I do not agree with the court's opinion -- but I know how it got there.
Yes. I know how it got there, too. We have a word for the lengthy process of eroding the commerce clause: Sophistry. We have a word for what underlies, it too: Conspiracy. We have a word for what motivates it: Evil. And we have a word for excuses for it: Bullshit.
And by the way, I am no fan of recreational drug use -- I think it is self-destructive. What is clear to me is that you, if you choose to exercise it, have the absolute right to be self-destructive, and related to that, no one (and no group) can have the right to associate themselves with you to the degree that they can require that you give up that right, or any other right that offers choice that primarily affects yourself, without your *explicit* agreement. Power, yes. As with any warlike exercise of pure force and coercion. But right -- never.
The rest of your post deals with the 2nd branch. There is nothing the court can do if elected officials chose to make the laws confusing and ridiculous.
It is my understanding that the court can instruct the jury that they can invalidate any law via the process of jury nullification. Once invalidated, conviction is impossible. Am I incorrect in this assumption? It is also my understanding that a judge can dismiss a case without comment. Am I incorrect in that assumption as well? I would have to be wrong on both counts for you to be able to back up your statement, I think.
You do not have an obligation to know all the laws.
Where does this come from: "Ignorance of the law is no excuse"? According to a source you like to quote (Wikipedia), "Ignorantia juris non excusat" is indeed the current state of affairs, in fact, if not in statute. Are they wrong?
This is what so fundamentally bothers me about your post. Your entire critique is of the legislature, yet you blame lawyers and the third branch for the problems of the second. We sit with neither force nor will, but only judgment.
Are you arguing that lawyers have nothing to do with the process of formulating law? Are you arguing that courts have not repeatedly failed to advise juries that the path of jury nullification is open to them? Are you arguing that the courts do not repeatedly do things like give minor sentences in one case, and major in another, for the exact same crime? Are you arguing that requiring large sums of money for adequate (or even equal, which is not the same thing at all) legal representation does not amount to a use of force incorporating direct class warfare? Are you arguing that requiring large sums of money to attempt to defend against false charges, unjust law, vicious judges, and sophist lawyers is not a use of force?
I mean, come on, we all know that those in jobs that are inherently evil use self-delusion as a tool to make things seem OK, but you can't be ignorant of all of this, can you?
You raise the point that the "system" is broken -- it very well may be; and if it is, don't blame the courts and lawyers for what you percieve to be a fundamental defect in the entire system of american government.
I blame the people who let this state of affairs arise and remain unchallenged. And you know what? That includes judges and lawyers. They are as complicit in the problems we face here, and in the same way, as a paid assassin is in a murder. Refusal on their part to do evil would reduce the problem to a ghost of its former self in one day. But that would require mass patriotism and heroism, and definitely sacrifice. And considering the demonstrated quality of the individuals attracted to this sector of the system, that'd rule such a role "right out", as Monty Python would put it. Just as in the public sector and in the legislature, no one activist can solve any of these problems; they'
If laws are inherently wrong, that's your problem with your elected officials. If the laws are written in a language you cannot understand, ditto.
That is naive nonsense. First of all, the US system provides no means at the federal level for the average citizen to directly affect, in any way, what legislation is submitted, how it is formulated, or which legislation makes it into law. This is commonly true at the state level as well, though there are exceptions, for instance, California.
Federally speaking, all we can do is vote for candidate from party A, or party B. Since (as we well know from history) both parties are equally guilty of creating and passing ridiculous, incomprehensible, rights-crushing, and underhanded law, it is clear that choosing a candidate from party A or party B is not going to have an effect on the avalanche of low- and negative-quality law that comes from these elected officials.
You might assert, as some naive people do, that the answer is to attempt to elect someone from a third party. This, however, is not a practical solution.
For one thing, such a person cannot be elected without convincing 51% of the relevant voting public in the relevant region that the government has become a force for evil and needs very serious revision. Most attempts at this to date have not only failed, but not even managed to become blips on the radar due to overwhelming propaganda from the well-funded two major parties. We do, very occasionally, see such a person make it into congress or the senate.
However, in the rare cases when such a person actually gets elected, as an individual casting a single vote in a group that is made up of the two major parties, your maverick elected official has absolutely no power. This is one meaning of the term "lame duck", only we generally hear it used when an elected official is a member of a party that simply does not have the majority. It means that you can do and say whatever you want, but the other party has and retains complete control over what gets done. For an isolated third party embedded in such a matrix, for instance a libertarian or an independent, the duck was born lame and will die lame; they cannot affect what the majority chooses to do unless they agree with the majority.
With regard to legislation itself, the fact is that the content of legislation turns upon the influence of political action groups, corporate sponsorships and bribes, and the sophist leanings of the huge number of lawyers that infest the entire process. Nothing to do with the "voting public."
Bills that nominally address one issue often contain sub-rosa portions that address entirely separate issues; these inclusions are a small part of the overall bill, and so they will turn upon the passage of the main content, rather than upon their own content.
There is no argument you can make that will magically imbue the average voting citizen with any ability whatsoever to change how the system works or the quality of the product it produces.
To anyone with a legal education, many "controversial" or ill-understood" opinions are rather easy to grasp;
This idea is one of the fundamental problems with the system in a nutshell. The legal profession has carved out an impenetrable niche of incomprehensibility based upon esoteric and/or highly technical language, behaviors and consequences, tricks and traps that are far-removed from the subject, on top of which it has established itself as an inordinately expensive, and ultimately required, priesthood; at the same time, the average citizen is faced by the legal profession with the obligation to never be ignorant of the law, which is nothing less than absurd. No lawyer can even be aware of all of the law all of the time; I'd go so far as to say that no lawyer can even be aware of just the tax laws, much less all of the rest of them.
Shooting another person (intentionally) is assault (best case scenario) to murder (or attempted murder). Period.
You didn't say "in the case of tresspassing", you just made an unconditional statement and then topped it off with a decisive "period."
The reason I asked was that if your statement was to be taken at face value, I didn't understand how Kent State could have turned out as it did (no convictions), or how a police-person can ever shoot down a fleeing criminal.
Apparently, your statement meant, "period, but only in this very limited context." Which is how I understood the law -- it doesn't really apply to cops or the military when used against civilians. No surprise there, of course.
I will point you to the wikipedia entry on KSM, which is fairly informative.
I don't need to be informed. I was there, with my then-girlfriend. I watched one of those kids fall (he didn't die, though... just ended up in a wheelchair forever) I followed the whole thing from day one. The wikipedia article (not that you can expect much from wikipedia, for crying out loud) refers only indirectly to the fact that when the guard fired, the students were completely out of range of doing them any harm, assuming no student used a firearm, which is a correct assumption. The guard murdered (and crippled) those people in cold blood, under conditions when it is utterly impossible to claim they (the guard) were at any risk whatsoever at that point in time.
Those are the facts of the matter. First hand. Period.
we all know that ignorance of the law is inexcusable
Most of us know that ignorance of the law is unavoidable, as opposed to inexcusable, because the law is...
often hostile to our culturally imbued understanding of our rights
overly complicated to a degree that makes global understanding at any point in a normal citizen's life a literal impossibility
contains many absurd attempts to be our "mother" that we would never anticipate (inherently wrong laws regarding what we do to and with our own bodies, resources, and other consenting adults.)
for the most part isn't written in a language we can understand
even when it is written in language we can understand, or explained to us by someone who can understand it, law is often interpreted at the bench in a way that we find absurd, counter-intuitive, and sometimes just plain stupid (for instance, what the supreme court says constitutes interstate commerce)
...so when faced with a sudden challenge that we think requires an immediate response, most of us just try and figure out what we think is right and go with that. Which lands a lot of people afoul of the law, unsurprisingly.
Personally, I think that many of these situations unavoidably condemn the law and by implication the legislators, the educational process, and from time to time those in the field enforcing the laws -- rather than the purported violator.
Shooting another person (intentionally) is assault (best case scenario) to murder (or attempted murder). Period.
At Kent State, the National Guard opened fire on unarmed students from a distance far beyond the reach of any possible agresssion from the students. Student deaths resulted. No guardsman was ever punished, nor was anyone in the chain of command right up to the governor. Was this a failure of the law, or the result of what is essentially "permission to shoot"?
What about when a cop or a soldier gives the command: "Halt or I'll shoot"?
Yes. However, I was responding to the snippy "Language evolves. Deal with it" remark. De-evolution is what we have in this particular case. For whatever reason.
The article cites one possible reason for the mispronunciation as a behavioral problem rather than an educational one.
Substituting one defect (behavioral) for another (educational) does not magically turn de-evolution into evolution.
I've found that certain words I learned younger when I was a child were learned incorrectly and I pronounced them wrong. Maybe it was because I was reading beyond my level and had no reinforcement from others as to how they should be pronounced; maybe I'm mildly dyslexic.
Substituting yet another defect (dyslexia) for others also does not magically turn de-evolution into evolution.
I find it a stretch to liken the mispronunciation of one single word to the use of ebonics.
Then don't do it. I certainly didn't. I simply pointed out that they were instances of the same thing: De-evolution of the language. I was also depending on you to generalize in the normal fashion: "I'd like some "eye-talian bread." (from eye-tally, I presume.) "We should use nuke-you-lur weapons." "Excetera." "Expecially." "Nice foilage." (I love that one... I always look around to see if there's some sex freak wrapped in aluminium I've missed.)
When you define everything in language as either correct or incorrect, you're left saying that one of American English and British English are wrong.
Again, simply don't do that. I didn't. You're setting up straw men here. When you do that, I won't argue with them, I'll just set them on fire.:-)
Why you expect the educational system to properly educate children when all the money is stripped away from education and given to deadbeats and welfare recipients is beyond me.
Did I say I expected the educational system to properly educate children? Did I, in any way, indicate that I was satisfied with the educational system? Did I indicate my satisfaction with how welfare and other government entitlement programs are conceived and/or adminsistered? Excuse me, but I need to get to that line of strawmen you've set up with my napalm.
Furthermore, why you expect the government to do any of these things properly is a rather interesting concept as well.
That "whoosh" you hear is your hair igniting from being too close to that last strawman you built. The only thing that can save you now is the fact that clearly... you're all wet.
Also... by saying that a govenment employee isn't "acting as a citizen", the decision literally says that a government employee is not a citizen. If only non-governmental employees have free speech rights to blow the whistle on illegal behaviors, then we have just created a sub-class of further rights-restricted individuals, which I *think* is a new low for the country. Normally, we screw up everyone at once. This time, only governmental employees. Amazing.
It is worth noting that the effect of this decision is to render government that much less accountable, that much less controllable, that much less transparent.
As it stands, the average US citizen pays somewhere between 40-50% of his yearly earnings to federal, state, and local governments combined.
Actually, it is far more than that. For instance, when you pay $X for gas, you are not only paying the obvious taxes at the pump, that same $X plays a role in paying the income taxes for the driver of the tanker, the guy who drilled the well, the clerk at the convenience store and so on. The remaining portions of those dollars get spent on other things that are skimmed again, continually reducing the actual purchasing power of what we tend to think of as the payment-for-goods portion of our purchase. Almost every "non-tax" dollar gets skimmed, re-skimmed, and re-skimmed again.
In its own way, tax costs are as subtle as how medical care costs are covered. Many Americans complain they cannot afford to pay for medical insurance. As it turns out, they are paying for medical insurance. Someone else's. For instance, when you pay your phone bill or utility bill, you can be sure that the employees of those companies have medical care. One key reason you don't have enough left over to pay for your own is that the US system ensures that you have to pay for everyone else's on your supply-side before you can delve into your remaining assets to pay for your own. There is something more than a little distressing about that.
Sometimes language evolves, particularly to deal with new concepts (such as the Internet.) Often, however, language devolves, as is the case when citizens are so poorly educated as to be unable to parse a word like "nuclear" properly; When dialect becomes socially so important as to overcome the pursuit of correct pronounciation entirely (ebonics and its un-named brethren); When education trends towards a "get them through the system" mode rather than a "fail them if they cannot perform" mode.
Perhaps, for you, a self-important "language changes, get over it" declaration would leave you looking a little more correct — and a little less foolish.
If I had mod points, and I wasn't me (because I've posted) I'd mod you informative. Someone else should have anyway. But then, this is slashdot. Moderation is reserved for more important things. Like, uh, humor. (ducks)
I went right to emusic and was going to sign up; gave em my name, then credit card, then was about to click continue when it dawned on me that they were selling a subscription to download, *not downloads* and that even if I wasn't downloading, I'd be stuck for a minimum of $10/month.
I don't mind paying per song; but I *do* mind paying for NOTHING.
Why can't someone actually get this right? It's NOT that flipping difficult!
NO flipping DRM
Hires MP3 is by far the preferrred format
Charge per song -- that's how we listen!
Maybe bank a minimum of five bucks to start
Maybe just charge per song (iTunes is 99 cents, that seems fine to me)
Options, options!
Get a decent music selection on there
PROFIT, you damn idiots, PROFIT!
I will NOT, repeat NOT, buy from Apple. I have an iPod, you bet, and I use iTunes on my Mac, but I don't buy Apple's despicable DRM, I just use MP3. I am a muscian, and I respect muscian's rights and copyright in general, but I will NOT allow my own rights to be eroded -- one does not follow from the other!
Remember: From HDMI to AAC to software that "calls home", when you buy that shit, you are encouraging the sellers to continue to screw with you, the LEGITIMATE PERSON WHO GAVE THEM MONEY AND IS NOT STEALING FROM THEM. Registration makes sense. DRM does not.
This crap wouldn't even be an issue if people weren't so damned stupid. Argh.
...actually, I have a very good answer -- the bedroom projector, Panasonic, is 800 lumens, and the living room one is 1100 lumens. The bedroom has a smaller screen and the living room has a larger screen.
Oh yeah, and porn, of course.:-)
Right now I'm sort of pondering a DLP system. Black levels and all that. But the cost... hmm. Still pondering. The cool thing is, the longer I ponder, the less expensive they get.
...but Rev games would end up like the graphical mess that 360 games are
Oh, hah hah hah. Hah.:)
So I take it you've not spent any time with Project Gotham. "graphical mess". Hah hah hah.:)
It's total eye-candy. Dreamy, sweet, shiny, ultra-fast and full-o-pixels.
PG-III may be the only title that really takes advantage of the machine's capabilities to any degree, as we're so early on the curve, and because car and track models are so easy to spend polygons on.
But... "graphical mess". Oh, ho, ho, ho. Your cred is 100% shot. Game over for you. Go back to your TRS-80.
No, there is a perfectly good reason to convert the horizontal resolution down. It's called "aliasing." If you have non-scaling 1280x720 systems (as I do) then 1920 will be sub-sampled instead of scaled and you get all kinds of crawly-looking artifacts on diagonals. My Toshiba CRT HD system shows perfectly good video on 1920x1080i, but the living room projection system, which is only a moderately capable one of about $1000 cost, shows artifacts. On the other hand, I have a 3 grand projector in the bedroom, same resolution, it has a great scaler in it, and it shows no artifacts at all on the same program material.
It may be rambling to you, but it is eye opening to others, or, at least to me. I suspect there are more people quietly reading and appreciating the information. This is really a very exotic technical area for most, there just isn't any obvious analog of the process in common experience. Thanks for expounding for the benefit of others.
Nonsense. We'd design it to have 32 bits to index the chromesomes, 32 bits to index the genes in each chromesome, and an alternate set of registers so you could quickly swap chromesomes for different tasks. You could clock it at any speed, or leave it static, and it'd never lose data. It'd be radiation hardened, low-power, erasable by ultraviolet, reprogramable by anything from dip switches to GHz pulse trains, internally and externally redundant, solar-powered, ecologically friendly, and involve a great deal of caffiene. Primary developmental needs would be met by carefully metered infusions of pizza.
However, because of technological limitations, only the bottom 4 bits of the gene index would actually be used, with the next 4 bits being set to zero by default, and the remaining 24 bits determining your average skin color.
Additionally, the 32 bit chromesome index would use 8 bits starting at the MSB, the next 8 bits would be reserved and set to zero, and the remaining 16 bits would be undefined, though later we'd find variations there gave rise to both creationist tendencies and division by zero, leading us towards a new design that is only 16 bits, but ran twice as fast and never divided by zero, or made up answers to questions without having known good data on the input side.
All other features would be put off for the beta version, because we'd have a little trouble with the alpha we didn't exactly anticipate.
Unfortunately, all advances gained by this leap in technology would be lost when hardware manufacturers forced new "quantum confusion" technology upon the geeks in a selfish race for more market share. Geeks fail to notice because they're too busy trying to get Genes 0.1 alpha through ANSI committee approval.
For maximum efficiency, this awesomely fast new technology requires light pipes for communications, however, in a legislative feat worthy of Maltheus himself, congress declares that production of light pipes within the boundaries of any state for use within the boundaries of that state represent interstate commerce of light paraphanalia, and so no one's going to be doing that, thank you. It's all part of the War on Bits. InSmell, primary manufacturer of light pipes in the USA, shuts all production down, fires half its workforce, and its stock goes up by a factor of four.
At this point, the only light-pipe architecture you can find comes from Japan, and the upper 24 bits of the gene index are all hard-coded to DDDDBB. It is expensive, but everyone buys it anyway. You can only run this hardware in Denmark. Floating (actually, more like drifting) point is emphasized, and virtual reality is experienced by all users, though that is not to say that it is the same virtual reality across the board.
In the meantime, US geeks invent open-source web 9.0, expend all their energy producing applications for it that have absolutely no merit whatsoever of any kind using the justly famous "Corundum on Wagon Ruts" technology to replace perfectly good desktop apps that already exist, but are really really cool because they can make almost any browser's "Joe" scripting language use all the memory in your computer... subsequently, geeks quietly go extinct while arguing if GPL or PD is the way to go for the open source path.
When we say that "the gene for xxxx is located at yyyy
This means that we *do* know where the particular controlling sequence is located?
Viral gene therapy is a process that can locate the target gene somehow and replace the sequence there with a new sequence?
Does the sequence have to be broken, segmented, and re-built for viral gene therapy? Or is there a "merge" type of operation that "overlays" the new information?
I have read a great deal that in a hand-waving manner, describes viral gene therapy as the next great thing either directly, or by implication. Is that so? Anything else like that, in terms of technology, that is currently looking promising?
Look here. Company towns, in the sense that you are referring to them (laws unto themselves), no longer exist within our borders. They are no more relevant to this discussion than are the determinations of the Roman senate or some group of dominant neanderthals in caves.
I am talking about the current situation. No more, no less. If you can't focus on the relevant, you're going to be ignored, at least, by me.
I agree that complaining plays an integral part in the process, but it accomplishes nothing by itself.
Complaint opens, and subsequently extends, debate that in turn determines and isolates the common ground (if any) amongst the disaffected. It is only upon common ground that action can be formulated. In many cases, complaint serves to realize in concrete form previously unresolved issues citizens may have -- this may be because they are not articulate, have not thought the matter(s) through, been confused, been misinformed, etc. In this role, it is critical and it must come first. Action, or calls to action, should not spring whole from a coalition of the uninformed; should that happen, the odds favor little focus and much confusion. No one should be considering action until they have thoroughly considered the issues.
Accordingly, complaint is both an integral part of the process and a very important step that should preceed any call to action, especially on a matter as fundamental as that of the country's underlying operating methodology being disfunctional.
Complaint, debate, reformulation, more complaint, debate and reformulation until a reasonable consensus is reached, and then it is appropriate to issue a call to action because it is only then that the group has resoved what it is that it stands for. Anything less is a disservice to their fellow citizens.
Please research the "War of Independence" and the rhetoric leading up to it for a fine example of how complaining (from rhetoric to tossing tea in the bay) can indeed serve to initiate resolution of those complaints.
Thanks for your post. It was very much a window on middle America.
It must be wonderful to be so ignorantly naive. It is our duty to vote.
"Our" duty? What did I sign that says I accepted a duty to vote? Or, what oath did I take, and to whom, in front of what witnesses, that causes this duty to fall to me? Explain, please. I mean, other than in your opinion. What are the facts of the matter here?
If we do not vote, the system will not work.
Well, I suppose there is nothing to stop one from hoping for such an outcome, but the fact is, this is not so. The system is designed to work even if only one person votes. As long as someone from the two major party organizations is elected, it makes absolutely no difference how many people elected them. The fact is, the system doesn't significantly vary its actions or authority based upon the level of activity at the polls.
And if you do not vote, you need to STFU about political issues.
So you're saying, if I don't agree with you, I am not entitled to the same degree of free speech as you are? How fascinating. Clearly, you are a true patriot. I was truly unaware of the this rewards-based delivery of the right of free speech based upon political participation. Would you please do me a favor and show me the portion of the constitution, or the amendments, or common law, that you found this in? Thanks, I really appreciate learning new things.
It's like saying, I am against fires but I wouldn't, umm, pour water on a house if it were on fire.
No, it's like saying: I am against fires, so I'm not going to help you keep this fire going. And by the way, your house is on fire.
Every adult citizen of the United States has the duty to, at the very least, vote against someone.
Again, explain why. What did we adults sign, or what oath did we take, that commits us to this duty you speak of? From what contract does this obligation arise? I am currenly unaware of this duty.
You need to dig deeper. I'm sure there is a candidate somewhere who represents similar views to yours. Or if you look and they're all scoundrels in your area, you got two basic choices, put forth a candidate (either yourself or someone else) or vote for the one you dislike least.
How... interesting. I can't imagine why you would think that there would be a candidate anywhere that would represent me without even knowing what I think needs to be done. Have you no adequate concept of the range of human values and views? Nor can I imagine why you think a candidate such as I might be interested in supporting would be electable in a country that elects from the two party baskets, repeatably and dependably, given that I have provided clear indications that I am not even slightly aligned with them. Or why you think it would be worth the effort and not a complete waste of time and funds to run if unelectable. I'd love to hear your explanation, though, if you actually have one.
Thanks for your response; it truly lightened up my morning.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. I know how it got there, too. We have a word for the lengthy process of eroding the commerce clause: Sophistry. We have a word for what underlies, it too: Conspiracy. We have a word for what motivates it: Evil. And we have a word for excuses for it: Bullshit.
And by the way, I am no fan of recreational drug use -- I think it is self-destructive. What is clear to me is that you, if you choose to exercise it, have the absolute right to be self-destructive, and related to that, no one (and no group) can have the right to associate themselves with you to the degree that they can require that you give up that right, or any other right that offers choice that primarily affects yourself, without your *explicit* agreement. Power, yes. As with any warlike exercise of pure force and coercion. But right -- never.
It is my understanding that the court can instruct the jury that they can invalidate any law via the process of jury nullification. Once invalidated, conviction is impossible. Am I incorrect in this assumption? It is also my understanding that a judge can dismiss a case without comment. Am I incorrect in that assumption as well? I would have to be wrong on both counts for you to be able to back up your statement, I think.
Where does this come from: "Ignorance of the law is no excuse"? According to a source you like to quote (Wikipedia), "Ignorantia juris non excusat" is indeed the current state of affairs, in fact, if not in statute. Are they wrong?
Are you arguing that lawyers have nothing to do with the process of formulating law? Are you arguing that courts have not repeatedly failed to advise juries that the path of jury nullification is open to them? Are you arguing that the courts do not repeatedly do things like give minor sentences in one case, and major in another, for the exact same crime? Are you arguing that requiring large sums of money for adequate (or even equal, which is not the same thing at all) legal representation does not amount to a use of force incorporating direct class warfare? Are you arguing that requiring large sums of money to attempt to defend against false charges, unjust law, vicious judges, and sophist lawyers is not a use of force?
I mean, come on, we all know that those in jobs that are inherently evil use self-delusion as a tool to make things seem OK, but you can't be ignorant of all of this, can you?
I blame the people who let this state of affairs arise and remain unchallenged. And you know what? That includes judges and lawyers. They are as complicit in the problems we face here, and in the same way, as a paid assassin is in a murder. Refusal on their part to do evil would reduce the problem to a ghost of its former self in one day. But that would require mass patriotism and heroism, and definitely sacrifice. And considering the demonstrated quality of the individuals attracted to this sector of the system, that'd rule such a role "right out", as Monty Python would put it. Just as in the public sector and in the legislature, no one activist can solve any of these problems; they'
That is naive nonsense. First of all, the US system provides no means at the federal level for the average citizen to directly affect, in any way, what legislation is submitted, how it is formulated, or which legislation makes it into law. This is commonly true at the state level as well, though there are exceptions, for instance, California.
Federally speaking, all we can do is vote for candidate from party A, or party B. Since (as we well know from history) both parties are equally guilty of creating and passing ridiculous, incomprehensible, rights-crushing, and underhanded law, it is clear that choosing a candidate from party A or party B is not going to have an effect on the avalanche of low- and negative-quality law that comes from these elected officials.
You might assert, as some naive people do, that the answer is to attempt to elect someone from a third party. This, however, is not a practical solution.
For one thing, such a person cannot be elected without convincing 51% of the relevant voting public in the relevant region that the government has become a force for evil and needs very serious revision. Most attempts at this to date have not only failed, but not even managed to become blips on the radar due to overwhelming propaganda from the well-funded two major parties. We do, very occasionally, see such a person make it into congress or the senate.
However, in the rare cases when such a person actually gets elected, as an individual casting a single vote in a group that is made up of the two major parties, your maverick elected official has absolutely no power. This is one meaning of the term "lame duck", only we generally hear it used when an elected official is a member of a party that simply does not have the majority. It means that you can do and say whatever you want, but the other party has and retains complete control over what gets done. For an isolated third party embedded in such a matrix, for instance a libertarian or an independent, the duck was born lame and will die lame; they cannot affect what the majority chooses to do unless they agree with the majority.
With regard to legislation itself, the fact is that the content of legislation turns upon the influence of political action groups, corporate sponsorships and bribes, and the sophist leanings of the huge number of lawyers that infest the entire process. Nothing to do with the "voting public."
Bills that nominally address one issue often contain sub-rosa portions that address entirely separate issues; these inclusions are a small part of the overall bill, and so they will turn upon the passage of the main content, rather than upon their own content.
There is no argument you can make that will magically imbue the average voting citizen with any ability whatsoever to change how the system works or the quality of the product it produces.
This idea is one of the fundamental problems with the system in a nutshell. The legal profession has carved out an impenetrable niche of incomprehensibility based upon esoteric and/or highly technical language, behaviors and consequences, tricks and traps that are far-removed from the subject, on top of which it has established itself as an inordinately expensive, and ultimately required, priesthood; at the same time, the average citizen is faced by the legal profession with the obligation to never be ignorant of the law, which is nothing less than absurd. No lawyer can even be aware of all of the law all of the time; I'd go so far as to say that no lawyer can even be aware of just the tax laws, much less all of the rest of them.
But there is more to it than that. Yo
You didn't say "in the case of tresspassing", you just made an unconditional statement and then topped it off with a decisive "period."
The reason I asked was that if your statement was to be taken at face value, I didn't understand how Kent State could have turned out as it did (no convictions), or how a police-person can ever shoot down a fleeing criminal.
Apparently, your statement meant, "period, but only in this very limited context." Which is how I understood the law -- it doesn't really apply to cops or the military when used against civilians. No surprise there, of course.
I don't need to be informed. I was there, with my then-girlfriend. I watched one of those kids fall (he didn't die, though... just ended up in a wheelchair forever) I followed the whole thing from day one. The wikipedia article (not that you can expect much from wikipedia, for crying out loud) refers only indirectly to the fact that when the guard fired, the students were completely out of range of doing them any harm, assuming no student used a firearm, which is a correct assumption. The guard murdered (and crippled) those people in cold blood, under conditions when it is utterly impossible to claim they (the guard) were at any risk whatsoever at that point in time.
Those are the facts of the matter. First hand. Period.
Hence my query.
Most of us know that ignorance of the law is unavoidable, as opposed to inexcusable, because the law is...
Personally, I think that many of these situations unavoidably condemn the law and by implication the legislators, the educational process, and from time to time those in the field enforcing the laws -- rather than the purported violator.
At Kent State, the National Guard opened fire on unarmed students from a distance far beyond the reach of any possible agresssion from the students. Student deaths resulted. No guardsman was ever punished, nor was anyone in the chain of command right up to the governor. Was this a failure of the law, or the result of what is essentially "permission to shoot"?
What about when a cop or a soldier gives the command: "Halt or I'll shoot"?
You people getting tired of this yet?
Yes. However, I was responding to the snippy "Language evolves. Deal with it" remark. De-evolution is what we have in this particular case. For whatever reason.
Substituting one defect (behavioral) for another (educational) does not magically turn de-evolution into evolution.
Substituting yet another defect (dyslexia) for others also does not magically turn de-evolution into evolution.
Then don't do it. I certainly didn't. I simply pointed out that they were instances of the same thing: De-evolution of the language. I was also depending on you to generalize in the normal fashion: "I'd like some "eye-talian bread." (from eye-tally, I presume.) "We should use nuke-you-lur weapons." "Excetera." "Expecially." "Nice foilage." (I love that one... I always look around to see if there's some sex freak wrapped in aluminium I've missed.)
Again, simply don't do that. I didn't. You're setting up straw men here. When you do that, I won't argue with them, I'll just set them on fire. :-)
Did I say I expected the educational system to properly educate children? Did I, in any way, indicate that I was satisfied with the educational system? Did I indicate my satisfaction with how welfare and other government entitlement programs are conceived and/or adminsistered? Excuse me, but I need to get to that line of strawmen you've set up with my napalm.
That "whoosh" you hear is your hair igniting from being too close to that last strawman you built. The only thing that can save you now is the fact that clearly... you're all wet.
It is worth noting that the effect of this decision is to render government that much less accountable, that much less controllable, that much less transparent.
Actually, it is far more than that. For instance, when you pay $X for gas, you are not only paying the obvious taxes at the pump, that same $X plays a role in paying the income taxes for the driver of the tanker, the guy who drilled the well, the clerk at the convenience store and so on. The remaining portions of those dollars get spent on other things that are skimmed again, continually reducing the actual purchasing power of what we tend to think of as the payment-for-goods portion of our purchase. Almost every "non-tax" dollar gets skimmed, re-skimmed, and re-skimmed again.
In its own way, tax costs are as subtle as how medical care costs are covered. Many Americans complain they cannot afford to pay for medical insurance. As it turns out, they are paying for medical insurance. Someone else's. For instance, when you pay your phone bill or utility bill, you can be sure that the employees of those companies have medical care. One key reason you don't have enough left over to pay for your own is that the US system ensures that you have to pay for everyone else's on your supply-side before you can delve into your remaining assets to pay for your own. There is something more than a little distressing about that.
Perhaps, for you, a self-important "language changes, get over it" declaration would leave you looking a little more correct — and a little less foolish.
Thanks!
If I had mod points, and I wasn't me (because I've posted) I'd mod you informative. Someone else should have anyway. But then, this is slashdot. Moderation is reserved for more important things. Like, uh, humor. (ducks)
I don't mind paying per song; but I *do* mind paying for NOTHING.
Why can't someone actually get this right? It's NOT that flipping difficult!
I will NOT, repeat NOT, buy from Apple. I have an iPod, you bet, and I use iTunes on my Mac, but I don't buy Apple's despicable DRM, I just use MP3. I am a muscian, and I respect muscian's rights and copyright in general, but I will NOT allow my own rights to be eroded -- one does not follow from the other!
Remember: From HDMI to AAC to software that "calls home", when you buy that shit, you are encouraging the sellers to continue to screw with you, the LEGITIMATE PERSON WHO GAVE THEM MONEY AND IS NOT STEALING FROM THEM. Registration makes sense. DRM does not.
This crap wouldn't even be an issue if people weren't so damned stupid. Argh.
Oh yeah, and porn, of course. :-)
Right now I'm sort of pondering a DLP system. Black levels and all that. But the cost... hmm. Still pondering. The cool thing is, the longer I ponder, the less expensive they get.
Oh, hah hah hah. Hah. :)
So I take it you've not spent any time with Project Gotham. "graphical mess". Hah hah hah. :)
It's total eye-candy. Dreamy, sweet, shiny, ultra-fast and full-o-pixels.
PG-III may be the only title that really takes advantage of the machine's capabilities to any degree, as we're so early on the curve, and because car and track models are so easy to spend polygons on.
But... "graphical mess". Oh, ho, ho, ho. Your cred is 100% shot. Game over for you. Go back to your TRS-80.
No, there is a perfectly good reason to convert the horizontal resolution down. It's called "aliasing." If you have non-scaling 1280x720 systems (as I do) then 1920 will be sub-sampled instead of scaled and you get all kinds of crawly-looking artifacts on diagonals. My Toshiba CRT HD system shows perfectly good video on 1920x1080i, but the living room projection system, which is only a moderately capable one of about $1000 cost, shows artifacts. On the other hand, I have a 3 grand projector in the bedroom, same resolution, it has a great scaler in it, and it shows no artifacts at all on the same program material.
Live Sporting Event? Is that what they're calling porn now?
It may be rambling to you, but it is eye opening to others, or, at least to me. I suspect there are more people quietly reading and appreciating the information. This is really a very exotic technical area for most, there just isn't any obvious analog of the process in common experience. Thanks for expounding for the benefit of others.
However, because of technological limitations, only the bottom 4 bits of the gene index would actually be used, with the next 4 bits being set to zero by default, and the remaining 24 bits determining your average skin color.
Additionally, the 32 bit chromesome index would use 8 bits starting at the MSB, the next 8 bits would be reserved and set to zero, and the remaining 16 bits would be undefined, though later we'd find variations there gave rise to both creationist tendencies and division by zero, leading us towards a new design that is only 16 bits, but ran twice as fast and never divided by zero, or made up answers to questions without having known good data on the input side.
All other features would be put off for the beta version, because we'd have a little trouble with the alpha we didn't exactly anticipate.
Unfortunately, all advances gained by this leap in technology would be lost when hardware manufacturers forced new "quantum confusion" technology upon the geeks in a selfish race for more market share. Geeks fail to notice because they're too busy trying to get Genes 0.1 alpha through ANSI committee approval.
For maximum efficiency, this awesomely fast new technology requires light pipes for communications, however, in a legislative feat worthy of Maltheus himself, congress declares that production of light pipes within the boundaries of any state for use within the boundaries of that state represent interstate commerce of light paraphanalia, and so no one's going to be doing that, thank you. It's all part of the War on Bits. InSmell, primary manufacturer of light pipes in the USA, shuts all production down, fires half its workforce, and its stock goes up by a factor of four.
At this point, the only light-pipe architecture you can find comes from Japan, and the upper 24 bits of the gene index are all hard-coded to DDDDBB. It is expensive, but everyone buys it anyway. You can only run this hardware in Denmark. Floating (actually, more like drifting) point is emphasized, and virtual reality is experienced by all users, though that is not to say that it is the same virtual reality across the board.
In the meantime, US geeks invent open-source web 9.0, expend all their energy producing applications for it that have absolutely no merit whatsoever of any kind using the justly famous "Corundum on Wagon Ruts" technology to replace perfectly good desktop apps that already exist, but are really really cool because they can make almost any browser's "Joe" scripting language use all the memory in your computer... subsequently, geeks quietly go extinct while arguing if GPL or PD is the way to go for the open source path.
When we say that "the gene for xxxx is located at yyyy
This means that we *do* know where the particular controlling sequence is located?
Viral gene therapy is a process that can locate the target gene somehow and replace the sequence there with a new sequence?
Does the sequence have to be broken, segmented, and re-built for viral gene therapy? Or is there a "merge" type of operation that "overlays" the new information?
I have read a great deal that in a hand-waving manner, describes viral gene therapy as the next great thing either directly, or by implication. Is that so? Anything else like that, in terms of technology, that is currently looking promising?
So, you're new here?
I am talking about the current situation. No more, no less. If you can't focus on the relevant, you're going to be ignored, at least, by me.
Complaint opens, and subsequently extends, debate that in turn determines and isolates the common ground (if any) amongst the disaffected. It is only upon common ground that action can be formulated. In many cases, complaint serves to realize in concrete form previously unresolved issues citizens may have -- this may be because they are not articulate, have not thought the matter(s) through, been confused, been misinformed, etc. In this role, it is critical and it must come first. Action, or calls to action, should not spring whole from a coalition of the uninformed; should that happen, the odds favor little focus and much confusion. No one should be considering action until they have thoroughly considered the issues.
Accordingly, complaint is both an integral part of the process and a very important step that should preceed any call to action, especially on a matter as fundamental as that of the country's underlying operating methodology being disfunctional.
Complaint, debate, reformulation, more complaint, debate and reformulation until a reasonable consensus is reached, and then it is appropriate to issue a call to action because it is only then that the group has resoved what it is that it stands for. Anything less is a disservice to their fellow citizens.
Please research the "War of Independence" and the rhetoric leading up to it for a fine example of how complaining (from rhetoric to tossing tea in the bay) can indeed serve to initiate resolution of those complaints.
Thanks for your post. It was very much a window on middle America.
"Our" duty? What did I sign that says I accepted a duty to vote? Or, what oath did I take, and to whom, in front of what witnesses, that causes this duty to fall to me? Explain, please. I mean, other than in your opinion. What are the facts of the matter here?
Well, I suppose there is nothing to stop one from hoping for such an outcome, but the fact is, this is not so. The system is designed to work even if only one person votes. As long as someone from the two major party organizations is elected, it makes absolutely no difference how many people elected them. The fact is, the system doesn't significantly vary its actions or authority based upon the level of activity at the polls.
So you're saying, if I don't agree with you, I am not entitled to the same degree of free speech as you are? How fascinating. Clearly, you are a true patriot. I was truly unaware of the this rewards-based delivery of the right of free speech based upon political participation. Would you please do me a favor and show me the portion of the constitution, or the amendments, or common law, that you found this in? Thanks, I really appreciate learning new things.
No, it's like saying: I am against fires, so I'm not going to help you keep this fire going. And by the way, your house is on fire.
Again, explain why. What did we adults sign, or what oath did we take, that commits us to this duty you speak of? From what contract does this obligation arise? I am currenly unaware of this duty.
How... interesting. I can't imagine why you would think that there would be a candidate anywhere that would represent me without even knowing what I think needs to be done. Have you no adequate concept of the range of human values and views? Nor can I imagine why you think a candidate such as I might be interested in supporting would be electable in a country that elects from the two party baskets, repeatably and dependably, given that I have provided clear indications that I am not even slightly aligned with them. Or why you think it would be worth the effort and not a complete waste of time and funds to run if unelectable. I'd love to hear your explanation, though, if you actually have one.
Thanks for your response; it truly lightened up my morning.