Am 26.07.2010 12:14, schrieb Invisible:

> Bugger that. I'll stick to my dancing; it's probably just as good a
> workout, it's far more fun and it's drastically cheaper. :-P

Possibly so. The fun factor is especially valuable.

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On Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:26:49 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 26/07/2010 12:37 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> I've only been to the gym once since October....and I think I need to
>> start going again.
>>
>> Thing is, I actually can get a membership rate that's lower through my
>> insurance company, but I have to cancel my current membership, and
>> everything I've read says that doing so requires an act of $DEITY and
>> has all sorts of conditions tied to it.
>>
>> One of those may well be (and it isn't clear) that I can't come in as a
>> new member again, which is one of the caveats of getting the membership
>> through in insurance company.<sigh>
>>
>>
> Is there another gym you can go to?

There is, in fact the ins co covers multiple gyms, but I actually really 
like the one I'm at (but then again, it's the first one I've gone to, so 
going somewhere else might show me that I'm actually missing something).

> I suppose you've thought of that so please disregard.

:-)

Jim

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On Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:14:20 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> I've only been to the gym once since October....and I think I need to
>> start going again.
> 
> I asked the local gym, but they want £52 *per month* just to give me the
> _option_ of going to the gym. Then when I actually go there's another
> fee on top of that.

That's crazy - a lot more than I currently pay (about $30/month).

> Bugger that. I'll stick to my dancing; it's probably just as good a
> workout, it's far more fun and it's drastically cheaper. :-P

Out of curiosity, are the leisure centers similarly equipped and is there 
a cost to go there?

Jim

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nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > People have suggested that maybe somebody spiked my drink. All I can say
> > is, if that was drugs, I'd like some more please! :-O Seriously, *is*
> > there a chemical that makes you feel relaxed, happy, confident, excited
> > and energetic?

> Yes.  That's why they are illegal.  and expensive.

  I thought they are illegal because they have a very high risk of causing
heavy addiction, which not only has negative health effects but also has a
bunch of other negative side-effects (such as increasing crime rates because
many people can't afford the substances and thus have to steal in order to
get them).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 27/07/2010 7:08 AM, Warp wrote:
> nemesis<nam### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>> Orchid XP v8<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>>> People have suggested that maybe somebody spiked my drink. All I can say
>>> is, if that was drugs, I'd like some more please! :-O Seriously, *is*
>>> there a chemical that makes you feel relaxed, happy, confident, excited
>>> and energetic?
>
>> Yes.  That's why they are illegal.  and expensive.
>
>    I thought they are illegal because they have a very high risk of causing
> heavy addiction, which not only has negative health effects but also has a
> bunch of other negative side-effects (such as increasing crime rates because
> many people can't afford the substances and thus have to steal in order to
> get them).
>


us than we do ourselves.

Bampots!

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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On Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:28:30 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> Nah! They are illegal because the “law makers” know what is better for
> us than we do ourselves.
> 
> Bampots!

You took the words right out of my mouth.  I hope I didn't bite you. :-)

(Though I wouldn't have said 'lawmakers' but rather 'moral majority' here 
in the US)

Jim

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On 7/27/2010 11:50 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:28:30 +0100, Stephen wrote:
>
>> Nah! They are illegal because the “law makers” know what is better for
>> us than we do ourselves.
>>
>> Bampots!
>
> You took the words right out of my mouth.  I hope I didn't bite you. :-)
>
> (Though I wouldn't have said 'lawmakers' but rather 'moral majority' here
> in the US)
>
> Jim
Oh, give me a break. Yeah, there are some "low level" things, like pot, 
for which this is a believable assertion. And, it doesn't follow that 
they can tell you that you "must" wire buildings a certain way, for 
public safety, and do so licensed, but they can't tell you that you are 
not allowed to do so why taking cocaine. Either there is a hazard, or 
their isn't. The problem, in a nutshell, is that a small number of 
purists think *everything* is a hazard, including, in some case, the one 
they tried to ban before, but now only keep people from buying, in some 
places, on Sundays, whether it qualifies or not.

I do, however, agree with the argument that it also costs the tax payer 
money to cover treatment for avoidable problems, from things like 
cigarettes, and that this *could be* a legitimate grounds to 
limits/curtail their use. Unless you are a Rethuglican, in which case 
pot is evil, but you should be allowed to smoke yourself to death, at a 
huge cost to the federal and state budgets, with impunity... lol

Nearly everything else *is* addictive, sometimes instantly, and 
permanently alters brain chemistry, such that you also have to keep 
trying to take more of it, to get the same result, not to mention 
placing most people that take them in a state of mind that they 
literally can't imagine doing anything to hurt anyone else, even while, 
in the case of the nastiest of them, they are running them over with a 
car. The drunk is similarly bad, but it takes way more to do that, and 
they are not going to be laughing their ass off, as they run you over, 
they just won't notice they hit you. That bars can have X drink 
minimums, but no means/attempt is made to try to keep people from going 
to 40 bars and buying the minimum 2 drinks at every damn one of them, is 
something I have thought is bloody assed stupid. Sure, the solution 
would be complicated, and some people would cheat, and some wackos would 
whine about the government "watching them", or some BS, if they had to 
have their ID scanned every time, and bars where networked to track that 
stuff. But, arresting 2% of all the idiots that get stinking drunk, 
hoping it will make the other 98% think twice? That is just flat out 
useless.

Mind, read an article recently about the other "you really don't want to 
take this recreationally, if you plan to do anything except sit around 
under its influence, class of psychedelics. One called Ibogaine has two 
interesting effects. Its psychedelic effect is a replay of past events 
in your life, and it seems to reset brain chemistry, eliminating all 
addiction to other substances. The problem is, its insanely easy to 
overdose on it, and the UK had a serious of deaths in the program they 
where testing it in.



-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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On Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:15:23 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Oh, give me a break. Yeah, there are some "low level" things, like pot,
> for which this is a believable assertion.

The people who are for the prohibition of drugs use the same logic that 
brought about alcohol prohibition in the 30's.  It's not about the costs 
to cover treatment and such - it's about it being "bad" for people to do 
that.  It's about one group of people asserting their sense of moral 
superiority.

Understand, I have never done drugs, I never intend to do drugs, and I 
have no desire to do them.  I personally wouldn't because I do think it 
would be bad for me (in a number of ways).  I come at this from a 
standpoint of not having experienced anything related to the types of 
drugs we're talking about (I once got pretty tripped out on Hydrocodone, 
which I react very badly to, but that's a slightly different story 
because it was something obtained with a prescription).

If someone wants to be addicted to cigarettes, pot, alcohol, etc - as 
long as they're not impacting me (through secondhand smoke, for example), 
I don't care.  They can knock themselves out.  Once it leaves them, just 
as with alcohol, then there are consequences and let the consequences be 
steep (as they are for DUI, for example).

Legalization can make those drugs a tax base (as with cigarettes and 
alcohol, and being in Utah, I know a thing or three about alcohol taxes 
because they're DAMNED high here) and legalization can turn it into an 
actual industry, with quality control and the like.  I don't think it's 
naive to think that - I think that's what we saw with alcohol when 
prohibition was repealed.  Sure, some people still make their own hooch 
at home (we've been known to make wine ourselves), but the vast majority 
comes from licensed establishments and sales venues, and there are pretty 
strict controls over the production of alcohol.

It's been done before, and the only thing stopping it from being done 
again is people who - as I said - try to assert that they have a moral 
imperative (and hence a moral superiority) to prohibit those substances, 
and I for one, thing that's total BS.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:

> The people who are for the prohibition of drugs use the same logic that 
> brought about alcohol prohibition in the 30's.  It's not about the costs 
> to cover treatment and such - it's about it being "bad" for people to do 
> that.  It's about one group of people asserting their sense of moral 
> superiority.

This entire subthread baffles me. (And for once, I don't just mean "how 
the **** did we end up *here*?")

Of course, you're entirely right. Why would a team of medical experts 
who've studied the addictive effects of drugs and the damage they do to 
the human body know more about it than some random guy on the street? 
Everyone agrees - wait, let me change that - almost everyone agrees we 
shouldn't let people commit suicide. It is therefore completely logical 
that we should allow people to slowly poison themselves to death, while 
at the same time causing untold misery around them.

Hold on - no, actually that entire paragraph makes *no* sense at all! :-P

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On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:13:22 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> Why would a team of medical experts
> who've studied the addictive effects of drugs and the damage they do to
> the human body know more about it than some random guy on the street?

If it were the team of medical experts who were asserting what I'm 
terming the "moral superiority", that would be one thing.  But here in 
the US, it's largely the same people who insist that because Evolution is 
a "theory", the "theory" of creationism should also be taught AS PART OF 
SCIENCE CURRICULUM.  (Caps for emphasis)

In other words, it's not people who have medical training or even 
chemistry training.  It's people who think Evolution is a myth 
perpetrated by the liberal media (in extreme cases) and who don't think 
there's such a thing as mutation even though it's *all around them* - and 
they religiously go and get flu vaccinations because the flu strain has 
evolved to be able to counter the last vaccination.

Look at the case for medical marijuana, for example - here in the US, it 
is a federal crime to grow or smoke pot, even though some states have 
legalized it to some extent.  The *doctors* (who I'd consider to have 
medical training and who have studied the effects and have decided that 
there's a benefit, for example, for people with chronic untreatable pain) 
are in favor of it, and it's the anti-science people who think it should 
be left illegal.

What is a real problem with drug use today (at least in the US) is that 
the quality control for those drugs is nonexistent - and that's part (but 
not the entire) of the reason why there are problems with drug users.  
Now, turn it into a well-regulated industry with standards of production, 
and you see several positive side effects:

 * "Product" quality increases and you end up with fewer accidental 
overdoses (which can happen when one batch is really weak and the next is 
overly strong - IOW, no consistent quality control).  
 * You have fewer people being locked up for non-violent offenses (such 
as possession or possession with intent to use/intent to distribute). 
 * Those who are distributing have to be licensed to do so - so you know 
most of who is distributing them and you know they have met some standard 
of knowledge in order to legally distribute.
 * You will have created a market that you can collect taxes from where 
money is currently changing hands and nothing goes to pay for services 
that those users consume as a result of their use (just like smoking/
drinking)
 * Prices can be standardized and normalized, potentially reducing 
violent crime from people who can't afford to get their 'fix' today

None of the crime reduction benefits is a total reduction, just as you 
see people buying oxycodone on the black market, a black market would 
still exist, but it would be a much smaller black market than it is now.

There are also plenty of people who think suicide should be allowed as an 
option in certain circumstances - not just Dr. Kevorkian.  I had a friend 
in the Netherlands (if memory serves - I knew him only online as part of 
a very close group) who had terminal cancer, and he decided he didn't 
want to suffer until he died - so he chose to end his life on his terms, 
and he had the assistance of a qualified and trained medical professional.

Life is a terminal condition, and I personally think it's a little crazy 
that the government and the insurance companies can decide that I should 
*suffer* against my will if I'm in a terminal situation.

But that's a discussion for another day.  It's 3:05 AM here now, and I 
*have* to get some sleep.

Jim

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