But they have no problem with what is essentially police state regulation.
Adding the word 'state' in the middle of 'police regulation' does not a police state make.
A police state, for future reference, is when the police are not answerable to an outside authority. When they can arrest you without charging you with a crime, or when they themselves can hold court and determine your guilt. Police state doesn't mean 'a lot of laws I don't like', it has a specific meaning about how laws are enforced. It's essentially 'martial law', except using the police instead, and not in a war. (Yes, yes, there is an argument the US military is behaving this way towards people it's calling terrorists, but that's irrelevant to what Santa Clara county wants to do.)
Absolutely no one is considering doing this WRT to government food regulation, which, BTW, we have all the sorts of already existing in this country. People charged with any sort of crime under this law would, indeed, have their day in court, which is the entire opposite of a 'police state'.
And the new AZ law isn't racist per se, it's just idiotic. It's the first law ever that lets you sue jurisdictions for not enforcing the law against third parties, which was enacted so that the racist organization FAIR can run around making money from cities who've decided to investigate, I dunno, murder, instead of immigration violations.
The law isn't racist, it's just for racists to use.
The iceberg lettuce thing made me realize something.
'Healthy', for fast food places, seems to mean 'Not going to kill you'.
No, that's not 'healthy', that's 'not unhealthy'. Healthy actually has vitamins and minerals and stuff like that.
When places serve you 'healthy' food, they seem to do it by simply removing as much 'food' as they can.
Incidentally, I agree with you entirely about iceberg lettuce. Why does that even exist as a foodstuff? That, celery, and watermelon. Those things you can eat, certainly, perhaps you even like to eat them, but they do not appear to be 'food' in any meaningful sense. The first two are water, the latter is sugar water. Water is not food.
I keep waiting for fast food places to start selling 'Iceys' as a healthy alternative to milkshakes. These would consist of colored ice. Just colored ice.
When I go to Chick-fil-a, I always get the grilled chicken sandwich.
And I don't get a drink, but that's because I'm not dumb enough to shell out a dollar for maybe 12 oz of soda. I can purchase my own soda, thank you very much, they sell them in 24 packs at Walmart for about $0.30 each.
I am, however, unsure as to why a 1000 calorie meal is supposed to be bad for you. Isn't the general rule 2000 a day? As long as you're not eating Chick-fil-a meal for lunch and supper, and then eating something else large for breakfast, you're fine.
It's quite possible to eat healthy there, even if eating there all the time. Either cut back on the fries for at least one meal, or pick the healthier sandwich or salad for at least one meal a day. (You need to eat a salad anyway, if you're eating all your meals there.)
Of course, nutritionally, that's a poor choice, even with a daily salad and/or fruit, but it's not a fattening choice.
This shouldn't be just about McD and happy meals, we should ban any ads/marketing targeting children younger than 16.
See, this is the thing that gets me about 'think of the children' idiocy.
People say that, but then go after products clearly advertised and sold to adults, that children might, somehow, get their hands on. Stuff that might harm mentally somehow. (Although the point that kids start actually looking for sex and violence stuff is probably the point they're old enough to handle it anyway.) So, despite the various industries self-policing, we have to put up with idiotic laws showing up every few years.
But no one every seems to care about shitty food advertised to children, which is definitely harmful to children. Not in some obscure hypothetical way, but in an actual measurable way.
Yes, parents can 'stop them', but we had plenty of quite coherent arguments in the 'restricting video games' discussion here the other day about the fact that parents can't control everything their kid does, which is why stores need to card when selling games. The argument being that some things should require parental permission.
I agree, but, by the same logic, we need to stop aiming unhealthy food products at children. No cartoons, no children being happy, no rewards aimed at children. No one can try to sell food to children by attracting children. (They could, of course, sell smaller portions of food specifically with the idea that they will be purchased for children, but don't get to call them 'kids menu', or at least don't get to decorate them with children-attracting stuff.)
And, see, I don't even recommend carding, like is done for video games. Just the restriction of advertising to children.
Of course, this will never happen, which exposes the hypocrisy of the whole group of people who wander around saying 'Won't someone think of the children?' Yeah, we are, and we see you want a lard of tub playing nice video games instead of a lard of tub playing 'violent' video games.
Purchasing anything from Sony and getting surprised when some 'copy protection' bites you in the ass, is a bit like watching a sci-fi show on Fox and being surprised when they deliberately kill it.
FIRE HOT LAST TIME YOU TOUCHED IT. DON'T STICK HAND IN FIRE. FIRE HOT!
Seriously, earthworms are smarter than some of you people.
I don't think they ever retroactively removed the ability to play PS2 games from the older hardware that supports it.
As far as I know, you're right.
The PS3 supports PS2s via simply having a bunch of chips from the PS2. They have, over the years, been removing the least-used of these on each newer PS3, each removal of which removes some games from working. (And now they have PS3s with no support at all.)
So as far as I know, inability to play any PS2 game is a hardware issue, not a software one. (Although there might be software that refuses to run the game in the first place if it detects it will use the missing hardware.)
PS1 support, OTOH, is via software emulation, IIRC. Do all PS3s still do that?
Actually, that was a pretty dangerous cockup, but that was due to the fact they had their radio silenced or whatever.
They really shouldn't be flying around with that off at all. Even if they're paying attention to the plane, for all they know, the airport they've flying to has suffered some sort of disaster, or another plane is out of control and headed towards where they're flying, or Air Force One pulled rank on their flight corridor, or something external like that, and they should be flying elsewhere. Hell, maybe someone's started hijacking planes again, and the authorities have evidence that their associates are on your plane.
Not playing attention to the plane the entire time is probably fine, as planes now are so automated that if anything goes wrong, it gives a warning. As long as one of the pilots glances over the controls every ten minutes or so, it would be okay.
But not paying attention to the outside world via the radio is stupid.
An unenforced Federal law with a $100 fine is the same as a state law that makes it a felony the second time you fail to carry papers, and allows people to sue cities if they feel the cops aren't enforcing this law enough.
The fine is $100. Apparently, no one's ever been actually charged with it. You don't have your green card, they either make you go get it or they look it up.
Under AZ law, the fine is the standard misdemeanor fine (I don't know what that is in AZ, in GA it's $1000), plus $500. The second offense is a felony.
But, perhaps more importantly, the law also allows third parties to sue jurisdiction for huge amounts if they aren't enforcing 'the full extent of the law'.
So, 'in practice', police in AZ are going to have to ask for it, and arrest poeple if they don't have it, or risk some asshole seeing them fail to ask for it and suing their city.
Most LEOs would let good judgment prevail and let you get your wallet, but the potential exists.
Well, they would if this law also didn't let random third party citizens sue jurisdictions that aren't enforcing 'the full extent of the law'. Any 'good judgment' could result in whopping fines against the city or county.
Yes, there's an unenforced Federal law with a $100 fine for not carrying papers here legally but not a citizen. A law that no one can point to anyone who's actually been charged with violating, ever.
That's a bit different than a $500+standard misdemeanor fine and a felony offense for second-time offenders, and a part of the law allowing people to sue if they see police exercising any discretion in this.
This law essentially requires LEOs to act like assholes.
A driver's license proves you were in legally in the country at some time. It does not prove you're legally in the country right now. Driver's licenses do not magically expire when travel visas do.
You're right, but actually, the word citizen is mentioned a few times in the constitution.
It's in the requirement on who becomes president and senator and representative. You have to have been a citizen for X years, or even born here, for that.
Other than that, all mentions of 'citizens' are in the context of being a citizen of a state, not a citizen of the United States.
The first being to deny citizens of a state the right to sue other states. (You already don't have the right to sue your own without their permission.)
The second being the famous 'The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.', which essentially means states have to treat citizens from other states the same way they'd treat their own citizens, and which has come to mean that, legally, states can't keep people from other states out, they can make no distinction between 'citizens of themselves' and 'citizens of other states'. (Which is why states use residency requirements for that stuff.)
There's another 'citizens suing government' reference in the 11th amendment, and then, yes, the 14th amendment is the first really talking about citizens in any meaningful sense.
Then we got a bunch of amendments about how certain things cannot be used to stop citizens from voting. Like poll taxes, or race, or gender, or age over 18, and stuff like that.
So the Federal rights that citizens have from the constitution is 'right to not be denied the vote based on certain criteria' and 'right to run for Federal office'. That's it. All other rights apply to 'People', or they simply state what the government can't do, presumably to anyone.
It's probably worth mentioning that there are people who speak other languages in this country and aren't any generation immigrations.
People from Puerto Rico, for example. They've been speaking Spanish there longer than that's been part of the US.
And people in Hawaii, of course, speak Hawaiian, although technically that can't be a sign of immigration as there isn't anywhere outside the US that speaks Hawaiian. (But that, in turn, assumes that police officers can distinguish Hawaiian from other pacific languages.)
Let's not forget Guam and whatever they speak. And the US Virgin Islands. And all the other island territories. Most of those islands have the people born there as the US citizens, and even if they don't become citizens at birth they can travel the US freely.
Speaking of that, while the Philippines is no longer part of America, there are joint Filipino/American citizens from before it left. Speaking, presumably, the Filipino language. (Which strangely enough seems to have no name, although I thought it was Tagalog.)
And, of course, Texas and California used to be part of Mexico or Spain, although for some reason we're not allowed to talk about that. Some of those people didn't 'immigrate' anywhere at all...the border moved over them.
Likewise, there are people from Louisiana who've been speaking French, or at least Creole, since longer than the US has owed that area.
And, while it's a not a language, there's a rather infamous part of Kentucky that speaks with what every single outsider swears is an Australian accent.
And plenty of people in the northern Midwest, like Minnesota and North Dakota, sound almost identical to Canadians.
And there are Native American tribes that cross the Canadian border. Presumably their accent is close on both sides.
Driver's licenses do not prove immigration status.
No state actually issues them so they expire at the same time as a visa, so it's entirely possible to be in possession of a 100% correct and legal driver's license, be actually licensed to drive in any sense of the word, and yet be here illegally. You can get a driver's license the day before your visa expires, and have it for years.
Likewise, some states issue photo IDs, that work like driver's licenses under the law, but do not actually, at any point, expire.
There are, of course, other ways to end up with a driver's license despite being here illegally. Perhaps you were a citizen of the US, emigrated somewhere else, changed citizenship, and then illegally snuck back. Perhaps a bad foreign marriage. You can still actually get a new driver's license, as all you need is a birth certificate, and the DMV doesn't know you're no longer a citizen and not here illegally. Granted, this situation doesn't happen that much.
Even assuming a state didn't fuck up and issue a license to someone here illegally (Which happens all the time), all a driver's license proves is that some point you were in the country legally, not that you're here legally now.
This law won't "probably" be abused, it WILL be abused, and it will not only target illegal immigrants. If this law actually comes into effect, then every single person in the state should be carrying every kind of identification they have with them at all times, especially if they are of latino or hispanic heritage. You can be a perfectly legit US citizen and get pulled over for speeding and have to deal with the police hassling you because they don't like you. You may think it unlikely, but "sincere hope" isn't enough to ordain the rule of law. You may be white as can be, but if a cop dislikes you, sees your name McPatrick after pulling you over for a minor traffic violation, he could walk his way down the line of questioning to "so you just moved here from Ireland illegaly, eh son?"
Shit, it's more than that.
The law allows random citizens to sue jurisdictions they feel aren't enforcing the immigration law enough. They have to enforce immigration law to 'the full extent of the law' or get sued.
All it takes is the police failing to hassle a few people who are here illegally (Or even are here legally.), and, tada, the city gets hit with a whopping $5000 dollar a day 'per day the policy was in effect'. So you demonstrate they've been doing that for a month or so, you can sue them for $60,000.
I.e., this isn't some 'trust the police' law. This law actually requires the police to hassle people, or risk bankruptcy of their city or county. (A lot of AZ cities are really poor.)
Here's a fun scenario: You're in this country legally. A cop you personally know, and has checked your immigration status, pulls you over to give you a warning that your taillight is out.
Now he's made official contact with you. He certainly has reason to believe you're an immigrant, so he's required, by law and under threat of lawsuit, to check your papers.
Sadly, you forgot to bring them today, so he's required to throw you in jail and charge you with the crime of not carrying your papers. At least $500 fine. (If this is the second time, he's required to charge you with a felony.)
Look, I'm as much an 'un-fan' of the cops as possible, but don't worry about abuses by them under this law. Worry about the fact the damn law essentially requires them to act like assholes. (And where it doesn't, paranoid and poor jurisdictions will soon implement policies requiring them to.)
It's not racist to embrace my Hispanic, Japanese, and Chinese friends who have *obeyed the law* and acquired Visas or Citizenship.
And, under this law, will be forced to carry their papers with them at all time, and thrown in jail if they don't carry said papers. Yes, it's illegal to have immigration papers and not carry them.
Technically, that's also illegal under Federal law, but federal law has a tiny fine, and is not actually enforced at all, whereas AZ law has a much larger fine, and makes it a felony the second time.
And before you think that won't be enforced at the state level either, please read the part of the law allowing private citizens to sue towns for huge amounts if they feel immigration law isn't being enforced by them to the 'full extent of the law'. (Which is pretty much unique in law.)
And the part of the law requiring police officers to check immigration papers if they have reason to believe someone is an immigrant. (Not an illegal one, an immigrant, period.)
The end result of all this put together is if the police has any reason to think your friends are visitors to this country, the police are required, under the law, and under threat of huge lawsuits against their city, to check your friends immigration papers. And if they aren't carrying them, the police have no discretion to let them off with a warning without also risking a lawsuit.
But, at least, your friends can get their sentence commuted when they're arrested...no, wait, the law disallows that too.
Yeah, because everyone knows it's the Democrats stopping immigration reform.
What party are John McCain and Jon Kyl, who are threatening to filibuster any reform, from again?
And the reform that they're threatening to filibuster is only vaguely mapped out, and is fairly close to what Kyl actually proposed in 2007.
Immigration reform has become the Republican party's new dogwhistle. It's damn code to be racist, like this rather idiotic law that imposes large penalties for simply walking around without your documentation and serves no purposes but to hurt people here legally.
The problem is, for dogwhistles, you're supposed to pick something that the other side isn't going to do, whereas the Democratic party does want to fix illegal immigration, so the Republicans are in the idiotic positions of having to fight immigration reform while, at the same time, claiming it's the most urgent problem in existence.
The Democratic congress have immigration reformed scheduled to be the issue after financial regulation, and a president that's behind it. When did the Republicans schedule it when they had power? Oh, that's right, the Republicans blew up their own president's bill, despite being in line for almost every other thing he wanted, they had to make a stand to destroy Republican immigration reform.
The thing is, while I'm not a parent, I can see a movie slipping by them.
If I had a kid, and I was shopping at Walmart, and I told the kid he could buy a cheap movie, and he came back with some $4.99 movie with a seemingly harmless name, I can see failing to notice it's R-rated, although I like to think that the clerk would actually mention this. I dunno, though, when I worked register there, I certainly wouldn't have if the purchaser clearly met the age requirements. So I can see that slipping past.
But video games...those are like $40 at minimum! If I was getting one of those for my kid, I'd sure as hell read it, not because of the rating, but just to see if it was any good at all. And to check the system requirements, and to see what the playtime is, etc,etc.
Hell, I'd read reviews before I went to the store!
I do all that to my game purchases, I'd certainly do that to a teenager's who might be wanting some crappy 'fad' game or something silly. Any kid of mine wants me to spend that amount of money, he's getting quizzed about the product on general principles, it doesn't have anything to do with the 'age appropriateness' of it.
I'm not saying I'd be stingy, I'm just saying that the way to teach children how to spend money reasonably is to make them justify you spending money on them. 'This costs more than I'm wiling to spend without knowing more. So tell me more.'. And then, fine, you go ahead and buy it for them.
Seriously, these parents aren't just crappy parents, they're crappy consumers. Or, rather, they're perfect consumers. Just throwing money around randomly. And teaching their kids to do the same.
Now, at some point, they have their own money, and are making their own purchasing decisions, and I wouldn't stand in the way if they wanted to purchasing something stupid. I'd warn them if I know in advance, but hey, they have to learn sometimes, and better they learn it while I'm still paying for their food and housing, and just blow their allowance instead of their food money at college.
But at that point, considering how much my purchasing control over them has gone down, I think I'd have plenty of time to deal with the remaining few decisions they can't make on their own, like M-rated video games and what car they buy and stuff.
Buying an M-rated video game when underaged is, at this point, much much harder than buying an unrated or R-rated DVD.
The 'moral guardians' are paranoid neophobes who are irrationally targeting the best behaved industry WRT not selling to kids. They think video games are for 'kids', so, logically, all 'adult' video games are actually being sold to kids, and they're too stupid to realize that this demonstratively not true.
It's the same reason that South Park gets attacked more than it should, or why comic books used to. Animation and comics are 'for kids', so anything in that format that isn't 'for kids' will still magically end up in their hands.
It was much easier for kids to walk up and buy a ticket to see Resident Evil: Extinction, or to buy a DVD of it, then it was for them to buy or rent Resident Evil 5. Don't expect that to register on any of this pinheaded 'moral guardians'.
35% of underaged teenagers who walk up to a movie theater and try to buy a ticket for a R-rated movie got one. 56% who tried to buy a PAL-rated CD got one. 47% who tried to buy an R-rated DVD got it. 50% who tried to buy an unrated DVD got it.
Only 20% who tried to buy an M-rated video game got one.
Anyone who thinks there's any sort of problem in the game retail industry is an idiot. The game industry is, by a vast majority, currently the most responsible entertainment industry when it comes to not selling products to children that have been marked as 'not for children'.
It is more than twice as easy for a 15 year old to buy Apocalypse Now than Fallout 3.
And note how fast the game industry has improved, and note the last poll was in 2008. It's probably even better now. Also note the more generic the retailer got, the more likely it was to fail the test...Game Stop was best at 6%, then Best Buy at 18%, and then other stores that aren't used to selling games near 30%. (Which the exception Circuit City, which was operated by morons, being higher, and Walmart, operated by prudes, being lower.)
I.e., the 'game industry' is fine, but electronic stores sometimes overlook checking, and giant chain stores that sell everything overlook even more. But even they overlook it a hell of a lot less than movie theaters do restricting movies! (And movie theater clerks, obviously, should actually know the rating of the ten movies they're currently selling, whereas some clerk in a Target can be forgiven for missing an M-rated video game they've never heard of in a store with a bajillion items in it.)
While you may see that 'regularly', the fact is that the game industry by far is the best behaved in this regard. See the FTC's stats.
It's almost twice as easy for an underaged person to purchase an R-rated movie ticket than M-rated game. (That's actually purchase the ticket, not sneak in via a ticket to another movie.) And it's almost three times as easy for underaged people to buy a PAL labeled CD.
And note how rapidly the game industry is improving, and that the last test was in 2008. I'm sure it's even harder now.
Hilariously, note the three worse checkers for video games: Hollywood Video, Circuit City, Kmart.
You have to wonder how much of that was due to, you know, the companies imploding.:)
Also note that only 6% of underaged people who attempt to purchase at Gamestop are able to get away with it, so it's hard to see how you see that 'regularly'.
The Wikipedia article on the 9/11 Truth Movement, like all political articles, is full of idiotic weaseling about what people 'really' believe in that movement.
I was pointing out that the person linked to the wrong article. I was talking about 'Truthers', aka, members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, and yet they linked to the 9/11 conspiracies in general article. I was not claiming that the right article was entirely correct, I was saying, 'Wrong article, idiot.'.
And all adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement suspect that United States government insiders played a part in the attacks, or at the very least knew they were coming and let them occur anyway, or they aren't part of the 9/11 Truth Movement.
Here is 911truth.org, the site that, arguably, is the first site calling itself '9/11 Truth Movement', talking about controlled demolitions:
'Although there is not complete consensus on this issue within the 9/11 truth movement...'
You know, when you say 'There's not complete consensus on this issue.', what you're actually saying is 'Most everyone agrees, but some dissent, so we'll disclaim this...'
And if you believe in controlled demolitions, you believe the government made it happen. (Or you believe something even stupider, as I pointed out with the mention of Sander Hicks above.) Of course, you could believe they did it and there were not controlled demolitions, so even with the qualifier about controlled demolitions, every single Truther could still think the government made it happen.
Weasel words on wikipedia and the fact that Sanders Hick is trying to rehabilitate the name '9/11 Truth Movement' doesn't change what the vast majority of the people who identify as part of that movement think.
Here, let me quote Hicks talking about the theory it wasn't an actual airplane that hit the WTC:
'A lot of people in the 9/11 truth movement glommed onto this one and I think it's hurt our credibility over all. You have to wonder if that was by design.'
'The real racist tragedy is when you have 9/11 people who know nothing about history or foreign policy or politics who advance theories that completely ignore smoking guns, like the CIA/ISI connection. Their theories tend to veer into the esoteric. Really imaginative territory, like the "In Plane Sight" video. I'm not sure who they blame, they seem to think that the attack originated deep inside the war machine itself.'
Hey, look, even he admits that a lot of people int he movement are entirely off-kilter.
And it's worth mentioning he thinks it's possible there are explosives, which, as I mentioned, is batshit crazy, and yet a fundamental Truther belief, and even he, a 'rebel' Truther, thinks it. (He's quick to mention that doesn't mean the US government planted them, and the real attackers could have, but that's somehow manages to, once again, reset the 'crazy' bar even higher.)
Is there any place on the planet we DON'T have fighter/bomber aircraft a few hours from. Maybe Antarctica, but I don't think the penguins are much of a threat at the moment.
As I pointed out just above, you managed to hit the nail on the head. If the missiles avoid hostile territory and neutral countries, and we have no allies, well, Antarctica is one of the few places on earth they can attack.
They could attack America, like I said, but after I posted I realized that America was not invited to agree to America's proposal, and won't be doing inspections, so if America sees American ICBMs launched at it, America probable will assume they're nuclear and launch nuclear missiles back at America. Let's hope Americans and Americans both try to keep that from happening, as such a misunderstanding could destroy all countries involved.
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But they have no problem with what is essentially police state regulation.
Adding the word 'state' in the middle of 'police regulation' does not a police state make.
A police state, for future reference, is when the police are not answerable to an outside authority. When they can arrest you without charging you with a crime, or when they themselves can hold court and determine your guilt. Police state doesn't mean 'a lot of laws I don't like', it has a specific meaning about how laws are enforced. It's essentially 'martial law', except using the police instead, and not in a war. (Yes, yes, there is an argument the US military is behaving this way towards people it's calling terrorists, but that's irrelevant to what Santa Clara county wants to do.)
Absolutely no one is considering doing this WRT to government food regulation, which, BTW, we have all the sorts of already existing in this country. People charged with any sort of crime under this law would, indeed, have their day in court, which is the entire opposite of a 'police state'.
And the new AZ law isn't racist per se, it's just idiotic. It's the first law ever that lets you sue jurisdictions for not enforcing the law against third parties, which was enacted so that the racist organization FAIR can run around making money from cities who've decided to investigate, I dunno, murder, instead of immigration violations.
The law isn't racist, it's just for racists to use.
The iceberg lettuce thing made me realize something.
'Healthy', for fast food places, seems to mean 'Not going to kill you'.
No, that's not 'healthy', that's 'not unhealthy'. Healthy actually has vitamins and minerals and stuff like that.
When places serve you 'healthy' food, they seem to do it by simply removing as much 'food' as they can.
Incidentally, I agree with you entirely about iceberg lettuce. Why does that even exist as a foodstuff? That, celery, and watermelon. Those things you can eat, certainly, perhaps you even like to eat them, but they do not appear to be 'food' in any meaningful sense. The first two are water, the latter is sugar water. Water is not food.
I keep waiting for fast food places to start selling 'Iceys' as a healthy alternative to milkshakes. These would consist of colored ice. Just colored ice.
When I go to Chick-fil-a, I always get the grilled chicken sandwich.
And I don't get a drink, but that's because I'm not dumb enough to shell out a dollar for maybe 12 oz of soda. I can purchase my own soda, thank you very much, they sell them in 24 packs at Walmart for about $0.30 each.
I am, however, unsure as to why a 1000 calorie meal is supposed to be bad for you. Isn't the general rule 2000 a day? As long as you're not eating Chick-fil-a meal for lunch and supper, and then eating something else large for breakfast, you're fine.
It's quite possible to eat healthy there, even if eating there all the time. Either cut back on the fries for at least one meal, or pick the healthier sandwich or salad for at least one meal a day. (You need to eat a salad anyway, if you're eating all your meals there.)
Of course, nutritionally, that's a poor choice, even with a daily salad and/or fruit, but it's not a fattening choice.
This shouldn't be just about McD and happy meals, we should ban any ads/marketing targeting children younger than 16.
See, this is the thing that gets me about 'think of the children' idiocy.
People say that, but then go after products clearly advertised and sold to adults, that children might, somehow, get their hands on. Stuff that might harm mentally somehow. (Although the point that kids start actually looking for sex and violence stuff is probably the point they're old enough to handle it anyway.) So, despite the various industries self-policing, we have to put up with idiotic laws showing up every few years.
But no one every seems to care about shitty food advertised to children, which is definitely harmful to children. Not in some obscure hypothetical way, but in an actual measurable way.
Yes, parents can 'stop them', but we had plenty of quite coherent arguments in the 'restricting video games' discussion here the other day about the fact that parents can't control everything their kid does, which is why stores need to card when selling games. The argument being that some things should require parental permission.
I agree, but, by the same logic, we need to stop aiming unhealthy food products at children. No cartoons, no children being happy, no rewards aimed at children. No one can try to sell food to children by attracting children. (They could, of course, sell smaller portions of food specifically with the idea that they will be purchased for children, but don't get to call them 'kids menu', or at least don't get to decorate them with children-attracting stuff.)
And, see, I don't even recommend carding, like is done for video games. Just the restriction of advertising to children.
Of course, this will never happen, which exposes the hypocrisy of the whole group of people who wander around saying 'Won't someone think of the children?' Yeah, we are, and we see you want a lard of tub playing nice video games instead of a lard of tub playing 'violent' video games.
Consumer laws do now work like that.
If things are advertised as being able to do things, they better be able to do them, including all required steps.
You can't sell someone a car labeled as having air conditioning but without any actual switches to turn it on.
Purchasing anything from Sony and getting surprised when some 'copy protection' bites you in the ass, is a bit like watching a sci-fi show on Fox and being surprised when they deliberately kill it.
FIRE HOT LAST TIME YOU TOUCHED IT. DON'T STICK HAND IN FIRE. FIRE HOT!
Seriously, earthworms are smarter than some of you people.
I don't think they ever retroactively removed the ability to play PS2 games from the older hardware that supports it.
As far as I know, you're right.
The PS3 supports PS2s via simply having a bunch of chips from the PS2. They have, over the years, been removing the least-used of these on each newer PS3, each removal of which removes some games from working. (And now they have PS3s with no support at all.)
So as far as I know, inability to play any PS2 game is a hardware issue, not a software one. (Although there might be software that refuses to run the game in the first place if it detects it will use the missing hardware.)
PS1 support, OTOH, is via software emulation, IIRC. Do all PS3s still do that?
Actually, that was a pretty dangerous cockup, but that was due to the fact they had their radio silenced or whatever.
They really shouldn't be flying around with that off at all. Even if they're paying attention to the plane, for all they know, the airport they've flying to has suffered some sort of disaster, or another plane is out of control and headed towards where they're flying, or Air Force One pulled rank on their flight corridor, or something external like that, and they should be flying elsewhere. Hell, maybe someone's started hijacking planes again, and the authorities have evidence that their associates are on your plane.
Not playing attention to the plane the entire time is probably fine, as planes now are so automated that if anything goes wrong, it gives a warning. As long as one of the pilots glances over the controls every ten minutes or so, it would be okay.
But not paying attention to the outside world via the radio is stupid.
Ah, yes.
An unenforced Federal law with a $100 fine is the same as a state law that makes it a felony the second time you fail to carry papers, and allows people to sue cities if they feel the cops aren't enforcing this law enough.
The fine is $100. Apparently, no one's ever been actually charged with it. You don't have your green card, they either make you go get it or they look it up.
Under AZ law, the fine is the standard misdemeanor fine (I don't know what that is in AZ, in GA it's $1000), plus $500. The second offense is a felony.
But, perhaps more importantly, the law also allows third parties to sue jurisdiction for huge amounts if they aren't enforcing 'the full extent of the law'.
So, 'in practice', police in AZ are going to have to ask for it, and arrest poeple if they don't have it, or risk some asshole seeing them fail to ask for it and suing their city.
Most LEOs would let good judgment prevail and let you get your wallet, but the potential exists.
Well, they would if this law also didn't let random third party citizens sue jurisdictions that aren't enforcing 'the full extent of the law'. Any 'good judgment' could result in whopping fines against the city or county.
Yes, there's an unenforced Federal law with a $100 fine for not carrying papers here legally but not a citizen. A law that no one can point to anyone who's actually been charged with violating, ever.
That's a bit different than a $500+standard misdemeanor fine and a felony offense for second-time offenders, and a part of the law allowing people to sue if they see police exercising any discretion in this.
This law essentially requires LEOs to act like assholes.
No it doesn't, you imbecile.
A driver's license proves you were in legally in the country at some time. It does not prove you're legally in the country right now. Driver's licenses do not magically expire when travel visas do.
You're right, but actually, the word citizen is mentioned a few times in the constitution.
It's in the requirement on who becomes president and senator and representative. You have to have been a citizen for X years, or even born here, for that.
Other than that, all mentions of 'citizens' are in the context of being a citizen of a state, not a citizen of the United States.
The first being to deny citizens of a state the right to sue other states. (You already don't have the right to sue your own without their permission.)
The second being the famous 'The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.', which essentially means states have to treat citizens from other states the same way they'd treat their own citizens, and which has come to mean that, legally, states can't keep people from other states out, they can make no distinction between 'citizens of themselves' and 'citizens of other states'. (Which is why states use residency requirements for that stuff.)
There's another 'citizens suing government' reference in the 11th amendment, and then, yes, the 14th amendment is the first really talking about citizens in any meaningful sense.
Then we got a bunch of amendments about how certain things cannot be used to stop citizens from voting. Like poll taxes, or race, or gender, or age over 18, and stuff like that.
So the Federal rights that citizens have from the constitution is 'right to not be denied the vote based on certain criteria' and 'right to run for Federal office'. That's it. All other rights apply to 'People', or they simply state what the government can't do, presumably to anyone.
It's probably worth mentioning that there are people who speak other languages in this country and aren't any generation immigrations.
People from Puerto Rico, for example. They've been speaking Spanish there longer than that's been part of the US.
And people in Hawaii, of course, speak Hawaiian, although technically that can't be a sign of immigration as there isn't anywhere outside the US that speaks Hawaiian. (But that, in turn, assumes that police officers can distinguish Hawaiian from other pacific languages.)
Let's not forget Guam and whatever they speak. And the US Virgin Islands. And all the other island territories. Most of those islands have the people born there as the US citizens, and even if they don't become citizens at birth they can travel the US freely.
Speaking of that, while the Philippines is no longer part of America, there are joint Filipino/American citizens from before it left. Speaking, presumably, the Filipino language. (Which strangely enough seems to have no name, although I thought it was Tagalog.)
And, of course, Texas and California used to be part of Mexico or Spain, although for some reason we're not allowed to talk about that. Some of those people didn't 'immigrate' anywhere at all...the border moved over them.
Likewise, there are people from Louisiana who've been speaking French, or at least Creole, since longer than the US has owed that area.
And, while it's a not a language, there's a rather infamous part of Kentucky that speaks with what every single outsider swears is an Australian accent.
And plenty of people in the northern Midwest, like Minnesota and North Dakota, sound almost identical to Canadians.
And there are Native American tribes that cross the Canadian border. Presumably their accent is close on both sides.
WRONG.
Driver's licenses do not prove immigration status.
No state actually issues them so they expire at the same time as a visa, so it's entirely possible to be in possession of a 100% correct and legal driver's license, be actually licensed to drive in any sense of the word, and yet be here illegally. You can get a driver's license the day before your visa expires, and have it for years.
Likewise, some states issue photo IDs, that work like driver's licenses under the law, but do not actually, at any point, expire.
There are, of course, other ways to end up with a driver's license despite being here illegally. Perhaps you were a citizen of the US, emigrated somewhere else, changed citizenship, and then illegally snuck back. Perhaps a bad foreign marriage. You can still actually get a new driver's license, as all you need is a birth certificate, and the DMV doesn't know you're no longer a citizen and not here illegally. Granted, this situation doesn't happen that much.
Even assuming a state didn't fuck up and issue a license to someone here illegally (Which happens all the time), all a driver's license proves is that some point you were in the country legally, not that you're here legally now.
This law won't "probably" be abused, it WILL be abused, and it will not only target illegal immigrants. If this law actually comes into effect, then every single person in the state should be carrying every kind of identification they have with them at all times, especially if they are of latino or hispanic heritage. You can be a perfectly legit US citizen and get pulled over for speeding and have to deal with the police hassling you because they don't like you. You may think it unlikely, but "sincere hope" isn't enough to ordain the rule of law. You may be white as can be, but if a cop dislikes you, sees your name McPatrick after pulling you over for a minor traffic violation, he could walk his way down the line of questioning to "so you just moved here from Ireland illegaly, eh son?"
Shit, it's more than that.
The law allows random citizens to sue jurisdictions they feel aren't enforcing the immigration law enough. They have to enforce immigration law to 'the full extent of the law' or get sued.
All it takes is the police failing to hassle a few people who are here illegally (Or even are here legally.), and, tada, the city gets hit with a whopping $5000 dollar a day 'per day the policy was in effect'. So you demonstrate they've been doing that for a month or so, you can sue them for $60,000.
I.e., this isn't some 'trust the police' law. This law actually requires the police to hassle people, or risk bankruptcy of their city or county. (A lot of AZ cities are really poor.)
Here's a fun scenario: You're in this country legally. A cop you personally know, and has checked your immigration status, pulls you over to give you a warning that your taillight is out.
Now he's made official contact with you. He certainly has reason to believe you're an immigrant, so he's required, by law and under threat of lawsuit, to check your papers.
Sadly, you forgot to bring them today, so he's required to throw you in jail and charge you with the crime of not carrying your papers. At least $500 fine. (If this is the second time, he's required to charge you with a felony.)
Look, I'm as much an 'un-fan' of the cops as possible, but don't worry about abuses by them under this law. Worry about the fact the damn law essentially requires them to act like assholes. (And where it doesn't, paranoid and poor jurisdictions will soon implement policies requiring them to.)
It's not racist to embrace my Hispanic, Japanese, and Chinese friends who have *obeyed the law* and acquired Visas or Citizenship.
And, under this law, will be forced to carry their papers with them at all time, and thrown in jail if they don't carry said papers. Yes, it's illegal to have immigration papers and not carry them.
Technically, that's also illegal under Federal law, but federal law has a tiny fine, and is not actually enforced at all, whereas AZ law has a much larger fine, and makes it a felony the second time.
And before you think that won't be enforced at the state level either, please read the part of the law allowing private citizens to sue towns for huge amounts if they feel immigration law isn't being enforced by them to the 'full extent of the law'. (Which is pretty much unique in law.)
And the part of the law requiring police officers to check immigration papers if they have reason to believe someone is an immigrant. (Not an illegal one, an immigrant, period.)
The end result of all this put together is if the police has any reason to think your friends are visitors to this country, the police are required, under the law, and under threat of huge lawsuits against their city, to check your friends immigration papers. And if they aren't carrying them, the police have no discretion to let them off with a warning without also risking a lawsuit.
But, at least, your friends can get their sentence commuted when they're arrested...no, wait, the law disallows that too.
Yeah, because everyone knows it's the Democrats stopping immigration reform.
What party are John McCain and Jon Kyl, who are threatening to filibuster any reform, from again?
And the reform that they're threatening to filibuster is only vaguely mapped out, and is fairly close to what Kyl actually proposed in 2007.
Immigration reform has become the Republican party's new dogwhistle. It's damn code to be racist, like this rather idiotic law that imposes large penalties for simply walking around without your documentation and serves no purposes but to hurt people here legally.
The problem is, for dogwhistles, you're supposed to pick something that the other side isn't going to do, whereas the Democratic party does want to fix illegal immigration, so the Republicans are in the idiotic positions of having to fight immigration reform while, at the same time, claiming it's the most urgent problem in existence.
The Democratic congress have immigration reformed scheduled to be the issue after financial regulation, and a president that's behind it. When did the Republicans schedule it when they had power? Oh, that's right, the Republicans blew up their own president's bill, despite being in line for almost every other thing he wanted, they had to make a stand to destroy Republican immigration reform.
The thing is, while I'm not a parent, I can see a movie slipping by them.
If I had a kid, and I was shopping at Walmart, and I told the kid he could buy a cheap movie, and he came back with some $4.99 movie with a seemingly harmless name, I can see failing to notice it's R-rated, although I like to think that the clerk would actually mention this. I dunno, though, when I worked register there, I certainly wouldn't have if the purchaser clearly met the age requirements. So I can see that slipping past.
But video games...those are like $40 at minimum! If I was getting one of those for my kid, I'd sure as hell read it, not because of the rating, but just to see if it was any good at all. And to check the system requirements, and to see what the playtime is, etc,etc.
Hell, I'd read reviews before I went to the store!
I do all that to my game purchases, I'd certainly do that to a teenager's who might be wanting some crappy 'fad' game or something silly. Any kid of mine wants me to spend that amount of money, he's getting quizzed about the product on general principles, it doesn't have anything to do with the 'age appropriateness' of it.
I'm not saying I'd be stingy, I'm just saying that the way to teach children how to spend money reasonably is to make them justify you spending money on them. 'This costs more than I'm wiling to spend without knowing more. So tell me more.'. And then, fine, you go ahead and buy it for them.
Seriously, these parents aren't just crappy parents, they're crappy consumers. Or, rather, they're perfect consumers. Just throwing money around randomly. And teaching their kids to do the same.
Now, at some point, they have their own money, and are making their own purchasing decisions, and I wouldn't stand in the way if they wanted to purchasing something stupid. I'd warn them if I know in advance, but hey, they have to learn sometimes, and better they learn it while I'm still paying for their food and housing, and just blow their allowance instead of their food money at college.
But at that point, considering how much my purchasing control over them has gone down, I think I'd have plenty of time to deal with the remaining few decisions they can't make on their own, like M-rated video games and what car they buy and stuff.
Things have changed very rapidly.
Buying an M-rated video game when underaged is, at this point, much much harder than buying an unrated or R-rated DVD.
The 'moral guardians' are paranoid neophobes who are irrationally targeting the best behaved industry WRT not selling to kids. They think video games are for 'kids', so, logically, all 'adult' video games are actually being sold to kids, and they're too stupid to realize that this demonstratively not true.
It's the same reason that South Park gets attacked more than it should, or why comic books used to. Animation and comics are 'for kids', so anything in that format that isn't 'for kids' will still magically end up in their hands.
It was much easier for kids to walk up and buy a ticket to see Resident Evil: Extinction, or to buy a DVD of it, then it was for them to buy or rent Resident Evil 5. Don't expect that to register on any of this pinheaded 'moral guardians'.
I think this is the most relevant link there.
35% of underaged teenagers who walk up to a movie theater and try to buy a ticket for a R-rated movie got one. 56% who tried to buy a PAL-rated CD got one. 47% who tried to buy an R-rated DVD got it. 50% who tried to buy an unrated DVD got it.
Only 20% who tried to buy an M-rated video game got one.
Anyone who thinks there's any sort of problem in the game retail industry is an idiot. The game industry is, by a vast majority, currently the most responsible entertainment industry when it comes to not selling products to children that have been marked as 'not for children'.
It is more than twice as easy for a 15 year old to buy Apocalypse Now than Fallout 3.
And note how fast the game industry has improved, and note the last poll was in 2008. It's probably even better now. Also note the more generic the retailer got, the more likely it was to fail the test...Game Stop was best at 6%, then Best Buy at 18%, and then other stores that aren't used to selling games near 30%. (Which the exception Circuit City, which was operated by morons, being higher, and Walmart, operated by prudes, being lower.)
I.e., the 'game industry' is fine, but electronic stores sometimes overlook checking, and giant chain stores that sell everything overlook even more. But even they overlook it a hell of a lot less than movie theaters do restricting movies! (And movie theater clerks, obviously, should actually know the rating of the ten movies they're currently selling, whereas some clerk in a Target can be forgiven for missing an M-rated video game they've never heard of in a store with a bajillion items in it.)
While you may see that 'regularly', the fact is that the game industry by far is the best behaved in this regard. See the FTC's stats.
It's almost twice as easy for an underaged person to purchase an R-rated movie ticket than M-rated game. (That's actually purchase the ticket, not sneak in via a ticket to another movie.) And it's almost three times as easy for underaged people to buy a PAL labeled CD.
And note how rapidly the game industry is improving, and that the last test was in 2008. I'm sure it's even harder now.
Hilariously, note the three worse checkers for video games: Hollywood Video, Circuit City, Kmart.
You have to wonder how much of that was due to, you know, the companies imploding. :)
Also note that only 6% of underaged people who attempt to purchase at Gamestop are able to get away with it, so it's hard to see how you see that 'regularly'.
The Wikipedia article on the 9/11 Truth Movement, like all political articles, is full of idiotic weaseling about what people 'really' believe in that movement.
I was pointing out that the person linked to the wrong article. I was talking about 'Truthers', aka, members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, and yet they linked to the 9/11 conspiracies in general article. I was not claiming that the right article was entirely correct, I was saying, 'Wrong article, idiot.'.
And all adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement suspect that United States government insiders played a part in the attacks, or at the very least knew they were coming and let them occur anyway, or they aren't part of the 9/11 Truth Movement.
Here is 911truth.org, the site that, arguably, is the first site calling itself '9/11 Truth Movement', talking about controlled demolitions:
'Although there is not complete consensus on this issue within the 9/11 truth movement...'
You know, when you say 'There's not complete consensus on this issue.', what you're actually saying is 'Most everyone agrees, but some dissent, so we'll disclaim this...'
And if you believe in controlled demolitions, you believe the government made it happen. (Or you believe something even stupider, as I pointed out with the mention of Sander Hicks above.) Of course, you could believe they did it and there were not controlled demolitions, so even with the qualifier about controlled demolitions, every single Truther could still think the government made it happen.
Weasel words on wikipedia and the fact that Sanders Hick is trying to rehabilitate the name '9/11 Truth Movement' doesn't change what the vast majority of the people who identify as part of that movement think.
Here, let me quote Hicks talking about the theory it wasn't an actual airplane that hit the WTC:
'A lot of people in the 9/11 truth movement glommed onto this one and I think it's hurt our credibility over all. You have to wonder if that was by design.'
'The real racist tragedy is when you have 9/11 people who know nothing about history or foreign policy or politics who advance theories that completely ignore smoking guns, like the CIA/ISI connection. Their theories tend to veer into the esoteric. Really imaginative territory, like the "In Plane Sight" video. I'm not sure who they blame, they seem to think that the attack originated deep inside the war machine itself.'
Hey, look, even he admits that a lot of people int he movement are entirely off-kilter.
And it's worth mentioning he thinks it's possible there are explosives, which, as I mentioned, is batshit crazy, and yet a fundamental Truther belief, and even he, a 'rebel' Truther, thinks it. (He's quick to mention that doesn't mean the US government planted them, and the real attackers could have, but that's somehow manages to, once again, reset the 'crazy' bar even higher.)
Is there any place on the planet we DON'T have fighter/bomber aircraft a few hours from. Maybe Antarctica, but I don't think the penguins are much of a threat at the moment.
As I pointed out just above, you managed to hit the nail on the head. If the missiles avoid hostile territory and neutral countries, and we have no allies, well, Antarctica is one of the few places on earth they can attack.
They could attack America, like I said, but after I posted I realized that America was not invited to agree to America's proposal, and won't be doing inspections, so if America sees American ICBMs launched at it, America probable will assume they're nuclear and launch nuclear missiles back at America. Let's hope Americans and Americans both try to keep that from happening, as such a misunderstanding could destroy all countries involved.