Thanks. I'll readily agree with anyone who wants to make the point that there are problems, massive problems, with the way forfeiture is done, but overstating or misrepresenting those problems doesn't help anyone. All it does is make the people against forfeitures look like cranks, and give the appearance of legitimacy to those in favour of it when they knock those arguments down. I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to learn the actual issues, and make your opinions known to your legislators. While I still contend that the links provided by $pace6host don't factor into my arguments that the OP was wrong, they do contain plenty of examples of why forfeiture, especially as it's currently practiced, is dangerous and should be ended.
Hey, I looked at the parent, and the parent's parent, and the parent's parent's parent, I see no "50% of police in 4 states" assertion in any of those.
Apparently you didn't look very hard. Quote from the post I was replying to: They couldn't simply arrest all of the criminal cops because in those four states, as much as 90% of the state police would be behind bars. Hmmm, wait a moment, you even included that quote in your latest response. It wouldn't be hard to find if you had actually looked.
Now, once again, I was talking about the specific practices that the OP stated were taking place. Your links do not support what he said was happening, namely, that 90% of the cops in the states mentioned were taking peoples cars, and personally profiting from their sales. I read your articles, and I do not see anything that states that the officers involved in the confiscations received any cut from the proceeds of any auctions.
Irrelevant? If I could seize my neighbor's car and drive it around, it would be irrelevant that I didn't own it personally.
Yes, because I was responding to the assertion that the cars were being sold, and that the officer who confiscated it was being given the proceeds from the sale. I also said, which you conveniently snipped, that I don't agree with the policy of the P.D. mentioned that allowed staff use of impounded vehicles, or for that matter most forms of forfeiture, but hey, why keep it in? That just messes up your rant.
Well, OK, I guess I did read my own interpretations into that. I don't in fact know if the trunk was actually full of cocaine, or if they cruised around with it, but did you not read the citations I provided? I guess you're right. It's less than 50% of all police. You're a genious. I hope you live in a world where only 49% of the police drag you out of your car and beat you up. No one will care then. It's not a majority.
Your cites did not contain a single case of the police planting evidence. Since you ask, there is no percentage of corrupt police that are acceptable, but that's not what was being discussed, was it? I questioned the assertion that 90% of the cops in 4 states were planting evidence, and being given direct shares in the proceeds. He didn't demonstrate it to be true, and neither have you.
Plus, you WILL (if you would READ those articles I linked) see that there ARE jurisdictions where cops share in the proceeds.
No, that is not what they say. There are governmental agencies that get the proceeds. There are examples of cops who are blatantly stealing things, and there is an example of the misuse of funds granted by the federal government to the police. There is not one example of, as the parent put it, "You car and all your property within the car is sold at auction. Cop pockets all of the proceeds".
Hmm, I provided links to sites that were mainstream media (Seattle Post Intelligencer, plus there were references in the cited articles to others).
Indeed you did, they just didn't provide any information that supported the OPs assertions.
You seem to want to claim that since it's not technically 50% of the police, it's not really a problem. Neither I, nor anyone else who values their personal liberty, want to live in your fantasy world.
You can attempt to twist this as much as you want, but you're arguing points that I'm simply not making. My post stated only that the OP could not back up his assertions. You haven't added anything to the discussion that proves his point either. I will also, again, point out that I am not in favor of forfeiture of property upon being charged with a crime, and in most cases, not even on conviction. I said that before, but I guess you thought your argument looked more compelling if you left it out. Or then again, maybe you just couldn't find it, like the hidden 90% quote.
You know, I'm really sick of people getting mod points and using troll on anything they disagree with. You don't agree with what bigmouth_strikes said? Fine, reply and tell him why you think he's wrong, but I don't see anything in his post that deserves a troll mod.
FWIW bigmouth, good post. I wonder if I'll get modded troll now too?
A quick search turned up this. There appears to be more information here.
Neither of which supports the assertion that 90% of police in 4 states were engaged in planting evidence in vehicles on a regular basis.
I'm not going to argue that forfeiture laws aren't badly implemented, and I'm not going to say that they're never abused. Read the post that I replied to, in which I challenged only the following:
a)Police officers are not casually and rampantly planting evidence to kick in forfeiture. Yes, it has happened, but not on the scale suggested by my post's parent.
b)Police officers do not simply confiscate things for their own gain. His quote: "You car and all your property within the car is sold at auction. Cop pockets all of the proceeds". In some of your examples, officers steal property. This is a different problem, and unrelated to forfeiture law.
c)I find his assertion that 90% of State Police officers in 4 states are guilty of the above to be absurd. There is no way that tens of thousands of officers are engaging in planting evidence casually every time they see a nice car go by, and getting away without anyone noticing.
It took 2 1/2 years after concerns were first raised internally for the King County Sheriff's Office to stop allowing employees to use vehicles seized in drug cases. At one point, 21 detectives and officials -- including the budget and accounting director, the legal adviser, a volunteer chaplain and the Asian community liaison -- were driving the cars.
Irrelevant. This quote is referring to the, in my opinion, stupid practice of letting P.D. personnel sign out cars that are held in evidence. The officers do not get to keep them, they do not get to sell them and keep the proceeds.
I get the feeling that what you've got is ostrich disease, coupled with an overdeveloped confidence in the goodness of people in authority.
All that means is that you didn't understand what I was replying to. Read it again, and this time, try not to be so eager to force it to mean what you apparently want it to mean.
I personally have a wonderful opinion of my local police, the few I've met have all been very nice, polite, and honest.
Really? Because you're arguing in defense of a post that claims that 90% of them are felons hiding behind a badge. Either you didn't pay attention to what I was refuting, or you're okay with 9 in 10 cops being totally corrupt. Which is it?
I do, however, recognize that the police are drawn from the same population of humans as every other vocation, and that population has bad people in it. They're not infallible or incorruptible.
I'm quite sure I never claimed anything to the contrary.
Now, if you really want to talk about forfeiture laws in general, they're typically horribly implemented. Thank your local, state and federal politicians for that. Quite frankly, they should be reviewed, and probably rebuilt from the ground up to ensure that forfeiture is tied to conviction, not arrest, and even then only in rare cases.
Can't say about where he is from,but in AR most of the counties passed little laws to "encourage strict enforcement" that gives the busting cop a percentage.
Wow, if that's true, it's one of the worst ideas I've ever heard.
Please keep in mind though, I'm NOT saying there's no such thing as police corruption. I was responding to very specific points that the parent post was making. There certainly are cops who break the law, and they should be found and dealt with appropriately, both for breaking their trust with the public they're supposed to protect, and for damaging the reputation of all the others who do their jobs honorably.
Several documentaries have been created on the topic. Even 60-minutes did a show or two.
This is not citing a source. If anything, it makes me think I was right about half-remembered anecdotes.
But, in your world county judges don't get to keep "court fees" to augment their income either. And officers who generate tickets don't benefit from the collected fees.
You're damn right they don't. Judges and cops are paid a salary. When you pay court costs you don't hand the judge a $50 bill which he then sticks into his pocket. That cost goes to the municipality, and it becomes part of their operating budget. If you know of a judge that actually steals the money before the town gets it, that is a crime, and probably not a particularly common one. I'll grant you that cops are sometimes directed to increase the number of tickets written, but again, they don't get a cut of that money. At best they get overtime for extra hours worked while they're writing them.
After all, the world is all about being just and fair. Never mind that several states are working to fix that abuse and corruption too.
I'm pretty sure I didn't say there was no such thing as corruption. Yes, some states have more corruption than others, and yes, they are [hopefully] working to correct that, but I believe your post grossly exaggerated the size of the problem, and suggested a type of corruption that simply doesn't seem very realistic. The world is not "all about being just and fair", but it's also not all about evil conspiracies either.
Personally, I think it's a horrible solution. I would be far more inclined to be in favour of more traditional penalties (fines, community-service, possible jail time) than something like this. Consider the following:
Bob and Jeff are caught poaching fish. The state confiscates their poles (home-made, essentially sticks with fishing line tied to the end), truck (30 year old Chevy Silverado with over 300k miles on it), and boat (inflatable, retail value about $150).
Mark and Rich are caught poaching fish. The state confiscates their poles (High-end fiberglass, retail value about $200 each), truck (3 year old Chevy Avalanche with about 40k miles on it), and boat (Fiberglass hull, value about $2500).
Same crime, wildly different penalty involved, as opposed to issuing each person a $200 (or $2000, or whatever you feel is correct for the offense) fine and 10 days community service.
Okay, yes, there are cases where [suspected] drug dealers property is impounded and then auctioned, but I think your description is way off.....
Cop sees nice expensive car. Cop pulls over the car. Cop claims you are a drug deal and plants evidence.
Here's my first problem.....the way you're stating this, the majority of cops are cruising around with a trunk full of cocaine just waiting to frame the innocent. Yes, there are cases where evidence has been planted, but in the ones I've heard of there's usually a stonger motive than "I want to confiscate your car". Unless you cite a good source, there's no way I believe it's that rampant.
You car and all your property within the car is sold at auction. Cop pockets all of the proceeds.
In what jurisdiction does the cop get the proceeds of auctioned property? I've never heard of this being practiced in the United States. The state gets the proceeds, and depending on where, it could go either directly to the police budget, or the general budget. Again, unless you can cite this, I'm having a hard time believing it.
They couldn't simply arrest all of the criminal cops because in those four states, as much as 90% of the state police would be behind bars. It was thought that created too much of a risk to public safety to put criminals in jail.
I would suspect that corruption on that level would attract both federal investigations, and media attention.
So chances are, if you've been ticketed by a state policeman in these states, you were ticketed by a criminal that has commit more crimes than most any criminal currently convicted, sitting in jail right now.
I get the feeling that what you've got is some half-remembered anecdotes about evidence auctions, and a general dislike for the police.......
I kinda wondered that myself, although I suspect that if Sprint notices one of these things sucking down more data than can reasonably be expected they'll disable its account....
I don't have one, but I suspect that a good part of the cost goes to Sprint PCS for the wireless support. As I understand it, the Kindle has data access over their network with no monthly charge for things like downloading from the bookstore, and Wikipedia access. I'm not saying it makes it worth $400, but that's got to play into the pricing.....
Being able to withstand shoves and kicks is essential if robots are to truly be our buddies, they reckon.
If these guys tend to kick and shove their buddies, it may explain why they have so much time to work on robots....."Finally, a friend I can kick who won't think I'm a jerk"
It's not hard to conclude/perceive that something happened in the 70's and beyond. Was it in the vaccinations?
Or maybe it was nuclear power. Or computers. Or the proliferation of color T.V. Or NASA bringing back moon-rocks. While my theories are sillier than yours, they do have something in common with it.....they're all unsupported by current available evidence.
It's probably very easy for a lot of trepidation about vaccines because of past experience, anecdotal it may very-well be, however it does not help when polititians, school boards, professional organizations (AMA) AND big drugcos all gang up and require new vaccines mandatory as soon as the trial period is complete. I'm glad I don't have children in school (or children at all for that matter). I'd be leery too. (hope my tinfoil hat isn't showing)
Nope, it's not glaring too hard, but still......Sure, you should be cautious about anything that someone wants to inject into your (or your child's) body. But the fact is, the vaccines we have today make you *less* likely to become ill, not more. The reason for compulsive vaccines isn't to further some dark plot, but to make sure you aren't a vector for disease that could affect the rest of us.
Do you get the flu shot every year? That's a vaccine. Do you realize it's a crap-shoot as to whether -or- not it will even be effective against the "projected strain" the powers that be are pushing? I thought not.
I don't get a flu shot since I'm not in a particularly high-risk group for a bad bout with it, but I know, and so does everyone else who pays attention to their doctor, the nightly news, or any of a thousand other sources that the projected strain may not be the one that actually hits. That's why it's a projected strain, and not a guaranteed strain.
No wonder a good portion of society distrust vaccines in general.
They distrust them because they don't understand them very well. This is a combination of the medical field not explaining it well enough to them, and their own lack of motivation to learn about them.
Now, get off my lawn.
Get of your lawn? I'm not coming within a thousand yards of your house! The only things I'm relatively sure I'm not going to catch from you are Polio and Tetanus!;)
I've never understood why science is so 'open minded' about things except when it comes to evolution being wrong.
Science is perfectly open minded about the possibility that evolution is wrong. All you have to do is provide evidence that all of the evidence we currently have is either wrong, or being completely misinterpreted. So far that hasn't happened, but if it does, the theory will change.
I'm not going to pick apart your whole "historical science" vs "operational science" thing, other than to point out that it seems to mostly be used as a distinction on religious/creationist websites. Answersingenesis.com is not an authoritative source for science. There is plenty of actual, biological science supporting Evolution, and none supporting Creationism.
Don't forget evolutionists and creationists are looking at the same data and applying it to their respective presuppositions.
No, they're not. SCIENTISTS are looking at the evidence, and basing their conclusions on that evidence. Creationists have a conclusion, and try to make the evidence fit that conclusion. This is not how scientific inquiry works.
We can observe natural selection in process today and I've never heard a creationist deny natural selection but natural selection is not the same thing as grand scale molecules to man evolution. It's thought as a mechanism by which the weak die and the strong survive not how information is added to the genome.
Ah, macro-evolution vs micro-evolution, nifty. Except that they're the same thing. Lots of changes piled up over a breathtakingly long time. Since this is a Slashdot post and not a biology textbook, I'm not going to get into every detail. The information isn't kept secret, look it up. I suggest you try some sources based in science rather than religion for the actual details though. Even if you don't believe the theory is correct, using sites like the ones you seem to be using, which contain a lot of misinformation on what evolution is, will not help you construct a very solid argument. Unless you're just talking to other Creationists that is.
This has been happening to me as well on my MacBook Pro running Tiger, and it's annoying as hell. In my case, it seems to be heat related, and it only seems to happen when the processor is under a pretty heavy load. I've found some comments from people with similar experiences, but no actual, or at least definite, fixes yet. The one thing that helped somewhat in my case was adding a fan control app and having the fans kick in sooner and faster than normal, but it's still happening sometimes.
I ask you, who controls PBS (the public entity that produces Sesame Street)? Christian right-wingers, or American Liberals? Yep, Liberals. The same people that take a Christian children's program, "Jay Jay the Jet Plane" and suck all the Christianity right out of it. To the point that when you tell people it was originally a Christian program, they are shocked.
It's possible that they're "shocked" because the creators of "Jay Jay the Jet Plane" intentionally keep the religious and secular markets seperate. Now, that took me all of about 2 minutes to find out. Perhaps before you start making up imaginary conspiracy theories to support an absurd rant about liberals, perhaps you should make sure it's at least a tiny bit tougher to debunk. If you feel that this show should have a more overt Christian message, perhaps you should complain to the creator of the franchise, David Michel, rather than making up stories about the people who air his creation.
Or the episode of South Park where George Lucas and Steven Spielberg kept altering their movies, notably editing out all the guns and replacing them with walkie talkies in E.T..
Actually, this wasn't just a fun idea from the minds of Matt and Trey, it's what actually happened. All of the guns were edited out of E.T. in the 20th anniversary edition DVD, and replaced with hand-held radios.
[fade in from black] [hip charismatic kid]: Hi, I'm a Mac.... [middle-aged, sorta nerdy guy]: And I'm a P.C...... [deformed little creature that would make Dr. Frankenstein wince]: And I'm their bastard love-child.....please....kill me....[creature gurgles and a wisp of smoke escapes an ill-fitting seam in it's neck]
[fade in from black] [hip charismatic kid]: Hi, I'm a Mac.... [middle-aged, sorta nerdy guy]: And I'm a P.C...... [insane looking creature who appears to be made from a conglomeration of movie monster parts]: And I'm the Entertainment Industry.....GIVE ME YOUR WALLETS YOU THIEVING BASTARDS!
Many citizens think that way. But if everyone did, there would be no sporty vehicles on the road, just white pickups and gray Corollas and 18-wheel haulers, and perhaps everyone would drive under the speed limit for safety as they trudged to and from their predetermined destinations.
Many irresponsible idiots think that way, but I've owned cars where I could spin the tires off the rims and leave almost anything on wheels that I encountered as a dwindling image in my rearview mirror, but I didn't do it on public roads. For the most part, people I knew who had similar cars didn't do it on public roads. If you want speed, find a track. People driving on a highway should not have to be subjected to race-car driver wannabe's with delusions of grandeur.
I take the risks into account and I'm willing to share the road, too bad about the folks who aren't.
Driving on a public road while following the rules is a risk everyone accepts when they get behind the wheel of a car. Insisting that you can ignore those rules, therefore increasing those risks to others is not an example of "sharing the road", it's an example of irresponsibility.
I stopped being surprised long ago that people who claim that they're "really great drivers" who can ignore stupid traffic regulations are among the worst drivers I've ever met.
Slashdot Mirror
Steve Jobs' ego?
(please don't flame me for that, you'll scorch the MacBook I'm posting from!)
Prostitutes addresses get put on there? Geeze, I guess Craigslist has some state-sponsored competition......
Thanks. I'll readily agree with anyone who wants to make the point that there are problems, massive problems, with the way forfeiture is done, but overstating or misrepresenting those problems doesn't help anyone. All it does is make the people against forfeitures look like cranks, and give the appearance of legitimacy to those in favour of it when they knock those arguments down. I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to learn the actual issues, and make your opinions known to your legislators. While I still contend that the links provided by $pace6host don't factor into my arguments that the OP was wrong, they do contain plenty of examples of why forfeiture, especially as it's currently practiced, is dangerous and should be ended.
They couldn't simply arrest all of the criminal cops because in those four states, as much as 90% of the state police would be behind bars. Hmmm, wait a moment, you even included that quote in your latest response. It wouldn't be hard to find if you had actually looked.
Now, once again, I was talking about the specific practices that the OP stated were taking place. Your links do not support what he said was happening, namely, that 90% of the cops in the states mentioned were taking peoples cars, and personally profiting from their sales. I read your articles, and I do not see anything that states that the officers involved in the confiscations received any cut from the proceeds of any auctions. Yes, because I was responding to the assertion that the cars were being sold, and that the officer who confiscated it was being given the proceeds from the sale. I also said, which you conveniently snipped, that I don't agree with the policy of the P.D. mentioned that allowed staff use of impounded vehicles, or for that matter most forms of forfeiture, but hey, why keep it in? That just messes up your rant.
Your cites did not contain a single case of the police planting evidence. Since you ask, there is no percentage of corrupt police that are acceptable, but that's not what was being discussed, was it? I questioned the assertion that 90% of the cops in 4 states were planting evidence, and being given direct shares in the proceeds. He didn't demonstrate it to be true, and neither have you.
No, that is not what they say. There are governmental agencies that get the proceeds. There are examples of cops who are blatantly stealing things, and there is an example of the misuse of funds granted by the federal government to the police. There is not one example of, as the parent put it, "You car and all your property within the car is sold at auction. Cop pockets all of the proceeds".
Indeed you did, they just didn't provide any information that supported the OPs assertions.
You can attempt to twist this as much as you want, but you're arguing points that I'm simply not making. My post stated only that the OP could not back up his assertions. You haven't added anything to the discussion that proves his point either. I will also, again, point out that I am not in favor of forfeiture of property upon being charged with a crime, and in most cases, not even on conviction. I said that before, but I guess you thought your argument looked more compelling if you left it out. Or then again, maybe you just couldn't find it, like the hidden 90% quote.
You know, I'm really sick of people getting mod points and using troll on anything they disagree with. You don't agree with what bigmouth_strikes said? Fine, reply and tell him why you think he's wrong, but I don't see anything in his post that deserves a troll mod.
FWIW bigmouth, good post. I wonder if I'll get modded troll now too?
I'm not going to argue that forfeiture laws aren't badly implemented, and I'm not going to say that they're never abused. Read the post that I replied to, in which I challenged only the following:
a)Police officers are not casually and rampantly planting evidence to kick in forfeiture. Yes, it has happened, but not on the scale suggested by my post's parent.
b)Police officers do not simply confiscate things for their own gain. His quote: "You car and all your property within the car is sold at auction. Cop pockets all of the proceeds". In some of your examples, officers steal property. This is a different problem, and unrelated to forfeiture law.
c)I find his assertion that 90% of State Police officers in 4 states are guilty of the above to be absurd. There is no way that tens of thousands of officers are engaging in planting evidence casually every time they see a nice car go by, and getting away without anyone noticing.
Irrelevant. This quote is referring to the, in my opinion, stupid practice of letting P.D. personnel sign out cars that are held in evidence. The officers do not get to keep them, they do not get to sell them and keep the proceeds.
All that means is that you didn't understand what I was replying to. Read it again, and this time, try not to be so eager to force it to mean what you apparently want it to mean.
Really? Because you're arguing in defense of a post that claims that 90% of them are felons hiding behind a badge. Either you didn't pay attention to what I was refuting, or you're okay with 9 in 10 cops being totally corrupt. Which is it?
I'm quite sure I never claimed anything to the contrary.
Now, if you really want to talk about forfeiture laws in general, they're typically horribly implemented. Thank your local, state and federal politicians for that. Quite frankly, they should be reviewed, and probably rebuilt from the ground up to ensure that forfeiture is tied to conviction, not arrest, and even then only in rare cases.
Please keep in mind though, I'm NOT saying there's no such thing as police corruption. I was responding to very specific points that the parent post was making. There certainly are cops who break the law, and they should be found and dealt with appropriately, both for breaking their trust with the public they're supposed to protect, and for damaging the reputation of all the others who do their jobs honorably.
You're damn right they don't. Judges and cops are paid a salary. When you pay court costs you don't hand the judge a $50 bill which he then sticks into his pocket. That cost goes to the municipality, and it becomes part of their operating budget. If you know of a judge that actually steals the money before the town gets it, that is a crime, and probably not a particularly common one. I'll grant you that cops are sometimes directed to increase the number of tickets written, but again, they don't get a cut of that money. At best they get overtime for extra hours worked while they're writing them.
I'm pretty sure I didn't say there was no such thing as corruption. Yes, some states have more corruption than others, and yes, they are [hopefully] working to correct that, but I believe your post grossly exaggerated the size of the problem, and suggested a type of corruption that simply doesn't seem very realistic. The world is not "all about being just and fair", but it's also not all about evil conspiracies either.
Personally, I think it's a horrible solution. I would be far more inclined to be in favour of more traditional penalties (fines, community-service, possible jail time) than something like this. Consider the following:
Bob and Jeff are caught poaching fish. The state confiscates their poles (home-made, essentially sticks with fishing line tied to the end), truck (30 year old Chevy Silverado with over 300k miles on it), and boat (inflatable, retail value about $150).
Mark and Rich are caught poaching fish. The state confiscates their poles (High-end fiberglass, retail value about $200 each), truck (3 year old Chevy Avalanche with about 40k miles on it), and boat (Fiberglass hull, value about $2500).
Same crime, wildly different penalty involved, as opposed to issuing each person a $200 (or $2000, or whatever you feel is correct for the offense) fine and 10 days community service.
Here's my first problem.....the way you're stating this, the majority of cops are cruising around with a trunk full of cocaine just waiting to frame the innocent. Yes, there are cases where evidence has been planted, but in the ones I've heard of there's usually a stonger motive than "I want to confiscate your car". Unless you cite a good source, there's no way I believe it's that rampant.
In what jurisdiction does the cop get the proceeds of auctioned property? I've never heard of this being practiced in the United States. The state gets the proceeds, and depending on where, it could go either directly to the police budget, or the general budget. Again, unless you can cite this, I'm having a hard time believing it.
I would suspect that corruption on that level would attract both federal investigations, and media attention.
I get the feeling that what you've got is some half-remembered anecdotes about evidence auctions, and a general dislike for the police.......
I kinda wondered that myself, although I suspect that if Sprint notices one of these things sucking down more data than can reasonably be expected they'll disable its account....
I don't have one, but I suspect that a good part of the cost goes to Sprint PCS for the wireless support. As I understand it, the Kindle has data access over their network with no monthly charge for things like downloading from the bookstore, and Wikipedia access. I'm not saying it makes it worth $400, but that's got to play into the pricing.....
The House on the Rock also figured prominently into Neil Gaiman's novel "American Gods" as a place of great mystical power......
If these guys tend to kick and shove their buddies, it may explain why they have so much time to work on robots....."Finally, a friend I can kick who won't think I'm a jerk"
If your motorcycles explode on a regular basis, you may want to reconsider servicing them yourself......
Or maybe it was nuclear power. Or computers. Or the proliferation of color T.V. Or NASA bringing back moon-rocks. While my theories are sillier than yours, they do have something in common with it.....they're all unsupported by current available evidence.
Nope, it's not glaring too hard, but still......Sure, you should be cautious about anything that someone wants to inject into your (or your child's) body. But the fact is, the vaccines we have today make you *less* likely to become ill, not more. The reason for compulsive vaccines isn't to further some dark plot, but to make sure you aren't a vector for disease that could affect the rest of us.
I don't get a flu shot since I'm not in a particularly high-risk group for a bad bout with it, but I know, and so does everyone else who pays attention to their doctor, the nightly news, or any of a thousand other sources that the projected strain may not be the one that actually hits. That's why it's a projected strain, and not a guaranteed strain.
They distrust them because they don't understand them very well. This is a combination of the medical field not explaining it well enough to them, and their own lack of motivation to learn about them.
Get of your lawn? I'm not coming within a thousand yards of your house! The only things I'm relatively sure I'm not going to catch from you are Polio and Tetanus!
Science is perfectly open minded about the possibility that evolution is wrong. All you have to do is provide evidence that all of the evidence we currently have is either wrong, or being completely misinterpreted. So far that hasn't happened, but if it does, the theory will change.
I'm not going to pick apart your whole "historical science" vs "operational science" thing, other than to point out that it seems to mostly be used as a distinction on religious/creationist websites. Answersingenesis.com is not an authoritative source for science. There is plenty of actual, biological science supporting Evolution, and none supporting Creationism.
No, they're not. SCIENTISTS are looking at the evidence, and basing their conclusions on that evidence. Creationists have a conclusion, and try to make the evidence fit that conclusion. This is not how scientific inquiry works.
Ah, macro-evolution vs micro-evolution, nifty. Except that they're the same thing. Lots of changes piled up over a breathtakingly long time. Since this is a Slashdot post and not a biology textbook, I'm not going to get into every detail. The information isn't kept secret, look it up. I suggest you try some sources based in science rather than religion for the actual details though. Even if you don't believe the theory is correct, using sites like the ones you seem to be using, which contain a lot of misinformation on what evolution is, will not help you construct a very solid argument. Unless you're just talking to other Creationists that is.
This has been happening to me as well on my MacBook Pro running Tiger, and it's annoying as hell. In my case, it seems to be heat related, and it only seems to happen when the processor is under a pretty heavy load. I've found some comments from people with similar experiences, but no actual, or at least definite, fixes yet. The one thing that helped somewhat in my case was adding a fan control app and having the fans kick in sooner and faster than normal, but it's still happening sometimes.
Well, flamebait or not (although I think not), it would appear to be true.
Not for me. If this was the basement of the Unibomber's shack I'd still want it....
It's possible that they're "shocked" because the creators of "Jay Jay the Jet Plane" intentionally keep the religious and secular markets seperate. Now, that took me all of about 2 minutes to find out. Perhaps before you start making up imaginary conspiracy theories to support an absurd rant about liberals, perhaps you should make sure it's at least a tiny bit tougher to debunk. If you feel that this show should have a more overt Christian message, perhaps you should complain to the creator of the franchise, David Michel, rather than making up stories about the people who air his creation.
Actually, this wasn't just a fun idea from the minds of Matt and Trey, it's what actually happened. All of the guns were edited out of E.T. in the 20th anniversary edition DVD, and replaced with hand-held radios.
Continuing my series of new Mac ads......
[fade in from black]
[hip charismatic kid]: Hi, I'm a Mac....
[middle-aged, sorta nerdy guy]: And I'm a P.C......
[deformed little creature that would make Dr. Frankenstein wince]: And I'm their bastard love-child.....please....kill me....[creature gurgles and a wisp of smoke escapes an ill-fitting seam in it's neck]
[fade in from black]
[hip charismatic kid]: Hi, I'm a Mac....
[middle-aged, sorta nerdy guy]: And I'm a P.C......
[insane looking creature who appears to be made from a conglomeration of movie monster parts]: And I'm the Entertainment Industry.....GIVE ME YOUR WALLETS YOU THIEVING BASTARDS!
Many citizens think that way. But if everyone did, there would be no sporty vehicles on the road, just white pickups and gray Corollas and 18-wheel haulers, and perhaps everyone would drive under the speed limit for safety as they trudged to and from their predetermined destinations.
Many irresponsible idiots think that way, but I've owned cars where I could spin the tires off the rims and leave almost anything on wheels that I encountered as a dwindling image in my rearview mirror, but I didn't do it on public roads. For the most part, people I knew who had similar cars didn't do it on public roads. If you want speed, find a track. People driving on a highway should not have to be subjected to race-car driver wannabe's with delusions of grandeur.
I take the risks into account and I'm willing to share the road, too bad about the folks who aren't.
Driving on a public road while following the rules is a risk everyone accepts when they get behind the wheel of a car. Insisting that you can ignore those rules, therefore increasing those risks to others is not an example of "sharing the road", it's an example of irresponsibility.
I stopped being surprised long ago that people who claim that they're "really great drivers" who can ignore stupid traffic regulations are among the worst drivers I've ever met.