Path: ...!3.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Bill Sloman Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design,us.politics Subject: Re: Exploding pagers Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2024 14:54:16 +1000 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 50 Message-ID: References: <36prej9i23etotp04kkbv59bmlf03ra5m4@4ax.com> <1200gjprcb8f4rvt5q4lnk287lei4jqiub@4ax.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Sat, 05 Oct 2024 06:54:31 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="4ac2cd68b06985bfb6202d9d66d471c5"; logging-data="681317"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX193Y6+Pit6LQOeus12ahGW/EgbPm4l1wqI=" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Cancel-Lock: sha1:qCUQ39aw7/QpSU2A6ZdMGgscDZU= In-Reply-To: X-Antivirus: Norton (VPS 241005-0, 5/10/2024), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean Content-Language: en-US Bytes: 3638 On 5/10/2024 9:08 am, Cursitor Doom wrote: > On Fri, 4 Oct 2024 15:06:26 -0500, Crash Gordon > wrote: > >> On 10/4/2024 9:58 AM, john larkin wrote: >>> The real killer here is Chinese fentanyl. >> >> Fentanyl is only a problem because of the War On Drugs. >> >> A hundred years ago Americans could buy opium and cocaine legally. >> Addiction rates per capita were similar to today. To re-quote a tired >> old saw, when blah is illegal only criminals will blah. Criminals care >> a lot less about quality and consistency and that's where the danger >> appears. >> >> If aspirin were invented today the FDA would never approve it for >> over-the-counter sale because it's too dangerous. But it is legal; >> consequently I can buy a hundred generic aspirin for five bucks and be >> confident that each tablet will actually contain 325mg aspirin and no >> fentanyl or arsenic. If aspirin were illegal then 100 "street aspirin" >> would cost a lot more than $5 and might contain anything. > > As a Libertarian myself it's become increasingly clear that any > government 'intervention' is frequently a bad thing. It is the necessary delusion that reliably sets you up to be a Libertarian. > Every time the > government 'declares war' against something, someone or some country, > it typically: > > a) achieves nothing or makes things 10X worse, and > b) costs a fortune for the taxpayer with nothing worthwhile to show > for it. Covid-19 didn't fit that pattern. We got a vaccine against it remarkably quickly, and it's not killing a lot of people any more. People like Cursitor Doom who swallowed the anti-vaccination myths are still vulnerable, but herd immunity mostly protects them from winning a Darwin award. > And no lessons ever seem to get learned, either - despite this pattern > recurring over and over and over and over again. :( When you are very selective about the the patterns you will recognise, this can appear to be true. -- Bill Sloman, Sydney