The EU is very much a group of independent countries that have agreed to work together on many issues but have not been willing to give up sovereignty to the point where an EU law has supremacy over local laws. A a result, EU rules tend to be a lowest common denominator with individual countries adding on their own requirements. That's not unexpected since the EU is not a country like say the US where there is a federal system that has sway over the individual states, district and territories that make up the US; where there is agreement the EU works well and but individual countries still have the real power in the union and there still is a very distinct nationalism at play in the political and economic dynamics. That's not necessarily better or worse than other models but just a reflection of how the EU came into being.
Why does adjusting the reimbursement structure to match a changing market indicate fear?
There is plenty of evidence that the market is changing and that residential renewables are a factor. But that is not evidence of "fear". Are there challenges? Of course. The term "fear" is used for the sole purpose of feeding a certain set of extreme greens exactly what they want to hear.
I disagree. Back to your OP where you asked for evidence they are "scared;" which I took in the common business usage of " seriously worried a business model is about to be Schumpetered" than the "OMG I just pissed my pants in the haunted house..." Having spent a significant time in the electric utility industry I can say electric utility are very protective of their turf and afraid of technologies that risk them losing customers, i.e. load. They want, via regulation or legislation, to either co-opt competitors so they can control them or limit their access to their customers. Solar and battery technology has the potential to seriously change their load profiles and result in a lot of expensive investments generating a much smaller return than expected. Even worse, it can result in them having to pay a lot of customers for power rather than simply selling them it. When it's a handful of people they basically ignore it, but when the technology has the potential to turn a significant percentage of their non-industrial customers into independent power producers, yes, they are scared. They may not be pissing into their collective pants but they are hearing the words of a dead Austrian economist and he is scaring them.
So, what evidence is there that electric companies are scared? Sounds like just the contention of a greeny.
Given many are trying to limit what they have to reimburse for non-utility generation by homeowners and businesses, establishing access and other mandatory fees to compensate for lost generation and or transmission revenue; I'd say they are certainly con corned, if not scared, and trying to get ahead dog the issue by getting laws and regulations in place before solar / storage becomes a major competitor. Once it is more common it'll be harder to shift costs to consumers.
Who can beat their 120+ line items of largess in a town with less than 5000 people? The Florence Facebook photos page is to die for. It took me 5 minutes to recover. Looks like a total LE staff around 12. (including the dog). I want pictures of Florence Cops on Mules!
While they may have been live mules the MULE was a also a mechanical device. Could have been a museum piece or maybe an M-Gator?
Cab drivers in Vegas are supposed to use the shortest route to airport but will us the longer route to get extra bucks. If you call them on it they will cut the fare to the proper one rather than risk a confrontation and potentially losing their license (1). All I've had to do is when given the fare ask "Why did you use the longer route instead dog the proper one?" and I get an "Damn" look and the driver charges me properly. Conversely, if a driver uses the proper route I give a tip that covers the difference plus and thank him for doing so.
Well, North Korea has officially said "Wait and See".
The film, due for release on Christmas, has drawn criticism from the North Korean government, which called it an "evil act of provocation" and an "undisguised sponsoring of terrorism" and asked the United Nations to block its release. A government website also threatened the filmmakers with "stern punishment."
Apparently the supreme, glorious little runt doesn't like being teased, and seems to think his delusional self is exempt from parody.
If so, this would be kind of hilarious, and kind of scary... a nation state doing this stuff because their leader tender ego is feeling bruised.
If this is North Korea, this is all about waving around the collective penis, and posturing that he has any influence on the rest of the world.
Hey, Kim was named the sexiest man alive recently so maybe they have something to be proud of waving...
Strange but true, at the end of the day all parasites are better off when they become symbiotic. There is no advantage to killing off your free meal, in fact your are better off lending a hand.
depends on the parasite's life cycle. If they can only live within the host then become symbiotic, or at least not causing illness and death, is beneficial. If they only need the host for one part of their life cycle, such as wasps that use insects as a source of food of rhetoric larva; then killing the host is not a problem.
One of the most nasty things a disease can do is to slowly replicate without causing symptoms. These long incubation periods are why Ebola, Tuberculosis, and Rabies are so dangerous. It makes them hard to detect and gives the host time to travel and potentially infect others without either party knowing. By the time the symptoms manifest it is often too late. By contrast, a disease that produces symptoms immediately is easily detectable and the host seeks treatment. If it is really really fast, they die before they can pass it on, and such diseases quickly eradicate themselves.
I don't look forward to a world where AIDS only manifests after 30 years, but everyone has it.
Except in this case, slow replication means the host never gets sick enough to die; they merely live with an infection and may exhibit no symptoms of the disease. They remain contagious but the disease no longer progresses to full blown AIDs.
"The virus is slowing down in its ability to cause disease and that will help contribute to elimination."
Not sure if this is incorrectly phrased or i'm incorrect in my understanding of viral evolution... The virus has evolved to slow down the process of causing disease, surely this is because it is advantageous to the continuation of this virus, if the host dies too quickly they are less likely to pass on the virus. So how does this contribute to eliminating the virus? is it not the opposite? Longer infected lifespan == Greater chance of transmission.
What the article says is the virus, as it adapts to a strong immune system weakens it's ability to replicate; thus slowing down the onset of the disease in the host. If another person is infected by this weaker virus, the new infection results in an even weaker virus as it tries to adapt to the host. In essence, each successive infection results in a virus less able to replicate and thus result in a slower and slower onset of AIDs. Over time, the virus may lose it's ability to replicate fast enough to cause AIDs and merely be another infection for the body to deal with.
Getting teachers to open and use a spreadsheet on an ipad is a lot more tricky than opening the same file on a chromebook.
Perhaps, but you are mixing the ease o fuse of a piece of technology with the ability to use the underlying technology. It does no good to be able to open a spreadsheet more easily if you have no idea how to use the spreadsheet beyond the basics; and my experiences with school systems is they give the teachers technology and expect them to use it without teaching them how to use it. As result, they spend hours struggling with the technology and sometimes simply discard it because it is too much of a hassle to use.
"New York prosecutors successfully persuaded a judge that the ancient law could be used"
The law was not sunset-ed, the law was not stricken down by another law, the law itself was not repelled on its own, the law was not stricken down by the supreme court.
So what is the problem ? Until a repell/strick down , ALL those law are still valid. Cue the shooting down welsh with a bow, but this is the basis of our judiciary process. just because a law is old does not make it invalid.
Correct, until it is repealed (unlikely) or struck down by the Supreme Court it is still the law. This could be a good case to take to the Supreme Court since it highlights the impact of changing technology on the law and could clarify what is required when presented with such a writ.
They didn't impose a limit rather they said in absence of a clear limit you could not charge someone with speeding since they had no way to know of sure wether or not they were complying with the law.
Sure you can. They didn't harm themselves or anyone else and so therefore the speed was reasonable and prudent and the ticket was baseless.
I doubt the "didn't hurt myself or anyone else" argument is a basis for drawing the conclusion it was a reasonable and prudent action. The court even said that a ticket for reckless driving could still be issued without a set speed limit so it pretty much dismissed the "didn't hurt myself or anyone else" argument as well. The key is if you do not know what the law determines is legal in such a case you can't be help accountable if someone else (a cop) has a different viewpoint of what is legal since there are no defined boundary between legal and illegal.
Montana used to have no speed limit during the daytime but that was overturned for being too "vague" by the Montana Supreme Court. People actually drove reasonably well and there weren't any major issues with it. The major issue was the Susie safety nuts who felt that without telling people how fast was reasonable that it would confuse people, the court agreed.
Per TFA, what the Montana Supreme Court said was you can't give someone a ticket for speeding based on "reasonable and proper" since no one could determine what was legal and that allowing a cop to decide was not legal. They didn't impose a limit rather they said in absence of a clear limit you could not charge someone with speeding since they had no way to know of sure wether or not they were complying with the law.
Is it similar in the US? So would people be left alone at 80mph when the current limit is 70mph? what if the limit is raised to 85mph, would the cops then give leeway like they do in the UK letting people do 95mph? Or could you get pulled doing 86mph in the US on an 85mph limit road?
You are generally safe at 10 over on US Interstates. Most cops won't bother you of that except where a local jurisdiction has control over a short portion and uses it for revenue enhancement. In addition, there are usually plenty of drivers doing 15 or more over that are much better targets anyway so as long a you are flowing with traffic you are pretty safe form being pulled over.
I think this is where we get into "clear and obvious". For example, if the law prohibits minors gambling at the horse track, but Little Johnny stands right there listing off bets to an adult who parrots those bets to the track employee taking bets, then hands the money for those bets to the adult who hands it to the track employee, the law is clearly and obviously being circumvented and the entire intent of the law undermined by a simple loophole. (this actually works by the way, did it for years as a teen) Is this a capital crime that needs huge resources dumped into it? No, but ignoring it breeds disrespect for the law.
Many laws in the US already have this provision, for example buying cigarettes or alcohol for minors is against the law; and so in many clear and obvious situations the law already addresses them. The problem is what is "clear and obvious?" You open the door for situations where someone does something perfectly legal but because some one else doesn't like it they wind up being charged with a crime; and it could wind up limiting you from doing something perfectly legal in another jurisdiction but "clearly and obviously" against the law in another. For example, abortion laws vary state to state and what is perfectly legal in one isn't in another. So if person A leaves Jurisdiction X to go to Y and gets a procedure that is legal in Y but not in X can they be tried under the "clear and obvious" rule in X once they return since they clearly broke X's law. Granted, that is an extreme example but could hold for less inflammatory issues as well.
I agree there are plenty of cases where this would not be a preferable addition to the law due to its potentially chilling effect on normal, legal activities. So in those cases, don't enact this kind of provision. In fact, you could even apply this just to laws that specifically govern the actions of government entities and employees in the commission of their official duties. The point is to ensure that legal games don't undermine the protections built into the law for all citizens. In fact, I think legislators should be one of the prime targets of this kind of legislation; when they pass laws that clearly and obviously violate the rights of citizens, they should face stiff legal penalties up to and including prison.
The problem with that is what one constituency considers violating their rights is perfectly acceptable to another; there would be no reasonable way to enforce such a law. The only possible way would be for the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality and then go after individual legislators; a situation I would find to be a cure worse than the disease.
Gaming companies have dealt with issues like this for many years whereby players will attempt to engage in "rules lawyering" to get around the letter of the game's rules in order to exploit loopholes to essentially cheat to win. Game companies dealt with that by including a catch-all to simply say that if what you're doing is clearly and obviously designed to bypass the rules or exploit loopholes to gain an unfair or unintended advantage, you get punished.
Game companies do it because they depend on people playing the game stop make money, hence the need for a semblance of fairness.
Legislatures could learn a lesson from this. For each law written, write in a catch-all such that clear and obvious attempts to circumvent the law by exploiting loopholes in the wording brings about similar or the same penalties as violating the law itself.
While that may sound like a good idea it has a lot of bad implications. Laws need to clearly delineate what is and isn't legal. Part of the court's job is to clarify laws through precenets.If they don't, you would be abel to charge people with violating the intent even if they didn't do what was delineated in the law. It wouldn't just be serious crimes, either where conspiracy laws exits already; you could be charged for breaking the intent of minor ones as well.
For laws designed to control groups, such as intelligence services, ensure that everyone involved bears the punishment of violating the law. In other words, get the guy who ordered it, the guy(s) who disseminated the orders, and everyone who carried out the orders. Then also include strong whistleblower protections and rewards for reporting the worst abuses. When everyone from the top of the organization to the bottom has their ass on the line and when enough carrots are dangled in front of the guys doing the grunt work, stuff like that will unravel in a hurry. I love my job for numerous reasons. Would I risk 20 years in prison for it if the higher-ups decided to start doing illegal stuff? Not a chance.
If you can be charged with breaking the intent how would you know what is legal? In the end a simple disagreement could cost you your job whether or not your position is correct.
Do the pilots fully comprehend the fact that even though there's nobody inside the thing that it's still being controlled. Couldn't this be more about human psychology than actual danger?
From TFA, these drones passed within a few feet of a/c during critical phases of the flight. Having something zoom by while you are landing or taking off increases the pucker factor and it's irrelevant wether or not the thing is controlled. The drone pilots, if found, need to be heavily fines and serve some time to let them and others know thi isn't just some minor thing but a serious matter that endangers people's lives.
And the US wants everyone to keep all the information and let the NSA have access to it no matter where it resides.
That's at least not hypocritical until they are acting surprised that China wants to do the same.
Oh wait... they did that when they declared that "cyper attacks" are considered as hostile as regular military attacks. Wow, I'm glad that no one actually measures them by what they say....
Remember: When we do it it's good and when *they* do it it's bad. Been that way since the first man noticed another living in the cave next door.
Well to be honest I understand PART of why they would be outrage over it. If I pay 5k for you to come and work and you are here for 1 day I am out 5k. Now I agree with your overall primise, as long as the employer they went to had to pay a share of that money back, prorated.
That's the whole point. If I truly pay you a market wage you have little incentive to leave; however if I pay below market wage all I become is a labor pool for other companies. As a result, I would first try to fill jobs with local labor and if there is a shortage than use a visa program to fill them. Since there is a lower supply than demand i will pay a premium for that labor if I really need it; a true free market solution.
So by open market you mean protected local labor market?
Reread the previous post. Nothing about reducing H1-Bs. Maybe that's the end game for the previous poster, but greatly reducing the indentured servitude aspect of an H1-B visa (especially while saying nothing about reducing the number of H1-Bs!) doesn't restrict the labor pool.
As the OP, i can say I my end game is not to reduce the number of H1B's available but to ensure H1B's actually get a competitive salary with other workers by eliminating restrictions on their job mobility. If employers had to pay the cost of an H1B plus a competitive wage, which they claim to do today, it would be more economically viable to hire someone with the requisite skills that doesn't need to be sponsored since you would avoid all the extra costs; and do not run the risk of, after paying those costs, of losing the employee and having to pay for replacement. Right now, the indentured nature of the H1B means wages are lower because employees have no bargaining power; something that is easy to fix but requires more political will than exists in Washington.
As for a truly open market where anyone can move anywhere; yes that is a nice Utopian dream but like unicorns does not exist. So, we have to deal with the labor market as it is, not what we might like it to be and fix the real world problems that are fixable.
All of the tech industries behavior point to a desire to keep wages lower than what they would pay in an open market. Whether it's expanding H1B's or agreeing not to poach the goal is the same not driving up the cost of talent. Thus we have a "shortage" of tech workers so we must import more rathe than we have an abundant supply at higher wages so lets hire them. I am not surprise at the GAO report. What needs to be done is make H1B visas portable so after say 6 month to a year the holder was free to switch jobs. That would end abuses quickly and all of a sudden the "shortage" would disappear when it becomes more costly to get and keep an H1B then hire a local.
These places tend to be asset-less companies that do not care about being sued, they simply form another shell and fold.
Per TFA, the lawsuit also has 10 John Doe defendants and they intend to go after the copyright holders Rightscorp represents. Given their deep pockets, if the lawsuit successfully includes them then who has what assets is moot since they all are on hook for the judgement so if one can't pay the other must.
Remember how they busted Al Capone? Tax evasion? They knew for a fact how he got his money, but they also knew that to prove he was innocent he'd have to admit to how he got his money. So, despite violating his rights, the spirit of the law, and perverting the justice system. they got him anyway. Win at all costs...
Actually they used the tax code properly. He failed to report income and was tried and convicted. He could have reported it and paid taxes on it and avoided prosecution.
Slashdot Mirror
The EU is very much a group of independent countries that have agreed to work together on many issues but have not been willing to give up sovereignty to the point where an EU law has supremacy over local laws. A a result, EU rules tend to be a lowest common denominator with individual countries adding on their own requirements. That's not unexpected since the EU is not a country like say the US where there is a federal system that has sway over the individual states, district and territories that make up the US; where there is agreement the EU works well and but individual countries still have the real power in the union and there still is a very distinct nationalism at play in the political and economic dynamics. That's not necessarily better or worse than other models but just a reflection of how the EU came into being.
Why does adjusting the reimbursement structure to match a changing market indicate fear? There is plenty of evidence that the market is changing and that residential renewables are a factor. But that is not evidence of "fear". Are there challenges? Of course. The term "fear" is used for the sole purpose of feeding a certain set of extreme greens exactly what they want to hear.
I disagree. Back to your OP where you asked for evidence they are "scared;" which I took in the common business usage of " seriously worried a business model is about to be Schumpetered" than the "OMG I just pissed my pants in the haunted house..." Having spent a significant time in the electric utility industry I can say electric utility are very protective of their turf and afraid of technologies that risk them losing customers, i.e. load. They want, via regulation or legislation, to either co-opt competitors so they can control them or limit their access to their customers. Solar and battery technology has the potential to seriously change their load profiles and result in a lot of expensive investments generating a much smaller return than expected. Even worse, it can result in them having to pay a lot of customers for power rather than simply selling them it. When it's a handful of people they basically ignore it, but when the technology has the potential to turn a significant percentage of their non-industrial customers into independent power producers, yes, they are scared. They may not be pissing into their collective pants but they are hearing the words of a dead Austrian economist and he is scaring them.
So, what evidence is there that electric companies are scared? Sounds like just the contention of a greeny.
Given many are trying to limit what they have to reimburse for non-utility generation by homeowners and businesses, establishing access and other mandatory fees to compensate for lost generation and or transmission revenue; I'd say they are certainly con corned, if not scared, and trying to get ahead dog the issue by getting laws and regulations in place before solar / storage becomes a major competitor. Once it is more common it'll be harder to shift costs to consumers.
Who can beat their 120+ line items of largess in a town with less than 5000 people? The Florence Facebook photos page is to die for. It took me 5 minutes to recover. Looks like a total LE staff around 12. (including the dog). I want pictures of Florence Cops on Mules!
While they may have been live mules the MULE was a also a mechanical device. Could have been a museum piece or maybe an M-Gator?
Cab drivers in Vegas are supposed to use the shortest route to airport but will us the longer route to get extra bucks. If you call them on it they will cut the fare to the proper one rather than risk a confrontation and potentially losing their license (1). All I've had to do is when given the fare ask "Why did you use the longer route instead dog the proper one?" and I get an "Damn" look and the driver charges me properly. Conversely, if a driver uses the proper route I give a tip that covers the difference plus and thank him for doing so.
Note 1: This was told to me by a LV cabbie
In what case?
A disease that is mutating to bece less deadly unlike the cases you describe.
Well, North Korea has officially said "Wait and See".
Apparently the supreme, glorious little runt doesn't like being teased, and seems to think his delusional self is exempt from parody.
If so, this would be kind of hilarious, and kind of scary ... a nation state doing this stuff because their leader tender ego is feeling bruised.
If this is North Korea, this is all about waving around the collective penis, and posturing that he has any influence on the rest of the world.
Hey, Kim was named the sexiest man alive recently so maybe they have something to be proud of waving...
Strange but true, at the end of the day all parasites are better off when they become symbiotic. There is no advantage to killing off your free meal, in fact your are better off lending a hand.
depends on the parasite's life cycle. If they can only live within the host then become symbiotic, or at least not causing illness and death, is beneficial. If they only need the host for one part of their life cycle, such as wasps that use insects as a source of food of rhetoric larva; then killing the host is not a problem.
One of the most nasty things a disease can do is to slowly replicate without causing symptoms. These long incubation periods are why Ebola, Tuberculosis, and Rabies are so dangerous. It makes them hard to detect and gives the host time to travel and potentially infect others without either party knowing. By the time the symptoms manifest it is often too late. By contrast, a disease that produces symptoms immediately is easily detectable and the host seeks treatment. If it is really really fast, they die before they can pass it on, and such diseases quickly eradicate themselves.
I don't look forward to a world where AIDS only manifests after 30 years, but everyone has it.
Except in this case, slow replication means the host never gets sick enough to die; they merely live with an infection and may exhibit no symptoms of the disease. They remain contagious but the disease no longer progresses to full blown AIDs.
"The virus is slowing down in its ability to cause disease and that will help contribute to elimination."
Not sure if this is incorrectly phrased or i'm incorrect in my understanding of viral evolution... The virus has evolved to slow down the process of causing disease, surely this is because it is advantageous to the continuation of this virus, if the host dies too quickly they are less likely to pass on the virus. So how does this contribute to eliminating the virus? is it not the opposite? Longer infected lifespan == Greater chance of transmission.
What the article says is the virus, as it adapts to a strong immune system weakens it's ability to replicate; thus slowing down the onset of the disease in the host. If another person is infected by this weaker virus, the new infection results in an even weaker virus as it tries to adapt to the host. In essence, each successive infection results in a virus less able to replicate and thus result in a slower and slower onset of AIDs. Over time, the virus may lose it's ability to replicate fast enough to cause AIDs and merely be another infection for the body to deal with.
Getting teachers to open and use a spreadsheet on an ipad is a lot more tricky than opening the same file on a chromebook.
Perhaps, but you are mixing the ease o fuse of a piece of technology with the ability to use the underlying technology. It does no good to be able to open a spreadsheet more easily if you have no idea how to use the spreadsheet beyond the basics; and my experiences with school systems is they give the teachers technology and expect them to use it without teaching them how to use it. As result, they spend hours struggling with the technology and sometimes simply discard it because it is too much of a hassle to use.
"New York prosecutors successfully persuaded a judge that the ancient law could be used" The law was not sunset-ed, the law was not stricken down by another law, the law itself was not repelled on its own, the law was not stricken down by the supreme court. So what is the problem ? Until a repell/strick down , ALL those law are still valid. Cue the shooting down welsh with a bow, but this is the basis of our judiciary process. just because a law is old does not make it invalid.
Correct, until it is repealed (unlikely) or struck down by the Supreme Court it is still the law. This could be a good case to take to the Supreme Court since it highlights the impact of changing technology on the law and could clarify what is required when presented with such a writ.
They didn't impose a limit rather they said in absence of a clear limit you could not charge someone with speeding since they had no way to know of sure wether or not they were complying with the law.
Sure you can. They didn't harm themselves or anyone else and so therefore the speed was reasonable and prudent and the ticket was baseless.
I doubt the "didn't hurt myself or anyone else" argument is a basis for drawing the conclusion it was a reasonable and prudent action. The court even said that a ticket for reckless driving could still be issued without a set speed limit so it pretty much dismissed the "didn't hurt myself or anyone else" argument as well. The key is if you do not know what the law determines is legal in such a case you can't be help accountable if someone else (a cop) has a different viewpoint of what is legal since there are no defined boundary between legal and illegal.
Montana used to have no speed limit during the daytime but that was overturned for being too "vague" by the Montana Supreme Court. People actually drove reasonably well and there weren't any major issues with it. The major issue was the Susie safety nuts who felt that without telling people how fast was reasonable that it would confuse people, the court agreed.
Per TFA, what the Montana Supreme Court said was you can't give someone a ticket for speeding based on "reasonable and proper" since no one could determine what was legal and that allowing a cop to decide was not legal. They didn't impose a limit rather they said in absence of a clear limit you could not charge someone with speeding since they had no way to know of sure wether or not they were complying with the law.
Is it similar in the US? So would people be left alone at 80mph when the current limit is 70mph? what if the limit is raised to 85mph, would the cops then give leeway like they do in the UK letting people do 95mph? Or could you get pulled doing 86mph in the US on an 85mph limit road?
You are generally safe at 10 over on US Interstates. Most cops won't bother you of that except where a local jurisdiction has control over a short portion and uses it for revenue enhancement. In addition, there are usually plenty of drivers doing 15 or more over that are much better targets anyway so as long a you are flowing with traffic you are pretty safe form being pulled over.
I think this is where we get into "clear and obvious". For example, if the law prohibits minors gambling at the horse track, but Little Johnny stands right there listing off bets to an adult who parrots those bets to the track employee taking bets, then hands the money for those bets to the adult who hands it to the track employee, the law is clearly and obviously being circumvented and the entire intent of the law undermined by a simple loophole. (this actually works by the way, did it for years as a teen) Is this a capital crime that needs huge resources dumped into it? No, but ignoring it breeds disrespect for the law.
Many laws in the US already have this provision, for example buying cigarettes or alcohol for minors is against the law; and so in many clear and obvious situations the law already addresses them. The problem is what is "clear and obvious?" You open the door for situations where someone does something perfectly legal but because some one else doesn't like it they wind up being charged with a crime; and it could wind up limiting you from doing something perfectly legal in another jurisdiction but "clearly and obviously" against the law in another. For example, abortion laws vary state to state and what is perfectly legal in one isn't in another. So if person A leaves Jurisdiction X to go to Y and gets a procedure that is legal in Y but not in X can they be tried under the "clear and obvious" rule in X once they return since they clearly broke X's law. Granted, that is an extreme example but could hold for less inflammatory issues as well.
I agree there are plenty of cases where this would not be a preferable addition to the law due to its potentially chilling effect on normal, legal activities. So in those cases, don't enact this kind of provision. In fact, you could even apply this just to laws that specifically govern the actions of government entities and employees in the commission of their official duties. The point is to ensure that legal games don't undermine the protections built into the law for all citizens. In fact, I think legislators should be one of the prime targets of this kind of legislation; when they pass laws that clearly and obviously violate the rights of citizens, they should face stiff legal penalties up to and including prison.
The problem with that is what one constituency considers violating their rights is perfectly acceptable to another; there would be no reasonable way to enforce such a law. The only possible way would be for the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality and then go after individual legislators; a situation I would find to be a cure worse than the disease.
Gaming companies have dealt with issues like this for many years whereby players will attempt to engage in "rules lawyering" to get around the letter of the game's rules in order to exploit loopholes to essentially cheat to win. Game companies dealt with that by including a catch-all to simply say that if what you're doing is clearly and obviously designed to bypass the rules or exploit loopholes to gain an unfair or unintended advantage, you get punished.
Game companies do it because they depend on people playing the game stop make money, hence the need for a semblance of fairness.
Legislatures could learn a lesson from this. For each law written, write in a catch-all such that clear and obvious attempts to circumvent the law by exploiting loopholes in the wording brings about similar or the same penalties as violating the law itself.
While that may sound like a good idea it has a lot of bad implications. Laws need to clearly delineate what is and isn't legal. Part of the court's job is to clarify laws through precenets.If they don't, you would be abel to charge people with violating the intent even if they didn't do what was delineated in the law. It wouldn't just be serious crimes, either where conspiracy laws exits already; you could be charged for breaking the intent of minor ones as well.
For laws designed to control groups, such as intelligence services, ensure that everyone involved bears the punishment of violating the law. In other words, get the guy who ordered it, the guy(s) who disseminated the orders, and everyone who carried out the orders. Then also include strong whistleblower protections and rewards for reporting the worst abuses. When everyone from the top of the organization to the bottom has their ass on the line and when enough carrots are dangled in front of the guys doing the grunt work, stuff like that will unravel in a hurry. I love my job for numerous reasons. Would I risk 20 years in prison for it if the higher-ups decided to start doing illegal stuff? Not a chance.
If you can be charged with breaking the intent how would you know what is legal? In the end a simple disagreement could cost you your job whether or not your position is correct.
Do the pilots fully comprehend the fact that even though there's nobody inside the thing that it's still being controlled. Couldn't this be more about human psychology than actual danger?
From TFA, these drones passed within a few feet of a/c during critical phases of the flight. Having something zoom by while you are landing or taking off increases the pucker factor and it's irrelevant wether or not the thing is controlled. The drone pilots, if found, need to be heavily fines and serve some time to let them and others know thi isn't just some minor thing but a serious matter that endangers people's lives.
And the US wants everyone to keep all the information and let the NSA have access to it no matter where it resides.
That's at least not hypocritical until they are acting surprised that China wants to do the same.
Oh wait... they did that when they declared that "cyper attacks" are considered as hostile as regular military attacks. Wow, I'm glad that no one actually measures them by what they say....
Remember: When we do it it's good and when *they* do it it's bad. Been that way since the first man noticed another living in the cave next door.
If Europe can regulate what the whole world sees on Google, why not China?
If they do go through with it, let's at least have a www.google.us without the censorship. (Probably a good idea anyway.)
And the US wants everyone to keep all the information and let the NSA have access to it no matter where it resides.
Well to be honest I understand PART of why they would be outrage over it. If I pay 5k for you to come and work and you are here for 1 day I am out 5k. Now I agree with your overall primise, as long as the employer they went to had to pay a share of that money back, prorated.
That's the whole point. If I truly pay you a market wage you have little incentive to leave; however if I pay below market wage all I become is a labor pool for other companies. As a result, I would first try to fill jobs with local labor and if there is a shortage than use a visa program to fill them. Since there is a lower supply than demand i will pay a premium for that labor if I really need it; a true free market solution.
So by open market you mean protected local labor market?
Reread the previous post. Nothing about reducing H1-Bs. Maybe that's the end game for the previous poster, but greatly reducing the indentured servitude aspect of an H1-B visa (especially while saying nothing about reducing the number of H1-Bs!) doesn't restrict the labor pool.
As the OP, i can say I my end game is not to reduce the number of H1B's available but to ensure H1B's actually get a competitive salary with other workers by eliminating restrictions on their job mobility. If employers had to pay the cost of an H1B plus a competitive wage, which they claim to do today, it would be more economically viable to hire someone with the requisite skills that doesn't need to be sponsored since you would avoid all the extra costs; and do not run the risk of, after paying those costs, of losing the employee and having to pay for replacement. Right now, the indentured nature of the H1B means wages are lower because employees have no bargaining power; something that is easy to fix but requires more political will than exists in Washington.
As for a truly open market where anyone can move anywhere; yes that is a nice Utopian dream but like unicorns does not exist. So, we have to deal with the labor market as it is, not what we might like it to be and fix the real world problems that are fixable.
All of the tech industries behavior point to a desire to keep wages lower than what they would pay in an open market. Whether it's expanding H1B's or agreeing not to poach the goal is the same not driving up the cost of talent. Thus we have a "shortage" of tech workers so we must import more rathe than we have an abundant supply at higher wages so lets hire them. I am not surprise at the GAO report. What needs to be done is make H1B visas portable so after say 6 month to a year the holder was free to switch jobs. That would end abuses quickly and all of a sudden the "shortage" would disappear when it becomes more costly to get and keep an H1B then hire a local.
These places tend to be asset-less companies that do not care about being sued, they simply form another shell and fold.
Per TFA, the lawsuit also has 10 John Doe defendants and they intend to go after the copyright holders Rightscorp represents. Given their deep pockets, if the lawsuit successfully includes them then who has what assets is moot since they all are on hook for the judgement so if one can't pay the other must.
Remember how they busted Al Capone? Tax evasion? They knew for a fact how he got his money, but they also knew that to prove he was innocent he'd have to admit to how he got his money. So, despite violating his rights, the spirit of the law, and perverting the justice system. they got him anyway. Win at all costs...
Actually they used the tax code properly. He failed to report income and was tried and convicted. He could have reported it and paid taxes on it and avoided prosecution.