Considering personhood is a legal concept, it's no more arbitrary than deciding when speech is free or not, when taxes are just or not, when marriage is allowed or not... it depends on whether the law in general has your respect.
Calling a 4-week old fetus a "baby" is kind of like calling a 4-month old boy a "man". Not really right, not really wrong... but that doesn't really matter anyway, it's not what the debate is about.
What matters is legal personhood. At what point in life does a person begin to have specific rights, and at what point does a person gain legal recognition as a party of civil and criminal actions? That's what it's about... not whether people call the human a "baby".
Why even restrict the choice of representative to someone in your state?
That might work. My concern would be, it might kill local representation altogether in the House. It could also lead to a very popular person, or a small group of 5 or 10, having so much voting power that the rest really don't matter.
I guess the same could happen in large states. Perhaps districts are still a good thing for this reason, but I think there might be merit in reducing the number of districts while increasing the number of representatives per district.
No, the simple truth is that these are really the same folks no matter the letter beside their name. Some of them even switch the letter by their name when it becomes convenient, and the sad truth is, many people don't even realize it.
My son was frozen through embryonic cryopreservation.
(I'm not actually equating the difficulty of resuscitation at embryonic stage with that of a live-born human. It's a complete difference in magnitude and difficulty, obviously.)
Aesthetically, I much prefer Windows 8 over 7, and Plasma 5 over 4.
Years ago, I remember similar outcries when XP introduced its bloated UI, and then Vista (and 7) made borders thicker and made things transparent. I'm sure there are some people who really truly have issues with reduced clutter in their UI, but for most people I have a feeling they just don't like things that aren't exactly what they are used to.
If only there were ways to mod the user interface...
Then perhaps you'll leave the driving to the computer system. The same computer which, by the time these systems are allowed to be sold, will be much safer than the human who cannot perform well when drowsy or distracted by the screaming baby in the back seat while having an argument with the wife.
Actually I fail to see how "motivate your employees to work harder" necessarily translates into "employees are happier". In many companies the two concepts are inversely correlated.
I prefer it when leadership gets paid in company stock. When the company does well, they get a reward. If the company performs poorly, they take a hit. When CEOs get a guaranteed salary with a nice severance agreement, that gives them less incentive to perform in the best interest of the company.
And I am aware of a few kinks that would need to be resolved. If you keep the current districts, there would need to be more seats as now there are multiple representatives per district. And what if 20 people run for a district and get votes, should all 20 get seats? Probably not.
Some possibilities:
- Reduce the number of districts. - Limit the number of representatives allowed per district. - Perhaps, just get rid of districts. If someone from across my state represents me better than someone local, then perhaps my appointment should not be limited by borders drawn for an election system that would no longer be in place.
Why do we even need to elect our representatives? Consider this: if a rep gets 51% of the vote in the district, then nearly half the people are not represented. On top of this we have gerrymandering. If 80 out of 100 districts are 51% for party A and 49% for party B, and the other 20 districts are 100% for party B, you can easily see that despite having a real majority, party B has no actual power. Pretty sucky if you ask me.
No... I have a different answer:
Appointing our representation. In this system, each representative carries one vote for every person who appoints him or her. Taking the above scenario, if 51,000 people appointed rep A and 49,000 appoint rep B, then rep A gets 51,000 votes in congress and rep B gets 49,000 votes. But consider what that does to the 100 districts... now party A has 4,080,000 votes and party B has 5,920,000 votes on every issue... exactly what it should be.
Appointment-based representation is fair, and it removes the power of gerrymandering.
Think about the thickness of a dollar bill. Imagine stacking dollar bills on top of each other... $100 is a bit less than half an inch, and $1 million is about 30 stories tall. $1 trillion reaches a little over 1/4 of the way to the moon.
Take that $1 trillion stack and imagine shrinking it again, back down to the height of a single dollar bill. Take 1 trillion of those, again creating a tower 1/4 of the way to the moon.
Go back and imagine the size of that original dollar bill now, shrunken so much. If the new tower represents 5000 light years, that original dollar bill represents a single mile.
With paper ballots, you have two guys (one from each party) at a polling station collecting and transporting the ballots. You have another two guys at a different polling station, etc, etc, across the county and state.
I wasn't aware this is how it worked. I'm not disputing you, just that I didn't know.
I've recently been in favor of having volunteer "watchdogs" to count votes as they came in to the precinct. Having the two main parties count votes as you described is good, but I'd like to see anyone who is interested have a chance to be an additional official vote counter. If these people come up with different counts, they would all recount together. Finally, each one would sign a notarized document that is copied to each party and delivered to the state to tally.
Maybe this is how it already works, I just don't know.
Of course, all they need to do is not get caught. Same thing happens with slot machines and other random chance electronic games... it's easier than lobbying:
1) Casino boss invites high ranking government official. 2) Boss says, "We know you'll have fun, but I think you'll have more fun on machine number 57 if you grant consideration to improving legal conditions surrounding our fine establishment." 3) Official wins jackpot 4) Boss wins jackpot (figuratively)
You're a fool if you don't think this happens. This is why I'm against electronic gambling. Not because of some moral "gambling is of the devil" thing... but because it would be trivial to rig these machines and then erase all evidence that anything fraudulent happened. Politicians can literally transform your hopes and dreams into money lining their wallet.
I don't think you're saying what you think you're saying. You are mixing GDP-based and asset-based valuation in the same comment.
The GDP is, oversimplified, a measure of all the income in the country. So basing the rate on GDP is pretty close to the same as basing it on income. (It's not identical, though, as I'm sure some people with more time on their hands will be happy to point out.) So taxing percentage of GDP at a flat rate would be similar to taxing income at a flat rate, which would be the opposite of progressive. (Again, only very roughly equivalent.)
I think what you might have meant is a wealth tax, i.e. based on assets. So if someone owns 12% of the assets in the country, they get 12% of the taxes.
They might do better to focus on issues like this. "You are killing the earth's food supply, including your own" probably goes farther with more people than "It will get a degree or two hotter over the next 100 years".
I'd venture to guess, most kids who say that don't actually believe they are Superman or a Ninja Turtle, and don't believe that it is currently possible for anyone to become one of those. But becoming criminal investigators or cyber-security gurus is a different story. Even kids generally know the difference between imagination and reality.
By definition, "illegal" means "not allowed by the law" according to Webster's dictionary. You cannot have "illegal" without "law". This contradicts your argument:
murder is illegal not because there is a law against it, but because it is wrong
Many people believe it is wrong to lie. Yet, lying is not strictly illegal except where the law prohibits it (such as lying under oath, fraud, etc.).
Except those, that the Executive government — of which FCC itself is part — has itself invented, contrary to the "separation of powers" doctrine so dear to Americans, including this, who can't recognize its violation while talking about it.
I'm actually very fond of the concept of separation of powers. I feel it needs to go further, in that Washington should have less absolute authority and states should have more. Go support the Article V convention process.
Slashdot Mirror
"bribery" or "campaign contributions"?
There's a difference?
Of course there is. All campaign contributions are bribery, but only some bribes are campaign contributions.
False dichotomy. Uncontrollable situations such as miscarriages are not the same as willful neglect.
Considering personhood is a legal concept, it's no more arbitrary than deciding when speech is free or not, when taxes are just or not, when marriage is allowed or not... it depends on whether the law in general has your respect.
Calling a 4-week old fetus a "baby" is kind of like calling a 4-month old boy a "man". Not really right, not really wrong... but that doesn't really matter anyway, it's not what the debate is about.
What matters is legal personhood. At what point in life does a person begin to have specific rights, and at what point does a person gain legal recognition as a party of civil and criminal actions? That's what it's about... not whether people call the human a "baby".
Why even restrict the choice of representative to someone in your state?
That might work. My concern would be, it might kill local representation altogether in the House. It could also lead to a very popular person, or a small group of 5 or 10, having so much voting power that the rest really don't matter.
I guess the same could happen in large states. Perhaps districts are still a good thing for this reason, but I think there might be merit in reducing the number of districts while increasing the number of representatives per district.
We transferred 2 from two different IVF cycles, so around either 14 months or 17 months.
simple truth
No, the simple truth is that these are really the same folks no matter the letter beside their name. Some of them even switch the letter by their name when it becomes convenient, and the sad truth is, many people don't even realize it.
Yes, he is 4 months old now.
Yes.
My son was frozen through embryonic cryopreservation.
(I'm not actually equating the difficulty of resuscitation at embryonic stage with that of a live-born human. It's a complete difference in magnitude and difficulty, obviously.)
Aesthetically, I much prefer Windows 8 over 7, and Plasma 5 over 4.
Years ago, I remember similar outcries when XP introduced its bloated UI, and then Vista (and 7) made borders thicker and made things transparent. I'm sure there are some people who really truly have issues with reduced clutter in their UI, but for most people I have a feeling they just don't like things that aren't exactly what they are used to.
If only there were ways to mod the user interface...
Then perhaps you'll leave the driving to the computer system. The same computer which, by the time these systems are allowed to be sold, will be much safer than the human who cannot perform well when drowsy or distracted by the screaming baby in the back seat while having an argument with the wife.
Actually I fail to see how "motivate your employees to work harder" necessarily translates into "employees are happier". In many companies the two concepts are inversely correlated.
I prefer it when leadership gets paid in company stock. When the company does well, they get a reward. If the company performs poorly, they take a hit. When CEOs get a guaranteed salary with a nice severance agreement, that gives them less incentive to perform in the best interest of the company.
And I am aware of a few kinks that would need to be resolved. If you keep the current districts, there would need to be more seats as now there are multiple representatives per district. And what if 20 people run for a district and get votes, should all 20 get seats? Probably not.
Some possibilities:
- Reduce the number of districts.
- Limit the number of representatives allowed per district.
- Perhaps, just get rid of districts. If someone from across my state represents me better than someone local, then perhaps my appointment should not be limited by borders drawn for an election system that would no longer be in place.
Why do we even need to elect our representatives? Consider this: if a rep gets 51% of the vote in the district, then nearly half the people are not represented. On top of this we have gerrymandering. If 80 out of 100 districts are 51% for party A and 49% for party B, and the other 20 districts are 100% for party B, you can easily see that despite having a real majority, party B has no actual power. Pretty sucky if you ask me.
No... I have a different answer:
Appointing our representation. In this system, each representative carries one vote for every person who appoints him or her. Taking the above scenario, if 51,000 people appointed rep A and 49,000 appoint rep B, then rep A gets 51,000 votes in congress and rep B gets 49,000 votes. But consider what that does to the 100 districts... now party A has 4,080,000 votes and party B has 5,920,000 votes on every issue... exactly what it should be.
Appointment-based representation is fair, and it removes the power of gerrymandering.
Think about the thickness of a dollar bill. Imagine stacking dollar bills on top of each other... $100 is a bit less than half an inch, and $1 million is about 30 stories tall. $1 trillion reaches a little over 1/4 of the way to the moon.
Take that $1 trillion stack and imagine shrinking it again, back down to the height of a single dollar bill. Take 1 trillion of those, again creating a tower 1/4 of the way to the moon.
Go back and imagine the size of that original dollar bill now, shrunken so much. If the new tower represents 5000 light years, that original dollar bill represents a single mile.
With paper ballots, you have two guys (one from each party) at a polling station collecting and transporting the ballots. You have another two guys at a different polling station, etc, etc, across the county and state.
I wasn't aware this is how it worked. I'm not disputing you, just that I didn't know.
I've recently been in favor of having volunteer "watchdogs" to count votes as they came in to the precinct. Having the two main parties count votes as you described is good, but I'd like to see anyone who is interested have a chance to be an additional official vote counter. If these people come up with different counts, they would all recount together. Finally, each one would sign a notarized document that is copied to each party and delivered to the state to tally.
Maybe this is how it already works, I just don't know.
Of course, all they need to do is not get caught. Same thing happens with slot machines and other random chance electronic games... it's easier than lobbying:
1) Casino boss invites high ranking government official.
2) Boss says, "We know you'll have fun, but I think you'll have more fun on machine number 57 if you grant consideration to improving legal conditions surrounding our fine establishment."
3) Official wins jackpot
4) Boss wins jackpot (figuratively)
You're a fool if you don't think this happens. This is why I'm against electronic gambling. Not because of some moral "gambling is of the devil" thing... but because it would be trivial to rig these machines and then erase all evidence that anything fraudulent happened. Politicians can literally transform your hopes and dreams into money lining their wallet.
I don't think you're saying what you think you're saying. You are mixing GDP-based and asset-based valuation in the same comment.
The GDP is, oversimplified, a measure of all the income in the country. So basing the rate on GDP is pretty close to the same as basing it on income. (It's not identical, though, as I'm sure some people with more time on their hands will be happy to point out.) So taxing percentage of GDP at a flat rate would be similar to taxing income at a flat rate, which would be the opposite of progressive. (Again, only very roughly equivalent.)
I think what you might have meant is a wealth tax, i.e. based on assets. So if someone owns 12% of the assets in the country, they get 12% of the taxes.
Which government is not guilty of crimes?
The one we want, but seemingly have no way to obtain.
They might do better to focus on issues like this. "You are killing the earth's food supply, including your own" probably goes farther with more people than "It will get a degree or two hotter over the next 100 years".
I'm curious, do autonomous robots count as foreign or domestic?
I'd venture to guess, most kids who say that don't actually believe they are Superman or a Ninja Turtle, and don't believe that it is currently possible for anyone to become one of those. But becoming criminal investigators or cyber-security gurus is a different story. Even kids generally know the difference between imagination and reality.
This may be 10.1. Windows codename "Blue" was 8.1.
By definition, "illegal" means "not allowed by the law" according to Webster's dictionary. You cannot have "illegal" without "law". This contradicts your argument:
murder is illegal not because there is a law against it, but because it is wrong
Many people believe it is wrong to lie. Yet, lying is not strictly illegal except where the law prohibits it (such as lying under oath, fraud, etc.).
Except those, that the Executive government — of which FCC itself is part — has itself invented, contrary to the "separation of powers" doctrine so dear to Americans, including this, who can't recognize its violation while talking about it.
I'm actually very fond of the concept of separation of powers. I feel it needs to go further, in that Washington should have less absolute authority and states should have more. Go support the Article V convention process.