You've never looked at a map of Northern Canada, have you?
People who are doing work there are usually there for a good (at least to them) reason, so saying someone should move if their location is more than 30km from a backbone connection is asinine.
Nobody said it was worthless, they just said that it wasn't very dangerous unless processed. Yellowcake is highly useful for civilian power generation, hence not "old worthless."
Water is highly necessary for nuclear power generation too, and heavy water can be used to make fission weapons. Doesn't make it a dangerous material (well, any more so than the ordinary dangers from water).
The Sharqat and Tarmiyah facilities that would have been able to enrich uranium were never completed (they were scheduled for completion in '92 or '93). History long before Bush II was elected. The link was irrelevant given that fact.
Yeah, I noticed that part of the article. Yet another "could have." "Could have" is not a sound basis for any sort of argument.
I stand by my comment regarding lack of reasoning skills, though I would add it could also be because of lack of application of reasoning skills. It would be a personal attack if I didn't provide any basis for my opinion that there was a lack of reasoning. However, given the sparse nature of what you wrote as a basis for your contention that this information could provide "reasonable doubt," it pretty clearly indicated to me a lack of reasoning. "Your argument is flawed for X reasons" != "You aren't capable of reason, hence your argument is wrong."
As has been said repeatedly before, having a stockpile of unused 27-year-old yellowcake != trying to buy more from Niger. The former was never contested, as everyone knew he had yellowcake stockpiles. The latter turned out to be a pile of crap.
550 tons of material sitting unused for 2+ decades doesn't lend much credence to the idea that he was pursuing nuclear weapons. Much to the contrary, it's a good clue that he wasn't. It would be as likely that Iraq was stockpiling silicon for use in microprocessor construction absent anything resembling a facility that could create the intermediate compononents necessary for the final product, let alone the final product itself.
This is not something that can be used in Bush's defense, unless one lacks the most basic reasoning skills. Then again, that seems to be a common trait amongst those who attempt to defend Bush...
You may not have mentioned it as being a police incident, but it was. As far as I know, there hasn't been a publicized non-police incident fitting that same description. Hence my conclusions.
People can be idiots. They don't make rational decisions under fear. [...] But, if you, out of thick-headed principle, choose not to believe that
Perhaps your statement of my choosing not to believe something was in reference to people being idiots. Still an unwarranted assumption.
> You attack my principle as being thick-headed and then go on to make the completely unsubstantiated leap to say that means I believe people are always rational when they are afraid. >> There's only one word for what you just did: hyperbole.
I think you may be confused about the definition of hyperbole. Nowhere in that statement did I exaggerate anything for effect. Unless you have some other way of parsing the statement of choosing not to believe [XXX] out of thick-headed principle, my statement still stands. It contains no exaggeration.
You may use monikers that have negative connotations and not mean them to be negative. The reaction is still the same. Your intent is irrelevant.
Fortunately!? For whom? Everybody loses from guns!
Everyone except every person who has ever defended themselves, their family, or anyone else through use or display of a firearm, as well as every other person involved (minus the offenders, of course).
I'd guess that you object to a whole lot more than unlicensed firearms, unless your definition of licensing includes restrictions beyond not being a felon or legally not responsible for your own actions. Correct me if I'm wrong. Licensing laws weren't struck down by this decision, they were simply required to be uniformly issued. DC and other restrictive areas have licensing laws, they just issued licenses almost exclusively to those who had money or political connections, and arbitrarily denied them to others.
You say it should be common sense, but what is "common sense" frequently depends on your perspective. That's why concrete data is much more useful for discussing the relative merits of a course of action.
Without any historical context to compare rates within and between countries, the guncontrol.ca page doesn't provide much basis for anything.
The fallacy I refer to is, of course, that banning guns just keeps them in the hands of criminals. Wrong! It keeps them in the hands of criminals who are lucky enough to be able to conceal their firearms (which makes it difficult to impossible to do if the firearms are big), and also the police. Perhaps, if the police started to feel safer, if there was better investment into policing, and if there was a crackdown on gun-smuggling, then a gun ban might actually start having positive effects after several years. But it's difficult and expensive, and not worth it. Much better to strictly license guns all over the country, just like just about every other civilised country does.
If you're talking about handguns, they are readily concealable. It has nothing to do with luck. You say my statement is wrong, but how does a ban (or highly restricted licensing) not keep firearms out of the hands of responsible, law-abiding people? Whether you call the UK's laws "strict licensing" or a virtual ban, how do you explain the fact that the rate of firearm incidents has had no bearing on the enacting of the laws, but has fluctuated with time (during the late 80s to a great degree)? Also, this is what I was talking about earlier when I said I don't believe you actually support licensing. You say "license," but in such a vastly restricted sense it amounts to a ban. You can technically purchase firearms in most countries, but not in any practical manner. DC had licensing. They just conveniently chose not to issue them to anyone who didn't have the right connections.
A good take on the effects (or lack thereof) of the UK firearm control legislation can be found in th
The entirety of your first paragraph is pure hyperbole. Your example is from a police shooting, and as such has no bearing on the discussion at hand (unless you mean to say that not even police can be trusted not to misuse firearms). You attack my principle as being thick-headed and then go on to make the completely unsubstantiated leap to say that means I believe people are always rational when they are afraid. You honestly don't see why making jumps like that leads me to look down on the way you argue? Do you believe likening self-defense advocates to heroin junkies or calling people "gun nuts" is not going to provoke an emotional response from most people (the response being different only based on whether the person agrees or disagrees with your position)? "An ocean of blood" is not hyperbole and an emotional appeal?
Fortunately, US politicians do not have the power to disarm the populace. If they did, it likely would have been done long ago.
You say my very valid claim of appealing to the emotions of others (whether it was your intent or not is irrelevant) is an attempt to dodge the substance of your argument. Where is any evidence to back up your claim that bans provide positive results? I asked for numbers, and you completely ignored the question. I'm the one dodging? When all is said and done, violent crime and homicides are up in areas with gun bans. They are down across the board in the US, in most places at levels not seen in nearly 50 years. Given that bans are completely ineffective at removing firearms from the hands of criminals, and are really only truly effective at removing them from the hands of people who are prone to obeying even poorly-conceived laws, the reduction in violent crime and homicides obviously has to be the result of something else.
If you really want to effectively prove your point that guns cause an escalation in the stakes e.g. fewer people are victims of violent crimes but the consequences of those violent crimes are more severe (correct me if that's not what you're now arguing), you need to provide evidence that it's true. Yes, people are irrational and can do stupid things. That in and of itself doesn't prove anything. Take the UK. They've had a nationwide ban long enough that you should be able to look at their crime statistics and see a decrease in homicides relative to other violent crimes. Not just firearm homicides, ALL homicides. You'll also have to explain why Swiss gun laws don't fit your view of more guns = more deaths. Are you really going to claim that the problems are related more to guns than to culture in the face of the Swiss example? In the US, UK, Switzerland, Israel, Japan, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Sudan, or any other country you'd like to make an example of, the main driving force in the level of violent crimes and homicide is not the availability of firearms or lack thereof, it's about the cultural norms as regard using violence to deal with social, cultural, and economic issues.
Yes, you use imagery. Imagery is among the best tools to use to appeal to emotion. Using inflammatory language and epithets against those who oppose you is another effective tool at inciting an emotional response. There are defenses you could potentially use effectively against the claim of emotional appeal. This is not one of them.
I didn't claim that it should be tested initially in people currently responding to conventional therapy. I was merely saying that I hope I am able to apply for inclusion in the trials should A) my condition change to make me eligible or B) the eligibility requirements of later trials change to include me should my condition not change.
As for it being potentially harmful or fatal in human trials, the likelihood is much smaller than other first-run clinical trials. Granulocyte therapy is already used in humans to treat other conditions. The only differences in this regard are the targeted conditions and an increased quantity of granulocytes infused into the recipient.
Given the nature of the treatment, the only likely adverse reaction would be an immune response. I doubt that the increased infusion amounts are going to cause more immune responses than already-established granulocyte protocols. They'll probably have a statistically indistinguishable amount of adverse reactions, but obviously establishing that conclusively is one of the points of the trial.
Definitely glad to see this story. It's the first of a number of techniques to reach clinical trials that actually show real promise.
I don't qualify as a patient participant as I still respond to conventional therapy. Hopefully they'll still be conducting trials if that changes, or will have expanded them to include patients who are still being treated conventionally.
It'll definitely be interesting to see the results if they expand trials to include patients with aggressive tumors. The patient requirements, while not explicitly saying so, eliminate consideration of such patients. Once you no longer respond to therapy treating an aggressive cancer, the likelihood of having a > 6 month survival rating is basically nil (thus disqualifying you from the study). I can understand the rationale to not unnecessarily skew the initial trial results when they can get good data from patients with less aggressive cancers, but if/when the trials go after the fast killers it will definitely show the true potential of this particular cancer weapon.
Here's to hoping for positive results. The other nice thing about this therapy is that, since it is not drug-based, it is not locked up by one single pharmaceutical company. Hooray for open source medical therapies.
Politicians are people too. If ordinary people cannot understand what a treaty or constitution is designed to do, there is something wrong with either the people or the document.
When you vote for someone, you should be voting for someone competent (heh, wonder how often that actually happens), but how do you have the slightest chance of determining their competence and how they will respond to an issue like a treaty if you are completely incapable of understanding the impact of said treaty?
If it's really that complex, the politicians need to break down what it's going to do so that the general public understands it. Note, this would be in a perfect world. More likely is that they'll lie and say what people want to hear in order to get votes...
When you vote for people, and "trust" that they will do the right or competent thing, without understanding the issues yourself, things will go wrong, corrupt politicians will be elected, and the public will get exactly the government they deserve.
Phone talkers who only phone while on straightaways and only press one button to do it (speed dial) can make exactly the same argument. Guess what? It's still dangerous. Changing the radio station while driving is dangerous. Period.
Talking on the phone engages your attention for a continuous period of time. A half-second to push a button != several minutes of distraction. Not saying the momentary distraction is not dangerous, but it does not even come close to approaching the level of danger that talking on the phone while driving presents.
Text messaging is even worse though, since it requires the concentration to produce the text mentally (much more thought intensive than speaking naturally) and some form of error correction (or worse, watching your phone constantly as you enter text). Sadly, these people don't always have one-party crashes. If they only killed themselves in car crashes, I'd be fine with it.
Ok tell me honestly - if you somehow decided it was a good idea to off a healthy male in his 20th, how much confidence would you have in your success without a gun?
I'm not a very good representative person to ask this of. My answer would be "Completely confident." Even without specific training, many murders are committed with blunt or edged weapons. The point of my post was that those types of weapons were, in fact, preferred methods of committing assault and murder in the UK during a long time period of unrestricted access to firearms. The availability did not impact the choice in any meaningful way.
Yes, you are more likely to be killed with a firearm in the US than the UK. However, dead is still dead, even if you're killed with a knife or a club. Obviously the gun ban has not had an impact on the overall murder or violent crime rate in the UK. Just because fewer people are killed with firearms does not make it better when that drop is made up for by deaths caused by more intimate forms of violence.
For someone who is not trained to defend themselves with whatever is available (a category most people fall into), the option of a firearm is a great equalizer. There are an uncountable number of instances where crimes were prevented merely through display of a firearm. It doesn't even have to be fired to be an equalizer. That's a good thing.
Another thing to look at is the fact that a large number of firearm homicides in the US are the result of gang members killing each other. There's a lot more territory for gangs to cover in the US than in the UK, and more of them competing with each other for turf. This has the effect of increasing the number of violent interactions where there is really no "victim," and drastically increasing the number of reported firearm homicides.
I'd be interested to hear which gun control measures have been passed recently in the US. I am aware of several states loosening restrictions (or proposing that such be done) on concealed weapons permits and the locations that concealed weapons can be carried, but haven't heard much in the way of jurisdictions tightening gun control laws. Given the focus of the news digests that I read, I would find it odd that such stories were missing, but am always open to the possibility that they were.
Iraq is not a logical choice for comparison. A society in the midst of both a guerrilla war against an outside occupation force and a civil war between internal factions is going to have a much higher rate of violence than a relatively stable country. Then again, perhaps it is. Consider how much worse off families would be with no means to defend themselves from violent militas. As bad as Baghdad is, Darfur is worse.
I'm approaching it from the angle that it's a guaranteed loss of talent and genetic diversity.
Loss of genetic diversity? Potentially.
Loss of talent? There's no possible argument to support this, since identifying the talent potential of one cluster of cells over another is not currently possible. The best guess would be that as much talent lost by selection would be made up for by that gained by selection. Claiming otherwise is intellectually dishonest.
There was a nearly 200 year period of overlap where firearm ownership was unrestricted in the US and the UK. If firearms were the problem, then murder rates using firearms would be nominally the same per capita. They were not. The difference in the choice of which weapon to use to commit crimes is not based on availability, it is based on culture.
Firearms do not cause an increase in crimes, and I would challenge you to provide anything resembling a logical basis to conclude that they do. Poverty is an actual indicator of crime levels, moreso than accessibility of firearms could ever possibly be.
You can claim argument against you is a strawman, and you can use ad hominem attacks and hyperbole to support an emotional argument. The truth of the matter is, though, that areas with high rates of legal firearm ownership have much lower violent crime rates. That is a fact that is beyond dispute.
You can argue that gun availability increases violent crime (if you're arguing something else, please speak up), but the fact that the most permissive areas have the lowest violent crime rates is an insurmountable barrier to that argument being accepted by anyone capable of taking a dispassionate look at the real data involved.
You're right. You are wasting your time. Bring real numbers and maybe someone who doesn't buy into your emotional argument will take you seriously.
Fortunately there are enough Democrats who live in non-urban areas that the anti-gun lobby is never likely to win. Too many urban folk don't have the life experience necessary to see the other side of the argument.
A BBC report from 2003 detailing the narrowing gap in crime rates as US crime rates fall and UK crime rates rise.
Also telling is the 200-year comparison showing that when firearms were virtually unrestricted in both countries, the choice of weapons to commit murder were different. The use of guns to commit murder is simply a societal "choice," and has no bearing on how many murders are actually committed. The availability of weapons to criminals has virtually no impact on crime rates. The availability of weapons to people who are otherwise law-abiding, on the other hand, does have a measurable impact on those people being able to protect themselves.
It's far easier to procure firearms in neighboring Virginia and Maryland. They must have higher violent crime rates! Oh, wait, no they don't. I guess the availability of firearms doesn't actually increase the incidence of violent crime. So much for a gun ban making violent crime harder to occur. Thanks for playing though.
Ah yes, because the headline is clearly what all replies are in reference to.
I suppose you read it to mean, "The White House staff not opening the email illustrates why an administration should not be blamed, as they do not have complete control of their bureaucrats."
I read it as, "The EPA going head-to-head with the administration illustrates why an administration should not be blamed, as they do not have complete control of their bureaucrats."
The consistent use of the term "Agency" tends to lend support to the latter conclusion. Bureaucrats are "entrenched" because they are notoriously difficult to get rid of. White House staff? Not so much. http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/independent-agencies.html
Do you really not understand the post you're replying to, or are you being intentionally obtuse? The White House is not an agency, nor is it the entity being referred to. The agency in question in that particular post is the EPA. The EPA is not the "staff at the White House."
The operative word in the quotation you selected is "can." It connotes the potential for something, not a certainty. The quoted section would in fact be a crock if there is no potential for intertie systems to be enormously complicated. However, that is not the case. There are ample examples of systems unintentionally complicated, and systems that are complicated due to site or operational requirements.
Did he plan the system at the outset or just wing it? I'm guessing some planning went into the system prior to installation. There are many ways that people go about such projects in order to cut expenses, which later turn into problems. Outback systems aren't exactly cheap. You get what you pay for. If he did just jump into an Outback system without research or thought of future system requirements, he's lucky he did. One of the hallmarks of their product line is the interoperability and expansion capabilities of their hardware. Not everyone is so lucky with a shot in the dark.
So, bravo that you have a friend with a head that's screwed on right (I'll assume that's the case). It doesn't change the fact that there are many situations out there that are nowhere close to his experience. One experience does not canon create.
It seems to me If you can't add on to the existing system, you can add on in parallel. It will cost you more, of course.
Yes, I believe that was already stated in my post.
You might be surprised how many people don't give a rat's behind about permits. Or maybe not.
To advocate that an unlicensed and inexperienced homeowner take on this type of project without adequate, licensed professional supervision is irresponsible in the extreme. No licensed electrician would advocate such irresponsible and potentially hazardous course of conduct.
Most of my response to this can be summed up by re-reading the last section of the post you replied to. I also noted in my post that most homeowner wiring I've had the "pleasure" to encounter showed that they clearly cared nothing for learning to perform high-quality work (at least I believe it was this post, I'm feeling lazy and am not going to go back and read it to be sure). This is a bad thing, and the only way to attempt to rectify it is through education.
I also never claimed that an inexperienced person should attempt to tackle an entire house from the start, or even a moderately complex project. Since this is ostensibly a homeowner working on their own residence, the "unlicensed" portion has no relevance. It tends to be implied. Most jurisdictions that are not in major metropolitan areas or otherwise heavily restrictive states do allow homeowners to perform their own permitted work. Providing a starting point should this person choose to not go the professional route is vastly more responsible than taking the "no sex before marriage, we won't even discuss the possibility that you might" approach. It doesn't work, and pointing someone in the direction of an informed decision has a much higher likelihood of success than refusing to even contemplate the possibility that they might choose a route you disagree with (or which is illegal). The people to be scared of are those who don't bother asking and just do it.
Your credentials may allow you to discuss with relative authority matters pertaining to electrical work, but they obviously haven't done much for insight into human nature and failings, and attempts to mitigate those failings to some extent through education.
While a pissing match regarding qualifications to speak on certain topics might be amusing to engage in for a while, it is ultimately irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Certainly, in any task where the person performing the work is not willing or able to learn proper methods, professional help is the only reasonable option. There are people who will choose to go the DIY route even if they would be better off using professional help. If they make an attempt to educate themselves first, that's at least better than going in blind. Or, perhaps the submitter decides to get professional help and still wants to learn more about the subject. In that regard, who has helped that person more? You? To beat the argument to death, abstinence-only education doesn't work. Pretending it does causes more harm than good.
Well, he talked about starting with lighting. The end point was left pretty open, and he mentions wanting to get resources that culminate with whole-house wiring. Expansion past lighting is what requires planning, and it seems that he is at least interested in the possibility of expansion. That's the only reason I've brought up points of consideration that have very little bearing on wiring for DC-only lighting.
Were DC-only lighting his only goal, his mention of being unable to adapt other published projects to his goal and asking how to do it on Slashdot would put him firmly in my "You don't belong anywhere near an attempt to wire anything, ever" group. I hope that is not the case.:)
Second this. Another option is to look around for telcos who are cycling out their backup deep cycles. Usually done every 5 years, these batteries are typically cheap, durable, and have many years of life left in them.
Slashdot Mirror
You've never looked at a map of Northern Canada, have you?
People who are doing work there are usually there for a good (at least to them) reason, so saying someone should move if their location is more than 30km from a backbone connection is asinine.
This is the US. Welcome, you must be new here.
Nobody said it was worthless, they just said that it wasn't very dangerous unless processed. Yellowcake is highly useful for civilian power generation, hence not "old worthless."
Water is highly necessary for nuclear power generation too, and heavy water can be used to make fission weapons. Doesn't make it a dangerous material (well, any more so than the ordinary dangers from water).
The Sharqat and Tarmiyah facilities that would have been able to enrich uranium were never completed (they were scheduled for completion in '92 or '93). History long before Bush II was elected. The link was irrelevant given that fact.
Yeah, I noticed that part of the article. Yet another "could have." "Could have" is not a sound basis for any sort of argument.
I stand by my comment regarding lack of reasoning skills, though I would add it could also be because of lack of application of reasoning skills. It would be a personal attack if I didn't provide any basis for my opinion that there was a lack of reasoning. However, given the sparse nature of what you wrote as a basis for your contention that this information could provide "reasonable doubt," it pretty clearly indicated to me a lack of reasoning. "Your argument is flawed for X reasons" != "You aren't capable of reason, hence your argument is wrong."
As has been said repeatedly before, having a stockpile of unused 27-year-old yellowcake != trying to buy more from Niger. The former was never contested, as everyone knew he had yellowcake stockpiles. The latter turned out to be a pile of crap.
550 tons of material sitting unused for 2+ decades doesn't lend much credence to the idea that he was pursuing nuclear weapons. Much to the contrary, it's a good clue that he wasn't. It would be as likely that Iraq was stockpiling silicon for use in microprocessor construction absent anything resembling a facility that could create the intermediate compononents necessary for the final product, let alone the final product itself.
This is not something that can be used in Bush's defense, unless one lacks the most basic reasoning skills. Then again, that seems to be a common trait amongst those who attempt to defend Bush...
You may not have mentioned it as being a police incident, but it was. As far as I know, there hasn't been a publicized non-police incident fitting that same description. Hence my conclusions.
People can be idiots. They don't make rational decisions under fear. [...] But, if you, out of thick-headed principle, choose not to believe that
Perhaps your statement of my choosing not to believe something was in reference to people being idiots. Still an unwarranted assumption.
> You attack my principle as being thick-headed and then go on to make the completely unsubstantiated leap to say that means I believe people are always rational when they are afraid.
>> There's only one word for what you just did: hyperbole.
I think you may be confused about the definition of hyperbole. Nowhere in that statement did I exaggerate anything for effect. Unless you have some other way of parsing the statement of choosing not to believe [XXX] out of thick-headed principle, my statement still stands. It contains no exaggeration.
You may use monikers that have negative connotations and not mean them to be negative. The reaction is still the same. Your intent is irrelevant.
Fortunately!? For whom? Everybody loses from guns!
Everyone except every person who has ever defended themselves, their family, or anyone else through use or display of a firearm, as well as every other person involved (minus the offenders, of course).
I'd guess that you object to a whole lot more than unlicensed firearms, unless your definition of licensing includes restrictions beyond not being a felon or legally not responsible for your own actions. Correct me if I'm wrong. Licensing laws weren't struck down by this decision, they were simply required to be uniformly issued. DC and other restrictive areas have licensing laws, they just issued licenses almost exclusively to those who had money or political connections, and arbitrarily denied them to others.
You say it should be common sense, but what is "common sense" frequently depends on your perspective. That's why concrete data is much more useful for discussing the relative merits of a course of action.
Without any historical context to compare rates within and between countries, the guncontrol.ca page doesn't provide much basis for anything.
The fallacy I refer to is, of course, that banning guns just keeps them in the hands of criminals. Wrong! It keeps them in the hands of criminals who are lucky enough to be able to conceal their firearms (which makes it difficult to impossible to do if the firearms are big), and also the police. Perhaps, if the police started to feel safer, if there was better investment into policing, and if there was a crackdown on gun-smuggling, then a gun ban might actually start having positive effects after several years. But it's difficult and expensive, and not worth it. Much better to strictly license guns all over the country, just like just about every other civilised country does.
If you're talking about handguns, they are readily concealable. It has nothing to do with luck. You say my statement is wrong, but how does a ban (or highly restricted licensing) not keep firearms out of the hands of responsible, law-abiding people? Whether you call the UK's laws "strict licensing" or a virtual ban, how do you explain the fact that the rate of firearm incidents has had no bearing on the enacting of the laws, but has fluctuated with time (during the late 80s to a great degree)? Also, this is what I was talking about earlier when I said I don't believe you actually support licensing. You say "license," but in such a vastly restricted sense it amounts to a ban. You can technically purchase firearms in most countries, but not in any practical manner. DC had licensing. They just conveniently chose not to issue them to anyone who didn't have the right connections.
A good take on the effects (or lack thereof) of the UK firearm control legislation can be found in th
The entirety of your first paragraph is pure hyperbole. Your example is from a police shooting, and as such has no bearing on the discussion at hand (unless you mean to say that not even police can be trusted not to misuse firearms). You attack my principle as being thick-headed and then go on to make the completely unsubstantiated leap to say that means I believe people are always rational when they are afraid. You honestly don't see why making jumps like that leads me to look down on the way you argue? Do you believe likening self-defense advocates to heroin junkies or calling people "gun nuts" is not going to provoke an emotional response from most people (the response being different only based on whether the person agrees or disagrees with your position)? "An ocean of blood" is not hyperbole and an emotional appeal?
Fortunately, US politicians do not have the power to disarm the populace. If they did, it likely would have been done long ago.
You say my very valid claim of appealing to the emotions of others (whether it was your intent or not is irrelevant) is an attempt to dodge the substance of your argument. Where is any evidence to back up your claim that bans provide positive results? I asked for numbers, and you completely ignored the question. I'm the one dodging? When all is said and done, violent crime and homicides are up in areas with gun bans. They are down across the board in the US, in most places at levels not seen in nearly 50 years. Given that bans are completely ineffective at removing firearms from the hands of criminals, and are really only truly effective at removing them from the hands of people who are prone to obeying even poorly-conceived laws, the reduction in violent crime and homicides obviously has to be the result of something else.
If you really want to effectively prove your point that guns cause an escalation in the stakes e.g. fewer people are victims of violent crimes but the consequences of those violent crimes are more severe (correct me if that's not what you're now arguing), you need to provide evidence that it's true. Yes, people are irrational and can do stupid things. That in and of itself doesn't prove anything. Take the UK. They've had a nationwide ban long enough that you should be able to look at their crime statistics and see a decrease in homicides relative to other violent crimes. Not just firearm homicides, ALL homicides. You'll also have to explain why Swiss gun laws don't fit your view of more guns = more deaths. Are you really going to claim that the problems are related more to guns than to culture in the face of the Swiss example? In the US, UK, Switzerland, Israel, Japan, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Sudan, or any other country you'd like to make an example of, the main driving force in the level of violent crimes and homicide is not the availability of firearms or lack thereof, it's about the cultural norms as regard using violence to deal with social, cultural, and economic issues.
Yes, you use imagery. Imagery is among the best tools to use to appeal to emotion. Using inflammatory language and epithets against those who oppose you is another effective tool at inciting an emotional response. There are defenses you could potentially use effectively against the claim of emotional appeal. This is not one of them.
can you honestly tell me that people in general have earned the right to decide who lives and who dies?
When they feel their life is at stake? I 100% certainly do agree that each individual has the right to make that determination.
an emotional argument is an argument based on emotion
I apologize. I should have said an "emotional appeal."
I didn't claim that it should be tested initially in people currently responding to conventional therapy. I was merely saying that I hope I am able to apply for inclusion in the trials should A) my condition change to make me eligible or B) the eligibility requirements of later trials change to include me should my condition not change.
As for it being potentially harmful or fatal in human trials, the likelihood is much smaller than other first-run clinical trials. Granulocyte therapy is already used in humans to treat other conditions. The only differences in this regard are the targeted conditions and an increased quantity of granulocytes infused into the recipient.
Given the nature of the treatment, the only likely adverse reaction would be an immune response. I doubt that the increased infusion amounts are going to cause more immune responses than already-established granulocyte protocols. They'll probably have a statistically indistinguishable amount of adverse reactions, but obviously establishing that conclusively is one of the points of the trial.
Definitely glad to see this story. It's the first of a number of techniques to reach clinical trials that actually show real promise.
I don't qualify as a patient participant as I still respond to conventional therapy. Hopefully they'll still be conducting trials if that changes, or will have expanded them to include patients who are still being treated conventionally.
It'll definitely be interesting to see the results if they expand trials to include patients with aggressive tumors. The patient requirements, while not explicitly saying so, eliminate consideration of such patients. Once you no longer respond to therapy treating an aggressive cancer, the likelihood of having a > 6 month survival rating is basically nil (thus disqualifying you from the study). I can understand the rationale to not unnecessarily skew the initial trial results when they can get good data from patients with less aggressive cancers, but if/when the trials go after the fast killers it will definitely show the true potential of this particular cancer weapon.
Here's to hoping for positive results. The other nice thing about this therapy is that, since it is not drug-based, it is not locked up by one single pharmaceutical company. Hooray for open source medical therapies.
"there is something wrong with [...] the document."
So this pretty much sums it up? :)
Politicians are people too. If ordinary people cannot understand what a treaty or constitution is designed to do, there is something wrong with either the people or the document.
When you vote for someone, you should be voting for someone competent (heh, wonder how often that actually happens), but how do you have the slightest chance of determining their competence and how they will respond to an issue like a treaty if you are completely incapable of understanding the impact of said treaty?
If it's really that complex, the politicians need to break down what it's going to do so that the general public understands it. Note, this would be in a perfect world. More likely is that they'll lie and say what people want to hear in order to get votes...
When you vote for people, and "trust" that they will do the right or competent thing, without understanding the issues yourself, things will go wrong, corrupt politicians will be elected, and the public will get exactly the government they deserve.
Phone talkers who only phone while on straightaways and only press one button to do it (speed dial) can make exactly the same argument. Guess what? It's still dangerous. Changing the radio station while driving is dangerous. Period.
Talking on the phone engages your attention for a continuous period of time. A half-second to push a button != several minutes of distraction. Not saying the momentary distraction is not dangerous, but it does not even come close to approaching the level of danger that talking on the phone while driving presents.
Text messaging is even worse though, since it requires the concentration to produce the text mentally (much more thought intensive than speaking naturally) and some form of error correction (or worse, watching your phone constantly as you enter text). Sadly, these people don't always have one-party crashes. If they only killed themselves in car crashes, I'd be fine with it.
Ok tell me honestly - if you somehow decided it was a good idea to off a healthy male in his 20th, how much confidence would you have in your success without a gun?
I'm not a very good representative person to ask this of. My answer would be "Completely confident."
Even without specific training, many murders are committed with blunt or edged weapons. The point of my post was that those types of weapons were, in fact, preferred methods of committing assault and murder in the UK during a long time period of unrestricted access to firearms. The availability did not impact the choice in any meaningful way.
Yes, you are more likely to be killed with a firearm in the US than the UK. However, dead is still dead, even if you're killed with a knife or a club. Obviously the gun ban has not had an impact on the overall murder or violent crime rate in the UK. Just because fewer people are killed with firearms does not make it better when that drop is made up for by deaths caused by more intimate forms of violence.
For someone who is not trained to defend themselves with whatever is available (a category most people fall into), the option of a firearm is a great equalizer. There are an uncountable number of instances where crimes were prevented merely through display of a firearm. It doesn't even have to be fired to be an equalizer. That's a good thing.
UK robberies involving firearms, 1992-2002. January 1997 was the institution of the handgun ban.
http://www.aei.org/view.asp?docRecNo=6100&docType=0
Another thing to look at is the fact that a large number of firearm homicides in the US are the result of gang members killing each other. There's a lot more territory for gangs to cover in the US than in the UK, and more of them competing with each other for turf. This has the effect of increasing the number of violent interactions where there is really no "victim," and drastically increasing the number of reported firearm homicides.
I'd be interested to hear which gun control measures have been passed recently in the US. I am aware of several states loosening restrictions (or proposing that such be done) on concealed weapons permits and the locations that concealed weapons can be carried, but haven't heard much in the way of jurisdictions tightening gun control laws. Given the focus of the news digests that I read, I would find it odd that such stories were missing, but am always open to the possibility that they were.
Iraq is not a logical choice for comparison. A society in the midst of both a guerrilla war against an outside occupation force and a civil war between internal factions is going to have a much higher rate of violence than a relatively stable country. Then again, perhaps it is. Consider how much worse off families would be with no means to defend themselves from violent militas. As bad as Baghdad is, Darfur is worse.
I'm approaching it from the angle that it's a guaranteed loss of talent and genetic diversity.
Loss of genetic diversity? Potentially.
Loss of talent? There's no possible argument to support this, since identifying the talent potential of one cluster of cells over another is not currently possible. The best guess would be that as much talent lost by selection would be made up for by that gained by selection. Claiming otherwise is intellectually dishonest.
There was a nearly 200 year period of overlap where firearm ownership was unrestricted in the US and the UK. If firearms were the problem, then murder rates using firearms would be nominally the same per capita. They were not. The difference in the choice of which weapon to use to commit crimes is not based on availability, it is based on culture.
Firearms do not cause an increase in crimes, and I would challenge you to provide anything resembling a logical basis to conclude that they do. Poverty is an actual indicator of crime levels, moreso than accessibility of firearms could ever possibly be.
You can claim argument against you is a strawman, and you can use ad hominem attacks and hyperbole to support an emotional argument. The truth of the matter is, though, that areas with high rates of legal firearm ownership have much lower violent crime rates. That is a fact that is beyond dispute.
You can argue that gun availability increases violent crime (if you're arguing something else, please speak up), but the fact that the most permissive areas have the lowest violent crime rates is an insurmountable barrier to that argument being accepted by anyone capable of taking a dispassionate look at the real data involved.
You're right. You are wasting your time. Bring real numbers and maybe someone who doesn't buy into your emotional argument will take you seriously.
Fortunately there are enough Democrats who live in non-urban areas that the anti-gun lobby is never likely to win. Too many urban folk don't have the life experience necessary to see the other side of the argument.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2656875.stm
A BBC report from 2003 detailing the narrowing gap in crime rates as US crime rates fall and UK crime rates rise.
Also telling is the 200-year comparison showing that when firearms were virtually unrestricted in both countries, the choice of weapons to commit murder were different. The use of guns to commit murder is simply a societal "choice," and has no bearing on how many murders are actually committed. The availability of weapons to criminals has virtually no impact on crime rates. The availability of weapons to people who are otherwise law-abiding, on the other hand, does have a measurable impact on those people being able to protect themselves.
Or you could look at the violent crime statistics of areas with high ownership of firearms vs areas with low ownership of firearms.
That handgun ban sure has helped in DC.
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/US_States_Rate_Ranking.html
It's far easier to procure firearms in neighboring Virginia and Maryland. They must have higher violent crime rates! Oh, wait, no they don't. I guess the availability of firearms doesn't actually increase the incidence of violent crime. So much for a gun ban making violent crime harder to occur. Thanks for playing though.
Ah yes, because the headline is clearly what all replies are in reference to.
I suppose you read it to mean, "The White House staff not opening the email illustrates why an administration should not be blamed, as they do not have complete control of their bureaucrats."
I read it as, "The EPA going head-to-head with the administration illustrates why an administration should not be blamed, as they do not have complete control of their bureaucrats."
The consistent use of the term "Agency" tends to lend support to the latter conclusion. Bureaucrats are "entrenched" because they are notoriously difficult to get rid of. White House staff? Not so much.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/independent-agencies.html
Do you really not understand the post you're replying to, or are you being intentionally obtuse? The White House is not an agency, nor is it the entity being referred to. The agency in question in that particular post is the EPA. The EPA is not the "staff at the White House."
Clearer?
The operative word in the quotation you selected is "can." It connotes the potential for something, not a certainty. The quoted section would in fact be a crock if there is no potential for intertie systems to be enormously complicated. However, that is not the case. There are ample examples of systems unintentionally complicated, and systems that are complicated due to site or operational requirements.
Did he plan the system at the outset or just wing it? I'm guessing some planning went into the system prior to installation. There are many ways that people go about such projects in order to cut expenses, which later turn into problems. Outback systems aren't exactly cheap. You get what you pay for. If he did just jump into an Outback system without research or thought of future system requirements, he's lucky he did. One of the hallmarks of their product line is the interoperability and expansion capabilities of their hardware. Not everyone is so lucky with a shot in the dark.
So, bravo that you have a friend with a head that's screwed on right (I'll assume that's the case). It doesn't change the fact that there are many situations out there that are nowhere close to his experience. One experience does not canon create.
It seems to me If you can't add on to the existing system, you can add on in parallel. It will cost you more, of course.
Yes, I believe that was already stated in my post.
You might be surprised how many people don't give a rat's behind about permits. Or maybe not.
To advocate that an unlicensed and inexperienced homeowner take on this type of project without adequate, licensed professional supervision is irresponsible in the extreme. No licensed electrician would advocate such irresponsible and potentially hazardous course of conduct.
Most of my response to this can be summed up by re-reading the last section of the post you replied to. I also noted in my post that most homeowner wiring I've had the "pleasure" to encounter showed that they clearly cared nothing for learning to perform high-quality work (at least I believe it was this post, I'm feeling lazy and am not going to go back and read it to be sure). This is a bad thing, and the only way to attempt to rectify it is through education.
I also never claimed that an inexperienced person should attempt to tackle an entire house from the start, or even a moderately complex project. Since this is ostensibly a homeowner working on their own residence, the "unlicensed" portion has no relevance. It tends to be implied. Most jurisdictions that are not in major metropolitan areas or otherwise heavily restrictive states do allow homeowners to perform their own permitted work. Providing a starting point should this person choose to not go the professional route is vastly more responsible than taking the "no sex before marriage, we won't even discuss the possibility that you might" approach. It doesn't work, and pointing someone in the direction of an informed decision has a much higher likelihood of success than refusing to even contemplate the possibility that they might choose a route you disagree with (or which is illegal). The people to be scared of are those who don't bother asking and just do it.
Your credentials may allow you to discuss with relative authority matters pertaining to electrical work, but they obviously haven't done much for insight into human nature and failings, and attempts to mitigate those failings to some extent through education.
While a pissing match regarding qualifications to speak on certain topics might be amusing to engage in for a while, it is ultimately irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Certainly, in any task where the person performing the work is not willing or able to learn proper methods, professional help is the only reasonable option. There are people who will choose to go the DIY route even if they would be better off using professional help. If they make an attempt to educate themselves first, that's at least better than going in blind. Or, perhaps the submitter decides to get professional help and still wants to learn more about the subject. In that regard, who has helped that person more? You? To beat the argument to death, abstinence-only education doesn't work. Pretending it does causes more harm than good.
Well, he talked about starting with lighting. The end point was left pretty open, and he mentions wanting to get resources that culminate with whole-house wiring. Expansion past lighting is what requires planning, and it seems that he is at least interested in the possibility of expansion. That's the only reason I've brought up points of consideration that have very little bearing on wiring for DC-only lighting.
Were DC-only lighting his only goal, his mention of being unable to adapt other published projects to his goal and asking how to do it on Slashdot would put him firmly in my "You don't belong anywhere near an attempt to wire anything, ever" group. I hope that is not the case. :)
Second this. Another option is to look around for telcos who are cycling out their backup deep cycles. Usually done every 5 years, these batteries are typically cheap, durable, and have many years of life left in them.