I think we're at an impasse as you seem to have a misunderstanding of what "megan's laws" are. Here is a wikipedia link to start off. It seems mostely accurate as of today. Basically, they are laws requiring that sex offenders be announced to the communities they move into. States seem to implement this as a list that anyone with internet access can view. (usually there's a number you can call as well.) As well as actively notifying people in the communities themselves.
My point was that the whole idea of these laws is absurd. Either we are doing a disservice to reformed criminals by putting them on a 'list of very bad people' aka 'potential nutbag justifiable targets list' or we are doing the community as a whole a disservice by allowing the dangerous predators to move about freely at all. The existance of these laws (and the reason they came about) indicates the latter.
No. I'm saying it looks like the supremes used the principle of federalism* to effectively quelch part of the bill of rights. Their compatability apparantly in no way prevents (well meaning but foolish)||(wise but malicious) people from using one as the weapon to destroy the other.
*I always get federalism and anti-federalism confused: Is federalism the concept of a strong, Federal Government or is it the concept of a collective of soviergn states working together (and abdicating some of that soviergnty) for the mutual purpose of unfettered trade and common defense? I think this is because the federalist papers seem to favor the latter, but those same founders also rejected the much weaker articles of confederation.
But what about blink? I used to use that all the time back in the day. Oh the memories. The ol' starter page with the forty random and poorly organized links, all blinking and scrolling so you can't tell what's what. right after (black text gray backgrond) and right before (sane colored text white background) became popular "styles". Why I remember briefly, everyone thought it would be "cool" to make white (or for those of use who didn't like eye-strain, off-white) on black backgrounds. (fortunately, 'everyone' only included home pages.)
I thought I was pointing out antagonism on the part of the court. Like they were almost trying to say, "ha hA, You've gotta give up that call for states rights, fool, or admit that personal rights aren't important. Mwa ha ha" {twists handlebar moustache}
"Actually, they're less likely to regress than violent criminals are, if that means anything to you."
Lets have some numbers here. Are either of these low enough for us as a society to live with? It seems to me that 'megan's laws' are an admission by the powers that be that the regression rate is too high, though with these types of crimes even a low rate will be highly publicized.
In either case, we should still do one of two things: incarcerate for as long as is necessary or allow complete reintegration. Neither one necessitates publishing a 'List of the unclean' complete with addresses. In fact, in the latter case, such a list can only serve to increase the violence. It is surprising that there has not been more (or that it hasn't been publicized). The lists are available to anyone right?? including the victims/victims' families?
There have been numerous "campaign finance reform" bills in recent memory. So far, all they've been good at is securing the incumbent however. The most recent one has given quite a bit of power to the owners of media companies. What do you call a country ruled by its press? Mediocracy?
But what even if all the guesses are correct there's still some ethical issues. Granted most of the issues involve even publishing the list of names to begin with. I mean wouldn't it be easy for someone to get the list and go around all vigilante style on the people on the list? Certainly it might be satisfying to attack a creep (even a reformed creep) but that's not justice. That's vengence.
Which brings me back around to the real point. Sex offenders are apparantly still dangerous to society following their release from prison. Shouldn't the solution to continue to segregate them from society rather than to just let 'em go and tell people, "Sorry, there's a dangerous new person in your neighborhood, watch your kids/wife/backside." We could put them in a concrete building with bars over the windows and locks on the doors.. a lot like.. more prison! If it's been shown that these people are a danger to society following their terms and that they are incapable of reform*, then it is obvious, at least to me, that the terms are not long enough to protect society from them and them from society.
*statistical incapability** is indistinguishable from real incapability if you cannot say for certain if they've been reformed until they die having not regressed.
**within a socially acceptable error margin. (is 3 standard deviations enough (~99.7% confidence)? 30 (100-(.98e-195) percent confidence)? I don't claim to have the answer)
Here in Daytona Beach, there's been a debate across several years (and at least two county-councils) about what to do with the boardwalk. It's a carnival type affair with shops and games, the "big swing" and various other contraptions that launch you into the air whilst simultainously appearing decidedly unsafe. The whole thing recently became bordered by a huge mega-hotel complex that wants (big surprise) to expand onto the boardwak.
Everyone involved pretty much agrees that the boardwalk is inappropriate for the city's future vision: its carnival like atmosphere and rusting rides is somewhat unsightly and it would be nice if the whole thing was updated with less campy shops and things.
The 'Problem' is that the current owner has not abandoned it to become a blight, instead he makes his living maintaining the shops, rides, and game rooms. They are honkey-tonk, but they are safe and clean. Since he's been under threat of eminant domain seizure, not only has the owner not been able to sell (which he doesn't want to do, the property has been in his family for several generations i believe), he is also unable to obtain financing to make capital improvements on his property. The fact that he's not making such improvements was used as a principle argument FOR seizure. So he's been in this catch-22 for a few years now.
Apparantly, the situation's been resolved with the land being reappropriated to the development company. It appears they have avoided use of eminant domain, but only the actual exercise of it, the threat was apparantly enough to force the owner's hand. Details can be found at the Daytona News-Journal website: http://www.news-journalonline.com/special/beach/bo ardwalk103004.htm
I'm not sure if it's the basis of *any* civilized society, but it's certainly the basis of OUR civilized society. Property rights, and economic freedom to persue self-interest (or enlightened self-interest if you so prefer) are what drove us to the economic position we are in today. I'd guess that a big part of the freedom of the early days were that there wasn't much here to speak of. Sure we had natural resources out the wazoo, but they were all spread apart and required *gasp* work to get at. Now that we've improved the place a bit, the bottom feeding pols are showing up to take their share.
Interestingly, they seem to have framed the decision in terms that force the libertarian to contradict himself. Isn't "state's rights" also a libertarian issue?
I'll grant that JK and PM are less right-wing than GWB, but that's pretty much calling them liberals. GWB is almost as left-wing as you can be and still call yourself a republican. unless your name is McCain.
Things GW has pushed for:
Medicare Prescription Drug benefit (definately not a conservative position)
Amnesty for illegal immagration and no real border security (liberal issue)
Iraq War (seems to be a conservative position of late, but "sticking to your guns till you're done rather than giving up on the verge of completion because everythign is going..0nly slightly better than expected" shouldn't be limited to conservatives. "Getting the US involved in overseas war" has traditionally been a Democrat (not necessarily liberal) position)
Social Security Reform (conservative issue, but he's not putting much effort into it)
steel tariffs (has since been repealed)-campaign promise to labor union. (liberal position)
Stem Cell Research: Tried to strike balance between opposing groups: "It's murder, don't make it more palatable" vs. "It's your body, might as well do something with the leftover goop" by federally funding specific already established stem cell lines thus satisfying no one. Whichever side you're on, "He's pandering to" the other one.
USA PATRIOT ACT -What's he gonna do, NOT sign this? and look like he was doing NOTHING? (Well i'd like more nothing in my government, but that's a liberarian/conservative view) (neutral position)
Tax Cuts : conservative if across the board, but GW supported tax breaks even for people who don't pay taxes. (and a sunset provision on a tax CUT??? that's about as bass-ackward as you can get)
Judges: keeps letting his choices get ignored by senate. Some more conserative, many are center/left-of-center, GWB could be doing more to get these guys passed. Recess appointment for instance.
There are a bunch more I'm sure. By sheer count, his positions are probably neutral or right-center. By budget cost, his positions are left/left-center. Kerry never really told us WHAT his positions were other than whatever Bush supported he didn't and whatever bush didn't support he did. (also some things bush wasn't supporting nearly enough)
You get "Pretty much any form of..." from "They warned us at the academy about you guys"? You put Elastigirl to shame... do you have any more corroboration than this?
There was the TNG episode where they revived the people from the 20th century. The texan investor was ridiculed for wanting to check his investments and was given an ignorant sounding fake accent for no good reason.
about a third of the episodes have mentioned, "We have evolved beyond the need for money" (which i'll agree doesn't necessarily mean that material wealth accumulation is discouraged and implies that it is not necessary.. but what about those who get joy from such accumulation? Is their joy somehow less valid than those who get joy from tomb robbery? (a la jean luc))
Every merchant shown in ST is creepy and dispicable and the characters have a disdain even for the ones that are only slightly dispicable. (such is the case where merchants are driven into a periphery that should be reserved only for lawyers.. who by the way seem to have an exhalted status in ST. (Though in the ST universe they may deserve it: every lawyer we see is interested in either the rights of the downtrodden or to the principle of justice even if it means losing the case)
abortion costs society one worker in roughly twenty years time and is really irrelevant to the subject of superheroes. Superheroes should always be self-financed. Otherwise we'd call them "The Police." Why spend 4 billion dollars developing super bulletproof armor that costs a million dollars a pop for one guy when you could spend 5 billion dollars and start having the kind of economies of scale that bring it down to 30 grand a pop and useful for swat squads and later beat cops.
Congresscritters use mass mailings as an excuse to ignore mail. If you want to be heard, you really should write a personal (not personalized. they'll see through that) letter or call their office. They still won't read or listen, but their staff will and may tally up how many people mention certain things.
"Pretty much any form of self-improvement except new-agey personal well-being is frowned upon."
"Ah a ferenghi. They warned us at the academy about you guys"
"No one in the federation travels without papers (in fact, there is not enough industry to support heavy starship building. Let alone interplanetary shipping and travel.)"
Sisko's girlfriend, one of the few freighter captains. Ship was old and decrepit, people without ships had to wait months for a berth. Travel might not actually be controlled by "papers" but it is effectively controlled by shortage.
"Intra-planetery movement is limited as well. Transporter usage is heavily rationed for civillians."
"I must have used up a year's worth of transporter rations in my first week at the academy" (either in TNG or Voyager)
"(And why should this be the case in a civilization that has the technology to mine the stars for energy?) Unless you're in the ruling class, life is very prison like. It's a prison with glass walls and satin sheets, but it's a prison nontheless."
Meta-phasic shields, matter-out-of-phasing device neither of which is used for industrial processes.
It's the ultimate extension of a safety obsessed communist culture.
I don't think anyone's arguing it's not communist. But the safety obsession, that's harder to notice. Just look at how people react to starfleet officers. A combination of respect and fear, with a little derision carefully hidden away. Picard's family for instance thought he was crazy to want to be a space-man and they weren't the only ones. (actually this turned out to be ironic since i think they died in a fire or somethign)
Amex does something like this with online purchases if you sign up for it: The "smartcard" plugs into a device which interracts with software on your computer and gives the online vendor a unique number that is good only for the one purchase. The tricky thing is to figure out a way to do this with traditional brick-and-mortar purchases.
Not sayin' you're wrong, but a human with a 'board-with-a-nail' can take out pretty much anything smaller than two or three times his size, vegetarian or not. Very few animals, tasty or not, are capable of holding, let alone figuring out how to use, a spear.
It is important to remember Christians vs. Lions didn't always end Lions 1 Christians 0.
So yes, the human form probably is one of the more versatile forms for single combat. Of course, why you would design a post-atomic-age military around single combat is a mystery to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Moderately hungry humans use about 100 watts, on average, throughout the day.
But i'm not going to explain it.
I think we're at an impasse as you seem to have a misunderstanding of what "megan's laws" are. Here is a wikipedia link to start off. It seems mostely accurate as of today. Basically, they are laws requiring that sex offenders be announced to the communities they move into. States seem to implement this as a list that anyone with internet access can view. (usually there's a number you can call as well.) As well as actively notifying people in the communities themselves.
My point was that the whole idea of these laws is absurd. Either we are doing a disservice to reformed criminals by putting them on a 'list of very bad people' aka 'potential nutbag justifiable targets list' or we are doing the community as a whole a disservice by allowing the dangerous predators to move about freely at all. The existance of these laws (and the reason they came about) indicates the latter.
No. I'm saying it looks like the supremes used the principle of federalism* to effectively quelch part of the bill of rights. Their compatability apparantly in no way prevents (well meaning but foolish)||(wise but malicious) people from using one as the weapon to destroy the other.
*I always get federalism and anti-federalism confused: Is federalism the concept of a strong, Federal Government or is it the concept of a collective of soviergn states working together (and abdicating some of that soviergnty) for the mutual purpose of unfettered trade and common defense? I think this is because the federalist papers seem to favor the latter, but those same founders also rejected the much weaker articles of confederation.
But what about blink? I used to use that all the time back in the day. Oh the memories. The ol' starter page with the forty random and poorly organized links, all blinking and scrolling so you can't tell what's what. right after (black text gray backgrond) and right before (sane colored text white background) became popular "styles". Why I remember briefly, everyone thought it would be "cool" to make white (or for those of use who didn't like eye-strain, off-white) on black backgrounds. (fortunately, 'everyone' only included home pages.)
I thought I was pointing out antagonism on the part of the court. Like they were almost trying to say, "ha hA, You've gotta give up that call for states rights, fool, or admit that personal rights aren't important. Mwa ha ha" {twists handlebar moustache}
PPS: love your peer's sig. very apropos.
"Actually, they're less likely to regress than violent criminals are, if that means anything to you."
Lets have some numbers here. Are either of these low enough for us as a society to live with? It seems to me that 'megan's laws' are an admission by the powers that be that the regression rate is too high, though with these types of crimes even a low rate will be highly publicized.
In either case, we should still do one of two things: incarcerate for as long as is necessary or allow complete reintegration. Neither one necessitates publishing a 'List of the unclean' complete with addresses. In fact, in the latter case, such a list can only serve to increase the violence. It is surprising that there has not been more (or that it hasn't been publicized). The lists are available to anyone right?? including the victims/victims' families?
There have been numerous "campaign finance reform" bills in recent memory. So far, all they've been good at is securing the incumbent however. The most recent one has given quite a bit of power to the owners of media companies. What do you call a country ruled by its press? Mediocracy?
But what even if all the guesses are correct there's still some ethical issues. Granted most of the issues involve even publishing the list of names to begin with. I mean wouldn't it be easy for someone to get the list and go around all vigilante style on the people on the list? Certainly it might be satisfying to attack a creep (even a reformed creep) but that's not justice. That's vengence.
Which brings me back around to the real point. Sex offenders are apparantly still dangerous to society following their release from prison. Shouldn't the solution to continue to segregate them from society rather than to just let 'em go and tell people, "Sorry, there's a dangerous new person in your neighborhood, watch your kids/wife/backside." We could put them in a concrete building with bars over the windows and locks on the doors.. a lot like.. more prison! If it's been shown that these people are a danger to society following their terms and that they are incapable of reform*, then it is obvious, at least to me, that the terms are not long enough to protect society from them and them from society.
*statistical incapability** is indistinguishable from real incapability if you cannot say for certain if they've been reformed until they die having not regressed.
**within a socially acceptable error margin. (is 3 standard deviations enough (~99.7% confidence)? 30 (100-(.98e-195) percent confidence)? I don't claim to have the answer)
Here in Daytona Beach, there's been a debate across several years (and at least two county-councils) about what to do with the boardwalk. It's a carnival type affair with shops and games, the "big swing" and various other contraptions that launch you into the air whilst simultainously appearing decidedly unsafe. The whole thing recently became bordered by a huge mega-hotel complex that wants (big surprise) to expand onto the boardwak.
o ardwalk103004.htm
Everyone involved pretty much agrees that the boardwalk is inappropriate for the city's future vision: its carnival like atmosphere and rusting rides is somewhat unsightly and it would be nice if the whole thing was updated with less campy shops and things.
The 'Problem' is that the current owner has not abandoned it to become a blight, instead he makes his living maintaining the shops, rides, and game rooms. They are honkey-tonk, but they are safe and clean. Since he's been under threat of eminant domain seizure, not only has the owner not been able to sell (which he doesn't want to do, the property has been in his family for several generations i believe), he is also unable to obtain financing to make capital improvements on his property. The fact that he's not making such improvements was used as a principle argument FOR seizure. So he's been in this catch-22 for a few years now.
Apparantly, the situation's been resolved with the land being reappropriated to the development company. It appears they have avoided use of eminant domain, but only the actual exercise of it, the threat was apparantly enough to force the owner's hand. Details can be found at the Daytona News-Journal website: http://www.news-journalonline.com/special/beach/b
I'm not sure if it's the basis of *any* civilized society, but it's certainly the basis of OUR civilized society. Property rights, and economic freedom to persue self-interest (or enlightened self-interest if you so prefer) are what drove us to the economic position we are in today. I'd guess that a big part of the freedom of the early days were that there wasn't much here to speak of. Sure we had natural resources out the wazoo, but they were all spread apart and required *gasp* work to get at. Now that we've improved the place a bit, the bottom feeding pols are showing up to take their share.
Interestingly, they seem to have framed the decision in terms that force the libertarian to contradict himself. Isn't "state's rights" also a libertarian issue?
Things GW has pushed for:
There are a bunch more I'm sure. By sheer count, his positions are probably neutral or right-center. By budget cost, his positions are left/left-center.
Kerry never really told us WHAT his positions were other than whatever Bush supported he didn't and whatever bush didn't support he did. (also some things bush wasn't supporting nearly enough)
Id you are willing to be run over by bulldozers to get your point across.
Why wouldn't it be? sure you'd need some kind of biological version of a neural net to adapt. Not sure where'd you'd get something like that though.
You get "Pretty much any form of..." from "They warned us at the academy about you guys"? You put Elastigirl to shame... do you have any more corroboration than this?
There was the TNG episode where they revived the people from the 20th century. The texan investor was ridiculed for wanting to check his investments and was given an ignorant sounding fake accent for no good reason.
about a third of the episodes have mentioned, "We have evolved beyond the need for money" (which i'll agree doesn't necessarily mean that material wealth accumulation is discouraged and implies that it is not necessary.. but what about those who get joy from such accumulation? Is their joy somehow less valid than those who get joy from tomb robbery? (a la jean luc))
Every merchant shown in ST is creepy and dispicable and the characters have a disdain even for the ones that are only slightly dispicable. (such is the case where merchants are driven into a periphery that should be reserved only for lawyers.. who by the way seem to have an exhalted status in ST. (Though in the ST universe they may deserve it: every lawyer we see is interested in either the rights of the downtrodden or to the principle of justice even if it means losing the case)
abortion costs society one worker in roughly twenty years time and is really irrelevant to the subject of superheroes. Superheroes should always be self-financed. Otherwise we'd call them "The Police." Why spend 4 billion dollars developing super bulletproof armor that costs a million dollars a pop for one guy when you could spend 5 billion dollars and start having the kind of economies of scale that bring it down to 30 grand a pop and useful for swat squads and later beat cops.
Draw a line. Put arrows on both ends. You're done. Go have a beer.
A4 is bigger than letter.
210 x 297 vs.
(8.3 x 11.7 inches)
216 x 279
(8.5 x 11 inches)
Who decided there should be two letterish size paper standards that are almost but not quite the same? (Thank adobe for "shrink to fit page size")
I saw it on tonights Simpson's rerun: "Paperclip, Do your stuff."
Congresscritters use mass mailings as an excuse to ignore mail. If you want to be heard, you really should write a personal (not personalized. they'll see through that) letter or call their office. They still won't read or listen, but their staff will and may tally up how many people mention certain things.
"Pretty much any form of self-improvement except new-agey personal well-being is frowned upon."
"Ah a ferenghi. They warned us at the academy about you guys"
"No one in the federation travels without papers (in fact, there is not enough industry to support heavy starship building. Let alone interplanetary shipping and travel.)"
Sisko's girlfriend, one of the few freighter captains. Ship was old and decrepit, people without ships had to wait months for a berth. Travel might not actually be controlled by "papers" but it is effectively controlled by shortage.
"Intra-planetery movement is limited as well. Transporter usage is heavily rationed for civillians."
"I must have used up a year's worth of transporter rations in my first week at the academy" (either in TNG or Voyager)
"(And why should this be the case in a civilization that has the technology to mine the stars for energy?) Unless you're in the ruling class, life is very prison like. It's a prison with glass walls and satin sheets, but it's a prison nontheless."
Meta-phasic shields, matter-out-of-phasing device neither of which is used for industrial processes.
It's the ultimate extension of a safety obsessed communist culture.
I don't think anyone's arguing it's not communist. But the safety obsession, that's harder to notice. Just look at how people react to starfleet officers. A combination of respect and fear, with a little derision carefully hidden away. Picard's family for instance thought he was crazy to want to be a space-man and they weren't the only ones. (actually this turned out to be ironic since i think they died in a fire or somethign)
Amex does something like this with online purchases if you sign up for it: The "smartcard" plugs into a device which interracts with software on your computer and gives the online vendor a unique number that is good only for the one purchase. The tricky thing is to figure out a way to do this with traditional brick-and-mortar purchases.
Seems a little repetative. Almost redundant. Kind of like saying the same thing in more than one way.
Not sayin' you're wrong, but a human with a 'board-with-a-nail' can take out pretty much anything smaller than two or three times his size, vegetarian or not. Very few animals, tasty or not, are capable of holding, let alone figuring out how to use, a spear.
It is important to remember Christians vs. Lions didn't always end Lions 1 Christians 0.
So yes, the human form probably is one of the more versatile forms for single combat. Of course, why you would design a post-atomic-age military around single combat is a mystery to me.