I don't know why you're guessing at numbers, as the linked study has them all in a handy table.
ER visits per 100k people: Underage Drinking: 227.2 Pain Relievers: 194.0 Cocaine: 137.7 Marijuana: 122.6 Heroin: 69.4
Marijuana is a significant source of ER visits, with close to 400k visits per year across the country. Not as common as underage drinking or ODing on pain killers, but not small potatoes either.
I hate to burst your bubble, but marijuana is addictive. Not nearly as much as certain other drugs (including the legal ones: alcohol and nicotine), but it is addictive all the same. In fact, the White House article you're complaining about links to another site that says, "It is estimated that 9 percent of people who use marijuana will become dependent on it. The number goes up to about 1 in 6 in those who start using young (in their teens) and to 25-50 percent among daily users."
That seems like a completely honest statement of fact. Marijuana is addictive. If you use it sparingly, you probably won't get hooked. But you might.
The problem is that requiring everyone to spend tens of thousands of dollars getting a slip of paper to prove their ability to do work results in a massive, permanently indebted underclass. This is great if you're a banker (more money in your pocket) or if you're a college president (you can charge whatever tuition you want, and people have to pay to get that slip of paper). And it's not so bad if your career would require a college education anyway (engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc...). But for most people, it means that they start life at a huge disadvantage.
You think the robber barons responsible for the pollution eat anything fished out of the Hudson? Fat chance. If the toxins do work their way up the food chain, it'll be the peasant class that suffers for it.
You are the problem. Last time it came up for a vote, the Democrats were split roughly 50-50 on keeping the Patriot Act. The Republicans were in favor of it by an 80-20 margin. You have been tricked into supporting the very people who are hurting you.
How can you ever expect politicians' behavior to change when you reward them for harming you?
If there are Samsung buyers who eagerly snatch up every new model on the day it's released and get personally offended whenever anyone on the internet says something bad about the company, then yes, you can call them sheeple too.
You can get a lot of live sports direct from the league (e.g. MLB.tv). The only major sport that requires cable/satellite is the NFL, which has few enough games that you can watch it at someone else's place.
And honestly, you'll be happier and better informed if you drop the cable news. Fox is propaganda and the other networks aren't much better.
People buy iPhones because they don't want to wait for OS updates? Bullshit. Most people think ICS is something in their freezer. OS updates only matter to tech savvy users, and they can root and install a new version if it's really bothering them.
Can you give an example where an Android phone was unable to run any modern apps because its OS was outdated?
I sincerely doubt it. There are tons of apps that work just fine on Froyo or Eclair, just as most programs work just fine on Windows XP. You don't need to update to Vista or 7, and you don't need to update to ICS.
This is a fictional problem, invented by Apple fanbois trying to convince themselves that their choice was the "right" one. The notion that both products can be good, and that not everything comes down to good vs bad eludes them.
Embassy personnel aren't soldiers. They're diplomats and secretaries and cafeteria workers and IT admins and so on. That's not doublespeak. In fact, the only deception here is your use of scare quotes.
As we all know, if at first you don't succeed, never -- under any circumstances! -- try anything ever again!! Whenever the DJI goes down by even a single point, I take out all my money, stuff it in a mattress, and curse myself for ever being so foolish as to invest in something that wasn't 100% guaranteed to pan out.
Also, it's just a flat out lie to make the title "$529M DOE Loan". It's a loan guarantee, not a loan. The taxpayers are in no way on the hook for anywhere close to $529M.
I also find it suspicious that the summary doesn't mention that this is a sports car. The price and fuel efficiency suddenly look a lot better when you compare it to a Corvette instead of a Civic. It may in fact be very successful in that market. But this point gets no mention... it's almost as if the submitter is a right-wing troll.
Reviews that lie about a product can be slander. Let's say you own a restaurant. I don't like you, so I buy a few cockroaches, smuggle them in, plant them in the meal I order, and then film myself "finding" them in my food, and post the results for millions of people to see.
That's not a negative review anymore. That's slander and fraud, and you have every right to sue me to make up for all the business you lose. You can't "swallow your pride and make improvements" on a problem that doesn't actually exist.
That's what Top Gear did. They faked serious problems to discourage people from buying the car. I like the show, but what they did was inexcusable.
If you are thinking that a lot of the 300k website subscribers are actually print subscribers getting the website for free, then you are mistaken. The NYT has a circulation of 900k, so that figure obviously can't be included among the 300k.
The first link in the summary contains the complete text of the bill. It does not ban cash transactions at all. Rather, it requires second-hand dealers to keep very thorough records of any cash transaction exceeding $25.
This is a terrible law, and would make business difficult for a lot of people, and (depending on how it's interpreted) could make garage sales more trouble than they're worth. But it does not ban the use of cash. I kind of wish it did, because then it would be struck down. As it stands, the law may pass constitutional muster, and become an enormous pain in the ass for a lot of people.
A brilliant lie. Almost believable, with that tiny grain of truth in the middle. Of course, the top 10% of earners pay 70% of income taxes. Which account for well under half of the government's revenues. Most of the rest comes from Social Security payroll taxes, of which the vast majority is paid by the middle class.
Once you account for that, you quickly find that the top 10% earn about 45% of the income and pay about 45% of the taxes. Except for one small problem. No one is out there saying "We are the 90%". The top 1% of earners have 35% of the wealth and pay only around 25% of the taxes.
And then, of course, you need to account for disposable income. Someone in the bottom quintile has no disposable income at all. If you charge them an extra dollar in taxes, you have to give them an extra dollar in food stamps or else let them starve. Someone in the middle quintile has some disposable income, but not much. Most of their paycheck immediately goes to their mortgage and car payments and insurance premiums and grocery bills and so on. They pay what they can, but higher taxes can cause them serious hardship.
In the top 1%, nearly all wealth is disposable. These people could live in luxury on just 10% of their incomes... often on just 1%. Raising their marginal tax rate by 5 percentage points would have no real impact on their quality of life, while giving us enough extra money to (and this is just an example, not a recommendation) double the funding of the Department of Education.
And I haven't even started talking about sales taxes yet....
I would think that somebody that has pornographic pictures of children nude or engaged in sexual acts is a reasonable indicator that they are sexually aroused by such images and situations, and at some point, will attempt to bring their own fantasies to life.
This a very dangerous line of reasoning. Everyone fantasizes about breaking the law from time to time; few people act on those impulses. Criminalizing bad thoughts is a terrible, terrible idea. Child porn is bad because it's abusive to the children involved in making it, and gives a profit incentive for film makers to abuse more children. It should be illegal for those reasons. As soon as you start accepting the notion that things can be illegal to think about, you start walking down a very dark path, and you won't like where it ends.
I own an Android, and have no interest in getting an iPhone, but I think it's worth being clear that not all iPhone owners, or even the majority of them, buy the phone as a status symbol. It's only the people who run out to buy each new model as it's launched, even though their old one is perfectly good, who are guilty of conspicuous consumption.
Demonstrating the similarity of the units is just one part of a larger pattern of behavior Apple is trying to show. Their claim is that Samsung violated both regular old hardware patents and design patents on a large number of factors including: "rectangles with rounded corners", "black", "anything with a twelve inch diagonal", "tapering edges to make things seem thinner", "icons", "envelope shaped icons representing mail", "those envelopes being red"
I took the liberty of filling in the details for you, lest anyone be misled into thinking Apple's suit is remotely reasonable.
So now a rectangle with a 12" diagonal is patentable? Fuck it, Samsung should just patent the idea of "shapes" and ban Apple from ever shipping another product.
As others have pointed out, that's a terrible test. I can't tell apart a pair of toasters or TVs or refrigerators unless the brand logo is visible. That doesn't mean they're all infringing, it just means that form follows function. But this judge wanted a bad ass moment like what you'd see on Law and Order.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know why you're guessing at numbers, as the linked study has them all in a handy table.
ER visits per 100k people:
Underage Drinking: 227.2
Pain Relievers: 194.0
Cocaine: 137.7
Marijuana: 122.6
Heroin: 69.4
Marijuana is a significant source of ER visits, with close to 400k visits per year across the country. Not as common as underage drinking or ODing on pain killers, but not small potatoes either.
I hate to burst your bubble, but marijuana is addictive. Not nearly as much as certain other drugs (including the legal ones: alcohol and nicotine), but it is addictive all the same. In fact, the White House article you're complaining about links to another site that says, "It is estimated that 9 percent of people who use marijuana will become dependent on it. The number goes up to about 1 in 6 in those who start using young (in their teens) and to 25-50 percent among daily users."
That seems like a completely honest statement of fact. Marijuana is addictive. If you use it sparingly, you probably won't get hooked. But you might.
Right. Those who smoke marijuana all know that they can stop any time they want!
The problem is that requiring everyone to spend tens of thousands of dollars getting a slip of paper to prove their ability to do work results in a massive, permanently indebted underclass. This is great if you're a banker (more money in your pocket) or if you're a college president (you can charge whatever tuition you want, and people have to pay to get that slip of paper). And it's not so bad if your career would require a college education anyway (engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc...). But for most people, it means that they start life at a huge disadvantage.
You think the robber barons responsible for the pollution eat anything fished out of the Hudson? Fat chance. If the toxins do work their way up the food chain, it'll be the peasant class that suffers for it.
Keep on moving those goalposts.
It is making stuff up and then launching into wild conjecture from that fictional starting point.
Are you describing "what if?" scenarios or every Slashdot discussion?
You are the problem. Last time it came up for a vote, the Democrats were split roughly 50-50 on keeping the Patriot Act. The Republicans were in favor of it by an 80-20 margin. You have been tricked into supporting the very people who are hurting you.
How can you ever expect politicians' behavior to change when you reward them for harming you?
Maybe someday we'll have digital cameras that aren't the size of a book!
If there are Samsung buyers who eagerly snatch up every new model on the day it's released and get personally offended whenever anyone on the internet says something bad about the company, then yes, you can call them sheeple too.
You can get a lot of live sports direct from the league (e.g. MLB.tv). The only major sport that requires cable/satellite is the NFL, which has few enough games that you can watch it at someone else's place.
And honestly, you'll be happier and better informed if you drop the cable news. Fox is propaganda and the other networks aren't much better.
People buy iPhones because they don't want to wait for OS updates? Bullshit. Most people think ICS is something in their freezer. OS updates only matter to tech savvy users, and they can root and install a new version if it's really bothering them.
Can you give an example where an Android phone was unable to run any modern apps because its OS was outdated?
I sincerely doubt it. There are tons of apps that work just fine on Froyo or Eclair, just as most programs work just fine on Windows XP. You don't need to update to Vista or 7, and you don't need to update to ICS.
This is a fictional problem, invented by Apple fanbois trying to convince themselves that their choice was the "right" one. The notion that both products can be good, and that not everything comes down to good vs bad eludes them.
Embassy personnel aren't soldiers. They're diplomats and secretaries and cafeteria workers and IT admins and so on. That's not doublespeak. In fact, the only deception here is your use of scare quotes.
As we all know, if at first you don't succeed, never -- under any circumstances! -- try anything ever again!! Whenever the DJI goes down by even a single point, I take out all my money, stuff it in a mattress, and curse myself for ever being so foolish as to invest in something that wasn't 100% guaranteed to pan out.
Also, it's just a flat out lie to make the title "$529M DOE Loan". It's a loan guarantee, not a loan. The taxpayers are in no way on the hook for anywhere close to $529M.
I also find it suspicious that the summary doesn't mention that this is a sports car. The price and fuel efficiency suddenly look a lot better when you compare it to a Corvette instead of a Civic. It may in fact be very successful in that market. But this point gets no mention... it's almost as if the submitter is a right-wing troll.
Worshiping success at all costs is far worse than any sort of fanboism.
Reviews that lie about a product can be slander. Let's say you own a restaurant. I don't like you, so I buy a few cockroaches, smuggle them in, plant them in the meal I order, and then film myself "finding" them in my food, and post the results for millions of people to see.
That's not a negative review anymore. That's slander and fraud, and you have every right to sue me to make up for all the business you lose. You can't "swallow your pride and make improvements" on a problem that doesn't actually exist.
That's what Top Gear did. They faked serious problems to discourage people from buying the car. I like the show, but what they did was inexcusable.
If you are thinking that a lot of the 300k website subscribers are actually print subscribers getting the website for free, then you are mistaken. The NYT has a circulation of 900k, so that figure obviously can't be included among the 300k.
The first link in the summary contains the complete text of the bill. It does not ban cash transactions at all. Rather, it requires second-hand dealers to keep very thorough records of any cash transaction exceeding $25.
This is a terrible law, and would make business difficult for a lot of people, and (depending on how it's interpreted) could make garage sales more trouble than they're worth. But it does not ban the use of cash. I kind of wish it did, because then it would be struck down. As it stands, the law may pass constitutional muster, and become an enormous pain in the ass for a lot of people.
A brilliant lie. Almost believable, with that tiny grain of truth in the middle. Of course, the top 10% of earners pay 70% of income taxes. Which account for well under half of the government's revenues. Most of the rest comes from Social Security payroll taxes, of which the vast majority is paid by the middle class.
Once you account for that, you quickly find that the top 10% earn about 45% of the income and pay about 45% of the taxes. Except for one small problem. No one is out there saying "We are the 90%". The top 1% of earners have 35% of the wealth and pay only around 25% of the taxes.
And then, of course, you need to account for disposable income. Someone in the bottom quintile has no disposable income at all. If you charge them an extra dollar in taxes, you have to give them an extra dollar in food stamps or else let them starve. Someone in the middle quintile has some disposable income, but not much. Most of their paycheck immediately goes to their mortgage and car payments and insurance premiums and grocery bills and so on. They pay what they can, but higher taxes can cause them serious hardship.
In the top 1%, nearly all wealth is disposable. These people could live in luxury on just 10% of their incomes... often on just 1%. Raising their marginal tax rate by 5 percentage points would have no real impact on their quality of life, while giving us enough extra money to (and this is just an example, not a recommendation) double the funding of the Department of Education.
And I haven't even started talking about sales taxes yet....
I would think that somebody that has pornographic pictures of children nude or engaged in sexual acts is a reasonable indicator that they are sexually aroused by such images and situations, and at some point, will attempt to bring their own fantasies to life.
This a very dangerous line of reasoning. Everyone fantasizes about breaking the law from time to time; few people act on those impulses. Criminalizing bad thoughts is a terrible, terrible idea. Child porn is bad because it's abusive to the children involved in making it, and gives a profit incentive for film makers to abuse more children. It should be illegal for those reasons. As soon as you start accepting the notion that things can be illegal to think about, you start walking down a very dark path, and you won't like where it ends.
I own an Android, and have no interest in getting an iPhone, but I think it's worth being clear that not all iPhone owners, or even the majority of them, buy the phone as a status symbol. It's only the people who run out to buy each new model as it's launched, even though their old one is perfectly good, who are guilty of conspicuous consumption.
Demonstrating the similarity of the units is just one part of a larger pattern of behavior Apple is trying to show. Their claim is that Samsung violated both regular old hardware patents and design patents on a large number of factors including: "rectangles with rounded corners", "black", "anything with a twelve inch diagonal", "tapering edges to make things seem thinner", "icons", "envelope shaped icons representing mail", "those envelopes being red"
I took the liberty of filling in the details for you, lest anyone be misled into thinking Apple's suit is remotely reasonable.
So now a rectangle with a 12" diagonal is patentable? Fuck it, Samsung should just patent the idea of "shapes" and ban Apple from ever shipping another product.
As others have pointed out, that's a terrible test. I can't tell apart a pair of toasters or TVs or refrigerators unless the brand logo is visible. That doesn't mean they're all infringing, it just means that form follows function. But this judge wanted a bad ass moment like what you'd see on Law and Order.