As a practical matter liberal enclaves are attracting them with gold plated homeless services so basically no problem for me (beyond telling the occasional panhandler to 'get a job you parasite').
That's certainly helpful. Do you also go around the cancer wards telling people, "get up, walk it off, you wimp"?
If any random citizen was legally allowed to beat 'the shit out of them' them rub their noses in the shit they would soon find more responsible places to crap.
Like where?
When you are in a city, and have no access to public restrooms, where is a more responsible place to defecate than in an alley? A vacant lot, perhaps? (If you can find one.) There's a big improvement.
I also wonder of you're willing to apply your "random citizens get to beat the crap out of you" to anyone who commits a minor crime, or if you just think that the homeless are sub-human and so deserve to be beaten?
the historical evidence on Paul strongly suggests he was a Gnostic of sorts, and that he didn't write nearly all the stuff attributed to him, and in fact, people who disagreed with him after he died, forged some things to borrow his authority for literalist Ant-Gnostic arguments
Hmm, hadn't heard that before. It's certainly not an unprecedented phenomena, though - I shall have to investigate. Thanks for the leads.
If people urinate and defecate in public places, you arrest them for health hazards.
You think jails are cheaper than public restrooms? Seriously?
The homeless will not just take a crap wherever and whenever they feel like it, they will learn not to do it in public.
Just where are they going to go to perform basic bodily functions if there are no public restrooms?
And I don't care about people's "deeper problems". Not unless they care about their own "deeper problems" themselves. If they don't care about their own problems, why should I????
Because people don't keep their problems to themselves. Poverty and homelessness lead to crime and disease, which affect us all.
A VAT is regressive, even with the rebate, as discussed in the Wikipedia article you linked.
A progressive tax system acts as a governor on the elements of public policy that encourage and enable the concentration of economic power into the hands of a capitalist class. So long as this system persists, some sort of balance, some negative feedback, is necessary to prevent a runaway effect.
Now, I'd rather get rid of or restrict the government powers that enable capitalism - the issuance of corporate charters, land and resource deeds for investment and exploitation rather than occupation and stewardship, copyrights, patents, plus the reserve banking system - so that such a runaway isn't possible. But that's going to be a slow evolution.
I do believe that a multi-tiered VAT (higher taxes on luxury items, exemptions or lower taxes on staples) plus a strong capital gains tax on unearned income (with a significant exemption to encourage saving and investment by ordinary folks) and the return of an inheritance tax, could give a progressive system that's simpler and less nosy than the current tangle.
You're defending the virtues of heroin use, and I'm killing people? Did you write that with a straight face?
"Virtures"? No. I said "and really, there are better ways to spend your time and money." That's hardly calling heroin use a virtue.
The use of clean heroin of known strength and purity is rather safe. Stupid - really, really fscking stupid - but safe. A heroin addict using the "good" stuff does much, much less damage to their body than a heavy drinker or a typical cigarette smoker.
The use of adulterated heroin of unknown purity, often using shared needles, is dangerous. People do it because they can't get clean heroin of known strength and purity. They can't get it because it's banned. It's banned because of misinformation like what you are spreading.
Furthermore, the prohibition creates a violent black market, which fuels a great deal of violent crime.
So, yes. When you spread lies about drugs and work toward their prohibition, you are killing people. You have a small share of responsibility for every junkie who dies from a dirty needle or from bad smack, and for every kid shot in a drug deal gone bad, because you helped create the circumstances of their deaths.
I live in Maryland, a solid blue state - if Obama can't take it by at least ten points, he's doomed. Another vote for him here would do little good, while a vote for a third party would help increase their ballot access.
If you live in a closely contested state, the considerations you list may be a factor; here, a couple percentage points voting for McKinney or Nader or Barr (or even writing in my name) won't affect the Obama/McCain match-up.
but homelessness isn't likely to be solved by affordable housing. Many (most?) long term homeless people have serious addiction or mental health issues.
Ahem. I said "addressing homelessness with affordable housing and decent health care". I take it as given that "decent health care" includes mental health issues.
Actually, might write in myself this year. I am now old enough to be Constitutionally qualified, and I find I agree with myself on most major issues.
If you're looking for a candidate who was against the Iraq invasion from the start and wants to get us out of there as soon as is practical, who would end warrantless wiretapping and torture and close Gitmo - and would prosecute those in the current administration for their crimes; who is against the War on Drugs and in favor of the RKBA; who is pro-choice, pro-privacy, pro-separation of church and state, and anti-censorship; who's willing to restore a fair level of taxation on the wealthy, who would reduce federal spending by slashing the bloated defense budget feel free to write me in: Thomas Mark Swiss.
You know what's going to happen when you put that needle in your arm. You know because everyone else that's done it has ended up the same way.
Yeah, you might end up like David Bowie or Keith Richards or hundreds of other famous musicians, actors, writers, artists who have used heroin...for those can afford their fix and have access to the pure stuff, heroin use or even addiction is not a big deal. It's less damaging to your body than addiction to cigarettes or alcohol.
As Bill Hicks noted, "If you don't think drugs have done good things for us, then take all of your records, tapes and CDs and burn them. Cause you know what? The musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years? Real fucking high on drugs."
Which is not to suggest anyone go shoot heroin. The crap you buy from typical street dealers is cut with gods-only-know-what and may well kill you; and really, there are better ways to spend your time and money.
And yet, after decades of "tolerance" they're busy dismantling the Red Light district in Amsterdam
Again, your facts are in error. The prostitution shops were only licensed in 2000, not "decades" ago. And they're shutting down owners believed to have criminal connections, not the entire district.
I will recommend Peter McWilliams' book Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country, available online at www.mcwilliams.com.
Sadly, McWilliams became a victim of the War on (some) Drugs when his access to medical marijuana, used to treat symptoms of AIDS and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was ended; forced to switch to the ineffective Marinol, he aspirated his own vomit and choked to death.
The misinformation you are spreading is killing people. Please, cut it out.
Pay toilets were popular in the U.S. in the 1970s. They ended up being banned in many cities; where they weren't, vandalism and theft put them out of business.
If you consider that the alternative to free public toilets is people pissing, even crapping, in the alleys, then free public toilets are clearly a public good. If people are using them for prostitution and drug use, if homeless people are using them for shelter, that's a symptom of deeper problems. These problems ought to be solved by removing laws against consensual crimes and by addressing homelessness with affordable housing and decent health care - not by encouraging people to piss in the alley.
But he is the "old boss". If you want the "new boss" to not be the "same", Obama has some significant differences. (Though not as many as I'd like, and he's rapidly backpedaled from to positions I found most interesting. which is why I'll probably be writing in Nader.) McCain, less so.
Rather, the argument is "the agency of time, chance, and unguided selection couldn't be the cause of such-and-such an object."
The argument is more "We don't understand how agency of time, chance, and unguided selection could be the cause of such-and-such an object."
Or even more precisely, "ID believers don't understand how agency of time, chance, and unguided selection could be the cause of such-and-such an object."
Because if he was right, if he is who he says he is, God come to earth, you will one day face Him as your judge.
And if Muhammad was right, then all the Christians are in trouble. And if the Scientologists are right, then Xenu's going to get us. And if the crackhead on the corner yelling about being the True Son of God is right, then we're all fscked.
Fortunately, a rational assessment of the evidence shows that none of them are likely right in their assessment of the nature of the universe.
I'd submit that you can't avoid caring about them, because underling them are universal human questions.
But the "universal human questions" you cite have nought to do with the existence or non-existence of some magical part of my consciousness that survives death.
Yes, Jesus's ethical teachings - when he wasn't urging his followers to sell their clothes and buy weapons, and claiming "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" - are not too bad. But it's his metaphysics (or rather, the metaphysics attributed to him) that are under discussion here.
Or take something a guy named Paul said. "Charity is bigger than Faith or Hope." Would you really say this is simply not worth thinking about one way or the other?
Paul was a fanatic who did more to damage the teachings of Jesus then the guys feeding Christians to the lions. His words are of no more interest to me than than those of any random inmate at the local mental hospital.
The importance of charity is a worthwhile subject for discussion, but not because of Paul's ideas about it.
therefore if your brain is able to moderate it's own actions, you have free will.
So a steam engine with a governor on it, providing a feedback mechanism that moderates its actions, has free will? That's a highly non-standard use of the term.
The best take I've seen on the "dilemma" of free will comes from Raymond Smullyan:
It is interesting that you have twice now used the phrase "determined to act" instead of "chosen to act." This identification is quite common. Often one uses the statement "I am determined to do this" synonymously with "I have chosen to do this." This very psychological identification should reveal that determinism and choice are much closer than they might appear. Of course, you might well say that the doctrine of free will says that it is you who are doing the determining, whereas the doctrine of determinism appears to say that your acts are determined by something apparently outside you. But the confusion is largely caused by your bifurcation of reality into the "you" and the "not you." Really now, just where do you leave off and the rest of the universe begin? Or where does the rest of the universe leave off and you begin? Once you can see the so-called "you" and the so-called "nature" as a continuous whole, then you can never again be bothered by such questions as whether it is you who are controlling nature or nature who is controlling you.
If the latter is good for everyone (except the domestic producers of that product) then how can the former be bad?
When "free trade" includes a race to the bottom in wages, working conditions, environmental standards, product quality, and the maximization of external costs, "free trade" is not good for everyone.
When folks in Germany or Japan can build a better car for a lower price then U.S. automakers, while paying employees a good wage, giving them good working conditions, and keeping the environment relatively clean, that's competition making for better products. It can be rough for workers when the company they work for comes out on the losing end, but with appropriate legal and social structures to provide some padding there, the result can be good.
When China can produce cheap crap at a price that puts American industry out of business while using prison labor and polluting the environment, that's not good.
I did. Partly TFA got it wrong, partly I didn't read close enough. According to TFA, "For years San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art has maintained a `no photographs' policy for their permanent collection". Emphasis added; note the present tense used (incorrectly, as it turns out) by TFA.
A bit later TFA says the museum recently lifted the ban. My fault for missing that; TFA's fault for incorrect verb tense in the earlier passage.
He was ejected for taking pictures of employees in a manner that the staff found harassing. That, I would say, is even more justified than throwing him out for photographing artwork.
He was repeatedly asked to stop a behavior that others found annoying, and which may have been a violation of their privacy rights. He didn't. He acted like an ass in a private place and was justifiably ejected. This is very different from photographers standing in public places taking photographs of buildings, statues, or crowds.
He definitely was not taking pictures of people in an inappropriate and harassing manner.
In a private place, it's not up to the photographer to decide what is or is not inappropriate and harassing, it's up to the person being photographed and to the owner or management.
When I am not in a public place - and a museum that charges admission is most definitely not a public place - you do not have the right to photograph me. If you photograph something and I happen to be in the background, that's a borderline case, an incidental use of my image that is probably permissible; but when you continuely target me with your camera, you are violating my privacy rights, and you are creating a work that is derivative of my image and likeness - my image and likeness is *my* creative work.
Slashdot Mirror
Because it's hard to read when my eyes bleed all over my glasses?
On-line reading is fine for short articles and reference works. Trying to read whole chapters of textbooks on a laptop would be painful.
Incredibly few subjects change enough in five years to render textbooks out of date.
And those who live where there are no shelters, or where shelters are out of space?
Estimates of the homeless population in Baltimore range from 3,000 to 30,000. Emergency and short-term shelters have about 2,260 beds.
That's certainly helpful. Do you also go around the cancer wards telling people, "get up, walk it off, you wimp"?
Not possible. So long as Microsoft retains the ability to attack Mono through patent suits, C# cannot be "open source friendly".
C# is a poison pill that Microsoft would love to see the F/OSS community swallow.
Like where?
When you are in a city, and have no access to public restrooms, where is a more responsible place to defecate than in an alley? A vacant lot, perhaps? (If you can find one.) There's a big improvement.
I also wonder of you're willing to apply your "random citizens get to beat the crap out of you" to anyone who commits a minor crime, or if you just think that the homeless are sub-human and so deserve to be beaten?
Hmm, hadn't heard that before. It's certainly not an unprecedented phenomena, though - I shall have to investigate. Thanks for the leads.
You think jails are cheaper than public restrooms? Seriously?
Just where are they going to go to perform basic bodily functions if there are no public restrooms?
Because people don't keep their problems to themselves. Poverty and homelessness lead to crime and disease, which affect us all.
A VAT is regressive, even with the rebate, as discussed in the Wikipedia article you linked.
A progressive tax system acts as a governor on the elements of public policy that encourage and enable the concentration of economic power into the hands of a capitalist class. So long as this system persists, some sort of balance, some negative feedback, is necessary to prevent a runaway effect.
Now, I'd rather get rid of or restrict the government powers that enable capitalism - the issuance of corporate charters, land and resource deeds for investment and exploitation rather than occupation and stewardship, copyrights, patents, plus the reserve banking system - so that such a runaway isn't possible. But that's going to be a slow evolution.
I do believe that a multi-tiered VAT (higher taxes on luxury items, exemptions or lower taxes on staples) plus a strong capital gains tax on unearned income (with a significant exemption to encourage saving and investment by ordinary folks) and the return of an inheritance tax, could give a progressive system that's simpler and less nosy than the current tangle.
"Virtures"? No. I said "and really, there are better ways to spend your time and money." That's hardly calling heroin use a virtue.
The use of clean heroin of known strength and purity is rather safe. Stupid - really, really fscking stupid - but safe. A heroin addict using the "good" stuff does much, much less damage to their body than a heavy drinker or a typical cigarette smoker.
The use of adulterated heroin of unknown purity, often using shared needles, is dangerous. People do it because they can't get clean heroin of known strength and purity. They can't get it because it's banned. It's banned because of misinformation like what you are spreading.
Furthermore, the prohibition creates a violent black market, which fuels a great deal of violent crime.
So, yes. When you spread lies about drugs and work toward their prohibition, you are killing people. You have a small share of responsibility for every junkie who dies from a dirty needle or from bad smack, and for every kid shot in a drug deal gone bad, because you helped create the circumstances of their deaths.
I live in Maryland, a solid blue state - if Obama can't take it by at least ten points, he's doomed. Another vote for him here would do little good, while a vote for a third party would help increase their ballot access.
If you live in a closely contested state, the considerations you list may be a factor; here, a couple percentage points voting for McKinney or Nader or Barr (or even writing in my name) won't affect the Obama/McCain match-up.
Like everyone else running for office, of course I'm using my own definition of "fair". :-)
Ahem. I said "addressing homelessness with affordable housing and decent health care". I take it as given that "decent health care" includes mental health issues.
Actually, might write in myself this year. I am now old enough to be Constitutionally qualified, and I find I agree with myself on most major issues.
If you're looking for a candidate who was against the Iraq invasion from the start and wants to get us out of there as soon as is practical, who would end warrantless wiretapping and torture and close Gitmo - and would prosecute those in the current administration for their crimes; who is against the War on Drugs and in favor of the RKBA; who is pro-choice, pro-privacy, pro-separation of church and state, and anti-censorship; who's willing to restore a fair level of taxation on the wealthy, who would reduce federal spending by slashing the bloated defense budget feel free to write me in: Thomas Mark Swiss.
Except that heroin is not 100% addictive: perhaps more like 10% of heroin users are addicts. And it was first synthesized in 1874 and only became popular after it was independently re-synthesized 23 years later, and was marketed as a non-addictive morphine substitute until 1910 - its addictive nature has in fact been understood for less than a century.
Yeah, you might end up like David Bowie or Keith Richards or hundreds of other famous musicians, actors, writers, artists who have used heroin...for those can afford their fix and have access to the pure stuff, heroin use or even addiction is not a big deal. It's less damaging to your body than addiction to cigarettes or alcohol.
As Bill Hicks noted, "If you don't think drugs have done good things for us, then take all of your records, tapes and CDs and burn them. Cause you know what? The musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years? Real fucking high on drugs."
Which is not to suggest anyone go shoot heroin. The crap you buy from typical street dealers is cut with gods-only-know-what and may well kill you; and really, there are better ways to spend your time and money.
Again, your facts are in error. The prostitution shops were only licensed in 2000, not "decades" ago. And they're shutting down owners believed to have criminal connections, not the entire district.
I will recommend Peter McWilliams' book Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country, available online at www.mcwilliams.com.
Sadly, McWilliams became a victim of the War on (some) Drugs when his access to medical marijuana, used to treat symptoms of AIDS and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was ended; forced to switch to the ineffective Marinol, he aspirated his own vomit and choked to death.
The misinformation you are spreading is killing people. Please, cut it out.
Pay toilets were popular in the U.S. in the 1970s. They ended up being banned in many cities; where they weren't, vandalism and theft put them out of business.
If you consider that the alternative to free public toilets is people pissing, even crapping, in the alleys, then free public toilets are clearly a public good. If people are using them for prostitution and drug use, if homeless people are using them for shelter, that's a symptom of deeper problems. These problems ought to be solved by removing laws against consensual crimes and by addressing homelessness with affordable housing and decent health care - not by encouraging people to piss in the alley.
But he is the "old boss". If you want the "new boss" to not be the "same", Obama has some significant differences. (Though not as many as I'd like, and he's rapidly backpedaled from to positions I found most interesting. which is why I'll probably be writing in Nader.) McCain, less so.
The argument is more "We don't understand how agency of time, chance, and unguided selection could be the cause of such-and-such an object."
Or even more precisely, "ID believers don't understand how agency of time, chance, and unguided selection could be the cause of such-and-such an object."
Handy if you have a menu. It's difficult to call a restaurant and have them read you the menu over the phone.
And if Muhammad was right, then all the Christians are in trouble. And if the Scientologists are right, then Xenu's going to get us. And if the crackhead on the corner yelling about being the True Son of God is right, then we're all fscked.
Fortunately, a rational assessment of the evidence shows that none of them are likely right in their assessment of the nature of the universe.
But the "universal human questions" you cite have nought to do with the existence or non-existence of some magical part of my consciousness that survives death.
Yes, Jesus's ethical teachings - when he wasn't urging his followers to sell their clothes and buy weapons, and claiming "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" - are not too bad. But it's his metaphysics (or rather, the metaphysics attributed to him) that are under discussion here.
Paul was a fanatic who did more to damage the teachings of Jesus then the guys feeding Christians to the lions. His words are of no more interest to me than than those of any random inmate at the local mental hospital.
The importance of charity is a worthwhile subject for discussion, but not because of Paul's ideas about it.
And we should care about the superstitions of a guy who lived two millenia ago in a culture of low scientific achievement, because...why, exactly?
So a steam engine with a governor on it, providing a feedback mechanism that moderates its actions, has free will? That's a highly non-standard use of the term.
The best take I've seen on the "dilemma" of free will comes from Raymond Smullyan:
When "free trade" includes a race to the bottom in wages, working conditions, environmental standards, product quality, and the maximization of external costs, "free trade" is not good for everyone.
When folks in Germany or Japan can build a better car for a lower price then U.S. automakers, while paying employees a good wage, giving them good working conditions, and keeping the environment relatively clean, that's competition making for better products. It can be rough for workers when the company they work for comes out on the losing end, but with appropriate legal and social structures to provide some padding there, the result can be good.
When China can produce cheap crap at a price that puts American industry out of business while using prison labor and polluting the environment, that's not good.
I did. Partly TFA got it wrong, partly I didn't read close enough. According to TFA, "For years San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art has maintained a `no photographs' policy for their permanent collection". Emphasis added; note the present tense used (incorrectly, as it turns out) by TFA.
A bit later TFA says the museum recently lifted the ban. My fault for missing that; TFA's fault for incorrect verb tense in the earlier passage.
He was ejected for taking pictures of employees in a manner that the staff found harassing. That, I would say, is even more justified than throwing him out for photographing artwork.
He was repeatedly asked to stop a behavior that others found annoying, and which may have been a violation of their privacy rights. He didn't. He acted like an ass in a private place and was justifiably ejected. This is very different from photographers standing in public places taking photographs of buildings, statues, or crowds.
In a private place, it's not up to the photographer to decide what is or is not inappropriate and harassing, it's up to the person being photographed and to the owner or management.
When I am not in a public place - and a museum that charges admission is most definitely not a public place - you do not have the right to photograph me. If you photograph something and I happen to be in the background, that's a borderline case, an incidental use of my image that is probably permissible; but when you continuely target me with your camera, you are violating my privacy rights, and you are creating a work that is derivative of my image and likeness - my image and likeness is *my* creative work.