It's a nice idea, but it doesn't seem to work for so many other things people in this country fight for:
Who else makes burning sacred symbols illegal?
Who else has mandatory prayer in schools?
Who else has religious stories taught as equivalent to science?
Who else spends taxpayer money on monuments to a specific religion?
Yeah, you'd think pointing out to the theocrats that Iran is already their ideal state would shame them into stopping, but it never does...
The IRS provides this one already. It's not open source, but if you make under a certain amount, click their "free e-file" link, and it will lead to you exactly the pdf forms you describe.
At least it did last year. I assume it's still there, but I haven't started my taxes yet this year...
A lot of companies already have charging stations, actually.
I was surprised to see them at Cisco five years ago, but now at pretty much any large company (at least anywhere on the West coast), there'll be at least a couple of "Electric car only" parking spots in the lot.
>>> it's becoming more and more obvious that hybrids are destined to be a short-lived stepping stone and not the long-term solution to our oil and pollution problems
Yes because an electric car can really carry me 150 miles per day on my work commute. (Not.).
Even if you're not, most car manufacturers are aware that people other than you purchase automobiles.
Letting a character you are playing in a game have the option to pursue a same-sex relationship within that game is not forcing anything on you. Get over it.
How come you people never complain about the inter-species relationships?
There is no procreation in the game at all for the player character, so that's really not an issue at all. (Some of the NPCs do manage to procreate, off-screen, if you don't kill them or let them die in previous games:)
It's up to the player whether or not to pursue any relationship at all, gay, straight, inter-species, or group.
Various characters you run across will mention their loved ones, either directly to you, or in passing, and not all of these loved ones are of the same species and opposite gender. So if you're offended by even *hearing* about such relationships, then you probably don't want to play the game...
* Changes to grammatical rules (the whole "Lists and a comma before 'and' thing" - for example: it used to be "Jim, John, and Lisa" but apparently it is now supposed to be "Jim, John and Lisa" for... some reason. I think it's idiotic as the first one better represents how one would actually say the sentence, though.)
It depends who you ask.
The second comma in your example is called the Oxford Comma, and made big news a while ago as Oxford was considering dropping it from their recommendations of style.
In the US, different standard manuals of style have different recommendations. The Chicago Manual, for instance, recommends using the Oxford comma, whereas the AP Manual does not. (Or maybe it's the other way around. It's been a while since I edited professionally.) I've always preferred it, though had been taught over 25 years ago that it's optional, as long as use (or non-use) is consistent throughout any particular document
Worry not, though, for the Oxford comma is still safe (at Oxford anyway). They decided to keep it.
My favorite comment defending it in the recent brouhaha was somebody's much-repeated post: "For teaching me that the Oxford comma resolves ambiguity, I'd like to thank my parents, Sinead O'Connor and the Pope.”
On my first flight after 9/11/01, I carried a folding knife, with a 2" blade, in my backpack. It was small enough that they always let it on planes before so I really didn't think about it. It went through three metal detectors and a bag search without anyone noticing it.
It was only when I went out for a smoke when I switched planes in Seattle that they finally found it and took it away. I'd carried that knife with me for 30 years (I originally got it when a cub scout). If I hadn't been a smoker back then, I'd probably have it still.:)
People leave stuff behind on airplanes quite frequently, actually.
Pre-TSA, if it looked valuable, the airlines would look up the passenger assigned to the seat it was in and arrange its return. (This has happened to me more than once.)
Certainly, grounding the plane and investigating a strange-looking device with wires and a cell phone would be an appropriate reaction. And looking up who was in that seat, and questioning them as well.
But, once they found out what it was, why did they feel the need to arrest the entire class, including the professor? This reminds me of when the city of Boston essentially shut down over the Great Light-Bright Scare of 2007 where they just kept going long after they found out what the things really were.
We're in a pretty strong shift toward letting the police have free reign. But, like many shifts, the really far out stuff usually happens when the pendulum is about to swing back.
I doubt there's more far-out stuff happening lately, it's just that it's caught more often due to the omnipresence of camera phones. Sometimes the mainstream media will pick up the story, too, after it's been all over the blogs.
I do hope you're right, though, about the pendulum swinging back, whether it's caused by the outrageous abuses that keep getting exposed, or vice versa.
But when Jobs had his own company, Next, his micromanaging created the "perfect computer", in Steve Job's mind, that few could afford. He added hundreds of dollars to the price because he insisted that the case be a perfect cube and perfect cubes could only be manufactured by one company in the US.
That seems unlikely, partly because it's not really that hard to make a cube, so more than one company would be able to make them. The other reason is that the NeXT was not actually a perfect cube. It had ridges and lots of jutty-out-parts. And the "pizza box" version wasn't a cube at all, but more pizza-box shaped.
I think what really killed the NeXT was the lack of piracy. When I was selling them, there were lots of complaints about the price. Until I pointed out all the software that came with it. If you had to pay for the software necessary to use an "IBM-compatible" at the time, the price would easily add up to more than what the NeXT cost. This was a compelling argument to companies and university faculty and staff who had to purchase their software, but not to the students who would pirate everything.
No mention of the government in the subject of the speech.
ALL laws in this country have to do with the government in that it is the government who is making and enforcing them. Obviously.
But free speech is not limited to speech about the government, as you claimed in your post. It is for all speech. Of course there are still exceptions, libel, slander, inciting violence, conspiracy, etc. but none of that is restricted to criticizing the government.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
There are about half a dozen rights crammed into that small space, the only one restricted to government is the right to petition it for a redress of grievances. The others have nothing to do with the government, either by the text, or by any Supreme Court interpretations of the text, historical or standing.
Though, I suppose for a bit of false nostalgia, I could run some of the games on this list - on my phone.
I was amused the other day while browsing the iphone's app store to find the original Final Fantasy had been ported to it, "with updated graphics" for the higher quality display and faster processor.
"I dunno- whatever will make us money is what we'll try to do".
What's wrong with that answer, really?
I once attended an SBA-provided seminar on incorporating. They recommended, when filling out the "purpose of corporation" field on one of the forms, putting "All things legal."
It depends where you live. Not everywhere has good mass transit. I live in Portland, Oregon, now, and can walk a couple of blocks and catch a bus to pretty much anywhere in the city I want to go. I don't even bother with looking at the schedule because they come so frequently.
I used to live in Pittsburg, California. If I called a taxi, I could guarantee at least an hour wait before it got there, if it ever did. Busses to my neighborhood ran every 40 - 50 minutes but only from 6-9 am and 3-7pm. The last bus was at 9pm.
Not to mention long distance travel to places where Amtrak doesn't go.
Or places where you'll need a car when you get there. Driving from Eugene to Portland now almost every weekend, I'd love a driverless car to do that for me.
Even if they don't get out of poverty, if the individual in question is too mentally ill or addicted to ever work a "regular" job, piece-work like this can at least ensure that he gets to eat well for a few days.
Not at all. You never know when that clean cut suburban dude might be someone who can afford a lawyer and sue your ass. Homeless people are pretty much guaranteed not to.
As for incentives, it's likely they get more from whatever they're paid to do this than they could get by selling stolen specialized visibly marked equipment.
It depends on how it works. I think it was Pat Robertson, of all people, back in the early 90s, who was pushing a voucher program where, if a school accepted the vouchers at all, it had to accept it for the complete cost of tuition. So schools could either accept them, and let poor people in, or not accept them and keep themselves confined to the rich, but not get additional government money.
Otherwise, all it is is yet another massive tax break for the rich.
I'm sure I'll hear all about this "incident" from my conservative relatives who'll be dragging it out for years as more proof that it's only a matter of time before Michelle Obama's jackbooted thugs kick down my door to take away my ice cream.
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Who else makes burning sacred symbols illegal?
Who else has mandatory prayer in schools?
Who else has religious stories taught as equivalent to science?
Who else spends taxpayer money on monuments to a specific religion?
Yeah, you'd think pointing out to the theocrats that Iran is already their ideal state would shame them into stopping, but it never does...
Also, depending on how it's spelled, "Ya haq" (in Arabic) can also be translated as "Not truth", which is a great name for state-supplied information.
At least it did last year. I assume it's still there, but I haven't started my taxes yet this year...
I was surprised to see them at Cisco five years ago, but now at pretty much any large company (at least anywhere on the West coast), there'll be at least a couple of "Electric car only" parking spots in the lot.
>>> it's becoming more and more obvious that hybrids are destined to be a short-lived stepping stone and not the long-term solution to our oil and pollution problems
Yes because an electric car can really carry me 150 miles per day on my work commute. (Not.) .
Even if you're not, most car manufacturers are aware that people other than you purchase automobiles.
Mass Effect 3 has a gay male character in it, who is one of the romance options only if you're playing a male Shepard.
How come you people never complain about the inter-species relationships?
It's up to the player whether or not to pursue any relationship at all, gay, straight, inter-species, or group.
Various characters you run across will mention their loved ones, either directly to you, or in passing, and not all of these loved ones are of the same species and opposite gender. So if you're offended by even *hearing* about such relationships, then you probably don't want to play the game...
* Changes to grammatical rules (the whole "Lists and a comma before 'and' thing" - for example: it used to be "Jim, John, and Lisa" but apparently it is now supposed to be "Jim, John and Lisa" for... some reason. I think it's idiotic as the first one better represents how one would actually say the sentence, though.)
It depends who you ask.
The second comma in your example is called the Oxford Comma, and made big news a while ago as Oxford was considering dropping it from their recommendations of style.
In the US, different standard manuals of style have different recommendations. The Chicago Manual, for instance, recommends using the Oxford comma, whereas the AP Manual does not. (Or maybe it's the other way around. It's been a while since I edited professionally.) I've always preferred it, though had been taught over 25 years ago that it's optional, as long as use (or non-use) is consistent throughout any particular document
Worry not, though, for the Oxford comma is still safe (at Oxford anyway). They decided to keep it.
My favorite comment defending it in the recent brouhaha was somebody's much-repeated post: "For teaching me that the Oxford comma resolves ambiguity, I'd like to thank my parents, Sinead O'Connor and the Pope.”
It was only when I went out for a smoke when I switched planes in Seattle that they finally found it and took it away. I'd carried that knife with me for 30 years (I originally got it when a cub scout). If I hadn't been a smoker back then, I'd probably have it still. :)
Pre-TSA, if it looked valuable, the airlines would look up the passenger assigned to the seat it was in and arrange its return. (This has happened to me more than once.)
Certainly, grounding the plane and investigating a strange-looking device with wires and a cell phone would be an appropriate reaction. And looking up who was in that seat, and questioning them as well.
But, once they found out what it was, why did they feel the need to arrest the entire class, including the professor? This reminds me of when the city of Boston essentially shut down over the Great Light-Bright Scare of 2007 where they just kept going long after they found out what the things really were.
Or they just didn't notice it as it went through the X-ray machines. TSA misses replica guns and bombs that the FAA tests them with all the time.
We're in a pretty strong shift toward letting the police have free reign. But, like many shifts, the really far out stuff usually happens when the pendulum is about to swing back.
I doubt there's more far-out stuff happening lately, it's just that it's caught more often due to the omnipresence of camera phones. Sometimes the mainstream media will pick up the story, too, after it's been all over the blogs.
I do hope you're right, though, about the pendulum swinging back, whether it's caused by the outrageous abuses that keep getting exposed, or vice versa.
But when Jobs had his own company, Next, his micromanaging created the "perfect computer", in Steve Job's mind, that few could afford. He added hundreds of dollars to the price because he insisted that the case be a perfect cube and perfect cubes could only be manufactured by one company in the US.
That seems unlikely, partly because it's not really that hard to make a cube, so more than one company would be able to make them. The other reason is that the NeXT was not actually a perfect cube. It had ridges and lots of jutty-out-parts. And the "pizza box" version wasn't a cube at all, but more pizza-box shaped.
I think what really killed the NeXT was the lack of piracy. When I was selling them, there were lots of complaints about the price. Until I pointed out all the software that came with it. If you had to pay for the software necessary to use an "IBM-compatible" at the time, the price would easily add up to more than what the NeXT cost. This was a compelling argument to companies and university faculty and staff who had to purchase their software, but not to the students who would pirate everything.
ALL laws in this country have to do with the government in that it is the government who is making and enforcing them. Obviously.
But free speech is not limited to speech about the government, as you claimed in your post. It is for all speech. Of course there are still exceptions, libel, slander, inciting violence, conspiracy, etc. but none of that is restricted to criticizing the government.
The first amendent reads, in total:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
There are about half a dozen rights crammed into that small space, the only one restricted to government is the right to petition it for a redress of grievances. The others have nothing to do with the government, either by the text, or by any Supreme Court interpretations of the text, historical or standing.
Though, I suppose for a bit of false nostalgia, I could run some of the games on this list - on my phone.
I was amused the other day while browsing the iphone's app store to find the original Final Fantasy had been ported to it, "with updated graphics" for the higher quality display and faster processor.
"I dunno- whatever will make us money is what we'll try to do".
What's wrong with that answer, really?
I once attended an SBA-provided seminar on incorporating. They recommended, when filling out the "purpose of corporation" field on one of the forms, putting "All things legal."
I used to live in Pittsburg, California. If I called a taxi, I could guarantee at least an hour wait before it got there, if it ever did. Busses to my neighborhood ran every 40 - 50 minutes but only from 6-9 am and 3-7pm. The last bus was at 9pm.
Not to mention long distance travel to places where Amtrak doesn't go.
Or places where you'll need a car when you get there. Driving from Eugene to Portland now almost every weekend, I'd love a driverless car to do that for me.
Even if they don't get out of poverty, if the individual in question is too mentally ill or addicted to ever work a "regular" job, piece-work like this can at least ensure that he gets to eat well for a few days.
Not at all. You never know when that clean cut suburban dude might be someone who can afford a lawyer and sue your ass. Homeless people are pretty much guaranteed not to.
As for incentives, it's likely they get more from whatever they're paid to do this than they could get by selling stolen specialized visibly marked equipment.
Whatever happened to that?
Has that ever been enforced?
Otherwise, all it is is yet another massive tax break for the rich.
I'm sure I'll hear all about this "incident" from my conservative relatives who'll be dragging it out for years as more proof that it's only a matter of time before Michelle Obama's jackbooted thugs kick down my door to take away my ice cream.