How do you know the person was "drunk"? Many times if you're in an accident(there are many CAUSED by redlight cameras BTW), they will say it's "alochol-related" or charge you with DUI even if your BAC is something like .01-.06. They can say because you got in an accident and were disoriented or confused(which many people after bad accidents are) that's proof that you were impaired.
The fact is only 2,932 innocent people were killed because of drunk drivers in 2002....and the numbers have only gone down. In 2009 there were 10,839 total deaths versus 13,472 in 2002, so obviously the innocent victims of drunk driving would be even less now.
Not to mention the increase of the number of cars on the road means we have more cars, more people driving, more people driving after drinking(but not drunk), and likely more people driving over the limit also....yet we're at the lowest chance of being effected by a drunk driver ever and the death numbers have gone down. On the other hand, the % has stayed the same for decades because you can't stop drunk driving with laws, it's predominantly an emotional problem/disease. Non-alcohol fatalities have been right at 62% and alcohol fatalities have stayed at 32% for 10+ years.
Still think MADD does ANYTHING besides pay themselves higher salaries and try to get us closer to prohibition? If you do, you don't believe in your own government statistics that MADD used to convince you deaths have gone down because of their efforts in the 1st place. (Sure they've gone down, but so have the total fatalities...percentage-wise though, nope.)
The ones that "require" notifying the public have done so to make sure they'll be on proper legal grounds for anyone that decides to challenge it. (aka:Covering their asses)
Since these checkpoints all survive only because they're considered a "reasonable" seizure under the 4th amendment since the public safety need outweighs the "minor intrusion" on the public. Checkpoints that are set up without road signs warning motorists in advance and/or are set up on a road which provides the motorist no means to do a U-turn or otherwise avoid it run the risk of being declared "unreasonable" when challenged in court.
That's mainly because the courts have noted that with proper warnings, the public won't be surprised by it and won't be in a situation where they feel they're being singled out. That's also the reason the checkpoints are usually set up on busy roads and not some side road off the beaten path where the encounter would be more intimidating and unexpected.
There are a few somewhat smaller factors that can be used to find the way they do it reasonable or unreasonable, but those are the main points at issue here at least.
The whole reason we have the checkpoints these apps were made for is because of the lack of thinking and competent research by our "Representatives".
Here's what the majority said in the case that made DUI checkpoints legal:
"Drunk drivers cause an annual death toll of over 25,000[[*]] and in the same time span cause nearly one million personal injuries and more than five billion dollars in property damage."
...And here's some facts that the majority "should" have known back then when they decided the public safety concern outweighed the "limited intrusion" of our privacy, as shown by the breakdown by one of the dissenting justices:
"in 1988 there were 18,501 traffic fatalities involving legally intoxicated persons. If one subtracts from this number the 10,210 legally intoxicated drivers who were themselves killed in these crashes, there remain 8,291 fatalities in which somebody other than the intoxicated driver was killed in an accident involving legally intoxicated persons (this number still includes, however, accidents in which legally intoxicated pedestrians stepped in front of sober drivers and were killed). Fatal Accident Reporting System 1988 Overview, p. 1; see also n. 15, supra.
By contrast, in 1986 there were a total of 19,257 murders and non negligent manslaughters. Of these, approximately 11,360 were committed with a firearm, and another 3,850 were committed with some sort of knife. U. S. Dept. of Justice, 1987 Source book of Criminal Justice Statistics 337 (1988).
From these statistics, it would seem to follow that someone who does not herself drive when legally intoxicated is more likely to be killed by an armed assailant than by an intoxicated driver. The threat to life from concealed weapons thus appears comparable to the threat from drunken driving.
Nowadays with the safety advances, awareness, and greater amount of cars on the road, you're even more likely to die from these causes first:
28.77 times more likely to be killed by a sober driver
13.52 times more likely to die from a fall
8.52 times more likely to be poisoned
4.57 times more likely to die from an injury at work
3.66 times more likely to drown
2.92 times more likely to choke to death
2.34 times more likely to die while under a doctor?s care
First people don't want Youtube being taken over by big corporations and advertisers.....now they don't like it when Google pays them off so they can have some valuable time to figure out a way that the owners of the content and the Youtube users can both co-exist peacefully.
There will always be critics but unless you were in a Google corporate meeting or talked to the CEO lately it's pretty lame to accuse either side of anything.
If I started to gather up all the water in the world and start to sell it for cheap, it would certainly make other companies try to match my prices or beat them for a time until they go out of business because they can't sustain as long since I have more product and resources....
Once they're gone and there's one or two companies supplying water, are you going to be happy if they decide to slowly raise the price over time until you pay almost as much for water as you do for all other utilities combined?
Of course that's an extreme because we all NEED water but it's the same principle. Since only some people NEED lumber or specific goods for their business, it helps every person understand what they might experience if companies do these type of things with the wrong intentions.
It all comes down to trying to lawfully control someones morals.
So does that mean you can't talk to anyone through their company phones out of fear you might be recorded?
This is all pretty stupid. Unless there was a non-compete clause, it's just another case of the corporate giants squashing the competition because they can afford lawyers. You can't say that because somebody discussed an idea while on your computer, it automatically is your property. I can just as well type a letter on that computer, print it on the company printer, and mail it to my friend. Are they going to try and argue that the letter is their property and/or idea and confiscate it?
Does that mean anything students come up with on those school-owned laptops are technically the schools thoughts and ideas? Soon they'll try to claim if your logged into a chatroom on a certain companie's server, they have rights to whatever you say since it's happening on their computer...
THEY ARE NOT SAYING TO JUST TAKE OUT THE LIGHTS AND LEAVE IT AT THAT!
Of course that would be stupid and way less safe. If the lights were replaced with roundabouts though, it would eventually be safer. In American cities though, it would take years to get used to because most of us don't ever see them and older drivers have more trouble figuring them out. It would just piss people off because they don't want to figure out how to use them and then they would be removed.
Would be a good idea but unless that idea comes with some plan to educate the American citizens and show them how it's safer, it won't work.
The RIAA has been complaining for years but if you look at their over-hyped numbers you would see they're just blowing steam in order to regulate the market they already own 80% of. I mean, what if other companies owned our US radiostations instead of Clearchannel dictating what's popular music? I would certainly buy more CDs but they likely wouldn't be from the giant labels that the RIAA gets all their money from.
The following quote is true for pretty much all of my internet and music savvy friends as well as myself. I mean do you seriously think I would buy 20gb of music that is on the radio everyday? I don't even think they have enough variety to last me a week without being sick of the same old songs.
"Nor do downloaded mp3 files replace CD buys.
"While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file sharing," stated Oberholzer and Strumpf."
(scroll haflway down for the actual facts)
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/5002/three_moms.html
Somewhat older but it shows the start of what it still currently going on. Of course the RIAA still denies it's from their crappy selection of music...
http://www.bricklin.com/recordsales.htm
I have yet to NOT get a rebate from somewhere. I think you guys just need to be more cautious and write more clearly or something.
I have done probably 20-40 rebates in the last 3 years and have gotten all of them except for one I thought I sent but found in a bag with UPC and everything ready to go...
I always make sure to triple check the checklist of required things, tape the upc and stuff to the form, take pictures of it all together, and then send it out a few days/weeks before the postmark date. One time I couldn't find a copy of the upc or receipt or something of the sort and after calling the rebate place they said to just leave a note saying I couldn't find it anywhere and to sign it. I got that rebate with no problems too...
Also, a lot of rebates people have problems with are handled by Continental Promotion Group which I think is out of Niagara Falls. You can track those rebates through http://rebatestatus.com I took a screenshot when it showed both of my rebates listed there just in case. It was kind of funny because a few days later one of them was taken off of there. I was going to follow up on it and show the pic and stuff but it arrived on it's own in the mail a few days later...
My brother has always had horrible handwriting and he complains about never getting rebates so I assume it's related.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Dotcommie.
Re: Drinking and Driving
How do you know the person was "drunk"? Many times if you're in an accident(there are many CAUSED by redlight cameras BTW), they will say it's "alochol-related" or charge you with DUI even if your BAC is something like .01-.06. They can say because you got in an accident and were disoriented or confused(which many people after bad accidents are) that's proof that you were impaired.
The fact is only 2,932 innocent people were killed because of drunk drivers in 2002....and the numbers have only gone down. In 2009 there were 10,839 total deaths versus 13,472 in 2002, so obviously the innocent victims of drunk driving would be even less now.
Not to mention the increase of the number of cars on the road means we have more cars, more people driving, more people driving after drinking(but not drunk), and likely more people driving over the limit also....yet we're at the lowest chance of being effected by a drunk driver ever and the death numbers have gone down. On the other hand, the % has stayed the same for decades because you can't stop drunk driving with laws, it's predominantly an emotional problem/disease. Non-alcohol fatalities have been right at 62% and alcohol fatalities have stayed at 32% for 10+ years.
Still think MADD does ANYTHING besides pay themselves higher salaries and try to get us closer to prohibition? If you do, you don't believe in your own government statistics that MADD used to convince you deaths have gone down because of their efforts in the 1st place. (Sure they've gone down, but so have the total fatalities...percentage-wise though, nope.)
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The ones that "require" notifying the public have done so to make sure they'll be on proper legal grounds for anyone that decides to challenge it. (aka:Covering their asses)
Since these checkpoints all survive only because they're considered a "reasonable" seizure under the 4th amendment since the public safety need outweighs the "minor intrusion" on the public. Checkpoints that are set up without road signs warning motorists in advance and/or are set up on a road which provides the motorist no means to do a U-turn or otherwise avoid it run the risk of being declared "unreasonable" when challenged in court.
That's mainly because the courts have noted that with proper warnings, the public won't be surprised by it and won't be in a situation where they feel they're being singled out. That's also the reason the checkpoints are usually set up on busy roads and not some side road off the beaten path where the encounter would be more intimidating and unexpected.
There are a few somewhat smaller factors that can be used to find the way they do it reasonable or unreasonable, but those are the main points at issue here at least.
Uneducated politicians once again are the problem...
The whole reason we have the checkpoints these apps were made for is because of the lack of thinking and competent research by our "Representatives".
Here's what the majority said in the case that made DUI checkpoints legal:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=11348246873623439918&scilh
...And here's some facts that the majority "should" have known back then when they decided the public safety concern outweighed the "limited intrusion" of our privacy, as shown by the breakdown by one of the dissenting justices:
Nowadays with the safety advances, awareness, and greater amount of cars on the road, you're even more likely to die from these causes first:
http://www.getmadd.com/innocent%20victims.htm
First people don't want Youtube being taken over by big corporations and advertisers.....now they don't like it when Google pays them off so they can have some valuable time to figure out a way that the owners of the content and the Youtube users can both co-exist peacefully.
There will always be critics but unless you were in a Google corporate meeting or talked to the CEO lately it's pretty lame to accuse either side of anything.
If I started to gather up all the water in the world and start to sell it for cheap, it would certainly make other companies try to match my prices or beat them for a time until they go out of business because they can't sustain as long since I have more product and resources....
Once they're gone and there's one or two companies supplying water, are you going to be happy if they decide to slowly raise the price over time until you pay almost as much for water as you do for all other utilities combined?
Of course that's an extreme because we all NEED water but it's the same principle. Since only some people NEED lumber or specific goods for their business, it helps every person understand what they might experience if companies do these type of things with the wrong intentions.
It all comes down to trying to lawfully control someones morals.
So does that mean you can't talk to anyone through their company phones out of fear you might be recorded?
This is all pretty stupid. Unless there was a non-compete clause, it's just another case of the corporate giants squashing the competition because they can afford lawyers. You can't say that because somebody discussed an idea while on your computer, it automatically is your property. I can just as well type a letter on that computer, print it on the company printer, and mail it to my friend. Are they going to try and argue that the letter is their property and/or idea and confiscate it?
Does that mean anything students come up with on those school-owned laptops are technically the schools thoughts and ideas? Soon they'll try to claim if your logged into a chatroom on a certain companie's server, they have rights to whatever you say since it's happening on their computer...
THEY ARE NOT SAYING TO JUST TAKE OUT THE LIGHTS AND LEAVE IT AT THAT!
Of course that would be stupid and way less safe. If the lights were replaced with roundabouts though, it would eventually be safer. In American cities though, it would take years to get used to because most of us don't ever see them and older drivers have more trouble figuring them out. It would just piss people off because they don't want to figure out how to use them and then they would be removed.
Would be a good idea but unless that idea comes with some plan to educate the American citizens and show them how it's safer, it won't work.
There is no problem here.
The RIAA has been complaining for years but if you look at their over-hyped numbers you would see they're just blowing steam in order to regulate the market they already own 80% of. I mean, what if other companies owned our US radiostations instead of Clearchannel dictating what's popular music? I would certainly buy more CDs but they likely wouldn't be from the giant labels that the RIAA gets all their money from.
The following quote is true for pretty much all of my internet and music savvy friends as well as myself. I mean do you seriously think I would buy 20gb of music that is on the radio everyday? I don't even think they have enough variety to last me a week without being sick of the same old songs.
"Nor do downloaded mp3 files replace CD buys.
"While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file sharing," stated Oberholzer and Strumpf."
(scroll haflway down for the actual facts)
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/5002/three_moms.html
Somewhat older but it shows the start of what it still currently going on. Of course the RIAA still denies it's from their crappy selection of music...
http://www.bricklin.com/recordsales.htm
I have yet to NOT get a rebate from somewhere. I think you guys just need to be more cautious and write more clearly or something.
I have done probably 20-40 rebates in the last 3 years and have gotten all of them except for one I thought I sent but found in a bag with UPC and everything ready to go...
I always make sure to triple check the checklist of required things, tape the upc and stuff to the form, take pictures of it all together, and then send it out a few days/weeks before the postmark date. One time I couldn't find a copy of the upc or receipt or something of the sort and after calling the rebate place they said to just leave a note saying I couldn't find it anywhere and to sign it. I got that rebate with no problems too...
Also, a lot of rebates people have problems with are handled by Continental Promotion Group which I think is out of Niagara Falls. You can track those rebates through http://rebatestatus.com I took a screenshot when it showed both of my rebates listed there just in case. It was kind of funny because a few days later one of them was taken off of there. I was going to follow up on it and show the pic and stuff but it arrived on it's own in the mail a few days later...
My brother has always had horrible handwriting and he complains about never getting rebates so I assume it's related.