Also known as "needed regulation" for a problem that does not exist.
If you would read the actual article, it was pointed out this is regulation that is being proposed because of a law which has already been passed by Congress & signed by President Obama that required the SEC to propose new rules for this kind of activity.
This is what you get when such laws get passed, and to get this "fixed", it will take going to the U.S. Congress to repeal the law that required this to happen in the first place. The overreach, as it were, is that the federal government is sticking its nose into regulating commercial activity in a manner that is unconstitutional in the first place..... but don't tell those who think the interstate commerce clause gives the federal government a blank check to do any damn thing it wants with regards to business activity.
The point of the Interstate Commerce Clause in the U.S. Constitution was to cut through regulations and to prevent states from prohibiting commercial activity between states. It was there to stop things like the tariff wars that happened between New York & New Jersey that nearly started the U.S. Civil War a few decades earlier with the fighting across the Hudson River instead of the Mason & Dixon line. How something designed to prevent a shooting war ends up regulating somebody trying to make a YouTube movie is utterly stupid.
I hope for the sake of America that you are right, that it will never need to be used for a major war. America won WWII in part because everything used in that war could be produced domestically and didn't rely upon parts made in Japan or Germany. That is sort of my point, that China can do that sort of thing but America can't.
You left out tax policy, environmental policy, and labor policy as well. Those are more responsible for gutting the manufacturing base. I speak as a manufacturer.
That is all sort of how Congress has gutted American manufacturing. When treaties presume a level and fair trade policy between nations, but clearly basic industrial policy and regulations are so much different, is it a wonder that continual trade deficits occur?
America has been buying stuff around the world on the basis that the U.S. Dollar is the world's reserve currency (the form of money used for the most common exchanges). It will be interesting to see what happens when that ends, and surely it will.
It sort of shows how vulnerable America really is in terms of being able to wage a major war, and how badly the U.S. Congress has sold out the American people with it encouragement of outsources manufacturing outside of America. Sure, there are many reasons why electronics companies in particular no longer manufacture their components or devices in America any more (where at one time 100% of all ICs were made in America on a global basis), but a great deal has to do with both treaties that Congress has ratified and specific trade policies that have basically gutted the manufacturing base in America.
I guess we shouldn't go to war against China, as we would be literally destroying our own factories.
The one thing that I use to show how the Chinese Space Agency is hardly something to be worried about is simply their tempo of operation. China may be doing the sort of flags & footprints kind of missions where they do things for political purposes, but they are not really building up any sort of significant experience with their manned spaceflight program in particular. The time between flights is longer than almost any nation which has a manned spaceflight program, and they simply don't have the experience needed to go much further than LEO at the moment. They might actually get their manned space station going eventually, but I don't see them as any significant threat in the medium term.
I also agree with you in regards to private commercial spaceflight too. The real competitor to American commercial spaceflight companies is not India, China, or for that matter Russia (which does at least try to compete none the less), but rather Europe and the ESA. The amount of innovation happening in Europe right now with private commercial spaceflight is something that is breathtaking, but none the less about a decade behind the USA and catching up. The Ariane space launcher is being redesigned to compete with the Falcon 9 on cost, and other signs are in place that Europe is definitely going to be taking an active role in space as well, at least for commercial exploitation of space.
I just don't see a Chinese equivalent of Planetary Resources developing any time soon.
Sorta... sometimes they'd toss in Chinese phrases, have ideograms on some of the crates and boxes, and suchlike, but just enough to add a hint of backstory - that is, that the Chinese and indeterminate-but-we-think-Americans worked together to evacuate their populations off the original dying Earth. Only problem is, the utter deficit of Chinese/Asian folks on the show led one to believe that somehow the language made it there, but the Chinese didn't.
As a fan, I sort of presumed that the Firefly universe was rather vast, and that Mal and his crew mainly cruised around the parts that were descendents of the Anglosphere of peoples (mainly North America, but also could include Australian & the UK/Europe to some extent). My understand was that there was a whole other part of the collection of star systems of the Alliance which were descended from the Chinese as well, but sort of had their own planets.
It is hard to tell as it was only one half of a season that ever was filmed, so there is no real way to say if other significantly different cultures made the trip into space. A planet full of Tongans & other South Pacific Islanders would have been interesting to say the least.
I have serious doubts that Japan lacks nuclear weapons capability of their own. They certainly have both the scientists, the nuclear reactors, and the financial assets capable of being able to make them. The only thing that really keeps Japan from building their own nukes is mainly a domestic political situation that would result in a near total collapse of their current government if even a whiff showed up that the Japanese Self-Defense Force had nuclear warheads of any kind.
It still shocks me though how much money Japan is spending on their military in spite of the fact that they are technically under the direct protection of the USA for their defense needs. While China may be spending more than Japan on military equipment, Japan isn't too far behind and the Japanese military spending is definitely much higher per member of the military (aka per soldier or sailor). Japanese soldiers and sailors have lots of gadgets to play with if they ever actually went to war.
South Korea is almost ditto to the above although I think South Korean citizens might be more open to the idea (compared to Japanese citizens) and what mainly keeps South Korea from openly admitting they have nukes is mainly the political powder keg they have in that part of the world. Then again, with North Korea openly using nukes, it is just a matter of time for them as well.
Taiwan is strange as they technically had an alliance with South Africa and Israel where it was suggested they got a couple of Jericho warheads as a part of the deal. It is worth looking into, but the problem is that any such mention of such an alliance is mainly rumors and the realm of conspiracy theories like Area 51 and other such nonsense, so take it with a grain of salt. Of the countries you have mentioned, I would suggest Taiwan is the most likely to actually have them although admittedly they do not publicly acknowledge that they possess nukes.
The Pacific Ocean is the private pond of the USA from Guam to California, and Alaska to Samoa. Anything which happens inside of that rough box including up to the Kármán line and down to the mantle of the Earth is justifiably seen as a direct threat to the United States of America and would be seen clearly as casus belli. The U.S. Navy still rules supreme in that part of the world. China can certainly "practice war games" and do other crap in "international waters", but that part of the Pacific Ocean will never be under Chinese influence except in the most transitory fashion.
BTW, this part of the Pacific would clearly be considered "defending their own borders" on the part of the USA as well. That China might carve out a smaller niche part of the Pacific from the North Korean border south to Thailand is no doubt something they would equally consider important, but that is about as far in the Pacific that China will ever really control as a part of the Pacific. China certainly isn't going to do something dumbass like invading the Philippines, or for that matter even Taiwan or South Korea without sparking another world war.
China will certainly not "rule the Pacific" as you are asserting.
If you wanted to get a positive reference, you would need to list the corporate headquarters. So yes, getting a reference for a future employer would be important in this situation although like I said it seems like this particular employees doesn't care.
The tricky part is that some employers get nasty if you don't list all previous employers and could use that as a violation of the employment contract when you get hired on in the first place. It is a situation of reading the fine print of a job application form and knowing what the hiring policies of the company you are trying to apply at. If necessary hire a lawyer to make sure of stuff like this in your own particular situation. Generally a resume has no presumption that the list of employers is exhaustive, but be prepared to explain any significant gaps in your employment history.
Are you implying that something negative will happen because they suspended the guy? I really doubt there are any materially negative consequences for Safeway.
Actually, something negative could come as a result of firing this guy. I don't know if he is likely to contest the firing, but assuming he does suggest it was an illegal firing and wants to go through legal channels to challenge the corporation on this issue, he could end up as the only employee of the chain still technically employed in Illinois (for at least one more day effective as soon as the challenge is completed).
My mother-in-law was successful in challenging a termination at Wal-Mart (notorious for treating employees like dirt and running roughshod over employee rights). After going to a judge and being reviewed under case law, she was not only reinstated, but put serious egg on the face of her immediate supervisor for failing to even follow company policy and other related issues.
I don't know if this guy has a case, but it seems to me that it would have been better to simply let the clock run out and let him get laid off with everybody else at the story rather than make his employment situation any different.... and forced to pay back pay for time when he was capable of working but couldn't. It sounds like this guy doesn't really care, so this speculation is all irrelevant if he just moves on to another employer and doesn't even bother with giving references to this particular store.
Well, the U.S. State Department claims that China is a signatory country. They are the ones that really matter, and would likely put up the largest stink if China did something contrary to that treaty.
BTW, Did you actually read that UN page? It said that China reached "Accession" to the treaty. In other words, they agreed to the terms of the treaty after the formal negotiation and ratification by the original signers. They are still bound by the terms of the treaty, according to the very link you were using.
China never signed the Outer Space Treaty. Treaties only "work" for people who agree to it.
That isn't true. It would help to actually read the list of signatory nations before you make a statement like that.
Technically it was the Nationalist government of China (aka Taiwan.... acting on behalf of all of China) which originally signed the treaty in 1967, but the People's Republic of China has recognized this particular treaty as international law for which they are also a part. Perhaps a technical nitpick to say they haven't "signed" the treaty, but it still has as much force as any other major international treaty to China as it does to anybody else.
They still can back out with only a 1 year notification period, but that is only a minor problem. China did, however, agree to this particular treaty.
That would be a presumption of a sovereignty claim upon at least a portion of the Moon... and a retroactive claim at that. Besides simply a violation of the Outer Space Treaty, it would also be setting an interesting long-term precedent.......a precedent that IMHO the U.S. government wouldn't mind seeing somebody else set at first and be gladly welcomed. If anything, any such littering fee would be gladly paid in full.
Huh, I must have been working with the wrong scientists. You must mean the ones who are making 7-8 figures, and bringing in billions of dollars every day for their pro AGW research. Then they have the marked ability to make sure that there is almost no disagreement.
I am not suggesting that an individual scientist is necessarily getting a pile of money, but trillions of dollars are indeed at stake in terms of shifting the economic situation of the world based upon the political arguments that come from both skeptics and apologists for the research.... particularly the apologists. If you are insisting that there are no research budgets from government funds being used to support climate research with the specific goal of trying to identify causes of global warming, and that active advocacy of political positions based upon that research is not happening, I really think you have your head in a hole right now.
I would love to see this issue settled in a calm manner that was just looking at the actual scientific rationale involved. Unfortunately those who are apologists just shout down anybody who even suggests that the emperor has no clothes.... just like the modding down of my above comment based only upon the idea of -1-- I don't agree with your politics. I've been on Slashdot long enough to know that sometimes things like this just strike a raw nerve, but unfortunately it isn't looking at the substance of the argument either.
You cherry pick the data, and only choose what seems to allow you to take the Ancient Aliens approach of "Oooh, an anomaly - Ancient Aliens."
There is plenty of cherry picking of data by all sides of this argument, and far more money to be had for those who support the anthropological global warming hypothesis (especially for "reputable research groups").
Science should not be as completely contaminated by politics as this particular issue has become, as it really is now a political issue and not a scientific issue as well. That scientists are being active in politics (to keep that money flowing if for no other reason) is one of many reasons why this whole debate is becoming very tiresome for me. Arguments at science conferences about the value of the Hubble Constant or the status of Pluto are one thing, but deciding the fate of entire industries, literally trillions of dollars and how the world's economy is going to reshaped to fit the consequences of this discussion is why so many people have such a huge stake in such a thing. If Pluto is demoted (or has been demoted), nobody really cares other than a bunch of science museums where curators need to rework their orrery and planetarium systems (tens or hundreds of dollars at most at stake). Well, I guess a bunch of school kids have spent a bit more money chewing out Neil DeGrasse Tyson, but it doesn't get even into the million dollar rages at the worst possible estimate of economic impact. More than a million dollars gets spent each time a climate scientist talks at a congressional hearing on AGW.
The Tesla vehicles also come equipped with a USB port (more than one if I"m not mistaken).... assuming that for some reason you don't have access to a mobile cell phone tower or something like that. I don't think it is standard for Tesla to mail out physical thumb drives or anything like that, but I'm sure customer support can help get the necessary software from a variety of distribution systems.
This isn't an issue specific to Tesla vehicles, but it is something that any electric vehicle owner should be aware of and an issue in general for home electrical distribution systems.
The first house I lived in when I got married had the entire house on a single 20 amp circuit (supposedly installed by a professional, but I'm not sure which decade with the tar & cotton wiring I ended up spotting as I went through the attic), and the house I grew up in was only rated with the fuse box for 40 amps (again the whole house, but there were multiple circuits with that house). Even the house I live in at the moment is only rated for a maximum of 100 amps, and I'm not really sure how close to that limit I care to push the issue even though the wiring gauge does look sufficient for those power requirements. I know some new home construction can be rated for as high as 200 amps or more, but it is something to be discussing with contractors when the house is being built currently in terms of planning for potential needs of future power needs. IMHO it really needs to be added into the NEC (National Electrical Code) as assuming something like a stead base power load of 40 amps in a standard socket should be found in a garage or something like that.
That doesn't even get into the neighborhood power distribution systems that would need to be updated in a serious manner if electric vehicles became quite common. It most definitely will become a major issue for electric utility companies in the future if these vehicles become popular.
They could do a hostile take-over of the company. That would also be something very public and would likely end up with Elon Musk becoming very wealthy indeed and cost literally billions of dollars even at the current market cap.
The honorable thing, and likely the most economically viable approach at the moment, is for these companies to simply double down and really push forward with competing vehicles. Then again, sometimes major companies lack the imagination in terms of how to actually build a competing product.
No doubt the internal arguments in the United States would be fewer if Utah, for example, were its own country. But the thought of a nuclear armed Utah doesn't strike me as an improved geopolitical situation.
Even being a Utah resident and a part of the dominant religion, this particular sentence is by far one of the most insightful comments I've ever seen on Slashdot. I also have no doubt that Utah (or Deseret as it would likely become) as an independent republic upon a break-up of the federal union would become a nuclear power as well.
It would become a geopolitical nightmare that makes a nuclear armed Iran look tame by comparison, and it is far better that Utah is a part of the American Republic instead of the American version of Afghanistan (where armies come to die and never win).
One of the reasons why this issue comes up from time to time in California is because the enabling act which created California (aka the legislation in the U.S. Congress which recognized California as a state) explicitly granted to the California Legislature permission to draw up maps to split the state into two or more additional states at any time in the future. Texas was also given this ability (and presumably was the justification for the language in that enabling act too). Note that most other states don't have this clause, although presumably with a state compact and act of Congress it could still happen.
A state compact BTW is what amounts to be a treaty between U.S. states... something that needs to be ratified by Congress but otherwise is a part of the U.S. legal system.
Every time some kind of political friction happens in California, this clause gets brought up and people start to ask for a split.
I'm not sure if any legislation infringes on the rights of some states and gives others preferences. States rights are enshrined in the Constitution and the Judiciary takes care of that.
The judiciary does a pretty damn lousy job of protecting the interests of individual states. The role of a federal court is to lay the heavy hand of the federal government down upon a state government when states can't agree with each other (as an alternative to yet another war between states.... there have been more than one) and to resolve disputes between individuals who reside in different states. It is also to enforce what should be very few federal laws that actually apply to individuals.
Then again I'm supportive of repealing the 17th Amendment as a failed experiment as it weakened the Senate to not really consider states rights either. The role of the Senate was to make sure that state governments would be both notified of any impending legislation and that they would also be able to object to legislation they thought might be a serious problem for their citizens. It is by design supposed to be something that would protect the interests of smaller states, and was an important compromise that even made the USA possible in the first place.
Had the U.S. Senate not been organized as originally defined in the U.S. Constitution, there would never have been a United States. That is also the reason why any of the changes you are suggesting will never in any future history of America happen.
The difference with most of these vehicles that are currently under construction (with the exception of the Orion spacecraft.... admittedly a traditional government cost-plus contract built in the same way the Space Shuttle and Apollo spacecraft were built) is that the companies involved are permitted, indeed are seeking private and independent customers that are different from the government customers. Bigelow Aerospace in particular has several customers that want to use their space stations, but Bigelow simply can't find vehicles which will be capable of docking in orbit. There is also a backlog of potential customers (for various reasons) that want to go into space as well, including some countries that wouldn't mind sending some astronauts into space if it was at a reasonable price.
The besides the Orion spacecraft, the only vehicle that I have some substantial doubts will make a flight into space is the Blue Origin vehicle.... but I wouldn't put it past Jeff Bezos to dump some more of his billions into that project if the time came. What Amazon.com wants to do in space is irrelevant, but that is the money being dumped into the effort (and not necessarily anything that depends on who is in control of the White House).
The political issues are very simple: Are ordinary Americans (or anybody else coming to America for this purpose) going to be legally permitted to fly into space on their own dime? So far, they've been guests of the Russian government.... which wanted to send private individuals into space. The current hold-up really is the regulatory mess that is the FAA, which is in charge of licensing private commercial spacecraft and has yet to come up with human spacecraft requirements.
It should be pointed out that there has been a nearly continuous failure on the part of NASA to come up with a successor to the Space Shuttle.... something that has been in the works since the late 1970's even before the Columbia made its initial flight. I can easily find reference to over a dozen different alternatives that had received various levels of funding, including more than a few that even got so far as early prototype levels of development and even spent some time in the air for testing purposes. I agree that it is a national travesty, but getting nasty here because America can't put people into space at the moment is just a temporary situation that is not going to remain.
Current manned spaceflight vehicles under substantial development (meaning I think nearly all of them are going to actually make the trip into space with people inside) include:
* NASA's Orion
* SpaceX Dragon
* Boeing CST-100
* Sierra Nevada Dreamchaser
* Blue Origin Capsule (I don't know if it has a formal public name)
Those are just the orbital spacecraft, and there are about another half dozen sub-orbital spacecraft like Virgin Galactic's Spaceship Two vehicle that likely will be flying next year as well. Yesterday (as of when I was writing this reply) SpaceX even conducted a major flight test of the crewed version of the Dragon vehicle and plans on performing a significant abort test (basically a sub-orbital flight) later on next year (2014).
Heck, the SpaceX Dragon has already been into space, docked with the ISS, and returned safely to the Earth. What is being worked on right now is simply to increase the safety margins to include the option to do an on-pad abort in an accident... but if there was a real reason to send people into space right now (like to rescue people on the ISS in a life threatening situation) the Dragon could be pressed into emergency service right now.
I would certainly be willing to fly in any one of these spacecraft listed above in preference to anything China can produce.
Slashdot Mirror
It's overreach
Also known as "needed regulation" for a problem that does not exist.
If you would read the actual article, it was pointed out this is regulation that is being proposed because of a law which has already been passed by Congress & signed by President Obama that required the SEC to propose new rules for this kind of activity.
This is what you get when such laws get passed, and to get this "fixed", it will take going to the U.S. Congress to repeal the law that required this to happen in the first place. The overreach, as it were, is that the federal government is sticking its nose into regulating commercial activity in a manner that is unconstitutional in the first place..... but don't tell those who think the interstate commerce clause gives the federal government a blank check to do any damn thing it wants with regards to business activity.
The point of the Interstate Commerce Clause in the U.S. Constitution was to cut through regulations and to prevent states from prohibiting commercial activity between states. It was there to stop things like the tariff wars that happened between New York & New Jersey that nearly started the U.S. Civil War a few decades earlier with the fighting across the Hudson River instead of the Mason & Dixon line. How something designed to prevent a shooting war ends up regulating somebody trying to make a YouTube movie is utterly stupid.
F-35's are not for "major wars".
I hope for the sake of America that you are right, that it will never need to be used for a major war. America won WWII in part because everything used in that war could be produced domestically and didn't rely upon parts made in Japan or Germany. That is sort of my point, that China can do that sort of thing but America can't.
You left out tax policy, environmental policy, and labor policy as well. Those are more responsible for gutting the manufacturing base. I speak as a manufacturer.
That is all sort of how Congress has gutted American manufacturing. When treaties presume a level and fair trade policy between nations, but clearly basic industrial policy and regulations are so much different, is it a wonder that continual trade deficits occur?
America has been buying stuff around the world on the basis that the U.S. Dollar is the world's reserve currency (the form of money used for the most common exchanges). It will be interesting to see what happens when that ends, and surely it will.
It sort of shows how vulnerable America really is in terms of being able to wage a major war, and how badly the U.S. Congress has sold out the American people with it encouragement of outsources manufacturing outside of America. Sure, there are many reasons why electronics companies in particular no longer manufacture their components or devices in America any more (where at one time 100% of all ICs were made in America on a global basis), but a great deal has to do with both treaties that Congress has ratified and specific trade policies that have basically gutted the manufacturing base in America.
I guess we shouldn't go to war against China, as we would be literally destroying our own factories.
The one thing that I use to show how the Chinese Space Agency is hardly something to be worried about is simply their tempo of operation. China may be doing the sort of flags & footprints kind of missions where they do things for political purposes, but they are not really building up any sort of significant experience with their manned spaceflight program in particular. The time between flights is longer than almost any nation which has a manned spaceflight program, and they simply don't have the experience needed to go much further than LEO at the moment. They might actually get their manned space station going eventually, but I don't see them as any significant threat in the medium term.
I also agree with you in regards to private commercial spaceflight too. The real competitor to American commercial spaceflight companies is not India, China, or for that matter Russia (which does at least try to compete none the less), but rather Europe and the ESA. The amount of innovation happening in Europe right now with private commercial spaceflight is something that is breathtaking, but none the less about a decade behind the USA and catching up. The Ariane space launcher is being redesigned to compete with the Falcon 9 on cost, and other signs are in place that Europe is definitely going to be taking an active role in space as well, at least for commercial exploitation of space.
I just don't see a Chinese equivalent of Planetary Resources developing any time soon.
what the US did 40 years ago, but that's also what the US can no longer do at all
Oops
Really? Like what are you referring to here?
Sorta... sometimes they'd toss in Chinese phrases, have ideograms on some of the crates and boxes, and suchlike, but just enough to add a hint of backstory - that is, that the Chinese and indeterminate-but-we-think-Americans worked together to evacuate their populations off the original dying Earth. Only problem is, the utter deficit of Chinese/Asian folks on the show led one to believe that somehow the language made it there, but the Chinese didn't.
As a fan, I sort of presumed that the Firefly universe was rather vast, and that Mal and his crew mainly cruised around the parts that were descendents of the Anglosphere of peoples (mainly North America, but also could include Australian & the UK/Europe to some extent). My understand was that there was a whole other part of the collection of star systems of the Alliance which were descended from the Chinese as well, but sort of had their own planets.
It is hard to tell as it was only one half of a season that ever was filmed, so there is no real way to say if other significantly different cultures made the trip into space. A planet full of Tongans & other South Pacific Islanders would have been interesting to say the least.
I have serious doubts that Japan lacks nuclear weapons capability of their own. They certainly have both the scientists, the nuclear reactors, and the financial assets capable of being able to make them. The only thing that really keeps Japan from building their own nukes is mainly a domestic political situation that would result in a near total collapse of their current government if even a whiff showed up that the Japanese Self-Defense Force had nuclear warheads of any kind.
It still shocks me though how much money Japan is spending on their military in spite of the fact that they are technically under the direct protection of the USA for their defense needs. While China may be spending more than Japan on military equipment, Japan isn't too far behind and the Japanese military spending is definitely much higher per member of the military (aka per soldier or sailor). Japanese soldiers and sailors have lots of gadgets to play with if they ever actually went to war.
South Korea is almost ditto to the above although I think South Korean citizens might be more open to the idea (compared to Japanese citizens) and what mainly keeps South Korea from openly admitting they have nukes is mainly the political powder keg they have in that part of the world. Then again, with North Korea openly using nukes, it is just a matter of time for them as well.
Taiwan is strange as they technically had an alliance with South Africa and Israel where it was suggested they got a couple of Jericho warheads as a part of the deal. It is worth looking into, but the problem is that any such mention of such an alliance is mainly rumors and the realm of conspiracy theories like Area 51 and other such nonsense, so take it with a grain of salt. Of the countries you have mentioned, I would suggest Taiwan is the most likely to actually have them although admittedly they do not publicly acknowledge that they possess nukes.
The Pacific Ocean is the private pond of the USA from Guam to California, and Alaska to Samoa. Anything which happens inside of that rough box including up to the Kármán line and down to the mantle of the Earth is justifiably seen as a direct threat to the United States of America and would be seen clearly as casus belli. The U.S. Navy still rules supreme in that part of the world. China can certainly "practice war games" and do other crap in "international waters", but that part of the Pacific Ocean will never be under Chinese influence except in the most transitory fashion.
BTW, this part of the Pacific would clearly be considered "defending their own borders" on the part of the USA as well. That China might carve out a smaller niche part of the Pacific from the North Korean border south to Thailand is no doubt something they would equally consider important, but that is about as far in the Pacific that China will ever really control as a part of the Pacific. China certainly isn't going to do something dumbass like invading the Philippines, or for that matter even Taiwan or South Korea without sparking another world war.
China will certainly not "rule the Pacific" as you are asserting.
If you wanted to get a positive reference, you would need to list the corporate headquarters. So yes, getting a reference for a future employer would be important in this situation although like I said it seems like this particular employees doesn't care.
The tricky part is that some employers get nasty if you don't list all previous employers and could use that as a violation of the employment contract when you get hired on in the first place. It is a situation of reading the fine print of a job application form and knowing what the hiring policies of the company you are trying to apply at. If necessary hire a lawyer to make sure of stuff like this in your own particular situation. Generally a resume has no presumption that the list of employers is exhaustive, but be prepared to explain any significant gaps in your employment history.
Are you implying that something negative will happen because they suspended the guy? I really doubt there are any materially negative consequences for Safeway.
Actually, something negative could come as a result of firing this guy. I don't know if he is likely to contest the firing, but assuming he does suggest it was an illegal firing and wants to go through legal channels to challenge the corporation on this issue, he could end up as the only employee of the chain still technically employed in Illinois (for at least one more day effective as soon as the challenge is completed).
My mother-in-law was successful in challenging a termination at Wal-Mart (notorious for treating employees like dirt and running roughshod over employee rights). After going to a judge and being reviewed under case law, she was not only reinstated, but put serious egg on the face of her immediate supervisor for failing to even follow company policy and other related issues.
I don't know if this guy has a case, but it seems to me that it would have been better to simply let the clock run out and let him get laid off with everybody else at the story rather than make his employment situation any different.... and forced to pay back pay for time when he was capable of working but couldn't. It sounds like this guy doesn't really care, so this speculation is all irrelevant if he just moves on to another employer and doesn't even bother with giving references to this particular store.
Well, the U.S. State Department claims that China is a signatory country. They are the ones that really matter, and would likely put up the largest stink if China did something contrary to that treaty.
BTW, Did you actually read that UN page? It said that China reached "Accession" to the treaty. In other words, they agreed to the terms of the treaty after the formal negotiation and ratification by the original signers. They are still bound by the terms of the treaty, according to the very link you were using.
China never signed the Outer Space Treaty. Treaties only "work" for people who agree to it.
That isn't true. It would help to actually read the list of signatory nations before you make a statement like that.
Technically it was the Nationalist government of China (aka Taiwan.... acting on behalf of all of China) which originally signed the treaty in 1967, but the People's Republic of China has recognized this particular treaty as international law for which they are also a part. Perhaps a technical nitpick to say they haven't "signed" the treaty, but it still has as much force as any other major international treaty to China as it does to anybody else.
They still can back out with only a 1 year notification period, but that is only a minor problem. China did, however, agree to this particular treaty.
And charge the USA a littering fee
That would be a presumption of a sovereignty claim upon at least a portion of the Moon... and a retroactive claim at that. Besides simply a violation of the Outer Space Treaty, it would also be setting an interesting long-term precedent.... ...a precedent that IMHO the U.S. government wouldn't mind seeing somebody else set at first and be gladly welcomed. If anything, any such littering fee would be gladly paid in full.
Huh, I must have been working with the wrong scientists. You must mean the ones who are making 7-8 figures, and bringing in billions of dollars every day for their pro AGW research. Then they have the marked ability to make sure that there is almost no disagreement.
I am not suggesting that an individual scientist is necessarily getting a pile of money, but trillions of dollars are indeed at stake in terms of shifting the economic situation of the world based upon the political arguments that come from both skeptics and apologists for the research.... particularly the apologists. If you are insisting that there are no research budgets from government funds being used to support climate research with the specific goal of trying to identify causes of global warming, and that active advocacy of political positions based upon that research is not happening, I really think you have your head in a hole right now.
I would love to see this issue settled in a calm manner that was just looking at the actual scientific rationale involved. Unfortunately those who are apologists just shout down anybody who even suggests that the emperor has no clothes.... just like the modding down of my above comment based only upon the idea of -1-- I don't agree with your politics. I've been on Slashdot long enough to know that sometimes things like this just strike a raw nerve, but unfortunately it isn't looking at the substance of the argument either.
You cherry pick the data, and only choose what seems to allow you to take the Ancient Aliens approach of "Oooh, an anomaly - Ancient Aliens."
There is plenty of cherry picking of data by all sides of this argument, and far more money to be had for those who support the anthropological global warming hypothesis (especially for "reputable research groups").
Science should not be as completely contaminated by politics as this particular issue has become, as it really is now a political issue and not a scientific issue as well. That scientists are being active in politics (to keep that money flowing if for no other reason) is one of many reasons why this whole debate is becoming very tiresome for me. Arguments at science conferences about the value of the Hubble Constant or the status of Pluto are one thing, but deciding the fate of entire industries, literally trillions of dollars and how the world's economy is going to reshaped to fit the consequences of this discussion is why so many people have such a huge stake in such a thing. If Pluto is demoted (or has been demoted), nobody really cares other than a bunch of science museums where curators need to rework their orrery and planetarium systems (tens or hundreds of dollars at most at stake). Well, I guess a bunch of school kids have spent a bit more money chewing out Neil DeGrasse Tyson, but it doesn't get even into the million dollar rages at the worst possible estimate of economic impact. More than a million dollars gets spent each time a climate scientist talks at a congressional hearing on AGW.
The Tesla vehicles also come equipped with a USB port (more than one if I"m not mistaken).... assuming that for some reason you don't have access to a mobile cell phone tower or something like that. I don't think it is standard for Tesla to mail out physical thumb drives or anything like that, but I'm sure customer support can help get the necessary software from a variety of distribution systems.
This isn't an issue specific to Tesla vehicles, but it is something that any electric vehicle owner should be aware of and an issue in general for home electrical distribution systems.
The first house I lived in when I got married had the entire house on a single 20 amp circuit (supposedly installed by a professional, but I'm not sure which decade with the tar & cotton wiring I ended up spotting as I went through the attic), and the house I grew up in was only rated with the fuse box for 40 amps (again the whole house, but there were multiple circuits with that house). Even the house I live in at the moment is only rated for a maximum of 100 amps, and I'm not really sure how close to that limit I care to push the issue even though the wiring gauge does look sufficient for those power requirements. I know some new home construction can be rated for as high as 200 amps or more, but it is something to be discussing with contractors when the house is being built currently in terms of planning for potential needs of future power needs. IMHO it really needs to be added into the NEC (National Electrical Code) as assuming something like a stead base power load of 40 amps in a standard socket should be found in a garage or something like that.
That doesn't even get into the neighborhood power distribution systems that would need to be updated in a serious manner if electric vehicles became quite common. It most definitely will become a major issue for electric utility companies in the future if these vehicles become popular.
They could do a hostile take-over of the company. That would also be something very public and would likely end up with Elon Musk becoming very wealthy indeed and cost literally billions of dollars even at the current market cap.
The honorable thing, and likely the most economically viable approach at the moment, is for these companies to simply double down and really push forward with competing vehicles. Then again, sometimes major companies lack the imagination in terms of how to actually build a competing product.
100% agreed. Most professionals agree that you should need a license to handle anything above 110V.
Which must also include the installation and removal of any electrical appliance or apparatus into a receptacle.
No doubt the internal arguments in the United States would be fewer if Utah, for example, were its own country. But the thought of a nuclear armed Utah doesn't strike me as an improved geopolitical situation.
Even being a Utah resident and a part of the dominant religion, this particular sentence is by far one of the most insightful comments I've ever seen on Slashdot. I also have no doubt that Utah (or Deseret as it would likely become) as an independent republic upon a break-up of the federal union would become a nuclear power as well.
It would become a geopolitical nightmare that makes a nuclear armed Iran look tame by comparison, and it is far better that Utah is a part of the American Republic instead of the American version of Afghanistan (where armies come to die and never win).
One of the reasons why this issue comes up from time to time in California is because the enabling act which created California (aka the legislation in the U.S. Congress which recognized California as a state) explicitly granted to the California Legislature permission to draw up maps to split the state into two or more additional states at any time in the future. Texas was also given this ability (and presumably was the justification for the language in that enabling act too). Note that most other states don't have this clause, although presumably with a state compact and act of Congress it could still happen.
A state compact BTW is what amounts to be a treaty between U.S. states... something that needs to be ratified by Congress but otherwise is a part of the U.S. legal system.
Every time some kind of political friction happens in California, this clause gets brought up and people start to ask for a split.
I'm not sure if any legislation infringes on the rights of some states and gives others preferences. States rights are enshrined in the Constitution and the Judiciary takes care of that.
The judiciary does a pretty damn lousy job of protecting the interests of individual states. The role of a federal court is to lay the heavy hand of the federal government down upon a state government when states can't agree with each other (as an alternative to yet another war between states.... there have been more than one) and to resolve disputes between individuals who reside in different states. It is also to enforce what should be very few federal laws that actually apply to individuals.
Then again I'm supportive of repealing the 17th Amendment as a failed experiment as it weakened the Senate to not really consider states rights either. The role of the Senate was to make sure that state governments would be both notified of any impending legislation and that they would also be able to object to legislation they thought might be a serious problem for their citizens. It is by design supposed to be something that would protect the interests of smaller states, and was an important compromise that even made the USA possible in the first place.
Had the U.S. Senate not been organized as originally defined in the U.S. Constitution, there would never have been a United States. That is also the reason why any of the changes you are suggesting will never in any future history of America happen.
The difference with most of these vehicles that are currently under construction (with the exception of the Orion spacecraft.... admittedly a traditional government cost-plus contract built in the same way the Space Shuttle and Apollo spacecraft were built) is that the companies involved are permitted, indeed are seeking private and independent customers that are different from the government customers. Bigelow Aerospace in particular has several customers that want to use their space stations, but Bigelow simply can't find vehicles which will be capable of docking in orbit. There is also a backlog of potential customers (for various reasons) that want to go into space as well, including some countries that wouldn't mind sending some astronauts into space if it was at a reasonable price.
The besides the Orion spacecraft, the only vehicle that I have some substantial doubts will make a flight into space is the Blue Origin vehicle.... but I wouldn't put it past Jeff Bezos to dump some more of his billions into that project if the time came. What Amazon.com wants to do in space is irrelevant, but that is the money being dumped into the effort (and not necessarily anything that depends on who is in control of the White House).
The political issues are very simple: Are ordinary Americans (or anybody else coming to America for this purpose) going to be legally permitted to fly into space on their own dime? So far, they've been guests of the Russian government.... which wanted to send private individuals into space. The current hold-up really is the regulatory mess that is the FAA, which is in charge of licensing private commercial spacecraft and has yet to come up with human spacecraft requirements.
It should be pointed out that there has been a nearly continuous failure on the part of NASA to come up with a successor to the Space Shuttle.... something that has been in the works since the late 1970's even before the Columbia made its initial flight. I can easily find reference to over a dozen different alternatives that had received various levels of funding, including more than a few that even got so far as early prototype levels of development and even spent some time in the air for testing purposes. I agree that it is a national travesty, but getting nasty here because America can't put people into space at the moment is just a temporary situation that is not going to remain.
Current manned spaceflight vehicles under substantial development (meaning I think nearly all of them are going to actually make the trip into space with people inside) include:
Those are just the orbital spacecraft, and there are about another half dozen sub-orbital spacecraft like Virgin Galactic's Spaceship Two vehicle that likely will be flying next year as well. Yesterday (as of when I was writing this reply) SpaceX even conducted a major flight test of the crewed version of the Dragon vehicle and plans on performing a significant abort test (basically a sub-orbital flight) later on next year (2014).
Heck, the SpaceX Dragon has already been into space, docked with the ISS, and returned safely to the Earth. What is being worked on right now is simply to increase the safety margins to include the option to do an on-pad abort in an accident... but if there was a real reason to send people into space right now (like to rescue people on the ISS in a life threatening situation) the Dragon could be pressed into emergency service right now.
I would certainly be willing to fly in any one of these spacecraft listed above in preference to anything China can produce.