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On April 21 2017 23:46 ShoCkeyy wrote:Overall, too much use of anything is bad before driving. Coffee is bad because most of the time you just want to drive fast, due to stimulants. Show nested quote +Coffee is the worst, bringing new meaning to the adage "don't drink and drive."
Citation needed.
The former is about the act of eating and drinking while driving, which is not about the substance at all. You could be drinking water, it just so happens that most people aren't. They're drinking coffee (dumber than drinking water, because it's hot). Which is dumb. Almost as dumb as playing with your telephone.
The latter is just a bizarre case in California. There's nothing that says coffee is actually bad, it's just that the police decided they wanted to charge this guy with something. I suspect it'll be thrown out, but the US court system is generally too strange for me to comment further.
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These 2 articles are entirely unrelated to the points discussed.
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Do you trust a president who says we should just get along with Russia?
As the French prepare to vote Sunday in a presidential election marked by acrimonious debate about Russian influence in Europe, there’s little doubt about which candidate Moscow backs.
Last month, the combative populist Marine Le Pen of the right-wing National Front flew to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin. It was a display of longtime mutual admiration. The frontrunner in a field of 11 candidates, Le Pen shrugs off allegations of corruption and human rights abuses against Putin, calling him a tough and effective leader. Her hard-line views on immigration, Islam and the European Union win praise from Putin and enthusiastic coverage from Russian media outlets. Her campaign has been propelled by a loan of more than $9 million from a Russian bank in 2014, according to Western officials and media reports.
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Russia has launched a series of clandestine and open efforts [in Europe] to sway governments and exert influence, according to European and U.S. national security officials, diplomats, academics and other experts interviewed by ProPublica in recent weeks.
“The Russians have had an aggressive espionage presence here for a long time,” a senior French intelligence official said. “The Russians now have more spies, more clandestine operations, in France than they did in the Cold War.”
European and U.S. security officials say Russian tactics run the gamut from attempted regime change to sophisticated cyber-espionage.
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“For Russia, there is a desire to display power,” said Thomas Gomart, director of the French Institute of International Relations, a think tank in Paris. “They have openly chosen their candidate. It’s very serious. If Le Pen is elected, which is not impossible, that would be part of a chain of events including the Brexit and the election of Trump that would amount to a spectacular reconfiguration of the Western political family. The Russians want to weaken Europe, and to break NATO. The stakes are very high.”
www.propublica.org
A Russian government think tank controlled by Vladimir Putin developed a plan to swing the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump and undermine voters’ faith in the American electoral system, three current and four former U.S. officials told Reuters.
They described two confidential documents from the think tank as providing the framework and rationale for what U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded was an intensive effort by Russia to interfere with the Nov. 8 election. U.S. intelligence officials acquired the documents, which were prepared by the Moscow-based Russian Institute for Strategic Studies [en.riss.ru/], after the election.
www.reuters.com
The Kremlin paid an army of more than 1,000 people to create fake anti-Hillary Clinton news stories targeting key swing states, the leading Democrat on the committee looking into alleged Russian interference in the US election has said.
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Mr Warner said: “We know about the hacking, and selective leaks, but what really concerns me as a former tech guy is at least some reports – and we’ve got to get to the bottom of this – that there were upwards of a thousand internet trolls working out of a facility in Russia, in effect taking over a series of computers which are then called botnets, that can then generate news down to specific areas.
“It’s been reported to me, and we’ve got to find this out, whether they were able to affect specific areas in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, where you would not have been receiving off of whoever your vendor might have been, Trump versus Clinton, during the waning days of the election, but instead, ‘Clinton is sick’, or ‘Clinton is taking money from whoever for some source’ … fake news.
“An outside foreign adversary effectively sought to hi-jack the most critical democratic process, the election of a President, and in that process, decided to favour one candidate over another.”
www.independent.co.uk
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How long did it take before alcohol impaired driving became commonly accepted as a terrible idea?
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On April 21 2017 23:51 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2017 23:46 ShoCkeyy wrote:Overall, too much use of anything is bad before driving. Coffee is bad because most of the time you just want to drive fast, due to stimulants. Coffee is the worst, bringing new meaning to the adage "don't drink and drive." Citation needed. The former is about the act of eating and drinking while driving, which is not about the substance at all. You could be drinking water, it just so happens that most people aren't. They're drinking coffee (dumber than drinking water, because it's hot). Which is dumb. Almost as dumb as playing with your telephone. The latter is just a bizarre case in California. There's nothing that says coffee is actually bad, it's just that the police decided they wanted to charge this guy with something. I suspect it'll be thrown out, but the US court system is generally too strange for me to comment further.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3382640/
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hup.327/abstract;jsessionid=4255696FC0E98C7ED16DB9B05FE49E63.f04t03
http://coffeeandhealth.org/topic-overview/caffeine-and-mental-alertness/
While it does increase alertness after an hour, it really dies down after two hours or more, and that's where some one becomes really impaired to drive due to the fatigue that comes with coffee. The thing about driving fast, is due to being alert, usually alert drivers are typically driving the speed limit, following law, or a bit over the speed limit.
Shit in all honesty, texting while driving should be considered impairment, because your physically not watching the road anymore, and I think in some states they're pushing that.
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Wait... Is texting while driving Legal in the US?
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On April 22 2017 00:33 Velr wrote:
Wait... Is texting while driving Legal in the US?
No. Not sure about federally, but every state I know of has banned it
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Pot is definitely more person to person in terms of impairment. Tolerance levels due vary greatly in many ways, it stays in your system longer and is detectable well after you've really come down. Making it extremely hard to regulate, I disagree wholeheartedly with Kwarks draconian law style as well. What happens if someone smokes a joint, comes down drives an hour or so later and gets pulled over for something unrelated but ends up losing their car? Absolutes like that are extremely dangerous and give far to much power to be properly used.
Pot to me seems far less dangerous in terms of impairment but we definitely can't have people blazed out of their minds driving either. Not sure how to properly regulate it, instead of walking in a straight line perhaps some sort of test to determine how much one can focus and pay attention?
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Having a decent public transport system?
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On April 22 2017 00:35 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Pot is definitely more person to person in terms of impairment. Tolerance levels due vary greatly in many ways, it stays in your system longer and is detectable well after you've really come down. Making it extremely hard to regulate, I disagree wholeheartedly with Kwarks draconian law style as well. What happens if someone smokes a joint, comes down drives an hour or so later and gets pulled over for something unrelated but ends up losing their car? Absolutes like that are extremely dangerous and give far to much power to be properly used.
Pot to me seems far less dangerous in terms of impairment but we definitely can't have people blazed out of their minds driving either. Not sure how to properly regulate it, instead of walking in a straight line perhaps some sort of test to determine how much one can focus and pay attention?
The US has field sobriety tests. They consist of things like saying the alphabet backwards and touching your nose. And walking a straight line. They're kind of judgement tests by police so expect them to be biased against non whites. A lot less than the current system probably allows for though.
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How can it be biased against non-whites (and asians) if it involves touching your nose? 
Sry..
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On April 22 2017 00:43 Velr wrote:How can it be biased against non-whites (and asians) if it involves touching your nose? Sry..
By saying "oh, he took a second to touch his nose. Clearly high on heroin and pcp" and searching the car, finding some unrelated (non drug) problem, throwing them in jail then telling them to pick cotton for 15 cents an hour or spend the rest of their sentence in solitary confinement.
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United States44440 Posts
On April 22 2017 00:35 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Pot is definitely more person to person in terms of impairment. Tolerance levels due vary greatly in many ways, it stays in your system longer and is detectable well after you've really come down. Making it extremely hard to regulate, I disagree wholeheartedly with Kwarks draconian law style as well. What happens if someone smokes a joint, comes down drives an hour or so later and gets pulled over for something unrelated but ends up losing their car? Absolutes like that are extremely dangerous and give far to much power to be properly used.
Pot to me seems far less dangerous in terms of impairment but we definitely can't have people blazed out of their minds driving either. Not sure how to properly regulate it, instead of walking in a straight line perhaps some sort of test to determine how much one can focus and pay attention?
What do you mean what happens? That's the situation the law is meant to prevent by stopping people from doing it. Saying "well surely your draconian law will punish people who smoke a joint and drive an hour later" is somewhat missing the point. Those are the people I'm trying to punish.
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On April 22 2017 00:48 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2017 00:35 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Pot is definitely more person to person in terms of impairment. Tolerance levels due vary greatly in many ways, it stays in your system longer and is detectable well after you've really come down. Making it extremely hard to regulate, I disagree wholeheartedly with Kwarks draconian law style as well. What happens if someone smokes a joint, comes down drives an hour or so later and gets pulled over for something unrelated but ends up losing their car? Absolutes like that are extremely dangerous and give far to much power to be properly used.
Pot to me seems far less dangerous in terms of impairment but we definitely can't have people blazed out of their minds driving either. Not sure how to properly regulate it, instead of walking in a straight line perhaps some sort of test to determine how much one can focus and pay attention? What do you mean what happens? That's the situation the law is meant to prevent by stopping people from doing it. Saying "well surely your draconian law will punish people who smoke a joint and drive an hour later" is somewhat missing the point. Those are the people I'm trying to punish.
So is what you're saying essentially if someone increases their % risk of collision, even if not by much, as a result of recent intoxication, they should be punished? My problem with that is the idea of driving while sleepy or something similar. Its not illegal for me to drive at 2 AM, but I'd be more dangerous doing that than driving an hour after having a beer at 2 PM.
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Interestingly, draconian as Kwark's solution sounds, current punishments for DUI's might actually be more draconian. Add up all the cost of fines, increased insurance costs, etc. and you basically wind up with about $10,000 cost, plus losing your license for a while and having to take a bunch of classes and shit (based on my gf's experience with a DUI in college; ymmv). If you'd rather deal with all that than just lose your car, you must really like your car.
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On April 22 2017 00:52 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2017 00:48 KwarK wrote:On April 22 2017 00:35 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Pot is definitely more person to person in terms of impairment. Tolerance levels due vary greatly in many ways, it stays in your system longer and is detectable well after you've really come down. Making it extremely hard to regulate, I disagree wholeheartedly with Kwarks draconian law style as well. What happens if someone smokes a joint, comes down drives an hour or so later and gets pulled over for something unrelated but ends up losing their car? Absolutes like that are extremely dangerous and give far to much power to be properly used.
Pot to me seems far less dangerous in terms of impairment but we definitely can't have people blazed out of their minds driving either. Not sure how to properly regulate it, instead of walking in a straight line perhaps some sort of test to determine how much one can focus and pay attention? What do you mean what happens? That's the situation the law is meant to prevent by stopping people from doing it. Saying "well surely your draconian law will punish people who smoke a joint and drive an hour later" is somewhat missing the point. Those are the people I'm trying to punish. So is what you're saying essentially if someone increases their % risk of collision, even if not by much, as a result of recent intoxication, they should be punished? My problem with that is the idea of driving while sleepy or something similar. Its not illegal for me to drive at 2 AM, but I'd be more dangerous doing that than driving an hour after having a beer at 2 PM.
If you can find a reliable way to test if someone is a sleepy like we can with alcohol consumption then by all means we can go ahead to ban sleepy driving.
This argument is stupid. "You don't ban bad thing A, so we should stop worrying about B"
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On April 22 2017 00:48 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2017 00:35 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Pot is definitely more person to person in terms of impairment. Tolerance levels due vary greatly in many ways, it stays in your system longer and is detectable well after you've really come down. Making it extremely hard to regulate, I disagree wholeheartedly with Kwarks draconian law style as well. What happens if someone smokes a joint, comes down drives an hour or so later and gets pulled over for something unrelated but ends up losing their car? Absolutes like that are extremely dangerous and give far to much power to be properly used.
Pot to me seems far less dangerous in terms of impairment but we definitely can't have people blazed out of their minds driving either. Not sure how to properly regulate it, instead of walking in a straight line perhaps some sort of test to determine how much one can focus and pay attention? What do you mean what happens? That's the situation the law is meant to prevent by stopping people from doing it. Saying "well surely your draconian law will punish people who smoke a joint and drive an hour later" is somewhat missing the point. Those are the people I'm trying to punish.
I think you missed my point, my point was that these people aren't really high anymore and not impaired but tests will still detect pot in the blood etc. Therefore causing an innocent person to lose their car.
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Here's a funny drunk driving anecdote: one of my closest friends used to be a functioning alcoholic, and he was pretty good at getting away with absolutely heinous acts of drunk driving. Nevertheless, even he fell victim to the DUI gambit eventually, as one night, he decided to drive to a bar being tended by our neighbors that was less than a half mile away from our apartment. On his way back, he found his path to our parking was blocked by a firetruck in the alley. Upon seeing this, he promptly got out of his car and began harassing the firefighters, telling them that they must be avoiding the real work by putting out dumpster fires and getting in his way. He was arrested shortly thereafter. 
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On April 22 2017 00:52 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2017 00:48 KwarK wrote:On April 22 2017 00:35 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Pot is definitely more person to person in terms of impairment. Tolerance levels due vary greatly in many ways, it stays in your system longer and is detectable well after you've really come down. Making it extremely hard to regulate, I disagree wholeheartedly with Kwarks draconian law style as well. What happens if someone smokes a joint, comes down drives an hour or so later and gets pulled over for something unrelated but ends up losing their car? Absolutes like that are extremely dangerous and give far to much power to be properly used.
Pot to me seems far less dangerous in terms of impairment but we definitely can't have people blazed out of their minds driving either. Not sure how to properly regulate it, instead of walking in a straight line perhaps some sort of test to determine how much one can focus and pay attention? What do you mean what happens? That's the situation the law is meant to prevent by stopping people from doing it. Saying "well surely your draconian law will punish people who smoke a joint and drive an hour later" is somewhat missing the point. Those are the people I'm trying to punish. So is what you're saying essentially if someone increases their % risk of collision, even if not by much, as a result of recent intoxication, they should be punished? My problem with that is the idea of driving while sleepy or something similar. Its not illegal for me to drive at 2 AM, but I'd be more dangerous doing that than driving an hour after having a beer at 2 PM.
If you're falling asleep at the wheel and A) someone spots you nodding off, or B) you keep drifting on the road and are clearly lacking control for one reason or another, then yeah, you can be punished. Isn't this already the case?
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Those articles are trash. The act of burning yourself with hot coffee is what'll get you into an accident, not consuming it. Drink an iced coffee if you think it's a problem. Also, an anecdote about "dropping a pickle and reaching for it"? The other one is an outlandish case one officer decided to push that isn't even resolved as of its writing, yet someone decided it was still somehow newsworthy.
How about, you're driving a 2-ton piece of machinery, don't be a dumbass. Caffeine enters the picture at no point.
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EPT
