The most useful thing would be if it was really hard to be put on the ballot for public office without having a psychopathy test. Of course, it might be hard to find anyone willing to run for office if this happened...
It's not just tyrants who rise to power militarily through violence; this happened right here in the USA too. A group of influential people decided they didn't like being ruled by the English crown any more, managed to convince a bunch more people to violently rebel, they had a war, managed to win the war, and afterwards the top general was elected President for two terms. Luckily, he wasn't much of a tyrant; he refused to seize power and become dictator even though he probably would have succeeded, and he refused to serve more than two terms, and is generally regarded by historians as one of the best Presidents in US history. (Too bad we can't get anyone else even a tenth as good as him these days.)
I disagree. Coming up through the military is just as valid a way to be a "government official" as rising through the bureaucracy. You're just trying to paint it as different because ancient governments were markedly different from our own, but it's really no different: lots of government officials right here in the USA rose through the military, not bureaucracy: Ulysses ("useless") S. Grant, Dwight Eisenhower, Colin Powell, even George Washington. Three of those were Presidents, the highest a government official can get in the US. "War heroes" frequently cross over into powerful positions in government; it's been like that throughout society.
Some more famous names of soldiers becoming government officials: Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Finally, being elected isn't necessary to be a "government official", though this was the case for the three Presidents I named above. A government is a government, no matter whether it's elected, some kind of cabal (like in China), or simply seizes power militarily (like Myanmar, Pakistan, Cuba, and lots of other places now and in recent history). So Genghis Khan is certainly a "government official"; the fact that he placed himself in that position with his own military power is irrelevant, he was the de facto government in that part of the world at the time.
The only people this would flag would be stupid psychopaths... which of course is a definite first place to check when a crime has been committed
Depends on the crime. If it's something like a robbery, home invasion, etc., then definitely, any test that looks for stupid psychopaths should be useful. However, if you're looking for someone who's perpetrated billion-dollar fraud schemes, or paid off their psychopathic friends in Congress to make bad laws favorable to them, it's not going to help.
I don't know, it might be. But one big difference I see, at least in my region and in other regions I've lived in, is that enforcement is very strict these days. Back in Virginia, they even used to have checkpoints on certain roads at late hours. Here in Arizona, cops are very zealous about arresting people for DUI, and then they go to the infamous Sheriff Joe's "Tent City" and spend a weekend there in the sweltering heat. It seems to be a pretty big money-maker too from what I've heard from people who've been nabbed. There isn't that much enforcement of speeding laws here in Phoenix (people drive 85 all the time on the freeways), but you're really asking for jail time and thousands of dollars in fines if you're caught with any alcohol on your breath.
However, from what I hear from older people, back in the 70s, 60s, etc. there was little to no enforcement of DUI laws, if they even had any, and when someone was killed in a drunk-driving accident, the mentality was that "it was just an accident". These days, when someone gets hurt or killed by a drunk, people want to get torches and pitchforks (and rightfully so), even though oddly, a significant percentage of the population still engages in impaired driving, though it's hard to tell if there's much overlap in those two groups.
Yes, explosives would probably be move devastating. As for modifying the bottle, I don't know if I'd expect some moron like this to try that. People who pull these things off usually aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer; just look at this guy, he had 4 guns and a bunch of ammo and he only managed to kill 12. Obviously, he wasn't the best shot (thankfully).
Somewhere between 1% and 5% of the population is sociopathic, or at least has some level of sociopathy. It's unsurprising that there's an occasional overlap between that set and the set of geeks.
Well, this is all conjecture of course, but I'm thinking if someone threw a handful of molotov cocktails into a crowded theater, people would run for the exit; it would take a minute or two for the room to be engulfed in flames most likely, so most people would escape. Of course, some people would get burns, and some people might get injured in the stampede, there might even be a couple deaths from those two factors, but I'm thinking the death toll would be lower than with guns. Also, I'm not sure how well molotov cocktails would work in a crowded theater anyway; aren't they basically glass bottles filled with gasoline? Well, to break them open, they'd have to hit something hard, like the concrete floor, and they have to hit it hard enough to actually shatter. Some glass bottles are surprisingly strong these days (probably to avoid shipping breakage). And a crowded theater is full of human bodies, which are fairly soft; hitting someone with a molotov cocktail isn't going to engulf them in flames, it'll just give them a bad bruise, so you'd have to make sure your bottles actually hit the floor directly with high speed, rather than bouncing off a nice soft person or a padded seat instead. With the tiny amount of space between rows in a modern theater, that could be pretty challenging; you'd probably have to settle for just throwing the bottles in the aisleways.
Kid dies from a drunk driver? Not the driver's irresponsibility! It's the fact that drunk driving laws aren't strict enough and we need to search everyone randomly at checkpoints regardless of probable cause. And if you protest then you approve of drunk driving!
One of the problems with drunk driving deaths, in the past, was that prosecution wasn't strict enough. They'd just say, "the alcohol made him do it, it wasn't his fault" and the killer would walk free. Our (USA) culture used to be extremely tolerant of drunk driving and the inevitable accidents that resulted. This may be part of what caused certain groups of citizens to push so hard for strong measures to combat drunk driving.
I doubt this guy, like any other mass shooter, is going to be treated very leniently like that.
And you're right about the molotov cocktails. There isn't much that would stop some nut from throwing a bunch of those into a crowded theater, though I doubt it'd be quite as effective as firearms. But there's plenty of other ways to go on murderous rampages, such as just driving your car into a crowd of people. Some old guy did that in California about a decade ago, and last I heard, they basically let him walk free, even after he blamed the pedestrians (in an open-air market) for not jumping out of the way fast enough.
I disagree, because they're making way too much money, meaning other industries are wasting all that money on their bullshit "analysis", and that results in higher prices for everything. All these analysts could be doing far more productive jobs in other industries, such as cleaning toilets, picking up trash, stocking shelves, or busing tables, or best of all, picking fruit and vegetables.
A BMW M5 and Mercedes E63 AMG may be technically "luxury sedans", but only technically. Compared to an American luxury car, these have rather harsh rides, with their stiff suspensions. Try comparing one to a Lincoln Town Car.
Of course, personally, I don't give a shit about feeling like I'm floating on a cloud or whatever, but over here in America, that's the definition of "luxury car", not something that comes close to rivaling a Corvette on a twisty road course. There's actually another term for cars like that that people in some circles use: "GT cars". Basically, this means a car which has the engine and suspension of a high-performance sports car, but has all the interior appointments and gadgets of a high-end luxury car. So it has a weight penalty compared to a more-pure sports car, but it gets close to the performance, but it also doesn't give you the completely-isolated-from-the-road feeling that a traditional American luxury car gives you (which people over the age of 75 seem to love, judging by sales figures on those vehicles).
Only problem with that is that, as others have already pointed out, this wasn't a criminal prosecution, it was a violation (like a traffic ticket). So there was no violation of rights at all. You don't get a jury trial when you contest your traffic tickets either.
It's staggering to think about: this company has 5000 "associates", 1200 of which are "analysts", and manages to pull in $1.5 billion a year, all while doing absolutely nothing of value to the human race.
Maybe, but the bar has been raised in both markets. Today's Corvette will still easily outperform and outhandle even the best Cadillac. No one's invented a suspension yet that can be both soft and firm at the same time (or rather, soft for bumps and firm when cornering). There has been some research into "active suspensions" over the years, but nothing's really made it into production vehicles yet.
Personally, I don't give a rat's ass about my phone fitting in my pocket. That's why I bought a holster for it (actually, I got a combination case and holster from Seidio; the case fits on the phone and the belt holster fits the phone with the casing installed).
Linux shell syntax is not really softboard friendly.
Sure it is. You just need a new keyboard app. There's one in the Android market called "Hacker's Keyboard"; it's a full QWERTY keyboard with ctrl, alt, and just about every other key a normal keyboard has. You can also remap it to different keyboards like Dvorak, AZERTY, etc.
Failures are down to how well the service is managed and how pissy customers get when there's a problem. Or perhaps you believe Americans are too stupid to handle local grocery deliveries?
No, I believe businesses would fail to manage the service very well if it were tried here.
If you really think you "need" one that badly, and don't want to give $30k to some big corporation, go buy an old used one and fix it up. The people who actually use pickups for real work won't have much trouble with that, because they generally don't care what their pickups look like. The people who buy pickups as fashion accessories won't like that, because they want their truck to be perfectly blemish-free and brand-new looking, and won't want something 15 years old.
Maybe I'm missing something, but why would the guy want to do this, when the judge ruled in his favor? Maybe the judge agreed with him, wanted to strike a blow against the TSA, and wanted to avoid the risk of a jury of morons ruling against him. Why would he want to sue for a new trial and risk losing, or at best have them just rule the same way the judge ruled? Suing would make sense if he lost, but he didn't, he won. The way I see it, the court system worked fairly well here; the problem is the TSA and the actions of the Federal government; the court here has acted against that. Suing over this technicality isn't going to help the man's anti-TSA cause at all, and might just hurt it badly, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory so to speak.
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The most useful thing would be if it was really hard to be put on the ballot for public office without having a psychopathy test. Of course, it might be hard to find anyone willing to run for office if this happened...
Exactly. Or, they go to work on Wall Street and destroy the nation's economy; we call those psychopaths "bankers" (or sometimes "banksters").
It's not just tyrants who rise to power militarily through violence; this happened right here in the USA too. A group of influential people decided they didn't like being ruled by the English crown any more, managed to convince a bunch more people to violently rebel, they had a war, managed to win the war, and afterwards the top general was elected President for two terms. Luckily, he wasn't much of a tyrant; he refused to seize power and become dictator even though he probably would have succeeded, and he refused to serve more than two terms, and is generally regarded by historians as one of the best Presidents in US history. (Too bad we can't get anyone else even a tenth as good as him these days.)
I disagree. Coming up through the military is just as valid a way to be a "government official" as rising through the bureaucracy. You're just trying to paint it as different because ancient governments were markedly different from our own, but it's really no different: lots of government officials right here in the USA rose through the military, not bureaucracy: Ulysses ("useless") S. Grant, Dwight Eisenhower, Colin Powell, even George Washington. Three of those were Presidents, the highest a government official can get in the US. "War heroes" frequently cross over into powerful positions in government; it's been like that throughout society.
Some more famous names of soldiers becoming government officials: Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Finally, being elected isn't necessary to be a "government official", though this was the case for the three Presidents I named above. A government is a government, no matter whether it's elected, some kind of cabal (like in China), or simply seizes power militarily (like Myanmar, Pakistan, Cuba, and lots of other places now and in recent history). So Genghis Khan is certainly a "government official"; the fact that he placed himself in that position with his own military power is irrelevant, he was the de facto government in that part of the world at the time.
The only people this would flag would be stupid psychopaths... which of course is a definite first place to check when a crime has been committed
Depends on the crime. If it's something like a robbery, home invasion, etc., then definitely, any test that looks for stupid psychopaths should be useful. However, if you're looking for someone who's perpetrated billion-dollar fraud schemes, or paid off their psychopathic friends in Congress to make bad laws favorable to them, it's not going to help.
Maybe, but it doesn't look like he spent any time at the shooting range (thankfully).
I don't know, it might be. But one big difference I see, at least in my region and in other regions I've lived in, is that enforcement is very strict these days. Back in Virginia, they even used to have checkpoints on certain roads at late hours. Here in Arizona, cops are very zealous about arresting people for DUI, and then they go to the infamous Sheriff Joe's "Tent City" and spend a weekend there in the sweltering heat. It seems to be a pretty big money-maker too from what I've heard from people who've been nabbed. There isn't that much enforcement of speeding laws here in Phoenix (people drive 85 all the time on the freeways), but you're really asking for jail time and thousands of dollars in fines if you're caught with any alcohol on your breath.
However, from what I hear from older people, back in the 70s, 60s, etc. there was little to no enforcement of DUI laws, if they even had any, and when someone was killed in a drunk-driving accident, the mentality was that "it was just an accident". These days, when someone gets hurt or killed by a drunk, people want to get torches and pitchforks (and rightfully so), even though oddly, a significant percentage of the population still engages in impaired driving, though it's hard to tell if there's much overlap in those two groups.
Yes, explosives would probably be move devastating. As for modifying the bottle, I don't know if I'd expect some moron like this to try that. People who pull these things off usually aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer; just look at this guy, he had 4 guns and a bunch of ammo and he only managed to kill 12. Obviously, he wasn't the best shot (thankfully).
I know, I've heard that too. My mother was a hospital nurse.
Somewhere between 1% and 5% of the population is sociopathic, or at least has some level of sociopathy. It's unsurprising that there's an occasional overlap between that set and the set of geeks.
Well, this is all conjecture of course, but I'm thinking if someone threw a handful of molotov cocktails into a crowded theater, people would run for the exit; it would take a minute or two for the room to be engulfed in flames most likely, so most people would escape. Of course, some people would get burns, and some people might get injured in the stampede, there might even be a couple deaths from those two factors, but I'm thinking the death toll would be lower than with guns. Also, I'm not sure how well molotov cocktails would work in a crowded theater anyway; aren't they basically glass bottles filled with gasoline? Well, to break them open, they'd have to hit something hard, like the concrete floor, and they have to hit it hard enough to actually shatter. Some glass bottles are surprisingly strong these days (probably to avoid shipping breakage). And a crowded theater is full of human bodies, which are fairly soft; hitting someone with a molotov cocktail isn't going to engulf them in flames, it'll just give them a bad bruise, so you'd have to make sure your bottles actually hit the floor directly with high speed, rather than bouncing off a nice soft person or a padded seat instead. With the tiny amount of space between rows in a modern theater, that could be pretty challenging; you'd probably have to settle for just throwing the bottles in the aisleways.
Kid dies from a drunk driver? Not the driver's irresponsibility! It's the fact that drunk driving laws aren't strict enough and we need to search everyone randomly at checkpoints regardless of probable cause. And if you protest then you approve of drunk driving!
One of the problems with drunk driving deaths, in the past, was that prosecution wasn't strict enough. They'd just say, "the alcohol made him do it, it wasn't his fault" and the killer would walk free. Our (USA) culture used to be extremely tolerant of drunk driving and the inevitable accidents that resulted. This may be part of what caused certain groups of citizens to push so hard for strong measures to combat drunk driving.
I doubt this guy, like any other mass shooter, is going to be treated very leniently like that.
And you're right about the molotov cocktails. There isn't much that would stop some nut from throwing a bunch of those into a crowded theater, though I doubt it'd be quite as effective as firearms. But there's plenty of other ways to go on murderous rampages, such as just driving your car into a crowd of people. Some old guy did that in California about a decade ago, and last I heard, they basically let him walk free, even after he blamed the pedestrians (in an open-air market) for not jumping out of the way fast enough.
I disagree, because they're making way too much money, meaning other industries are wasting all that money on their bullshit "analysis", and that results in higher prices for everything. All these analysts could be doing far more productive jobs in other industries, such as cleaning toilets, picking up trash, stocking shelves, or busing tables, or best of all, picking fruit and vegetables.
A BMW M5 and Mercedes E63 AMG may be technically "luxury sedans", but only technically. Compared to an American luxury car, these have rather harsh rides, with their stiff suspensions. Try comparing one to a Lincoln Town Car.
Of course, personally, I don't give a shit about feeling like I'm floating on a cloud or whatever, but over here in America, that's the definition of "luxury car", not something that comes close to rivaling a Corvette on a twisty road course. There's actually another term for cars like that that people in some circles use: "GT cars". Basically, this means a car which has the engine and suspension of a high-performance sports car, but has all the interior appointments and gadgets of a high-end luxury car. So it has a weight penalty compared to a more-pure sports car, but it gets close to the performance, but it also doesn't give you the completely-isolated-from-the-road feeling that a traditional American luxury car gives you (which people over the age of 75 seem to love, judging by sales figures on those vehicles).
Only problem with that is that, as others have already pointed out, this wasn't a criminal prosecution, it was a violation (like a traffic ticket). So there was no violation of rights at all. You don't get a jury trial when you contest your traffic tickets either.
It's staggering to think about: this company has 5000 "associates", 1200 of which are "analysts", and manages to pull in $1.5 billion a year, all while doing absolutely nothing of value to the human race.
Maybe, but the bar has been raised in both markets. Today's Corvette will still easily outperform and outhandle even the best Cadillac. No one's invented a suspension yet that can be both soft and firm at the same time (or rather, soft for bumps and firm when cornering). There has been some research into "active suspensions" over the years, but nothing's really made it into production vehicles yet.
Personally, I don't give a rat's ass about my phone fitting in my pocket. That's why I bought a holster for it (actually, I got a combination case and holster from Seidio; the case fits on the phone and the belt holster fits the phone with the casing installed).
Linux shell syntax is not really softboard friendly.
Sure it is. You just need a new keyboard app. There's one in the Android market called "Hacker's Keyboard"; it's a full QWERTY keyboard with ctrl, alt, and just about every other key a normal keyboard has. You can also remap it to different keyboards like Dvorak, AZERTY, etc.
They've also had some success in building nuclear wessels.
Failures are down to how well the service is managed and how pissy customers get when there's a problem. Or perhaps you believe Americans are too stupid to handle local grocery deliveries?
No, I believe businesses would fail to manage the service very well if it were tried here.
Hey, we're doing a lot better than Russia, Moldova, and Ukraine!
No one "needs" a pickup.
If you really think you "need" one that badly, and don't want to give $30k to some big corporation, go buy an old used one and fix it up. The people who actually use pickups for real work won't have much trouble with that, because they generally don't care what their pickups look like. The people who buy pickups as fashion accessories won't like that, because they want their truck to be perfectly blemish-free and brand-new looking, and won't want something 15 years old.
Scanners at theaters won't help; the gunman today kicked in one of the emergency exit doors from the outside.
Maybe I'm missing something, but why would the guy want to do this, when the judge ruled in his favor? Maybe the judge agreed with him, wanted to strike a blow against the TSA, and wanted to avoid the risk of a jury of morons ruling against him. Why would he want to sue for a new trial and risk losing, or at best have them just rule the same way the judge ruled? Suing would make sense if he lost, but he didn't, he won. The way I see it, the court system worked fairly well here; the problem is the TSA and the actions of the Federal government; the court here has acted against that. Suing over this technicality isn't going to help the man's anti-TSA cause at all, and might just hurt it badly, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory so to speak.