Critical thinking, the scientific method, problem solving skills, the confidence to question things, and an awe and curiosity about the world...

These are the things I would want to leave my child with. Along with love, of course, but from your post it is very clear you already have that covered.

Unfortunately for me, I come from a long line of people who like to drop dead from Cardiovascular Disease. So, I've taken a particular interest in the science behind prevention involving drugs, diet, and lifestyle.

When it comes to diet, to the best of my knowledge, there are only two long term scientific studies that have shown that diet can slow and even halt the progress of CVD. Those are research studies by Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn. The study by the latter actually showed that you could not only halt the progress of cardiovascular disease but also reverse it! Those are pretty incredible findings, as that is something that was not thought possible before.

Both of those studies involved strict plant based diets that avoid all animal proteins/fats and cholesterol. They also avoid a lot of other things, like sugars and refined carbs and processed foods, etc. So I suppose these incredible results could be from the omission of any of those things, or some combination of them, or all of them. But until they tease out of these studies exactly what was producing the results, in my opinion it is best to just follow them as is. Assuming, of course, you are worried about heart disease.

This claim: "So far studies of foragers like the Tsimane, Arctic Inuit, and Hadza have found that these peoples traditionally didn't develop high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, or cardiovascular disease."

Is based on studies that have been called into question recently. One researcher went so far as to call them "deeply flawed" and wondered if anyone had actually read the original studies.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

"The 2014 study has found that Inuit do have similar rates of heart disease compared to non-Inuit populations, and that death rates due to stroke are "very high." "Most of the researchers never read [the original 1970s] papers. They just took it at face value that what they said is so,"

Who decides when these "very specific circumstances" of yours have been met? Who gets to decide that? The south sure thought ending slavery was a circumstance worthy of a violent conflict. Do you agree with their decision?

I am guessing no, of course you don't.

In a civilized, mature, democracy... you fight your battles with debate and ideas and elections. Not intimidation, not violence.

What you are suggesting should be an option here is very similar to the situation we see happening in a country like Afghanistan. The majority of citizens in that country elected a government. But a group over there, you may have heard of them, they call themselves the Taliban, is in the political minority and has been unable to win influence through debate or elections. So in turn the Taliban believes it should use violence to overthrow that democratically elected government. Congratulations on sharing this vile, brutish opinion with the likes of them.

Of course the majority can be wrong. Here in America the majority has often been wrong. For example, the majority was wrong for a very long time about slavery. Eventually, via the democratic process of debate and ideas and elections, that majority opinion changed and we moved to get rid of it.

Then, the people who still supported slavery, and who suddenly found themselves in the minority, took up arms against that new majority... they called them tyrants and said they were infringing on their basic rights and used all the same hysterical language you read throughout these comments here... and it led to the worst bloodshed in our history.

See, that first sentence is an example of the way democracy is supposed to work. Ideas, debate, elections. That second sentence is an example of what people who spout this "take up arms" nonsense are supporting.

If you believe in violence as a means to a political end, instead of elections, then you clearly do not support democracy.

I am under no such delusion. In fact, where I live I am almost always in the political minority. However, that is what democracy is. Everyone votes. The majority rules.

If you don't like that system and think that you should be armed in order to protect yourself from it, then what you are saying is that you do not like the democratic system that our founders created and that is outlined in our Constitution.

In a democracy, violence and intimidation are not acceptable. If you lose an election, then your ideas were rejected by the people. You either need to work on convincing others that your ideas are right, or you need new ideas.

The Constitution... that you swore an oath to uphold... has, built into it, a process for changing what is written within it. If you were to actually try to stop that process, you would indeed be violating your oath.

We are a stable, mature, modern democratic state. We have an operable court system and the rule of law. All of this - ALL of it - comes from us.

We elect people. They represent us. If we don't like the way they are representing us, we elect someone else.

That is how government works in a democracy.

So when you suggest that we need to be armed in order to protect ourselves against our government, what you are doing is suggesting possible violence against the people that WE elected. This line of thinking can be called a lot of things. But for sure, it is Anti-Democracy.

If you are in the minority and you are losing elections and you do not like the way those elected officials are governing... if you think arming yourself is the answer... then you clearly do not understand or support democracy.

Overthrowing, fighting against, or threatening a democratically elected government is not patriotic. It is not constitutional. And sure as heck is not what the founders envisioned.

They were worried about monarchies and kings. Not properly elected officials you happen to disagree with.

What may not be obvious, and I do not point this out in my article, is that this design is not under serious consideration at the moment. To the best of my knowledge, no one from the state or the Old Man of the Mountain Legacy Fund has talked seriously with the Architect about his design... despite it winning 2 awards (one from a New Jersey architectural association, and one in New Hampshire) for best "unbuilt project". This lack of consideration, in and of itself, is a bit of an interesting story that I would love to explore if I had more time. Apparently a state senator also proposed a statue-esque replica (in copper, I believe) soon after the collapse and was similarly Tar and Feathered for his idea.

Further adding to the story is the fact that, again to my knowledge, there has been no economic study done to determine the impact (if any) the demise of this attraction and state symbol has had.

Anyway, the design that IS being considered, and I think may already have some funding, is a monument at the base of the mountain that involves several monoliths that when viewed at the right angle approximate the original Old Man. You can get more info at their site here: Old Man of the Mountain Legacy Fund

I'm honestly not sure how I personally feel about any of these ideas. I do sympathize with the local businesses who claim they are hurting in the wake of its collapse. Doing something to bring visitor dollars back isn't such a bad thing is it? And the geek in me can't help but get excited when I see plans for a project like the glass sculpture - I see that as much more Statue of Liberty-ish and Mt. Rushmore-ish in scope than that of just a statue or replica. It is cool, if you ask me. And I also do not buy into the "this was natural and so you can't replace it with something man made" argument all that much. As some have pointed out, the 'natural' Old Man was being held together by cables and epoxy for some time now.

But still, the outdoorsman and naturalist in me has hard time budging from my original conclusion about this area... It might just be time to move on. Fascinating issue regardless.

The way I handled this when I arrived as the first "IT Guy" at my company was to fight for and then implement a "From this point forward" policy. I explained to the executives what was going on, why it was bad, and why I thought going forward it needed to change.

That meant that I ignored what was already there. I know some might not feel comfortable doing this, but in my opinion the wrong had already been committed and I wasn't accomplishing a whole heck of a lot by shutting down operations to pull all of the software.

The other part of my plan was to fight for and justify an accelerated upgrade schedule. I argued for this based on the value of the new software, but in the back my head I knew the other benefit was that it would get rid of the illegal software faster.

This ended up being a win-win-win situation. I won because I didn't personally install illegal software. The company won because they didn't have to shut themselves down while it was sorted out. And the software vendors ended up winning in the end too because since then we have budgeted and purchased, and re-purchased, their products as new versions become available... something I can all but guarantee you we wouldn't have been in a position to do had I shut them down and forced them to go legal all in one blow. The company would have either folded, or fired me. And in both of those cases it would have meant no transition to legal software.

Now, that said. I was in a bit of a unique situation in that the company I worked for was a non-profit. And thus subject to non-profit discounts that they were unaware of. So the sticker shock when it came time to license new version of products was less than if we were a for profit. But all in all, I still look back at that experience as one of the most reasonable ways to take an organization from non-compliant to compliant.