"Two lawmakers are trying to reform the code: Dave Camp, a Republican, and Max Baucus, a Democrat. Mr Obama should lend his weight to their efforts. Ideally, they would start afresh with no loopholes and much lower rates. Republicans should love this: if Congress were to scrap all loopholes and deductions, it could nearly halve income-tax rates and still raise the same amount of money. Democrats should like it, too: a more efficient tax system would let them pay for the same amount of government with less drag on growth. The snag is that voters define “loopholes” as other people’s tax breaks. Their own, they rather like. Getting rid of particular boondoggles such as the mortgage-interest deduction may prove impossible. But capping the overall amount of deductions any individual can take should not be, so long as both parties have their fingerprints on the bill, thus sharing the credit and the blame."
A ‘normal’ working week of 21 hours could help to address a range of urgent, interlinked problems: overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life.
Meat is kind of important to people. Young kids in particular need a lot of varied nutrients, and a balanced diet - with meat - is likely to be way healthier than the alternatives.
Quite frankly, being vegetarian is like being religious: you should let the kid decide on his/her own when they are grown up and can make that choice on their own. Plus by then they've done most of their development, so your choice won't mess them up for the rest of their lives.
Humans are designed to be omnivores. Don't play games with your kids nutrition.
Eating meat is not at all unnatural. It's generally considered to be one of the main reasons humans could afford to evolve a larger brain - because meat is denser in nutrients than vegetarian diets.
Yes, you can do a healthy vegetarian diet (and even a vegan one, although at that point you really are crazy - there's no substitute for milk), but it is certainly not at all a trivial matter. It's much saner to just say "eating meat is natural".
Once you're fully grown, it's a different matter.
Quite frankly, anybody who tells their kids to "don't eat meat" is kind of crazy. You're much better off telling them to not drink sodas, avoid overly processed foods etc.
And yeah, I care a hell of a lot more about my kids health than I care about cows or even pigs. Deal with it.
As a counter point, I've been vegetarian (ovo-lacto) my whole life. My parents aren't crazy, they just decided they wanted to be vegetarian, and the logical consequence of that is that my siblings and I were raised the same way.
I'm 6'1", ~175 lbs, and am strong and healthy. I've never had a blood test show any deficiencies. I don't have to go out of my way to find protein: dairy, eggs, and legumes are in enough dishes to make it easy. Plus, you don't need nearly as much protein as most people get.
Linus is often wrong about things, especially when they're outside his areas of expertise.
For white collar workers, that may have no impact on actual productivity per week. For blue collar workers, it's more likely to. Speaking in general terms.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578389-despite-ranco...
"Two lawmakers are trying to reform the code: Dave Camp, a Republican, and Max Baucus, a Democrat. Mr Obama should lend his weight to their efforts. Ideally, they would start afresh with no loopholes and much lower rates. Republicans should love this: if Congress were to scrap all loopholes and deductions, it could nearly halve income-tax rates and still raise the same amount of money. Democrats should like it, too: a more efficient tax system would let them pay for the same amount of government with less drag on growth. The snag is that voters define “loopholes” as other people’s tax breaks. Their own, they rather like. Getting rid of particular boondoggles such as the mortgage-interest deduction may prove impossible. But capping the overall amount of deductions any individual can take should not be, so long as both parties have their fingerprints on the bill, thus sharing the credit and the blame."