The drug laws are stupid. One of the most toxic substances is completely legal (Alcohol) and yet, something as benign as pot will get you sent away for years.
The US tried Alcohol prohibition it was a failure, since prohibition itself was more dangerous than the banned drug. Yet the same failed technique is still used. There are also plenty of legal substances more toxic than alcohol. Including nicotine and acetaminophen.
And let make this point: How would a drug jeoperdise your safety? I don't give a shit if a drug smuggler is on the plane because he is of no harm.
It should only become an issue if the drug in question could either be used either make high explosive or rapidly incapacitate (large numbers of people)people.
Several presidents over several decades have tried without success to get something called a "line item veto". A line item veto would allow the president to veto specific lines that were added to a bill that have nothing to do with the original law proposed.
Why were these items added? Its works kinda like a game show called "Lets make a deal". I'll vote for your stuff if you vote for mine.
A Line Item Veto law would possibly stop to alot of pork belly spending, pet projects, and other assorted laws that the majority of Americans really do not want and do not have time to monitor being passed.
In which case maybe it should be someone's job to perform such monitoring. If it is the public's job they can hardly complain about the results of not doing it...
I would like to note that within the FBI Hoover building in DC are tons of fingerprint card records, and according to agents whom I worked with, there, they regularly catch people (agents) stealing information, which of course results in their being fired.
Wonder what proportion of people doing this get caught. This could well be happening very frequently.
It's a depressing sign of just how far we've fallen when the objections to the Real ID act by the states all center around its feasibility, rather than all the reasons it's fundamentally flawed. You know, little things like "the federal government doesn't have the Consitutional authority to mandate a national ID," or "it won't actually do anything to combat terrorism," or "it's a single point source of failure in protection against identity theft," or "it runs completely contrary to the principles this country was founded upon."
Or even "there are other things which the US Government could be spending time and money on, which would do a lot more to protect the lives and livelyhoods of people in the US than this white elephant":)
Not so for the Federal Government. ONLY those laws that have a basis in the Constitution are valid when passed by Congress; the rest, no matter how good an idea they may be, are summarily dismissed.
Or at least they should be. Currently it appears to be a problem that the US Government is passing too much legislation with too little critical examination. Whereas it is difficult to get even legislation which is very obviously at odds with the US Constitution voided.
The Commerce Clause only applies to interstate commerce. As soon as you run into commerce that stays within a single state, federal laws cannot touch it.
At least in theory. In practice all sorts of creative interpretations have been (and continue to be) used allow the US Government to do things it should not be able to do.
Since the 9/11 terrorists were, prior to the attack, completely indiscernible from other, non-terrorist citizens, this is clearly a difficulty they have already overcome.
IIRC none of the accused hijackers were US citizens. However since several of them are known to have used false identities and the identities of their coconspirators remain completly unknown it's perfectly possible that there were US citizens involved.
As it currently stands, when someone breaks into, say, a credit card database, they get information on a couple million people. This proposes to set up a database with all the identifying information on everybody. If it breaks, the criminal has information on every single American citizen with a driver's license.
It's more likely a case of "when", rather than "if". It's likely to be considerably harder to secure the latter than the former.
Identity theft can be done in a great number of ways today. A national ID, if properly implemented, could make identity theft much more difficult.
Or it could make identity theft a lot easier. Since all someone has to create is one high value document to take on your identity.
Think about it, if someone shows a fake driver's license from North Dakota with your name on it, what are the chances that the bank teller will be able to detect the fraud?
What has a bank got to do with driving on public roads in the first place? (Ab)using a document in such a way increases it's value to an identity thief.
I saw that too, but I have a different spin: What if you can't get a drivers licence because say you suffer from epilepsy or are blind?
Or simply don't drive. Or is it against the law not to drive in the US without a medical reason...
Does this mean you are barred access to all federal buildings, even to do something about your Social Security payments or organize a passport for overseas travel?
Would this also mean that you could not be tried in a federal court?
Presumably all in the name of "Eric Smith". The problem comes in when you have a Maryland license for Joe Smith, a Texas license for Jim Taylor, and a Florida License for John Jones.
Actually the problem comes in when you are asked to produce one of these documents for any activity unrelated driving a vehicle on public roads.
Even if we are fingerprinted, DNA sampled and chipped at birth ID's would still be faked. ID's are not totally secure and never can be.
More to the point governments would not want totally secure IDs. They would want to have the ability to create ficticious IDs for things like undercover police, witness protection, even protection of notorious criminals...
The guys responsible for 9/11 were who they said they were, and they had ID to prove it.
Actually in turns out that several of the alleged hijackers turned out to be alive and well (or in one case having died a year before). That is in addition to the "magic passport" and various versions of the passenger lists for each plane in existance. About the only thing we can be reasonably certain about is that the people who boarded the planes had identity documents which appeared to identify them.
911 is the excuse and not the reason - opportunists have been using it to push their own agendas for some time worldwide.
It now appears to be the case that the NSA was conducting mass surveillance prior to 911. Such surveillance tends to be much more useful for commercial espionage and political intimidation than finding criminals, terrorists or (most notably in the case of the GDR) impending government collapse.
For a blantant example, consider a small group called the "Neo-cons"
The "Neo-cons" are a rather strange group of people in the first place. Very much given to believing all sort of strange conspiracy theories about "the enemy". Originally that being the USSR, though now that appears to have changed to "Al Quaeda"...
that has been bleating "finish Iraq" for years that got the go ahead after a more relevant military action in Afganistan.
I can say that most of it is worthless at best and criminal at worst. The 2nd Amd (not the CPU company) says so
Actually at worst "gun control" laws can be counter productive. e.g. "gun free zones" which end up being the sites of mass murders (by criminals armed with guns who know their potential victims are unarmed).
It's similiar to gun legislation or Microsoft product activation. If you want it, you're going to get it. It only hurts law abiding people.
Adding more laws on to something which is already against the law is fundermentally useless because criminals dosn't obey the law in the first place.
Also, I think we should all take a moment to cross our fingers and hope that this new fangled thing called "common sense" will really catch on with the general public.
Forgot to mention that the oil would be lighter still, maybe not as light as gasoline (6 lbs/gallon), but it'd be lighter. So we're talking between, 50 and 70 lbs for the machine.
If you wanted the machine to be portable you'd probably want to modify the design to include baffles.
Ah, but that's only if you're using vegetable oil. How about switching to other non-conductive oils? Plain glycerine perhaps? It'll be clear instead of yellow.
That's replacing a mixture of esters with an alcohol. Alcohols are somewhat more reactive and likely to adsorb water from the atmosphere.
From my understanding, a true Athenean democracy involved deciding all issues directly through a simple majority vote.
That's a referendum, rather than an election. The ancient Atheneans also had randomly selected "juries" performing legistalive and executive functions.
Given that definition, it seems to me that going from an indirect election of senators to a direct one does make the system more similar to an Athenean democracy. That's what I meant by "more democratic."
Electing someone, especially from a very small pool of candidates, is "indirect". Even when you do actually have free and fair elections (which includes such things as one set of nomination rules and those running the election having as little interest in the result as possible.) N.B. quite a few dictatorships have elections.
That's exactly the problem I'm talking about! The presidential election already is too much like a stupid reality show,
except that using a real "reality show" as the selection mechanism would give you more candidates and minimise any advantage a "professional politican" might have over a "regular joe/jane". Which makes it unlikely to happen, since the last thing several special interests groups would want is to have a US President who might tell them to take a running jump...
The second problem shouldn't have become one in the first place, but has become so through the 17th Amendment -- the direct election of US Senators. Even though this seems more democratic, and in fact it is so,
Actually more elections does not equate to more "democracy".
Similarly, having state legislatures choose electors for the presidential election would be superior to directly voting for them as we do today, because the presidential race has become way too much of a popularity contest. It makes me sick; my parents voted for Bush just because they didn't like the personality of John Kerry's wife! The environment, the economy, or lying about Iraq (and ignoring Afghanistan) are apparently irrelevant! It's fucking ridiculous!
Maybe the US President should be chosen by the "Big Brother method". Stick all the candidates together in one building, with 24 hour video observation. Then have the public vote on who they want evicted, last one remaining wins.
The single-biggest problem with spy-cams and surveillance societies has nothing to do with the list (which applies to ANY technological advance, so is irrelevent anyway). The biggest problem is that the information is controlled by a minority for the interests of that minority, with no possibility of rigorous control over potential use or prevention of potential abuse.
The other problem with this control is the way such cameras have a tendency not to work at times they would be useful.
However, that weed that is herbicide resistant is growing among thousands of herbicide resistant crops.
Any plant which isn't herbicide resistant isn't likely to be able to grow in such an environment.
Rather than a parallel evolution of that particular herbicide resistance, wouldn't it be probabilistically more likely that one some grabbed that section of the inserted gene and passed it onto the weed species?
It rather depends how the weed plant is protecting itself from the poison. Remember that weed species tend to be prolific plants. Even if only a few plants had a mutation which protected them there is plenty of potential "habitat" for their offspring with the same trait.
well, not only that.. but it doesn't do a hell of a lot of good for foreign film buffs who want to see releases from abroad that have not been (or may never be) released on a disc corresponding to their home region.
Or they'd like the film now. As opposed to waiting months/years. Especially if the result is dubbed, when they understand the original language perfectly well.
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The drug laws are stupid. One of the most toxic substances is completely legal (Alcohol) and yet, something as benign as pot will get you sent away for years.
The US tried Alcohol prohibition it was a failure, since prohibition itself was more dangerous than the banned drug. Yet the same failed technique is still used.
There are also plenty of legal substances more toxic than alcohol. Including nicotine and acetaminophen.
And let make this point: How would a drug jeoperdise your safety? I don't give a shit if a drug smuggler is on the plane because he is of no harm.
It should only become an issue if the drug in question could either be used either make high explosive or rapidly incapacitate (large numbers of people)people.
Several presidents over several decades have tried without success to get something called a "line item veto". A line item veto would allow the president to veto specific lines that were added to a bill that have nothing to do with the original law proposed.
Why were these items added? Its works kinda like a game show called "Lets make a deal". I'll vote for your stuff if you vote for mine.
A Line Item Veto law would possibly stop to alot of pork belly spending, pet projects, and other assorted laws that the majority of Americans really do not want and do not have time to monitor being passed.
In which case maybe it should be someone's job to perform such monitoring. If it is the public's job they can hardly complain about the results of not doing it...
That problem can be easily fixed: make mudslinging ads illegal for political campaigns and whatnot.
You'd need to get this passed at a state level.
If a politician does something blatantly illegal, it'll hurt the advertising politician more than it could hurt the person being FUD'd.
Might also not be a bad idea to bar crooks from standing as candidates.
A very valid question, why are legislators allowing this?
Because too many of them are "career politicans" and too few of them are "regular people".
I would like to note that within the FBI Hoover building in DC are tons of fingerprint card records, and according to agents whom I worked with, there, they regularly catch people (agents) stealing information, which of course results in their being fired.
Wonder what proportion of people doing this get caught. This could well be happening very frequently.
It's a depressing sign of just how far we've fallen when the objections to the Real ID act by the states all center around its feasibility, rather than all the reasons it's fundamentally flawed. You know, little things like "the federal government doesn't have the Consitutional authority to mandate a national ID," or "it won't actually do anything to combat terrorism," or "it's a single point source of failure in protection against identity theft," or "it runs completely contrary to the principles this country was founded upon."
:)
Or even "there are other things which the US Government could be spending time and money on, which would do a lot more to protect the lives and livelyhoods of people in the US than this white elephant"
Not so for the Federal Government. ONLY those laws that have a basis in the Constitution are valid when passed by Congress; the rest, no matter how good an idea they may be, are summarily dismissed.
Or at least they should be.
Currently it appears to be a problem that the US Government is passing too much legislation with too little critical examination. Whereas it is difficult to get even legislation which is very obviously at odds with the US Constitution voided.
The Commerce Clause only applies to interstate commerce. As soon as you run into commerce that stays within a single state, federal laws cannot touch it.
At least in theory. In practice all sorts of creative interpretations have been (and continue to be) used allow the US Government to do things it should not be able to do.
Since the 9/11 terrorists were, prior to the attack, completely indiscernible from other, non-terrorist citizens, this is clearly a difficulty they have already overcome.
IIRC none of the accused hijackers were US citizens. However since several of them are known to have used false identities and the identities of their coconspirators remain completly unknown it's perfectly possible that there were US citizens involved.
As it currently stands, when someone breaks into, say, a credit card database, they get information on a couple million people. This proposes to set up a database with all the identifying information on everybody. If it breaks, the criminal has information on every single American citizen with a driver's license.
It's more likely a case of "when", rather than "if". It's likely to be considerably harder to secure the latter than the former.
Identity theft can be done in a great number of ways today. A national ID, if properly implemented, could make identity theft much more difficult.
Or it could make identity theft a lot easier. Since all someone has to create is one high value document to take on your identity.
Think about it, if someone shows a fake driver's license from North Dakota with your name on it, what are the chances that the bank teller will be able to detect the fraud?
What has a bank got to do with driving on public roads in the first place? (Ab)using a document in such a way increases it's value to an identity thief.
I saw that too, but I have a different spin: What if you can't get a drivers licence because say you suffer from epilepsy or are blind?
Or simply don't drive. Or is it against the law not to drive in the US without a medical reason...
Does this mean you are barred access to all federal buildings, even to do something about your Social Security payments or organize a passport for overseas travel?
Would this also mean that you could not be tried in a federal court?
Presumably all in the name of "Eric Smith". The problem comes in when you have a Maryland license for Joe Smith, a Texas license for Jim Taylor, and a Florida License for John Jones.
Actually the problem comes in when you are asked to produce one of these documents for any activity unrelated driving a vehicle on public roads.
Even if we are fingerprinted, DNA sampled and chipped at birth ID's would still be faked. ID's are not totally secure and never can be.
More to the point governments would not want totally secure IDs. They would want to have the ability to create ficticious IDs for things like undercover police, witness protection, even protection of notorious criminals...
The guys responsible for 9/11 were who they said they were, and they had ID to prove it.
Actually in turns out that several of the alleged hijackers turned out to be alive and well (or in one case having died a year before). That is in addition to the "magic passport" and various versions of the passenger lists for each plane in existance.
About the only thing we can be reasonably certain about is that the people who boarded the planes had identity documents which appeared to identify them.
911 is the excuse and not the reason - opportunists have been using it to push their own agendas for some time worldwide.
It now appears to be the case that the NSA was conducting mass surveillance prior to 911.
Such surveillance tends to be much more useful for commercial espionage and political intimidation than finding criminals, terrorists or (most notably in the case of the GDR) impending government collapse.
For a blantant example, consider a small group called the "Neo-cons"
The "Neo-cons" are a rather strange group of people in the first place. Very much given to believing all sort of strange conspiracy theories about "the enemy". Originally that being the USSR, though now that appears to have changed to "Al Quaeda"...
that has been bleating "finish Iraq" for years that got the go ahead after a more relevant military action in Afganistan.
Relevent in what way?
I can say that most of it is worthless at best and criminal at worst. The 2nd Amd (not the CPU company) says so
Actually at worst "gun control" laws can be counter productive. e.g. "gun free zones" which end up being the sites of mass murders (by criminals armed with guns who know their potential victims are unarmed).
It's similiar to gun legislation or Microsoft product activation. If you want it, you're going to get it. It only hurts law abiding people.
Adding more laws on to something which is already against the law is fundermentally useless because criminals dosn't obey the law in the first place.
Also, I think we should all take a moment to cross our fingers and hope that this new fangled thing called "common sense" will really catch on with the general public.
Or, more usefully, with the political caste
Forgot to mention that the oil would be lighter still, maybe not as light as gasoline (6 lbs/gallon), but it'd be lighter. So we're talking between, 50 and 70 lbs for the machine.
If you wanted the machine to be portable you'd probably want to modify the design to include baffles.
Ah, but that's only if you're using vegetable oil. How about switching to other non-conductive oils? Plain glycerine perhaps? It'll be clear instead of yellow.
That's replacing a mixture of esters with an alcohol. Alcohols are somewhat more reactive and likely to adsorb water from the atmosphere.
I suppose it makes them feel safer, being in a heavier vehicle (which they probably are).
One problem is if drivers feel safer they are likely to drive more dangerously.
They continue their reckless driving habits, however, now becoming that much more of a threat to the general populace driving smaller cars.
Cars don't just hit other cars...
From my understanding, a true Athenean democracy involved deciding all issues directly through a simple majority vote.
That's a referendum, rather than an election. The ancient Atheneans also had randomly selected "juries" performing legistalive and executive functions.
Given that definition, it seems to me that going from an indirect election of senators to a direct one does make the system more similar to an Athenean democracy. That's what I meant by "more democratic."
Electing someone, especially from a very small pool of candidates, is "indirect". Even when you do actually have free and fair elections (which includes such things as one set of nomination rules and those running the election having as little interest in the result as possible.) N.B. quite a few dictatorships have elections.
That's exactly the problem I'm talking about! The presidential election already is too much like a stupid reality show,
except that using a real "reality show" as the selection mechanism would give you more candidates and minimise any advantage a "professional politican" might have over a "regular joe/jane". Which makes it unlikely to happen, since the last thing several special interests groups would want is to have a US President who might tell them to take a running jump...
The second problem shouldn't have become one in the first place, but has become so through the 17th Amendment -- the direct election of US Senators. Even though this seems more democratic, and in fact it is so,
Actually more elections does not equate to more "democracy".
Similarly, having state legislatures choose electors for the presidential election would be superior to directly voting for them as we do today, because the presidential race has become way too much of a popularity contest. It makes me sick; my parents voted for Bush just because they didn't like the personality of John Kerry's wife! The environment, the economy, or lying about Iraq (and ignoring Afghanistan) are apparently irrelevant! It's fucking ridiculous!
Maybe the US President should be chosen by the "Big Brother method". Stick all the candidates together in one building, with 24 hour video observation. Then have the public vote on who they want evicted, last one remaining wins.
The single-biggest problem with spy-cams and surveillance societies has nothing to do with the list (which applies to ANY technological advance, so is irrelevent anyway). The biggest problem is that the information is controlled by a minority for the interests of that minority, with no possibility of rigorous control over potential use or prevention of potential abuse.
The other problem with this control is the way such cameras have a tendency not to work at times they would be useful.
However, that weed that is herbicide resistant is growing among thousands of herbicide resistant crops.
Any plant which isn't herbicide resistant isn't likely to be able to grow in such an environment.
Rather than a parallel evolution of that particular herbicide resistance, wouldn't it be probabilistically more likely that one some grabbed that section of the inserted gene and passed it onto the weed species?
It rather depends how the weed plant is protecting itself from the poison. Remember that weed species tend to be prolific plants. Even if only a few plants had a mutation which protected them there is plenty of potential "habitat" for their offspring with the same trait.
well, not only that.. but it doesn't do a hell of a lot of good for foreign film buffs who want to see releases from abroad that have not been (or may never be) released on a disc corresponding to their home region.
Or they'd like the film now. As opposed to waiting months/years. Especially if the result is dubbed, when they understand the original language perfectly well.