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Comment Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... (Score 1) 542

No one said they were worried about it. The entire www=666 isn't even connected to Muslims.

The parent said

Oh no! It's a holy war against the internet!

I wonder how well that will work out. Will the internet fight back?

Then I said about as well as it worked out last time then presented the last time I knew of a religious war against the internet.

I swear... This isn't all that difficult. Are people really that obtuse?

Comment Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... (Score 1) 542

And your point is what? Naming an argument does not mean it isn't proper to use it. Besides, it is not actually a no true scotsman argument. But what you would have otherwise? A few fringe idiots all the sudden represent every single other person of a group when there is absolutely no basis for it?

BTW, why it is not a no true scotsman argument is because he is not saying those people are not Christians, he is saying not all Christians are the same. A big bit of difference there.

Comment Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... (Score 1) 542

Does it really need spelled out?

The entire WWW=666 was incorrect but due to someone's misconceptions, was used as a basis to war against the internet. Pointing out that 666 should be 616 is like arguing the bank robber crew socks instead of tube socks when he robbed the bank. It does nothing to the fact the bank was robbed. Likewise, debating whether it was 666 or 616 does nothing for the fact that someone thought 666 was the number and that WWW represented it and attempted to attack the internet as evil. It's like saying the thought of WWW=666 is otherwise valid when it clearly is not.

Comment Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... (Score 5, Interesting) 542

About as well as it did the last time..

You see, letters in the hebrew language are also numbers. There is no W so V is used in it's place or in other words, V and W are interchangeable. It so happens that V is also 6 so when you type www, you are typing 666. That's right, every time to go on the World Wide Web, you are paying homage to the beast.

That was the early rallying cry to why the internet was evil and should be removed. Of course some people who actually knew better checked up on those facts and it turns out a little different.

Comment Re:No: They Can't (Score 1, Offtopic) 258

They can't comprehend the requirement of reasonable limitation on personal freedom as the underlying theme of constitutional government

WTF are you talking about? The constitution places no limits on freedom of the people. In fact, the US constitution is specifically a contract allowing government to do certain things. They are automatically barred from others but the bill of rights was put in place to ensure some key elements never took hold. Government seems to be wanting to forget that now but it is the entire premise of the federalist papers and the anti-federalist papers which discussed this very fact in detail and persuaded unwilling states to join in.

They see the world in terms of a polemical struggles of good and evil, black and white, us versus them.

I would say that when you believe what you just wrote above this, you would not understand why people who have a clue reject your assumptions as an attack on principle. The biggest amount of bullshit about all this is if your way is really better, you can amend the constitution and make it legitimate instead of crying about how inferior everyone who disagrees with you are because they don't magically see or understand something that goes completely contrary to the US constitution and the history surrounding it.

That's why they can't abide political comprise and seek to destroy anything they equate with their misguided definition of socialism as the arch enemy of democracy.

No one should ever compromise the integrity of the US constitution. Amend the damn thing if you think it needs changed.

Comment Re:Are there rules for retention and resale? (Score 1) 108

I'm with ya. Except I don't think anyone should be collecting all this data unless it is with a warrant else none of it should ever be able to be used against you.

But if you do start something like that, and there are plenty of sites out there that could make it easier to do than you probably realize, just make sure you are not in violation of some law in your home state so they don't take your free speech and jack a boot on your neck in some john Wayne syndrome fit of a superiority complex.

Comment Re:Wouldn't edibles have the same effect (Score 1) 217

Citation for what? Fewer than 10% of life long smokers will get cancer in their life time. That is not even counting those who started and stopped at some point in their life.

Their life time will be shorter and there are a list of other ailments associated with smoking but smokers and cancer is not a 100% given. On the other hand, of certain cancers, a high number of people with them are smokers, are thought to have it because of smokers, and of the deaths associated with them, smokers seem to be extremely high compared to non-smokers.

Comment Re:Are there rules for retention and resale? (Score 1) 108

What you are describing is the same thing as a LPR (license plate recognition) setup which is the same thing as the cops use sans the ability to check warrants and crap. Repossession companies have been using this for years, there are even nation wide networks of hits like this that can be searched in case a repo has moved to another state.

Some states are at odds with civilians doing this and made it illegal. Some states make only sharing the information to anyone but employees and law enforcement illegal. Some states that made it illegal are fighting court battles over it right now. What you described would be covered depending on what state and the laws if any about it.

Comment Re:Wouldn't edibles have the same effect (Score 3, Informative) 217

Smoking pot destroys quite a bit of the supposed good stuff in it. Its really a poor delivery system outside of getting high.

As far as causing cancer, it is a surprisingly low number of smokers who get cancer from smoking. I know it is presented as if you even look at a cigarette, you will get cancer and die, but less than 10% of life long smokers will get cancer. But of people who have cancer, something like 87% of the lung cancer deaths are from smoking and about 30% of all cancer deaths are from smoking. Further, smoking increases your risks of cancer about 23 times that of non smokers so there is a strong tie in with cancer. This is how the tobacco companies were able to refute connections to smoking and cancer for so long and probably why they weren't just shut down completely after losing court battle after court battle.

Now when comparing smoking pot with tobacco, you have to understand that the combustion process changes a lot of the chemicals within the substances, creates new ones by reactions, and it is thought that these changes may modify your risks of cancers and other diseases. Similarly, fire fighters seem to have higher risks of cancers and it is thought because of exposure to smoke and supposedly safe chemicals for fire retardants when burned.

I just wouldn't trust anyone who says it is safe to smoke pot. Maybe it might be less dangerous, but that would mean it would still be dangerous.

Comment Re:Are there rules for retention and resale? (Score 1) 108

Some states have banned the use of LPR devices outside of law enforcement and others have banned the sale of information outside of within the company who collected it and established affiliates.

Repossession companies have used this tech going on almost a decade now. Some states don't bother with regulating it, some areas the repo companies self regulate and only sell to Law enforcement or other repo companies. Some states outright forbid it outside of law enforcement. It's a moving target and the laws on it change all the time. In some states, the laws are being challenged by the ACLU and other entities in court.

But beware. Even with their claims of legality being the exact ones you might use, remember how many other people were arrested, had their electronic devices taken and in some cases destroyed for little more than recording cops in public areas. Hell, one guy spent a weekend in jail and had to pay out the nose for a defense because his home security system records the cops.

Comment Re:Good (Score 1) 108

The actual videos themselves may contain enough information to track vehicles over a period of time

You don't even need the videos. LPR tech is used by repo companies all the time (where it isn't outlawed now) and with a short history of hits on a specific license plate, you can specifically identify the habits of a person and realistically track them to a location in which the car can be repossessed while they are not in it.

But here is why the EFF and such want the information. They want to show how possible this is so the public knows it is more than a camera which notifies the cops when a license plate of a stolen car drives by them. That every single license plate the system recognizes goes into a storage computer along with the date, time, GPS location and likely other information.

Depending on how long this data is kept, they can reconstruct a lot of things about you, like when you were parked in that abortion clinic/AIDS treatment center parking lot for 4 hours that one Friday (when your car broke down and you pushed it off the road but it won't have that info with it). They look and reliably detect your work schedule, when you visit the grocery stores, and a lot of other things. All without you ever doing anything wrong.

Comment Re:Nope (Score 1) 369

Why do you keep arguing like this is a likely scenario when it simply is not, are you trying to troll or just live up to your /. handle?

First of all, people who have different opinions than you are not trolling or dumbasses. They, as in this case, could very well have more information than you or simply hold differing opinions concerning the information available. Contrary to what your mom may have told you, you are not the smartest person in the world, you likely are not even the smartest person in the room most of the time. The world does not materialize as you will it too so please stop with this bullshit of attacking the messenger when the message is not what you want. Had you pulled this crap in any high school debating course, you would have flunked out quickly. So even if you think I am wrong, present the case and leave the bullshit for third grade recess.

You just provided my point for me, probably without realization. In order for a terrorist to get into the US, they are going to have to pass through numerous countries which don't want infected populations and do screen passengers deemed a threat.

I did not make your point at all. Drugs of abuse which are illegal in the US, Canada, and Mexico all find their way from other countries and into those countries. What is so magical about a capsule sized container that could be shoved in various body holes before passing through those other countries and into one of the ones mentioned? And who says those other countries would even have to know about the end intentions or the infectious disease before they pass through them? Are you suggesting that they know all about those illegal drugs that pass through them on their way to the US?

Mohamar is not going to be entering Sweden (for one example) with a bottle of bioweapons. He's probably not going to try and carry it through Felluja air port for that matter, because he has a high chance of getting caught there also. So he chugs his juice before leaving the shed and heads out. 2 days later when he arrives in Mexico city, he's sick as a dog and quarantined

Actually, for something like the plague, you can find it in the wild in some countries. In the US Midwest, it thrives quite well. One of the articles supposedly on the laptop was how to weaponize the plague. It could be that Hohamar doesn't need to travel with the plague at all until he is ready to fuck shit up. So Mohamar's brother gets a hold of this wild plague, creates a bio-weapon from it in Mexico or Canada or even in Iraq/Afghanistan and ships it with a load of heroine destined for the US and Canada (which seems to have less of a problem getting here than the illegal aliens currently strolling across the borders), Mohamer and 40 of his buds make their way to the Canada or Mexico either with their American or UK passports or even by being smuggled in with another batch of heroine, infect themselves and its on.

I'm really not sure why you seem to think they would be traveling under their real identities, through real airports and declaring their bio weapons at the customs counter when there are so many avenues for alternatives already in place and available via the drug and human trafficking trades.

Even in the unlikely event that they make it into the US within 2 days, where are they going to be able to travel and infect? Houston? Dallas? They are not making it out of either of those airports.

With a car and perhaps an accomplice in the states, from the Texas border, you can be in any city inside the continental US within 2 days. They can hit Atlanta, Cincinnati, Columbus Ohio, Philadelphia, NYC, Boston Seattle, LA, San Fransisco, Vegas, ANY CITY IN THE 48 STATES.

But that is just where they could go before symptoms show. If they are in a car being driven by an accomplice, they can hide their symptoms and operate until the disease consumes them or they can no longer function. But their dead and decaying bodies, if hidden well in a sufficiently populated area, will continue to infest for weeks to come because it will pass the plague off to rodents and their fleas which will infect others.

It is not a huge threat, and does not rely on just US agencies (which I fully agree can be, and are, often useless against real threats). The only way this scenario plays out is if the CIA imports the "terrorist" that ate the plague, and at that point it really does not matter because it was not a foreign terrorist plot that cause the damage.

It doesn't need the CIA at all. Just coordination and effort and a willing government who refuses to secure the borders. Children for Christ's sake- are able to enter the southern border of Mexico, navigate the almost 1500 miles to the US border, and cross without a problem at all. To think a grown adult with a plan, funding, and people helping couldn't do the same is preposterous if you ask me.

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