I suspect that it's not possible to justify it as legal.
It's the Supreme Court. They ultimately decide whether it is legal.
Historians believe that the Court is in error, but historians aren't on the Court. One justice did promote the viewpoint that the 14th Amendment means that the first 8 Amendments applied to the states in the same uniform manner as it restricted the powers of the federal government. But, it was a dissenting viewpoint that never found favor with the other justices.
The only recourse is to ratify another Amendment that states it more explicitly.
Every state has to follow the laws as laid out in the Constitution of the US.
Not quite. Despite the clear intent of the 14th Amendment (check out the Congressional Record for details), the Supreme Court has refused to apply all of the Bill of Rights to the states.
A constitutional law professor or attorney can explain it better, but under the "Privileges and Immunities" clause, the Court must actually consider the provision of the Bill of Rights and decide whether to apply it to the states (known as "incorporation"). They have only done so for selected parts.
Among the ones not incorporated are the 2nd, 3rd, and 7th Amendments.
Yup, it was. It's a $200 tax for the weapon in question and that was quite a bit of money back then, especially for a couple of dirt-poor moonshiners.
The Court had already made that decision in Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U.S. 506 (1937), which basically says the Court is "not free to speculate as to the motives" for the law. But, the Congressional Record clearly shows that Congress was indeed concerned that it violated the 2nd Amendment. They were assured by the Attorney General that a punitive tax measure would withstand Court scrutiny, since the Harrison Narcotics Act had already succeeded.
I agree that anti-gun people using Miller to defend their position is stupid, since the Court basically said that the 2nd Ammendment *only* protects the right to own military grade hardware.
Yes, but the lower courts (the 9th Circuit is the worst offender) stretched it into meaning that it only protected the states. Other circuits followed their lead. The Supreme Court rarely takes a case except to settle conflicts among the lower courts, so they haven't had occasion to overturn any of them.
What is really stupid is that the entire premise of constitutionality of gun control hinges on a dubious interpretation of a decision in which the defense didn't even make an appearance. And, that decision was based on a precedent set by interpretation of a provision in a state constitution that was demonstrably different from the 2nd Amendment in the very aspect that justified their decision.
In the academic world, there is basically very little debate about intended meaning of the 2nd Amendment -- the individual-rights interpretation has become the "standard model". There are numerous people supporting gun control that admit it is correct, and one openly expresses concern that allowing the 2nd Amendment to be nullified so easily puts other aspects of the Bill of Rights at risk.
I think it will change in the next decade or so. It will depend on what the lower courts do and who is appointed to the Supreme Court. But, the issue will eventually return to the Supreme Court, and the evidence for the individual-rights interpretation is too strong to be ignored.
[....]but then finally decided that the weapon in question was not covered since the military doesn't use shotguns.
Actually, they didn't decide even that. The Court said that "it was not within judicial notice", meaning that no one had presented evidence that sawed-off shotguns were used in the military. However, sawed-off shotguns were used by the US Army in the trench warfare of World War I and were used as late as the Vietnam conflict.
No one showed up to present the defendant's case (the decision says "No appearance for appellees"). So, the the government presented their evidence, unopposed. The Court actually remanded the case back to a lower court for further proceedings, but the US Attorney apparently recognized what would happen and cut a deal with the remaining living defendant.
The Court's decision pretty much turns on a Tennessee court decision that large concealed knives were not used in "civilized warfare". That case also relied on the phrase "for the common defence" in the Tennessee constitution (at the time) -- a phrase not present in the 2nd Amendment and was explicitly rejected by the Senate during debate on the Bill of Rights.
When I used a voice/FAX modem as an answering machine, I remembered getting FAXes from these guys. My FAX number was never published, but I would get FAX spam shortly after my other phone number got a FAX call. They were apparently dialing numbers in sequence, simply looking for a FAX handshake.
I finally decided to fight back. I called the small businesses who sponsored the FAX spam and asked to speak to the owner. All were told that the FAXes were sent only to published FAX numbers that had agreed to receive solicitations.
I explained my particular situation, and then pointed out that I go out of my way to NEVER to patronize a business that sponsors FAX or email spam, even if it was inadvertant. Then I asked the owner to consider how many potential customers were just as angry, but didn't bother to call and complain.
They got the message. Shortly thereafter, the FAXes stopped. It sounds like it coincided with this incident.
I haven't seen a room sized faraday cage completely work in preventing transmission or reception of signals yet. A friend worked at a shop where they repaired industrial radios and had one of these supposed faraday rooms with massive iron walls and mesh. He brought a radio in one day and didn't amuse the boss with it...
They screwed up the installation. A Faraday cage doesn't do any good if you simply pipe exterior RF into the protected area.
Incoming electrical power, telephone and data cables have to be filtered. Water and sewer pipes must be installed correctly, or they become a waveguide.
They sent out bulk mail about updating your account or something but the link was not paypa(lower case 'L').com but paypa(Capital 'I').com
DNS lookups are case-insensitive, so mucking wth capitalization in the domain name will have no effect.
I'm not questioning the existence of the scam -- only that they must have perpetrated it in a different way (such as whitehouse.com vs. whitehouse.gov), since capitalization won't make any difference.
Beyond the domain name, the rest of the URL may be case sensitive. But, you can't use that to direct someone to a completely different site.
Interesting. I'll pass that back, as it may be helpful to her.
How does your wife decline to answer the question? Does she simply say that their policy is to not answer that question, or does she deflect the question by saying that she doesn't have that information or that the decision is made by someone else?
Your employer is barred from just about any kind of comment about you except to verify that you work(ed) there, the dates of your employment, and maybe your salary.
A friend of mine has worked in HR for several years. She tells me there is a magic question that a former employer can truthfully answer without fear of legal repercussions, and it will tell a prospective employer all they need to know:
No, an LLC will only protect your assets if the business goes bankrupt -- and only if you did not personally guarantee repayment of debts. It's basically impossible to get credit at startup without a personal guarantee, until you have an established business.
But, an LLC will not protect you from professional liability. All the plaintiff has to do is name both the LLC and you as co-defendants.
Finally, An LLC won't stop the university from expelling the person it deems responsible, whether he is an owner/principal or an employee.
There is also Quicken for Home & Business, which I think is adequate for a sole proprietership. It does estimates and invoices. If I understand what you mean by "double-entry" accounting, I think it does that, too.
would it make more sense for areas of low usage for competitors to create one base station to cover the area and just split the costs?
In the US, there are some anti-trust/monopoly issues that prevent it. I don't know all the details, but my understanding is that some municipalities tried to get the cell service providers to cooperate and build one shared tower instead of having to zone land for everyone. But, it wasn't allowed by law.
There appears to be a way around it: the service providers don't actually own the tower -- it's owned by someone else, who rents it to any (or all) of the service providers. But, each still has to install their own equipment.
Ultimately, I think that that seamless roaming agreements (I have one that gives nationwide service, a reasonable allocation of peak time and more off-peak time that I could ever use, with no roaming or long-distance fees) would be a better solution than full coverage by EVERY provider in low-density areas.
In a previous life, I worked for Control Data, who sold a large mainframe to an Israeli company. For various reasons, the delivery was already late and penalty clauses in the contract were already being invoked. So, it was important to get the thing shipped.
At that time, there was only a single air freight flight from New York to Israel, once a week. The mainframe was put on the truck (in Minnesota) and off it went, much to everyone's relief. But, the truck blew a tire in a rainstorm on the Ohio Turnpike and rolled over into a ditch. Fortunately, the driver was not seriously hurt, but the mainframe was put onto another truck and sent back to Minnesota. The chassis holding all of the (mostly transistor) logic modules was clearly bent, but otherwise it didn't look that bad.
The Israeli company eventually got their mainframe. I don't know how many of the original parts were transferred into the replacement.
IANAL - but I don't think so. An LLC offers protection from civil liability, but not criminal.
IANAL, either. But, I don't believe an LLC offers any real protection against civil liability.
My understanding is that an LLC will shield you only from financial liability in the event of bankruptcy -- but only if you did not personally guarantee a debt. Until a business has a track record (of revenue and profit), few people will loan it money. So, the owner typically has to personally guarantee repayment, at least in the beginning.
An LLC will typically not protect you from civil liability, because a plaintiff will typically name both the company and any identifiable individuals in a lawsuit. So even an LLC owner should consider professional liability insurance (also known as E&O, or Errors & Omissions).
In the article, Best Buy said that only a small percentage of their transactions were handled over a wireless connection. Reading between the lines, I will guess that only certain registers use wireless.
Which registers? Probably ones that they have set up temporarily, or in locationd where it was't practical to run a network drop (on a timely basis?).
So, the submittor may have simply chosen the wrong (or right!) place to complete his purchase.
Because the company has to keep cash reserved for the unused vacation accrual -and- pay out salaries.
And I'll add: that "cash reserve" is actually a liability on the company's books, much like a loan from a bank. By taking vacation, you are actually reducing this liability.
For this reason, many companies are lowering vacation accrual caps or prohibiting carryover (into the next year) altogether.
I've also saw Toy Story 2 and Monster, Inc. in the DLP theater at Cinemark Legacy/Plano. I specifically chose it because I thought it would do a better job rendering animation.
The big difference to me: the complete absence of image jitter -- i.e. it didn't jump around the screen due to slight differences in registration of the frame in the projection. On a large screen, it really bothers me (until I finally get used to it). I guess it's a function of the wear on the sprocket holes in the film?
I get enough of a break on my car insurance to pay for a good part of a LoJack installation, but I typically keep them longer than most people.
But, quick response time isn't always required. My insurance agent told me that LoJack has changed the way that professional car thieves work. They will now steal a car and park it in a public place for 24-48 hours. If it is still there after that time, they presume that there is no LoJack that will lead the police back to their chop shop.
So, It's not perfect, but I decided it was worth a the small additional cost (amortized over the lifetime of my car).
I am REAL tempted to break out my XT (yes, I still own a working XT)...
I still own one of the original Compaq "luggables" -- serial #1555. It was originally built as a dual-floppy PC clone, then upgraded to an XT clone (a 10 megabyte hard drive, twice the size of the 5 MB drives in IBM XT's at the time).
It still works. I occasionally pull it out of the closet and turn it on to show it to visitors. But, it has an early version of DOS with no networking at all.
"The FTC and its law enforcement partners are sending a signal to the scammer: We're out there surfing the Net, reading our spam and working together to stop Internet scams," said J. Howard Beales III, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Howard Beale was the volatile news anchor in Network who exhorted his audience to "...go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell":
I'm mad as hell, and I'm not not going to take this anymore!
There used to be a Warner Brothers store near me, and they had hanging on one wall a large image of a number of classic characters standing in the shadows, the spotlight on a microphone with nobody there to use it. It was a memorial to Mel Blanc, and even now when I think of it, I get a little misty-eyed.
I had exactly the same reaction. And, I bought the poster -- it's hanging on the wall of my office.
Warner Brothers has closed down all their studio stores, so I don't know if there will be a tribute to Chuck Jones or where I might find it.
Slashdot Mirror
Hardly. The link to the Miami Herald in the parent post is to Dave Barry's columns.
It's the Supreme Court. They ultimately decide whether it is legal.
Historians believe that the Court is in error, but historians aren't on the Court. One justice did promote the viewpoint that the 14th Amendment means that the first 8 Amendments applied to the states in the same uniform manner as it restricted the powers of the federal government. But, it was a dissenting viewpoint that never found favor with the other justices.
The only recourse is to ratify another Amendment that states it more explicitly.
I get "call cannot be completed as dialed".
Not quite. Despite the clear intent of the 14th Amendment (check out the Congressional Record for details), the Supreme Court has refused to apply all of the Bill of Rights to the states.
A constitutional law professor or attorney can explain it better, but under the "Privileges and Immunities" clause, the Court must actually consider the provision of the Bill of Rights and decide whether to apply it to the states (known as "incorporation"). They have only done so for selected parts.
Among the ones not incorporated are the 2nd, 3rd, and 7th Amendments.
More info here .
Yup, it was. It's a $200 tax for the weapon in question and that was quite a bit of money back then, especially for a couple of dirt-poor moonshiners.
The Court had already made that decision in Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U.S. 506 (1937), which basically says the Court is "not free to speculate as to the motives" for the law. But, the Congressional Record clearly shows that Congress was indeed concerned that it violated the 2nd Amendment. They were assured by the Attorney General that a punitive tax measure would withstand Court scrutiny, since the Harrison Narcotics Act had already succeeded.
I agree that anti-gun people using Miller to defend their position is stupid, since the Court basically said that the 2nd Ammendment *only* protects the right to own military grade hardware.
Yes, but the lower courts (the 9th Circuit is the worst offender) stretched it into meaning that it only protected the states. Other circuits followed their lead. The Supreme Court rarely takes a case except to settle conflicts among the lower courts, so they haven't had occasion to overturn any of them.
What is really stupid is that the entire premise of constitutionality of gun control hinges on a dubious interpretation of a decision in which the defense didn't even make an appearance. And, that decision was based on a precedent set by interpretation of a provision in a state constitution that was demonstrably different from the 2nd Amendment in the very aspect that justified their decision.
In the academic world, there is basically very little debate about intended meaning of the 2nd Amendment -- the individual-rights interpretation has become the "standard model". There are numerous people supporting gun control that admit it is correct, and one openly expresses concern that allowing the 2nd Amendment to be nullified so easily puts other aspects of the Bill of Rights at risk.
I think it will change in the next decade or so. It will depend on what the lower courts do and who is appointed to the Supreme Court. But, the issue will eventually return to the Supreme Court, and the evidence for the individual-rights interpretation is too strong to be ignored.
Actually, they didn't decide even that. The Court said that "it was not within judicial notice", meaning that no one had presented evidence that sawed-off shotguns were used in the military. However, sawed-off shotguns were used by the US Army in the trench warfare of World War I and were used as late as the Vietnam conflict.
No one showed up to present the defendant's case (the decision says "No appearance for appellees"). So, the the government presented their evidence, unopposed. The Court actually remanded the case back to a lower court for further proceedings, but the US Attorney apparently recognized what would happen and cut a deal with the remaining living defendant.
The Court's decision pretty much turns on a Tennessee court decision that large concealed knives were not used in "civilized warfare". That case also relied on the phrase "for the common defence" in the Tennessee constitution (at the time) -- a phrase not present in the 2nd Amendment and was explicitly rejected by the Senate during debate on the Bill of Rights.
When I used a voice/FAX modem as an answering machine, I remembered getting FAXes from these guys. My FAX number was never published, but I would get FAX spam shortly after my other phone number got a FAX call. They were apparently dialing numbers in sequence, simply looking for a FAX handshake.
I finally decided to fight back. I called the small businesses who sponsored the FAX spam and asked to speak to the owner. All were told that the FAXes were sent only to published FAX numbers that had agreed to receive solicitations.
I explained my particular situation, and then pointed out that I go out of my way to NEVER to patronize a business that sponsors FAX or email spam, even if it was inadvertant. Then I asked the owner to consider how many potential customers were just as angry, but didn't bother to call and complain.
They got the message. Shortly thereafter, the FAXes stopped. It sounds like it coincided with this incident.
They screwed up the installation. A Faraday cage doesn't do any good if you simply pipe exterior RF into the protected area.
Incoming electrical power, telephone and data cables have to be filtered. Water and sewer pipes must be installed correctly, or they become a waveguide.
I'm tempted to bid on this and buy it (but not unless I could get it for a lot less than the reserve price of $2000).
I'd go looking through it for any of my email addresses. What could I do to them if I found one?
DNS lookups are case-insensitive, so mucking wth capitalization in the domain name will have no effect.
I'm not questioning the existence of the scam -- only that they must have perpetrated it in a different way (such as whitehouse.com vs. whitehouse.gov), since capitalization won't make any difference.
Beyond the domain name, the rest of the URL may be case sensitive. But, you can't use that to direct someone to a completely different site.
How does your wife decline to answer the question? Does she simply say that their policy is to not answer that question, or does she deflect the question by saying that she doesn't have that information or that the decision is made by someone else?
A friend of mine has worked in HR for several years. She tells me there is a magic question that a former employer can truthfully answer without fear of legal repercussions, and it will tell a prospective employer all they need to know:
"Is this person eligible for re-hire?"
But, an LLC will not protect you from professional liability. All the plaintiff has to do is name both the LLC and you as co-defendants.
Finally, An LLC won't stop the university from expelling the person it deems responsible, whether he is an owner/principal or an employee.
There is also Quicken for Home & Business, which I think is adequate for a sole proprietership. It does estimates and invoices. If I understand what you mean by "double-entry" accounting, I think it does that, too.
In the US, there are some anti-trust/monopoly issues that prevent it. I don't know all the details, but my understanding is that some municipalities tried to get the cell service providers to cooperate and build one shared tower instead of having to zone land for everyone. But, it wasn't allowed by law.
There appears to be a way around it: the service providers don't actually own the tower -- it's owned by someone else, who rents it to any (or all) of the service providers. But, each still has to install their own equipment.
Ultimately, I think that that seamless roaming agreements (I have one that gives nationwide service, a reasonable allocation of peak time and more off-peak time that I could ever use, with no roaming or long-distance fees) would be a better solution than full coverage by EVERY provider in low-density areas.
At that time, there was only a single air freight flight from New York to Israel, once a week. The mainframe was put on the truck (in Minnesota) and off it went, much to everyone's relief. But, the truck blew a tire in a rainstorm on the Ohio Turnpike and rolled over into a ditch. Fortunately, the driver was not seriously hurt, but the mainframe was put onto another truck and sent back to Minnesota. The chassis holding all of the (mostly transistor) logic modules was clearly bent, but otherwise it didn't look that bad.
The Israeli company eventually got their mainframe. I don't know how many of the original parts were transferred into the replacement.
IANAL, either. But, I don't believe an LLC offers any real protection against civil liability.
My understanding is that an LLC will shield you only from financial liability in the event of bankruptcy -- but only if you did not personally guarantee a debt. Until a business has a track record (of revenue and profit), few people will loan it money. So, the owner typically has to personally guarantee repayment, at least in the beginning.
An LLC will typically not protect you from civil liability, because a plaintiff will typically name both the company and any identifiable individuals in a lawsuit. So even an LLC owner should consider professional liability insurance (also known as E&O, or Errors & Omissions).
Which registers? Probably ones that they have set up temporarily, or in locationd where it was't practical to run a network drop (on a timely basis?).
So, the submittor may have simply chosen the wrong (or right!) place to complete his purchase.
And I'll add: that "cash reserve" is actually a liability on the company's books, much like a loan from a bank. By taking vacation, you are actually reducing this liability.
For this reason, many companies are lowering vacation accrual caps or prohibiting carryover (into the next year) altogether.
The big difference to me: the complete absence of image jitter -- i.e. it didn't jump around the screen due to slight differences in registration of the frame in the projection. On a large screen, it really bothers me (until I finally get used to it). I guess it's a function of the wear on the sprocket holes in the film?
But, quick response time isn't always required. My insurance agent told me that LoJack has changed the way that professional car thieves work. They will now steal a car and park it in a public place for 24-48 hours. If it is still there after that time, they presume that there is no LoJack that will lead the police back to their chop shop.
So, It's not perfect, but I decided it was worth a the small additional cost (amortized over the lifetime of my car).
I still own one of the original Compaq "luggables" -- serial #1555. It was originally built as a dual-floppy PC clone, then upgraded to an XT clone (a 10 megabyte hard drive, twice the size of the 5 MB drives in IBM XT's at the time).
It still works. I occasionally pull it out of the closet and turn it on to show it to visitors. But, it has an early version of DOS with no networking at all.
While I agree that SCSI is better for servers, I can satisfy this request:
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 7200 Hard Drive WD1000JB
Howard Beale was the volatile news anchor in Network who exhorted his audience to "...go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell":
I'm mad as hell, and I'm not not going to take this anymore!
I had exactly the same reaction. And, I bought the poster -- it's hanging on the wall of my office.
Warner Brothers has closed down all their studio stores, so I don't know if there will be a tribute to Chuck Jones or where I might find it.