WowbaggerTIP wrote:
Cystem_Phailure, they're called emoticons, and are meant to show that I am not being too serious. If you think that is condescending, you don't know much about web etiquette either. Doesn't your ignorance embarrass you? I could have just said, "Oi, moron, next time pay attention in English class", but I was trying to explain myself in a friendly way. That offends you? Strewth!
Who's not reading properly? I said you're irritating, not offensive. I stand by that. Oh, add *shrugs* to the list. But you're right, "condescending" may not be the best word for the manner and tone in which you choose to display your belief of your superior education and knowledge-- perhaps a more basic word like "snotty" fits the bill.
I still use the words "ha'p'orth" an' "tuppence" - even in these forums (should be 'fora' if u knows ur Latin) , but, fo'c'sle (abbreviation of forecastle) is a noun not a verb, goldendog, only way you could do that to a bosun would be to barricade him in it ! 
Eebster wrote-
Well, statistics are looking pretty positive for the US at least (as a whole). Crime rates are down. Teen pregnancy is down. Drug use is down. Smoking is down. Charity is up. Overall, it is hard to point to any real evidence of "moral decay."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't believe everything you read. Statistics can be manipulated to send whatever message we want to send. Do you really believe that the crime rate is down? Even if it is...what this is saying is that crime is increasing at a lower rate than the last measured period. So if the crime rate was 100% measured at the previous period...and now it is increasing by 80%...yes, the rate is down...but total crime has increased...our situation totally is worst off, not better.
The same thing for drug use...if this is down, then where did all the previous addicts disappear to? They were all rehabilitated? Come on.
Smoking is down? Yeah right...only when we fill out our insurance questionnaires. Again, this is a highly addictive drug...easy to start, very difficult to stop. Most people hide this information for insurance purposes, or even from their spouses. And what about all those 11 year olds+ in school...they have all not been included in these statistics.
In Canada, the official smoking number is 20%...again, trying to fool the poplulation. Do you really believe that only 2 out of every 10 people you meet smoke? Everyone here knows that this stat is laughable.
When I was doing my first year of statistics at university, my professor wrote on the board-
Fibs, white lies, lies, damn lies....and then statistics. He said this was the order of "untruths"...
Do you have any actual evidence of any of this? I don't understand this view of, "Well, all the numbers suggest otherwise, so those numbers must just be made up." Why can't you accept that the best evidence suggests you are wrong?
People in every generation perceive that the one below them is horrible. Everything is just perpetually falling downhill. And yet, if we look back hundreds of years, we find that things are certainly far better now than they were before. So how could it be that every generation is worse than the last, yet society seems to continue to make progress?
I don't disagree that underreporting of smoking occurs, but I doubt it occurs at a higher rate now than it did twenty years ago. At the same time, usage of cannabis has sharply increased. But I'm not sure that's really a problem.
"Where do the druggies go?" Dumb question. Rates vary from year to year because some new people pick up the drug while others who were on it quit or die. If the drug-using population remains stable, these rates are equal. It's basic population statistics. And finally, I wouldn't consider "has ever smoked" to be equivalent to "smokes."
And the phrase is "Lies, damn lies, and statistics," based on Mark Twain's quote, attributed to Benjamin Disraeli: "Lies come in three forms: Lies, damn lies, and statistics."