#61
|
|||
|
|||
Off Topic
John B. writes:
On Sat, 03 Aug 2019 20:59:18 -0400, Radey Shouman wrote: Tom Kunich writes: On Thursday, August 1, 2019 at 6:03:16 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote: On Thursday, August 1, 2019 at 5:29:18 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote: I know this is off topic but I don't find the answer anywhere else. Today's news has Pres. Trump accusing the Chinese of continuing to sell fentanyl to the United States -- "and many Americans continue to die!" But my research shows that fentanyl is a medical drug for the alleviation of severe pain and as such I would assume to be a controlled substance. How than, "many Americans continue to die!" ? See https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/w...nyl-trump.html Fentanyl and all its variants are now controlled substances in China which, of course, does not stop illegal trade. -- Jay Beattie. Jay, Fentanyl was developed to be used as an injectable painkiller when all else fails. The people in the final stages of cancer and the like do not respond much to most of the pain killers on the market including the strongest forms of Morphine. I'm not sure what the idea was when it was developed, but fentanyl is widely used for pain relief in transdermal patches. You can quite easily absorb enough narcotic to light you right up from a patch smaller than a postage stamp applied to your skin. Put a few on and you might absorb a lethal dose. It is useful, but I have to wonder if humanity would not have been better off just liberalizing the use of heroin, which works much the same way but is easier to titrate. From what I read you are correct in the sense of, one might say, the legal use of fentanyl, but the current U.S. claim seems to be that illegal users of fentanyl are simply ordering it from (mainly) Chinese Web Sites and getting it delivered to their door. Fentanyl overdoses are a significant problem where I live. My impression is that most users don't know whether they're getting heroin or fentanyl of some mixture of the two. Dealers don't want to kill off paying customers, but not being analytical chemists they're not that good at dealing with doses in the micrograms, particularly after several stages of distribution. There are probably some users who order directly from China, but those are very much in the minority. I don't know whether the ultimate source of most fentanyl on US streets is China; it does seem possible. Again from my reading, something like 20,000 individuals are dying from the illegal procurement and use of fentanyl and the U.S. wants China to do something about it. But you are correct, simply legalize the use of drugs and the price goes down and illegal procurement immediately becomes a mote subject. I was wondering aloud whether fentanyl would even have been developed if legal heroin had continued to be easily available. The big reason to promote new narcotics in the legal market is just that they are new, and subject to patents and other legal means to monopoly. Makes great sense for drug companies, not so much for either medical or recreational users. As an example, currently the "wholesale" price of methamphetamine tablets on the Thai/Myanmar border is roughly 1/3- 1/2 the "wholesale" price in Bangkok and in consequence the police daily capture pickup truck loads of what the Thai's call "Ya Ba" (crazy medicine) on the way to the big city. Multi million tablet intercepts are common these days. The price varies but an "average" price is probably in the TB 200 - 300 per tab, about $6.60 -$10.00. If Ya Ba was legalized tomorrow the retail price might become as low as 30 baht ($1.00) each. -- cheers, John B. -- |
Ads |
#62
|
|||
|
|||
Off Topic
On Sun, 04 Aug 2019 12:19:20 +0700, John B.
wrote: Atheists - I have no idea. I never met anyone who didn't believe in anything and tried to convert others to his belief. Anti-theists posing at atheists are another matter. An antitheist on some newsgroup -- I've long since forgotten the details -- thought it "child abuse" that the children of theists are not taken from their parents and brought up in the one true belief. -- Joy Beeson joy beeson at comcast dot net |
#63
|
|||
|
|||
Off Topic
On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 10:49:56 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote: On 8/3/2019 11:30 PM, jbeattie wrote: Wow, now you're condoning murder of abortion providers? Even therapeutic abortion to save the mother? Incest? Abortion of non-viable fetuses? FWIW, I'm not condoning murder of anyone. But the "therapeutic abortion to save the mother" thing, and the incest and rape excuses, apply to only a tiny proportion of abortions. Generally speaking, they're a red herring. The vast majority of abortions are for simple birth control. In other words, those having sex aren't responsible enough to think ahead, or competently use birth control. Perhaps they don't want to interrupt their pleasure for a moment. When their gamble goes wrong, they kill the baby before it's born. It's simple - and a bit barbaric. While I'm not disagreeing with you, but the cases where I knew the details, actually not that many, a "birth control" abortion was conducted in the first three months of pregnancy. Back in the day, bar girls often got them and went right back to work the next day. -- cheers, John B. |
#64
|
|||
|
|||
Off Topic
On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 11:02:53 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote: On 8/4/2019 1:19 AM, John B. wrote: On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 21:45:06 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 8/3/2019 8:42 PM, John B. wrote: On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 20:14:16 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 8/3/2019 6:53 PM, John B. wrote: On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 12:19:50 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 8/3/2019 11:55 AM, jbeattie wrote: ... even a sensible Democrat is clearly superior to the insane asylum the Left has conjured up out of the fraudulent "oppression" of tiny minorities, who together cannot account for rolling a single log... Agreed. And I think lots of people agree. Murder is definitional -- and if it is licensed, it is not murder. Whether one can murder a fetus in the US varies from state to state. The religious and historical prohibition on murder was to maintain social peace and order. The Fifth Commandment did not apply to a fetus, at least not absolutely and not according to the Jews -- whose God god wrote the rule (although the original was lost for many years until found by Stephen Spielberg.) Regrettably, Catholics and conservative Christians have pushed for prohibition as an article of faith and without regard to what becomes of the fetus once born, and in fact Christian conservatives bemoan the "welfare state." I disagree with that final sentence. At least around here, there are many church-based institutions that care for women and children, and there are ongoing congregational charity drives for them. We contribute. I'm not "into" women's rights but can the death of a fetus that would not survive if removed from the mother logically be termed "murder"? And conversely, babies born after 24 weeks are now regularly saved. But others are aborted after 24 weeks. Granted, it's not common - but what should it be called? I don't know and my thoughts were aimed at early abortion before the fetus is capable of survival outside the mother. And those who cry that any abortion is murder. What should it be called? I don't know and frankly I don't care as my attitude is that I will do as good as I can do and what you do is up to you. The uniquely Christian concept that one should run about and force their neighbors to conform to "their" belief is totally foreign to me. Wow. I'm amazed you can call that "uniquely Christian." You must have no knowledge at all about muslims, , various pagans, etc. Actually I do as at various times, in my military career I was assigned to places where there wasn't much reading material so I read various religious books and at other times I was living or working in a country that wasn't predominately Christian and felt it useful to know what "they" were doing. Moslem -the Holy Koran, i.e.," The Word of God", sets forth the parameters for "infidels" to reside in a Moslem country. There is no mandatory conversion required but Infidels must pay a tax. Buddhists - Nothing in the Buddhist writings, that I have read or are aware of, requires an adherent to the religion to convert anyone. In fact there is a early Buddhist sutra that discusses "God" in which the Buddha says that he hasn't discussed god(s) but has given the student 8 things to concern himself with. (The Jews had 12 :-) Pagan - I certainly cannot discuss all "pagans" but certainly the pagans I worked with in Irian Jaya, some of whom may well have been cannibals, required anyone to convert to their beliefs. Atheists - I have no idea. I never met anyone who didn't believe in anything and tried to convert others to his belief. Hindu - I'll throw this in for free as many Indonesians from Bali are Hindu and it is one of the authorized religions in Indonesia and the Hindus that I worked with never seemed to have any desire to convert me. Christians - Ah well, I will leave this up to you. Would you care to comment on how many have been killed, tortured, forcibly converted, burned or otherwise killed in the name of Christianity? Quora has it somewhere in the region of 50 - 100 million. In comparison, the population of England, in 1086, was estimated to have been 1.25 - 2 million. John, read up on the mechanism by which the muslim faith was initially spread. They used a very different technique than, say, the Mormons. Read up on the history of atheistic communism and its treatment of religious people of many types. Read up on hindu treatment of buddhists. Read up ... Oh, you get the idea. Well I have "read up on", to a certain extent, and for example, the initial spread of the Moslem Faith, usually counted from the return from Medina to Mecca did not include the massacre of all none Moslems, or even the mistreatment of none Muslims in Mecca. Hindu treatment of Buddhists? I'm not aware of just what you are talking about, perhaps you meant the Hindu treatment of Moslems, but does this somehow negate the Crusader deliberate slaughter of essentially the entire population of Jerusalem in 1099. Or the so called "Inquisition", first established in Languedoc (south of France) in 1184 and formally ended in the mid 19th century. Or the so called "Holocaust" a carefully planned elimination of an entire race of people carried out by (at least) nominal Christians. -- cheers, John B. |
#65
|
|||
|
|||
Off Topic
On Sun, 04 Aug 2019 12:02:43 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote: John B. writes: On Sat, 03 Aug 2019 20:59:18 -0400, Radey Shouman wrote: Tom Kunich writes: On Thursday, August 1, 2019 at 6:03:16 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote: On Thursday, August 1, 2019 at 5:29:18 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote: I know this is off topic but I don't find the answer anywhere else. Today's news has Pres. Trump accusing the Chinese of continuing to sell fentanyl to the United States -- "and many Americans continue to die!" But my research shows that fentanyl is a medical drug for the alleviation of severe pain and as such I would assume to be a controlled substance. How than, "many Americans continue to die!" ? See https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/w...nyl-trump.html Fentanyl and all its variants are now controlled substances in China which, of course, does not stop illegal trade. -- Jay Beattie. Jay, Fentanyl was developed to be used as an injectable painkiller when all else fails. The people in the final stages of cancer and the like do not respond much to most of the pain killers on the market including the strongest forms of Morphine. I'm not sure what the idea was when it was developed, but fentanyl is widely used for pain relief in transdermal patches. You can quite easily absorb enough narcotic to light you right up from a patch smaller than a postage stamp applied to your skin. Put a few on and you might absorb a lethal dose. It is useful, but I have to wonder if humanity would not have been better off just liberalizing the use of heroin, which works much the same way but is easier to titrate. From what I read you are correct in the sense of, one might say, the legal use of fentanyl, but the current U.S. claim seems to be that illegal users of fentanyl are simply ordering it from (mainly) Chinese Web Sites and getting it delivered to their door. Fentanyl overdoses are a significant problem where I live. My impression is that most users don't know whether they're getting heroin or fentanyl of some mixture of the two. Dealers don't want to kill off paying customers, but not being analytical chemists they're not that good at dealing with doses in the micrograms, particularly after several stages of distribution. There are probably some users who order directly from China, but those are very much in the minority. I don't know whether the ultimate source of most fentanyl on US streets is China; it does seem possible. Again from my reading, something like 20,000 individuals are dying from the illegal procurement and use of fentanyl and the U.S. wants China to do something about it. But you are correct, simply legalize the use of drugs and the price goes down and illegal procurement immediately becomes a mote subject. I was wondering aloud whether fentanyl would even have been developed if legal heroin had continued to be easily available. The big reason to promote new narcotics in the legal market is just that they are new, and subject to patents and other legal means to monopoly. Makes great sense for drug companies, not so much for either medical or recreational users. Read up ion it. Fentanyl was originally developed for use in surgery and was, at least for a time, the preferred surgical or obstetrical anesthesia. -- cheers, John B. |
#66
|
|||
|
|||
Off Topic
On Monday, August 5, 2019 at 12:36:05 AM UTC+1, John B. wrote:
Or the so called "Holocaust" a carefully planned elimination of an entire race of people carried out by (at least) nominal Christians. The Holocaust wasn't "so-called"; it is an historical, meticulously documented event, not least by its perpetrators, master bookkeepers. And scare-quotes around the noun also give the impression you're a Holocaust denier. I don't imagine that was your intention. If that was your intention, keep it to yourself because many places in the world now Holocaust denial is punishable legal transgression. The Nazis weren't even "nominally" Christians. They explicit rejected Christianity in favour of a pagan national connection to nature. For instance, the title among his many titles that Herman Goering was most proud of was 'Huntsman of Germany", which put him in charge of all the forests -- I kid you not. Religion in Germany under the Nazis wasn't exactly a fringe activity, but it played no part in the policies of the German state* -- contrast for instance Ireland, where the Catholic church, which had no official position, was a de facto arm of government until the 1980s. *It is argued that Vatican and the Curia played the part of the blind monkeys, that they were fellow-travellers and collaborators with the Nazis; their defender claim they were helping to save Jews. Andre Jute Welcome, Trivia! |
#67
|
|||
|
|||
Off Topic
On 8/4/2019 6:36 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 11:02:53 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 8/4/2019 1:19 AM, John B. wrote: On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 21:45:06 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 8/3/2019 8:42 PM, John B. wrote: On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 20:14:16 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 8/3/2019 6:53 PM, John B. wrote: On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 12:19:50 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 8/3/2019 11:55 AM, jbeattie wrote: ... even a sensible Democrat is clearly superior to the insane asylum the Left has conjured up out of the fraudulent "oppression" of tiny minorities, who together cannot account for rolling a single log... Agreed. And I think lots of people agree. Murder is definitional -- and if it is licensed, it is not murder. Whether one can murder a fetus in the US varies from state to state. The religious and historical prohibition on murder was to maintain social peace and order. The Fifth Commandment did not apply to a fetus, at least not absolutely and not according to the Jews -- whose God god wrote the rule (although the original was lost for many years until found by Stephen Spielberg.) Regrettably, Catholics and conservative Christians have pushed for prohibition as an article of faith and without regard to what becomes of the fetus once born, and in fact Christian conservatives bemoan the "welfare state." I disagree with that final sentence. At least around here, there are many church-based institutions that care for women and children, and there are ongoing congregational charity drives for them. We contribute. I'm not "into" women's rights but can the death of a fetus that would not survive if removed from the mother logically be termed "murder"? And conversely, babies born after 24 weeks are now regularly saved. But others are aborted after 24 weeks. Granted, it's not common - but what should it be called? I don't know and my thoughts were aimed at early abortion before the fetus is capable of survival outside the mother. And those who cry that any abortion is murder. What should it be called? I don't know and frankly I don't care as my attitude is that I will do as good as I can do and what you do is up to you. The uniquely Christian concept that one should run about and force their neighbors to conform to "their" belief is totally foreign to me. Wow. I'm amazed you can call that "uniquely Christian." You must have no knowledge at all about muslims, , various pagans, etc. Actually I do as at various times, in my military career I was assigned to places where there wasn't much reading material so I read various religious books and at other times I was living or working in a country that wasn't predominately Christian and felt it useful to know what "they" were doing. Moslem -the Holy Koran, i.e.," The Word of God", sets forth the parameters for "infidels" to reside in a Moslem country. There is no mandatory conversion required but Infidels must pay a tax. Buddhists - Nothing in the Buddhist writings, that I have read or are aware of, requires an adherent to the religion to convert anyone. In fact there is a early Buddhist sutra that discusses "God" in which the Buddha says that he hasn't discussed god(s) but has given the student 8 things to concern himself with. (The Jews had 12 :-) Pagan - I certainly cannot discuss all "pagans" but certainly the pagans I worked with in Irian Jaya, some of whom may well have been cannibals, required anyone to convert to their beliefs. Atheists - I have no idea. I never met anyone who didn't believe in anything and tried to convert others to his belief. Hindu - I'll throw this in for free as many Indonesians from Bali are Hindu and it is one of the authorized religions in Indonesia and the Hindus that I worked with never seemed to have any desire to convert me. Christians - Ah well, I will leave this up to you. Would you care to comment on how many have been killed, tortured, forcibly converted, burned or otherwise killed in the name of Christianity? Quora has it somewhere in the region of 50 - 100 million. In comparison, the population of England, in 1086, was estimated to have been 1.25 - 2 million. John, read up on the mechanism by which the muslim faith was initially spread. They used a very different technique than, say, the Mormons. Read up on the history of atheistic communism and its treatment of religious people of many types. Read up on hindu treatment of buddhists. Read up ... Oh, you get the idea. Well I have "read up on", to a certain extent, and for example, the initial spread of the Moslem Faith, usually counted from the return from Medina to Mecca did not include the massacre of all none Moslems, or even the mistreatment of none Muslims in Mecca. Hindu treatment of Buddhists? I'm not aware of just what you are talking about, perhaps you meant the Hindu treatment of Moslems, but does this somehow negate the Crusader deliberate slaughter of essentially the entire population of Jerusalem in 1099. Or the so called "Inquisition", first established in Languedoc (south of France) in 1184 and formally ended in the mid 19th century. Or the so called "Holocaust" a carefully planned elimination of an entire race of people carried out by (at least) nominal Christians. -- cheers, John B. for Buddhist vs Hindu the Sri Lanka war comes readily to mind. -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
#68
|
|||
|
|||
Off Topic
On Mon, 05 Aug 2019 01:11:50 +0000, Ralph Barone wrote:
I think that Leviticus and Deuteronomy (and the majority of Old Testament writers) could have benefited by “just lightening the **** up”. As can all who quote their holy book to justify attrocities. |
#69
|
|||
|
|||
Off Topic
On Sun, 04 Aug 2019 10:49:56 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:
The vast majority of abortions are for simple birth control. In other words, those having sex aren't responsible enough to think ahead, or competently use birth control. All forms of birtgh control have failure rates. Perhaps they don't want to interrupt their pleasure for a moment. Or live in perpetual agony from the side effects of some forms of birth control. When their gamble goes wrong, they kill the baby before it's born. It's simple - and a bit barbaric. Shrug, as opposed to the number that are naturally aborted? |
#70
|
|||
|
|||
Off Topic
On Sunday, August 4, 2019 at 4:06:28 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 4 Aug 2019 10:49:56 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 8/3/2019 11:30 PM, jbeattie wrote: Wow, now you're condoning murder of abortion providers? Even therapeutic abortion to save the mother? Incest? Abortion of non-viable fetuses? FWIW, I'm not condoning murder of anyone. But the "therapeutic abortion to save the mother" thing, and the incest and rape excuses, apply to only a tiny proportion of abortions. Generally speaking, they're a red herring. The vast majority of abortions are for simple birth control. In other words, those having sex aren't responsible enough to think ahead, or competently use birth control. Perhaps they don't want to interrupt their pleasure for a moment. When their gamble goes wrong, they kill the baby before it's born. It's simple - and a bit barbaric. While I'm not disagreeing with you, but the cases where I knew the details, actually not that many, a "birth control" abortion was conducted in the first three months of pregnancy. Back in the day, bar girls often got them and went right back to work the next day. Unless they were mangled by some back-alley abortionist or killed themselves with one of the do-it-yourself remedies. That's barbaric. And to Frank's point, it is complicated, but moralizing out people's sexual practices is like teaching abstinence -- useless. What is complicated is deciding at what point the state's interest in preserving the life of a fetus outweighs the interest of the mother in not having a child. Different civilized and non-barbaric nations make different choices. https://reproductiverights.org/worldabortionlaws In US (and in many European nations), women are allowed to make the choice on their own, without any state involvement, based on their own religious and moral beliefs during the first trimester or thereabouts. That may offend some religious beliefs, but this is a nation of laws and not a papal state or caliphate. -- Jay Beattie. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Off topic for UK, on topic for another good laugh at cyclists | Mr Pounder Esquire | UK | 1 | May 22nd 16 09:25 PM |
Three Greatest Inventions (2/3 On Topic, 1/3 Off Topic) | Johnny Sunset aka Tom Sherman | General | 21 | December 19th 06 04:40 AM |
Frank exchange of words with black cabbie New Topic Reply to Topic | spindrift | UK | 50 | August 7th 06 06:25 AM |
Sort of on topic/off topic: Rising toll of kids hurt on roads | wafflycat | UK | 4 | March 24th 06 05:28 PM |
This is off topic some ... but on topic also... make up your mind | Thomas Wentworth | General | 7 | November 8th 05 09:46 PM |