A new law has just been passed in Texas that is sure to ruffle some feathers, particularly for social conservatives. Really it’s more of an amendment to existing law and I’m not sure where I stand on this one. It’s been nicknamed the Romeo and Juliet law. It basically lowers the age of consent for teenagers from eighteen to fifteen and protects the consensual partner from prosecution on statutory rape charges, through the age of nineteen. Here’s the upside: under the current law, anyone who had sex in high school or immediately out of school who happened to be at least eighteen and had sex with a younger student could be prosecuted and wind up on the state sex offender list indefinitely. Obviously, this precludes him or her from all kinds of work, and will follow the offender where ever they go. It also inflates the sex offender numbers making it difficult to distinguish a potential threat from someone who merely made a mistake as an adolescent.
We’ve all heard horror stories about young people being put on the state’s list, despite eventually marrying their “victims.” I don’t know how often that kind of thing happens, but I don’t deem anyone who had sex as an adolescent to be a threat to my loved ones. Of course many social conservatives (with whom I often agree mind you), will argue that this merely continues to make society more permissive. Now, I’m willing to be taken to task on this but, I really don’t think this legal change is going to result in increased promiscuity. How many teens are really holding off on sex due to the threat of prosecution? All the new law really does is highlight the unfortunate lais·sez-faireapproach to sexuality that is predominate in our society. It’s not government’s job to inculcate values into our families. An old governmental principle states that a leader should never make a law he is unable to enforce. That’s what the statutory rape laws had become, largely unenforceable. As I see it, all the state of Texas did, was make the law enforceable.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Letter to Potential Investors
May 17th, 2012Who said silly can’t be used in business writing?
On the evening of the Facebook IPO, Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg published the following letter to potential investors:
Dear Potential Investor:
For years, you’ve wasted your time on Facebook. Now here’s your chance to waste your money on it, too.
Tomorrow is Facebook’s IPO, and I know what some of you are thinking. How will Facebook be any different from the dot-com bubble of the early 2000’s?
For one thing, those bad dot-com stocks were all speculation and hype, and weren’t based on real businesses. Facebook, on the other hand, is based on a solid foundation of angry birds and imaginary sheep.
Second, Facebook is the most successful social network in the world, enabling millions to share information of no interest with people they barely know.
Third, every time someone clicks on a Facebook ad, Facebook makes money. And while no one has ever done this on purpose, millions have done it by mistake while drunk. We totally stole this idea from iTunes.
Finally, if you invest in Facebook, you’ll be far from alone. As a result of using Facebook for the past few years, over 900 million people in the world have suffered mild to moderate brain damage, impairing their ability to make reasoned judgments. These will be your fellow Facebook investors.
With your help, if all goes as planned tomorrow, Facebook’s IPO will net $100 billion. To put that number in context, it would take JP Morgan four or five trades to lose that much money.
One last thing: what will, I, Mark Zuckerberg, do with the $18 billion I’m expected to earn from Facebook’s IPO? Well, I’m considering buying Greece, but that would still leave me with $18 billion. LOL.
Friend me,
Mark
Tags: Birds, Brain Damage, Ceo Mark, Facebook, Fellow, Greece, Hype, Investor, Investors, Ipo, Itunes, Jp Morgan, Judgments, Mark Zuckerberg, Mistake, Much Money, Silly zucker letter, Solid Foundation, Speculation, Stocks, Trades
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