But since current understanding is that all the features of HUD glasses make driving more dangerous, it would require a goodly quantity of new, independent research to establish that we have an exception
Being 20 years old "makes driving more dangerous". Being 60 years old "makes driving more dangerous". Having a baby in the car "makes driving more dangerous". Having had a bad day at work "makes driving more dangerous". Why don't we keep all those people from driving then?
Really? That means also that you can't drive Fords with Sync, or use the GPS on your phone, or drive a car with any kind of general purpose LCD display, because they all meet the definition of "monitor in view" and they call can do what Google Glass does.
The ACA had tons of deals in it to get members to vote for it - that is how anything passes and given the level of corruption today there is no way anything significant and important can pass without meeting the demands of the long list of corrupt politicians. [...] Partisans were trying to kill anything even remotely good for decades and anything that did happen was WEAK plus it was undermined as well.
All Republicans voted against it in the Senate and the House, so whatever "deals" were in there were deals that the president made with members of his own party. ACA is broken because Democrats created a bad bill, and Republicans unanimously voted against it because it was a bad bill.
The core of ACA was created by the Heritage Foundation and worked on by Bob Dole before Hillary stole 90% of it from him
The Heritage Foundation (as all think tanks) produces a lot of crap, so just because Hillary and Obama adopt 90% of a crappy plan from the Heritage Foundation doesn't make their proposal "bipartisan" or cause Republicans to vote for it in a knee-jerk reaction. And Republicans apparently don't care whether some semi-senile party relic "worked on" the plan or not.
Only an idiot would give up after winning 90% of what they wanted.
And since they aren't idiots, the logical conclusion is that they did really not want this plan, and that Hillary and Obama screwed up in their political strategy assuming that this would pass.
At that point, Obama should have scrapped the plan and started over with something he could pass with bipartisan support, instead of saddling the US with this crap.
The only reason Obama got this thing passed was a miracle: he got the insurance corps to back it
It's not a miracle at all: the ACA is a bad bill that represents a giant handout by Obama to insurance and drug companies. Obama is the crony-capitalist-in-chief, far worse than just about any president in recent memory.
What matters is not the fantasies that Democrats have about where the ACA came from or who should like it. All that matters is who actually voted for it, and the ACA got passed by Democrats, while Republicans unanimously rejected it. That means Obama and his party are solely responsible for this bill and its consequences.
Also, NFIP is supposed to raise rates to require less tax payer money, but senators are already talking about how 20% increases are "unfair" and need to be delayed.
Not really. Tax dollars aren't available to repair 2nd homes, and the amounts aren't really big enough to repair a high value home.
Second homes are insured under the National Flood Insurance programs, just like first homes. Since that insurance is heavily subsidized, tax payers are paying for rebuilding these homes. Only starting in 2013 did owners of second homes even have to start paying higher premiums than owners of primary residences, but they are still paying way below market rates. Yes, this is a bailout for the wealthy.
The ability spy on thousands at the same time is new, but are you certain that it wasn't done before 2001?
Yes. What's happened in the last 10 years is new and unprecedented. Technically, that kind of spying necessarily had to be more limited. And even if it had occurred, much of the harm from it is consequences that are necessarily publicly visible: use as evidence in court, illegal detentions, large scale targeted killings, etc.
So, the conclusion is de-regulation is bad for consumers, but good for businesses.
A bad conclusion derived from bad data. Maybe Internet access in San Francisco just sucks badly, or maybe they screwed up in their comparison. My Internet access is faster than any of those cities (through the local cable system), and it's $30/month. And I'm talking actual speed to servers in San Francisco, not theoretical limits.
I pay $30/month and get 60+ Mbps. So, those numbers are certainly not generally true for the US. Maybe Internet access in San Francisco is particularly expensive, or maybe they just screwed up on selecting their plans.
Nah, I look further back. Nixon committed election fraud
Probably the majority of US presidents since the beginning have been incompetent failures; that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about invasions of privacy, domestic spying, and violations of due process on a massive scale. That really hasn't been here before 9/11.
They re-elected senile Reagan. They re-elected Bush Jr. and they re-elected Obama. It doesn't matter which side you are on. That's proof the American People are broken.
In the past, who we elected to the federal office didn't matter all that much; most day-to-day issues were local and state matters. We should return to that.
People in Cuba pay less than $200/year and end up getting as old as we do. Effective health care is not expensive. The reason it costs $7000/person/year is because corporations and doctors push unnecessary and costly drugs and procedures on gullible consumers. And with ACA, Obama, the crony capitalist in chief, forces us to hand these corporations our money; we can't even opt out of that nonsense anymore by not buying.
'I believe the nation should commit itself to the goal of enabling all Americans to access affordable health insurance' but then left the how to do it to some of the best experts in health care and economics without partisan interference."
That's what happened: Obama's experts wrote down their rules and regulations as laws and that's what he passed. "Partisans" didn't have a chance to "interfere" with it, they just voted against it. They voted against it because they thought it was going to be an utter failure. ACA is Obama's baby: he and his economic and health experts designed it. If it fails, it's entirely his fault.
Or you could do something really crazy and like renting a gasoline car for your once a year road trip.
Is your life really that dull? Most people I know do something almost every weekend, and usually far away from any EV recharging stations.
IIRC Most households in the US have two or more cars, for most of those a combination of gas and electric vehicles would probably work quite well, if they needed the extended range of gasoline at all.
People have two cars because both people commute; it doesn't solve the problem.
For who? That's like saying big screen HDTVs weren't cost effective until they fell below the $1000/$2000/$5000 price point.
Yes, they were not. And states weren't trying to subsidize them either.
Not for most people perhaps, but plenty of early adopters felt they were a worthwhile purchase, and if not for them production would never have scaled to the point where you can now by a new 40" HDTV for $200.
And that's my point: electric cars are a luxury item and status symbol for the wealthy right now. And that means that government shouldn't subsidize them, because those people can pay for it themselves.
Unions in the US do two things. First, they engage in collective bargaining; that's generally a good thing, provided union membership is voluntary.
Second, unions lobby and manipulate politicians in order to get special favors for their members. That's the same kind of rent seeking that banks, oil companies, car companies, and all the other special interests engage in, and it is wrong and just as destructive of our political process and economy as the big business special interests.
You just repeat the same vague innuendo from the article; none of that supports the conspiratorial allegations from the article.
01: "two Arizona-based nonprofits, the Koch-linked Center to Protect Patients Rights and Americans for Responsible Leadership, admitted violating state election law"
Koch linked how?
02: "One potential donor courted by an ally of Russo's was Charles Koch, the chairman and CEO of Koch Industries"
Yes, he was courted and he turned them down.
03: "Hi Charles.. It would be great if you could support the final effort with several million.. I must tell you that Sean Noble from your group has been immensely helpfull in our efforts.. I look forward to seeing you on the golf-course"..
Koch turned them down.
04: "AJS and its lawyers took precautions, choosing to funnel the money through the Center to Protect Patients Rights, which was run by Sean Noble, who was then the primary outside consultant and strategist to the Koch brothers' national donor network"
It's not surprising that consultants who have particular political beliefs would work with people sharing those beliefs. But Koch actually did not donate to efforts to get Prop 32 passed, so clearly they aren't actually seeing eye to eye on everything. So what are they actually alleging here?
05: "Here, the money trail forks into two trails. In one direction, CPPR gave $7 million to a nonprofit called the American Future Fund, which in turn passed $4.08 million of that to a subsidiary in California. That subsidiary, the California Future Fund for Free Markets, finally spent the money on influencing Props. 30 and 32.
How does that establish links to the Koch brothers?
06: `In the second direction, CPPR directed $13 million to its Arizona neighbor, Americans for Responsible Leadership. ARL then passed $11 million of that money to the Small Business Action Committee in Sacramento, which spent the money influencing Props. 30 and 32.'
How does that establish links to the Koch brothers?
07: `Here's the bottom line: A California fundraiser raised a boatload of money. He shuffled it through a network of secretly funded nonprofit groups to hide the donors' identities. And when the money finally arrived in California in time to influence the 2012 elections, the fingerprints on the money had been thoroughly scrubbed offâ"and in the process, the operatives masterminding this scheme had broken the law. '
How does that establish links to the Koch brothers?
IOW, the two schools that did not reduce the entire postmodern movement to a caricature of nihilism are the guilty pseudo-intellectuals. Hmmm.
Nihilism is so weird that it doesn't even spill over into US politics; it's no better, of course.
Pragmatism pertains to the process of "takin' care of business". So... whose business are your American intellectuals catering to, and why is this considered a substitute for reflection?
American intellectuals generally hold similar views to European intellectuals (viz the progressives in the Democratic party). But the US isn't governed by intellectuals, it is governed by businessmen and lawyers who cater to the interest of business.
The point you try to make is mooted by the fact that atheists are barred from holding public office in some states.
No, it's not. Those laws are invalid, they simply haven't been removed from the books. There are lots of obsolete and invalid laws like that in the US. It's a quirk, not a legal issue.
its virtually impossible to remove religious holiday displays from most jurisdictions in the US, and the holidays are just the thin edge of the wedge for "a thousand points" of religious observance strategies that now include publicly funding parochial schools.
Publicly financed religious displays and religious education in school are the norm in Europe. Crosses are displayed in many European classrooms. Even priests and churches are paid for by tax payers (including atheists) in many European countries.
Separation between church and state is treated as one of those embarrassing issues that is open to interpretation
We aren't talking about the meaning of the word "separation of church and state". Fact is that Christian churches in Europe remain enormously powerful and have widespread support.
The "Koch link" seems to be that one of the guys running one of the foundations was described by Politico as a "Koch operative". The other Koch link was that there was an E-mail asking one of the Koch brothers for contributions to help get a proposition passed that would have limited the ability of unions to raise private money for political purposes. Consistent with his libertarian views, he says he does not support such restrictions and did not support the proposition directly or indirectly.
Can someone explain to me how this turns into a "Koch brother network"? I mean, perhaps the Koch brothers are more deeply involved in this, but nothing in the MJ article or the settlement seems to provide any evidence for any significant involvement by them.
So a bunch of wealthy Parisians get to shop in pretty bookstores, while the rest of France pays inflated prices to Amazon, increasing their profit margins. This is win-win for special interests and the wealthy.
The GDR Constitution never guaranteed human rights the way the US Constitution does. Not to mention it was a complete farce.
So? What I said contradicts neither of those points. I'm not defending the GDR or its "constitution". I'm pointing out that your claim that Stasi abuses in the GDR were police matters is wrong. Stasi abuses in the GDR were national security matters, just like warrantless wiretapping in the US is. That's important because if even a reprehensible state like the GDR needs to camouflage its violation of privacy and due process with national security matters, that is an even more important mechanism in a democratic state like the US.
In the US, Christian voters happen to prefer Christian candidates. Big deal.
In most of Europe, there are official state churches, massive state financial support for churches, and actual major Christian parties that officially declare Christianity the foundation and basis of government. Even several European constitutions do so.
Europe (and Asia) for that matter has a long ways to go before it even catches up with the US situation, let alone with the liberal fantasy European intellectuals have about Europe.
Slashdot Mirror
Being 20 years old "makes driving more dangerous". Being 60 years old "makes driving more dangerous". Having a baby in the car "makes driving more dangerous". Having had a bad day at work "makes driving more dangerous". Why don't we keep all those people from driving then?
Which, of course, is completely legal.
Google Glass is no more a "TV receiver" or "video monitor" than the other bitmapped LCD screens that you find all around modern cars.
Really? That means also that you can't drive Fords with Sync, or use the GPS on your phone, or drive a car with any kind of general purpose LCD display, because they all meet the definition of "monitor in view" and they call can do what Google Glass does.
All Republicans voted against it in the Senate and the House, so whatever "deals" were in there were deals that the president made with members of his own party. ACA is broken because Democrats created a bad bill, and Republicans unanimously voted against it because it was a bad bill.
The Heritage Foundation (as all think tanks) produces a lot of crap, so just because Hillary and Obama adopt 90% of a crappy plan from the Heritage Foundation doesn't make their proposal "bipartisan" or cause Republicans to vote for it in a knee-jerk reaction. And Republicans apparently don't care whether some semi-senile party relic "worked on" the plan or not.
And since they aren't idiots, the logical conclusion is that they did really not want this plan, and that Hillary and Obama screwed up in their political strategy assuming that this would pass.
At that point, Obama should have scrapped the plan and started over with something he could pass with bipartisan support, instead of saddling the US with this crap.
It's not a miracle at all: the ACA is a bad bill that represents a giant handout by Obama to insurance and drug companies. Obama is the crony-capitalist-in-chief, far worse than just about any president in recent memory.
What matters is not the fantasies that Democrats have about where the ACA came from or who should like it. All that matters is who actually voted for it, and the ACA got passed by Democrats, while Republicans unanimously rejected it. That means Obama and his party are solely responsible for this bill and its consequences.
Sure, people are going to do that.
Also, NFIP is supposed to raise rates to require less tax payer money, but senators are already talking about how 20% increases are "unfair" and need to be delayed.
Second homes are insured under the National Flood Insurance programs, just like first homes. Since that insurance is heavily subsidized, tax payers are paying for rebuilding these homes. Only starting in 2013 did owners of second homes even have to start paying higher premiums than owners of primary residences, but they are still paying way below market rates. Yes, this is a bailout for the wealthy.
Yes. What's happened in the last 10 years is new and unprecedented. Technically, that kind of spying necessarily had to be more limited. And even if it had occurred, much of the harm from it is consequences that are necessarily publicly visible: use as evidence in court, illegal detentions, large scale targeted killings, etc.
A bad conclusion derived from bad data. Maybe Internet access in San Francisco just sucks badly, or maybe they screwed up in their comparison. My Internet access is faster than any of those cities (through the local cable system), and it's $30/month. And I'm talking actual speed to servers in San Francisco, not theoretical limits.
I pay $30/month and get 60+ Mbps. So, those numbers are certainly not generally true for the US. Maybe Internet access in San Francisco is particularly expensive, or maybe they just screwed up on selecting their plans.
Probably the majority of US presidents since the beginning have been incompetent failures; that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about invasions of privacy, domestic spying, and violations of due process on a massive scale. That really hasn't been here before 9/11.
In the past, who we elected to the federal office didn't matter all that much; most day-to-day issues were local and state matters. We should return to that.
People in Cuba pay less than $200/year and end up getting as old as we do. Effective health care is not expensive. The reason it costs $7000/person/year is because corporations and doctors push unnecessary and costly drugs and procedures on gullible consumers. And with ACA, Obama, the crony capitalist in chief, forces us to hand these corporations our money; we can't even opt out of that nonsense anymore by not buying.
That's what happened: Obama's experts wrote down their rules and regulations as laws and that's what he passed. "Partisans" didn't have a chance to "interfere" with it, they just voted against it. They voted against it because they thought it was going to be an utter failure. ACA is Obama's baby: he and his economic and health experts designed it. If it fails, it's entirely his fault.
Is your life really that dull? Most people I know do something almost every weekend, and usually far away from any EV recharging stations.
People have two cars because both people commute; it doesn't solve the problem.
Yes, they were not. And states weren't trying to subsidize them either.
And that's my point: electric cars are a luxury item and status symbol for the wealthy right now. And that means that government shouldn't subsidize them, because those people can pay for it themselves.
Unions in the US do two things. First, they engage in collective bargaining; that's generally a good thing, provided union membership is voluntary.
Second, unions lobby and manipulate politicians in order to get special favors for their members. That's the same kind of rent seeking that banks, oil companies, car companies, and all the other special interests engage in, and it is wrong and just as destructive of our political process and economy as the big business special interests.
The article makes specific allegations. Saying "we already know these guys are guilty" doesn't support those allegations.
You just repeat the same vague innuendo from the article; none of that supports the conspiratorial allegations from the article.
Koch linked how?
Yes, he was courted and he turned them down.
Koch turned them down.
It's not surprising that consultants who have particular political beliefs would work with people sharing those beliefs. But Koch actually did not donate to efforts to get Prop 32 passed, so clearly they aren't actually seeing eye to eye on everything. So what are they actually alleging here?
How does that establish links to the Koch brothers?
How does that establish links to the Koch brothers?
07: `Here's the bottom line: A California fundraiser raised a boatload of money. He shuffled it through a network of secretly funded nonprofit groups to hide the donors' identities. And when the money finally arrived in California in time to influence the 2012 elections, the fingerprints on the money had been thoroughly scrubbed offâ"and in the process, the operatives masterminding this scheme had broken the law. '
How does that establish links to the Koch brothers?
Nihilism is so weird that it doesn't even spill over into US politics; it's no better, of course.
American intellectuals generally hold similar views to European intellectuals (viz the progressives in the Democratic party). But the US isn't governed by intellectuals, it is governed by businessmen and lawyers who cater to the interest of business.
No, it's not. Those laws are invalid, they simply haven't been removed from the books. There are lots of obsolete and invalid laws like that in the US. It's a quirk, not a legal issue.
Publicly financed religious displays and religious education in school are the norm in Europe. Crosses are displayed in many European classrooms. Even priests and churches are paid for by tax payers (including atheists) in many European countries.
We aren't talking about the meaning of the word "separation of church and state". Fact is that Christian churches in Europe remain enormously powerful and have widespread support.
The "Koch link" seems to be that one of the guys running one of the foundations was described by Politico as a "Koch operative". The other Koch link was that there was an E-mail asking one of the Koch brothers for contributions to help get a proposition passed that would have limited the ability of unions to raise private money for political purposes. Consistent with his libertarian views, he says he does not support such restrictions and did not support the proposition directly or indirectly.
Can someone explain to me how this turns into a "Koch brother network"? I mean, perhaps the Koch brothers are more deeply involved in this, but nothing in the MJ article or the settlement seems to provide any evidence for any significant involvement by them.
It's as *wink* independent *wink* as all the other government funded climate change studies, like, for example, the federally funded ones.
So a bunch of wealthy Parisians get to shop in pretty bookstores, while the rest of France pays inflated prices to Amazon, increasing their profit margins. This is win-win for special interests and the wealthy.
So? What I said contradicts neither of those points. I'm not defending the GDR or its "constitution". I'm pointing out that your claim that Stasi abuses in the GDR were police matters is wrong. Stasi abuses in the GDR were national security matters, just like warrantless wiretapping in the US is. That's important because if even a reprehensible state like the GDR needs to camouflage its violation of privacy and due process with national security matters, that is an even more important mechanism in a democratic state like the US.
No, dear Eric, you are simply terminally stupid.
In the US, Christian voters happen to prefer Christian candidates. Big deal.
In most of Europe, there are official state churches, massive state financial support for churches, and actual major Christian parties that officially declare Christianity the foundation and basis of government. Even several European constitutions do so.
Europe (and Asia) for that matter has a long ways to go before it even catches up with the US situation, let alone with the liberal fantasy European intellectuals have about Europe.
I didn't "blame the French"; I just pointed out that mainstream 20th century European political philosophy is bullshit.