It's the principle. Why must the ISPs be required to do this to being with?
Why must automakers have to have minimum fleet fuel economy standards?
Why must electric companies provide eletricity for people out in the country?
Why must TPC (The Phone Company, for those old movie fans out there) provide phone service to every house?
Why must your employer take part of your paycheck every week and send it to the IRS? And another part to your State's IRS?
Why must you have a Driver's License to use the public roads?
Why...
If it isn't obvious from my examples, it's because the government is in the business of making people do things that the government thinks are necessary or desirable.
One might argue that this is neither necessary or desirable, but the opt-in nature and openness of the "list" make that argument problematic. Arguing that it is somehow wrong of the government to make you (or anyone else) do something is just silly - that's what governments are for.
9th and 10th are difficult to do anything with at this point in time, and given the ACLU's history, they probably find the federal government less abusive than the states.
As they should. In general, the States HAVE been more abusive. This is changing in recent years, of course, as the Federal government tries to make EVERYTHING an Interstate Commmerce issue. The Federal government jumped the shark when they rules back in the 30's that a man could not grow grain to feed his own hogs without affecting interstate commmerce in a way regulatable by the government.
The Tenth Amendment I can see the ACLU ignoring.
The Ninth is somewhat more problematic. Thinking about it a bit more, I realize that the ACLU has used that one more than once. Hell, Roe v. Wade is a Ninth Amendment case.
If the government makes a list of publications that are to be filtered
The government of Utah is not making such a list. It is making a list of publications which contain adult material, and refuse to restrict access to their adult material to adults. Then it is giving everyone the opportunity to get a copy of the list. And requiring that ISPs provide a public service (specifically, whatever software is required to make use of the list).
It almost certainly can't fail to be arbitrary in nature. The means of composing the list may be based on a state employee or representative forming an opinion on which publications are included and which are not.
If this weren't/., I'd ask if you had read the text of the law. To be added to the list, a site must have adult content. The content must not have access restrictions already in place (the usual creditcard to access adult content counts as access restrictions already in place). The site will be informed that it is to be added to the list, if a point of contact is provided at the site. The site is given five days to restrict its own adault content. Only after all these hurdles are met can the site be added to the list.
In addition, a site must be removed from the list if, at any time after it is added to the list, it imposes the usual access restrictions to its adult content, and informs the Utah AG's office. At which time the site must be removed from the list within two days.
Note that all reference to "days" above means "business days". Note that a porn site will NOT be added to the list if the site requires a creditcard number to view adult material. Note that the list MUST be publically available for inspection.
Note further that NOONE is required to actually filter anything. A customer may choose to self-censor. Their ISP must assist them in censoring their own web access. But I can't censor YOUR web-access (unless you access the web on my computer), and I can't stop you from providing a creditcard number and trolling porn sites, even on my self-censored computer (since sites which already have access restrictions may not be added to the list).
If you can't make a cohesive sequence of arguments for something that are based in logic - something everyone, everywhere, subscribes to on one level or another - then it shouldn't be a law.
I'm curious. What would be your logic-based argument in favour of a law making murder a crime?
Where in there does it say that the government can't talk about religion? It doesn't even seem to prohibit the states from establishing state religions. Maybe it should, but that's not what it says.
In fact, as originally written, the First Amendment applied ONLY to the Federal government, and did not restrict the State governments in any way.
The 14th Amendment is generally taken to restrict State governments from violating the Rights stated/implied in the Federal Constitution.
I'm sure that most Utah publishers will deal with this by declaring that no part of their websites are kiddie safe, and so anyone who's silly enough to use the ISP's method to block the AG's list will miss out on their local homeschool support group, their neighbor's kids homework site, and probably a whole raft of credit-card-required porn sites.
Umm, no. If you in fact require a credit card to access the adult material on your site, then you will not be added to the list. The list is for sites that refuse to restrict access to their adult material. Section 67-5-19, subsection 2-a-ii specifically says that this only applies to sites that provide adult material that is NOT access restricted already.
The law is coercive in at least two senses. First, it requires ISPs to support the censorship via their private services. Second, it falsely leads subscribers to the belief that only "offensive" information is hidden from them, when in truth the information being hidden from them is literally anything the agency in charge wants to hide. In other words, the government is tricking people into "voluntarily" allowing arbitrary content to be censored.
In your first case, you are aware that EVERY law is coercive in the sense that it requires private companies/individuals to do things using their own resources, I assume. That is a meaningless statement.
In the second case, we might have an issue. Well, we would if it weren't for the wording of the law. The AG is required to send a notification to any site so listed before it can be listed, and if the site then restricts its adult material (the usual creditcard requirement should be sufficient) then the site cannot be so listed.
Plus, of course, the public nature of the list (the law specifies that the list be made publically available in a "readily accessible" format) makes it difficult, if not impossible to add things to it deceptively without violating the law itself. And even Attorney's General get to do hard time if they get caught breaking the law.
So, where's the First Amendment issue again? This law seems to be very carefully designed to step around any First Amendment landmines. I doubt it is foolproof (there are some mighty fine fools out there), but I expect it is more vulnerable to "my little Billy saw a dirty picture even thought I opted in to the Magic List" than to any possible First Amendment issue.
It's not that they don't like it, it's that they read the whole thing, as opposed to just the second part of it like the NRA does. I.e. the ACLU wants to protect the actual amendment, not just the biased, edited fringe version of it.
hmm, Second Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Well, let's look at the parts you think are ignored by the NRA.
George Mason said "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
Thomas Jefferson said "The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
Samual Adams said "That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..."
Richard Lee said "The militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves.. . . [T]he Constitution ought to secure a genuine and guard against a select militia, by providing that the militia shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include . . . all
men capable of bearing arms...". For a further note, "select militia" mentioned above is more or less the same as "National Guard" today.
James Madison said "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well-armed, and well-regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in
person.". Note that this was the original proposed text of the Second Amendment, and that Madison was the author of same.
Patrick Henry said "The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."
Thomas Jefferson, again "No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
and again "The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may
exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press.
Funny, it looks like the Founding Fathers (you remember them, they were the ones who WROTE the Constitution and Bill of Rights) think that the Second Amendment is an INDIVIDUAL right. Note especially Richard Lee's statement above, in which a clear distinction is made between the "militia" and the "select militia", which latter, in the modern world, closely corresponds to the National Guard.
Third Amendment is quartering soldiers. And I vaguely recall that there was once a 3d A. case, but I don't remember when or where. I'd guess it'd be Civil War era. The situation just doesn't come up that much.
And the ACLU, I'm sure, has an interest in the 7th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th (doesn't come up as much as the 15th), 24th, and 26th (also doesn't come up as much as the 15th). There are some others as well, but they might have difficulty with standing issues.
Someone else who knows what the Third is!
Seriously, I can't think of a single example of a Seventh Amendment case either - I should have classified it with the Third.
As to 13+, I was restricting myself (without bothering to say so, my bad) to the Bill of Rights.
The ACLU does fine work whenever they get away from the Bill of Rights. They just seem to have a couple of blind-spots (read: they are complete idiots from time to time, and very selective about the parts of the Bill of Rights they think deserve protection) regarding the Bill of Rights.
Perhaps the First Amendment violation is not in what is required of the ISP but on the list the state declares must be able to be filtered. IOW, the state violates the First Amendment rights of the publisher by providing a list of publishers that ISPs must be able to filter.
So, the existance of a list that is only used in the case of a customer requesting that it be used by said customer is a violation of the First Amendment?
That makes no sense at all. It's much like saying that I were to make a list of news organizations I disagree with, and show it to you only if you ask, that I am violating your First Amendment rights. Or the news organizations' Rights.
Or my cat's rights, perhaps...
I can see an issue if the Law in question REQUIRED that the list be filtered for all customers, whether they want the filtering or not. But I can't see a First Amendment issue in a opt-in system.
Unless we use the argument that:
someone breaks into my home and steals my computer,
that someone then logs into my ISP
that someone is offended that I am forbidding him to look at porn on my stolen computer
Therefore, the thief's First Amendment rights to use property stolen from me in any way he desires is being restricted.
You should be aware that the ACLU takes the "collective right" interpretation of the second ammendment
Please, explain!
Basically, the ACLU believes that every reference to "Rights" in the Constitution refers to "individual Rights", except the Second Amendment, which they believe refers to "government Rights".
Never mind that by reading the Federalist Papers' discussion on the Bill of Rights it becomes quite clear that it is an individual Right.
And never mind that the Constitution always uses the word "powers" to refer to the Government and "rights" to refer to individuals.
And for those of us Gun lovers who want to criticize the ACLU, let me just say this: with limited resources, the best to fight is to divide the battle field. ACLU has everthing but Ammendment #2 and the NRA takes care of #2. That's the way I see it.
Because (if my understanding is correct) the law says that every ISP MUST provide a way to block sites, even if NONE of their customers want it. It's a FELONY to do otherwise.
And this is a violation of the First Amendment how?
I can see how someone might be offended by this law. But I can't see where the First Amendment comes into it.
Of course, it's also put more people into space than all the other space programs in the world combined.
And its casualties have been just about inline with "all the other space programs combined" - twice as many people into orbit, and twice as many casualties.
The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo projects carried out all of their accomplishments without losing a single crew member during flight operations. Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were killed during testing on the ground. Apollo 13 nearly lost a crew, but the efforts of the mission control staff pulled their bacon out of the fire.
Mercury, Gemini, Apollo put ~75 people into space, on a total of 31 flights. The Shuttle managed ~690 on 113 flights. Note that Shuttle did not have an accident till flight 51. Mercury would have needed another 45 flights to get to flight 51. Gemini would have needed another 41 flights. Apollo another 36 flights.
The Soyuz has been the only manned vehicle in space that even approached the Shuttle's number of flights - 83 manned flights. Of those, two flights lost their crews.
1.8% of the crews (compared to Shuttle's 2%) lost, and 2.4% of the missions (compared to Shuttle's 1.8%). Of course, the Soyuz program had three other failed missions which did not result in loss of life...
Space flight is risky, but nothing equals the loss of two crews in the shuttles.
Come now. The Titanic lost over 1500 people. There are a LOT of events in the history of the world that are FAR worse than the loss of two Shuttle crews....
Of course, Shuttle has flown more times than the entire Russian Manned Space Program. 113 Shuttle flights, to 93 flights in all manned programs for the Russians.
Much less that the Shuttle has carried 689 people to orbit, as opposed to the Soviet program's 231 (or fewer)...
Check the wikipedia article for more information. Space Disasters [wikipedia.org].
The Wiki entry is misleading. It asserts that only 277 people have flown on Shuttle. This MAY be true, but since there were 689 people on the various Shuttle flights, it means that most of them had to have flown more than once.
I've never bothered to check the SHuttle crews by name to find out how many repeat customers there were, so I won't dispute the Wiki entry. However, the fact that 14 of 277 have died is meaningless.
Would it be considered even MORE unsafe if it had flown 10,000 times, with the same crew each time, then crashed on the last flight, killing the entire crew? For a 100% deathrate, even though there were 9999 flights with no errors?
Trash is not a problem. It is (in orbital terms) trivial to eject trash in such a fashion that it would either hit the sun, crash onto the moon or burn up on re-entry.
Umm, no. Trash ejected to drop on the Moon would require that you eject the trash at a speed of 2 miles/second. With a precision similar to an Apollo, but without the midcourse correction as a fudge-factor. For reference, the main gun of an Abrams tank can eject an APFSDS penetrator at almost one mile per second.
Ejecting trash to the Sun. Hmm, off the top of my head, looks like you'll need a deltaV of about 15 miles per second. Rather more than an entire Apollo/SaturnV stack can manage.
Burn up on re-entry? Yes, that we can manage. Requires only a few hundred meters/second deltaV. Of course, we might have better things to do with our payload than carry along garbage rockets.
Seriously, it's generally easier to just carry the garbage home with you. Which is what we do now. The garbage problem in orbit is mostly little bits and parts that fall off of things. When you drop a nut when working under your car, it hits you on the head (the perversity of the Universe being what it is, that happens nearly every time) or falls to the ground out of reach. Drop a nut in orbit, and it just stays in whatever orbit you put it in. Which means you may be seeing it again in an orbit or two, if it got out of reach before you noticed it.
You've messed up the difference between safety and reliability. The shuttle reliability is 2%- 1 in 50, but the safety is actually only 95.5% (4.5% deathrate) because they put different numbers of astronauts on some of the shuttles (the first launch only had 2 crew for example, and some of the defense-related launches had reduced crew also), but both times they blew up, they had a full crew onboard. If you do the maths, it's about a 4.5% fatality rate.
You, sir, are full of it.
4.5% deathrate for the Shuttle (14 deaths in 113 flights) requires that the AVERAGE Shuttle crew be only 3 (2.75, but who counts?).
Since none of the Shuttles flew with less than 2 men on board, that would imply that with the exception of the two accidents, only 15 shuttles carried seven men, and the other 96 had two each.
In fact, with just cursory checking, it is possible to determine that the Shuttle has carried 689 people, though some of those were for only part of a flight. Which gives the Shuttle a 2.0% deathrate.
Which puts the Shuttle deathrate about the same as Soyuz. Sorry for bursting your bubble as to the superiority of Soviet Science....
Hypothetical. I don't drive. Therefore I don't have a driver's license. I'm homeless. Therefor I don't have $UTILITY_BILL, etc....
Why am I to be disenfranchised?
Most places I have lived, you have to live in the precinct to be registered to vote there. And be able to prove you live there. Which supports the opinion that if you are homeless, you are disenfranchised by design.
The alternative, of course, it to allow anyone to vote anywhere. In which case, the phrase "vote early, vote often" becomes rather less a joke and more a way of life....
These people count the votes together. I.e., one guy takes the ballot out of the box, and says "socialist party". He hands the ballot to the next guy who checks. The vote is recorded in a list by another guy. Yet another guy looks over his shoulders and checks. And so on.
Of course, we don't vote by Party, but by individual. So I voted (in one election) for President/VP (this one election is essentially a Party vote, since you are actually voting for a slate of electors), Senator, Representative, State Senator, State Representative, City Councilman, a couple of Judges, five Constitutional Amendments, and three separate local taxes.
The boat was completely destroyed very early on in the series, when Gilligan discovered some sap that made a very good glue.
THe glue was used to repair the boat, and then Gilligan decided to coat the hull with the stuff, to ensure watertight integrity.
Alas, this was a comedy, not a drama. The glue turned out to be something that fell apart after a couple of days. When it came undone, the Minnow's hull was reduced to a heap of warped boards....
Can you tell I watched Gilligan's Island too much as a kid?
What's really funny about those elections and Hitler's appointment as Chancellor is how hard the Germans tried to AVOID letting Hitler be Chancellor.
They did everything short of assassinate him to keep him out of office. Problem was, the other Parties disliked each other so much that they couldn't build a coalition to keep Hitler out of power - and Hindenburg didn't really want to exercise the dictatorial powers allowed him under the German Constitution.
So Hindenburg was desperate for a Chancellor (anyone but Hitler), and the German Parliament was desperate for a Coalition (led by anyone but Hitler), so they all compromised...
Slashdot Mirror
Why must automakers have to have minimum fleet fuel economy standards?
Why must electric companies provide eletricity for people out in the country?
Why must TPC (The Phone Company, for those old movie fans out there) provide phone service to every house?
Why must your employer take part of your paycheck every week and send it to the IRS? And another part to your State's IRS?
Why must you have a Driver's License to use the public roads?
Why...
If it isn't obvious from my examples, it's because the government is in the business of making people do things that the government thinks are necessary or desirable.
One might argue that this is neither necessary or desirable, but the opt-in nature and openness of the "list" make that argument problematic. Arguing that it is somehow wrong of the government to make you (or anyone else) do something is just silly - that's what governments are for.
As they should. In general, the States HAVE been more abusive. This is changing in recent years, of course, as the Federal government tries to make EVERYTHING an Interstate Commmerce issue. The Federal government jumped the shark when they rules back in the 30's that a man could not grow grain to feed his own hogs without affecting interstate commmerce in a way regulatable by the government.
The Tenth Amendment I can see the ACLU ignoring.
The Ninth is somewhat more problematic. Thinking about it a bit more, I realize that the ACLU has used that one more than once. Hell, Roe v. Wade is a Ninth Amendment case.
The government of Utah is not making such a list. It is making a list of publications which contain adult material, and refuse to restrict access to their adult material to adults. Then it is giving everyone the opportunity to get a copy of the list. And requiring that ISPs provide a public service (specifically, whatever software is required to make use of the list).
It almost certainly can't fail to be arbitrary in nature. The means of composing the list may be based on a state employee or representative forming an opinion on which publications are included and which are not.
If this weren't /., I'd ask if you had read the text of the law. To be added to the list, a site must have adult content. The content must not have access restrictions already in place (the usual creditcard to access adult content counts as access restrictions already in place). The site will be informed that it is to be added to the list, if a point of contact is provided at the site. The site is given five days to restrict its own adault content. Only after all these hurdles are met can the site be added to the list.
In addition, a site must be removed from the list if, at any time after it is added to the list, it imposes the usual access restrictions to its adult content, and informs the Utah AG's office. At which time the site must be removed from the list within two days.
Note that all reference to "days" above means "business days". Note that a porn site will NOT be added to the list if the site requires a creditcard number to view adult material. Note that the list MUST be publically available for inspection.
Note further that NOONE is required to actually filter anything. A customer may choose to self-censor. Their ISP must assist them in censoring their own web access. But I can't censor YOUR web-access (unless you access the web on my computer), and I can't stop you from providing a creditcard number and trolling porn sites, even on my self-censored computer (since sites which already have access restrictions may not be added to the list).
I'm curious. What would be your logic-based argument in favour of a law making murder a crime?
In fact, as originally written, the First Amendment applied ONLY to the Federal government, and did not restrict the State governments in any way.
The 14th Amendment is generally taken to restrict State governments from violating the Rights stated/implied in the Federal Constitution.
Umm, no. If you in fact require a credit card to access the adult material on your site, then you will not be added to the list. The list is for sites that refuse to restrict access to their adult material. Section 67-5-19, subsection 2-a-ii specifically says that this only applies to sites that provide adult material that is NOT access restricted already.
In your first case, you are aware that EVERY law is coercive in the sense that it requires private companies/individuals to do things using their own resources, I assume. That is a meaningless statement.
In the second case, we might have an issue. Well, we would if it weren't for the wording of the law. The AG is required to send a notification to any site so listed before it can be listed, and if the site then restricts its adult material (the usual creditcard requirement should be sufficient) then the site cannot be so listed.
Plus, of course, the public nature of the list (the law specifies that the list be made publically available in a "readily accessible" format) makes it difficult, if not impossible to add things to it deceptively without violating the law itself. And even Attorney's General get to do hard time if they get caught breaking the law.
So, where's the First Amendment issue again? This law seems to be very carefully designed to step around any First Amendment landmines. I doubt it is foolproof (there are some mighty fine fools out there), but I expect it is more vulnerable to "my little Billy saw a dirty picture even thought I opted in to the Magic List" than to any possible First Amendment issue.
hmm, Second Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Well, let's look at the parts you think are ignored by the NRA.
George Mason said "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
Thomas Jefferson said "The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
Samual Adams said "That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..."
Richard Lee said "The militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves.. . . [T]he Constitution ought to secure a genuine and guard against a select militia, by providing that the militia shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include . . . all men capable of bearing arms...". For a further note, "select militia" mentioned above is more or less the same as "National Guard" today.
James Madison said "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well-armed, and well-regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.". Note that this was the original proposed text of the Second Amendment, and that Madison was the author of same.
Patrick Henry said "The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."
Thomas Jefferson, again "No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
and again "The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press.
Funny, it looks like the Founding Fathers (you remember them, they were the ones who WROTE the Constitution and Bill of Rights) think that the Second Amendment is an INDIVIDUAL right. Note especially Richard Lee's statement above, in which a clear distinction is made between the "militia" and the "select militia", which latter, in the modern world, closely corresponds to the National Guard.
And the ACLU, I'm sure, has an interest in the 7th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th (doesn't come up as much as the 15th), 24th, and 26th (also doesn't come up as much as the 15th). There are some others as well, but they might have difficulty with standing issues.
Someone else who knows what the Third is!
Seriously, I can't think of a single example of a Seventh Amendment case either - I should have classified it with the Third.
As to 13+, I was restricting myself (without bothering to say so, my bad) to the Bill of Rights.
The ACLU does fine work whenever they get away from the Bill of Rights. They just seem to have a couple of blind-spots (read: they are complete idiots from time to time, and very selective about the parts of the Bill of Rights they think deserve protection) regarding the Bill of Rights.
So, the existance of a list that is only used in the case of a customer requesting that it be used by said customer is a violation of the First Amendment?
That makes no sense at all. It's much like saying that I were to make a list of news organizations I disagree with, and show it to you only if you ask, that I am violating your First Amendment rights. Or the news organizations' Rights.
Or my cat's rights, perhaps...
I can see an issue if the Law in question REQUIRED that the list be filtered for all customers, whether they want the filtering or not. But I can't see a First Amendment issue in a opt-in system.
Unless we use the argument that:
someone breaks into my home and steals my computer,
that someone then logs into my ISP
that someone is offended that I am forbidding him to look at porn on my stolen computer
Therefore, the thief's First Amendment rights to use property stolen from me in any way he desires is being restricted.
Please, explain!
Basically, the ACLU believes that every reference to "Rights" in the Constitution refers to "individual Rights", except the Second Amendment, which they believe refers to "government Rights".
Never mind that by reading the Federalist Papers' discussion on the Bill of Rights it becomes quite clear that it is an individual Right.
And never mind that the Constitution always uses the word "powers" to refer to the Government and "rights" to refer to individuals.
"All but #2" != "All". Good try, though.
And this is a violation of the First Amendment how?
I can see how someone might be offended by this law. But I can't see where the First Amendment comes into it.
Umm, no. The ACLU is specifically interested in the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments.
They're not all that interested in the Ninth and Tenth.
They don't like the Second at all.
And, like everyone else, they don't even remember what the Third Amendment is (so far as I know, it's never been invoked for any purpose).
And its casualties have been just about inline with "all the other space programs combined" - twice as many people into orbit, and twice as many casualties.
Two Soyuz crews died on reentry. Soyuz 1 (one guy) and Soyuz 11 (three guys).
Mercury, Gemini, Apollo put ~75 people into space, on a total of 31 flights. The Shuttle managed ~690 on 113 flights. Note that Shuttle did not have an accident till flight 51. Mercury would have needed another 45 flights to get to flight 51. Gemini would have needed another 41 flights. Apollo another 36 flights.
The Soyuz has been the only manned vehicle in space that even approached the Shuttle's number of flights - 83 manned flights. Of those, two flights lost their crews.
1.8% of the crews (compared to Shuttle's 2%) lost, and 2.4% of the missions (compared to Shuttle's 1.8%). Of course, the Soyuz program had three other failed missions which did not result in loss of life...
Space flight is risky, but nothing equals the loss of two crews in the shuttles.
Come now. The Titanic lost over 1500 people. There are a LOT of events in the history of the world that are FAR worse than the loss of two Shuttle crews....
Much less that the Shuttle has carried 689 people to orbit, as opposed to the Soviet program's 231 (or fewer)...
The Wiki entry is misleading. It asserts that only 277 people have flown on Shuttle. This MAY be true, but since there were 689 people on the various Shuttle flights, it means that most of them had to have flown more than once.
I've never bothered to check the SHuttle crews by name to find out how many repeat customers there were, so I won't dispute the Wiki entry. However, the fact that 14 of 277 have died is meaningless.
Would it be considered even MORE unsafe if it had flown 10,000 times, with the same crew each time, then crashed on the last flight, killing the entire crew? For a 100% deathrate, even though there were 9999 flights with no errors?
Umm, no. Trash ejected to drop on the Moon would require that you eject the trash at a speed of 2 miles/second. With a precision similar to an Apollo, but without the midcourse correction as a fudge-factor. For reference, the main gun of an Abrams tank can eject an APFSDS penetrator at almost one mile per second.
Ejecting trash to the Sun. Hmm, off the top of my head, looks like you'll need a deltaV of about 15 miles per second. Rather more than an entire Apollo/SaturnV stack can manage.
Burn up on re-entry? Yes, that we can manage. Requires only a few hundred meters/second deltaV. Of course, we might have better things to do with our payload than carry along garbage rockets.
Seriously, it's generally easier to just carry the garbage home with you. Which is what we do now. The garbage problem in orbit is mostly little bits and parts that fall off of things. When you drop a nut when working under your car, it hits you on the head (the perversity of the Universe being what it is, that happens nearly every time) or falls to the ground out of reach. Drop a nut in orbit, and it just stays in whatever orbit you put it in. Which means you may be seeing it again in an orbit or two, if it got out of reach before you noticed it.
You, sir, are full of it.
4.5% deathrate for the Shuttle (14 deaths in 113 flights) requires that the AVERAGE Shuttle crew be only 3 (2.75, but who counts?).
Since none of the Shuttles flew with less than 2 men on board, that would imply that with the exception of the two accidents, only 15 shuttles carried seven men, and the other 96 had two each.
In fact, with just cursory checking, it is possible to determine that the Shuttle has carried 689 people, though some of those were for only part of a flight. Which gives the Shuttle a 2.0% deathrate.
Which puts the Shuttle deathrate about the same as Soyuz. Sorry for bursting your bubble as to the superiority of Soviet Science....
Why am I to be disenfranchised?
Most places I have lived, you have to live in the precinct to be registered to vote there. And be able to prove you live there. Which supports the opinion that if you are homeless, you are disenfranchised by design.
The alternative, of course, it to allow anyone to vote anywhere. In which case, the phrase "vote early, vote often" becomes rather less a joke and more a way of life....
Of course, we don't vote by Party, but by individual. So I voted (in one election) for President/VP (this one election is essentially a Party vote, since you are actually voting for a slate of electors), Senator, Representative, State Senator, State Representative, City Councilman, a couple of Judges, five Constitutional Amendments, and three separate local taxes.
And then there was the runoff....
THe glue was used to repair the boat, and then Gilligan decided to coat the hull with the stuff, to ensure watertight integrity.
Alas, this was a comedy, not a drama. The glue turned out to be something that fell apart after a couple of days. When it came undone, the Minnow's hull was reduced to a heap of warped boards....
Can you tell I watched Gilligan's Island too much as a kid?
They did everything short of assassinate him to keep him out of office. Problem was, the other Parties disliked each other so much that they couldn't build a coalition to keep Hitler out of power - and Hindenburg didn't really want to exercise the dictatorial powers allowed him under the German Constitution.
So Hindenburg was desperate for a Chancellor (anyone but Hitler), and the German Parliament was desperate for a Coalition (led by anyone but Hitler), so they all compromised...
On Hitler.