Mea culpa; I am, indeed, a humorless twerp, condemned by my actions here for many slashdot database backups to come.
In my defense, the odds of encountering someone on slashdot who can properly use American English, and has a sense of humor, and would use it to further abuse a tortured phrase as you did... it wasn't so much a "whoosh", as an event most reminiscent of the idea that the lottery is a tax for the math-impaired. If you'll forgive me, I'll get on with abusing actual syntax cripples now.
The power to punish for copyright violation is appropriate. Broad censorship powers, however, are not. This bill deserves to fall by the wayside, it is both poorly crafted in pursuit of its stated goal, and constitutionally unauthorized.
...and said congress-critter will never see the letter. An "aide" (really some know-nothing) will open it, determine it doesn't contain money or plausibly promise money, and it'll go right into the round-file, and, if you're really lucky, you'll get a generic form letter back thanking you for your "input." With a nice reproduction of your congress-critter's signature, possibly suitable for framing -- if no one looks too closely.
Short version: Writing in doesn't work. If you want to have an effect, you need to be able to wave around money, or huge blocks of voters. Individuals are powerless, and this is by design.
And all of those cool military gadgets we ooh and ahh over will be deployed against citizens aspiring for freedom.
Hasn't worked in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, and it won't work here, either. Furthermore, in those countries, they weren't destroying their own lines of supply and alienating their own countrymen. I don't think the military would be all that willing to act decisively against the US population.
I also don't think violent revolution is a good answer. Just that if it happened, the military isn't the problem one might think just because it has awesome weaponry, which of course it does.
Personally, just sort of counting heads, I don't think there are enough people in this country that have more than the vaguest understanding of how it was supposed to work or how it does work, to foment and execute a revolution, so I really don't worry about it. In this case, the Gaussian and our terrible educational system look to me to insulate us completely from such a thing. And I don't mind. Things could be a lot worse.
Remember too that the Founders *designed* the system to promote gridlock, under the excellent and well-demonstrated theory that gov't rushing into ANY action was a Bad Thing.
Yeah... but also remember that one of the first things done was an usurpation of power, an end-run around article V, in the first congress - the authorization of border searches outside the bounds of the enumerated powers (and just a few years later, also in violation of the 4th amendment.)
The problem with the constitution is (a) there's no effective way to enforce it, and (b) there are no "teeth" to punish those who violate their oaths. Consequently, congress often rushes into things, some of which are extremely ill-advised, not to mention constitutionally unauthorized, and these things become law. Lately, the "for the children" and "TERRORISTS!" are the usual reasons for these lightning moves into moron territory, but it seems there's always something they're using for justification for high-speed blundering.
And I wonder if the supreme court judges' routers are missing the DNS information that is supposed to point to the constitution... because there's an awful lot of "lookup failed" in their decisions.
Warrants have never been required for border searches, and it was never the original intent of the founding fathers for that to occur.
Border searches are not authorized by the constitution, they were an imposition of the 1st congress in 1789, an illegal end-run around article V, which dates from 1787. Consequently it doesn't matter one bit what the "standards" are for them. Until article V is used to make them an authorized power, they're an usurped, illegal procedure.
The definition is unreasonable is based far more on common law interpretation than you presume.
The constitution overrides and obsoletes common law; that's what it is there for, to reset the line and provide a new starting point because the previous situation was out of hand.
It provides a list of authorized powers, from which the federal government may make certain very limited types of laws.
As of 1791, it also provided a list of forbidden areas, into which the federal government may not go, and as it happens, that includes forbidding warrentless searches everywhere in the domain of the federal authority, because the restriction makes no kind of exception for any locale. So not only are warrentless searches illegal by virtue of not being an authorized power, the same people who made the law (quite sensibly) ruled them out just a few years later.
I'm not saying the feds shouldn't have such a border power based on any objection I might have with the idea of searching incoming foreigners; I'm saying it's unauthorized, and short of article V, there's no other way around that.
WRT common law, citing pre-existing English (or French, if you're from Louisiana) law is typical judicial dancing on the head of a pin, smelling its own farts. This isn't England (or France.) The whole point was to strike English law from our domain. To any extent that wasn't done, my take is that it's constitutionally invalid. I'm open to other arguments, but I've yet to encounter one that trumps the constitutional one. If the constitution wasn't put here to reboot the law, as it were, then what is it for? We already had English law for just about anything you can imagine, after all.
I should point out, though I would hope it is obvious, that I am well aware that the courts don't agree with what I am saying here; my response to that is that (a) that's my point, and (b) they are in violation of their oaths which say they will support the constitution, not old English common law, and (c) in point of fact, the constitution doesn't award them the power to disagree when something is outright forbidden, as warrentless searches and seizures are, and (d) the constitution doesn't award them the power to cobble up laws that stand outside the list of authorized powers, and (e) it isn't that I have any expectation that the government will do the right thing at this juncture, I am simply interested in the public learning what the right thing is.
Final point: The constitution is the authorizing document for a brand new government that in no way is "of England." Not for some specific derivative, or modification, of England's government. The constitution describes what this new government can do, and what it can't. Nowhere in the constitution does it say that the new government may incorporate English law, common or otherwise. Since that's not an enumerated or otherwise authorized power, in order to get such a power, article V must be pursued successfully, and as they did not do that, English common law is not valid American law. Ergo, the judiciary is breaking its oath, and much of the law is unauthorized.
I wonder how the Founders would have dealt with a world in which a single hand-carried device could wipe out a city?
I very strongly suspect they would have designed something to deal with it (radiation detectors, possibly search just as implemented now, perhaps even more thorough, etc.) and then used article V to have it legitimately made an authorized power. I don't think the public would even blink an eye at authorizing border search, especially in such a context.
On the other hand, I think the founders would have known better than to try and characterize the data contents of a laptop as a "threat" and then ask the people for authority to copy or search said data, because such nonsense is purest theater.
Primarily because anyone can carry a laptop across a border clean as a whistle, get to where you're going, download an encrypted stream of whatever from wherever, and achieve the same result. Or buy the laptop within the country, download, again, same result. It's stupid, it's invasive, it's just the kind of abuse of power the 4th amendment was designed to prevent. You might be able to sensibly argue that in the case of a non-US citizen, 4th amendment protection doesn't exist (though I'd disagree at this point unless your argument was really excellent), but you really can't make a sensible argument that it doesn't exist for a US citizen returning to the country.
The word "incorporation" isn't, but the concept certainly is. The 14th amendment says "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States", which is what applies the bill of rights - amendments 1-10 - to the states. I read it as the "privileges or immunities" referred to must be defined outside the state (otherwise the stricture is meaningless); and as the only place such a definition happens is the federal constitution, specifically in amendments 1-10, the meaning is pretty clear, it seems to me.
I read it as a straight-forward mechanism to forbid the states from doing anything to violate anything in those amendments.
There are also specific instances outside the amendments, such as the states being explicitly forbidden to create ex post facto law and a few other things, which are written as part of article I, section 10.
Would you offer another reading for "privileges or immunities"?
Yes, hello sir, my name is Rasheed. I understand your router is down. Can you tell me what lights are on on your modem? No Modem? Hmm. Let me call my supervisor.
Geeeez. See that? They couldn't even manage to leave the third alone, easy as that would have been. I looked into it further, and the case, of course, went the government's way - they got away with it 100%. Some drivel about "they didn't know, so they weren't responsible." Guess the government doesn't need to know the law in the eyes of the courts. Funny, isn't there something about us lowly citizens being supposed to?
Ok, next time I rant on this, I'll say:
(*) It should be noted that the USG has only violated the 3rd amendment once, and should certainly be commended for its restraint in this matter.
The constitution only protects against "unreasonable" search an seizures, with unreasonable being up to the interpretation of the courts.
No, the constitution protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and then it specifically defines what that means: "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The idea that the definition of unreasonable in this context isn't clear and present is a myth that is instantly dispelled if you simply read the 4th amendment. It's right there, plain as day.
The courts give them some leeway as a nod to the fact that would be ridiculous for people trying to come in.
The courts, in point of fact, allow warrentless searches anywhere within 100 miles of the border, regardless of if you are, were, or ever planned to traverse the border. 190 million US citizens live within this region. Also, it is worth noting that the "4th amendment border exclusion" principle appears nowhere in the constitution. It's invented, unauthorized law. If they wanted it, the legitimate path to it was through article V. Consequently, it represents (yet another) usurped power.
Do you really expect the founding fathers to have anticipated computing devices that can encrypt data? And to put that sort of thing in the constitution?
No, the authors of the constitution didn't anticipate everything. But they anticipated quite a bit, and that includes unanticipated technology and social issues. In order to give the government the ability to deal with change, the constitution contains article V, which is the portion that outlines the procedure for amendment. Excepting amendment, they expected the constitution to be followed. Not "interpreted."
Our government, however, has fiddled its way into a situation where it does whatever the heck it wants. Make no law? Let's make some law!!! No state religion? Let's print Christian stuff on the money, carve it into buildings, sing it in the anthem, and best of all, use it in the courts for swearing... that'll teach 'em. Shall not infringe? Yay, let's infringe! Regulate among the states? Let's regulate IN the states! No ex post facto laws? Oh *heck* no, we GOTTA make those! Enumerated powers? Nah, let's just do anything we want, the heck with that! Warrants to search? Um... only in the interior of the country. And even then, maybe not. Probable cause? That's the same as "We like to grope", isn't it? Sure! No double jeopardy? Oh, that's easy, we'll just toss them back and forth between the criminal and civil court systems, they'll never figure that one out! Trial by jury? Same as "Lock in closet indefinitely, no lawyer, no phone call, innit?" Cruel and unusual punishment... yeah, what was that awesome torture we hung the Axis defendants for using at the war crimes trials? Oh yeah, water-boarding... let's do THAT! (and let's not forget we have rendition to play with, either.) Excessive bail shall not be imposed... heck with that, we'll ask whatever we want! Powers reserved to the states? Bwahahahaha. Oh, and the article III kicker... judicial power in constitutional cases: nah... let's just Make Stuff Up and skip that whole article V inconvenience.*
(*) It should be noted that the USG has steadfastly avoided violating the 3rd amendment, and should certainly be commended for its restraint in this matter.
Here in the US (and England) we rely more on common law - yes, judges.
Here in the US, we have government that has usurped powers far outside the explicitly authorized bounds. And that most certainly includes the judiciary.
In the end, it turns out that what the authors of the constitution wrote matters very little in our current legal system, because that document is treated by the government as barely relevant at this point in time, and even at that, only when it is convenient. Otherwise they ignore it, make things up, or simply plow ahead regardless.
...is part of why I abandoned TV, and even the news -- I *despise* the tiny little takes, the snappy transitions, the sound bites. I find them deeply unsatisfying, shallow, and in the end not a good use of my time.
Your system is very nice. I need about 10kw here that is operable from -40 to rooftop temps on 115f days (I don't know exactly what that is, except I know it's horrible), can withstand 90 mph winds or better and baseball sized hail -- (NE Montana has some pretty rough weather.) And it has to go on the roof without ripping it off in high winds - the available land here is in shadow. It's kind of a tough situation, and there are lots of extra costs because of the environmental considerations, but the main problem is the cost of PV... it's just too much right up front. Every time I see an article about "low cost PV" I grit my teeth. I can build the inverter myself - I'm an EE - and that would both save a lot of money and give me something I can 100% maintain myself - but the PV might as well be magic for all I can do about it.
I'm going to write a science boook:
on
Muscle Mice
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
A $5 thing with solar cells, capacitors and an LED that lights up the garden at night isn't good enough for you?
Not even close. I want a system I can put on my roof and then cease relying on, and paying for, constant supply of hugely expensive power from the grid. The energy is there and it is wasted. Knowing that is frustrating. But PV systems are VERY expensive and the ROI is very slow because they're not very efficient, either... not to mention that the batteries have short lives and are a significant part of the cost; and that the PV cells themselves also tend to degrade over time. The point is to save money so I can do other things with it. As long as it's so expensive, it's not practical. I've got 30x50+10x20 worth of roof. You know how much solar energy hits that? It's astonishing. And I can't use it. Frustrating!
You could probably make a 3d printer yourself with lego mindstorms, a computer, a laser with a bit of power and a tub of polyester (I think) resin.
Nah, I don't want one that makes resin models, I want one that makes goods like radios, televisions, solar cells, computers, lunch... you get the idea. We're not even close.
As for medicine, there's a lot of progress but still a long way to go because we have a lot to learn about how the body works.
You said it. It's still very much an art. Maybe in a century or two, but I'll be long dead. Oh well.:)
Come on, anyone knows an article like this is half-baked; it's all about the dough, and only chips away at the real issues. I want to see the subject served up on a platter, freshly prepared and ready for immediate consumption, before I'll endorse a crumby thing like this.
Sometimes the politically correct nonsense simply blows out common sense; we see this all the time, and military response is one of those areas. As far as I'm concerned, when someone attacks you militarily, the political issue has been tabled, and we're talking weapons; the only question is where and what to hit.
If fanatic theists attack your society, you have every reason to attack theirs. If you don't attack theirs, they will simply be emboldened.
However, if you attack the wrong people, as we have done in our ridiculous excursions into Afghanistan and Iraq, not only are they emboldened, they're likely highly amused. What the heck do the families of the Arabs, Egyptians and Syrians can if we shoot huge bunches of Afghanis or Iraqis? The money still comes out of Saudi Arabia, and why not? What do they care of we turn Afghanistan into rubble? The jihadists still come out of Saudi, Egypt, Syria... because again, why would this change due to an attack on Iraq? It makes no sense to attack anywhere else; and it is wholly ineffective to do so. This is much more about oil than it is about stopping terrorism. Otherwise, we would have hit Saudi Arabia -- and we still should. That is the society that produced both the funding and the majority of the terrorists, too. As long as we stay hands-off, expecting the problem to go away is absurd.
Also, Iraq, distasteful as it might have been, was a secular arrangement, and now that we've knocked it back into the stone age, it's back to a hotbed of religious idiocy.
It makes a lot more sense to send a message in the form of one crater than it does to destroy an entire country's infrastructure, and then stand around going "duh, guess we'll help you rebuild."
Your daughter is probably smart enough to know that when the kid down the block picks on her, the answer isn't to turn and attack some other kid, or an unrelated school across town, but to go to the kid's specific family and object. Bush the lesser didn't even have that much sense, hence our attack on Iraq.
As for Mecca, that's probably best saved for a 2nd or third-order "well, we warned you" kind of response, but we really should consider measured responses -- by which I mean one air-launched cruise missile capable of doing comparable damage -- instead of all-out warmaking. Iraq and Afghanistan make us look like idiots. Not to mention destroying our economy, killing thousands more of our citizens, and killing tens of thousands of people who weren't even involved (far more than said cruise missile would.)
I was referring more to the continual river of hope about finished items - quantum computers, low cost solar cells (that one is particularly troublesome), like that. Still waiting for a decent household robot, still waiting for memristors, still waiting for a real flying car, still waiting for "portable nuclear reactors", also fusion reactors, still waiting for a decent OLED monitor, still waiting for a consumer 3D printer, still waiting for cures for... well, a whole lotta stuff, really.
These things are hard. The articles, though, seem more and more breathless to me, less attached to reality and more about just painting a picture they can be cheery about.
For instance, I'm glad they've got fault-tolerance at the qbit level worked out in at least one way. Wahoo. Now, the important question to me is, when will they have a quantum computer? 10 years? 25? 100? When will it become relevant to my life? Sure, I know scientific work is ongoing, and that it is fundamental, but a whole lot of it is dead end, too.
And on a vaguely related note, I wish like heck they'd get the space elevator thing worked out. Now there is something that would be a paradigm-shifter. Imagine, finally, real access to space. We could build a *real* space station, something that would support excursions into the rest of the solar system, not to mention science, medicine, huge amounts of solar power... yeah, that'd be number one on my list, all right. Sigh.
Slashdot Mirror
Mea culpa; I am, indeed, a humorless twerp, condemned by my actions here for many slashdot database backups to come.
In my defense, the odds of encountering someone on slashdot who can properly use American English, and has a sense of humor, and would use it to further abuse a tortured phrase as you did... it wasn't so much a "whoosh", as an event most reminiscent of the idea that the lottery is a tax for the math-impaired. If you'll forgive me, I'll get on with abusing actual syntax cripples now.
Ok, but did you get the joke? It's an old one, actually, just graphically implemented.
That's truly absurd, even paranoid. You're silly.
The power to punish for copyright violation is appropriate. Broad censorship powers, however, are not. This bill deserves to fall by the wayside, it is both poorly crafted in pursuit of its stated goal, and constitutionally unauthorized.
Nope:
His objection effectively stops its current passing, forcing it to be introduced again if the bill is to continue.
Short version: Writing in doesn't work. If you want to have an effect, you need to be able to wave around money, or huge blocks of voters. Individuals are powerless, and this is by design.
Hasn't worked in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, and it won't work here, either. Furthermore, in those countries, they weren't destroying their own lines of supply and alienating their own countrymen. I don't think the military would be all that willing to act decisively against the US population.
I also don't think violent revolution is a good answer. Just that if it happened, the military isn't the problem one might think just because it has awesome weaponry, which of course it does.
Personally, just sort of counting heads, I don't think there are enough people in this country that have more than the vaguest understanding of how it was supposed to work or how it does work, to foment and execute a revolution, so I really don't worry about it. In this case, the Gaussian and our terrible educational system look to me to insulate us completely from such a thing. And I don't mind. Things could be a lot worse.
Yeah, first you have to get them to pay attention to the constitution, though.
Yeah... but also remember that one of the first things done was an usurpation of power, an end-run around article V, in the first congress - the authorization of border searches outside the bounds of the enumerated powers (and just a few years later, also in violation of the 4th amendment.)
The problem with the constitution is (a) there's no effective way to enforce it, and (b) there are no "teeth" to punish those who violate their oaths. Consequently, congress often rushes into things, some of which are extremely ill-advised, not to mention constitutionally unauthorized, and these things become law. Lately, the "for the children" and "TERRORISTS!" are the usual reasons for these lightning moves into moron territory, but it seems there's always something they're using for justification for high-speed blundering.
And I wonder if the supreme court judges' routers are missing the DNS information that is supposed to point to the constitution... because there's an awful lot of "lookup failed" in their decisions.
Border searches are not authorized by the constitution, they were an imposition of the 1st congress in 1789, an illegal end-run around article V, which dates from 1787. Consequently it doesn't matter one bit what the "standards" are for them. Until article V is used to make them an authorized power, they're an usurped, illegal procedure.
The constitution overrides and obsoletes common law; that's what it is there for, to reset the line and provide a new starting point because the previous situation was out of hand.
It provides a list of authorized powers, from which the federal government may make certain very limited types of laws.
As of 1791, it also provided a list of forbidden areas, into which the federal government may not go, and as it happens, that includes forbidding warrentless searches everywhere in the domain of the federal authority, because the restriction makes no kind of exception for any locale. So not only are warrentless searches illegal by virtue of not being an authorized power, the same people who made the law (quite sensibly) ruled them out just a few years later.
I'm not saying the feds shouldn't have such a border power based on any objection I might have with the idea of searching incoming foreigners; I'm saying it's unauthorized, and short of article V, there's no other way around that.
WRT common law, citing pre-existing English (or French, if you're from Louisiana) law is typical judicial dancing on the head of a pin, smelling its own farts. This isn't England (or France.) The whole point was to strike English law from our domain. To any extent that wasn't done, my take is that it's constitutionally invalid. I'm open to other arguments, but I've yet to encounter one that trumps the constitutional one. If the constitution wasn't put here to reboot the law, as it were, then what is it for? We already had English law for just about anything you can imagine, after all.
I should point out, though I would hope it is obvious, that I am well aware that the courts don't agree with what I am saying here; my response to that is that (a) that's my point, and (b) they are in violation of their oaths which say they will support the constitution, not old English common law, and (c) in point of fact, the constitution doesn't award them the power to disagree when something is outright forbidden, as warrentless searches and seizures are, and (d) the constitution doesn't award them the power to cobble up laws that stand outside the list of authorized powers, and (e) it isn't that I have any expectation that the government will do the right thing at this juncture, I am simply interested in the public learning what the right thing is.
Final point: The constitution is the authorizing document for a brand new government that in no way is "of England." Not for some specific derivative, or modification, of England's government. The constitution describes what this new government can do, and what it can't. Nowhere in the constitution does it say that the new government may incorporate English law, common or otherwise. Since that's not an enumerated or otherwise authorized power, in order to get such a power, article V must be pursued successfully, and as they did not do that, English common law is not valid American law. Ergo, the judiciary is breaking its oath, and much of the law is unauthorized.
I very strongly suspect they would have designed something to deal with it (radiation detectors, possibly search just as implemented now, perhaps even more thorough, etc.) and then used article V to have it legitimately made an authorized power. I don't think the public would even blink an eye at authorizing border search, especially in such a context.
On the other hand, I think the founders would have known better than to try and characterize the data contents of a laptop as a "threat" and then ask the people for authority to copy or search said data, because such nonsense is purest theater.
Primarily because anyone can carry a laptop across a border clean as a whistle, get to where you're going, download an encrypted stream of whatever from wherever, and achieve the same result. Or buy the laptop within the country, download, again, same result. It's stupid, it's invasive, it's just the kind of abuse of power the 4th amendment was designed to prevent. You might be able to sensibly argue that in the case of a non-US citizen, 4th amendment protection doesn't exist (though I'd disagree at this point unless your argument was really excellent), but you really can't make a sensible argument that it doesn't exist for a US citizen returning to the country.
The word "incorporation" isn't, but the concept certainly is. The 14th amendment says "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States", which is what applies the bill of rights - amendments 1-10 - to the states. I read it as the "privileges or immunities" referred to must be defined outside the state (otherwise the stricture is meaningless); and as the only place such a definition happens is the federal constitution, specifically in amendments 1-10, the meaning is pretty clear, it seems to me.
I read it as a straight-forward mechanism to forbid the states from doing anything to violate anything in those amendments.
There are also specific instances outside the amendments, such as the states being explicitly forbidden to create ex post facto law and a few other things, which are written as part of article I, section 10.
Would you offer another reading for "privileges or immunities"?
Yes, hello sir, my name is Rasheed. I understand your router is down. Can you tell me what lights are on on your modem? No Modem? Hmm. Let me call my supervisor.
Geeeez. See that? They couldn't even manage to leave the third alone, easy as that would have been. I looked into it further, and the case, of course, went the government's way - they got away with it 100%. Some drivel about "they didn't know, so they weren't responsible." Guess the government doesn't need to know the law in the eyes of the courts. Funny, isn't there something about us lowly citizens being supposed to?
Ok, next time I rant on this, I'll say:
(*) It should be noted that the USG has only violated the 3rd amendment once, and should certainly be commended for its restraint in this matter.
No, the constitution protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and then it specifically defines what that means: "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The idea that the definition of unreasonable in this context isn't clear and present is a myth that is instantly dispelled if you simply read the 4th amendment. It's right there, plain as day.
The courts, in point of fact, allow warrentless searches anywhere within 100 miles of the border, regardless of if you are, were, or ever planned to traverse the border. 190 million US citizens live within this region. Also, it is worth noting that the "4th amendment border exclusion" principle appears nowhere in the constitution. It's invented, unauthorized law. If they wanted it, the legitimate path to it was through article V. Consequently, it represents (yet another) usurped power.
No, the authors of the constitution didn't anticipate everything. But they anticipated quite a bit, and that includes unanticipated technology and social issues. In order to give the government the ability to deal with change, the constitution contains article V, which is the portion that outlines the procedure for amendment. Excepting amendment, they expected the constitution to be followed. Not "interpreted."
Our government, however, has fiddled its way into a situation where it does whatever the heck it wants. Make no law? Let's make some law!!! No state religion? Let's print Christian stuff on the money, carve it into buildings, sing it in the anthem, and best of all, use it in the courts for swearing... that'll teach 'em. Shall not infringe? Yay, let's infringe! Regulate among the states? Let's regulate IN the states! No ex post facto laws? Oh *heck* no, we GOTTA make those! Enumerated powers? Nah, let's just do anything we want, the heck with that! Warrants to search? Um... only in the interior of the country. And even then, maybe not. Probable cause? That's the same as "We like to grope", isn't it? Sure! No double jeopardy? Oh, that's easy, we'll just toss them back and forth between the criminal and civil court systems, they'll never figure that one out! Trial by jury? Same as "Lock in closet indefinitely, no lawyer, no phone call, innit?" Cruel and unusual punishment... yeah, what was that awesome torture we hung the Axis defendants for using at the war crimes trials? Oh yeah, water-boarding... let's do THAT! (and let's not forget we have rendition to play with, either.) Excessive bail shall not be imposed... heck with that, we'll ask whatever we want! Powers reserved to the states? Bwahahahaha. Oh, and the article III kicker... judicial power in constitutional cases: nah... let's just Make Stuff Up and skip that whole article V inconvenience.*
(*) It should be noted that the USG has steadfastly avoided violating the 3rd amendment, and should certainly be commended for its restraint in this matter.
Here in the US, we have government that has usurped powers far outside the explicitly authorized bounds. And that most certainly includes the judiciary.
In the end, it turns out that what the authors of the constitution wrote matters very little in our current legal system, because that document is treated by the government as barely relevant at this point in time, and even at that, only when it is convenient. Otherwise they ignore it, make things up, or simply plow ahead regardless.
Your system is very nice. I need about 10kw here that is operable from -40 to rooftop temps on 115f days (I don't know exactly what that is, except I know it's horrible), can withstand 90 mph winds or better and baseball sized hail -- (NE Montana has some pretty rough weather.) And it has to go on the roof without ripping it off in high winds - the available land here is in shadow. It's kind of a tough situation, and there are lots of extra costs because of the environmental considerations, but the main problem is the cost of PV... it's just too much right up front. Every time I see an article about "low cost PV" I grit my teeth. I can build the inverter myself - I'm an EE - and that would both save a lot of money and give me something I can 100% maintain myself - but the PV might as well be magic for all I can do about it.
"Machine-guns for Algernon"
Not even close. I want a system I can put on my roof and then cease relying on, and paying for, constant supply of hugely expensive power from the grid. The energy is there and it is wasted. Knowing that is frustrating. But PV systems are VERY expensive and the ROI is very slow because they're not very efficient, either... not to mention that the batteries have short lives and are a significant part of the cost; and that the PV cells themselves also tend to degrade over time. The point is to save money so I can do other things with it. As long as it's so expensive, it's not practical. I've got 30x50+10x20 worth of roof. You know how much solar energy hits that? It's astonishing. And I can't use it. Frustrating!
Nah, I don't want one that makes resin models, I want one that makes goods like radios, televisions, solar cells, computers, lunch... you get the idea. We're not even close.
You said it. It's still very much an art. Maybe in a century or two, but I'll be long dead. Oh well. :)
Come on, anyone knows an article like this is half-baked; it's all about the dough, and only chips away at the real issues. I want to see the subject served up on a platter, freshly prepared and ready for immediate consumption, before I'll endorse a crumby thing like this.
Sometimes the politically correct nonsense simply blows out common sense; we see this all the time, and military response is one of those areas. As far as I'm concerned, when someone attacks you militarily, the political issue has been tabled, and we're talking weapons; the only question is where and what to hit.
If fanatic theists attack your society, you have every reason to attack theirs. If you don't attack theirs, they will simply be emboldened.
However, if you attack the wrong people, as we have done in our ridiculous excursions into Afghanistan and Iraq, not only are they emboldened, they're likely highly amused. What the heck do the families of the Arabs, Egyptians and Syrians can if we shoot huge bunches of Afghanis or Iraqis? The money still comes out of Saudi Arabia, and why not? What do they care of we turn Afghanistan into rubble? The jihadists still come out of Saudi, Egypt, Syria... because again, why would this change due to an attack on Iraq? It makes no sense to attack anywhere else; and it is wholly ineffective to do so. This is much more about oil than it is about stopping terrorism. Otherwise, we would have hit Saudi Arabia -- and we still should. That is the society that produced both the funding and the majority of the terrorists, too. As long as we stay hands-off, expecting the problem to go away is absurd.
Also, Iraq, distasteful as it might have been, was a secular arrangement, and now that we've knocked it back into the stone age, it's back to a hotbed of religious idiocy.
It makes a lot more sense to send a message in the form of one crater than it does to destroy an entire country's infrastructure, and then stand around going "duh, guess we'll help you rebuild."
Your daughter is probably smart enough to know that when the kid down the block picks on her, the answer isn't to turn and attack some other kid, or an unrelated school across town, but to go to the kid's specific family and object. Bush the lesser didn't even have that much sense, hence our attack on Iraq.
As for Mecca, that's probably best saved for a 2nd or third-order "well, we warned you" kind of response, but we really should consider measured responses -- by which I mean one air-launched cruise missile capable of doing comparable damage -- instead of all-out warmaking. Iraq and Afghanistan make us look like idiots. Not to mention destroying our economy, killing thousands more of our citizens, and killing tens of thousands of people who weren't even involved (far more than said cruise missile would.)
I was referring more to the continual river of hope about finished items - quantum computers, low cost solar cells (that one is particularly troublesome), like that. Still waiting for a decent household robot, still waiting for memristors, still waiting for a real flying car, still waiting for "portable nuclear reactors", also fusion reactors, still waiting for a decent OLED monitor, still waiting for a consumer 3D printer, still waiting for cures for... well, a whole lotta stuff, really.
These things are hard. The articles, though, seem more and more breathless to me, less attached to reality and more about just painting a picture they can be cheery about.
For instance, I'm glad they've got fault-tolerance at the qbit level worked out in at least one way. Wahoo. Now, the important question to me is, when will they have a quantum computer? 10 years? 25? 100? When will it become relevant to my life? Sure, I know scientific work is ongoing, and that it is fundamental, but a whole lot of it is dead end, too.
And on a vaguely related note, I wish like heck they'd get the space elevator thing worked out. Now there is something that would be a paradigm-shifter. Imagine, finally, real access to space. We could build a *real* space station, something that would support excursions into the rest of the solar system, not to mention science, medicine, huge amounts of solar power... yeah, that'd be number one on my list, all right. Sigh.