So since the Constitution doesn't specifically limit arms that means I can own any weapon I desire and the government can't say no? Question: Should I put my new surface to air missile launcher in the backyard or mount it on my roof next to my nuke?
You'd think the shooting ranges would be in favor of this idea. People would be buying the bullets AT the shooting range (i.e. giving the shooting range more money) instead of at Wal-Mart and bringing it with them.
Building a bomb is a risky proposition. Do it wrong and you blow yourself up. In addition, seek assistance/ingredients in the wrong manner and you call unwanted attention to yourself. (i.e. The FBI catches wind of your plot and shuts you down before you hurt anyone.)
Using a semi-automatic weapon with a large magazine is a low risk proposition. Minimal training and you can load it and be ready to shoot hundreds of targets in an office/school/movie theatre/etc. And since this weapon is currently legal, you draw no major attention to yourself by acquiring one (assuming you don't have a felony record already).
If these assault weapons were to be magically removed from society tomorrow, would some sickos turn to bombs? Sure. Would they find it as easy as using the assault weapons? Definitely not.
That's my problem with the whole "good guy with a gun stops bad guy with a gun" assumption. It pretends that the world is black and white and people never make mistakes. There was a news story recently where a kid known to have Asperger's was tackled to the ground because a) he had his hands in his pockets and b) someone knew he had Asperger's and believed that was what drove the Sandy Hook shooter to commit those crimes. Turns out this kid was just handling a piece of paper that helped him calm down in a stressful situation (big store = lots of noise = major stress for Aspies). What would have happened if that person was armed and decided they were the good guy and this kid was the bad guy?
Or go back to the movie theater shooting. Gun advocates assume that an armed civilian would have stood up, taken aim and killed the gunman cleanly. Since real life is hardly ever that clean, what's more likely is that Civilian #1 would draw on the gunman, fire, miss, and hit someone else. Or else Civilian #2 would spot Civilian #1, assume he's "the bad guy", and shoot him.
I'm not saying that "good guy with a gun stops bad guy with a gun" never happens. Of course it does. But real life isn't so cut and dried and having an armed civilian isn't a guarantee that they'll step up (as opposed to getting out while they can and not putting themselves more in harm's way), properly identify the appropriate target, fire (before being hit themselves), and take out the gunman. Pretending that "good guy with a gun" would have stopped every single "bad guy with a gun" without any collateral damage is pure fantasy.
It's not as black and white as "smart people don't have guns" or "smart people have gun training & stupid people have no training." There are plenty of smart people with guns. These people treat their weapons with the requisite care and respect knowing that being careless with a firearm can be deadly. Then, there are plenty of stupid gun owners who think nothing of leaving their loaded gun on the coffee table or waving it around like a toy. (They then cry about what a random tragedy it was that little Billy got shot and they were completely not to blame.) On the other side, there are plenty of stupid people without guns (usually the ones saying "ban all kinds of guns for everyone - no exceptions), but also plenty of smart people without guns.
I, personally, don't have any guns. I tend to be a huge klutz, can be careless at the wrong times (when distracted, for example), and am a horrible shot. I wouldn't trust myself with a gun so, in my case, the smart decision is to not own one. Gun ownership, like many things in life, isn't for everyone.
It's the same faulty risk analysis that plagues people who think "vaccine risk > mumps/polio/whooping cough/etc risk". They haven't seen these diseases firsthand so they mentally minimize them and then over-inflate the vaccine risk until it exceeds their imagined "disease risk".
When it comes to the "US vs. Dictatorships", they haven't seen a real dictatorship so they minimize the "Dictatorship risk" and then increase the "US risk" until it is more. Here's a hint: The mere fact that we can complain about the US government without being arrested means that our risk in the US is less than in a true dictatorship.
We have a pretty small house. We have a 32" SD television set in the living room. When that set dies, we'll spring for a HD set. Most likely another 32 inch set as we don't really have the space for anything bigger. At that size, there won't be any noticeable difference between HD and 4K. About the only advantage 4K TVs would give me would be the inevitable price drop that HD TVs would experience. Other than that, I don't really see the benefit to "super duper HD" beyond the manufacturers trying to get customers to upgrade perfectly good equipment.
Don't worry, they'll detain him for a bit. Question him like he's a common criminal. And then drop all charges and release him with the "understanding" that they've got their eye on him and with the word getting out that you don't videotape the police if you don't want to be "inconvenienced" by some jail time.
I agree with the asking him nicely part, but not with the "that's what disorderly conduct" part. If he curses at the officer, spits in his face and tries to run away, sure. But if he says "Actually, officer, I'd rather not delete it" (in a calm manner) then the officer shouldn't arrest him and charge him with disorderly conduct. Disagreeing with a police officer shouldn't be grounds for disorderly conduct, especially when you've done nothing else wrong.
In cases like this, I always say the same thing. There are either 2 possibilities here:
1) There is a valid crime to charge him with. In this case, the police officers just destroyed evidence which is both illegal and could let the guy off since the case is based on the video.
2) There isn't a valid crime to charge him with. In this case, the police officers just destroyed his private property for no good reason. (The video embarrasses them isn't a good reason.)
Neither of these scenarios is good for the police. Sadly, they're probably really close to the DA and nobody will be charged. And if he tries to file a civil suit... well, good luck suing the police department. You'd better not step outside of the exact letter of the law even an inch (e.g. drive a single mile over the speed limit ever again).
It is possible, but if it did it would be a temporary effect that would only mask the problem. Eventually, the particles would settle out of the atmosphere and the climate would heat up extremely fast. Maintaining particulates in the air wouldn't be a viable option either as this would just be creating pollution on a massive scale to fight global warming. This would be the "releasing thousands of snakes to fight a lizard problem and then releasing thousands of gorillas to take care of the snakes" plan. Except there wouldn't be a winter to kill off the gorillas.
If many firemen are indeed pyromaniacs, then their career choice has become a positive outlet for tendencies that could otherwise prove destructive.
In the case of these nurses, however, their religion is having a negative effect on their career choice (or vice versa depending on how you look at it). So they need to change one or the other.
Ah, but what did he teach? What words did he use and how do you interpret that in the context of a modern society? Even the "reference book" you use might have different translations with some conflicting advice.
This problem isn't unique to Christianity, of course. I'm Jewish and there are tons of different interpretations about what is allowed and what isn't and how you should live your life. I follow what I agree with and don't follow what I don't agree with. I'm sure that makes me a "Bad Jew" according to some religious folks, but I don't live my life on their moral code. Some other folks will call me names for following "the wrong religion" or for even following a religion at all. I don't care because I don't live my life on those people's moral codes either. I live it on my own.
Of course, there are limits. My right to swing my fist ends at your nose. I can observe my religion, but don't expect anyone else to act differently to accommodate me so long as they also don't specifically exclude me based on religion without a good reason. (e.g. I don't expect you to stop eating pork, but if my office made a rule requiring people to eat pork to be employed I'd have a problem with that.) While the nurses claim the hospital has made a rule against their religion, the rule was made with patient safety in mind and them not following the rule puts patients at risk. So the nurses have to weigh whether their religious beliefs are stronger than their connection to that employer. If so, quit and find a new job. If they find that all jobs in their chosen profession have this requirement (and I believe many do), then they might need to reexamine their religious beliefs or their career path.
Despite the lack of details, I'm just enjoying the fact that we've got an SUV sized robot on another planet that is sending high definition photographs back to us that I can look at on the computer on my desk or on my phone. We've become a bit jaded with what technology can do, but when you take the time to think about it, just this much is amazing. (Then there's the icing on the cake of getting real science out of the robot-SUV-on-Mars.)
Exactly. And if she was lured under false pretenses, she could have easily been slipped something in an otherwise innocuous drink. Remember the recent news story about the kid who drugged her parents with sleep medicine in milkshakes so she could get more Facebook time? How easy would it have been to hand the girl a soda with some sleeping medicine (or something worse) mixed in. By the time she realizes what's up, she's waking up from having passed out the night before and the guys have violated her.
As for the guys "debating" whether it's rape, consent isn't an opt-out system. It's not "you're allowed to do whatever you want to someone as long as they don't get the chance to say 'No'." It's opt-in. If the person doesn't say "yes" then you don't have consent. (Even if they say yes, there might be mitigating factors such as being drunk, underage, etc. But in general "yes = consent" and absence of yes = no consent.)
That's the blessing and curse of digital photography. Back in the film era, you had a certain number of shots to take. If you have a roll of film with 5 good photos, 1 exceptional one, and the rest all messed up a photo, you needed to pay to get them all developed. So the cost-per-printed-photo was high. Plus, if you snapped away at everything, you would run out of film quickly and would need to buy more. Extra expense.
Nowadays, you can get cards to hold more photos that you need. (I use a 16GB card that can hold over 2,000 photos. More than enough for a vacation.) You can keep all of your photos in digital form, only share the decent ones, and perhaps print the one or two that are exceptional. The cost-per-photo has dropped to nearly nothing.
So with the cost-per-photo at near-zero, there's no reason not to snap away at everything. The same goes for video which used to require a bulky camera and big VHS tapes, but now only requires a tiny cell phone. Yes, in a way, it makes photos like spam, but I think we're better off for it.
I'm sure this isn't a top priority for most folks here, but as someone who keeps somewhat Kosher I'm interested to see what implications artificial meat holds for Judaism's Kosher laws.
When it comes to land animal (but not bird) meat, the basic rule is cloven hooves and chews its cud. (This is why pigs are out. Cloven hooves, but no cud-chewing.) In addition, the animal needs to be slaughtered in a certain way. So would an artificial steak be considered to be "cow" because it genetically descends from cow? Is it still fine if the lab grown vat "animal" didn't have hooves or a stomach, but was just a hunk of meat? Would it be considered Kosher at all because it wasn't "slaughtered" but was just lab-grown? Would it even be considered meat or would a "artificial meat cheeseburger" be acceptable?
There will probably be differing opinions (varying from "it's fine/not meat" to "it's fine/meat" to "not allowed at all"). It should be interesting to hear the debates rage on among the rabbis.
TSA to Congressmen considering a hypothetical TSA Oversight bill: Oversight? Oversight is just a fancy word for "getting in the TSA's way of catching terrorists." We need LESS oversight and MORE power to the TSA or terrorists will sneak into your houses and eat up your children... or worse, you won't get re-elected!
Obviously, the problem is that we need MORE TSA in MORE areas of our life. We need to keep increasing the number of TSA agents until they inevitably catch a terrorist. (By sheer probability, the more TSA agents, the more likely one of them is to catch a terrorist.) Of course, once a terrorist is caught by the TSA, it will be proof positive that we need to add even more agents in more areas of our life since it was so effective.
Hosting (of the kind that can take the traffic they are likely to usually generate) is cheap. I could find them hosting on a shared server for $10 a month. (Yes, shared isn't as good as dedicated, but with their level of traffic they likely don't need dedicated.) This should be able to handle local traffic plus occasional international visitors without melting their servers.
If you post the links with: rel="nofollow" in the a tag, then Google and the other search engines will ignore it when it comes to search engine placement. (It's actually useful if you are going to link to a site a lot for valid reasons and don't want to be flagged as a link spammer.)
This is even worse than trying to claim that "you told John Smith where the infringing files are and therefore you are guilty of copyright infringement too." This is them saying "you told John Smith how to legally access our files (which we serve up), therefore you are guilty of copyright infringement." At least with the first example, there's primary infringement to base a claim of secondary infringement on. It's wrong, but there's at least a line of reasoning there. This is claiming secondary copyright infringement when no primary copyright infringement exists.
Using your crack house metaphor, it would be like a police officer arresting you for directing John Smith to a crack house on Main Street and Spring Avenue when it is a perfectly legal residence or store and neither you or John Smith insinuated it was a crack house. But because an address theoretically could be a crack house's address, all addresses are illegal to give out.
Slashdot Mirror
So since the Constitution doesn't specifically limit arms that means I can own any weapon I desire and the government can't say no? Question: Should I put my new surface to air missile launcher in the backyard or mount it on my roof next to my nuke?
You'd think the shooting ranges would be in favor of this idea. People would be buying the bullets AT the shooting range (i.e. giving the shooting range more money) instead of at Wal-Mart and bringing it with them.
Building a bomb is a risky proposition. Do it wrong and you blow yourself up. In addition, seek assistance/ingredients in the wrong manner and you call unwanted attention to yourself. (i.e. The FBI catches wind of your plot and shuts you down before you hurt anyone.)
Using a semi-automatic weapon with a large magazine is a low risk proposition. Minimal training and you can load it and be ready to shoot hundreds of targets in an office/school/movie theatre/etc. And since this weapon is currently legal, you draw no major attention to yourself by acquiring one (assuming you don't have a felony record already).
If these assault weapons were to be magically removed from society tomorrow, would some sickos turn to bombs? Sure. Would they find it as easy as using the assault weapons? Definitely not.
That's my problem with the whole "good guy with a gun stops bad guy with a gun" assumption. It pretends that the world is black and white and people never make mistakes. There was a news story recently where a kid known to have Asperger's was tackled to the ground because a) he had his hands in his pockets and b) someone knew he had Asperger's and believed that was what drove the Sandy Hook shooter to commit those crimes. Turns out this kid was just handling a piece of paper that helped him calm down in a stressful situation (big store = lots of noise = major stress for Aspies). What would have happened if that person was armed and decided they were the good guy and this kid was the bad guy?
Or go back to the movie theater shooting. Gun advocates assume that an armed civilian would have stood up, taken aim and killed the gunman cleanly. Since real life is hardly ever that clean, what's more likely is that Civilian #1 would draw on the gunman, fire, miss, and hit someone else. Or else Civilian #2 would spot Civilian #1, assume he's "the bad guy", and shoot him.
I'm not saying that "good guy with a gun stops bad guy with a gun" never happens. Of course it does. But real life isn't so cut and dried and having an armed civilian isn't a guarantee that they'll step up (as opposed to getting out while they can and not putting themselves more in harm's way), properly identify the appropriate target, fire (before being hit themselves), and take out the gunman. Pretending that "good guy with a gun" would have stopped every single "bad guy with a gun" without any collateral damage is pure fantasy.
Roy: "Hello, IT."
Caller: "Yes, there's a burglar in my house and my gun won't fire."
Roy: "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"
It's not as black and white as "smart people don't have guns" or "smart people have gun training & stupid people have no training." There are plenty of smart people with guns. These people treat their weapons with the requisite care and respect knowing that being careless with a firearm can be deadly. Then, there are plenty of stupid gun owners who think nothing of leaving their loaded gun on the coffee table or waving it around like a toy. (They then cry about what a random tragedy it was that little Billy got shot and they were completely not to blame.) On the other side, there are plenty of stupid people without guns (usually the ones saying "ban all kinds of guns for everyone - no exceptions), but also plenty of smart people without guns.
I, personally, don't have any guns. I tend to be a huge klutz, can be careless at the wrong times (when distracted, for example), and am a horrible shot. I wouldn't trust myself with a gun so, in my case, the smart decision is to not own one. Gun ownership, like many things in life, isn't for everyone.
It's the same faulty risk analysis that plagues people who think "vaccine risk > mumps/polio/whooping cough/etc risk". They haven't seen these diseases firsthand so they mentally minimize them and then over-inflate the vaccine risk until it exceeds their imagined "disease risk".
When it comes to the "US vs. Dictatorships", they haven't seen a real dictatorship so they minimize the "Dictatorship risk" and then increase the "US risk" until it is more. Here's a hint: The mere fact that we can complain about the US government without being arrested means that our risk in the US is less than in a true dictatorship.
We have a pretty small house. We have a 32" SD television set in the living room. When that set dies, we'll spring for a HD set. Most likely another 32 inch set as we don't really have the space for anything bigger. At that size, there won't be any noticeable difference between HD and 4K. About the only advantage 4K TVs would give me would be the inevitable price drop that HD TVs would experience. Other than that, I don't really see the benefit to "super duper HD" beyond the manufacturers trying to get customers to upgrade perfectly good equipment.
Don't worry, they'll detain him for a bit. Question him like he's a common criminal. And then drop all charges and release him with the "understanding" that they've got their eye on him and with the word getting out that you don't videotape the police if you don't want to be "inconvenienced" by some jail time.
I agree with the asking him nicely part, but not with the "that's what disorderly conduct" part. If he curses at the officer, spits in his face and tries to run away, sure. But if he says "Actually, officer, I'd rather not delete it" (in a calm manner) then the officer shouldn't arrest him and charge him with disorderly conduct. Disagreeing with a police officer shouldn't be grounds for disorderly conduct, especially when you've done nothing else wrong.
In cases like this, I always say the same thing. There are either 2 possibilities here:
1) There is a valid crime to charge him with. In this case, the police officers just destroyed evidence which is both illegal and could let the guy off since the case is based on the video.
2) There isn't a valid crime to charge him with. In this case, the police officers just destroyed his private property for no good reason. (The video embarrasses them isn't a good reason.)
Neither of these scenarios is good for the police. Sadly, they're probably really close to the DA and nobody will be charged. And if he tries to file a civil suit... well, good luck suing the police department. You'd better not step outside of the exact letter of the law even an inch (e.g. drive a single mile over the speed limit ever again).
It is possible, but if it did it would be a temporary effect that would only mask the problem. Eventually, the particles would settle out of the atmosphere and the climate would heat up extremely fast. Maintaining particulates in the air wouldn't be a viable option either as this would just be creating pollution on a massive scale to fight global warming. This would be the "releasing thousands of snakes to fight a lizard problem and then releasing thousands of gorillas to take care of the snakes" plan. Except there wouldn't be a winter to kill off the gorillas.
If they have been, I bet they weren't True Scotsmen!
If many firemen are indeed pyromaniacs, then their career choice has become a positive outlet for tendencies that could otherwise prove destructive.
In the case of these nurses, however, their religion is having a negative effect on their career choice (or vice versa depending on how you look at it). So they need to change one or the other.
Ah, but what did he teach? What words did he use and how do you interpret that in the context of a modern society? Even the "reference book" you use might have different translations with some conflicting advice.
This problem isn't unique to Christianity, of course. I'm Jewish and there are tons of different interpretations about what is allowed and what isn't and how you should live your life. I follow what I agree with and don't follow what I don't agree with. I'm sure that makes me a "Bad Jew" according to some religious folks, but I don't live my life on their moral code. Some other folks will call me names for following "the wrong religion" or for even following a religion at all. I don't care because I don't live my life on those people's moral codes either. I live it on my own.
Of course, there are limits. My right to swing my fist ends at your nose. I can observe my religion, but don't expect anyone else to act differently to accommodate me so long as they also don't specifically exclude me based on religion without a good reason. (e.g. I don't expect you to stop eating pork, but if my office made a rule requiring people to eat pork to be employed I'd have a problem with that.) While the nurses claim the hospital has made a rule against their religion, the rule was made with patient safety in mind and them not following the rule puts patients at risk. So the nurses have to weigh whether their religious beliefs are stronger than their connection to that employer. If so, quit and find a new job. If they find that all jobs in their chosen profession have this requirement (and I believe many do), then they might need to reexamine their religious beliefs or their career path.
Despite the lack of details, I'm just enjoying the fact that we've got an SUV sized robot on another planet that is sending high definition photographs back to us that I can look at on the computer on my desk or on my phone. We've become a bit jaded with what technology can do, but when you take the time to think about it, just this much is amazing. (Then there's the icing on the cake of getting real science out of the robot-SUV-on-Mars.)
Exactly. And if she was lured under false pretenses, she could have easily been slipped something in an otherwise innocuous drink. Remember the recent news story about the kid who drugged her parents with sleep medicine in milkshakes so she could get more Facebook time? How easy would it have been to hand the girl a soda with some sleeping medicine (or something worse) mixed in. By the time she realizes what's up, she's waking up from having passed out the night before and the guys have violated her.
As for the guys "debating" whether it's rape, consent isn't an opt-out system. It's not "you're allowed to do whatever you want to someone as long as they don't get the chance to say 'No'." It's opt-in. If the person doesn't say "yes" then you don't have consent. (Even if they say yes, there might be mitigating factors such as being drunk, underage, etc. But in general "yes = consent" and absence of yes = no consent.)
Question: Did you post that response on Slashdot from work?
That's the blessing and curse of digital photography. Back in the film era, you had a certain number of shots to take. If you have a roll of film with 5 good photos, 1 exceptional one, and the rest all messed up a photo, you needed to pay to get them all developed. So the cost-per-printed-photo was high. Plus, if you snapped away at everything, you would run out of film quickly and would need to buy more. Extra expense.
Nowadays, you can get cards to hold more photos that you need. (I use a 16GB card that can hold over 2,000 photos. More than enough for a vacation.) You can keep all of your photos in digital form, only share the decent ones, and perhaps print the one or two that are exceptional. The cost-per-photo has dropped to nearly nothing.
So with the cost-per-photo at near-zero, there's no reason not to snap away at everything. The same goes for video which used to require a bulky camera and big VHS tapes, but now only requires a tiny cell phone. Yes, in a way, it makes photos like spam, but I think we're better off for it.
I'm sure this isn't a top priority for most folks here, but as someone who keeps somewhat Kosher I'm interested to see what implications artificial meat holds for Judaism's Kosher laws.
When it comes to land animal (but not bird) meat, the basic rule is cloven hooves and chews its cud. (This is why pigs are out. Cloven hooves, but no cud-chewing.) In addition, the animal needs to be slaughtered in a certain way. So would an artificial steak be considered to be "cow" because it genetically descends from cow? Is it still fine if the lab grown vat "animal" didn't have hooves or a stomach, but was just a hunk of meat? Would it be considered Kosher at all because it wasn't "slaughtered" but was just lab-grown? Would it even be considered meat or would a "artificial meat cheeseburger" be acceptable?
There will probably be differing opinions (varying from "it's fine/not meat" to "it's fine/meat" to "not allowed at all"). It should be interesting to hear the debates rage on among the rabbis.
TSA to Congressmen considering a hypothetical TSA Oversight bill: Oversight? Oversight is just a fancy word for "getting in the TSA's way of catching terrorists." We need LESS oversight and MORE power to the TSA or terrorists will sneak into your houses and eat up your children... or worse, you won't get re-elected!
Obviously, the problem is that we need MORE TSA in MORE areas of our life. We need to keep increasing the number of TSA agents until they inevitably catch a terrorist. (By sheer probability, the more TSA agents, the more likely one of them is to catch a terrorist.) Of course, once a terrorist is caught by the TSA, it will be proof positive that we need to add even more agents in more areas of our life since it was so effective.
In unrelated news, this Kool Aid tastes weird.
Hosting (of the kind that can take the traffic they are likely to usually generate) is cheap. I could find them hosting on a shared server for $10 a month. (Yes, shared isn't as good as dedicated, but with their level of traffic they likely don't need dedicated.) This should be able to handle local traffic plus occasional international visitors without melting their servers.
If you post the links with: rel="nofollow" in the a tag, then Google and the other search engines will ignore it when it comes to search engine placement. (It's actually useful if you are going to link to a site a lot for valid reasons and don't want to be flagged as a link spammer.)
This is even worse than trying to claim that "you told John Smith where the infringing files are and therefore you are guilty of copyright infringement too." This is them saying "you told John Smith how to legally access our files (which we serve up), therefore you are guilty of copyright infringement." At least with the first example, there's primary infringement to base a claim of secondary infringement on. It's wrong, but there's at least a line of reasoning there. This is claiming secondary copyright infringement when no primary copyright infringement exists.
Using your crack house metaphor, it would be like a police officer arresting you for directing John Smith to a crack house on Main Street and Spring Avenue when it is a perfectly legal residence or store and neither you or John Smith insinuated it was a crack house. But because an address theoretically could be a crack house's address, all addresses are illegal to give out.