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Considering your comments, would you too side with the cops who run people over in their cars while texting on their personal cell phones and then blame the victim for throwing themselves in front of their cars, all the while perjuring themselves as has also happened recently?

It's getting a bit off topic but examples of the above have actually happened.

Well, okay, not the blaming the victim bit, but "immediately before the incident, the Albemarle officer, Gregory C. Davis, was involved in "excessive texting." Furthermore, according to the document, Officer Davis may, under oath, have intentionally downplayed his texting."

Then there is this story. The officer in question was criminally charged this time, but still got away with a mere 30 months probation (and two years suspended from the job, with pay). The two girls he slammed into, on the other hand, got to remain dead. Anyone else who had committed the same crime would have lost their job (with no pay) and ended up in jail for a long time.

And this

Compared to the above, the fact that police illegally delete video from a phone without any repercussions is in no way surprising.

Out of curiosity, how well does global warming research pay?

The state funding alone is half a million dollars.

That of course, does not include Federal grants.

On a wider scale, trillions of dollars is at stake as far as companies and individuals poised to benefit from a massive shift in various forms of alternative energy. Just as in the past wind farms were a giant boondoggle funneling government money into pockets, before they were abandoned years later in California and Hawaii.

Similarly, can we completely discount the results of denialists, since they work for institutions that get funding from industries with vested interests in ensuring that the status quo continues?

We should treat results from both with equal levels of skepticism.

The whole eastern seaboard, at least from Massachusetts to Florida, is a cesspool of snobby lawyers and greedy big money people. But the southeast is worse than anywhere; it is especially laughable that so many states proclaim the "right to work" (without a union, possibly for peanuts or for a tyrannical boss) but you don't actually have a legal right to work in your occupation if you've signed a broad non-compete that forbids it. These are often "at will" states as well, where your employer can fire you and hire someone else to do what you do, but you can't necessarily work for another company doing what you know how to do.

I've lived in VA and in PA most of my life, and I'm just about finished with the eastern US forever. My next home will be either in Europe or west of the Mississippi. By the way, the states that will not enforce non-competes include CA, OR, CO, MT, ND, SD, OK, LA, and probably a couple others. Nearly all of them are in the western US.

As for the most ridiculous non-compete ever, how about a membership agreement for an outdoors club that forbids former members not only from operating a competing club, but even using a google group to organize similar activities? The original version was even worse, if you want to read some lawyerspeak that will make your head spin, and prompted this article in a local newspaper.

I worked with my friendly state delegate, here in Charlottesville, VA, to introduce an OSS bill in the General Assembly in Richmond last February. It did nothing but remind -- not enforce, not require, remind -- the state IT department that there's nothing preventing them from using OSS, should they see fit.

It...uh...ended badly. Microsoft sent out six lobbyists (only one officially from Microsoft, with the rest from Microsoft shell agencies with Bushian names like "Organization for Software Freedom") and shut it down.

We'll try again this year.

-Waldo Jaquith

example

That's actually the only thing I could find on the subject using google, but recently there was a flap by a guy over how it was wrong for us to call a team "the Redskins", because how would we like it if there was a team called "the niggers". Needless to say, he got yelled at.

In response to your favorite example, I think a storyline from FlemCo addresses it, but you gotta sit through ~13 (I think) strips to get the idea.