VAFB has published information on unclassified launches on their website already. All the website talks about is what places are good to watch said launches from, what to look for, what laucnhes look most impressive, and what to bring. This is sensitive how?
Or I guess you didn't RTFA.
Re:Nuclear energy works!
on
China Goes Nuclear
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I think you're mischaracterizing things a little bit. Without reprocessing, typical reactor fuel waste is only 10x as radioactive as the original fuel after 300 years or so. Active cooling in most scenarios is required for 100 years or less, and outages of a few weeks can be tolerated because of the thermal inertia available in most storage facilities.
you need to put it somewhere where it's pretty likely to stay undisturbed for 50000 years or thereabouts, which, while probably possible, is not all that easy, especially with the special handling it needs at every stage.
I agree keeping the waste secured for 10000+ years is nice, as that's the timeframe necessary to end up with waste that's less hot than the input fuel. However, it is not a necessary condition for it to be safer than other methods of energy production (including their fuel cycle). And most of the long-term repository solutions I've seen, like Yucca Mountain, don't involve continuing to handle the fuel after it's stored. You stick it in its containers, put the containers in place, attach the drip covers, and provide electrical power to the fans for 60 years, and that's it, basically. (Though if you wanted to maximize the repository capacity, after the waste has cooled some you could place it closer together). And the geologic barriers alone are likely to provide protection for the water table in excess of 10,000 years, not counting all the manmade mechanisms that are being put in place.
Reprocessing makes things much better, as the "seriously nasty high level waste" also has very short half-lives by definition. With reprocessing, your waste very small in quantity and actually comparably radioactive to the fuel within that 300 year period. But I worry about the chance of proliferation from reprocessing.
No, the magnetos are considerably simpler than an alternator.. It's basically a generator (no field coil energization required to get power out) and a distributor in one.
And it would take one heck of an electromagnetic pulse to induce a current anywhere comparable to what the magnetos are already generating.
It would take nearly as big of an EMP to screw up an alternator itself too, though on modern ones the voltage regulator would be vulnerable since they're all solid state and have relatively small wirebonds.
Granted the Itanium is still "alphaware" and who knows when it will have a full release
What are you talking about? Itaniums have been shipping since May/June 2001, and the Itanium II came out July-August 2002. You can buy one today. So it's pretty well known what's in Itanium and that it's faster for floating point than AMD64 (though not more cost effective, except for certain very high-end computing loads).
I think you're a tinfoil-hat type, but there's one point in particular I'd like to address.
For example it is quite possible powerful people could lay there hands on an EMP weapon that would be more than capable of downing a small plane without leaving a trace.
I'm just curious, as a pilot, how an EMP would down a plane? Certainly it could cause the loss of radionavigation which would cause pilots to call off an approach (though this is far from certain); but basic instruments and engine power rarely depend on electronics (and they don't in the King Air unless you add aftermarket STC'd digital engine controls).
Sure, it would burden the flight crew and create an urgency situation-- but if I were trying to down an aircraft, it's not exactly the way I'd try-- overwhelming probability is the flight crew would make it.
And you're dumb. He's quoting from a survey with 956,900 samples, of which 58,022 are 'ATI Radeon 9600 Series', and 46,770 have a 9800. So his numbers form an acceptable lower bound saying there's at least 46000+58000 coupons out there. Not counting the fact that A) not everyone in the world participated in the survey, and B) other cards contained coupons.
Oh, I'm sure we have applicable laws. We have so many laws, even you might not be safe from arrest if we choose.
Ah, after you mock me for the whole slippery slope argument, you invoke it on the other side. cute.
Please don't get me wrong. I think the guy's message and method of delivery kind of sucks. It can be annoying, but so can listening to talk radio. It's just that by incarcerating a geek on a chalk spraying bike, you're setting a bad precident by making a criminal case over something that is really quite insignificant.
Sure, but I can't exactly force you to listen to talk radio-- but by scrawling stuff on public land you can force me to look at it.
If this form of message writing became more common, then, and only then, would I feel it would be justified to classify this nuisance worthy of prosecution.
Impromptu markings and advertisements on public thoroughfares are already major nusiances in public areas in major cities. I'd rather not have to enumerate each and every way the markings can be made in the laws.
Well, in this case, it melts away when it rains, it's not on the sidewalk
Wow, I guess you didn't watch the video clip. It's on the sidewalk, and it's using the chalk you use to mark athletic fields, which is a bit more robust than sidewalk chalk. In fact, I have landscapers working in my yard right now, and they're using the exact same stuff to mark things.. they've hosed down my yard a couple times since they put the last marks in, it's been a week or so, and I still can see the chalk.. I assume it's even worse at coming off concrete than it is on permeable dirt.
A car, for example, is taxed when it is registered, not when it's bought.
Well, it's usually taxed at both times, though you can deduct the tax you paid in the state of origin-- so you get the worst of the two tax rates.
As for all the stuff on those pages you linked to, that doesn't indicate the rate at which different earners are taxed. It just shows what the burden is per capita in each state.
Sure, and using simple mathematics we can figure out what I said-- that even if ALL the state taxes are equally divided among individuals, the lower 50% of wage earners pay a tiny fraction of the tax. Though it appears I flubbed my math last night.
See, the lower 50% of wage earners pay 4% of the income tax-- that's 4% of $7286 for 50% of the people, or $583 per capita. Add in the state taxes at $3676 per capita (assuming they pay the same as the rich, which is BS, since most of the money comes from a progressive income tax), and you have the lower 50% paying a total of $4259. $10962 is collected per capita, so the lower 50% of wage earners would be paying 33.5% of the tax.
This is really generous assumptions. If we break things out further, and assume that the state income tax proportions are similar to the federal ones (which is highly generous given the California income tax system), the poor's income tax falls by $1289 *.92 = $1186, leaving it at $3073, or 28% of the tax burden. This is still assuming that the lower 50% of wage earners pay their per capita share of property tax, sales tax, and corporate taxes, which is ridiculous. If you discount the rest of the taxes just by a factor of 2 (which, considering that many necessities like groceries aren't subject to sales tax, poor people have less disposable income to spend on taxable things, and that most of the poor don't own land), you come up with a total tax burden of 15% for the lower 50% of wage earners in California.
Sorry that it has to be done this way, but I'm aware of no statistical abstracts that actually break down the precise numbers. I think I've pretty convincingly shown that it's under 20%, though.
All of this even ignores things like AMT, which prevents upper wage earners from deducting state taxes from their federal tax returns.
builds his house outside the city limits to avoid paying property tax
And still has to pay for the school district his property is undoubtedly within, and doesn't receive city services like police or fire protection. Sounds fair to me.
He buys his expensive cars and such across state lines so he doesn't pay sales tax.
This doesn't work-- I really wish it did. But almost all states have use tax tied to car registration. And if you try to avoid taxes this way, you can go to jail (witness the problems Kozlowski of Tyco is experiencing).
So, no, I don't believe that the lower 50% of taxpayers pay under 4% of all income tax.
Well, the Congressional Budget Office as cited by the National Taxpayers Union thinks so. Sure, if you count state and local taxes, in addition to the income tax and FICA, you'll come up with a little more than 4%.
But to take an example, my state (California) has a really high tax burden, at $3676 per capita. California residents pay $7286 per capita in income tax. Even if all of the state tax was equally divided over all California citizens, the lower 50% of wage earners would pay 19.4% of the combined state and federal tax burden. And of course, most of this money is raised in a highly-progressive income tax (even more so than the federal income tax), rich people tend to pay more per capita in property tax because they tend to have more property.. and they tend to buy more stuff to pay sales tax on, etc etc etc.
I beg to differ. I'm pretty beat after just 5 miles, and quite frankly the argument is entirely subjective.
*shrug* Poor you. I'm in poor shape lately, but I can go 15MPH for a long time; certainly several hours on flat ground. But I come from a long tradition of distance runners. I have no idea how frequently you'd need to change th chalk, though.
It's a guy on a novelty bike. Let him have his 15 minutes. The cost and inconvenience is less than that created by a political martyr.
Later, when all the copycat knockoff chalkwriters run amuck, then place an ordinance into effect that bans the use of chalk on public property.
The neat thing is, we already have applicable laws and ordnances; so we can go ahead and enforce things now if we choose. If you really care, craft an explicit exemption for children in residential neighborhoods-- but right now common sense in enforcement seems to be working just fine.
It's not legal for you to stick political stickers on public property-- so why should you be able to draw political statements on the sidewalk? If you really want to get your message to get out, hold a sign. You have no first amendment right to plaster your message everywhere just because it's public property. You can post your message as a sign on your own property, you can carry a sign, you can explain your views to people willing to listen, you can use communications networks and the mail, you can rent space for ads-- but you can't alter common, public areas to carry your message unattended for several weeks. Is this really so bad?
And libel is not a criminal offense in most states-- hence my comment about commercial damages.
To be honest, I really hate brief political speech of the type you're talking about. A short tagline of "BUSH 2004" or whatever, or a political sign somewhere, or whatever is not a substantive argument; it's not likely to convince anyone (maybe a sea of them will flip someone who likes to join on the bandwagon), and it doesn't contribute to having an informed electorate. It's pretty sad that "political speech" too often of late means "cute taglines for the unwashed masses" and not rational political arguments.
I live in a small town south of San Jose, California. And things aren't downright plastered. There's the occasional (almost always) illegal sign for housing developments, the signs on retail centers and other businesses, and a couple billboards. Local laws and codes are relatively prohibitive about that kind of thing, and I like it that way.
(Of course, the prohibitiveness does affect me a little bit-- I can't paint my house bright orange or leave my garage door open all the time because of the CC&R's in my development; but at the same time I'm glad my neighbors can't do the same)
No person shall write, paint or draw any inscription, figure or mark of any type on any public or private building
Read the section title again:
Defacement of property, possession, sale and display of aerosol spray paint cans, [and] broad tipped markers and etching acid prohibited in certain instances
The section starts off talking about any type of marking and defacement, and then moves on to talk about posession, sale, and display of paint cans, markers, and acid. Please note that subsection a says nothing about how the inscription, figure, or mark is made.
a. No person shall write, paint or draw any inscription, figure or mark of any type on any public or private building or other structure or any other real or personal property owned, operated or maintained by a public benefit corporation, the city of New York or any agency or instrumentality thereof or by any person, firm, or corporation, or any personal property maintained on a city street or other city-owned property pursuant to a franchise, concession or revocable consent granted by the city, unless the express permission of the owner or operator of the property has been obtained.
b. No person shall carry an aerosol spray paint can, [or] broad tipped indelible marker or etching acid into any public building or other public facility with the intent to violate the provisions of subdivision a of this section.
c. No person shall sell or offer to sell an aerosol spray paint can, [or] broad tipped indelible marker or etching acid to any person under eighteen years of age.
d. All persons who sell or offer for sale aerosol spray paint cans, [or] broad tipped indelible markers or etching acid shall not place such cans, [or] markers or etching acid on display and may display only facsimiles of such cans, [or] markers or etching acid containing no paint, [or] ink or etching acid.
I think damages occur regardless. It's really easy for a person to ride a bike 20 miles and tag up 200 blocks worth of sidewalk-- this is quite a bit different from a child drawing with chalk and not running into enforcement.
A) the child hopefully is using the chalk close to his home and not impacting other people unduly with his actions.
B) the child certainly isn't polluting that much area with text.
The fact is, if the sidewalks are made into an acceptable place for commercial and political speech, 'everyone' WILL do it. It's pretty cheap to tag up public property compared to other means of advertising. And I think we get enough advertising as it is. If some protestor wants to stand out holding a sign, that's fine. But they have no right to mark up public property.
Sure, there are differences between municipalities and other corporations under the law. The law does recognize a city as a special kind of corporation with special legal rights. Nonetheless, the city is an artificial 'person', or legal entity, and hence able to do lots of other things that the law enables 'persons' to do, like sue, be sued, enter into contracts, etc. If what you're saying is true, and 'person' doesn't apply to the city, then I guess the uniform commercial code, etc, doesn't apply.
I mean, you clearly haven't read law much if you think 'person' means a living, breathing person. For instance, witness how the UCC defines bank: "Bank" means any person engaged in the business of banking.
Some additional New York law:
Chapter 24, article 1: S 2. Definitions. The term "municipal corporation, " as used in this chapter, includes only a county, town, city and village. The term "governing board" includes the board of supervisors of a county, the town board of a town, the common council of a city, and the board of trustees of a village.
This definition occurs all over the place: "Person" means an individual, partnership, corporation or any other legal or commercial entity.
Do you retract your statement that the no advertising law doesn't apply yet?
I also guess you wouldn't mind me chalking on your sidewalk "a child molestor lives here" with an arrow to your house, or would want to approach any damages from that purely in civil court, as well.
A child playing hopscotch is given wide leeway under graffiti laws because A) there's no one complaining, and B) the property owners (parents of the child) are the people who deal with the impact to public property. I'm fairly sure if I was genuinely offended by the chalk walks on my sidewalk and called police, they'd tell the kids in the neighborhood to stop; and if it continued, eventually take action. Sure, everyone would think I'm an asshole, but I could get the law enforced. I would not like to see my city's downtown plastered in commercial or political speech, though.
A city is a corporation, and hence a person. S-145.30 applies. Or should commercial speech be permitted by people spraying chalk on the streets? According to you, since it's public property it's OK.
damage n. Harm or injury to property or a person, resulting in loss of value or the impairment of usefulness.
I think there's a small amount of harm I incur by things posted in places where they shouldn't be-- whether it's stuff scrawled in chalk or illegally placed stickers. It clutters up the way my city looks and lowers my quality of life a bit. Can't you see that if everyone were allowed to do it qualifty of life would suffer?
I'm sure it'd be no damage if I come and scrawl some political speech on your house in chalk, right?
My point at the end was about enforcement, not the actual letter of the law. Surely you can see a difference and a reason why law enforcement officers might choose not to enforce laws about graffiti on parts of public property near a house, when children have drawn things in a temporary fashion, but also decide to enforce them on a busy thoroughfare?
You ignored much of the parent's post, and played word games yourself. The lower 50% of taxpayers (hardly the 'poor') pay under 4% of the income tax, not even 17%, according to the parent's link.
In general, the poor pay even less property tax proportionally than income tax; though it is true that sales taxes have greater impact. I haven't been able to find a good paper on total tax burden broken down by income; but I'd really be surprised if the lowest 50% of wage earners pay more than 20% of taxes; I've been on both sides of the tax spectrum and income tax was the most significant tax in each case.
New York State penal code: S 145.30 Unlawfully posting advertisements.
1. A person is guilty of unlawfully posting advertisements when, having no right to do so nor any reasonable ground to believe that he has such right, he posts, paints or otherwise affixes to the property of another person any advertisement, poster, notice or other matter designed to benefit a person other than the owner of the property.
2. Where such matter consists of a commercial advertisement, it shall be presumed that the vendor of the specified product, service or entertainment is a person who placed such advertisement or caused it to be placed upon the property.
Unlawfully posting advertisements is a violation.
New York City:
10-117. Defacement of property, possession, sale and display of aerosol spray paint cans, [and] broad tipped markers and etching acid prohibited in certain instances.
a. No person shall write, paint or draw any inscription, figure or mark of any type on any public or private building or other structure or any other real or personal property owned, operated or maintained by a public benefit corporation, the city of New York or any agency or instrumentality thereof or by any person, firm, or corporation, or any personal property maintained on a city street or other city-owned property pursuant to a franchise, concession or revocable consent granted by the city, unless the express permission of the owner or operator of the property has been obtained.
This is more strict than state law on graffiti, which requires intent to damage.
S 145.60 Making graffiti.
1. For purposes of this section, the term "graffiti" shall mean the etching, painting, covering, drawing upon or otherwise placing of a mark upon public or private property with intent to damage such property.
2. No person shall make graffiti of any type on any building, public or private, or any other property real or personal owned by any person, firm or corporation or any public agency or instrumentality, without theexpress permission of the owner or operator of said property.
Making graffiti is a class A misdemeanor.
And to everyone who talks about kids drawing hopscotch squares around, I say it's apples and oranges. While kids might be technically in violation for drawing squares by their home, it's altogether different to spray stuff all over public thoroughfares by an automated graffiti bicycle, whether it's painting hopscotch squares, advertisements, gang tags, or political speech.
Wrong. All you need to do is open a wsz file in order to get exploited-- subsequent network access isn't required. And internet explorer is happy to auto-open that wsz file for you.
Notice he said "up until the g4 version of the macintosh".
His point was there are several other choices in keyboards made for Macintosh-- e.g. Macintosh keyboards. Like Kensingonhasa few, for example. In this case, like many of the keyboards he linked, they're USB. But they have a command key.
Likewise, many generic USB keyboards are usable on mac. Many have magic keystrokes that will turn the windows key or alt into the command key.
Nope, the justifcation for copyrights has nothing to do with economics. It's purely an academic consideration.
Copyright exists to promote progress in the arts and sciences, yes, via an economic incentive-- exclusive rights to those who create for a limited time.
The Soviets did it on Zond 6 (part of the Lunar L1 program), and it was heavily studied for Apollo and subsequent vehicles. Peak heating is lower than other entry methods, but only slightly, and the degree of precision required for the same ultimate landing position accuracy is much higher.
On November 6, 1968 a Proton rocket launched Zond 6 to within 2420 km of the Moon's surface. Cameras aboard photographed the Earth rising over the bleak lunar terrain; however, on the way back a gasket failed which would have killed any cosmonauts on board. Zond 6 performed a complex skip maneuver, decelerating to 7.6 km/sec over India then skipping back into space and landing in the Soviet Union. The parachute failed during landing and, once again, any human occupants would have perished. After this disaster, any thoughts of sending a cosmonaut to the Moon before January 1969 faded as Apollo 8 accomplished its historic lunar mission. There were three more Zond flights after Zond 6; a potential Zond failed on the 20th of January 1969 when its Proton booster failed. On August 8, 1969 after the successful Apollo 11, Zond 7 successfully orbited the Moon and returned. The last flight, Zond 8, was flown a little more than a year later successfully around the Moon, but landed in the Indian Ocean rather than back in Russia.
Slashdot Mirror
No it's not.
VAFB has published information on unclassified launches on their website already. All the website talks about is what places are good to watch said launches from, what to look for, what laucnhes look most impressive, and what to bring. This is sensitive how?
Or I guess you didn't RTFA.
I think you're mischaracterizing things a little bit. Without reprocessing, typical reactor fuel waste is only 10x as radioactive as the original fuel after 300 years or so. Active cooling in most scenarios is required for 100 years or less, and outages of a few weeks can be tolerated because of the thermal inertia available in most storage facilities.
you need to put it somewhere where it's pretty likely to stay undisturbed for 50000 years or thereabouts, which, while probably possible, is not all that easy, especially with the special handling it needs at every stage.
I agree keeping the waste secured for 10000+ years is nice, as that's the timeframe necessary to end up with waste that's less hot than the input fuel. However, it is not a necessary condition for it to be safer than other methods of energy production (including their fuel cycle). And most of the long-term repository solutions I've seen, like Yucca Mountain, don't involve continuing to handle the fuel after it's stored. You stick it in its containers, put the containers in place, attach the drip covers, and provide electrical power to the fans for 60 years, and that's it, basically. (Though if you wanted to maximize the repository capacity, after the waste has cooled some you could place it closer together). And the geologic barriers alone are likely to provide protection for the water table in excess of 10,000 years, not counting all the manmade mechanisms that are being put in place.
Reprocessing makes things much better, as the "seriously nasty high level waste" also has very short half-lives by definition. With reprocessing, your waste very small in quantity and actually comparably radioactive to the fuel within that 300 year period. But I worry about the chance of proliferation from reprocessing.
I don't see any home addresses, phone numbers, etc. in that list. Where is it?
One other small point-- the King Air is a turboprop, so it doesn't have magnetos; it's a jet engine turning a prop.
No, the magnetos are considerably simpler than an alternator.. It's basically a generator (no field coil energization required to get power out) and a distributor in one.
And it would take one heck of an electromagnetic pulse to induce a current anywhere comparable to what the magnetos are already generating.
It would take nearly as big of an EMP to screw up an alternator itself too, though on modern ones the voltage regulator would be vulnerable since they're all solid state and have relatively small wirebonds.
Granted the Itanium is still "alphaware" and who knows when it will have a full release
What are you talking about? Itaniums have been shipping since May/June 2001, and the Itanium II came out July-August 2002. You can buy one today. So it's pretty well known what's in Itanium and that it's faster for floating point than AMD64 (though not more cost effective, except for certain very high-end computing loads).
I think you're a tinfoil-hat type, but there's one point in particular I'd like to address.
For example it is quite possible powerful people could lay there hands on an EMP weapon that would be more than capable of downing a small plane without leaving a trace.
I'm just curious, as a pilot, how an EMP would down a plane? Certainly it could cause the loss of radionavigation which would cause pilots to call off an approach (though this is far from certain); but basic instruments and engine power rarely depend on electronics (and they don't in the King Air unless you add aftermarket STC'd digital engine controls).
Sure, it would burden the flight crew and create an urgency situation-- but if I were trying to down an aircraft, it's not exactly the way I'd try-- overwhelming probability is the flight crew would make it.
And you're dumb. He's quoting from a survey with 956,900 samples, of which 58,022 are 'ATI Radeon 9600 Series', and 46,770 have a 9800. So his numbers form an acceptable lower bound saying there's at least 46000+58000 coupons out there. Not counting the fact that A) not everyone in the world participated in the survey, and B) other cards contained coupons.
Oh, I'm sure we have applicable laws. We have so many laws, even you might not be safe from arrest if we choose.
Ah, after you mock me for the whole slippery slope argument, you invoke it on the other side. cute.
Please don't get me wrong. I think the guy's message and method of delivery kind of sucks. It can be annoying, but so can listening to talk radio. It's just that by incarcerating a geek on a chalk spraying bike, you're setting a bad precident by making a criminal case over something that is really quite insignificant.
Sure, but I can't exactly force you to listen to talk radio-- but by scrawling stuff on public land you can force me to look at it.
If this form of message writing became more common, then, and only then, would I feel it would be justified to classify this nuisance worthy of prosecution.
Impromptu markings and advertisements on public thoroughfares are already major nusiances in public areas in major cities. I'd rather not have to enumerate each and every way the markings can be made in the laws.
Well, in this case, it melts away when it rains, it's not on the sidewalk
Wow, I guess you didn't watch the video clip. It's on the sidewalk, and it's using the chalk you use to mark athletic fields, which is a bit more robust than sidewalk chalk. In fact, I have landscapers working in my yard right now, and they're using the exact same stuff to mark things.. they've hosed down my yard a couple times since they put the last marks in, it's been a week or so, and I still can see the chalk.. I assume it's even worse at coming off concrete than it is on permeable dirt.
A car, for example, is taxed when it is registered, not when it's bought.
.92 = $1186, leaving it at $3073, or 28% of the tax burden. This is still assuming that the lower 50% of wage earners pay their per capita share of property tax, sales tax, and corporate taxes, which is ridiculous. If you discount the rest of the taxes just by a factor of 2 (which, considering that many necessities like groceries aren't subject to sales tax, poor people have less disposable income to spend on taxable things, and that most of the poor don't own land), you come up with a total tax burden of 15% for the lower 50% of wage earners in California.
Well, it's usually taxed at both times, though you can deduct the tax you paid in the state of origin-- so you get the worst of the two tax rates.
As for all the stuff on those pages you linked to, that doesn't indicate the rate at which different earners are taxed. It just shows what the burden is per capita in each state.
Sure, and using simple mathematics we can figure out what I said-- that even if ALL the state taxes are equally divided among individuals, the lower 50% of wage earners pay a tiny fraction of the tax. Though it appears I flubbed my math last night.
See, the lower 50% of wage earners pay 4% of the income tax-- that's 4% of $7286 for 50% of the people, or $583 per capita. Add in the state taxes at $3676 per capita (assuming they pay the same as the rich, which is BS, since most of the money comes from a progressive income tax), and you have the lower 50% paying a total of $4259. $10962 is collected per capita, so the lower 50% of wage earners would be paying 33.5% of the tax.
This is really generous assumptions. If we break things out further, and assume that the state income tax proportions are similar to the federal ones (which is highly generous given the California income tax system), the poor's income tax falls by $1289 *
Sorry that it has to be done this way, but I'm aware of no statistical abstracts that actually break down the precise numbers. I think I've pretty convincingly shown that it's under 20%, though.
All of this even ignores things like AMT, which prevents upper wage earners from deducting state taxes from their federal tax returns.
builds his house outside the city limits to avoid paying property tax
And still has to pay for the school district his property is undoubtedly within, and doesn't receive city services like police or fire protection. Sounds fair to me.
He buys his expensive cars and such across state lines so he doesn't pay sales tax.
This doesn't work-- I really wish it did. But almost all states have use tax tied to car registration. And if you try to avoid taxes this way, you can go to jail (witness the problems Kozlowski of Tyco is experiencing).
So, no, I don't believe that the lower 50% of taxpayers pay under 4% of all income tax.
Well, the Congressional Budget Office as cited by the National Taxpayers Union thinks so. Sure, if you count state and local taxes, in addition to the income tax and FICA, you'll come up with a little more than 4%.
But to take an example, my state (California) has a really high tax burden, at $3676 per capita. California residents pay $7286 per capita in income tax. Even if all of the state tax was equally divided over all California citizens, the lower 50% of wage earners would pay 19.4% of the combined state and federal tax burden. And of course, most of this money is raised in a highly-progressive income tax (even more so than the federal income tax), rich people tend to pay more per capita in property tax because they tend to have more property.. and they tend to buy more stuff to pay sales tax on, etc etc etc.
Sources:
Federal tax burden and expenditures by state
Tax Foundation's sunmmary of California tax burden
I beg to differ. I'm pretty beat after just 5 miles, and quite frankly the argument is entirely subjective.
*shrug* Poor you. I'm in poor shape lately, but I can go 15MPH for a long time; certainly several hours on flat ground. But I come from a long tradition of distance runners. I have no idea how frequently you'd need to change th chalk, though.
It's a guy on a novelty bike. Let him have his 15 minutes. The cost and inconvenience is less than that created by a political martyr.
Later, when all the copycat knockoff chalkwriters run amuck, then place an ordinance into effect that bans the use of chalk on public property.
The neat thing is, we already have applicable laws and ordnances; so we can go ahead and enforce things now if we choose. If you really care, craft an explicit exemption for children in residential neighborhoods-- but right now common sense in enforcement seems to be working just fine.
It's not legal for you to stick political stickers on public property-- so why should you be able to draw political statements on the sidewalk? If you really want to get your message to get out, hold a sign. You have no first amendment right to plaster your message everywhere just because it's public property. You can post your message as a sign on your own property, you can carry a sign, you can explain your views to people willing to listen, you can use communications networks and the mail, you can rent space for ads-- but you can't alter common, public areas to carry your message unattended for several weeks. Is this really so bad?
s/commercial damages/civil damages/;
As another poster has pointed out, that is libel
And libel is not a criminal offense in most states-- hence my comment about commercial damages.
To be honest, I really hate brief political speech of the type you're talking about. A short tagline of "BUSH 2004" or whatever, or a political sign somewhere, or whatever is not a substantive argument; it's not likely to convince anyone (maybe a sea of them will flip someone who likes to join on the bandwagon), and it doesn't contribute to having an informed electorate. It's pretty sad that "political speech" too often of late means "cute taglines for the unwashed masses" and not rational political arguments.
I live in a small town south of San Jose, California. And things aren't downright plastered. There's the occasional (almost always) illegal sign for housing developments, the signs on retail centers and other businesses, and a couple billboards. Local laws and codes are relatively prohibitive about that kind of thing, and I like it that way.
(Of course, the prohibitiveness does affect me a little bit-- I can't paint my house bright orange or leave my garage door open all the time because of the CC&R's in my development; but at the same time I'm glad my neighbors can't do the same)
No person shall write, paint or draw any inscription, figure or mark of any type on any public or private building
Read the section title again:
Defacement of property, possession, sale and display of aerosol spray paint cans, [and] broad tipped markers and etching acid prohibited in certain instances
The section starts off talking about any type of marking and defacement, and then moves on to talk about posession, sale, and display of paint cans, markers, and acid. Please note that subsection a says nothing about how the inscription, figure, or mark is made.
a. No person shall write, paint or draw any inscription, figure or mark of any type on any public or private building or other structure or any other real or personal property owned, operated or maintained by a public benefit corporation, the city of New York or any agency or instrumentality thereof or by any person, firm, or corporation, or any personal property maintained
on a city street or other city-owned property pursuant to a franchise, concession or revocable consent granted by the city, unless the express permission of the owner or operator of the property has been obtained.
b. No person shall carry an aerosol spray paint can, [or] broad tipped indelible marker or etching acid into any public building or other public facility with the intent to violate the provisions of subdivision a of this section.
c. No person shall sell or offer to sell an aerosol spray paint can, [or] broad tipped indelible marker or etching acid to any person under eighteen years of age.
d. All persons who sell or offer for sale aerosol spray paint cans, [or] broad tipped indelible markers or etching acid shall not place such cans, [or] markers or etching acid on display and may display only facsimiles of such cans, [or] markers or etching acid containing no paint, [or] ink or etching acid.
I think damages occur regardless. It's really easy for a person to ride a bike 20 miles and tag up 200 blocks worth of sidewalk-- this is quite a bit different from a child drawing with chalk and not running into enforcement.
A) the child hopefully is using the chalk close to his home and not impacting other people unduly with his actions.
B) the child certainly isn't polluting that much area with text.
The fact is, if the sidewalks are made into an acceptable place for commercial and political speech, 'everyone' WILL do it. It's pretty cheap to tag up public property compared to other means of advertising. And I think we get enough advertising as it is. If some protestor wants to stand out holding a sign, that's fine. But they have no right to mark up public property.
Sure, there are differences between municipalities and other corporations under the law. The law does recognize a city as a special kind of corporation with special legal rights. Nonetheless, the city is an artificial 'person', or legal entity, and hence able to do lots of other things that the law enables 'persons' to do, like sue, be sued, enter into contracts, etc. If what you're saying is true, and 'person' doesn't apply to the city, then I guess the uniform commercial code, etc, doesn't apply.
I mean, you clearly haven't read law much if you think 'person' means a living, breathing person. For instance, witness how the UCC defines bank: "Bank" means any person engaged in the business of banking.
Some additional New York law:
Chapter 24, article 1:
S 2. Definitions. The term "municipal corporation, " as used in this
chapter, includes only a county, town, city and village. The term
"governing board" includes the board of supervisors of a county, the
town board of a town, the common council of a city, and the board of
trustees of a village.
This definition occurs all over the place:
"Person" means an individual, partnership, corporation or any other
legal or commercial entity.
Do you retract your statement that the no advertising law doesn't apply yet?
I also guess you wouldn't mind me chalking on your sidewalk "a child molestor lives here" with an arrow to your house, or would want to approach any damages from that purely in civil court, as well.
A child playing hopscotch is given wide leeway under graffiti laws because A) there's no one complaining, and B) the property owners (parents of the child) are the people who deal with the impact to public property. I'm fairly sure if I was genuinely offended by the chalk walks on my sidewalk and called police, they'd tell the kids in the neighborhood to stop; and if it continued, eventually take action. Sure, everyone would think I'm an asshole, but I could get the law enforced. I would not like to see my city's downtown plastered in commercial or political speech, though.
A city is a corporation, and hence a person. S-145.30 applies. Or should commercial speech be permitted by people spraying chalk on the streets? According to you, since it's public property it's OK.
damage n. Harm or injury to property or a person, resulting in loss of value or the impairment of usefulness.
I think there's a small amount of harm I incur by things posted in places where they shouldn't be-- whether it's stuff scrawled in chalk or illegally placed stickers. It clutters up the way my city looks and lowers my quality of life a bit. Can't you see that if everyone were allowed to do it qualifty of life would suffer?
I'm sure it'd be no damage if I come and scrawl some political speech on your house in chalk, right?
My point at the end was about enforcement, not the actual letter of the law. Surely you can see a difference and a reason why law enforcement officers might choose not to enforce laws about graffiti on parts of public property near a house, when children have drawn things in a temporary fashion, but also decide to enforce them on a busy thoroughfare?
You ignored much of the parent's post, and played word games yourself. The lower 50% of taxpayers (hardly the 'poor') pay under 4% of the income tax, not even 17%, according to the parent's link.
In general, the poor pay even less property tax proportionally than income tax; though it is true that sales taxes have greater impact. I haven't been able to find a good paper on total tax burden broken down by income; but I'd really be surprised if the lowest 50% of wage earners pay more than 20% of taxes; I've been on both sides of the tax spectrum and income tax was the most significant tax in each case.
Yah, and there's plenty of applicable statutes:
New York State penal code:
S 145.30 Unlawfully posting advertisements.
1. A person is guilty of unlawfully posting advertisements when,
having no right to do so nor any reasonable ground to believe that he
has such right, he posts, paints or otherwise affixes to the property of
another person any advertisement, poster, notice or other matter
designed to benefit a person other than the owner of the property.
2. Where such matter consists of a commercial advertisement, it shall
be presumed that the vendor of the specified product, service or
entertainment is a person who placed such advertisement or caused it to
be placed upon the property.
Unlawfully posting advertisements is a violation.
New York City:
10-117. Defacement of property, possession, sale and display of aerosol spray paint cans, [and] broad tipped markers and etching acid prohibited in certain instances.
a. No person shall write, paint or draw any inscription, figure or mark of any type on any public or private building or other structure or any other real or personal property owned, operated or maintained by a public benefit corporation, the city of New York or any agency or instrumentality thereof or by any person, firm, or corporation, or any personal property maintained
on a city street or other city-owned property pursuant to a franchise, concession or revocable consent granted by the city, unless the express permission of the owner or operator of the property has been obtained.
This is more strict than state law on graffiti, which requires intent to damage.
S 145.60 Making graffiti.
1. For purposes of this section, the term "graffiti" shall mean the
etching, painting, covering, drawing upon or otherwise placing of a mark
upon public or private property with intent to damage such property.
2. No person shall make graffiti of any type on any building, public
or private, or any other property real or personal owned by any person,
firm or corporation or any public agency or instrumentality, without theexpress permission of the owner or operator of said property.
Making graffiti is a class A misdemeanor.
And to everyone who talks about kids drawing hopscotch squares around, I say it's apples and oranges. While kids might be technically in violation for drawing squares by their home, it's altogether different to spray stuff all over public thoroughfares by an automated graffiti bicycle, whether it's painting hopscotch squares, advertisements, gang tags, or political speech.
Wrong. All you need to do is open a wsz file in order to get exploited-- subsequent network access isn't required. And internet explorer is happy to auto-open that wsz file for you.
You misunderstand him.
Notice he said "up until the g4 version of the macintosh".
His point was there are several other choices in keyboards made for Macintosh-- e.g. Macintosh keyboards. Like Kensingon has a few, for example. In this case, like many of the keyboards he linked, they're USB. But they have a command key.
Likewise, many generic USB keyboards are usable on mac. Many have magic keystrokes that will turn the windows key or alt into the command key.
Maybe you should read the parent post again.
Nope, the justifcation for copyrights has nothing to do with economics. It's purely an academic consideration.
Copyright exists to promote progress in the arts and sciences, yes, via an economic incentive-- exclusive rights to those who create for a limited time.
The Soviets did it on Zond 6 (part of the Lunar L1 program), and it was heavily studied for Apollo and subsequent vehicles. Peak heating is lower than other entry methods, but only slightly, and the degree of precision required for the same ultimate landing position accuracy is much higher.
From http://www.space.edu/projects/book/chapter20.html
On November 6, 1968 a Proton rocket launched Zond 6 to within 2420 km of the Moon's surface. Cameras aboard photographed the Earth rising over the bleak lunar terrain; however, on the way back a gasket failed which would have killed any cosmonauts on board. Zond 6 performed a complex skip maneuver, decelerating to 7.6 km/sec over India then skipping back into space and landing in the Soviet Union. The parachute failed during landing and, once again, any human occupants would have perished. After this disaster, any thoughts of sending a cosmonaut to the Moon before January 1969 faded as Apollo 8 accomplished its historic lunar mission. There were three more Zond flights after Zond 6; a potential Zond failed on the 20th of January 1969 when its Proton booster failed. On August 8, 1969 after the successful Apollo 11, Zond 7 successfully orbited the Moon and returned. The last flight, Zond 8, was flown a little more than a year later successfully around the Moon, but landed in the Indian Ocean rather than back in Russia.
That was before it could fly untethered. Now that it's pseudo-autonomous and all, it's a lot slicker.