9th amendment covers it pretty solidly if you ask me. They didn't mention them, therefore the government wasn't granted any power over them. Government power is supposed to be explicitly granted not assumed and then limited later.
> I'm surprised bottled water doesn't come with a DHMO warning label.
And well it should. I fully support the labeling of products that contain dangerous and addictive additives like DHMO. Its disgusting that they get away without even labeling it! I see people giving that shit to kids all the time. Its just sad.
When was this? Recently? He may not have been in the right position. Apparently there are companies now that are paid by states to find people on welfare who can be moved to disability. It essentially gets them an advocate who helps them through the process.
That is one of the NPR stories (which they caught some flak for). I thought the comments of the doctor that they talked to were quite insightful. As sad and bad as I think it is, I actually find myself agreeing with his assessment.....its not the right solution, but the right solution isn't coming, so its probably the best option a lot of people have, and the alternative is even worst.
This of course assumes that you are looking for such an excuse, and thats all it would be.
They are (likely) not actually planning war. This just isn't what you do when you are planning a war. If they actually were, they would be looking for slights, and laying out their narrative. They might directly threaten it, or toss out some ultimatums, but, if they were planning to launch that missle, they would raise and launch it before the media could report, and there would be an invasion.
In fact, the only way I would read this as an attempt to start a war would be if this was an attempt to draw out a pre-emptive strike. They may believe that such a strike would allow them to start the war and still get chineese support, or they may be taking a page out of the US playbook and trying to draw the attack so they can claim they didn't start the conflict?
Really though, I think they likely have become quite comfortable with using this sort of provocative act to get attention and are jockeying for the next round of talks. Or, its their new leader trying to play to internal interests and "look tough" (or maybe both).
However, I want to offer another, less popular idea. Their "leader" is not actually in control and all this is an act by their military commanders to get themselves a good deal when the coup happens.
I know, its a stretch, far out on a limb.... but... something really doesn't sit right with me about those photos of him sitting in front of US invasion plans. That sort of thing is staged, always. Why stage that? It doesn't even make sense, it smells fishy to me.
Sure sure, but does this really apply as well to your frenemies?
Lets be serious, there is no real concern with the USSR having a nuclear program. If there is any country in the entire world where we have less interest in interfereing with their nuclear program, I don't know who it is. To call this a day late and a dollar short is being generous.
So whats the REAL issue? Because this sort of pissing back and forth tends to be over far more petty and mundane issues than pretending to be actual enemies.
> IMHO, the Navy Seal is a hero for being one of the team that killed Bin Laden. But Manning is the > bigger hero of the two. In the 'makes America more free' score table, Manning is right there in the > top 10.
I would actually agree if he was on the Seal team that brought Bin Laden in for a fair civilian trial for thousands of civilian murders.
I have little to no respect for anyone involved in extrajudicial killing. I may take a lot of umbrage with our so called "justice system" but, these people are supposed to be its champions and uphold it. It should matter deeply to them that Bin Laden died at their hands: an innocent man, having never been convicted in a court of law. They should hang their heads in shame for that.
Justice is only as good as what we offer the most vile amongst us. The more vile, the more important it is.
Oaths are just words people use to make you do their bidding even after you realize what they want is wrong. He made that Oath before he saw what he was really working for, so it doesn't really represent an informed consent.
Also, no oath, no oath at all, absolves a person of their responsibility to oppose and expose corruption and abuse. Not ever.
I didn't look, don't know if they addressed it. I setup a miner a while back (should have kept it going...damn). What really took the most time setting it up, was that I didn't know it couldn't be done without a desktop running!
If I build a compute node, the last thing I want on it is a desktop. I don't want to have to login and start up the program....I want it to run on a headless box, and start from init.d or whatever the kids are using after I chase them off my lawn.
> Maybe if we can do something about the "WE BUY GOLD" and check cashing places > we can start to clean up these communities.
Right and maybe if we can get fever under control, we can stop malaria.
We all know, afterall, the primary reason they are poor is that they are out there selling their gold and other hard assetts rather than hording them.
The "Check cashers" are pretty eggerious poverty profiteers, and I know people who have ended up fucked by those deals.
Cleaning up those neighborhoods is not contingent upon stopping them, any more than extending life expectancy will be accomplished by destroying saprophytes. Kill them all, and you still wont be cleaning up the neighborhoods. You need to address the real causes of poverty, for which there likely are no simple single solutions. Do that, though, and the vultures will starve.
Bigger problems are that the economy needs to grow significantly to deal with massive underemployment, and people need to be trained for jobs. Do you have any idea how big the real problems are? We have entire communities where significant portions of the population are technically disabled and on disability.
Why? well... because they can't work. They are easily disabled because they have no ability to get a job that doesn't involve physical labor. A 40 year old woman with a high school level education, who has back pain, likely IS disabled...even though I, and many people I know, could work with the same condition, just because we can get jobs where we sit.
One woman I heard interviewed recently, when asked what job she COULD do, she said she could "find cheats in the welfare system". After being pressed a bit on how she chose THAT of all jobs.... it turns out.... its the only job she knew about where people could work sitting down.
There are entire communities like this, of people who are either disabled from the only work available to them, or who are on their way to being there. The long term answer has to include education and worker training (something that wont even be considered once people are officially "disabled"), but even that wont magically fix things...but it might give the people in those communities a leg up on attacking their own problems.
Of course, it doesn't help that our "justice system" has been systematically abused to disenfranchise uppity niggers who think they can get away with using the same drugs that white kids get slapped on the wrist for using. (which is why I consider the call for more "background checks" incredibly racist) This has also lead to a situation where these communities have well higher than makes any kind of sense rates of felony and minor crime backgrounds, helping to shut the members of their community out from better jobs (and often education)....just adding to the financial woe and human misery.
Its funny, when I call for the drug war to end in reparations, I am sometimes told "you are not getting any money for smoking pot", as if I think its my white middle class pot smoking ass that has suffered, not even close. I thank my lucky stars for my situation, and it makes me mad that others suffer for their persuit of happiness.
> (you're right that it's a bubble, and I'm not here to argue the system's inherent merits or flaws.)
This I am not convinced of any more than the value of any currency is a bubble (afterall its only as valuable as people use and accept it, something which can and does change)
> The US dollar is backed up by an almost non-intuitive fact of modern society. It's legal tender for payment > of debts.
The bitcoin is backed up by an almost non-intuitive face of modern society: the opressiveness of modern societies. Bitcoin is backed by US restrictions on online gambling. Bitcoin is backed by global restrictions on the sale of drugs. Bitcoin is backed, by all of the banks that willingly freeze assets at the orders of government thugs.
Bitcoin is backed, and I hesitate to call it a bubble because, its so small compared to its potential markets, which are some of the largest markets in the world. It doesn't even need to take them over to become huge compared to its current values. Its under valued at twice its recent high.
The one thing about it that really makes me suspicious though: "It's no coincidence that between 1938 and 1960, the level of polonium 210 in American tobacco tripled"
I can't find a single reference to any investigation of polonium in tobacco before the 1960s, in fact, according to wikipedia's Polonium article, it was discovered to be in tobacco leaves in the early 60s.
amusingly, the article you link lists yet another article as its source for that, which goes on to claim it has been tracked since 1950, but trippled since 1938.
While true, as a percentage of cars on the road, population, or miles traveled, its been going down. Which I only know because those have mostly all gone up over the years and the raw number of deaths hasn't really changed.
Thing is, its not just about whether or not some people die. "Any at all" is a terrible standard for any system that has to deal with 300 million people, or even fractions of it. A better thing to think about is the point of diminishing returns.
A while back I, and some people had a good chucle about a policy enacted at a local university. The policy was "no having sex in view of anyone else".
At the time someone pointed out that this rule is just about perfect, as long as you don't have active enforcement. The thing is, the University doesn't give a fuck whether you have sex with someone in front of others, they just don't want to have to deal with it when people complain. So, now when a dispute in the dorms arrives, they have a guideline to use to settle the matter.
In the end it works because...if your roomate doesn't care, and you have sex in front of them, then no harm no foul.
I think this is mostly how traffic laws are. We have them, but we break them all the time in subtle ways that don't matter. The thing is, the law is an attempt at a set of rules to keep people safe, but, they are far more strict than real drivers actually need for the most part. However, that was ok when they were mostly not enforced.... and only enforced when they were the subject of serious safety compromises. (and if serious enough, perhaps they should be immediately flagged for a more direct intervention)
Frankly, I think we hit the point of diminishing returns on traffic enforcement (if we assume those "returns" are not just income from tickets, but actual safety) several rounds of putting police on the streets ago. So automating it more, while it will make sense from a cost standpoint, will likely not benefit anything but the public coffers.
Now, if I had to redesign the system, I might automate capture of potential incidents for safety review. Then have an independent body (with no financial stake in outcomes, total firewall) to review, and call a hearing to discuss the incident with the driver. However, the standard should be based on actual safety considerations rather than simple technical tests.
Also, all fines collected from driving infractions should go directly to grant money to fund research projects in travel safety including automated vehicles and automated infrastructure. Never to anyone involved in anything that would create even the slightest wiff of conflict of interest.
Solution implies a serious problem. We have already made HUGE strides in auto safety and seriously reduced the rate of fatalities (I have seen the claim that this isn't true but, I don't think its fair to look at an unchanging raw number in a vacuume when all of the indicators that should raise it... total number of miles driven, population size, number of cars on the road have all increased...thats progress)
I would question whether we have really hit the point of diminishing returns on enforcement of laws, and the only really benefits will come from game changing technology (like driverless cars).
Of course, nobody making or enforcing laws would see it that way, since, their paycheck is directly at odds with the idea that we have enough enforcement or even more enforcement than is useful.
Huh? designed? How is it designed? Cut gums to distribute nicotine? Sure but, nicotine will absorb transdermally, so I have to imagine it has no trouble at all with sublinguil absorbtion? Why would it need to "cut gums" at all?
Chewing tobacco and snuff contain 28 carcinogens (cancer causing agents). The most harmful carcinogens in smokeless tobacco are the tobacco specific nitrosamines (TSNA's). Snuff dippers consume on average more than 10 times the amount of cancer causing substances (nitrosamines) than cigarette smokers.
Which seems to confirm my hypothesis that some agents of the substance itself is carcinogenic and not simply a matter of repeated cell damage. Note, I am not discounting this as a factor, just that, it seems that, if it were the only or even major factor, that cancers of the gums and jaw would be more common in non-smokers since minor cell damage through abrasion is par for the course in the mouth.
My only problem with this idea is that chewing tobacco increases the risk of oral cancers. No heat damage required, no combustion materials... direct exposure to the leaves of the tobacco plant is all it takes.
Pot smokers have been found to show similar "pre-cancerous lesions" as tobacco smokers, however, there doesn't seem to be a significant increase in the cancer rates among pot users who don't smoke tobacco.
Now THC does appear to have some anti-tumor properties, and pot smokers don't tend to smoke nearly as much as often as tobacco smokers (your average cig smoker smokes as much plant matter in a day as the average pot smoker does in almost a week), so there are possible explanations for this difference in risk, but I can't help but think that there is a specific factor within the tobacco plant itself which increases cancer risk beyond simple physical harm and repair issues.
Obviously its just a hypothesis, but, it seems likely to me.
Its only a contradiction if you assume that "Cell phone using drivers" and "drivers who get in accidents while using cell phones" are largely similar or the same groups.... which is exactly what that article would lead me to not assume.
Everybody uses cell phones while driving, Ok not everyone but most.
I feel this may have been tounge in cheek but, its a good point, and its a question that should always lead to.... is the only difference in how (or if) we are measuring? Clearly there will be no "cell phone related" accidents before the 90s (were there a few 80s car phones? Point is the same).
Notice even here, the scientists can't get past the fact that using a cell phone shows measurable impairment, yet, it seems more that drivers getting in accidents choose cell phones and not the other way around.
My interpretation: I think we have too much of an innate desire to discount others ability to manage risk. Yes, using a cell phone is a significant impairment to driving. It is. I use one sometimes, I find it impairing. However, I drive differently, and much more cautiously on a cell phone than when not using one. A LOT more cautiously.
On the other hand, I think of the worst drivers I know. The people who not only get in accidents but, who I actually am scared to be a passenger in their car. They use the phone alot. In fact, they tend to be on the phone while driving more often than not.
A better question is.... if people who get in accidents while using cell phones don't get in less without them... (http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/08/why-cell-phone-bans-dont-work.html )
Its not that drivers using cell phones drive badly.... its self selection.... bad drivers use cell phones more (and still drive terribly without them)
Why are we going after fiddly individual behaviors like using a phone or texting etc?
The vacuume cleaner needs electricity.... to service my needs. I need it to suck shit up off the floor, I give it electricity, it does that.
In this case, what is the "always on" doing for the consumer? The owner of the device?
Its restricting him, its making requirments of him, what is is doing FOR him? Being ABLE to connect to the internet is one thing, being required is another entirely, and I would submit whats really wrong about this is simple: The requirement is not for the benefit of the user.
If my XBox breaks, warranty aside, I own it. M$ wont be replacing it. Nowhere on the sales slip does it indicate the xbox is a rental. Its something the user buys. Everything it requires to work, should be what is required for HIS benefit SOLELY.
Yup, and thats exactly my plan to. Though, to be fair, its not because of this, this issue is just the final nail in the coffin of console gaming for me. If I have to be always on, and can't pack up my console and bring it with me somewhere on a whim without having to worrry about net access.... then its just another desktop....an underpowered desktop.
Nope. If I am buying the device then anything it requires of me better be something it needs to provide me service, not to serve someone else....who I bought it from.
We should debate what to do about that after it presents itself as a problem, not before we even see if it could be. Its not like drug laws came from major problems, they came because of racism and scapegoating.
Quite simply, there is lots of evidence. Seriously, go out and ask a heroin user, they are not THAT hard to find if you really wanted to. ask them, if it were available, would you think about switching to opium? If heroin were cheap enough to smoke, or came in a pill, would you stop injecting it? If needles were cheap and easy to buy (and you faced no jail time for posessing them) would you ever share needles?
We have the swiss heroin study, which clearly shows that price is one of the major factors driving people to illegal sources of income and preventing them from holding down a normal job.
We have decades of proof that when you ban one drug, another one pops up. Decades of watching drugs get more and more potent, less and less well known, with more and more side effects.
Yah maybe legalization wont be a panacea, but, it would be hard for it to be worst than policies that actively create problems. (and I haven't even mentioned the violent gangs it is funding)
We should do it first, and then, see what problems it doesn't solve, before we try to guess what they might be.
Not only that, but HALF of the people in BURN UNITS all over the US are there because of trying to make meth.
I have to say, thats one of the few statistics that really saddens and angers me. I know people who have suffered major burns and there is nothing cool about it. Its absolutely terrible. There is just no justification for a social policy that does this to people.
even if nobody switched to coke... meth is perfectly safe to make in industrial facilities by trained chemists and lab techs. If it were available on pharmacy shelves, we could expect that maybe 1 or 2 of those people would have still been in burn units (somebody is still going to try it) but... half the population of burn units? Thats so sad.
Success? what do you mean by success? I don't see influencing personal decision making and lifestyle choice as a legitimate role of government. So I don't see how any of this can be a success at anything that the government should actually be doing.
Social engineering is simply, not their job.
Unless there is fraud going on, or violence being threatened, they should stay the hell out of peoples business. I fully support gutting the alcohol regulations too. We should have just enough regulation to be sure that none of the beverages on the market are adulterated with benzene and wood alcohol, or if they do, are properly labeled as such.
beyond that, its none of their business what an informed consumer wants to buy and consume.
Sure but, where is the evidence that its even needed?
All of the evidence points to people, that is, the 'addicts' in question, make better choices when those choices are available to them and viable. Its not clear to me what regulation is needed to accomplish here.
Frankly, the entire problem was manufactured from the start. We didn't get drug laws because of addicts, we got drug laws because of fear over immigrent groups who were associated with various drugs....and because alcohol prohibition created a drug prohibition apparatus which, in the abence of a large source of drugs to prohibit, turned to lobbying to save its jobs.
I don't see how this adds up to "We need regulation by the same fucktards who brought us this mess".
Slashdot Mirror
9th amendment covers it pretty solidly if you ask me. They didn't mention them, therefore the government wasn't granted any power over them. Government power is supposed to be explicitly granted not assumed and then limited later.
But hey, everything, including growing your own crops rather than buying them, is interstate commerce now. If someone starts selling air in a can, they might have the authority to regulate your breathing the way things have been going
And people say this place has only been going into the shitter since Bush.
> I'm surprised bottled water doesn't come with a DHMO warning label.
And well it should. I fully support the labeling of products that contain dangerous and addictive additives like DHMO. Its disgusting that they get away without even labeling it! I see people giving that shit to kids all the time. Its just sad.
When was this? Recently? He may not have been in the right position. Apparently there are companies now that are paid by states to find people on welfare who can be moved to disability. It essentially gets them an advocate who helps them through the process.
http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/
That is one of the NPR stories (which they caught some flak for). I thought the comments of the doctor that they talked to were quite insightful. As sad and bad as I think it is, I actually find myself agreeing with his assessment.....its not the right solution, but the right solution isn't coming, so its probably the best option a lot of people have, and the alternative is even worst.
However, the numbers are absolutely staggering.
This of course assumes that you are looking for such an excuse, and thats all it would be.
They are (likely) not actually planning war. This just isn't what you do when you are planning a war. If they actually were, they would be looking for slights, and laying out their narrative. They might directly threaten it, or toss out some ultimatums, but, if they were planning to launch that missle, they would raise and launch it before the media could report, and there would be an invasion.
In fact, the only way I would read this as an attempt to start a war would be if this was an attempt to draw out a pre-emptive strike. They may believe that such a strike would allow them to start the war and still get chineese support, or they may be taking a page out of the US playbook and trying to draw the attack so they can claim they didn't start the conflict?
Really though, I think they likely have become quite comfortable with using this sort of provocative act to get attention and are jockeying for the next round of talks. Or, its their new leader trying to play to internal interests and "look tough" (or maybe both).
However, I want to offer another, less popular idea. Their "leader" is not actually in control and all this is an act by their military commanders to get themselves a good deal when the coup happens.
I know, its a stretch, far out on a limb.... but... something really doesn't sit right with me about those photos of him sitting in front of US invasion plans. That sort of thing is staged, always. Why stage that? It doesn't even make sense, it smells fishy to me.
Sure sure, but does this really apply as well to your frenemies?
Lets be serious, there is no real concern with the USSR having a nuclear program. If there is any country in the entire world where we have less interest in interfereing with their nuclear program, I don't know who it is. To call this a day late and a dollar short is being generous.
So whats the REAL issue? Because this sort of pissing back and forth tends to be over far more petty and mundane issues than pretending to be actual enemies.
> IMHO, the Navy Seal is a hero for being one of the team that killed Bin Laden. But Manning is the
> bigger hero of the two. In the 'makes America more free' score table, Manning is right there in the
> top 10.
I would actually agree if he was on the Seal team that brought Bin Laden in for a fair civilian trial for thousands of civilian murders.
I have little to no respect for anyone involved in extrajudicial killing. I may take a lot of umbrage with our so called "justice system" but, these people are supposed to be its champions and uphold it. It should matter deeply to them that Bin Laden died at their hands: an innocent man, having never been convicted in a court of law. They should hang their heads in shame for that.
Justice is only as good as what we offer the most vile amongst us. The more vile, the more important it is.
Manning is a hero, this man, is just a tool.
Oaths are just words people use to make you do their bidding even after you realize what they want is wrong. He made that Oath before he saw what he was really working for, so it doesn't really represent an informed consent.
Also, no oath, no oath at all, absolves a person of their responsibility to oppose and expose corruption and abuse. Not ever.
I didn't look, don't know if they addressed it. I setup a miner a while back (should have kept it going...damn). What really took the most time setting it up, was that I didn't know it couldn't be done without a desktop running!
If I build a compute node, the last thing I want on it is a desktop. I don't want to have to login and start up the program....I want it to run on a headless box, and start from init.d or whatever the kids are using after I chase them off my lawn.
> Maybe if we can do something about the "WE BUY GOLD" and check cashing places
> we can start to clean up these communities.
Right and maybe if we can get fever under control, we can stop malaria.
We all know, afterall, the primary reason they are poor is that they are out there selling their gold and other hard assetts rather than hording them.
The "Check cashers" are pretty eggerious poverty profiteers, and I know people who have ended up fucked by those deals.
Cleaning up those neighborhoods is not contingent upon stopping them, any more than extending life expectancy will be accomplished by destroying saprophytes. Kill them all, and you still wont be cleaning up the neighborhoods. You need to address the real causes of poverty, for which there likely are no simple single solutions. Do that, though, and the vultures will starve.
Bigger problems are that the economy needs to grow significantly to deal with massive underemployment, and people need to be trained for jobs. Do you have any idea how big the real problems are? We have entire communities where significant portions of the population are technically disabled and on disability.
Why? well... because they can't work. They are easily disabled because they have no ability to get a job that doesn't involve physical labor. A 40 year old woman with a high school level education, who has back pain, likely IS disabled...even though I, and many people I know, could work with the same condition, just because we can get jobs where we sit.
One woman I heard interviewed recently, when asked what job she COULD do, she said she could "find cheats in the welfare system". After being pressed a bit on how she chose THAT of all jobs.... it turns out.... its the only job she knew about where people could work sitting down.
There are entire communities like this, of people who are either disabled from the only work available to them, or who are on their way to being there. The long term answer has to include education and worker training (something that wont even be considered once people are officially "disabled"), but even that wont magically fix things...but it might give the people in those communities a leg up on attacking their own problems.
Of course, it doesn't help that our "justice system" has been systematically abused to disenfranchise uppity niggers who think they can get away with using the same drugs that white kids get slapped on the wrist for using. (which is why I consider the call for more "background checks" incredibly racist) This has also lead to a situation where these communities have well higher than makes any kind of sense rates of felony and minor crime backgrounds, helping to shut the members of their community out from better jobs (and often education)....just adding to the financial woe and human misery.
Its funny, when I call for the drug war to end in reparations, I am sometimes told "you are not getting any money for smoking pot", as if I think its my white middle class pot smoking ass that has suffered, not even close. I thank my lucky stars for my situation, and it makes me mad that others suffer for their persuit of happiness.
> (you're right that it's a bubble, and I'm not here to argue the system's inherent merits or flaws.)
This I am not convinced of any more than the value of any currency is a bubble (afterall its only as valuable as people use and accept it, something which can and does change)
> The US dollar is backed up by an almost non-intuitive fact of modern society. It's legal tender for payment
> of debts.
The bitcoin is backed up by an almost non-intuitive face of modern society: the opressiveness of modern societies. Bitcoin is backed by US restrictions on online gambling. Bitcoin is backed by global restrictions on the sale of drugs. Bitcoin is backed, by all of the banks that willingly freeze assets at the orders of government thugs.
Bitcoin is backed, and I hesitate to call it a bubble because, its so small compared to its potential markets, which
are some of the largest markets in the world. It doesn't even need to take them over to become huge compared to its current values. Its under valued at twice its recent high.
snopes had a very old thread on this, without much discussion and very little to no investigation
The one thing about it that really makes me suspicious though: "It's no coincidence that between 1938 and 1960, the level of polonium 210 in American tobacco tripled"
I can't find a single reference to any investigation of polonium in tobacco before the 1960s, in fact, according to wikipedia's Polonium article, it was discovered to be in tobacco leaves in the early 60s.
amusingly, the article you link lists yet another article as its source for that, which goes on to claim it has been tracked since 1950, but trippled since 1938.
Not saying the theory is bunk of course, in fact, the EPA has weighed in, without sourcing dubious online doctors: http://www.epa.gov/radiation/sources/tobacco.html
While true, as a percentage of cars on the road, population, or miles traveled, its been going down. Which I only know because those have mostly all gone up over the years and the raw number of deaths hasn't really changed.
Thing is, its not just about whether or not some people die. "Any at all" is a terrible standard for any system that has to deal with 300 million people, or even fractions of it. A better thing to think about is the point of diminishing returns.
A while back I, and some people had a good chucle about a policy enacted at a local university. The policy was "no having sex in view of anyone else".
At the time someone pointed out that this rule is just about perfect, as long as you don't have active enforcement. The thing is, the University doesn't give a fuck whether you have sex with someone in front of others, they just don't want to have to deal with it when people complain. So, now when a dispute in the dorms arrives, they have a guideline to use to settle the matter.
In the end it works because...if your roomate doesn't care, and you have sex in front of them, then no harm no foul.
I think this is mostly how traffic laws are. We have them, but we break them all the time in subtle ways that don't matter. The thing is, the law is an attempt at a set of rules to keep people safe, but, they are far more strict than real drivers actually need for the most part. However, that was ok when they were mostly not enforced.... and only enforced when they were the subject of serious safety compromises. (and if serious enough, perhaps they should be immediately flagged for a more direct intervention)
Frankly, I think we hit the point of diminishing returns on traffic enforcement (if we assume those "returns" are not just income from tickets, but actual safety) several rounds of putting police on the streets ago. So automating it more, while it will make sense from a cost standpoint, will likely not benefit anything but the public coffers.
Now, if I had to redesign the system, I might automate capture of potential incidents for safety review. Then have an independent body (with no financial stake in outcomes, total firewall) to review, and call a hearing to discuss the incident with the driver. However, the standard should be based on actual safety considerations rather than simple technical tests.
Also, all fines collected from driving infractions should go directly to grant money to fund research projects in travel safety including automated vehicles and automated infrastructure. Never to anyone involved in anything that would create even the slightest wiff of conflict of interest.
Solution implies a serious problem. We have already made HUGE strides in auto safety and seriously reduced the rate of fatalities (I have seen the claim that this isn't true but, I don't think its fair to look at an unchanging raw number in a vacuume when all of the indicators that should raise it... total number of miles driven, population size, number of cars on the road have all increased ...thats progress)
I would question whether we have really hit the point of diminishing returns on enforcement of laws, and the only really benefits will come from game changing technology (like driverless cars).
Of course, nobody making or enforcing laws would see it that way, since, their paycheck is directly at odds with the idea that we have enough enforcement or even more enforcement than is useful.
Huh? designed? How is it designed? Cut gums to distribute nicotine? Sure but, nicotine will absorb transdermally, so I have to imagine it has no trouble at all with sublinguil absorbtion? Why would it need to "cut gums" at all?
This page claims that:
Which seems to confirm my hypothesis that some agents of the substance itself is carcinogenic and not simply a matter of repeated cell damage. Note, I am not discounting this as a factor, just that, it seems that, if it were the only or even major factor, that cancers of the gums and jaw would be more common in non-smokers since minor cell damage through abrasion is par for the course in the mouth.
My only problem with this idea is that chewing tobacco increases the risk of oral cancers. No heat damage required, no combustion materials... direct exposure to the leaves of the tobacco plant is all it takes.
Pot smokers have been found to show similar "pre-cancerous lesions" as tobacco smokers, however, there doesn't seem to be a significant increase in the cancer rates among pot users who don't smoke tobacco.
Now THC does appear to have some anti-tumor properties, and pot smokers don't tend to smoke nearly as much as often as tobacco smokers (your average cig smoker smokes as much plant matter in a day as the average pot smoker does in almost a week), so there are possible explanations for this difference in risk, but I can't help but think that there is a specific factor within the tobacco plant itself which increases cancer risk beyond simple physical harm and repair issues.
Obviously its just a hypothesis, but, it seems likely to me.
Its only a contradiction if you assume that "Cell phone using drivers" and "drivers who get in accidents while using cell phones" are largely similar or the same groups.... which is exactly what that article would lead me to not assume.
Everybody uses cell phones while driving, Ok not everyone but most.
I feel this may have been tounge in cheek but, its a good point, and its a question that should always lead to.... is the only difference in how (or if) we are measuring? Clearly there will be no "cell phone related" accidents before the 90s (were there a few 80s car phones? Point is the same).
What is often missed is the question of self selection: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001457512002734
Notice even here, the scientists can't get past the fact that using a cell phone shows measurable impairment, yet, it seems more that drivers getting in accidents choose cell phones and not the other way around.
My interpretation: I think we have too much of an innate desire to discount others ability to manage risk. Yes, using a cell phone is a significant impairment to driving. It is. I use one sometimes, I find it impairing. However, I drive differently, and much more cautiously on a cell phone than when not using one. A LOT more cautiously.
On the other hand, I think of the worst drivers I know. The people who not only get in accidents but, who I actually am scared to be a passenger in their car. They use the phone alot. In fact, they tend to be on the phone while driving more often than not.
A better question is.... if people who get in accidents while using cell phones don't get in less without them... (http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/08/why-cell-phone-bans-dont-work.html )
Its not that drivers using cell phones drive badly.... its self selection.... bad drivers use cell phones more (and still drive terribly without them)
Why are we going after fiddly individual behaviors like using a phone or texting etc?
Ok so they grow faster, nice. They grow bigger? Awesome.
How about flavor? Are they more tasty when they grow bigger and faster? Why is nobody asking the important questions?
Better but not quite right.
The vacuume cleaner needs electricity.... to service my needs. I need it to suck shit up off the floor, I give it electricity, it does that.
In this case, what is the "always on" doing for the consumer? The owner of the device?
Its restricting him, its making requirments of him, what is is doing FOR him? Being ABLE to connect to the internet is one thing, being required is another entirely, and I would submit whats really wrong about this is simple: The requirement is not for the benefit of the user.
If my XBox breaks, warranty aside, I own it. M$ wont be replacing it. Nowhere on the sales slip does it indicate the xbox is a rental. Its something the user buys. Everything it requires to work, should be what is required for HIS benefit SOLELY.
Otherwise, it is a trojan.
Yup, and thats exactly my plan to. Though, to be fair, its not because of this, this issue is just the final nail in the coffin of console gaming for me. If I have to be always on, and can't pack up my console and bring it with me somewhere on a whim without having to worrry about net access.... then its just another desktop....an underpowered desktop.
Nope. If I am buying the device then anything it requires of me better be something it needs to provide me service, not to serve someone else....who I bought it from.
We should debate what to do about that after it presents itself as a problem, not before we even see if it could be. Its not like drug laws came from major problems, they came because of racism and scapegoating.
Quite simply, there is lots of evidence. Seriously, go out and ask a heroin user, they are not THAT hard to find if you really wanted to. ask them, if it were available, would you think about switching to opium? If heroin were cheap enough to smoke, or came in a pill, would you stop injecting it? If needles were cheap and easy to buy (and you faced no jail time for posessing them) would you ever share needles?
We have the swiss heroin study, which clearly shows that price is one of the major factors driving people to illegal sources of income and preventing them from holding down a normal job.
We have decades of proof that when you ban one drug, another one pops up. Decades of watching drugs get more and more potent, less and less well known, with more and more side effects.
Yah maybe legalization wont be a panacea, but, it would be hard for it to be worst than policies that actively create problems. (and I haven't even mentioned the violent gangs it is funding)
We should do it first, and then, see what problems it doesn't solve, before we try to guess what they might be.
Not only that, but HALF of the people in BURN UNITS all over the US are there because of trying to make meth.
I have to say, thats one of the few statistics that really saddens and angers me. I know people who have suffered major burns and there is nothing cool about it. Its absolutely terrible. There is just no justification for a social policy that does this to people.
even if nobody switched to coke... meth is perfectly safe to make in industrial facilities by trained chemists and lab techs. If it were available on pharmacy shelves, we could expect that maybe 1 or 2 of those people would have still been in burn units (somebody is still going to try it) but... half the population of burn units? Thats so sad.
Success? what do you mean by success? I don't see influencing personal decision making and lifestyle choice as a legitimate role of government. So I don't see how any of this can be a success at anything that the government should actually be doing.
Social engineering is simply, not their job.
Unless there is fraud going on, or violence being threatened, they should stay the hell out of peoples business. I fully support gutting the alcohol regulations too. We should have just enough regulation to be sure that none of the beverages on the market are adulterated with benzene and wood alcohol, or if they do, are properly labeled as such.
beyond that, its none of their business what an informed consumer wants to buy and consume.
Sure but, where is the evidence that its even needed?
All of the evidence points to people, that is, the 'addicts' in question, make better choices when those choices are available to them and viable. Its not clear to me what regulation is needed to accomplish here.
Frankly, the entire problem was manufactured from the start. We didn't get drug laws because of addicts, we got drug laws because of fear over immigrent groups who were associated with various drugs....and because alcohol prohibition created a drug prohibition apparatus which, in the abence of a large source of drugs to prohibit, turned to lobbying to save its jobs.
I don't see how this adds up to "We need regulation by the same fucktards who brought us this mess".