Flash@TMB

Chairman of the police board Martin Greig said licensed premises should help pay the cost of buying the devices, which are priced around 25,000. He said: We all share responsibility in improving safety in the city centre and this includes the private sector. This device is a useful crime-fighting tool so any way of securing funding for it should be looked into. A total of 753 people were tested on Friday and Saturday nights outside nine venues, which volunteered to take part. No individuals asked to take the test refused. Police said the device found that a 26-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman were in possession of class A drugs and both have been reported to the procurator fiscal. *** So this basically proves that 0.2656% of the population are retards. Now let's multiply the 300 odd licensed premises (googling pedants to provide exact figure) by 25K per pop... and we get WOW 7.5M(ish). This will be necessary otherwise the criminals will just go to the pubs that don't have the machine present that night DOH! Now let's look at the likely presence of retards in our general population, that means taking the 250K people that live here (pendants?) then break it down into the pub and club going demographic which probably equates to around 100K people worth of foot fall over 1 year and we would apprehend... dun DUN DUN 256 and a 1/2 whole idiots at a cost of 29,228 per dimwit. Of course this assumes that the idiots would not catch on after the P&J reports the stats every Monday morning. The real cost could be as high as 250K per idiot carrying E to the street value of 10. Of course if we installed the machines in every off license then that might help... oh but then people would go to the supermarket to buy booze, so we'd have to put them there too. Now if we kitted them out in every petrol station we could catch drug drivers. Fuck it why not just install one at the end of every street???

*FALLS OFF CHAIR LAUGHING* Yeah um right hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!! It always amuses me how the followers of science blank out the fact that it's internal psychology operates in identical fashion to every other form of organised religion. Science is the faith of no God based on the (flawed) principle of general demonstrability. But hey, just out of interest, can any scientists out there please advise whether eggs are good/bad for us today/this year???

That's not how real anarchism works, but granted your sentiment would be accurate if it was applied to the punk rock concept of anarchism. We can beg to differ on how accurate the EMIT test is. But we are agreed that the testing itself - however *AHEM* good intentioned - is taking our society in a very dangerous direction. If anyone here has read how the Third Reich developed over time, it was by slowly bending the rules then redrawing the line in the sand inch by MF inch over a good many years. Or if that sounds pessimistic and over dramatic then we may prefer to say: "while everyone knows that the road to hell is paved with good intentions - be sure to remember that this was also laid one slab at a time."

Please check my EDIT. Through working in HR I am privy to the results of these tests, and in my experience the accuracy shockingly poor, and the stats are heavily massaged by the interested parties. Everyone has an agenda, especially scientists.

My figures came from EROWID whom I trust more than the people that run the labs for money. Having said that I haven't read that section on EROWID for a while. I doubt that EMIT is anything like as accurate as 99%. Just look at all the foodstuffs an common OTCs that create a false positive on it. EDIT: had another quick look at this. The only people claiming that EMIT tests are accurate are law enforcement and the labs that perform the test, and even then there are a few important caveats hidden in the small print. EMIT testing is only accurate to so many parts per billion, below that threshold it is completely inaccurate. The claims of high accuracy stem from an assumption that a 'guilty' person will have over so many parts per billion in their system. The test itself cannot discern the actual concentration and only gives a binary result. Furthermore the majority of the labs that perform these tests are completely unregulated. Nasal decongestants such as Vicks Nasal Spray, and Sudafed, may cause false positives for amphetamines. Poppy seeds like those on a dinner roll, which cause false positives for opiates. Even the GCMS test still confuses poppy seeds with heroin... that's because poppy seeds contain heroin. I actually know someone who was fired for this very reason, when the drug test result prevailed over the totally fucking obvious. Any medicine containing Ibuprofen may cause false positives for marijuana. Antibiotics such as amoxicillin or ampicillin may cause false positives for cocaine. Specifically people taking antibiotics for zits and VD need to be really careful with this. Some natural body enzymes cause false positives, melanin, the natural pigment which makes skin dark, can cause false positives for marijuana. So best not visit a solarium before your *COUGH* random drugs test So yeah umm 99% accurate for anyone that has not taken any of the above, did a shit load of drugs yesterday, and was subjected to a double EMIT tests, you know, just in case the first one created a false negative LOL. That in a nutshell is what the small print says. Isn't it a fucked up world when even under the best possible scenario a company would still be willing to sacrifice 1% of it's workforce who are entirely innocent just to catch 1% of it's workforce who are using cocaine where that only constitutes 50% of the actual cocaine users present. In other words a 33% strike rate. Think about it - let's assume that 2% of a workforce are taking coke. A double EMIT test is administered to the entire workforce. Due to false negatives (these are common due to masking where something the person has eaten may overwhelm the test) only half the actual coke users are likely to test positive. But another 1% of the workforce who are entirely innocent will also falsely test positive. Hmm.

Quite right too..... slaps fist on table....

The questions on whether the war on drugs is working, whether drugs are good/bad things, and what constitutes a drug are not the issues here. The real issue is the war on totalitarian fascism. *** This won't be optional for the pubs and clubs, they are compelled to do whatever the police want them too. The police will just come in and set up shop. Their powers are draconian. The only accurate means of testing for drug ingestion is a GC/MS machine, and to test someone's urine on that costs 400 a time (probably a lot more than they spent on the drugs). The next most reliable test is the EMIT which is an indicator added to pee. It's false positive rate is something like 40% depending on circumstances. It's only real purpose is pre-screening for the GC/MS to cut costs. The GC/MS is better than 99.99% accurate. These swab things are massively inaccurate. The police do not currently have the power to exclude someone from a pub simply because this test shows up red, the person would have to be found to be carrying drugs. They police cannot force anyone to listen to a lecture based solely on the results from the machine. You can politely decline their offer. If (like me) you are of an anarchistic mindset they you may wish to consider the following programme of civil disobedience: 1) Identify every common or garden substance than is known to cause a false positive for this device. This information will be readily available on the internet. 2) Coat hands in all these things. Or if you are so inclined coat hands in real drugs (it doesn't really matter). 3) Fill pockets with joke objects and/or seemingly unpleasant substances. Use your imagination with this part. Back in 1992 I got searched and they found 500 packets of assorted condoms and a tube of spermicide. That looked good in the paper when it went to court If you are really brave, and can spare 4 days of your life, then try carrying some fake drugs, that will cost them a lot of time, effort, and money... although there is always the danger they will substitute them for real ones back at the station. 4) Find out where the machine is in use. 5) Show up with 100 or so like minded people. 6) Make sure your mates have camera phones discretely rolling throughout. 7) Be sure and shake hands with the police before the test. 8) BONUS POINT: Pretend that though you are willing to be tested you are nervous of the machine (is the swab going to make you ill), and ask the police officer you shook hands with to demo it. 9) Post the video on YouTube then send the link to the newspapers. 10) Repeat this trick until the whole programme is scrapped. *** Now having said all this I must also add that I am VERY against people carrying drugs out on the town. Due solely to the fact that drugs are illegal, their presence attracts criminal low-life, and those people ruin perfectly good pubs and clubs. This is why I exhibit a ZERO tolerance policy when I encounter drug taking in the vicinity of the bar. What we are seeing here is a misguided and ill considered attempt by the authorities to crack down on those types. The problem is that they are bending the law by doing this, and if we tolerate that then eventually the fascists will be forcing their way into our homes and swabbing those too with penalty by way of 'on-the-spot' execution. In LVX.

I think our spy satellite captured that moment:

He can run but he can't hide.

What was he wearing. Just interested as in common with my self Pete had a tendency to settle into a uniform. EDIT: I can't believe he was just walking. Must have been a few yards from his flat. Was there a bar and a kebab shop in the immediate vicinity and did he appear to be moving between them? If you provide the co-ordinates to these then we can triangulate the position of his residence.

There are too many to list but there is a link further up the thread. *** There are only 2 sticks

I am really sorry to hear about this. I always looked forward to you playing. I look forward to the reunion in a few years time when you are old and fat

Yes the guy came forward. And the police 'accidentally' deleted the CCTV footage.

That would be cool. Carl stole a stuffed emu for us once, but he kept it EDIT: what is the sentencing like for 'conspiracy to commit a crime' these day? GULP.

And I'm confident that it will be another sell out like every other time. Cheers

I like the 2 men in a fishing boat ornament best. It got knocked down and one the the mens heads snapped off, so Frank replaced it with a swizzle stick. Also note that the Jazz band's drum kit is not a Pearl or a Mapex or a Tama but a limited edition Space Raider kit.

It arrived and has been installed.

Bikers are just as bad when they get behind the wheel of a car. That's why I never get upset about it. The way I see it, the onus is 100% on the biker to avoid any collisions. In spite of what the law says in reality it's always the bikers fault if someone kills them. Some biker disagree with me on this, but strangely enough most of them are dead now. Having said that, well all harbour a secret fantasy to attach a single motorcycle headlamp to the centre of a juggernauts grill and then go bombing up and down the South Deeside Road in the middle of the night at 70mph. When some fucker pulls out... SMACK BOOM! Then walk back to the debris of their car, stand over their smoking body and say "Oh sorry mate - did you not see me?"

Car drivers make several attempts on my life every day. It's nothing new. They have yet to succeed.

Apparently it's legal to take, cook, and eat road kill, provided you're not the one that ran it over. Wonder if that law would still apply under those circumstances you have envisaged.

As you pointed out there are already live music venues that admit children. That doesn't mean we all should. It's nice for people to have a choice. Personally I'd also like to see some adults only restaurants.

So you've been to The Schooner then?

Take the definition of off license and tea room and combine them. That's what a bar is.

On second thoughts maybe not. But I would like to be 17 again.

I want to go to school discos... but that's not going to happen for me in the next 13 months so count yourself lucky. There are plenty of gigs that aren't held in bars which you are able to attend.