Unless the Republican candidate does something so embarrassing he's going to lose the country anyways, or unless he does something to specifically insult Texas voters or a sub-set of Conservative Texas voters (not an impossibility if "I don't care who I insult, the people still love me" Trump gets the Republican Presidential nomination), he's going to get Texas simply because of the Elephant.
Texas has voted "R" in every Presidential election since the Carter administration. The Republicans have carried 54+% of the Texas popular vote every Presidential and US Senate general election this century.
The Senate Majority Leader has already said no to whoever is nominated.
What politicians say in public doesn't always match what they eventually do.
If the Senate Leadership thinks their party will be hurt in the long run by non-cooperation, they'll figure out a way to cooperate without it looking bad for them.
A system where any two uninformed voters outvote an informed voter, in an environment where informed voters are rare.
It's theoretically possible to have a democracy where the voters are informed. That is to say, "informed voters [being] rare" should not be in the statement above.
Even if the Senate did go into recess before Christmas, it would be pointless as the appointment would expire next January 3rd.
However, back when there were a bunch of vacant judge-ships, he could have used recess appointments to temporarily bring severely-understaffed courts up to full strength. It's not as critical at the lower levels or even at the Circuit Courts of Appeal since retired judges (technically, those who are on "senior status" or something like that) can come in and do the work that needs to be done so the courts don't collapse. But if there weren't enough senior-status judges to get the work done, using recess appointments can be a way to ensure that the court system doesn't collapse entirely just because 41 Senators are holding up the works.
Oh, it's also a moot point now for District Court vacancies, as the Democrats (who were in charge of the Senate until very recently) changed the rules to make them un-filibuster-able and approved enough of Obama's nominations so the District Courts are now "staffed enough" that there isn't a crisis (there are still some vacancies, but not nearly as many as there once were).
Simple: no publicly known affiliation with a political party. The moment a judge is associated with a political party their rulings are viewed as a political, rather than legal, decision
So a person who wants to be a federal judge who lives in a town, county, or voting district that is, for all intents and purposes, a "one-party" district gives up his right to vote for every office except the President and (if there are any) the non-partisan races?
I say this because in such areas, all races (except maybe a very few that are "non-partisan") are decided at the primary, and in many states, voting in a primary "identifies" you with that political party. If you don't vote in the primary, you have no say in who will represent you in the statehouse or Congress and, in some states, no say in who will represent you on the city council or county governing board.
Since which primary you vote in is (in many if not almost all states) a matter of public record, merely voting in a primary is publicly associating yourself with a particular political party. I've known more than one person who was a [fill in the blank] at heart but who registered with the opposing party or (in states where there was no party registration) voted in the opposing party's primary because that was the only meaningful way to participate in local politics.
Assuming Obama nominates someone left-of-center, expect the Senate to cave to public pressure and go through the motions of having several nomination hearings. Expect them to drag them out knowing good and well the candidate will be rejected.
By then, it will be April or May.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Now we are talking June, July, or August. Repeat again and we are talking August through November. And again and it's at least October, late enough that "let the next President nominate the replacement" becomes a politically viable solution.
Obama's kind of cornered here: He can either nominate a liberal the first time out hoping the Republicans will NOT hold hearings, giving his party a major boost in November, or nominate a centrist and use the rejection as campaign fodder. If the Senate rejects his first (or second, or third, etc.) choice after about May or so, his only option will be to nominate a centrist and shame the Senate into approving the nomination or risk having their inaction or rejection becoming election fodder. In any case (except maybe a second vacancy), Obama will not be able to seat a liberal this go-around.
The Supreme Court itself will likely demand a replacement
They can "demand" but that demand will have no legal weight. At best (and I think this is a stretch, as there is no real way to enforce such a ruling) the Court could demand that the Senate vote on every nominee within a reasonable period of time - but they cannot demand that they vote "yes."
At least gold has real economic value in industy (your computer, dental fillings, etc.) and quasi-real/probably-less-dependable economic value is use in things that look pretty that people with excess cash are willing to pay for (jewelry, etc.).
I see a lot more gold jewelry than I do BC jewelry.
Obama should word with rankng Senate members of both parties and nominate a politically-centrist judge whose judicial qualifications are impeccable.
The Democratic Party base will hate him for blowing an opportunity to name a liberal, and the Republican Party base will hate their party leaders for allowing Obama to fill the slot at all.
I've said it again and again, consumer devices should be de-brickable.
Business devices too for that matter.
They should all have a "factory reset jumper" or similar that resets the machine - or at least the non-replaceable parts of the machine - to factory conditions.
I can think of three exceptions to this rule: * Things that must not be wiped due to legal reasons or fraud-prevention reasons, like a hard drive's in-use-hours, should not be wiped, * Certain "write once" storage, such a log of reported thefts, should not be wiped, and * if the consumer explicitly shoulds a different jumper, the ability to do a factory reset is permanently lost, rendering the device "brickable." Some users may want their devices to wipe their secuity keys and brick themselves if they are reported stolen or after too many unsuccessful logins in a row as a way to discourage theft.
On an iPhone, this might mean booting from a "restore" boot loader that would wipe the real boot loader, storage, ram, security, and everything else not "burned in" as "read only" at the factory or which wan't on the "no wipe" list such as a carrier-lock or powered-on-hour then set variables like the clock to sane albeit incorrect factory-default values. It would also preserve things normally "off limits" or "read only" to the bootloader and iOS for legal reasons (such as radio hardware). Then it would restore the regular bootloader and Apple security credentials from ROM and copy a temporary "iOS-restore" mini-operating system from ROM into storage and reboot. On the next boot, the special "iOS restore" OS would tell the user to either plug the USB cable into a PC running iTunes or to connect to the internet using USB, WiFi, or Bluetooth then it would load the real iOS from iTunes or an Apple internet server, then, after verifying the iOS was properly signed, set it so it would boot from the just-downloaded iOS and reboot. Sure, it would take awhile, and yes, all user data would be lost, but at least the phone would be usable.
On a PC with non-soldered RAM and disk or SSD storage, those devices would not need to be wiped as part of the machine's de-bricking routine - if those parts are contributing to the problem, the consumer can replace them.
Create a few billion wallets with common passphrases, each containing 1 Satoshi, then host them around the intertubes in places where malicious people willing to spend a small amount of effort will find them.
Is it to trade with people using XYZ-coin? Then use XYZ-coin.
Is it to speculate? Sorry, nobody can predict the future. A few centuries ago Tulips were all the rage, but we all know what happened to them.
Is it market goods and services to XYZ-coin speculators? Then go with XYZ-coin so you can be part of "their community"?
Is it to promote features like anonymity/privacy or free-as-in-freedom that are probably better in XYZ-coin than in traditional currencies? Then pick any one that meets your "base criteria" in these areas: Bitcoin not good enough for a particular metric you are looking for? Then name the specific feature that BitCoin doesn't provide (or doesn't provide well enough for your needs) and ask Slashdot for help finding an XYZcoin that does.
Even if (hypothetically) the industry got a lockdown on all TVs and recording devices so the only devices that could display or record video had to obey the industries rules, you would STILL have the "analog hole."
It's technically possible (but not cheap) to make a sensor as big as a TV that has enough resolution to record every TV pixel faster than the pixel is changing.
Add a little computing power to take care of "bleed over" from neighboring pixels and a well-endowed copy-shop could make a full-resolution copy of anything that can be displayed on their TV or monitor.
Once a copy of a high-demand film is made and distributed to more than a few customers, it will leak to the free-as-in-beer (read: no more revenue for the pirates who funded the initial copying) places on the intertubes.
The best way for the industry to deter that level of well-funded piracy is to make everything available for home viewing worldwide at the same time, and in all formats that consumers want at the same time, and at a price that consumers can reasonably afford. Some publishers are already doing this. Doing this will dry up the piracy market for those who can't get titles in the formats they want when they want it.
Yes, there will still be piracy by those too cheap to pay reasonable prices for content, and there will be piracy by those who have copies of stuff just for the sake of having copies of stuff but probably won't ever watch it, but those groups aren't the ones that would be buying the videos on the open market in the first place, so the industry won't be losing much revenue.
So, you shouldn't mind giving all of that worthless paper/coins/bank-ledger entries you have to the IRS?
Seriosly though, fiat currencies and coins do have intrinsic value. Well, as much value as and any similar-sized/shaped object make of the same materials. Bank-ledger-entries, not so much.
Pre-1982 copper US pennies have a metal value higher than face value. Ditto pre-1964 silver coins and late-1960s half dollars, and pre-WWII gold coins. I admit I am "cheating" with the gold and silver, as part of their value is because people treat them as "money." Copper on the other hand is values for its intrinsic properties, not as a store of value.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless the Republican candidate does something so embarrassing he's going to lose the country anyways, or unless he does something to specifically insult Texas voters or a sub-set of Conservative Texas voters (not an impossibility if "I don't care who I insult, the people still love me" Trump gets the Republican Presidential nomination), he's going to get Texas simply because of the Elephant.
Texas has voted "R" in every Presidential election since the Carter administration. The Republicans have carried 54+% of the Texas popular vote every Presidential and US Senate general election this century.
This was "Gold vs. BC" not "Gold vs. Bricks."
Even if Gold were $0.025/Troy ounce" it would still have almost(?) infinitely more utility value than BitCoin.
The Senate Majority Leader has already said no to whoever is nominated.
What politicians say in public doesn't always match what they eventually do.
If the Senate Leadership thinks their party will be hurt in the long run by non-cooperation, they'll figure out a way to cooperate without it looking bad for them.
Democracy:
A system where any two uninformed voters outvote an informed voter, in an environment where informed voters are rare.
It's theoretically possible to have a democracy where the voters are informed. That is to say, "informed voters [being] rare" should not be in the statement above.
Rules in the senate allowing a single senator to hold up any nomination
If it's politically convenient for the Republican Senate leadership and enough Senate Republicans, the rules will be changed or suspended.
Even if the Senate did go into recess before Christmas, it would be pointless as the appointment would expire next January 3rd.
However, back when there were a bunch of vacant judge-ships, he could have used recess appointments to temporarily bring severely-understaffed courts up to full strength. It's not as critical at the lower levels or even at the Circuit Courts of Appeal since retired judges (technically, those who are on "senior status" or something like that) can come in and do the work that needs to be done so the courts don't collapse. But if there weren't enough senior-status judges to get the work done, using recess appointments can be a way to ensure that the court system doesn't collapse entirely just because 41 Senators are holding up the works.
Oh, it's also a moot point now for District Court vacancies, as the Democrats (who were in charge of the Senate until very recently) changed the rules to make them un-filibuster-able and approved enough of Obama's nominations so the District Courts are now "staffed enough" that there isn't a crisis (there are still some vacancies, but not nearly as many as there once were).
Simple: no publicly known affiliation with a political party. The moment a judge is associated with a political party their rulings are viewed as a political, rather than legal, decision
So a person who wants to be a federal judge who lives in a town, county, or voting district that is, for all intents and purposes, a "one-party" district gives up his right to vote for every office except the President and (if there are any) the non-partisan races?
I say this because in such areas, all races (except maybe a very few that are "non-partisan") are decided at the primary, and in many states, voting in a primary "identifies" you with that political party. If you don't vote in the primary, you have no say in who will represent you in the statehouse or Congress and, in some states, no say in who will represent you on the city council or county governing board.
Since which primary you vote in is (in many if not almost all states) a matter of public record, merely voting in a primary is publicly associating yourself with a particular political party.
I've known more than one person who was a [fill in the blank] at heart but who registered with the opposing party or (in states where there was no party registration) voted in the opposing party's primary because that was the only meaningful way to participate in local politics.
The court is always balanced. Each change in the court just changes the balancing point.
I think the person you were responding to used "the American average" or something like that as the definition of "middle/balancing point."
He was claiming that if Obama gets a liberal justice confirmed, the Court will be noticeably to the left of the American public.
Assuming Obama nominates someone left-of-center, expect the Senate to cave to public pressure and go through the motions of having several nomination hearings. Expect them to drag them out knowing good and well the candidate will be rejected.
By then, it will be April or May.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Now we are talking June, July, or August. Repeat again and we are talking August through November. And again and it's at least October, late enough that "let the next President nominate the replacement" becomes a politically viable solution.
Obama's kind of cornered here: He can either nominate a liberal the first time out hoping the Republicans will NOT hold hearings, giving his party a major boost in November, or nominate a centrist and use the rejection as campaign fodder. If the Senate rejects his first (or second, or third, etc.) choice after about May or so, his only option will be to nominate a centrist and shame the Senate into approving the nomination or risk having their inaction or rejection becoming election fodder. In any case (except maybe a second vacancy), Obama will not be able to seat a liberal this go-around.
The Supreme Court itself will likely demand a replacement
They can "demand" but that demand will have no legal weight. At best (and I think this is a stretch, as there is no real way to enforce such a ruling) the Court could demand that the Senate vote on every nominee within a reasonable period of time - but they cannot demand that they vote "yes."
At least gold has real economic value in industy (your computer, dental fillings, etc.) and quasi-real/probably-less-dependable economic value is use in things that look pretty that people with excess cash are willing to pay for (jewelry, etc.).
I see a lot more gold jewelry than I do BC jewelry.
grrrr, phone keyboard, no preview, sorry folks
Obama should word with rankng Senate members of both parties and nominate a politically-centrist judge whose judicial qualifications are impeccable.
The Democratic Party base will hate him for blowing an opportunity to name a liberal, and the Republican Party base will hate their party leaders for allowing Obama to fill the slot at all.
Is it a hoax or is it a not-hoax.
This is /., everyone here already knows that the answer is yes.
They will have gotten around to signing it one of these epochs, eventually. Maybe on January 1, 1970.
Certificate of deposit.
Does The Doctor use an iPhone?
I've said it again and again, consumer devices should be de-brickable.
Business devices too for that matter.
They should all have a "factory reset jumper" or similar that resets the machine - or at least the non-replaceable parts of the machine - to factory conditions.
I can think of three exceptions to this rule:
* Things that must not be wiped due to legal reasons or fraud-prevention reasons, like a hard drive's in-use-hours, should not be wiped,
* Certain "write once" storage, such a log of reported thefts, should not be wiped, and
* if the consumer explicitly shoulds a different jumper, the ability to do a factory reset is permanently lost, rendering the device "brickable." Some users may want their devices to wipe their secuity keys and brick themselves if they are reported stolen or after too many unsuccessful logins in a row as a way to discourage theft.
On an iPhone, this might mean booting from a "restore" boot loader that would wipe the real boot loader, storage, ram, security, and everything else not "burned in" as "read only" at the factory or which wan't on the "no wipe" list such as a carrier-lock or powered-on-hour then set variables like the clock to sane albeit incorrect factory-default values. It would also preserve things normally "off limits" or "read only" to the bootloader and iOS for legal reasons (such as radio hardware). Then it would restore the regular bootloader and Apple security credentials from ROM and copy a temporary "iOS-restore" mini-operating system from ROM into storage and reboot. On the next boot, the special "iOS restore" OS would tell the user to either plug the USB cable into a PC running iTunes or to connect to the internet using USB, WiFi, or Bluetooth then it would load the real iOS from iTunes or an Apple internet server, then, after verifying the iOS was properly signed, set it so it would boot from the just-downloaded iOS and reboot. Sure, it would take awhile, and yes, all user data would be lost, but at least the phone would be usable.
On a PC with non-soldered RAM and disk or SSD storage, those devices would not need to be wiped as part of the machine's de-bricking routine - if those parts are contributing to the problem, the consumer can replace them.
:)
It also sits very close to the region used by lasers.
Within firing range?
Create a few billion wallets with common passphrases, each containing 1 Satoshi, then host them around the intertubes in places where malicious people willing to spend a small amount of effort will find them.
Is it to trade with people using XYZ-coin? Then use XYZ-coin.
Is it to speculate? Sorry, nobody can predict the future. A few centuries ago Tulips were all the rage, but we all know what happened to them.
Is it market goods and services to XYZ-coin speculators? Then go with XYZ-coin so you can be part of "their community"?
Is it to promote features like anonymity/privacy or free-as-in-freedom that are probably better in XYZ-coin than in traditional currencies? Then pick any one that meets your "base criteria" in these areas: Bitcoin not good enough for a particular metric you are looking for? Then name the specific feature that BitCoin doesn't provide (or doesn't provide well enough for your needs) and ask Slashdot for help finding an XYZcoin that does.
Even if (hypothetically) the industry got a lockdown on all TVs and recording devices so the only devices that could display or record video had to obey the industries rules, you would STILL have the "analog hole."
It's technically possible (but not cheap) to make a sensor as big as a TV that has enough resolution to record every TV pixel faster than the pixel is changing.
Add a little computing power to take care of "bleed over" from neighboring pixels and a well-endowed copy-shop could make a full-resolution copy of anything that can be displayed on their TV or monitor.
Once a copy of a high-demand film is made and distributed to more than a few customers, it will leak to the free-as-in-beer (read: no more revenue for the pirates who funded the initial copying) places on the intertubes.
The best way for the industry to deter that level of well-funded piracy is to make everything available for home viewing worldwide at the same time, and in all formats that consumers want at the same time, and at a price that consumers can reasonably afford. Some publishers are already doing this. Doing this will dry up the piracy market for those who can't get titles in the formats they want when they want it.
Yes, there will still be piracy by those too cheap to pay reasonable prices for content, and there will be piracy by those who have copies of stuff just for the sake of having copies of stuff but probably won't ever watch it, but those groups aren't the ones that would be buying the videos on the open market in the first place, so the industry won't be losing much revenue.
... hack in rand(), rand(), rand().
So, you shouldn't mind giving all of that worthless paper/coins/bank-ledger entries you have to the IRS?
Seriosly though, fiat currencies and coins do have intrinsic value. Well, as much value as and any similar-sized/shaped object make of the same materials. Bank-ledger-entries, not so much.
Pre-1982 copper US pennies have a metal value higher than face value. Ditto pre-1964 silver coins and late-1960s half dollars, and pre-WWII gold coins. I admit I am "cheating" with the gold and silver, as part of their value is because people treat them as "money." Copper on the other hand is values for its intrinsic properties, not as a store of value.