Where I live the government just passed a new drunk-driving law. They institued the following:

The government also plans new suspensions for drivers caught with an alcohol limit between 0.05 and 0.08. Drivers caught within that range the first time would face a three-day suspension and three-day vehicle seizure, rising to a 15-day suspension and seven-day seizure on the second offence and 30-day suspension and seven-day seizure on a third offence.

Now, I think debating any drunk-driving law is like arguing against kittens, but it seems that this law makes no appeal available to the convicted. If you were caught in the past, it would be a 24hour license suspension, tow your car, and they throw you in a cab. Say you are caught on the road and your vehicle is immediatly impounded for three days. This would before your case goes to trial. If you were a commercial tradesmen you suddenly lose your job as you have no vehicle. It seems the punishment is before the court case and trial.

Also, they lowered the tolerance to .05 from .08. This is in a country where our beer is 5%.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has an answer to that, in the publication 4102.0 - Australian Social Trends, Dec 2009. For a population of 21.9 million, we have 129 per 100,000 in prison, the 12th highest prison rate out of 30 OECD countries, which I calculate to be about 28,000 people in prison in 2008. The article actually mentions the U.S., and compares the two countries.

Speaking of impounded cars, in general if you are over the limit for drink driving here your car is left parked at the check point and you have to arrange a sober driver to pick it up, or in minor cases you pick it up yourself the next day once you're sober. Having never done this, I'm not sure about the exact details...
>> ^longde:

Some people just won't get it until it's their child under a police baton.
How many people in Australia are in jail or prison? [...] And then the impounded vehicles provide a profit. After fines are paid to the city along, with 30 days in storage fees, a vehicle typically produces $2,000 in revenue, sometimes more if it is not claimed and then auctioned.

[...]

Haha exactly, no one wants a cop around until they need one.>> ^probie:

Why do I get the feeling this is the same type of asshole who sues the police department for not being on his doorstep in 15 seconds when he really needs them?

Do you mean driving unlicensed or that they just don't have their license on them. If it's the former then good. If they're driving without a license they shouldn't be on the road.
>> ^longde:

Some people just won't get it until it's their child under a police baton.
How many people in Australia are in jail or prison? In the US, we lock up more people than any other nation, including China. So when even the smallest, harmless seeming provocation can land you in jail, you learn to be wary of police overtures.
It's not a question of if, American police have indeed abused such checkpoints. They routinely arrest people for non DUI offenses, because the stop gets their foot in the door, so to speak. They can drum up probable cause, search the vehicle, and even impound it. In fact, in many checkpoints the people arrested or fined for non-DUI offenses dwarf the actual DUI offenses.
Here's a recent example of the revenue motive in checkpoint abuse in california:
The revenue comes in two ways. First, $30 million in federal funds pays for police overtime and operating costs at checkpoints like these. And then the impounded vehicles provide a profit. After fines are paid to the city along, with 30 days in storage fees, a vehicle typically produces $2,000 in revenue, sometimes more if it is not claimed and then auctioned.
........
An analysis of records obtained by the Investigative Reporting Program shows that, last year, impounds brought in over $40 million in revenue, shared by tow operators and municipal governments.
And documents reveal that, for every one DUI arrest at these sobriety checkpoints, there can be as many as 60 people cited for driving without a license, 60 vehicles seized.

I'm glad you Aussies don't have this problem.>> ^liverpoolfc:
Some people just won't get it until it's their child under the back wheel of a drunks car.
What's interesting about this conversation and random breath testing is that there is no argument in Australia against it, it's a non-issue. Aside from drink-drivers themselves you'd struggle to find anyone here that thinks random breath testing is a bad idea or that you should be allowed to refuse to take a breath test.
We accept that we have rights as well as responsibilites to other road users, the police are there to ensure we follow those rights and responsibilities and protect the rights and responsibilites of others. Appears to be a big culture difference between the way law enforcement is perceived here and in America.>> ^EMPIRE:
this guy is a fucking tool. And those cops were nothing but professional and corteous. In fact, if all the cops always acted like these did, they would just make morons like this guy look even worse.
They were just trying to keep the road clean of drunk drivers. As a living human being who walks around a city, and also drives, and as a husband of another living human being who does the same thing, and the father of an infant living human being who get driven and walked around the city, the least I expect from the police is to try and control if there aren't any worthless piece of shit drunk drivers on the roads endangering my family, myself, and my fellow citizens.
Yes, there's a lot of cases of cops abusing their power, but one can't simply think that all cops are in it to fuck people over and abuse power.

Some people just won't get it until it's their child under a police baton.

How many people in Australia are in jail or prison? In the US, we lock up more people than any other nation, including China. So when even the smallest, harmless seeming provocation can land you in jail, you learn to be wary of police overtures.

It's not a question of if, American police have indeed abused such checkpoints. They routinely arrest people for non DUI offenses, because the stop gets their foot in the door, so to speak. They can drum up probable cause, search the vehicle, and even impound it. In fact, in many checkpoints the people arrested or fined for non-DUI offenses dwarf the actual DUI offenses.

Here's a recent example of the revenue motive in checkpoint abuse in california:

The revenue comes in two ways. First, $30 million in federal funds pays for police overtime and operating costs at checkpoints like these. And then the impounded vehicles provide a profit. After fines are paid to the city along, with 30 days in storage fees, a vehicle typically produces $2,000 in revenue, sometimes more if it is not claimed and then auctioned.
........
An analysis of records obtained by the Investigative Reporting Program shows that, last year, impounds brought in over $40 million in revenue, shared by tow operators and municipal governments.

And documents reveal that, for every one DUI arrest at these sobriety checkpoints, there can be as many as 60 people cited for driving without a license, 60 vehicles seized.

I'm glad you Aussies don't have this problem.>> ^liverpoolfc:

Some people just won't get it until it's their child under the back wheel of a drunks car.
What's interesting about this conversation and random breath testing is that there is no argument in Australia against it, it's a non-issue. Aside from drink-drivers themselves you'd struggle to find anyone here that thinks random breath testing is a bad idea or that you should be allowed to refuse to take a breath test.
We accept that we have rights as well as responsibilites to other road users, the police are there to ensure we follow those rights and responsibilities and protect the rights and responsibilites of others. Appears to be a big culture difference between the way law enforcement is perceived here and in America.>> ^EMPIRE:
this guy is a fucking tool. And those cops were nothing but professional and corteous. In fact, if all the cops always acted like these did, they would just make morons like this guy look even worse.
They were just trying to keep the road clean of drunk drivers. As a living human being who walks around a city, and also drives, and as a husband of another living human being who does the same thing, and the father of an infant living human being who get driven and walked around the city, the least I expect from the police is to try and control if there aren't any worthless piece of shit drunk drivers on the roads endangering my family, myself, and my fellow citizens.
Yes, there's a lot of cases of cops abusing their power, but one can't simply think that all cops are in it to fuck people over and abuse power.

I know this is long, so please bear with me. Before I get to my suggestions, though, let me begin with a couple of caveats so you don't tune out everything else if your initial reaction is negative. First, with one notable exception, this suggestion doesn't remove any functionality that you want to keep. And two, the ideas are intended to simplify the conceptual framework of some of the existing functionality, and hopefully the interface as a result.

Conceptually, all of the video listing pages (Front, Unsifted, Beggar's Canyon, Hot, Dead Pool, etc.) are nothing more than searches with different parameters of all of the videos available here. From that perspective, the Unsifted Tab is a search for all videos with fewer than 10 votes submitted (or resubmitted via promote, etc.) within the last 2 days. I don't see any reason why I shouldn't be able to search for all similar videos submitted within the last 5 days, for instance. Or 30 days. Ultimately, the Unsifted tab can be analogous to the Sifted Tab, with no restriction on submission date at all.

The first consequence of this (the notable exception mentioned above) is that the allowed rate of video submission has to be redefined in terms of number of videos over time, as opposed to number of videos simultaneously in the queue. With a little forethought and experimentation, it should not be hard to reproduce a very similar rate of submission to what we currently have. It might not be possible to exactly match the current rate, but we should be able to get pretty close.

Another immediate consequence is that PQueues are obsolete. The exact same functionality would be served by the Unsifted queue itself. Beggar's Canyon still makes sense, but I think a more effective approach would be to allow any member to requeue an unsifted video (resetting the submit date, but not for the purposes of dupes), requiring a power point and a submit slot. The latter is also simpler and more direct than Beggar's Canyon, which requires the viewer to go to a different page of videos.

The 'promote' and 'quality' invocations should function exactly as before, putting a video in the promotion box and/or pushing it to the front of the queue. (Side note: the practice of promoting one's own videos (and I do it myself) goes against one of the fundamental principles of VideoSift. I've never understood why this was started. I'd like to see this ability removed, but if it does stay it would work similarly, requiring 2 power points, but not a submission slot). Also, the 'dead' invocation would make sense and work on unsifted videos (though, if you wanted, you could still restrict that, possibly just discarding dead unsifted videos).

Perhaps most importantly, this conception of the video listing pages opens up any number of other possible pre-defined searches (similar to any other listing, like Top or Hot). "Almost There" could show all Unsifted videos with 9 votes. "Bottom of the Barrel" could show all videos with 0 or less votes. Whatever searches are most likely to direct users to the videos they are most interested in. You could even let members save their own predefined searches as a menu option.

An analogous conceptual framework can also apply to the other fundamental VideoSift activity - Community. Commenting on videos or profiles, sift and channel talk posts, the lounge, blogs, badges/awards, etc., can all be thought of as different 'searches' through the community space, at least from a navigational point of view. Taken as a whole, this conceptual framework suggests a natural layout of the interface menus:

Video

Sifted, Unsifted, Hot, Top, Recommended, Random, Dead(, Beggar's Canyon)

Sift Talk, Top Discussions, Recent Comments, My Comments, Members, Blogs, Lounge

FAQ, Rules/Guidelines, How-Tos

Profile, Prefs/Profile Settings, Facebook, Google+, Logout

yes, the system is broken and needs fixing, but...

citizens united was the logical outcome of michael moore's (inc) release of the anti-bush film "farenheit 9/11" in an election year, and its rushed dvd and tv releases within 30 days of the 2004 election

how could the fec state that it wasn't a form of corporate political advertising? how could they then turn around in 2008 and block the release of citizens united's film "hillary: the movie" prior to the election?

this scotus decision leaves me worried... but i'm also flabbergasted that "the left" didn't rail against moore's blatant "corporate advertising" in an election year, yet now their feathers are all ruffled

Indeed, but cleaver all the same.
>> ^G-bar:

fake.

You have 30 days to give me my 3 mins back. *cue dramatic music*

>> ^ReverendTed:

I could only identify a fraction...Green Mile. Indiana Jones. Mission Impossible. True Grit. Eternal Sunshine. The Birds. Kick Ass. War of the Worlds. Carrie. Tron Legacy. I Robot. Dark City. Apocalypto. Plus Kill Bill and Rocky, I think.


... And Psycho, don't forget Psycho. Also 30 Days of Night.

@Crosswords
i am beginning to feel the stirrings of a man-crush on you.

look.
when it comes to money and economics schiff has made some great points and in 2004 was almost prophetic but when it comes to politics schiff appears to be a fish out of water and came to OWS with a self-righteous pre-conception and was rightly shown the error in his ways.

the argument about disbanding the EPA,the FDA or the DOE is a conflation.
we can argue the effeciency vs results but that is an entirely separate argument and has little to do with their actually designed roles and the necessity of those departments.

i do not understand those who keep touting the virtue of an un-regulated and "free" market.
unless you feel that indentured servitude,child labor and unsafe products that may harm or kill are perfectly acceptable.
it not only ignores history but conveniently ignores that uneven disparity that would be inevitable.
you think there is inequality now?
let a true free market become the mantra of pure capitalism and see what happens.
dont have resources and were not born in to an affluent family?
well go fuck yourself and make me a sandwich.

the game is rigged.
the system is fixed.
a CEO defrauds billions and walks away with 160 million in bonuses.
a man steals a pack of underwear and spends 30 days in jail,gets charged for the food and board and owes 500 hours of community service and a years probation at a 100 bucks a month.

all men are created equal under the eyes of the law?
i call bullshit.

Im spent...

FYI for those who don't want to accept that clause in the TOS, http://www.gamersoptout.com/ offers a letter that you can have sent on your behalf that will allow you to opt out of that agreement if you choose to later sue EA for the spyware installation. The letter has to be sent within 30 days of you accepting the TOS and it has to be sent in writing.

I hope that this little piece of info changes your mind.

Susan Lindauer:
...
I got indicted for protesting the War in Iraq. My crime was delivering a warm-hearted letter to my second cousin White House Chief of Staff, Andy Card, which correctly outlined the consequences of War. Suspiciously, I had been one of the very few Assets covering the Iraqi Embassy at the United Nations for seven years. Thus, I was personally acquainted with the truth about Pre-War Intelligence, which differs remarkably from the story invented by GOP leaders on Capitol Hill.

More dangerously still, my team gave advance warnings about the 9/11 attack and solicited Iraq’s cooperation after 9/11. In August 2001, at the urging of my CIA handler, I phoned Attorney General John Ashcroft’s private staff and the Office of Counter-Terrorism to ask for an “emergency broadcast alert” across all federal agencies, seeking any fragment of intelligence on airplane hijackings. My warning cited the World Trade Center as the identified target. Highly credible independent sources have confirmed that in August, 2001 I described the strike on the World Trade Center as “imminent,” with the potential for “mass casualties, possibly using a miniature thermonuclear device.”

Thanks to the Patriot Act, Americans have zero knowledge of those truths, though the 9/11 Community has zoomed close for years. Republican leaders invoked the Patriot Act to take me down 30 days after I approached the offices of Senator John McCain and Trent Lott, requesting to testify about Iraq’s cooperation with the 9/11 investigation and a comprehensive peace framework that would have achieved every U.S. and British objective without firing a shot. Ironically, because of the Patriot Act, my conversations with Senator Trent Lott’s staff got captured on wire taps, proving my story.

You see, contrary to rhetoric on Capitol Hill, the Patriot Act is first and foremost a weapon to bludgeon whistleblowers and political dissidents. Indeed, it has been singularly crafted for that purpose.

The American people are not nearly as frightened as they should be. Many Americans expect the Patriot Act to limit its surveillance to overseas communications. Yet while I was under indictment, Maryland State Police invoked the Patriot Act to wire tap activists tied to the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, an environmental group dedicated to wind power, solar energy and recycling. The DC Anti-War Network was targeted as a “white supremacist group.” Amnesty International and anti-death penalty activists got targeted for alleged “civil rights violations.”
...
I cannot forget. I cannot forget how I was subjected to secret charges, secret evidence and secret grand jury testimony that denied my right to face my accusers or their accusations in open court, throughout five years of indictment. I cannot forget my imprisonment on a Texas military base for a year without a trial or evidentiary hearing.

I cannot forget how the FBI, the US Attorneys Office, the Bureau of Prisons and the main Justice office in Washington — independently and collectively verified my story— then falsified testimony to Chief Justice Michael Mukasey, denying our 9/11 warnings and my long-time status as a U.S. intelligence Asset, though my witnesses had aggressively confronted them. Apparently the Patriot Act allows the Justice Department to withhold corroborating evidence and testimony from the Court, if it is deemed “classified.”

I cannot forget threats of forcible drugging and indefinite detention up to 10 years, until I could be “cured” of believing what everybody wanted to deny— because it was damn inconvenient to politicians in Washington anxious to hold onto power.
...

>> ^spoco2:

>> ^rychan:
I only have to run my sprinkler system about three months a year.

Holy frack! You have to use sprinklers on your lawn for a QUARTER OF THE YEAR and you think that's fine?
Do you people in the states have any concept of low impact? It truly is stunning... I mean, we here in Australia are pretty damn f cked up too, but we're trying...
What about fricken rainwater tanks? All new houses built in Australia require them now... and guess what? They give you heaps of water for watering any lawn you may want or your veggie patch or your fruit trees, or your small wheat crop.


Geesh, calm down. We actually have a shared rainwater tank here -- the groundwater that I already mentioned.

I calculated the electrical cost of running my sprinklers, and it came to 5 or 6 dollars a month. So yes, there's some carbon impact.

When I say 3 months a year, I don't mean 3 months of continuous operation, you realize? It's 2 and half hours every morning. In the Fall and Spring the grass doesn't need watering, and in the Winter it's under snow.

Anyway, if you want to yell at me for not being low impact, do so because I live 20 miles from work. I don't want to, but I don't have a choice.

Actually, I'm curious about your electrical consumption since you're shaming me for mine. I live in a state with one of the lowest per-capita carbon emission rates. I have aggressively programmed electronic thermostats and compact fluorescent lights. I run my air conditioner only about 30 days out of the year. I wonder if you're not actually living a higher impact lifestyle by trying to live in an arid area?

>> ^TheGenk:

Good for them that it helped them, but they should not stay on a 100% raw food diet for long amounts of time. The weight loss they all experienced is due to the fact that a huge amount of raw food would be needed to satisfy their daily calorie needs, so the body uses it's fat reserves.
As for the insulin requirements, the tend to get less with decreased body mass, so nothing special here.
Sadly, they never mention the risks to your health of this kind of diet.
Don't get me wrong, I got nothing against raw food, I got something against going to extremes with it(and other things) and claiming only benefits when there are severe risks involved too.
Cooking unlocks lots of nutrients, therefore providing more energy as the same amount of uncooked food.
I remember a BBC documentary were they tried raw food diets and they stopped the experiments due to severe health problems of the participants. They concluded that the human digestive system needs processed/cooked food in order to get enough energy for your body. (BBC documentaries are no scientific studies, but they are the closest thing to em you can get on television )


Yes I think common sense is a good idea when it comes to food, if a food is more nutritious when cooked, then eat the cooked version. There are many chemicals in raw food that inhibit absorption (phytates, chelating agents to name a couple), so cooking is certainly not always bad, as it can make nutrients more bioavailable.

The most important thing is just to make sure that the food you eat is nutrient dense, so fruit and vegetables should make up a large proportion of the diet, because they are the best nutrient dense foods available for our bodies.

@DrewNumberTwo:

She's not making it up. She's just not citing sources.

Five minutes of internet searching found me this:

"ACUTE TOXICITY

Chlorpropham is moderately toxic by ingestion (2). It may cause irritation of the eyes or skin (2). Symptoms of poisoning in laboratory animals have included listlessness, incoordination, nose bleeds, protruding eyes, bloody tears, difficulty in breathing, prostration, inability to urinate, high fevers, and death. Autopsies of animals have shown inflammation of the stomach and intestinal lining, congestion of the brain, lungs and other organs, and degenerative changes in the kidneys and liver (2)"

Breakdown of Chemical in Soil and Groundwater

Chlorpropham has some potential to contaminate groundwater because it is highly soluble in water and it has only a moderate tendency to adsorb to soil particles (3, 5). Chlorpropham adsorbs strongly to organic matter, so it is unlikely to leach through soils high in organic matter. Chlorpropham does not readily adsorb to montmorillonite or kaolinite clays (4).
Chlorpropham is subject to degradation by soil microbes. Photodegradation and volatilization do not readily occur. Increasing temperatures above 35 degrees C and increasing soil moisture capacity may increase volatilization (4). Soil half-lives from 35 days (3) to 65 days at 15 degrees C or 30 days at 29 degrees C (4) have been reported. Degradation rates are affected by microbial activity and soil moisture levels (4)."


/Pesticide Management Education Program.