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brian_eggleston's Debates
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The Negative Income Tax
The Negative Income Tax is a little known system of taxation that can be used as an alternative to minimum wage laws, and would eliminate the need for welfare, food stamps, and potentially social security as well. In addition, outsourcing would virtually be eliminated as a problem. Here's how it works: the Negative Income Tax involves a yearly, fixed government payment to all working and disabled individuals, and is used in conjunction with a flat tax rate. For example, suppose there's a flat...
Jackson's kids should be auctioned off to help pay his debts
Michael Jackson's recent demise was premature and unexpected. Indeed, he was due to embark upon a series of concerts at London's O2 Arena next week. At this this difficult time, our thoughts and prayers must be with those people who have suffered a tragic loss of money as a result of his untimely death. As you may know, Jackson passed away over $400 million in debt, so his assets will be auctioned off to the highest bidder in order to help discharge this vast financial liability. http://ww...
Abnormal women should be made to wear unfashionable uniforms whilst out in public
For the purposes of this debate, unless otherwise challenged, "abnormal women" shall mean adult females with an unhealthy body weight, viz. being either underweight or overweight according to the body mass index scale (1) and "unfashionable uniform" shall mean one similar to the garment pictured hereunder: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Irma_Grese.jpg The fact is, being underweight or overweight can present women with serious medical problems and they should obviously a...
It's time to put pompous parents in their place
One of the big issues being discussed at middle-class, 30-something house parties today is the matter of the combined MMR jab. (1) There is a suggestion that this vaccination of children should be made compulsory. It is a suggestion that I happen to agree with and I said so at a dinner party last night. On hearing this, one of the guests (who I know has a couple of young children) turned round to me and asked in a very aggressive tone "Do you have kids?" To which I replied "Well, no..."...
Callous Simon Cowell shouldn't cash in on crackpot crooner "Simple Susie" Boyle
Toothy talent-spotter, Simon Cowell, plans to take the gibbering Scottish mental patient, "Simple Susie" Boyle, across the Atlantic to "conquer the US" (1). That's just as soon as she is released from the North London loony bin where she is currently being assessed under the Mental Health Act (2). Boyle, who has been "one sandwich short of a picnic" since birth was rushed to the Priory Clinic in an ambulance with a police escort after going bezerk following her defeat on the inane and tedious...
The all new Pak-a-Spak™ Rucksack will be a "must have" accessory for male commuters
Those of us who travel to work by train or metro will know all too well how difficult it is to get a seat in the rush hour and if a male commuter is fortunate enough to get a seat, social etiquette demands that he must give his seat up if he sees a lady standing. This inevitably means that a gentleman is never sat down for very long. But would his fellow passengers feel that he should relinquish his seat to a perfectly able-bodied woman if he was cradling a disabled toddler in his arms? No, o...
We shouldn't have fun at the expense of people with Tourettes Syndrome
First of all, viewer discretion is advised on the first embedded YouTube clip as it contains very strong language from the outset. I wasn't aware of this the first time I played it when, as it happens, I was in a rather upmarket bistro. Forgetting my laptop volume control was set to full, I pressed 'play' to view the video and, to my horror, the audio blared right round the room and everybody turned round and stared at me in absolute shock and disgust. Meanwhile, I desperately tried to find the...
A man can have his cake and eat it but a woman can't.
"You can't have your cake and eat it". On the face of it, this idiom doesn't make sense. I mean you could go to the bakers and buy a cake, in which case you would 'have it' and on the way home you could 'eat it'. But this isn't what the saying means. 'Have it', in this context, is meant in the sexual sense. That's right. So, a man could go to the bakers and buy, say, a chocolate éclair and (hopefully in the privacy of his own home) insert himself into it and, using his hand to apply pressure...
Emergency public announcements shouldn't be made through the medium of dance
Have you ever been to a contemporary dance workshop? If you have, you will have noted that the performers endeavour to convey all sorts of concepts through the medium of dance. Now, have you ever been in the situation where the police have driven past your house announcing some kind of emergency over a loudhailer? If the answer is 'yes' to both of the above then it must have occurred to you that the police could be better deployed elsewhere and the job of warning the public of impending di...
Anti-viral drugs should be used to treat the sick, not protect the posh
I propose that private practitioners should be prohibited from providing over-privileged panic-merchants with prophylactic prescriprions that protect posh patients from porcine pandemics. That's because although drugs like Tamiflu can prevent an individual from contracting swine flu, there aren't enough stocks of this anti-viral medicine to go round and, consequently, paranoid posh people have been purchasing this medicine from private doctors, even though they are not suffering any symptoms...