Let's pretend that what happened to your daughter WAS caused by the MMR vaccine.
Let's even pretend that it's not uncommon. Give me 100 people with the exact same stories.
It's still worth vaccination. Measles, Mumps, Rubella, and heck let's throw in smallpox and polio! They are all far, far more harmful than the vaccinations for them. Somebody might die from the vaccination. It's tragic. It's also a lot better than LOTS of people dying from the disease.
It's not a decision to be made with an emotional appeal. It's strictly a numbers game. Require the vaccines -- for everyone. It's a lottery, sure. Someone might get sick, someone might die. Of course, the evidence that vaccinations cause any long-term damage is... well, it's completely absent.. but even if it was present, it is still a net gain for humankind.
These vaccinations are for some serious bad illnesses. Get them. Get them so you don't catch them -- and more, get them so OTHERS don't catch them.
Old designs where a sear held the firing pin back? Yes, accidenal discharge was possible. The sear could break. That's why you carried revolver on an empty cylinder.
Modern designs pretty much universally use a transfer-bar mechanism, which is basically a complete disconnect. There is no way for the firing pin to strike the primer without the trigger being fully depressed rearward -- at that point a small bit of metal moves into line behind the firing pin. Without that transfer bar in place, there's no way to strike the firing pin.
And that's completely ignoring the basic rules of gun safety, such as not pointing guns at anything you don't want to shoot, and always assuming a gun is loaded, all that happy shit. I've been shooting since I was 6, when I was given a rifle for christmas. Guns are absolutely positively completely safe, if you yourself are safe in your use of them. "Accidental" shootings are ALWAYS caused by HUMAN error.
If I recall, they did have, at some point since the whole thing started, a drop in *gun* crime. But an overall increase in crime, and especially *violent* crime. It's been fluctuating around quite a bit.
And then of course there's the example of US states allowing concealed carry and removing onerous restrictions and requirements on gun ownership *lowering* crime... but that's CLEARLY a bad example and should be ignored, because it doesn't match up with the LIBERALLY-KNOWN FACTPINION that GUNS=BAD! And we all know that when reality doesn't match your expectations, reality should be discounted and ignored.
Free speech requires no respect of the opinions of others! That is RIDICULOUS and I have no idea how the hell you could have come to such a wrong-headed and stupid conclusion.
I am under no obligation to respect your opinion. I can call you all kinds of childish names, commit any number of ad hominim attacks (so long as I don't get in to libel / slander -- though in america there's a great deal of freedom given there, too). Any time you speak, I could stick my fingers in my ears and go "LALALALALALALALA", or simply stand there with a shit-eating grin and raise my middle finger at you while clearly not listening or respecting a single thing you say.
Freedom of speech requires no respect. Freedom of speech simply requires allowing people to speak their opinions. Even if you have absolutely no respect -- and you're free to express that lack of respect.
Right. You go ahead and defend yourself without a gun. You're going to fucking die, though. I'm not just talking about "ohh the criminal will have a gun", either. Give him a knife. You'll get stabbed. Go ahead and get a knife of your own, then you'll simply have to rely on the fact that you are stronger and faster than any aggressor who comes your way -- oh, and that they make sure to come one-by-one.
You don't need a gun to defend yourself, but when you eliminate it from the equation (and especially when it remains a possibility for the criminal side of a crime), things quickly digress to the point of biggest-dog-wins. Have fun getting into fistfights with crackheads, tell me how that works out for you. On second thought, don't bother, I've got a pretty good idea already.
WWI was absolutely, positively, completely and fully a gigantic folly and bad idea of the highest degree.
WWI was more of a stupid war than Iraq.
Then again, your silly idea that the police can have guns and not common citizens is equally wrong. Let's say Billy breaks into your house and starts raping the hell out of you and your whole family. What're you going to do about it, call the cops? Have fun hearing them pull up to the curb, look at your house, decide it's in a bad neighborhood and they don't want to put their lives at risk and drive away.
You ARE aware that police are not a protective force, correct? They are there to arrest people. They are not under any obligation whatsoever to protect you from crime. Look it up. They're not. There's legal precedent.
I hope you know you can run steam in offline mode, and still have full access to all your single-player content. In fact, when I recently had an interruption in service while I switched providers, all I really played was single-player games I had previously purchased via Steam.
People on slashdot CONSTANTLY complain about that, and I can't help but facepalm. Has it really gotten to the point where the vnboards are better able to understand the programs they use every day than slashdot? FACEPALM
If you are ordered by the government to commit an act that is legal given a set of circumstances, and they inform you that those circumstances have been met, and you have no way to independently verify whether or not they have been met, only a COMPLETE FUCKING IDIOT would draw a comparison to snooping carried out on an individual's own whim.
Seriously, did I emphasize that enough? The complete fucking idiot part?
If you need to pull your assmongering little petty partisanship into this, at least make an equal comparison: the illegal and unauthorized access of Joe the Plumber's records. So far, nobody has lost their job over that. One person has been put on suspension without pay, but that's not too big of a deal -- she was already on *payed* leave since Nov. 7 due to her use of her government email to conduct fundraising for Obama.
To be a bit more to the point, I, perhaps wrongfully, expect a little less snippy partisanship from Slashdot -- at least in the submissions.
Again, only a complete fucking idiot would compare this to somebody who was told that the government had a right to order a wiretap. Especially when the government is ALLOWED to issue warrentless wiretaps -- read the law, look under "FISA" -- the Attorney General may order a wiretap if it is deemed an emergency case. He's just gotta tell the FISC court within 72 hours that a wiretap has been placed on someone.
Addictive personalities do not need an illegal drug to become addicted to, or even a legal drug. Addictive personalities only need a behaviour that leads to a release of yummy happy brain chemicals. Chronic thrill seekers, sex hounds, smokers, cutters, it's all the same thing when it comes down to it. Want to talk about MMO addiction while we're at it?
Not all these activities are addictive to the same level, or harmful to the same amount. You'll also note the only *physically* addictive one I mentioned is cigarettes, but they're all psychologically addictive. Easiest one that I've quit was actually the one that caused the least problems for me. Smoking pot. Except it's illegal. Funny how laws don't always (or even frequently) match up to what we would expect them to do in the real world.
As for your final point, it makes no sense. The part about genetics is a bit silly -- it would apply equally to alcoholics, and we seem to not be considered with alcoholism on a wide, societal scale as we are with those evil potheads. But your final point? Very.. what the hell? I can't even discuss it. It makes no sense. There is no point. You're asking me to believe that drugs have had a free reign in the US since the 1950s as evidence that we can only seek harsher control, but that's too big of a whopper to swallow.
Ahh -- to clarify. One person can stop a mass murderer. Just shoot them. Case Solved!
Now if you're talking about a serial killer, you might have a point. A common citizen would most likely not have access to the amount of information that could lead to an arrest.
But a mass murderer? That's a different beast. Mass murderers are someone like Colin Ferguson or the Columbine kids or that Cho feller. They typically go somewhere and just start killing people. In that situation, it's actually often easier for a citizen to stop them than it is the police.
Now as to the GP, none of us are under any obligation, legally or morally, to ferret out illegal drug users or anybody else who may be breaking a law, if we do not feel the law is just or that their behaviour is a threat.
Or perhaps you record the license plate numbers of everybody who speeds on the highway and turn those lists in to the state police?
(as to your second post in which you make up the statistic that 90% of drug users are nefarious and commit other crimes as well, you clearly have never been around many drug users. I have. It's called college. The overwhelming majority of drug users are non-violent and their only criminal behaviour is their drug use -- and those who are both drug users are criminals, especially violent criminals? It would be a much greater use of public funds to focus not on their DRUG USE, which would lead you to many people who commit no other crimes, but instead to focus on the OTHER criminal activities which they commit and which are not restricted to drug users -- theft, muggings, assault. Rather than find people committing those crimes by hunting for drug users and finding many drug users who do not commit those crimes and not finding many thieves, muggers, and attackers who do not use drugs, I rather think my idea has quite a bit of merit, don't you?)
You should try that, but add in the benefit of 12 hour *swing* shifts. You get to not only experience the joy of never seeing the sun, with the added benefit of constantly changing your sleep pattern every few days. I assure you, the combination is much better than either separately. I love my job.
Excuse me while I go find a sturdy ceiling beam and a less-than sturdy chair.
I think the point is that nobody batted an eye when the Clintons told everybody that OOPS! thousands of emails were just, oh, I don't know, lost somehow between the time that they were subpoenaed and the time they went to collect them.
Oh, and by the by? Never was any ramifications for Clinton's behaviour. That means that legally what he did was ok. Amazing what saying "Oops!" can do for you.
There's also the really silly fact that any of these conversations via email that must be retained can take place over the phone or face-to-face and there is no requirement that everything the President says ever must always be recorded.
If you're a great mathematician, and someone needs a great mathematician, and they hate your fucking guts...... they'll get a regular mathematician, and a great fucking calculator.
I generally don't pirate games (though I do legally buy more than I should).. but there are cases I'll do it (at least I finally figured out why I was having such problems with torrents.. hai2u comcast!)
Some games can't be found anywhere. With consoles, there's a thriving used game market. Computer titles? Much much much less so -- so much less so that you could spend years searching for X and never find it (or pay MORE than original retail... wtf no thanks), or just grab a copy and "pirate" the no-longer-available title.
That, I will do.
With the ease of digital distribution these days, there's no excuse for Abandonware. Put that shit for sale somewhere, even if it's 15 years old. Somewhere! Or I'll just pirate it if I want to play it.
Sadly many of the old titles from my 286 don't really show up on torrents or abandonware sites too often. BOO.
Firstly, your argument is the intellectual equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and saying "LALALALALA CANT HEAR YOU LALALALALALA".
You say anyone who doesn't NEED drugs will understand (and ostensibly agree with) you, but anyone who *claims* they don't NEED drugs is clearly just both wrong and an addict in denial.
Not all drug use is habitual, and not all habitual drug use is detrimental. Yet you seem to think that anybody who claims to not NEED a certain drug actually has a *constant* "need for a foregin(sic) substance for their brain chemistry".
Stop bandying about the alteration of brain chemistry like you're afraid of somebody contaminating or stealing your precious bodily fluids. LIFE alters brain chemistry. And I note in your sig something about a horror movie? Guess what. Horror movies are a drug -- they alter brain chemistry! That's why people like them! YOU FUCKING DIRTY ADDICT YOU!
In other words, get off your high horse.
No, I don't use drugs. Aside from drinking. Occasionally. What MADD would consider hardcore alcoholism -- but those crazy bitches are nothing but teetotalling prohibitionists in disguise anyway.
Getting drunk is no less reprehensible than riding a roller coaster or getting into impassioned arguments. In all cases, it is the frequency of repetition that creates the problem and not the individual incident itself.
If you think that was any more legitimate than oil prices lowering because there might be a little more oil in the future.. well. I've got a bridge to sell you.
10 years ago oil was 13 bucks a barrel.
And if you're wondering, oil has been plummeting since it started to look like we definitely were going to allow offshore drilling to resume. Even through the "disasters" of the hurricane season (PR0TIP, HURRICANES WRECK SHIT UP EVERY YEAR AND SHOW NO SIGNS OF STOPPING)
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah... somebody should tell them about Skype. Really.
My mod points JUST disappeared.
You always find something worth modding once they're gone.
This.
Building a nuke really isn't that hard. The US plowed through it in a few years.
Corrected for inflation into 2008 USD, the whole shebang was only $24 billion.
That's pretty cheap when you think about how much the government is throwing around for all these bailout packages.
Let's pretend that what happened to your daughter WAS caused by the MMR vaccine.
Let's even pretend that it's not uncommon. Give me 100 people with the exact same stories.
It's still worth vaccination. Measles, Mumps, Rubella, and heck let's throw in smallpox and polio!
They are all far, far more harmful than the vaccinations for them. Somebody might die from the vaccination. It's tragic. It's also a lot better than LOTS of people dying from the disease.
It's not a decision to be made with an emotional appeal. It's strictly a numbers game.
Require the vaccines -- for everyone. It's a lottery, sure. Someone might get sick, someone might die. Of course, the evidence that vaccinations cause any long-term damage is... well, it's completely absent.. but even if it was present, it is still a net gain for humankind.
These vaccinations are for some serious bad illnesses. Get them. Get them so you don't catch them -- and more, get them so OTHERS don't catch them.
Ummmm... no.
Old designs where a sear held the firing pin back? Yes, accidenal discharge was possible. The sear could break. That's why you carried revolver on an empty cylinder.
Modern designs pretty much universally use a transfer-bar mechanism, which is basically a complete disconnect. There is no way for the firing pin to strike the primer without the trigger being fully depressed rearward -- at that point a small bit of metal moves into line behind the firing pin. Without that transfer bar in place, there's no way to strike the firing pin.
And that's completely ignoring the basic rules of gun safety, such as not pointing guns at anything you don't want to shoot, and always assuming a gun is loaded, all that happy shit. I've been shooting since I was 6, when I was given a rifle for christmas. Guns are absolutely positively completely safe, if you yourself are safe in your use of them. "Accidental" shootings are ALWAYS caused by HUMAN error.
If I recall, they did have, at some point since the whole thing started, a drop in *gun* crime.
But an overall increase in crime, and especially *violent* crime. It's been fluctuating around quite a bit.
And then of course there's the example of US states allowing concealed carry and removing onerous restrictions and requirements on gun ownership *lowering* crime... but that's CLEARLY a bad example and should be ignored, because it doesn't match up with the LIBERALLY-KNOWN FACTPINION that GUNS=BAD! And we all know that when reality doesn't match your expectations, reality should be discounted and ignored.
What?
Free speech requires no respect of the opinions of others! That is RIDICULOUS and I have no idea how the hell you could have come to such a wrong-headed and stupid conclusion.
I am under no obligation to respect your opinion. I can call you all kinds of childish names, commit any number of ad hominim attacks (so long as I don't get in to libel / slander -- though in america there's a great deal of freedom given there, too). Any time you speak, I could stick my fingers in my ears and go "LALALALALALALALA", or simply stand there with a shit-eating grin and raise my middle finger at you while clearly not listening or respecting a single thing you say.
Freedom of speech requires no respect. Freedom of speech simply requires allowing people to speak their opinions. Even if you have absolutely no respect -- and you're free to express that lack of respect.
Right. You go ahead and defend yourself without a gun. You're going to fucking die, though.
I'm not just talking about "ohh the criminal will have a gun", either. Give him a knife. You'll get stabbed. Go ahead and get a knife of your own, then you'll simply have to rely on the fact that you are stronger and faster than any aggressor who comes your way -- oh, and that they make sure to come one-by-one.
You don't need a gun to defend yourself, but when you eliminate it from the equation (and especially when it remains a possibility for the criminal side of a crime), things quickly digress to the point of biggest-dog-wins. Have fun getting into fistfights with crackheads, tell me how that works out for you. On second thought, don't bother, I've got a pretty good idea already.
WWI was absolutely, positively, completely and fully a gigantic folly and bad idea of the highest degree.
WWI was more of a stupid war than Iraq.
Then again, your silly idea that the police can have guns and not common citizens is equally wrong. Let's say Billy breaks into your house and starts raping the hell out of you and your whole family. What're you going to do about it, call the cops? Have fun hearing them pull up to the curb, look at your house, decide it's in a bad neighborhood and they don't want to put their lives at risk and drive away.
You ARE aware that police are not a protective force, correct? They are there to arrest people. They are not under any obligation whatsoever to protect you from crime. Look it up. They're not. There's legal precedent.
I hope you know you can run steam in offline mode, and still have full access to all your single-player content. In fact, when I recently had an interruption in service while I switched providers, all I really played was single-player games I had previously purchased via Steam.
People on slashdot CONSTANTLY complain about that, and I can't help but facepalm. Has it really gotten to the point where the vnboards are better able to understand the programs they use every day than slashdot? FACEPALM
If you are ordered by the government to commit an act that is legal given a set of circumstances, and they inform you that those circumstances have been met, and you have no way to independently verify whether or not they have been met, only a COMPLETE FUCKING IDIOT would draw a comparison to snooping carried out on an individual's own whim.
Seriously, did I emphasize that enough? The complete fucking idiot part?
If you need to pull your assmongering little petty partisanship into this, at least make an equal comparison: the illegal and unauthorized access of Joe the Plumber's records. So far, nobody has lost their job over that. One person has been put on suspension without pay, but that's not too big of a deal -- she was already on *payed* leave since Nov. 7 due to her use of her government email to conduct fundraising for Obama.
To be a bit more to the point, I, perhaps wrongfully, expect a little less snippy partisanship from Slashdot -- at least in the submissions.
Again, only a complete fucking idiot would compare this to somebody who was told that the government had a right to order a wiretap. Especially when the government is ALLOWED to issue warrentless wiretaps -- read the law, look under "FISA" -- the Attorney General may order a wiretap if it is deemed an emergency case. He's just gotta tell the FISC court within 72 hours that a wiretap has been placed on someone.
Zardoz is an amazing movie, and we should look down upon those who have not seen it.
My cheap-ass, enormous industry-leader international company, won't pay for our coffee so I buy it out of my pocket.
And my cheap-ass boss stops by from time to time because free-for-him coffee is too good to pass up.
Can I get that last line notarized and sent to him registered mail, I don't think he fully appreciates how large a piece of shit he actually is.
Addictive personalities do not need an illegal drug to become addicted to, or even a legal drug. Addictive personalities only need a behaviour that leads to a release of yummy happy brain chemicals. Chronic thrill seekers, sex hounds, smokers, cutters, it's all the same thing when it comes down to it. Want to talk about MMO addiction while we're at it?
Not all these activities are addictive to the same level, or harmful to the same amount. You'll also note the only *physically* addictive one I mentioned is cigarettes, but they're all psychologically addictive.
Easiest one that I've quit was actually the one that caused the least problems for me. Smoking pot. Except it's illegal. Funny how laws don't always (or even frequently) match up to what we would expect them to do in the real world.
As for your final point, it makes no sense. The part about genetics is a bit silly -- it would apply equally to alcoholics, and we seem to not be considered with alcoholism on a wide, societal scale as we are with those evil potheads.
But your final point? Very.. what the hell? I can't even discuss it. It makes no sense. There is no point. You're asking me to believe that drugs have had a free reign in the US since the 1950s as evidence that we can only seek harsher control, but that's too big of a whopper to swallow.
That is also a baseless and made-up statistic, and doesn't make any more sense and isn't any more correct.
Ahh -- to clarify. One person can stop a mass murderer. Just shoot them. Case Solved!
Now if you're talking about a serial killer, you might have a point. A common citizen would most likely not have access to the amount of information that could lead to an arrest.
But a mass murderer? That's a different beast. Mass murderers are someone like Colin Ferguson or the Columbine kids or that Cho feller. They typically go somewhere and just start killing people. In that situation, it's actually often easier for a citizen to stop them than it is the police.
Now as to the GP, none of us are under any obligation, legally or morally, to ferret out illegal drug users or anybody else who may be breaking a law, if we do not feel the law is just or that their behaviour is a threat.
Or perhaps you record the license plate numbers of everybody who speeds on the highway and turn those lists in to the state police?
(as to your second post in which you make up the statistic that 90% of drug users are nefarious and commit other crimes as well, you clearly have never been around many drug users. I have. It's called college. The overwhelming majority of drug users are non-violent and their only criminal behaviour is their drug use -- and those who are both drug users are criminals, especially violent criminals? It would be a much greater use of public funds to focus not on their DRUG USE, which would lead you to many people who commit no other crimes, but instead to focus on the OTHER criminal activities which they commit and which are not restricted to drug users -- theft, muggings, assault. Rather than find people committing those crimes by hunting for drug users and finding many drug users who do not commit those crimes and not finding many thieves, muggers, and attackers who do not use drugs, I rather think my idea has quite a bit of merit, don't you?)
Yes.
Yes it is.
You should try that, but add in the benefit of 12 hour *swing* shifts. You get to not only experience the joy of never seeing the sun, with the added benefit of constantly changing your sleep pattern every few days. I assure you, the combination is much better than either separately. I love my job.
Excuse me while I go find a sturdy ceiling beam and a less-than sturdy chair.
Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe we're in the alternate universe, where the Federation was evil.
The theory bears scrutiny. Haven't you noticed the popularity of goatees?
I think the point is that nobody batted an eye when the Clintons told everybody that OOPS! thousands of emails were just, oh, I don't know, lost somehow between the time that they were subpoenaed and the time they went to collect them.
Oh, and by the by? Never was any ramifications for Clinton's behaviour. That means that legally what he did was ok. Amazing what saying "Oops!" can do for you.
There's also the really silly fact that any of these conversations via email that must be retained can take place over the phone or face-to-face and there is no requirement that everything the President says ever must always be recorded.
If you're a great mathematician, and someone needs a great mathematician, and they hate your fucking guts... ... they'll get a regular mathematician, and a great fucking calculator.
The extra 0.5% is because john lennon is bigger than jesus.
I generally don't pirate games (though I do legally buy more than I should).. but there are cases I'll do it (at least I finally figured out why I was having such problems with torrents.. hai2u comcast!)
Some games can't be found anywhere. With consoles, there's a thriving used game market. Computer titles? Much much much less so -- so much less so that you could spend years searching for X and never find it (or pay MORE than original retail... wtf no thanks), or just grab a copy and "pirate" the no-longer-available title.
That, I will do.
With the ease of digital distribution these days, there's no excuse for Abandonware. Put that shit for sale somewhere, even if it's 15 years old. Somewhere! Or I'll just pirate it if I want to play it.
Sadly many of the old titles from my 286 don't really show up on torrents or abandonware sites too often. BOO.
You're so wrong it hurts.
Firstly, your argument is the intellectual equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and saying "LALALALALA CANT HEAR YOU LALALALALALA".
You say anyone who doesn't NEED drugs will understand (and ostensibly agree with) you, but anyone who *claims* they don't NEED drugs is clearly just both wrong and an addict in denial.
Not all drug use is habitual, and not all habitual drug use is detrimental. Yet you seem to think that anybody who claims to not NEED a certain drug actually has a *constant* "need for a foregin(sic) substance for their brain chemistry".
Stop bandying about the alteration of brain chemistry like you're afraid of somebody contaminating or stealing your precious bodily fluids. LIFE alters brain chemistry.
And I note in your sig something about a horror movie? Guess what. Horror movies are a drug -- they alter brain chemistry! That's why people like them! YOU FUCKING DIRTY ADDICT YOU!
In other words, get off your high horse.
No, I don't use drugs. Aside from drinking. Occasionally. What MADD would consider hardcore alcoholism -- but those crazy bitches are nothing but teetotalling prohibitionists in disguise anyway.
Getting drunk is no less reprehensible than riding a roller coaster or getting into impassioned arguments. In all cases, it is the frequency of repetition that creates the problem and not the individual incident itself.
Welcome to the wider world of human experience.
Don't expect to see this go anywhere, not for a long time at least.
On this side of the pond.
To my friends in the UK, I'm so terribly sorry. I'm assuming you will have this technology installed and in full swing by next Tuesday.
Look how high oil prices have been.
If you think that was any more legitimate than oil prices lowering because there might be a little more oil in the future.. well. I've got a bridge to sell you.
10 years ago oil was 13 bucks a barrel.
And if you're wondering, oil has been plummeting since it started to look like we definitely were going to allow offshore drilling to resume. Even through the "disasters" of the hurricane season (PR0TIP, HURRICANES WRECK SHIT UP EVERY YEAR AND SHOW NO SIGNS OF STOPPING)