Every time I'm stuck behind some clunker from the 1970s, or even a diesel from the 1990s, with my car's AC sucking in (despite being on the recycled air setting) the fumes from an era of under-regulation, I'm reminded of why the EPA is generally a good thing, and how much better off we are with it. Remember: you're choking on air that twenty years ago was the norm for driving through.
The strict emissions standards have generally been set by California first and are then adopted by the EPA. It's also unclear that they make a lot of sense when imposed nationwide.
Yeah, sometimes they're not effective enough, but I think the nation's generally better off thanks to their work.
Better off than what? Better than a free-for-all in which companies can do whatever they want without consequences? Sure. But that's the wrong alternative to compare to.
But people who want to abolish the EPA don't want a free-for-all, they want a good regulatory regime.
Or from the Con-side, the EPA is the devil when they regulate industry, but when they say it's A-Ok, it's the voice of angels.
Not at all. People who oppose the EPA (myself included) don't do so out of some hatred for the environment, we do so because we believe the EPA is an ineffective way of protecting the environment. We want stricter civil liability for corporations instead of EPA-granted licenses to pollute, and we want more appropriate local and state regulation instead of blanket federal regulations.
The composition of fracking fluid is well documented. It's highly dilute and the chemicals are common and generally harmless at the concentrations in the fracking fluid (they are even more dilute if they should enter the water table).
You are either (1) rationalizing a harmful practice in which you have a vested interest
Well, I certainly am rationalizing a harmful practice in which I have a vested interest: whatever harm fracking causes is dwarfed by its benefits to me and all other Americans.
Admittedly, most are big enough to be felt but too small to do direct and immediate damage. Still, that doesn't mean they always will be, and shaking houses is obviously not good for them and over time causes settling, cracking, etc...
If you're worried about the US government making big handouts to corporations, why not start with the easy stuff, like "quantitative easing", the ACA, and the massive so-called "stimulus program"? That's thousands of dollars of harm caused to every American year after year. Instead you choose to get all pushed out of shape about a bit of vibration that hasn't even caused significant damage (and if it does, people can recover).
Why stop with reporting money transactions? We could find even more criminals if we forced everybody to wear GPS systems and recorded all phone conversations! Why not do that as well?
And note that Hastert has not been accused of, let alone convicted of, any other crime.
Fact is that these investigative techniques represent an unacceptable intrusion into the private lives of law-abiding citizens. That's bad enough when it harms regular citizens, but it is even more worrisome when it targets government officials.
If you're being blackmailed for a crime you committed, you're not a law abiding citizen
If he was blackmailed for a crime, they could and should charge him with that. Since he hasn't been charged, let alone convicted, he is a law abiding citizen except for his "structuring".
If it's not a crime, and you still choose to pay the blackmailer because of shame or fear of being exposed as X, then you should probably tell the authorities this,
Why? What justification does the FBI have of getting embarrassing details on the private lives of US citizens? Given the FBI's history and the abuses it has engaged in, that is a lousy idea, unless you take the totalitarian view that anything the FBI does is for the good of society.
rather than engage in what looks like an attempt to cover up money laundering.
"Money laundering" means taking illegally obtained money and making it appear to come from legitimate sources. Who Hastert was giving the money to is not relevant to where it came from.
The economic and social legacy of slavery is not the cause of crime and poverty in the African American community anymore. But instead of listening to reason, you listen to the self-serving lies of politicians and activists.
The "conquerors" are long dead. The fact that I (and you?) happen to have white skin color doesn't make us in any way related to the people who enslaved anybody. Check your racism.
Understanding why these things exist leads to one of two conclusions... 2) their destruction was systematic, planned, and on-going, in such an extreme way that precludes all notions of a segregated society where everyone 'gets along'.
Well, it's clearly (2), carried out by the same people who have been carrying it out for a century: progressives and Democrats. Then as now, they view African Americans as inferior and incapable of succeeding on their own.
What law abiding citizens? We're talking about a child molester here.
Has he been convicted of child molestation? No. For all we know, this may simply have been a consensual gay affair with an adult.
More generally, money is a form of power. Using money is wielding power. Wielding large amounts of power requires checks and balances to avoid degenerating into a tyranny.
Money Laundering is a crime because, BY DEFINITION, you are trying to legitimise the proceeds of illegal activities.
Illegal activities are BY DEFINITION illegal. That is, if you can prove that someone has engaged in an illegal activity, you don't need to charge them with money laundering as well.
Money laundering was made a separate crime so that prosecutors who suspect someone of wrongdoing but can't prove it can still convict on a money laundering charge.
Hastert just happens to be one of the most prominent people who got caught up in stupid financial reporting laws. You aren't supposed to feel sympathy for the creep, you are supposed to pay attention what's happening with our laws. If this crap can happen to Hastert, it can happen to you.
Its relevant to knowing if their hiring practices are biased for or against people with a certain skin colour, for example...
No, it is not relevant to that: you cannot infer the presence or absence of racial biases in hiring practice by looking at the racial distribution of who actually got hired.
This means that there are, quite literally, tens of thousands of people who are *perfectly capable* of being excellent software engineers - just as good as you - but who are not working in that field because they've been told, in effect "sorry, Black dudes, and girls of all colors can't do this stuff. Maybe you'd like dealing drugs or baking cakes instead?"
But that's fiction. Black kids aren't being told that at all. Instead, many deliberately avoid academic and STEM fields because their own peers disapprove of it.
Nobody is arguing that companies should go out and hire brain-damaged people who can't read to do these jobs - they're talking about addressing the situation through increased educational outreach
The poverty and lack of achievement associated with African Americans is not primarily a consequence of discrimination or lack of outreach.
You can't address a problem if you don't understand its causes.
They should fire a bunch of white people and hire a bunch of non-white people based solely on the color of their skin.
To be demographically representative of the US population, they would have to fire lots of Asians, and hire more Caucasians and African Americans, since the latter two groups are both statistically underrepresented.
You really need to read more carefully. I didn't argue for the abolition of lawyers or laws. I made a statement about federal law and Congress. There are plenty of complex arrangements people need in their lives, but they don't need to be imposed at a centralized, federal level by Congress.
As for Thomas More, the fact that he was historically important and that his ideas were influential to some degree doesn't make them right. More's Utopia effectively describes a progressive ideal; to what degree it was satire is debatable (communists certainly didn't think so). And for a lawyer to advocate a big and complex body of law would hardly be surprising.
Slashdot Mirror
The strict emissions standards have generally been set by California first and are then adopted by the EPA. It's also unclear that they make a lot of sense when imposed nationwide.
Better off than what? Better than a free-for-all in which companies can do whatever they want without consequences? Sure. But that's the wrong alternative to compare to.
But people who want to abolish the EPA don't want a free-for-all, they want a good regulatory regime.
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you might be familiar with the facts, e.g.:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...
My second point isn't an argument, it's pointing out Etherwalk's hypocrisy.
Dunno. But Slashdot has increasingly been taken over by left-wing idiots.
Not at all. People who oppose the EPA (myself included) don't do so out of some hatred for the environment, we do so because we believe the EPA is an ineffective way of protecting the environment. We want stricter civil liability for corporations instead of EPA-granted licenses to pollute, and we want more appropriate local and state regulation instead of blanket federal regulations.
Here's a starter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
The composition of fracking fluid is well documented. It's highly dilute and the chemicals are common and generally harmless at the concentrations in the fracking fluid (they are even more dilute if they should enter the water table).
Well, I certainly am rationalizing a harmful practice in which I have a vested interest: whatever harm fracking causes is dwarfed by its benefits to me and all other Americans.
If you're worried about the US government making big handouts to corporations, why not start with the easy stuff, like "quantitative easing", the ACA, and the massive so-called "stimulus program"? That's thousands of dollars of harm caused to every American year after year. Instead you choose to get all pushed out of shape about a bit of vibration that hasn't even caused significant damage (and if it does, people can recover).
Why stop with reporting money transactions? We could find even more criminals if we forced everybody to wear GPS systems and recorded all phone conversations! Why not do that as well?
And note that Hastert has not been accused of, let alone convicted of, any other crime.
Fact is that these investigative techniques represent an unacceptable intrusion into the private lives of law-abiding citizens. That's bad enough when it harms regular citizens, but it is even more worrisome when it targets government officials.
If he was blackmailed for a crime, they could and should charge him with that. Since he hasn't been charged, let alone convicted, he is a law abiding citizen except for his "structuring".
Why? What justification does the FBI have of getting embarrassing details on the private lives of US citizens? Given the FBI's history and the abuses it has engaged in, that is a lousy idea, unless you take the totalitarian view that anything the FBI does is for the good of society.
"Money laundering" means taking illegally obtained money and making it appear to come from legitimate sources. Who Hastert was giving the money to is not relevant to where it came from.
Yes, and I'm asking why it should be? What possible justification is there for such a law?
From African American techie friends and boyfriends.
Yes, why don't you?
http://www.nationalreview.com/...
http://www.tsowell.com/spracec...
http://www.nationalreview.com/...
The economic and social legacy of slavery is not the cause of crime and poverty in the African American community anymore. But instead of listening to reason, you listen to the self-serving lies of politicians and activists.
The "conquerors" are long dead. The fact that I (and you?) happen to have white skin color doesn't make us in any way related to the people who enslaved anybody. Check your racism.
Well, it's clearly (2), carried out by the same people who have been carrying it out for a century: progressives and Democrats. Then as now, they view African Americans as inferior and incapable of succeeding on their own.
You cannot prove the presence of bias in hiring from any such statistics, it doesn't matter what other data you have.
Has he been convicted of child molestation? No. For all we know, this may simply have been a consensual gay affair with an adult.
Hitler and Stalin used the same excuses.
And that is justice... how?
Illegal activities are BY DEFINITION illegal. That is, if you can prove that someone has engaged in an illegal activity, you don't need to charge them with money laundering as well.
Money laundering was made a separate crime so that prosecutors who suspect someone of wrongdoing but can't prove it can still convict on a money laundering charge.
And why should it be? What business does the FBI have asking law abiding citizens what they do with their money?
They don't need to convict you to keep the money.
Hastert just happens to be one of the most prominent people who got caught up in stupid financial reporting laws. You aren't supposed to feel sympathy for the creep, you are supposed to pay attention what's happening with our laws. If this crap can happen to Hastert, it can happen to you.
The data has no relevance; you cannot infer the presence of racial biases in hiring from this data.
No, it is not relevant to that: you cannot infer the presence or absence of racial biases in hiring practice by looking at the racial distribution of who actually got hired.
But that's fiction. Black kids aren't being told that at all. Instead, many deliberately avoid academic and STEM fields because their own peers disapprove of it.
The poverty and lack of achievement associated with African Americans is not primarily a consequence of discrimination or lack of outreach.
You can't address a problem if you don't understand its causes.
What is the distribution of skin colors of Google's employees possibly ever relevant to?
To be demographically representative of the US population, they would have to fire lots of Asians, and hire more Caucasians and African Americans, since the latter two groups are both statistically underrepresented.
You really have trouble reading and thinking:
You really need to read more carefully. I didn't argue for the abolition of lawyers or laws. I made a statement about federal law and Congress. There are plenty of complex arrangements people need in their lives, but they don't need to be imposed at a centralized, federal level by Congress.
As for Thomas More, the fact that he was historically important and that his ideas were influential to some degree doesn't make them right. More's Utopia effectively describes a progressive ideal; to what degree it was satire is debatable (communists certainly didn't think so). And for a lawyer to advocate a big and complex body of law would hardly be surprising.
That's why I said: "every law should have to be re-approved by every new Congress individually". (And, yes, you'd need limits on the size of laws.)
Correct. It would limit the total number of laws to something normal humans can deal with and force Congress to prioritize.