s_q_b

113 ms·

931.
by s_q_b 13y ago
Mine were one aye and one abstention, (the abstention from a neighboring district that isn't technically my district but was gerrymandered to run through part of my home city.)
932.
by s_q_b 13y ago
Repost from another thread on the same issue: I really do commend everyone involved in this effort. This is how the system is supposed to work, citizens making their voices know, and the legislature acting upon the will of the people. Hones
933.
by s_q_b 13y ago
I really do commend everyone involved in this effort. This is how the system is supposed to work, citizens making their voices know, and the legislature acting upon the will of the people. Honestly you guys got far closer to your goal than
934.
List of Countries by Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index(en.wikipedia.org)
2 points by s_q_b 13y ago|1 comments
935.
by s_q_b 13y ago
Instagram hasn't proven it's ability to make any money for anyone yet, and I doubt it ever will. I don't doubt that sometimes there's a greater fool you can scam into buying your money pit, and even provide return to you
936.
by s_q_b 13y ago
Businesses that don't make money will always fail. For some reason, the tech industry finds new and interesting ways to delude ourselves (and investors!) into thinking this law doesn't apply. But sooner or later, like gravity, it
937.
by s_q_b 13y ago
>This is a formidable set of potential liars, equipped with money, technical expertise, transnational reach and state power. The Japanese government is centralized, elitist, and quite capable of fudging statistics if it wants, particula
938.
by s_q_b 13y ago
Think through the problem. 1. FISA Court precedent has already created a rather broad exception to the Fourth Amendment. Even without 215 most domestic surveillance could be brought under other statutory authority. The end-run around the Fo
939.
by s_q_b 13y ago
Amending 215 isn't much good with FISA 702 collection methods still in place, so yes, this bill is useless. You need new elected representatives because thus far no representative in any election in any district has ever lost an electi
940.
by s_q_b 13y ago
Cheap entertainment, available and effective family planning, and reduction in environmental toxins (e.g. lead) would all be likely suspects to me. We looked at this once in class from a quantitative perspective, and IIRC, family planning w
941.
by s_q_b 13y ago
This isn't Watergate. There isn't widespread public outrage. If you want to change the policies, you'll need to generate or simulate that outrage first.
942.
by s_q_b 13y ago
No. I don't think it's worth trying. If this is your goal, I think there are far more effective ways to go about it. 1. First, you'll need a political organization that is single-mindedly focused on this one issue. You'l
943.
by s_q_b 13y ago
This won't work. Even if they defund the existing programs, the IC will just change the codenames and move them around between departments, as they did with TIA. The technology will live on. The only way to really end these programs wo
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A Better Secret Court(nytimes.com)
3 points by s_q_b 13y ago|0 comments
945.
by s_q_b 13y ago
While I don't share your fury on this point, I am equally confused by Congress's lack of ability to see one step ahead. Should the executive ever decide to use intelligence information for political gain, members of Congress would
946.
by s_q_b 13y ago
Not every drug causes a rebound effect. Manipulating neurotransmitters directly, our most common method of psychoactivity in mood-altering substances, almost always leads to rebound. However, there are many ways of affecting receptors furth
947.
by s_q_b 13y ago
How does one generate the negative mass necessary to warp space-time?
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by s_q_b 13y ago
It would certainly be great for innovation. For example, we already know it's possible to create benzodiazepines with similar effect profiles to alcohol, but that do interesting other things, like have a limit on intoxication that does
949.
by s_q_b 13y ago
All of that is true. Just like with sex education, we need the focus to be harm reduction, not some fantasy of total abstinence.
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by s_q_b 13y ago
The obscenity ruling was a bizarre sideways move for the Supreme Court, given their usual intense protection of the First Amendment. The "I know it when I see it" was even said almost tongue-in-cheek. > The real shame is, many
951.
by s_q_b 13y ago
I'm not sure you could regulate these drugs in the same manner as alcohol, because they really are significantly worse in terms of both biochemistry and societal harm. (As an aside, certainly alcohol causes far worse damage, but only b
952.
by s_q_b 13y ago
Quite right on MDPV. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylenedioxypyrovalerone The Miami incident was unrelated, but a casual googling will give you plenty of bath salts horror stories. In the town where I grew up, bath
953.
by s_q_b 13y ago
I do want to note that some of these drugs have dramatically worse side effects than the illegal drugs for which they substitute. MDPV, in particular, has lead to a range of terrible effects, including psychotic states leading to cannibalis
954.
by s_q_b 13y ago
Blanket prohibitions against have run up against legal infirmities. It's the reason the drug laws are drafted the way they are. A whitelist law violates the requirement that the statute must be on its face clear enough that a defendant
955.
by s_q_b 13y ago
You're moving the goal posts. "Strict scrutiny" is a specific legal standard that isn't really relevant to this discussion which implicates clearly established constitutional rights (automatically invoking a higher stand
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by s_q_b 13y ago
I'd take a job in a factory churning out iPhones in China over dying a slow and painful death from gangrene that started as an ingrown toenail. People in the first world romanticize ancient ways of life, but the reality is that life wi
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by s_q_b 13y ago
We're not nearly at that point. Don't forget, we've had what were essentially emergency fiat governments, often with pervasive surveillance, indefinite detention, suspension of freedom of speech, etc. at least twice in our hi
958.
by s_q_b 13y ago
Historically we tend to react badly in the initial phases of response to a new issue, then self-correct. What troubles me is that those mechanisms don't seem to be working this time around. But I don't believe this is the best Ame
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by s_q_b 13y ago
That's false. The Supreme Court is, and has been since 1803, the final arbiter of the constitutionality of national security programs. The Alien and Sedition Acts were never appealed to the Supreme Court because the power of judicial r
960.
by s_q_b 13y ago
The transparency argument rings hollow to me. Either you believe it's permissible for them to conduct this surveillance, or you don't. If you don't, then the solution is to stop the programs. If you do, then it helps that the

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