OK I got an idea for a new thread about hypocrisy. News stories that indicate the "H" word. My thread-starting story is not too hardcore but makes the point. I hope others will contribute. Anti-underage drinking advocate charged with providing teen party spot before DWI crash | NJ.com
Reminds me of all the cops in our area who buy booze for their kids, and then the kids post pictures on facebook of them drinking with their parents. Classy. -Matt
OK, there's not many women on this board so I'm not sure how much support I'm going to get with this one. I love animals but PETA seems to think that it's OK to beat up women as long as you don't eat animals. C'mon guys, leave the lockerroom comments in your minds, do you really think it would be ok to hurt a girl as long as you don't eat a hamburger? PETA Says Abusing Animals is Wrong but Abusing Women is Humorous | Digg Topnews
On the one hand, if you're into irreverent dark humor, it is actually pretty funny. And the point of this is not that domestic violence is okay. But PETA really does seem hellbent on pushing campaigns that are bound to piss off a lot of people, and I often wonder whether they do more harm than good for the animal rights and/or vegan movements.
We've had threads about how cops should follow the law, so I'm not going to get into that again. But as an aside, the drinking age in the U.S. is so preposterous that this sort of thing is not surprising or IMHO particularly unreasonable.
Chairman of the local Child Welfare Committee jailed on child assault/pornography charges: BBC News - Darlington councillor Mark Burton jailed for sexual assault
For the record, I've never, ever purchased alcohol for any underage kids in my city....it would be foolish, since that's likely going to cause problems for us to deal with later. However, I do agree with you about the drinking age. When I was getting ready to get deployed to the Middle East for the Gulf War in 1990, my National Guard unit spent some time at Fort Devens, getting ready for deployment. The machine-gunner on my fire team was 19 at the time, and as such couldn't legally drink alcohol in Massachusetts. The commander of Fort Devens, even though he could have instituted a base policy of an 18 year-old drinking age (state law doesn't apply on military bases), he chose to go with 21 anyway. I freely admit that I and other members of my platoon bought him numerous beers while at Fort Devens. At that time, the predictions of US casualties started at 20,000 thanks to the threat of chemical warfare, so I don't think it was unreasonable for someone going to war for his country, who was trusted with an M-60 machine gun, to have a few beers before being deployed. My belief is that anyone with an active-duty armed forces ID card should be allowed to buy alcohol. If they screw-up and supply booze to their underage civilian friends while on leave, then drop the hammer on them with the "catch-all" clause of the UCMJ.
