I'll wager after war UK and US come out smelling like roses!

[Sabastian]

-what is the minimum drinking age?

There is none. However you have to be 15 to buy alcohol at a store and 18 to buy it at bars etc.

Hrm, I bet alcoholism is a serious problem, even if the government doesn't say it is.

 

[chavvdarrr]

minimum drinking age?

has nothing to do with laws.
usualy laws address the weak points of the nation - eg setting minimum age for buying drink won't solve the problem. In USA drugs are forbidden yet USA are biggest "drug-user" in the world. In Holand "light" drugs are legal, but I never heard that this is big problem for them.

 

[Sabastian]

Re: I'll wager after war UK and US come out smelling like ro

Kurdish victims...(warning the images may be disturbing.)
http://www.kdp.pp.se/chemical.html

But what about kurds killed by Turkey? Wait, Turkey is US friend... so they can kill freely....

lol, Turkey has not let the US use their country for the northern front. The Turkish slaughter of Kurds has little to do with the US. Why not protest Turkey? "Turkey is US friend" = bad arguement and ignores the fact that Sadam is Iraqs government and it kills its own people using chemical weapons that are banned. What you have argued here is a poor argument at best.

You do believe there will be democratic elections? No massacre between kurds, shiits, sunits ?
Optimist. We can HOPE this will happen, reality usually is different

Hope is all there is ever. We could have hoped that Sadam would have settled internal problems without chemical weapons or intensional displacement of large portions of Iraq populus into third world poverty ... oh wait. We already tried that at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. Gesh, they might as well have had a war.

I would suggest to you that the Iraqi peoples situation is considerably better with the US doing this action. Hope is something the people of Iraq have not had for 20 years under Sadam. Hope is definitly the word of the day for Iraq.

 

[Neutrality]

-what is the minimum drinking age?

There is none. However you have to be 15 to buy alcohol at a store and 18 to buy it at bars etc.

Hrm, I bet alcoholism is a serious problem, even if the government doesn't say it is.

Well, to tell you the truth the Danish teenagers have the world record when it comes to alcohol consumption but that changes as they get older. However, overall we dont really have a problem with alcoholism.

Ohh, and Sabastian could you please stop with your "the government hides it crap? The government cant really hide anything in my country. We have something thats called Denmark's Statistics. They have statistics for EVERYTHING(or almost) in our country. They are independent so the government cannot influence the numbers in anyway if it wanted to hide the truth.

-Neutrality-

 

[Sabastian]

Re: minimum drinking age?

has nothing to do with laws.
usualy laws address the weak points of the nation - eg setting minimum age for buying drink won't solve the problem. In USA drugs are forbidden yet USA are biggest "drug-user" in the world. In Holand "light" drugs are legal, but I never heard that this is big problem for them.

Crime rate have everything to do with what laws are in place.

The US has a drug problem no denying that but it doesn't pretend that there is no problem by making "light" drugs legal. Further the US has incredible wealth and 270 million person population so it isn't really surprising to hear that they have more money/people to buy drugs.

The left mentality is that drug use is not a problem. The new opiate of the masses today in left wing countries are drugs/porn.

 

[Sabastian]

Ohh, and Sabastian could you please stop with your "the government hides it crap? The government cant really hide anything in my country. We have something thats called Denmark's Statistics. They have statistics for EVERYTHING(or almost) in our country. They are independent so the government cannot influence the numbers in anyway if it wanted to hide the truth.

-Neutrality-

Statistics are easily manipulated. Who are the people taking the stats and what is their education/bias? I know how stats can be taken so that the bias wanted to be shown is shown. Whom pays the "third party" statistic organization? What kind of questions to they ask? To whom is the demographic statistics focused on. For instance I know a radical feminist whom was a "statistician" she openly admitted to influencing a pole that showed her bias. They can direct the pole in districts that are known to show particular bias where elsewhere that bias is not predominant.(eg. a downtown district as opposed to a suburban area or rural area.)

 

[Neutrality]

Ohh, and Sabastian could you please stop with your "the government hides it crap? The government cant really hide anything in my country. We have something thats called Denmark's Statistics. They have statistics for EVERYTHING(or almost) in our country. They are independent so the government cannot influence the numbers in anyway if it wanted to hide the truth.

-Neutrality-

Statistics are easily manipulated. Who are the people taking the stats and what is their education/bias? I know how stats can be taken so that the bias wanted to be shown is shown. Whom pays the "third party" statistic organization? What kind of questions to they ask? To whom is the demographic statistics focused on. For instance I know a radical feminist whom was a "statistician" she openly admitted to influencing a pole that showed her bias. They can direct the pole in districts that are known to show particular bias where elsewhere that bias is not predominant.(eg. a downtown district as opposed to a suburban area or rural area.)

Look, I dont expect you to believe me but the statistics by Denmark's Statistics are as unbiased as they can be. Although they are funded by the government its a PERMANENT expense on the budget no matter what the government is. There is NO bias.
However if you dont want to believe it so be it. I honestly dont care.

-Neutrality-

 

[chavvdarrr]

Re: minimum drinking age?

Crime rate have everything to do with what laws are in place.

wrong. crime rate depends on how the laws are enforced, not whats written in them.

And presumption that everything 'left-handed' is bad is.... naive to say the least.
As naive as saying that everything 'right-handed' is bad.
You don't wanna be compared with Mao&Stalin do you?

 

[Sabastian]

Look, I dont expect you to believe me but the statistics by Denmark's Statistics are as unbiased as they can be. Although they are funded by the government its a PERMANENT expense on the budget no matter what the government is. There is NO bias.
However if you dont want to believe it so be it. I honestly dont care.

-Neutrality-

Obviously statistics in Denmark are not a concern for me really. However it does seem as though you are fully willing to believe what this government payed organization wants to tell you. But to suggest that your country life standard is so much better then the US based on statistics provided by your own state is ... less then credable in my eyes. Other then that "I honestly don't care" either.

 

[Sabastian]

Re: minimum drinking age?

Crime rate have everything to do with what laws are in place.

wrong. crime rate depends on how the laws are enforced, not whats written in them.

And presumption that everything 'left-handed' is bad is.... naive to say the least.
As naive as saying that everything 'right-handed' is bad.
You don't wanna be compared with Mao&Stalin do you?

??????????? Wrong? WTF if you have less laws governing prostitution, drug use etc then it is a logical conclusion that there will be less prosectution in these areas. Further if the laws are not enforced then it will give you even lower crime rate stats. Obviously the laws are enforced in the US and their stats show it.

As for the rest of your argument .... you will have to be a little more clear on just what you are implying.

 

[Neutrality]

Re: minimum drinking age?

-Neutrality-

 

[Neutrality]

Look, I dont expect you to believe me but the statistics by Denmark's Statistics are as unbiased as they can be. Although they are funded by the government its a PERMANENT expense on the budget no matter what the government is. There is NO bias.
However if you dont want to believe it so be it. I honestly dont care.

-Neutrality-

However it does seem as though you are fully willing to believe what this government payed organization wants to tell you.

Sigh. Do I really have to spell it out for you? This government payed organisation has existed for decades now and has managed to stay independent and unbiased during several different governments. The government has no control over this organisation. The govenrment might choose to ignore certain statistics it doesnt like but since the opposition has access to the same damn statistics they will most certainly make the public aware of it.

-Neutrality-

 

[RM. Andersson]

Re: minimum drinking age?

Crime rate have everything to do with what laws are in place.

wrong. crime rate depends on how the laws are enforced, not whats written in them.

And presumption that everything 'left-handed' is bad is.... naive to say the least.
As naive as saying that everything 'right-handed' is bad.
You don't wanna be compared with Mao&Stalin do you?

It depends on the moral in society. You cant have police everywhere.
People in general must be able to feel and understand what is right and whats is wrong. If they cant that society/country will be in deep trouble.
Laws and police can help. But it will not be enough.

 

[Sabastian]

The government could pull funding on this organisation I am sure. But this won't happen because for the most part this organisation gives the sorts of statistics the government wants. On what stats do the government want to hide this organisations numbers? (EG.The rise of STDs in your country?) What is the governent trying to hide?

 

[Sabastian]

Re: minimum drinking age?

It depends on the moral in society. You cant have police everywhere.
People in general must be able to feel and understand what is right and whats is wrong. If they cant that society/country will be in deep trouble.
Laws and police can help. But it will not be enough.

I couldn't agree more. Which is why I dispise the moral relativism.

 

[Neutrality]

The government could pull funding on this organisation I am sure. But this won't happen because for the most part this organisation gives the sorts of statistics the government wants. On what stats do the government want to hide this organisations numbers? (EG.The rise of STDs in your country?) What is the governent trying to hide?

Nope, it doesnt give the statistics the government wants and it cant just pull the funding. Look, on most budgets in the majority of countries there are certain things that cannot be touched. When agreeing on a budget for the following year the money that gets shuffled around is peanuts in the grand scheme of things. The are some basic expenses that just cannot be touched.

Furthermore, the government doesnt try to hide things or atleast it rarely happens. Besides where did I say that they did?

The govenrment MIGHT choose to ignore certain statistics it doesnt like but since the opposition has access to the same damn statistics they will most certainly make the public aware of it.

Emphasis mine. They dont because people would find out about it anyway. Hell, they dont even need the political opposition to do dig up the dirty truth. They could just go to the library and read the yearly book of statistics thats published every year.

-Neutrality-

 

[Sabastian]

Hey ... is it published online? I know what you are talking about when it comes to government funding. eg medicare. But the government is not absolutely obligated to fund the organization in question I am sure. It would have to be in the constitution or some other equally powerful document. What kinds of stats might the government not want to be seen?

 

[Neutrality]

Hey ... is it published online? I know what you are talking about when it comes to government funding. eg medicare. But the government is not absolutely obligated to fund the organization in question I am sure. It would have to be in the constitution or some other equally powerful document. What kinds of stats might the government not want to be seen?

Sure its not obligated to fund it but since the organisation also supplies the government with data that shows how things might evolve in the future all those statistics are a very important tool when it comes to deciding what the governemnt should decide in the future. Stopping the funding of this organisation would be detrimental to the government and future governments.

As for what the government might like to hide the prime candidates are stats that show that some things have been going the wrong way while the government has been in power. It cannot "hide" those stats since everyone has access to them but it could choose to ignore them. However doing that will most definately effect the peoples opinions of the government. It wouldnt be a wise move unless the government doesnt want to be re-elected.

Would the governemnt, any governemnt for that matter, hide certain statistics if they could? Hell yeah, but luckily ours cant.

-Neutrality-

 

[Sabastian]

The matter is that the government doesn't hide certain stats because they imply what the government wants them too. I do have a healthy sceptic perspective on most anything related with government as most people should IMO. Choosing to ignore is similair to hiding but not really. It is possible that the organization in question is legit. Could you direct me to an English version of the government branch that represents them? I am interested in the variety of stats they try to focus on.

 

[Neutrality]

Could you direct me to an English version of the government branch that represents them? I am interested in the variety of stats they try to focus on.

I wasnt entirely accurate when it came to the funding of the organisation.

While a large part of the funding comes from the governemnt they also get alot of revenue from businesses and different international activities.

Link to English version :

http://www.dst.dk/dst/dstframeset_1024_en.asp

Heres a little quote from the about statistics Denmark page :

Statistics Denmark


Statistics Denmark is Denmarks central statistical office and is responsible for the co-ordination of all official statistics concerning Denmark and Danish society. These statistics cover a broad spectrum of topics within the areas of population, business, industry, the environment and the economy.


Statistics has a long history in Denmark where the first population census was conducted in 1769. In 1850 Statistics Denmark was established as an institution, and the foundations of its present day activities are to be found in the Act on Statistics Denmark, which was adopted by Parliament in 1966. This Act gives an independent Board of Governors the responsibility to de­termine the institutions work programme. One important provi­sion in the act is that it allows Statistics Denmark access to data from all public admini­strative registers in Denmark. These have now become the institu­tions principle data source.

Looks like the organisation is even older than I thought.

Centralised production of statistics

In comparison with many other countries the production of statistics in Denmark is highly centralised. There are however other national suppliers of statistics than Statistics Denmark, such as municipal authorities and other government departments. But Statistics Denmark is responsible for ensuring that the overall statistical picture is complete and coherent regardless of the source. The centralised organisation of official statistics means that most Danish government departments rely on Statistics Denmark for statistics relating to their particular sphere of competence.

Read the site if you want more info.

-Neutrality-