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there seems to be some evidence that the Founders weren't even against war!

Indeed, such as the fact that they waged a war to avoid paying tax on their tea.

I believe there was just a bit more to it than that, like the fact that the colonists had no voice in the creation of such taxes nor in setting the rates, and they were likewise told how much tea they *must* buy from the heavily-royally-invested companies that comprised the British tea industry.

Not that the tea thing was the main or even in the top-3 reasons the colonists rebelled, but that's a topic for some other article and thread. For those interested, a more comprehensive list of American colonial complaints against England and the King can be found here.

https://www.archives.gov/found...

Strat

The US did NOT sign the Paris accord; President Obama supported it, but per the US Constitution, the US cannot "sign" a treaty or accord unless it's approved by the Senate - and it never was.

You're wrong, of course. As evidence, your use of quotation marks when in fact, the US did, through the legal actions of President Obama sign its agreement to the Paris Accord which is an extension of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which the Senate ratified back in 1992. That treaty expressly authorized ratifying parties to participate in further negotiation. Which the US did, multiple times, in Kyoto, Bali, Cancun, Durban and Copenhagen. Not just Paris.

Notice how Congress made no action to impeach President Obama nor did the Senate reject the Paris Accord. You can even find statements by members of Senate leadership directly expressing the US's status with the accord as entirely legal. Hence it was, and is, still binding on the United States. That is why the Trump administration is still bound by it, because they could not act to withdraw the US until November 2019 and even then, it will be in effect for another year. Yep. Another year.

Sorry, but your incompetent legal analysis is defied by the actual facts. You do know you can't just make things up, right?

What we really have is a claimed intent to withdraw. A meaningless political statement which really hurt him outside his base. Knowing Trump, he will likely forget to follow the legal process and the US will be subject to the Paris Accord anyway and his successor will simply laugh at the idea. That is assuming Trump is even President then.

Looking less and less likely every day.

He is somewhat unhealthy. Looks like he is going to die soon.

...does there need to be an "answer" to the US GPS? Is there something the EU member want to do that the current GPS network cannot or declines to do?

Yes: when President Clinton opened the high-resolution GPS up to all users (instead of just military) in May 2000, he reserved the right of the U.S. to selectively turn off the GPS system in the event of war or another national emergency (specific words were: "capability to selectively deny GPS signals on a regional basis when our national security is threatened"). The Europeans at that point committed to making their own system, which they could control, and turn of when they think it's necessary, not us.

There was a widespread claim a few years back that there was a half-million shortage of Software Engineers that would reach one million by 2020. I cry bullshit on that, as it is quite difficult for many coders to find work - guys with grey hair such as myself, women, latinos, African Americans and those who specialize in coding other than web or mobile apps.

I only got back to work when I totally gave up on getting into mobile or web then hung out my shingle as a driver and embedded coder. That's worked out well but what I _really_ like a about coding?

"Check this out Mom. See what happens when I click _this_ button?" "Yes... ."

"I wrote that!" "OH MIKEY!"

Mikey Likes To Make His Momma Proud.

I have traced that million-coder shortage claim to the Obama Administration's Official Whitehouse Blog from 2013, which reported that there would be openings for 1.4 Million coders in 2020, but that there would only be 400,000 new CS graduates.

But consider that my own degree is in Physics yet I do just fine. That blog cited the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics for both figures but I have been unable to find the original publication - if there even is one. I emailed a specific individual at the BLS who was in that general line of statisticsifying but got no response. Later this week I'll send a few dead trees to them.

My own take is that hiring managers and recruiters are completely unable to judiciously select the right candidates to interview due to - as I've read repeatledy, no citation but RSN I'll have one - that job board posts for coders result in on the average one thousand applications.

Surely that would make your own eyeballs bleed.

The Balkanizations of languages, applications - web back end, front end, mobile, embedded, systems, MIS even nuclear weapons design - results in it being very very difficult for the right coders to connect to the right companies. That and the fact that Google Trends convinced me that the single most-consistently searched-for keyword is "jobs" resulted in my building what - by 2020 I hope - will be a comprehensive list of links directly to the Jobs or Careers Portals of every Computer Industry that hires through its own website. BEHOLD:

• The Global Computer Industry Index
• Telecommuting and Remote Work

(The exceedingly basic web design is intended to enable my site to work well for the ancient boxes and browsers found in the developing world, most rural public libraries as well as those owned by low-income people.)

About a month from now I'll form a Non-Profit Corporation to take over the operation of Soggy Jobs. The IRS takes about a year to approve 501(c)(3) Tax-Deductible Status, at which point I'll apply for charitable grants from Google.org, employment- and economic development-oriented philanthropists, and government employment and economic development agencies.

That will enable me to hire - just at first - an Entry-Level SQA Engineer, a Journey-Level Back End Developer and a Senior Front End Developer; I've got lots of plans for modern boxes and browsers that I shan't divulge until they... wait for it... Beta.

After the IRS approves my deductible status I'll form subsidiaries in most industrialized nations then apply for their non deductible statuses. That's going to be really complicated and will require some cash as I'll have to retain a bunch of non-profit corp formation attorneys.

San Francisco consistently gets the most hits. My most-loved page is that for

Yeah I agree, you WOULD have to be an idiot to say it was Clinton's idea - instead of reading it, where it directly says it was the direct recommendation from the Department of Defense which wrote up the entire thing and proposed it to him.

"Statement by the Press Secretary
RSS Feed White House News

Today, the President __ __ __accepted the _recommendation_ of the Department of Defense__ __ __ to end procurement of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites that have the capability to intentionally degrade the accuracy of civil signals. This decision reflects the United States strong commitment to users of GPS that this free global utility can be counted on to support peaceful civil activities around the world.

This degradation capability, known as Selective Availability (SA), will no longer be present in GPS III satellites. Although the United States stopped the intentional degradation of GPS satellite signals in May 2000, this new action will result in the removal of SA capabilities, thereby eliminating a source of uncertainty in GPS performance that has been of concern to civil GPS users worldwide."

I suppose if Clinton were Trump (a total retard who didn't listen to expert advice from the Defense Dept generally) you could call it a significant decision to read and sign off on a complete and well-backed DOD proposal / request.

But Clinton, unlike the current idiot, knew he had to take recommendations from experts from time to time, that was part of the job - at that time, YMMV.

This already exists and is managed by the Defense Security Service (DSS) and is mandated by an Executive Order:

https://www.dss.mil/isp/index....
https://www.archives.gov/isoo/...

The word "Indian" has legal implications in the U.S.

https://www.archives.gov/research/native-americans/treaties

The Clinton (Bill) administration and the later Obama administration catered to the environmental activists in their party and used the executive powers of the presidency to put vast swaths of land in the US off-limits for resource extraction. Both administrations created wildlife refuges right on top of some of the best sources of rare earth minerals in the world (The US actually has bigger reserves than China, but most are now off-limits). Then they additionally put in place insane environmental regs that make it effectively illegal to bury dirt. I'm being admittedly simple here, and somebody will ask "illegal to bury dirt?" so here's what I mean:

Under Clinton and Obama era rules (still in effect, and which the press howls about if anybody tries to change) If a person or company digs up a resource and extracts what he wants and puts back the leftovers, he can be in big trouble if the material he puts back is toxic. Sounds good right? Only to a simple minded moron. If you dig up a ton of dirt, keep a particular mineral, and then put back the rest, and if the material you put back contains lead (which was naturally there in the first place - you're PUTTING IT BACK WHERE YOU FOUND IT) you become guilty of polluting by improperly disposing of lead. This applies to many other things as well like thorium.

The stupid idiots who think these "green" policies are "saving the planet" are so seriously delusional they may be incurable. These policies do NOTHING to improve the environment - they simply move the middle class jobs from the US where the regulatory insanity has been imposed to places like China where no such policies exist, and make the USA vulnerable to economic blackmail. The same number of tons of materials are extracted and used - but it's done in places with even lower environmental standards, and the jobs are lost in the USA.

Computing was available. IBM sold tabulation machines and rented technicians to run them to the SS for use in the concentration camps.

That's mostly the point.

Even now 70 years later, IBM is still the poster child for assisting enemies of the first world in wartime, and specifically for aiding the group that itself is the poster child for war criminals.

This, despite the fact today and for a while now there are other companies than IBM who do the same and arguably do much much worse.

Think about that.
How often do you hear mentioned Chase Bank who ran a dollar exchange for the nazi government specifically to raise money for the german war effort?

How often are the names of Porsche and Volkswagen that designed aircraft engines and artillery for those armies?

Within tech circles basically never, despite some companies involved being well known names.
No one wants to risk this type of reputation, no one wants to risk being unfairly singled out as the only tech company that helped in mass murders.
(Unfair in that they were not the only ones directly assisting, not unfair in that such actions are horrible)

Now personally myself, I'm not at all sure this is something worth tarnishing or even possibly breaking the intent and spirit of open source licensing with in this way. But clearly there are opinions all over the board about it and mine are no more or less valid than anyone else's.

In war time all governments involved ban the cooperation and business interactions with all sorts of entities for all sorts of purposes.
Simply following this spirit of the law on top of already following the letter of the law would work as desired.

You'll notice only Chase Bank was violating the law completely, IBM was following the letter of the law but not the spirit of it, by doing business through subsidiaries and other companies they weren't explicitly prevented from doing so, but with full knowledge how those companies would use the tech.

All one needs to refrain from doing is finding legal loopholes that were not meant to exist and refrain from actively trying to profit off such deeds.

But this guy wanted to go even further and preemptively ban a specific list of named groups due to his own personal feelings without taking anyone else into account.
It is only a slight step up over that line, but over it none the less.

Many people already don't trust the reasoning behind or the unintended (possibly not so unintended) side effects of such choices and the damages that can be caused when you don't bother thinking an inch ahead of your own nose.
I trust this one single individual I don't even know FAR less to make any type of well thought out decision or long term plan regarding how to address any of those problems and concerns without, you know, actually going about detailing and sharing them which was not done.

363 meetings between White House officials and Google employees.

Yeah, so what? You can't draw any conclusions from anything without first estimating the base rate.

When you compare it to other tech companies, telecom companies like AT&T etc, all of them combined do not have this many visits.

Not a bad baseline for comparison—not if you compare Google in the 2010s with AT&T from the 1920s.

History of AT&T

National long distance service reached San Francisco with the First transcontinental telephone call in 1915.

Transatlantic services started in 1927 using two-way radio, but the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable did not arrive until Sept. 25, 1956, with TAT-1.

Of course, you'll normalize your baseline for the 90-year difference taking into account the relative ability of people to visit Washington, and the pace at which the world now runs. You'll of course factor in the Snowden revelations of 2013 on Obama's rush for close contact with two central players in the larger drama—including technical staff to answer pointed questions about technical capabilities and postures. You'll also have read Michael Hayden's view of the momentous issues going on the behind the scenes between the intelligence community and the behemoths of modern social media (not as if they were actively reshaping the world, or anything like that; not as if they were principle driving engines of the lethargic post-Bush American recovery).

Playing to the Edge, by Michael V. Hayden — 6 March 2016

You'll take into account that Obama was one of the few technology-savvy president of living memory:

OSTP Initiatives

President Obama held the first-ever White House Maker Faire in June 2014 to celebrate the Maker Movement.

He also issued a "call to action" to Federal agencies, mayors, companies, universities, schools, libraries, museums, foundations, and non-profit organizations to expand opportunities to participate in Making.

The Maker Movement has the potential to inspire more young people to create and invent, and to promote entrepreneurship in hardware and manufacturing.

Obama was an innovation junkie. Will Trump follow in his footsteps? — 16 November 2016

There's no shortage of reminders of Obama's soft spot for tech.

Upon being elected, he fought to keep his Blackberry. (Presidents traditionally hadn't been allowed to use email.) The Obama administration has hosted an annual global entrepreneurship summit since 2010.

(Continue reading, the article soon partially supports your side of this.)

You'll also take into account that pretty much the entirety of the net neutrality debate transpired during Obama's term. (I can't recommend Tim Wu's books highly enough.)

And after considering all these base-rate factors, you'll decide whether you need to pile yet another agenda on top of this (subtype: nefarious) to explain the Obama White House visitor log.

But only if you really give a shit about the coefficient of narrative baloney.

And as I explained to you, they are deliberately using the wrong discounting rate

No. They specifically discuss the discount rate and accounting for investment returns here. FYI, their final SCC number is less than half of the value used by EXXON, who has a purely financial interest in getting it right so that they can make appropriate forecasts and informed business decisions.

Is anybody keeping you from taking action? You can reduce your own carbon footprint to zero if you like.

I am taking action in a variety of ways, but ultimately, it's irrelevant and you are propagating a logical fallacy. Arguments should be weighed on their own merit and on the strength of the evidence provided - not based on emotional appeals and personal attacks.

What you are proposing is holding a gun to my head and taking my money because you disapprove of the choices I make between various energy sources.

Ah, this tired old argument. I figured you would have something more original. A consumption tax places all the choice in your hands - pay the tax and generate the carbon, don't pay the tax and don't generate the carbon. Or move to another country, or live as a hermit in the woods and don't participate in the market. If you choose to live in this society and receive the benefits thereof, you are accepting the costs. Again, your choice: get the benefits and and the attendant costs, or ditch the benefits and don't pay the costs. No guns involved, any more than there is a gun involved with you paying any sales tax.

We agree on that. The part you keep denying is that this makes everybody poorer by roughly the amount you tax people by.

No, you insist on deliberately misunderstanding the concept of an externality. The externality is ALREADY creating a major inefficiency in the market and making everyone poorer. Correcting the externality restores the market to optimal efficiency for the product in question, and an optimal market makes everyone richer. If correcting the externality wasn't going to be economically optimal, than it wouldn't be an externality. The only thing you can say is that the tax would move the cost of climate change from one place to another, but again that's the point - instead of flood victims paying the social cost of the carbon, people pay for it at the pump, on their heating bill, and so on. The market function depends on information being represented as accurately as possible via product pricing. So, you can argue whether CO2 output is really an externality or not (and we can agree to disagree), but to argue that correcting an external cost is bad for the market is nonsensical - you are basically just trying to redefine "externality" to suit your argument.

I read half the first senctence,

Judging from the emotional reactions you've provided, you read the entire thing over and over and it took you a few days to calm down, so it's clear they have an element of truth and you feel like a hypocrite for supporting this war.

Why read more? If you start with that, why would you think your words have value?

Because they already *have* had value, it's just not one you can recognize. However I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt because I think you have been deceived by your media.

I'm not going to hand-feed you supporting materials.

Calm down, there is no need to have a temper tantrum, its an adolescent technique of someone who cannot support their argument. I'd be able to argue your side of the argument better with a few nights of study anyway so that is what I decided to do.

If you don't know how to look things up using resources you trust, take a fucking class in study skills at the community college. Don't ask me to do it for you.

If you're feeling emotional about this then it's probably a sign that you are being manipulated by the media and thinking is hard for you because of mental atrophy. It's pretty common so don't take it personally, I'll help you with a mental workout instead.

My preference is for referring to acts of law to determine the behaviour of government, not the press or other sources as I find they are swayed to much by emotion and inaccuracies. So I looked up the legal agreements dictating the US presence in Iraq, the Status of Forces Agreement. A pretty interesting read so thanks for the opportunity to evolve my argument. I also looked up the US Inventory of Bi-Lateral Treaties and the Declaration of Principles where the US spells out it terms for the occupation, invasion, police action, "call it anything but a war" "Long term relationship" with Iraq. Very interesting indeed, a great opportunity for evolving my arguments even further.

Do you think the US Government website and the White House are sources I can trust? It saves me time not having to sift through the inconsequential media mindgames you've sourced this claim that Iraq needs the US. I can see the rhetoric designed into the legal documents are breathtakingly presumptuous and nothing in those documents suggest a legal premise for Iraq requesting any assistance. The US assuming legal control of parts of the country, exonerating yourselves from local laws, spreading DU all over the country with no clear legal military premise. Iraq offered the US everything not to have the shit kicked out of them, again, by the US. They're not even muslim, they're christians so how do they make islamic terrorists?

Since you bought up whataboutism", I'm not a soviet, I'm one of your allies so I'm perfectly entitled to call you out on it since my government is telling me that we are obliged to stay there with you under the premise of military agreements we have with you. I'm embarrassed that my country is still there side by side as a friend and ally to the U.S in Iraq. So why are you continuing to oblige US for our help with this? It's was wrong 17 or whatever years ago and it is wrong now. This is really bad stuff, and I don't understand why America and Americans need to shame themselves like this.

If you're so credulous of whatever pap people feed you that you'd want me to "support" your thinking in that way, that already tells me you can't comprehend the ideas that I expressed.

I think credulity is the issue here because the idea that you actually are being manipulated by your media is a terrifying idea, your emotional reactions to this discussion and inability to respond rationally to a typed arg

Those two letters do not stand in contrast to each other but rather complement each other. The overall interpretation between the two is that it does not matter if the people keep and bear arms. Welcome it because the Constitution of the United States contains within it the mechanisms by which to change it (amendments) without needing to resort to force to change the document. Nothing regarding the letter you referenced suggests that the people need not be armed or that rebellions aren't a good thing, simply that we have the option to change the Constitution without requiring bloodshed.

Note that the letter I provided dated after the letter to which you reference. I shall also present another letter that Jefferson wrote to Madison in January of 1787.

https://founders.archives.gov/...

It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccesful rebellions indeed generally establish the incroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medecine necessary for the sound health of government.

That quote doesn't say what many people think it does. In that letter dated Nov. 13 1787 about Shay's Rebellion in 1786-1787, Jefferson was referring to countries without a robust constitution like ours and a nonviolent way to change it. In those countries, and in the USA before the Constitution was ratified in 1789, insurrection was the only recourse.

We know this because in an earlier letter dated Sep. 10 1787, Jefferson wrote, "Happy for us, that when we find our constitutions defective and insufficient to secure the happiness of our people, we can assemble with all the coolness of philosophers and set it to rights, while every other nation on earth must have recourse to arms to amend or to restore their constitutions." (emphasis mine)

So Jefferson did not feel that citizens needed to be armed to protect themselves from a tyrannical government; that was the role of the U.S. Constitution.

Anyway it doesn't really matter. What really matters is what's actually written in the Constitution. The 2nd Amendment is very simple: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." To rephrase, this says people need to be armed for the purpose of forming a well regulated militia for the security of the state. Whether people should be armed for non-militia purposes is not mentioned and is therefore left up to the states to decide.

So if standing against the right of Americans to bear arms is un-American, then standing against the rights of states to regulate gun ownership is just as un-American.

The overwhelming problem was with the advocacy for protection from criminal investigations. If a president is impeachable for criminal activity, then how would a reasonable assessment as to whether those crimes occurred unless an investigation took place? If Nixon was held to that low standard, then he likely wouldn't have been impeached, because he could have refused the subpoena for the tapes that incriminated him.

I can see a reasonable argument to be made that a president can't be indicted by federal prosecutors prior to impeachment (on different grounds however), but to make him immune from processes to determine whether he committed wrongdoing is to put him above the law. And the founders were quite clear on their opinions on chief executives who were above the law (spoiler: they were not fans).

President of the United States Obama agreed to it, and by the laws of the United States, the United States agreed to it.

The law in the United States is that the President may agree to treaties only with the consent of the Senate.

That's irrelevant in this case, because the Paris Agreement was specifically structured with the constitutional situation in the US in mind, so that Obama would not need ratification by the Senate.

To understand this, we first have to take a step back and look at how treaties are handled by the United States. The US actually enters into three different kinds of treaties, only one of which uses the constitutional process. No, this doesn't make the other two kinds unconstitutional.

The first kind is what you've described, per Article II. The US rarely uses this kind, because the Senate is a pain in the ass to work with.

The second kind is what are called "congressional-executive" treaties. These are treaties which the president (the executive part of the name) signs, but which don't directly obligate the US to do anything. They only represent an agreement by the president to seek legislation (the congressional part of the name) to enact the terms of the treaty. This enactment is performed via the same process that any federal law is made: majority vote of both houses plus the signature of the president.

The third kind is what are called "sole-executive" treaties. These are treaties signed by the president with no involvement of either legislative house. They are constitutional because they only obligate the president, not the country, and are written so that they cover only things that the president already has the authority to do. One very common example is a "Status Of Forces Agreement". These describe the terms under which US military forces in US bases on foreign soil will operate. Because the president is commander in chief of the armed forces, he can and does simply order the military to comply with the terms of the treaty.

The Paris Accord was a sole-executive treaty. When Obama signed it, he really only promised to do three things:

1. Meet every five years to make new, more aggressive goals on climate change reduction.
2. Meet every five years and publish how we're doing on our climate change reduction goals.
3. Track how we're doing on climate change reduction.

That's it. The president can easily order the relevant departments of the executive branch to do these things.

So, Obama could sign the treaty without Senate involvement. Then he needed to ask Americans to meet the specified goals, whatever that involved, but he could really only ask. Likewise, Trump could back out of the treaty without Senate involvement. That just means that the US isn't going to show up to the goal-setting and goal accomplishment review meetings. Nothing more.

President of the United States Obama agreed to it, and by the laws of the United States, the United States agreed to it.

The law in the United States is that the President may agree to treaties only with the consent of the Senate.

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;

Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution describes the process in broad strokes. Two thirds of state legislatures can compel Congress to hold "a convention for proposing amendments". It doesn't specify which delegates shall participate in such a convention; it could be governors, state legislators, or whatever, depending on what the state legislatures put in their petition. But once the convention proposes an amendment, and the legislatures of three fourths of the states vote to ratify the amendment, the amendment becomes part of the Constitution. Or a proposal can come from Congress if two thirds of both houses vote to propose an amendment for the state legislatures to ratify, which has been used more often than a state-initiated convention.

The government outspends any company hundreds to one in this area

That's 100% false.

https://www.statista.com/topic...:

Oil (and gas) companies are among the largest corporations worldwide. Among the top ten companies worldwide based on revenue, six are in the oil industry. In 2016, Anglo-Dutch giant Royal Dutch Shell reported almost 234 billion U.S. dollars of revenue. Thus, Shell was the third-largest company worldwide based on revenue in 2015. ExxonMobil from Irving, Texas generated a revenue reporting some 219 billion U.S. dollars in 2016. However, ExxonMobil claims the highest market value within this industry, as well as having the second-highest market value of all companies worldwide in 2015.

https://www.nationalpriorities...:
In fiscal year 2015, the federal budget is $3.8 trillion.

So, no, the fossil fuel industry is probably larger than the entire US budget, making your statement 100% false.

Your statistics did not address the expenditures for climate change research in any way. They are a meaningless comparison between the gross revenue of oil companies and the total US federal budget.

Try reading the income statement for Exxon Mobile and learn the difference between gross revenue and net income. https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/...

In 2015 Exxon Mobile gave about 8 million dollars to public policy and policy research groups of all kinds
http://cdn.exxonmobil.com/~/me...

The US government 2014 budget for climate change expenditures was over $21B
https://obamawhitehouse.archiv...

resistant hypothesized:

The thought occurs that an inevitable explosion of fake video and audio recordings will drive the development of encrypted authentication networks that verify that a supposed recording came from a sealed, supposedly tamper-proof recording device from a manufacturer whose production lines, parts suppliers, and design teams are closely monitored by government agencies and nonprofit organizations against the possibility of firmware tampering. Recordings produced by unvetted devices will be automatically assumed by courts and other interested parties to be inherently unreliable and very likely fake in all cases of controversy.

I don't think you have a lot of experience with how courts work in actual practice - or legislatures, either.

Judges are basically free to accept or reject evidence according to their own rules. In the USA, for instance, some of them still admit latent fingerprint testimony, despite the fact that an AAAS panel of expert forensic scientists has completely debunked the science behind it. Another such AAAS panel also determined that much of the "science" behind forensic arson analysis is equally worthless. And the National Commission on Forensic Science - whose members included career prosecutors, forensics experts, and criminal defense groups - called for the establishment of a comprehensive, national set of forensic standards for evidence submitted to criminal justice courts.

And don't get me started on bite mark analysis.

(Jeff Sessions has disbanded the NCFS, and is planning to replace it with a panel composed of prosecutors and forensics "experts", because, of course he has.)

Despite all the accumulated evidence that much of forensic science is largely based on handwaving and bullshit, there are no prohibitions against its use in criminal courts, even for capital crimes.

Meanwhile, I can't speak knowledgeably about other countries' criminal justice systems (although I'm pretty sure that Commonwealth countries and a bunch of EU member states have equally screwed up standards), but here in the USA, there is little sign that either state legislatures or Congress have any trace of will to fix these problems - although, to be fair, the Texas Forensic Science Commission, of all unlikely bellwethers, has determined that bite mark analysis has no scientific basis, and recommended that it be banned from being used in state courts.

Naturally, the Texas legislature has not enacted the recommended ban, so even Texas criminal court judges are still free to admit bite mark analysis into evidence - including in capital cases.

So, your prediction seems to me to have little in the way of either fact or precedent to support it.

Not to mention the chorus of outrage that would undoubtedly follow the instant any bill is introduced to mandate the authenticity verification scheme you propose would pretty much guarantee its instant demise ...

The President of the United States certainly can pardon someone for "High crimes", including treason.

The only limitations on the Presidential pardon is that it can only be used to pardon someone for Federal crimes (so, the power does not extend to state and local crimes) and can't be used to pardon someone from an impeachment or conviction thereof (however, the sole "punishment" that impeachment can dish out is removal from office -- impeachment can not be used to imprison or fine someone).

See Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

Per this presentation from DHS, any work-related e-mails are considered federal records, and thus subject to record keeping requirements.

It really isn't up to private companies to enforce laws, nor should it be. Granted, with the current US government dedicated to dismantling effective governance, I don't trust the government to do this job. But private companies can't really do anything to prevent it besides lobbying, and I don't trust any private company to be concerned enough to bother with it.

* The military want to weaponize *everything* and * It's not defence, it's attack.

Even though I don't like the idea of weaponize with AI, what you said is not true. Have you ever heard of "Make them believe, that offensive operations, often times, is the surest, if not the only ... means of defence." (George Washington, 1799)?

Uhh, I wasn't familiar with the quote until you mentioned it but reading this with a little context...

It is unfortunate when men cannot, or will not, see danger at a distance; or seeing it, are restrained in the means which are necessary to avert, or keep it afar off. I question whether the evil arising from the French getting possession of Louisiana and the Floridas would be generally seen, until it is felt; and yet no problem in Euclid is more evident, or susceptible of clearer demonstration—Not less difficult is it to make them believe, that offensive operations, often times, is the surest, if not the only (in some cases) means of defence.

...leads me to believe that he's saying that people naturally favour addressing threats closer to hand and steps sideways into the idea that this same failing leads them to not see that the best defence is attack.

Funny, it said it wasn't a drill, so the worker treated the alert as the real deal.

For some reason people in Hawaii take the phrase "this is not a drill" seriously.
https://www.archives.gov/bosto...

This happens a lot in politics - like "Reagan" ending the Iran hostage deal, which Carter had all but bottled up when Reagan took office.

The reality is it started years ago. I've even been recruited by TCS over the past couple of years (haven't taken anything - offers weren't good enough), predating Trump taking office by over a year.

I guess this initiative from six years ago was Trump's fault, right?

The editors here are worse than CNN.

This is just a continuation of what has been existing federal government policy for the last six years:

Federal Cloud Computing Strategy

Per the U.S. Constitution 10th Amendment, any power not granted to the federal government is reserved to the states and the people.

Article I, Section 8 explicitly authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce:

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

Since these are online games and the location of the servers and clients do not matter, it is reasonable to assume that buying loot boxes falls under interstate commerce. Courts in the U.S. have consistently agreed with this view in the past.

it would be proportional to the number of voters in those states.

Um, it is, for the most part.
https://www.archives.gov/feder...

The only issue would be that each state gets +2 regardless of their size. So very small states like Wyoming get more than double the number of votes they'd get otherwise based on population (but still a vastly smaller number than large states).

I can't believe no one has even mentioned this, but I recall the controversy being the "winner takes all" aspect of the EC. That allows situations where a candidate can "win" handily w/ the popular vote, but lose the EC because of a close loss in a few key states. Which is exactly what happened in 2016.

If EC votes were distributed equally between candidates based on win %, then it'd be closer to a majority wins situation (setting aside the +2 mentioned above).

For example, suppose you had 3 states: S1, S2, and S3 with 15, 10, and 10 EC votes respectively, and a population of 1500, 1000, and 1000 respectively. You have candidates C1 and C2. C1 received 1000 popular votes in S1, 499 in S2 and 499 in S3. Candidate C2 received 500, 501, and 501, respectively.

Candidate 1 received 1998 popular votes. Candidate 2 received 1502 popular votes.
Candidate 1 won S1 and received all 15 EC votes. Candidate 2 won S2 and S3, and received 10 EC votes for each for a total of 20.

Candidate 2 wins, despite taking a large loss in the popular vote.

No you didn't, at least not from any reputable source.

Wrong: https://clintonwhitehouse3.arc...

I was under the impression that it was traditional when providing a link to support a claim, that you choose one that actually supports your claim.

No you didn't, at least not from any reputable source.

Wrong: https://clintonwhitehouse3.arc...

What you heard from those was the global temperatures would continue to rise.

Wrong again buck-oh

NPR
Don't believe reputable fake news, about a copy of the original source?
National Archive

Seriously? The markings mean nothing?

You are either daft or just flat don't know what you are talking about. What do you suppose those things in () in front of each paragraph actually are and what do they mean? Those are portion marked. Here is some material you need to read: https://www.archives.gov/files...

FIRST: The FBI isn't going to just post the E-mail's in question unless they got them declassified. That would be mishandling classified and SOME folks in the government actually try to follow the rules.

SECOND: The portion marking on the paragraphs DOES means something to those trained in what they mean and Hillary was trained as a condition of getting her clearance.

Finally... Did you actually READ page 2 of the report you provided the link to? The first paragraph makes it pretty clear that Hillary had some pretty sensitive stuff on her various E-mail servers and devices... Stuff your average person would have been strung up for mishandling..

President Obama called this a temporary, stopgap measure when he announced it. He stated it wasn't amnesty, wasn't a path to citizenship - unfortunately, he left out the fact it also wasn't Constitutional.

His fellow Democrats seem to have forgotten what exactly Obama did (and more importantly did not) offer in DACA.

DACA is a protection racket - it charges the lowest priority deportation candidates (youthful immigrants with no convictions) and charges them $400+ dollars for two years of protection from something that was never likely to happen.

On the upside, now the federal government has a self-funded database with the accurate address info for 800K illegal immigrants! Bravo Democrats, you pulled thiese "dreamers" out of the shadows, took note of their addresses, then waited for your temporary stopgap measure to end, making them the easiest immigrants to deport.

President Obama called this a temporary, stopgap measure when he announced it. He stated it wasn't amnesty, wasn't a path to citizenship - unfortunately, he left out the fact it also wasn't Constitutional.

US Census records before 1940 are public record and available to anyone.

tldr; Motherboard made several poorly worded FOIA requests, did not actually request records, or was not requesting it from an IG

Record Definition:
"Records include all books, papers, maps, photographs, machine-readable materials, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by an agency of the United States Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successor as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the Government or because of the informational value of the data in them (44 U.S.C. 3301)". from https://www.archives.gov/recor...

Asking for someone's email, the budget for a simple calendar or graphic, or trying to fish for information doesn't meet that criteria.

You need some citations that contain actual statistics for your "facts". The green jobs lie was just that, a lie. Coal jobs were lost because Obama essentially banned coal fired power plants via regulations making them cost negative to operate. Not even gassfied coal plants could operate at a profit.

Well let's see, the price of natural gas plummetted in 2008 which is a direct result of Bush's 2005 energy policy which exempted natural gas from just about all regulation. However, feel free to point out which executive order he made to make this happen before he came into office.

CO2 is produced by every living organism, and plants need it to live.

Interesting fact, plants absorb and expel it. Until recently, animal life has been living in the margins of what could be absorbed.

It has historically been at higher levels pre industrial revolution, http://drtimball.com/2012/pre-... [drtimball.com] it already blocks all the IR bands at 100%, and adding more will not change that (don't try to feed me that speculative BS about upper vs lower atmospheric diffraction, that is pure speculative BS with zero science to back it up), but somehow we are teetering on the apocalypse, never mind the science and historical evidence.

Adding more will make it more difficult to extract CO2 from the atmosphere which is something that must be done lest we become the next Venus. So if in if fact the we are blocking 100% of the IR, it will make it that much more difficult to undo the damage done. Secondly, the increased level of CO2 in the atmosphere is causing the oceans to become increasingly acidic. This in itself is causing rapid ecological changes.

As far as the ACA goes, the Repubicans only got 90% consensus in their own party, while not a single democrat voted for the repeal/replace,

Well, i suppose you'd be surprised to learn how the ACA actually got passed in the first place. https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

so Republicans have decided to let the ACA explode (which it is)

According to who? The mago-in-chief? Please link a CBO document.

and let the Dims ride that sinking ship into oblivion in the next election.

Reforming it is a much better idea than repealing it. If you want to replace it, it has to be a better for the people involved, which i recall Trump promising (“insurance for everybody.” comes to mind). Needless to say, the ACA isn't perfect. Frankly, it seems like a single unified national health care system would be a better and cheaper solution.

You might want to learn some actual facts before you spout off.

Take your own advice.

For example, the state of California spends ~42% of all funds on education, yet private schools produce better results with less than half the funding that public schools get. Clearly room for improvement and reform. We could get far better results cutting the budget in half, privatizing all schools and giving parents a portable voucher every year

LOL! Well, you obviously haven't taken a close look because it's hit-or-miss on both sides of public/private schools. I do not deny that education needs to be reformed but full privatization is exceptionally problematic.

7% of the entire state budget is spent on corrections and rehabilitation of criminals. In the past it was much lower because they used to execute those on death ro

False. Provably so. How many electors are there? HINT: It is orders of magnitude lower than 2.86 million.

President Trump won the election with 56% of the vote for President. SOURCE: US Constitution.

The M-03-22 indeed defines Privacy Impact Assessments (PIA) whereby it is possible to analyze how email works. However, that page does not contain the term "domain", so it does not address the point directly. It merely establishes a general principle.

From a web subscriber POV, it may sound like being accused of killing an ant. Yes, she might reply, I know cruelty is unlawful and life is sacred, but I was not aware, I was just walking on the footpath, you know, I never meant to kill anything... The law doesn't forbid to walk the footpaths.

By 1940, the average income was $1,368. Someone making minimum wage ($.30 by 1940) would earn about $600 per year at the minimum, working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks per year. It also means the minimum wage increased 20% in the first two years.

In 2015, median household income in the US (according to census figures) was $56,516. Working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks for $4.25 would earn just $8500. A yearly income of $24787.72 would be a similar multiple of the average income, which would yield an hourly wage of $12.39.

It should likely be higher. The average household income is much higher, $72,641, which would yield a comparable hourly wage of $15.93. Inflation isn't the only factor to consider on how much the minimum wage should be raised.

A simple Google search proves you wrong about Paul Krugman, who has come to support raising the minimum wage. Saying that most economists don't like the concept of a minimum wage is completely overstating the case.

And you should still be downmodded as a troll, one: for being pointlessly wrong, and two: for saying I told you so.

He's the President. He's the highest level classification authority in the U.S. It even says in the Executive Order (possibly an old one):

(a) Top Secret. The authority to classify information originally as Top Secret may be exercised only by:
(1) the President;

Then for Secret and Confidential it's folks appointed by the Pres.

In Section 3.4 it even states that the President is exempt from the declassification process. The real argument is would any sane person give away that kind of information to a country that has been an antagonist for decades.

Sorry, left off the link. Here you go:

https://obamawhitehouse.archiv...

Except... he/they did.

Member when the administration asked the public to email them with tips about 'fishy' things they find about the healthcare bill?

I member.

Which is worse... going to court to ask for the unmasking of someone acting seemingly unlawfully/in violation of department policies? Or asking the public to snitch on their neighbors and report them for wrong think?

There's clear evidence of Assad using gas attacks for years, starting with the 2013 attack...

Actually, there are multiple credible reports of chemical weapons uses before that in various locations. This attack stood out for its scale, the use of Sarin, and the number of children killed.

There's clear evidence of Assad using gas attacks for years, starting with the 2013 attack, and continuing in May 2014, in April 2015, in June 2015, in September 2016, and even more recently in November and December 2016.

This is simply the latest in a string of chemical attacks that Assad clearly feels he can use with impunity.

Sure, I'll ignore the EU, Arab League, UN, UK, Israel, Turkey, France, Germany. Some random guy on ./ knows way more than them. You agree with Syria, the accused perpetrator, and Russia, their only real ally. That's a bold stance my friend. F*cking Hezbollah criticized Assad for launching the strikes. Hezbollah. Let that sink in.

Lest you disagree with me: Here's a nice summary: It dismissed the possibility that evidence supporting the US government's conclusion could have been manufactured by the opposition, stating it "does not have the capability" to fabricate videos, eyewitness accounts, and other information. The report also said that the US believed Syrian officials directed the attacks, based on "intercepted communications."[12] A major element, as reported by news media, was an intercepted telephone call between a Syrian Ministry of Defense official and a Syrian 155th Brigade chemical weapons unit commander in which the former demanded answers for the attacks.

Here's the actual US government report: https://obamawhitehouse.archiv...

All AA really says is that if 10% of the population is black and you don't have 10% blacks you better have a reason for that and it better be documented. For most that just means keeping resume's around. That's it. Book it. Done.

Having to prove to the government that you aren't racist because you don't meet quotas is an onus in and of itself. It also encourages people to hire to the quotas to avoid scrutiny and punitive damages. In reality, the free market will do a better job than government looking over the shoulders of businesses and questioning who they hired and why.

And then you say stupid shit like, "Getting women into tech isn't a left wing policy." It absolutely is. It's also the leftist media that constantly pushes this, and nobody forced Obama to repeat the gender wage gap myth. And it's the left that wants to use quotas as their hammer.

They'll talk about, say, chemtrails, and when I don't believe it, they respond with something like "oh you don't think the government would do something like that? don't be so naive". No, the issue here is not that I trust the government (or whoever) not to be malicious. I know very well that they (government and otherwise) are malicious all the time. If it came to light that this outlandish thing you claim they're doing was actually happening,

Well the US government basically did do that in the 50s and 60s. Now that doesn't mean that I believe the current conspiracy theories about chemtrails, the lizard people, FEMA camps, or the like but given past performance of the US government with things like Operation LAC, the internment of various groups of people, and other actions I don't believe that my government should be entirely trusted either.