I am 21, not a teen, not exactly an adult... age aside, I would never go see ANY teen movie. They are hyperboles of the unfortunate society found in the USofA. Why doesn't the public go and see foreign movies at their local Fine Arts Theater?
Once a year, my girlfriend drags me to the "fine arts" theater's festival. I get to spend sixteen hours over three days watching "fine European cinema," known also as the worst crap ever to be inflicted on this pair of eyes.
The plots are nothing that I can relate to, and I like to think I'm educated. The dialogue...well, I've gotta judge by the subtitles. I don't speak French or German. Apparently, Spanish, Latin, and a little Arabic make me an illiterate American. The acting tends to be, well...Sylvester Stallone could show more genuine emotion. While asleep.
But we could still spend our money watching pretentious horseshit from pretentious Eurotrash, or at least we could spend it on stuff that people actually LIKE to watch.
But don't get me wrong. If cowboys of alternative lifestyles eating pudding in French with subtitles is what excites you, it's a free country.
Let's see...I live in Qwest territory. They're the only local phone and the only DSL I can get here. And they're about as useful as tits on a boar hog.
And then there's Colorado Public Service/Xcel Energy, our local energy monopoly. In theory they're also a public utility, with a mission of providing service instead of making dollars. In practice, I get better service from a windmill and a few cords of firewood.
And that's just goddamn sad. If this "public utility" can't compete with a hippie windmill and a cast-iron stove that was designed in 1910, then maybe we NEED some for-profit competitors. At least a for-profit business knows they'll lose customers and money if they screw up.
What do you mean that you only write 1 out of 5 tickets?
I mean that I only write one citation for every five or so stops, on average. And I do write attractive women. Actually, it's more about attitude. If I think someone will respond to a warning and fix the problem without a citation, I'll warn. If I think I need to write him in order to teach him to see red lights, then I hang paper. And people who act like I owe them a warning or like they're doing me a favor by even stopping are a lot more likely to get paper.
And women who think that showing cleavage will get them a break are a lot more likely than the average to get the reminder "Press hard, you're signing through five copies it's only a promise to pay or to appear drive safely thank you for your cooperation."
But if you're trying to figure out why your experience is different, I can offer two suggestions: One is attitude, and I mentioned that above; and the other one is to look at which agencies have stopped you. Different agencies and different individual officers have different approaches, and my agency thankfully remembers that they hired us for our judgement, and doesn't give us a hard time about exercising it.
I've probably been pulled over 5 times in my life -- and other than knowing the cop's family one time, I gotten a ticket every single time. They always ask "do you have a clean driving record", I always say yes (I always go to the trouble to beat the ticket).
Congratulations. I'm having a hard time remembering the last time someone beat one of my traffic citations, but it's been a while.
Well, for what it's worth... any court can overturn any law over which it has jurisdiction. Trial (state circuit, federal district) courts don't have the right to rule on the merits of a law: they try fact, they assume the law is good.
Not quite. The county/district/circuit courts in your state may not be empowered to rule on legal questions. Federal district courts certainly are.
Remember US vs. Emerson? It's a case that's been winding its way up the ladder, starting with a Federal district court in Texas. The district court actually tossed out part of a Federal gun law on Constitutional grounds. It then went to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which partially affirmed and partially rejected the district judge's findings of law.
So yes, Virginia, Freddie district judges can rule on Constitutional questions. Since appeals courts generally can only rule on questions raised during the trial, how else would a Constitutional question even get to them?
No, selective prosecution is not legal (due to the Constitution)
Um, yes it is. It's perfectly legal for a prosecutor to decline a case if he considers it unwinnable or likely to set an undesireable precedent.
Let me put it to you this way: If selective prosecution were illegal or unConstitutional, then I'd have to write tickets on every single driver I stop for a traffic violation. I write maybe one out of five. I'd also have to charge every single underage drinker. I usually just pour out their booze and have their parents pick them up. And I'd have to charge marijuana possession every time I find a seed in someone's car. Nope. My Sgt. and the DA would kick my ass if I hung paper or arrested on even a third of the incidents where I legally could write or arrest. There's only ten hours in the shift, not enough time to be that kind of nutbuster.
Prosecution is only required when there's a specific statute requiring prosecution. In my state, those mandatory-charging laws only exist for domestic violence and restraining order violations. Everything else is subject to officer and prosecutorial discretion.
Of course, if you'd like to show me an actual court holding from any US federal court which mandates prosecution of everything, I'd be most interested.
Actually, all that junk mail is the reason why a first-class stamp isn't $1.00. Unsolicited bulk mailers pay a lot of the USPS's operating costs, otherwise you and I would be paying
Untrue. Damn untrue.
The USPS started doing a study of that, some years back. The DMA got huffy about it and ran to Congress, who promptly passed a law forbidding the USPS from actually making an accurate study of which class of mail subsidizes which other classes.
I don't know why the DMA would be covering that up, unless they were worried that a 2001 1st-class stamp would be a quarter if they weren't around. If you can think of a perfectly innocent reason for them to seek a legally-mandated coverup, I'd like to know what it is.
you should talk to your post office, I believe they will block it.
Don't bet on it. In theory, you can file a Form 1500 on any sender. Form 1500 is a request for a prohibitory order. In theory, the sender is no longer allowed to send you anything. In practice, the USPS is less than careful about honoring the form 1500, and I've had multiple counter attendants at one postal station tell me that it's no longer distributed. I ended up needing to go to the USPS website for it.
In other words, they won't block anything. Not even the stuff they're legally REQUIRED to block.
Also, junkbusters.org suggests that you should mark junk mail with "Refusing 3rd.-class mail is allowed under Domestic Mail Manual Section D042, 'Conditions of Delivery.' Please process." or words to that effect. I haven't noticed it having much effect.
And check out the DMA to get your name off the list.
Ah, yes, the DMA. The biggest bunch of scammers on the planet. You trust them that much?
I wonder what people will be saying when/. runs a story titled "100 years since first computer network."
I can already tell you:
f1s7 pR057! Natalie Portman's Hot Grits down a naked and petrified penis bird's pants! Hemos can't spell! Move zig for great justice! Hillary Rosen and Jack Valenti may or may not fellate dead goats!
Let's be realistic. How much did you expect to change?
I for one would love to give it a go, but every site I've looked at described hundreds of hours of studying and tests and tens of thousands of dollars in equipment.
Hundreds of hours? More like tens.
The license classes have changed on me since the last time I actually looked. However, it's possible to get a license in the US with a basic law-and-theory understanding and no Morse code skill whatsoever.
As for equipment: On the no-code license, you might be limited to VHF/UHF. Pretty much all of the VHF activity worth knowing about is on the 144 MHz band, and just about every manufacturer has a handheld or mobile transceiver that covers that band for less than $500.
I could be wrong. You might be able to legally get on the HF bands (lower frequency than 30MHz-the beyond-line-of-sight bands) on a no-code license. As I said, there's been serious talk of changing the licensing structure and I don't know how it worked out. And I don't know a whole hell of a lot about that equipment market in the last ten years. I'm still using a model that was discontinued eight or ten years ago. FWIW: They were under a thousand new, and they still show up on the used market. That should be an encouraging sign, I'd think.
Don't worry too much about rec.radio.amateur.misc. They've got more asinine trolls and flames than/.
Perhaps the parents should just keep their kids locked up in a closet until they are 13, so that they don't encounter any of these horrible influences in society...and I bet a bunch of parents do...and they wonder why those kids went nuts.
Which kids? If you mean Eric Harris or Dylan Kliebold, the problem wasn't that they were isolated. The problem was that they were bullied and eventually came to believe that they had no recourse other than what they made for themselves. If the teachers refuse to maintain discipline on the grade school playground, then they practically ensure that there will be high school killings.
As for sheltering the kids...I'm a cop. I've been one for about ten years, or most of my adult life. Many of the things I deal with at work are things to which no child should be exposed. You're goddamn right I don't think children should be exposed to fatal traffic accidents. I don't think children should watch their father get drunk and beat the shit out of their mother every payday. I don't think crack dealers belong anywhere but in steel cages. I do NOT WANT CHILDREN TO THINK THOSE THINGS ARE NORMAL OR ACCEPTABLE.
I do not want them exposed to any of those things unless there's a real responsible adult at hand to explain just what's going on. In the case of my sort-of-stepdaughters, that means they basically don't watch evening TV or the news unless I or my GF are with them. And I keep a damn close eye on what's installed on our computer. And thank god, they're not too interested in the internet yet.
Children learn what they see. And god only knows what they're learning if there's nobody around to provide them with some context.
If the story is indeed fabricated and the bank can prove it, doesn't the journalist's story become libel ? As long as the bank doesn't have proof that the allegations are false, isn't the article simply considered an opinion ?
If the bank can prove fabrication, then the story does indeed become libel.
Libel, in most states in the US, requires statements which are false and defamatory, AND requires that the author knew they were false or showed a "reckless disregard" for the truth.
What may complicate things is the degree to which the plaintiff is a public figure. Public figures have a bitch of a time making libel cases that private people can make easily enough. That's how Star, Weekly World News, etc. stay in business. I don't know where the bank president fits into that continuum.
What does confuse me: This was a dispute between a Mexican bank president and a Mexican journalist that the Mexican courts shitcanned at least once. How did it end up in New York's state courts?
Also, I think one other thing is worth noting: IIRC, The courts in NY which are titled "Supreme Courts" are the trial courts. Other states would call them Circuit or District or Common Pleas courts. The highest court in NY's state system is (IIRC-I could be wrong) the Court of Appeals. In plain English, that means that this case is of limited value as precedent.
Disclaimer: I'm a dumbass traffic cop, not a lawyer
Information obtained from the internet is deemed public information, so people are allowed to collect it in the US. However, you can sue for illegal solicitation if someone e-mails you without consent or a business relationship in the US - the greater of $5000 or the product or service advertised is the standard penalty.
Its just really difficult to enforce.
It's difficult to enforce because it doesn't exist. At least not in the US.
There is a junk fax/telemarketing law at 47 USC 227 which specifies the greater of $500 or actual damages per violation, or the greater of $1500 or actual damages for knowing or willful violation. However, this statute DOES NOT APPLY to email.
The ONLY junk email statutes in the US are state statutes, ALL OF WHICH specify opt-out. That means that they get one free bite at the apple.
Plants still need oxygen, just not as much. Photosynthesis takes place when light is available, how do you thing the plants would survive at night?
Repiration still takes place in plants, exactly (well not exactly) the same way it does in humans.
It's close enough to exact to be unimportant. AIUI[1] the only taxa whose respiration is significantly different from ours are fungi and some bacteria.
Plants are always respiring. Always. That means that they are always reacting carbohydrates with oxygen to release carbon dioxide and water vapor and energy.
They only photosynthesize when exposed to light of the correct wavelength (for chlorophyll b-based synthesis, that's pretty much all visible light except maybe green). That's when they take the EM energy from light and use it to combine CO2 and water as carbohydrate, releasing oxygen.
Some can work at very low oxygen levels. Some algaes, and I could ALMOST see some desert plants (the so-called CAM plants) might be able to do it.
If it were my project, I'd start by looking for a low-oxygen-tolerant species of cyanobacteria, the so-called "blue-green algae," and give it a LONG time before expecting any real results.
[1] I'm a population ecologist by training, not a biochemist
The 800/888 numbers have a feature called Automatic Number Identification, which gives the number from which a call originated. And ANI is basically unblockable. The telcos have realized that toll-free operators, who pay for incoming calls, should be able to know who's calling.
And I'd give my left nut to be able to get that on regular residential service:
"Hi, I'm from the Fernwood Chicken Shack and Long-Distance Telephone Service, and I'd like to..."
"You'd like me to immediately place me on your do-not-call list and.." *CLICK*
But with ANI, I have the callback number. I can finish the do-not-call demand, and if they disregard it, then I know where to send the process server.
I think that's why Qwest isn't offering it. They make too much money from their telescammers.
Just what we need - defence of our civil rights via throwing away more plastic junk! Much more convenient than actually changing the system, and better for industry too.
Well, I hear that you can avoid the "system" by living in a tarpaper shack in the ass end of nowhere. However, the "system" tends to be a little cranky once you start mailing bombs around.
Okay, genius, got a better idea? What other methods of defending our civil rights could you come up with?
I don't know that you've noticed, but "industry" isn't some monolithic entity that includes GM, Ford, AOL Time-Warner, MicroSoft, Verizon, and pretty much everyone else who makes any money. "Industry" is a shitload of separate parts of the economy which frequently have very little to do with each other. And even within each sector, there are generally numerous competitors. For instance, in cellphones in the US, there's competition (and some really nasty competition) between AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, Sprint, Nextel, Cricket, etc. And probably nobody but Hop-On and its customers benefit from Hop-On's selling disposable cellphones.
well, I, for one, don't mind losing that kind of 'freedom and control' if it helps the deployment of ignition technologies to keep non-safe drivers out of cars: breathalizer, driver licence check, etc
Problem: Do you have any idea what it takes to get a legal breath tester certified in the US? It needs to be installed in a permanent location with a permanent regulated power source, because even a twitch will throw it way the hell off. (At least, that's the Intoxylizer 5000 EN-the current model-in my state.)
That's why US courts won't usually admit results from the handhold testers. They're good for a field indication. They won't indicate alcohol where none is present. They help me decide whether I'm looking for DUI-alcohol (and will allow either breath or blood test under Express Consent) or whether I'm looking for DUI-drugs (which means the driver gets to choose between a blood test and a blood test).
And the handhold testers cost around a thousand a copy. For being insufficiently reliable to even support a misdemeanor traffic charge, that's a lot of money and a lot more money to install them into the ignition. Not to mention the fact that people with asthma tend to have trouble with them.
As for a license checker: Do you want the machine to actually check license status, or just to verify that a plastic card with a black stripe was swiped?
If you want to actually check validity, you need to know one thing: Before I arrest someone for driving on a suspended/revoked license, I actually have to have the DMV's master file checked. THat means my dispatcher sends a teletype to DMV and one of their people has to actually look for the physical paper hard copy of the revocation order. No hard copy=no confirmation=no arrest. Now imagine just how busy DMV will be if they need to check status every time an engine is started.
I don't know how attached to my car I am. Probably pretty attached. However, being a traffic cop, I am attached to keeping traffic laws enforceable.
Hm, yes. Fortunately in my 1980's post-apocalyptic fascist dystopia, the national anthem was intended to be reasonably tolerable, and sung to the tune of "My Sharona."
Gee, Captain, your dystopia is cool!
I think I'd like mine to be a duet by Hank Williams, Jr. and Rob Zombie. Come to think about, I could get a kick out of the KPMG song being sung by those two.
I don't think that song helped. It sounded like a cross between the Christian albums sold only in infomercials that play on PAX TV late at night, and the lyrics to the national anthem from one of the countries that thankfully only exist in bad 1980's post-apocalyptic fascist dystopia movies.
I'm not joking. It sounds like it was written for Warrior of the Lost World and performed by the same people who recorded "Shine, Jesus, Shine." I can just imagine Donald Pleasance conducting. And it's going to take some serious drinking and Lard to get it out of my head now.
"U.S. interest in Afghanistan is stability with at least minimally competent government." (ref [csis.org]) Here, competent government means a government that can't inspire the Gulf countries to oppose U.S.A. or cut off their oil supply.
I suppose stability and competent government would make Afghanistan really, really poor. Oh, wait they're already not doing so well. They've had ten years of no superpowers being involved in their country. If it was US pressure that made them poor, then...wait, nevermind.
Honduras and Rwanda don't have any resources either. You don't profit from keeping them poor, you avoid loosing, just as in the case of Afghanistan, Iraq, Nicaragua etc.
Avoid losing what? Let me explain to you something about globalization: It's about expanding markets. You see, we in the US and the rest of the G-7 countries export a lot of stuff. We need people to buy it. It does us not one bit of good if we can't find markets. It does us no good if the people in those markets can't afford what we're selling.
Which leaves us in the position of being evil capitalist slavemasters out of the goodness of our hearts. I don't like being a capitalist without actually selling stuff and making money.
Or is that how they do research on these things today:
Step 1: Find something tragic or bloody.
Step 2:
Step 3: It was caused by the evil capitalists trying to make profit.
Recall that the M-16 machine gun (primarily used by ground troops during the Vietnam War) was actually in existence during World War II, though it was classified at the time. The military's technology usually seems to buffer itself from the civilian population by a measure of about a quarter century (give or take a decade). So, if they're telling us that they've developed laser battlefield weapons, God only knows what they've developed that we *don't* know about.
Your point may be valid but your example is not.
The M-16/AR-15 takes the 5.56mm NATO round, sold as the.223 Remington in sporting goods stores throughout the US. The only problem is, that round wasn't introduced until after Korea.
The AR's designer, Eugene Stoner, started out with a rifle in 7.62x51 NATO/.308 Winchester and used that design to build the AR-15. However, That round didn't exist during WWII either.
Nope. The reason that most poor nations are poor is that other nations wants them to be poor.
Okay, help me out: What POSSIBLE profit could be taken by keeping Afghanistan/Rwanda/Honduras/etc. poor? If any of those places have any real oil or other resources, they're sure keeping it hidden pretty well.
Like if I make a really shiny tank, can I drive around and be impervious to mean old high energy lazers? Why not?
Couple of problems. No surface is ever perfectly reflective. And if an incoming beam has enough energy to do real damage to Chobham armor, then the mirror will probably not last too long.
Also, armor is good. Not being hit is better. Even if you could make a tank impervious to lasers by making a disco ball out of it, you still have issues with the more-conventional anti-tank munitions. Not to mention, you've just made the tank one hell of a lot more visible.
It's just a grander scale of what I teach at a certain police academy: Vests are good. I heartily approve of them. However, they're not magic. It's better to keep in mind that if a problem individual can't locate you well enough to shoot, he can't shoot. That's why tanks are painted camo.
What about shiny shiny mortar shells? Could they be safe?
If you can make them perfectly reflective on whatever spectrum is used. I doubt that, to be honest.
GTA3 lets you pretend to steal cars and run down animated people on a tv screen. It doesn't promote really stealing cars or running down people in actuality.
I don't know how familiar you are with the concept of "desensitization." I think it applies.
Historically, only a relatively small proportion of soldiers in combat ever fired their weapons and tried to kill enemy soldiers. For the US, in WWII, that number was (by varying estumates) between 40 and 55%. In other words, half of them weren't. It's certainly understandable: the human conscience normally reacts unfavorably to the prospect of killing. However, that kind of conscientiousness isn't what's needed on a battlefield.
It's worth noting that the US armed forces used conventional bullseye targets up until after Korea.
The armed forces determined that they needed to desensitize their people. They needed to make their people so used to shooting at human-shaped objects that this wouldn't be an issue. If people are reluctant to kill other people, then convince them that whoever's downrange isn't human.
That's why they adopted silhouette targets and even photo targets.
I don't know if you've ever read it, but it's worthwhile: "On Killing," by Lt. Col. David Grossman, USA (ret.) I don't necessarily buy all of Col. Grossman's conclusions either, but I find them hard to ignore.
What really gives me pause about this is that most musicians I know can barely figure out their effects pedals, let alone get their amps setup right; I don't know how they're going to deal with ethernet (and some of these guys are pretty accomplished).
What effects pedals? When I want distortion, I scrape a comb over the strings. When I want some other effect, well, I haven't yet.
I can see it now; the lead, rhythm and bass guitarists on stage battling for QoS priority on the switch.
The bassist should be in nice mode, in the background with the distributed.net client. The less people notice him, the happier the rhythm guitarist is. That's especially important since I'm the rhythm guitarist.
Whatever you do don't let the drummers know about this, the last thing we need is networked drums.
Our drummer? Give him a few beers and some rubber bands to play with, and he's happy.
How exactly does someone with college education like that get to become a cyber security advisor? He was a police officer too. Maybe I'm reading to much into stereotypes but this sure dosn't sound like the kind of guy I'd want protecting me from a nerdy kid who lives in his basement with a cafinee IV making root kits.
You are reading too much into stereotypes.
People like to tell themselves that cops are dumb. It makes them feel better about getting speeding tickets-"Sure, I now owe the state fifty bucks, but I'd kick his ass at Unreal Tournament!"
The problem is, that's generally untrue and generally far less true than it was twenty years ago. The average police department in my state has a larger education requirement than the average IT job with the same starting pay. You can become a junior-something making $2400/month[1] as a high school dropout, but the entry-level sworn position is going to require two years of college. (Except in the capital's suburbs, where at least two of the major departments are requiring BA's/BS's now)
Also, this guy has put in a lot of training in computer-related investigations. Presumably, he's had a lot of the USAF's internal training as well, being in the AFOSI. Now, the training on the outside can be pretty good, and the science and research stuff is great. However, in terms of practical applications, the stuff available to cops but not civilians is far ahead. Between FBI, AFOSI, and being long-service with Chandler, AZ, he probably went to more than a little of that.
As for the degrees: senior management types don't deal so much with technical problems. They deal with people and organizations. Would you ask a board member at GM to be an ASE Master Mechanic who spends his off-time on the stock-car circuit? Maybe it might be nice, but IMHO it's good enough that he knows why he has employees with that qualification and why those things are important.
[1] I started as a cop at about the same-inflation adjusted from 1990, but my department didn't require an associates back then. It was far enough in the past that my BA in biology and fish manager experience actually impressed them.
Slashdot Mirror
Once a year, my girlfriend drags me to the "fine arts" theater's festival. I get to spend sixteen hours over three days watching "fine European cinema," known also as the worst crap ever to be inflicted on this pair of eyes.
The plots are nothing that I can relate to, and I like to think I'm educated. The dialogue...well, I've gotta judge by the subtitles. I don't speak French or German. Apparently, Spanish, Latin, and a little Arabic make me an illiterate American. The acting tends to be, well...Sylvester Stallone could show more genuine emotion. While asleep.
But we could still spend our money watching pretentious horseshit from pretentious Eurotrash, or at least we could spend it on stuff that people actually LIKE to watch.
But don't get me wrong. If cowboys of alternative lifestyles eating pudding in French with subtitles is what excites you, it's a free country.
Let's see...I live in Qwest territory. They're the only local phone and the only DSL I can get here. And they're about as useful as tits on a boar hog.
And then there's Colorado Public Service/Xcel Energy, our local energy monopoly. In theory they're also a public utility, with a mission of providing service instead of making dollars. In practice, I get better service from a windmill and a few cords of firewood.
And that's just goddamn sad. If this "public utility" can't compete with a hippie windmill and a cast-iron stove that was designed in 1910, then maybe we NEED some for-profit competitors. At least a for-profit business knows they'll lose customers and money if they screw up.
I mean that I only write one citation for every five or so stops, on average. And I do write attractive women. Actually, it's more about attitude. If I think someone will respond to a warning and fix the problem without a citation, I'll warn. If I think I need to write him in order to teach him to see red lights, then I hang paper. And people who act like I owe them a warning or like they're doing me a favor by even stopping are a lot more likely to get paper.
And women who think that showing cleavage will get them a break are a lot more likely than the average to get the reminder "Press hard, you're signing through five copies it's only a promise to pay or to appear drive safely thank you for your cooperation."
But if you're trying to figure out why your experience is different, I can offer two suggestions: One is attitude, and I mentioned that above; and the other one is to look at which agencies have stopped you. Different agencies and different individual officers have different approaches, and my agency thankfully remembers that they hired us for our judgement, and doesn't give us a hard time about exercising it.
I've probably been pulled over 5 times in my life -- and other than knowing the cop's family one time, I gotten a ticket every single time. They always ask "do you have a clean driving record", I always say yes (I always go to the trouble to beat the ticket).
Congratulations. I'm having a hard time remembering the last time someone beat one of my traffic citations, but it's been a while.
Not quite. The county/district/circuit courts in your state may not be empowered to rule on legal questions. Federal district courts certainly are.
Remember US vs. Emerson? It's a case that's been winding its way up the ladder, starting with a Federal district court in Texas. The district court actually tossed out part of a Federal gun law on Constitutional grounds. It then went to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which partially affirmed and partially rejected the district judge's findings of law.
So yes, Virginia, Freddie district judges can rule on Constitutional questions. Since appeals courts generally can only rule on questions raised during the trial, how else would a Constitutional question even get to them?
Um, yes it is. It's perfectly legal for a prosecutor to decline a case if he considers it unwinnable or likely to set an undesireable precedent.
Let me put it to you this way: If selective prosecution were illegal or unConstitutional, then I'd have to write tickets on every single driver I stop for a traffic violation. I write maybe one out of five. I'd also have to charge every single underage drinker. I usually just pour out their booze and have their parents pick them up. And I'd have to charge marijuana possession every time I find a seed in someone's car. Nope. My Sgt. and the DA would kick my ass if I hung paper or arrested on even a third of the incidents where I legally could write or arrest. There's only ten hours in the shift, not enough time to be that kind of nutbuster.
Prosecution is only required when there's a specific statute requiring prosecution. In my state, those mandatory-charging laws only exist for domestic violence and restraining order violations. Everything else is subject to officer and prosecutorial discretion.
Of course, if you'd like to show me an actual court holding from any US federal court which mandates prosecution of everything, I'd be most interested.
Untrue. Damn untrue.
The USPS started doing a study of that, some years back. The DMA got huffy about it and ran to Congress, who promptly passed a law forbidding the USPS from actually making an accurate study of which class of mail subsidizes which other classes.
I don't know why the DMA would be covering that up, unless they were worried that a 2001 1st-class stamp would be a quarter if they weren't around. If you can think of a perfectly innocent reason for them to seek a legally-mandated coverup, I'd like to know what it is.
Don't bet on it. In theory, you can file a Form 1500 on any sender. Form 1500 is a request for a prohibitory order. In theory, the sender is no longer allowed to send you anything. In practice, the USPS is less than careful about honoring the form 1500, and I've had multiple counter attendants at one postal station tell me that it's no longer distributed. I ended up needing to go to the USPS website for it.
In other words, they won't block anything. Not even the stuff they're legally REQUIRED to block.
Also, junkbusters.org suggests that you should mark junk mail with "Refusing 3rd.-class mail is allowed under Domestic Mail Manual Section D042, 'Conditions of Delivery.' Please process." or words to that effect. I haven't noticed it having much effect.
And check out the DMA to get your name off the list.
Ah, yes, the DMA. The biggest bunch of scammers on the planet. You trust them that much?
I can already tell you:
f1s7 pR057! Natalie Portman's Hot Grits down a naked and petrified penis bird's pants! Hemos can't spell! Move zig for great justice! Hillary Rosen and Jack Valenti may or may not fellate dead goats!
Let's be realistic. How much did you expect to change?
Hundreds of hours? More like tens.
The license classes have changed on me since the last time I actually looked. However, it's possible to get a license in the US with a basic law-and-theory understanding and no Morse code skill whatsoever.
As for equipment: On the no-code license, you might be limited to VHF/UHF. Pretty much all of the VHF activity worth knowing about is on the 144 MHz band, and just about every manufacturer has a handheld or mobile transceiver that covers that band for less than $500.
I could be wrong. You might be able to legally get on the HF bands (lower frequency than 30MHz-the beyond-line-of-sight bands) on a no-code license. As I said, there's been serious talk of changing the licensing structure and I don't know how it worked out. And I don't know a whole hell of a lot about that equipment market in the last ten years. I'm still using a model that was discontinued eight or ten years ago. FWIW: They were under a thousand new, and they still show up on the used market. That should be an encouraging sign, I'd think.
Don't worry too much about rec.radio.amateur.misc. They've got more asinine trolls and flames than /.
Which kids? If you mean Eric Harris or Dylan Kliebold, the problem wasn't that they were isolated. The problem was that they were bullied and eventually came to believe that they had no recourse other than what they made for themselves. If the teachers refuse to maintain discipline on the grade school playground, then they practically ensure that there will be high school killings.
As for sheltering the kids...I'm a cop. I've been one for about ten years, or most of my adult life. Many of the things I deal with at work are things to which no child should be exposed. You're goddamn right I don't think children should be exposed to fatal traffic accidents. I don't think children should watch their father get drunk and beat the shit out of their mother every payday. I don't think crack dealers belong anywhere but in steel cages. I do NOT WANT CHILDREN TO THINK THOSE THINGS ARE NORMAL OR ACCEPTABLE.
I do not want them exposed to any of those things unless there's a real responsible adult at hand to explain just what's going on. In the case of my sort-of-stepdaughters, that means they basically don't watch evening TV or the news unless I or my GF are with them. And I keep a damn close eye on what's installed on our computer. And thank god, they're not too interested in the internet yet.
Children learn what they see. And god only knows what they're learning if there's nobody around to provide them with some context.
If the bank can prove fabrication, then the story does indeed become libel.
Libel, in most states in the US, requires statements which are false and defamatory, AND requires that the author knew they were false or showed a "reckless disregard" for the truth.
What may complicate things is the degree to which the plaintiff is a public figure. Public figures have a bitch of a time making libel cases that private people can make easily enough. That's how Star, Weekly World News, etc. stay in business. I don't know where the bank president fits into that continuum.
What does confuse me: This was a dispute between a Mexican bank president and a Mexican journalist that the Mexican courts shitcanned at least once. How did it end up in New York's state courts?
Also, I think one other thing is worth noting: IIRC, The courts in NY which are titled "Supreme Courts" are the trial courts. Other states would call them Circuit or District or Common Pleas courts. The highest court in NY's state system is (IIRC-I could be wrong) the Court of Appeals. In plain English, that means that this case is of limited value as precedent.
Disclaimer: I'm a dumbass traffic cop, not a lawyer
Information obtained from the internet is deemed public information, so people are allowed to collect it in the US. However, you can sue for illegal solicitation if someone e-mails you without consent or a business relationship in the US - the greater of $5000 or the product or service advertised is the standard penalty.
Its just really difficult to enforce.
It's difficult to enforce because it doesn't exist. At least not in the US.
There is a junk fax/telemarketing law at 47 USC 227 which specifies the greater of $500 or actual damages per violation, or the greater of $1500 or actual damages for knowing or willful violation. However, this statute DOES NOT APPLY to email.
The ONLY junk email statutes in the US are state statutes, ALL OF WHICH specify opt-out. That means that they get one free bite at the apple.
Repiration still takes place in plants, exactly (well not exactly) the same way it does in humans.
It's close enough to exact to be unimportant. AIUI[1] the only taxa whose respiration is significantly different from ours are fungi and some bacteria.
Plants are always respiring. Always. That means that they are always reacting carbohydrates with oxygen to release carbon dioxide and water vapor and energy.
They only photosynthesize when exposed to light of the correct wavelength (for chlorophyll b-based synthesis, that's pretty much all visible light except maybe green). That's when they take the EM energy from light and use it to combine CO2 and water as carbohydrate, releasing oxygen.
Some can work at very low oxygen levels. Some algaes, and I could ALMOST see some desert plants (the so-called CAM plants) might be able to do it.
If it were my project, I'd start by looking for a low-oxygen-tolerant species of cyanobacteria, the so-called "blue-green algae," and give it a LONG time before expecting any real results.
[1] I'm a population ecologist by training, not a biochemist
And I'd give my left nut to be able to get that on regular residential service:
"Hi, I'm from the Fernwood Chicken Shack and Long-Distance Telephone Service, and I'd like to..."
"You'd like me to immediately place me on your do-not-call list and.." *CLICK*
But with ANI, I have the callback number. I can finish the do-not-call demand, and if they disregard it, then I know where to send the process server.
I think that's why Qwest isn't offering it. They make too much money from their telescammers.
Well, I hear that you can avoid the "system" by living in a tarpaper shack in the ass end of nowhere. However, the "system" tends to be a little cranky once you start mailing bombs around.
Okay, genius, got a better idea? What other methods of defending our civil rights could you come up with?
I don't know that you've noticed, but "industry" isn't some monolithic entity that includes GM, Ford, AOL Time-Warner, MicroSoft, Verizon, and pretty much everyone else who makes any money. "Industry" is a shitload of separate parts of the economy which frequently have very little to do with each other. And even within each sector, there are generally numerous competitors. For instance, in cellphones in the US, there's competition (and some really nasty competition) between AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, Sprint, Nextel, Cricket, etc. And probably nobody but Hop-On and its customers benefit from Hop-On's selling disposable cellphones.
Problem: Do you have any idea what it takes to get a legal breath tester certified in the US? It needs to be installed in a permanent location with a permanent regulated power source, because even a twitch will throw it way the hell off. (At least, that's the Intoxylizer 5000 EN-the current model-in my state.)
That's why US courts won't usually admit results from the handhold testers. They're good for a field indication. They won't indicate alcohol where none is present. They help me decide whether I'm looking for DUI-alcohol (and will allow either breath or blood test under Express Consent) or whether I'm looking for DUI-drugs (which means the driver gets to choose between a blood test and a blood test).
And the handhold testers cost around a thousand a copy. For being insufficiently reliable to even support a misdemeanor traffic charge, that's a lot of money and a lot more money to install them into the ignition. Not to mention the fact that people with asthma tend to have trouble with them.
As for a license checker: Do you want the machine to actually check license status, or just to verify that a plastic card with a black stripe was swiped?
If you want to actually check validity, you need to know one thing: Before I arrest someone for driving on a suspended/revoked license, I actually have to have the DMV's master file checked. THat means my dispatcher sends a teletype to DMV and one of their people has to actually look for the physical paper hard copy of the revocation order. No hard copy=no confirmation=no arrest. Now imagine just how busy DMV will be if they need to check status every time an engine is started.
I don't know how attached to my car I am. Probably pretty attached. However, being a traffic cop, I am attached to keeping traffic laws enforceable.
Gee, Captain, your dystopia is cool!
I think I'd like mine to be a duet by Hank Williams, Jr. and Rob Zombie. Come to think about, I could get a kick out of the KPMG song being sung by those two.
I'm not joking. It sounds like it was written for Warrior of the Lost World and performed by the same people who recorded "Shine, Jesus, Shine." I can just imagine Donald Pleasance conducting. And it's going to take some serious drinking and Lard to get it out of my head now.
I suppose stability and competent government would make Afghanistan really, really poor. Oh, wait they're already not doing so well. They've had ten years of no superpowers being involved in their country. If it was US pressure that made them poor, then...wait, nevermind.
Honduras and Rwanda don't have any resources either. You don't profit from keeping them poor, you avoid loosing, just as in the case of Afghanistan, Iraq, Nicaragua etc.
Avoid losing what? Let me explain to you something about globalization: It's about expanding markets. You see, we in the US and the rest of the G-7 countries export a lot of stuff. We need people to buy it. It does us not one bit of good if we can't find markets. It does us no good if the people in those markets can't afford what we're selling.
Which leaves us in the position of being evil capitalist slavemasters out of the goodness of our hearts. I don't like being a capitalist without actually selling stuff and making money.
Or is that how they do research on these things today:
Step 1: Find something tragic or bloody.
Step 2:
Step 3: It was caused by the evil capitalists trying to make profit.
Your point may be valid but your example is not.
The M-16/AR-15 takes the 5.56mm NATO round, sold as the .223 Remington in sporting goods stores throughout the US. The only problem is, that round wasn't introduced until after Korea.
The AR's designer, Eugene Stoner, started out with a rifle in 7.62x51 NATO/.308 Winchester and used that design to build the AR-15. However, That round didn't exist during WWII either.
Okay, help me out: What POSSIBLE profit could be taken by keeping Afghanistan/Rwanda/Honduras/etc. poor? If any of those places have any real oil or other resources, they're sure keeping it hidden pretty well.
Couple of problems. No surface is ever perfectly reflective. And if an incoming beam has enough energy to do real damage to Chobham armor, then the mirror will probably not last too long.
Also, armor is good. Not being hit is better. Even if you could make a tank impervious to lasers by making a disco ball out of it, you still have issues with the more-conventional anti-tank munitions. Not to mention, you've just made the tank one hell of a lot more visible.
It's just a grander scale of what I teach at a certain police academy: Vests are good. I heartily approve of them. However, they're not magic. It's better to keep in mind that if a problem individual can't locate you well enough to shoot, he can't shoot. That's why tanks are painted camo.
What about shiny shiny mortar shells? Could they be safe?
If you can make them perfectly reflective on whatever spectrum is used. I doubt that, to be honest.
I don't know how familiar you are with the concept of "desensitization." I think it applies.
Historically, only a relatively small proportion of soldiers in combat ever fired their weapons and tried to kill enemy soldiers. For the US, in WWII, that number was (by varying estumates) between 40 and 55%. In other words, half of them weren't. It's certainly understandable: the human conscience normally reacts unfavorably to the prospect of killing. However, that kind of conscientiousness isn't what's needed on a battlefield.
It's worth noting that the US armed forces used conventional bullseye targets up until after Korea.
The armed forces determined that they needed to desensitize their people. They needed to make their people so used to shooting at human-shaped objects that this wouldn't be an issue. If people are reluctant to kill other people, then convince them that whoever's downrange isn't human.
That's why they adopted silhouette targets and even photo targets.
I don't know if you've ever read it, but it's worthwhile: "On Killing," by Lt. Col. David Grossman, USA (ret.) I don't necessarily buy all of Col. Grossman's conclusions either, but I find them hard to ignore.
What effects pedals? When I want distortion, I scrape a comb over the strings. When I want some other effect, well, I haven't yet.
I can see it now; the lead, rhythm and bass guitarists on stage battling for QoS priority on the switch.
The bassist should be in nice mode, in the background with the distributed.net client. The less people notice him, the happier the rhythm guitarist is. That's especially important since I'm the rhythm guitarist.
Whatever you do don't let the drummers know about this, the last thing we need is networked drums.
Our drummer? Give him a few beers and some rubber bands to play with, and he's happy.
You are reading too much into stereotypes.
People like to tell themselves that cops are dumb. It makes them feel better about getting speeding tickets-"Sure, I now owe the state fifty bucks, but I'd kick his ass at Unreal Tournament!"
The problem is, that's generally untrue and generally far less true than it was twenty years ago. The average police department in my state has a larger education requirement than the average IT job with the same starting pay. You can become a junior-something making $2400/month[1] as a high school dropout, but the entry-level sworn position is going to require two years of college. (Except in the capital's suburbs, where at least two of the major departments are requiring BA's/BS's now)
Also, this guy has put in a lot of training in computer-related investigations. Presumably, he's had a lot of the USAF's internal training as well, being in the AFOSI. Now, the training on the outside can be pretty good, and the science and research stuff is great. However, in terms of practical applications, the stuff available to cops but not civilians is far ahead. Between FBI, AFOSI, and being long-service with Chandler, AZ, he probably went to more than a little of that.
As for the degrees: senior management types don't deal so much with technical problems. They deal with people and organizations. Would you ask a board member at GM to be an ASE Master Mechanic who spends his off-time on the stock-car circuit? Maybe it might be nice, but IMHO it's good enough that he knows why he has employees with that qualification and why those things are important.
[1] I started as a cop at about the same-inflation adjusted from 1990, but my department didn't require an associates back then. It was far enough in the past that my BA in biology and fish manager experience actually impressed them.