I don't disagree, just pointing out that it's one side forcing something to happen vs the other side forcing something to happen. There's no winning this one.
It doesn't change the impact of the court decision, but I do believe it smears the reputation of the business and its defenders. The media makes the company out to be as bad as the Westboro Church lunatics, when in reality they had compromised and would cover nearly all forms of contraception. If this were well known, it would not have gained the publicity it did.
My understanding of the Indiana law is to prevent businesses from being forced to offer goods or services that violate their beliefs. Both sides are arguing for the use of the force of law, are they not? One side wants to force people to violate their beliefs and offer their goods or services to everyone, the other wants to allow businesses to force those customers to shop elsewhere.
I don't see a completely fair, unbiased solution for this problem. It's one set of values versus another.
Increased commerce? Not if everything is produced by Acme corp because no one sees any value in uniqueness. Reduced conflict? That's pitiful. If people hate each other, it's not going to matter if they speak the same language or not. It's probably better that they don't.
Yes, there are pockets of America that maintain an identity of their own, but they're few and far between. Cultures get assimilated and eradicated. It takes decades, but eventually they fade away. I live in an area that had a strong french presence, but now, decades later, there's no sign of it. I miss the cuisine and conversation. It won't be back. I don't think the community is better for it. It certainly hasn't turned the town into a more bustling economic presence and it hasn't lowered the crime rate. We just lost something interesting and became just like the towns that border us. Anywhere, USA. Population us.
It's not just Québec. New Hampshire controls all liquor sales within the state. You can buy beer and wine anywhere, but everything else is at the state stores. The lotteries are also state run.
Just like this story, the US has talked about Internet taxes countless times and the US certainly tries to block or limit gambling to government controlled entities. I'm sure every country has either discussed or acted on both to some extent.
I don't think most people would disagree with you, but I think it'd be an enormous loss if every country ended up being just like every other country. Tourism exists so that people can experience a different culture and environment for a short while. But if you get to some other location and it's the same language, same restaurants, same shops, same recreational activities, what a waste. I think there's probably a way to get people to take pride in what makes their pocket of humanity different without going all out with protectionist laws, but it would take a lot of effort.
In the end, I think a lot of places that want to be Americanized (or whatever you want to call it) will end up so, and then they'll soon come to regret it.
Did you check to see if the regulation bans them? I doubt it does.
Either way, it's up to the people of France. If energy independence is more important to them than skylights, so be it. If Vlad Poutine decides to cut off the supply of energy to Europe in order to gather up more of the ex-Soviet territories, the European nations need to have a way to keep the lights on. It's not a matter of aesthetics, it's an actual power play between Russia and Europe.
Google presents itself as an unbiased search engine.
Oh yea? Google presents their name, a text box, and a button. If you manage to find the "about" link at the bottom, all it basically says is "Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." Nothing about bias. If Google's services are better than the competitions, placing them first actually would make the results more useful and would make their services more accessible.
The concept of "fair competition" is truly lost in this day and age. How is it fair to force Google to not place their own services ahead of other results? It's their search engine. They built it. Why should some third party be able to force them to place other results first? At most, I could see maybe requiring them to disclose why some results were promoted, like what is done with sponsored links.
It's the consumers that have the power of choice here. There are alternative search engines. Some popular for the very fact that they're not Google. The fact that people are too lazy to use them doesn't mean that what Google is doing is wrong.
There are laws that set the speed limit on a road. What laws would prevent Google from favoring its own services in search results? It's their services, it's their search engine, it's their search results.
A better question is, why wouldn't Google favor their own services?
Changing it to a percent of wealth or income would encourage more rich people to hide their assets overseas. It wouldn't fix the problem. They have plenty of money to hire fancy lawyers and accountants to make sure their wealth remains in tact. Meanwhile, the middle class would probably get hosed because they have enough to be hurt by higher fines, but not enough to defend against it or hide their assets. And what happens to the poor? They'd get zero fine because they have nothing and earn nothing? That doesn't sound like it helps anything. The best thing for speeding, IMO, is to set better limits. If 90% of the traffic on a road travels higher than the limit, the limit isn't set right.
So when you are moving, it unfreezes? How is that?
It doesn't. You clear the snow and ice off before setting off. The defroster or heater keeps it from refreezing with the help of the slipstream of air helping to keep the stuff from accumulating on the glass. You slow or stop, it can accumulate, it becomes more than the defroster or heater can handle, it freezes. Maybe once you're moving the wind plus the defroster can knock it loose, maybe you have to pull over and scrape it off again, maybe the wiper fluid will help if it doesn't just make it worse.
In Alaska, it gets cold enough, that you don't have the re-freeze problem
You don't get road slop from treated roads from other vehicles? I've been up to Canadian provinces where it's ungodly below zero and the same problems exist.
I don't turn on the heater when it's cold.
That could be the big difference between you and everyone else. I'd rather deal with the windows than freeze.
How does something re-freeze at -40? It never un-freezes. Why does it freeze in traffic? Does your heater not work if you aren't moving?
Sure it does. The cabin of the vehicle gets warm therefore the windows get warm. When you slow down or stop, the wind tunnel effect goes away and it accumulates. If it accumulates too much, it lowers the temperature of the glass enough to freeze. Same thing with body panels. You can leave the defroster running, but it is only capable of so much, the weather can exceed its capability.
I have a difficult time accepting that you're in Alaska. Is there some part of the state that never sees cold weather? Anyone anywhere in New England could describe all of this the exact same way.
AK47 seems most likely. Gun nut. Possibly a libertarian.
BTW, we're seeing more snow than you. Please come get it.
If you do actually live in Alaska, you must not go outside much. The second you stop moving in traffic everything refreezes. You must have magical snow.
The snow is light-weight powder and we haven't had a thaw/freeze cycle, so when the wind hit makes no difference. Only about half of the roofs have been flat. There's a huge multi-building apartment complex down the street from me that evacuated because one building did have a roof collapse. The roof was nearly as pitched as my own. A number of others in other towns with similar style roofs have had the same problem.
Wind can relocate snow, but high wind doesn't mean roofs or anything else gets cleared off. It just means the snow gets put wherever nature feels like it. Get some gloppy slushy snow and that stuff will stick to anything like glue. Your panels would be doing about as good as our roofs, which isn't very good. The best part is that houses with panels would have to bear the weight of the roof, the weight of the panels, plus the weight of the snow. Not to mention the wind when it really gets ripping up here will want to tear those panels right off. Wind gets strong enough here to remove roofs if there's enough imperfection in them, or shoddy maintenance, or stuff attached to them that wasn't meant to be there.
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I don't disagree, just pointing out that it's one side forcing something to happen vs the other side forcing something to happen. There's no winning this one.
It doesn't change the impact of the court decision, but I do believe it smears the reputation of the business and its defenders. The media makes the company out to be as bad as the Westboro Church lunatics, when in reality they had compromised and would cover nearly all forms of contraception. If this were well known, it would not have gained the publicity it did.
Hobby Lobby's insurance plan covered contraception. What they didn't want to pay for was the "morning after" products.
My understanding of the Indiana law is to prevent businesses from being forced to offer goods or services that violate their beliefs. Both sides are arguing for the use of the force of law, are they not? One side wants to force people to violate their beliefs and offer their goods or services to everyone, the other wants to allow businesses to force those customers to shop elsewhere.
I don't see a completely fair, unbiased solution for this problem. It's one set of values versus another.
The AHA didn't have bipartisan support, but now we're supposed to accept it as the law of the land and not attempt to modify it.
Increased commerce? Not if everything is produced by Acme corp because no one sees any value in uniqueness. Reduced conflict? That's pitiful. If people hate each other, it's not going to matter if they speak the same language or not. It's probably better that they don't.
Yes, there are pockets of America that maintain an identity of their own, but they're few and far between. Cultures get assimilated and eradicated. It takes decades, but eventually they fade away. I live in an area that had a strong french presence, but now, decades later, there's no sign of it. I miss the cuisine and conversation. It won't be back. I don't think the community is better for it. It certainly hasn't turned the town into a more bustling economic presence and it hasn't lowered the crime rate. We just lost something interesting and became just like the towns that border us. Anywhere, USA. Population us.
It's not just Québec. New Hampshire controls all liquor sales within the state. You can buy beer and wine anywhere, but everything else is at the state stores. The lotteries are also state run.
Just like this story, the US has talked about Internet taxes countless times and the US certainly tries to block or limit gambling to government controlled entities. I'm sure every country has either discussed or acted on both to some extent.
Stop sending people into Québec to poison the vote then.
I do like how they have their own TLD now, which is more interesting than the taxation and gambling legislation that brought this discussion on.
I don't think most people would disagree with you, but I think it'd be an enormous loss if every country ended up being just like every other country. Tourism exists so that people can experience a different culture and environment for a short while. But if you get to some other location and it's the same language, same restaurants, same shops, same recreational activities, what a waste. I think there's probably a way to get people to take pride in what makes their pocket of humanity different without going all out with protectionist laws, but it would take a lot of effort.
In the end, I think a lot of places that want to be Americanized (or whatever you want to call it) will end up so, and then they'll soon come to regret it.
The US effectively blocked them by telling the credit card companies and banks not to honor any transactions related to gambling.
Did you check to see if the regulation bans them? I doubt it does.
Either way, it's up to the people of France. If energy independence is more important to them than skylights, so be it. If Vlad Poutine decides to cut off the supply of energy to Europe in order to gather up more of the ex-Soviet territories, the European nations need to have a way to keep the lights on. It's not a matter of aesthetics, it's an actual power play between Russia and Europe.
Did you miss the words "commercial zone"?
Google presents itself as an unbiased search engine.
Oh yea? Google presents their name, a text box, and a button. If you manage to find the "about" link at the bottom, all it basically says is "Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." Nothing about bias. If Google's services are better than the competitions, placing them first actually would make the results more useful and would make their services more accessible.
The concept of "fair competition" is truly lost in this day and age. How is it fair to force Google to not place their own services ahead of other results? It's their search engine. They built it. Why should some third party be able to force them to place other results first? At most, I could see maybe requiring them to disclose why some results were promoted, like what is done with sponsored links.
It's the consumers that have the power of choice here. There are alternative search engines. Some popular for the very fact that they're not Google. The fact that people are too lazy to use them doesn't mean that what Google is doing is wrong.
Why shouldn't it be? It's their search engine. Who says search engines have to be unbiased?
There are laws that set the speed limit on a road. What laws would prevent Google from favoring its own services in search results? It's their services, it's their search engine, it's their search results.
A better question is, why wouldn't Google favor their own services?
Tell that to the IRS.
The twenty minutes on the side of the road would be a deterrent.
Changing it to a percent of wealth or income would encourage more rich people to hide their assets overseas. It wouldn't fix the problem. They have plenty of money to hire fancy lawyers and accountants to make sure their wealth remains in tact. Meanwhile, the middle class would probably get hosed because they have enough to be hurt by higher fines, but not enough to defend against it or hide their assets. And what happens to the poor? They'd get zero fine because they have nothing and earn nothing? That doesn't sound like it helps anything. The best thing for speeding, IMO, is to set better limits. If 90% of the traffic on a road travels higher than the limit, the limit isn't set right.
So when you are moving, it unfreezes? How is that?
It doesn't. You clear the snow and ice off before setting off. The defroster or heater keeps it from refreezing with the help of the slipstream of air helping to keep the stuff from accumulating on the glass. You slow or stop, it can accumulate, it becomes more than the defroster or heater can handle, it freezes. Maybe once you're moving the wind plus the defroster can knock it loose, maybe you have to pull over and scrape it off again, maybe the wiper fluid will help if it doesn't just make it worse.
In Alaska, it gets cold enough, that you don't have the re-freeze problem
You don't get road slop from treated roads from other vehicles? I've been up to Canadian provinces where it's ungodly below zero and the same problems exist.
I don't turn on the heater when it's cold.
That could be the big difference between you and everyone else. I'd rather deal with the windows than freeze.
How does something re-freeze at -40? It never un-freezes. Why does it freeze in traffic? Does your heater not work if you aren't moving?
Sure it does. The cabin of the vehicle gets warm therefore the windows get warm. When you slow down or stop, the wind tunnel effect goes away and it accumulates. If it accumulates too much, it lowers the temperature of the glass enough to freeze. Same thing with body panels. You can leave the defroster running, but it is only capable of so much, the weather can exceed its capability.
I have a difficult time accepting that you're in Alaska. Is there some part of the state that never sees cold weather? Anyone anywhere in New England could describe all of this the exact same way.
AK47 seems most likely. Gun nut. Possibly a libertarian.
BTW, we're seeing more snow than you. Please come get it.
If you do actually live in Alaska, you must not go outside much. The second you stop moving in traffic everything refreezes. You must have magical snow.
It was windy the whole time. But what the fuck would I know, I just live in the area.
Ever drive in a snow storm? It refreezes. Constantly.
The snow is light-weight powder and we haven't had a thaw/freeze cycle, so when the wind hit makes no difference. Only about half of the roofs have been flat. There's a huge multi-building apartment complex down the street from me that evacuated because one building did have a roof collapse. The roof was nearly as pitched as my own. A number of others in other towns with similar style roofs have had the same problem.
Wind can relocate snow, but high wind doesn't mean roofs or anything else gets cleared off. It just means the snow gets put wherever nature feels like it. Get some gloppy slushy snow and that stuff will stick to anything like glue. Your panels would be doing about as good as our roofs, which isn't very good. The best part is that houses with panels would have to bear the weight of the roof, the weight of the panels, plus the weight of the snow. Not to mention the wind when it really gets ripping up here will want to tear those panels right off. Wind gets strong enough here to remove roofs if there's enough imperfection in them, or shoddy maintenance, or stuff attached to them that wasn't meant to be there.
Exactly. That's why during this time of wind gusts over 60mph, greater Boston has seen dozens of roof collapses.