Lots of people my age and older are. The lens in my left eye is an artificial device. It sits on struts so is able to focus, unlike a natural lens anybody my age has (the eye's lens hardens around age 40, which is why geezers need reading glasses). Many folks I know have artificial hips, knees, and other joints.
I live in a science fiction world. You young folks can't imagine the scientific and technological marvels you'll see before you're my age.
Secret police forces are accountable only to the executive branch of the government, sometimes only to a dictator. They operate entirely or partially in secrecy, that is, most or all of their operations are obscure and hidden from the general public and government except for the topmost executive officials. This semi-official capacity allows the secret police to bolster the government's control over their citizens while also allowing the government to deny prior knowledge of any violations of civil liberties.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the New York Police Department has become one of the nation's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies, targeting ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government, an Associated Press investigation has found.
These operations have benefited from unprecedented help from the CIA, a partnership that has blurred the line between foreign and domestic spying.
The department has dispatched undercover officers, known as "rakers," into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program, according to officials directly involved in the program. They've monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as "mosque crawlers," to monitor sermons, even when there's no evidence of wrongdoing.
Reading the newspaper or living in a bad neighborhood will do that to you. Ironically, in the place where you're in most danger of criminals, even the law-abiding residents fear the police more than they fear criminals.
True, but far too many do. As we found in the 1920s, prohibition of intoxicants breeds corruption.
In any case - undercover cops aren't cost effective for catching small time criminals.
Half of all arrests in the US are for misdemeanor marijuana possession. THAT's what the secret police are for -- to catch pot smokers. You can't catch armed robbers with secret police.
Don't have secret police in the first place. "Undercover" cops have no place in a free society. Only police states have or need secret police. If social media makes the secret police impossible, GOOD!
As to the cop's safety, being a cop is nowhere near the top ten list of dangerous jobs. A taxi driver or construction worker is in far more danger than a cop.
I like dihydrogenmonoxide so much sometimes I swim in the stuff. Every morning I soak myself in it. Ah, good old dihydrogenmonoxide. The bad part of the addiction is that withdrawal is always fatal.
Throw a bag of seeds outside and they'll grow, no pots or fertilizer needed (although a little Miracle Grow makes them grow better). Rain waters it far better than city water; the plants must not like the chlorine. My "free" of course means you're growing your own for your own use, and it would cost to run a commercial operation. Like I said, a chemistry student could make his own aspirin cheaply, but he'd still have to buy the salicylic acid and acetic anhydride.
As to the "myth", no drug company exec would any more admit it than a cigarette company official would admit that cigarettes cause cancer, but it's a logical conclusion. If I were a drug company exec I'd hate the drugs I actually had to compete with competetitors when manufacturing, rather than the drugs I had a monopoly on. The markup on patented drugs is HUGE; the patent on Paxil expired back when I was taking it and it went from a hundred dollars per bottle to four for the generic version. A drug company exec would be insane to be happy when his patent expired.
There are many people who keep repeating that pot is addictive (like the obviously ignorant GP). Pot's not even as addictive as orange juice*, good luck engineering it to be as addictive as crack.
until our government gets off their religious moral high horse
Um, which religion are you referring to? The Christian bible makes no mention of hemp and has no harsh words against intoxication (and its main figure not only drank alcohol, but produced it miraculously). Muslims are against alcohol, but not cannibis. When I was in Thailand all the Bhudists I knew (and most Thais are Bhuddist) smoked that great weed they had there.
So where does the "religious" component of this come in?
Marijuana is illegal because (according to several books I read in the '70s which wikipedia disagrees with, taking a far more paranoid stance), Harry Anslinger wanted more money to fight heroin, so he made up a brand new drug "menace" to trot before Congress. Whichever source you look at, there were no preachers preaching about the evils of "muggles" (the street name for pot when Anslinger was pulling his shenanigans) in any of them.
Aspirin is indeed cheap (one cent per pill), but cannibis is FREE. Anybody can grow it for zero dollars in their living room. Not so with aspirin, which takes an entry-level chemistry course.
Pot is a hell of a lot easier to grow than corn or green beans, and they're REAL easy to grow.
And as others have pointed out, the fact that aspirin is cheap is why the drug companies hate it. They hate ANY drug not covered by a patent they hold.
You've been lied to by the government... again. Smoking pot does increase your risk for COPD, but as the linked articl says, pot may actually help prevent cancer.
NSAIDs plus pot works better for arthritis than either one by itself. And many people can't take NSAIDs. Here's what NSAIDs can do -- put you in the hospital for a month leaving a scar from your breast to your belly button.
I spent 3 hours on the road today, about half of it stuck behind a truck and an old guy, both doing 60MPH
Wait... the old guy was next to the truck for an hour and a half? That's illegal in most states. And most states do have minimum speeds on the interstates.
If you were on a two lane road, sixty is fast enough. There are people getting on and off, passing, etc. 80 on a 2 lane road is suicidal insanity, or stupid ignorance.
The original question I asked, "Where is Arrakis"; the bold answers that. And the word "Arrakis" is neither in my spell checker nor my dictionary, and I haven't read Dune in years, and I don't have the books with me now. It's not like Arrakis us real, even though its star is (and according to Wikipedia I doubt if it were there that it would be the least bit habitable).
Giedi Prime is an industrial wasteland with a low photosynthetic potential, the planet's bio-resources depleted and its environment fouled with industrial pollution.[4] Rich in mineral resources, the economy of the planet is based on mining, refineries, and industrial manufacture. In Dune, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and his heirs live in the "family city of Harko."[4]
Due to its ravaged environment, Giedi Prime has to import almost all of its requirement of organic products.
Arrakis (pronounced/É(TM)ËrækÉs/;[1] Arabic: ØÙرØÙØâZ, ar-rÄqiá£, "the dancer") â" informally known as Dune and later called Rakis â" is a fictional desert planet featured in the Dune series of novels by Frank Herbert. Herbert's first novel in the series, 1965's Dune, is popularly considered one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time,[2] and it is sometimes cited as the best-selling science fiction novel in history.[2][3] On April 5, 2010, a real-world plain of Saturn's moon Titan was named Arrakis Planitia after Herbert's fictional planet.[4]
In Dune, the planet is the home of the Fremen (Zensunni wanderers),[5] and subsequently is the Imperial Capital of the Atreides Empire.[6] Arrakis is the third planet orbiting the star Canopus,[7] and it in turn is orbited by two moons, one of which has the image of the desert kangaroo mouse, Muad'Dib, on it; the other moon possesses the image of a human hand.[5]
Canopus (pronounced/kÉ(TM)ËnoÊSpÉ(TM)s/, α Car, α Carinae, Alpha Carinae) is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina and Argo Navis, and the second brightest star in the night-time sky, after Sirius. Canopus's visual magnitude is â'0.72, and it has an absolute magnitude of â'5.53.
Canopus is a supergiant of spectral type F. Canopus is essentially white when seen with the naked eye (although F-type stars are sometimes listed as "yellowish-white"). It is located in the far southern sky, at a declination of â'52Â 42' (2000) and a right ascension of 06h24.0m.[1]
I almost submitted this yesterday and got a screen saying several people had already submitted it; I think the screen was referring to this cancer thread, but this is from U of PA and the virus drug is from MIT. They had a cure for the common cold and most other viral infections. According to TFA they're starting animal trials and it may be ten years before it comes to market.
A potentially groundbreaking drug appears effective against a wide range of viral infections, including the common cold, flu, stomach viruses, polio and dengue fever -- at least in mice. Click here to find out more!
The new drug is made from living cell's own defense systems and works by targeting a type of genetic material found only in those cells infected by viruses, MIT researchers explained.
"Currently there are very few antiviral treatments, and most that do exist are highly specific for individual viruses or have undesirable side effects," noted lead researcher Todd Rider, a senior staff scientist at Lincoln Laboratory's Chemical, Biological, and Nanoscale Technologies Group, which is part of MIT.
The new drug is called DRACO (from the more unwieldy "double-stranded RNA activated caspase oligomerizers"). According to Rider, it "has the potential to safely treat or prevent a broad spectrum of viral infections."
Still, a long road awaits before humans might benefit, if ever. Clinical trials remain years away and any drug available to patients might not materialize for a decade, Rider said.
The report was published recently in the online journal PLoS One.
Maybe I'll go ahead and finish submitting the article.
To someone from 1911 an iPod would be magical. To someone from 1811 an airplane would be magical. Have you kids no imagination? I'm 59, I live in a science fiction world. Self-opening doors, communicators, flat screen computers, PADDs, almost everything from the original Star Trek of my youth is commonplace today. Hell, stuff today is past what sci-fi writers envisioned when I was young. See this journal.
Hell, in Star Trek II McCoy gave Kirk a pair of reading glasses, I have an implant that lets me focus at any distance after wearing thick glasses all my life. I'm a fucking cyborg!!! No way would I have believed at age 25 that I'd not need glasses at age 59.
You can't imagine the wonders you'll see in your life.
You have no clue the sci-fi marvels that will be commonplace when you're my age (and I'm dead).
Cosmetics? Yeah, that's really necessary! The other things you mention can be achieved by other means; oil is, after all, organic. If all oil disappeared tomorrow we'd still get by; there are substitutes, all organic.
And IMO we'd be better off without cosmetics. And fashion in general.
Slashdot Mirror
Lots of people my age and older are. The lens in my left eye is an artificial device. It sits on struts so is able to focus, unlike a natural lens anybody my age has (the eye's lens hardens around age 40, which is why geezers need reading glasses). Many folks I know have artificial hips, knees, and other joints.
I live in a science fiction world. You young folks can't imagine the scientific and technological marvels you'll see before you're my age.
With CIA help, NYPD moves covertly in Muslim areas
Wake up, you live in a police state.
End prohibitions on victimless activities and you end organized crime.
Reading the newspaper or living in a bad neighborhood will do that to you. Ironically, in the place where you're in most danger of criminals, even the law-abiding residents fear the police more than they fear criminals.
Not all cops do that.
True, but far too many do. As we found in the 1920s, prohibition of intoxicants breeds corruption.
In any case - undercover cops aren't cost effective for catching small time criminals.
Half of all arrests in the US are for misdemeanor marijuana possession. THAT's what the secret police are for -- to catch pot smokers. You can't catch armed robbers with secret police.
We've been trying to get them to chage the law for 40 years. Without victimless activities being illegal you don't need secret police.
Don't have secret police in the first place. "Undercover" cops have no place in a free society. Only police states have or need secret police. If social media makes the secret police impossible, GOOD!
As to the cop's safety, being a cop is nowhere near the top ten list of dangerous jobs. A taxi driver or construction worker is in far more danger than a cop.
I like dihydrogenmonoxide so much sometimes I swim in the stuff. Every morning I soak myself in it. Ah, good old dihydrogenmonoxide. The bad part of the addiction is that withdrawal is always fatal.
Throw a bag of seeds outside and they'll grow, no pots or fertilizer needed (although a little Miracle Grow makes them grow better). Rain waters it far better than city water; the plants must not like the chlorine. My "free" of course means you're growing your own for your own use, and it would cost to run a commercial operation. Like I said, a chemistry student could make his own aspirin cheaply, but he'd still have to buy the salicylic acid and acetic anhydride.
As to the "myth", no drug company exec would any more admit it than a cigarette company official would admit that cigarettes cause cancer, but it's a logical conclusion. If I were a drug company exec I'd hate the drugs I actually had to compete with competetitors when manufacturing, rather than the drugs I had a monopoly on. The markup on patented drugs is HUGE; the patent on Paxil expired back when I was taking it and it went from a hundred dollars per bottle to four for the generic version. A drug company exec would be insane to be happy when his patent expired.
There are many people who keep repeating that pot is addictive (like the obviously ignorant GP). Pot's not even as addictive as orange juice*, good luck engineering it to be as addictive as crack.
*even though IMO good hydro tastes better
until our government gets off their religious moral high horse
Um, which religion are you referring to? The Christian bible makes no mention of hemp and has no harsh words against intoxication (and its main figure not only drank alcohol, but produced it miraculously). Muslims are against alcohol, but not cannibis. When I was in Thailand all the Bhudists I knew (and most Thais are Bhuddist) smoked that great weed they had there.
So where does the "religious" component of this come in?
Marijuana is illegal because (according to several books I read in the '70s which wikipedia disagrees with, taking a far more paranoid stance), Harry Anslinger wanted more money to fight heroin, so he made up a brand new drug "menace" to trot before Congress. Whichever source you look at, there were no preachers preaching about the evils of "muggles" (the street name for pot when Anslinger was pulling his shenanigans) in any of them.
Aspirin is indeed cheap (one cent per pill), but cannibis is FREE. Anybody can grow it for zero dollars in their living room. Not so with aspirin, which takes an entry-level chemistry course.
Pot is a hell of a lot easier to grow than corn or green beans, and they're REAL easy to grow.
And as others have pointed out, the fact that aspirin is cheap is why the drug companies hate it. They hate ANY drug not covered by a patent they hold.
And I would call that a new low - is there any way we can moderate down articles? People genetically altered to be potheads is incredibly stupid
Go to the firehose to moderate articles. And I apologize for (I think) starting that meme you hate.
BTW, are you as much against art as you are intoxication? Much great art has come from mind altering substances.
There are pills as well; I had to take them after a vitrectomy, and they're also expensive as hell... but far more effective than pot.
Marijuana is carcinogenic
Study Finds No Cancer-Marijuana Connection
You've been lied to by the government... again. Smoking pot does increase your risk for COPD, but as the linked articl says, pot may actually help prevent cancer.
NSAIDs plus pot works better for arthritis than either one by itself. And many people can't take NSAIDs. Here's what NSAIDs can do -- put you in the hospital for a month leaving a scar from your breast to your belly button.
I spent 3 hours on the road today, about half of it stuck behind a truck and an old guy, both doing 60MPH
Wait... the old guy was next to the truck for an hour and a half? That's illegal in most states. And most states do have minimum speeds on the interstates.
If you were on a two lane road, sixty is fast enough. There are people getting on and off, passing, etc. 80 on a 2 lane road is suicidal insanity, or stupid ignorance.
The original question I asked, "Where is Arrakis"; the bold answers that. And the word "Arrakis" is neither in my spell checker nor my dictionary, and I haven't read Dune in years, and I don't have the books with me now. It's not like Arrakis us real, even though its star is (and according to Wikipedia I doubt if it were there that it would be the least bit habitable).
Someone ought to try them to see if the light spectrum is good for growing, even if they are srill a little pricey.
Ghetti Prime. Now, where's Arakkis?
This has practically nothing to do with "success rate"
It depends on whose success you're talking about. Bing is more successful for site owners, Google is more successful for the person searching.
I almost submitted this yesterday and got a screen saying several people had already submitted it; I think the screen was referring to this cancer thread, but this is from U of PA and the virus drug is from MIT. They had a cure for the common cold and most other viral infections. According to TFA they're starting animal trials and it may be ten years before it comes to market.
Maybe I'll go ahead and finish submitting the article.
True but requires a magical device....
To someone from 1911 an iPod would be magical. To someone from 1811 an airplane would be magical. Have you kids no imagination? I'm 59, I live in a science fiction world. Self-opening doors, communicators, flat screen computers, PADDs, almost everything from the original Star Trek of my youth is commonplace today. Hell, stuff today is past what sci-fi writers envisioned when I was young. See this journal.
Hell, in Star Trek II McCoy gave Kirk a pair of reading glasses, I have an implant that lets me focus at any distance after wearing thick glasses all my life. I'm a fucking cyborg!!! No way would I have believed at age 25 that I'd not need glasses at age 59.
You can't imagine the wonders you'll see in your life.
You have no clue the sci-fi marvels that will be commonplace when you're my age (and I'm dead).
Cosmetics? Yeah, that's really necessary! The other things you mention can be achieved by other means; oil is, after all, organic. If all oil disappeared tomorrow we'd still get by; there are substitutes, all organic.
And IMO we'd be better off without cosmetics. And fashion in general.