h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One is sitting on my thesarus. One is laying on my bedstand. One is in holster on the floor just outside of this room. The one that I wear with civilain clothes is in the livingroom (I think).

If a people would stop responding to my messages just as I was about to get up, I'd go confirm it's location.

" If they did, then you could sue the police anytime you were the victim of a crime for negligence."

There's another difference. How many countries are as sue-happy as the US? I know a state in Australia decided to become sue-happy and were on the telly months ago not happy about it.

>I had a feeling two bit might show up after quoting from blatherskite's link.

After quoting from what?

I've been looking in on the conversation from time to time. I didn't see much to respond to for a couple of days, and I lost track of it.

>There's another difference. How many countries are as sue-happy as the US?

Can you really blame us being so violent. You'd be violent too if you had to put up with all of these lawyers.

Now I really have to go get some groceries and Christmas presents.

While some people use lawsuits as a get-rich scheme, the sad truth is that we don't have a more effective method of holding corporate or government entities accountable for their actions. I wish we did.

But then, I've always had the feeling that responsibility and accountability are things that are taken far more seriously on this side of the pond.

And even though the exemption from lawsuits from individuals is necessary to protect law enforcement from frivolous lawsuits and tying up their time, the sad truth is that there are some instances when the police are negligent in their duties, and people die as a result.

Which just illustrates the fact that your safety is your own responsibility.

Well lawsuits are used to control astray buisnesses but we americans have a uncanny ability to sue about everything, spilling coffee, habits we couldn't break (cigarettes), tripping on liquid we just threw at our ex-boy/girlfriend... its the need for americans not to be at blame.

This seems to be nothing more than a my side of the north-atlantic-wester-hemisphere is better than yours.

Neither side is looking that appealing right now.

I've been ill, so I am late responding to Ste's post 82.

Cars are absolutely NOT necessary.

The average Los Angeles resident owns two cars, the average value of each is US$ 3K. Multiply residents of LA County, by registration fees, the (subsidized) cost of gasoline and road repair, vehicle fees, taxes, the cost of hospitalizing people for breathing disorders due to the smog, and vehicle repair and add it all up, and we COULD have a bus on every corner every five minutes.

Furthermore, because these buses would be driven by professional drivers, the non-drunk accident rate would drop a great deal, too.

Re: Santragenius V's posts, starting at 76 et. al.

I am not a societal ill.

I choose to get my arse out of bed and work instead of mouldering and creaking in front of the telly on disability social security.

I am very glad to live in the neighborhood I live in, because it means I can be on my own.

Re: Blatherskite's post 89, partly off topic.

The folks who say Prohibition didn't work ignore the fact that the per capita of consumption of alcohol dropped and stayed dropped for 60 years. The rise of the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and the current draconian laws against DUI can be loosely matched to this rise in consumption. I think the reason they are able to succeed is that rather than being a general temperance organization, they are attacking a very specific action.

It is interesting that MADD is trying to get blood alcohol levels for driving dropped even lower than .08, in the face of (OK, much derided in this thread) statistics.

This isn't to say, that now that cigarette taxes are approaching liquor taxes in severity and the societal pressure against them are rising, that organized crime isn't involved in smuggling them....

Regulation of guns can work. Perhaps we need to try something different.

We could work on a simlar focus with guns. We can focus our efforts on people who carry or use guns when they commit crimes. Those are the people who really pose a threat to everyone elses helath and safety.

Oh, wait, the NRA already supports that, and it's working very well in several cities.

Gun crimes are dropping significantly in some areas where criminals who have firearms while they commit crimes are turned over to federal authorities for prosecution. They then go to federal prison for at least five years where there is no parole and people are taken farther away from home.

I'm surprised noone has sued the US government for breach of human rights....isn't there a right to live free from fear (the un recognises it anyhow), if you feel you need a gun to be free from fear then thats surely not ideal.

But thats no the American way. Now more than ever I say that Orwell's concept in 1984 is real. currently Bush and his goons control the executive part of the nation, and the mob. Mob is defined as: the masses the blue coller working stock of the US. And as ancient history taught us with Rome "The mob is Rome, he who controls the mob: controls Rome." Same principle applied here. There isn't enough of a mojority that sees through Bushes Bulls**t. Without that majority any case brought agianst the US will end up in bloodshed after being laughred out of court.

Dorian

"Mob is defined as: the masses the blue coller working stock of the US"

Things have changed a lot since Roman times. You'd be surprised by how smart some of the plebecite are and how downright stupid some of the Middle Class are. Dismissing the Working Class as a "mob" for not agreeing with you is usually a tactic of minority political opinions trying to justify the fact that people simply don't agree with them.

"I'm surprised noone has sued the US government for breach of human rights....isn't there a right to live free from fear (the un recognises it anyhow), if you feel you need a gun to be free from fear then thats surely not ideal."

The United States is not a signatory to the UN human rights document, primarily, if I recall correctly, because doing so would cause a conflict with the 2nd Amendment. So in the US, we're still using our constitutional amendments as the legal source of human rights. We have no such amendment discussing "freedom from fear."

Besides, how does the government protect people from their fears when they're scared of spiders? Heights? Crowds?

As for "ideal," well, very few solutions are.