I want to meet the person who has no drinking experience that can down half a liter of vodka without throwing most of it back up. Keep in mind there's a time component too, if you kill a bottle of vodka over the course of an evening you're going to just wake up slightly dehydrated (good stuff) or with a nasty hangover (bottom shelf); if you kill it in five minutes you're liable to have some problems.....
In 1868, the Great Powers agreed under the Saint Petersburg Declaration to ban exploding bullets, which by spreading metal fragments inside a victim’s body could cause more suffering than the regular kind
Which sounds awesome on paper but is completely meaningless in the real world. NATO's standard rifle cartridge relies on tumbling and fragmentation for its terminal effects. I'm not certain why it matters if a bullet fragments because of a small explosive charge or because of the design of the projectile; the end result is the same.
Alcohol is more dangerous as it is easy to consume enough to kill you. Pot is not.
Umm; it's pretty hard for someone without tolerance to get to the LD50 of ethanol without first throwing up or passing out.
Anytime you are being attacked, any and all means of self defense should be OK. If you don't want to get gassed, stay the fuck out of our country.
It's called proportionality; it applies on both the individual level (I can't shoot you in response to an open handed slap across my face) and the nation-state level (you can't nuke a country in response to a platoon of infantryman crossing the frontier)
If you want to acquire political power from the barrel of a gun you should probably stop and ask yourself if you can actually win before you cross the Rubicon.
And the Supreme Court says that the Congressional power to regulate interstate commerce extends even to plants that you grow for personal use with no intention of resale.
I don't really like or agree with those rulings but they are the law of the land, for better or worse....
And those men like Robert E. Lee weren't traitors
He served in the United States Army, before the war, as a Commissioned Officer, which by definition means he swore an oath to preserve and protect the United States. If you're worried about your State one day needing to leave the Union then you probably shouldn't be swearing oaths to preserve the Union.
The only difference between them is that most in the South say themselves not just as Americans, but ultimately as Virginians, Georgians, Mississippians, etc.
Irrelevant. Lee and several other leading figures in the Confederacy (including Davis) swore oaths to the United States. They weren't common men that joined the Confederate Army having no prior allegiance to the United States other than birthright. They had served the United States and sworn oaths to protect her. Parse this part of the 14th Amendment:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
A traitor is someone who betrays their home
The definition of treason in the United States is "levying war against them" or giving "aid and comfort" to their enemies. That's exactly what Lee, Davis, et. al did.
Furthermore, there was no requirement to stay in the union when the US was formed
You've never read the Articles of Confederation, have you?
Your argument is basically, "The South held slaves, the North were angels trying to swoop down and protect the helpless slaves from their Southern oppressors. Sherman's killing of civilians is perfectly OK in that context."
Nope. My argument is that it was a total war and Sherman destroyed targets of military value. He didn't directly kill civilians; he rendered some civilians homeless, which is a difference that is apparently lost on you. The wanton killing and aimless destruction that you're imagining is a figment of Southern imagination. Special Field Orders No. 120, emphasis mine:
IV. The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end, each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather, near the route traveled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn-meal, or whatever is needed by the command, aiming at all times to keep in the wagons at least ten day's provisions for the command and three days' forage. Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass, but during a halt or a camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, apples, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock of their camp. To regular foraging parties must be instructed the gathering of provisions and forage at any distance from the road traveled.
V. To army corps commanders alone is entrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, etc., and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.
VI. As for horses, mules, wagons, etc, belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may appropriate freely and without limit, discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or friendly. Foraging parties may also take mules or horses to replace the jaded animals of their trains, or to serve as pack-mules for the regiments or brigades. In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening language, and may, where the officer in command thinks proper, give written certificates of the facts, but no receipts, and they will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance....
Spare me the Southern Pride nonsense and moral equivalency. The lion's share of States in the North had abolished slavery. The few slave states were those that remained loyal to the Union, rather than try and tear it asunder, and they were ultimately freed with the passage of the 13th Amendment.
There is no equation between the "clean hands" of the North and South on this particular issue. Nor is there on the issue of treason, since many of the most prominent leaders of the South (including their God, Robert E. Lee) swore oaths to the United States that they later broke. It's not a simple matter of someone fighting for home, these people specifically swore oaths to the United States. As far as I'm concerned the lot of them are traitors and the South got off easy for its crimes against the Union and Humanity.
To you he may be a hero, but to Southerners, he is a mass murderer of women and children
I'm guessing Black Southerners have a different opinion of him.
Greek Fire is an incendiary, it's no more a chemical weapon than napalm is. Using the classical chemistry definition, sure, but not in the context of arms control or warfare.
look at how much a modern day Germany produces mainly from within its own borders through using innovation and well-compensated laborers.
All it took was ten years of total war (WW1 + WW2), 46 years of occupation (1945 - 1990) and massive societal changes that were imposed at gunpoint. All that to civilize a mostly western country with whom we shared a common history, language, and religion. I wonder what it will take to civilize the middle east?
Tell me which of your local stations play Skrillex, or Deltron3030, or insert any random obscure or indie artist here?
None of them, because there are no "local stations" left. In my market all but two FM stations (*) are owned by Clear Channel or Citadel; they all play Top 40 crap that you can literally set your watch to. "Oh, Nickelback. It must be quarter to two." They fired all of the local talent too, piping in national morning shows that suck donkey balls.
The two FM stations that aren't Clear Channel/Citadel are our local PBS/NPR affiliate and a local classic rock station that's somehow hanging on. If I'm on too short of a drive to bother hooking up my phone for Pandora I'll listen to one of them. Failing those two, our only "local" option is an AM talk radio station, which actually has a solid local news operation. Too bad they fill out the schedule with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
Not anymore my friend. They got rid of the Grandfathering a few months ago. I had quite the e-mail exchange back and forth with them about it.
It's still a bargain at that price of course, but I still wasn't happy about it....
Why is the federal government (and its agencies) so scared to allow state and local law enforcement agencies to reveal the use of these devices?
Another question: How can it be legal to transmit on licensed frequencies owned by someone else? Perhaps the Feds have an exemption to the Radio Act but State and Local Governments? Not bloody likely. Why aren't the cellular carriers screaming bloody murder about this? They paid billions of dollars to license their spectrum. Modern digital networks are laid out very precisely, with a need to carefully account for the location of each transmitter and to control their output power to avoid interference with neighboring cells. There is no way that a device like Stingray can be used without causing interference to other users.
Software production is assumed to be a line function, but it is run like a staff function. -- Paul Licker
