supposed to serve men. It's similar to the notion that what you own also owns you.

I realize you were possibly being facetious, yet nonetheless you reminded me of something I haven't seen or heard about in years. I'd be interested if anyone here knows the photo to which I refer.