Yes, because the inconvenience of mashing the 'delete" key a few times is exactly comparable to the inconvenience of having a family member kidnapped and held against their will. Why not involve the FBI in the fight against SPAM, it's not like they have anythingbettertodo.....
It still has to travel thru email servers & routers costing money via electrical & bandwidth costs.
Aren't people around here rather fond of making the claim that bandwidth doesn't cost money, at least whenever we see a story pop up about some ISP wanting to impose caps or metered billing?
The bandwidth and electrial costs of spam are negligible. You would have made a better argument by pointing out the lost productivity when humans need to divert time away from useful tasks to clean out their inbox.
while at the same time, are perfectly happy to have the government nationalize health care
Umm, the last time I checked this was opposed by a majority of Americans.
it's also the sense of entitlement that people have gained in the last 100 years that has made the government more oppressive, and at the same time, more relied upon than ever.
Don't put words in my mouth, I've not claimed that all protectionism is bad. All I've done is point out the historical consequences of protectionism. By contrast, you took a position on the issue (it's "quite useful") and failed to back up that position with any sort of historical or contemporary evidence.
You're losing site of the bigger picture, which is raising everyone's standard of living.
Which is exactly what free trade is doing to China, raising the standard of living.
They do not need to be manufactured in the kind of quantities that require these working conditions to be profitable.
Where did I claim that these working conditions were required? My response was directed at this guy, who seemed to ignore the fact that you can't pay your employees a fair wage if you price your products out of the market.
The hard part is looking past the indoctrination you received in college. Liberalism is not always right.
Fixed that for you. One snarky comment deserves another.
I'll take protectionism, and local people making things for others (relatively) nearby any day. This disconnect allowing kids to be working 15 hour shifts to make junk is unacceptable.
So in your world it would be better if they weren't working at all? BTW, that "disconnect" isn't the fault of free trade, it's the fault of the Chinese Government.
The last several decades called, and want you and your loony free market back.
You seriously believe that the last several decades are comparable to the Great Depression? I think you need a sense of perspective.
In the beginning of the taser-era, officers would call an ambulance before or after tasering somebody. These days it seems they don't even bother anymore (depending on the type of tasers they use).
I can't speak for every police agency, but it's SOP in my hometown for tased suspects to go to the hospital once they are in custody.
If a taser hits you near the heart in those conditions, they can be theoretically very lethal.
I'm sure they can. But the police baton is also theoretically lethal. So is pepper spray. So are fisticuffs for that matter. The question should be, which method of subduing a resisting suspect is appropriate for the situation? The proper way to address this is with training of our law enforcement personnel. None of the non-lethal methods I've described are appropriate for all situations. One suspect might be subdued with a simple poke to a pressure point. Another suspect might be tased and continue to resist. Deescalation skills are also important -- if the officer can resolve a situation without resorting to any physical force, so much the better.
One's right to life, liberty, property, speech, press, freedom of worship and assembly may not be submitted to vote
Off-topic, but why don't you have the right to keep and bear arms in your list?
We have a rather disorganized structure which isn't quite doing the job of sustaining our whole population
That has less to do with carrying capacity and more to do with economics.
Though come to think of it, a genetically-engineered virus like the Black Ep (see Nick Sagan) probably could do the end-of-mankind job, and is probably within our reach.
I'm not even sure if I buy that. There are remote communities that have very little (if any) interaction with the outside world. They would seem to be isolated from most transmission vectors.
Huh? The US has one of the most competitive automobile markets in the world. Are you trying to imply that the Big Three are your only choice for purchasing an automobile?
If our politicians were more beholden to voters and workers and less beholden to multinational corporations, we'd have tarriffs protecting American workers from competing with sweatshops.
1930 called. They want their protectionist economic theory back.
There's a huge market here in the U.S. for the knockoffs as well. Go to Ebay and search for darn near anything and you'll find someone in China selling it for about 1/3 of what you'd pay here for it.
And it'll last 1/6 as long as the real product would have.....
Actually, if you were to give an alcoholic, a meth addict and an opiate addict free access to their drug of choice as well as food, shelter and other basic necessities chances are that ten years later the opiate addict would be the healthiest of the three, most likely he/she wouldn't just be a little healthier than the other two others either.
Why didn't you throw a pothead in there? He'd probably be in the best shape of the lot, though likely a little overweight from the munchies and your free food;)
Opiates still create a physical dependency with pretty nasty withdrawal syndromes. One can overdose on opiates. Neither of those are issues with pot.
The Taser was, and is, meant to be used when previously you _would have shot_ the assailant.
That's not the case. The taser is meant to displace the police baton and/or pepper spray. It is not meant to be used in situations where deadly force is justifiable. Police officers who follow the law do not use their firearms except in situations where their life or the life of another is in danger. In such a situation you would not use a taser.
Consider a traffic stop. The subject exits his car and presents a knife, and exhibits signs of meth intoxication. You have 10 feet between you. At this time you have two choices: shoot (and almost certainly kill) the subject, or risk being killed. Now law enforcement is _supposed_ to be able to choose hidden option C: shoot them, but hopefully in a less-lethal way, while still preserving your own life.
That's completely false. No law enforcement agency that I've ever heard of trains it's officers to shoot in a "less-lethal" way. Police officers are trained to shoot center of mass and to keep shooting until the suspect is incapacitated. There are two primary reasons for this:
When you are under the influence of adrenaline and the fight or flight response your fine motor skills go to hell. Precision shooting is simply not possible for most people during this time. Most police officers who use their firearms never even see the sights on them.
Contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe, bullets do not stop people dead in their tracks. Bullets can only incapacitate through blood loss or the destruction of the nervous system. The nervous system is an extremely hard target to hit. Blood loss takes time. Even if you sever a major artery the assailant still has at least 15-20 seconds of willful activity.
If the situation is such that a deadly force is called for then it has progressed beyond the point of trying to wound the suspect. The officers choice is to stop the suspect immediately or to become a victim himself/see a third party become a victim.
I always found the idea of tasering and advertizing it as "oh, it can't hurt, it's just unpleasant" a bit boundary shifting: before lawenforcement et al had to reason "if I shoot, I have to make certain I'm in a situation where I have no other choice because I can kill this person". With tasering, the bounderies shifted "oh it can't harm, s/he is being annoying, lets buzz them like cattle into complying to the authority I impose."
You are right about the boundary shifting, but you are wrong to make the comparison to firearms. Tasers are displacing the billy club, the use of which was more likely to lead to serious physical injury and/or death but which still represented a less than lethal step on the use of force continuum.
Firearms represent deadly force, the use of which is typically reserved for situations where the life of an officer or third party is at risk. If you slug a police officer he can't (justifiably) shoot you. If you hit him over the head with a baseball bat and he's about to pass out he probably can. In scenario A his life isn't in danger. In scenario B it is.
it's relatively liberal comparing to other networks, but it's not a left-wing media.
It is by American standards. What's considered mainstream left in much of the world would be considered a fringe movement here. The fact that most media outlets won't cater to such a movement doesn't represent a conspiracy -- it simply means that they are catering to the wider audience.
Libertarian ideas have the same problem meeting acceptance in the mainstream media -- but I don't see many Libertarians making the claim that they are being muzzled by the media.
Slashdot Mirror
My point was that they don't -want- people able to understand them
Whose fault is that? The company or those that keep doing business with it in spite of the legalese?
I'm sorry that I overestimated your intelligence
Wow, how witty. Did you have to think real hard to come up with that and the AC sock puppet reply?
you don't declare a war on spam, win it, and then spam is forever gone
Why not? It worked on drugs, terrorism, obesity and poverty.
Yes, because the inconvenience of mashing the 'delete" key a few times is exactly comparable to the inconvenience of having a family member kidnapped and held against their will. Why not involve the FBI in the fight against SPAM, it's not like they have anything better to do.....
It still has to travel thru email servers & routers costing money via electrical & bandwidth costs.
Aren't people around here rather fond of making the claim that bandwidth doesn't cost money, at least whenever we see a story pop up about some ISP wanting to impose caps or metered billing?
The bandwidth and electrial costs of spam are negligible. You would have made a better argument by pointing out the lost productivity when humans need to divert time away from useful tasks to clean out their inbox.
while at the same time, are perfectly happy to have the government nationalize health care
Umm, the last time I checked this was opposed by a majority of Americans.
it's also the sense of entitlement that people have gained in the last 100 years that has made the government more oppressive, and at the same time, more relied upon than ever.
Well said :)
Don't put words in my mouth, I've not claimed that all protectionism is bad. All I've done is point out the historical consequences of protectionism. By contrast, you took a position on the issue (it's "quite useful") and failed to back up that position with any sort of historical or contemporary evidence.
You've never heard of the Smoot-Hawley act have you?
Does it matter? Are you going to enforce the contract against he who shall not be named?
BTW, I love your username and the fact that you wound up with a prime number for a UID.
I've never signed an EULA, have you?
BY REPLYING TO THIS POST YOU AGREE TO PAY ME THE SUM OF ONE HUNDRED US DOLLARS.
Somehow I think I'll have a hard time suing you when you respond and don't pay me.....
I've got "Beer -- it's not just for breakfast anymore." as the thought for the day ;)
You're losing site of the bigger picture, which is raising everyone's standard of living.
Which is exactly what free trade is doing to China, raising the standard of living.
They do not need to be manufactured in the kind of quantities that require these working conditions to be profitable.
Where did I claim that these working conditions were required? My response was directed at this guy, who seemed to ignore the fact that you can't pay your employees a fair wage if you price your products out of the market.
The hard part is looking past the indoctrination you received in college. Liberalism is not always right.
Fixed that for you. One snarky comment deserves another.
I'll take protectionism, and local people making things for others (relatively) nearby any day. This disconnect allowing kids to be working 15 hour shifts to make junk is unacceptable.
So in your world it would be better if they weren't working at all? BTW, that "disconnect" isn't the fault of free trade, it's the fault of the Chinese Government.
The last several decades called, and want you and your loony free market back.
You seriously believe that the last several decades are comparable to the Great Depression? I think you need a sense of perspective.
In the beginning of the taser-era, officers would call an ambulance before or after tasering somebody. These days it seems they don't even bother anymore (depending on the type of tasers they use).
I can't speak for every police agency, but it's SOP in my hometown for tased suspects to go to the hospital once they are in custody.
If a taser hits you near the heart in those conditions, they can be theoretically very lethal.
I'm sure they can. But the police baton is also theoretically lethal. So is pepper spray. So are fisticuffs for that matter. The question should be, which method of subduing a resisting suspect is appropriate for the situation? The proper way to address this is with training of our law enforcement personnel. None of the non-lethal methods I've described are appropriate for all situations. One suspect might be subdued with a simple poke to a pressure point. Another suspect might be tased and continue to resist. Deescalation skills are also important -- if the officer can resolve a situation without resorting to any physical force, so much the better.
One's right to life, liberty, property, speech, press, freedom of worship and assembly may not be submitted to vote
Off-topic, but why don't you have the right to keep and bear arms in your list?
We have a rather disorganized structure which isn't quite doing the job of sustaining our whole population
That has less to do with carrying capacity and more to do with economics.
Though come to think of it, a genetically-engineered virus like the Black Ep (see Nick Sagan) probably could do the end-of-mankind job, and is probably within our reach.
I'm not even sure if I buy that. There are remote communities that have very little (if any) interaction with the outside world. They would seem to be isolated from most transmission vectors.
Yeah, I was going for the sarcasm of trying to smoke a liquid and realized my error as soon as I hit "submit".
I'll go slink off into my hole now....
In the US you have cartels in cars
Huh? The US has one of the most competitive automobile markets in the world. Are you trying to imply that the Big Three are your only choice for purchasing an automobile?
If our politicians were more beholden to voters and workers and less beholden to multinational corporations, we'd have tarriffs protecting American workers from competing with sweatshops.
1930 called. They want their protectionist economic theory back.
There's a huge market here in the U.S. for the knockoffs as well. Go to Ebay and search for darn near anything and you'll find someone in China selling it for about 1/3 of what you'd pay here for it.
And it'll last 1/6 as long as the real product would have.....
Ethical is paying a fair wage to your employees, and budgeting so that your suppliers can do the same.
None of which matters if your products cost so much that few people buy them.
Actually we've heard this many times. And we've died by the millions many times.
I was referring to the people who have predicted the death of the human race.
Have you ever had catnip tea before? Smoking it doesn't do shit but ingesting it most certainly does.
How would you smoke tea? ;)
Actually, if you were to give an alcoholic, a meth addict and an opiate addict free access to their drug of choice as well as food, shelter and other basic necessities chances are that ten years later the opiate addict would be the healthiest of the three, most likely he/she wouldn't just be a little healthier than the other two others either.
Why didn't you throw a pothead in there? He'd probably be in the best shape of the lot, though likely a little overweight from the munchies and your free food ;)
Opiates still create a physical dependency with pretty nasty withdrawal syndromes. One can overdose on opiates. Neither of those are issues with pot.
The Taser was, and is, meant to be used when previously you _would have shot_ the assailant.
That's not the case. The taser is meant to displace the police baton and/or pepper spray. It is not meant to be used in situations where deadly force is justifiable. Police officers who follow the law do not use their firearms except in situations where their life or the life of another is in danger. In such a situation you would not use a taser.
Consider a traffic stop. The subject exits his car and presents a knife, and exhibits signs of meth intoxication. You have 10 feet between you. At this time you have two choices: shoot (and almost certainly kill) the subject, or risk being killed. Now law enforcement is _supposed_ to be able to choose hidden option C: shoot them, but hopefully in a less-lethal way, while still preserving your own life.
That's completely false. No law enforcement agency that I've ever heard of trains it's officers to shoot in a "less-lethal" way. Police officers are trained to shoot center of mass and to keep shooting until the suspect is incapacitated. There are two primary reasons for this:
If the situation is such that a deadly force is called for then it has progressed beyond the point of trying to wound the suspect. The officers choice is to stop the suspect immediately or to become a victim himself/see a third party become a victim.
I always found the idea of tasering and advertizing it as "oh, it can't hurt, it's just unpleasant" a bit boundary shifting: before lawenforcement et al had to reason "if I shoot, I have to make certain I'm in a situation where I have no other choice because I can kill this person". With tasering, the bounderies shifted "oh it can't harm, s/he is being annoying, lets buzz them like cattle into complying to the authority I impose."
You are right about the boundary shifting, but you are wrong to make the comparison to firearms. Tasers are displacing the billy club, the use of which was more likely to lead to serious physical injury and/or death but which still represented a less than lethal step on the use of force continuum.
Firearms represent deadly force, the use of which is typically reserved for situations where the life of an officer or third party is at risk. If you slug a police officer he can't (justifiably) shoot you. If you hit him over the head with a baseball bat and he's about to pass out he probably can. In scenario A his life isn't in danger. In scenario B it is.
it's relatively liberal comparing to other networks, but it's not a left-wing media.
It is by American standards. What's considered mainstream left in much of the world would be considered a fringe movement here. The fact that most media outlets won't cater to such a movement doesn't represent a conspiracy -- it simply means that they are catering to the wider audience.
Libertarian ideas have the same problem meeting acceptance in the mainstream media -- but I don't see many Libertarians making the claim that they are being muzzled by the media.