This woman billing herself as the "feminist that gave MRAs a fair shake" is disingenuous. Her "Red Pill" documentary was funded by some of the most vile MRAs like Paul Elam and Mike Cernovich, she portrayed them sullen figures put upon by everyone while completely ignoring things like outright advocating rape / violence against women, and immediately adopted their talking points at the end and since the documentary.

"Feminist converted by MRAs" was a marketing shtick.

I would love to be able to get medical marijuana easily in Texas. But the bill they passed in 2015 had so many restrictions it is laughable.

You can only get it if you get low-thc oil. You can only be prescribed it for epilepsy and only then if you haven't responded to federally approved treatments. Assuming you meet those guidelines, you need two different doctors that must be registered with the DPS to both agree that no other medication will help you.

Not bad enough? The state has dragged its feet on actually licensing companies to grow cannabis to make the oil, so that 2 years after the bill was signed a couple of companies are just now able to ramp up production. Then they will need time to convert the product to oil and THEN the state will take some more time to make sure the product 'meets specifications'.

This stupid thing is you can already get low-thc oil on the internet legally that is roughly the same strength. Plus it restricts the most active compound, THC, so it limits drastically who will actually gain any benefit from it.

Since I suffer from two different ailments, both which have been shown to be helped by actual cannabis instead of the oil, I am SOL. I have to take a huge dose of Cymbalta and become zombie-like for a good part of the day, or I can suffer crippling anxiety/depression/fibromyalgia pain. The other fun thing is that the Cymbalta exacerbates my IBS, the other ailment I have that cannabis has been shown to help.

I could cut out a drug with horrible side effects and take a natural drug that could help every single symptom I have, with the only side effects being paranoia and the munchies. But then the pharma company would miss out on the roughly one grand a month that my pills cost my insurance. Can't have that!

PS: That price is for generic Cymbalta now that it is available. Originally it was closer to 2k a month for name brand. Another fun side effect? Cymbalta also fucks up your sex drive, sometimes making you impotent but more frequently making it nigh impossible to orgasm. So you can get erect as a male, but good luck finishing.

Thoughts:

1) There has been a ban on sales of new, fully-automatic firearms ("machine guns") since 1986. That leaves some loopholes (can still buy them if they were manufactured before then, but that demand plus scarcity makes them expensive, etc.) but in general, there isn't a whole lot of uproar over that 20-year-old ban.

2) These bump-fire stocks don't technically convert a firearm into fully-automatic; the trigger is still being pulled 1 time for each bullet that comes out (semi-automatic).

3) However, they easily allow for rates of fire (bullets per minute/second) comparable to fully-automatic weapons. So, I think an unbiased and reasonable person would say that while a firearm equipped with one of these does not violate the letter of the ban on fully-automatic firearms, it does quite reasonably violate the spirit of that ban.

4) Doing anything to correct that discrepancy will require updated laws. Updating the law requires a legislature that generally supports the update and a president that agrees, or a legislature that overwhelmingly supports the update and can override a presidential veto.

5) None of that exists at the moment in the US. So, it is (perhaps coldly) logical to say that these bump-fire stocks will not be banned as an extension to the 1986 ban on full-auto firearms, at least not in the short term.

6) However, before quietly accepting that, it is worth noting that political fallout amongst those individuals in the legislature that refuse to consider updating the law is a very real possibility. Plenty of people, even on the right, even plenty of gun nuts, say that they are in favor of some degree of "common sense" gun control. Pointing out that bump-fire stocks essentially circumvent the already in-place ban on fully-automatic firearms seems like a good way to test that professed adherence to common sense.

7) Get that word out there, and pretty importantly, try to do it in a way that is as respectful towards the average "gun nut" as possible. Their minds can be swayed. Hunters, sportsmen, and even people that have guns for self defense can be persuaded with reason -- they can still do their thing even without bump-fire stocks, just like they can do their thing without fully-automatic firearms. Congresscritters probably can't be convinced, because they've already been bribed"persuaded" with campaign donations, NRA lobbyists, etc.


So, don't preach to the choir. Try to convince the people that do actually own guns. The good news? You've got "common sense" on your side.

Hmmmm...but it's pretty exclusively a right wing position that ANY regulation on firearms is inconceivable, and Republicans exclusively are responsible for those modifications, like bump stocks, something he used to make at least one gun rapid fire, being legal. They also allowed the assault weapons ban to expire, allowing him to legally purchase up to 40 easily converted military style rifles. In fact, they were about to make silencers much easier to get, which would have increased the mayhem by giving him longer to shoot before people realized what was happening, but held back because of the massacre.

....soooooo...you do have to defend the availability of automatic guns, because you vote for and support the people that keep them easily available and want to make it easier....assuming you aren't really Dimitri from Moscow.

Not much known about him yet, not political, not religious, just a rich retired gambler according to his family.

Oh..I disagree. He's totally metastasized and is converting other normal, healthy cells to cancerous growths. I would say the big secondary cancer in our brain is a direct result of his invasive malignant metastasis spreading his poison throughout our body.

For everyday use Fahrenheit seems pretty handy. 100 °F is dangerously hot, 0 °F is dangerously cold, you know you have to take extra care if it gets out of that range. And a body temperature of 100 °F is the start of having a fever.

The only number you need to remember is that water freezes at 32 °F. I doubt you'd ever need to know the boiling point of water to cook.

Plus the much smaller increments are nice. °C is good if you're a sciency type and need to convert from Kelvin, but otherwise I don't see many advantages.

Nope, she proves it.

"but you can easily convert it!!"

Yeah, but it's a pointless waste of time. It took 10 secs for that conversion in the video. There are 323 million people in the US. If 1% of the population did the conversion once a month, that's still over 100,000 hours wasted every year (and in the real world, the figure is likely several orders of magnitude higher).

There is no good reason whatsoever to use imperial measurements.

Thank you thank you!

It's got a cop motor, a four hundred and forty cubic inch plant. It's got cop tires, cop suspensions, cop shocks. It's a model made before catalytic converters, so it'll run good on regular gas. What do you say? Is it the new Bluesmobile or what?

Drain the swamp... I don't see any swam draining. He drained the very same Wall Street people he complained Hillary would bring in, into the White House, and other low lifes... like Bannon.

And if we get just another 10 months of turmoil depends on how we pray... of course a minor chunk of Christianity don't vote Republican, and actually vote the way Jesus would, which clearly wouldn't be for Trump or his kind... but I digress. So they are praying against Trump, but of course we know she means we need to pray for the nation, and for Trump's divine leadership from God... odd how the right is willing to say that God appoints leaders like Trump, but wouldn't say the same about Obama, who clearly was far more Christ like than Trump... Anyhow, the point I was going to get to, is odd how one has to pray to get God to act, though His will is perfect, so you can't change His mind, or His will... and why would He just sit and go... "4,998,888 more prayers to go, then I'll answer.. ohh... 4,999,884 to go! Way to go My people." That isn't compassion or anything... Either His will is perfect and His will will be done, or He's malleable, which isn't divine... or He's a fake, or at least no more real than any of the other 5,000 gods out there, and can't actually answer prayer any more than those other gods... "It takes an action of faith on our part, by praying"... bull shit, either He's going to do it or not.... because most of those kids with brain and bone cancer, Christian, with Christian families who pray all the time, as are most of the people who are dying of horrible things in this nation, but somehow His answering prayer ratio seems to be about the same as random, and the same as to any other god...

All these kind of people, and Fox News types who also brag about their faith, and how Christianity is under attack bull shit line... is why I hate Christianity and what it's become... to which Christians take great offence, "why hate me?" but I hate Christianity, not you as a person... of course they don't get that, because they identify so strongly with their faith that they take that personally as an attack against them... of course then they don't see how their anti-LGBT rantings, and the "don't hate the sinner, hate the sin" is basically the same... they can't empathize, and see how their hatred of the sin of homosexuality as they see it, is the same as my hatred of modern Christianity.

I love how the far right is far more upset at the leaks than the crime... when the DNC was having leaks, they had near zero concern about the leaks, it was the potential crimes being exposed that they were concerned with. Now that it is against Trump, suddenly the potential crime matters nothing, all that matters is leaks. Were this Clinton or Sanders, they'd be screaming from the mountain top, "the crime matters far more than the leaks! Lock her/him up!" Now they are going after leakers, who haven't exposed anything that endangers national security, just is embarrassing for our asshole in chief.

Of course the people who watch this, 700 Club, TBN, Fox, listen to right wing radio, and the like... they are still fired up, they still believe. Some of the people who voted for him who may not be in that crowd, might start having doubts, but the vast majority of his base still is in love with him, and still thinks he's God's greatest gift to this nation. They've been lied to and deceived by their churches for so long... that even if they actually do take a moment to read the Bible for themselves, they can't interpret it any other way than the way these ilk violate it's teachings, and the teachings of the Jesus they claim to follow.

As I've said before, if I were still a Christian, I'd seriously consider the modern right wing evangelical movement to be part of the anti-Christ system, as they turn more people against God than for Him, and are teaching a system opposite of what Jesus taught... Satan/the anti-Christ doesn't need to deceive the world, we are already damned to Hell, what he'd need to deceive, would be those who think they are faithful to the teachings of Jesus. Use them, not as a beacon of life and hope, but the pure bigotry and hate that modern Christianity is. To make it it unappealing... they might still get into Heaven with those who actually believe the way Jesus taught (because believing Jesus is the Christ, the son of God and all that is the only requirement in), but the Judgement Seat of Christ would find them learning how they cost millions of souls, then He'd point to the Christians on the left, and would say, they did far better, they followed my lessons... He'll look at Jim there and say, "look at the thousands of souls that you personally turned against My message, because you didn't teach the Love I commanded, you didn't teach the golden rule as I taught it, you taught a corrupted message, and now they'll burn for all eternity in Hell, because of you. I tried to reach them, but they heard your message of bigotry and hate, of love of money over helping the needy and the poor, of greed over the command to heal the sick, and turned from me.... now because you believed in Me, I have to let you in, but you'll live seeing those who turned from me as they are tormented in the back of your mind... you'll have a small home here, not the grand home that those who have taught my message properly have... to those who much was given, much was expected, and you failed. That man there, murdered 33 people, and converted before his execution, and his home will be grander than yours. Those who had much, will have little... so enter to your reward... of praising me for all I've done, 24/7 for all eternity, but as you praise, remember those who aren't here, because you poisoned the world against me." "Surely Lord there must be some who were saved, I saw them come forward." "They were already saved, or would soon be, for each one of them that actually turned to me because of you, hundreds turned away... that's not a good exchange Jim..."

VS's parser changed the link when it added a linebreak to the url.

"11e7" was converted to "11%3Cbr%20/%3E%20e7"

I've replaced it with the output of a link shortener, should work now.

ECB Research Bulletin:

In an economy with its own fiat currency, the monetary authority and the fiscal authority can ensure that public debt denominated in the national fiat currency is non-defaultable, i.e. maturing government bonds are convertible into currency at par. With this arrangement in place, fiscal policy can focus on business cycle stabilisation when monetary policy hits the lower bound constraint. However, the fiscal authorities of the euro area countries have given up the ability to issue non-defaultable debt. As a consequence, effective macroeconomic stabilisation has been difficult to achieve.

Translation:
- all members of the eurozone effectively use a foreign currency
- they can default, because they do not and cannot issue debt in their currency
- fiscal policy has thus been completely neutered

Ergo, national parliaments have a significantly smaller policy space compared to countries with their own currency. Our parliaments intentionally surrender power to unelected technocrats, even control of the national budget, which is the primary power available to any parliament anywhere.

"Sorry, lad. We cannot pay for healthcare/pension/infrastructure/education/wages/X, we have to maintain a balanced budget to appease the market." Yet it is still illegal to call for the guillotine...

Meanwhile, Japan doesn't give a fuck. The BoJ has been vacuuming up outstanding debt like there's no tomorrow. It currently holds in excess of 40% of all government debt, effectively canceling it. It's just book-keeping. The Treasury issues the debt, the CB buys the debt. Both are part of the consolidated government sector, ergo no debt. "Hyperinflation!", they scream. Can you hear them? Except Japan has been fighting deflation for two decades, with no end in sight.

Yet the inflation-hawks are still treated as persons of authority. Flat-earthers, the lot of 'em.

And my country wants the rest of Europe to sign on to the most moronic law in German history: the "Schuldenbremse", which makes running a deficit illegal at the constitutional level (except for undefined "emergencies"). They are either a) brainwashed, b) idiots, or c) straight up evil. And I'm not sure which one I prefer.

#1 bluetooth uses a slight offshoot of mpeg2 audio compression which gets worse because you are most likely recompressing something already compressed with mpeg and that makes things even worse. This is the strength of AptX, it is an audio compression designed to not get exponentially worse when dealing with mpeg compressed audio. THAT SAID! Anyone know what phone he is using? The GOLD phantom supports AptX, so if he uses a samsung/htc/lg phone he would have been using AptX.

#2 speaker construction, it is an overblown Flip3 with radiators on the side. The radiators are designed to capture the back pressure of speakers and convert it into more audible sound waves, very good at saving the low frequencies and directing them back at the listener. The problem is it is a secondary uncontrolled speaker. This means your sound balance can go out of wack. Perfect for a $79 portable speaker, not ideal for a $3000 home theater setup. Also the speaker appears to be..mono? so you need 2 of them for stereo?

Yea, sorry, you can buy speakers that are not much bigger than this, hell you can buy a SET of front facing speakers and a good sub for $3000 and do better.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/suspect-tells-police-he-killed-roommates-for-disrespecting-his-muslim-faith/2324756

Neo-nazi converts to Islam, his neo-nazi flatmates don't respect his faith, he kills them for it. And there was another flatmate who horded explosives.

Dafuq!?

*quality

I'm currently reading "Superintelligence" by Nick Bostrom and it's pretty *fear inducing.

If we ever do hit the singularity... it doesn't really matter what we do.

First up, if it's an AGI is to be any use, it needs to be at least as smart as us. Which means, by definition, it will be capable of writing its own AGI.

There are any number of nightmare scenarios where even a seemly benevolent goal might be disastrous for humanity.

"Multivac, fix the environment!"
"Ok, what's the major issue with the environment?"
/wipes out humanity

"Multivac, solve the Riemann hypothesis!"
"Ok, but I'll need a lot of processing power"
/converts entire planet to a giant cpu

Even if, by some miracle, we end up developing a benevolent AI that understands our needs and is aligned with them, (e.g. the Culture Minds), we are no longer in control.

We might be along for the ride, but we're certainly not driving.

The other thing that's interesting is a question of scale. We tend to think of intelligence in human terms, like this.

infants..... children.....mentally impaired..Sarah Palin.....normal people.....Neil deGrasse Tyson.....Feynman, Einstein, Newton, etc.

But that ignores all the lower intelligences:

bacteria...Trump......insects.....sheep.....dogs...chimps, dolphins, etc............................... dumb human..smart human.

But from a superintelligence's point of view, the scale looks more like this
bacteria.. humanity ... Tesla ................................................... ..................................................................................................
..................................................................................................
............................................................................................. AI

I think in Star Trek the physical mater is converted to energy and then sent in the beam, and reassembled into matter. So, you get pulled apart and put back together, still made of the same stuff.

That's why, even though they have subspace communications with earth, they can't transport someone that far because it's not merely data being sent.