Why? The fact the underwear guy originated at a foreign terminal is only tangential to the idea that much of TSA, in its conception and execution, is a monumentally wasteful, yet demonstrably ineffectual bassackwards bureaucratic clusterfuck; and as it stands, an insult to common-sense, individual decency and the American way. I hope this satisfies your query.
None. Ever. Even the underpants bomber made it through.
In all fairness, that guy was on a Flight originating from France, so TSA never had the opportunity to check his diaper. Still, I agree with the rest of your sentiment.
No way he was asleep. Surprised? Yeah, that goes without saying.
First off, even if they used whisper-quiet helicopters, one of them crash landed in his fucking back yard, apparently the rotor blades hit the 15-foot wall. Yeah, if you could sleep through that, you're already good as dead. Second, because of the crash, I believe the story is, the entry team had modify their plans, and had to breach not one but two walls (with explosives), and then they exchanged fire with several guards, and all of this stuff happened in under a minute.
My guess is he was pulling his underoos on when the SEALS busted in.
60% of Americans support raising federal fuel taxes? According to what survey? Was the one and only question "Do you want better maintained roads?", without qualifying that better roads = means more taxes? That has to be one of the most asinine things I've ever heard. Even the most statist, ultra-democrat, nigh socialist acquaintance of mine complains about fuel prices.
Tax vehicles flat rate per year based on their weight (as that's the true determining factor in how much damage they do to roads).
This is the way it already is, in the form of an excise tax hidden in the price of your fuel. The guy driving his 7000lb suburban burns more fuel than my VW TDI does, and likewise, he burns a HELL of a lot more than my 250cc motorcycle. Fuel is taxed. More fuel = more taxes, ergo the driver of the heavy vehicle pays more taxes.
I'm surprised they don't have a scope that can be programmed with ballistic info for your round. Either using canned data for a given projectile/load or with custom measurements taken using custom loads to account for velocity, bullet drop, wind speed and direction and humidity.
The only thing out of your list that it doesn't have is 1) its own laser ranging system 2) it doesn't account for wind or humidity. Laser ranging isn't a big deal, there are some very good commercial units available, and you can also use the mil-dots in the scope to guess range up to 1000+ yards with reasonable accuracy (depending on the optic). Humidity and wind are often highly variable along the bullet's flight path, so there's no practical way to accomplish measuring and correcting for these variables. Ability to read wind will always make or break a sniper team, at least until we develop man portable ultra-high velocity rail guns, or anti-personnel lasers.
Well, for the matter you could also have firefightersturnintofirestarters for profit, but I believe most firefighters aren't assholes, and these sort are statistical outliers.
I don't know...we have situations like this in rural areas anyway. If you're outside the nearest fire district because the county ends in the middle of your street--a mere 60 feet away from your home--you may have to pay a tax (essentially) to the neighboring municipality for the fire protection service. Otherwise, they're only legally obligated to come and watch your house burn, to make sure it doesn't spread into their county.
One example, and there have been many more like it throughout the years...Yet, some people say have the balls to say a private fire department would be less compassionate? In a purely privatized system, you could argue that the fire department would be paid to put the fire out by the homeowners' insurance, or failing that, = the home owner themselves; and therefore wouldn't care about silly, invisible boundaries.
Heck, if it were a competitive industry, the firemen would be racing to be first on scene!
You know, I'd actually feel bad for a rampantly copied author, if copyright didn't cover his life plus 70 years--or in the case of corporate-authored works, 120 years. Or, if they didn't come off as greedy bastards. Anyway, those who come nearly five generations after the original authors have no business earning even a dime off of their works of their forebears, no less those who come only one generation later! If they want to make a living, should they not also go out into the world, and attempt to further the arts, or at the very least, learn how to sweat pipes in a crawlspace?
The AC has a point: is its not especially ironic, in the case of Disney, that so many of their most popular films are based upon nineteenth century works which have slipped into the public-domain? Why, if these same rules existed when Lewis Carrol wrote Alice in Wonderland, Disney would have had to license the rights from Dodgson's great grand children (or the shareholders thereof), right up until 1985. It would have held up Disney Corp's furtherance of the art for another 30 years! The trend continues to this day, where Disney has enjoyed recent success with an adaptation of a Brothers Grimm tale--an idea which was in turn an adaptation of an earlier fairy tale.
It's patently obvious that some folk in this world aren't interested in competing fairly and equally--and it's not the people who innocently use non-free music and media to enhance their silly youtube videos. After all, they are not the ones who have helped to create an intellectual minefield surrounding all authored works; one where it's nearly insane to tread without a swarm of attorneys leading the charge, to poke and prod out any potential pitfalls along the way.
I hear that. In MW2, due to the benefit of killcams, it was apparent that I often got killed by people who started firing as much as 1/4 second AFTER I should have been landing hits. Pretty frustrating when it's a guy who just goes around knifing everyone--you unload half a mag into his face from 15' feet away, and *shank*. Of course, the game browser is more than happy to connect you with folks from Europe or South America. At least a legitimate server setup could weed out high ping players.
Alright, on my informal scale of body types, there's: anorexic, bony but healthy, athletic, average, chubby, a little too chubby, obese, and "man the harpoons". Personally, I find myself often attracted to women who fall into the 'athletic' through 'chubby' on my scale, and a nice face goes miles on making "a little too chubby" more attractive, which is unfortunate, because many such women tend to be deficient in this area.
These ladies, however? Captain Ahab could turn up at any moment, seeking retribution for mistaking his appendage as an exceptionally large chicken leg. Also, in spite of being a fattie, the one has the rather rare trait of having far too much in common with a washboard road. Flat *and* lumpy, that is; I might even spy some tire tracks.
One thing's for sure: after following that link, I'll never never be able to see Nimoy the same way I've seen him all of these years. Then again, I may never see *anything* the same way I've seen them all of these years.
The real bad thing about groupon is their rate. 50% of the take. What advertiser (let's not mince words, that's what they are) takes 50% of your profit? I guess they also pay you in installments. Not only is it bad enough that they take an absurd amount of the profit for the amount of work put in, but they will not pay you up front? And these guys sell billions of dollars of stuff?
A friend of mine runs an already popular breakfast/lunch cafe, and got in with Groupon. Said it was the worst thing he ever did. Among the expected problems of having hundreds of customers swamp him before the coupon expires, there were unexpected problems: the waitstaff was fed up because the dumb bastard customers tended to tip at the discounted (in his case 50%) rate of the check. So, hello 25% profit. Ouch. I guess if your business model fit this sort of scenario, or you jack your prices up, Groupon could work well for a business.
To add insult to injury, many of the people who bought in never came back, while most of his regulars didn't even know of the coupon, and they still frequent the place. I fully expect that when more and more business owners learn about the caveats, Groupon will be forced to change their practices, or go down in flames.
Your favorite soft drink is also usually transported as a super-concentrated syrup via rail car, and it's probably bottled a lot closer to home than most people imagine. All of the distribution chains started out this way ever since sodas became so popular, and they still work that way. So, yeah... If we could get people in the habit of recycling their glass beverage containers, glass would work mighty well also.
Well, of course there are many, many different flavors of socialist and and communist philosophies (both economic and political), but most real wold examples overlap more than they do not.
Theoretically, both free market capitalism (where the means of means of production are privately owned) and socialism (where the means of production are publicly owned/controlled) can work toward the public good; whether either system often does this in real life is debatable. There are, however, a myriad of real examples where capitalism works to make the people's life better, through the competition. So, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", is hardly socialist rhetoric. Competition in a capitalist economy benefits the corporations, it benefits their owners (managers and shareholders alike), and it benefits Joe Public through optimizing price and innovation, and it also gives people something to do.
The idea of a limited duration monopoly isn't a socialist ideal--in a socialist state, people who do more work (such as inventors) are simply supposed to be recognized with a larger disbursement of public resources. It's really telling, as the big names amongst people who pushed for "workers states" never had regular jobs.
Not that I agree with the state of affairs in copyright law, but....copyright...socialist policy? Really? Copyright and patent laws originally gave individuals monopolies of limited duration, for their particular artistic creation, or useful invention, in exchange for publishing, and eventual release into public domain. That is, in fact, pretty much opposite of the way art / literature / invention works in a true socialist/communist *cough* utopia.
Of course, that would require congress not to actively try to hide teensy weensy bits of law that have expansive effect, in ginormous bills, which no representative will attempt to understand before they cast their votes; similarly, it would require the executive branch to screen 'omnibus' bills for these sort of abuses...
Better yet, we have a party and lure...err, invite all of our favorite politicians with hookers and blow...uhhh, delicious cake, at the SPA and then we could unbolt a few lively servers to give them company...
Oh, so you didn't actually read it. You read the table of contents and piddled around with acrobat reader, and of course, that's just as good. Well, I just finished perusing the ToC for some graduate level physics books, and I feel pretty good about it; I think I'll go have a meaningful and productive chat with Stephen Hawking, we're certain to hash out all sorts of problems. You know, it may have been more classy to concede the point... LOL
Explain to me why 'digital copyrights' should be treated different than 'physical copyright'? Digital copyright? What does that even mean? This is like saying crime (i.e. theft, not copyright infringement) committed using a computer is any different than physical theft--and the prevailing theory in Washington echos the idea that it's somehow different (usually worse) to somehow deprive a person of $100 via the internet, than it is to pickpocket the same $100, or that online grifting is any different than a scam in the physical world; or that murder with one tool is somehow more grave than when it's committed with any other tool. None of these cases are all that different, yet these false distinctions persist.
re: loopholes; That's what you get when no other type of profession has a hand in the lawmaking process. It's in the interest of lawyers to write laws which require more lawyers to decipher. more lawyers to litigate, more lawyers to defend, etc. etc. Excessively convoluted and verbose legalese is the result. Surely you'd agree that things could be saner with a few engineers, doctors, financial analysts, architects, teachers etc. on board, to temper the process.
The tens of millions of man hours spent creating, arguing and evading the finer points of any number of obscure laws which can entrap a person, and be used to financially ruin lives (or worse, ruin good people via the criminal system) could be put to better use. Whittling toothpicks, for example. Even though we overwhelmingly have lawyers as representatives, they really don't seem to be too interested in the lawmaking part of their job. I just don't see why people take them as especially good representatives, when so few of them actually follow through.
re: copyright/tech/patent law. The system isn't backed up. Quite the contrary, it's running just as our friendly lawmakers designed. The next time Mickey is in danger of falling into public domain, I'm sure it won't be backed up at all when it's time for yet another copyright extension to be pushed through.
re: the healthcare reform act. When I set about reading it, I gave up about 50 pages in. My time and sanity is better spent elsewhere, and I'm sure 99% of everyone else is in the same boat. Most people are having a hard enough time just keeping a roof over their heads right now, let alone putting aside the substantial time it would take for one to read, understand and form an opinion of legislation of this magnitude. After all, our very own representatives couldn't or wouldn't be bothered to do the same, on this piece of legislation, or ostensibly, on many other bills.
If 18% of it is truly dedicated to tribal issues, I couldn't help to know that. Did you read all 250,000 words of it to come to that conclusion, or are you simply taking someone someone's word? (and, I'm not afraid to admit I was wrong about the page count, even though it is about half the length of Lord of the Rings, and far less entertaining) If you truly did read it, I guess you deserve a cookie or a gold star. As for me, I'm not satisfied to trust someone elses' synopsis. Don't take that to mean I'm against it all together, though. I'm not. I just used that particular piece of legislation as an example of crufty legalwork.
Anyway, I'm not talking about abolishing the legislature. They have a job to do, after all, and they're part of the grand and good trifecta, which in all honesty, has done rather well for a long while; but it would be useful if they'd actually do the job they were elected to do. By the way, unanimous consent amongst the states is not required to amend the constitution. Article Five. Have fun.
I disagree that there aren't always right and wrong answers in such a scenario. Is BLAH in the bill, or is BLAH not in the bill?. This is a binary decision. How can that possibly not be objective? It would force our *representatives* to actually read the shit they vote on. Take the Patriot Act, nobody read it, nobody had a clue what was in it. Only one senator voted against it. Here's a patriot act themed multiple choice for you:
"Section XX, Paragraph YY of SB12345 allows the CIA to wiretap without a warrant: (A) Puppies (B) Kittens (C) Terrorists (D) Your Mom (F) All of the Above"
Same with the 3000 odd page healthcare bill. Fact is, we won't know how that mess will be codified, and it probably won't be thoroughly vetted before it comes into action. If they actually had to read bills, maybe we wouldn't have so many junk laws, and intrusions into our basic liberties! Quote Congressman John Conyers, Jr: "We don't read most of the bills. Do you really know what that would entail if we read every bill that we passed?" " It would [sic] slow down the legislative process".
Fuckin right it would. That's exactly what we need, too. It would force our representatives and the federal government to focus only on the large problems, so they wouldn't be so tempted to micromanage our daily lives and give handjobs, err, handouts to corporate interests. This is a problem problem endemic to our current system of politicks. If enough constituents actually cared, or had the slightest idea of how business is conducted in Washington, they'd kick the lot of congress out.
However, even if you removed all of congress, the next batch would do the same exact shit, and there is no way around that, except the threat and follow through of violent retaliation. i.e. Heads on pikes, to warn the next set of folk who would bastardize their elected positions. You're also right in that we should expect more out of ourselves, but so far, the sausage making is largely done behind closed doors. Bring it out in front of the public. Hell, if people can't be expected to be involved, bribe them. How about a significant reduction of your income taxes, if your question is accepted? That would get A LOT of eyeballs on some language, no doubt. It'd be more productive for the individual than any lottery, and it would cost very little. Right now, people don't even know if they're supposed to be enraged, or not, simply because they have not a freaking clue.
The beauty of the test idea is this: if we got a majority of states together, we could slip that right under our representatives and president's controlling little noses, and pass it through a convention of states. Wouldn't that curl their short hairs?
Slashdot Mirror
Why? The fact the underwear guy originated at a foreign terminal is only tangential to the idea that much of TSA, in its conception and execution, is a monumentally wasteful, yet demonstrably ineffectual bassackwards bureaucratic clusterfuck; and as it stands, an insult to common-sense, individual decency and the American way. I hope this satisfies your query.
None. Ever. Even the underpants bomber made it through.
In all fairness, that guy was on a Flight originating from France, so TSA never had the opportunity to check his diaper. Still, I agree with the rest of your sentiment.
No way he was asleep. Surprised? Yeah, that goes without saying.
First off, even if they used whisper-quiet helicopters, one of them crash landed in his fucking back yard, apparently the rotor blades hit the 15-foot wall. Yeah, if you could sleep through that, you're already good as dead. Second, because of the crash, I believe the story is, the entry team had modify their plans, and had to breach not one but two walls (with explosives), and then they exchanged fire with several guards, and all of this stuff happened in under a minute.
My guess is he was pulling his underoos on when the SEALS busted in.
60% of Americans support raising federal fuel taxes? According to what survey? Was the one and only question "Do you want better maintained roads?", without qualifying that better roads = means more taxes? That has to be one of the most asinine things I've ever heard. Even the most statist, ultra-democrat, nigh socialist acquaintance of mine complains about fuel prices.
Tax vehicles flat rate per year based on their weight (as that's the true determining factor in how much damage they do to roads).
This is the way it already is, in the form of an excise tax hidden in the price of your fuel. The guy driving his 7000lb suburban burns more fuel than my VW TDI does, and likewise, he burns a HELL of a lot more than my 250cc motorcycle. Fuel is taxed. More fuel = more taxes, ergo the driver of the heavy vehicle pays more taxes.
Maybe you should avoid buying huge bags of candy along with the jumbo jars of Vaseline, and piles of Boy's Life & similar magazines?
Meanwhile, bullets are one trick ponies.
Well, you could carefully line up your targets...
I'm surprised they don't have a scope that can be programmed with ballistic info for your round. Either using canned data for a given projectile/load or with custom measurements taken using custom loads to account for velocity, bullet drop, wind speed and direction and humidity.
They do have something like this, commercially available even. Barrett Optical Ranging System
The only thing out of your list that it doesn't have is 1) its own laser ranging system 2) it doesn't account for wind or humidity. Laser ranging isn't a big deal, there are some very good commercial units available, and you can also use the mil-dots in the scope to guess range up to 1000+ yards with reasonable accuracy (depending on the optic). Humidity and wind are often highly variable along the bullet's flight path, so there's no practical way to accomplish measuring and correcting for these variables. Ability to read wind will always make or break a sniper team, at least until we develop man portable ultra-high velocity rail guns, or anti-personnel lasers.
Well, for the matter you could also have firefighters turn into firestarters for profit, but I believe most firefighters aren't assholes, and these sort are statistical outliers.
I don't know...we have situations like this in rural areas anyway. If you're outside the nearest fire district because the county ends in the middle of your street--a mere 60 feet away from your home--you may have to pay a tax (essentially) to the neighboring municipality for the fire protection service. Otherwise, they're only legally obligated to come and watch your house burn, to make sure it doesn't spread into their county.
One example, and there have been many more like it throughout the years...Yet, some people say have the balls to say a private fire department would be less compassionate? In a purely privatized system, you could argue that the fire department would be paid to put the fire out by the homeowners' insurance, or failing that, = the home owner themselves; and therefore wouldn't care about silly, invisible boundaries.
Heck, if it were a competitive industry, the firemen would be racing to be first on scene!
You know, I'd actually feel bad for a rampantly copied author, if copyright didn't cover his life plus 70 years--or in the case of corporate-authored works, 120 years. Or, if they didn't come off as greedy bastards. Anyway, those who come nearly five generations after the original authors have no business earning even a dime off of their works of their forebears, no less those who come only one generation later! If they want to make a living, should they not also go out into the world, and attempt to further the arts, or at the very least, learn how to sweat pipes in a crawlspace?
The AC has a point: is its not especially ironic, in the case of Disney, that so many of their most popular films are based upon nineteenth century works which have slipped into the public-domain? Why, if these same rules existed when Lewis Carrol wrote Alice in Wonderland, Disney would have had to license the rights from Dodgson's great grand children (or the shareholders thereof), right up until 1985. It would have held up Disney Corp's furtherance of the art for another 30 years! The trend continues to this day, where Disney has enjoyed recent success with an adaptation of a Brothers Grimm tale--an idea which was in turn an adaptation of an earlier fairy tale.
It's patently obvious that some folk in this world aren't interested in competing fairly and equally--and it's not the people who innocently use non-free music and media to enhance their silly youtube videos. After all, they are not the ones who have helped to create an intellectual minefield surrounding all authored works; one where it's nearly insane to tread without a swarm of attorneys leading the charge, to poke and prod out any potential pitfalls along the way.
Heh. It's hard enough to get three people to decide on pizza toppings!
I hear that. In MW2, due to the benefit of killcams, it was apparent that I often got killed by people who started firing as much as 1/4 second AFTER I should have been landing hits. Pretty frustrating when it's a guy who just goes around knifing everyone--you unload half a mag into his face from 15' feet away, and *shank*. Of course, the game browser is more than happy to connect you with folks from Europe or South America. At least a legitimate server setup could weed out high ping players.
Alright, on my informal scale of body types, there's: anorexic, bony but healthy, athletic, average, chubby, a little too chubby, obese, and "man the harpoons". Personally, I find myself often attracted to women who fall into the 'athletic' through 'chubby' on my scale, and a nice face goes miles on making "a little too chubby" more attractive, which is unfortunate, because many such women tend to be deficient in this area.
These ladies, however? Captain Ahab could turn up at any moment, seeking retribution for mistaking his appendage as an exceptionally large chicken leg. Also, in spite of being a fattie, the one has the rather rare trait of having far too much in common with a washboard road. Flat *and* lumpy, that is; I might even spy some tire tracks.
Have at it, brother.
One thing's for sure: after following that link, I'll never never be able to see Nimoy the same way I've seen him all of these years. Then again, I may never see *anything* the same way I've seen them all of these years.
The real bad thing about groupon is their rate. 50% of the take. What advertiser (let's not mince words, that's what they are) takes 50% of your profit? I guess they also pay you in installments. Not only is it bad enough that they take an absurd amount of the profit for the amount of work put in, but they will not pay you up front? And these guys sell billions of dollars of stuff?
A friend of mine runs an already popular breakfast/lunch cafe, and got in with Groupon. Said it was the worst thing he ever did. Among the expected problems of having hundreds of customers swamp him before the coupon expires, there were unexpected problems: the waitstaff was fed up because the dumb bastard customers tended to tip at the discounted (in his case 50%) rate of the check. So, hello 25% profit. Ouch. I guess if your business model fit this sort of scenario, or you jack your prices up, Groupon could work well for a business.
To add insult to injury, many of the people who bought in never came back, while most of his regulars didn't even know of the coupon, and they still frequent the place. I fully expect that when more and more business owners learn about the caveats, Groupon will be forced to change their practices, or go down in flames.
Your favorite soft drink is also usually transported as a super-concentrated syrup via rail car, and it's probably bottled a lot closer to home than most people imagine. All of the distribution chains started out this way ever since sodas became so popular, and they still work that way. So, yeah... If we could get people in the habit of recycling their glass beverage containers, glass would work mighty well also.
Well, of course there are many, many different flavors of socialist and and communist philosophies (both economic and political), but most real wold examples overlap more than they do not.
Theoretically, both free market capitalism (where the means of means of production are privately owned) and socialism (where the means of production are publicly owned/controlled) can work toward the public good; whether either system often does this in real life is debatable. There are, however, a myriad of real examples where capitalism works to make the people's life better, through the competition. So, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", is hardly socialist rhetoric. Competition in a capitalist economy benefits the corporations, it benefits their owners (managers and shareholders alike), and it benefits Joe Public through optimizing price and innovation, and it also gives people something to do.
The idea of a limited duration monopoly isn't a socialist ideal--in a socialist state, people who do more work (such as inventors) are simply supposed to be recognized with a larger disbursement of public resources. It's really telling, as the big names amongst people who pushed for "workers states" never had regular jobs.
Not that I agree with the state of affairs in copyright law, but....copyright...socialist policy? Really? Copyright and patent laws originally gave individuals monopolies of limited duration, for their particular artistic creation, or useful invention, in exchange for publishing, and eventual release into public domain. That is, in fact, pretty much opposite of the way art / literature / invention works in a true socialist/communist *cough* utopia.
Oh, I guess you're right. I must have been living under a rock. Silly me.
Three words: Line-item Veto
Of course, that would require congress not to actively try to hide teensy weensy bits of law that have expansive effect, in ginormous bills, which no representative will attempt to understand before they cast their votes; similarly, it would require the executive branch to screen 'omnibus' bills for these sort of abuses...
Better yet, we have a party and lure...err, invite all of our favorite politicians with hookers and blow...uhhh, delicious cake, at the SPA and then we could unbolt a few lively servers to give them company...
Oh, so you didn't actually read it. You read the table of contents and piddled around with acrobat reader, and of course, that's just as good. Well, I just finished perusing the ToC for some graduate level physics books, and I feel pretty good about it; I think I'll go have a meaningful and productive chat with Stephen Hawking, we're certain to hash out all sorts of problems. You know, it may have been more classy to concede the point... LOL
Explain to me why 'digital copyrights' should be treated different than 'physical copyright'? Digital copyright? What does that even mean? This is like saying crime (i.e. theft, not copyright infringement) committed using a computer is any different than physical theft--and the prevailing theory in Washington echos the idea that it's somehow different (usually worse) to somehow deprive a person of $100 via the internet, than it is to pickpocket the same $100, or that online grifting is any different than a scam in the physical world; or that murder with one tool is somehow more grave than when it's committed with any other tool. None of these cases are all that different, yet these false distinctions persist.
Yeah, I know. IHBTBIWHAND
re: loopholes; That's what you get when no other type of profession has a hand in the lawmaking process. It's in the interest of lawyers to write laws which require more lawyers to decipher. more lawyers to litigate, more lawyers to defend, etc. etc. Excessively convoluted and verbose legalese is the result. Surely you'd agree that things could be saner with a few engineers, doctors, financial analysts, architects, teachers etc. on board, to temper the process.
The tens of millions of man hours spent creating, arguing and evading the finer points of any number of obscure laws which can entrap a person, and be used to financially ruin lives (or worse, ruin good people via the criminal system) could be put to better use. Whittling toothpicks, for example. Even though we overwhelmingly have lawyers as representatives, they really don't seem to be too interested in the lawmaking part of their job. I just don't see why people take them as especially good representatives, when so few of them actually follow through.
re: copyright/tech/patent law. The system isn't backed up. Quite the contrary, it's running just as our friendly lawmakers designed. The next time Mickey is in danger of falling into public domain, I'm sure it won't be backed up at all when it's time for yet another copyright extension to be pushed through.
re: the healthcare reform act. When I set about reading it, I gave up about 50 pages in. My time and sanity is better spent elsewhere, and I'm sure 99% of everyone else is in the same boat. Most people are having a hard enough time just keeping a roof over their heads right now, let alone putting aside the substantial time it would take for one to read, understand and form an opinion of legislation of this magnitude. After all, our very own representatives couldn't or wouldn't be bothered to do the same, on this piece of legislation, or ostensibly, on many other bills.
If 18% of it is truly dedicated to tribal issues, I couldn't help to know that. Did you read all 250,000 words of it to come to that conclusion, or are you simply taking someone someone's word? (and, I'm not afraid to admit I was wrong about the page count, even though it is about half the length of Lord of the Rings, and far less entertaining) If you truly did read it, I guess you deserve a cookie or a gold star. As for me, I'm not satisfied to trust someone elses' synopsis. Don't take that to mean I'm against it all together, though. I'm not. I just used that particular piece of legislation as an example of crufty legalwork.
Anyway, I'm not talking about abolishing the legislature. They have a job to do, after all, and they're part of the grand and good trifecta, which in all honesty, has done rather well for a long while; but it would be useful if they'd actually do the job they were elected to do. By the way, unanimous consent amongst the states is not required to amend the constitution. Article Five. Have fun.
I disagree that there aren't always right and wrong answers in such a scenario. Is BLAH in the bill, or is BLAH not in the bill?. This is a binary decision. How can that possibly not be objective? It would force our *representatives* to actually read the shit they vote on. Take the Patriot Act, nobody read it, nobody had a clue what was in it. Only one senator voted against it. Here's a patriot act themed multiple choice for you:
"Section XX, Paragraph YY of SB12345 allows the CIA to wiretap without a warrant: (A) Puppies (B) Kittens (C) Terrorists (D) Your Mom (F) All of the Above"
Same with the 3000 odd page healthcare bill. Fact is, we won't know how that mess will be codified, and it probably won't be thoroughly vetted before it comes into action. If they actually had to read bills, maybe we wouldn't have so many junk laws, and intrusions into our basic liberties! Quote Congressman John Conyers, Jr: "We don't read most of the bills. Do you really know what that would entail if we read every bill that we passed?" " It would [sic] slow down the legislative process".
Fuckin right it would. That's exactly what we need, too. It would force our representatives and the federal government to focus only on the large problems, so they wouldn't be so tempted to micromanage our daily lives and give handjobs, err, handouts to corporate interests. This is a problem problem endemic to our current system of politicks. If enough constituents actually cared, or had the slightest idea of how business is conducted in Washington, they'd kick the lot of congress out.
However, even if you removed all of congress, the next batch would do the same exact shit, and there is no way around that, except the threat and follow through of violent retaliation. i.e. Heads on pikes, to warn the next set of folk who would bastardize their elected positions. You're also right in that we should expect more out of ourselves, but so far, the sausage making is largely done behind closed doors. Bring it out in front of the public. Hell, if people can't be expected to be involved, bribe them. How about a significant reduction of your income taxes, if your question is accepted? That would get A LOT of eyeballs on some language, no doubt. It'd be more productive for the individual than any lottery, and it would cost very little. Right now, people don't even know if they're supposed to be enraged, or not, simply because they have not a freaking clue.
The beauty of the test idea is this: if we got a majority of states together, we could slip that right under our representatives and president's controlling little noses, and pass it through a convention of states. Wouldn't that curl their short hairs?