Remember that 13 year old father

[Losonti Tokash]

All right, fair enough. I just got confused as hell since it seemed you came in swinging at everybody.

[ArmorPierce]

Don't take it personally. I'm just complaining about a lot of self-righteousness and male chest-beating and dickwaving on this forum, when so few actually have their chips on the table and many are in no position to judge. It reminds me of when people give Shep shit for his legal history, which even I - sad to say - have been guilty of. But honestly, people should shut up, because most people on here have the shield of anonymity, and no one knows what the worst thing most of us have done.

You seem to be against attacking anyone for anything in that case. Going by that logic you cannot mock people that did stupid things because we don't know what is the stupidest thing that you've ever done. I would understand your argument if this was actually an average looking girl and wasn't a 15 year old slut that have 6 guys claiming that they can be the father. This is not the same situation as people claiming that they wouldn't touch Britney Spears or Paris Hilton because she don't meet their standards looks wise. I am annoyed by the internet tough guy thing as well when it comes to certain ridiculous situations but this is not one of them. I think completely defending against any criticism is the other extreme which I find annoying too.

Anyway I put my picture up as my avatar to divest myself a little bit of my anonymity.

[erik_t]

Don't take it personally. I'm just complaining about a lot of self-righteousness and male chest-beating and dickwaving on this forum, when so few actually have their chips on the table and many are in no position to judge. It reminds me of when people give Shep shit for his legal history, which even I - sad to say - have been guilty of. But honestly, people should shut up, because most people on here have the shield of anonymity, and no one knows what the worst thing most of us have done.

You seem to be against attacking anyone for anything in that case. Going by that logic you cannot mock people that did stupid things because we don't know what is the stupidest thing that you've ever done. (etc)

The following are very different.


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"Ben Bernanke has done some stupid shit as head of the Federal Reserve. Interest rates have been artificially low for a number of years, and this has magnified the housing bubble; if rates had been artificially high instead, it might have slowed down the silliness."


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"LOL look at fucking baldy. You look ugly baldy! Go fucking polish your dome you piece of fucking trash. I see a ring, but you must not be getting any; look at how stupid you look!"



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The first is a substantial, if confrontational, comment. The second is just noise. What's the value of such a "contribution"? At risk of sounding like a businessman, what's the value added?

There's a difference between attacking with substance and third-person bullying.

[Erik von Nein]

This whole story is just so utterly pointless I don't know what you can actually add to it, aside from criticizing these people for being horribly negligent or outright abusive. But who really cares? Wee, a dumb teenager got pregnant, her mom wanted publicity, and now what was obviously untrue is now confirmed as being untrue! I can see how totally newsworthy this story is.

I'm not even sure why this is N&P, anyway. Don't these inane stories go in Off Topic? I mean, I'm not trying to backseat mod, honestly, but it's just boggling.

[mr friendly guy]

Considering that Britain supposedly has one of the worse teen pregnancies rates, and the fact even British politicians were up in arms at this alleged story, I thought it was newsworthy to report that it turned out to be a hoax. However if a Mod disagrees then its their perogative.

[Erik von Nein]

It's hard for me to care about politicians get up in arms about some story like this. If there's enough public outcry about something they'll march in line behind it usually.

Britain's teen pregnancy rate is something I haven't heard too much about. Apparently they do have the highest rate in Europe, with about 41.9 concepts per 1000 15-17 year olds (figure from here ). That's severe. Any reasons for it, other than poverty and children-of-teen-mothers continuing the family tradition?

[Vendetta]

Any reasons for it, other than poverty and children-of-teen-mothers continuing the family tradition?

I'd put money on those being significant factors. That alongside the general irresponsible attitude to pretty much everything that characterises feral inner city teenagers in Britain. (I'd say that underage/irresponsible drinking was a factor, but I rather think it's another symptom of a more general problem).

[pj1351]

Well, the OP article pretty much just proved what most of us expected, as far as Alfie being the father goes, but it doesn't mention if any of those other six boys are the father either. Personally, I think that all the male immediate family members in both families should have their DNA tested for paternity as well, because not only is the whole publicity stunt such an obvious money making scam, it's also raising my mental red flags that it's a smokescreen of some sort.

[ArmorPierce]

*Snip*

The first is a substantial, if confrontational, comment. The second is just noise. What's the value of such a "contribution"? At risk of sounding like a businessman, what's the value added?

There's a difference between attacking with substance and third-person bullying.

As been said, this story is thread is purely a fluff piece and there is little of value to add. The original story you could have at least commented on it with the larger moral sub context of society in mind. With this addition to the original story all you there is not much else of substantial value that you could comment on. The question is then do we even bother allowing a thread like this in the first place to be posted?

[DaveJB]

Britain seems to have such a disproportionate number of dregs and hopeless cases (with alcohol problems comparable to non-agarian indigenous tribes) it has become an international embarassment.

I propose a new drinking game: every time BO pops into a thread and posts "Well, it's not really surprising that this has happened, because the UK is such an irredeemable shithole" or anything similar, we take a shot of scotch. Double if he rails at the "left-wing establishment" and/or posts a link to the Daily Mail website.

More seriously, I believe I've mentioned previously how terrible the UK's sex education is - unfortunately this is exacerbated by the fact that people seem to have the view that sex ed is the cause of teenagers fucking, rather than something that might alleviate the problem - look at the furore over the fact that adverts promoting condom use might potentially be running on TV, for instance. If we teach decent sex education and get people to understand that teenagers are probably going to have sex anyway, but sex ed can at least reduce the issues caused by it, that would go a long way to solving this problem IMO.