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How about this one (box to the left, click to enlarge).

https://geology.utah.gov/map-p...

Note how much warmer the Earth has been in the past.

Now, repeat after me: Another horseshit article because someone is chasing a fresh funding grant.

Why have courts if you do not demand that they do justice?

Courts and judges are part of the legal system.

There IS NO 'justice system'.

Really, why? Is there somewhere this is defined? What principles of government specifically establish these contentions of yours? Nowhere?

Or are you just making a poor attempt at fallacious reasoning in order to ignore the problem? Nowhere are your terms used in either the US or Utah Constitutions, making any reference to them as a matter of distinction on your part into a purely arbitrary contention of no particular merit.

And in fact, FWIW, there are courts specifically referred to as "Courts of Justice" or "Justice Courts" such as Montana's, Kentucky's, and yes, even Utah.

So no, you can't even assert that they make a pointed effort to avoid such terms in their own usages just by their states names. Furthermore, by observing their statements of principles and moral axioms, of course, you can see that they do make a concerted and deliberate reference to actual justice.

Or how else am I supposed to take their oath of office: "I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God." ?

There are further examples, both in historical reference and modern development, to establish the place of "Justice" in the provenance of the courts, and even int the executive (It is called the Justice Department, not the Law Department), but I think the mere existence of the oath shows that your argument lacks merit.

It does not exist and never did except as a set of moral goals and standards in the hearts of men. "Justice" is moral and relative, changing with individual circumstance and the opinion of the observer, and therefor can never be codified into law.

Oh, did you think that this is an inherent objection to justice then? If so, why? You seem to be troubled over circumstances and observations, as if it was not a known obligation of justice, which is accepted and recognized, but perhaps you can explain if you meant something else.

In order to achieve the closest thing to "justice" within the limitations of men, the law must be interpreted as written in all cases, because courts and judges are determiners of legalities, not warriors for someone's opinion on what is "just".

You left off your reasoning(which is a bad thing), and contrary to your asertion, if the law is written in some way that is not just, then it is actually going further from justice when you adhere to the law over justice and when you rely on the naive view that purporting to adhere to the law as written is superior, the only thing you are doing is subsuming your obligation to responsibility for your moral decisions by passing it others.

However, even if you had bothered to make such an argument, it would not do anything to undo how your first assertion rings false, to the contrary, judges and their courts are bound by their own statements to justice. That alone is severely discrediting to you. It comes across as if you are merely making slipshod, unconsidered statements to try to advance some pre-established narrative cause, rather than making a truly principled argument that can be weighed and measured on its own merits.

Sorry, Bluestrat, you may used to dealing with people ignorant enough to be fooled by your pomposity, but there are people who can point out the hollow

Go to the web site "http://Georgia.gov"
type "laws" into the search box.
first topic is "Learning about Georgia Law", and that has a link to the free on-line official code.
How hard is that?

Or, you can goto "law.georgia.gov" and click "Legal Resources" to get to the free site.

LexisNexis is a contractor to the state of Georgia for this service, so it's not that some random company threw it up.
The deal with the state is that LexisNexis does the work of creating the annotations for the state and then provides it online for free in return for being allowed to sell the printed copies. No one does that for free.

The law itself is NOT copyrighted, but the annotations are. It's stated in the Term and Conditions.
This is actually a sweet deal for the people of Georgia because we get access to the annotations for free. This is a boon for people who don't want to pay a lawyer to do research or go sit in the library to read the copy there.

As for the link you gave, http://www.le.state.ut.us/Docu... it has an invalid certificate.
If you change it to http://le.utah.gov/Documents/c... , it's OK.

Utah's government web site, like almost every other state, does not provide annotations. You can buy an annotated copy of Utah law for $1800 from here:
http://legalsolutions.thomsonr...

In Georgia, we get ours online for free.

1) The Earth is usually a lot hotter than it is right now. We are climbing out of an ice age.

We "climbed out of an ice age" (that is, came out of the glaciation) ten thousand years ago.

You didn't look at the graphs in the referenced article, did you? >By those graphs we STARTED climbing out of an ice age back then but we still have a long way to go. So they support the poster's claim, not yours.

The graphs show nothing of the sort. Look at it more closely and pay attention to the scale. http://geology.utah.gov/wp-con... The smallest time division on that graph is 50,000 years, and the temperature has been warm for about a quarter of a division.
The article summarizes it clearly: "Currently, we are in a warm interglacial that began about 11,000 years ago" which is pretty much what I just said.

Here's a good graph showing the sea level rise at the end of the glaciation. You can see the warming very clearly, and it's pretty much over by eight thousand years ago.
http://cdn.antarcticglaciers.o...

The internet must not become a safe haven for predators. Pornography, with its harmful effects, especially on children, has become a public health crisis that is destroying the life of millions. We encourage states to continue to fight this public menace and pledge our commitment to children's safety and well-being. We applaud the social networking sites that bar sex offenders from participation. We urge energetic prosecution of child pornography which is closely linked to human trafficking.

It looks more reasonable than Utah's version, although it doesn't seem to recognize any sort of distinction between children being "exposed" to pornography (e.g. at McDonalds) vs. actual child pornography.

Salt Lake City, liberal for Utah but not exactly a leftist utopia, proved a solution that nearly ended chronic homelessness in their city. ... While chronic homelessness is basically a fact of life in major urban areas, SLC saw reductions of 91%. And they did it with lower costs than any other program.

Chronic homelessness is a politically defined subcategory of homeless in general. If you look at the chart on page 5 of their report ...
https://jobs.utah.gov/housing/...
It is clear that they did not move the actual homeless needle much at all. Overall homelessness in Utah steadily floats between .05%-.06% of population since 2005. So of their overall homeless population of ~15k, only ~2k are counted as chronic, and they reduced that number by ~90% to ~200.

But the other ~90% of the overall homeless remain homeless so the effect was to reduce homelessness in general from ~.6% to .5% of the population. Given their change in the accounting method during the study period combined with sme pretty tall error bars, I'd say their solution statistically meaningless.

A quick web search shows that similarly worded legislation is being considered in Arkansas, Kansas, Utah, South Carolia, and New York.

While I didn't do an item-by-item comparison, a quick glance suggests that most or all these were crafted by a common hand. Anyone want to guess who that might be?

Go back a little before that and the average temperature was 12c higher than now for hundreds of millions of years at a time.

http://geology.utah.gov/survey...

http://geology.utah.gov/survey...

Basically, we are still in the middle of an ice age that peaked 20k years ago and started about 65 million years ago.

In farenheit terms- we average 58 degrees globally today (and rising) and we averaged 72 degrees globally from 65 million years ago to 185 million years ago.

Go back a little before that and the average temperature was 12c higher than now for hundreds of millions of years at a time.

http://geology.utah.gov/survey...

http://geology.utah.gov/survey...

Basically, we are still in the middle of an ice age that peaked 20k years ago and started about 65 million years ago.

In farenheit terms- we average 58 degrees globally today (and rising) and we averaged 72 degrees globally from 65 million years ago to 185 million years ago.

I question your sources for these numbers. Here are figures from my state (a comparison to some national averages can be found on page 7): http://www.schools.utah.gov/da... . This indicates that there are far more teachers than administrators, and that most of the money going to public education is ending up as teacher compensation. Have you found something indicating otherwise?

Maybe they determined that "taxing" you for an annual inspection for personal cars went to far and stopped it, more then 20 years ago? (i don't recall ever having to have the cars inspected and i have been driving for 25 years in ontario).

Please come back and post some more information on Ontario, a place you clearly don't know anything about.

PS.

This map indicates that a large number of states don't have annual inspections as well, does that mean they don't care about you as well?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection_in_the_United_States

Yes. It does.

It means all they care about is collecting registration fees, and they smog test fees, and while they are generally named "The Department of Public Safety", they really don't give a crap about public safety, if they let you drive around with worn-out brakes, misaligned headlights, cracked windshields within the drivers field of view, and all the other things they wouldn't let you get away with in 17 U.S. states.

In point of fact, they are doing the minimum necessary work to be able to collect the maximum amount of fees,

Here's the Utah version of the Vehicle inspection manual for "PASSENGER VEHICLE AND LIGHT DUTY TRUCK"; notice that you must pass a 78 point inspection (minimum; some vehicles require more points of inspection). Inspections can take several hours, as they examine your gearbox and motor mounts, and run alignment leveling tests, rocker arm tests, and so on:

http://publicsafety.utah.gov/s...

The point of this is to make sure that your vehicle is safe to be on the road, and you aren't going to kill someone due to an equipment failure.

-

Personally, I don't see *why*, if an inspection *should* be required in Toronto for someone to operate their private vehicle on behalf of Uber, that some dumb-ass felt that as long as Uber wasn't involved, it's perfectly fine for you to pack your grandmother and three kids into a car that *wasn't* inspected.

This dual standard for "passengers" vs. "passengers" speaks volumes about them not actually giving a damn about actual safety as they do about revenue collection.

If you look at the temperature over the last millionish years...
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/...

you can see it's been this hot many times before without human intervention.
you can see the temperature made a major move upwards a looooong time before the 1800's. from 26c to 29c. Humans almost certainly had nothing to do with that or other massive temperature shifts between 26 and 30c that have occurred repeatedly over the last millionish years.

This particular move may be enhanced by humans. 7 billion human beings are having widespread effects on the planet. And it looks like we may be on target for 11 billion humans instead of 9 billion humans.

That's a lot of Co2, methane from cows, asphalt paved and building covered ground that used to be forest in most places.

But we are not even at a record temperature yet, similar temperature moves have happened many times (dozens, scores?) over the last million years without humans being the cause.

Based on the evidence of the historical record the temperature could fall 3 degrees shortly after it peaks. Well after we are dead of course.

Right now, I think the most likely course is temperatures will continue to rise slowly- we'll see the oceans rise by 20" by 2100.

And we'll have *too many* people. Way over the carrying capacity of the earth. We've overbred and it really doesn't matter what we do if we don't get the population down. We are just moving deck chairs on a sinking Titantic.

Here's the last 10 million years
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6ftZ...

It shows a pretty strong correlation between co2 and temperature. It also shows the co2 level has fluctuated a lot without humans around and that the temperature has been as high and lower many times in the last 10 million years.

Here's the last 65 million years
http://mpe.dimacs.rutgers.edu/...

We are at the bottom of a 65 million year long cooling period.

Here's the last 2.4 billion years
http://geology.utah.gov/survey...

We could just be exiting a near ice age. It looks like much of the time, the average temperature of the earth has been about 72F. About 10 degrees warmer than it is now. Humans could be the cause- but even without human interaction, the temperature seems likely to return to the mean at some point in the future. On a billion year scale, the current temperatures are uncommonly low.

The representative for HB060 is Curt Webb from Logan UT. Seems odd as his area is not remotely close to UTOPIA or Google Fiber. Looks like someone someone found a disinterested politician who doesn't know any better to push this bill?

HB60 was pulled from the scheduled Feb 4 committee meeting. I wonder if someone got cold feet?

There's a difference between an unsolicited shipment and a solicited, but erroneous, shipment

In the USPS recommended actions, there is. In federal law, there is not. The legal definition of unordered merchandise is "merchandise mailed without the prior expressed request or consent of the recipient" (See USC 39 3009(d)). The people ordered some merchandise but what they received was something else that was mailed without prior expressed request or consent of the recipient.

True, at federal law, there isn't, because contracts for sale of goods are state law under the UCC, not the federal government. Under state law in every state, it's a solicited, but erroneous, shipment, and the seller has the opportunity to recover the incorrect goods at their expense and either cure by shipping the correct product or repudiate the sale and suffer penalties for breach.

Is this true even for interstate shipments? That seems unlikely.

Of course it does. You're getting confused because you hear about interstate commerce being regulated by the Federal government, and think that anything that travels interstate must solely be under Federal law... It's not true - there is, for example, no such thing as federal contract law. All contracts are governed under state law, including contracts that relate to interstate shipments. State law applies here.

In addition, even for intrastate I think there's a good argument that such a state law contradicts federal law, if the shipment was sent via the postal service (though most such shipments are sent via UPS or FedEx, which may be different).

Not at all. As many people in this thread have said, the federal law deals with unsolicited purchases. This is not an unsolicited purchase, it's a solicited purchase where the wrong goods got shipped.

Come on, think logically - the Federal government is going to write a law that screws large corporations when some warehouse monkey ships the wrong thing? The same Federal government that, whenever copyright or SOPA or PIPA or anything else is mentioned, we claim is bought and sold by large corporations?

Also, do you have a citation (in any state) for the law you're claiming obligates the recipient (or buyer, whatever) to return the incorrect goods?

Yes, it's in the UCC article 2-508, which has been implemented in some form in every state's laws.

I spent some time looking through Utah State Code, and it appears to me that upon receipt the buyer is fully justified in accepting the erroneous shipment and calling the transaction complete, if you choose to look at it as an error in the transaction, or in accepting the erroneous shipment as unrequested goods, and demanding that the original transaction be completed.

Nope, 2-508 is also in the Utah code. And if the buyer attempted to accept the shipment and demand that the original transaction be completed, then the buyer is admitting that goods are solicited, and would be liable for conversion.

Again, logically, come on... Mistakes happen in warehouses all the time. You really think that the government has written in statutes that explicitly screw corporations and give windfalls to individuals because of mistakes?

Common sense, first of all. Does it harm someone or something? Could it easily harm someone or something if misused? Does it interrupt any other government function? Have you ever heard of someone getting in trouble for anything similar?

When the answer to any of those questions is "yes", it warrants further investigation. Go to a library. Ask the librarian for help. They actually do far more than just point out books. Often, they can help you with understanding the law in question (though note that they are not authoritative sources of legal advice... those are lawyers).

Don't just assume that laws are complicated. Here's a few examples of laws chosen nearly at random. They're all pretty simple to read, though a few of them require skipping over large definition sections or clarifying clauses. In fact, consider this a challenge: Find me an American law that can't be understood with high-school reading skills.

Did you look?

Three orbital variations contribute to interglacials... eccentricity.. obliquity.. precession.

There are other contributing factors of course, but orbital variations are the strongest and accepted explanation. From the first source:

Glacials and interglacials occur in fairly regular repeated cycles. The timing is governed to a large degree by predictable cyclic changes in Earth’s orbit

If you can cite studies supporting a better theory, or even studies throwing these studies into doubt, feel free. Or are you just going to fall back to the useless solipsist argument of "nothing is real, there are no absolutes"? Which is fine for the philosophy department's coffee room, but will cut no ice in the real world.

Are minors ever authorized to use guns unsupervised? Honest question--I thought in most states you had to be over 18 or 21 to own a gun, and that minors have to be supervised. For example, even Utah, a pretty gun-friendly state, has pretty strict restrictions on when kids can be alone with guns. So, shouldn't someone under 18 always be under some sort of temporary use permission? i.e., "Junior and I are going to the range/hunting/whatever, he's good for 6 hours" sort of thing.

There are a lot of target shooters.

Not really. They make up a heck of a lot less than 10% of the population, especially here along the Wasatch Front.

The people who camp and cause fires that way also make up a fairly small portion of the population. Larger than shooters, but not much larger.

It takes some unusual conditions for copper and lead bullets to start fires (not the case for steel-jacketed rounds, or for reactive targets, obviously), but normal procedure for wildfires is to blame firearms if anyone was known or suspected to have been shooting in the vicinity and no other specific cause presents itself. What percentage of the 20 allegedly shooting-caused fires were actually caused by something else is unknowable, but it's likely greater than zero.

Right. All the fires when people were shooting in red-flag warning "tinderbox" conditions were caused by fire fairies or gnomes.

I don't respond to sarcasm. If you'd like to make an argument make it like a grownup.

Utah state law specifically authorizes municipalities to restrict firearms discharge within their city limits

[citation needed]. I've seen the sections of state code which say "Unless specifically authorized by the Legislature by statute, a local authority or state entity may not enact or enforce any ordinance, regulation, or rule pertaining to firearms" and I've seen the legislature's tendency to try to trump/seize control from cities (esp. SLC) on all kinds of issues; I haven't seen the provision you cite.

UCA 10-8-47: "the municipal legislative body may regulate and prevent the discharge of firearms".

Note that they may not regulate possession or carry, only discharge.

Federal law, whether statutory or regulatory, trumps state law and even state constitutions, per Article VI.

If you could teach our state legislators this fact it would be a great accomplishment. They've passed scores of bills that their own legal counsel has said are unconstitutional attempts to trump federal law, and many of them are nullificationists.

I didn't say they couldn't try, only that they couldn't do it.

You don't know what "brandishing" means. Let me help - "threatening manner" does not include... the possession of a dangerous weapon, whether visible or concealed, without additional behavior which is threatening... 76-10-506, Utah Criminal Code

And, yes, although "brandishing" isn't defined as such in the code, that's what it is, using a weapon to intimidate or threaten.

In exactly what way is carrying an unloaded weapon "irresponsible?"

Regardless of whether they intended to start a fire, they should face punishment for reckless burning, a class A misdemeanor; they either knew (or should have known) there was a risk of causing a fire, and simply thinking "It won't happen to me" isn't good enough.

If your issue is the fact that there is no framework of law to prohibit, e.g., shooting under certain conditions, in a similar manner as, say, open fires when weather conditions are not safe for fires, then I might begin to agree with you.

This is the more important point and is really the main point of the article. The Utah state legislature has not only failed to put any reasonable regulations on target shooting during red flag warnings, they've passed laws to keep any counties, municipalities, etc from regulating anything about guns at all . For instance, from Utah code 76-10-500 :

Unless specifically authorized by the Legislature by statute, a local authority or state entity may not enact or enforce any ordinance, regulation, or rule pertaining to firearms.

Regardless of whether they intended to start a fire, they should face punishment for reckless burning, a class A misdemeanor; they either knew (or should have known) there was a risk of causing a fire, and simply thinking "It won't happen to me" isn't good enough.

If your issue is the fact that there is no framework of law to prohibit, e.g., shooting under certain conditions, in a similar manner as, say, open fires when weather conditions are not safe for fires, then I might begin to agree with you.

This is the more important point and is really the main point of the article. The Utah state legislature has not only failed to put any reasonable regulations on target shooting during red flag warnings, they've passed laws to keep any counties, municipalities, etc from regulating anything about guns at all . For instance, from Utah code 76-10-500 :

Unless specifically authorized by the Legislature by statute, a local authority or state entity may not enact or enforce any ordinance, regulation, or rule pertaining to firearms.

I don't have any idea who you think you're replying to. I'm not claiming gun ownership should be outlawed, and I don't see anybody who's making that claim.

You admit "Utah needs to change their local laws concerning the time and place it is appropriate to shoot" and that's precisely what I'm saying.

Your claim that these people did nothing illegal runs afoul of the reckless burning ordinance; this was a class A misdemeanor. But that's not enough to dissuade people from destroying land and endangering others' lives, because people are too stubborn to believe their irresponsible actions really cause any risk of fire, even when 19 fires had already been started by shooters in Utah this year.

Target shooting on public land during a red flag warning should be illegal, and it's farcical that the Legislature has not only refused to put in place reasonable regulations but has barred counties and municipalities from doing so.

In Utah there is only 36 places in the entire state where you can purchase anything harder then a 3.2% beer.

Um, if you check the store locator page, there are over 100 state liquor stores listed. Plus the bars (that are real bars now, not private clubs), I believe that adds up to somewhat more than 36. My math may be off, however.

If you don't mind reading original sources of information and doing some data mining, as well as listening to hours of legislative debate, you can always go to this site:

http://le.utah.gov/~2011S1/2011S1.htm

That gives you at least the public face of information you may be wanting to learn about.

In terms of "the opposition", you can also go to this website:

http://savegrama.org/

I'm not a huge fan of how this site has been administered, but it at least provides a counterpoint as to what has been happening. Does that give you the details you are craving?

Don't believe everything Herbert tells you.

The Utah House needs 50 votes to override Herbert's veto: http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Utah_House_of_Representatives 42 people voted for the bill: http://le.utah.gov/~2011/status/hbillsta/hb0477.003h.txt

42 is less than 50. How does that give them veto override ability?

. . . assuming that it would have gotten through regardless of what he did.

Alas, this assumption doesn't pass muster. H.B. 477 ultimately passed the House with only 42 votes — eight shy of a veto-proof majority.

He gave an interview the day after and said basically that even had he vetoed it it would have passed.

Wait, that doesn't make sense.

The House needs 50 votes to override Herbert's veto: http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Utah_House_of_Representatives
42 people voted for the bill: http://le.utah.gov/~2011/status/hbillsta/hb0477.003h.txt

42 < 50 How does that give them veto override ability? Were 8 people going to vote yes if he vetoed but no if he sent it through?

Actually this is a prime example of just how bad and biased Slashdot summaries could be. If you read the article you will find nothing about the Democrate in it!

Or "Democrat". The summary is a blatant lie. The bill has nothing to do with "Democrat", and "Democrat" does not appear in the word "democracy" to begin with.

http://le.utah.gov/~2011/htmdoc/hbillhtm/hb0220.htm is a link to a page with the history of the house bill. It specifies a thorough education in forms of government, including that the US is a constitutional republic ("and to the republic, for which it stands").

I'm not sure that the summary is a bad representation of what the article claims; but after reading the entire bill, I'd say that the article is biased. From the article, "The Senate passed the bill with no dissenting votes Monday."; there was some obviously conservative rhetoric in support of the bill, but the basic purpose of updating the state educational standards to give students the chance to think about different government-structures is sound.

Unfortunately, Utah politicians have spent way too much time on low-priority bills like this. There are so many more important things than designating an official state gun or how a bicyclist should legally stop at a stop sign. A utopia Utah is not. Two things that come to mind we need help with are education spending (in the bottom 5 states of dollars spent per child) and bankruptcy (in the top 10 states).

Unfortunately, Utah politicians have spent way too much time on low-priority bills like this. There are so many more important things than designating an official state gun or how a bicyclist should legally stop at a stop sign. A utopia Utah is not. Two things that come to mind we need help with are education spending (in the bottom 5 states of dollars spent per child) and bankruptcy (in the top 10 states).

in utah if there is no sidewalk or shoulder, it is legal but you must
walk against the direction of traffic. (as per normal.)

http://le.utah.gov/~code/TITLE41/htm/41_06a100900.htm

but from the pictures (in tfa), there is a shoulder on the
side she should have been walking on.

nonetheless, the driver is likely liable:

http://le.utah.gov/~code/TITLE41/htm/41_06a100600.htm

in utah if there is no sidewalk or shoulder, it is legal but you must
walk against the direction of traffic. (as per normal.)

http://le.utah.gov/~code/TITLE41/htm/41_06a100900.htm

but from the pictures (in tfa), there is a shoulder on the
side she should have been walking on.

nonetheless, the driver is likely liable:

http://le.utah.gov/~code/TITLE41/htm/41_06a100600.htm

while our primary sources of energy are running out

And in the 1920s, they claimed we were running out of oil. In the 1970s, they claimed we were running out of oil. Just last year they found a new oilfield off of Brazil bigger than anything found yet. Last year. After everyone said no new large fields would ever be found.

Coal? Clinton locked up the Grand Staircase in Utah, the largest clean coal deposit, with 62 Billion tons of coal.

I don't know. I hate scare-mongering that has been going on already for 100 years, and shown wrong for 100 years, and the next generation doesn't see how poorly it looks.

I think it's more that Utah is sitting on a whole metric assload of coal.

A place with massive coal reserves is claiming that coal is the best way to produce power?

Hmmm. I think I see the problem.

Nope.

Best I can do in a quick google is some city council minutes from 2008 where a few city residents voiced support for Utopia and wanted to know why Sandy City didn't participate.

As long as the message is not addressed to "the person's telephone number", and it's also not an "electronic mail", it's legal. Instant messages seem OK, unless "electronic mail" is defined elsewhere to include them. Regardless, there's enough room in this law to devise an application for smartphones that allows you to communicate via typing without breaking the law.

(b) "Text messaging" means a communication in the form of electronic text or one or more electronic images sent by the actor from a telephone or computer to another person's telephone or computer by addressing the communication to the person's telephone number.

http://le.utah.gov/~2009/bills/hbillint/hb0290s01.htm

  (c) except as provided in Subsection (3), uses a handheld wireless communication
                          55 device for text messaging or electronic mail communication while operating a moving motor
                          56 vehicle upon a highway in this state.

Making sure I understand your question (which is an interesting one): can Jack petition the Utah State Government for the redress of a grievance, even if he doesn't live there?

I think the answer is: sure. In fact, he already did. He proposed a bill there, which Utah state legislators backed. It got vetoed by the governor. You have a right to the petition, not necessarily to the redress.

Generally speaking, the First Amendment applies to state governments. So the more pertinent question becomes, can the Utah government prosecute Jack for sending e-mails ostensibly petitioning for the redress of a grievance which the legislator already went to bat for him on?

Evidently, Jack sent Waddoups an e-mail whose header included a picture of a lapdance. CAN-SPAM indeed seems to be the wrong tool for this situation (probably why the AG sort of hedges in the article on whether anything will be pursued).

There may be a charge under Utah law for electronic communications harassment. Yes, Thompson has his First Amendment rights, but those aren't unlimited. You can petition the government for redress of grievances, but there are all sorts of ways you can do that that are offensive or obnoxious enough that the First Amendment won't help you.

Acceleration from a magnitude 5.7 earthquake can be "over 0.1g".
  (reference: http://geology.utah.gov/online/pdf/pi-29.pdf)

Acceleration from a car crash, even a minor one, can easily be _several_ g! It's not really comparable, unless the earthquake makes your rack fall over and hit the ground.

HB0353 Text, this bill adds lines 82-85.

13-11a-3. Deceptive trade practices enumerated

83 (u) (i) advertises that the person will not sell a good or service labeled with an age
84 restriction or recommendation to a person under the age restriction or recommendation; and
85 (ii) sells that good or service to a person under the age restriction or recommendation.

High Welcome to Sunny Utah!

Utah's General Fund holds about $150 million?

Where on earth did you get that figure? What possible reason do you think this would have come from "general funds" of the state in the first place and not something "earmarked"?

Tax revenue earned by the state of Utah in 2008 for "general fund allocations" was $778 million, and a total overall budget of $5.5 billion dollars overall for fiscal year 2009 (admittedly including education and construction allocations here too).

$700 thousand (all that was really lost) out of $5.5 billion dollars that went through the state treasurer's office is 0.013% of the total, not the 1.86% you are quoting.

Don't get me wrong, 700k is a lot of money and it still shouldn't have happened, but don't blow this up to more than it is.

BTW, where did I get MY figures?

http://governor.utah.gov/budget/Budget/Agency%20Summaries/FY2009/Budget%20Summary%20Book%20FY%202009.pdf

You pay the toll at the gasoline pump through the ~70 cent per gallon tax.

As of 2005 the fuel tax in the US was 18.4/gal. On 28 September 2006 it was 24.5 cents per gallon. Of course states have their own fuel tax, but those range from 8 cents in Alaska to 32.1 cent per gallon in Wisconsin.

Falcon

If you mean you can use a solar water heater to heat water before a tank in conjunction with a point of use heater, then yes it may be more efficient. I thought I said that before, but I went up this tread and didn't see it so maybe I said it in another thread.

Exactly. I was responding to this comment: "No I don't, by keeping water warm you're wasting energy, heating only the water used at the point of use saves energy." in response to my "You WANT the tank to store hot water overnight, even if you never use the electric elements."

Did some quick rechecking - My water comes out at 50F, common quotes for shower temps are 98F-110F. So I need 50 degrees of temperature rise. American Heat Tankless Water Heater ADK-1 60 Amp, $227, a bit cheaper than what I paid for my 55 gallon water heater, much cheaper than the $700 I saw for a tankless heater before. Still, 240V@60A is my ENTIRE electric service, and would only provide sufficient heat at the absolute bottom end for my shower or clothes washer(1.5GPM). Per the chart, I'd need an AH-21($588), 100 amps. An AH-18 might work, at 80 amps, but family wouldn't be happy when they visit.

I think I made the right choice for my situation. I'm looking at an upgrade - installing a heat pump system this summer, assuming I can get good price information and ordering ability on line. Last time they were 'out of stock'. That might be your best option, as well. 3X the heating ability per kwh, even over tankless. 5A@240V, instead of 60A@240V. You still have the tank to store solar heated water. Good surge capacity without blowing your house's main breaker.

"Why conservatives should join the left's campaign against nuclear power." Whereas coal generated electricity costs 3.53 cent per KWH and "clean coal" it's 3.55 cents per KWH, without subsidies nuclear power generated electricity cost 5.94 cents per KWH. If the subsidies for coal are removed coal is still cheaper, 3.79 cents and 4.37 cents for clean coal.

And if you put a carbon tax in coal gets slaughtered. Even clean coal - by default, most 'clean coal' plants aren't sequestering, and sequestering leaches 30% of the plant's energy to collect the CO2.
"Unfortunately, the capture process consumes a lot of energy itself, reducing the plant's efficiency and requiring more coal to be mined and burned."
Hmm, also disagrees with the cost for clean coal - "Power from a new IGCC coal plant with full carbon capture and sequestration should cost 7.3-9.6 cents per kWh (factoring in the capture-related efficiency losses and sequestration expenses)."
Another source: "Removing carbon dioxide under current known systems would cut plant capacity by 25 percent to 30 percent, Baxter said in a telephone interview." - though it later notes that he's patenting a system that would be cheaper and only cost 15% efficiency - dropping the cost per kwh from 11 to 8 cents.

So the tech isn't ready. To reduce the waste that's already there I may agree to reprocess it so it can be used in power plants that have already been built but I don't think I could agree to building more nuclear power plants.

Engineering always needs to be done. Basically, we're putting solar, wind, and other experimental electricity generation systems up left and right. I'd settle for a couple(to have some statistical relevance you need more than one) of new nuke plants as a similar test. Thus far, all we have are a bunch of often slanted numbers. Maybe even a breeder, even if it's not economic by the po

What precautions and regulations would these so called garage hackers take when disposing of such experiments? Sure one could say that the garage computer hackers of the 70s, took all the solder and buried it in the backyard or through it in the trash. But what is the potential of the environmental impact of a couple of circuit boards going in a landfill versus someone pouring down some modified bacteria? Also, don't forget in the 70s we were pitching TVs into the garbage.

Before you go off the handle, go do some research on "invasive species" that are occupying and dominating areas like the Florida everglades. Foreign Fish and Eels are ending up in the everglades because people are dumping their home aquariums into the local streams http://sofia.usgs.gov/publications/fs/swampeel/

Btw, dumping aquariums aren't the only issue, this type of issue extends to how people dispose of Prescription Medicines http://www.medicationdisposal.utah.gov/

Yes, that's quite true. But from a privacy standpoint (specifically regarding photography), malls are considered public places.

What about from the "legal standpoint"? What does the law consider in this case?

The law is exactly what the GP stated. As a "public accommodation", there are significant restrictions on what retailers can do to limit the behavior of people in their property. If they want to change their method of business and become a members-only establishment (e.g. Sam's Club, Costco), where the general public is not permitted to enter, then that changes.

All a mall owner can legally do is ask you to leave. If you don't, you may be trespassing, depending on the exact wording of the law. In Utah, where I live, the owner of property that was "open to the public" at the time of the alleged trespassing actually has to show that your actions constitute "substantial interference" with his use of the property in order to make the trespassing charge stick (See UCA 76-6-206(4)). Odds are, if you were told to leave because you were taking pictures, and refused, they'd call the police who would cite you (because the police rarely know the law very well) and the judge would throw the case out.

I know some people who've been through this process in Utah. Not with photography, but with openly carrying a gun. It's legal in Utah (as in most states), but annoys mall owners so they try to kick people out. To date, none have been able to prove that shopping with a gun on your hip substantially interferes with their business.

Some people were experimenting with thermoaccoustic cooling. The idea is that pressure waves in air and fluids can give off heat (compression) and move heat around (standing waves?).

This idea of solid thermoelectric blocks seems to be comparable to sliding around trays of ice-cubes or solid CO2, except that you would need a secondary refrigerator unit to convert the water or gas back into a solid.

What increase in taxes?

During the 1920s, four tax reduction acts were enacted, with the Revenue Act of 1924 providing tax rebates to individuals for 1923. The corporate income tax rate was slightly higher at the end of the decade than at the beginning, but the overall corporate burden was reduced as a result of the increase in the surtax exemption and the repeal of the war-excess profits and capital stock taxes.

Most of the excise taxes were either repealed or greatly reduced during the 1920s. The only important excise tax existing by the end of the decade was the tax on tobacco, which yielded $434 million in 1929. FEDERAL TAXATION: AN ABBREVIATED HISTORY

Tax increases would come after 1929 - in a failed attempt to balance the federal budget. As for the tariff, it was orthodox Republicanism:

The return of Republicans to national power in 1920 led to a resumption of protectionist legislation. By now a power in the Senate, Smoot was a close economic adviser to Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. In 1923 the Fordney-McCumber Tariff raised rates again, including those on Cuban sugar, a direct competitor with Utah's beet sugar industry. With Smoot's ascension to the chairmanship of the Finance Committee even higher rates were assured. In 1930 President Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff which boosted average duties on imports to 53 percent, the highest in American history. While Smoot saw this legislation as the culmination of his protectionist career, most economists then and since have assailed the tariff's disastrous effect on world trade at a time when the domestic economy of the U.S. was already suffering. The higher rates, about one-third greater than previous duties, made it more difficult for foreign nations to purchase American goods and pay off their war debts. In retaliation, some twenty-five nations raised their duties, making American goods more expensive. By the time the Democrats took power in 1932 and lowered the tariffs under the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act in 1934 the world economy was in a tailspin.
Smoot never fully acknowledged the unintended consequences of his legislation. In fact, he argued in the depths of the depression that the rate might not be high enough. The 1930 tariff was "the Great Protectionist's" proudest achievement. Reed Smoot and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, 1930

The New Deal prolonged the Great Depression by cartelizing key industries. In fact, it was when these policies were repealed in the 1940s that economic growth started to accelerate again.

The U.S. in wartime was a command economy.

The word "cartel" may never have been used, but this was in fact how things got done.

You produced what the government told you to produce. Wages, prices and profits were controlled. Industries were pushed and pummeled into "rationalization." -- all-out production for war.

The Ford Motor Company came within an inch of being nationalized - labor and management at each other's throats, and at the heart of the problem, a rapidly aging, mercurial and paranoid Henry Ford.