"New York, NY -- It's an only in New York story. A woman was given a ticket for sitting on a park bench because she doesn't have children.
The Rivington Playground on Manhattan's East Side has a small sign at the entrance that says adults are prohibited unless they are accompanied by a child....The city parks department said the rule is designed to keep pedophiles out of city parks, but a parks spokesman told the Daily News that the department hoped police would use some common sense when enforcing the rule"
Rebates are an odd (and I suspect uniquely American) concept.
A product is being sold at $50 with a $25 rebate. You purchase the product for $50, and once you get it home, you send in the receipt and UPC code from the box to the manufacturer. In about 6-10 weeks (usually) you get a cheque in the mail for $25.
Hence, while you did pay $50 originally, you'll eventually get $25 back, so you really only spent $25. Rebates are typically found on electronics products (but they can be found on cheaper things. The other day I bought a bottle of motor oil that had a rebate for the full purchase price, and yes, 6 weeks later I got a check in the mail for $1.79. In that situation, the hope of the manufacturer is that people don't take the time to complete the rebate paperwork.)
In my instance, I paid $99 for my cell phone, but my rebates were for $300, so I was paid to buy my cell phone (paid $201 that is.) My phone is a Sony Ericcson T637, which would have been enormously expensive otherwise (the phone was probably $250-$350 new, so since they gave me $200 you can safely assume that Cingular subsizied the phone for about $500.)
In order to get the rebates (which took about 5 months to get) I had to sign a 2 year contract with Cingular. There was no requirement as to which plan I had to buy (they were all standard Cingular plans) the cheapest plan being 450 minutes day/unlimited night minutes at$39/month.
My last cell phone, which I bought for $99, had $300 in rebates from Amazon and Cingular. Therefore, I received a profit of $200 on the cell phone (had to do a 2year contract to get the rebates.)
I don't believe I've seen anything like that outside of the United States.
I don't buy it. If that were entirely the case, I should be able to go to any of the wireless provider's website or store and see them advertising bring-your-own-phone month-to-month plans.
Technically, that is indeed the case. If you look closely at just the plans themselves, they often don't mention service contracts. The companies themselves don't necessarily want you to do things this way, so they don't draw attention to it, but it's very doable. (Verizon and Cingular, as I recall, offered the plans month to month gratis, Sprint charged an extra $5/month to do it.)
People buy old cell phones off ebay all the time and mate them to month to month plans.
It amazes me that, for example, no-one really checks signatures on credit card slips or that you don't need a PIN to buy gas with a card at the pump.
Relatively speaking, the percentage of credit card fraud that is done in person is small (I think VISA said it's now under 15% of fraudulent transactions.)
MC/Visa want to encourage people to use their cards and run the transaction on their system. Using a PIN would either encourage debit card transactions to be used on the ACH system (which bypasses MC/Visa merchant transaction fees) or could discourage people from using their MC/Visa card.
If anything, you'll see signatures slowly disappear, and be replaced with proximity RFID cards, which are designed not so much for security but for convenience--MC/Visa want it as easy as possible for people to use their clearinghouse.
Why won't credit card companies start taking fraud seriously and put a PIN on the card
Credit card companies make money when debit cards are used like a MC/Visa, and you sign for the transaction. Credit card companies are shut out when they person enters in their PIN, and the transaction is run on the ACH system.
Because of this, MC and Visa want to keep people from doing the PIN thing, and get them to do the signature thing. If the introduced PINs, what will likely follow is confusion, and they need people to sign, not enter a PIN.
For this reason, you're seeing credit card companies move away from any verification and towards things like proximity RFID systems. That way the person doesn't even have to sign, and, hopefully, will run their card on the MC/Visa system.
Most countries that I know of appoint their judges. Usually the executive has a role to play in that, with the legislature approving the appointment.
One slightly different way of doing it is electing judges--almost no country in the world does that except some states in the United States. My Ohio, for instance, elects all judges--from municipal courts all the way to the state supreme court.
It's an ugly way of doing things--and predictions years ago were that people would dump elected judges for appointed judges...and that just never happened. There is a hybrid system used in some places (Colorado for instance) in which the judge is appointed, but they have to go through a regular "retention" election (where the question to the people is "should Judge X remain in office for another 4 years.")
In either case, the check and balances are blown. When the Constitution was written, Senators were not elected...they were representatatives of the states which, thanks to their appointments, were politically insulated. Hypothetically the confirmation process was supposed to be less political.
The article does a lousy job at explaining that (I read that the 12-14 cents per transaction go to Pay by Touch.)
The Merchant FAQ http://www.paybytouch.com/merchants/faqs.html> on the site says...
What is the cost to me? As a merchant, you make a small investment in the Pay By Touch hardware and processing. This investment is quickly offset, however, by savings you'll realize due to less fraud, shorter tender times, payment type shifts, and the repeat business you can expect from offering your customers a better shopping experience.
Can I really expect higher profits? Yes. In addition to the savings mentioned above, your bottom line will also be improved through the lower transaction costs resulting from your being able to influence your shoppers' payment choices.
"Influencing your shoppers' payment choices" is alredy done at many stores--when I use my debit card (like at Target) a keypad will appear for my PIN--so that the transaction is run as a debit and not on the MC/Visa system (to run as a credit requires me to select "cancel" as I recall.)
I believe the big savings are had by encouraging the customer to register their checkbook. Instead of running the transaction as a debit (ACH) or credit charge, Pay by Touch will try it first as an "echeck"--esentially a paper check but without the actual paper (at least, that's how I'm understanding things.)
If the customer chooses ACH debit or credit card, then the savings aren't there (or Pay by Touch swallows the extra costs.)
I prefer to practice realism (to the best of my ability) than delude myself with a reality distortion field built on expectations that are by definition unrealistic and founded on false premises.
Well you admit that that is your personal preferred way of doing things.
People are motivated by very different things--there are some people in this world, of tremendous talent, who are motivated to do a project by being told "it's an incredible challenge and it's a lot of hard work." There are other people, with the same reservoir of talent, who need to be told the exact opposite: "it's relatively easy and it's fun."
Neither is necessary true of false depending on the context (is multi-variable calculus hard? Yes it is compared to Spanish 101 but it's easy compared to going to the moon.)
Faith (and I meant it in the spiritual context, which is not necessarily religious, and I feel your post equated the two of them too much) is necessary for some people to slog through what is undeniably large odds (like a project that could take decades.) I don't believe that faith is necessary anti-realistic, it's just a shifting of perspective (like my example above. Once again though, I use faith in a more spiritual context and not a religious context. Religions are undeniably anti-realistic in some manifestations.)
If not, then the full costs of land, construction and maintenance of road and parking facilites would have to be billed on auto users, simplest perhaps as a gasoline tax, which would be unfair, but encourage fuel efficiency.
I'm not sure where parent gets the idea of thousdands of dollars per person of subsidized automobile usage; as it remains my understanding that federal highway outlays are pretty much equal to federal gasoline tax revenues. In the state I live in (Ohio) the state constitution essentially cordons off the transportation budget from the rest of the state budget (driver's license fees, registration fees and state gasoline tax revenues can only be used for transporation expenses.) While it's possible for non-transportation revenues to be used for the road system, this is fairly rare at the state level (some maintainance is done by local jurisdictions, but that's actually a minor component.)
Essentially the road system really is mostly paid for by gasoline taxes.
. I mean, whatever happened to actually designing the application ?
That's something you did when you were dealing with certain types of limitations. In the mainframe days you had lots of limitations that we don't have today that required you to really plan out what you were doing (such as compiling required you to print up your program on punch cards, load the punch cards into the compiler and then load in the data followed by waiting for the response off a whole new set of punchcards.) Undoubtedly these limitations made for some amazing programming and discipline, but these limitations are gone, and there are plusses to that as well.
The other sayings I hear are: "He was like...", "I am like...",
I don't really hear "I am like" all that often, I would be more likely to hear "I was like."
Linguists take a very neutral approach to grammar changes, but it's true that grammar in the Americas changes faster than grammar in Europe (though this may change in time.)
The concept of a "correct grammar" is often rooted in class--the "correct" language is spoken by the upper classes, so the lower social classes attempt to imitate it.
Class structures in the Americas are a lot more flat and less important.
I think someone would be a coward if they were so willing to hand over control of their daily life to the "authorities" in the vain hopes that somehow they would be protected from all danger.
And without getting too political, note how people are so desperate to blame Fema, or the city of New Orleans, or the Governor of Louisiana or the President himself for some of the problems of Katrina.
Though I haven't read the City of New Orleans charter, or the Constitution of Lousiana, I suspect that nothing in either of those documents has a guarantee of protection from natural disasters. It certainly isn't in the Constitution. Certainly they had the power to do some things, but to suggest that they had the obligation strikes me as naive.
One thing that causes fear in traffic safety circles is what happens when a judge rules that driving is a right and not a privilege.
I believe that the Supreme Court did in fact hear such a case, wouldn't rule on whether there was a substantial difference between right and privilege, but said it didn't matter anyway.
The concept of there being a lesser form of a right called a privilege is relatively new. (To this day the term "executive privilege" is used more in the context of the older style concept of privilege--a right that is granted by virtue of something other than being a citizen, as opposed to a truncated right.) Driving safety advocates of the 1960s invented the truncated right concept.
It certainly wasn't around when driving licenses came out. For instance, many states didn't require driver's licenses until the mid to late 1930s. Clearly driving was a right for the people of that time...if you met the requirements for driving, and paid your taxes, you just got into your Model T and drove. It wasn't until the 1960s that it evolved into the state controlled privilege concept.
Err, technically a factual check, but nevertheless appreciated. I searched for that type of information everywhere (though the FAA webpages claimed that there were some type of 12 hour rule, but I couldn't make heads or tales of it (in terms of...is it a requirement for US carriers which operate interionationally?)
In the end, I was hoping that you would respond to the original dumb idea...why permanently locking the pilots in the cockpit is bad.
Oh, and what percentage of flights are 23 hours? I can't think of any. Long haul flights are in the 12 hour range.
The international rules are a pilot can't fly for more than 12 hours straight. However, carriers tend to keep a crew flying for only 8 hours or less; you can count on having two crews onboard a flight of more than 6-8 hours.
On the very long flights (like 15 hours, US to South Africa, US to India, etc) you may find three crews: one crew handles take off and the first 6-8 hours of flight, the second crew the next 6-8 hours of flight, and the third crew the last hour of flight and landing.
There are other reasons for why a pilot needs to be in the cabin. There are mechanical systems which they can inspect and repair if necessary. There are also times when the pilot may have to examine the wings from the cabin windows to see if there's damage or ice.
This is the same reasoning we used to use in high school when we'd drop our wrappers on the floor...
I went to a Montessori school that was too small to have a cafeteria...so we ate in the classrooms. We were taught it was our responsibility to clean up after we eat (the janitor did not come into the classroom to clean up after lunch.)
I believe the "let the janitor clean it up" attitude is a bad habit to inculcate at a young age.
(Granted some of GM's cars are dull, but Toyota etc. doesn't make a single exciting car,...
The best judge on this i.e. the American public does not agree with you...sorry.
I believe that you just proved the original post's point.
Americans shy away from exciting cars, and prefer convenience and usability. The Japanese automakers know this, and that's what they make for the US market. The Camry, Accord and Civic are almost immeasurably dull. They are purposefully designed that way (in fact, Honda's first goal in designing its main line cars--like the Civic or Accord, is to make sure it doesn't turn off its previous owners.)
European and Japanese autobuyers don't need or use cars in the same way, so they have a much more interesting selection of cars. Some of these unique vehicles make their way to US shores (like the Scions from Toyota, or European brands like VW and Saab.) In either case, it's a well known fact (often lamented in car magazines) that Americans buy dull cars.
Some jurisdictions mandate the concept of innocence until proven guilty, others not.
What I think is peculiarly interesting is that many mandate it but its application is so varied. Depending on circumstances, you may be arguably more innocent in a US court than in a French court, and vice versa in new circumstances.
In terms of citation of a source saying that the Singapore police are the country's largest drug dealers is an unproven allegation, and a dig at their draconian measures.
It wasn't a dig at their draconian measures, but a a dig at the idea that it's possible to use the police state to ban something successfully. The economics of supply and demand are just too strong, and they'll find the weakness whereever necessary. In my mind, the drug war is just plain impossible.
There's a theory of wealth that says something like 20% of the population is very wealthy, 60% is average, and 20% is poor. If you adjust the system, you can flatten the curve, so that you have 90% average, but then the 5% at the top end is violently rich, and then the bottom 5% is really poor.
I've entertained the same idea in terms of criminality: 60% of people are handled fairly and judiciously, 20% of people can get away with just about anything, and 20% are not treated fairly in the judicial system (I do criminal research.)
In my mind, therefore, if you flatten the curve, maybe you can get 90% of people being treated fairly/judiciously, and maybe 5% will get screwed no matter what, but then 5% truly can get away with murder.
If this behavior is simply one of those things one has to live with, all you can do is identify the top 20 and bottom 20 for the sake of posterity. Singapore remains so secretive, it's hard to know who is at the top 5%-20%.
Anectodal information about their police is specious. Sorry
I was looking for some more information on it, because I would have sworn I found it...but I decided to just stick with it being a low-level anecdote until I find a better citation. Perhaps you have some more info? From what I recall, it almost seemed to have been universal knowledge.
This review doesn't mean the US is better or worse, rather that such a comparison doesn't render one a police state, and the other not.
I agree, and, as an American, I also think it's possible for there to be a police state in a limited way. I think you can make some pretty good US is a police state arguments easily.
"The actual number executed for drug offenses is higher, said Amnesty, because for the last three years the Singapore government has released only the total number of executions and has refused to say who was executed for what."
There will be disagreement if such harsh penalties for a victimless crime makes for a police state. However, I believe that most definitions of a police state would include a judiciary which is purposefully non-transparent (you don't know who is in there, for what reason, and you don't necessarily find out the outcome.)
I have been told once, on the drugs issue, that, because of the drug laws, its the police that are most involved in drug trafficking.
Not all driving licenses have addresses on them. Not all people receive mail at their home addresses. And not all states format the address data with proper USPS configuration. Not all licenses have enough "clear" area (where there may be private information under the address box.)
Though the reason licenses do have addresses on them is because they were, when they didn't have photos, postcards that were sent in the mail.
In spite of everything, I think there will be a movement away from addresses on licenses.
Slashdot Mirror
New York officials also annouced plans to close public parks to anyone under 18.
Clearly you didn't catch fark a few days ago, as something similar occurred.
Woman Ticketed For Sitting On Park Bench With No Kids
"New York, NY -- It's an only in New York story. A woman was given a ticket for sitting on a park bench because she doesn't have children.
The Rivington Playground on Manhattan's East Side has a small sign at the entrance that says adults are prohibited unless they are accompanied by a child....The city parks department said the rule is designed to keep pedophiles out of city parks, but a parks spokesman told the Daily News that the department hoped police would use some common sense when enforcing the rule"
I propose that we end this unnecessary confusion and spell both words "uhffect" thereby eliminating this meaningless rule.
No clue how rebates work.
Rebates are an odd (and I suspect uniquely American) concept.
A product is being sold at $50 with a $25 rebate. You purchase the product for $50, and once you get it home, you send in the receipt and UPC code from the box to the manufacturer. In about 6-10 weeks (usually) you get a cheque in the mail for $25.
Hence, while you did pay $50 originally, you'll eventually get $25 back, so you really only spent $25. Rebates are typically found on electronics products (but they can be found on cheaper things. The other day I bought a bottle of motor oil that had a rebate for the full purchase price, and yes, 6 weeks later I got a check in the mail for $1.79. In that situation, the hope of the manufacturer is that people don't take the time to complete the rebate paperwork.)
In my instance, I paid $99 for my cell phone, but my rebates were for $300, so I was paid to buy my cell phone (paid $201 that is.) My phone is a Sony Ericcson T637, which would have been enormously expensive otherwise (the phone was probably $250-$350 new, so since they gave me $200 you can safely assume that Cingular subsizied the phone for about $500.)
In order to get the rebates (which took about 5 months to get) I had to sign a 2 year contract with Cingular. There was no requirement as to which plan I had to buy (they were all standard Cingular plans) the cheapest plan being 450 minutes day/unlimited night minutes at$39/month.
Here's an example of a current offer with a price of negative $120.
And we still have 15 cents cell phones.
My last cell phone, which I bought for $99, had $300 in rebates from Amazon and Cingular. Therefore, I received a profit of $200 on the cell phone (had to do a 2year contract to get the rebates.)
I don't believe I've seen anything like that outside of the United States.
I don't buy it. If that were entirely the case, I should be able to go to any of the wireless provider's website or store and see them advertising bring-your-own-phone month-to-month plans.
Technically, that is indeed the case. If you look closely at just the plans themselves, they often don't mention service contracts. The companies themselves don't necessarily want you to do things this way, so they don't draw attention to it, but it's very doable. (Verizon and Cingular, as I recall, offered the plans month to month gratis, Sprint charged an extra $5/month to do it.)
People buy old cell phones off ebay all the time and mate them to month to month plans.
It amazes me that, for example, no-one really checks signatures on credit card slips or that you don't need a PIN to buy gas with a card at the pump.
Relatively speaking, the percentage of credit card fraud that is done in person is small (I think VISA said it's now under 15% of fraudulent transactions.)
MC/Visa want to encourage people to use their cards and run the transaction on their system. Using a PIN would either encourage debit card transactions to be used on the ACH system (which bypasses MC/Visa merchant transaction fees) or could discourage people from using their MC/Visa card.
If anything, you'll see signatures slowly disappear, and be replaced with proximity RFID cards, which are designed not so much for security but for convenience--MC/Visa want it as easy as possible for people to use their clearinghouse.
Why won't credit card companies start taking fraud seriously and put a PIN on the card
Credit card companies make money when debit cards are used like a MC/Visa, and you sign for the transaction. Credit card companies are shut out when they person enters in their PIN, and the transaction is run on the ACH system.
Because of this, MC and Visa want to keep people from doing the PIN thing, and get them to do the signature thing. If the introduced PINs, what will likely follow is confusion, and they need people to sign, not enter a PIN.
For this reason, you're seeing credit card companies move away from any verification and towards things like proximity RFID systems. That way the person doesn't even have to sign, and, hopefully, will run their card on the MC/Visa system.
How's it done in other countries?
Most countries that I know of appoint their judges. Usually the executive has a role to play in that, with the legislature approving the appointment.
One slightly different way of doing it is electing judges--almost no country in the world does that except some states in the United States. My Ohio, for instance, elects all judges--from municipal courts all the way to the state supreme court.
It's an ugly way of doing things--and predictions years ago were that people would dump elected judges for appointed judges...and that just never happened. There is a hybrid system used in some places (Colorado for instance) in which the judge is appointed, but they have to go through a regular "retention" election (where the question to the people is "should Judge X remain in office for another 4 years.")
In either case, the check and balances are blown. When the Constitution was written, Senators were not elected...they were representatatives of the states which, thanks to their appointments, were politically insulated. Hypothetically the confirmation process was supposed to be less political.
The article does a lousy job at explaining that (I read that the 12-14 cents per transaction go to Pay by Touch.)
The Merchant FAQ http://www.paybytouch.com/merchants/faqs.html> on the site says...
What is the cost to me?
As a merchant, you make a small investment in the Pay By Touch hardware and processing. This investment is quickly offset, however, by savings you'll realize due to less fraud, shorter tender times, payment type shifts, and the repeat business you can expect from offering your customers a better shopping experience.
Can I really expect higher profits?
Yes. In addition to the savings mentioned above, your bottom line will also be improved through the lower transaction costs resulting from your being able to influence your shoppers' payment choices.
"Influencing your shoppers' payment choices" is alredy done at many stores--when I use my debit card (like at Target) a keypad will appear for my PIN--so that the transaction is run as a debit and not on the MC/Visa system (to run as a credit requires me to select "cancel" as I recall.)
I believe the big savings are had by encouraging the customer to register their checkbook. Instead of running the transaction as a debit (ACH) or credit charge, Pay by Touch will try it first as an "echeck"--esentially a paper check but without the actual paper (at least, that's how I'm understanding things.)
If the customer chooses ACH debit or credit card, then the savings aren't there (or Pay by Touch swallows the extra costs.)
I prefer to practice realism (to the best of my ability) than delude myself with a reality distortion field built on expectations that are by definition unrealistic and founded on false premises.
Well you admit that that is your personal preferred way of doing things.
People are motivated by very different things--there are some people in this world, of tremendous talent, who are motivated to do a project by being told "it's an incredible challenge and it's a lot of hard work." There are other people, with the same reservoir of talent, who need to be told the exact opposite: "it's relatively easy and it's fun."
Neither is necessary true of false depending on the context (is multi-variable calculus hard? Yes it is compared to Spanish 101 but it's easy compared to going to the moon.)
Faith (and I meant it in the spiritual context, which is not necessarily religious, and I feel your post equated the two of them too much) is necessary for some people to slog through what is undeniably large odds (like a project that could take decades.) I don't believe that faith is necessary anti-realistic, it's just a shifting of perspective (like my example above. Once again though, I use faith in a more spiritual context and not a religious context. Religions are undeniably anti-realistic in some manifestations.)
Especially the cost of land, which is often "donated" by the government.
At least in Ohio, the procurement of land for state and federal highways is the job of ODOT--which is funded by gasoline taxes and federal monies.
I would be surprised if other states ran things significantly differently.
If not, then the full costs of land, construction and maintenance of road and parking facilites would have to be billed on auto users, simplest perhaps as a gasoline tax, which would be unfair, but encourage fuel efficiency.
I'm not sure where parent gets the idea of thousdands of dollars per person of subsidized automobile usage; as it remains my understanding that federal highway outlays are pretty much equal to federal gasoline tax revenues. In the state I live in (Ohio) the state constitution essentially cordons off the transportation budget from the rest of the state budget (driver's license fees, registration fees and state gasoline tax revenues can only be used for transporation expenses.) While it's possible for non-transportation revenues to be used for the road system, this is fairly rare at the state level (some maintainance is done by local jurisdictions, but that's actually a minor component.)
Essentially the road system really is mostly paid for by gasoline taxes.
. I mean, whatever happened to actually designing the application ?
That's something you did when you were dealing with certain types of limitations. In the mainframe days you had lots of limitations that we don't have today that required you to really plan out what you were doing (such as compiling required you to print up your program on punch cards, load the punch cards into the compiler and then load in the data followed by waiting for the response off a whole new set of punchcards.) Undoubtedly these limitations made for some amazing programming and discipline, but these limitations are gone, and there are plusses to that as well.
The other sayings I hear are: "He was like...", "I am like...",
I don't really hear "I am like" all that often, I would be more likely to hear "I was like."
Linguists take a very neutral approach to grammar changes, but it's true that grammar in the Americas changes faster than grammar in Europe (though this may change in time.)
The concept of a "correct grammar" is often rooted in class--the "correct" language is spoken by the upper classes, so the lower social classes attempt to imitate it.
Class structures in the Americas are a lot more flat and less important.
I think someone would be a coward if they were so willing to hand over control of their daily life to the "authorities" in the vain hopes that somehow they would be protected from all danger.
And without getting too political, note how people are so desperate to blame Fema, or the city of New Orleans, or the Governor of Louisiana or the President himself for some of the problems of Katrina.
Though I haven't read the City of New Orleans charter, or the Constitution of Lousiana, I suspect that nothing in either of those documents has a guarantee of protection from natural disasters. It certainly isn't in the Constitution. Certainly they had the power to do some things, but to suggest that they had the obligation strikes me as naive.
One thing that causes fear in traffic safety circles is what happens when a judge rules that driving is a right and not a privilege.
I believe that the Supreme Court did in fact hear such a case, wouldn't rule on whether there was a substantial difference between right and privilege, but said it didn't matter anyway.
The concept of there being a lesser form of a right called a privilege is relatively new. (To this day the term "executive privilege" is used more in the context of the older style concept of privilege--a right that is granted by virtue of something other than being a citizen, as opposed to a truncated right.) Driving safety advocates of the 1960s invented the truncated right concept.
It certainly wasn't around when driving licenses came out. For instance, many states didn't require driver's licenses until the mid to late 1930s. Clearly driving was a right for the people of that time...if you met the requirements for driving, and paid your taxes, you just got into your Model T and drove. It wasn't until the 1960s that it evolved into the state controlled privilege concept.
Reality check please!
Err, technically a factual check, but nevertheless appreciated. I searched for that type of information everywhere (though the FAA webpages claimed that there were some type of 12 hour rule, but I couldn't make heads or tales of it (in terms of...is it a requirement for US carriers which operate interionationally?)
In the end, I was hoping that you would respond to the original dumb idea...why permanently locking the pilots in the cockpit is bad.
Oh, and what percentage of flights are 23 hours? I can't think of any. Long haul flights are in the 12 hour range.
The international rules are a pilot can't fly for more than 12 hours straight. However, carriers tend to keep a crew flying for only 8 hours or less; you can count on having two crews onboard a flight of more than 6-8 hours.
On the very long flights (like 15 hours, US to South Africa, US to India, etc) you may find three crews: one crew handles take off and the first 6-8 hours of flight, the second crew the next 6-8 hours of flight, and the third crew the last hour of flight and landing.
There are other reasons for why a pilot needs to be in the cabin. There are mechanical systems which they can inspect and repair if necessary. There are also times when the pilot may have to examine the wings from the cabin windows to see if there's damage or ice.
Actually, the college I work for gave me three weeks notice yesterday on my contract because of recent Ohio legislation.
Which legislation was that?
This is the same reasoning we used to use in high school when we'd drop our wrappers on the floor...
I went to a Montessori school that was too small to have a cafeteria...so we ate in the classrooms. We were taught it was our responsibility to clean up after we eat (the janitor did not come into the classroom to clean up after lunch.)
I believe the "let the janitor clean it up" attitude is a bad habit to inculcate at a young age.
(Granted some of GM's cars are dull, but Toyota etc. doesn't make a single exciting car,...
The best judge on this i.e. the American public does not agree with you...sorry.
I believe that you just proved the original post's point.
Americans shy away from exciting cars, and prefer convenience and usability. The Japanese automakers know this, and that's what they make for the US market. The Camry, Accord and Civic are almost immeasurably dull. They are purposefully designed that way (in fact, Honda's first goal in designing its main line cars--like the Civic or Accord, is to make sure it doesn't turn off its previous owners.)
European and Japanese autobuyers don't need or use cars in the same way, so they have a much more interesting selection of cars. Some of these unique vehicles make their way to US shores (like the Scions from Toyota, or European brands like VW and Saab.) In either case, it's a well known fact (often lamented in car magazines) that Americans buy dull cars.
Some jurisdictions mandate the concept of innocence until proven guilty, others not.
What I think is peculiarly interesting is that many mandate it but its application is so varied. Depending on circumstances, you may be arguably more innocent in a US court than in a French court, and vice versa in new circumstances.
In terms of citation of a source saying that the Singapore police are the country's largest drug dealers is an unproven allegation, and a dig at their draconian measures.
It wasn't a dig at their draconian measures, but a a dig at the idea that it's possible to use the police state to ban something successfully. The economics of supply and demand are just too strong, and they'll find the weakness whereever necessary. In my mind, the drug war is just plain impossible.
There's a theory of wealth that says something like 20% of the population is very wealthy, 60% is average, and 20% is poor. If you adjust the system, you can flatten the curve, so that you have 90% average, but then the 5% at the top end is violently rich, and then the bottom 5% is really poor.
I've entertained the same idea in terms of criminality: 60% of people are handled fairly and judiciously, 20% of people can get away with just about anything, and 20% are not treated fairly in the judicial system (I do criminal research.)
In my mind, therefore, if you flatten the curve, maybe you can get 90% of people being treated fairly/judiciously, and maybe 5% will get screwed no matter what, but then 5% truly can get away with murder.
If this behavior is simply one of those things one has to live with, all you can do is identify the top 20 and bottom 20 for the sake of posterity. Singapore remains so secretive, it's hard to know who is at the top 5%-20%.
Can you explain "Given to unilateral action"?
Anectodal information about their police is specious. Sorry
I was looking for some more information on it, because I would have sworn I found it...but I decided to just stick with it being a low-level anecdote until I find a better citation. Perhaps you have some more info? From what I recall, it almost seemed to have been universal knowledge.
This review doesn't mean the US is better or worse, rather that such a comparison doesn't render one a police state, and the other not.
I agree, and, as an American, I also think it's possible for there to be a police state in a limited way. I think you can make some pretty good US is a police state arguments easily.
But it's not a police state, it just lacks a lot of democracy and free speech.
I think that there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest the opposite--under quite a lot of definitions, Singapore is a police state.
Here's a great example (from here)
"The actual number executed for drug offenses is higher, said Amnesty, because for the last three years the Singapore government has released only the total number of executions and has refused to say who was executed for what."
There will be disagreement if such harsh penalties for a victimless crime makes for a police state. However, I believe that most definitions of a police state would include a judiciary which is purposefully non-transparent (you don't know who is in there, for what reason, and you don't necessarily find out the outcome.)
I have been told once, on the drugs issue, that, because of the drug laws, its the police that are most involved in drug trafficking.
Not all driving licenses have addresses on them. Not all people receive mail at their home addresses. And not all states format the address data with proper USPS configuration. Not all licenses have enough "clear" area (where there may be private information under the address box.)
Though the reason licenses do have addresses on them is because they were, when they didn't have photos, postcards that were sent in the mail.
In spite of everything, I think there will be a movement away from addresses on licenses.