read obove, someone else provided it so i did not. But, you can start here, and google around a bit more. Since it's a study people honestly don't want answers to (they want to assume the worst so we can inflict greater and stricter punishments) there's no hard evidence, and even what is out there is skewed by staticticians and discredited as innacurate.
Most 15 year olds are scarred by that. And no, it's not called "rape" it's called "stautory rape" which is actually a different classification of crime and carries distinctly different punichments (unless it's habbitual or associated with a mental disorder in the 20 year old, in which case it's child molestation and covers in many states a more sever penalty)
And how is this differnt from former MCI's friend and family policy? The simple collection and parsing of information YOU ALREADY HAVE, is not in itself illegal. In fact, pen registers are not subject to 4th amendement protections unless that information is traded or sold, which it was not, accepting that giving it to the NSA was under what AT&T and others considered a legal order to do so.
A previous court case against MCI did not outlaw their practice, it only prompted MCI to change how they USED that information in their marketing efforts. They never did stop collecting it. In fact, that's why BellSouth had the information to provide the NSA when requested as well.
The NSA specifically requersted this information from ALL the major carriers. AT&T did NOT provide it voluntarily. Quest was the ONLY ONE to not comply... Do not put this on AT&T, every carrier except quest was guilty. Further, it's ONGOING, except its now under judicial oversight instead of executive oversight.
On the asside, I was added to the no fly list at one point. A close friend of mine was an active campaigner against a republican running for office, and organized more than one public protest. I was added due to my association with him though associated blog posts on his website. As soon as he got his own name removed, which I understand was not difficult, mine also was removed from the list.
Spoofing the ID to make the device work with the OS is one thing, spoofing it to make it work with a 3rd party application, that's a differnt ball game...
I've got a college friend listed on the registry because at 23 years old, she gave her HUSBAND oral sex in a movie theatre and got caught doing so by a 62 year old woman who sued her and her husband for mental distress. It was later discovered by her lawyer that this 62 year old woman was for several years of her life an ADULT ENTERTAINER, and the civil case was immediately dropped, but she was still stuck with the criminal charge. Her husband strangely was not charged with "performing a lewd act in public" but only indecent exposure, which in their state of residence does not force him to be listed.
...and its extent is also determined by the JUDGE, not by congress... It is not within the scope of power of the legislature to determine the nature of punishment for a crime, they can only set limits within which a judge can operate (and often even those are found unconstitutional).
You're correct. There are a rare few sexual offenders who repeat. However, within certain small bands of sexual offenders (child molesters, aggrevated rapists, certain types of stalkers, etc) there are chemical or phychological imbalances that make it far more likely.
I think the reason a 5% repeat rate is thorwon out there is partly to convince the public these released felons may not be as much of a risk as the public would like to believe, and also that this number is skewed by "sexual offences" that really are not (streaking, sex in public, pissing in the woods, etc). I live near a beach resort. You would not believe how many people are completely shocked to find out their life is ruined and they're being added to sexual offender lists because they got caught getting frisky in the waves at 2AM. If people knew what the punishment was, they probably would not have done it, and trust me, those who do never will again, and that's considering most never see a night in prison, potentially accepting a night or two in holding before seeing a judge.
EXACTLY. Even if they have served the maximum scentence, and technically we HAVE to let them go, it could easily be added that they go through a psychological profiling before coming back out, the results of which determine the nature of their probation.
If a group of docs and panel of parole reviewers think you might hurt another person, and use the internet to pray on them, then we simply ban you from the internet entirely... If they're not a threat, we probably still want them watched for a while just to be sure, but banning them from doing anything other than coming too close to certain people (a specific victim, children in general, etc) and banning them from certain activities that could be triggers for a repeat offence, naturally determined by the nature of the original crime (sex chat, 900 numbers, working in a strip club, etc should be banned, but not SOCIALIZING).
If you restrict them too much, they'll feel oppressed too much, and the likely result of severe oppression is backlash, typically highly violent backlash. As you said, if they're not considered safe to release, we don't. If they have to be released, it;s entirely possible they're released into psychiatric care, which may even include further incarceration in a phych facility instead of a prison, followed by closely monitored parole.
However, i also agree that 1) peeing in the woods is not a sexual offence, nor even should public nudity (streaking included) be treated as a serious crime, unless it can be shown theres a major psychological issue with the person, but even then we're taking Psychiatric help, not imprisonment. 2) completely consentual sex, between 2 people of like age, is a legal technicality due to modern society and religious beliefs, and should not as such be considered a violent crime or sexual offence. A 35 year old sleeping with a 14 year old is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than two 15 year olds getting it on while in love and having the PARENTS bring a case against the boy. 3) there is a difference between aggrivated sexual assault/violent rape, especailly multiple counts of it, and other simple sexual crimes (giving a blowjob in a movie theatre or sex in public). Child molestation of any kind should also be one of the most serious crimes.
Without classification of the sexual "based" crime into categories with differing punishments, and differeing post-release concerns, and different probation rules, all we're doing is oppressing some mostly innocent people in exchange for some FALSE security from a few real criminals.
Well, if you augment your list with one more detail, you might have a better picture: - leaves no lasting physical or emotional damage...
Show me the victim of a sexual offence who was never physically harmed, nor threatened with a weapon, but say some innocent kid tricked into sex when they didn't even know it was wrong, who has had no lasting side effects of that encounter (or repeated encvounters), and I'll buy your side that that PARTICULAR crime was non-violent. If 1% fall into that category, the other 99% clearly show the act to be violent.
yea clearly did not follow the link. We actually have a SERIOUS problem in this country PREVENTING further rollout of Wind energy, and it's called off-peak losses.
Wind power companies are litterally PAYING people to take the energy they produce during off-peak hours. Until we finish deploying an interconencted national grid, and until we depoloy a storage system for overproduced energy, local wind farms are suffering when they're actually producing more than the local markets can bear in energy. The electrolysis sysyems actually run closer to 80% efficient now btw, when used symbiotically with other systems, including advances in recouperative heat use (also indicated in extremely detailed and complex disagrams on the site, and available in further complete data if you pay for it), but that part of the system also only needs to run a few hours a day to keep the rest of the plant supplied with enough H2 tobe making fuels 24x7.
We're not standing up MORE wind power, we're doing something with the wind power we're having trouble finding a use for...
Battery powered vehicles can NOT replace fuel cars for 30-50 year until we build YET MORE power sources, and figure out how to handle the MASSIVE swings in usage that would come with 100million cars sucking from the grid at odd hours... and it can't be done until we can shift power coast to coast instead of locally. This will require the 30 Trillion Dollar grid expansion and overhaul that already started in Maine and Long Island NY, and really will take 30 years to complete, if not longer. A fraction of percent of cars, on tricle charges at night, we can handle, but if even 5% of us started driving electric cars, we'd brown out whole cities, especially in california which can barely keep up with current damands!
Solar power in residential areas is simply non effective. Without huge government subidies, (like we lack in SC), payoff costs for solar greatly exceed 20+ years, and that does NOT include maintenance, degredation of cells, additional insurance costs (we have a LOT of hail here), and the fact that SC power companies (and many others) do not buy your overproduced solar power (the new digital home meters don't run backwards here, you're giving them the excess power for free, but buying it back later at market rates to boot) means breaking even is even harder. I looked at home solar 3 years ago when i built a house near the coast, and again last year building one in central SC, even getting to just 50% power from solar would have taken 25-30 years to recoup, assuming I never paid out a hail damage deductible... A single hail storm and it would have become impossible to recoup.
In 10-15 years when solar is MUCH cheaper, and when it's MUCH more efficient, and when it competes with other systems in terms of $/KW generated, then central solar collectors could easily replace or augment wind. Also any other green power source could easily be used, but power system like wave generators, waterfalls, etc, are CORE power systems, and the economy of making H2 with them simply is not as good as it is with wind (today). However, solar has an even BIGGER off-peak issue... to deploy full solar use in place of wind, we'd need 4 times the energy storage capacity even of wind, and you'd have whole power plants turning off in the moring and on in the evening, and that's EXPENSIVE!
We really don't care WHAT the end efficiency rating of the vehicle is. 20% in the tank? no big deal if 100% of that energy came mostly for free, as a side effect of another industry...
Also, a recent study confirmed there IS enough land in the USA not only to power all our energy needs, but actually that of all of North America, and that was only using class 6 and higher wind zones, reasonable off-shore locations, and locations considered suitible for construction (aka, not on the rock faces of mountains). http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/03/nation/na-energy3
hey, AT&T may have complied with illegal orders to provide wire taps, and even played some questionable moves to avoid prosecution, but lets place the blame where it really lies; the Bush Administration... AT&T was not the only company to comply with these orders, and was told quite explicitly, by judges, that the orders were in fact valid...
AT&T may have broken the law, and violated the privacy of many (suspected crimainals/terorists) Americans, but they did so under a supposed legal authority and under orders to do so, and these wire taps (most of them) were actually for people accused or associated with active federal investigations. Palm is collecting personal information, it has NO association with any criminal activity and no basis in law, and they're doing it without informed concent, and without a way to disable the tracking, and wihtout support or order by the government, and I bet they're doing it without the Phone Company's knowledge too. (and if the phone company IS aware of it, they're FAR more guilty than AT&T is...
Yup, and we expect either them to get slapped on the wrist and told to undo it by the association, told to stop selling the devices by court order and potentially recall all of them, or both the above combined with heavy fines. Either way we also expect Apple to fix the new "fix" upon the very next release...
As it is, and I spoke to him minutes ago as he was packing up for the day, my friend indicated that iTunes does in fact not currently sync his stuff today. Wether or not he's missing an update that might fix it, he's aware it's a hack, aware there's a fight that will almost certainly end in Apple's favor or at least turn against Palm, and well aware that after 14 days he can't return his device and get out of his contract without penalties or fees, so he's not wasting time at the risk of getting screwwed later.
he was actually not really too pissed about the hack, he was kind of on Palm's side on that matter and figured Palm would sooner rather than later have a "satisfactory" solution that may or many not involve their own meda player, or outright licensing of Apple's technology. What made him immediately pack up was the news he was being snooped on and that there was not a way to dissable it. He spent about 30 minutes looking to find a way, and made a nasty call to Pre's support line. He removed the battery from his device and was headed home to get the box, manual, and charger on his way to the store...
granted, if we can understand the process with which wavelengths of light are used to convert matter using catylists, we can design a more efficient process based on it, likely using substrates and not actual biological processes.
That said, we get H2, which other than being burned directly on site has little value to the rest of ut. We can NOt afford to use it in our cars, ever. It costs too much to build an infrastructure, we have to reengineer all the cars, and it's WAY too dangerous. instead, we could use the H2 to MAKE gasoline (RWGS/RFTS processing, it;s been used since WWII).
Dotyenergy.com is a pioneer in the field of turning H2 and CO2 into usable fuels, They;ve got over 60 world patents that have improved the process enough to make ti highly competitive with oil. ($60-80 per barrel equivalent, ie, we can MAKE gas for less than $3 a gallon pump price without using any oil, and by sequestering re-using waste CO2 in the process). Check it out...
yup... However, using highly efficient carbon nuetral energy sources (wind, water, solar, etc) to make energy to power high luminocity limited spectrum bulbs we might be able to work it out. That, or redirect only specific wavelengths into the chemical process and the rest to solar colectors through the use of prisms/filters.
That said, what do they REALLY plan to do with the H2 produced? Lets face it, we'll not be running our cars on it likely for more than 100 years, if ever. Even if you could make H2 essentially for free, the expense of storage, transportation, more storage, engines to run it in, and other high costs leave it one of the most expensive proposed alternate solutions... This is not to include the additional concerns including limited vehicle ranges, long charging/filling times, and the sheer dangers inherent to H2, we simply can't allow it...
If you want a place to send H2, and if this process is more efficient than either wind or solar based electrolysis, then you need to talk to the folks behind dotyenergy.com. They have a solution that uses H2 and sequestered CO2 as inputs to an RFTS process that makes regular fuels.. This is real technology in use since WWII (refined and made much more effient with 60+ patents and 50 years of effort). Check them out...
- no new pipelines/storage systems/infrastructure required - carbon nuetral unlimited fuel - competitive at $60-80/barrel vs gasonline from oil depending on local markets - runs in your current car (it IS gasoline!) - available and proven NOW, we just need to build the facilities.
Eventually, we'll all be running electrics, with 5-10 minute charge cycles and 200 mile ranges. (we're about 10 years from that level of bettery technology, and 15 from it competing with current car prices). However, we're 30 years from having an electrical grid (at least that long) that can handle putting the cars on it in mass numbers, and 50 years from having enough power going into that grid to handle it. This is a perfect stopgap so solve the carbon issue, solve fuel dependency, and build an industry that could employ 10s of thousands of people without simultaneously putting every corner gas station out of business....
Well, if my fellow coworkers who chose the Pre over the iPhone were not quite ready to return their devices for full refund and termination of any contract signed at purchase when Palm "hacked" iTunes and Apple promptly "fixed" it cutting all the users off from sync, now they REALLY have a strong case to return it.
In fact, I just mentioned this article to a co-worker who was showing off his shiny new Pre to me late last week, which after using it for a few days and finding out contrary to what the clerk told him that he could in fact not sync with iTunes, He's clocking out now to return it to the store he bought it from and promised to be headed to Bestbuy to pick up an iPhone 3GS on the way back...
Mostly I agree. Only in cases where access to sensitive information, PCI, PHI, databases containing personal information, or where access to cash or valuable property is concerned should employers have a need to access your credit information.
I also think the beacon score should be irrelevent, and even information about what accounts you do and don;t have is "personal" information. Only information about active leins, and unpaid debts in excess of certain amounts that are in ACTIVE collections should be provided to prospective employers.
Basically: Are you at risk for stealing something you'd actually have access to in the course of your job duties/role to pay a major debt, do you have a significant history of nonpayment of debts, or are you at risk of being imprisoned or suddenly quitting to avoid payroll deductions from the courts for a leain or credit collection action.
Anything else should be handled by interviewing your past employers, through reference letters, and be handled through a disclosure letter.
Of course, there is a VERY simple solution: C2 clearance application. This is a "civilian Trust" clearance. The employer is given NO information other than you either passed or failed, or that you didn't fill out the forms completely/properly. The employer never sees your credit information, or any other personal data other than your work, school, and physical address information provided that would normally be on an application, and statements about whether or not you have active debts or litigation, which is also something easily asked without gleaming any actual data. It;s a basic criminal background check and verification of "did you tell the truth" It's not a "failure" to have a debt in collection, so long as you admit it in the C2 documents. It MAY be a failure if that's a government lein and you've made no effrts to arrange payents, but that's actually a criminal case, not a trust issue, and failure to resolve it could result in imprisonment...
1) you have 2 verification machines, and BOTH their database counts must match in my design. Any deviation in one vs the other would instantly call for a complete paper recount. As a typical government design, each would run a unique OS and application system, and thus identically compromising all 3 seperate components (at mutiple polling locations) would be virtually impossible.
2) The paper going into the lockbox is a 3rd validation point, and has been visually verified to be identical to the paper printed from the actual voting machine, confirming the data transmission from the booth to the secondary recording system is accurate. The paper the voter places in the machine as verification of the second printed copy would be kept by the voter (should they wish) and be one more point of validation should we suspect tampering in cases where the paper reel was lost/destorey as we could collect a small sampling of printed receipts and validate them against the scanned images.
3) as votes are recorded not only by count, but by records in a database, and those records would ALSO include the scanned image of each vote, a simple cross check would be to pull a small number (say 25 records or 1%) at random and ensure the stored record in machine 3 matches the scanned image on the tape.
4) exit polls would still be used as a failsafe, as well as polling predictions, and when those are off by more than an expected percent, then an entire paper recount would be automatic.
5) paper recount would be EASY, and QUICK, and could very easily become a standard part of the validation process post election.
It's not a complicated system, it's a secured data flow using 3 distinct data points and visual verification of each record.
I can agree that keeping the ballot receipt could be exploited, so you can discredit that part of my design if you like, and I'd support that stance. The only thing that takes away is a vote where the machines didn't match, the exit polls indicated possible tampering, the log book indicated a number of votes were recorded that's different from the number of people we noted came to the polls, and when the paper record is destroyed. If that happens, we could simply say we need a revote and discredit the entire poll record for that site.
Yup, I made no mention of a literacy test. I simply stated you had to have a PIECE of knowledge (just ONE per candidate you wish to vote for), out of a distributed and talked about list for each race of 20-25 top platform items. It would be repeated by every local news organization, and printed in every media, and talked about around every water cooler, and made easily and freely available from numerous sources, in audio, video, and print form, and in multiple languages.
You don't need to know how to read (we already assist those who can't at the polls, and you can get this information watching TV), you don't even need to speak english (the poling system supports multiple languages, and if you speak one even less common and unsupported by the system, you can vote by mail and have a translator assist you, and this information will be published in many languages online and in other language specific sources that people who speak non-english languages would know to look in). By watching TV, listing the the radio, reading a news publishing, looking online, or simply picking up a pamphlet from any election office, candidate HQ, or even just conversing with others, this SIMPLE information should be EASY to gleam, and will be based on clear standards. Do you really think I can racially skew "Candidate A is pro abortion, candidate B is anti-abortion?" These are facts, and they'll be circulating on documentation approved by all relevent parties in the election. If you show up to the polls without this knowledge, someone will NOT turn you away, but will help you get the assistance you need to GET this information so you can vote.
I don;t care if you walk in there fully informed, or walk in completely dumb, i simply want you to LOOK at the list, make a decision, THEN vote. I'm not talking about invalidating a vote, or making you leave because you don;t know, I'm just making you actually DO SOMETHING or LEARN SOMETHING before casting your vote, that's all!
Yea, um, in the modern world, if you can't read, you can watch a video (TV), or listen to a radio. If you don't have a TV, you can talk with other people who do, or go to a library, or TALK TO A POLLSTER.
If you're not at least making an EFFORT to be involved in the political process, and know SOMETHING about your candidate other than what animal is on their logo, you should not be voting. Period. I don;t care what your background is, what social class you are, I simply care you are at least SLIGHTLY informed.
The party platform or candidate platform is an easy piece of information to attach to. "Where does he stand on abortion" or "is she in favor of national healthcare" is a simple thing that is made very clear in the debates, easy to put in chart form, and easy to circulate to the masses. If you've paid 5 minutes attention to a single piece of news about the campaign, you should be able to pass this test, and reading is NOT a requiremwent. (if you can't read/write, someone can assist you at the polling booth, as they ALREADY DO for anyone who can't read btw).
And dont think for a MINUTE that if a simple voting validation was put in place that the parties would not instantly move to ENSURE everyone was as informed as possible. Then only the peaople who really didn't care either way would not bother to memorize ANY ONE FACT and would thus not vote.
XML good. "custom" XML, like that Microsoft proposed under OOXML is bad. It the use (basically) of a data table within the document that maps out the tags within the file. XML itself does not use this. M$ was the only company pushing for it's use. Apparently, they forgot to patent it
I'd also love to see some kind of basic voter assessment to substantiate the vote as well. We all have a right to vote, but if yopur vote is based on fallicy or a complete lack of knowledge, you should not be allowed to register that vote.
My grandfather is a prime example of this. He's voted republican his entire life, nearly 70 years of going to the polls. I pointed out to him just before Obama's election that he couldn't, other than Right to Life and anti gun restriction, name a single Republican platform stance. Then i further asked him what his personal beliefs were on the top 25 debated items between the 2 parties. Of the 25 things, he chose the side the DEMOCRATS voiced support for. he didn't believe me, so i showed him the republican national website, and ran down the list (which took a while, it's not well organized). He voted straight democratic ticket. You see, the current Democratic platform is actually closer to what the Republicans had for a platform 50-60 years ago. He started voting replublican as a youth and then allways did, not paying ANY attention to the actual politics at stake. He figured about half his retired friends were doing the same thing...
If you can't name the candidate you're voting for, and at least 1 major platform stance out any 1 issue that candidate supports out of that candidates top 10 supported initiatives, you are not informed enough to effect MY future by registering your invalid votes. If you want to vote straight ticket, that's fine, name 3 platform stances of your party instead. If you can do that, you can vote, if not, either stay home, or only vote for the candidates you know something about. If uninformed people continue to vote, we'll need to bring voter certification back into play... (yes, I know it was used to discriminate in the past, but it would be VERY easy to ensure that did not happen in the future).
look, it's simple.... Digital voting machine swith 2 way paper validation. 1 copie prints out of the back of the voting machine with a unique "voter number" (identifies the ticket itself as a receipt number, and has NOTHING to do with the person voting). A second copy prints out on a large tape at central voting table from a seperate central machine and feeds into a scanner on a 3rd machine. Your voting record is also stored electronically indexed by the voting receipt number in the central machine that printed the second copy. An additional step validating the 2 printed copies match completes the cycle and certifies the vote in a 3rd system that has no network connection to the others.
Upon entering a booth, you vote electronically. It presents your vote summary on the screen and has you confirm. Once confirmed your machine and the central machine print a voting record. You take the paper tape, walk over to a second machine, and insert the paper tape. The 3rd machine already scanned the output from the central machine, and now scans your to ensure they match, based on the voting receipt ID as an index. This extra step validates that 2 machines received the same data, and that you verified this data visually, and that data was successfully recorded using no electronic connections. This also guarantees that we have not only 2 electronic records, but a complete validatable paper trail should anyone raise a stink about the voting accuracy.
This system is basically impossible to hack as even if the 3rd machine, that actually is the voting authority, was hacked, the paper trail from machine 2 and your voting machine would not match that record, and the paper trail would become the official vote. Because you have the ability to visually verify your individual vote both electronically and on paper, this is an unhackable system. It;s also relatively cheap to get printers to output this record, and also cheap to have a simple OCR scan for the known names on the voting paper (aka it's using a really small word list and thus would have amazing accuracy).
Wow, I get 10 hours per month... After 3 year it would be 12 hours per month. That INCLUDES my sick leave. And you bastards have more paid holidays then we do too don't you! No wonder a bunch of my IT friends took contracts down under...
At our firm, the max you can carry over year to year is 800 hours... aka 20 weeks.
Once you've built up 20 weeks vacation, additioally accrued vacation is paid out in the last pay check of the month automatically. You can't earn more vacation, but they have to pay it to you.
Also, Vacation accual is also subjec tto overtime. If you make time and a half, vacation accual is at time and a half too. If you would earn 8 hours vacation for working "one month", so that's typically 2 hours per 40 hour week, and you work 60 hours, and get overtime at 1.5, you earn 3.5 hours that week instead. Vacation can only be presented as "3 weeks per year" to salaried exempt employees. Hourly employees must earn vacation by the hour.
You can't take more than 4 weeks vacation concurrently without working at least 1 week for each week taken before taking another week (or more) of vacation. That's just to protect the company from people quitting with 20 weeks vacation built up and having to pay them out. The maximum disbursement upon self termination (resignation) is 8 weeks, so you actually have to burn off the rest first (in 4 week chunks, accounting for accruing more inbetween, which also gets harder the longer you've been there), or saccrifice the rest. If they decide to terminate you instead, they not only have to pay your full vacation (which they can do over that many weeks), but they also have to pay a one time severence payment if you;ve been there at least 1 year equal to 2 weeks +1 week for each additional year.
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read obove, someone else provided it so i did not. But, you can start here, and google around a bit more. Since it's a study people honestly don't want answers to (they want to assume the worst so we can inflict greater and stricter punishments) there's no hard evidence, and even what is out there is skewed by staticticians and discredited as innacurate.
http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/how-likely-are-sex-offenders-to-repeat-their-crimes-258/
Most 15 year olds are scarred by that. And no, it's not called "rape" it's called "stautory rape" which is actually a different classification of crime and carries distinctly different punichments (unless it's habbitual or associated with a mental disorder in the 20 year old, in which case it's child molestation and covers in many states a more sever penalty)
And how is this differnt from former MCI's friend and family policy? The simple collection and parsing of information YOU ALREADY HAVE, is not in itself illegal. In fact, pen registers are not subject to 4th amendement protections unless that information is traded or sold, which it was not, accepting that giving it to the NSA was under what AT&T and others considered a legal order to do so.
A previous court case against MCI did not outlaw their practice, it only prompted MCI to change how they USED that information in their marketing efforts. They never did stop collecting it. In fact, that's why BellSouth had the information to provide the NSA when requested as well.
The NSA specifically requersted this information from ALL the major carriers. AT&T did NOT provide it voluntarily. Quest was the ONLY ONE to not comply... Do not put this on AT&T, every carrier except quest was guilty. Further, it's ONGOING, except its now under judicial oversight instead of executive oversight.
On the asside, I was added to the no fly list at one point. A close friend of mine was an active campaigner against a republican running for office, and organized more than one public protest. I was added due to my association with him though associated blog posts on his website. As soon as he got his own name removed, which I understand was not difficult, mine also was removed from the list.
Spoofing the ID to make the device work with the OS is one thing, spoofing it to make it work with a 3rd party application, that's a differnt ball game...
I've got a college friend listed on the registry because at 23 years old, she gave her HUSBAND oral sex in a movie theatre and got caught doing so by a 62 year old woman who sued her and her husband for mental distress. It was later discovered by her lawyer that this 62 year old woman was for several years of her life an ADULT ENTERTAINER, and the civil case was immediately dropped, but she was still stuck with the criminal charge. Her husband strangely was not charged with "performing a lewd act in public" but only indecent exposure, which in their state of residence does not force him to be listed.
...and its extent is also determined by the JUDGE, not by congress... It is not within the scope of power of the legislature to determine the nature of punishment for a crime, they can only set limits within which a judge can operate (and often even those are found unconstitutional).
You're correct. There are a rare few sexual offenders who repeat. However, within certain small bands of sexual offenders (child molesters, aggrevated rapists, certain types of stalkers, etc) there are chemical or phychological imbalances that make it far more likely.
I think the reason a 5% repeat rate is thorwon out there is partly to convince the public these released felons may not be as much of a risk as the public would like to believe, and also that this number is skewed by "sexual offences" that really are not (streaking, sex in public, pissing in the woods, etc). I live near a beach resort. You would not believe how many people are completely shocked to find out their life is ruined and they're being added to sexual offender lists because they got caught getting frisky in the waves at 2AM. If people knew what the punishment was, they probably would not have done it, and trust me, those who do never will again, and that's considering most never see a night in prison, potentially accepting a night or two in holding before seeing a judge.
EXACTLY. Even if they have served the maximum scentence, and technically we HAVE to let them go, it could easily be added that they go through a psychological profiling before coming back out, the results of which determine the nature of their probation.
If a group of docs and panel of parole reviewers think you might hurt another person, and use the internet to pray on them, then we simply ban you from the internet entirely... If they're not a threat, we probably still want them watched for a while just to be sure, but banning them from doing anything other than coming too close to certain people (a specific victim, children in general, etc) and banning them from certain activities that could be triggers for a repeat offence, naturally determined by the nature of the original crime (sex chat, 900 numbers, working in a strip club, etc should be banned, but not SOCIALIZING).
If you restrict them too much, they'll feel oppressed too much, and the likely result of severe oppression is backlash, typically highly violent backlash. As you said, if they're not considered safe to release, we don't. If they have to be released, it;s entirely possible they're released into psychiatric care, which may even include further incarceration in a phych facility instead of a prison, followed by closely monitored parole.
However, i also agree that 1) peeing in the woods is not a sexual offence, nor even should public nudity (streaking included) be treated as a serious crime, unless it can be shown theres a major psychological issue with the person, but even then we're taking Psychiatric help, not imprisonment. 2) completely consentual sex, between 2 people of like age, is a legal technicality due to modern society and religious beliefs, and should not as such be considered a violent crime or sexual offence. A 35 year old sleeping with a 14 year old is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than two 15 year olds getting it on while in love and having the PARENTS bring a case against the boy. 3) there is a difference between aggrivated sexual assault/violent rape, especailly multiple counts of it, and other simple sexual crimes (giving a blowjob in a movie theatre or sex in public). Child molestation of any kind should also be one of the most serious crimes.
Without classification of the sexual "based" crime into categories with differing punishments, and differeing post-release concerns, and different probation rules, all we're doing is oppressing some mostly innocent people in exchange for some FALSE security from a few real criminals.
Well, if you augment your list with one more detail, you might have a better picture: - leaves no lasting physical or emotional damage...
Show me the victim of a sexual offence who was never physically harmed, nor threatened with a weapon, but say some innocent kid tricked into sex when they didn't even know it was wrong, who has had no lasting side effects of that encounter (or repeated encvounters), and I'll buy your side that that PARTICULAR crime was non-violent. If 1% fall into that category, the other 99% clearly show the act to be violent.
yea clearly did not follow the link. We actually have a SERIOUS problem in this country PREVENTING further rollout of Wind energy, and it's called off-peak losses.
Wind power companies are litterally PAYING people to take the energy they produce during off-peak hours. Until we finish deploying an interconencted national grid, and until we depoloy a storage system for overproduced energy, local wind farms are suffering when they're actually producing more than the local markets can bear in energy. The electrolysis sysyems actually run closer to 80% efficient now btw, when used symbiotically with other systems, including advances in recouperative heat use (also indicated in extremely detailed and complex disagrams on the site, and available in further complete data if you pay for it), but that part of the system also only needs to run a few hours a day to keep the rest of the plant supplied with enough H2 tobe making fuels 24x7.
We're not standing up MORE wind power, we're doing something with the wind power we're having trouble finding a use for...
Battery powered vehicles can NOT replace fuel cars for 30-50 year until we build YET MORE power sources, and figure out how to handle the MASSIVE swings in usage that would come with 100million cars sucking from the grid at odd hours... and it can't be done until we can shift power coast to coast instead of locally. This will require the 30 Trillion Dollar grid expansion and overhaul that already started in Maine and Long Island NY, and really will take 30 years to complete, if not longer. A fraction of percent of cars, on tricle charges at night, we can handle, but if even 5% of us started driving electric cars, we'd brown out whole cities, especially in california which can barely keep up with current damands!
Solar power in residential areas is simply non effective. Without huge government subidies, (like we lack in SC), payoff costs for solar greatly exceed 20+ years, and that does NOT include maintenance, degredation of cells, additional insurance costs (we have a LOT of hail here), and the fact that SC power companies (and many others) do not buy your overproduced solar power (the new digital home meters don't run backwards here, you're giving them the excess power for free, but buying it back later at market rates to boot) means breaking even is even harder. I looked at home solar 3 years ago when i built a house near the coast, and again last year building one in central SC, even getting to just 50% power from solar would have taken 25-30 years to recoup, assuming I never paid out a hail damage deductible... A single hail storm and it would have become impossible to recoup.
In 10-15 years when solar is MUCH cheaper, and when it's MUCH more efficient, and when it competes with other systems in terms of $/KW generated, then central solar collectors could easily replace or augment wind. Also any other green power source could easily be used, but power system like wave generators, waterfalls, etc, are CORE power systems, and the economy of making H2 with them simply is not as good as it is with wind (today). However, solar has an even BIGGER off-peak issue... to deploy full solar use in place of wind, we'd need 4 times the energy storage capacity even of wind, and you'd have whole power plants turning off in the moring and on in the evening, and that's EXPENSIVE!
We really don't care WHAT the end efficiency rating of the vehicle is. 20% in the tank? no big deal if 100% of that energy came mostly for free, as a side effect of another industry...
Also, a recent study confirmed there IS enough land in the USA not only to power all our energy needs, but actually that of all of North America, and that was only using class 6 and higher wind zones, reasonable off-shore locations, and locations considered suitible for construction (aka, not on the rock faces of mountains).
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/03/nation/na-energy3
hey, AT&T may have complied with illegal orders to provide wire taps, and even played some questionable moves to avoid prosecution, but lets place the blame where it really lies; the Bush Administration... AT&T was not the only company to comply with these orders, and was told quite explicitly, by judges, that the orders were in fact valid...
AT&T may have broken the law, and violated the privacy of many (suspected crimainals/terorists) Americans, but they did so under a supposed legal authority and under orders to do so, and these wire taps (most of them) were actually for people accused or associated with active federal investigations. Palm is collecting personal information, it has NO association with any criminal activity and no basis in law, and they're doing it without informed concent, and without a way to disable the tracking, and wihtout support or order by the government, and I bet they're doing it without the Phone Company's knowledge too. (and if the phone company IS aware of it, they're FAR more guilty than AT&T is...
Yup, and we expect either them to get slapped on the wrist and told to undo it by the association, told to stop selling the devices by court order and potentially recall all of them, or both the above combined with heavy fines. Either way we also expect Apple to fix the new "fix" upon the very next release...
As it is, and I spoke to him minutes ago as he was packing up for the day, my friend indicated that iTunes does in fact not currently sync his stuff today. Wether or not he's missing an update that might fix it, he's aware it's a hack, aware there's a fight that will almost certainly end in Apple's favor or at least turn against Palm, and well aware that after 14 days he can't return his device and get out of his contract without penalties or fees, so he's not wasting time at the risk of getting screwwed later.
he was actually not really too pissed about the hack, he was kind of on Palm's side on that matter and figured Palm would sooner rather than later have a "satisfactory" solution that may or many not involve their own meda player, or outright licensing of Apple's technology. What made him immediately pack up was the news he was being snooped on and that there was not a way to dissable it. He spent about 30 minutes looking to find a way, and made a nasty call to Pre's support line. He removed the battery from his device and was headed home to get the box, manual, and charger on his way to the store...
granted, if we can understand the process with which wavelengths of light are used to convert matter using catylists, we can design a more efficient process based on it, likely using substrates and not actual biological processes.
That said, we get H2, which other than being burned directly on site has little value to the rest of ut. We can NOt afford to use it in our cars, ever. It costs too much to build an infrastructure, we have to reengineer all the cars, and it's WAY too dangerous. instead, we could use the H2 to MAKE gasoline (RWGS/RFTS processing, it;s been used since WWII).
Dotyenergy.com is a pioneer in the field of turning H2 and CO2 into usable fuels, They;ve got over 60 world patents that have improved the process enough to make ti highly competitive with oil. ($60-80 per barrel equivalent, ie, we can MAKE gas for less than $3 a gallon pump price without using any oil, and by sequestering re-using waste CO2 in the process). Check it out...
yup... However, using highly efficient carbon nuetral energy sources (wind, water, solar, etc) to make energy to power high luminocity limited spectrum bulbs we might be able to work it out. That, or redirect only specific wavelengths into the chemical process and the rest to solar colectors through the use of prisms/filters.
That said, what do they REALLY plan to do with the H2 produced? Lets face it, we'll not be running our cars on it likely for more than 100 years, if ever. Even if you could make H2 essentially for free, the expense of storage, transportation, more storage, engines to run it in, and other high costs leave it one of the most expensive proposed alternate solutions... This is not to include the additional concerns including limited vehicle ranges, long charging/filling times, and the sheer dangers inherent to H2, we simply can't allow it...
If you want a place to send H2, and if this process is more efficient than either wind or solar based electrolysis, then you need to talk to the folks behind dotyenergy.com. They have a solution that uses H2 and sequestered CO2 as inputs to an RFTS process that makes regular fuels.. This is real technology in use since WWII (refined and made much more effient with 60+ patents and 50 years of effort). Check them out...
- no new pipelines/storage systems/infrastructure required
- carbon nuetral unlimited fuel
- competitive at $60-80/barrel vs gasonline from oil depending on local markets
- runs in your current car (it IS gasoline!)
- available and proven NOW, we just need to build the facilities.
Eventually, we'll all be running electrics, with 5-10 minute charge cycles and 200 mile ranges. (we're about 10 years from that level of bettery technology, and 15 from it competing with current car prices). However, we're 30 years from having an electrical grid (at least that long) that can handle putting the cars on it in mass numbers, and 50 years from having enough power going into that grid to handle it. This is a perfect stopgap so solve the carbon issue, solve fuel dependency, and build an industry that could employ 10s of thousands of people without simultaneously putting every corner gas station out of business....
Well, if my fellow coworkers who chose the Pre over the iPhone were not quite ready to return their devices for full refund and termination of any contract signed at purchase when Palm "hacked" iTunes and Apple promptly "fixed" it cutting all the users off from sync, now they REALLY have a strong case to return it.
In fact, I just mentioned this article to a co-worker who was showing off his shiny new Pre to me late last week, which after using it for a few days and finding out contrary to what the clerk told him that he could in fact not sync with iTunes, He's clocking out now to return it to the store he bought it from and promised to be headed to Bestbuy to pick up an iPhone 3GS on the way back...
Mostly I agree. Only in cases where access to sensitive information, PCI, PHI, databases containing personal information, or where access to cash or valuable property is concerned should employers have a need to access your credit information.
I also think the beacon score should be irrelevent, and even information about what accounts you do and don;t have is "personal" information. Only information about active leins, and unpaid debts in excess of certain amounts that are in ACTIVE collections should be provided to prospective employers.
Basically: Are you at risk for stealing something you'd actually have access to in the course of your job duties/role to pay a major debt, do you have a significant history of nonpayment of debts, or are you at risk of being imprisoned or suddenly quitting to avoid payroll deductions from the courts for a leain or credit collection action.
Anything else should be handled by interviewing your past employers, through reference letters, and be handled through a disclosure letter.
Of course, there is a VERY simple solution: C2 clearance application. This is a "civilian Trust" clearance. The employer is given NO information other than you either passed or failed, or that you didn't fill out the forms completely/properly. The employer never sees your credit information, or any other personal data other than your work, school, and physical address information provided that would normally be on an application, and statements about whether or not you have active debts or litigation, which is also something easily asked without gleaming any actual data. It;s a basic criminal background check and verification of "did you tell the truth" It's not a "failure" to have a debt in collection, so long as you admit it in the C2 documents. It MAY be a failure if that's a government lein and you've made no effrts to arrange payents, but that's actually a criminal case, not a trust issue, and failure to resolve it could result in imprisonment...
I got marked Troll for that comment? I simply clarified Star Office would likely not be subject to the same case... ?
1) you have 2 verification machines, and BOTH their database counts must match in my design. Any deviation in one vs the other would instantly call for a complete paper recount. As a typical government design, each would run a unique OS and application system, and thus identically compromising all 3 seperate components (at mutiple polling locations) would be virtually impossible.
2) The paper going into the lockbox is a 3rd validation point, and has been visually verified to be identical to the paper printed from the actual voting machine, confirming the data transmission from the booth to the secondary recording system is accurate. The paper the voter places in the machine as verification of the second printed copy would be kept by the voter (should they wish) and be one more point of validation should we suspect tampering in cases where the paper reel was lost/destorey as we could collect a small sampling of printed receipts and validate them against the scanned images.
3) as votes are recorded not only by count, but by records in a database, and those records would ALSO include the scanned image of each vote, a simple cross check would be to pull a small number (say 25 records or 1%) at random and ensure the stored record in machine 3 matches the scanned image on the tape.
4) exit polls would still be used as a failsafe, as well as polling predictions, and when those are off by more than an expected percent, then an entire paper recount would be automatic.
5) paper recount would be EASY, and QUICK, and could very easily become a standard part of the validation process post election.
It's not a complicated system, it's a secured data flow using 3 distinct data points and visual verification of each record.
I can agree that keeping the ballot receipt could be exploited, so you can discredit that part of my design if you like, and I'd support that stance. The only thing that takes away is a vote where the machines didn't match, the exit polls indicated possible tampering, the log book indicated a number of votes were recorded that's different from the number of people we noted came to the polls, and when the paper record is destroyed. If that happens, we could simply say we need a revote and discredit the entire poll record for that site.
Yup, I made no mention of a literacy test. I simply stated you had to have a PIECE of knowledge (just ONE per candidate you wish to vote for), out of a distributed and talked about list for each race of 20-25 top platform items. It would be repeated by every local news organization, and printed in every media, and talked about around every water cooler, and made easily and freely available from numerous sources, in audio, video, and print form, and in multiple languages.
You don't need to know how to read (we already assist those who can't at the polls, and you can get this information watching TV), you don't even need to speak english (the poling system supports multiple languages, and if you speak one even less common and unsupported by the system, you can vote by mail and have a translator assist you, and this information will be published in many languages online and in other language specific sources that people who speak non-english languages would know to look in). By watching TV, listing the the radio, reading a news publishing, looking online, or simply picking up a pamphlet from any election office, candidate HQ, or even just conversing with others, this SIMPLE information should be EASY to gleam, and will be based on clear standards. Do you really think I can racially skew "Candidate A is pro abortion, candidate B is anti-abortion?" These are facts, and they'll be circulating on documentation approved by all relevent parties in the election. If you show up to the polls without this knowledge, someone will NOT turn you away, but will help you get the assistance you need to GET this information so you can vote.
I don;t care if you walk in there fully informed, or walk in completely dumb, i simply want you to LOOK at the list, make a decision, THEN vote. I'm not talking about invalidating a vote, or making you leave because you don;t know, I'm just making you actually DO SOMETHING or LEARN SOMETHING before casting your vote, that's all!
Yea, um, in the modern world, if you can't read, you can watch a video (TV), or listen to a radio. If you don't have a TV, you can talk with other people who do, or go to a library, or TALK TO A POLLSTER.
If you're not at least making an EFFORT to be involved in the political process, and know SOMETHING about your candidate other than what animal is on their logo, you should not be voting. Period. I don;t care what your background is, what social class you are, I simply care you are at least SLIGHTLY informed.
The party platform or candidate platform is an easy piece of information to attach to. "Where does he stand on abortion" or "is she in favor of national healthcare" is a simple thing that is made very clear in the debates, easy to put in chart form, and easy to circulate to the masses. If you've paid 5 minutes attention to a single piece of news about the campaign, you should be able to pass this test, and reading is NOT a requiremwent. (if you can't read/write, someone can assist you at the polling booth, as they ALREADY DO for anyone who can't read btw).
And dont think for a MINUTE that if a simple voting validation was put in place that the parties would not instantly move to ENSURE everyone was as informed as possible. Then only the peaople who really didn't care either way would not bother to memorize ANY ONE FACT and would thus not vote.
XML good. "custom" XML, like that Microsoft proposed under OOXML is bad. It the use (basically) of a data table within the document that maps out the tags within the file. XML itself does not use this. M$ was the only company pushing for it's use. Apparently, they forgot to patent it
Yup. That's a good start.
I'd also love to see some kind of basic voter assessment to substantiate the vote as well. We all have a right to vote, but if yopur vote is based on fallicy or a complete lack of knowledge, you should not be allowed to register that vote.
My grandfather is a prime example of this. He's voted republican his entire life, nearly 70 years of going to the polls. I pointed out to him just before Obama's election that he couldn't, other than Right to Life and anti gun restriction, name a single Republican platform stance. Then i further asked him what his personal beliefs were on the top 25 debated items between the 2 parties. Of the 25 things, he chose the side the DEMOCRATS voiced support for. he didn't believe me, so i showed him the republican national website, and ran down the list (which took a while, it's not well organized). He voted straight democratic ticket. You see, the current Democratic platform is actually closer to what the Republicans had for a platform 50-60 years ago. He started voting replublican as a youth and then allways did, not paying ANY attention to the actual politics at stake. He figured about half his retired friends were doing the same thing...
If you can't name the candidate you're voting for, and at least 1 major platform stance out any 1 issue that candidate supports out of that candidates top 10 supported initiatives, you are not informed enough to effect MY future by registering your invalid votes. If you want to vote straight ticket, that's fine, name 3 platform stances of your party instead. If you can do that, you can vote, if not, either stay home, or only vote for the candidates you know something about. If uninformed people continue to vote, we'll need to bring voter certification back into play... (yes, I know it was used to discriminate in the past, but it would be VERY easy to ensure that did not happen in the future).
look, it's simple.... Digital voting machine swith 2 way paper validation. 1 copie prints out of the back of the voting machine with a unique "voter number" (identifies the ticket itself as a receipt number, and has NOTHING to do with the person voting). A second copy prints out on a large tape at central voting table from a seperate central machine and feeds into a scanner on a 3rd machine. Your voting record is also stored electronically indexed by the voting receipt number in the central machine that printed the second copy. An additional step validating the 2 printed copies match completes the cycle and certifies the vote in a 3rd system that has no network connection to the others.
Upon entering a booth, you vote electronically. It presents your vote summary on the screen and has you confirm. Once confirmed your machine and the central machine print a voting record. You take the paper tape, walk over to a second machine, and insert the paper tape. The 3rd machine already scanned the output from the central machine, and now scans your to ensure they match, based on the voting receipt ID as an index. This extra step validates that 2 machines received the same data, and that you verified this data visually, and that data was successfully recorded using no electronic connections. This also guarantees that we have not only 2 electronic records, but a complete validatable paper trail should anyone raise a stink about the voting accuracy.
This system is basically impossible to hack as even if the 3rd machine, that actually is the voting authority, was hacked, the paper trail from machine 2 and your voting machine would not match that record, and the paper trail would become the official vote. Because you have the ability to visually verify your individual vote both electronically and on paper, this is an unhackable system. It;s also relatively cheap to get printers to output this record, and also cheap to have a simple OCR scan for the known names on the voting paper (aka it's using a really small word list and thus would have amazing accuracy).
Wow, I get 10 hours per month... After 3 year it would be 12 hours per month. That INCLUDES my sick leave. And you bastards have more paid holidays then we do too don't you! No wonder a bunch of my IT friends took contracts down under...
At our firm, the max you can carry over year to year is 800 hours... aka 20 weeks.
Once you've built up 20 weeks vacation, additioally accrued vacation is paid out in the last pay check of the month automatically. You can't earn more vacation, but they have to pay it to you.
Also, Vacation accual is also subjec tto overtime. If you make time and a half, vacation accual is at time and a half too. If you would earn 8 hours vacation for working "one month", so that's typically 2 hours per 40 hour week, and you work 60 hours, and get overtime at 1.5, you earn 3.5 hours that week instead. Vacation can only be presented as "3 weeks per year" to salaried exempt employees. Hourly employees must earn vacation by the hour.
You can't take more than 4 weeks vacation concurrently without working at least 1 week for each week taken before taking another week (or more) of vacation. That's just to protect the company from people quitting with 20 weeks vacation built up and having to pay them out. The maximum disbursement upon self termination (resignation) is 8 weeks, so you actually have to burn off the rest first (in 4 week chunks, accounting for accruing more inbetween, which also gets harder the longer you've been there), or saccrifice the rest. If they decide to terminate you instead, they not only have to pay your full vacation (which they can do over that many weeks), but they also have to pay a one time severence payment if you;ve been there at least 1 year equal to 2 weeks +1 week for each additional year.