>>>The idea is that in debate the two lawyers fighting for each side eventually the law will come through.
Is that what happened in the 130 million dollar Microsoft v. Aussie inventor verdict, but then was overturned by a judge simply by saying "this jury was stupid"? I completely and totally disagree with you. The Law exist to serve the people. If the people can not understand it, how are they supposed to obey it and avoid getting jailed?
Thomas Jefferson was correct - write the laws in plain english so the ultimate authority, the people, can understand them.
We're not really talking about writing to cover various loopholes. We're talking about writing in plain English, instead of jargon such as "the party of the first part and the party of the second part, on the first day of the seventh month of the procedural year (as defined in section 2.13.2) will be required..."
They could just say, "Party 1 and party 2 on July 1 of 2013 will..."
Lawyers write in complex language because it's job security... you can't read the law yourself; you have to hire a lawyer to translate. It's approximately-equivalent to a programmer who writes code that may be "brilliant" and work, but only he knows how to debug it or update it. I say we put-aside the jargon and demand that the law be written in 6th grade English. It can be as long as required to cover loopholes, but the average person with a 6th grade education ought to be able to read a sentence and understand what he just wrote.
A lot of times the judges don't understand the complicated language either, which simply makes it easier to twist the words into whatever the judge wants it to say.
I think Thomas Jefferson had it correct when he said, if the people cannot read the laws, how are they supposed to obey them? Therefore he advised putting them in plain English, just as the Constitutions are written.
Also when they do refer to the bill, they do so in a dishonest fashion. When our president said "Does not provide coverage for illegal residents," and some guy yelled "You lie", the congress persons and other media commentators immediately looked at the bill and said, "Right here - will not cover illegal immigrants."
Yes it does say that. What it did NOT say, which nobody realized until about a week later, is that patients were not required to show any ID. The bill as written allowed people to simply walk into a hospital and demand healthcare, whether they were american, illegal residents, or foreign tourists just dropping-in for a visit.
This bill just like the Patriot Act has a lot of loopholes and flaws, which will only be discovered later, after it's passed. And when the Congressperson says, "I didn't know that was in there," they should be immediately voted out.
I suspect ACORN, SEIU, and the other organizations/lawyers that are actually writing these bills probably do use version control - they simply don't share them with the congresscritters, because they would not understand how to use it.
As long as people walk into the voting booth going, "I have no idea who to vote for. I'll just vote for the name I recognize," politicians will sit in office for year-after-year. I suspect this is how we end-up with these lousy politicians like Conyers, who never bother to read the bills, and who should be kicked-out. We should be encouraging people NOT to vote if they have absolutely no clue what they are doing. i.e. Don't vote just for the sake of voting.
This is what I did in the last election - I voted for my president, my senators/congressman, and then saw a whole bunch of names for lower-level people I never heard of. Rather than make a random guess, as many voters do, I just left that part of the ballot blank. Sometimes a non-vote is better than just putting the previous bum back into office.
Someone please explain why it's soooo important that we upgrade from 32 to 64 bit processors. What does 64-bit give us that we didn't have with 32-bit CPUs? (I have a 64-bit Nintendo64, but don't see it as any better than my 32-bit Gamecube or Wii.)
So about 800*32 == 25,000 miles of rail. I'm sure that will really make a dent on our 4,000,000 miles of highways and reduce car congestion by a an amazing 0.6%. (rolls eyes).
>>>So they died-out, similar to how newspapers are dying out today.
P.S.
Railroads are to cars in the 1930s, as newspapers are to websites today. The old outdated technology was/is replaced by the newer, more convenient technology.
>>>it's all the overhead it takes to support the roadways.
Supporting railways has FAR more overhead. Laying the rails for one thing, and maintaining them. Second there's the lost time of having people standing-around waiting for the damn train. My boss spend 1.5 hours on his train commute; I only take 45 minutes. Waiting time == non-productive time. And finally because there's no station anywhere near most people homes (I have to walk an hour to get to my station), you have to figure out how to get the people to the train, which is even more overhead to add to the trains' cost.
And then there's the scalability problem. I-95 started as a four lane road, and now in some parts it's 12 lanes wide, so it's increased its capacity by three. You can't do the same with railways - people could kill themselves tripping over the rails when trying to board the train.
And finally look at history:
Our ancestors had a network of rails all over the U.S. which acted as the backbone of the nation during the 1800s and early 1900s. Then in the 1930 and 40s they abandoned them. Why? If rails had been superior then the railroad companies, being the dominant industry of that time, would have killed the car in its infancy. They failed because even though the rail companies were rich and could have squashed the carmakers, they were horribly inconvenient to use. So they died-out, similar to how newspapers are dying out today.
Apparently you still can't read. What part of this phrase did you not comprehend? "...could even be made environmentally-friendly by designating the new I-3 for hybrids and electrics only." So that kills your objection to using cars for transport.
BTW electric trains are not as clean as everyone believes, even in California, since most of your power is imported from coal-burning states like Nevada and Utah, and coal is extremely dirty. I know that's a difficult fact to swallow, but there it is. (See this why even though I'm an environmentalist who drives an 80mpg hybrid, I rarely hang-out with my colleagues. It's impossible to talk to them rationally or logically, because they refuse to accept the basic facts.)
>>>All budgets in California must (1) be balanced, and (2) be passed by a super-majority.
I fail to see the drawback. A government that has to work within its means (like citizens do every day) sounds as close to perfect as one can get. I wish my government had similar restrictions, because I'm tired of mailing them ~$8000 checks every April 15th (plus another $4000 in property/school taxes). That check keeps getting bigger year-after-year, because the politicians spend money like teenagers with credit cards. They have no self-discipline.
On 9/11 I watched the television in shock. On 9/12 I said, "If we go to war over this, it will be a mistake. We should rebuild the damaged buildings, and focus on tighter borders so the enemies can't get in. A war will be a waste of both lives and dollars, and make us no better than the terrorists."
I was right. Our country would be about 1 trillion dollars richer now, and at peace instead of war. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
"Warned them, I did, but nobody listens to poor Zathras."
My boss tried to convince me to do my daily commute "because a bunch of us all ride together and it's lots of fun" (picture in your mind the guy from the Office). He then described how he leaves home at 6 am by car, hops on the train, and then takes the company van from the local station to arrive at work at 7:30.
I didn't say anything but smile, because my commute by car is only 45 minutes. It's also probably a lot cheaper... about $3.50 gasoline with my Honda Insight. Doing what my boss suggests would be a downgrade.
>>Well the $4.7 billion would come from our [communist Chinese buddies overseas].
Fixed.
So this bullet train that covers 800 miles will carry how many of California's population each year? 0.1%? Yeah that's a wise investment of non-existent american dollars. Wouldn't it make more sense to lay-down an I-3 to run semi-parallel to I-5, and thereby carry any excess traffic between these two cities? It would be far cheaper, far more flexible in design (cars aren't tied to rails), use existing equipment (cars and macadam and road signs and lighting), and could even be made environmentally-friendly by designating the new I-3 "for hybrids or electrics only".
Also before someone jumps on the "Trains are more efficent" bandwagon: - The national average for cars is approximately 25 miles per gallon - The national average for passenger trains is the same energy equivalence (25 people-miles per gallon). - So if you simply upgrade your car to a hybrid (40-70mpg), then you are more-efficient than a passenger train. Or if you carpool and carry a passenger, your car's efficiency jumps to 50 people-miles per gallon.... again more efficient than a passenger train.
(dons kevlar shield) I'm about to get flamed for what I just said. It's similar to how Christians used to burn witches.
>>>75% efficiency is perfectly acceptable for low power devices.
Then how come the EU and U.S. are banning incandescent bulbs? The latest prototypes using laser-carved filaments operate at just 20 watts, and make the same light as a 15 watt compact fluorescent light. So that's what? 75% efficiency? And yet this is considered unacceptable by the politicians.
I say, if the bulbs are banned for inefficiency, then so too should these over-the-air power transmissions (for the same reason).
Probably because listening to my radio doesn't require fiddling with buttons. Also I can tune-out the radio, whereas tuning-out my wife during a cell call might lead to divorce. Simply put - It isn't the same thing. Conversations are more distracting, and it has been shown that texting causes FAR more accidents than the radio or other distractions..... even more accidents than drunk driving.
Also I've seen people drive directly through red lights. They saw the light, but they were talking-up a storm on their phone and it never registered in their brain. ZOOM they went through the light nearly hitting other people in the process. DON'T sit there and tell me that's not a dangerous situation requiring immediate prohibition of phones.
One more thing
- I think you are an arrogant man. For you (or anyone else on this thread) to sit there and justify your cellphone use while driving, makes me hope you spend your last minute sizzling on an electric chair. I know that's mean, but I HATE murderers who kill people with their cars..... especially when it could have been avoided by just putting the phone in the glovebox & not touching it. Whoever is calling you is not that important. They can wait until you get to your destination.
>>>Just because the people from the States are weird, please don't group the rest of us in with them.
Nice insult. Well take this: Canada == United States part 2. Or == Future States 51,52,53,54....
Just joking.;-) Actually we don't want the eastern half of Canada. Just the parts west of Ontario where people still embrace and understand the meaning of freedom (and minimal government). I hear a lot of westerners bitching about Ottawa taxing them to death, and spending the money on building mega-bridges across the P.E.I. straits, which of course doesn't do anything for the folks living in Alberta. So it shouldn't be hard to convince them to join the U.S. where taxation is about 10% lower.
We are a representative Republic, which is strictly limited in scope by its National and State Constitutions. The reason why the American Founders chose to confine this republic by a Constitution was because they were fearful of the government. They had just kicked-over one tyrannical government that had no limits on its power, and they didn't want to replace it with another one with no limits on its power. Therefore they created a Republic that is circumscribed and confined by the People's Constitution(s).
Also you're wrong when you say the U.S. Constitution can not be modified.
It was modified 10 times before the ink was even dry on the page. And 17 more times after that. It was *meant* to be modified as required, in order to keep it up to date... including a new amendment to provide Uncle Sam Healthcare, if that's what the People desire. There is no reason to ignore this process.
Wow you love those strawman arguments don't you? "Are you saying....." No I am not saying that, and if I had meant to say such a thing, I would have said it.
NO I do not think every federal law needs to be in the constitution, but every federal law does have to be approved BY the Constitution. That's why the Constitution exists - to specify precisely what the U.S. Congress can do. Or as the author of the document, James Madison said so eloquently: "The Government is a limited one, possessing enumerated powers." For example if Congress passed a law to take-over all newspapers, radio stations, and websites, clearly this would be unconstitutional because Congress was never granted the power to operate any of those things. That is a non-enumerated power.
>>>Why should health care reform have to be a Constitutional amendment unless it conflicts...? >>>
It DOES conflict with something in the Constitution. QUOTE: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States..." That's plain English and very clear. The power has not been granted to the U.S. therefore it is reserved to the States..... just the same way the EU government could not create a central healthcare system, because the EU was never granted that power. It's reserved to the states.
If you want to give the US/EU central government the power to run a central healthcare system, then it has to come from the member states... from the bottom up. By amendment.
Slashdot Mirror
>>>The idea is that in debate the two lawyers fighting for each side eventually the law will come through.
Is that what happened in the 130 million dollar Microsoft v. Aussie inventor verdict, but then was overturned by a judge simply by saying "this jury was stupid"? I completely and totally disagree with you. The Law exist to serve the people. If the people can not understand it, how are they supposed to obey it and avoid getting jailed?
Thomas Jefferson was correct - write the laws in plain english so the ultimate authority, the people, can understand them.
We're not really talking about writing to cover various loopholes. We're talking about writing in plain English, instead of jargon such as "the party of the first part and the party of the second part, on the first day of the seventh month of the procedural year (as defined in section 2.13.2) will be required..."
They could just say, "Party 1 and party 2 on July 1 of 2013 will..."
Lawyers write in complex language because it's job security... you can't read the law yourself; you have to hire a lawyer to translate. It's approximately-equivalent to a programmer who writes code that may be "brilliant" and work, but only he knows how to debug it or update it. I say we put-aside the jargon and demand that the law be written in 6th grade English. It can be as long as required to cover loopholes, but the average person with a 6th grade education ought to be able to read a sentence and understand what he just wrote.
A lot of times the judges don't understand the complicated language either, which simply makes it easier to twist the words into whatever the judge wants it to say.
I think Thomas Jefferson had it correct when he said, if the people cannot read the laws, how are they supposed to obey them? Therefore he advised putting them in plain English, just as the Constitutions are written.
Also when they do refer to the bill, they do so in a dishonest fashion. When our president said "Does not provide coverage for illegal residents," and some guy yelled "You lie", the congress persons and other media commentators immediately looked at the bill and said, "Right here - will not cover illegal immigrants."
Yes it does say that. What it did NOT say, which nobody realized until about a week later, is that patients were not required to show any ID. The bill as written allowed people to simply walk into a hospital and demand healthcare, whether they were american, illegal residents, or foreign tourists just dropping-in for a visit.
This bill just like the Patriot Act has a lot of loopholes and flaws, which will only be discovered later, after it's passed. And when the Congressperson says, "I didn't know that was in there," they should be immediately voted out.
I suspect ACORN, SEIU, and the other organizations/lawyers that are actually writing these bills probably do use version control - they simply don't share them with the congresscritters, because they would not understand how to use it.
As long as people walk into the voting booth going, "I have no idea who to vote for. I'll just vote for the name I recognize," politicians will sit in office for year-after-year. I suspect this is how we end-up with these lousy politicians like Conyers, who never bother to read the bills, and who should be kicked-out. We should be encouraging people NOT to vote if they have absolutely no clue what they are doing. i.e. Don't vote just for the sake of voting.
This is what I did in the last election - I voted for my president, my senators/congressman, and then saw a whole bunch of names for lower-level people I never heard of. Rather than make a random guess, as many voters do, I just left that part of the ballot blank. Sometimes a non-vote is better than just putting the previous bum back into office.
Hearing that number "64" makes me happy for some reason. :-)
Someone please explain why it's soooo important that we upgrade from 32 to 64 bit processors. What does 64-bit give us that we didn't have with 32-bit CPUs? (I have a 64-bit Nintendo64, but don't see it as any better than my 32-bit Gamecube or Wii.)
What are you talking about? 486s run nice and cool. You need to upgrade to at least a Pentium if you want to keep your hands warm (or fry an egg).
>>>Drudge is political bullshit
So it's like CNN and MSNBC
>>>31.914893617021276595744680851064
So about 800*32 == 25,000 miles of rail. I'm sure that will really make a dent on our 4,000,000 miles of highways and reduce car congestion by a an amazing 0.6%. (rolls eyes).
>>>So they died-out, similar to how newspapers are dying out today.
P.S.
Railroads are to cars in the 1930s, as newspapers are to websites today. The old outdated technology was/is replaced by the newer, more convenient technology.
>>>it's all the overhead it takes to support the roadways.
Supporting railways has FAR more overhead. Laying the rails for one thing, and maintaining them. Second there's the lost time of having people standing-around waiting for the damn train. My boss spend 1.5 hours on his train commute; I only take 45 minutes. Waiting time == non-productive time. And finally because there's no station anywhere near most people homes (I have to walk an hour to get to my station), you have to figure out how to get the people to the train, which is even more overhead to add to the trains' cost.
And then there's the scalability problem. I-95 started as a four lane road, and now in some parts it's 12 lanes wide, so it's increased its capacity by three. You can't do the same with railways - people could kill themselves tripping over the rails when trying to board the train.
And finally look at history:
Our ancestors had a network of rails all over the U.S. which acted as the backbone of the nation during the 1800s and early 1900s. Then in the 1930 and 40s they abandoned them. Why? If rails had been superior then the railroad companies, being the dominant industry of that time, would have killed the car in its infancy. They failed because even though the rail companies were rich and could have squashed the carmakers, they were horribly inconvenient to use. So they died-out, similar to how newspapers are dying out today.
>>>Apparently that was too complicated for you.
Apparently you still can't read. What part of this phrase did you not comprehend? "...could even be made environmentally-friendly by designating the new I-3 for hybrids and electrics only." So that kills your objection to using cars for transport.
BTW electric trains are not as clean as everyone believes, even in California, since most of your power is imported from coal-burning states like Nevada and Utah, and coal is extremely dirty. I know that's a difficult fact to swallow, but there it is. (See this why even though I'm an environmentalist who drives an 80mpg hybrid, I rarely hang-out with my colleagues. It's impossible to talk to them rationally or logically, because they refuse to accept the basic facts.)
>>>All budgets in California must (1) be balanced, and (2) be passed by a super-majority.
I fail to see the drawback. A government that has to work within its means (like citizens do every day) sounds as close to perfect as one can get. I wish my government had similar restrictions, because I'm tired of mailing them ~$8000 checks every April 15th (plus another $4000 in property/school taxes). That check keeps getting bigger year-after-year, because the politicians spend money like teenagers with credit cards. They have no self-discipline.
On 9/11 I watched the television in shock. On 9/12 I said, "If we go to war over this, it will be a mistake. We should rebuild the damaged buildings, and focus on tighter borders so the enemies can't get in. A war will be a waste of both lives and dollars, and make us no better than the terrorists."
I was right. Our country would be about 1 trillion dollars richer now, and at peace instead of war. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
"Warned them, I did, but nobody listens to poor Zathras."
My boss tried to convince me to do my daily commute "because a bunch of us all ride together and it's lots of fun" (picture in your mind the guy from the Office). He then described how he leaves home at 6 am by car, hops on the train, and then takes the company van from the local station to arrive at work at 7:30.
I didn't say anything but smile, because my commute by car is only 45 minutes. It's also probably a lot cheaper... about $3.50 gasoline with my Honda Insight. Doing what my boss suggests would be a downgrade.
>>>High speed trains don't burn gasoline
Apparently you didn't read the phrase "energy equivalence" . Trains have the same energy equivalence as 25 people-miles per gallon of gasoline.
>>Well the $4.7 billion would come from our [communist Chinese buddies overseas].
Fixed.
So this bullet train that covers 800 miles will carry how many of California's population each year? 0.1%? Yeah that's a wise investment of non-existent american dollars. Wouldn't it make more sense to lay-down an I-3 to run semi-parallel to I-5, and thereby carry any excess traffic between these two cities? It would be far cheaper, far more flexible in design (cars aren't tied to rails), use existing equipment (cars and macadam and road signs and lighting), and could even be made environmentally-friendly by designating the new I-3 "for hybrids or electrics only".
Also before someone jumps on the "Trains are more efficent" bandwagon:
- The national average for cars is approximately 25 miles per gallon
- The national average for passenger trains is the same energy equivalence (25 people-miles per gallon).
- So if you simply upgrade your car to a hybrid (40-70mpg), then you are more-efficient than a passenger train. Or if you carpool and carry a passenger, your car's efficiency jumps to 50 people-miles per gallon.... again more efficient than a passenger train.
(dons kevlar shield) I'm about to get flamed for what I just said.
It's similar to how Christians used to burn witches.
I have a PS2 and never have to recharge the controllers.
>>>75% efficiency is perfectly acceptable for low power devices.
Then how come the EU and U.S. are banning incandescent bulbs? The latest prototypes using laser-carved filaments operate at just 20 watts, and make the same light as a 15 watt compact fluorescent light. So that's what? 75% efficiency? And yet this is considered unacceptable by the politicians.
I say, if the bulbs are banned for inefficiency, then so too should these over-the-air power transmissions (for the same reason).
Probably because listening to my radio doesn't require fiddling with buttons. Also I can tune-out the radio, whereas tuning-out my wife during a cell call might lead to divorce. Simply put - It isn't the same thing. Conversations are more distracting, and it has been shown that texting causes FAR more accidents than the radio or other distractions..... even more accidents than drunk driving.
Also I've seen people drive directly through red lights. They saw the light, but they were talking-up a storm on their phone and it never registered in their brain. ZOOM they went through the light nearly hitting other people in the process. DON'T sit there and tell me that's not a dangerous situation requiring immediate prohibition of phones.
One more thing
- I think you are an arrogant man. For you (or anyone else on this thread) to sit there and justify your cellphone use while driving, makes me hope you spend your last minute sizzling on an electric chair. I know that's mean, but I HATE murderers who kill people with their cars..... especially when it could have been avoided by just putting the phone in the glovebox & not touching it. Whoever is calling you is not that important. They can wait until you get to your destination.
>>>Just because the people from the States are weird, please don't group the rest of us in with them.
Nice insult. Well take this:
Canada == United States part 2.
Or == Future States 51,52,53,54....
Just joking. ;-) Actually we don't want the eastern half of Canada. Just the parts west of Ontario where people still embrace and understand the meaning of freedom (and minimal government). I hear a lot of westerners bitching about Ottawa taxing them to death, and spending the money on building mega-bridges across the P.E.I. straits, which of course doesn't do anything for the folks living in Alberta. So it shouldn't be hard to convince them to join the U.S. where taxation is about 10% lower.
(ducks a spitball)
I see your mistake. We're not a democracy.
We are a representative Republic, which is strictly limited in scope by its National and State Constitutions. The reason why the American Founders chose to confine this republic by a Constitution was because they were fearful of the government. They had just kicked-over one tyrannical government that had no limits on its power, and they didn't want to replace it with another one with no limits on its power. Therefore they created a Republic that is circumscribed and confined by the People's Constitution(s).
Also you're wrong when you say the U.S. Constitution can not be modified.
It was modified 10 times before the ink was even dry on the page. And 17 more times after that. It was *meant* to be modified as required, in order to keep it up to date... including a new amendment to provide Uncle Sam Healthcare, if that's what the People desire. There is no reason to ignore this process.
Wow you love those strawman arguments don't you?
"Are you saying....." No I am not saying that,
and if I had meant to say such a thing,
I would have said it.
NO I do not think every federal law needs to be in the constitution, but every federal law does have to be approved BY the Constitution. That's why the Constitution exists - to specify precisely what the U.S. Congress can do. Or as the author of the document, James Madison said so eloquently: "The Government is a limited one, possessing enumerated powers." For example if Congress passed a law to take-over all newspapers, radio stations, and websites, clearly this would be unconstitutional because Congress was never granted the power to operate any of those things. That is a non-enumerated power.
>>>Why should health care reform have to be a Constitutional amendment unless it conflicts...?
>>>
It DOES conflict with something in the Constitution. QUOTE: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States..." That's plain English and very clear. The power has not been granted to the U.S. therefore it is reserved to the States..... just the same way the EU government could not create a central healthcare system, because the EU was never granted that power. It's reserved to the states.
If you want to give the US/EU central government the power to run a central healthcare system, then it has to come from the member states... from the bottom up. By amendment.