Because the US was granted jurisdiction over the site in a treaty, signed by the government of Cuba and the government of the United States. The terms of that treaty stipulate that the only way it will revert back to Cuban jurisdiction under that treaty are by mutual agreement between Cuba and the US, or if the US abandons the site. The land is, and has always been, "Cuban territory." If Cuba wants to get jurisdiction over the site back from the US, it needs to secure US agreement, or induce the US to abandon the site, it's that simple.
What terms is the US not following in the treaty? Cuba's objection to it under the VCLT mostly takes the form of "We were coerced, and under article 52 of VCLT, that makes the treaty moot." If the US is violating other aspects of the treaty, shouldn't they be publicizing those, rather than relying on the VCLT, article 4 of which states that its provisions are not to be applied retroactively?
Cuba has sovereignty over the territory because it is acknowledged by both sides of the treaty as Cuban territory. Jurisdiction is not ownership. The US was granted jurisdiction over the site by a treaty ratified by both sides in 1934. The treaty also stipulated conditions under which jurisdiction reverts to Cuba: those conditions HAVE NOT CHANGED. The US believes that the treaty is valid, and is abiding by the terms of the treaty (unless you can cite the Cuban government's evidence that the US isn't abiding by the treaty, because I haven't found anything other than references to the VCLT). The Cuban government decided (25 years later, after a revolution) that it didn't like the treaty its predecessors signed, and wanted the US to leave. Cuba can certainly open negotiations with the US to modify the terms of the treaty as well, but unilaterally declaring the treaty void and demanding the immediate departure of the US Navy simply because "I don't like this treaty" is not how treaties (or international diplomacy) works.
How did life appear? The Sun converts 4.3 million tons of matter into energy *every* *second*. That balances out the few living things on the shell of a small planet. So yes, as long as the Sun shines, biology can keep on trucking. I'm sure about that. There's not need to invoke "perpetuity", but can we please get a few more centuries of lifespan?
And yet we're constantly told how overpopulated this planet is, and how human society in its present form is unsustainable. Yet the energy required to support human life for MULTIPLES of its current lifespan... that wouldn't be a problem at all? Because I'm pretty sure we'd have a whole lot of problems if the population of earth went from 7 trillion to 35 trillion because everybody was suddenly living for 500 years.
It already doesn't, so what? No one is talking about preserving with 100% accuracy the present state of every quark, can we just extend whatever systems are in place right now? Why do lobsters and parrots live so much longer than same sized mammals? Did they hoard all the good carbon attoms?
Why, because they have SENS-tagged biomarkers and anti-aging toxins and compounds that allow them to live forever, didn't you know? I'm not arguing against the study of human aging, or the prolonging of lifespans through the application of science, I'm arguing that SENS, as it is currently conceived, offers no practical solutions and no practical utility for extending lifespan. It's a bunch of buzzwords strung together that calls itself a solution to aging, when in reality, as I said previously, it's the equivalent of a physicist declaring that he's solved the problem of interstellar travel by publishing a paper that says "We just need to make a wormhole from here to there!" It's not a "solution" in any scientifically reasonable field of study.
This is the problem with SENS: We've barely scratched the surface of understanding the problem, and then along comes the pointy haired boss to tell us that "solving this should be easy, just do X." How often do you roll your eyes when your boss does that to you? What makes you think the biology community isn't doing the same thing every time you handwave away all of the complexity that we don't even begin to understand in pursuit of some pet theory with a cute acronym? The incredible complexity of interactions between all of the 10^28 atoms that comprise the human body, and all of the thousands of organ and tissue types, over a span of 75 years, interacting with untold numbers of external environmental stimuli. But the SENS thinkers have decided we know enough to solve the problem, and presumes to prescribe things like, "Well we just need to find a way to jam our mitochondrial DNA into the cell nucleus so it's protected better," as if it understands WHY those things aren't there today (it's only an engineering oversight, we can totally fix that!) and HOW we can change the fundamental structure of DNA to make that happen without also producing all kinds of unexpected and undesirable side effects. If there's a reason it evolved that way, changing it will almost assuredly result in lots of funky side effects that we don't want, like, say, death.
Diabetes is a single fairly well understood, fairly well researched disorder. And yet there's no diabetes medication that doesn't also carry with it the risk of all kinds of side effects. We still haven't gotten that right, and you think we're going to re-engineer the human genome in any realistically "near term" time frame to relocate mitochondrial DNA in the cell?
People who utilize improper punctuation are a blight upon civilized society, and must not be tolerated. What you call genocide, I call eliminating criminal elements.
It is Cuban territory. It is Cuban territory that the Cuban government signed a treaty about, in which it ceded jurisdiction in that territory to the United States for the duration of the United States' use of that territory. Cuba doesn't dispute that it's Cuban territory, nor does the United States. Why do you insist on arguing that it's not Cuban territory?
but Cuba has absolutely no rights to it unless they fight the US for it,
Cuba has all the rights they did not cede in the treaty. They granted the US jurisdiction over the area, and agreed to the conditions set forth in the treaty. Their only options are to terminate the treaty peacefully, through mutual consent leading to the US military's withdrawal, or through force, by ejecting the US from the land. If countries can unilaterally declare treaties void on a whim, then what is the point of having treaties in the first place?
You keep going back and forth on this point, arguing that the current government is party to the treaty in some respects, but isn't in others - which is it? If Cuba is a party to the treaty, then they need to abide by the terms of the treaty even if they don't particularly like them anymore. The way to change it if they are party to it is to negotiate for a peaceful withdrawal under mutually acceptable terms, at which time jurisdiction over the Cuban territory reverts back to the Cuban government. As far as Avery Porko, yeah, it's pretty safe to assume Pres. Mendieta's administration was the one that ratified it, since he was in office from mid-January of 34 until his resignation in 1935.
If Cuba is not party to the treaty because the revolution changed their government, then their only recourse is to enforce their jurisdiction over the territory they've laid claim to by force of arms. Bitching about a treaty, and then saying "But we're not bound by that treaty, and we don't recognize it as valid anyway," is a little foolish.
It wasn't an old administration, it was a completely different government that happened to occupy the same island that the current Cuban government occupies.
You can't have it both ways - if the Cuban government today is not party to the treaty, then its opinions on whether or not the US is in violation of the treaty are moot. If it *is* party to the treaty, it remains for the Cuban government to demonstrate the the United States is in violation of that treaty, and revoke its accession to the treaty. Of course, Cuba tries using the 1969 VCLT to demonstrate that violation, and the 1969 VCLT specifically states that its articles are NOT to be applied retroactively. So what it boils down to is Cuba going "We don't like that you use that stretch of land," and the US going, "Tough, we pay for it, and we were given use of this land in perpetuity, so we're going to continue using it." Since there is not mutual agreement on a withdrawal, the only other way out is for the Cuban government to force the US military into abandoning the facility.
The "lease" is perpetual and, as far as I know, the current Cuban government is paid nothing for it.
You would be wrong on the second count. The lease was reaffirmed by treaty (Treaty of Relations) in 1934 (long after the establishment of an independent Cuba), and the stipulation that only mutual agreement or US abandonment of the property would terminate the lease. The US sends payments (and continues sending inflation-adjusted payments) to the Cuban government for the land. The Cuban government refuses to accept the money.
"treated as US territory in virtually every way" - except for the fact that they are NOT "US territory," you mean. The terms of the lease grant the US jurisdiction over the facility. They do not make the facility "US Territory." I don't understand why you can't seem to understand that these two completely separate things are possible.
Have you ever rented a car? Do you consider yourself the owner of the car, since Hertz doesn't send an employee along to control everything in a way it deems appropriate? Because this is what your argument amounts to: that granting someone else use of a portion of your property somehow makes that person the "owner" of your property, unless you control anything and everything they do on / with that property.
Indeed, there are practical limits far beyond the specific biological issues that would have to be solved. I'm not arguing for this, either - I think we'll extend average lifespans a bit more over the next few years, but I don't think we're anywhere close to a radical extension to being capable (on average) of a few hundred years, much less "negligible senescence" as our futurists here seem keen to assert.
None of the SENS approaches require infinite amounts of energy, for one.
Really? Winning the battle against entropy in perpetuity doesn't require an infinite supply of energy? You sure about that?
Atoms don't have an age, they don't wear out
Yes, matter won't be destroyed. That doesn't mean that it will continue on in the same particular combination forever, especially when you are talking about a particular arrangement of ~10^28 atoms in a typical adult. You need a whole lot more "orders of magnitude" before you're going to be able to reliably understand the processes happening in the human body, and replicate them and tweak them while understanding exactly how those tweaks will affect every other system & process in the body - for that particular individual.
In the words of the great American journalist H.L. Mencken, “for every complex problem, there is a simple solution, and it is wrong.” de Grey's research programme, which he terms 'strategies for engineered negligible senescence' (SENS), involves a combination of preventative and therapeutic interventions (de Grey, 2003). To solve the problem of apoptosis in senescent cells, one simply uses “senescence marker-tagged toxins”. To cure cancer, one just calls on “total telomerase deletion plus cell therapy”. To prop up the failing immune system, one can turn on “IL-7 mediated thymopoiesis”. To reverse mitochondrial mutations, one need only use “allotopic [mitochondrial]-coded proteins” of the type favoured by algae. Cell replacement can be accomplished by “stem cell therapy and growth factors”, whereas retooling the endocrine system relies on “genetically engineered muscle”. Cleavage of glycosylation crosslinks will involve periodic exposure to phenacyldimethylthiazolium chloride, and so on. Yet, in his writings, de Grey fails to mention that none of these approaches has ever been shown to extend the lifespan of any organism, let alone humans.
The fact is, the SENS program is WILDLY optimistic and incredibly simplistic in its 'solutions,' which are more "vague speculation" than "actual solution." SENS solves the "problem of aging" in the same was as saying, "Well just stop the tumors from growing!" solves the problem of cancer: it is a theory with no practice to support it, and in fact, we have only begun to scratch the surface of the innate complexity happening in each and every one of your cells.
I find it richly ironic, having read the article, that people here are so keen to latch on to this "sure thing," which is exactly the sort of thing that the article talks about.
No, in all ways that matter, Guantanamo Bay is Cuban territory that the US leases. The terms of that lease grant the US jurisdiction over the leased area for the duration of the lease, but the territory is most certainly not "US territory."
It is occupied - in the sense of in use, people residing there, not in the sense of 'seized' - by the US military because the Cuban American treaty of 1903 grants the US the right to occupy that land. Now, the Cuban government disputes the validity of the treaty, the US government says the treaty is valid. Since there really is no legally binding "court" they can take the dispute to, the options available are, as I said: 1) Negotiate a peaceful withdrawal using diplomacy; 2) Push the military out through force of arms;
Neither one is particularly practical, so the status quo endures. But Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and its associated facilities has never been "US Territory," and the land it's on will always remain Cuban territory. "We don't like the treaty an old administration signed on behalf of our country" is not sufficient grounds for termination of the provisions of a treaty.
Aubrey De Grey's SENS approach to fighting aging proposes just that and even proposes specific ways in which to accomplish it
Most of Aubrey De Grey's SENS approach involves the equivalent of a physicist saying "We could totally go to another galaxy, we just need to discover how to build a wormhole that will bring us there instantly!" In other words, it may be theoretically possible, but it's not going to practical for a LONG time. Most of his suggestions represent a breathtakingly oversimplified view of causes & effects of aging and age-related disorders, and claiming that they represent a clear picture of "why it happens" and even map out a basic strategy of "how to fix it," well... that's fanciful thinking at best, willful ignorance at worst.
Problem is, cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke, and respiratory ailments are often caused (or highly exacerbated by) simple wear and tear and aging on the body. Damage accumulates at the genetic level, and the body slowly loses its ability to replace cells and tissue. By saying "eradicate cardiovascular disease," what you're really saying is "find a way to make the body infinitely self-sustaining," which we're barely scratching the surface of understanding today.
Entropy's a bitch, and not something we're likely to find a silver bullet for. Many increases in life span beyond our current point will need to address the "wear and tear" aspect of aging, and find a way to slow or reverse those conditions, in parallel with dealing with the lifestyle issues that expose us to carcinogens and the like.
This assumes a complex and very unlikely chain of events. Here's how it would go down, if the British government actually cared about Sealand:
It's well within current UK territorial waters, and it's scarcely fit for habitation. All they'd really need to do is issue an eviction notice because living on the platform constitutes a risk to health and safety - I'm sure there's a regulatory body that inspects and certifies ships & other marine structures, much like a building authority inspects & certifies buildings. Do that, and the "sovereign territory" effectively ceases to exist.
Once the platform is declared unsafe for habitation, the police forcibly remove the inhabitants if necessary, and then the structure can be demolished. Unless the British Army regularly serves eviction notice to homeless squatters, I'm guessing it would be pretty trivial for the british government to legally empty the platform without resorting to deploying a carrier group and conducting weeks of bombardment with guns and bombs.
Civilians are subject to the laws and regulations governing the facility they are on. Buying a snack from the Exchange doesn't constitute "trade with Cuba," because all of the trade is conducted with private contractors operating on a military base which the US has jurisdiction over. All of your questions strike me as pointless semantic dithering - do you really believe that prisoners of the US military, on a US-controlled military facility, are "prisoners of the nation of Cuba"?
I think your objections are ill considered and don't hold up to even the most cursory examination.
It most certainly does apply in Guantanmo - numerous cases have been heard by federal courts all the way up to the Supreme Court regarding the status of detainees in Guantanamo.
You may believe that the people held there are entitled to the full benefit of constitutional due process afforded civilians under US law, and you wouldn't be alone in believing that. But the argument that detainees are non-combatants subject to civilian courts is certainly far from established case law - there's an awful lot of nuanced gray in that black and white picture you've painted.
The answer given by GP poster is entirely correct. The technical term for it is "foreign establishment." The US was leased Guantanamo in perpetuity under the Cuban American Treaty of 1903, as part of the overall negotiations involving the removal of troops from Cuba after the conclusion of the Spanish-American War, and leading to recognition of Cuban independence by the US. The US was granted complete control over the area defined by the treaty, but the territory is ultimately acknowledged as sovereign territory of Cuba.
The treaty was signed long before the current government of Cuba came to power. If they want the US military out of the territory, they have 2 options: 1) Negotiate a new treaty whose terms include a peaceful withdrawal of the US from the leased territory in such a way that re-establishes Cuban jurisdiction over the territory; 2) Declare war and evict the US military through force of arms.
Number 1 is difficult when you have no official diplomatic relations under which to initiate negotiations; Number 2 is pretty much impossible for a small, fairly poor island nation 115 miles off the coast of the US.
And what you fail to point out is the profound effect this had on his life, reputation, and financial situation. How expensive, embarrassing, and humiliating.
And what you fail to recognize is that one case does not constitute a sinister pattern of systemic corruption and abuse. A woman got overly hysterical because she saw a strange man naked, and felt that he was exposing himself to her and her 7 year old son. She called the police, the police felt her story had merit, they arrested him and charged him with indecent exposure - a misdemeanor. He was initially convicted because 2 people reported it, then the conviction was overturned on appeal when new evidence was brought forward. Is it unfortunate that this guy was "harmlessly nude," and somebody got offended by that? Sure. Is it the end of the world, or does it show some sort of sinister machinery at work? Not at all.
Could you justify that statement? Why is it so important for them to "this this seriously"? What does "taking it seriously" mean, anyway? Last I checked it more or less means (in practice) "kill them all and let God sort em out."
When somebody breaks the law - and exposing your nude body to others in public *is* in fact illegal - the police are obligated to enforce the law. When a citizen comes to them reporting what sounds like a violation, they are obligated to respond and investigate. Now, you can argue that the law is silly, or that it shouldn't be illegal, but the police aren't the ones who make the law, so arguing that point is irrelevant at this point - take that issue up with your state and local legislatures. "taking it seriously" means exactly what it says: they are obligated to investigate the report, and if the investigation turns up evidence that there probably was a violation of the law, it's their duty to arrest the violator and then turn the case over to the legal system for due process to determine the facts of the matter.
Is that really the America you want?
An America where the rule of law and the rights of citizens is respected and upheld by the police? That's absolutely the America I want. A single case where a naked man was reported by 2 separate people, police arrest him, court convicts him, and then later overturns that conviction, and sets him free with a not-guilty... THIS is your grand example of the corruption and infernal machinery of a system run amok? Because as far as I can see, it's only evidence of a single case where a guy should've put some shorts on, and two passers-by should have just ignored the naked guy making coffee.
We can argue whether or not the law in this case is silly (I'd argue that standards against public indecency aren't all that silly, though the application in this SINGLE CASE is certainly questionable), but the police responding to 2 separate reports of a man breaking that law? That's the way the system is supposed to work. People report crime, police respond & investigate; if probable cause is established, an arrest is made, and the plaintiff and defendant both get to argue their case with facts in front of a court.
I'm stunned that "dancing around naked in your house" is your choice of hills to die on, frankly.
Both of the other replies to this comment have pointed out the single case I'm aware of where this happened recently: Eric Williamson, of Virginia. What they BOTH fail to point out is that his misdemeanor conviction was overturned in 20 minutes on appeal.
Indecent exposure laws have quite a bit to do with intent - if you're standing outside on your balcony with a spotlight and marching band drawing attention to yourself, yeah, that's pretty obvious intent. The guy making coffee early in the morning walking around naked in the house? Not so obvious intent.
Of course, this case just shows that the system works. The police have to take the report seriously, because it's entirely possible he WAS exposing himself to children and women passers-by. But then upon examination of the evidence, it became pretty clear that the story the woman testified to was rather far-fetched, and she was just freaking out because she happened to see a dick hanging loose through somebody's window. I live in a rather large apartment complex, and I've caught glimpses of neighbors walking around inside their apartments in nothing, or next-to-nothing. It doesn't occur to me to get them arrested, much like it doesn't occur to 99% of the rest of the population who this happens to. If you happen to spot somebody naked in their house, I think you have two choices: 1) enjoy the view if the person is attractive; 2) learn to keep your eyes from wandering to other people's windows.
The Android size increase of late is likely very related to the fact that many of the phones are coming with 4G capabilities now. 4G chipsets are physically bigger than 3G, and consume more power.
As a phone designer, the options are:
1) Increase the size of phone to fit bigger chips and more battery to power the bigger chips inside the phone; since you have to stay "razor thin", your only option is to increase length and width, i.e. - screen size.
2) Cram 4G chips into existing form factors, producing a phone which will see about 30 minutes of actual 4g use on a single charge.
Anti-trust legislation is largely unrelated to a company's size, and largely related to the behavior of the company in question. A group of small companies each holding 10% market share could band together to fix prices, stifle competition, etc., and this would easily open them up to an antitrust investigation which could see them face rather stiff penalties.
Monopoly is one form of antitrust, but it is not the only form.
If Google were to penalize sites using competitors' advertising services and provide preferential treatment to customers using Google's ads, then they could find themselves getting investigated.
And this also includes credit cards, even if you pay them back as soon as you get the bill.
Actually no, doing exactly that isn't stupid, provided: 1) You have a credit card with a grace period for new purchases; (And if you don't, shame on you for being too stupid to shop around) 2) You pay your entire balance off each month during the grace period; (And if you don't, shame on you for being unable to manage your finance properly)
Using your credit card according to points 1 & 2 above gives you a short-term interest-free loan from the credit card company, and law states that cards that offer a grace period must allow a minimum of 21 days on that grace period, so they can't give you a 3 day grace period. So... do all your shopping interest free, and let your money sit in a bank account earning an extra couple weeks of interest each month. You win, so long as you're not completely incapable of managing a bill payment schedule, or of managing to have a credit line without needing to max it out.
"Living on credit" is stupid, and unsustainable. "Using a credit card wisely" is not, and can actually provide significant benefits to you if you manage it properly.
Not quite; The EULA claims you're not allowed to *sell them* except through Apple. You can publish them and distribute them by any means you wish if you do so for free.
The terms are still unsavory, but there is a meaningful difference between "you can't publish to any other platform," and "you can only publish to other platforms if your content is distributed free of charge."
Slashdot Mirror
Because the US was granted jurisdiction over the site in a treaty, signed by the government of Cuba and the government of the United States. The terms of that treaty stipulate that the only way it will revert back to Cuban jurisdiction under that treaty are by mutual agreement between Cuba and the US, or if the US abandons the site. The land is, and has always been, "Cuban territory." If Cuba wants to get jurisdiction over the site back from the US, it needs to secure US agreement, or induce the US to abandon the site, it's that simple.
What terms is the US not following in the treaty? Cuba's objection to it under the VCLT mostly takes the form of "We were coerced, and under article 52 of VCLT, that makes the treaty moot." If the US is violating other aspects of the treaty, shouldn't they be publicizing those, rather than relying on the VCLT, article 4 of which states that its provisions are not to be applied retroactively?
Cuba has sovereignty over the territory because it is acknowledged by both sides of the treaty as Cuban territory. Jurisdiction is not ownership. The US was granted jurisdiction over the site by a treaty ratified by both sides in 1934. The treaty also stipulated conditions under which jurisdiction reverts to Cuba: those conditions HAVE NOT CHANGED. The US believes that the treaty is valid, and is abiding by the terms of the treaty (unless you can cite the Cuban government's evidence that the US isn't abiding by the treaty, because I haven't found anything other than references to the VCLT). The Cuban government decided (25 years later, after a revolution) that it didn't like the treaty its predecessors signed, and wanted the US to leave. Cuba can certainly open negotiations with the US to modify the terms of the treaty as well, but unilaterally declaring the treaty void and demanding the immediate departure of the US Navy simply because "I don't like this treaty" is not how treaties (or international diplomacy) works.
And yet we're constantly told how overpopulated this planet is, and how human society in its present form is unsustainable. Yet the energy required to support human life for MULTIPLES of its current lifespan... that wouldn't be a problem at all? Because I'm pretty sure we'd have a whole lot of problems if the population of earth went from 7 trillion to 35 trillion because everybody was suddenly living for 500 years.
Why, because they have SENS-tagged biomarkers and anti-aging toxins and compounds that allow them to live forever, didn't you know? I'm not arguing against the study of human aging, or the prolonging of lifespans through the application of science, I'm arguing that SENS, as it is currently conceived, offers no practical solutions and no practical utility for extending lifespan. It's a bunch of buzzwords strung together that calls itself a solution to aging, when in reality, as I said previously, it's the equivalent of a physicist declaring that he's solved the problem of interstellar travel by publishing a paper that says "We just need to make a wormhole from here to there!" It's not a "solution" in any scientifically reasonable field of study.
This is the problem with SENS: We've barely scratched the surface of understanding the problem, and then along comes the pointy haired boss to tell us that "solving this should be easy, just do X." How often do you roll your eyes when your boss does that to you? What makes you think the biology community isn't doing the same thing every time you handwave away all of the complexity that we don't even begin to understand in pursuit of some pet theory with a cute acronym? The incredible complexity of interactions between all of the 10^28 atoms that comprise the human body, and all of the thousands of organ and tissue types, over a span of 75 years, interacting with untold numbers of external environmental stimuli. But the SENS thinkers have decided we know enough to solve the problem, and presumes to prescribe things like, "Well we just need to find a way to jam our mitochondrial DNA into the cell nucleus so it's protected better," as if it understands WHY those things aren't there today (it's only an engineering oversight, we can totally fix that!) and HOW we can change the fundamental structure of DNA to make that happen without also producing all kinds of unexpected and undesirable side effects. If there's a reason it evolved that way, changing it will almost assuredly result in lots of funky side effects that we don't want, like, say, death.
Diabetes is a single fairly well understood, fairly well researched disorder. And yet there's no diabetes medication that doesn't also carry with it the risk of all kinds of side effects. We still haven't gotten that right, and you think we're going to re-engineer the human genome in any realistically "near term" time frame to relocate mitochondrial DNA in the cell?
People who utilize improper punctuation are a blight upon civilized society, and must not be tolerated. What you call genocide, I call eliminating criminal elements.
They're monsters! I hear they eat their own grandmothers!
It is Cuban territory. It is Cuban territory that the Cuban government signed a treaty about, in which it ceded jurisdiction in that territory to the United States for the duration of the United States' use of that territory. Cuba doesn't dispute that it's Cuban territory, nor does the United States. Why do you insist on arguing that it's not Cuban territory?
Cuba has all the rights they did not cede in the treaty. They granted the US jurisdiction over the area, and agreed to the conditions set forth in the treaty. Their only options are to terminate the treaty peacefully, through mutual consent leading to the US military's withdrawal, or through force, by ejecting the US from the land. If countries can unilaterally declare treaties void on a whim, then what is the point of having treaties in the first place?
You keep going back and forth on this point, arguing that the current government is party to the treaty in some respects, but isn't in others - which is it? If Cuba is a party to the treaty, then they need to abide by the terms of the treaty even if they don't particularly like them anymore. The way to change it if they are party to it is to negotiate for a peaceful withdrawal under mutually acceptable terms, at which time jurisdiction over the Cuban territory reverts back to the Cuban government. As far as Avery Porko, yeah, it's pretty safe to assume Pres. Mendieta's administration was the one that ratified it, since he was in office from mid-January of 34 until his resignation in 1935.
If Cuba is not party to the treaty because the revolution changed their government, then their only recourse is to enforce their jurisdiction over the territory they've laid claim to by force of arms. Bitching about a treaty, and then saying "But we're not bound by that treaty, and we don't recognize it as valid anyway," is a little foolish.
You can't have it both ways - if the Cuban government today is not party to the treaty, then its opinions on whether or not the US is in violation of the treaty are moot. If it *is* party to the treaty, it remains for the Cuban government to demonstrate the the United States is in violation of that treaty, and revoke its accession to the treaty. Of course, Cuba tries using the 1969 VCLT to demonstrate that violation, and the 1969 VCLT specifically states that its articles are NOT to be applied retroactively. So what it boils down to is Cuba going "We don't like that you use that stretch of land," and the US going, "Tough, we pay for it, and we were given use of this land in perpetuity, so we're going to continue using it." Since there is not mutual agreement on a withdrawal, the only other way out is for the Cuban government to force the US military into abandoning the facility.
You would be wrong on the second count. The lease was reaffirmed by treaty (Treaty of Relations) in 1934 (long after the establishment of an independent Cuba), and the stipulation that only mutual agreement or US abandonment of the property would terminate the lease. The US sends payments (and continues sending inflation-adjusted payments) to the Cuban government for the land. The Cuban government refuses to accept the money.
"treated as US territory in virtually every way" - except for the fact that they are NOT "US territory," you mean. The terms of the lease grant the US jurisdiction over the facility. They do not make the facility "US Territory." I don't understand why you can't seem to understand that these two completely separate things are possible.
Have you ever rented a car? Do you consider yourself the owner of the car, since Hertz doesn't send an employee along to control everything in a way it deems appropriate? Because this is what your argument amounts to: that granting someone else use of a portion of your property somehow makes that person the "owner" of your property, unless you control anything and everything they do on / with that property.
Indeed, there are practical limits far beyond the specific biological issues that would have to be solved. I'm not arguing for this, either - I think we'll extend average lifespans a bit more over the next few years, but I don't think we're anywhere close to a radical extension to being capable (on average) of a few hundred years, much less "negligible senescence" as our futurists here seem keen to assert.
Really? Winning the battle against entropy in perpetuity doesn't require an infinite supply of energy? You sure about that?
Yes, matter won't be destroyed. That doesn't mean that it will continue on in the same particular combination forever, especially when you are talking about a particular arrangement of ~10^28 atoms in a typical adult. You need a whole lot more "orders of magnitude" before you're going to be able to reliably understand the processes happening in the human body, and replicate them and tweak them while understanding exactly how those tweaks will affect every other system & process in the body - for that particular individual.
We can start with the words of his fellow scientists:
The fact is, the SENS program is WILDLY optimistic and incredibly simplistic in its 'solutions,' which are more "vague speculation" than "actual solution." SENS solves the "problem of aging" in the same was as saying, "Well just stop the tumors from growing!" solves the problem of cancer: it is a theory with no practice to support it, and in fact, we have only begun to scratch the surface of the innate complexity happening in each and every one of your cells.
I find it richly ironic, having read the article, that people here are so keen to latch on to this "sure thing," which is exactly the sort of thing that the article talks about.
No, in all ways that matter, Guantanamo Bay is Cuban territory that the US leases. The terms of that lease grant the US jurisdiction over the leased area for the duration of the lease, but the territory is most certainly not "US territory."
It is occupied - in the sense of in use, people residing there, not in the sense of 'seized' - by the US military because the Cuban American treaty of 1903 grants the US the right to occupy that land. Now, the Cuban government disputes the validity of the treaty, the US government says the treaty is valid. Since there really is no legally binding "court" they can take the dispute to, the options available are, as I said:
1) Negotiate a peaceful withdrawal using diplomacy;
2) Push the military out through force of arms;
Neither one is particularly practical, so the status quo endures. But Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and its associated facilities has never been "US Territory," and the land it's on will always remain Cuban territory. "We don't like the treaty an old administration signed on behalf of our country" is not sufficient grounds for termination of the provisions of a treaty.
Most of Aubrey De Grey's SENS approach involves the equivalent of a physicist saying "We could totally go to another galaxy, we just need to discover how to build a wormhole that will bring us there instantly!" In other words, it may be theoretically possible, but it's not going to practical for a LONG time. Most of his suggestions represent a breathtakingly oversimplified view of causes & effects of aging and age-related disorders, and claiming that they represent a clear picture of "why it happens" and even map out a basic strategy of "how to fix it," well... that's fanciful thinking at best, willful ignorance at worst.
Problem is, cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke, and respiratory ailments are often caused (or highly exacerbated by) simple wear and tear and aging on the body. Damage accumulates at the genetic level, and the body slowly loses its ability to replace cells and tissue. By saying "eradicate cardiovascular disease," what you're really saying is "find a way to make the body infinitely self-sustaining," which we're barely scratching the surface of understanding today.
Entropy's a bitch, and not something we're likely to find a silver bullet for. Many increases in life span beyond our current point will need to address the "wear and tear" aspect of aging, and find a way to slow or reverse those conditions, in parallel with dealing with the lifestyle issues that expose us to carcinogens and the like.
This assumes a complex and very unlikely chain of events. Here's how it would go down, if the British government actually cared about Sealand:
It's well within current UK territorial waters, and it's scarcely fit for habitation. All they'd really need to do is issue an eviction notice because living on the platform constitutes a risk to health and safety - I'm sure there's a regulatory body that inspects and certifies ships & other marine structures, much like a building authority inspects & certifies buildings. Do that, and the "sovereign territory" effectively ceases to exist.
Once the platform is declared unsafe for habitation, the police forcibly remove the inhabitants if necessary, and then the structure can be demolished. Unless the British Army regularly serves eviction notice to homeless squatters, I'm guessing it would be pretty trivial for the british government to legally empty the platform without resorting to deploying a carrier group and conducting weeks of bombardment with guns and bombs.
Civilians are subject to the laws and regulations governing the facility they are on. Buying a snack from the Exchange doesn't constitute "trade with Cuba," because all of the trade is conducted with private contractors operating on a military base which the US has jurisdiction over. All of your questions strike me as pointless semantic dithering - do you really believe that prisoners of the US military, on a US-controlled military facility, are "prisoners of the nation of Cuba"?
I think your objections are ill considered and don't hold up to even the most cursory examination.
It most certainly does apply in Guantanmo - numerous cases have been heard by federal courts all the way up to the Supreme Court regarding the status of detainees in Guantanamo.
You may believe that the people held there are entitled to the full benefit of constitutional due process afforded civilians under US law, and you wouldn't be alone in believing that. But the argument that detainees are non-combatants subject to civilian courts is certainly far from established case law - there's an awful lot of nuanced gray in that black and white picture you've painted.
The answer given by GP poster is entirely correct. The technical term for it is "foreign establishment." The US was leased Guantanamo in perpetuity under the Cuban American Treaty of 1903, as part of the overall negotiations involving the removal of troops from Cuba after the conclusion of the Spanish-American War, and leading to recognition of Cuban independence by the US. The US was granted complete control over the area defined by the treaty, but the territory is ultimately acknowledged as sovereign territory of Cuba.
The treaty was signed long before the current government of Cuba came to power. If they want the US military out of the territory, they have 2 options:
1) Negotiate a new treaty whose terms include a peaceful withdrawal of the US from the leased territory in such a way that re-establishes Cuban jurisdiction over the territory;
2) Declare war and evict the US military through force of arms.
Number 1 is difficult when you have no official diplomatic relations under which to initiate negotiations; Number 2 is pretty much impossible for a small, fairly poor island nation 115 miles off the coast of the US.
And what you fail to recognize is that one case does not constitute a sinister pattern of systemic corruption and abuse. A woman got overly hysterical because she saw a strange man naked, and felt that he was exposing himself to her and her 7 year old son. She called the police, the police felt her story had merit, they arrested him and charged him with indecent exposure - a misdemeanor. He was initially convicted because 2 people reported it, then the conviction was overturned on appeal when new evidence was brought forward. Is it unfortunate that this guy was "harmlessly nude," and somebody got offended by that? Sure. Is it the end of the world, or does it show some sort of sinister machinery at work? Not at all.
When somebody breaks the law - and exposing your nude body to others in public *is* in fact illegal - the police are obligated to enforce the law. When a citizen comes to them reporting what sounds like a violation, they are obligated to respond and investigate. Now, you can argue that the law is silly, or that it shouldn't be illegal, but the police aren't the ones who make the law, so arguing that point is irrelevant at this point - take that issue up with your state and local legislatures. "taking it seriously" means exactly what it says: they are obligated to investigate the report, and if the investigation turns up evidence that there probably was a violation of the law, it's their duty to arrest the violator and then turn the case over to the legal system for due process to determine the facts of the matter.
An America where the rule of law and the rights of citizens is respected and upheld by the police? That's absolutely the America I want. A single case where a naked man was reported by 2 separate people, police arrest him, court convicts him, and then later overturns that conviction, and sets him free with a not-guilty... THIS is your grand example of the corruption and infernal machinery of a system run amok? Because as far as I can see, it's only evidence of a single case where a guy should've put some shorts on, and two passers-by should have just ignored the naked guy making coffee.
We can argue whether or not the law in this case is silly (I'd argue that standards against public indecency aren't all that silly, though the application in this SINGLE CASE is certainly questionable), but the police responding to 2 separate reports of a man breaking that law? That's the way the system is supposed to work. People report crime, police respond & investigate; if probable cause is established, an arrest is made, and the plaintiff and defendant both get to argue their case with facts in front of a court.
I'm stunned that "dancing around naked in your house" is your choice of hills to die on, frankly.
Both of the other replies to this comment have pointed out the single case I'm aware of where this happened recently: Eric Williamson, of Virginia. What they BOTH fail to point out is that his misdemeanor conviction was overturned in 20 minutes on appeal.
Indecent exposure laws have quite a bit to do with intent - if you're standing outside on your balcony with a spotlight and marching band drawing attention to yourself, yeah, that's pretty obvious intent. The guy making coffee early in the morning walking around naked in the house? Not so obvious intent.
Of course, this case just shows that the system works. The police have to take the report seriously, because it's entirely possible he WAS exposing himself to children and women passers-by. But then upon examination of the evidence, it became pretty clear that the story the woman testified to was rather far-fetched, and she was just freaking out because she happened to see a dick hanging loose through somebody's window. I live in a rather large apartment complex, and I've caught glimpses of neighbors walking around inside their apartments in nothing, or next-to-nothing. It doesn't occur to me to get them arrested, much like it doesn't occur to 99% of the rest of the population who this happens to. If you happen to spot somebody naked in their house, I think you have two choices: 1) enjoy the view if the person is attractive; 2) learn to keep your eyes from wandering to other people's windows.
So it's sort of like if Che Guevara started selling a line of official Che Guevara t-shirts through Urban Outfitters?
The Android size increase of late is likely very related to the fact that many of the phones are coming with 4G capabilities now. 4G chipsets are physically bigger than 3G, and consume more power.
As a phone designer, the options are:
1) Increase the size of phone to fit bigger chips and more battery to power the bigger chips inside the phone; since you have to stay "razor thin", your only option is to increase length and width, i.e. - screen size.
2) Cram 4G chips into existing form factors, producing a phone which will see about 30 minutes of actual 4g use on a single charge.
Anti-trust legislation is largely unrelated to a company's size, and largely related to the behavior of the company in question. A group of small companies each holding 10% market share could band together to fix prices, stifle competition, etc., and this would easily open them up to an antitrust investigation which could see them face rather stiff penalties.
Monopoly is one form of antitrust, but it is not the only form.
If Google were to penalize sites using competitors' advertising services and provide preferential treatment to customers using Google's ads, then they could find themselves getting investigated.
Actually no, doing exactly that isn't stupid, provided:
1) You have a credit card with a grace period for new purchases; (And if you don't, shame on you for being too stupid to shop around)
2) You pay your entire balance off each month during the grace period; (And if you don't, shame on you for being unable to manage your finance properly)
Using your credit card according to points 1 & 2 above gives you a short-term interest-free loan from the credit card company, and law states that cards that offer a grace period must allow a minimum of 21 days on that grace period, so they can't give you a 3 day grace period. So... do all your shopping interest free, and let your money sit in a bank account earning an extra couple weeks of interest each month. You win, so long as you're not completely incapable of managing a bill payment schedule, or of managing to have a credit line without needing to max it out.
"Living on credit" is stupid, and unsustainable. "Using a credit card wisely" is not, and can actually provide significant benefits to you if you manage it properly.
Not particularly, why do you ask? What problem do you see with it?
Not quite; The EULA claims you're not allowed to *sell them* except through Apple. You can publish them and distribute them by any means you wish if you do so for free.
The terms are still unsavory, but there is a meaningful difference between "you can't publish to any other platform," and "you can only publish to other platforms if your content is distributed free of charge."
Get out of here with your fancy modern abacus. The good lord gave us 10 fingers and 10 toes, that's all ANYBODY needs to learn the basics.
And why do you need to write anything down? You have a goddamned memory for that!