You can (which is distinct from saying "I recommend") drink small amounts of elemental mercury. Its high surface tension tends to cause it to just pass right through the digestive tract.
Inhaling mercury fumes however, tends to get it into the blood stream. Bad if you happen to be a hatter who works with it every day.
Fish on the other hand doesn't contain much elemental mercury. Mostly because nobody hires them to make hats, and the lack of mercury fumes under water. However, methyl mercury is a compound that happens to be absorbed more readily by us dirty bags of mostly water (and the fish).
Methyl Mercury also doesn't leave the body (human or fish) as easily as it enters, so it tends to build up and "stick around".
Eating a fish with some methyl mercury isn't so bad, its making it a staple of your diet that turns it into a problem.
So essentially, comparing one form of mercury to another isn't really very relevant. You may as well be comparing ricin and sucrose to determine the toxicity of carbon.
I dunno about anyone else but this really feels like some major "Mission Creep" by those creeps in Washington.
Seems to me the real problem here is that nothing labeled "Security" ever gets ratcheted down. Every time there is a new security alert, new problem to look for, it becomes the mission, here on forever. We decide "Drugs are bad mmm'kay", so we start looking for them, and finding them...and looking some more.
Then finding drugs becomes all the justification we need to spend more and look harder.
Never is the question asked "Is this worth it?" "Is this still an effective use of our resources?" (was it ever?)
Such is the problem of being ruled by people who never have to actually pay for anything themselves. All they need to do is justify this years budget, and print as much money as they need to cover it.
I am still waiting for a single shred of evidence that there is a real danger here that needs government intervention. Still waiting to hear why we need to spend so much money on this sort of research.
Years and years of safe air travel go by, then with one incident, we feel the need to throw the baby out with the bathwater and revamp the whole system. The lack of attacks, which is errily similar to the lack of attacks before the one incident, is then justification that the system is working.
Its a wonder the system hasn't already fallen apart under its own weight with that sort of circular reasoning ruling the day.
Or we could save energy AND money on enforcement by letting a few morons serve as an example to others: "Look before you walk out into the traffic lane". All these bumps and enforcement etc, all to exempt people from having to pay attention to the world around them... seriously.
You have something in common with many lawmakers today; you are completely missing the point behind this law. The obvious reason for not allowing evidence found illegally is that it is not trustworthy; if someone is willing to break the law to find evidence, how do you know that they are not willing to break the law to plant evidence?
Actually, there is another issue. Allowing this also allows vigilantism.
Lets say I believe firmly that you produce meth in your bathroom. I go and tell the police and they say they will look into it, find nothing and give up. SO what can I do?
Well if I can break the law to expose you, then all I need to do is break into your house, take some pictures, and voila. This is more to deter both citizens from going vigilante and trampling on peoples rights, and to stop the police from doing it.
Well, I guess the real issue there is, I don't have much respect for the law, or the people who make it.
Nearly every incident where my life and the law have intersected has been one which has lead me to believe that the laws are arbitrary and frequently more the result of laziness.
The problem with your logic is, its circular. Yes, I can deal with surprizes better at a lower speed than a higher one. SO I should slow down... no matter what speed I am at. The logical conclusion is, I shouldn't move at all.
At some point you have to make a decision about what speed you can go, for the situation you are in. I feel more comfortable making that call based on the physical conditions on the ground, instead of the numbers arbitrarily written on a sign. That just makes more sense to me.
In fact, in my experience, the law sets speed limits based on concepts like "thickly settled districts" which takes into account only the number of houses in the surrounding area and not....actual visibility. So they set the limit low enough to be safe in all situations, which is far too low for most situations.
This can be evidenced by the fact that most drivers, most of the time, "speed" in these areas, without any incident. Its fine to talk about reaction times and lines of sight etc. However, at some point you have to determine an acceptable level of risk.
The problem is that the people whose job it was to do that decided that it was too much work, but since they get to shift the cost of poor imilementation on to us, and actually increase their own revenue stream in doing so, well, theres hardly any incentive to put in the effort.
That is why I disrespect the law so. My government has never once, in my entire life, shown that it really deserved that much respect. Fear, maybe. Disdain, definitely. Cooperation, sometimes. Respect? No way.
The laws are made by the lazy and corrupt, why should I particularly feel bound by them? I am embarrassed enough to see the things that my compulsory taxation supports. If it wasn't for programs like social security and welfare, I would probably be looking for ways to drive all my income off the books. At least they provide some benefit.
> agree, but neither is that an excuse to for instance break speed limits where they exist for the > purpose of safety e.g. 30 mph in residential zones, particularly near schools.
30 in a school zone! How I wish the law made that much sense! Its 20 here.
Even so, it may be no reason to break the law. However, whats the reason to follow it? Unless there is a cop watching, there is just no reason to follow a stupid law. I don't really buy into the whole "Its the law I should follow it". If the law is right, I follow it because its right. If the law is dumb, I follow it when there are consequences for not following it.
Essentially, I treat it the way it deserves to be treated.
> That's the big problem really isn't it? People are capable of driving well to get their licence, but > once they've got it, very few people bother any more.
Assuming your definition of "driving good" is obeying all the laws, then that makes sense. My problem is less with other drivers, and more with the laws.
I do think the laws would be better if we abandoned this idea of using the law as a revenue source. Police departments are a loss, and are supposed to run at a loss. Structuring the laws such that the majority of the people break them so that all a police department or town needs to do is step up enforcement to help smooth over budget shortfalls simply amounts to a backdoor tax on the people.... and is a form of corruption.
The majority of drivers drive in the manner that they are comfortable with, and driving is an acceptably safe activity in the eyes of the majority of people. I have to side with the social norms on this one, and NOT the law.
I will grant that obeying the law and changing it are different things, however, so is law and social convention. Currently the social convention, at least where I live, is to be driving at an average speed of about 10-15 MPH above the posted speed limit whenever conditions allow. In fact, the social convention is also to tailgate like a motherfucker at all speeds. I would say the average driver here leave himself no more than 1-2 seconds bewteen himself and the next car, even at 80+.
In fact, even at 2 seconds of space, you are likely to have someone change lanes in between you.
These are the social conventions. The law in the situation is laughable. When I took drivers ed, I got on the highway. I hit 55, and my instructor (an ex cop; and just before they raised it to 65) said "I know the speed limit is 55, but you want to stay with your traffic, just keep it under 70, severity of injuries goes up above 70".
Admittedly this is also the instructor who told the whole class "I am not going to tell you what to do, but I would never voluntarily take a breathalizer test. A police offecers job is to gather evidence against me, why would I ever help him do that?"
I think your idea that my idea was that driving faster prevents accidents is moronic. Do you read? Its true, that excessively slow drivers are one of my pet peeves. As are people who yeild from the middle of a rotary. You know that if someone stops in the middle of a rotary (in MA), and waves you on, and you go... you can be ticketed for failing to yield! Happened to a good friend of mine. He even tried to fight it arguing that the man stopped and waved him on, he lost. I actually stopped at the yeild sign and pointed and yelled at a guy yesterday "You have right of way... go!" (as 4 cars blew right by to take advantage of him).
Seems to be a lot of very vociferous agreement these days. What I said, in a slightly different way, was that paying attention and driving according to the conditions around you (which does include driving faster sometimes) is what prevents accidents.
Call it SIPDE (as I like to since its what I learned and found ueful) or "Driving with purpose" the idea is the same. Thats why the last two are DE, Decide and Execute. Not Decide and re-evaluate. Once you commit you have to commit.
Again, going back to MSF training, its not that hitting the breaks is often the worst move, or often a bad move. However, its a common and natural knee-jerk reaction, and knee-jerk reactions are not always good in driving. Or as they say in Motorcycle Safety courses, "Learning to do unnatural things can safe your life". Hell, on a bike, hitting the breaks too hard will put you on the pavement pretty fast.
But yes, I have seen a lot of problems around people pulling out. Most people don't know how to merge. There is a nice intersection where two roads come together in medford, where rt 38 and 28 meet. If you take a moment to turn your head... you can see if there are cars on the other road. Often I see people slow to 5-10 mph when they could plow through at full speed if they had just taken the time to look. Or worst, come to a full stop for one car when all they had to do was adjust their timing slightly to merge behind.
Honestly, I think most people just don't pay attention.
The real question, who pays less attention? The drivers or the legislators who seem quite content to rubber stamp Insurance companies desire to be able to surcharge people for offenses like "failing to keep the registration in the car" (as MA does).
Actually, I was taught the rule is "the speed which is safe and appropriate for the given conditions". Talk about vague. On many roads, thats easily upwards of 90 on a clear day without lots of traffic. Of course, good luck convincing the jack booted thug with the ticket pad of that.
BTW did you know here in MA not having the registration paper on you is not only a ticketable offence, but your insurance company gets to surcharge you for it, and it counts towards the insurance company's driver retraining program?
Its entirely possible to have to go to driver retraining in this state without commiting a single real safety violation. All you need to do is not renew a registration on time, or leave the registration on your desk... you get 5 incidents in so many years, and then you have to pay the program 100 and 8 hours of your life.
I get to go to driver retraining next week.... I had 1 minor fender bender (3 mph rear end in heavy traffic) which counted for 2 violations (because the other driver was a prick and wouldn't even talk to me without calling the police and insisting they ticket me for following too close). The other 3 were all paperwork issues.
Proving once again... safety is job #3, right behind collecting fines and giving handouts to the insurance lobby.
If your plan is to have them carry you into (and presumably out of, and onto the next) battle, then you may find yourself quickly wishing that your mount could be refitted with spare parts in a timely manner.
At least, I would think so. Would a biological agent that only say... killed horses but left humans alone, be a banned weapon? I would think that protecting the animals would be a bigger problem than dealing with machinery.
No. Absentmindedness is a problem at any speed, but adding speeding to the situation makes things worse. Remember that there are more things that can cause accidents than other traffic and the faster you go, the less control you have and the less time you have to react.
Why did you say no, and then restate what I said? Did you not understand that thats exactly what SIPDE means? It means don't be absentminded, and it provides a framework for retaining mindfulness. Anything that accomplishes this, does the job.
What annoys me is people who just drive the speed limit like it makes them paragons of moral virtue and absolves them from having to pay attention to whats going on around them. But hey, maybe you have never heard someone exclaim how proud she was that she caused a 2 mile backup by slowing down and staying right next to a truck, just to "punish" some guy who was tailgating her. She seemed unphased when I pointed out how she endangered everyone on the road by causing an unsafe road condition, and truckers especially hate when you do that to them.
Clearly the safest thing for her to do FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED was to pass the truck. However, because she was a rotting cunt who cared more about punishing a tailgater than the safety of other drivers, she chose not to do that.
He's not the cause of the flow restriction; the people speeding are. You're acting as if mob rule should govern the roads. That doesn't work in the rest of society, so why should apply there?
Well, its a public place where everyone has to interact. So if I go to the movie theater opening night, and walk right past the line and cut in front right at the window... am I just "not giving in to the pressures of mob rule" when I ignore the people yelling at me to get in line?
People drive how they feel safe driving. I am advocating that speed limits be set based on the reality of the situation, and not some arbitrary numbers set for political and economic reasons as much as anywhere else.
Why is it that states that allow cities to partol their sections of the highway and keep money from tickets have a strong tendancy to lower speed limits in the sections controlled by the city. Why is it also that states which don't allow cities to keep the revenue from tickets, well, don't do that?
As someone who has done a fair amount of driving, I don't think "not speeding" is your best protection. In fact, the best is moving with the flow of traffic. If traffic is going 85, and you are doing 65, guess what? You are now a rolling road block, and causing an unsafe situation as all the rest of the traffic has to adjust to you.
Your best protection is to practice what the MSF calls SIPDE. And I do mean practice, its really about a state of mental awareness more than anything. SIPDE btw stands for "Scan Identify Predict Decide Execute"
Scan to see whats going on all around you. In front, way up ahead, to the sides, to the back.
Predict... what are they going to do? What is the situation going to look like 1,2,3,5,6 seconds from now?
Decide... Should I maintain course and speed? Get over to avoid a dangerous situation?
Execute... There are few things more dangerous than second guessing your moves. Once you have decided on a course of action, you do it. Your situation is changing moment to moment, a decision made 3 seconds ago may not be valid now. Decide based on whats about to happen then act before it happens.
People like to blame speeding or all manner of things. Speed differences are not what causes accidents. Its what causes situations that are likely to cause accidents. Any time you bunch cars together you decrease reaction time windows, and you decrease paths to safety (outs). What really causes accidents is failure of scanning, identification, prediction, decision, and execution.
The guy absentmindedly going down the road at the speed limit is just as much part of causing these situations as the people absentmindedly going as fast as they can. The problem isn't the speed per se, its the combo of speed, lack of options, and lack of paying attention where it matters.
The only difference is, the arbitrary "speed limit" is "the law" so only the person going over it (which is usually the majority of people on the road) who gets blamed. The guy going the speed limit causising a flow restriction for everyone else never gets stopped, he is totally unaware of the fact that he is causing a dangerous situation by not flowing with the traffic.
Though speed limits are set as much by the desire of the state to bring in money from tickets as anything else. They regularly set it lower than the average person feels safe traveling on a road, just so they can send their tax collectors er I mean the States Finest out to collect their taxes er I mean, punish the dangerous criminals who are speeding.
Old? man, I am only 30, and only been riding on and off for 10 years.
This guy had a few years on me, but 40k is old? Sure cuz most people don't ride. Hell, I have been guilty of it some years. Though my first bike only had about 2k original miles on it, and was 13 years old when I bought it. I put about 8k more on it in that first year (before I totaled it several states from home).
Of course, riding gets uncomfortable pretty quick even on the coziest of rides. Unless you are used to it, I mean packing on 200 miles in a day can leave you pretty sore. I remember trying to eat spaghetti after my first 400+ mile ride, and finding my hands shook, and fingers felt fatigued trying to twirl my fork.
I am an on and off motorcycle rider. One day at the shop, I saw an OLD BMW motorcycle that looked well, vintage. It had no shine, it was matte, it looked like it had been riding forever. An old man tapped me on the shoulder, and informed me that my inspection needed to be renewed, so I took care of that.
Later I saw the same bike at the motorcycle gear/coffee shop thats a bit out of town. I had stopped for a coffee before my ride for the day and I heard a couple of older men talking.... "You need a new transmission" "I do not. That transmission is fine, why would I want a new one that might not be good. This one has 650,000 miles on it. Every 200,000 there is a bearing that dissintigrates and I have to replace. That is a good transmission."
650,000 miles on one bike and still riding. Not THAT is a quality vehicle. I mean, I am sure he must take care of it, but damn.
The article is misleading, or is the FCC mislead? I agree that they should not have this power, I hope that they don't, but I wouldn't put it past a government agency of any sort to claim it has more authority than it really does. These people are scope creep aficionados... how else do you make sure your budget justifications never show shrinkage?
If you are running an illegal transmitter, they can track you down and arrest you? Are you sure they can't enter a home with "probable cause"? And, would not a triangulated signal, currently still being transmitted (the potential crime is in progress!) inside the house be that probable cause?
Again, I don't think so, and I could make a case for why not, but... its been said that its very difficult for people to understand things that are at odds with their salary. (Kind of like why I don't try to explain to the RMV that driver retraining isn't needed for a person for whome 3 of their 5 offences were, essentially, paperwork errors.... forgot to renew a registration twice, and license once. Much less when the other 2 offenses were the same event)
All in all, I hope you are right that its the article not the FCC that have it wrong. Else we are going to have to put our faith in the courts, and thats a scary thought.
Yah, but the US bases only use the Wishy-washy tortures like stress positions (which, according to Army Lawyers quoted in the report on torture is probably a violation of the UCMJ and possibly torture)
I wanna see these guys put into iron maidens, and their balls shocked with electricity until they turn black and fall off. Slowly cut after cut administered to their skin.... oh yah take that spammers!
I was reading, a while back, that they wanted to extend "Hate Crime" status to crimes against homeless people. It was an interesting article because it talked about why prosecutors wanted to see this.
Apparently they don't just put people in jail for "one thing". If you assault someone normally, there are other things involved, robbery, breaking and entering, etc. In many crimes, they can stack a number of charges on someone. Violent crimes against the homeless often don't have any other crimes to stack. So there was an incident of a couple of guys gratuitously beating a homeless man within an inch of his life, they served a mere few months in prison.
Of course... it leaves me asking.... why not just recognize the damage as what makes the crime so bad? Beating the piss out of someone is a serious crime. Just like in this case, this is a serious damage.
Breaking in, not so serious. Stealing some data, could be a problem. Acutal destruction however seems to be severely undervalued from a criminal standpoint.
Sell drugs, go away for 5-10 years. Beat a man nearly to death, and long past the point he was defenseless... you will be home by christmass....
Is it really any wonder people have so little real respect for the law?
Actually, I am not so sure of the real value of these cameras. I mean, yes, in many circumstances they are helpful, but in all?
Sure the craigslist killer may have been harder to catch, but men like him have been caught without any use of CCTV cameras before. Had he not been caught yet, some more lives may be lost or damaged, However, we are talking about overall policy of society... a single incident of a single "bad guy" does not a case for public policy make.
With the advent of a DHS, with the successes, its not hard to see how creeping centralization can happen. I know that some police departments are often given direct access to private security cameras in many buildings, and particularly of the outward facing cameras that overlook city squares etc.
It may be hard to centralize them now, but technology only makes it easier.
Then look at the CORI system here in MA. A recent study found many accesses that were probably unauthorized. As far as they can tell, a significant portion of local police will think nothing of using the system to look up famous people's information. Of course, thats only been identified by looking for searches on famous names. An ex-girlfriend, Wife's new boyfriend, etc, there is no telling.
Tehcnology gives new abilities. However, when you build infrastructure that has the potential for abuse, you have to build in proper checks and balances, or trust not just its designers, but the operators of the system, now...and into the future.
the new Big brother will not run on a platform. He is quite happy to "creep on in" on the backs of otherwise good intentions. Like the recent no fly list issue. A plane that merely flew threw US airspace was detained and a reporter questioned... because someone put him on the secret no fly list, and somehow the US government got ahold of the passenger manifest. Was he put on the list as a mistake? Or was he put on because someone didn't like what he had to say and wanted to harass him? Where are the checks and balances?
So "Nonreligious" is the 3rd largest group. Hindu come in as 4th and then it drops off from there. If Judaism is a major religion, then so is sikhism. Even Chineese traditional and Buddhism each on their own blow the jews out of the water in terms of numbers.
Unless they start finding a few more lost tribes, I think the jews are pretty far out of the running for major world religions.
Though I have to wonder how that pie chart looks when you break it down by denomination. There sure are a lot of catholics but... its quite an odd list that lumps catholics, baptists, seventh day adventists, and mormons onto the same list. Ditto for Suni and Shia.
Of course, comming back to the discussion, I know plenty of jews who have seen the light and eat pork of all kinds.
> If swine flu doesn't do it, maybe quoting the Bible will drive down the price of babyback ribs...
You know, just yesterday I was contemplating how we could fund so many things if the government was just willing to tax churches. I mean, they have a sunday show, and even daily shows every day, and nobody even so much as makes them get an entertainment license!
However now, now I see some social good from churches... we need to encourage them, because the price of thick sliced bacon could stand to come down... keep the ribs... I want some pork tenderloin.
Yah, like fingers. Sure, it may not slit your throat, but they can still crush a windpipe or pop out an eyeball.... not to mentuion that the appendages they attach to are quite adequet for turning and breaking most any of the joints in other bodies.
And of course... if you can get flour into the air, it can ignite as a fuel/air explosive and blow a plane out of the sky as effectively as semtex (though, gram for gram, the semtex probably wins)
So a couple of people with little sacks of flour in the carry-on and one dude with a match.....
Go ahead, outlaw flour on planes now. Will we start training dogs to sniff for it? buy some expensive new module for the puffer machine? Start swabbing people for flour? Think its hard to get a pack of matches on board?
Seriously.... this security theater is ridiculous. The market for blowing planes out of the sky is severely limited. Its a real bombers market now. All these planes flying every day, and just, nobody out there even trying. Even less that prove to be the least bit competent at it.
I would bet as many plans have failed of this type and just not "gone off" at all than actually worked. Furthermore, I think if every single one succeeded, we still wouldn't have enough incidents to warrent the first bit of the security measures that they have implimented.
Have to be some sort of special brand of cowards to institute all this security over one or two crazies. It makes about as much sense as installing metal detectors and a full time gaurd at the door of an office building because in the 100 years since the building was erected, 1 guy went crazy and shot the place up.
Or the Navy yard here, they have a contract security gaurd there who pulls out a mirror to look under every car that tries to enter.... determined to catch any bomber too lazy to rig a bomb up so it can't be seen with a cursory look from a rent-a-cop with a mirror. Apparently, bombers are too lazy to fill up trunks, or smear grease and dirt all over the outside of their bombs.
Seriously.... how many people rig bombs under cars with flashing lights and big yellow hazard stripes with the word "BOMB" on them? Because, thats all I see these jokers catching. Oh.... but that contractor security gaurd, I am sure he would like to thank you all for your tax dollars, provided to him by the US Navy. (actually, he is a nice guy, but its still ridiculous that they even have him there)
Slashdot Mirror
Apples, meet oranges.
You can (which is distinct from saying "I recommend") drink small amounts of elemental mercury. Its high surface tension tends to cause it to just pass right through the digestive tract.
Inhaling mercury fumes however, tends to get it into the blood stream. Bad if you happen to be a hatter who works with it every day.
Fish on the other hand doesn't contain much elemental mercury. Mostly because nobody hires them to make hats, and the lack of mercury fumes under water. However, methyl mercury is a compound that happens to be absorbed more readily by us dirty bags of mostly water (and the fish).
Methyl Mercury also doesn't leave the body (human or fish) as easily as it enters, so it tends to build up and "stick around".
Eating a fish with some methyl mercury isn't so bad, its making it a staple of your diet that turns it into a problem.
So essentially, comparing one form of mercury to another isn't really very relevant. You may as well be comparing ricin and sucrose to determine the toxicity of carbon.
-Steve
I dunno about anyone else but this really feels like some major "Mission Creep" by those creeps in Washington.
Seems to me the real problem here is that nothing labeled "Security" ever gets ratcheted down. Every time there is a new security alert, new problem to look for, it becomes the mission, here on forever. We decide "Drugs are bad mmm'kay", so we start looking for them, and finding them...and looking some more.
Then finding drugs becomes all the justification we need to spend more and look harder.
Never is the question asked "Is this worth it?" "Is this still an effective use of our resources?" (was it ever?)
Such is the problem of being ruled by people who never have to actually pay for anything themselves. All they need to do is justify this years budget, and print as much money as they need to cover it.
I am still waiting for a single shred of evidence that there is a real danger here that needs government intervention. Still waiting to hear why we need to spend so much money on this sort of research.
Years and years of safe air travel go by, then with one incident, we feel the need to throw the baby out with the bathwater and revamp the whole system. The lack of attacks, which is errily similar to the lack of attacks before the one incident, is then justification that the system is working.
Its a wonder the system hasn't already fallen apart under its own weight with that sort of circular reasoning ruling the day.
-Steve
Or we could save energy AND money on enforcement by letting a few morons serve as an example to others: "Look before you walk out into the traffic lane". All these bumps and enforcement etc, all to exempt people from having to pay attention to the world around them... seriously.
-Steve
Actually, there is another issue. Allowing this also allows vigilantism.
Lets say I believe firmly that you produce meth in your bathroom. I go and tell the police and they say they will look into it, find nothing and give up. SO what can I do?
Well if I can break the law to expose you, then all I need to do is break into your house, take some pictures, and voila. This is more to deter both citizens from going vigilante and trampling on peoples rights, and to stop the police from doing it.
-Steve
Well, I guess the real issue there is, I don't have much respect for the law, or the people who make it.
Nearly every incident where my life and the law have intersected has been one which has lead me to believe that the laws are arbitrary and frequently more the result of laziness.
The problem with your logic is, its circular. Yes, I can deal with surprizes better at a lower speed than a higher one. SO I should slow down... no matter what speed I am at. The logical conclusion is, I shouldn't move at all.
At some point you have to make a decision about what speed you can go, for the situation you are in. I feel more comfortable making that call based on the physical conditions on the ground, instead of the numbers arbitrarily written on a sign. That just makes more sense to me.
In fact, in my experience, the law sets speed limits based on concepts like "thickly settled districts" which takes into account only the number of houses in the surrounding area and not....actual visibility.
So they set the limit low enough to be safe in all situations, which is far too low for most situations.
This can be evidenced by the fact that most drivers, most of the time, "speed" in these areas, without any incident. Its fine to talk about reaction times and lines of sight etc. However, at some point you have to determine an acceptable level of risk.
The problem is that the people whose job it was to do that decided that it was too much work, but since they get to shift the cost of poor imilementation on to us, and actually increase their own revenue stream in doing so, well, theres hardly any incentive to put in the effort.
That is why I disrespect the law so. My government has never once, in my entire life, shown that it really deserved that much respect. Fear, maybe. Disdain, definitely. Cooperation, sometimes. Respect? No way.
The laws are made by the lazy and corrupt, why should I particularly feel bound by them? I am embarrassed enough to see the things that my compulsory taxation supports. If it wasn't for programs like social security and welfare, I would probably be looking for ways to drive all my income off the books. At least they provide some benefit.
-Steve
-Steve
> agree, but neither is that an excuse to for instance break speed limits where they exist for the
> purpose of safety e.g. 30 mph in residential zones, particularly near schools.
30 in a school zone! How I wish the law made that much sense! Its 20 here.
Even so, it may be no reason to break the law. However, whats the reason to follow it? Unless there is a cop watching, there is just no reason to follow a stupid law. I don't really buy into the whole "Its the law I should follow it". If the law is right, I follow it because its right. If the law is dumb, I follow it when there are consequences for not following it.
Essentially, I treat it the way it deserves to be treated.
-Steve
> That's the big problem really isn't it? People are capable of driving well to get their licence, but
> once they've got it, very few people bother any more.
Assuming your definition of "driving good" is obeying all the laws, then that makes sense. My problem is less with other drivers, and more with the laws.
I do think the laws would be better if we abandoned this idea of using the law as a revenue source. Police departments are a loss, and are supposed to run at a loss. Structuring the laws such that the majority of the people break them so that all a police department or town needs to do is step up enforcement to help smooth over budget shortfalls simply amounts to a backdoor tax on the people.... and is a form of corruption.
The majority of drivers drive in the manner that they are comfortable with, and driving is an acceptably safe activity in the eyes of the majority of people. I have to side with the social norms on this one, and NOT the law.
-Steve
I will grant that obeying the law and changing it are different things, however, so is law and social convention. Currently the social convention, at least where I live, is to be driving at an average speed of about 10-15 MPH above the posted speed limit whenever conditions allow. In fact, the social convention is also to tailgate like a motherfucker at all speeds. I would say the average driver here leave himself no more than 1-2 seconds bewteen himself and the next car, even at 80+.
In fact, even at 2 seconds of space, you are likely to have someone change lanes in between you.
These are the social conventions. The law in the situation is laughable. When I took drivers ed, I got on the highway. I hit 55, and my instructor (an ex cop; and just before they raised it to 65) said "I know the speed limit is 55, but you want to stay with your traffic, just keep it under 70, severity of injuries goes up above 70".
Admittedly this is also the instructor who told the whole class "I am not going to tell you what to do, but I would never voluntarily take a breathalizer test. A police offecers job is to gather evidence against me, why would I ever help him do that?"
-Steve
I think your idea that my idea was that driving faster prevents accidents is moronic. Do you read? Its true, that excessively slow drivers are one of my pet peeves. As are people who yeild from the middle of a rotary. You know that if someone stops in the middle of a rotary (in MA), and waves you on, and you go... you can be ticketed for failing to yield! Happened to a good friend of mine. He even tried to fight it arguing that the man stopped and waved him on, he lost. I actually stopped at the yeild sign and pointed and yelled at a guy yesterday "You have right of way... go!" (as 4 cars blew right by to take advantage of him).
Seems to be a lot of very vociferous agreement these days. What I said, in a slightly different way, was that paying attention and driving according to the conditions around you (which does include driving faster sometimes) is what prevents accidents.
Call it SIPDE (as I like to since its what I learned and found ueful) or "Driving with purpose" the idea is the same. Thats why the last two are DE, Decide and Execute. Not Decide and re-evaluate. Once you commit you have to commit.
Again, going back to MSF training, its not that hitting the breaks is often the worst move, or often a bad move. However, its a common and natural knee-jerk reaction, and knee-jerk reactions are not always good in driving. Or as they say in Motorcycle Safety courses, "Learning to do unnatural things can safe your life". Hell, on a bike, hitting the breaks too hard will put you on the pavement pretty fast.
But yes, I have seen a lot of problems around people pulling out. Most people don't know how to merge. There is a nice intersection where two roads come together in medford, where rt 38 and 28 meet. If you take a moment to turn your head... you can see if there are cars on the other road. Often I see people slow to 5-10 mph when they could plow through at full speed if they had just taken the time to look. Or worst, come to a full stop for one car when all they had to do was adjust their timing slightly to merge behind.
Honestly, I think most people just don't pay attention.
The real question, who pays less attention? The drivers or the legislators who seem quite content to rubber stamp Insurance companies desire to be able to surcharge people for offenses like "failing to keep the registration in the car" (as MA does).
-Steve
Actually, I was taught the rule is "the speed which is safe and appropriate for the given conditions". Talk about vague. On many roads, thats easily upwards of 90 on a clear day without lots of traffic. Of course, good luck convincing the jack booted thug with the ticket pad of that.
BTW did you know here in MA not having the registration paper on you is not only a ticketable offence, but your insurance company gets to surcharge you for it, and it counts towards the insurance company's driver retraining program?
Its entirely possible to have to go to driver retraining in this state without commiting a single real safety violation. All you need to do is not renew a registration on time, or leave the registration on your desk... you get 5 incidents in so many years, and then you have to pay the program 100 and 8 hours of your life.
I get to go to driver retraining next week.... I had 1 minor fender bender (3 mph rear end in heavy traffic) which counted for 2 violations (because the other driver was a prick and wouldn't even talk to me without calling the police and insisting they ticket me for following too close). The other 3 were all paperwork issues.
Proving once again... safety is job #3, right behind collecting fines and giving handouts to the insurance lobby.
-Steve
If your plan is to have them carry you into (and presumably out of, and onto the next) battle, then you may find yourself quickly wishing that your mount could be refitted with spare parts in a timely manner.
At least, I would think so. Would a biological agent that only say... killed horses but left humans alone, be a banned weapon? I would think that protecting the animals would be a bigger problem than dealing with machinery.
-Steve
Thats simpler? So you scanned... saw and identified a left turner... predicted he might swing to wide, decided what to do... and executed it.
Sounds like you did exactly what I (and the MSF, I can't really take credit) suggested.
There is nothing magic about SIPDE, it is nothing more than an easy to remember description of what an aware driver does.
-Steve
No. Absentmindedness is a problem at any speed, but adding speeding to the situation makes things worse. Remember that there are more things that can cause accidents than other traffic and the faster you go, the less control you have and the less time you have to react.
Why did you say no, and then restate what I said? Did you not understand that thats exactly what SIPDE means? It means don't be absentminded, and it provides a framework for retaining mindfulness. Anything that accomplishes this, does the job.
What annoys me is people who just drive the speed limit like it makes them paragons of moral virtue and absolves them from having to pay attention to whats going on around them. But hey, maybe you have never heard someone exclaim how proud she was that she caused a 2 mile backup by slowing down and staying right next to a truck, just to "punish" some guy who was tailgating her. She seemed unphased when I pointed out how she endangered everyone on the road by causing an unsafe road condition, and truckers especially hate when you do that to them.
Clearly the safest thing for her to do FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED was to pass the truck. However, because she was a rotting cunt who cared more about punishing a tailgater than the safety of other drivers, she chose not to do that.
Well, its a public place where everyone has to interact. So if I go to the movie theater opening night, and walk right past the line and cut in front right at the window... am I just "not giving in to the pressures of mob rule" when I ignore the people yelling at me to get in line?
People drive how they feel safe driving. I am advocating that speed limits be set based on the reality of the situation, and not some arbitrary numbers set for political and economic reasons as much as anywhere else.
Why is it that states that allow cities to partol their sections of the highway and keep money from tickets have a strong tendancy to lower speed limits in the sections controlled by the city. Why is it also that states which don't allow cities to keep the revenue from tickets, well, don't do that?
-Steve
As someone who has done a fair amount of driving, I don't think "not speeding" is your best protection. In fact, the best is moving with the flow of traffic. If traffic is going 85, and you are doing 65, guess what? You are now a rolling road block, and causing an unsafe situation as all the rest of the traffic has to adjust to you.
Your best protection is to practice what the MSF calls SIPDE. And I do mean practice, its really about a state of mental awareness more than anything. SIPDE btw stands for "Scan Identify Predict Decide Execute"
Scan to see whats going on all around you. In front, way up ahead, to the sides, to the back.
Predict... what are they going to do? What is the situation going to look like 1,2,3,5,6 seconds from now?
Decide... Should I maintain course and speed? Get over to avoid a dangerous situation?
Execute... There are few things more dangerous than second guessing your moves. Once you have decided on a course of action, you do it. Your situation is changing moment to moment, a decision made 3 seconds ago may not be valid now. Decide based on whats about to happen then act before it happens.
People like to blame speeding or all manner of things. Speed differences are not what causes accidents. Its what causes situations that are likely to cause accidents. Any time you bunch cars together you decrease reaction time windows, and you decrease paths to safety (outs). What really causes accidents is failure of scanning, identification, prediction, decision, and execution.
The guy absentmindedly going down the road at the speed limit is just as much part of causing these situations as the people absentmindedly going as fast as they can. The problem isn't the speed per se, its the combo of speed, lack of options, and lack of paying attention where it matters.
The only difference is, the arbitrary "speed limit" is "the law" so only the person going over it (which is usually the majority of people on the road) who gets blamed. The guy going the speed limit causising a flow restriction for everyone else never gets stopped, he is totally unaware of the fact that he is causing a dangerous situation by not flowing with the traffic.
Though speed limits are set as much by the desire of the state to bring in money from tickets as anything else. They regularly set it lower than the average person feels safe traveling on a road, just so they can send their tax collectors er I mean the States Finest out to collect their taxes er I mean, punish the dangerous criminals who are speeding.
-Steve
Old? man, I am only 30, and only been riding on and off for 10 years.
This guy had a few years on me, but 40k is old? Sure cuz most people don't ride. Hell, I have been guilty of it some years. Though my first bike only had about 2k original miles on it, and was 13 years old when I bought it. I put about 8k more on it in that first year (before I totaled it several states from home).
Of course, riding gets uncomfortable pretty quick even on the coziest of rides. Unless you are used to it, I mean packing on 200 miles in a day can leave you pretty sore. I remember trying to eat spaghetti after my first 400+ mile ride, and finding my hands shook, and fingers felt fatigued trying to twirl my fork.
-Steve
I am an on and off motorcycle rider. One day at the shop, I saw an OLD BMW motorcycle that looked well, vintage. It had no shine, it was matte, it looked like it had been riding forever. An old man tapped me on the shoulder, and informed me that my inspection needed to be renewed, so I took care of that.
Later I saw the same bike at the motorcycle gear/coffee shop thats a bit out of town. I had stopped for a coffee before my ride for the day and I heard a couple of older men talking....
"You need a new transmission"
"I do not. That transmission is fine, why would I want a new one that might not be good. This one has 650,000 miles on it. Every 200,000 there is a bearing that dissintigrates and I have to replace. That is a good transmission."
650,000 miles on one bike and still riding. Not THAT is a quality vehicle. I mean, I am sure he must take care of it, but damn.
-Steve
The article is misleading, or is the FCC mislead? I agree that they should not have this power, I hope that they don't, but I wouldn't put it past a government agency of any sort to claim it has more authority than it really does. These people are scope creep aficionados... how else do you make sure your budget justifications never show shrinkage?
If you are running an illegal transmitter, they can track you down and arrest you? Are you sure they can't enter a home with "probable cause"? And, would not a triangulated signal, currently still being transmitted (the potential crime is in progress!) inside the house be that probable cause?
Again, I don't think so, and I could make a case for why not, but... its been said that its very difficult for people to understand things that are at odds with their salary. (Kind of like why I don't try to explain to the RMV that driver retraining isn't needed for a person for whome 3 of their 5 offences were, essentially, paperwork errors.... forgot to renew a registration twice, and license once. Much less when the other 2 offenses were the same event)
All in all, I hope you are right that its the article not the FCC that have it wrong. Else we are going to have to put our faith in the courts, and thats a scary thought.
-Steve
Yah, but the US bases only use the Wishy-washy tortures like stress positions (which, according to Army Lawyers quoted in the report on torture is probably a violation of the UCMJ and possibly torture)
I wanna see these guys put into iron maidens, and their balls shocked with electricity until they turn black and fall off. Slowly cut after cut administered to their skin.... oh yah take that spammers!
-Steve
The responsible part of me wants to say this isn't an appropriate use of the military.
The email user in me wants to make sure this "black op" sends them some place where torture is legal.
-Steve
I was reading, a while back, that they wanted to extend "Hate Crime" status to crimes against homeless people. It was an interesting article because it talked about why prosecutors wanted to see this.
Apparently they don't just put people in jail for "one thing". If you assault someone normally, there are other things involved, robbery, breaking and entering, etc. In many crimes, they can stack a number of charges on someone. Violent crimes against the homeless often don't have any other crimes to stack. So there was an incident of a couple of guys gratuitously beating a homeless man within an inch of his life, they served a mere few months in prison.
Of course... it leaves me asking.... why not just recognize the damage as what makes the crime so bad? Beating the piss out of someone is a serious crime. Just like in this case, this is a serious damage.
Breaking in, not so serious. Stealing some data, could be a problem. Acutal destruction however seems to be severely undervalued from a criminal standpoint.
Sell drugs, go away for 5-10 years. Beat a man nearly to death, and long past the point he was defenseless... you will be home by christmass....
Is it really any wonder people have so little real respect for the law?
-Steve
Actually, I am not so sure of the real value of these cameras. I mean, yes, in many circumstances they are helpful, but in all?
Sure the craigslist killer may have been harder to catch, but men like him have been caught without any use of CCTV cameras before. Had he not been caught yet, some more lives may be lost or damaged, However, we are talking about overall policy of society... a single incident of a single "bad guy" does not a case for public policy make.
With the advent of a DHS, with the successes, its not hard to see how creeping centralization can happen. I know that some police departments are often given direct access to private security cameras in many buildings, and particularly of the outward facing cameras that overlook city squares etc.
It may be hard to centralize them now, but technology only makes it easier.
Then look at the CORI system here in MA. A recent study found many accesses that were probably unauthorized. As far as they can tell, a significant portion of local police will think nothing of using the system to look up famous people's information. Of course, thats only been identified by looking for searches on famous names. An ex-girlfriend, Wife's new boyfriend, etc, there is no telling.
Tehcnology gives new abilities. However, when you build infrastructure that has the potential for abuse, you have to build in proper checks and balances, or trust not just its designers, but the operators of the system, now...and into the future.
the new Big brother will not run on a platform. He is quite happy to "creep on in" on the backs of otherwise good intentions. Like the recent no fly list issue. A plane that merely flew threw US airspace was detained and a reporter questioned... because someone put him on the secret no fly list, and somehow the US government got ahold of the passenger manifest. Was he put on the list as a mistake? Or was he put on because someone didn't like what he had to say and wanted to harass him? Where are the checks and balances?
-Steve
> Mexicans (and humans in general) aren't kosher meat either, so we also should not be naming it the Mexican
> flu...
The long pork isn't kosher? Is it halal?
> Member of the 7 Digit UID Club
really? SO I take it that the membership rules are not that strict, or is it the 7 and up club?
Can a five digiter join?
-Steve
Definitely true:
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html
So "Nonreligious" is the 3rd largest group. Hindu come in as 4th and then it drops off from there. If Judaism is a major religion, then so is sikhism. Even Chineese traditional and Buddhism each on their own blow the jews out of the water in terms of numbers.
Unless they start finding a few more lost tribes, I think the jews are pretty far out of the running for major world religions.
Though I have to wonder how that pie chart looks when you break it down by denomination. There sure are a lot of catholics but... its quite an odd list that lumps catholics, baptists, seventh day adventists, and mormons onto the same list. Ditto for Suni and Shia.
Of course, comming back to the discussion, I know plenty of jews who have seen the light and eat pork of all kinds.
-Steve
> If swine flu doesn't do it, maybe quoting the Bible will drive down the price of babyback ribs...
You know, just yesterday I was contemplating how we could fund so many things if the government was just willing to tax churches. I mean, they have a sunday show, and even daily shows every day, and nobody even so much as makes them get an entertainment license!
However now, now I see some social good from churches... we need to encourage them, because the price of thick sliced bacon could stand to come down... keep the ribs... I want some pork tenderloin.
-Steve
Yah, like fingers. Sure, it may not slit your throat, but they can still crush a windpipe or pop out an eyeball.... not to mentuion that the appendages they attach to are quite adequet for turning and breaking most any of the joints in other bodies.
And of course... if you can get flour into the air, it can ignite as a fuel/air explosive and blow a plane out of the sky as effectively as semtex (though, gram for gram, the semtex probably wins)
So a couple of people with little sacks of flour in the carry-on and one dude with a match.....
Go ahead, outlaw flour on planes now. Will we start training dogs to sniff for it? buy some expensive new module for the puffer machine? Start swabbing people for flour? Think its hard to get a pack of matches on board?
Seriously.... this security theater is ridiculous. The market for blowing planes out of the sky is severely limited. Its a real bombers market now. All these planes flying every day, and just, nobody out there even trying. Even less that prove to be the least bit competent at it.
I would bet as many plans have failed of this type and just not "gone off" at all than actually worked. Furthermore, I think if every single one succeeded, we still wouldn't have enough incidents to warrent the first bit of the security measures that they have implimented.
Have to be some sort of special brand of cowards to institute all this security over one or two crazies. It makes about as much sense as installing metal detectors and a full time gaurd at the door of an office building because in the 100 years since the building was erected, 1 guy went crazy and shot the place up.
Or the Navy yard here, they have a contract security gaurd there who pulls out a mirror to look under every car that tries to enter.... determined to catch any bomber too lazy to rig a bomb up so it can't be seen with a cursory look from a rent-a-cop with a mirror. Apparently, bombers are too lazy to fill up trunks, or smear grease and dirt all over the outside of their bombs.
Seriously.... how many people rig bombs under cars with flashing lights and big yellow hazard stripes with the word "BOMB" on them? Because, thats all I see these jokers catching. Oh.... but that contractor security gaurd, I am sure he would like to thank you all for your tax dollars, provided to him by the US Navy. (actually, he is a nice guy, but its still ridiculous that they even have him there)
-Steve