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Curiously, the Texas DB seems to have a "Hispanic surname flag": https://www.sos.state.tx.us/el...

Only curious to somebody with no practical experience trying to fill in forms designed for single surnames when the rest of the people on down to the south pole are accustomed to having 2 surnames.

But, yeah, try and make it sound like Texas is racist for trying to be accommodating. Good one. Excuse me while I sniff my own farts and drive away in my Prius. I'm just glad I'm part of the solution, ya know?

>Um no. Where do you get voting history information? The most you get is party affiliation.

Um, you don't know what you're talking about.

Here, go fill out the form from the Texas Secretary of State site and get all the info that was exposed for less than $1500

VOTER REGISTRATION PUBLIC INFORMATION REQUEST FORM

-1 for the most informative post of the thread?

Covering for a plagiarist are we mods?

Curiously, the Texas DB seems to have a "Hispanic surname flag": https://www.sos.state.tx.us/el...

Can confirm. You can request the Texas list here: https://www.sos.state.tx.us/el...

One of the fields is listed as "ELECTION DATE"

Thanks for making me find that, I've been building up a list as to where to request lists from each states and only now found the Texas form.

Christ, they want on the order of $1500 for the full list...

>Um no. Where do you get voting history information? The most you get is party affiliation.

Um, you don't know what you're talking about.

Here, go fill out the form from the Texas Secretary of State site and get all the info that was exposed for less than $1500

VOTER REGISTRATION PUBLIC INFORMATION REQUEST FORM

Human life is human life. At least be consistent about it.

Well since viable human ova and sperm are human and alive, consistency demands that we ban any form of contraception and require that every fertile woman make her best attempt to fertilise the ovuum every month. Additionally male masturbation resulting in ejaculation must be criminalised. Oh wait ... there's already a Bill for that one on the table!

You provide NYC, which has some of the most expensive housing prices in the US, as an example of the virtues of high density housing. Then claim in very next paragraph that adopting their zoning laws will solve Ms James's problem by lowering prices?

All the while ignoring the obvious solution to move to a place without 'Inequality Exacerbating' laws, like Houston. Which BTW, has an opening for her exact job at the same pay rate(up to $90393/y).

Googled the citation for y'all in case anyone cared:
Article on revolvesolar.com
Links to the actual bill here.

Good point. Here is a comprehensive list of states with stupid laws.

Regarding Texas, I have the following points:
- The law specifically mentions "attached to windshield" but not "rear view mirror." It also mentions "Obstruction." Accordingly, the law would make for an interesting case for "rear view mirror" mounted devices. Would like to check case law when I have some time.
- The way the law is stated, if "rear view mirror" mounted smartphones are "obstruction" then so is every single rear window sticker, rear view mirror charm, and dashboard bob-head. . . I want to say that ~30% of the cars I see have something like this, so perhaps this is just another dumb Texas law that is almost never enforced.
- If they are actively enforcing this for people who are using apps like Waze, then they are killing people every year by their stupidity, and I feel morally obligated to resist this out-of-date and very stupid law. I hope I do get a ticket so that I can be the first to loudly fight it.

Sec. 9.04. THREATS AS JUSTIFIABLE FORCE. The threat of force is justified when the use of force is justified by this chapter. For purposes of this section, a threat to cause death or serious bodily injury by the production of a weapon or otherwise, as long as the actor's purpose is limited to creating an apprehension that he will use deadly force if necessary, does not constitute the use of deadly force.

tl;dr: It's lawful if you're in a "legitimate defensive situation".

The definition of 'brandishing' varies from state to state in the USA.

In Texas (the last state I noticed being mentioned), the closest thing to 'brandishing' is Disorderly Conduct: Sec. 42.01 DISORDERLY CONDUCT. (a) A person commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly:
(8) displays a firearm or other deadly weapon in a public place in a manner calculated to alarm;
http://www.statutes.legis.stat...

So, you could be charged with that crime even if you were brandishing your firearm in a legitimate defensive situation, and, unlike some of the other disorderly conduct charges, there's no defense to prosecution carved out to protect those who took this action because of a fear of bodily injury.

.

It seems we could all benefit from being slower to shoot our mouths off.

We covered this in college in our Manufacturing Management course. The law in the UK has a lot of grey areas concerning what constitutes and employer/employee relationship, ...

Same in the US. Everyone here thinks there is a perfectly black and white divide between employee and independent contractor, when in reality, it's a hundred shades of gray. In the U.S. The IRS has a 11 factor test for determining if someone is an independent contractor. No factor is necessary or sufficient, and each factor itself can be subject to gradations.

Most importantly, my own ballot only had two races on it.

Provably wrong. Name your county, and we can even look it up for you.

Some years ago, it was actually reported that the election boards in Texas did NOT count the absentee ballots unless there were enough of them to potentially change the outcome of some race. Of course, in those days there were far fewer absentee ballots...

Well then, that reporting was wrong as well.

Sec. 87.1231. EARLY VOTING VOTES REPORTED BY PRECINCT. Not
later than the time of the local canvass, the early voting clerk
shall deliver to the local canvassing authority a report of the
total number of early voting votes for each candidate or measure by
election precinct. The report may reflect the total for votes by
mail and the total for votes by personal appearance.

Section 81 states that "A reference in a law outside this code to 'absentee voting' means 'early voting'," in the event that you have any additional doubts.

Most importantly, my own ballot only had two races on it.

Provably wrong. Name your county, and we can even look it up for you.

Some years ago, it was actually reported that the election boards in Texas did NOT count the absentee ballots unless there were enough of them to potentially change the outcome of some race. Of course, in those days there were far fewer absentee ballots...

Well then, that reporting was wrong as well.

Sec. 87.1231. EARLY VOTING VOTES REPORTED BY PRECINCT. Not
later than the time of the local canvass, the early voting clerk
shall deliver to the local canvassing authority a report of the
total number of early voting votes for each candidate or measure by
election precinct. The report may reflect the total for votes by
mail and the total for votes by personal appearance.

Section 81 states that "A reference in a law outside this code to 'absentee voting' means 'early voting'," in the event that you have any additional doubts.

I know that's an odd subject for this thread, but Texas beat them to this by almost 10 years.

CPRIT (Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas) was founded in 2007 and chartered with spending $3B over 10 years to develop new approaches to cancer prevention and treatment. If you're in the cancer research space, you know about CPRIT. It's the single largest research fund for cancer outside the NIH.

To get an idea of what $3B can do, check out the CPRIT site http://www.cprit.state.tx.us/a....

If you don't want to do that, basically you can fund a few companies and a number of research projects, but it's nowhere near enough to make a dent in the problem.

There's also the problem of fairly allocating the funds. CPRIT ran into this problem early on when it was found that many of the early, large grants were awarded without proper review to friends of the board. This prompted the entire scientific board to resign and CPRIT to essentially reset. It's moving along OK now, but it's still an open question as to how many of the investments will yield actionable results.

Given Facebook's proclivity to reward friends with purchases at outrageous valuations, I won't be surprised if this fund runs into the same nepotism issues CPRIT did.

There are many other lessons that they can learn from CPRIT, but the most important probably is that $3T is probably a more realistic number.( See also all the comments about the tech industry's hubris when it comes to these types problems - curing cancer/disease is not the same as slapping together some APIs to create a "world changing" app. )

-Chris

It really is. Read the law. Anytime someone causes a person or object to enter onto the property of another its trespass.

Where I went to law school, it isn't. Have you read the law?

http://www.statutes.legis.stat...
TX Penal Code Sec. 30.05. CRIMINAL TRESPASS. (a) A person commits an offense if the person enters or remains on or in property of another,

Note, it's not a "trespass" under Texas law to cause something else to enter or remain on or in the property of another. Objects can't "trespass". Only people can.

There. I've quoted my law. Care to quote the law you've based your opinion on?

Just checked the driver's handbook. It doesn't really say one way or another. It just says that if the light is red you must stop before you enter the crosswalk or intersection, and that if it's yellow you must stop if you can do so safely (which is not how most people understand it). It doesn't even have the rule about not entering an intersection on green if you can't get through. And I'm positive that's what I was taught decades ago. So some things must have changed.

Yes, that works. "Convert" means "become legal owner of". So if you "steal" someone's car for a joyride, and leave it broken by the side of the road when you are done, that's not actually theft. That's why GTA was invented (the criminal charge, not the game). It's simply not theft. It may be auto-theft, a non-theft crime with "theft" in the title, but it isn't theft.

If the son took the car to sell it to steal the money from the sale, it's theft. But just because a person is banned from using your things doesn't mean that temporary use of them is "theft".

Your definition exactly matches what I said. An actual law may have made it more clear.

http://www.statutes.legis.stat...
"A person commits an offense if he unlawfully [transfers the title of] property with intent to [withhold property from the owner permanently]."

That's the uniform definition of theft. I just like using TX laws because they are all online, and easily searchable.

It is illegal to use private property as a public throughway,

Nope. It's actually quite legal to do that. Cutting through a "private" parking lot is 100% legal, unless otherwise prohibited. If it weren't already legal, why would they need an explicit law to prohibit it? http://www.statutes.legis.stat... Sec. 545.423 But don't worry, we won't let reality interfere with your unsubstantiated opinion.

I'm not a lawyer, but you rewrote the phrasing a bit, in my opinion making it a little less correct. To my knowledge, there is NO law saying that only one car is allowed in an intersection, green light or not. It would be silly. However, the op said 'prohibited from entering the intersection until it's clear', which while still not correct, is closer.

The actual rule would be Section 545.302 (3). Which bans, among other things, stopping in an intersection. As such, entering the intersection when your exit is obstructed such that you will probably have to stop, will probably result in you having to commit an illegal action(stopping).

Thing is, most people don't anticipate a vehicle stopping immediately AFTER clearing an intersection unless there's a line of traffic ahead of them, so can be shocked if a car does so.

And yes, I have stopped before an intersection when it was likely that I'd be stuck in the intersection when the light changed. I've also seen cops give tickets for people blocking the road by being in the intersection stuck in traffic when the light changes.

If I see a line of traffic where there's a good chance that traffic will stop after clearing an intersection, I'll stop before that. However, if there's only one car ahead of me, I might not. As you said, stopping immediately after an intersection isn't normal behavior, and most drivers aren't prepared for that.

1) On a green light? Please show me the citation to Texas law that says that only one car is allowed in an intersection on a green light (yes, I'm calling BS on your claim and putting the burden of proof on you). I'm pretty sure that's the rule for intersections controlled by stop _signs_, but it's not the rule for stop _lights_.

I'm not a lawyer, but you rewrote the phrasing a bit, in my opinion making it a little less correct. To my knowledge, there is NO law saying that only one car is allowed in an intersection, green light or not. It would be silly. However, the op said 'prohibited from entering the intersection until it's clear', which while still not correct, is closer.

The actual rule would be Section 545.302 (3). Which bans, among other things, stopping in an intersection. As such, entering the intersection when your exit is obstructed such that you will probably have to stop, will probably result in you having to commit an illegal action(stopping).

Thing is, most people don't anticipate a vehicle stopping immediately AFTER clearing an intersection unless there's a line of traffic ahead of them, so can be shocked if a car does so.

And yes, I have stopped before an intersection when it was likely that I'd be stuck in the intersection when the light changed. I've also seen cops give tickets for people blocking the road by being in the intersection stuck in traffic when the light changes.

have you been to Texas? Mostly cows and tumbleweeds.

Paris to Lyon is about the same distance as Dalla to Galveston

Hey look there is a rail line between the two. http://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub...

In Texas, this is the specific code which applies:

http://www.statutes.legis.stat...

However, you should note that a lot of those provisions sunset on 1 Jan 2016. They also have up to 30 days from the lease termination date to refund security deposits, if that's going to happen at all (i.e. there's no claim of damages which would result in a hold-back).

It's also the law that a sale of the property is a qualifying event for terminating the lease in 72 hours, if they chose to do that.

Whether Oracle is on the hook for the security deposit depends on who technically owns the property at the time the lease is terminated, but in general, I can see Oracle's lawyers missing that trick, and if they did, I can see Larry Ellison making the property management company's life truly miserable.

That's an experiment, not a reasonable solution that exists for widespread use today. Also, good luck finding hydroelectric facilities that can be used that way in Texas..

Like the Wildflower Pump Storagein Southeast Oklahoma that will

... deliver power into three electrical grids: ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas), SPP (Southwest Power Pool) and MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator), providing peak power that will help reduce energy shortfalls as well as ancillary services.

and the proposed Cedar Creek Pumped Storage Project for Briscoe, Armstrong and Randall counties

You're correct that these opportunities are limited in Texas, but according to Texas State Energy Conservation Office:

Annually Texas generates approximately 1 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity directly from water resources via 675 MW of hydroelectric power capacity. This hydroelectric generation amounted to only 0.3% of the total electricity generation during 2007, and further development of feasible hydropower resources could result in approximately 4 more million MWh per year.

But, the above does also note that:

The use of Texas water resources together with other technologies that can exploit saline gradients between water sources is possible, but limited to several million MWh/yr.

TL;DR: No one ever thought it was an actual bomb.

Long version:

Since no one ever actually thought it was a bomb, the fact that the school and police took no action as if it were a bomb does not somehow "prove" it's racism and/or Islamophobia. That isn't to say one or more of the people involved had something in that vein in their minds, but their lack of treating it as a bomb doesn't demonstrate it, since numerous accounts of this story indicate the school and police never thought it was an actual bomb.

Some people thought it "looked like" a bomb, and wondered why he would bring it to school, because they don't understand why kids who like things like science and electronics do what they do.

And there are laws dealing with what are called "hoax devices". Many people have gotten into trouble for such things before. Hoax device statutes have been around for many, many years, long before 9/11.

Here is the Texas statute:

http://www.statutes.legis.stat...

The only thing that matters in the hoax device statute is intent â" a feature that is not unique. For example, intent matters when someone is killed. Was it an accident? Was it negligence? Was it premeditated? That is the difference between someone having done nothing wrong, and murder. And it is interviews and investigations and evidence that determine intent.

Even in the original Dallas Morning News article that broke this story â" before it went viral and Ahmed got invited to the White House, JPL, MIT, got scholarships, and become the hero of Silicon Valley â" the only thing the police officials said was that they knew it wasn't a bomb, that Ahmed never claimed it was anything but a clock, and that they were trying to determine WHY he built and AND brought it to school. Once it was determined there was no intent to alarm, scare, or deceive, it was further determined there was no wrongdoing.

Steve Wozniak got in trouble for using a hoax device (with intent to scare), and was arrested and spent a night in jail. I got in trouble with authority figures â" school, police â" for things similar to what Ahmed did several times, when doing nothing wrong. Maybe a little borderline, maybe a little, "What on earth are you doing?" but not illegal. And frankly, some of those came down only to intent as well.

So this little trope misunderstands what happened. Could racism or Islamophobia been an element in anyone's mind? There is no way to know, as much as people desperately want to come to that conclusion. When people say, "What white kid would have gotten in trouble for doing nothing wrong?"

Plenty. Ignore the title, read the article (for those who haven't already):

https://reason.com/blog/2015/0...

His English teacher overreacted by getting the principal's office involved. The school overreacted by calling the police. The school bears almost all of the responsibility here â" not "post-9/11 America", racism, or police. If the police had not been called, none of this would ever have happened â" and Ahmed wouldn't be a celebrity, either.

When police are called for a situation where any of the parties involved are not in perfect agreement, and there is no controversy, even if nothing illegal occurred, I would submit that there are not many times that results in a more positive outcome. The police are there, in part, to investigate and to determine if there was any wrongdoing, which they did. I wish they would have simply handled it at the school, but what I really wish is that the school would not have called the police in the first place.

It feels weird agreeing with scientologists, but you know how it goes with a broken clock.

Correct 1 in 43200 instances? Or do you mean a 24 hour clock (1 in 86400 instances)? Either way it's an optimistic expectation of that cult.

Doctors get an awful lot of trust, much of it deserved and most of it necessary, given what they do, but seeing a doctor shouldn't mean risking my freedom. Even temporarily.

If passed the bill won't mean a doctor would be committing you to an asylum (not locking you in the waiting room), or a cop (not putting you in a cell). A doctor or cop would be committing you to a psychiatrist at a psych ward or similar institution for assessment. Then you would be detained under existing guidelines (though, not for failure to comprehend or research - that'd require more facilities than there is empty buildings).

Sec. 573.005. TEMPORARY DETENTION BY CERTAIN FACILITIES. (a) In this section, "facility" means: (1) a mental health facility; (2) a hospital, or the emergency department of a hospital, licensed under Chapter 241; and (3) a freestanding emergency medical care facility licensed under Chapter 254.

Senate Bill 359
Relating to the authority of a peace officer to apprehend a person for emergency detention and the authority of certain facilities and physicians to temporarily detain a person with mental illness.

It doesn't solve the problem of under resourced psychiatric facilities. It just panders to a public desire to have nutters off the streets.

Someone needs to start a campaign against the war on chemistry while we can still buy glassware.

Know how I can tell you don't live in Texas?

423.003 likely did not apply there, because that's not really private property and I doubt the intent was to "conduct surveillance". (The term has a specific legal definition -- "Observation and collection of data to provide evidence for a purpose" -- and I'm not sure Texas has a more specific definition. Is looking for a cool picture "providing evidence"?)

Also note that APD's supposed ban says nothing of cameras, only of "drones". (No, contrary to what the media may tell us, R/C aircraft do not all have cameras or missiles.)

And of course "Reckless conduct" is vague enough that they could probably apply it to anything.

What probably did apply there is this NOTAM from the FAA which prohibits flying under 3000' over stadiums shortly before, during and shortly after events. State police don't normally enforce FAA regulations, but it's certainly possible.

That won't apply to the city of Austin during SXSW, and 423.003 probably won't apply to public spaces, but certainly, APD could try "reckless conduct" -- and even if the charges were eventually dropped because they don't really apply, that doesn't beat the ride downtown.

Take away the ring, and what dose "I'm going to make you disappear" mean? It could mean he was threatening to kill him.

Did he mean it that way? Not likely, but a school can't take that chance.

It gets even scarier. Another kid said "Excuse me, may I go to the washroom please?" to his teacher.

He may have really wanted to go into the hallway to set off an atomic bomb he had stashed in his backpack, destroying the entire city. If only this bill had been passed the brave teacher would have been allowed to use deadly force to protect global freedom. Instead, all they could do was expel the terrorist in training.

You just can't take any chances at all.

You won't find many old rice burners in Houston, TX. That's because in Harris (and surrounding) counties, cars that are 1995 and older (pre-OBD2) are subjected to the Accelerated Simulation Mode (ASM) test. Basically, the car is put under load via dynamometer to measure the exhaust as though it was driving under normal conditions on the road. This test has failed countless modded imports and domestics. The only time you see casual drag racing is with either an expensive sports car, or a teenager goofing off with a car that's pure stock. All other mods one older cars are just for show. The Type-R stockers alone provide more HP.

  Accelerated Simulation Mode

Just in case you actually believe that, here's a little information about what was actually going on, with an example.

In 2014, I did some work for the state of Texas and the state promised that they'd pay for that work 30-50 years from now, when I'm retired. Just as all public corporations are legally required too, Texas follows Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) , and therefore recognized that expense in 2014. They got the benefit in 2014, so they needed to pay the cost in 2014. That's why Texas has set aside $130 billion dollars, managed by disinterested third parties, to cover the future retirement costs it has already incurred by having us work for them. See http://www.trs.state.tx.us/inf... for details. The key point is that the state already got the benefit of my work, so they already paid it's cost, the retirement they promised I'll get later.

That's called the "matching principle " and is a basic part of GAAP. When corporations fail to follow GAAP, the executives can go to prison. You might wonder why. That's because they've acquired my services by promising that I'll get paid later; if they make no preparations to ensure that I'll actually get paid later that's fraud. Fraud in the billions is felony fraud and sends suits to prison.

What USPS was doing was having people work now, and promising to pay them 30-50 years later, but making no provision to make it possible to actually pay them. They were having employees work in 2000 and HOPING that in 2040 they'd have revenue to pay the promised retirement pay and benefits. Of course USPS might not be making any significant revenue in 2040, so there might not be any way to pay retirement in 2040 for workers who worked in 2000. The workers would be shit of luck, screwed out of the retirement they were promised. That's often considered felony fraud, but it's how the USPS was operating.

Congress figured that felony fraud on the postal workers'was a bad idea, and ordered USPS to do two things. First, they had to start setting aside _some_ money to pay the retirement benefits they had already promised to people who had already done the work. Second, they had to WRITE DOWN A PLAN for the fund to become sound within ~50 years.

    They didn't have to follow generally accepted accounting principles yet, but they had to have a plan on how they'd get their shit together within the next 50 years. That's where the "not even born yet" silliness comes from - the idea that USPS has to at least come up with a written plan as to how they won't still be committing the same fraud on their employees 50 years from now, if the USPS still exists in 50 years.

Owning. Because it'a considered obscene and promoting others to be obscene.

Sec. 43.23. OBSCENITY. (a) A person commits an offense if, knowing its content and character, he wholesale promotes or possesses with intent to wholesale promote any obscene material or obscene device.

...

(f) A person who possesses six or more obscene devices or identical or similar obscene articles is presumed to possess them with intent to promote the same.

http://www.statutes.legis.stat...

I found a business licence for WeTag Inc, https://mycpa.cpa.state.tx.us/... registered at an address in Houston TX , which, on Street View, is a little office block in the middle of a residential neighborhood. I also found a PO box in Plano TX suposedly attached to WeTagInc.com, but thats of little use. I find it odd that there is a business licence in Houston, but they claim to be in Plano. WeTag Incorporated PO Box 261956, Plano, Texas, 75026.

Depends on the state, but even if your income is too low for income tax to really kick in, it can be about 15-25% in evaded taxes. In Texas, for example, lawn-care services are subject to sales tax, so if you're providing lawn-care services in Texas, you should be paying 6.25-8.25% off the top (depending on the city) to the state and/or municipality and/or county. Then federal payroll taxes for self-employed individuals are about 15% on the remaining post-expenses amount, which probably works out to around 10% of the gross.

When they raid a house and find a kitchen scale, they should not use biased terms such as "drug paraphernalia" that poisons the jury pool and reputation of the person they are investigating,

I agree. Unfortunately, though, depending on your local jurisdiction, some common tools (like anything that looks like lab glassware) may automatically be defined as "drug precursors" or "paraphenalia." Texas has a particularly notorious set of regulations about this, which requires you to get a permit to own things like a basic boiling flask or Erlenmeyer. They even include things like a "filter funnel" or "separatory funnel" on the list -- I wonder if a gravy separator counts....

So -- sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and sometimes your kitchen equipment is LEGALLY defined as "chemical laboratory apparatus" which automatically is a "precursor" to drugs.

(As someone who finds things like the shape, durability, aesthetics, and pouring lips of certain types of lab glassware to be useful in the kitchen for normal food preparation, serving, or storage tasks, I find such laws rather offensive. Well... even if I didn't cook with lab glassware, I'd still find it insane.)

Health care providers are already required by law to report cases of HIV to the government.

http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/hi...

It would be more "efficient" if there was one database rather than two.

http://www.tbpe.state.tx.us/li...

Point out the 16 years of experience requirement, please.

There is, at least in Texas: http://www.tbpe.state.tx.us/do...

However, the vast majority of software will not need a PE license, just as the vast majority of construction does not need to be sealed. Its likely to be mandated in the future for things like avionics, control software, or large projects such as state level payroll systems, which will be interesting to watch.

The eye is in D.C. but the hole at the other end is here

But what about his nemesis?:

http://www.window.state.tx.us/border/ch09/cobalto.html

"In the prison where he still awaits sentencing, the guards call him El Cobalto - the Cobalt Man."

George W. Bush was — a fairly successful — governor (Executive) of a major State.

Well... it's Texas. From Wikipedia:

Compared to the governors of other U.S. states, the governorship of Texas is a fairly weak office. The Lieutenant Governor of Texas, who presides over the state Senate, is considered a more powerful political figure, being able to exercise greater personal prerogatives.

And, according to this reference, the Texas legislature only meets every two years for 140 days, so how fucking busy could the Governor actually be, except for executing people and fund raising.

And, as far as Texas itself goes, according to The Texas Observer, The Texas Legislative Group produced a study saying:

How’s Texas doing? Not so great: The state ranks 50th in high school graduation rate, first in amount of carbon emissions, first in hazardous waste produced, last in voter turnout, first in percentage of people without health insurance, and second in percentage of uninsured kids.

So, even ignoring their tendency to push Creationism over Science in their school curriculum, Texas is certainly a big state, but "major" is questionable - unless you mean major failure... But, if that's what the people want... you can't argue with stupid.

In Australia and New Zealand we also have a GST system just like Canada. And Simgapore.

It's what a sensible country does. Your state based tax system is pretty brain damaged and only going to cause more and more problems as time goes on..... goodluck with that.

State taxes (or provincial ones in Canada) are bad enough but manageable due to limited numbers, and you usually know if you're in one state/province or another.

But the US goes even further and has county/district sales and use taxes, adding thousands of slightly different tax rates across the country. Check out California's... and that's just for locations starting with "A"! Texas has an an equally ridiculous long list of slightly different rates.

This means that the shop down the street, but in a different county, may charge you slightly more or less for a product that has the same sticker price (which are almost always pre-tax numbers in the US... Canada does too but at least we don't do local sales taxes). I suppose locals know exactly where the county lines are, but what a mess to keep track of.

I get the historical reasons why this is--it's similar to why there's no federal or even in-state standards for election systems. Each county is theoretically independently managed and sets their own rates. This works for property taxes and infrequent purchases, but not online goods and services.

It's no wonder US online retailers and services have resisted sales tax for so long, it's a logistical nightmare to set up the database of thousands of tax rates across the country and keep them up to date.

They have a "free enterprise and antitrust act" in their state's laws that appears to me to cover exactly this kind of situation:

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/BC/htm/BC.15.htm

CHAPTER 15. MONOPOLIES, TRUSTS AND CONSPIRACIES IN RESTRAINT OF TRADE [emphasis mine]
[...]
SUBCHAPTER A. GENERAL PROVISIONS AND PROHIBITED RESTRAINTS
[...]
Sec. 15.04. PURPOSE AND CONSTRUCTION. The purpose of this Act is to maintain and promote economic competition in trade and commerce occurring wholly or partly within the State of Texas and to provide the benefits of that competition to consumers in the state. The provisions of this Act shall be construed to accomplish this purpose and shall be construed in harmony with federal judicial interpretations of comparable federal antitrust statutes to the extent consistent with this purpose.

Gene Fondren was a Democrat. Nice try blaming Republicans though.

http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/legeLeaders/members/memberDisplay.cfm?memberID=%20803

So sick of partisan fuckwads like you.

If this really plays out as you assert, then you should be able to use the Texas CHL statistics to back it up. Kindly pull up their conviction raw numbers and rates from 1996-2011, then take their active licensee and instructor counts from the same time period, and derive their murder rate per 100,000 population. Now compare that murder rate per 100,000 population with the FBI's pre-calculated rates for Texas and the US as a whole, and any other states you wish. Which population group has the lowest murder rate, and by how much?

If this really plays out as you assert, then you should be able to use the Texas CHL statistics to back it up. Kindly pull up their conviction raw numbers and rates from 1996-2011, then take their active licensee and instructor counts from the same time period, and derive their murder rate per 100,000 population. Now compare that murder rate per 100,000 population with the FBI's pre-calculated rates for Texas and the US as a whole, and any other states you wish. Which population group has the lowest murder rate, and by how much?

Don't try to trivialize Sony's rootkit fiasco, it was not just a matter of a company releasing an unpopular product and then recanting.

What Sony did was possibly illegal. "Possibly" only because they were never convicted -- they settled all the lawsuits -- but in many states there are specific laws against covertly installing spyware (a lot of states have a very similar piece of legislation called "Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act", here are the ones for Texas and California, for example).

Not to mention that the rootkit opened vulnerabilities in the systems where it was installed (more details on Wikipedia). The federal government didn't sue, but the Department of Homeland Security made very clear that what Sony did was unacceptable.

It's difficult to be a law abiding citizen because there are so many laws that it's difficult to not run afoul of at least a few.

OK, name one crime that I could innocently commit and wind up in jail for.

How about owning too many dildos in texas?
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/docs/PE/htm/PE.43.htm

I think the actual Texas Rangers might disagree: http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/texasrangers/

No, it's terrible because they teach creationism as fact and ignore well accepted science. This is but one example.

One example of pure BS? Is there any chance the lying nitwits will give it a rest any time soon?

Chapter 112. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Science - Subchapter C. High School

(7) Science concepts. The student knows evolutionary theory is a scientific explanation for the unity and diversity of life. The student is expected to:

(A) analyze and evaluate how evidence of common ancestry among groups is provided by the fossil record, biogeography, and homologies, including anatomical, molecular, and developmental;

(B) analyze and evaluate scientific explanations concerning any data of sudden appearance, stasis, and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record;

(C) analyze and evaluate how natural selection produces change in populations, not individuals;

(D) analyze and evaluate how the elements of natural selection, including inherited variation, the potential of a population to produce more offspring than can survive, and a finite supply of environmental resources, result in differential reproductive success;

(E) analyze and evaluate the relationship of natural selection to adaptation and to the development of diversity in and among species;

(F) analyze and evaluate the effects of other evolutionary mechanisms, including genetic drift, gene flow, mutation, and recombination; and

(G) analyze and evaluate scientific explanations concerning the complexity of the cell.