Posts by BenWilson
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Man, that looks like the BEST web content writing job around...
LOL totally. It took me ages to work out the real purpose of that machine. I think it might actually be dual purpose. I'd have to toss quite a few salads before all the possibilities were explored.
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(but may be a little more difficult now SOG is no longer)
No, it's really, really easy to grow outdoors in the NZ climate. If it were legalized, SOG would be out of business immediately.
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True. But since when were the plod ever interested in anything beyond their own narrow operational imperatives?
Which is actually fair enough. It's not their job to make the law. I wouldn't want it to be their job or there would be a lot more laws.
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dammit, I wish I could find that TradeMe auction from last year for a pulse jet powered pushbike. Mind you, probably even better would be whoever bought it and then took it for the first test drive.
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I was a big kid - I started drinking in bars at about the age of 14. I was never refused a drink even once. I got rotten drunk several times, passed out, spewed etc. But by the time I was at Varsity, I was an old hand, and my habits had settled. When I think back, a huge proportion of the people I went to school with were nightclubbers at about that age. Not my scene, I tried it a few times, but didn't enjoy it, preferring to be able to hear people. But they mostly seemed to be drinking reasonably responsibly too, dancing and having a good time until really late. There were a few munters, but the kids themselves sorted those ones out over time using social disapproval tactics.
I don't think this should be made legal, but I still think back that it wasn't that bad either. It was virtually impossible to make any of this known to adults without being judged and restricted oneself, so the illicit community of underage partyers and drinkers just made it all up themselves.
Makes me think kids aren't really as stupid as it's popular to make out. They're kept stupid. The only way out of stupidity is to be stupid publicly, and be called on it. Then you learn.
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Can you prove that eating a sandwich is a victimless crime
Yup. It's not a crime, for starters. Whether it has victims is irrelevant.
Unless it's a hash sandwich. Then the victims become highly relevant.
[Edit]Gah! Beaten to it by Kyle.
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You guys were probably cool back then. I've had the same hairstyle since 1980, but that's not always a good thing.
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For those of you saying that Cannabis is a victimless crime... please prove this.
What is usually meant by this statement is that the harm is only to the user. It is not possible to prove that no-one other than the user is ever harmed, without being really specific about what harm is.
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Nick, I agree, but I can see that the thing about busting pot growers is that it's actually quite easy. What they're doing is clearly illegal and easily proven. You just get a search warrant, find the stuff in their house, and hand over to the courts. The fact that the crime is IMHO pretty bloody minor, doesn't mean it's not a crime. Similarly with minor speeding offenses - you never get off them.
Child abuse is waaaay harder to get runs on the board. Yes it's a much more important crime they're dealing with but unlike, say, murder, it's often a bit hard to be sure that there even was a crime. Getting convictions is very difficult.
Similarly with burglary. They just don't solve very many of them, so it seems like a waste of resources. Certainly it's not urgent.
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But that's also the surest way of the boss losing his business and assets. Why cross the line when you can stay the right side and still turn a dollar?
It's a very tricky path they opted to walk even owning that kind of business. When the majority of your customers are people engaging in a highly criminal activity, you're going to be subject to the pressures of your customers.
If there's some guy that's selling untold equipment, you'll very likely turn a blind eye to some of his methods, unless he is fully blatant. I don't think they are that blatant, but this was an undercover operation which involves spending a long time building up relationships with people before you bust them. I can well believe that it would be commonplace with regulars to drop the pretense.
The question of entrapment always comes up in this kind of thing. We'll have to see from the unfolding cases how that goes. If the cop asked for a seedling, it's bordering on the manufacture of crime, a scarily bad thing for our police to be involved in.
Also, what kind of people would want to work in that kind of shop? Considering that the majority of customers are already operating outside of the law, is that the kind of work environment your average law-abiding 9-to-5er wants to be in? My impression about the staff has always been that they had a real passion for the job. They seemed very well informed and credible. How does one come by that kind of expertise? I sure as hell think it wasn't from growing tomatoes in their cupboards.
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