Personally, the notion tobacco is even legal is frightening to say the least
Yeah, because all of our other attempts at outlawing harmful substances were successful and had no ill affects at all on society.
The smoke from the burning tobacco and paper coupled with the transportation and cultivation and harvesting of the tobacco creates more greenhouse gasses than the tobacco absorbs while it is growing.
You could say that about all of the food we eat as well. Agriculture hasn't been carbon neutral since the advent of industrialized agriculture. You could fix that but first you'll need to convince a few billion people to volunteer to starve to death. Good luck with that.
I fully support banning smoking in bars and restaurants
I'm not even sure I support those. I really enjoy going out to bars without smoking. It was absolutely disgusting previously. Had take a shower and wash my hair twice when I got home. It also irritated the hell out of my eyes and nose too.
Despite that, the Libertarian in me has a problem with a private business being told that it can't allow smoking on it's property. Nobody forced me to visit that bar. Nobody forced the employees to work there. If a bar wants to ban smoking on it's own then all the power to them -- I'd vote for them with my wallet -- I just don't see it as something to get Uncle Sam all worked up about though.
but sidewalk bans are going too far.
Well, at least we can agree on that:) When is some sanity going to break out over this issue? I can't wait for the nanny-staters to switch targets and start going after the fast food industry. McDonalds made me eat these big macs and now I'm overweight. Why'd the Government allow them to do that? Woe is me.....
So is the guy in my office who nukes his left over fish in the staff microwave. I haven't run to my Congressman to complain about it though.
Telling yourself that your smoking doesn't affect any one else is a ridiculous.
Telling yourself that five seconds of exposure to second hand smoke in an outdoors environment is going to cause you serious harm is equally ridiculous. Most of the studies that I've seen suggest that the toxins in second hand smoke fall below the background level within a few feet of an outdoor smoker.
Personally there are things that I find much more offensive than second hand smoke. Diesel fumes literally make me sick to my stomach. If I wind up behind a poorly maintained truck I have to pass it or I feel physically ill. It's worse with smaller sources like generators. I don't know if they burn crappier fuel or have worse emissions systems but I can't stand to be downwind of them either.
I find cigarette smoking to be pretty repulsive myself, though I do enjoy a good cigar from time to time. I think we've gone too war with the war on smoking though. There are actually municipalities now that are considering banning smoking outdoors. WTF is wrong with that picture?
Case in point, no banks offer fixed rate credit cards.
Says who? My puny small town credit union has offered a fixed rate credit card (7.9%) for the last ten years. It's never changed. There's no law against offering a fixed rate credit card.
Consider this factor: lots of people think that blowing up the planet is a really bad idea. No Armageddon, no need for Armageddon weaponry. Such Ludditism may shock you, but there it is.
We don't have the power to "blow up" the planet. We don't even have the power to exterminate life on this rock. It's probable that we don't even have the power to exterminate the human race. Humanity has survived events that were far more destructive than anything we could dish out with our comparatively puny nuclear weapons.
The reason for having nuclear weapons isn't to unleash Armageddon. The fact that humanity hasn't fought World War III yet suggests to me that nuclear weapons have saved lives. Do you think WW2 would have started if the powers of the day had the nuclear trump card?
It is also important to reiterate to the Ahmadinejads of the world that we will retaliate with overwhelming force, including possibly a reciprocal nuclear strike, in response any first-strikes against us or our allies.
"Possibly"? If they hit us with nuclear weapons then we have to respond in kind. We've said as such for the last 50 years. A failure to follow through on that would render MAD a moot point and encourage future bad actors to engage in their own first-strikes.
As Hillary said, we can obliterate them. If they were stupid enough to drop a nuke on us or one of our allies that's exactly what we would have to do.
BTW, great nations can lose tens of millions of dead, many cities, and still recover as did the Soviet Union.
Actually it might even be easier for a country to recover from a few nuclear bombs than it was for the Soviet Union to recover from WW2. The deaths suffered by the Soviet Union (or France in WW1 for a Western example) were disproportionately incurred by young males. It created a demographic imbalance that took at least a generation to correct. The fallout from this affected everything from the economy to romance.
The loss of a few major urban areas would probably result in as many (or more) causalities but they'd cut across all demographic groups in a much more equal fashion than either of the World Wars.
Our federal government is flaky. We vote in Republicans and they promote their agenda and agencies are co-opted to that agenda. Then we vote in Democrats and they completely change how those agencies operate.
I'm curious why you correctly labeled the behavior of the GOP as "co-opting" but declined to do the same in favor of more neutral language when referring to the Democrats?
If we find a rogue nation with a lone nuke or two, we attack with conventional weapons, because the risk incurred by escalation is too great. If a threat is substantial enough to warrant a nuclear attack (as the Soviet Union may have been), they are completely capable of retaliating while our birds are still in the air, what with early detection and all
What makes you think a "rouge nation" (since that's the example you use) would have the capability to detect a missile launch? Such a capability requires a global satellite surveillance network. The only nations that are known to have this type of a system in place are Russia and the United States, though China is also trying to get there.
There are also other ways of delivering nuclear weapons besides our "birds". It's extremely doubtful that we would rely on an ICBM to take out the nuclear program of a rogue state. The warhead(s) would likely be delivered by the B-2. This avoids the possibility of Russia or China mistaking it for an attack on their country and forecloses any possibility of the targeted country knowing they are under attack until the first warhead detonates.
Shakrai, I have to ask you this: Are you and "commodore_64love" the same guy?
No.
I've noticed that the only time I see your post is immediately before or after one of his.
Then you clearly haven't been paying a lot of attention to his posts or mine.
Plus, you've got a similarly retarded worldview. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I mean, if it works for a former governor of Alaska and former Miss California, who am I to criticize?
Huh? I can count on one hand how many issues I agree with Sarah Palin on (gun rights) and I have a rather low opinion of her. Regarding Miss California, I haven't the foggiest idea of who you are talking about. I have better things to do than watch the homo sapien version of the American Kennel Club dog show. Perhaps you could elaborate?
You also seem like the type to use a sock puppet.
If I was to use a sock puppet I wouldn't bother registering another account. That's what the 'AC' button is for;)
I would define a win as killing those responsible for the 9/11 attacks and leaving a government in place that doesn't allow such groups to set up shop again. I don't even care if that Government happens to be the Taliban, provided that they keep their violence confined to Afghanistan and have a clear understanding of the consequences of harboring groups that seek to kill Americans.
It was a huge mistake to define this operation as a liberation of the Afgani people. It's up to them to liberate themselves. It's up to us to see to it that our citizens aren't murdered by fanatical nutjobs.
The only way to destroy the drug industry in Afghanistan would be to outbid the Taliban and buy the poppy harvest ourselves. Anything else is destined to end in failure. We can't even eradicate the production of illegal substances (cannabis is the #1 cash crop in most US States) in our own country, so it's folly to think that we could do the same in another country.
It's not like poppy doesn't have legitimate uses. Buying it from them would also make a more favorable impression with the populace than burning the fields of some poor bastard just trying to eek out of a living in the poorest country on Earth. Of course we have too much political capital invested in the failure known as the "War on Drugs" to do something this smart......
The only way you can "destroy" the drug industry in Afghanistan would be to outbid the Taliban for the poppy harvest and buy it ourselves. Eradicating the production of poppy just isn't feasible. We can't even manage to do the same in our own country (cannabis is the #1 cash crop in most US States), so why should we expect to be able to do so in another country?
Buy it up from them and make it into morphine, oxycodone, etc. This would generate some revenue to support the program and would leave a much better impression on the population than burning the fields of some poor bastard that's starving to death and just trying to earn a living.
Of course, we have too much political capital invested in the failure known as the "War on Drugs" to do something this smart. More's the pity.
I'll leave you with that while I go to make my 30-char SSH password a little longer.
I hope you realize that's probably a wasted effort against a well-resourced organization. If you are that paranoid then I hope that your computer was randomly purchased off the floor in person and it's never been out of your sight.
Also, since we were bombing the living crap (killing) civilians in their homes, it broke the will to fight of the civilian population.
I don't know as if I agree with that. It only "broke" the will to fight of the nations that were already destined to lose the war. The British, Soviets and Finns were all subjected to varying degrees of terror bombing and yet they all managed to remain in the war.
It certainly contributed to the erosion of morale among the civilian population and probably explains why there was no desire to wage an insurgency after they were defeated but I don't know as if you can say it broke their will to fight. They continued fighting right up until the point that we occupied their country.
I would agree with you that we are ignoring a key component of warfare though: The need to break your enemies will to fight. The only way to do that is to kill enough of him and his supporters that they realize the fight isn't worth carrying on. We aren't willing to do that in Afghanistan, hence we are destined for eventual failure.
It doesn't happen too often. Why would you regard it as scary that people would want to know about it when it does though?
A few years ago we had someone running around these parts who had escaped prison and shot three state troopers during the course of his crime spree (one of whom died). Personally I'm rather glad that the authorities decided to notify everybody of the fact that he was running around. It enabled those of us who live in the area to take steps to protect ourselves against this murdering nutjob.
The government has nothing to gain by denying you care
Yes it does. Just because it's Government doesn't mean that it has limitless resources. Government health care systems deny care all the time. Just ask anybody who has ever been in the VA system.
Private insurance companies have incentive to deny
Private insurance companies operate in the marketplace that we set up for them. I have no problem with changing the parameters of that marketplace. I do have a problem with replacing that marketplace with the Government or with telling individuals that they HAVE to take part in it.
And as for the mandate, the provision of a public option negates what could be a mandate to participate in a private system
So what? It's still a mandate. Not once in the history of the United States have we had a "You must do X just because you are alive" mandate on the citizenry. I'm view that as an extremely dangerous precedent and seizure of liberty. Our President agreed with me during the trail and used the issue to browbeat his opponents. Now that he doesn't have to face the voters he's apparently changed his mind.
but I don't see you arguing that single-payer solutions are less expensive than we have now
Who cares if the system that isn't politically viable is less expensive than the broken system that we have now? That wasn't the point I was making. The point I was making was that a free market would operate more efficiently than what we currently have. It would do so while preserving freedom of choice and personal liberty.
Please tell me you can see the irony when some of those on your side of the issue complain about a loss of "freedom of choice" (over the abortion funding amendment) while they simultaneously try to advance a bill that includes a mandate (i.e: a loss of freedom of choice) on every single adult American citizen?
Who filters the users by region? Does MS and Sony give NY state the list of users that live there or does NY state tell MS to broadcast the message to this region?
New York State already has an alert system. It's operated on an opt-in basis. You provide the information for the geographical area that you wish to receive notifications for. It currently sends out notifications for severe weather, amber alerts, escaped convicts, etc. It can also do more mundane (weather/event reporting) reports too.
I would imagine that the purposed system would just link into that. You'd simply be able to select "Counterstrike" and "Call of Duty" in addition to "SMS", "Voice" and "e-mail" as a notification option. The onus would still be on you to opt-in.
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Personally, the notion tobacco is even legal is frightening to say the least
Yeah, because all of our other attempts at outlawing harmful substances were successful and had no ill affects at all on society.
The smoke from the burning tobacco and paper coupled with the transportation and cultivation and harvesting of the tobacco creates more greenhouse gasses than the tobacco absorbs while it is growing.
You could say that about all of the food we eat as well. Agriculture hasn't been carbon neutral since the advent of industrialized agriculture. You could fix that but first you'll need to convince a few billion people to volunteer to starve to death. Good luck with that.
I fully support banning smoking in bars and restaurants
I'm not even sure I support those. I really enjoy going out to bars without smoking. It was absolutely disgusting previously. Had take a shower and wash my hair twice when I got home. It also irritated the hell out of my eyes and nose too.
Despite that, the Libertarian in me has a problem with a private business being told that it can't allow smoking on it's property. Nobody forced me to visit that bar. Nobody forced the employees to work there. If a bar wants to ban smoking on it's own then all the power to them -- I'd vote for them with my wallet -- I just don't see it as something to get Uncle Sam all worked up about though.
but sidewalk bans are going too far.
Well, at least we can agree on that :) When is some sanity going to break out over this issue? I can't wait for the nanny-staters to switch targets and start going after the fast food industry. McDonalds made me eat these big macs and now I'm overweight. Why'd the Government allow them to do that? Woe is me.....
Smoking is nasty smelling.
So is the guy in my office who nukes his left over fish in the staff microwave. I haven't run to my Congressman to complain about it though.
Telling yourself that your smoking doesn't affect any one else is a ridiculous.
Telling yourself that five seconds of exposure to second hand smoke in an outdoors environment is going to cause you serious harm is equally ridiculous. Most of the studies that I've seen suggest that the toxins in second hand smoke fall below the background level within a few feet of an outdoor smoker.
Personally there are things that I find much more offensive than second hand smoke. Diesel fumes literally make me sick to my stomach. If I wind up behind a poorly maintained truck I have to pass it or I feel physically ill. It's worse with smaller sources like generators. I don't know if they burn crappier fuel or have worse emissions systems but I can't stand to be downwind of them either.
My kid goes to a university that "costs" $28k per year. But after scholarships, financial aid, etc, my cost is only $14k.
Fixed that for you.
I find cigarette smoking to be pretty repulsive myself, though I do enjoy a good cigar from time to time. I think we've gone too war with the war on smoking though. There are actually municipalities now that are considering banning smoking outdoors. WTF is wrong with that picture?
Case in point, no banks offer fixed rate credit cards.
Says who? My puny small town credit union has offered a fixed rate credit card (7.9%) for the last ten years. It's never changed. There's no law against offering a fixed rate credit card.
Why did you choose it if you you did not like it?
That's not trolling. That's a serious question. Presumably nobody put a gun to the grandparents head and forced him to move into that house.
Consider this factor: lots of people think that blowing up the planet is a really bad idea. No Armageddon, no need for Armageddon weaponry. Such Ludditism may shock you, but there it is.
We don't have the power to "blow up" the planet. We don't even have the power to exterminate life on this rock. It's probable that we don't even have the power to exterminate the human race. Humanity has survived events that were far more destructive than anything we could dish out with our comparatively puny nuclear weapons.
The reason for having nuclear weapons isn't to unleash Armageddon. The fact that humanity hasn't fought World War III yet suggests to me that nuclear weapons have saved lives. Do you think WW2 would have started if the powers of the day had the nuclear trump card?
It is also important to reiterate to the Ahmadinejads of the world that we will retaliate with overwhelming force, including possibly a reciprocal nuclear strike, in response any first-strikes against us or our allies.
"Possibly"? If they hit us with nuclear weapons then we have to respond in kind. We've said as such for the last 50 years. A failure to follow through on that would render MAD a moot point and encourage future bad actors to engage in their own first-strikes.
As Hillary said, we can obliterate them. If they were stupid enough to drop a nuke on us or one of our allies that's exactly what we would have to do.
BTW, great nations can lose tens of millions of dead, many cities, and still recover as did the Soviet Union.
Actually it might even be easier for a country to recover from a few nuclear bombs than it was for the Soviet Union to recover from WW2. The deaths suffered by the Soviet Union (or France in WW1 for a Western example) were disproportionately incurred by young males. It created a demographic imbalance that took at least a generation to correct. The fallout from this affected everything from the economy to romance.
The loss of a few major urban areas would probably result in as many (or more) causalities but they'd cut across all demographic groups in a much more equal fashion than either of the World Wars.
Our federal government is flaky. We vote in Republicans and they promote their agenda and agencies are co-opted to that agenda. Then we vote in Democrats and they completely change how those agencies operate.
I'm curious why you correctly labeled the behavior of the GOP as "co-opting" but declined to do the same in favor of more neutral language when referring to the Democrats?
If we find a rogue nation with a lone nuke or two, we attack with conventional weapons, because the risk incurred by escalation is too great. If a threat is substantial enough to warrant a nuclear attack (as the Soviet Union may have been), they are completely capable of retaliating while our birds are still in the air, what with early detection and all
What makes you think a "rouge nation" (since that's the example you use) would have the capability to detect a missile launch? Such a capability requires a global satellite surveillance network. The only nations that are known to have this type of a system in place are Russia and the United States, though China is also trying to get there.
There are also other ways of delivering nuclear weapons besides our "birds". It's extremely doubtful that we would rely on an ICBM to take out the nuclear program of a rogue state. The warhead(s) would likely be delivered by the B-2. This avoids the possibility of Russia or China mistaking it for an attack on their country and forecloses any possibility of the targeted country knowing they are under attack until the first warhead detonates.
Anything more than a handful is wasted anyway ;)
How's my sock puppet doing? I've gotta say that's the funniest accusation that's ever been leveled against me in my 8+ years on Slashdot.
Shakrai, I have to ask you this: Are you and "commodore_64love" the same guy?
No.
I've noticed that the only time I see your post is immediately before or after one of his.
Then you clearly haven't been paying a lot of attention to his posts or mine.
Plus, you've got a similarly retarded worldview. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I mean, if it works for a former governor of Alaska and former Miss California, who am I to criticize?
Huh? I can count on one hand how many issues I agree with Sarah Palin on (gun rights) and I have a rather low opinion of her. Regarding Miss California, I haven't the foggiest idea of who you are talking about. I have better things to do than watch the homo sapien version of the American Kennel Club dog show. Perhaps you could elaborate?
You also seem like the type to use a sock puppet.
If I was to use a sock puppet I wouldn't bother registering another account. That's what the 'AC' button is for ;)
I would define a win as killing those responsible for the 9/11 attacks and leaving a government in place that doesn't allow such groups to set up shop again. I don't even care if that Government happens to be the Taliban, provided that they keep their violence confined to Afghanistan and have a clear understanding of the consequences of harboring groups that seek to kill Americans.
It was a huge mistake to define this operation as a liberation of the Afgani people. It's up to them to liberate themselves. It's up to us to see to it that our citizens aren't murdered by fanatical nutjobs.
The only way to destroy the drug industry in Afghanistan would be to outbid the Taliban and buy the poppy harvest ourselves. Anything else is destined to end in failure. We can't even eradicate the production of illegal substances (cannabis is the #1 cash crop in most US States) in our own country, so it's folly to think that we could do the same in another country.
It's not like poppy doesn't have legitimate uses. Buying it from them would also make a more favorable impression with the populace than burning the fields of some poor bastard just trying to eek out of a living in the poorest country on Earth. Of course we have too much political capital invested in the failure known as the "War on Drugs" to do something this smart......
The only way you can "destroy" the drug industry in Afghanistan would be to outbid the Taliban for the poppy harvest and buy it ourselves. Eradicating the production of poppy just isn't feasible. We can't even manage to do the same in our own country (cannabis is the #1 cash crop in most US States), so why should we expect to be able to do so in another country?
Buy it up from them and make it into morphine, oxycodone, etc. This would generate some revenue to support the program and would leave a much better impression on the population than burning the fields of some poor bastard that's starving to death and just trying to earn a living.
Of course, we have too much political capital invested in the failure known as the "War on Drugs" to do something this smart. More's the pity.
I'll leave you with that while I go to make my 30-char SSH password a little longer.
I hope you realize that's probably a wasted effort against a well-resourced organization. If you are that paranoid then I hope that your computer was randomly purchased off the floor in person and it's never been out of your sight.
Why would Microsoft build a back door into Win7, when the front door is so wide open?
Because Big Gay Al, Mr. Slave and Tom Cruise don't like using the front door?
Thank you, I'll be here all week.... ;)
Also, since we were bombing the living crap (killing) civilians in their homes, it broke the will to fight of the civilian population.
I don't know as if I agree with that. It only "broke" the will to fight of the nations that were already destined to lose the war. The British, Soviets and Finns were all subjected to varying degrees of terror bombing and yet they all managed to remain in the war.
It certainly contributed to the erosion of morale among the civilian population and probably explains why there was no desire to wage an insurgency after they were defeated but I don't know as if you can say it broke their will to fight. They continued fighting right up until the point that we occupied their country.
I would agree with you that we are ignoring a key component of warfare though: The need to break your enemies will to fight. The only way to do that is to kill enough of him and his supporters that they realize the fight isn't worth carrying on. We aren't willing to do that in Afghanistan, hence we are destined for eventual failure.
Because torture was and is a violation of the laws of war. Punishing those who break them is not.
It doesn't happen too often. Why would you regard it as scary that people would want to know about it when it does though?
A few years ago we had someone running around these parts who had escaped prison and shot three state troopers during the course of his crime spree (one of whom died). Personally I'm rather glad that the authorities decided to notify everybody of the fact that he was running around. It enabled those of us who live in the area to take steps to protect ourselves against this murdering nutjob.
The government has nothing to gain by denying you care
Yes it does. Just because it's Government doesn't mean that it has limitless resources. Government health care systems deny care all the time. Just ask anybody who has ever been in the VA system.
Private insurance companies have incentive to deny
Private insurance companies operate in the marketplace that we set up for them. I have no problem with changing the parameters of that marketplace. I do have a problem with replacing that marketplace with the Government or with telling individuals that they HAVE to take part in it.
And as for the mandate, the provision of a public option negates what could be a mandate to participate in a private system
So what? It's still a mandate. Not once in the history of the United States have we had a "You must do X just because you are alive" mandate on the citizenry. I'm view that as an extremely dangerous precedent and seizure of liberty. Our President agreed with me during the trail and used the issue to browbeat his opponents. Now that he doesn't have to face the voters he's apparently changed his mind.
but I don't see you arguing that single-payer solutions are less expensive than we have now
Who cares if the system that isn't politically viable is less expensive than the broken system that we have now? That wasn't the point I was making. The point I was making was that a free market would operate more efficiently than what we currently have. It would do so while preserving freedom of choice and personal liberty.
Please tell me you can see the irony when some of those on your side of the issue complain about a loss of "freedom of choice" (over the abortion funding amendment) while they simultaneously try to advance a bill that includes a mandate (i.e: a loss of freedom of choice) on every single adult American citizen?
Those channels are mostly filled with 12 year-olds shouting their racist and homophobic opinions anyways.
It's not nice to talk about the GNAA like that behind their backs ;)
Who filters the users by region? Does MS and Sony give NY state the list of users that live there or does NY state tell MS to broadcast the message to this region?
New York State already has an alert system. It's operated on an opt-in basis. You provide the information for the geographical area that you wish to receive notifications for. It currently sends out notifications for severe weather, amber alerts, escaped convicts, etc. It can also do more mundane (weather/event reporting) reports too.
I would imagine that the purposed system would just link into that. You'd simply be able to select "Counterstrike" and "Call of Duty" in addition to "SMS", "Voice" and "e-mail" as a notification option. The onus would still be on you to opt-in.