Do they still dictate what you can name your kids, too?? I recall there used to be rules about that, and if the clerk didn't like the name you picked, he could pick it for you.
Hardly a joke. I'd estimate it's more like for every dollar the gov't hands out, SOMEONE pays $5 or so in taxes. (Consider too that every dollar of debt requires about $3 to pay off, and our taxes ultimately pay it.)
In some states, if the state gov't mandates that municipalities must do X, then state gov't has to fund X; unfunded mandates are not allowed. I wonder if a case might be made that such a requirement made of citizens, being unreasonable to the average person, must also be funded by the gov't.
Of course the problem is they'll just raise taxes to pay for it, which means we pay the tax admin overhead as well as the storage cost.
More useful might be for all the current public wireless providers to stage a "day without wireless" and see how many congresscritters discover they and their staffers can't get anything done, at least not without disrupting their routine.
Without bothering to look it up, I *think* the way it goes in CA is that if you have beachfront property, anyone can still use "your" beach, but they can't tramp thru your private property to reach it. However, they can walk along the beach in front of all your private houses.
I might misremember (having no particular need to know) but I think it's something like that.
I agree -- you are in class to learn, and so long as my tax dollars fund those classes, I don't want them used for other shit.
We can't MAKE you learn, but we can make that the only thing you're allowed to do. Blowing off the teacher (texting is that, being deliberately not paying attention) is not one of the allowed pursuits.
And finally, if we still applied a paddle to the rumps of disruptive students, this sort of thing wouldn't happen. They'd get a WHAP on the ass and an hour sitting on a chair outside the principal's office (a little time in the stocks does wonders for a kid's powers of self-discipline), and that would be the end of it. No need to arrest the kid or bring the cops into it, and we wouldn't have kids blowing off teachers like this in the first place.
Actually, I'd say the issue is worse in that at a few times per year, it's not something the average person would do often enough to develop any real skill at it. Compare the 10 or 15 times a year that Los Angeles gets enough rain to matter, and how many people can't seem to retain the different driving skills for an event commoner and less complex than what you suggest.
If you've done a lot of towing, yeah, it does seem easy and no big deal (I certainly think nothing of it). Not so for folks who've never done it, or only very rarely done it. But it's really akin to "well, you just recompile your kernel, and..." when it comes to inexperienced folks.
And imagine a high-traffic, high-speed, long-distance highway (I-5 leaps to mind) where because almost everyone on it is going 400 miles, everyone would also be towing a trailer AND in a flaming hurry. The clipping collisions would be... awesome, to say the least.
Lots of good points. To add to this... my sister's work has offices in China, and some big projects there. She tells me they are quite forthright about their real motivation with all this new "capitalism" -- it's a deliberate scheme meant SOLELY to suck money out of the West. Looks to me like it's working.
It takes 2 to 3 times as much fuel to tow a trailer, compared to a vehicle's normal laden weight. I doubt it's any better for electric-powered vehicles. This alone probably makes the idea cost-ineffective.
Trailers do nasty things to how vehicles handle, and it is a different skillset than just driving a car -- especially when the tow vehicle is small and light. It's downright dangerous in winter conditions, both to the driver and to everyone around him. Backing up with a trailer is a black art -- and the smaller the trailer, the worse it gets.
A car lightweight enough to be battery-powered isn't going to have enough mass to safely handle towing a trailer carrying a heavy battery pack even under ideal conditions. Also, the vehicle needs to be equipped with the right kind of frame hitch and tow package (including extra cooling for the transmission). You don't hook any real weight to the bumper and expect it not to be a problem, but these lightweight cars often don't have sufficient frame (sometimes not ANY frame, other than the collapsible part, behind the rear axle) for ANY sort of hitch, let alone one that balances correctly with the car's axles (without which steering is compromised). As an old tagline put it: "Optimist -- Yugo with a trailer hitch."
For real fun, tow a small but heavy trailer down a 6 percent grade, or in even moderate wind. That trailer better be equipped with brakes and a sway bar, or it's liable to try to get in front of you (and then you're jackknifed if you're lucky, or flipped and rolled if you're not).
Decently made trailers with brakes are not cheap. Expect to pay a couple grand just for the trailer.
And yes, I have a lot of experience towing trailers of all sizes, including cross-country. (Eyeing custom-built double-axle flatbed sitting out back, which cost me two grand back in 1983, plus another $700 for the frame and equalizer hitch, but it tows sooooo nice even loaded to the max)
So why aren't we using nickel-iron batteries? if nothing else, the base materials seem cheap and available, as such things go. (Seriously, I'd never heard of 'em before, but it sounds good!)
"Obama told us this package was so urgent that we couldn't even take the time to READ it. He didn't care about what was in the bill, he only cared that it had a lot of taxpayers' money in it."
There, fixed that for you. And don't think those congresscritters who voted for it don't know what they did. They DON'T have to live with the economic consequences -- they're already guaranteed their pensions, paid by us.
Firing you for making fun of your boss is not the same as putting you in jail for making fun of your boss. That is the critical difference between this case and your scenario. The kid was essentially jailed for making fun of her boss (the Vice Principal is effectively her "boss" while she's in school).
I suppose it depends on your soil. Here in the desert, dry soil is extremely lightweight; wet soil is essentially water weight. Denser soil obviously is going to weigh more. Clay from North Dakota works well for weightlifting.:)
Hydroponic material is also light, but not so light once you add water.
I know! use dehydrated water! that's got hardly any weight at all!
However, not to worry -- when you build hives, pretty soon you have wasps. We all know how wasps feed their young, right?? Soon we'll have no need to feed humans.;)
Not to mention that most food-producing plants need a full day of DIRECT sunlight every day of their lives. Indirect light doesn't cut it. Half days of sunlight don't cut it. They need more energy than that (after all, plants are essentially an energy-binding system, and their food value is directly proportional to how much energy they can bind).
Oh, and about water, it's heavy. WAY heavier than soil. Dry soil is light, but not much grows in it. Watered soil is heavy!
Whenever I see a project like this, I know the designer has read too much science fiction and hasn't driven enough combines.
I suspect as with most such tinkering, it's meant as a sort of electoral college gerrymandering, as a method of making sure Iowa always goes to a predictable party.
What if the farm/rural states got representation based on how many people they FEED, rather than how many people live there? That would sure put a different face on the election process, eh?
Since becoming a landowner (which took half a lifetime of work to achieve), I've noticed that the only people who vote to raise my property taxes are those who DON'T own a pot to piss in. D'ya think the Founding Fathers might have anticipated this effect??
"Democracy is mob rule by average people, yes, but that's what it's intended to be."
And that's why the Founding Fathers tried to limit the rule of the mob. As someone else pointed out, this country wasn't intended to be pure democracy for that very reason.
As to a meritocracy, as you say there are a lot of smart people who aren't fit to govern themselves, let alone a nation. And I don't suggest that only "smart" people should rule, for that very reason. But "every man gets a vote on every thing" is simply putting mass ignorance in charge.
Truth is, after watching democracy at work for the past 50 years, I've stopped believing in the popular vote at all. I now direct you to my other posts.:)
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Do they still dictate what you can name your kids, too?? I recall there used to be rules about that, and if the clerk didn't like the name you picked, he could pick it for you.
Hardly a joke. I'd estimate it's more like for every dollar the gov't hands out, SOMEONE pays $5 or so in taxes. (Consider too that every dollar of debt requires about $3 to pay off, and our taxes ultimately pay it.)
In some states, if the state gov't mandates that municipalities must do X, then state gov't has to fund X; unfunded mandates are not allowed. I wonder if a case might be made that such a requirement made of citizens, being unreasonable to the average person, must also be funded by the gov't.
Of course the problem is they'll just raise taxes to pay for it, which means we pay the tax admin overhead as well as the storage cost.
More useful might be for all the current public wireless providers to stage a "day without wireless" and see how many congresscritters discover they and their staffers can't get anything done, at least not without disrupting their routine.
[goes off, finds copy of flyer]
http://www.keepandbeararms.com/images/FBI-MCSOTerroristFlyer-Back.jpg
EEEP!
Without bothering to look it up, I *think* the way it goes in CA is that if you have beachfront property, anyone can still use "your" beach, but they can't tramp thru your private property to reach it. However, they can walk along the beach in front of all your private houses.
I might misremember (having no particular need to know) but I think it's something like that.
I agree -- you are in class to learn, and so long as my tax dollars fund those classes, I don't want them used for other shit.
We can't MAKE you learn, but we can make that the only thing you're allowed to do. Blowing off the teacher (texting is that, being deliberately not paying attention) is not one of the allowed pursuits.
And finally, if we still applied a paddle to the rumps of disruptive students, this sort of thing wouldn't happen. They'd get a WHAP on the ass and an hour sitting on a chair outside the principal's office (a little time in the stocks does wonders for a kid's powers of self-discipline), and that would be the end of it. No need to arrest the kid or bring the cops into it, and we wouldn't have kids blowing off teachers like this in the first place.
Actually, I'd say the issue is worse in that at a few times per year, it's not something the average person would do often enough to develop any real skill at it. Compare the 10 or 15 times a year that Los Angeles gets enough rain to matter, and how many people can't seem to retain the different driving skills for an event commoner and less complex than what you suggest.
If you've done a lot of towing, yeah, it does seem easy and no big deal (I certainly think nothing of it). Not so for folks who've never done it, or only very rarely done it. But it's really akin to "well, you just recompile your kernel, and..." when it comes to inexperienced folks.
And imagine a high-traffic, high-speed, long-distance highway (I-5 leaps to mind) where because almost everyone on it is going 400 miles, everyone would also be towing a trailer AND in a flaming hurry. The clipping collisions would be... awesome, to say the least.
I dunno... have you considered a second childhood? ;)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6252365.html
Can you imagine stuff like this going on if everyone were armed?
Can you imagine it becoming utterly routine when everyone is not? (Gee, sounds like an Iron Curtain country to me...)
Furthermore, it would be the same as claiming that the 1st Amendment only applies to people chanting in unison, not to individual speech.
Lots of good points. To add to this... my sister's work has offices in China, and some big projects there. She tells me they are quite forthright about their real motivation with all this new "capitalism" -- it's a deliberate scheme meant SOLELY to suck money out of the West. Looks to me like it's working.
It takes 2 to 3 times as much fuel to tow a trailer, compared to a vehicle's normal laden weight. I doubt it's any better for electric-powered vehicles. This alone probably makes the idea cost-ineffective.
Trailers do nasty things to how vehicles handle, and it is a different skillset than just driving a car -- especially when the tow vehicle is small and light. It's downright dangerous in winter conditions, both to the driver and to everyone around him. Backing up with a trailer is a black art -- and the smaller the trailer, the worse it gets.
A car lightweight enough to be battery-powered isn't going to have enough mass to safely handle towing a trailer carrying a heavy battery pack even under ideal conditions. Also, the vehicle needs to be equipped with the right kind of frame hitch and tow package (including extra cooling for the transmission). You don't hook any real weight to the bumper and expect it not to be a problem, but these lightweight cars often don't have sufficient frame (sometimes not ANY frame, other than the collapsible part, behind the rear axle) for ANY sort of hitch, let alone one that balances correctly with the car's axles (without which steering is compromised). As an old tagline put it: "Optimist -- Yugo with a trailer hitch."
For real fun, tow a small but heavy trailer down a 6 percent grade, or in even moderate wind. That trailer better be equipped with brakes and a sway bar, or it's liable to try to get in front of you (and then you're jackknifed if you're lucky, or flipped and rolled if you're not).
Decently made trailers with brakes are not cheap. Expect to pay a couple grand just for the trailer.
And yes, I have a lot of experience towing trailers of all sizes, including cross-country. (Eyeing custom-built double-axle flatbed sitting out back, which cost me two grand back in 1983, plus another $700 for the frame and equalizer hitch, but it tows sooooo nice even loaded to the max)
"Stimulus" is also a euphemism for the shock from an electric collar or electric fence. You've been warned.
So why aren't we using nickel-iron batteries? if nothing else, the base materials seem cheap and available, as such things go. (Seriously, I'd never heard of 'em before, but it sounds good!)
There, fixed that for you. And don't think those congresscritters who voted for it don't know what they did. They DON'T have to live with the economic consequences -- they're already guaranteed their pensions, paid by us.
Firing you for making fun of your boss is not the same as putting you in jail for making fun of your boss. That is the critical difference between this case and your scenario. The kid was essentially jailed for making fun of her boss (the Vice Principal is effectively her "boss" while she's in school).
I suppose it depends on your soil. Here in the desert, dry soil is extremely lightweight; wet soil is essentially water weight. Denser soil obviously is going to weigh more. Clay from North Dakota works well for weightlifting. :)
Hydroponic material is also light, but not so light once you add water.
I know! use dehydrated water! that's got hardly any weight at all!
Good one :D
However, not to worry -- when you build hives, pretty soon you have wasps. We all know how wasps feed their young, right?? Soon we'll have no need to feed humans. ;)
Not to mention that most food-producing plants need a full day of DIRECT sunlight every day of their lives. Indirect light doesn't cut it. Half days of sunlight don't cut it. They need more energy than that (after all, plants are essentially an energy-binding system, and their food value is directly proportional to how much energy they can bind).
Oh, and about water, it's heavy. WAY heavier than soil. Dry soil is light, but not much grows in it. Watered soil is heavy!
Whenever I see a project like this, I know the designer has read too much science fiction and hasn't driven enough combines.
It looks to me more like he copied it from hive-building aliens.
Another variant goes something like this:
Texas: Help! we're overrun with armadillos. What do you have that will kill armadillos?
Arizona: Coyotes.
Texas: Great! Send us some.
[time passes]
Texas: Help! we're overrun with coyotes. What do you have that will kill coyotes?
Arizona: Rattlesnakes.
Texas: Great! Send us some.
[time passes]
Texas: Help! we're overrun with rattlesnakes. What do you have that will kill rattlesnakes??
Arizona: Armadillos!!
I suspect as with most such tinkering, it's meant as a sort of electoral college gerrymandering, as a method of making sure Iowa always goes to a predictable party.
Your post gave me this thought:
What if the farm/rural states got representation based on how many people they FEED, rather than how many people live there? That would sure put a different face on the election process, eh?
Since becoming a landowner (which took half a lifetime of work to achieve), I've noticed that the only people who vote to raise my property taxes are those who DON'T own a pot to piss in. D'ya think the Founding Fathers might have anticipated this effect??
"Democracy is mob rule by average people, yes, but that's what it's intended to be."
And that's why the Founding Fathers tried to limit the rule of the mob. As someone else pointed out, this country wasn't intended to be pure democracy for that very reason.
As to a meritocracy, as you say there are a lot of smart people who aren't fit to govern themselves, let alone a nation. And I don't suggest that only "smart" people should rule, for that very reason. But "every man gets a vote on every thing" is simply putting mass ignorance in charge.
Truth is, after watching democracy at work for the past 50 years, I've stopped believing in the popular vote at all. I now direct you to my other posts. :)