since they mentioned the old standby excuse of "gateway drug", but didn't really answer it very well, this is what i've always said in response -

honestly, the opposite is true. if you try pot, and you like it, you're not more likely to try every other illegal drug. you're probably less likely to.
none of the potheads i know bother with any other drugs.

why would you take a chance on far more dangerous, expensive, and addictive substances, when pot is cheap, readily available, non-addictive, and has no risk of overdose?

does enjoying coffee make anyone want to try meth, simply because they're both stimulants?

He's certainly sincere,and utterly mistaken to think such starry-eyed idealism would shift as massive and entrenched a concept as Oil a foot towards a better enviorment when there are profits to be made.

And these selfsame unnaccountable titans want to send a pipeline down the center of Middle America,corrupting Lord knows how many acres of farmland with an even dirtier type of oil. And not even to wean America off of foreign imports,but to fatten already swollen wallets by exporting it to China and other third world labour camps. The poor kid thinks his father's industrial peers have souls.

I found it amusing towards the end the moderator trying to steer him into "safer" waters and shut down his blind enthusiasm for wanting change. A surprise Enviormental Radical in their midst...

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/sustainability/2012/01/30/enbridges-northern-gateway-pipeline-joint-review-panel-explainer

People who decide these things ultimately will be able to afford a 5 dollar loaf of bread,the imported clean bottled water,the filtered air. We don't matter in the world they exist in.

Not yet.

It's a little slow, but stay with it for an interesting first hand account of a visit to an oil refinery in India, and observations of the managers and workers there. Lee also visited a nearby the pier where massive container ships dock with a manager named Jitesh.




"A few moments pass as we all stood, just watching.

Out of the silence, Jitesh says to me “Do you see what we are doing here Mr. Lee?”

I asked “What’s that, Jitesh?”

He replied, with an unexpected, sobering tone: “We are destroying future generations for now, and forever.”






Full transcript of the uninterrupted essay is here:
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/earthmatters/2012/02/20/oil-executive-sons-testimony-prince-rupert-northern-gateway-pipeline

Your point is unclear. What are we supposed to be upset about?

You believe that the reason the USA incinerates (per @BoneRemake) so many people is because of private prisons lobbying for more things to be made criminal?

Private prisons may merit a closer look, but keep in mind bad laws, badly-written laws and State-created criminals existed long before private prisons.

And we don't lock up people (or worse) for criticizing the government like China.


>> ^raverman:

@deathcow & @criticalthud : Profit engine has a lot to do with it. Private entities are like virii. They can ONLY encourage things which increase growth / profit. It's a conflict of interest to reduce crime. Companies like Serco scare the crap out of me - cos most people don't know they even exist.
http://videosift.com/video/The-Biggest-Company-You-ve-Never-Heard-Of
I'm not sure the scale argument holds up. It's just comforting to think America is big like Texas. The application of law across a 100M to 300M shouldn't someones attitude or morality when making a decision. If the pop density per Sq Mile was the issue the US has plenty of open space, and the cities are not that more populated than any other. Nor is the poorest American poorer.
I don't think it's even the volume of drugs coming over from central/south america... although the zealous enforcement of imprisonment probably doesnt help. Drugs may not be the gateway to crime - but being imprisoned certainly seems to be.
I'd side with the 'extreme liberty' argument.

@deathcow & @criticalthud : Profit engine has a lot to do with it. Private entities are like virii. They can ONLY encourage things which increase growth / profit. It's a conflict of interest to reduce crime. Companies like Serco scare the crap out of me - cos most people don't know they even exist.

http://videosift.com/video/The-Biggest-Company-You-ve-Never-Heard-Of

I'm not sure the scale argument holds up. It's just comforting to think America is big like Texas. The application of law across a 100M to 300M shouldn't someones attitude or morality when making a decision. If the pop density per Sq Mile was the issue the US has plenty of open space, and the cities are not that more populated than any other. Nor is the poorest American poorer.

I don't think it's even the volume of drugs coming over from central/south america... although the zealous enforcement of imprisonment probably doesnt help. Drugs may not be the gateway to crime - but being imprisoned certainly seems to be.

I'd side with the 'extreme liberty' argument.

The toss walled his probe in with the first gateway.. right there, it's damn near a loss.

The gist of it is the hosts we currently allow provide iframes so they can serve videos without Flash because they use HTML5 instead (except if the user's browser is incapable of using anything but Flash).

Traditionally (meaning before HTML5 became accepted enough to be a widespread alternative to Flash), hosts that required you to use an iframe were just using Flash or sometimes even JavaScript. The fact is some (or maybe most) such hosts are still using those old methods.

The bottom line is regardless of host, *any* arbitrary code could be inserted into an iframe, including ads or malicious code. It wouldn't need to be something executed by the host directly; some hackers could infiltrate their system and silently inject bad code into their iframes. This would compromise any visitor who sees such an iframe in their browser everywhere on the Web.

It's not much at all an issue of liability I'm concerned about. I just don't want to play any part in helping people get screwed by baddies.

In reply to this comment by jonny:
I don't really know of any hosts in particular, other than NPR I guess, that I'd want supported. Is the host required to have a Flash embed for it to work at all? I thought that for the few hosts you mentioned below were supported "Flash free".

I don't know the details of the security issues with iframes, but it seems that at worst VideoSift itself would be a conduit (or host) for malicious code - your own servers wouldn't be liable to attack from any embed, would they? In any case, it has to be something malicious used as an embed (knowingly or not), so at the very least, you probably want to limit iframe submission to, I don't know, silver stars and up?

In reply to this comment by lucky760:
The reason we've been so willing to accept the iframe hosts we accept now is they can readily be converted between iframe and Flash embeds given just a video ID.

We can consider accepting more iframes, maybe as part of VideoSift 5. Maybe make your recommendations there for new iframe hosts we should accept.

I, personally, am always hesitant to add iframes because they open a gateway onto videosift through which demons and goblins may spew forth.

In reply to this comment by jonny:
Is there any chance of supporting more iframe hosts in the (near) future? I heard a great story about Igudesman & Joo tonight on NPR, and found a great video of them at the NPR studios performing, but it was iframe only (akaik).

In reply to this comment by lucky760:
There are more hosts than just YouTube that you can watch without Flash. In addition to YouTube and Vimeo, we support College Humor, Funny or Die, and Daily Motion.

I don't really know of any hosts in particular, other than NPR I guess, that I'd want supported. Is the host required to have a Flash embed for it to work at all? I thought that for the few hosts you mentioned below were supported "Flash free".

I don't know the details of the security issues with iframes, but it seems that at worst VideoSift itself would be a conduit (or host) for malicious code - your own servers wouldn't be liable to attack from any embed, would they? In any case, it has to be something malicious used as an embed (knowingly or not), so at the very least, you probably want to limit iframe submission to, I don't know, silver stars and up?

In reply to this comment by lucky760:
The reason we've been so willing to accept the iframe hosts we accept now is they can readily be converted between iframe and Flash embeds given just a video ID.

We can consider accepting more iframes, maybe as part of VideoSift 5. Maybe make your recommendations there for new iframe hosts we should accept.

I, personally, am always hesitant to add iframes because they open a gateway onto videosift through which demons and goblins may spew forth.

In reply to this comment by jonny:
Is there any chance of supporting more iframe hosts in the (near) future? I heard a great story about Igudesman & Joo tonight on NPR, and found a great video of them at the NPR studios performing, but it was iframe only (akaik).

In reply to this comment by lucky760:
There are more hosts than just YouTube that you can watch without Flash. In addition to YouTube and Vimeo, we support College Humor, Funny or Die, and Daily Motion.

The reason we've been so willing to accept the iframe hosts we accept now is they can readily be converted between iframe and Flash embeds given just a video ID.

We can consider accepting more iframes, maybe as part of VideoSift 5. Maybe make your recommendations there for new iframe hosts we should accept.

I, personally, am always hesitant to add iframes because they open a gateway onto videosift through which demons and goblins may spew forth.

In reply to this comment by jonny:
Is there any chance of supporting more iframe hosts in the (near) future? I heard a great story about Igudesman & Joo tonight on NPR, and found a great video of them at the NPR studios performing, but it was iframe only (akaik).

In reply to this comment by lucky760:
There are more hosts than just YouTube that you can watch without Flash. In addition to YouTube and Vimeo, we support College Humor, Funny or Die, and Daily Motion.

I smoked pot twice and disliked it enough that I never made it a habit. Still, I think its insane that anybody should ban its medical use.

I don't believe marijuana is this miracle plant that some claim it to be, but its retarded how demonised it is. Its a drug... big fucking deal. We take drugs ALLLLLL the fucking time. Somehow we put up with antisocial alcohol that is more damaging to our short and long term health, and yet smoking this plant sends you straight to hell. I drugged up twice today too. On caffeine. And lets not forget morphine, that wonderful painkiller that oh, just by the way, is an opiate. Where was the crusade against that? NO MORPHINE FOR OUR TROOPS. ITS A GATEWAY TO CANNABIS.

Idoses, the new gateway drug!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Oh man I love the Gateway books. The Heechee ships were awesome. I may have to reread them again too. As a teenager I liked all the sex on the ships that were out of human control. I also read Wake and thought it was a pretty good take on an emergent AI rising from the Web.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

I'm re-reading Frederik Pohl's Gateway series right now because it's so hard to find good, new science fiction.
But I do recommend Robert Sawyer's new series, WWW (Wake, Watch, and Wonder are the three book titles). The heroine is a 15 year old blind girl who is the only person in the world who communicates with the newly conscious internet. (The plot doesn't sound as good as he writes it.)

I'm re-reading Frederik Pohl's Gateway series right now because it's so hard to find good, new science fiction.

But I do recommend Robert Sawyer's new series, WWW (Wake, Watch, and Wonder are the three book titles). The heroine is a 15 year old blind girl who is the only person in the world who communicates with the newly conscious internet. (The plot doesn't sound as good as he writes it.)