> Don't get me wrong, I'm all for legalisation of some drugs, but there must be some self-regulation first. > Until we can be trusted to take care of ourselves and know our limits, I say keep them controlled.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for chicken farming, but there must be some eggs first. Until we can have eggs, I say no chickens!
Self control is learned. It can be learned many ways, but driving peoples actions under ground, making them hide, it doesn't help people learn self control. It helps them learn to be better liars and sneaks. Is that the evolutionary pressure that you want to apply to people's personalities? "become a better liar and sneak, or face punishment!"
Also, many of the problems are directly related to prohibition. Needles and ODs are mostly the result of unpredictable quality and high prices that drive people to more efficient delivery (IV, insufflation (snorting)) that have much closer tolerances. The difference between 20% pure and 30% pure isn't much when you are smoking your heroin. It could be really large as you push it directly into your vein. Talk to people in places were heroin is cheaper (like Iran) and you find much less IV, and much more smoking or oral use (which are less effective... requiring higher doses, but are safer for the same reason).
I am no advocate for heroin, just that prohibition doesn't make sense from a harm reduction standpoint AT ALL. Also... the number of cannabis users is MORE than ALL the users of all the other illicit drugs COMBINED. So really, it seems we can talk about it on its own.
Not exactly. I agree with one of the people who replied to this... prison is to remove people from society until they are able to return. It should not be used as a punishment per se. That said... If I find your actions to be reprehensible, is it not my choice to believe so and perhaps to say so?
Sure, you may go help old ladies across the street, and give free prostate exams to people without medical insuance. However, if you also rape children, should I not be free to say "hey you know what, I am not going to support YOU in anything YOU do; because you rape children"?
I see the state as an entity that is currently engaged in oppressive activities. I am ashamed to even pay taxes, and would refuse if I didn't have people who depend on me as a husband, landlord, etc. I see no reason to support anything they do, and every reason to cheer when they fail.
If they come around, if they reform their wicked ways, I may support them again.
Funny you would say that. I just wrote my congressman yesterday... and again today.... and next week am putting on my suit, taking the day off work, and going down to the state house to talk to my (state) congressmen at a hearing on this very issue.
I don't see what is retarded about it. It is one of my "lines in the sand". SO long as laws like this are on the books, I don't support the books. I consider them shameful. As I said to the people who run "godhatesfags" "if your god is the real god, then he is a vile creature and he can consider me the loyal opposition as he deserves no worship". I don;'t care if its my governent, or a god. If I judge the action as without merit, I don't support it. End of story.
It makes me feel better actually. I hate to think that we have ridiculous laws that can wind a person up in prison for something as silly as growing a plant for his own use.... so its good to know that its not a total hell hole. Given that simple drug possession is one of the most common reasons for being behind bars.... this seems wholly appropriate.
Until they fix the reasons that people go there, I can't support anything that makes being in there unpleasant.
I agree, up to a point. Yes, I knew they would be abusive. However, if everyone who knows they will be abusive just ignores them, then that gives them free reign to abuse. I would rather suffer a little abuse and sound the alarm and at least make an effort to let people know and bring about reform.
FAST LANE is a great idea... something like it should exist. The problem is the disconnect between the customers and the people who run it and are free to fee with impunity. People need to stand up to this abuse, not shrink away and allow others to be abused too.
Its like finding out someone molsted your child... do you report it to the police and try to have action taken? Or do you quietly remove your child from where the abuser can reach, and let him abuse other children?
You know, even as I wrote that, banks did come to mind.
I love how electronic check processing has been the standard for nearly a decade now, checks from any bank in the US clear to any bank in the US instantly. However, they still put a 3 day hold on checks, and a 10 day hold on "out of state" checks! Or how some banks, just a few years back, used to process the days queued deposits first, then debits.... suddenly switched to debits before deposits.... all because the bounce fees made for essentially free profits.
Of course, which is worst, the fed or the state? It seems to me like they each compete to see who can reach deepest into people's pockets. Take the payment I had to make today.... but lets step back a minute. I have a "fastlane pass" (speed pass in most states). They keep a credit card on file, and use that to refill my account, as I zip through tolls, which I do rather infrequently.
I hadn't used it ina few months, and took a recent trip out to western MA to visit some friends. As I go, the yellow light comes up... which it always does when the account gets low, right before automated recharge. No big deal right?
Then I get two pictures of the back of my car in the mail. They list my license plate, in text, they obviously had to look up my registration info to send this to me. With this, two $50 fines, one for each way.
So I call up, I pay the balance on the account, I find out my credit card had expired, and rather than tell me, they just waited for me to use the system again, and fined me. A fine which I could appeal by sending in my account statement (which they stopped sending me two years ago), and turn it into a smaller administrative fine.
WHat struck me is... they can look in the external registry database to get my address, but can't be bothered to check their own database and see that I am a registered user of the system! Seriously, I am expected to believe that this whole process of violations, sending in statements, and making appeals is supposed to make sense, when all it seems to really do is.... give them an excuse to charge people outrageous fees.
As much of a detractor of big business as I can be, I have never come across a company that acts with such wanton incompetence, and expects their customers to pay for their own laziness and screw ups. This should have been dealt with on my first phone call, not 3 calls (on hold for an hour each) and a written appeal later (to which they don't even send a response, they require that you call them to get the response to the appeal).
It seems to me that this sort of blatant money grabbing is endemic in the system.
All when you could....move over and remove the threat. Its like arguing that you were being attacked and had to shoot him in the head when you had a working taser in your other hand.
So since they put themselves in danger by some amount that YOU have arbitarily decided for them is too much, you feel justified in attacking their vehicle with an offensive energy weapon, shutting down the system, which would include power steering, traction control, and anti-lock braking, while they are moving at high speed.
I would recommend you call your local police station and ask them whether they would like you to take up enforcing the law in your spare time, while you ride down the road. I am sure they would be happy to inform you as to their policy on vigilantism.
Why don't you consider...well... letting him pass?
You do have that option you know. If you are such a fan of driving slow, then just get out of his way. Much cheaper than building a HERF gun. It lets him manage his risks, and you manage yours.
In some states, the left lane is not to be used for traveling and is a passing lane. So if you are not driving faster than the other lane and ten moving over when its clear, you can be ticketed. Frankly, I wish my state did that. Its a very sensible system.
Also, I will note, that the output of a HERF gun, depending on power, distance etc, could actually blind a person. Do you really think its safe or justified to take a chance at blinding someone because you set the power too high on your home made HERF?
> and mushrooms and acid, which are hundreds of times more dangerous. In truth, cigarettes and alcohol are thousands of > times more dangerous.
Actually, the dangers of mushrooms and acid are also way overblown.
Yes people freak out. Yes people have traumatic experiences that can cause PTSD.
However in terms of OD, they are quite safe. In fact, its often felt that since the major dangers are due to traumatic stress from difficult experiences, higher doses are actually safer as they cause more ego dissolution and thus provide less avenue for a person to "get themselves into trouble" (its hard to have a bad time when your ego is a puddle on the floor)
They also do not show the properties of addiction, in fact, after use, most people have little desire to use them again for a period of time. Most users of them don't seem to continue using them for long periods of time. Its one of those things a "heavy user" does a couple of times a month. (not to say there are not extreme cases, just that they are... extreme cases)
It was probably more than that. Drug use tends to be a symptom of underlying issues more than a cause. He may have even been self-medicating for a condition that he didn't even realize that he had, and now nobody will really know. Though there have been published findings of connections betwene drug use and other mental disorders... what is cause and what is effect? There is also anecdotal evidence that some of the conditions most associated with certain drugs can actually be effectively medicated with them. Of course...if you start taking your medicine to get high, and don't see it as your medicine, that just opens the door for massive abuse as you find a reward that actually goes beyond being high... even if you don't recognize it completely. (specifically pot has been found to be useful in both manic and depressive stages of bipolar disorder)
Of course, younger people often think that they are invincible, and without a supportive and open social context, can easily slip into rather extreme use patterns. I often think that is one of the most backwards parts of prohibition. Driving dangerous behavior out of where it can be seen and monitored and creating an atmosphere where a parent, peer, or teacher can't be understanding and say "you need to cool it a bit, your pushing it too far" because everything has to be "zero tolerance" well.... I just see it as counterproductive and better at producing good liars than responsible people.
Frankly, the whole discussion makes me think of the scene in the movie Kinsey, where the good doctor stands before his "marriage" class... full of married adults.... and tells them:
Because society has interfered with what should be a normal biological development causing a scandalous delay of sexual activity which leads to sexual difficulty in early marriage. In an uninhibited society, a 12-year-old would know most of the biology which I will have to give you in formal lectures.
A better question is: Is not having to choose between getting a ticket or slamming on your breaks at a newly shortened yellow light cycle and being rear-ended really that important to you?
Or how about Is it really so important to you that the city/state (and by extension, insurance companies) raise more money that you are willing to take measures that have been shown to INCREASE the number of traffic accidents? Is it really worth it to burden people with hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of tickets for maneuvers like "california stops" that have been shown to not actually impact safety?
> The worst part is, these laws cause the very problems they allegedly were written to combat. For example, "marijuana > leads to harder drugs". Well DUH, of course it does; the same people who sell pot sell the other drugs. "Got any weed, > man?" "No, dude, it's dry. I have lots of coke, though, good shit, too." Then there's "think of the children!" Odd how > it's easier for a teenager to buy pot than beer or cigarettes, and easier for a teenager to get than for an adult.
Actually, thats kind of BS anyway. Most "dealers" specialize in the one or two things that they do themselves. Somewhere around 80% of "drug dealers" are just users selling to support their own habit. Many of them are a lot closer to the person who gets a few friends together to go in on getting a large quantity of something at the local wholesale club than any sort of organized business.
The simple fact is that, if you take away all the pot smokers, thats more people than ALL the other illegal drugs combined. So if there is a "gateway effect" it seems to me like its just an artifact of there being so many potheads and so much variability and that users of other drugs tend to just want to "get fucked up" and tend to be indiscriminate about what they use.
That is, people who will shoot heroin and snort coke tend to be less picky about what drugs they use than people who smoke pot. Hell, some pot smokers dont even drink much alcohol, and you need go no further than junkie author William S Borroughs' book Nake Lunch to find a description of how pot smokers look down on and disdain junkies. An attitude that I can personally say I have witnessed.
The gateway drug theory has been fairly debunked. However, it has been shown that graduates of the DARE program are more likely to use drugs as teenagers than kids who didn't go through the program.
I am not sure what you mean. They don't have any extradition treaty that I know of with Cuba, so technically the US doesn't HAVE to extradite him. However, if he blew up a plane, and is a terrorist, I think its a pretty hypocritical move to NOT extradite him. Then again, its a pretty hypocritical move to participate in torture prosecutions for waterboarding and then use it on someone else too. Especially hypocritical to claim to respect the law and uphold the law, and NOT fully investigate claims of illegal torture....
so, overall, nothing I wouldn't expect. Lets not forget other interesting friends of the Criminals In Action (CIA) like Danilo Blandon, the only foreign national in US history to be convicted of a drug crime and THEN be given a green card. Two years time served for shipping "millions of dollars per day" of cocaine into the country.
So... I would need to know more (like to read the articles) to support or be against extradition in any specific case, but... to harbor a criminal who was useful to the powers that be... seems about par for the course.
Actually, armies stopped standing in lines and firing volleys long before the AK47 came around. It was rifled barrels that did that. Look to the war of northern aggression. It was a war, fought with rifles, using musket tactics. It was an absolute bloody mess.
That was about 80 years before the AK. Rifles, gattling guns, shit, tanks and trench warfare came before the AK. Look at WWI, wasn't nobody lining up in rows to fire volleys then.
I think you give nukes too much credit here. I agree with the concept of MAD. It did "work". Though "work" kind of assumes that one side was actually planning to take the other out. Frankly, I think the USSR had enough of its own problems internally, and was never an actual threat on the scale that it was made out to be. I kind of put the whole USSR threat on par with claiming monster trucks are some new army that we need to watch out for based on watching one of their shows.
In fact, I have heard that some analysts put the effectiveness of the Reagan strategy as having hastened the fall of the USSR by all of about 2 weeks or so (which is just to say, it looked like it wasn't going to last no matter what "we" did)
The new "small conflicts" paradigm, I think, comes from a couple of things.
1. Major nations are ALL at the point where major conflict between each other is (and has been for many years) way too costly of a proposition.
2. Major nations are ALL trade partners with one or more other major nations and thus have extra incentive to prevent major wars (either involving themselves or their trading partners)
3. Everyone else realized that they can not possibly hope to fight a major nation in a traditional battle, so strategies have evolved to focus mainly on asymmetrical warfare (terrorism, ambushes, traps, general hit and run tactics, infiltration etc)
Its one thing to call terrorists cowards but, it misses the point.... any other form of warfare would be absolute suicide. You may as well wonder why they don't all stand in wide lines, several deep, and fire muskets.
War has evolved. Little had to do with nuclear weapons, they are just sort of the biggest and the baddest reason why conventional warfare was subject to deselection.
> I get really annoyed that people try to discourage hackers from their own country that might be somewhat loyal. I'd recommend encouraging > and paying them.
And I get annoyed with anyone who suggests their country is deserving of any manner of special treatment. If they insist on acting like douchebags, (and I live in the US...so thats exactly what "they" do) then I say.... treat them like douchebags.
Your country is nothing more than the most prevalent gang in the country. A few guys win a few popularity contests, then tell a bunch of people with guns how to treat everyone else. This is hardly any institution worth an iota of respect.
I don't follow why the robber should have to replace the door/lock.
If the door is locked, and he breaks it while entering, then thats his bad, and he should be made to pay. If the building code or other law has changed such that a new door is not grandfathered in and requires some specific lock, then I could see him still having to pay the whole amount.
However, what if the door has no lock, or a lock so bad that he was able to get in...without damaging the lock or door? Why should he have to pay for an upgrade?
Even stranger, why should someone have to pay damages for uncovering a security hole? If I go to your store and see no lock on the door and no visable alarm system... and i uncover that fact "Wow did you know his store has no lock on the door and no security system?"... Why on earth would that make ME liable to buy a lock for the door and/or install a security system?
I can see broken property like locks or doors. However, an entry that does no real damage, well... it may be breaking other laws but, why should he have to upgrade the security system?
Its like he noticed your house had ACME InsecureLocks and exploited the ACME InsecureLock to get in. Then told someone "hey, you know his house uses ACME InsecureLocks?"
Your house is no more or less secure than when he started. The only difference is, now people know that you bought locks that were not worth shit. How should that make him liable to buy you "TopBrand SecureLocks"? He didn't buy and install the ACME InsecureLocks, he just pointed out what everyone else could have found out if they just walked up to your front door and looked.
Kind of similar to the tests where they found human lung cancer tumors in mice given THC shrunk and were less likely to metastasize in mice given THC (thats the main psychoactive chemical in cannabis for those who don't know) than in the control group. Or the two other tests done by other labs that found the same thing for breast and prostate cancers?
I mean, yah, they inserted tumors into healthy mice. Of course they did! How else could they do a test on human cancer cells? It isn't code. Its like, when I say I drove my car here today, that obviously means at some point I purchased a car, and filled it with gas. Do I need to give you the whole history of my automobile every time I want to talk about the traffic jam this morning?
Thats a pretty solid bug right there. At least it highlights a gap in their expectations. Maybe they will refrain from doing that sort of "behind your back" upgrade again? Probably not.
When I worked at a University we had more amusing problem. We used a webmail client that had some cookie hijacking issues. Overall not a real problem, since you need to actually steal someones token before you can use it.... at least... on the surface.
The real problem came in that....well...it took any token that you gave it. So if I said my session ID was 00000001 then, it dutifully checked, saw 00000001 was unused, and let me log in on session 00000001.
Again, not a huge issue.... until someone sent out a setup CD that installed a link on everyones desktop that included a session ID in the URL.... and hilarity ensued.
There were students fighting over tokens. You could see it in the logs. User A logs in, a few mins later, on the same session, user A logs out, user B logs in. Then user B logs out, A logs in...back and forth every few minutes!
It was one of those login fights that I noticed in the logs that tipped me off to where the problem was...and I laughed....
I would agree. However, I don't agree that these topics can't be worked in, or better, tied in.
How is a social networking site different than hanging out in a bar with your friends? There are risks in both places, but there are similarieties that can be drawn between the risks. Analogy can be drawn between phishing attacks arranged through Social networking sites and ATM skimming.
How do you protect yourself? Similarities there too: Pay attention. Be skeptical. Still, it might not be enough, true in both cases.
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> Don't get me wrong, I'm all for legalisation of some drugs, but there must be some self-regulation first.
> Until we can be trusted to take care of ourselves and know our limits, I say keep them controlled.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for chicken farming, but there must be some eggs first. Until we can have eggs, I say no chickens!
Self control is learned. It can be learned many ways, but driving peoples actions under ground, making them hide, it doesn't help people learn self control. It helps them learn to be better liars and sneaks. Is that the evolutionary pressure that you want to apply to people's personalities? "become a better liar and sneak, or face punishment!"
Also, many of the problems are directly related to prohibition. Needles and ODs are mostly the result of unpredictable quality and high prices that drive people to more efficient delivery (IV, insufflation (snorting)) that have much closer tolerances. The difference between 20% pure and 30% pure isn't much when you are smoking your heroin. It could be really large as you push it directly into your vein. Talk to people in places were heroin is cheaper (like Iran) and you find much less IV, and much more smoking or oral use (which are less effective... requiring higher doses, but are safer for the same reason).
I am no advocate for heroin, just that prohibition doesn't make sense from a harm reduction standpoint AT ALL. Also... the number of cannabis users is MORE than ALL the users of all the other illicit drugs COMBINED. So really, it seems we can talk about it on its own.
-Steve
Not exactly. I agree with one of the people who replied to this... prison is to remove people from society until they are able to return. It should not be used as a punishment per se. That said... If I find your actions to be reprehensible, is it not my choice to believe so and perhaps to say so?
Sure, you may go help old ladies across the street, and give free prostate exams to people without medical insuance. However, if you also rape children, should I not be free to say "hey you know what, I am not going to support YOU in anything YOU do; because you rape children"?
I see the state as an entity that is currently engaged in oppressive activities. I am ashamed to even pay taxes, and would refuse if I didn't have people who depend on me as a husband, landlord, etc. I see no reason to support anything they do, and every reason to cheer when they fail.
If they come around, if they reform their wicked ways, I may support them again.
-Steve
Funny you would say that. I just wrote my congressman yesterday... and again today.... and next week am putting on my suit, taking the day off work, and going down to the state house to talk to my (state) congressmen at a hearing on this very issue.
I don't see what is retarded about it. It is one of my "lines in the sand". SO long as laws like this are on the books, I don't support the books. I consider them shameful. As I said to the people who run "godhatesfags" "if your god is the real god, then he is a vile creature and he can consider me the loyal opposition as he deserves no worship". I don;'t care if its my governent, or a god. If I judge the action as without merit, I don't support it. End of story.
-Steve
It makes me feel better actually. I hate to think that we have ridiculous laws that can wind a person up in prison for something as silly as growing a plant for his own use.... so its good to know that its not a total hell hole. Given that simple drug possession is one of the most common reasons for being behind bars.... this seems wholly appropriate.
Until they fix the reasons that people go there, I can't support anything that makes being in there unpleasant.
-Steve
I agree, up to a point. Yes, I knew they would be abusive. However, if everyone who knows they will be abusive just ignores them, then that gives them free reign to abuse. I would rather suffer a little abuse and sound the alarm and at least make an effort to let people know and bring about reform.
FAST LANE is a great idea... something like it should exist. The problem is the disconnect between the customers and the people who run it and are free to fee with impunity. People need to stand up to this abuse, not shrink away and allow others to be abused too.
Its like finding out someone molsted your child... do you report it to the police and try to have action taken? Or do you quietly remove your child from where the abuser can reach, and let him abuse other children?
-Steve
You know, even as I wrote that, banks did come to mind.
I love how electronic check processing has been the standard for nearly a decade now, checks from any bank in the US clear to any bank in the US instantly. However, they still put a 3 day hold on checks, and a 10 day hold on "out of state" checks! Or how some banks, just a few years back, used to process the days queued deposits first, then debits.... suddenly switched to debits before deposits.... all because the bounce fees made for essentially free profits.
-Steve
Of course, which is worst, the fed or the state? It seems to me like they each compete to see who can reach deepest into people's pockets. Take the payment I had to make today.... but lets step back a minute. I have a "fastlane pass" (speed pass in most states). They keep a credit card on file, and use that to refill my account, as I zip through tolls, which I do rather infrequently.
I hadn't used it ina few months, and took a recent trip out to western MA to visit some friends. As I go, the yellow light comes up... which it always does when the account gets low, right before automated recharge. No big deal right?
Then I get two pictures of the back of my car in the mail. They list my license plate, in text, they obviously had to look up my registration info to send this to me. With this, two $50 fines, one for each way.
So I call up, I pay the balance on the account, I find out my credit card had expired, and rather than tell me, they just waited for me to use the system again, and fined me. A fine which I could appeal by sending in my account statement (which they stopped sending me two years ago), and turn it into a smaller administrative fine.
WHat struck me is... they can look in the external registry database to get my address, but can't be bothered to check their own database and see that I am a registered user of the system! Seriously, I am expected to believe that this whole process of violations, sending in statements, and making appeals is supposed to make sense, when all it seems to really do is.... give them an excuse to charge people outrageous fees.
As much of a detractor of big business as I can be, I have never come across a company that acts with such wanton incompetence, and expects their customers to pay for their own laziness and screw ups. This should have been dealt with on my first phone call, not 3 calls (on hold for an hour each) and a written appeal later (to which they don't even send a response, they require that you call them to get the response to the appeal).
It seems to me that this sort of blatant money grabbing is endemic in the system.
-Steve
All when you could....move over and remove the threat. Its like arguing that you were being attacked and had to shoot him in the head when you had a working taser in your other hand.
-Steve
So since they put themselves in danger by some amount that YOU have arbitarily decided for them is too much, you feel justified in attacking their vehicle with an offensive energy weapon, shutting down the system, which would include power steering, traction control, and anti-lock braking, while they are moving at high speed.
You sir, are a psychopath.
-Steve
I would recommend you call your local police station and ask them whether they would like you to take up enforcing the law in your spare time, while you ride down the road. I am sure they would be happy to inform you as to their policy on vigilantism.
If you don't like it, TOUGH.
-Steve
Why don't you consider...well... letting him pass?
You do have that option you know. If you are such a fan of driving slow, then just get out of his way. Much cheaper than building a HERF gun. It lets him manage his risks, and you manage yours.
In some states, the left lane is not to be used for traveling and is a passing lane. So if you are not driving faster than the other lane and ten moving over when its clear, you can be ticketed. Frankly, I wish my state did that. Its a very sensible system.
Also, I will note, that the output of a HERF gun, depending on power, distance etc, could actually blind a person. Do you really think its safe or justified to take a chance at blinding someone because you set the power too high on your home made HERF?
Oops just doesn't seem to cut it.
-Steve
> and mushrooms and acid, which are hundreds of times more dangerous. In truth, cigarettes and alcohol are thousands of
> times more dangerous.
Actually, the dangers of mushrooms and acid are also way overblown.
Yes people freak out. Yes people have traumatic experiences that can cause PTSD.
However in terms of OD, they are quite safe. In fact, its often felt that since the major dangers are due to traumatic stress from difficult experiences, higher doses are actually safer as they cause more ego dissolution and thus provide less avenue for a person to "get themselves into trouble" (its hard to have a bad time when your ego is a puddle on the floor)
They also do not show the properties of addiction, in fact, after use, most people have little desire to use them again for a period of time. Most users of them don't seem to continue using them for long periods of time. Its one of those things a "heavy user" does a couple of times a month. (not to say there are not extreme cases, just that they are... extreme cases)
-Steve
It was probably more than that. Drug use tends to be a symptom of underlying issues more than a cause. He may have even been self-medicating for a condition that he didn't even realize that he had, and now nobody will really know. Though there have been published findings of connections betwene drug use and other mental disorders... what is cause and what is effect? There is also anecdotal evidence that some of the conditions most associated with certain drugs can actually be effectively medicated with them. Of course...if you start taking your medicine to get high, and don't see it as your medicine, that just opens the door for massive abuse as you find a reward that actually goes beyond being high... even if you don't recognize it completely.
(specifically pot has been found to be useful in both manic and depressive stages of bipolar disorder)
Of course, younger people often think that they are invincible, and without a supportive and open social context, can easily slip into rather extreme use patterns. I often think that is one of the most backwards parts of prohibition. Driving dangerous behavior out of where it can be seen and monitored and creating an atmosphere where a parent, peer, or teacher can't be understanding and say "you need to cool it a bit, your pushing it too far" because everything has to be "zero tolerance" well.... I just see it as counterproductive and better at producing good liars than responsible people.
Frankly, the whole discussion makes me think of the scene in the movie Kinsey, where the good doctor stands before his "marriage" class... full of married adults.... and tells them:
-Steve
A better question is: Is not having to choose between getting a ticket or slamming on your breaks at a newly shortened yellow light cycle and being rear-ended really that important to you?
Or how about Is it really so important to you that the city/state (and by extension, insurance companies) raise more money that you are willing to take measures that have been shown to INCREASE the number of traffic accidents? Is it really worth it to burden people with hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of tickets for maneuvers like "california stops" that have been shown to not actually impact safety?
Those seem like far better questions.
-Steve
> The worst part is, these laws cause the very problems they allegedly were written to combat. For example, "marijuana
> leads to harder drugs". Well DUH, of course it does; the same people who sell pot sell the other drugs. "Got any weed,
> man?" "No, dude, it's dry. I have lots of coke, though, good shit, too." Then there's "think of the children!" Odd how
> it's easier for a teenager to buy pot than beer or cigarettes, and easier for a teenager to get than for an adult.
Actually, thats kind of BS anyway. Most "dealers" specialize in the one or two things that they do themselves. Somewhere around 80% of "drug dealers" are just users selling to support their own habit. Many of them are a lot closer to the person who gets a few friends together to go in on getting a large quantity of something at the local wholesale club than any sort of organized business.
The simple fact is that, if you take away all the pot smokers, thats more people than ALL the other illegal drugs combined. So if there is a "gateway effect" it seems to me like its just an artifact of there being so many potheads and so much variability and that users of other drugs tend to just want to "get fucked up" and tend to be indiscriminate about what they use.
That is, people who will shoot heroin and snort coke tend to be less picky about what drugs they use than people who smoke pot. Hell, some pot smokers dont even drink much alcohol, and you need go no further than junkie author William S Borroughs' book Nake Lunch to find a description of how pot smokers look down on and disdain junkies. An attitude that I can personally say I have witnessed.
The gateway drug theory has been fairly debunked. However, it has been shown that graduates of the DARE program are more likely to use drugs as teenagers than kids who didn't go through the program.
-Steve
Excuse me, I live, and have lived, my whole life in boston.
I simply do not agree with the reasons behind starting the war. The South succeeded, we should have let them.
-Steve
I am not sure what you mean. They don't have any extradition treaty that I know of with Cuba, so technically the US doesn't HAVE to extradite him. However, if he blew up a plane, and is a terrorist, I think its a pretty hypocritical move to NOT extradite him. Then again, its a pretty hypocritical move to participate in torture prosecutions for waterboarding and then use it on someone else too. Especially hypocritical to claim to respect the law and uphold the law, and NOT fully investigate claims of illegal torture....
so, overall, nothing I wouldn't expect. Lets not forget other interesting friends of the Criminals In Action (CIA) like Danilo Blandon, the only foreign national in US history to be convicted of a drug crime and THEN be given a green card. Two years time served for shipping "millions of dollars per day" of cocaine into the country.
So... I would need to know more (like to read the articles) to support or be against extradition in any specific case, but... to harbor a criminal who was useful to the powers that be... seems about par for the course.
-Steve
Actually, armies stopped standing in lines and firing volleys long before the AK47 came around. It was rifled barrels that did that. Look to the war of northern aggression. It was a war, fought with rifles, using musket tactics. It was an absolute bloody mess.
That was about 80 years before the AK. Rifles, gattling guns, shit, tanks and trench warfare came before the AK. Look at WWI, wasn't nobody lining up in rows to fire volleys then.
-Steve
I think you give nukes too much credit here. I agree with the concept of MAD. It did "work". Though "work" kind of assumes that one side was actually planning to take the other out. Frankly, I think the USSR had enough of its own problems internally, and was never an actual threat on the scale that it was made out to be. I kind of put the whole USSR threat on par with claiming monster trucks are some new army that we need to watch out for based on watching one of their shows.
In fact, I have heard that some analysts put the effectiveness of the Reagan strategy as having hastened the fall of the USSR by all of about 2 weeks or so (which is just to say, it looked like it wasn't going to last no matter what "we" did)
The new "small conflicts" paradigm, I think, comes from a couple of things.
1. Major nations are ALL at the point where major conflict between each other is (and has been for many years) way too costly of a proposition.
2. Major nations are ALL trade partners with one or more other major nations and thus have extra incentive to prevent major wars (either involving themselves or their trading partners)
3. Everyone else realized that they can not possibly hope to fight a major nation in a traditional battle, so strategies have evolved to focus mainly on asymmetrical warfare (terrorism, ambushes, traps, general hit and run tactics, infiltration etc)
Its one thing to call terrorists cowards but, it misses the point.... any other form of warfare would be absolute suicide. You may as well wonder why they don't all stand in wide lines, several deep, and fire muskets.
War has evolved. Little had to do with nuclear weapons, they are just sort of the biggest and the baddest reason why conventional warfare was subject to deselection.
-Steve
> I get really annoyed that people try to discourage hackers from their own country that might be somewhat loyal. I'd recommend encouraging
> and paying them.
And I get annoyed with anyone who suggests their country is deserving of any manner of special treatment. If they insist on acting like douchebags, (and I live in the US...so thats exactly what "they" do) then I say.... treat them like douchebags.
Your country is nothing more than the most prevalent gang in the country. A few guys win a few popularity contests, then tell a bunch of people with guns how to treat everyone else. This is hardly any institution worth an iota of respect.
oh... case in point.
-Steve
I don't follow why the robber should have to replace the door/lock.
If the door is locked, and he breaks it while entering, then thats his bad, and he should be made to pay. If the building code or other law has changed such that a new door is not grandfathered in and requires some specific lock, then I could see him still having to pay the whole amount.
However, what if the door has no lock, or a lock so bad that he was able to get in...without damaging the lock or door?
Why should he have to pay for an upgrade?
Even stranger, why should someone have to pay damages for uncovering a security hole? If I go to your store and see no lock on the door and no visable alarm system... and i uncover that fact "Wow did you know his store has no lock on the door and no security system?"... Why on earth would that make ME liable to buy a lock for the door and/or install a security system?
I can see broken property like locks or doors. However, an entry that does no real damage, well... it may be breaking other laws but, why should he have to upgrade the security system?
-Steve
Or more to the point....
Its like he noticed your house had ACME InsecureLocks and exploited the ACME InsecureLock to get in. Then told someone "hey, you know his house uses ACME InsecureLocks?"
Your house is no more or less secure than when he started. The only difference is, now people know that you bought locks that were not worth shit. How should that make him liable to buy you "TopBrand SecureLocks"? He didn't buy and install the ACME InsecureLocks, he just pointed out what everyone else could have found out if they just walked up to your front door and looked.
-Steve
Kind of similar to the tests where they found human lung cancer tumors in mice given THC shrunk and were less likely to metastasize in mice given THC (thats the main psychoactive chemical in cannabis for those who don't know) than in the control group. Or the two other tests done by other labs that found the same thing for breast and prostate cancers?
I mean, yah, they inserted tumors into healthy mice. Of course they did! How else could they do a test on human cancer cells? It isn't code. Its like, when I say I drove my car here today, that obviously means at some point I purchased a car, and filled it with gas. Do I need to give you the whole history of my automobile every time I want to talk about the traffic jam this morning?
-Steve
Thats a pretty solid bug right there. At least it highlights a gap in their expectations. Maybe they will refrain from doing that sort of "behind your back" upgrade again? Probably not.
When I worked at a University we had more amusing problem. We used a webmail client that had some cookie hijacking issues. Overall not a real problem, since you need to actually steal someones token before you can use it.... at least... on the surface.
The real problem came in that....well...it took any token that you gave it. So if I said my session ID was 00000001 then, it dutifully checked, saw 00000001 was unused, and let me log in on session 00000001.
Again, not a huge issue.... until someone sent out a setup CD that installed a link on everyones desktop that included a session ID in the URL.... and hilarity ensued.
There were students fighting over tokens. You could see it in the logs. User A logs in, a few mins later, on the same session, user A logs out, user B logs in. Then user B logs out, A logs in...back and forth every few minutes!
It was one of those login fights that I noticed in the logs that tipped me off to where the problem was...and I laughed....
-Steve
I would agree. However, I don't agree that these topics can't be worked in, or better, tied in.
How is a social networking site different than hanging out in a bar with your friends? There are risks in both places, but there are similarieties that can be drawn between the risks. Analogy can be drawn between phishing attacks arranged through Social networking sites and ATM skimming.
How do you protect yourself? Similarities there too: Pay attention. Be skeptical. Still, it might not be enough, true in both cases.
-Steve