I notice the American Right wing is all in favor of local government right up until they do something they don't like. Then they want the State gov't to step in and outlaw it. The State gov'ts seem about perfect. Big enough to oppress but not so big they can't just buy them all out.
I think that Seattle gets it wrong, but I support the ability of a local or state government to make this determination for themselves. In fact, I think that the federal income tax should be abolished entirely and that states should be funding the federal governments out of their tax revenues. Of course, this would mean that states would have to tax income more at levels like what the federal government does. In fact, if you study the federal republic concept that forms the basis of the US, that is how it should be. The federal government today is far larger, more bureaucratic, and more powerful than the founders could have imagined.
Right now, if the federal government lowers or raises income taxes, then your only choice is to comply or run afoul of the law. In the state-based arrangement I mentioned above, the federal government would have to convince the states that it is in their best interests to fund whatever thing the federal government is proposing. That would act as a very effective check on the ever increasing power and size of the federal government. On top of that, if states choose not to comply it effectively acts as a form of pocket veto (because you cannot through an entire state in jail). Same as when some countries refuse to pay their UN dues, or whatever. If a large enough amount of money gets withheld then the job can't get done. It would make sure only truly worthwhile things get funded.
But then, I also favor a return to state legislatures selecting Senators. I don not think it likely that either popular election of Senators or the federal income tax will be repealed. But I still think they are good ideas.
Note: I don'y really know why I am replying here, as it seems anytime I pop up in anything even remotely political my posts get hit with an avalanche of "overrated" mods; it seems moderators believe "overrated" == "disagree". At least some of them have the intestinal fortitude to mod troll (even if I am not trolling), but then they probably are secure in their thoughts and ideas and can handle their mods being metamoded. So, I'll probably get modded to oblivion, but oh well.
Poorer households would receive financial assistance to replace older, more polluting vehicles with cleaner ones, he said.
I am curious if the energy/environmental impact of producing the new vehicle is part of the estimated/calculated beneficial environmental impact. That is, if I replace a vehicle that gets 20 MPG with one that gets 40 MPG the 100% improvement in fuel economy is partially offset by the energy that went into producing the vehicle and possibly transport (especially for imports). I know that vehicles have to be replaced eventually but this makes it seem like the idea is to replace the vehicles before the normal end of their service life.
I wasn't ignoring everything else. Nothing about UBI can be said to apply to "common Defence" or to "general Welfare". Before you tell me that UBI falls under "general Welfare", please note that this is the definition of the word ":welfare" from Webster's 1828:
WELFARE, noun [well and fare, a good faring; G.]
1. Exemption from misfortune, sickness, calamity or evil; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; prosperity; happiness; applied to persons.
2. Exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applied to states.
It is clear that the intended meaning was that "welfare" was adjunct to "defence". That is, protection from attack, and perhaps arguably assistance when natural disasters of outbreaks of disease strike. However, a system where the government pays every citizen an income is considerably outside of that scope.
Obama didn't get resistance because of who proposed it, he received resistance because this is, and was, a massive government power grab which is unconstitutional.
Agreed. People got upset because Massachusetts did something that resembled Obamacare under Mitt Romney's (Republican) governership but then when it was proposed at the federal level there was lots of resistance from conservatives. The idea, as I pointed out in the Seattle $15/hour minimum wage story is that the US Constitution puts rather clear and firm limits on what the federal government can and cannot do. In particular, based on the 10th Amendment if the Constitution does not specifically grant a power to the federal government or prohibit it to the states, then the federal government has no business being involved.
To me, the idea is the same for UBI. If you like it, then fine, feel free to convince your city, county, or state government to implement it in their jurisdiction. However, the federal government should not be involved. Now, some have pointed that particular problems are very widespread and have national impact and so they should be solved by the federal government. That's fine, so long as the solution does not have the government exceed its constitutional powers. When personal income tax was implemented more than a century ago it required a constitutional amendment. I suspect that lots of people today would want the federal government to just go ahead and do it regardless of whether it is constitutional. Just remember that if you think the Constitution is just "guidelines" you can't get upset when someone comes along violates parts of it you don't like (NSA warantless wiretapping?).
First, thanks for a well stated and reasonable response. You make some excellent points and in particular you are right that my arguments apply more to the existence of a minimum wage than to the propriety of increasing an existing minimum wage. That said, I want to focus on particular aspect of your response:
But that definition suffers from so many obvious flaws. I mean, take antitrust regulations. Do they take away choices? Of course! They take away the decision of corporate entities and their owners to eliminate all competition in a market and become the sole source of an essential good or service. By doing so, the regulation stops entities who would do that from denying choice to consumers after they've cornered their market. So, whether regulation is applied or not, choice is inevitably denied to someone.
That is precisely the point. The question that we as the governed need to ask ourselves is "does the benefit of government restricting the rights of one or more parties justify the restriction of said rights?" That right there is the entire reason that governments ought to exist. Now, there are lots of facets to this, like whether a corporation should be considered a person, whether certain rights are more important than other rights, and whether certain rights can be considered unalienable. But at its core, the problem which governments exist to solve is I have stated it.
But, according to your definition, for some reason that's a bad thing because it was the federal government making that restriction and not a state or local government. I never fully understood that logic.
My logic is based on the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
So, in summary, if the Constitution says that it is the federal government's responsibility then it is the federal government's responsibility (e.g,. minting coins/printing currency), if the Constitution says that the states can't do something then they can't (e.g., form a treaty). Everything else is strictly the business of the states (or lower jurisdictions if the states so choose allow the powers to further devolve) and the federal government should not be involved.
You may disagree with that view and that is your prerogative. You may even think that it is wrong and should be changed, which is fine as well. The proper solution is a constitutional amendment.
The discussion is about giving people enough money to afford food and shelter, not limiting their potential earnings.
However, I could see that this suggestion might be good for corporate executives to limit their pay. Several countries/jurisdictions have actually implemented rules that limit executive pay to some multiple of the lowest wage their company pays. Usually it's a factor of less than 100.
You and others may claim that the discussion is about making sure people can afford to live. But more fundamentally, the discussion is about taking away choices from employees, employers, and even customers and other actors in the market. Ultimately, every government regulation is a removal of rights and choices. There are some instances where such removal of rights and choices is clearly in the best interests of one or more groups of market participants. Environmental regulations are a very good example, in particular because of the indirect nature of the associated costs and benefits. But an honest debate cannot be had when there is an unwillingness to have a balanced discussion that considers both sides of the issue.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am all for local and even state governments deciding on matters like this. I think Seattle's policy is wrong, but their duly elected representatives implemented it, so I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they did it because that is what their constituents want.
The two problems that I have with the whole debate is: 1) proponents always frame it as a "we are here to help" sort of thing, while never willing to acknowledge that their "help" requires that everyone involved give up some of their rights (again, that is a matter for local jurisdictions to decide if that is an equitable exchange, the right of choice of employment for the guarantee of a better wage); and, 2) for some reason lots people seem to think that this is a matter for the federal government when it clearly is not.
So, to summarize, just be honest about what is actually being taken/given (this isn't a give only arrangement) and don't bring the federal government into it. Then, local governments are free to do as they feel is right in this matter and people who like can move there and work/start businesses and people who don't like it can go work/start businesses elsewhere.
So, you are saying that people should be "free" to work for low wages where they can't afford food or shelter?
So, you are saying that people should be "free" to work for the highest wage they can obtain? Perhaps Seattle should introduce a maximum wage bill that caps wages at something reasonable, like $30/hour. I mean, if the government gets to decide what the minimum standard is for someone to live and how much they should be paid, then why not also define, set, and enforce a maximum standard as well?
It seems the people want a certain outcome, namely, that increasing the minimum wage puts more money in the pockets of working persons trying to get by. I mean, who can be against that apart from some mean-spirited Conservatives and clueless Libertarians, no?
See, this is what I don't get. I mean, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from opening a burger joint, pizza place, or coffee shop and paying the workers $50/hour if you want. However, if there are people out there willing to work for less than $15/hour, or $13/hour, or $11/hour, or whatever, who are you to tell them that they can't. If there are employers out there who don't think that they can or want to pay a certain amount, who are you to tell them that they must?
How is it that the argument "but we are doing to this help" is so often used successfully when taking away rights?
I believe that people should be free to choose for themselves. That includes both employees and employers. Forcing these sorts of artificial limits may in some ways help, but it is not worth the cost of the freedoms that are taken in exchange.
The "300 times more toxic waste than nuclear power" requires considering one kilogram of solar panel as being toxic waste equivalent to one kilogram of spent reactor fuel. This is a preposterous comparison.
It is preposterous. Good thing that is not what they compared. From the article:
To make these calculations, EP estimated the total number of operational solar panels in 2016 and assumed they would all be retired in 25 years â" the average lifespan of a solar panel. EP then estimated the total amount of spent nuclear fuel assemblies that would be generated over a 25 year period. EP then divided both estimates by the quantity of electricity they produced to come up with the waste per unit of energy measure.
So, you say that they equated 1kg of solar panel to 1kg of nuclear fuel. They say they equated the solar panels it took to create x GW of electricity to the amount of nuclear fuel it took to create y GW of electricity. Based on what their stated methodology, it would work out to something like "300 kg of nuclear fuel can be used to generated 300 GW of electricity over 25 years, but 300 kg of solar panels can only be used to generate 1 GW of electricity over 25 years." Or something like that.
Now, you could argue that the analysis was incomplete because it does not account for the impact refining the nuclear fuel or manufacturing the solar panels, building the reactors, or installing/maintaining the solar panels. You could even argue that their methodology for estimating quantities of solar panels and nuclear fuel was flawed or that they don't account for the differing impact of handling spent nuclear fuel versus old solar panels (I can stack old panels out in the open, but that is not a good idea with nuclear fuel). But those are different matters altogether.
It should not surprise that they seek to exploit everyone they meet.
I think the best way to sum it up is: double standards, we haz them.
Certainly the/. community is more aware of this sort of thing in the VC/entrepreneurship community than the general population. But this sort of thing--people in positions of power taking advantage of those over whom they wield influence--is nothing new. Perhaps there are some industries, occupations, etc. where this is more likely to occur, but it still happens all over the place.
I was reading about a study that was carried out comparing the perceptions of, reactions to, and consequences of male educators sexually exploiting students versus female educators sexually exploiting students. The summary was that people generally tend to perceive it like this: male educator -> evil, female student -> victim; female educator -> troubled, perhaps unhappy with home life/relationship; male student -> "way to score, champ!" This extends to news coverage, trial testimony, even conviction rates and sentencing (men are far more likely to be convicted than women for the same offense and once convicted men serve considerably longer prison sentences).
The double standards in society extend even further. For example, in a divorce the default for custody of children tends to be custody to the mother and visitation for the father. Getting joint custody or full custody to the father usually involved proving some unfitness to parent on the part of the mother. This is starting to change to a more equitable arrangement, but it is a very slow going change. Another good is example is the way that people naturally react very differently to men and women in certain roles, like daycare worker or kindergarten teacher: female daycare/kindergarten teacher -> no issues; male daycare/kindergarten teacher -> alarm bells go off for many parents (he might be a child molester, after all).
I'll bet that there is even an element of social conditioning at play in the whole VC sexual harassment thing. Men are expected to to misbehave. Going back to the different of male/female teachers or workers interacting with young children. I'll bet that lots of parents have a talk like this with their young children: "Johnny/Jane, if your teacher ever touches your private place or makes you touch them, you need to tell mommy and daddy right away." Now, I don't know if it has been studied, but I am willing to bet that for every time this conversation happens in the context of talking to a child of a female authority figure that it happens 10 times in the context of a male authority figure. Result: children grow to expect that males will physically/sexually exploit others. Teaching that is certainly not the goal, but in the interest of protecting our children, we actually reinforce and further ingrain the stereotype.
I don't know what the solution is, but the VC/entrepreneur sexual harassment problem is not going to be solved only in Silicon Valley.
It will save us. For some reasons someone will find tons of money in rolling out infrastructure to fight those established companies and provide us with competition!
To me the problem is that the industry is highly regulated, by the government of course. So, relaxing/repealing net neutrality results in an imbalance.
I would like to see us go either all one way or the other. An examination of the way the Post Office was treated in the first ~100 years of the US would be very instructive to this whole debate. That is how critical the Internet is to us now. I have commented on that previously here on/.
That said, I would be less bothered by the net neutrality relaxing/repeal if there were an accompanying relaxation of the regulations which frequently prevent local municipalities and co-ops from providing competing services.
I live in an area where my options are dial-up, T1, satellite, or microwave. The services are all either slow, expensive, or poor quality (usually all three of those). I have talked with some of my neighbors about what it would take to form a co-op to provide the homes in our area with fibre optic service. We know that there several fibre backbones that pass not very far from us and if we pooled our resources then we could likely provide ourselves far better service than is currently available. Cost would be a bit of an issue up front, but the far more problematic piece of it is the ridiculous level of regulation involved to get anything done. It would take literally years of constant effort to get to where we could even have the first trenches dug.
So, I suffer through having crappy Internet because I really like the area where I live. Net neutrality won't affect me very much personally and I don't think that having it or not having it will result in big monopoly providers extending service to areas they view as unprofitable. For that to happen, there would have to be a mandate for them build out or the government would have to do it. The other option which I mentioned above, people doing it for themselves in the form of co-ops would be a great solution, but for the stifling regulations which are clearly intended precisely to prevent what I am suggesting.
While you are correct on both counts, what this story illustrates is the irony of large organizations (in commercial industry and government alike) that say "we want innovators/bold thinkers/unconventional thinkers/people who think outside the box" (or similar feel-good sounding things) when what they really mean is "we want innovators/bold thinkers/unconventional thinkers/people who think outside the box but who also remain within the strict policies/structures/conventions of the organization."
Is it any wonder that people who perceive themselves as truly talented tend to want to go work for startups or perhaps create their own startup? The type of people places like the CIA and big companies claim to be seeking are precisely the type of people who look at places like that and say "no way am I going subject myself to all that bureaucracy." Stories like those sort of prove the point.
Every military appears subject to the same idiocy. Seriously, you are spending literally billions of USD, GBP, or EUR (I tried to use the actual symbols for GBP and EUR, but I forgot about Slashdot and unicode). You can't spring a few million for a custom built or customized (e.g., based on OS/2, QNX, VXWorks, Linux, etc.) OS that has all the networking and other non-essential components removed? Then you can allow network access via a very tightly controlled and well audited interface.
The main reason, I think, for this conundrum is that there are two competing objectives: 1) extremely rigorous system engineering processes with the attendant configuration control; 2) use more COTS and fewer custom components. For instance, those decisions were definitely made over a decade ago and any change to them would require tons of paperwork, additional certification, and also add to the cost and delay the schedule. It's no wonder they just stuck with what was already approved.
That said, I simply cannot believe that one or more of the big defense firms (e.g., BAE, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing) has not come up with something better than slapping Windows on it.
Now, I know (or rather, I truly hope) that things like navigation, fire control, and other critical ship functions are not dependent on any Windows (or other consumer OS). However, I know that some years ago the US Navy had a "Windows-power ship" end up dead in the water and had to have it towed back to port. That was the result of a divide by zero bug in some piece of software but Windows did not handle it gracefully, if I recall correctly.
Either way, they will be lucky if they don't end up with some very serious problems along the way. It seems like it is just not possible to keep ransomware out of any decently sized network. And I can imagine a major world power's flag ship being a tempting target.
So if I were the email provider, you're saying that I owe it to non-customers to continue to serve a customer violating my TOS and bringing my services into disrepute so that the customer may continue to extort them.
Ummm, no. I said nothing of the sort. To more clearly state what I have already said: ordinarily something like this would be funny (criminal losing access to a key piece of their criminal enterprise, thereby harming the future viability of said enterprise).
However, the collateral damage makes it more lamentable. Innocent victims now may be harmed three ways (1. infected, 2. paid ransom, 3. still didn't get files back). Posteo did the right thing and criminals who engage in these sorts of activities deserve to suffer the full weight of the law in any and every jurisdiction that can get a hold of them, if not more.
My reference to The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security was an acknowledgment that educating users (like how to not get hit by phishing attacks in the first place) is an extreme uphill battle which is oftentimes lost. Just look at the frequency and extent of these sorts of attacks.
It would be funny, except that people are paying the ransom and not getting their files back. Perhaps there will be a positive result here and people will start to get the idea that it is never worthwhile to pay the ransom and to keep backups instead. Oh, who am I kidding? That is #5 of The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security.
So kudos to someone previously associated with Engadget, of all places, to take Apple's marketing to task.
Personally, I would have preferred that it read like an actual "review" instead of a "rant". I get that the marketing made some exaggerations and that the product is less than stellar. However, the tone of the whole thing is rather offputting. I don't need for someone to yell at me to convince me.
"They're splitting the fees 50/50 with a private company. "...who pays for everything, the cameras, installation, location, personnel, power, security, maintenance....
Which is precisely the problem, as it gives the contractor an incentive to levy as many fines as they can get away with. To see how this sort of perverse incentive can get out of hand, look at the Wells Fargo scandal.
If the objective truly was to improve public safety (as opposed to make money for the local government and contractor), the local government would pay the contractor a flat fee for the initial installation and setup, a flat fee (per month or some other period of time) for the service of actually operating the system, and a flat fee (again, per month or some other period of time) for maintenance of the system, or possibly a per incident (e.g., for replacing a faulty camera unit, etc.).
However, as has been shown time again with speed cameras, red light cameras, and I am sure will be shown with this, the objective is not improved public safety rather it is increased revenue for the government (and the contractor as a side effect).
It is certainly a complex problem because of all the facets. I think that we can either rip the bandaid off now and endure some serious short term pain. Or we peel it off very slowly and endure a much lower level of pain over a longer period of time. But I don't think keeping things as they are is sustainable and there is no real way to fix the problem without causing some level of pain in the process. The reason it is such a divisive issue is because somebody has to make the decisions and nobody wants to be the bad guy.
Prosecutorial discretion has been common law for centuries. It absolutely is the federal government's discretion whether and how to enforce the law. You're getting called partisan because you're blatantly ignoring reality in preferring one side of a political issue. It was an unusual legal event, but it was in no sense wrong.
Only the government wasn't prosecuting in this case, they were defending. I'm getting called partisan because while I presented two examples (one from each a D and an R to be fair), someone decided to focus on one over the other.
I think my initial point stands: presidents ignoring the law has been the norm for the last 20-ish years.
If you carefully read the US Constitution, you'll find out about this third branch of government called the Judicial Branch. A member of that branch had ruled DOMA violated the Constitution and thus barred the Executive branch from enforcing DOMA.
Not quite. From the summary of the case that ended up before the Supreme Court:
On November 9, 2010, Windsor sued the federal government in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking a refund because DOMA singled out legally married same-sex couples for "differential treatment compared to other similarly situated couples without justification."[5] On February 23, 2011, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Department of Justice would not defend the constitutionality of Section 3 in Windsor. On April 18, 2011, Paul Clement, representing the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), intervened to defend the law. On June 6, 2012, Judge Barbara S. Jones ruled that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional under the due process guarantees of the Fifth Amendment[6] and ordered the federal government to issue the tax refund, including interest.
So, the executive made their decision before the judiciary had ruled. I grant you that once the first ruling was made the right thing to do was to respect the ruling. At that point they could have decided whether to appeal or not, as that would have been the president's prerogative. But that's not what happened at all.
Now, you could argue that Obama should have ignored the Judicial Branch's decision, but that kinda flies in the face of your claims about the Constitution being sacrosanct.
I made no such argument. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Once the court ruled, then the matter was decided. The right to appeal is not a requirement to appeal.
You could also argue that the DoJ under Obama should have fought to keep DOMA all the way to the Supreme Court. But there's no requirement in the Constitution that the Executive branch must exhaust all appeals before stopping the enforcement of an unconstitutional law. Especially one that was extremely likely to go down 5-4 - Kennedy was not a fan of DOMA.
Then go start a grass roots movement and do something about it. Do you really think whining incessantly about how the government doesn't work properly is going to do anything on slashdot? People have been whining about this for decades on slashdot believe it or not.
I don't just whine about it. I am actively involved on multiple fronts. Whining on slashdot is just something I do in addition to being an active participant in our republic.
What can I logically get from this statement? Let's parse it:
1) "Obama failing" - that means Obama failed at something. Obama did not succeed.
As in "failed to execute the office to which he was elected"
2) " enforce and vigorously defend the Defense of Marriage Act" - Obama failed to enforce the act. Another way we could interpret that action, depending on our point of view is that perhaps Obama succeeded at not upholding the act?
Interpret it however you want. The fact is that the executive branch decided it didn't like a law and then didn't enforce it and when it was challenged in court decided not to defend it. If they could do that with one law, then they could do it with any law, say like laws on handling classified information or on bribery and corruption.
3) "enforce and vigorously" using the word vigorously as if Obama should have with great vigor upheld this act
That is exactly how he should have treated the law. All government officials should have respect for the law, both its letter and spirit. Bad laws are challenged in court (or fixed by the legislature), not ignored by executive branch bureaucrats. In the event of a court challenge, both sides must be vigorously represented, as in the the best ability of the litigants. I would hate to think that I could be accused of a crime, be appointed an attorney (as is my right) and that the attorney or one of his/her bosses could decide that they don't want to defend me because they don't like me. That is exactly what happened here, only it wasn't an individual on trial.
1 suggests a claim that it was a bad choice. 2 suggests that there is a belief he should have upheld it and the interpretation is that because he did not uphold it, he failed at "something" and 3. He should have done so vigorously, now why would someone add vigorously to this statement for any other reason to emphasize it or to project a sense of importance?
I use vigorous as it relates to the legal idea of effective counsel. That is the lawyers in a court case have a duty to actually try. It is sort of a fundamental aspect of the adversarial legal system. Since the law cannot have an opinion of itself, and since it was passed in a constitutional manner (i.e., both houses of Congress, signed by the president, etc.) it stands to reason that it should at least be accorded a proper defense when challenged. Alternatively, the president could have asked Congress to repeal the law before it reached the Supreme Court.
There are only really two possibilities: 1) the statement doesn't reflect your view and you are re-iterating someone else's position or 2) the statement reflects your view and it impossible not to conclude that you have put forth a position on the issue. What am I missing?
I did not put forth an opinion on the issue of the Defense of Marriage Act. The opinion I did put forth is that it is not within the executive's discretion to decide which laws to uphold and which to ignore, therefore the Obama administration's decision to ignore the Defense of Marriage Act was flat out wrong. If you go back and look at my initial comment, you will notice that I also gave an example from the Bush administration regarding the fourth amendment (arguably a more grievous offense, as that violated specific constitutionally protected rights on which courts had already ruled).
Feel free to think that I am partisan, but I will say again (and my commenting history pretty well demonstrates) that I am not partisan. That is all.
I understand what you mean. What we have now is essentially a marketplace approach. People are willing to pay so much and in order to keep prices at the right point, producers have an incentive to pay lower wages, which is probably a driver of the current situation with immigration, at least in areas like agriculture.
The marketplace adapts pretty well to even significant changes. For example, there was a story here on Slashdot recently where I think the CEO of McDonald's (I am not certain about that, it may have been another fast food company) basically said that a universal $15 per hour minimum wage would really spur them toward to elimination of humans in certain jobs and replacing them with machines. If there is no longer a supply of people willing to work at subhuman wages (either because we deny them a route to illegal entry or because we legitimize their presence), then producers will either have pay more for the same amount of work or figure out a way to automate, economize, etc.
It is certainly not a perfect solution, but the current state of limbo is simply not sustainable and is really a poor situation for those who are victims. Right now the government looks the other way, the producers/employers look the other way, and the immigrants get exploited. People who advocate for maintaining the status quo are really advocating for the victimization of a rather large group of people.
I don't know who would be affected most, but I am confident that the market would reach a natural equilibrium.
I saw a lot of people speeding on the highway - maybe we should spend $20b to solve that problem because the rule of law is important.
It is important. You should take that matter up with the authorities in the jurisdiction that establishes and enforces the specific speed limit to which you are referring.
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I notice the American Right wing is all in favor of local government right up until they do something they don't like. Then they want the State gov't to step in and outlaw it. The State gov'ts seem about perfect. Big enough to oppress but not so big they can't just buy them all out.
I think that Seattle gets it wrong, but I support the ability of a local or state government to make this determination for themselves. In fact, I think that the federal income tax should be abolished entirely and that states should be funding the federal governments out of their tax revenues. Of course, this would mean that states would have to tax income more at levels like what the federal government does. In fact, if you study the federal republic concept that forms the basis of the US, that is how it should be. The federal government today is far larger, more bureaucratic, and more powerful than the founders could have imagined.
Right now, if the federal government lowers or raises income taxes, then your only choice is to comply or run afoul of the law. In the state-based arrangement I mentioned above, the federal government would have to convince the states that it is in their best interests to fund whatever thing the federal government is proposing. That would act as a very effective check on the ever increasing power and size of the federal government. On top of that, if states choose not to comply it effectively acts as a form of pocket veto (because you cannot through an entire state in jail). Same as when some countries refuse to pay their UN dues, or whatever. If a large enough amount of money gets withheld then the job can't get done. It would make sure only truly worthwhile things get funded.
But then, I also favor a return to state legislatures selecting Senators. I don not think it likely that either popular election of Senators or the federal income tax will be repealed. But I still think they are good ideas.
Note: I don'y really know why I am replying here, as it seems anytime I pop up in anything even remotely political my posts get hit with an avalanche of "overrated" mods; it seems moderators believe "overrated" == "disagree". At least some of them have the intestinal fortitude to mod troll (even if I am not trolling), but then they probably are secure in their thoughts and ideas and can handle their mods being metamoded. So, I'll probably get modded to oblivion, but oh well.
Poorer households would receive financial assistance to replace older, more polluting vehicles with cleaner ones, he said.
I am curious if the energy/environmental impact of producing the new vehicle is part of the estimated/calculated beneficial environmental impact. That is, if I replace a vehicle that gets 20 MPG with one that gets 40 MPG the 100% improvement in fuel economy is partially offset by the energy that went into producing the vehicle and possibly transport (especially for imports). I know that vehicles have to be replaced eventually but this makes it seem like the idea is to replace the vehicles before the normal end of their service life.
I wonder what's going to happen to the mid east when the only thing they have that's of any value is suddenly without value?
No need to wonder. Just have a look at what is going on in Venezuela right now.
I wasn't ignoring everything else. Nothing about UBI can be said to apply to "common Defence" or to "general Welfare". Before you tell me that UBI falls under "general Welfare", please note that this is the definition of the word ":welfare" from Webster's 1828:
WELFARE, noun [well and fare, a good faring; G.]
1. Exemption from misfortune, sickness, calamity or evil; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; prosperity; happiness; applied to persons.
2. Exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applied to states.
It is clear that the intended meaning was that "welfare" was adjunct to "defence". That is, protection from attack, and perhaps arguably assistance when natural disasters of outbreaks of disease strike. However, a system where the government pays every citizen an income is considerably outside of that scope.
Obama didn't get resistance because of who proposed it, he received resistance because this is, and was, a massive government power grab which is unconstitutional.
Agreed. People got upset because Massachusetts did something that resembled Obamacare under Mitt Romney's (Republican) governership but then when it was proposed at the federal level there was lots of resistance from conservatives. The idea, as I pointed out in the Seattle $15/hour minimum wage story is that the US Constitution puts rather clear and firm limits on what the federal government can and cannot do. In particular, based on the 10th Amendment if the Constitution does not specifically grant a power to the federal government or prohibit it to the states, then the federal government has no business being involved.
To me, the idea is the same for UBI. If you like it, then fine, feel free to convince your city, county, or state government to implement it in their jurisdiction. However, the federal government should not be involved. Now, some have pointed that particular problems are very widespread and have national impact and so they should be solved by the federal government. That's fine, so long as the solution does not have the government exceed its constitutional powers. When personal income tax was implemented more than a century ago it required a constitutional amendment. I suspect that lots of people today would want the federal government to just go ahead and do it regardless of whether it is constitutional. Just remember that if you think the Constitution is just "guidelines" you can't get upset when someone comes along violates parts of it you don't like (NSA warantless wiretapping?).
First, thanks for a well stated and reasonable response. You make some excellent points and in particular you are right that my arguments apply more to the existence of a minimum wage than to the propriety of increasing an existing minimum wage. That said, I want to focus on particular aspect of your response:
But that definition suffers from so many obvious flaws. I mean, take antitrust regulations. Do they take away choices? Of course! They take away the decision of corporate entities and their owners to eliminate all competition in a market and become the sole source of an essential good or service. By doing so, the regulation stops entities who would do that from denying choice to consumers after they've cornered their market. So, whether regulation is applied or not, choice is inevitably denied to someone.
That is precisely the point. The question that we as the governed need to ask ourselves is "does the benefit of government restricting the rights of one or more parties justify the restriction of said rights?" That right there is the entire reason that governments ought to exist. Now, there are lots of facets to this, like whether a corporation should be considered a person, whether certain rights are more important than other rights, and whether certain rights can be considered unalienable. But at its core, the problem which governments exist to solve is I have stated it.
But, according to your definition, for some reason that's a bad thing because it was the federal government making that restriction and not a state or local government. I never fully understood that logic.
My logic is based on the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
So, in summary, if the Constitution says that it is the federal government's responsibility then it is the federal government's responsibility (e.g,. minting coins/printing currency), if the Constitution says that the states can't do something then they can't (e.g., form a treaty). Everything else is strictly the business of the states (or lower jurisdictions if the states so choose allow the powers to further devolve) and the federal government should not be involved.
You may disagree with that view and that is your prerogative. You may even think that it is wrong and should be changed, which is fine as well. The proper solution is a constitutional amendment.
The discussion is about giving people enough money to afford food and shelter, not limiting their potential earnings. However, I could see that this suggestion might be good for corporate executives to limit their pay. Several countries/jurisdictions have actually implemented rules that limit executive pay to some multiple of the lowest wage their company pays. Usually it's a factor of less than 100.
You and others may claim that the discussion is about making sure people can afford to live. But more fundamentally, the discussion is about taking away choices from employees, employers, and even customers and other actors in the market. Ultimately, every government regulation is a removal of rights and choices. There are some instances where such removal of rights and choices is clearly in the best interests of one or more groups of market participants. Environmental regulations are a very good example, in particular because of the indirect nature of the associated costs and benefits. But an honest debate cannot be had when there is an unwillingness to have a balanced discussion that considers both sides of the issue.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am all for local and even state governments deciding on matters like this. I think Seattle's policy is wrong, but their duly elected representatives implemented it, so I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they did it because that is what their constituents want.
The two problems that I have with the whole debate is: 1) proponents always frame it as a "we are here to help" sort of thing, while never willing to acknowledge that their "help" requires that everyone involved give up some of their rights (again, that is a matter for local jurisdictions to decide if that is an equitable exchange, the right of choice of employment for the guarantee of a better wage); and, 2) for some reason lots people seem to think that this is a matter for the federal government when it clearly is not.
So, to summarize, just be honest about what is actually being taken/given (this isn't a give only arrangement) and don't bring the federal government into it. Then, local governments are free to do as they feel is right in this matter and people who like can move there and work/start businesses and people who don't like it can go work/start businesses elsewhere.
So, you are saying that people should be "free" to work for low wages where they can't afford food or shelter?
So, you are saying that people should be "free" to work for the highest wage they can obtain? Perhaps Seattle should introduce a maximum wage bill that caps wages at something reasonable, like $30/hour. I mean, if the government gets to decide what the minimum standard is for someone to live and how much they should be paid, then why not also define, set, and enforce a maximum standard as well?
It seems the people want a certain outcome, namely, that increasing the minimum wage puts more money in the pockets of working persons trying to get by. I mean, who can be against that apart from some mean-spirited Conservatives and clueless Libertarians, no?
See, this is what I don't get. I mean, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from opening a burger joint, pizza place, or coffee shop and paying the workers $50/hour if you want. However, if there are people out there willing to work for less than $15/hour, or $13/hour, or $11/hour, or whatever, who are you to tell them that they can't. If there are employers out there who don't think that they can or want to pay a certain amount, who are you to tell them that they must?
How is it that the argument "but we are doing to this help" is so often used successfully when taking away rights?
I believe that people should be free to choose for themselves. That includes both employees and employers. Forcing these sorts of artificial limits may in some ways help, but it is not worth the cost of the freedoms that are taken in exchange.
The "300 times more toxic waste than nuclear power" requires considering one kilogram of solar panel as being toxic waste equivalent to one kilogram of spent reactor fuel. This is a preposterous comparison.
It is preposterous. Good thing that is not what they compared. From the article:
To make these calculations, EP estimated the total number of operational solar panels in 2016 and assumed they would all be retired in 25 years â" the average lifespan of a solar panel. EP then estimated the total amount of spent nuclear fuel assemblies that would be generated over a 25 year period. EP then divided both estimates by the quantity of electricity they produced to come up with the waste per unit of energy measure.
So, you say that they equated 1kg of solar panel to 1kg of nuclear fuel. They say they equated the solar panels it took to create x GW of electricity to the amount of nuclear fuel it took to create y GW of electricity. Based on what their stated methodology, it would work out to something like "300 kg of nuclear fuel can be used to generated 300 GW of electricity over 25 years, but 300 kg of solar panels can only be used to generate 1 GW of electricity over 25 years." Or something like that.
Now, you could argue that the analysis was incomplete because it does not account for the impact refining the nuclear fuel or manufacturing the solar panels, building the reactors, or installing/maintaining the solar panels. You could even argue that their methodology for estimating quantities of solar panels and nuclear fuel was flawed or that they don't account for the differing impact of handling spent nuclear fuel versus old solar panels (I can stack old panels out in the open, but that is not a good idea with nuclear fuel). But those are different matters altogether.
It should not surprise that they seek to exploit everyone they meet.
I think the best way to sum it up is: double standards, we haz them.
Certainly the /. community is more aware of this sort of thing in the VC/entrepreneurship community than the general population. But this sort of thing--people in positions of power taking advantage of those over whom they wield influence--is nothing new. Perhaps there are some industries, occupations, etc. where this is more likely to occur, but it still happens all over the place.
I was reading about a study that was carried out comparing the perceptions of, reactions to, and consequences of male educators sexually exploiting students versus female educators sexually exploiting students. The summary was that people generally tend to perceive it like this: male educator -> evil, female student -> victim; female educator -> troubled, perhaps unhappy with home life/relationship; male student -> "way to score, champ!" This extends to news coverage, trial testimony, even conviction rates and sentencing (men are far more likely to be convicted than women for the same offense and once convicted men serve considerably longer prison sentences).
The double standards in society extend even further. For example, in a divorce the default for custody of children tends to be custody to the mother and visitation for the father. Getting joint custody or full custody to the father usually involved proving some unfitness to parent on the part of the mother. This is starting to change to a more equitable arrangement, but it is a very slow going change. Another good is example is the way that people naturally react very differently to men and women in certain roles, like daycare worker or kindergarten teacher: female daycare/kindergarten teacher -> no issues; male daycare/kindergarten teacher -> alarm bells go off for many parents (he might be a child molester, after all).
I'll bet that there is even an element of social conditioning at play in the whole VC sexual harassment thing. Men are expected to to misbehave. Going back to the different of male/female teachers or workers interacting with young children. I'll bet that lots of parents have a talk like this with their young children: "Johnny/Jane, if your teacher ever touches your private place or makes you touch them, you need to tell mommy and daddy right away." Now, I don't know if it has been studied, but I am willing to bet that for every time this conversation happens in the context of talking to a child of a female authority figure that it happens 10 times in the context of a male authority figure. Result: children grow to expect that males will physically/sexually exploit others. Teaching that is certainly not the goal, but in the interest of protecting our children, we actually reinforce and further ingrain the stereotype.
I don't know what the solution is, but the VC/entrepreneur sexual harassment problem is not going to be solved only in Silicon Valley.
It will save us. For some reasons someone will find tons of money in rolling out infrastructure to fight those established companies and provide us with competition!
To me the problem is that the industry is highly regulated, by the government of course. So, relaxing/repealing net neutrality results in an imbalance.
I would like to see us go either all one way or the other. An examination of the way the Post Office was treated in the first ~100 years of the US would be very instructive to this whole debate. That is how critical the Internet is to us now. I have commented on that previously here on /.
That said, I would be less bothered by the net neutrality relaxing/repeal if there were an accompanying relaxation of the regulations which frequently prevent local municipalities and co-ops from providing competing services.
I live in an area where my options are dial-up, T1, satellite, or microwave. The services are all either slow, expensive, or poor quality (usually all three of those). I have talked with some of my neighbors about what it would take to form a co-op to provide the homes in our area with fibre optic service. We know that there several fibre backbones that pass not very far from us and if we pooled our resources then we could likely provide ourselves far better service than is currently available. Cost would be a bit of an issue up front, but the far more problematic piece of it is the ridiculous level of regulation involved to get anything done. It would take literally years of constant effort to get to where we could even have the first trenches dug.
So, I suffer through having crappy Internet because I really like the area where I live. Net neutrality won't affect me very much personally and I don't think that having it or not having it will result in big monopoly providers extending service to areas they view as unprofitable. For that to happen, there would have to be a mandate for them build out or the government would have to do it. The other option which I mentioned above, people doing it for themselves in the form of co-ops would be a great solution, but for the stifling regulations which are clearly intended precisely to prevent what I am suggesting.
While you are correct on both counts, what this story illustrates is the irony of large organizations (in commercial industry and government alike) that say "we want innovators/bold thinkers/unconventional thinkers/people who think outside the box" (or similar feel-good sounding things) when what they really mean is "we want innovators/bold thinkers/unconventional thinkers/people who think outside the box but who also remain within the strict policies/structures/conventions of the organization."
Is it any wonder that people who perceive themselves as truly talented tend to want to go work for startups or perhaps create their own startup? The type of people places like the CIA and big companies claim to be seeking are precisely the type of people who look at places like that and say "no way am I going subject myself to all that bureaucracy." Stories like those sort of prove the point.
Every military appears subject to the same idiocy. Seriously, you are spending literally billions of USD, GBP, or EUR (I tried to use the actual symbols for GBP and EUR, but I forgot about Slashdot and unicode). You can't spring a few million for a custom built or customized (e.g., based on OS/2, QNX, VXWorks, Linux, etc.) OS that has all the networking and other non-essential components removed? Then you can allow network access via a very tightly controlled and well audited interface.
The main reason, I think, for this conundrum is that there are two competing objectives: 1) extremely rigorous system engineering processes with the attendant configuration control; 2) use more COTS and fewer custom components. For instance, those decisions were definitely made over a decade ago and any change to them would require tons of paperwork, additional certification, and also add to the cost and delay the schedule. It's no wonder they just stuck with what was already approved.
That said, I simply cannot believe that one or more of the big defense firms (e.g., BAE, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing) has not come up with something better than slapping Windows on it.
Now, I know (or rather, I truly hope) that things like navigation, fire control, and other critical ship functions are not dependent on any Windows (or other consumer OS). However, I know that some years ago the US Navy had a "Windows-power ship" end up dead in the water and had to have it towed back to port. That was the result of a divide by zero bug in some piece of software but Windows did not handle it gracefully, if I recall correctly.
Either way, they will be lucky if they don't end up with some very serious problems along the way. It seems like it is just not possible to keep ransomware out of any decently sized network. And I can imagine a major world power's flag ship being a tempting target.
So if I were the email provider, you're saying that I owe it to non-customers to continue to serve a customer violating my TOS and bringing my services into disrepute so that the customer may continue to extort them.
Ummm, no. I said nothing of the sort. To more clearly state what I have already said: ordinarily something like this would be funny (criminal losing access to a key piece of their criminal enterprise, thereby harming the future viability of said enterprise).
However, the collateral damage makes it more lamentable. Innocent victims now may be harmed three ways (1. infected, 2. paid ransom, 3. still didn't get files back). Posteo did the right thing and criminals who engage in these sorts of activities deserve to suffer the full weight of the law in any and every jurisdiction that can get a hold of them, if not more.
My reference to The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security was an acknowledgment that educating users (like how to not get hit by phishing attacks in the first place) is an extreme uphill battle which is oftentimes lost. Just look at the frequency and extent of these sorts of attacks.
It would be funny, except that people are paying the ransom and not getting their files back. Perhaps there will be a positive result here and people will start to get the idea that it is never worthwhile to pay the ransom and to keep backups instead. Oh, who am I kidding? That is #5 of The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security.
So kudos to someone previously associated with Engadget, of all places, to take Apple's marketing to task.
Personally, I would have preferred that it read like an actual "review" instead of a "rant". I get that the marketing made some exaggerations and that the product is less than stellar. However, the tone of the whole thing is rather offputting. I don't need for someone to yell at me to convince me.
"They're splitting the fees 50/50 with a private company. " ...who pays for everything, the cameras, installation, location, personnel, power, security, maintenance ....
Which is precisely the problem, as it gives the contractor an incentive to levy as many fines as they can get away with. To see how this sort of perverse incentive can get out of hand, look at the Wells Fargo scandal.
If the objective truly was to improve public safety (as opposed to make money for the local government and contractor), the local government would pay the contractor a flat fee for the initial installation and setup, a flat fee (per month or some other period of time) for the service of actually operating the system, and a flat fee (again, per month or some other period of time) for maintenance of the system, or possibly a per incident (e.g., for replacing a faulty camera unit, etc.).
However, as has been shown time again with speed cameras, red light cameras, and I am sure will be shown with this, the objective is not improved public safety rather it is increased revenue for the government (and the contractor as a side effect).
It is certainly a complex problem because of all the facets. I think that we can either rip the bandaid off now and endure some serious short term pain. Or we peel it off very slowly and endure a much lower level of pain over a longer period of time. But I don't think keeping things as they are is sustainable and there is no real way to fix the problem without causing some level of pain in the process. The reason it is such a divisive issue is because somebody has to make the decisions and nobody wants to be the bad guy.
Prosecutorial discretion has been common law for centuries. It absolutely is the federal government's discretion whether and how to enforce the law. You're getting called partisan because you're blatantly ignoring reality in preferring one side of a political issue. It was an unusual legal event, but it was in no sense wrong.
Only the government wasn't prosecuting in this case, they were defending. I'm getting called partisan because while I presented two examples (one from each a D and an R to be fair), someone decided to focus on one over the other.
I think my initial point stands: presidents ignoring the law has been the norm for the last 20-ish years.
If you carefully read the US Constitution, you'll find out about this third branch of government called the Judicial Branch. A member of that branch had ruled DOMA violated the Constitution and thus barred the Executive branch from enforcing DOMA.
Not quite. From the summary of the case that ended up before the Supreme Court:
On November 9, 2010, Windsor sued the federal government in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking a refund because DOMA singled out legally married same-sex couples for "differential treatment compared to other similarly situated couples without justification."[5] On February 23, 2011, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Department of Justice would not defend the constitutionality of Section 3 in Windsor. On April 18, 2011, Paul Clement, representing the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), intervened to defend the law. On June 6, 2012, Judge Barbara S. Jones ruled that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional under the due process guarantees of the Fifth Amendment[6] and ordered the federal government to issue the tax refund, including interest.
So, the executive made their decision before the judiciary had ruled. I grant you that once the first ruling was made the right thing to do was to respect the ruling. At that point they could have decided whether to appeal or not, as that would have been the president's prerogative. But that's not what happened at all.
Now, you could argue that Obama should have ignored the Judicial Branch's decision, but that kinda flies in the face of your claims about the Constitution being sacrosanct.
I made no such argument. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Once the court ruled, then the matter was decided. The right to appeal is not a requirement to appeal.
You could also argue that the DoJ under Obama should have fought to keep DOMA all the way to the Supreme Court. But there's no requirement in the Constitution that the Executive branch must exhaust all appeals before stopping the enforcement of an unconstitutional law. Especially one that was extremely likely to go down 5-4 - Kennedy was not a fan of DOMA.
See what I said above.
Then go start a grass roots movement and do something about it. Do you really think whining incessantly about how the government doesn't work properly is going to do anything on slashdot? People have been whining about this for decades on slashdot believe it or not.
I don't just whine about it. I am actively involved on multiple fronts. Whining on slashdot is just something I do in addition to being an active participant in our republic.
What can I logically get from this statement? Let's parse it:
1) "Obama failing" - that means Obama failed at something. Obama did not succeed.
As in "failed to execute the office to which he was elected"
2) " enforce and vigorously defend the Defense of Marriage Act" - Obama failed to enforce the act. Another way we could interpret that action, depending on our point of view is that perhaps Obama succeeded at not upholding the act?
Interpret it however you want. The fact is that the executive branch decided it didn't like a law and then didn't enforce it and when it was challenged in court decided not to defend it. If they could do that with one law, then they could do it with any law, say like laws on handling classified information or on bribery and corruption.
3) "enforce and vigorously" using the word vigorously as if Obama should have with great vigor upheld this act
That is exactly how he should have treated the law. All government officials should have respect for the law, both its letter and spirit. Bad laws are challenged in court (or fixed by the legislature), not ignored by executive branch bureaucrats. In the event of a court challenge, both sides must be vigorously represented, as in the the best ability of the litigants. I would hate to think that I could be accused of a crime, be appointed an attorney (as is my right) and that the attorney or one of his/her bosses could decide that they don't want to defend me because they don't like me. That is exactly what happened here, only it wasn't an individual on trial.
1 suggests a claim that it was a bad choice. 2 suggests that there is a belief he should have upheld it and the interpretation is that because he did not uphold it, he failed at "something" and 3. He should have done so vigorously, now why would someone add vigorously to this statement for any other reason to emphasize it or to project a sense of importance?
I use vigorous as it relates to the legal idea of effective counsel. That is the lawyers in a court case have a duty to actually try. It is sort of a fundamental aspect of the adversarial legal system. Since the law cannot have an opinion of itself, and since it was passed in a constitutional manner (i.e., both houses of Congress, signed by the president, etc.) it stands to reason that it should at least be accorded a proper defense when challenged. Alternatively, the president could have asked Congress to repeal the law before it reached the Supreme Court.
There are only really two possibilities: 1) the statement doesn't reflect your view and you are re-iterating someone else's position or 2) the statement reflects your view and it impossible not to conclude that you have put forth a position on the issue. What am I missing?
I did not put forth an opinion on the issue of the Defense of Marriage Act. The opinion I did put forth is that it is not within the executive's discretion to decide which laws to uphold and which to ignore, therefore the Obama administration's decision to ignore the Defense of Marriage Act was flat out wrong. If you go back and look at my initial comment, you will notice that I also gave an example from the Bush administration regarding the fourth amendment (arguably a more grievous offense, as that violated specific constitutionally protected rights on which courts had already ruled).
Feel free to think that I am partisan, but I will say again (and my commenting history pretty well demonstrates) that I am not partisan. That is all.
I understand what you mean. What we have now is essentially a marketplace approach. People are willing to pay so much and in order to keep prices at the right point, producers have an incentive to pay lower wages, which is probably a driver of the current situation with immigration, at least in areas like agriculture.
The marketplace adapts pretty well to even significant changes. For example, there was a story here on Slashdot recently where I think the CEO of McDonald's (I am not certain about that, it may have been another fast food company) basically said that a universal $15 per hour minimum wage would really spur them toward to elimination of humans in certain jobs and replacing them with machines. If there is no longer a supply of people willing to work at subhuman wages (either because we deny them a route to illegal entry or because we legitimize their presence), then producers will either have pay more for the same amount of work or figure out a way to automate, economize, etc.
It is certainly not a perfect solution, but the current state of limbo is simply not sustainable and is really a poor situation for those who are victims. Right now the government looks the other way, the producers/employers look the other way, and the immigrants get exploited. People who advocate for maintaining the status quo are really advocating for the victimization of a rather large group of people.
I don't know who would be affected most, but I am confident that the market would reach a natural equilibrium.
I saw a lot of people speeding on the highway - maybe we should spend $20b to solve that problem because the rule of law is important.
It is important. You should take that matter up with the authorities in the jurisdiction that establishes and enforces the specific speed limit to which you are referring.