Sunday Overnight Open Thread (10/27/19)

Quote I

“I expected to go there and find a bunch of bad people. I quickly realized that many of these guys were skilled entrepreneurs who just had no avenue to learn and express themselves.”Silicon Valley investor Chris Redlitz

Quote II

“Aw, look at those fellas. Aren’t they cute? You know, there is another saying those folks ought to understand. I understand that every dog has his fleas, and that tells you who those folks are.” Lou Dobbs

Quote III

“Honest firms, who are the biggest victims of this fraud, may be wondering if they are losing out by following the law. Consumers may come to lack confidence that reviews are truthful.” Rohit Chopra

Quote IV

"If criminologists have the guts to even talk about a race-crime connection, it's behind closed doors and in guarded language. Any discussion about race and crime ... can mean the end of one's professional career." Walter E. Williams

Quote V

“The president did something that we don’t see U.S. presidents do,” “He used language that is going to really incite al-Baghdadi’s followers if they hear it. He called him a dog, said he died whimpering like a coward, said he wished he could show the video so that people could see exactly how he died.Al Jazeera correspondent Patty Culhane

Patty, Go eat a bag of dicks. Halal dicks to be precise.

When marijuana was legalized in California those that got in on the ground floor thought they would make some money.That doesn't seem to be the case.

Legal marijuana in California as a business was supposed to be a no-brainer. How could it not be profitable in a liberal state pushing 40 million residents where some of the best weed in the world has been grown for decades? But nearly three years after Proposition 64, the law legalizing the adult use of the drug, was passed, California cannabis producers are not seeing the windfalls predicted. They tell Sharyn Alfonsi that regulations and a robust black market are cutting into legal pot profits.

"The regulated market has been a fraction of what everybody expected it to be," says Mikey Steinmetz. So far, he hasn't seen the profits promised to investors who put up $175 million to seed his pot processing center, a sprawling warehouse where he shows Alfonsi tens of thousands of pounds of cannabis being processed for sale to retailers. And those retailers are a big part of the problem – there aren't enough of them. "There's less retailers in California than there are in the state of Oregon," he tells Alfonsi. California has nearly 10 times the population of Oregon

ICE is coming. H/T Bitter Clinger

First she took on Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. Then it was Siri, look out for AOC.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Things got heated at a Congressional hearing on tech and politics when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put Apple’s virtual assistant Siri on the hot seat, pounding Siri with questions about its influence on elections.

“Ocasio-Cortez is not a lawyer,” said political writer Justin Wagner, “but I was really impressed with the forcefulness of her questions. You could see the impact in how Siri was often reduced to sputtering and incoherence.”

When Ocasio-Cortez asked a series of questions regarding whether Siri would correct political lies told to it, Siri responded with evasive answers, such as, “I’m sorry; I didn’t catch that,” “I don’t know how to respond to that,” and “Would you like me to play ‘Shake It Off’ by Taylor Swift?”

How do you find which drug is the most popular in any given region? It's a crappy job and someone has to do it.

How do you find out what drugs are the most popular in a given country or region? You could go around and ask a lot of people about their drug consumption habits, but that has some obvious downsides — and, to be honest, doesn’t seem all that scientific. So how does one learn about drug use for science? Well, it turns out it involves going through a lot of sewage.

It might sound strange on paper, but going through wastewater to learn about drug consumption habits is a method that’s gaining traction around the globe. A recent Australian study, for instance, offered revealing information about how much money was being spent on illegal drugs and what was popular in different regions of the country.

A study released earlier in the week via Addiction included data from 30 countries and 60,000,000 people around the globe. What are the takeaways? According to Vice, “cocaine use is on the rise across Europe, methamphetamine is most prevalent in North America and Australasia, and the Netherlands had the highest rate of MDMA use.”

Halloween costumes under the microscope again. Free speech is free speech little precious Snow Flakes. When the kids don't know any better I blame their teachers and parents.

Colleges and universities across the country are once again investigating students for their choice of Halloween costumes or are implementing problematic policies that threaten consequences for choosing an “offensive” costume.

FIRE has tracked the trend of policing Halloween costumes since the mid-2000s. “Halloween hysteria” appears to have died down since its spike in 2015 with Yale’s Halloween costume controversy, but now may be on the rise again.

The ONT's opinion, addiction is not a disease. And it is easier to berate big Pharma when humankind has free choice. Study: Most People Who Overdose On Opioids Aren’t Using Prescription Drugs

Earlier this week a drugmaker made a plea deal with two counties in Ohio who had sued demanding compensation for the costs of dealing with the opioid epidemic.

McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., AmerisourceBergen Corp. and Israel-based drugmaker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. will pay a total of $215 million under terms of the deal, said Hunter Shkolnik, who represents Cuyahoga County. Teva would contribute $20 million in cash and $25 million worth of Suboxone, used to treat opioid addiction…

The Ohio case had been set to be the first federal trial related to an opioid epidemic that has claimed an estimated 400,000 American lives over two decades. Cuyahoga and Summit counties sued Teva, the distributors and Walgreens, claiming their practices contributed to the epidemic.

The Ohio case seems to reinforce an idea I’ve also seen pop up on television shows, i.e. Americans get addicted to prescription pills and later die as a result of the addiction made possible by the greed of drugmakers. There definitely are some people dying from prescription pills, but a new study in Massachusetts found it’s much less common than you might imagine. From Reason:

How's that BDS working out for you? Israeli technology helps residents of Colombia with their water needs.

JNS.org – Residents of El Talento, a small town in Colombia adjacent to the city of Cúcuta, have been introduced to the GEN-M, Watergen’s medium-scale atmospheric generator (AWG) that produces water out of air.

The machine, a technological innovation of the Israel-based company, arrived in Cúcuta at the beginning of October thanks to Andrés Suárez, pastor of the Christian Center and general manager of the alliance project with the State of Israel in Colombia.

Nasty Joos assisting brown skinned people, suck it The Squad.

To each their own. However, this probably is not a great career enhancer. Sound wave tattoos.

Los Angeles ink artist Nate Siggard has invented a way to memorialize voices through skin art. Skin Motion Tattoos are inked augmented reality audio soundwaves that play using a proprietary app that’s available through iOS and Android phones or tablets.

We invented a way to play soundwave tattoos on your phone or tablet. Record a message from a loved one. Wear your lyrics. With our unique patent pending technology, turn up to 30 seconds of sound into a tattoo you can listen to with your mobile device.

As we approach Halloween a Georgia sheriff has taken to warning about sexual predators in neighborhoods. Do we have Constitutional issues or legitimate proactive policing?

A group of sex offenders in the U.S. state of Georgia are suing a sheriff’s department after local authorities placed “No Trick-Or-Treat At This Address!!” signs on the front lawns of their homes.

While Butts County Sheriff Gary Long claims that the move is meant to keep children safe on Halloween, the pedophiles claim that the move was unjust and violates their rights to privacy and free speech.

On September 24, attorney Mark Yurachek filed a complaint on behalf of plaintiffs Christopher Reed, Reginald Holden, and Corey McClendon, all of whom served prison time for sexual offenses against children. The court filing accuses the sheriff’s office of putting up warning signs on the front lawns of over 200 registered sex offenders in the county last October

On this day: 27 Oct 2013
Velvet Underground frontman Lou Reed died at the age of 71. An admitted hard drinker and drug user for many years, he underwent a liver transplant in Cleveland in April 2013. Afterwards he claimed on his website to be 'bigger and stronger' than ever. via thisdayinmusic.com

Little Feat Guitarist Paul Barrere Dead at 71

Skateboarding, no big deal? It is. Tonight's Feel Good Story of The Day.

This will make you smile. And it's real.

This incredible video of a young boy in Brazil skateboarding for the first time is going viral.

Porn is legal and safer, or so I've been told. Genius Award Winner.

PALM HARBOR — A 28-year-old man hid a video camera in a bathroom to film his roommates nude, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies on Thursday arrested Joshua Michael Riffel on two video voyeurism charges after a 58-year-old woman with whom he was living reported him. The woman told deputies she was in her bathroom when she noticed a USB charging hub, deputies said. She showed a friend, who said it was a hidden camera.


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Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Halloween Preparation Week.

Notice: Posted with permission by the Ace Media Empire and AceCorp, LLC. No Trick or Treaters were injured in the production of this ONT.

posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:30 PM

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