Every continuously operated establishment that did not meet ADA standards when it was passed was grandfathered. Even public buildings at the time. I seriously doubt there's many public buildings that haven't upgraded at this point, but I'm sure there are many, many grandfathered establishments that still do not meet the requirements of the 30 year old legislation.
I have never heard of or seen a historic building that couldn't be modified to meet the requirements of the ADA, but if one existed it would probably be granted an exemption by the local building department. Demolition is usually pursued when its the cheapest option, not when its the only option.
To be clear on this. It is not legal in the US to bake shit in your Kitchen at home and sell it commercially. Not in any jurisdiction I want to visit, anyway.
There are minimum conformance standards in our society for good reasons. Some are enforced through regulatory inspections, some through the courts. The fact that you hung a shingle doesn't give you the right to discriminate against classes of people, or skirt other regulatory mandates. The fact that you said a business owner should get to choose which laws they want to follow is childish.
Posting a legal filing to a regulatory agency under a.docx format is like a double stuff oreo too. Assuming that consuming oreos equates to enthusiastic support for the kludgiest, most ubiquitous, garbage ever created.
Or maybe they're just nihilistic trolls.... well played Mediacom, well played.
People don't like this because its used as a source of revenue generation, not as a tool to benefit the public good. An officer with a speed camera can potentially save lives by stopping an incapacitated driver. The camera does nothing except get the municipality another cheque.
My state has revoked the charter for municipalities that have abused such revenue generation schemes.
Yup you're right. Even though the economy is in much better shape than 2007 and entitlement spending is DOWN (as percent of GDP) as a result, in the long run we'd better get our house in order pretty soon or we'll all be screwed.
So maybe we should elect a president that won't get us boondoggled in pointless foreign wars. Austerity will work as well as it did in Europe, which is to say not at all.
I'd guess that the $23 tax in GP's example is less than the depreciation in value for the same mile. Also, probably less than the sales tax (yes, I know Oregon doesn't have one, but nearly every other state does so its applicable) if the tax was divided out by the number of miles driven. So yeah, GP's concept sounds pretty fair to me. If you don't like it, don't buy $2M vehicle. Or do buy one, just don't drive it.
Yeah, I've heard the same anecdote about the size of Harvard's endowment. The thing is, its annual budget is 4.2 billion, so its endowment is less than 10x - not even close to 25x. So this doesn't put Harvard in "Koch Brothers" rich territory, more like "Apple" rich.
Stop being obtuse. He's obviously stating an opinion. Proving this in court is not worth netflix's time. Much easier to lobby the FCC into making a decision on net neutrality than to sue every isp across the country.
But I'm going to assume your diatribe promotes alternatives to vaccination. And to strike down your argument all I need to do is point to the numerous preventable infectious disease outbreaks in recent years among anti-vaxer communities. Sure, not scientific, I get it. But the burden is on you to explain to me how not vaccinating wasn't the reason those outbreaks.
Also, people in the developed world who aren't allergic to the preservatives used in vaccines and who don't vaccinate anyway are assholes. They're assholes because they benefit from the practice of vaccination without participating in the shared risk of vaccination and because they increase the risk of infectious disease outbreaks, and therefore death, among the population that can't be vaccinated (compromised immune system, allergic, newborns, etc.). Sure, nothing illegal about being a selfish jerk in our society, but you should be self aware enough to know that you are being a selfish jerk and probably shouldn't try to convince other people to join you.
You are correct, in that the federal courts have jurisdiction in constitutional law. However, I think that what gp was really questioning was, "what happens to the legislators who pass unconstitutional laws?" The answer is, nothing [short of they may get voted out of office for passing such a law].
The state is accountable for the actions its employees, but the legislators themselves hold no personal liability to the actions of the state. Though I'm not sure about the executive branch- which in this case would actually do the chopping off of the hands. Is "just administering the law" really a get-out-of-jail-free card for doing anything, no matter how obviously bad? I think not since it didn't work in Nuremberg.
Thank you for helping debunk this meme. Your post was more thorough than what my reply would have been. I'm getting sick of the FUD surrounding the US federal government's requirement to increase the efficiency of incandescent lightbulbs [which appears to be working!]
Personally, rather than create new laws to control this, I'd rather the telco's take care of it themselves. I'd love it if my carrier offered a premium service to block all robocalls or sales calls. I have to believe that they know exactly who and where these people are. Why it isn't already an option in my area, I have know idea.
I think you were going for +1 funny (although how you got modded flamebait I don't get), but it really doesn't depend your point of view.
All that matters is who originated the file transfer, i.e. If I am downloading something, you wouldn't say "The server is uploading something to me." Nor would it make any sense to say "The server is downloading something from me." when I am in fact uploading.
Obviously your argument is valid only if AIDs is the only disease that kills people. This is, of course, not the case. Therefore maintaining genetic diversity within the population is the most preferred course to managing overall risk to the system.
Plus, your eugenics bullshit went out of fashion last century. Today we understand that just because someone is different from us, it doesn't make them inferior.
I think that this is a bad law because it can have unintended consequences if it is used by over zealous DA's.
Here's my analogy: We can all agree lynching someone is bad. The problem is that all of those people who do the lynching always wear masks so that we can't identify them. So, to deal with this problem, we're going to make it illegal to own white hoods and equipment used for the purpose of lynching, and we're going to set the punishment at 25-life (lynching is pretty bad, after all). Well that's all fine as long as this is only enforced against people who are actually committing the crimes that you're *really* trying to punish. But if this law were passed, it would be only a matter of time before it would be used to send someone that *we just don't like* to jail because they happened to own a halloween ghost costume or some rope.
I know, it's a cynical view of the world, but its mine and you can't have it.
Obviously, I meant my other post to reply to one of these "Originalists" in the thread. Sorry 'bout that- too bad he won't get to read my fabulous arguement!
I don't know why these sorts of arguments keep coming up.
When the constitution was written, radio didn't exist. Neither did lots of other things that the courts have decided that the federal government has the constitutional authority to regulate. Simply put, if the courts decide a law [like the one establishing the FCC] is constitutional, then it is [Marburg v Madison]. No matter what you think. I posted this elsewhere in the thread:
The FCC notes that the Supreme Court in 1969 upheld the government's authority to limit broadcast licenses. In Red Lion Broadcasting Co. vs. the United States, the high court held, "Congress unquestionably has the power to grant and deny licenses and to eliminate existing stations. No one has a First Amendment right to a license or to monopolize a radio frequency."
Although I'll say that if [I'd estimate] 4/9 of the Supreme Court had their way, then all of these regulatory powers that aren't explicitly stated in the constitution would go away. This is why the next election is so critical. So go out and vote!
Can I also add to my other post that the Supreme Court has already ruled on this?
In Red Lion Broadcasting Co. vs. the United States, the high court held, "Congress unquestionably has the power to grant and deny licenses and to eliminate existing stations. No one has a First Amendment right to a license or to monopolize a radio frequency.
The courts are tasked with the authority to review laws and judge their constitutionality [Marburg v Madison]. Since congress passed a law to establish the FCC and task them with regulating the radio spectrum, and the courts evidently believe that this falls under regulation of interstate commerce [Article 1 Section 8], then by default it IS constitutional.
The courts' opinion is the ONLY opinion that matters in deciding the constitutionality of a law. Why do you believe differently?
The AT&T/Apple service agreement is a win-win deal, but - sorry - not for the reasons you think.
Apple needed Cingular (now AT&T) to upgrade the entire network to enable the visual voicemail feature- which they got and happens to be one of the best features on the phone. Apple also receives a revenue stream from the monthly service agreement for all new AT&T/iPhone users. The amount they get was reported to be $10/month per user. *A LOT of money*
AT&T on the other hand, as you stated, now has a premium product that can draw new users from other networks at time when the market is pretty well saturated. But this deal was made also because Jobs made it clear to Cingular that he was willing to buy wireless minutes in bulk (as they were able to do in the regulated market) and effectively become a new wireless service provider in order to bring the product that he wanted to market. The deal kept this from happening to the benefit to both companies.
I'll present my interpretation of what you're seeing here with an analogy-
Lawyers in the US have the reputation for being greedy. I think that this is because anytime a large sums of currency move from one entity to another, lawyers are in between on both sides. Person "A" inheirits money, wants to contract work, or wants reparations from Person "B" is where you'll find lawyers.
Real estate agents operate in a similar niche. People recognize that they have a system that protects itself- the natural conclusion is that to eliminate the protectionistic system, that is to eliminate the system that forces rational people to use real estate agents, is to eliminate inefficiency in the market.
Personally, I would place value in hiring someone to do all the things you mention. The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that real estate agents don't do their job. It's scientifically documented in Freakonomics - by Steven Levit, IIRC.
In the book the author shows how brokers and agents regularly sell their own houses for - on average - 10% above market. How can this be? Aren't real estate agents supposed to get you the best price for your house? Isn't that the core of their job? Well, the facts show that agents regularly push their clients to accept less money that they could potentially get for their property. The book goes into detail why its in the agent's best financial interest to do this even though they work on a commission - but its too long to go into here. I highly recommend reading the book.
Slashdot Mirror
Every continuously operated establishment that did not meet ADA standards when it was passed was grandfathered. Even public buildings at the time. I seriously doubt there's many public buildings that haven't upgraded at this point, but I'm sure there are many, many grandfathered establishments that still do not meet the requirements of the 30 year old legislation.
I have never heard of or seen a historic building that couldn't be modified to meet the requirements of the ADA, but if one existed it would probably be granted an exemption by the local building department. Demolition is usually pursued when its the cheapest option, not when its the only option.
To be clear on this. It is not legal in the US to bake shit in your Kitchen at home and sell it commercially. Not in any jurisdiction I want to visit, anyway.
There are minimum conformance standards in our society for good reasons. Some are enforced through regulatory inspections, some through the courts. The fact that you hung a shingle doesn't give you the right to discriminate against classes of people, or skirt other regulatory mandates. The fact that you said a business owner should get to choose which laws they want to follow is childish.
Posting a legal filing to a regulatory agency under a .docx format is like a double stuff oreo too. Assuming that consuming oreos equates to enthusiastic support for the kludgiest, most ubiquitous, garbage ever created.
Or maybe they're just nihilistic trolls.... well played Mediacom, well played.
People don't like this because its used as a source of revenue generation, not as a tool to benefit the public good. An officer with a speed camera can potentially save lives by stopping an incapacitated driver. The camera does nothing except get the municipality another cheque. My state has revoked the charter for municipalities that have abused such revenue generation schemes.
Yup you're right. Even though the economy is in much better shape than 2007 and entitlement spending is DOWN (as percent of GDP) as a result, in the long run we'd better get our house in order pretty soon or we'll all be screwed.
So maybe we should elect a president that won't get us boondoggled in pointless foreign wars. Austerity will work as well as it did in Europe, which is to say not at all.
oreally? Last time I checked the USA had a progressive income tax. So that is exactly the kind of country I live in.
I'd guess that the $23 tax in GP's example is less than the depreciation in value for the same mile. Also, probably less than the sales tax (yes, I know Oregon doesn't have one, but nearly every other state does so its applicable) if the tax was divided out by the number of miles driven. So yeah, GP's concept sounds pretty fair to me. If you don't like it, don't buy $2M vehicle. Or do buy one, just don't drive it.
Yeah, I've heard the same anecdote about the size of Harvard's endowment. The thing is, its annual budget is 4.2 billion, so its endowment is less than 10x - not even close to 25x. So this doesn't put Harvard in "Koch Brothers" rich territory, more like "Apple" rich.
Stop being obtuse. He's obviously stating an opinion. Proving this in court is not worth netflix's time. Much easier to lobby the FCC into making a decision on net neutrality than to sue every isp across the country.
In the US, every state licenses barbers. Google "board of barbering and cosmetology"
I'd argue this is a good thing, since I like to know that there's someone out there checking to see if barbers are keeping their shit clean.
That is the reason assault is separate from battery, but in reality they often go together.
tl;dr
But I'm going to assume your diatribe promotes alternatives to vaccination. And to strike down your argument all I need to do is point to the numerous preventable infectious disease outbreaks in recent years among anti-vaxer communities. Sure, not scientific, I get it. But the burden is on you to explain to me how not vaccinating wasn't the reason those outbreaks.
Also, people in the developed world who aren't allergic to the preservatives used in vaccines and who don't vaccinate anyway are assholes. They're assholes because they benefit from the practice of vaccination without participating in the shared risk of vaccination and because they increase the risk of infectious disease outbreaks, and therefore death, among the population that can't be vaccinated (compromised immune system, allergic, newborns, etc.). Sure, nothing illegal about being a selfish jerk in our society, but you should be self aware enough to know that you are being a selfish jerk and probably shouldn't try to convince other people to join you.
You are correct, in that the federal courts have jurisdiction in constitutional law. However, I think that what gp was really questioning was, "what happens to the legislators who pass unconstitutional laws?" The answer is, nothing [short of they may get voted out of office for passing such a law].
The state is accountable for the actions its employees, but the legislators themselves hold no personal liability to the actions of the state. Though I'm not sure about the executive branch- which in this case would actually do the chopping off of the hands. Is "just administering the law" really a get-out-of-jail-free card for doing anything, no matter how obviously bad? I think not since it didn't work in Nuremberg.
Thank you for helping debunk this meme. Your post was more thorough than what my reply would have been.
I'm getting sick of the FUD surrounding the US federal government's requirement to increase the efficiency of incandescent lightbulbs [which appears to be working!]
Personally, rather than create new laws to control this, I'd rather the telco's take care of it themselves.
I'd love it if my carrier offered a premium service to block all robocalls or sales calls. I have to believe that they know exactly who and where these people are. Why it isn't already an option in my area, I have know idea.
I think you were going for +1 funny (although how you got modded flamebait I don't get), but it really doesn't depend your point of view.
All that matters is who originated the file transfer, i.e. If I am downloading something, you wouldn't say "The server is uploading something to me." Nor would it make any sense to say "The server is downloading something from me." when I am in fact uploading.
Obviously your argument is valid only if AIDs is the only disease that kills people. This is, of course, not the case. Therefore maintaining genetic diversity within the population is the most preferred course to managing overall risk to the system.
Plus, your eugenics bullshit went out of fashion last century. Today we understand that just because someone is different from us, it doesn't make them inferior.
I think that this is a bad law because it can have unintended consequences if it is used by over zealous DA's.
Here's my analogy: We can all agree lynching someone is bad. The problem is that all of those people who do the lynching always wear masks so that we can't identify them. So, to deal with this problem, we're going to make it illegal to own white hoods and equipment used for the purpose of lynching, and we're going to set the punishment at 25-life (lynching is pretty bad, after all). Well that's all fine as long as this is only enforced against people who are actually committing the crimes that you're *really* trying to punish. But if this law were passed, it would be only a matter of time before it would be used to send someone that *we just don't like* to jail because they happened to own a halloween ghost costume or some rope.
I know, it's a cynical view of the world, but its mine and you can't have it.
Obviously, I meant my other post to reply to one of these "Originalists" in the thread. Sorry 'bout that- too bad he won't get to read my fabulous arguement!
I don't know why these sorts of arguments keep coming up.
When the constitution was written, radio didn't exist. Neither did lots of other things that the courts have decided that the federal government has the constitutional authority to regulate. Simply put, if the courts decide a law [like the one establishing the FCC] is constitutional, then it is [Marburg v Madison]. No matter what you think. I posted this elsewhere in the thread:
The FCC notes that the Supreme Court in 1969 upheld the government's authority to limit broadcast licenses. In Red Lion Broadcasting Co. vs. the United States, the high court held, "Congress unquestionably has the power to grant and deny licenses and to eliminate existing stations. No one has a First Amendment right to a license or to monopolize a radio frequency."
Source http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME01/Tree_Radio_Berkeley_Appendix.shtml
Although I'll say that if [I'd estimate] 4/9 of the Supreme Court had their way, then all of these regulatory powers that aren't explicitly stated in the constitution would go away. This is why the next election is so critical. So go out and vote!
Can I also add to my other post that the Supreme Court has already ruled on this?
In Red Lion Broadcasting Co. vs. the United States, the high court held, "Congress unquestionably has the power to grant and deny licenses and to eliminate existing stations. No one has a First Amendment right to a license or to monopolize a radio frequency.
Here's the full text http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME01/Tree_Radio_Berkeley_Appendix.shtml
The courts are tasked with the authority to review laws and judge their constitutionality [Marburg v Madison]. Since congress passed a law to establish the FCC and task them with regulating the radio spectrum, and the courts evidently believe that this falls under regulation of interstate commerce [Article 1 Section 8], then by default it IS constitutional.
The courts' opinion is the ONLY opinion that matters in deciding the constitutionality of a law. Why do you believe differently?
The AT&T/Apple service agreement is a win-win deal, but - sorry - not for the reasons you think.
Apple needed Cingular (now AT&T) to upgrade the entire network to enable the visual voicemail feature- which they got and happens to be one of the best features on the phone. Apple also receives a revenue stream from the monthly service agreement for all new AT&T/iPhone users. The amount they get was reported to be $10/month per user. *A LOT of money*
AT&T on the other hand, as you stated, now has a premium product that can draw new users from other networks at time when the market is pretty well saturated. But this deal was made also because Jobs made it clear to Cingular that he was willing to buy wireless minutes in bulk (as they were able to do in the regulated market) and effectively become a new wireless service provider in order to bring the product that he wanted to market. The deal kept this from happening to the benefit to both companies.
I'll present my interpretation of what you're seeing here with an analogy-
Lawyers in the US have the reputation for being greedy. I think that this is because anytime a large sums of currency move from one entity to another, lawyers are in between on both sides. Person "A" inheirits money, wants to contract work, or wants reparations from Person "B" is where you'll find lawyers.
Real estate agents operate in a similar niche. People recognize that they have a system that protects itself- the natural conclusion is that to eliminate the protectionistic system, that is to eliminate the system that forces rational people to use real estate agents, is to eliminate inefficiency in the market.
Personally, I would place value in hiring someone to do all the things you mention. The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that real estate agents don't do their job. It's scientifically documented in Freakonomics - by Steven Levit, IIRC.
In the book the author shows how brokers and agents regularly sell their own houses for - on average - 10% above market. How can this be? Aren't real estate agents supposed to get you the best price for your house? Isn't that the core of their job? Well, the facts show that agents regularly push their clients to accept less money that they could potentially get for their property. The book goes into detail why its in the agent's best financial interest to do this even though they work on a commission - but its too long to go into here. I highly recommend reading the book.