a weakened and decentralized government creates a power vacuum that is filled by corporations
Note that corporations are creations of government.
Note further that reducing the size and scope of the Federal government means less incentive for corporations to bribe Congresscritters - what's worth doing for a piece of $3.8 trillion isn't worth bothering about when there aren't trillions on the line.
so countries with stricter gun control meaning less deaths... it just means nothing to you
Can you say "Switzerland"? Sure you can...
Note that Switzerland has a lower murder rate than just about anywhere. And more FULLY AUTOMATIC weapons in the hands of civilians than any other country (including the USA).
If your thesis were correct, they'd have a murder rate higher than pretty much every other country in the world.
So, explain Switzerland within the scope of "stricter gun control means fewer meaningless deaths"....
Or, perchance, by "gun control" do you mean "hitting what you aim at"?
Judges in NZ (and Australia... and Britain) aren't elected and, by US standards, are not beholden to party politics. Furthermore, except in exceptional circumstances, no bureaucrat has the power to prevent a judge from hearing a matter.
This is generally true in the USA for Federal Judges as well.
Except for the last sentence. In the USA, there are no "exceptional circumstances" that permit a bureaucrat to prevent a judge from hearing a matter.
Had he not recused himself, there would have been a risk of a successful appeal on the basis of bias.
Same here. If he'd not recused himself over here, the lawyers would have been preparing the appeal paperwork in parallel with the trial briefs, since they'd know in advance what the grounds for appeal were going to be....
You wind up registering with enough different entities that it would almost be a relief to single source it. Change address with DMV, with employer (who in turn shares it with fed/state/local tax agencies), with public utilities, and the list goes on.
Most of these are required, either by federal, state or local law. At least in the northeast corner of the US, that is.
Change address with the DMV? But why? If I'm making a permanent move, sure. But I could go to Idaho for a couple years and use my existing Driver's License (I did, once upon a time) without bothering the Idaho DMV.
You only have to register with public utilities if you're paying them, which isn't always necessary (I've rented houses where the owner paid the utilities - the rent was higher, but it saved me the trouble of dealing with gas/electric/water companies).
And while you usually have to register with your employer, if you're working for a large company, and just doing TDY at an office in another State, that's not an issue.
I certainly WOULD argue that those slaves were on average better off than a modern-day sweatshop worker.
See a slave has value. You have to invest in a slave, to maximize the return on investment you need that slave to be productive for as long as possible. This means ensuring he has adequate food, shelter and basic needs (even rest) to remain healthy and working for as long as possible because replacing a slave is expensive.
I've read that same argument from slaveowners in the Confederacy.
Alas, the evidence does not support your position.
The mistake you make is the "because replacing a slave is expensive" - they're not. They reproduce just like free men do. And while a child isn't good for as much labor as an adult, they were certainly put to work as children...
Do you mean the part where the US came in after the Soviets had won the war in Europe and declared itself the winner?
The USA entered WW2 SIX MONTHS after Germany invaded the USSR. Which was well before "the Soviets had won the war".
All this ignoring the moderately enormous amount of material aid we gave the USSR (we shipped them more tanks than the Wermacht had, but, far more importantly, we shipped them ten trucks for every tank...)
Ditto the UK. We supplied them a lot of equipment, essentially for free, before we entered the war as a co-belligerent.
Or the part where the US took on an opponent that could barely challenge them... and used nuclear weapons in a war already practically won?
You're obviously unaware that the Japanese Navy was the third largest in the world at the time (behind the US Navy and the Royal Navy), and an Army that was roughly ten times the size of the US Army.
Note that as of the evening of 7DEC1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy was actually larger than the US Navy.
Note also that the entire US Navy could not be brought to bear against Japan because ~1/3 of it was in the Atlantic violating International Law on Neutrality by assisting the Royal Navy against the Kriegsmarine.
Americans contributed very little to the defeat of the Axis.
Oddly enough, even Stalin wasn't dumb enough to say that.
As I understand it, the waiting period after registering to vote serves the same purpose as the waiting period for buying certain kinds of deadly weapon: a criminal background check.
You understand incorrectly. The waiting period is pretty much a matter of bureaucratic inertia - once upon a time, after you registered, the registration had to be entered on a big sheet of paper, which then had to be copied by hand to other sheets of paper, which then had to be distributed to the various precincts.
Alas, the government hasn't quite gotten as far in the computer age as providing for voter registration checks via computer at the various voting places...which could be done basically real-time, as opposed to handing out voter-registration print-outs to each precinct...
If Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela had been American, they would both have been denied both a right to vote and a right to run for office.
Umm, no.
Both of them, assuming they were US Citizens, would have been granted the right to vote by the 14th Amendment.
Last I checked, the 14th Amendment was passed before any of their grandparents had been born, so they'd have had the right to vote.
Ditto the right to run for office. While the President is restricted to natural born citizens (as opposed to naturalized citizens), other offices are not so restricted.
Voter fraud is basically a non-issue [truthaboutfraud.org]. It's usually somewhere in the range of a few tenths of a thousandth of one percent of votes cast.
Hmm, wasn't the 2000 Presidential election won (or lost, depending on your perspective) on the basis of a few hundred votes out of a hundred million or so.
In general, vote fraud doesn't matter much on the national level. It's more of an issue on the local level, where a few dozen extra votes in the right place can make a difference.
But, occasionally, a few dozen votes can make a huge difference on the national level, IF they're in the right district....
This seems like a result of the conservative cry to shrink the size of the federal gubmint. "Gubmint shouldn't be allowed to do internally what they can outsource to some private company" possibly owned by China. THis is sad
Considering that this is the Democrat-controlled Senate we're talking about, instead of the Republican-controlled House, I suspect you're mistaken....
*sighs* don't know what I did to my html tags that time....
This seems like a result of the conservative cry to shrink the size of the federal gubmint. "Gubmint shouldn't be allowed to do internally what they can outsource to some private company" possibly owned by China. THis is sad
Considering that this is the Democrat-controlled Senate we're talking about, instead of the Republican-controlled House, I suspect you're mistaken....
The analogy is to how many have argued that the US has become more warlike as it has lost its draft, so that people favoring war are no longer in any serious risk of being called up.
For the blockheads who argue this, it should be noted that before WW2, we used a draft for WW1 and the Civil War.
And we still managed to have wars or ongoing fighting (such as the "Indian Wars") for most of our pre-WW2 history....
In 1968 a Volkswagen Beetle was $1800 base price. Today the VW 'New Beetle' (essentially the same car) starts at $18995, ten times as much. (One can argue about features, but it's a reasonable comparison). That works out to about 8% inflation over the last 40 years.
Actually, that only works out to ~5.8% inflation annually over the last 42 years.
Knock of 25% of that for vaunted new capabilities, safety, whatever, that's 6%, still more than twice the official rate.
25% for new capabilities would reduce the effective inflation rate to ~5.2%.
New Orleans may give us a preview, since there is no shortage of corruption. While the cat's away.....
New Orleans didn't become corrupt as a side-effect of the decline of the T-P. It's been corrupt since the beginning, and the local newspaper hasn't had damn-all effect on things.
Sure, there are people lining up to become astronauts, but if you cut the pay, there would be fewer people lining up, and a risk that you might not get The Right Stuff.
This is NOT about "cutting pay". It's about reducing the overhead associated with making sure that any particular launch is 100.000% guaranteed to succeed before we can risk an astronaut.
It's just barely possible that we can reduce 100.000% to 100.00% (or even, dare I say it? 100.0%) and still save a great deal of money on each laungh.
Which will allow for a great many more launches....
Wouldn't a moon base launch facility be more economical, fuel-wise, for the journey to Mars?
Assuming you could manufacture the fuel on the moon, yes.
And there's enough evidence of water ice on the moon to suggest that manufacturing LH2/LOX there might be feasible.
For that matter, LOX is 80+% of the mass of the typical LH2/LOX mixture, which means you can just manufacture the LOX there and make it worthwhile. And you can get LOX from rocks, with enough solar panels....
Don't get me wrong, I love Iceland, but I believe that the world's oldest democracy is San Marino [wikipedia.org], which has been a republic since its founding in A.D. 301.
Not that I doubt you, but San Marino was ruled by its bishop as recently as the 9th century, with the democratic part of the government coming in the 10th century.
much like they changed the definition of the meter many years ago from "the length of this exotic metal alloy rod" to "the distance of x number of wavelengths of some radioactive emission".
That is an old definition. Current one is distance light travels in 1/299792458 of a second in a vacuum.
Which has the convenient benefit of us no longer having to change the speed of light whenever we get a more precise measurement of said speed.
Agree completely that banning the "illegal drugs" is a pointless repetition of Prohibition. Waste of money, time, law enforcement resources, everything. But...
I do, however, support mandatory treatment or punishment (depending on the circumstances) for people who commit crimes as a result of impaired mental function.
I prefer the notion of mandatory treatment or punishment (depending on circumstances) for people who commit crimes. Period.
No, "drugs" should not be used to increase the punishment (though they should also not be considered a mitigating circumstance - killing someone because you're high as a kite should be treated the same as killing someone while stone-cold sober). You take them of your own free will, you pay the consequences for the things you do while "under the influence" (and yes, this should apply to alcohol too).
Slashdot Mirror
Note that corporations are creations of government.
Note further that reducing the size and scope of the Federal government means less incentive for corporations to bribe Congresscritters - what's worth doing for a piece of $3.8 trillion isn't worth bothering about when there aren't trillions on the line.
Can you say "Switzerland"? Sure you can...
Note that Switzerland has a lower murder rate than just about anywhere. And more FULLY AUTOMATIC weapons in the hands of civilians than any other country (including the USA).
If your thesis were correct, they'd have a murder rate higher than pretty much every other country in the world.
So, explain Switzerland within the scope of "stricter gun control means fewer meaningless deaths"....
Or, perchance, by "gun control" do you mean "hitting what you aim at"?
So, how do you propose to prevent people who agree with one another to cooperate?
Which, after all, is the essence of a political party....
This is generally true in the USA for Federal Judges as well.
Except for the last sentence. In the USA, there are no "exceptional circumstances" that permit a bureaucrat to prevent a judge from hearing a matter.
Same here. If he'd not recused himself over here, the lawyers would have been preparing the appeal paperwork in parallel with the trial briefs, since they'd know in advance what the grounds for appeal were going to be....
And they'd win their appeal, too....
Change address with the DMV? But why? If I'm making a permanent move, sure. But I could go to Idaho for a couple years and use my existing Driver's License (I did, once upon a time) without bothering the Idaho DMV.
You only have to register with public utilities if you're paying them, which isn't always necessary (I've rented houses where the owner paid the utilities - the rent was higher, but it saved me the trouble of dealing with gas/electric/water companies).
And while you usually have to register with your employer, if you're working for a large company, and just doing TDY at an office in another State, that's not an issue.
I've read that same argument from slaveowners in the Confederacy.
Alas, the evidence does not support your position.
The mistake you make is the "because replacing a slave is expensive" - they're not. They reproduce just like free men do. And while a child isn't good for as much labor as an adult, they were certainly put to work as children...
The USA entered WW2 SIX MONTHS after Germany invaded the USSR. Which was well before "the Soviets had won the war".
All this ignoring the moderately enormous amount of material aid we gave the USSR (we shipped them more tanks than the Wermacht had, but, far more importantly, we shipped them ten trucks for every tank...)
Ditto the UK. We supplied them a lot of equipment, essentially for free, before we entered the war as a co-belligerent.
You're obviously unaware that the Japanese Navy was the third largest in the world at the time (behind the US Navy and the Royal Navy), and an Army that was roughly ten times the size of the US Army.
Note that as of the evening of 7DEC1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy was actually larger than the US Navy.
Note also that the entire US Navy could not be brought to bear against Japan because ~1/3 of it was in the Atlantic violating International Law on Neutrality by assisting the Royal Navy against the Kriegsmarine.
Oddly enough, even Stalin wasn't dumb enough to say that.
You understand incorrectly. The waiting period is pretty much a matter of bureaucratic inertia - once upon a time, after you registered, the registration had to be entered on a big sheet of paper, which then had to be copied by hand to other sheets of paper, which then had to be distributed to the various precincts.
Alas, the government hasn't quite gotten as far in the computer age as providing for voter registration checks via computer at the various voting places...which could be done basically real-time, as opposed to handing out voter-registration print-outs to each precinct...
Not in any State I've ever registered to vote in.
I agree that I have the responsibility to become educated about the choices.
I do NOT agree that I have the responsibility to vote.
If no candidate is acceptable, then not voting is the correct thing to do.
And that's pretty much been true for the last four or five federal election cycles....
Umm, no.
Both of them, assuming they were US Citizens, would have been granted the right to vote by the 14th Amendment.
Last I checked, the 14th Amendment was passed before any of their grandparents had been born, so they'd have had the right to vote.
Ditto the right to run for office. While the President is restricted to natural born citizens (as opposed to naturalized citizens), other offices are not so restricted.
Hmm, wasn't the 2000 Presidential election won (or lost, depending on your perspective) on the basis of a few hundred votes out of a hundred million or so.
In general, vote fraud doesn't matter much on the national level. It's more of an issue on the local level, where a few dozen extra votes in the right place can make a difference.
But, occasionally, a few dozen votes can make a huge difference on the national level, IF they're in the right district....
Fortunately, (or not, depending on your perpsective), I don't have to register with the government to move in the USA.
Considering that this is the Democrat-controlled Senate we're talking about, instead of the Republican-controlled House, I suspect you're mistaken....
*sighs* don't know what I did to my html tags that time....
Considering that this is the Democrat-controlled Senate we're talking about, instead of the Republican-controlled House, I suspect you're mistaken....
Fascinating link.
Alas, it's carefully overlooking a few key details.
One of which is that the energy of crude oil is in no way related to the electricity required to refine said crude oil.
What they're actually making a guesstimate to is the amount of electricity that could have been generated INSTEAD of making the gasoline.
And they're overestimating that by assuming that the making of electricity is 100% efficient.
Which it's not, in case you were curious.
For the blockheads who argue this, it should be noted that before WW2, we used a draft for WW1 and the Civil War.
And we still managed to have wars or ongoing fighting (such as the "Indian Wars") for most of our pre-WW2 history....
Meaningless. There is no plan to pay off the debt, ever.
And there will be no such plan, ever. We're well and truly caught in the "living beyond your means" trap....
Actually, that only works out to ~5.8% inflation annually over the last 42 years.
25% for new capabilities would reduce the effective inflation rate to ~5.2%.
New Orleans didn't become corrupt as a side-effect of the decline of the T-P. It's been corrupt since the beginning, and the local newspaper hasn't had damn-all effect on things.
This is NOT about "cutting pay". It's about reducing the overhead associated with making sure that any particular launch is 100.000% guaranteed to succeed before we can risk an astronaut.
It's just barely possible that we can reduce 100.000% to 100.00% (or even, dare I say it? 100.0%) and still save a great deal of money on each laungh.
Which will allow for a great many more launches....
Assuming you could manufacture the fuel on the moon, yes.
And there's enough evidence of water ice on the moon to suggest that manufacturing LH2/LOX there might be feasible.
For that matter, LOX is 80+% of the mass of the typical LH2/LOX mixture, which means you can just manufacture the LOX there and make it worthwhile. And you can get LOX from rocks, with enough solar panels....
Not that I doubt you, but San Marino was ruled by its bishop as recently as the 9th century, with the democratic part of the government coming in the 10th century.
That is an old definition. Current one is distance light travels in 1/299792458 of a second in a vacuum.
Which has the convenient benefit of us no longer having to change the speed of light whenever we get a more precise measurement of said speed.
Agree completely that banning the "illegal drugs" is a pointless repetition of Prohibition. Waste of money, time, law enforcement resources, everything. But...
I prefer the notion of mandatory treatment or punishment (depending on circumstances) for people who commit crimes. Period.
No, "drugs" should not be used to increase the punishment (though they should also not be considered a mitigating circumstance - killing someone because you're high as a kite should be treated the same as killing someone while stone-cold sober). You take them of your own free will, you pay the consequences for the things you do while "under the influence" (and yes, this should apply to alcohol too).