I got this from an email my father sent a little while back, figure I'd share it and give some folks a chuckle with a sad nod in agreement.
AN OBITUARY
PRINTED IN THE LONDON TIMES.
Interesting and sadly
true.
'Today we mourn the passing of a beloved
old friend, 'Common Sense', who has been with us for many years.
No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were
long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as
having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
Knowing when to
come in out of the rain; why the early bird gets the worm; Life
isn't always fair; and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense
lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than
you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are
in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when
well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place.
Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for
kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouth
wash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly
student, only worsened his condition.
Common Sense lost ground
when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they
themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly
children.
It declined even further when schools were required
to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Aspirin to
a student; but could not inform parents when a student became
pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.
Common Sense lost the
will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals
received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a
beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your
own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
Common
Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to
realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a
little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement
.
Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and
Trust. His wife, Discretion, his daughter, Responsibility, his
son, Reason.
He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My
Rights; I Want It Now; Someone Else Is To Blame; I'm A
Victim.
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized
he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join
the majority and do
nothing.
*Sighs* Unfortunately, the only way I can see out of it is to go and cull the herd. Suddenly pandemic plagues and natural disasters of biblical proportions don't seem like such a bad thing - they tend to weed out the slower thinkers.
G'ah! my reply just got swallowed! Doing a quick and shorter rewrite:
The McDonald's coffee case is a touch more complicated than usually presented. A few details from the StellaAwards.com page about the case (the lady who spilled the coffee was named Stella, and the Stella Awards (a sister publication of This Is True) through it looks like 2007 gave awards for frivolous lawsuits).
In Stella's favor: She was not the driver of the car (usually it's claimed she tried to open the cup and add creamer while driving), she wasn't "Oh owie, that's uncomfortable, I think I'll sue" burned; she was burned severely enough to require skin grafts and two years of treatments related to the burns, and her lawyers found records of over 700 previous cases of burns from McDonald's coffee some of which also resulted in court cases. McDonald's itself admitted in court that the temperature it served the coffee at was unfit for consumption, but that it had no intention of changing its policies on serving temperature (gee, think that might have influenced the jury's reaction any?), and they had declined an offer to settle the case solely for medical costs.
In McDonald's favor: 700 cases in 10 years if across all of the McDonald's at the time is roughly 1 burn per 24 million cups of coffee which doesn't exactly sound like a high risk, the jury did find Stella to be 20% at fault in the case, and interestingly enough that temperature capable of causing third degree burns in 2-7 seconds in right within the recommended serving temperature suggested by the National Coffee Association.
Hmm. Okay. Not shorter than the original email...
Source:
http://www.stellaawards.com/stella.html
-----
Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.
This really ought to be moved to politics. At least this rant doesn't talk about the great old times when we still put lead paint on cribs.
Y'know I think I've seen this attributed to Steven Fry. As for lead paint on cribs...well at the time it was the only paint available.
I'm referring to a similar list done by Ben Stein that went around about a year ago, which specifically mentioned lead paint on cribs.
What transparent bullshit flamebait!
Common sense is often wrong. Use science instead. It actually works.
----------------
Epsilon
Keep your flaming to a minimum eh, if you disagree with what is posted fine that's your prerogative but no need to foul up a thread with childish cussing.
Now if there is a better section for this thread to go (Like politics as someone mentioned) then by all means have it moved *shrug* I found the email amusing and agree with a couple of its points so I thought I'd share it. I apologize bout the large font, just copied and pasted it from my Email.
What utter tripe - a perspective that is no so much a case of viewing the past through rose colored glasses as a rose coloured arse, as that is where the author's head is; it is certainly not authored by Stephen Fry (and if you mentioned he authored it I think the fellow would be rather put out at the suggestion.)
I like the line about churches becoming businesses. Churches have always been businesses. From the moment some robe-wrapped arse-hat figured out it was a great way to control others and suck up their money and resources.
Here is the likely source and it is even more foetid than the watered down retread posted above.
http://loriborgman.com/Th...ath_of_Common_Sense.html
I'm watching this thread. If it gets more than a tad vitriolic, I'll put it in Politics. But despite the obvious wrong cites (I knew the details of the McDonald's coffee case long ago), I have to agree with many of the points. "Zero tolerance" policies and automatic procedures take all human judgment -- and responsibility -- out of incidents that just twenty years ago would have handled on a case-by-case basis and dealt with intelligently and with common sense.
When I was back in high school, I decided that D&D alignments didn't work well on people, but classified governments and societies very well; these are just examples of cultures that were once Neutral/Lawful Good slipping to Lawful Evil because it is easier and simpler and doesn't require individuals to think nearly as much.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Rod H Wrote:As for lead paint on cribs...well at the time it was the only paint available.
Er... the paint in those prehistoric cave paintings doesn't have any lead in it. Neither does the paint in King Tut's tomb. Lead-based paint is only a half-millennium old at most.
There's nothing wrong with
http://www.milkpaint.com/about_history.html]milk paint, except that it doesn't keep for more than a day and thus can't be manufactured in bulk.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
The problem with Lawful Evil is that it's not just easier... it's almost necessary these days. Applying 'common sense' might work 99/100... but that 1/100 time it doesn't, who's going to get the blame but the person who elected to use their own common sense. Most of these ignorant 'Lawful Evil' proceedures came about because someone managed to injure themselves, and organisations are protecting themselves from any form of liability in the event that an accident does actually happen. A court settlement can send a business to the wall, or put a bankrupt a person.... and nobody wants to risk that. It's a side-effect of a culture where everything happens to me must be someone elses fault... and they should pay. So people are now going out of their way to do everything to show before hand that they did everything they could to stop other people from having an accident... because if they don't, a judge might just side with the claimant.
(And in Western systems, there's a tendancy to award costs to the case winner also... which can end up being far more than the eventual settlement)
There's a reason a quote car insurance was several times the value of my car (And actually higher than the fine for not having it.)
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
... Huh. Didnt know the Emerald Isle was just as screwy as California in that regard. But no, it DOESNT surprise me. The annual payments on my own vehicle come out to about what the 'Published' Resale value on the vehicle is as well.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by
Echo's Children
Common Sense is a great and legendary identity thief, they never existed in the first place.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Don't get me started on lead-based paint. I envy the JMSDF because they are allowed to use it on their ships... and they hardly ever rust. And yes, I am well aware of the troubles to be had with using lead based paint in a maritime environment. But why on Earth would you want to eat something you caught in an industrial harbor?