The text is essentially a hunk of code describing how to execute the law.
The controversial section is a bug.
Do you think the courts should faithfully execute the buggy code, crashing part of the country in the process, or do you think they should fix or ignore the bug and allow the law to execute successfully?
If stated in those terms then the correct course would have been to execute the buggy code and let the developers come out with a patch when they realized how painful it is to the customer.
Frankly I think it would be hilarious to watch the Republicans fall on their own sword over this one. The public would expect them to create a reasonable legislative fix in short order and frankly I think they're just not capable of that level of governance right now. At the moment they're all breathing a private sigh of relief, especially since the majority of pain would have been felt in the red states that refused to set up an exchange.
So the police attempt to carry out the order, the Dutch parliament fights back by using the military to seize control. Recognizing the emergency nature of the situation they quickly pass a new law empowering a small "council for citizens safety" to make quick decisions. The council declares martial law and throws all of the Judges and activists in prison as "enemies of the state". With power consolidated and internal dissent quelled they surprise the world by launching an invasion of Belgium beginning with a night attack on Antwerp by elements of the 11th Airmobile Brigade swiftly followed up 13th Motorized and 43rd Mechanized in a lightning pincer maneuver on Brussels. Cut off and surrounded without access to their heavy weapons the Belgian forces quickly surrender. Emboldened by this move right wing forces rally to the Dutch cause and European countries fall like dominoes as the new Dutch empire rises out of the ashes.
Glad to finally have a like minded neighbor Russia offers an alliance which ends up incorporating the Chinese as well as they can see which way the wind is blowing. In a panic over the growing might of the tripartite pact the US launches a nuclear first strike hoping to catch the opposing forces unprepared. US missiles prove far more accurate than anyone expected and flatten the majority of their targets but even the limited retaliatory strike leaves Washington D.C., New York & L.A. as smoking craters and over a hundred million dead stateside.
Governments collapse worldwide as supply chains are stretched beyond their limits. The trucks stop rolling and grocery stores empty. As the food runs out civil order breaks down into mass violence. Over the next six months ninety percent of humanity starves to death and the rest are left to fight wars over cans of dog food in the blasted wastelands. All the dust kicked up by the nuclear exchange creates a cooling effect that cancels out global warming and the lack of working industry means CO2 emissions are way down, so it looks like the activists get their way after all even if none of them are still alive to see it.
Lack of negotiating leverage for the most part. If you're a special snowflake you can negotiate acceptable terms, for everyone else it's pretty much take it or leave it.
You're right. People don't understand numbers. The flashy stories say that nuclear power is doom incarnate but when you look at the statistics it's better by nearly every measure. I agree that people aren't likely to change their minds on this issue despite the fact that coal plants are worse in nearly every way.
There you go, making stuff up... Or perhaps redefining stuff?
Stuff in this context is other methods of generating energy. Natural Gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, but all other forms of energy generation are cleaner than fossil fuels. Don't misunderstand, I think we should be using a lot of it right now as a strategy to stop using coal, which is horrible by any measure except extraction cost.
Now when some candidate comes out and starts saying things like "environmentally responsible energy sources" and mentions that he likes fracking for natural gas because it's domestic, fairly clean and we have a lot of it, that's the politician I'm going to pay attention to.
Well, it's better than coal but worse than just about everything else.
There's this huge movement against GMOs, artificial ingredients and other scapegoat ingredients du jour, despite the fact that virtually all of them have undergone rigorous testing and long-term studies and have proven to be safe for human consumption in reasonable quantities.
Wait, GMOs have gone through long term studies? Since when? Last I checked they were considered GRAS which basically means they don't have to bother with all that science nonsense. If you think there have been long term studies on them I'd like a citation as that's an extraordinary claim.
If we put Senators back under the control of state legislatures, they'll be less influenced by outside money because the state legislatures can yank the leash when these "law makers" stop representing their constituents appropriately.
This sounds good, but the reason they changed the system in the first place was due to the extreme corruption under the old method of selecting senators. Personally I'd like to see the senate switched to proportional representation. First, it helps break up the two party politics lockgrip by giving smaller parties something to shoot for. Secondly due to there being more parties it spreads the graft around and makes it harder to influence things so much.
More appropriately bribes should be taxable at a significant rate. This raises funds by penalizing questionable behavior while at the same time making it a federal crime to fail to declare any bribes you've received. (tax evasion) Sounds like a win-win to me.
If by "win" you mean perfection then no of course not. If on the other hand you mean "making it useable by get rid of the majority of the junk" then yeah filtering works fine.
Taxes with representation are not theft, they're the cost of civilization. We can argue over what level of taxes are appropriate or which kinds are the least damaging, but to claim that all taxes are theft suggests you're either an anarchist or an unrealistic dreamer.
That said, what have our nukes done to prevent the war on terror?
An anti-insurgency campaign in a couple of minor nations is not in the same weight class as a global conflict between 1st world powers. Allow me to demonstrate:
WWI Casualties: 17 Million
WWII Casualties: 60 Million
War on Terror Casualties: Debatable but likely less than 250k.
As you can see the other conflicts are roughly two orders of magnitude larger.
What have they done to prevent all the other wars we have fought in since WWII?
Congress hasn't declared war since 1941. If you want to count authorizations of military force then no, of course nukes haven't impacted that much since it's mostly the US taking on much smaller countries. (often with good reason, but we were hardly in danger of invasion)
You can make a (dubious) claim that the nukes on their own prevented other nations from attacking the US directly if you want, but conflict doesn't occur in vacuo on this planet.
I never claimed they prevent conflict, just major wars between nuclear armed states.
ICBM are useless for this purpose as they don't have the range and power to get the explosive into the proper position for a deflection shot. Developing a useful launcher and associated hardware/software is well within our capabilities if we decided it was important.
Slashdot Mirror
The text is essentially a hunk of code describing how to execute the law.
The controversial section is a bug.
Do you think the courts should faithfully execute the buggy code, crashing part of the country in the process, or do you think they should fix or ignore the bug and allow the law to execute successfully?
If stated in those terms then the correct course would have been to execute the buggy code and let the developers come out with a patch when they realized how painful it is to the customer.
Frankly I think it would be hilarious to watch the Republicans fall on their own sword over this one. The public would expect them to create a reasonable legislative fix in short order and frankly I think they're just not capable of that level of governance right now. At the moment they're all breathing a private sigh of relief, especially since the majority of pain would have been felt in the red states that refused to set up an exchange.
It was supposed to be funny rather than paranoid. I mean who would take the idea of a Dutch empire seriously right now?
So the police attempt to carry out the order, the Dutch parliament fights back by using the military to seize control. Recognizing the emergency nature of the situation they quickly pass a new law empowering a small "council for citizens safety" to make quick decisions. The council declares martial law and throws all of the Judges and activists in prison as "enemies of the state". With power consolidated and internal dissent quelled they surprise the world by launching an invasion of Belgium beginning with a night attack on Antwerp by elements of the 11th Airmobile Brigade swiftly followed up 13th Motorized and 43rd Mechanized in a lightning pincer maneuver on Brussels. Cut off and surrounded without access to their heavy weapons the Belgian forces quickly surrender. Emboldened by this move right wing forces rally to the Dutch cause and European countries fall like dominoes as the new Dutch empire rises out of the ashes.
Glad to finally have a like minded neighbor Russia offers an alliance which ends up incorporating the Chinese as well as they can see which way the wind is blowing. In a panic over the growing might of the tripartite pact the US launches a nuclear first strike hoping to catch the opposing forces unprepared. US missiles prove far more accurate than anyone expected and flatten the majority of their targets but even the limited retaliatory strike leaves Washington D.C., New York & L.A. as smoking craters and over a hundred million dead stateside.
Governments collapse worldwide as supply chains are stretched beyond their limits. The trucks stop rolling and grocery stores empty. As the food runs out civil order breaks down into mass violence. Over the next six months ninety percent of humanity starves to death and the rest are left to fight wars over cans of dog food in the blasted wastelands. All the dust kicked up by the nuclear exchange creates a cooling effect that cancels out global warming and the lack of working industry means CO2 emissions are way down, so it looks like the activists get their way after all even if none of them are still alive to see it.
Hold the members of government in contempt and jail them for failing to follow a court order?
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, they don't.
Lack of negotiating leverage for the most part. If you're a special snowflake you can negotiate acceptable terms, for everyone else it's pretty much take it or leave it.
Only because it would mean a failure by our counter intelligence unit. Their being "outraged" is nothing more than public theater.
You're right. People don't understand numbers. The flashy stories say that nuclear power is doom incarnate but when you look at the statistics it's better by nearly every measure. I agree that people aren't likely to change their minds on this issue despite the fact that coal plants are worse in nearly every way.
There you go, making stuff up... Or perhaps redefining stuff?
Stuff in this context is other methods of generating energy. Natural Gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, but all other forms of energy generation are cleaner than fossil fuels. Don't misunderstand, I think we should be using a lot of it right now as a strategy to stop using coal, which is horrible by any measure except extraction cost.
Now when some candidate comes out and starts saying things like "environmentally responsible energy sources" and mentions that he likes fracking for natural gas because it's domestic, fairly clean and we have a lot of it, that's the politician I'm going to pay attention to.
Well, it's better than coal but worse than just about everything else.
So, really, it seems that there are some problems that are preventing the processing.
Those are social problems rather than engineering ones.
There's this huge movement against GMOs, artificial ingredients and other scapegoat ingredients du jour, despite the fact that virtually all of them have undergone rigorous testing and long-term studies and have proven to be safe for human consumption in reasonable quantities.
Wait, GMOs have gone through long term studies? Since when? Last I checked they were considered GRAS which basically means they don't have to bother with all that science nonsense. If you think there have been long term studies on them I'd like a citation as that's an extraordinary claim.
If we put Senators back under the control of state legislatures, they'll be less influenced by outside money because the state legislatures can yank the leash when these "law makers" stop representing their constituents appropriately.
This sounds good, but the reason they changed the system in the first place was due to the extreme corruption under the old method of selecting senators. Personally I'd like to see the senate switched to proportional representation. First, it helps break up the two party politics lockgrip by giving smaller parties something to shoot for. Secondly due to there being more parties it spreads the graft around and makes it harder to influence things so much.
More appropriately bribes should be taxable at a significant rate. This raises funds by penalizing questionable behavior while at the same time making it a federal crime to fail to declare any bribes you've received. (tax evasion) Sounds like a win-win to me.
You cannot win with filters, period.
If by "win" you mean perfection then no of course not. If on the other hand you mean "making it useable by get rid of the majority of the junk" then yeah filtering works fine.
But for the most part those people who buy Armani suites don't go around telling everyone that they should ware one too.
Of course not, the whole point in buying an Armani suit is that not everyone has one. It's a status purchase.
No, not like the preview button which I already use.
Well, something like a short editing window would be nice for typos or unintended meanings.
Humans are social creatures, we like to be near each other. The value of living in London is all the other people who live in London.
That's my favorite explanation too.
Taxes with representation are not theft, they're the cost of civilization. We can argue over what level of taxes are appropriate or which kinds are the least damaging, but to claim that all taxes are theft suggests you're either an anarchist or an unrealistic dreamer.
That's later. For now they mostly run around and either get shot by stormtroopers or stepped on by AT-ATs.
Well, if we want to eat them in the future then they'll need water now. The fish plus water thing is pretty well established.
Mutual Assured Destruction was just ... mad.
And very scary, but it did work.
That said, what have our nukes done to prevent the war on terror?
An anti-insurgency campaign in a couple of minor nations is not in the same weight class as a global conflict between 1st world powers. Allow me to demonstrate:
WWI Casualties: 17 Million
WWII Casualties: 60 Million
War on Terror Casualties: Debatable but likely less than 250k.
As you can see the other conflicts are roughly two orders of magnitude larger.
What have they done to prevent all the other wars we have fought in since WWII?
Congress hasn't declared war since 1941. If you want to count authorizations of military force then no, of course nukes haven't impacted that much since it's mostly the US taking on much smaller countries. (often with good reason, but we were hardly in danger of invasion)
You can make a (dubious) claim that the nukes on their own prevented other nations from attacking the US directly if you want, but conflict doesn't occur in vacuo on this planet.
I never claimed they prevent conflict, just major wars between nuclear armed states.
Getting rid of all of our nukes would be about the dumbest thing imaginable. They're pretty much the only reason we didn't have WWIII and maybe WWIV.
ICBM are useless for this purpose as they don't have the range and power to get the explosive into the proper position for a deflection shot. Developing a useful launcher and associated hardware/software is well within our capabilities if we decided it was important.