How the hell is having loaded and easily accessible firearms in your own home "irresponsible"? What good is a firearm for defensive purposes if you have to open a safe before you can get to it?
I'll proudly stand up to authoritarian a$$holes like Michael Bloomberg who want to tell me what I can and can't do with my firearms in my own home. You seriously want police going around serving warrants and arresting people for the "crime" of having unlocked firearms? If they start doing that, maybe it IS time for a revolution?
It's "irresponsible" to pass a law telling criminals that it's open season for burglaries and home invasions because citizens won't be able to get to their firearms in time to defend themselves.
..."males have significantly more 'successful' suicides. And that's due to the availability of guns..."
Your conclusion doesn't follow from the premise. The only thing it demonstrates is that people who use firearms in a suicide attempt are more successful than people who use other means. It's not evidence that the availability of guns is the causal factor in the attempt.
So where's the evidence that fewer gun-owning households means a lower suicide rate? The ONLY consistently documented relationship between firearms and suicide is this:
"Some methods have a case fatality rate as low as 1 or 2 percent... with a gun, it's closer to 85 or 90 percent."
True and I'm sure that in their so-called "study", the 10-15% of people who survived a self-inflicted gunshot wound regret it and claim it was an impulsive act, but that's hardly "proof" that access to firearms was a causal factor in suicide attempts.
This also raises the important question of how many people really want to die and how many are just desperate for attention. The "cry for help" suicide is a well known and documented fact. If you slice your wrists perpendicular to the length of the arm, you're either incompetent or you don't really want to commit suicide. Fire a 12 gauge shotgun in your mouth and there's zero doubt that you're genuinely trying to kill yourself.
Note also that the USA is #30 worldwide in suicide rate, far behind many countries with strict gun control laws. Take Japan for example with a rate of 20.7/100k.
This is just a bunch of leftist academics trying to further the gun control agenda without real evidence. Gun control groups like Michael Bloomberg's astroturf "Everytown" are actually pushing laws requiring that all firearms in private homes be locked up... where they will be useless for defense. And imagine police getting search warrants and breaking down your door because someone saw a gun on your nightstand? Insanity..
Reminds me of a Jerky Boys call. He was telling his imaginary wife to STFU while he was on the phone and then, after he had supposedly knocked her unconscious he wanted the guy on the other end to be a witness for him and tell the cops that his wife had been interrupting their conversation and he therefore had no choice but to hit her. I think I'm going to add an additional piece to your plan where I step outside and light off a firecracker before getting remorseful and telling the caller that I need his contact info for my criminal defense.
Indeed. I had one of these guys call me up a couple of weeks ago and after I had messed around with him for at least 10 minutes he got all angry and said "Sir! Stop wasting my time!" before hanging up.
I was LMAO, first because he was still referring to me as "sir" and second because I was supposedly wasting his time after he was the one that called me.
Right, because a 1934 law pertaining to radio and telephone communications is an appropriate justification for the federal government to seize authority to regulate the Internet.
The FCC can argue that their authority to regulate radio and telephone communications also means that they can regulate the internet, but new legislation can certainly be used to declare that the FCC's powers are not that expansive.
I guess I just can't draw a parallel between demanding that you open your trunk so that they can search your car for weapons or contraband and demanding that you give up a password for an electronic device so that they can search through your data... for what exactly?
Hopefully the Canadian courts will see the light and put a stop to this insanity. Unless they are going to search all of the internet traffic coming across their border and inspect any package or shipment containing phones, tablets, computers, CDs, hard drives and USB drives, what possible reason could they have for examining an electronic device or any physical media being carried by a person?
I think it's a good idea. In the USA, you don't yet have to give up a password or encryption key at the border, so if they asked and you gave them the self destruct code, there's nothing they could charge you with.
Unfortunately, there is a precedent for U.S. judges to force you to reveal passwords and encryption keys. If you gave the authorities a self destruct code after a judge had ordered you to turn over the password, then yes, you might get in trouble. If you actually have incriminating data on an electronic device however, it would certainly be nice to have a brick password as an option.
The article is implying that this still might be open for discussion in Canada.
Surprisingly enough, you don't have to give up your passwords to USA customs. Upon entering or returning to the USA, they can search your device and they can even confiscate it for a period of days or weeks. However, they can't yet force you to give up a password or encryption key at the border.
"If a border agent asks you to provide an account password or encryption passphrase... you donâ(TM)t have to comply. Only a judge can force you to reveal information to the government"
Anyone who thinks that tens of thousands of pages of federal laws can be boiled down into "don't steal" and "don't commit assault" is an idiot. How about "don't copy an MP3 file" or "don't create, possess or distribute a piece of software to circumvent DRM"?
The OP is right. We are neither free nor safe because the federal government has created so many laws that we're all guilty of something.
"Even the most intelligent and informed citizen cannot predict with any reasonable assurance whether a wide range of seemingly ordinary activities might be regarded by federal prosecutors as felonies."
It's the LAW! Why the hell are government employees above the law? Any criminal activity should be investigated and prosecuted by the Justice Department. Using personal e-mail to conduct government business is a clear violation of the Federal Records Act. The Act states that a federal record is any information that: "Is created or received in any medium by an agency of the U.S. Government pursuant to law or in the transaction of business."
In other words, every single one of her e-mail messages related to government business qualify as "federal records" which must be preserved. If any of those e-mails have been deleted, it is an unlawful removal of federal records under 18 U.S.C. 2071.
The opinions of the media are irrelevant and "the other guy did it too!" is no excuse.
I've enjoyed a lot of the zombie books and movies and even the Walking Dead TV series. It is fiction after all, and some of it has been good.
The genre has definitely been thoroughly exhausted over the past few years however. There are only so many unique twists you can put on the same basic story. It was fun while it lasted, but you're definitely not alone in thinking that it's getting boring.
If you live in Canada, you should definitely be conducting drills where you deploy the military to your southern border. It won't be zombies, but in the near future, it could very well be hordes of starving or thirsty refugees from the USA.
Your warehouse might work, but a high rise tower would be a terrible position. You have to figure that the power grid would go down and emergency generators would soon be out of fuel, so no elevators. How many flights of stairs do you want to climb on a regular basis while carrying food, water and fuel?
Being in a tower with only a couple of escape routes also leaves you very vulnerable to human predators who will be looking to steal everything you have.
If I actually lived in such a place, I'd probably try to stay put during the mass exodus and the initial die-off, but I certainly wouldn't seek out a tall building as a permanent base of operations.
The unicorn dream is obviously the strongest bit of evidence that Deckard is a replicant.
There's also the little hint when Rachael asks him if he's ever taken the VK test himself.
When the police first hire him, he's told that SIX replicants hijacked the shuttle and one got fried running through a force field. He then gets info about Leon, Roy, Pris and Zora... so where's #6?
Deckard always seems to be physically out-classed by the replicants, which is evidence that he's not one of them, but he also takes a hell of a beating, which indicates that he might be.
I know that there are hints all over the place that he is, but notice that in every scene where he has to fight one of the replicants, he's outclassed. Leon is depicted as being way faster and stronger and Roy seems almost impervious to pain by comparison. Even Pris was giving Deckard a good thrashing before he got his gun. Those encounters always undermined the "Deckard is a replicant" theory IMO.
I suppose you could argue that the Nexus 7 replicants are designed to be more like humans in their frailties.
Are they afraid of losing eyeballs/revenue if they simply serve up some targeted ads for suicide prevention resources? This seems a little weird. It depends on the implementation of course, but suppose you're expressing general despair about the future? Say because of environmental destruction, the burgeoning police state, disease, famine or the ignorance and violent tendencies of the human race? Might that rhetoric of hopelessness and despair be misinterpreted? I don't mind being in a database of known political dissidents or with companies knowing enough about me to serve me targeted ads. It would be really bad to have "potentially suicidal" as a flag in one of the databases however. What happens if "potentially suicidal" & "political dissident" & "firearms enthusiast" lands you on the terrorism watch list or in the NICS database or something? I sympathize with people who are depressed, but this sort of gives me the creeps.
You might not use it as a source of scientific information, but it's a good place to learn that what's being passed off as "scientific information" is in fact a fraud. I'm sure that if the OP cited some sort of academic paper, you'd complain that the authors are being funded by the evil Koch brothers or the fossil fuel industry too.
Global warming is the new religion and questioning it is the new heresy.
"Climate Change" is to the political left as "Terrorism" is to the political right. Frighten the public into demanding that the government do more to allay their fears. Government is always happy to grant itself all sorts of new powers in order to oblige. Funny. I thought that the left might not be so gullible, especially after the government so recently completed such a major power grab in the wake of 9/11. Before this "climate change" nonsense is over, we'll all be limited in the number of cubic feet of living space we're allowed to inhabit and our food, gasoline, home heating fuel and electricity will be stringently rationed. To protect us from "climate change" of course.
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How the hell is having loaded and easily accessible firearms in your own home "irresponsible"? What good is a firearm for defensive purposes if you have to open a safe before you can get to it?
I'll proudly stand up to authoritarian a$$holes like Michael Bloomberg who want to tell me what I can and can't do with my firearms in my own home. You seriously want police going around serving warrants and arresting people for the "crime" of having unlocked firearms? If they start doing that, maybe it IS time for a revolution?
It's "irresponsible" to pass a law telling criminals that it's open season for burglaries and home invasions because citizens won't be able to get to their firearms in time to defend themselves.
..."males have significantly more 'successful' suicides. And that's due to the availability of guns..."
Your conclusion doesn't follow from the premise. The only thing it demonstrates is that people who use firearms in a suicide attempt are more successful than people who use other means. It's not evidence that the availability of guns is the causal factor in the attempt.
Nothing but more theory and anecdote.
"You can reduce the rate of suicide in the United States ... if fewer people had guns in their homes ..."
Total nonsense. The number of households with firearms has been on a multi-decade downward trend:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the...
Meanwhile, the suicide rate per 100k people has been quite stable at 10-15 per 100k over the last 60 years:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...
So where's the evidence that fewer gun-owning households means a lower suicide rate?
The ONLY consistently documented relationship between firearms and suicide is this:
"Some methods have a case fatality rate as low as 1 or 2 percent ... with a gun, it's closer to 85 or 90 percent."
True and I'm sure that in their so-called "study", the 10-15% of people who survived a self-inflicted gunshot wound regret it and claim it was an impulsive act, but that's hardly "proof" that access to firearms was a causal factor in suicide attempts.
This also raises the important question of how many people really want to die and how many are just desperate for attention. The "cry for help" suicide is a well known and documented fact. If you slice your wrists perpendicular to the length of the arm, you're either incompetent or you don't really want to commit suicide. Fire a 12 gauge shotgun in your mouth and there's zero doubt that you're genuinely trying to kill yourself.
Note also that the USA is #30 worldwide in suicide rate, far behind many countries with strict gun control laws. Take Japan for example with a rate of 20.7/100k.
This is just a bunch of leftist academics trying to further the gun control agenda without real evidence. Gun control groups like Michael Bloomberg's astroturf "Everytown" are actually pushing laws requiring that all firearms in private homes be locked up ... where they will be useless for defense. And imagine police getting search warrants and breaking down your door because someone saw a gun on your nightstand? Insanity..
I agree with the "waste their time" strategy. We should have a regular competition to see who can keep one of these people on the line the longest.
That's an excellent idea.
Reminds me of a Jerky Boys call. He was telling his imaginary wife to STFU while he was on the phone and then, after he had supposedly knocked her unconscious he wanted the guy on the other end to be a witness for him and tell the cops that his wife had been interrupting their conversation and he therefore had no choice but to hit her.
I think I'm going to add an additional piece to your plan where I step outside and light off a firecracker before getting remorseful and telling the caller that I need his contact info for my criminal defense.
Indeed. I had one of these guys call me up a couple of weeks ago and after I had messed around with him for at least 10 minutes he got all angry and said "Sir! Stop wasting my time!" before hanging up.
I was LMAO, first because he was still referring to me as "sir" and second because I was supposedly wasting his time after he was the one that called me.
As soon as we start calling the new FCC rules "NetFlix Neutrality"
"given to them by the 1934 act "
Right, because a 1934 law pertaining to radio and telephone communications is an appropriate justification for the federal government to seize authority to regulate the Internet.
The FCC can argue that their authority to regulate radio and telephone communications also means that they can regulate the internet, but new legislation can certainly be used to declare that the FCC's powers are not that expansive.
I guess I just can't draw a parallel between demanding that you open your trunk so that they can search your car for weapons or contraband and demanding that you give up a password for an electronic device so that they can search through your data ... for what exactly?
Hopefully the Canadian courts will see the light and put a stop to this insanity. Unless they are going to search all of the internet traffic coming across their border and inspect any package or shipment containing phones, tablets, computers, CDs, hard drives and USB drives, what possible reason could they have for examining an electronic device or any physical media being carried by a person?
I think it's a good idea. In the USA, you don't yet have to give up a password or encryption key at the border, so if they asked and you gave them the self destruct code, there's nothing they could charge you with.
Unfortunately, there is a precedent for U.S. judges to force you to reveal passwords and encryption keys. If you gave the authorities a self destruct code after a judge had ordered you to turn over the password, then yes, you might get in trouble. If you actually have incriminating data on an electronic device however, it would certainly be nice to have a brick password as an option.
The article is implying that this still might be open for discussion in Canada.
Surprisingly enough, you don't have to give up your passwords to USA customs. Upon entering or returning to the USA, they can search your device and they can even confiscate it for a period of days or weeks. However, they can't yet force you to give up a password or encryption key at the border.
https://www.eff.org/wp/defendi...
"If a border agent asks you to provide an account password or encryption passphrase ... you donâ(TM)t have to comply. Only a judge can force you to reveal information to the government"
They took that as a given. The study is describing a method of quantifying the known relationship.
Anyone who thinks that tens of thousands of pages of federal laws can be boiled down into "don't steal" and "don't commit assault" is an idiot. How about "don't copy an MP3 file" or "don't create, possess or distribute a piece of software to circumvent DRM"?
The OP is right. We are neither free nor safe because the federal government has created so many laws that we're all guilty of something.
http://harveysilverglate.com/B...
"Even the most intelligent and informed citizen cannot predict with any reasonable assurance whether a wide range of seemingly ordinary activities might be regarded by federal prosecutors as felonies."
"... it's a big deal. Why?"
It's the LAW! Why the hell are government employees above the law? Any criminal activity should be investigated and prosecuted by the Justice Department. Using personal e-mail to conduct government business is a clear violation of the Federal Records Act. The Act states that a federal record is any information that: "Is created or received in any medium by an agency of the U.S. Government pursuant to law or in the transaction of business."
In other words, every single one of her e-mail messages related to government business qualify as "federal records" which must be preserved. If any of those e-mails have been deleted, it is an unlawful removal of federal records under 18 U.S.C. 2071.
The opinions of the media are irrelevant and "the other guy did it too!" is no excuse.
I've enjoyed a lot of the zombie books and movies and even the Walking Dead TV series. It is fiction after all, and some of it has been good.
The genre has definitely been thoroughly exhausted over the past few years however. There are only so many unique twists you can put on the same basic story. It was fun while it lasted, but you're definitely not alone in thinking that it's getting boring.
If you live in Canada, you should definitely be conducting drills where you deploy the military to your southern border. It won't be zombies, but in the near future, it could very well be hordes of starving or thirsty refugees from the USA.
Your warehouse might work, but a high rise tower would be a terrible position. You have to figure that the power grid would go down and emergency generators would soon be out of fuel, so no elevators. How many flights of stairs do you want to climb on a regular basis while carrying food, water and fuel?
Being in a tower with only a couple of escape routes also leaves you very vulnerable to human predators who will be looking to steal everything you have.
If I actually lived in such a place, I'd probably try to stay put during the mass exodus and the initial die-off, but I certainly wouldn't seek out a tall building as a permanent base of operations.
Well, the star child which encapsulates the essence of Dave Bowman anyway.
This was actually a weapons satellite disguised as a weather satellite.
The unicorn dream is obviously the strongest bit of evidence that Deckard is a replicant.
There's also the little hint when Rachael asks him if he's ever taken the VK test himself.
When the police first hire him, he's told that SIX replicants hijacked the shuttle and one got fried running through a force field. He then gets info about Leon, Roy, Pris and Zora ... so where's #6?
Deckard always seems to be physically out-classed by the replicants, which is evidence that he's not one of them, but he also takes a hell of a beating, which indicates that he might be.
Gaff tells Deckard "You've done a man's job."
I know that there are hints all over the place that he is, but notice that in every scene where he has to fight one of the replicants, he's outclassed. Leon is depicted as being way faster and stronger and Roy seems almost impervious to pain by comparison. Even Pris was giving Deckard a good thrashing before he got his gun. Those encounters always undermined the "Deckard is a replicant" theory IMO.
I suppose you could argue that the Nexus 7 replicants are designed to be more like humans in their frailties.
Well, at least as far as the film plots are concerned, we now know he's not a Nexus 6 replicant. Four year lifespan.
The original film dropped many hints that he was, but every time he got near one of the replicants he got his ass kicked, so I never assumed it.
IIRC, the book is ambiguous on the point.
Are they afraid of losing eyeballs/revenue if they simply serve up some targeted ads for suicide prevention resources?
This seems a little weird. It depends on the implementation of course, but suppose you're expressing general despair about the future? Say because of environmental destruction, the burgeoning police state, disease, famine or the ignorance and violent tendencies of the human race? Might that rhetoric of hopelessness and despair be misinterpreted?
I don't mind being in a database of known political dissidents or with companies knowing enough about me to serve me targeted ads. It would be really bad to have "potentially suicidal" as a flag in one of the databases however. What happens if "potentially suicidal" & "political dissident" & "firearms enthusiast" lands you on the terrorism watch list or in the NICS database or something?
I sympathize with people who are depressed, but this sort of gives me the creeps.
You might not use it as a source of scientific information, but it's a good place to learn that what's being passed off as "scientific information" is in fact a fraud. I'm sure that if the OP cited some sort of academic paper, you'd complain that the authors are being funded by the evil Koch brothers or the fossil fuel industry too.
Global warming is the new religion and questioning it is the new heresy.
This isn't the only instance.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
Exactly.
"Climate Change" is to the political left as "Terrorism" is to the political right. Frighten the public into demanding that the government do more to allay their fears. Government is always happy to grant itself all sorts of new powers in order to oblige.
Funny. I thought that the left might not be so gullible, especially after the government so recently completed such a major power grab in the wake of 9/11.
Before this "climate change" nonsense is over, we'll all be limited in the number of cubic feet of living space we're allowed to inhabit and our food, gasoline, home heating fuel and electricity will be stringently rationed. To protect us from "climate change" of course.