On the subject of Drug Scheduling:
Schedule IV
Schedule IV drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with a low potential for abuse and low risk of dependence. Some examples of Schedule IV drugs are: Xanax, Soma, Darvon, Darvocet, Valium, Ativan, Talwin, Ambien, Tramadol
So the devil’s lettuce is currently Schedule I with "a high potential for abuse”, but Xanax and Valium are not. Got it. That tells you what you need to know about the DEA’s evaluation processes.
Tennessee’s new “chemtrail bill” is inherently ludicrous. It’s also as poorly written as cold be expected. From the bill itself:
The intentional injection, release, or dispersion, by any means, of chemicals, chemical compounds, substances, or apparatus within the borders of this state into the atmosphere with the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather, or the intensity of the sunlight is prohibited.
Strictly speaking, the big government types in Tennessee are banning residents from setting up lawn sprinklers for their kids to play in on a hot day.
On the plus side, it will be explicitly illegal to “roll coal” with the intent of covering another person in a cloud of smoke.
US President Joe Biden pardoned all Federal convictions for the use and simple possession of cannabis. I don’t use cannabis. If it were to go away tomorrow, my life wouldn’t change one bit.
I am thrilled with this blanket pardon.
Modify the statement, like:
I am pardoning additional individuals who may continue to experience the unnecessary collateral consequences of a conviction for simple possession of beer, attempted simple possession of beer, or use of beer.
and it sounds utterly obvious, and ludicrous that it ever would have been an issue in the first place. I enjoy a good stout or porter, and I can walk into almost any grocery store, flash my ID, hand over my money, and walk out with a bottle of drugs that’s caused far more societal harm than cannabis ever did. That I can drink a beer in public and no one bats an eye, while my neighbors could smoke a joint in their own house and go to jail for it, is insanity.
Good on you, Mr. President, for making life better for a whole lot of Americans.
California governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have required self-driving vehicles to have a human driver.
“Considering the longstanding commitment of my administration to addressing the present and future challenges for work and workers in California, and the existing regulatory framework that presently and sufficiently governs this particular technology, this bill is not needed at this time,” Newsom wrote. “For these reasons, I cannot sign this bill.”"
Good. I don’t see this as a safety issue so much as a make-work law. If a human would have to be in a self-driving truck at all times and ready to assume the controls at a moment’s notice, that’s basically human-driven with extra steps. Either the tech is good enough to be autonomous, or it’s not good enough to replace a human driver in the first place. And as a driver, I don’t think I’d want to be legally responsible for whatever boneheaded move a truck might take in the moments before I could regain control over it. “Hey, I know it was the AI that decided to swerve into the crowd of toddlers, and you only had 300ms to respond, but you were the one sitting in the driver’s seat…”
I’m not thrilled with ending human jobs without giving those people a way to survive. Even if I weren’t sympathetic to those hard-working people who are ready and willing to do the tough jobs that keep society running (and I hope it’s obvious that I am), enlightened self-interest means that I don’t want all of them to be unemployed and hungry. That’s bad for everyone. I also wish we shipped more freight via train, which is cheaper and way more environmentally friendly. Making it easier and cheaper to carry even more via truck is probably the wrong process to optimize.
Still, I think this bill was a well meaning but ultimately wrong solution. Frankly, it seems like it’d be cheaper and more efficient to pay those drivers to stay home than to pay them to perch in a self-driving truck.
These are my recommendations for the November 8, 2022 midterm election in California.
Direct democracy looks like a great idea on paper. In practice, we end up with awful laws like Prop 8. Because it’s so hard to remove bad propositions once they’re approved, it’s better to vote “no” on ballot propositions you’re unsure about. If it’s a great idea — or even a bad one, in the case of Prop 29’s predecessors — the proposers can try again in a later election. You can always choose to approve it next time.
Yes. Explicitly protect abortion rights at the state constitution level.
No. This isn’t so important that we need to write it into law.
No. This isn’t so important that we need to write it into law. Note that some advertising makes it sound like you have to pick one of Prop 26 or Prop 27. That’s untrue, and you can vote “no” or “yes” to either, both, or neither, as you wish.
Yes. California has decent support for STEM education. We should also support creative arts. We have a record budget surplus and should invest in all our students.
No, and stop asking. This terrible idea keeps arising every couple of years. We’ve said repeatedly that we don’t want to enshrine this mistake into the California constitution, and we still don’t.
No. I’m ambivalent. When in doubt, say “no”.
Yes. The tobacco industry worked to block enacting a widely supported law that would make it harder for them to market “fun” vape flavors to kids. California has already chosen this legislation. Now let’s defeat Tobacco’s efforts to stop it.
GoDaddy gives Texas abortion website notice: Find new host ASAP:
The highly controversial and regressive Texas abortion law went into effect on September 1. With the law comes the Texas Right to Life group’s website where anyone can submit allegations that a woman had an abortion past the state’s six-week cutoff mark. The state’s new abortion law also allows private citizens to target anyone accused of helping facilitate an abortion.
[…]
Amid the hacktivism is an outcry directed at GoDaddy, the company that hosts the website. Many have called on the company to cut off its services to Texas Right to Life, a call that has been heard. According to a statement GoDaddy provided to The New York Times, Texas Right to Life has been given 24 hours to find a different host for its website.
Even GoDaddy, of creepily sexy advertising fame, knows the Texas neighbor-stalking website is immoral.
I don’t ever want to hear another word about “government overreach” from the Texas GOP. Not a word.
These are the notes I collected to determine how I’m going to vote on November 3, 2020. I’m posting this not to tell you how you should vote, but to share my reasons for why I’m voting this way.
Biden is the only serious candidate.
Barbara Lee (D, Incumbent)
Rob Bonta (D, Incumbent)
Nancy Skinner (D, Incumbent)
Slightly oppose: It’s a good thing to research and support in general, but this isn’t a good time to incur more public debt.
For
Against
Support. Raises taxes on large companies while specifically exempting houses, farms, and small businesses.
For
Against
Support. Prop 209 ended affirmative action. This doesn’t bring it back, but allows it to be considered when it makes sense.
For
Against
Support. If someone’s done their time, then they should be able to participate in society again.
For
Against
Mildly support. It seems goofy to allow a 17 year old to vote in the primary for someone they can’t vote for in the actual election, but it’s probably not the end of the world
First time we have a record turnout because a YouTuber urges everyone to support Deez Nuts for the CA Democrat nomination, I’ll protest this with a pitchfork.
For
Against
Oppose. This is charity for the rich. You can sell your house and transfer the low tax basis to a new, more expensive house three times? No way. It has some good ideas but we should weigh them in a standalone proposition, or better, a state bill.
For
Against
Oppose. This is a charity to the prison systems. Collecting DNA on shoplifters and drug possessors? WTF.
For
Against
Support. It makes sense to let cities experiment. If it doesn’t work locally, change it. What’s good in Oakland may suck in San Diego and vice versa.
For
Against
Oppose: This is some bullshit charity for Uber, Lyft, and Door Dash.
Everything about this seems to be a lie. For example, it provides a good minimum wage, but only while the drive is actively on a run, not when they’re between runs.
For
Against
Oppose: No, and stop asking. No one wants this. As a prop, it’s super hard to get rid of if it turns out to be a horrible idea.
For
Against
Oppose. I generally support privacy laws, but this has issues. The EFF described Proposition 24 as “a mixed bag of partial steps backwards and forwards.” I’m very skeptical of a privacy bill that the EFF doesn’t actively endorse.
Come back next election with a better version and I’ll totally back it.
For
Against
Support. End the cash bail system. Don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “good”. This is a good idea.
For
Against
Peeples (Endorsed by papers. Opponents aren’t bad, but Peeples is more experienced and seems to be pretty good at this.)
Heyman (Incumbent; opponent doesn’t have much reason to vote for him.)
Condes (Supported by majority of progressive groups. Opponent isn’t awful, though.)
Support. Extends the existing sales tax.
Lightly oppose. Good to fund housing and services, but we’re already slammed with super high sales taxes and that feels regressive.
Kearney (unopposed)
(Best profiles, and endorsed by groups that seemed relevant.)
(By ruling out other candidates, not as an endorsement of these)
Mildly support. It’s goofy that voters are being asked to rule on this petty internal bickering, but here we are.
Mildly oppose. Allows altering existing 3-bedroom homes into 2 1-bedroom. Parking and traffic are already bad. We couldn’t live in Alameda if we couldn’t find 3-bedroom housing.
Kennedy (unopposed)
I am pro-military. I think having a strong military means we’re unlikely to have to use it to protect ourselves. But how strong does it actually need to be?
For the sake of argument, I’ll assume that spending corresponds to strength. That is, America spending $1 million gives us roughly as much military power as China or Russia spending $1 million. If this is not true, then we’re spending money poorly and should re-evaluate our budget before increasing it. But that whole line of argument frankly disrespects our world’s finest soldiers and sailors, so let’s agree to set that aside for now.
According to SIPRI, these are the budgets of the world’s biggest militaries in 2015, in billions of dollars:
World Military Spending, 2015
| # | Country | Spending ($B) | Cumulative ($B) | Ally |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 596.0 | ||
| 2 | China | 215.0 | 215.0 | |
| 3 | Saudi Arabia | 87.2 | 302.2 | |
| 4 | Russia | 66.4 | 368.6 | |
| 5 | United Kingdom | 55.5 | 424.1 | ✔️ |
| 6 | India | 51.3 | 475.4 | ✔️ |
| 7 | France | 50.9 | 526.3 | ✔️ |
| 8 | Japan | 40.9 | 567.2 | ✔️ |
| 9 | Germany | 39.4 | 606.6 | ✔️ |
| 10 | South Korea | 36.4 | 643.0 | ✔️ |
The extra column, “Cumulative”, is a running total of the budgets of countries other than the United States. Look at Germany, #9 on the list: that’s where the rest of the world added together is finally bigger than America. We literally spend more than the next 8 countries after us. Of those, UK, India, France, Japan, and Germany are staunch US allies. Removing those, we outspend the remaining top three countries by 60%. Even in an outlandishly unrealistic scenario where we’d be fighting all three of them simultaneously1, with no help at all from our allies, we’d probably still win by a wide margin.
If something like that happened, we would get help from our allies on this list, whose militaries add up to $274.4B, or just $94.4B shy of those top three “unfriendly” countries (and $59.4B greater than China alone). In a likely situation where the rest of the world shows up, our combined allied strength is vastly stronger than any potential enemies.
We’re currently hearing lots of propaganda about our pathetic, run-down little military. Those are unpatriotic lies. We already have the world’s largest military and it’s nearly three times stronger than runner up China. We could probably be making wiser decisions about how we’re spending our money, but if anyone tells you we should be spending more, make sure their hands aren’t reaching for your wallet.
China and Russia aren’t strongly allied with each other; they’re not going to double-team us. We are China’s biggest trading partner and they don’t want to cripple their economy by destroying that relationship. We have our disagreements with Saudi Arabia, but not so many that they’re going to throw away decades of friendship and attack us. That we’d have to fight all three at once is ridiculous, but I’m using that as an absurd worst-case scenario. ↩︎
It’s not possible for technologists to avoid politics because technology is politics:
None of those are inherently bad, but they do cause changes in the lives and finances of their users. After all, if they didn’t affect people we wouldn’t be doing them.
Technology is politics. It’s logically inconsistent and meaningless to tell an engineer that they’re “too political” or that they should “stick to tech”.
This is my letter to the FCC on September 12, 2014 regarding the upcoming net neutrality decision making process:
I am a Comcast customer, and I am paying them for a 100 million bit per second connection. Comcast has a monthly data cap of 300 billion bytes (or about 3 trillion bits) per month. At the speeds I’m paying full price for, I can use up my entire monthly data allotment in about 8 hours.
More simply, my monthly Comcast payment entitles me to use my Internet connection at full speed for one third of one day per month.
Esteemed colleagues, I find it disingenuous that Comcast and their peers claim that they need to charge more to carry the services I want to use, all while constricting my paid usage to one ninetieth of my connection’s capacity and raking in record profits. There is simply no fiscal credibility to their claims and I urge you to look upon them with due skepticism.
The FCC has received millions of letters supporting net neutrality rules against Internet slow lanes. Most of these have been form letters written by various citizen-friendly organizations and submitted by casual site visitors. Most of the individually written letters are various restatements of why net neutrality is important. All of those are good, but it’s also important to remind readers of these letters that anti-free-market groups like NCTA and its constituents have no legitimate counterarguments. They claim to need Internet slow and fast lanes to make money, but the industry makes huge amounts of money while delivering some of the worst Internet service in the developed world.
Comcast earned 3.3 billion dollars in net income in the second quarter of 2014, all while allowing customers to use only one ninetieth of the utility they’ve paid for. The only valid explanation for their strident opposition to net neutrality is sheer greed.
