"If these people are under suspicion for valid reasons, why isn't it possible for our government to obtain search warrants to look at the data?"
You answered your own question.
predicates: A => B not B ---- conclusion
Not A
Valid suspicion => warrant can be obtained warrant can't be obtained
therefore: no valid suspicion.
This is basic symbolic logic. taught to every philosophy and computer science student.
It is quite safe to assume the government has no valid reason to investigate these people for the very fact that it insists on having the power to act without a warrant.
A journalist could be sentenced to a prison term. It would depend on how serious and willful the contempt of court was.
In the UK as well as Canada it is believed that the right to a fair and OPEN trial belongs not merely to the accused, but also to the PUBLIC. That this right is so sacrosanct that in certain circumstances it justifies prohibiting people from publishing their own take on the court proceedings before the trial is completed. (if you want the scoop you are free to attend court personally). Publication bans prevent both sides from engaging in a outside the courtroom trial of public opinion. A very wealthy and very popular defendant could easily sway public opinion in FAVOUR of him and yet be as guilty as sin.
In canada at least it is also considered contempt to picket the courthouse in regards to a case currently being heard there. This is as it should be. If you have any material evidence to offer undoubtedly it will be either FOR or AGAINST some position and in the adversarial system (as is used here) certainly you would be permitted to testify (UNDER OATH) about what you have.
For all the others.. heckling and bantering is strictly irrelevant and should be kept as far away from the court room as possible. It doesn't make a fact any more or less true simply because 100 protesters WISH it was.
Even where there is no jury, a publication ban can still be ordered. And the reason is that the public is served best by either getting the raw proceedings first hand (by attending courst) or waiting until the trial is over and all parties have had a full and fair opportunity to present their evidence (under oath) and make their submissions. This way the public also has the benefit of getting the judge's findings at the same time (which is necessarily withheld DURING the trial). This way as well, the personal biases and opinions of the media, politicians or other parties is minimized. Justice must be seen to be done and that means it must be seen ACCURATELY.
If the trial procedure itself is sufficient to destroy a persons life (because of the public spectacle of it) then there will be a number of cases where innocent people will refuse to defend themselves and plead guilty. this brings the entire process into disrepute and begs the question of whether other guilty pleas were in fact sincere (because the person was guilty) or merely convenient (because the spectacle of trial was worse than defending yourself and being aquitted).
Incidentally in Canada it is not even legal to transcribe the court proceedings yourself. You must get the official transcript. this transcript is produced by the court reporter who is an independant party under oath to transcribe as accurately as possible. Other people could easily lie about what they heard under oath and interfere with justice that way.
At the end of the day.... all the public media attention on court cases is purely about entertainment value anyway. It has nothing to do with justice, and where justice is required, justice trumps free speech. In so far as justice is the fundamental protection for ALL rights in a society, the requirements of Justice necessarily trump ALL other rights in society.
If you dont like having your free speech impeded by the process of Justice, imagine how someone who is convicted feels to have their liberty impeded?
If you think Justice has no right against your speech, then you should also hold that justice has no right against the liberty of a person who stands accused.
In any event, these publication bans are merely temporary bans DURING the trial. It is not censorship.
If experimenting on near sentient (if not fully sentient in some cases) primates is permissible, then why not perform experiments on human babies, young children or perhaps people with cognitive disibilities and the elderly?
Certainly there would be much more practical science to be discovered if we would stop limiting outselves to the arbitrary species boundary? Whatever principle makes a 2 year old monkey a better test subject than a 2 year old cat would likely hold even better for a 2 year old human child.
For that matter, experimentation on the homeless and mmigrants could also be a valuable aid to research. Certainly testing a drug on 50 welfare recipients would garner better scientific data than the same experiment on 50 monkeys.
Might makes right doesn't it?
If we regard a creature's capacity to feel distress and suffer as well as feel joy and happiness as irrelevant in the consideration of who we are going to do experimentation on, then we are hypocrits when we pretend that we actually "care" about the wellbeing of other beings of any catagorization (including human).
It is certainly more costly and more time consuming to do some research without animal experimentation.
But even if the research was impossible without an animal test case, I still ask the question: Where do you draw the line?
What will you do when you find an experiment which can ONLY be performed on a human being. Why stop at that species boundary? What if you can save many people or cure a great plague if only a few unwilling human test cases were required? What if you could save 10 people for each 1 unwilling human sacrifice?
It is unscientific to hold that human suffering is intolerable while animal suffering is irrelevant.
It is unscientific to hold that any amount of animal suffering whatsoever is worthwhile to reduce some arbitrarily small amount of human suffering.
It is also unscientific to refuse to experiment on human beings simply because they are of the same species as the researcher. If that is the ONLY reason then white researchers can be hired to experiment on black victims and vice versa. (or else non-interbreedable species of human being could be created for that purpose with genetic manipulation)
clearly before any additional suffering is inflicted on anybody or anything we need to establish a scientific basis for determining where we should draw the line.
The free market doesn't care about who gets hurt. And the only reason we currently dont do involutary human testing is because it is pollitically incorrect. Without the scientific arguments for OR again it, it is just a matter of time before some jurisdiction begins to allow testing on involuntary human subjects, and then all the talk about killing a monkey to save a person is nothing more than fluff, because we will be killing humans AGAIN.
And apart from appealing to theological arguments -- I haven't see a justification as why we should not force humans to be test subjects which wouldn't also capture the higher primates and some other animals in its umbrella.
Until this is sorted out it seems to be unethical to engage in this kind of research.
As for the violence etc.. it all seems childish. adults ought to be able to reason and debate and reach the objective reality of the matter. Especially parties purporting to have scientific reasons for their behavior.
"it's the American citizen who is subsidizing the cost of your drugs. The American market covers the costs of research, development, testing, and marketing, and the Canadian government price controls the drugs just enough that the companies make marginally more selling it there than it costs them to manufacture. But if we weren't paying the much higher prices here, there wouldn't be sufficient profit margin to make the all the pre-manufacturing costs and R&D a sound investment, and the drugs probably have come on the market much later or maybe never."
What are your sources of information for this economic theory?
While I wait for your sources of information (because I presume there aren't any except the PR department of some drug firm or a right wing think tank) I shall point out a few flaws in the logic.
1) no one FORCES drug companies to sell drugs in canada at ALL. Since Canadians pay for their own drugs, and sick people NEED drugs, if the pharma companies simply refused to sell drugs in Canada, then Canadians would import drugs from the US on their own. The trick is that the Canadian government would permit the manufacture of the same drugs by competetors in the pharma company REFUSED to make the drug available. Clearly the drug is on sale in canada at a price at least equal if not greater than the true MARKET price otherwise the pharma would not bother, because no generic company could make reasonable profits selling the drug below market price either; and allowing competition would be an empty threat if the maximum legal price was below the limit necessary to make a reasonable profit on investment.
2) How could it be that the Drug companies in America are able to charge american consumers a particular price for a particular drug?
It is your claim that by permitting the drug company the liberty of operating inside canada at all at some small profit margin, that this somehow increases the cost of the same drug inside the united states. If the company was not able to produce stock for both markets it would naturally prefer to sell in the market with the large profit (USA) rather than the country with the small profit (CANADA). The fact that there are no drug shortages whatsoever inside canada suggest that no pharmacorp is actually short of sufficient stock to meet demand in BOTH markets.
At least unless the company was not creating artificial shortages inside the United states (which I suspect they ALSO do). But no shortages are reported in Canada in any event. And that is where you would expect a shortage.
Your claim begs the question. If the pharmacorp was simply not allowed to operate inside Canada at ALL. Or if Canada simply didn't exist, what would that drug then cost inside the United states?
According to your theory of "subsidy" the cost of the drug would go DOWN. But what market force would compell the cost to come down? Nothing whatsoever. In fact without the need to compete against its own imported stock (sold at lower cost) from Canada, reason says that the cost of drugs inside the united states would GO UP if the Canadian market didn't exist.
The only thing the Canadian government is doing is introducing the threat of a free market. Canada is not being given any handouts and no one is forcing american pharma corps to do business here.
But hey... if you want to play that game.. Canada is subsidizing the cost of Oil in america. Canada sells oil to the us routinely for almost $20 below world prices. source:http://thewatt.com/article1233.html and canada is America's #1 source of oil. Saudi Arabia is #2.
"Quite true - the costs of almost any given medication or test have declined. It's just that the sheer quantity of health care available for consumption has exploded. You're now able to buy healthcare goods and services that simply weren't on the market at any price a decade or two ago. If you want your costs to remain constant, you are perfectly free to make your consumption constant as well, but of course most people choose not to do so."
Is that why US made prescription drugs cost up to 3 times more in the USA than the exact same drug produced at the exact same plant does in Canada?
American's are so addicted to prescription drugs that in order to insure an adequate supply Americans need to pay 3 times more? (and it isn't because of the value of the Canadian dollar. thanks to your country's excellent governance the Canadian dollar is almost at parity with the USD)
Perhaps the drug companies have a Canadian guns at their heads to sell drug in Canada at a loss. Is that your theory? The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are going to storm across the border and start rounding up pharma-executives.
The canadian government does not sudsidize the COST of drugs. The drugs ACTUALLY cost less and still make profit sold at 1/3 the price.
not only that... Canadians live longer according to the CIA; and Canada as a whole spends less money as a ratio of GDP/capita on healthcare than the US does.
Something is seriously fucked up with the pricing of healthcare in the USA, but if you want to stick your head in the sand and pretend it caused by some kind of shortage due to high consumption, that's OK; it's your own funeral.
(although I will give you a hint: it isn't a shortage.. it's state-authorized extortion)
"and the savings are being passed on to you, because of human greed."
especially true in the cost of healthcare. It seems the more efficient and the more effective medicine gets the more the savings are being passed on to me.
oh.. what was that you were saying because of human greed?
"Moreover, even the gutless yes men that surround Bush would, no doubt, inform him that not abiding by the SCOTUS decision would fundamentally undermine the rule of law, destabilize our government, and do great damage to the country. That's something that Bush does not want, no matter who bad a president he may be."
"Then you are a hypocrite for holding police to a higher standard than you would hold yourself."
nonsense. I hold police up to the standard that being the only member of society authorized to employ deadly force and carry deadly weapons in public entails.
I hold myself to a higher standard than cops when it comes to the performance of MY job. When it comes to the performance of THEIR job, I hold them to the higher standard.
If you charged towards a cop swinging a baseball bat, he would be justified to defend himself, that may even include shooting you if you get too close.
"You have no idea if the person running towards you is *actually* going to assault you,"
They already have. They are running towards me swinging a baseball bat. Since there is no reasonable explanation for this kind of behavior, I would be reasonable to assume it is there intention to use the baseball bat to harm me. This is what assault is.
I'll say again: It is ILLEGAL to run towards people swinging baseball bats. If someone does that to you they are already assaulting you!
"No, it's not. No, they're not."
yes they are. If you are so confidant that you are correct put your money where your mouth it. Go to a public place and start rushing towards people with a baseball bat. Tell me if the cops buy your argument that you aren't breaking any law.
"You might argue that within a certain proximity an assault can be considered to be happening, but I doubt it."
I wont argue it. It is the law. Assault does not require any proximity or physical contact or even actual danger.
here is the Canadian Criminal Code definition of assault.
"265. (1) A person commits an assault when
(a) without the consent of another person, he applies force intentionally to that other person, directly or indirectly;
(b) he attempts or threatens, by an act or a gesture, to apply force to another person, if he has, or causes that other person to believe on reasonable grounds that he has, present ability to effect his purpose; or
(c) while openly wearing or carrying a weapon or an imitation thereof, he accosts or impedes another person or begs."
Your scenario falls under (b) and (c). running towards me swinging a baseball bat is accosting me, and would cause me to believe you have present ability to effect your purpose of threatening me by an act or gesture.
I don't need to speculate if you are going to assault me. I know that you ALREADY ARE. (in your theoretical scenario).
"Your suggestion that "rushing towards the train" was the _only_ action being considered is grossly inaccurate to the point of deception. I can only assume you are trolling, based on this."
You assume wrong. The only relevant question is whether or not the cops had reasonable grounds to believe that the suspect was PROBABLY in PRESENT POSSESSION of a bomb and was INTENDING to detonate it. All they believed was that MAYBE he had access to a bomb, MAYBE he had detonated a bomb before.
This was a PRECAUTIONARY killing. They killed him just to be on the safe side.
They didn't even have enough evidence to obtain a search warrant let alone shoot him on the spot.
Accidents happen, but that doesn't mean accidents go without consequences. It was the cops job to NOT SHOOT unless he had REASONABLE grounds to believe it was necessary to shoot. Hunches and speculation are not considered reasonable grounds.
"Accidents, no matter how awful, do not justify the same level of disproportional, kneejerk reaction you are suggesting happened in the first place."
It wasn't an accident. It was a foregone conclusion. Someone is BOUND to die when cops are ordered to shoot anyone who runs 7 times in the head.
"I would *love* to see if you could stick to this line of rational discourse if a man was running at you swinging a baseball bat, or if you'd take the opportunity to either a) move yourself out of (potential) harm's way, or b) attempt to stop him before he could get into a position to hurt you."
Of course I could NOT stick to this line of discourse under that circumstance. That circumstance has nothing to do with the scenario we are discussing.
It is ILLEGAL to run towards people swinging baseball bats. If someone does that to you they are already assaulting you!
No one was running TOWARDS the cops. A person was running towards the train. UNARMED. People run towards trains all the time and it is not legal to shoot them. The odds that a person running towards a train 2 weeks after a terrorist attack is carring a bomb is no different than the odds of it 6 months or 5 years later. The police have no authority in the UK to decide to kill people based on hunches. And at the very least if the police were going to take such a position they could have WARNED the public that any darkskinned persons running towards a train would be executed on the spot.
An UNARMED man was rushing towards a train (which is a routine every day and LEGAL occurance), for his efforts police shot him 7 times in the head. (which suggests he was already surrendering and being held immobilized and THEN executed).
You can justify it however you like. There was no bomb. There was no trigger device. There was no bulky jacket, there were no strange wires. The whole scenario existed merely in the imagination of the police PR department. There was no objective reason to assume he probably had a bomb. Even if he was a known terrorist (which he was NOT), most of the time terrorists dont have bombs with them. This incident was caused by racism and irrational fear. The cops saw what they wanted to see. They wanted to foil a bombing and wanted to see a suicide bomber where there was merely a poor chap murdered by the state without just cause.
The Cops are NOT soldiers. And Cops are trained and ordered to exercise greater constraint. This is why most democratic nations do not have a unified military and police force. No one said being a cop is a safe job (although it isn't the most dangerous job either).
All of the officers involved should be fired and banned from ever owning a weapon at the very least, and better yet prosecuted for negligent homicide. The signal being sent is that if you suspect a non-white person has a bomb that is sufficient reason to kill them. This is going to happen more and more frequently in London.
A genetic assessment would be wrong about 50% of the time based on studies of identical twins and people would put faith into it as if it was 100% accurate. Moreoever it is an invasion of privacy. (contrary to most I believe even children have human rights).
I doubt anything more profound than merely increasing our support and desire to a generous and high quality public education system funded fairly for all, according to need, would be required to see a marked improvement in virtually all sectors of the economy and society. The problem is that improving society is not the motivation for those who support the war on drugs.
They are merely in it for the purpose of accumulating power. They would be more accurate to call it the war on freedom.
it is illegal not to attend school when you are under 16. Merely attending is not enough to actually learn. And 16 years old is not enough time to get an education. There is no law requiring an EDUCATION.
"Consider the hundreds of innocent bystanders who didn't get shot. More like a fraction of a percent "false positive" failure rate."
What about the millions of londoners the terrorists DIDN'T kill? With that kind of math everyone is batting 0.00.
What a pointless exercise!
The question is... how many lives have these new paranoid policies actually ENHANCED.
I wish there was enough information available but I bet these policies actually kill more people via stress related health effects than the terrorists ever did.
"The accident was mistaking him for someone he was not."
Was there a warrant of some kind out on the person who they mistook him for that ordered the police to shoot him in the head 7 times? Usually the decision to execute unarmed people is not made by cops. Not in a civilized society. They had no actual evidence of a bomb, merely a hunch, they had no evidence of any imminent danger, merely a HUNCH. A hunch is not even enough for cops to detain someone let alone shoot them in the head 7 times.
Why?
Because hunches are no more reliable than the pure dumb luck. They are triggered by personal biases and prejudices of the person with the hunch more often than not.
Many if not most people will panic and do dumb things, run, jump, scream, cry, whatever if suddenly armed met appear pointing guns and screaming. And if you are truly innocent, you are more likely to think that men who look like cops who suddenly accost you, screaming for no reason are the terrorists come to kidnap you. Running away seems entirely a predictable action that almost any person would do.
"Oh and he wasn't innocent. An illegal alien is a criminal under british law."
1) he wasn't an illegal alien. 2) You are innocent UNTIL you are convicted of a crime. And you get to have a TRIAL for that.
So yes. He was innocent in every material way. If you want to dig deep into his psyche.. then no one is innocent. We all carry negative emotions.
"but if you want the truth you need to be able to face the whole of the truth."
even if you don't want it. The truth doesn't care what you want.
"Have you ever been confronted by a suicidal terrorist with an explosives belt? "
No. And neither has that cop.
"How to stop that person, who's running towards a crowded train"
It isn't a crime to run towards a crowded train. I've done it at least a hundred times.
In fact at the subway station there are signs that specifically say when you hear the chimes ring to stand back and wait for the next train, DO NOT CHARGE THE DOORS. Why?
Because charging towards crowded trains is utterly NORMAL BEHAVIOR. In fact it is SO NORMAL, that it causes a problem with people either 1) crashing into the doors, or 2) getting stuck in a partially closed door, 3) crashing into the people inside the train.
It wasn't a suicidal terrorist. You cant go murdering people because you SUSPECT they are suicidal terrorists. Sometimes you have to simply TRUST people. We are living in something called A SOCIETY. When you deal with people there are always going to be risks. The public in a democracy should vote to explicitly give cops the authority to kill suspects sumarily, otherwise they should not take such steps unless there is CLEAR evidence of a bomb and a trigger mechanism. Not merely a vague possibility.
Anyone MIGHT be a terrorist. Anyone MIGHT have a bomb. Almost everyone has strange wires sticking out of their jacket (they are called headphones). You can't shoot everyone. FEAR is not a rational basis for action.
The cops should at the VERY LEAST be liable for negligent homicide in this case. However my understanding is they got off with a pat on the back and a "job well done!"
We can't stop every single crime or every single attack. There have to be limits to the exercise of power in a society. Only criminals should do wrong, and we put criminals in jail for it. If the Cops can't hold themselves up to a higher standard, then they should put down their guns because they are nothing more than armed thugs.
"I think part of the problem is that the government knows America is not ready for drug availability. Look at alcohol---you have to be 21, driving drunk is a punishable offense, giving it to minors is a punishable offense, using it to manipulate someone is a punishable offense---but it's still a HUGE problem! There's plenty of date rape involving alcohol, lots of minors drinking, lots of people driving drunk---I mean, come on, use common sense if you're going to drink! "
1: The government is not a person. It doesn't KNOW anything. You are mixing metaphors. 2: Alcohol isn't a huge problem. It is a part of life, get over it. Contrast to the danger it brings, alcohol brings great pleasure and happiness to many many people. think of the parties, think of fun times with friends and loved ones.. enhanced through the use of alcohol.
The biggest problem with alcohol is alcoholism and then basic stupidity and irresponsibility. But stupidity and irresponsibility will ALWAYS cause problems. Alcohol may be associated with something like 40% of traffic fatalities, but stupidity and recklessness is associated with 90%.
A person didn't start off smart and then get drunk and stupid and drive. A person started off stupid.. went to a venue in a car knowing in advance they would drink and knowing in advance that they would drive.
I dont hear many people saying we should make it illegal not to get an education!
"If this existence is "utterly pointless" as you claim, then what is your concern with self-actualization or nobility in man? If it is truly pointless, then why care about the comfort or suffering of others?"
I never said my or mankind's existence is pointless. I said *YOUR* existence is pointless. And I mean YOU PERSONALLY! You and your existence is pointless because the only thing which matters to you is self gain. And at the end ofYOUR life, you are back to nothing, having gained nothing. Thus by your philosophy your life is ultimately doomed to wind up having accomplished nothing whatsoever of any value. (because you dont value anything apart from yourself).
As for the later part of your statement "why care about the comfort or suffering of others?" I agree with you. You don't care about the suffering of others.
"I am most serious in admitting my joy that others will be exposed to the danger while I am able to reap the benefits."
Remember that? Those are *YOUR* words.
On the other hand I do not believe my life is pointless and it is because I DO CARE. My life has a purpose because I care for others.
"If existence is pointless--a claim that you yourself made and I never did--then the only reason to pursue these goals is your personal desire to do so."
ahh.. but life is not pointless (only your's) , I believe that the wellbeing of mankind and life as a whole is the whole point of life. It is the point of life, because it is the only thing which allowed life to exist up until the present time. I do not purport to understand WHY life's perpetuation is important, but I don't need to know WHY in order to see the WHAT. What allowed me or anyone to exist in this place so that we are free to TRY to understand. So that we may even have a HOPE at striving to understand? PERPETUATION OF LIFE.
So unlike you, I dont take "JOY" in the suffering or exploitation of other's. Because I see that we all have the same purpose. As John Donne said (to paraphraze) : When you hear the bell tolling, ask not for whome the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.
The meaning is that when any person dies, we are ALL diminished. When any life ends, we all are lessened.
"If you did pause to consider the question, you probably realized that I intend to claim a purpose. I assert the moral high ground. Oh yes, the irony... I'm sure it is striking right now. From your perspective, the irony must be quite overwhelming."
Actually there is no irony at all. Your stance is utterly predictable. Psychopaths always take the moral highground. It is one of the standard traits associated with psychopathic personalities.
"The advancement of sentient life is a valid purpose, and it is the only valid purpose to which I have been exposed through either experience or rational consideration."
It is interesting how you propose that this is your purpose when you take joy at the suffering of others, and clearly are deficient in your own sentience. One of the distinctive traits which is most pronounced amongst sentient beings is EMPATHY. You lack this trait, and are of an inferior stage of sentient development.
EMPATHY is important because it is one of the elements that allows large groups to work together towards a common goal. (as opposed to striving to see one another suffer).
Let me remind you of your words:
"I am most serious in admitting my joy that others will be exposed to the danger while I am able to reap the benefits."
once again:
"I am most serious in admitting my joy that others will be exposed to the danger while I am able to reap the benefits."
This is a clear indication that you put your own interest ahead of others. It is a clear indication that you lack empathy.
"Contrary to the indications at the superficial level of analysis, this does mesh well with my previous post."
I am interested to know how putting yourself ahead of others and going so far as to taking joy at making them suffer actually meshes w
"When I'm dead, why should I give a shit about how I am remembered?"
I never said you should care about something once you are dead. Once you are dead it is too late. You should care about it long before you are dead. That is : while you are still alive.
Nothing at all you gain in your life in terms of material possessions, power etc means anything if it all dies with you.
You can live your life as nothing more than a piece of meat, or you can make your life amount to something more. You can have a pessemistic and absolutely vain and illogical belief that the only thing of any value in the world is YOUR LIFE. Of course then no one should trust you with anything because clearly the only thing which motivates you is your own temporary and present pleasure, and thus the likelyhood of 'getting away with it', rather than any true moral principles.
If you dont care what impact your life leaves on the world AFTER you are dead, then why should you care about what impact your life leaves after you leave the room? Why would you care about the well being of any third parties at all EVER?
according to equifax, multiple credit checks in a short period of time are generally considered rate shopping and counted as a single hit by their algorithm. A smart person shops for the best rate rather than accepting the very first rate offered. Thus multiple hits like this are a sign of credit worthiness (people who care enough to shop around are more likely to take responsibility for their debts and pay them).
Moreoever according to equifax, the impact of a credit check on your credit rating is very small and should not deter you from applying for credit. It is not the credit reporting agencies mandate to try to make everyone look like they are unreliable. They are trying to report a meaningful number that accurately reflects your reliability in repaying debts.
I imagine when a person is reported as LATE on making a payment and they are getting more credit checks that this would reflect poorly. A person should not be late, and a person who is late who then seeks more credit is obviously losing control of their debt. whereas if a person is merely late but not shopping for more credit may be having problems of some kind, but at least they are resisting the temptation to simply borrow more (and thus shows a higher degree of reliability).
The best of course is to never be late. And if you are late repay as fast as possible, or make arrangements with your creditor to give you an extension and not report you and 60 days, 90 days (etc) late.
with that said... BUYING a policy doesn't improve your credit rating. only borrowing and repaying loans does.
"As long as it means I get effective drugs without risking my neck as a test subject, it is in my own best interest to pursue this method of testing."
And what exactly are your own interests? You are going to be dead soon anyway. Everyone dies.
And when you do die, if you want to remembered as nothing more than a parasite in society, feeding off the suffering of others and getting by making the minimal possible contribution you can get away with, always seeking to make someone else responsible, always seeking to make someone else suffer the consequences of your lust then I suppose your "interests" are served.
Is being nothing more than a mouth self-actualizing to you?
"but I am most serious in admitting my joy that others will be exposed to the danger while I am able to reap the benefits."
again... what are those benefits? prolonging a utterly pointless existence? When all is said and done for, how would that be a benefit?
What happens when there is no more suffering for you to obtain what you call "joy" from? The days of your kind are numbered, and one day people will find it difficult to imagine that anything so shallow and invalid ever walked the earth.
You embody all that is most foul, primitive and ignoble in man. Society went desperately wrong somewhere in producing you. I feel truly sorry that you have to spend the rest of your life being such a worthless ass.
I don't know the mass and velocity of a.45 ACP round off the top of my head, but if I suppose that it is 0.5 ounce (a number I'm picking out of thin air) with a velocity of 900 fps (another number I am picking out of thin air) its kinetic energy would be almost 347 times higher than a 10 lbs ball traveling at 2.7 fps. On the other hand, if I was looking at momentum the ball and bullet are about the same.
Since momemtum is preserved in calculating trajectories of objects bouncing off one another, it is absolutely correct in saying a bullet would not knock anyone on their ass (unless they were on the verge of falling over). It is momentum and not energy which is comparible in your example.
momentum = Mass * velocity.
energy = mass * velocity ^2.
if we assume a person is generally able to stay upright provided they are traveling less than 4 fps (less than walking speed), then a 150 lbs person would need to be shot with 22 bullets in order to be knocked over. This is a relatively light weight person, who doesn't have a very good sense of balance (in fact this person would tend to fall over when they run or jog, since we have assumed they can't deal with even 3 mph of speed).
It is fair to say that in the real world, unless a person happens to get caught in midstep, exactly when they were distracted or trying to rapidly change direction it is unlikely that a bullet will physically "knock" them off balance.
However... pain can easily cause a person to fall down. I dont think anyone disputes that however.
as for breaking the sternum : this is a matter of energy and not momentum. Even if a bullet can break the sternum, that doesn't imply it would have enough momentum to knock the target over. And vice versa, something with enough momentum to knock you over ( a train traveling at 0.1 mph) would not break your sternum. (I know because I've hit the inside wall of a subway car which was rapidly accelerating and didn't break anything).
"In short, who the fuck are you to block my way to work? "
You are an insensitive prick. What makes "your way" to work more important than the democratic right to peacefully protest the injustice (percieved or factual) of government. It isn't as if they blockaded your home. You could have taken a different route.
A protest is ineffective if no one pays attention. And no one pays attention unless the protest inconveniences people. The right to protest where no one needs to pay attention is no right whatsoever.
Would you prefer protestors resorted to violence and terrorism? Be happy that you live in a society where in virtually all cases, protest merely takes the form of non-violent demonstration.
How often have you had bona fide civil unrest in your community (in your life)? How often has a demonstration resulted in death? probably close to NEVER. And the reason is that people STILL have the right to demonstrate peacefully. Rejoice that the farmers driving their tractors too slow for your busy schedule are only driving and not shooting because if the government imposed the draconian measures you would dream up (such as making protest illegal), then revolution would be the only way for the opressed to find redress. Driving slow prevents you from making profits for your corporate masters. The same masters who basically own the government. Eventually those masters say to their puppet government : Do something! Tomstdenis can't get to work and it is costing us OUR MONEY!
As long as the majority continues to elect politicians who are too self absorbed and greedy to bat an eyelash at anyone who isn't either making huge campaign contributions or else closing down the highways and pressuring the pocketbooks of his campaign contributors then disruptive civil protest and demonstration is the only avenue for those are oppressed and can get no satisfaction from merely voting (which is a farce in its implementation, and is something you ought to be angry about).
Where was the great harm done to you by those farmers? Did you shed blood? Do you even have a single clue as to what the issues are?
I'm not claiming I know what their specific beef was, but protest is legal. It is a RIGHT.
And it seems to me that by targetting Ottawa... this protest was aimed directly at the federal government itself. The actual branch of government with jurisdiction in this matter. Democracy is MORE than simply showing up every few years and voting.
In a democracy the law may be made by the majority, but the minority retains the right to bitch about it. There is nothing in the concept of democracy that says that the losers of the election have to keep their objection and protest silent. That is totalitarianism. When you are wronged and no branch of government will give you redress and the public shuns you.. Rejoice in the fact that at least you can yell and scream and force people to FACE you.. you need not go gentle into that good night.
Don't the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, include driving a car, plane, whatever you want? Don't you have the RIGHT to do anything you want unless your actions infringe on the rights of others? Does a mere highway traffic act saying that driving is not a right change what it IS? Can a law cause a right to vanish?
What is it that justifiably restricts your right to drive and turn driving your own car, which you own into a mere priviledge?
It seems preposterous to suggest that the original idea behind having license plates was to allow anyone (including the STATE) the unfettered ability to track and record all traffic everywhere. If license plates allow such abuse then it seems that the very notion as to whether or not license plates are even a reasonable requirement to have a vehicle on the road is called into question.
Public space means publically owned, it doesn't mean PRIVACY-FREE zone. the public as a whole has a duty to protect and respect your rights. That include the right to anonymity as long as you aren't hurting anyone. You don't need to surrender your rights merely to exist and move from place to place.
License plates used to afford a measure of privacy because it was impossible to track everyone all the time and thus at any given time every driver could feel like they were basically anonymous baring a car accident. If that has changed, then license plates should be possibly removed from the picture rather than cause them to have a chilling effect and lead to tyranny or oppression.
the same is with computer technology itself. it is only justifiable as long as it doesn't hurt and infringe on the rights of others. This type of equipment cries out for a ban.
But don't forget that it is not the government which profits. It is big business which profits when it contracts its services to the government. They can do this because we've convinced ourselves that it is more efficient to subcontract absolutely everything to private entities rather than let the government do anything for itself. This is especially ironic and tragic in areas where quality and safety are more important than profitability such as in energy production, healthcare, military, emergency services and education.
when these services are provided in an unsafe manner the government must then go in and spend even more money to clean up the mess. You can thank limited liability. Corporations have limited liability. Society itself and its government have absolute and total liability.
for example when poison is dumped in a river and the polluter goes bankrupt. one way or another SOCIETY itself pays to clean up the mess.
Government is a lot more efficient than people think. They are just blaiming all the costs which corporations "externalize" on the government. When in fact those costs are cost which ought to be carried by the corporation which created them.
Slashdot Mirror
"If these people are under suspicion for valid reasons, why isn't it possible for our government to obtain search warrants to look at the data?"
You answered your own question.
predicates:
A => B
not B
----
conclusion
Not A
Valid suspicion => warrant can be obtained
warrant can't be obtained
therefore: no valid suspicion.
This is basic symbolic logic. taught to every philosophy and computer science student.
It is quite safe to assume the government has no valid reason to investigate these people for the very fact that it insists on having the power to act without a warrant.
A journalist could be sentenced to a prison term. It would depend on how serious and willful the contempt of court was.
In the UK as well as Canada it is believed that the right to a fair and OPEN trial belongs not merely to the accused, but also to the PUBLIC. That this right is so sacrosanct that in certain circumstances it justifies prohibiting people from publishing their own take on the court proceedings before the trial is completed. (if you want the scoop you are free to attend court personally). Publication bans prevent both sides from engaging in a outside the courtroom trial of public opinion. A very wealthy and very popular defendant could easily sway public opinion in FAVOUR of him and yet be as guilty as sin.
In canada at least it is also considered contempt to picket the courthouse in regards to a case currently being heard there. This is as it should be. If you have any material evidence to offer undoubtedly it will be either FOR or AGAINST some position and in the adversarial system (as is used here) certainly you would be permitted to testify (UNDER OATH) about what you have.
For all the others.. heckling and bantering is strictly irrelevant and should be kept as far away from the court room as possible. It doesn't make a fact any more or less true simply because 100 protesters WISH it was.
Even where there is no jury, a publication ban can still be ordered. And the reason is that the public is served best by either getting the raw proceedings first hand (by attending courst) or waiting until the trial is over and all parties have had a full and fair opportunity to present their evidence (under oath) and make their submissions. This way the public also has the benefit of getting the judge's findings at the same time (which is necessarily withheld DURING the trial). This way as well, the personal biases and opinions of the media, politicians or other parties is minimized. Justice must be seen to be done and that means it must be seen ACCURATELY.
If the trial procedure itself is sufficient to destroy a persons life (because of the public spectacle of it) then there will be a number of cases where innocent people will refuse to defend themselves and plead guilty. this brings the entire process into disrepute and begs the question of whether other guilty pleas were in fact sincere (because the person was guilty) or merely convenient (because the spectacle of trial was worse than defending yourself and being aquitted).
Incidentally in Canada it is not even legal to transcribe the court proceedings yourself. You must get the official transcript. this transcript is produced by the court reporter who is an independant party under oath to transcribe as accurately as possible. Other people could easily lie about what they heard under oath and interfere with justice that way.
At the end of the day.... all the public media attention on court cases is purely about entertainment value anyway. It has nothing to do with justice, and where justice is required, justice trumps free speech. In so far as justice is the fundamental protection for ALL rights in a society, the requirements of Justice necessarily trump ALL other rights in society.
If you dont like having your free speech impeded by the process of Justice, imagine how someone who is convicted feels to have their liberty impeded?
If you think Justice has no right against your speech, then you should also hold that justice has no right against the liberty of a person who stands accused.
In any event, these publication bans are merely temporary bans DURING the trial. It is not censorship.
If experimenting on near sentient (if not fully sentient in some cases) primates is permissible, then why not perform experiments on human babies, young children or perhaps people with cognitive disibilities and the elderly?
Certainly there would be much more practical science to be discovered if we would stop limiting outselves to the arbitrary species boundary? Whatever principle makes a 2 year old monkey a better test subject than a 2 year old cat would likely hold even better for a 2 year old human child.
For that matter, experimentation on the homeless and mmigrants could also be a valuable aid to research. Certainly testing a drug on 50 welfare recipients would garner better scientific data than the same experiment on 50 monkeys.
Might makes right doesn't it?
If we regard a creature's capacity to feel distress and suffer as well as feel joy and happiness as irrelevant in the consideration of who we are going to do experimentation on, then we are hypocrits when we pretend that we actually "care" about the wellbeing of other beings of any catagorization (including human).
It is certainly more costly and more time consuming to do some research without animal experimentation.
But even if the research was impossible without an animal test case, I still ask the question: Where do you draw the line?
What will you do when you find an experiment which can ONLY be performed on a human being. Why stop at that species boundary? What if you can save many people or cure a great plague if only a few unwilling human test cases were required? What if you could save 10 people for each 1 unwilling human sacrifice?
It is unscientific to hold that human suffering is intolerable while animal suffering is irrelevant.
It is unscientific to hold that any amount of animal suffering whatsoever is worthwhile to reduce some arbitrarily small amount of human suffering.
It is also unscientific to refuse to experiment on human beings simply because they are of the same species as the researcher. If that is the ONLY reason then white researchers can be hired to experiment on black victims and vice versa. (or else non-interbreedable species of human being could be created for that purpose with genetic manipulation)
clearly before any additional suffering is inflicted on anybody or anything we need to establish a scientific basis for determining where we should draw the line.
The free market doesn't care about who gets hurt. And the only reason we currently dont do involutary human testing is because it is pollitically incorrect. Without the scientific arguments for OR again it, it is just a matter of time before some jurisdiction begins to allow testing on involuntary human subjects, and then all the talk about killing a monkey to save a person is nothing more than fluff, because we will be killing humans AGAIN.
And apart from appealing to theological arguments -- I haven't see a justification as why we should not force humans to be test subjects which wouldn't also capture the higher primates and some other animals in its umbrella.
Until this is sorted out it seems to be unethical to engage in this kind of research.
As for the violence etc.. it all seems childish. adults ought to be able to reason and debate and reach the objective reality of the matter. Especially parties purporting to have scientific reasons for their behavior.
"it's the American citizen who is subsidizing the cost of your drugs. The American market covers the costs of research, development, testing, and marketing, and the Canadian government price controls the drugs just enough that the companies make marginally more selling it there than it costs them to manufacture. But if we weren't paying the much higher prices here, there wouldn't be sufficient profit margin to make the all the pre-manufacturing costs and R&D a sound investment, and the drugs probably have come on the market much later or maybe never."
:http://thewatt.com/article1233.html and canada is America's #1 source of oil. Saudi Arabia is #2.
What are your sources of information for this economic theory?
While I wait for your sources of information (because I presume there aren't any except the PR department of some drug firm or a right wing think tank) I shall point out a few flaws in the logic.
1) no one FORCES drug companies to sell drugs in canada at ALL. Since Canadians pay for their own drugs, and sick people NEED drugs, if the pharma companies simply refused to sell drugs in Canada, then Canadians would import drugs from the US on their own. The trick is that the Canadian government would permit the manufacture of the same drugs by competetors in the pharma company REFUSED to make the drug available. Clearly the drug is on sale in canada at a price at least equal if not greater than the true MARKET price otherwise the pharma would not bother, because no generic company could make reasonable profits selling the drug below market price either; and allowing competition would be an empty threat if the maximum legal price was below the limit necessary to make a reasonable profit on investment.
2) How could it be that the Drug companies in America are able to charge american consumers a particular price for a particular drug?
It is your claim that by permitting the drug company the liberty of operating inside canada at all at some small profit margin, that this somehow increases the cost of the same drug inside the united states. If the company was not able to produce stock for both markets it would naturally prefer to sell in the market with the large profit (USA) rather than the country with the small profit (CANADA). The fact that there are no drug shortages whatsoever inside canada suggest that no pharmacorp is actually short of sufficient stock to meet demand in BOTH markets.
At least unless the company was not creating artificial shortages inside the United states (which I suspect they ALSO do). But no shortages are reported in Canada in any event. And that is where you would expect a shortage.
Your claim begs the question. If the pharmacorp was simply not allowed to operate inside Canada at ALL. Or if Canada simply didn't exist, what would that drug then cost inside the United states?
According to your theory of "subsidy" the cost of the drug would go DOWN. But what market force would compell the cost to come down? Nothing whatsoever. In fact without the need to compete against its own imported stock (sold at lower cost) from Canada, reason says that the cost of drugs inside the united states would GO UP if the Canadian market didn't exist.
The only thing the Canadian government is doing is introducing the threat of a free market. Canada is not being given any handouts and no one is forcing american pharma corps to do business here.
But hey... if you want to play that game.. Canada is subsidizing the cost of Oil in america. Canada sells oil to the us routinely for almost $20 below world prices. source
"Quite true - the costs of almost any given medication or test have declined. It's just that the sheer quantity of health care available for consumption has exploded. You're now able to buy healthcare goods and services that simply weren't on the market at any price a decade or two ago. If you want your costs to remain constant, you are perfectly free to make your consumption constant as well, but of course most people choose not to do so."
Is that why US made prescription drugs cost up to 3 times more in the USA than the exact same drug produced at the exact same plant does in Canada?
American's are so addicted to prescription drugs that in order to insure an adequate supply Americans need to pay 3 times more?
(and it isn't because of the value of the Canadian dollar. thanks to your country's excellent governance the Canadian dollar is almost at parity with the USD)
Perhaps the drug companies have a Canadian guns at their heads to sell drug in Canada at a loss. Is that your theory?
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are going to storm across the border and start rounding up pharma-executives.
The canadian government does not sudsidize the COST of drugs. The drugs ACTUALLY cost less and still make profit sold at 1/3 the price.
not only that... Canadians live longer according to the CIA; and Canada as a whole spends less money as a ratio of GDP/capita on healthcare than the US does.
Something is seriously fucked up with the pricing of healthcare in the USA, but if you want to stick your head in the sand and pretend it caused by some kind of shortage due to high consumption, that's OK; it's your own funeral.
(although I will give you a hint: it isn't a shortage.. it's state-authorized extortion)
"and the savings are being passed on to you, because of human greed."
especially true in the cost of healthcare. It seems the more efficient and the more effective medicine gets the more the savings are being passed on to me.
oh.. what was that you were saying because of human greed?
"Moreover, even the gutless yes men that surround Bush would, no doubt, inform him that not abiding by the SCOTUS decision would fundamentally undermine the rule of law, destabilize our government, and do great damage to the country. That's something that Bush does not want, no matter who bad a president he may be."
And how exactly do you know what Bush wants?
You take an awful lot for granted.
"Then you are a hypocrite for holding police to a higher standard than you would hold yourself."
nonsense. I hold police up to the standard that being the only member of society authorized to employ deadly force and carry deadly weapons in public entails.
I hold myself to a higher standard than cops when it comes to the performance of MY job. When it comes to the performance of THEIR job, I hold them to the higher standard.
If you charged towards a cop swinging a baseball bat, he would be justified to defend himself, that may even include shooting you if you get too close.
"You have no idea if the person running towards you is *actually* going to assault you,"
They already have. They are running towards me swinging a baseball bat. Since there is no reasonable explanation for this kind of behavior, I would be reasonable to assume it is there intention to use the baseball bat to harm me. This is what assault is.
I'll say again: It is ILLEGAL to run towards people swinging baseball bats. If someone does that to you they are already assaulting you!
"No, it's not. No, they're not."
yes they are. If you are so confidant that you are correct put your money where your mouth it. Go to a public place and start rushing towards people with a baseball bat. Tell me if the cops buy your argument that you aren't breaking any law.
"You might argue that within a certain proximity an assault can be considered to be happening, but I doubt it."
I wont argue it. It is the law. Assault does not require any proximity or physical contact or even actual danger.
here is the Canadian Criminal Code definition of assault.
"265. (1) A person commits an assault when
(a) without the consent of another person, he applies force intentionally to that other person, directly or indirectly;
(b) he attempts or threatens, by an act or a gesture, to apply force to another person, if he has, or causes that other person to believe on reasonable grounds that he has, present ability to effect his purpose; or
(c) while openly wearing or carrying a weapon or an imitation thereof, he accosts or impedes another person or begs."
Your scenario falls under (b) and (c). running towards me swinging a baseball bat is accosting me, and would cause me to believe you have present ability to effect your purpose of threatening me by an act or gesture.
I don't need to speculate if you are going to assault me. I know that you ALREADY ARE. (in your theoretical scenario).
"Your suggestion that "rushing towards the train" was the _only_ action being considered is grossly inaccurate to the point of deception. I can only assume you are trolling, based on this."
You assume wrong. The only relevant question is whether or not the cops had reasonable grounds to believe that the suspect was PROBABLY in PRESENT POSSESSION of a bomb and was INTENDING to detonate it. All they believed was that MAYBE he had access to a bomb, MAYBE he had detonated a bomb before.
This was a PRECAUTIONARY killing. They killed him just to be on the safe side.
They didn't even have enough evidence to obtain a search warrant let alone shoot him on the spot.
Accidents happen, but that doesn't mean accidents go without consequences. It was the cops job to NOT SHOOT unless he had REASONABLE grounds to believe it was necessary to shoot. Hunches and speculation are not considered reasonable grounds.
"Accidents, no matter how awful, do not justify the same level of disproportional, kneejerk reaction you are suggesting happened in the first place."
It wasn't an accident. It was a foregone conclusion. Someone is BOUND to die when cops are ordered to shoot anyone who runs 7 times in the head.
What happened was utterly predictable.
"I thought all involved were of the same race; correct me if I am wrong."
You are wrong. The victim was Brazilian.
"I would *love* to see if you could stick to this line of rational discourse if a man was running at you swinging a baseball bat, or if you'd take the opportunity to either a) move yourself out of (potential) harm's way, or b) attempt to stop him before he could get into a position to hurt you."
Of course I could NOT stick to this line of discourse under that circumstance. That circumstance has nothing to do with the scenario we are discussing.
It is ILLEGAL to run towards people swinging baseball bats. If someone does that to you they are already assaulting you!
No one was running TOWARDS the cops. A person was running towards the train. UNARMED. People run towards trains all the time and it is not legal to shoot them. The odds that a person running towards a train 2 weeks after a terrorist attack is carring a bomb is no different than the odds of it 6 months or 5 years later. The police have no authority in the UK to decide to kill people based on hunches. And at the very least if the police were going to take such a position they could have WARNED the public that any darkskinned persons running towards a train would be executed on the spot.
An UNARMED man was rushing towards a train (which is a routine every day and LEGAL occurance), for his efforts police shot him 7 times in the head. (which suggests he was already surrendering and being held immobilized and THEN executed).
You can justify it however you like. There was no bomb. There was no trigger device. There was no bulky jacket, there were no strange wires. The whole scenario existed merely in the imagination of the police PR department. There was no objective reason to assume he probably had a bomb. Even if he was a known terrorist (which he was NOT), most of the time terrorists dont have bombs with them. This incident was caused by racism and irrational fear. The cops saw what they wanted to see. They wanted to foil a bombing and wanted to see a suicide bomber where there was merely a poor chap murdered by the state without just cause.
The Cops are NOT soldiers. And Cops are trained and ordered to exercise greater constraint. This is why most democratic nations do not have a unified military and police force. No one said being a cop is a safe job (although it isn't the most dangerous job either).
All of the officers involved should be fired and banned from ever owning a weapon at the very least, and better yet prosecuted for negligent homicide. The signal being sent is that if you suspect a non-white person has a bomb that is sufficient reason to kill them. This is going to happen more and more frequently in London.
A genetic assessment would be wrong about 50% of the time based on studies of identical twins and people would put faith into it as if it was 100% accurate.
Moreoever it is an invasion of privacy. (contrary to most I believe even children have human rights).
I doubt anything more profound than merely increasing our support and desire to a generous and high quality public education system funded fairly for all, according to need, would be required to see a marked improvement in virtually all sectors of the economy and society. The problem is that improving society is not the motivation for those who support the war on drugs.
They are merely in it for the purpose of accumulating power. They would be more accurate to call it the war on freedom.
it is illegal not to attend school when you are under 16. Merely attending is not enough to actually learn. And 16 years old is not enough time to get an education. There is no law requiring an EDUCATION.
"Consider the hundreds of innocent bystanders who didn't get shot. More like a fraction of a percent "false positive" failure rate."
What about the millions of londoners the terrorists DIDN'T kill? With that kind of math everyone is batting 0.00.
What a pointless exercise!
The question is... how many lives have these new paranoid policies actually ENHANCED.
I wish there was enough information available but I bet these policies actually kill more people via stress related health effects than the terrorists ever did.
If they are shooting innocent people by accident. how many innocent people do you think they are ACCUSING of crime?
"The accident was mistaking him for someone he was not."
Was there a warrant of some kind out on the person who they mistook him for that ordered the police to shoot him in the head 7 times? Usually the decision to execute unarmed people is not made by cops. Not in a civilized society. They had no actual evidence of a bomb, merely a hunch, they had no evidence of any imminent danger, merely a HUNCH. A hunch is not even enough for cops to detain someone let alone shoot them in the head 7 times.
Why?
Because hunches are no more reliable than the pure dumb luck. They are triggered by personal biases and prejudices of the person with the hunch more often than not.
Many if not most people will panic and do dumb things, run, jump, scream, cry, whatever if suddenly armed met appear pointing guns and screaming.
And if you are truly innocent, you are more likely to think that men who look like cops who suddenly accost you, screaming for no reason are the terrorists come to kidnap you. Running away seems entirely a predictable action that almost any person would do.
"Oh and he wasn't innocent. An illegal alien is a criminal under british law."
1) he wasn't an illegal alien.
2) You are innocent UNTIL you are convicted of a crime. And you get to have a TRIAL for that.
So yes. He was innocent in every material way. If you want to dig deep into his psyche.. then no one is innocent. We all carry negative emotions.
"but if you want the truth you need to be able to face the whole of the truth."
even if you don't want it. The truth doesn't care what you want.
"Have you ever been confronted by a suicidal terrorist with an explosives belt? "
No. And neither has that cop.
"How to stop that person, who's running towards a crowded train"
It isn't a crime to run towards a crowded train. I've done it at least a hundred times.
In fact at the subway station there are signs that specifically say when you hear the chimes ring to stand back and wait for the next train, DO NOT CHARGE THE DOORS. Why?
Because charging towards crowded trains is utterly NORMAL BEHAVIOR. In fact it is SO NORMAL, that it causes a problem with people either 1) crashing into the doors, or 2) getting stuck in a partially closed door, 3) crashing into the people inside the train.
It wasn't a suicidal terrorist. You cant go murdering people because you SUSPECT they are suicidal terrorists. Sometimes you have to simply TRUST people. We are living in something called A SOCIETY. When you deal with people there are always going to be risks. The public in a democracy should vote to explicitly give cops the authority to kill suspects sumarily, otherwise they should not take such steps unless there is CLEAR evidence of a bomb and a trigger mechanism. Not merely a vague possibility.
Anyone MIGHT be a terrorist. Anyone MIGHT have a bomb. Almost everyone has strange wires sticking out of their jacket (they are called headphones). You can't shoot everyone. FEAR is not a rational basis for action.
The cops should at the VERY LEAST be liable for negligent homicide in this case. However my understanding is they got off with a pat on the back and a "job well done!"
We can't stop every single crime or every single attack. There have to be limits to the exercise of power in a society. Only criminals should do wrong, and we put criminals in jail for it. If the Cops can't hold themselves up to a higher standard, then they should put down their guns because they are nothing more than armed thugs.
"I think part of the problem is that the government knows America is not ready for drug availability. Look at alcohol---you have to be 21, driving drunk is a punishable offense, giving it to minors is a punishable offense, using it to manipulate someone is a punishable offense---but it's still a HUGE problem! There's plenty of date rape involving alcohol, lots of minors drinking, lots of people driving drunk---I mean, come on, use common sense if you're going to drink!
"
1: The government is not a person. It doesn't KNOW anything. You are mixing metaphors.
2: Alcohol isn't a huge problem. It is a part of life, get over it. Contrast to the danger it brings, alcohol brings great pleasure and happiness to many many people. think of the parties, think of fun times with friends and loved ones.. enhanced through the use of alcohol.
The biggest problem with alcohol is alcoholism and then basic stupidity and irresponsibility. But stupidity and irresponsibility will ALWAYS cause problems.
Alcohol may be associated with something like 40% of traffic fatalities, but stupidity and recklessness is associated with 90%.
A person didn't start off smart and then get drunk and stupid and drive. A person started off stupid.. went to a venue in a car knowing in advance they would drink and knowing in advance that they would drive.
I dont hear many people saying we should make it illegal not to get an education!
"If this existence is "utterly pointless" as you claim, then what is your concern with self-actualization or nobility in man? If it is truly pointless, then why care about the comfort or suffering of others?"
:
I never said my or mankind's existence is pointless. I said *YOUR* existence is pointless. And I mean YOU PERSONALLY!
You and your existence is pointless because the only thing which matters to you is self gain. And at the end ofYOUR life, you are back to nothing, having gained nothing. Thus by your philosophy your life is ultimately doomed to wind up having accomplished nothing whatsoever of any value. (because you dont value anything apart from yourself).
As for the later part of your statement "why care about the comfort or suffering of others?" I agree with you. You don't care about the suffering of others.
"I am most serious in admitting my joy that others will be exposed to the danger while I am able to reap the benefits."
Remember that? Those are *YOUR* words.
On the other hand I do not believe my life is pointless and it is because I DO CARE. My life has a purpose because I care for others.
"If existence is pointless--a claim that you yourself made and I never did--then the only reason to pursue these goals is your personal desire to do so."
ahh.. but life is not pointless (only your's) , I believe that the wellbeing of mankind and life as a whole is the whole point of life. It is the point of life, because it is the only thing which allowed life to exist up until the present time. I do not purport to understand WHY life's perpetuation is important, but I don't need to know WHY in order to see the WHAT. What allowed me or anyone to exist in this place so that we are free to TRY to understand. So that we may even have a HOPE at striving to understand? PERPETUATION OF LIFE.
So unlike you, I dont take "JOY" in the suffering or exploitation of other's. Because I see that we all have the same purpose. As John Donne said (to paraphraze) : When you hear the bell tolling, ask not for whome the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.
The meaning is that when any person dies, we are ALL diminished. When any life ends, we all are lessened.
"If you did pause to consider the question, you probably realized that I intend to claim a purpose. I assert the moral high ground. Oh yes, the irony... I'm sure it is striking right now. From your perspective, the irony must be quite overwhelming."
Actually there is no irony at all. Your stance is utterly predictable. Psychopaths always take the moral highground. It is one of the standard traits associated with psychopathic personalities.
"The advancement of sentient life is a valid purpose, and it is the only valid purpose to which I have been exposed through either experience or rational consideration."
It is interesting how you propose that this is your purpose when you take joy at the suffering of others, and clearly are deficient in your own sentience. One of the distinctive traits which is most pronounced amongst sentient beings is EMPATHY. You lack this trait, and are of an inferior stage of sentient development.
EMPATHY is important because it is one of the elements that allows large groups to work together towards a common goal. (as opposed to striving to see one another suffer).
Let me remind you of your words
"I am most serious in admitting my joy that others will be exposed to the danger while I am able to reap the benefits."
once again:
"I am most serious in admitting my joy that others will be exposed to the danger while I am able to reap the benefits."
This is a clear indication that you put your own interest ahead of others. It is a clear indication that you lack empathy.
"Contrary to the indications at the superficial level of analysis, this does mesh well with my previous post."
I am interested to know how putting yourself ahead of others and going so far as to taking joy at making them suffer actually meshes w
"When I'm dead, why should I give a shit about how I am remembered?"
I never said you should care about something once you are dead. Once you are dead it is too late.
You should care about it long before you are dead. That is : while you are still alive.
Nothing at all you gain in your life in terms of material possessions, power etc means anything if it all dies with you.
You can live your life as nothing more than a piece of meat, or you can make your life amount to something more. You can have a pessemistic and absolutely vain and illogical belief that the only thing of any value in the world is YOUR LIFE. Of course then no one should trust you with anything because clearly the only thing which motivates you is your own temporary and present pleasure, and thus the likelyhood of 'getting away with it', rather than any true moral principles.
If you dont care what impact your life leaves on the world AFTER you are dead, then why should you care about what impact your life leaves after you leave the room? Why would you care about the well being of any third parties at all EVER?
according to equifax, multiple credit checks in a short period of time are generally considered rate shopping and counted as a single hit by their algorithm.
A smart person shops for the best rate rather than accepting the very first rate offered. Thus multiple hits like this are a sign of credit worthiness (people who care enough to shop around are more likely to take responsibility for their debts and pay them).
Moreoever according to equifax, the impact of a credit check on your credit rating is very small and should not deter you from applying for credit. It is not the credit reporting agencies mandate to try to make everyone look like they are unreliable. They are trying to report a meaningful number that accurately reflects your reliability in repaying debts.
I imagine when a person is reported as LATE on making a payment and they are getting more credit checks that this would reflect poorly. A person should not be late, and a person who is late who then seeks more credit is obviously losing control of their debt. whereas if a person is merely late but not shopping for more credit may be having problems of some kind, but at least they are resisting the temptation to simply borrow more (and thus shows a higher degree of reliability).
The best of course is to never be late. And if you are late repay as fast as possible, or make arrangements with your creditor to give you an extension and not report you and 60 days, 90 days (etc) late.
with that said... BUYING a policy doesn't improve your credit rating. only borrowing and repaying loans does.
"As long as it means I get effective drugs without risking my neck as a test subject, it is in my own best interest to pursue this method of testing."
And what exactly are your own interests? You are going to be dead soon anyway. Everyone dies.
And when you do die, if you want to remembered as nothing more than a parasite in society, feeding off the suffering of others and getting by making the minimal possible contribution you can get away with, always seeking to make someone else responsible, always seeking to make someone else suffer the consequences of your lust then I suppose your "interests" are served.
Is being nothing more than a mouth self-actualizing to you?
"but I am most serious in admitting my joy that others will be exposed to the danger while I am able to reap the benefits."
again... what are those benefits? prolonging a utterly pointless existence? When all is said and done for, how would that be a benefit?
What happens when there is no more suffering for you to obtain what you call "joy" from? The days of your kind are numbered, and one day people will find it difficult to imagine that anything so shallow and invalid ever walked the earth.
You embody all that is most foul, primitive and ignoble in man. Society went desperately wrong somewhere in producing you. I feel truly sorry that you have to spend the rest of your life being such a worthless ass.
do you mean energy or momentum?
.45 ACP round off the top of my head, but if I suppose that it is 0.5 ounce (a number I'm picking out of thin air) with a velocity of 900 fps (another number I am picking out of thin air) its kinetic energy would be almost 347 times higher than a 10 lbs ball traveling at 2.7 fps. On the other hand, if I was looking at momentum the ball and bullet are about the same.
I don't know the mass and velocity of a
Since momemtum is preserved in calculating trajectories of objects bouncing off one another, it is absolutely correct in saying a bullet would not knock anyone on their ass (unless they were on the verge of falling over). It is momentum and not energy which is comparible in your example.
momentum = Mass * velocity.
energy = mass * velocity ^2.
if we assume a person is generally able to stay upright provided they are traveling less than 4 fps (less than walking speed), then a 150 lbs person would need to be shot with 22 bullets in order to be knocked over. This is a relatively light weight person, who doesn't have a very good sense of balance (in fact this person would tend to fall over when they run or jog, since we have assumed they can't deal with even 3 mph of speed).
It is fair to say that in the real world, unless a person happens to get caught in midstep, exactly when they were distracted or trying to rapidly change direction it is unlikely that a bullet will physically "knock" them off balance.
However... pain can easily cause a person to fall down. I dont think anyone disputes that however.
as for breaking the sternum : this is a matter of energy and not momentum. Even if a bullet can break the sternum, that doesn't imply it would have enough momentum to knock the target over. And vice versa, something with enough momentum to knock you over ( a train traveling at 0.1 mph) would not break your sternum. (I know because I've hit the inside wall of a subway car which was rapidly accelerating and didn't break anything).
"In short, who the fuck are you to block my way to work? "
You are an insensitive prick. What makes "your way" to work more important than the democratic right to peacefully protest the injustice (percieved or factual) of government. It isn't as if they blockaded your home. You could have taken a different route.
A protest is ineffective if no one pays attention. And no one pays attention unless the protest inconveniences people. The right to protest where no one needs to pay attention is no right whatsoever.
Would you prefer protestors resorted to violence and terrorism? Be happy that you live in a society where in virtually all cases, protest merely takes the form of non-violent demonstration.
How often have you had bona fide civil unrest in your community (in your life)? How often has a demonstration resulted in death? probably close to NEVER. And the reason is that people STILL have the right to demonstrate peacefully. Rejoice that the farmers driving their tractors too slow for your busy schedule are only driving and not shooting because if the government imposed the draconian measures you would dream up (such as making protest illegal), then revolution would be the only way for the opressed to find redress. Driving slow prevents you from making profits for your corporate masters. The same masters who basically own the government. Eventually those masters say to their puppet government : Do something! Tomstdenis can't get to work and it is costing us OUR MONEY!
As long as the majority continues to elect politicians who are too self absorbed and greedy to bat an eyelash at anyone who isn't either making huge campaign contributions or else closing down the highways and pressuring the pocketbooks of his campaign contributors then disruptive civil protest and demonstration is the only avenue for those are oppressed and can get no satisfaction from merely voting (which is a farce in its implementation, and is something you ought to be angry about).
Where was the great harm done to you by those farmers? Did you shed blood? Do you even have a single clue as to what the issues are?
I'm not claiming I know what their specific beef was, but protest is legal. It is a RIGHT.
And it seems to me that by targetting Ottawa... this protest was aimed directly at the federal government itself. The actual branch of government with jurisdiction in this matter. Democracy is MORE than simply showing up every few years and voting.
In a democracy the law may be made by the majority, but the minority retains the right to bitch about it. There is nothing in the concept of democracy that says that the losers of the election have to keep their objection and protest silent. That is totalitarianism. When you are wronged and no branch of government will give you redress and the public shuns you.. Rejoice in the fact that at least you can yell and scream and force people to FACE you.. you need not go gentle into that good night.
Driving a car is a privilege, not a right.
Don't the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, include driving a car, plane, whatever you want? Don't you have the RIGHT to do anything you want unless your actions infringe on the rights of others? Does a mere highway traffic act saying that driving is not a right change what it IS? Can a law cause a right to vanish?
What is it that justifiably restricts your right to drive and turn driving your own car, which you own into a mere priviledge?
It seems preposterous to suggest that the original idea behind having license plates was to allow anyone (including the STATE) the unfettered ability to track and record all traffic everywhere. If license plates allow such abuse then it seems that the very notion as to whether or not license plates are even a reasonable requirement to have a vehicle on the road is called into question.
Public space means publically owned, it doesn't mean PRIVACY-FREE zone. the public as a whole has a duty to protect and respect your rights. That include the right to anonymity as long as you aren't hurting anyone. You don't need to surrender your rights merely to exist and move from place to place.
License plates used to afford a measure of privacy because it was impossible to track everyone all the time and thus at any given time every driver could feel like they were basically anonymous baring a car accident. If that has changed, then license plates should be possibly removed from the picture rather than cause them to have a chilling effect and lead to tyranny or oppression.
the same is with computer technology itself. it is only justifiable as long as it doesn't hurt and infringe on the rights of others. This type of equipment cries out for a ban.
Stop being such a drone.
But don't forget that it is not the government which profits. It is big business which profits when it contracts its services to the government. They can do this because we've convinced ourselves that it is more efficient to subcontract absolutely everything to private entities rather than let the government do anything for itself. This is especially ironic and tragic in areas where quality and safety are more important than profitability such as in energy production, healthcare, military, emergency services and education.
when these services are provided in an unsafe manner the government must then go in and spend even more money to clean up the mess. You can thank limited liability. Corporations have limited liability. Society itself and its government have absolute and total liability.
for example when poison is dumped in a river and the polluter goes bankrupt. one way or another SOCIETY itself pays to clean up the mess.
Government is a lot more efficient than people think. They are just blaiming all the costs which corporations "externalize" on the government. When in fact those costs are cost which ought to be carried by the corporation which created them.