Once again, your main argument seems to be "shit works okay, why should we bother trying to do better?" I cannot accept such a lazy attitude towards suffering that you and I help perpetrate. Yes, there is a lot less suffering, but when that is tied more to technology and healthcare and less to the actual way of life that we lead (amusing how somehow our fancy modern lives are incredibly stressful for anybody in the lower and lower-middle class; and even MORE stressful for those in the countries from whom we source our cheap goods and services), and not to actively reducing abuse against our fellow men, we're being complicit in the abuses.

You have to do more than just hope it'll fix itself. That has never done anything for us.

Although, on the other hand, with humans being how they are, YOU don't have to do anything. When you have seen enough information/had enough experiences to realize the injustice of our system for yourself, you won't really have a choice in the matter, because you will want of your own accord to see a better world. Just maybe try to take a closer look at things, you know?

Also, thanks for having a civil conversation about it despite our disagreements (and I apologize if I've been a bit over-the-top with my dickishness anywhere along the way so far). I think that so long as everyone in a discussion is willing to really listen to the points another is trying to make, we can all learn something (though I'm sure you and I have both heard variations of each others' arguments before, we've not seen it played out in quite this way, surely).

There's standard key-chain defense dongles (several variations) that are perfect for shattering safety glass...Some pistol-grips have em as well-

It's like Taco Bell yellowc, whenever the introduce some new glop it's simply another variation of of the same 7 ingredients they have on hand in some new shape or wad.

In America it's ASL, or American Sign Language. Even from different parts of the states, or within each community they can have lots of variation. (Was with a ASL interpreter for years and oldest daughter was hearing impaired.)

So it's quite possible he's signing a different dialect, so to speak. But the issue is even the South African's were complaining . . .

But yeah, there will be a lot of cross over in signs that have actual meanings, but for the most part, he was signing gibberish.

(Fun trivia, the monkey's from Penguins of Madagascar actually sign real ASL.)

...NERDS!...
(as though I'm not right there with them)

One thing I noticed is that although they have full-on suits of stormtrooper armor (probably a lot of 501st members), several mandalorian variations, jedi robes, etc. they seem to have only one black stratocaster guitar with a white pickguard (and one flying V that I think was just a superimposed image). 'Cmon guys, give Fett an SG or something; maybe a nice Les Paul for Obi-Wan.

Hard G is so much better! I love you English, for your variation, and hate you for it at the same time.

Yeah he shot him, good call. Great survival instinct. Smarter hu-man than tase-boy. Tase-boy survives, does some time, maybe he'll become someone who learned a valuable lesson. You don't fuck with some folks and expect not to get fucked back.

Yeah man, I was seeing Clockwork Orange scenarios for this place as soon as I was old enough to decipher the dissemination of misinformation. It's been here in ghettos and suburbs for quite some time prior to Burgess' 62 novel and has manifest throughout history as simply variations of a running theme...

Listenable, but ever the played format lacking both creativity or room for expansion.

Variation on the redundant thematic backdrop of a musical bastard-child about to never become an adult.

Problem is this...

Every drug, used IN MODERATION so as to not be harmful, is [by definition] harmless.

You can't answer a "more/less harmful" question in absolute terms, because individual usage patterns will determine the specific 'harm/danger' posed by each substance.

There is no "standard dosage and regiment + standard metabolism + standard body weight" that you can use to compare substances.
You can pick such numbers, but you'd be pulling them out of your butt.

It's obvious she's giving the stock answer that aligns with her agency's official stance. But even if she were to give a "scientific" response, it would not be black and white.

The answer would be "it depends".
"How much Heroine? How much Coke? How regularly used? etc".

This isn't TV. Just like IRL car crashes rarely result in explosions, IRL drug use rarely results in tragedy.

The simplest example is prescription pain killers. Literally variations on heroine. People are given them for broken ribs, etc. They take them for a while, and then they're done. No harm done.
They could have taken heroine in stead, in the same effective dosage and frequency, and had literally the same experience.

-scheherazade

Not a zurna, it's a gajda - bulgarian bagpipe. And horo means "dance". The dance is a (fast) ruchenitsa. There are many variations.

It's weird i find it annoying that almost every single move in his routine involves passing the hackey sack under his leg or foot. After 90 seconds I was wanting to see something other than variations on the Jester.. just juggle the damn hacky sack for a second, because watching this makes my knees hurt.

@ChaosEngine, I don't think you can assert that it's a "fact that history has shown us that people, when left to their own devices, are absolute assholes to their fellow man." People are generally good, I find.

And what problems exactly would you like to see libertarians actually address that they haven't already? And statism is the "dominant" model because it derives its powers by force. It wouldn't be dominant if it didn't force itself on the people.

I think Alan Moore has a decent take on this, too. From his wikipage: "I believe that all other political states are in fact variations or outgrowths of a basic state of anarchy; after all, when you mention the idea of anarchy to most people they will tell you what a bad idea it is because the biggest gang would just take over. Which is pretty much how I see contemporary society. We live in a badly developed anarchist situation in which the biggest gang has taken over and have declared that it is not an anarchist situation – that it is a capitalist or a communist situation. But I tend to think that anarchy is the most natural form of politics for a human being to actually practice."

I suppose you could consider it going on a tangent but I think it's more escalating the topic to the point of being interesting. Anyone who has been around computers for a long time knows how file deletion works and all of us have seen video or movies about people piecing together shredded documents.

The connection to life and information is quite relevant to the topic of deletion. In fact I believe even Stephen Hawking concerned himself with the concept of information loss (deletion) with regards to blackholes and the problems with conservation of energy (energy in the form of entropy). The resolution he came to involved the outer edge of a blackhole maintaining a version of this information forever.

If you expand the scope of the definition of information to be a specific state of the universe at a point in time, including its complex members (ie us and our consciousness), and remove the temporal importance of "now" then we are all information about states of the universe at varying points in its existence.

The point at which even that basic information (the current unique state of the universe) becomes erased or irrelevant (ie heat death when there is a perfectly homogenous distribution of energy throughout the universe) is quite interesting and depressing. At that point any record of the past and the ability to discern one moment of time from the next is gone. With no variation in the universe even time itself becomes impossible to measure unless your an objective viewer of the universe (God?).

I have so many friends named Katie (or infinite variations of spelling)

...but dear god I hate that name. Would never name my daughter that...so fucking overused.

I've got a weird variation on that "high place phenomenon" feeling. I don't sense it as physically dangerous to me or people I'm with. I don't feel like I'm being pushed or any urge to jump.

Instead, I have this overwhelming urge to secure and hold onto important belongings. I will put my hand in my pocket and clamp down on my wallet. I will reach up and hold glasses onto my head. Etc.

I consciously realize that is insane. In 30+ years of walking, my wallet has never magically flown out of my pocket on its own. My glasses have never jumped off of my head. But if I'm on a ledge or walking across a river or something on a tall bridge, I'm holding on to those things like they are wriggling slimy fish looking for the first possible chance to escape.