The problem of rape is more fundamental then possession of a penis. Indeed, there have been cases of people without a penis committing rape against people with a penis.
U.S. has better reporting and higher standards of defining rape than India.
What is your metric of comparison for definitions of rape that allows you to say, unambiguously, that one definition is "better" than another? "Different" is, I'm sure true (identity is easy to check for ; one comma moved and you're no longer identical), but you claim to have a metric that allows you to determine if one rape definition is "better" than another ; therefore you have a scoring or ranking system more complex than simply "identical" versus "not identical". What is your ranking system?
In any case, it seems they were looking for any excuse at all to ban Uber.
OP here.
As I wrote in the ORIGINAL submission (which, contrary to Slash-meme, samzenpus has substantially edited), I'm decidedly dubious about Uber in particular and less than convinced of the need for the entire concept in general. The second paragraph of my submission read
Going on previous Uber performance, can we expect the driver to be working again tonight, and the spokesman making such inconvenient admissions to be unemployed? That would sound about the level of PR skill of Uber's senior management â" as currently constituted. They've managed to turn me from a potential supporter to someone who will be voting against Uber being allowed into my city or country."
There do certainly seem to be some complete arseholes in the senior management team of Uber, and I do not see any benefit to allowing companies run by such shit-heads into the taxi service in my country in general, and into my city in particular. I don't make comment about whether other countries may benefit from them - but here the regulations are reasonable, and the enforcement is reasonably effective, so what benefit Uber/ Lyft/ Internet-taxi-ordering-company would actually bring is pretty dubious. Yes, I do get pissed off when a plane lands at the airport, disgorging me and 250 other people out the front doors a few minutes later, and there are only 10 taxis. But that is the problem of 250 people wanting a taxi immediately ; if I wait 20 minutes (a coffee and a cigarette), there are still 10 taxis (a different 10) but only 3 people in the queue so I can then get a taxi home. Or I could just take the bus (every half hour into town), which gets me home just as well and just as comfortably as any taxi.
The investors who own Uber are going to have to seriously ask themselves if the arseholes in charge of the company are actually damaging the company which they (the investors) own.
it has always been common for Vinnie's brother Tony to do the nightshift or whatever in NY. [...] Does the picture of the cabbie on the license match the face of the driver? Often not.
So, when you realise this, you call the police and instruct the driver to stop the cab. then wait with the cab to make your case to the police officer and fill out the paperwork for pursuing the case?
Enforcement of regulation does actually require the assistance of the population (that means you). It can't all be done by the police's random flagging down of passing taxis for document checks. Which does, of course, happen ; and is legal - it's a freedom that goes away with getting your taxi license. And that also required the police to do it without getting an ear-full of abuse from the fare.
A random person in either position would not be as cavalier.
How long before the Joe Random Person who starts working as a taxi driver has absorbed the culture of the job and become the arsehole that other posters describe as their typical taxi driver?
I must admit, the only aspect of their descriptions that I recognise is the poor to non-existent English. But even that only really applies to the taxi drivers in Benin and Gabon, where English isn't actually an official language and they have to put up with my dodgy French. The Afghan and Polish taxi drivers here often speak more comprehensible English than the native-born and bred Scottish taxi drivers, but that's because they (the Afghans and Poles) have been taught to speak English, not learned it from their parents.
So, what were the benefits of Uber again? I'm still not seeing any reason to vote in favour of their service being allowed in my country.
So basically you are hitchhiking with all of the associated risks
Hitchhiking isn't that dangerous. I do it routinely and haven't had a problem since I was 14 (and I scared that guy off before continuing on my way).
The rest of your argument just doesn't cut it for me. I spent a very uncomfortable afternoon once at Dachau KZ, examining the prototype gas chambers there. Designed by perfectly civilized, intelligent, educated god-fearing men, civil engineers and or chemists, for the purpose of executing sub-human animals. Jewish, homosexual, Roma and communist sub-human animals. If that's the way that our species can treat organisms sufficiently similar to us to be enslaved in brothels (a fate reserved occasionally for orangutangs, one hears), then I don't have any problem about pushing our moral boundaries back a bit. If we're capable of inflicting huge amounts of death and suffering deliberately on humans then we need to push back our moral boundaries to prevent us from inflicting death and torture on our own species. And I can't see us acquiring that level of internal control while permitting the torture and mis-treatment of non-human but very closely related animals such as chimps.
Hitting a deer accidentally in a car is an act that does not contain the mens rea - a "guilty mind," which is necessary to convict someone of an act. You might need to go to trial to establish that it was an accident, and you might still be guilty of a property crime (in some countries of this nation, wild deer may be property of the land-owner ; see foot note.) regardless of your intention of hitting the deer, particularly if you take the carcass for venison. Been there, done that, butchered the deer but didn't eat it myself because I was a veggie at the time ; the gamekeeper wasn't bothered since it was clearly an accident and let us drive off with the carcass.
The actual strategy then NhRP are following is to try to establish that the chimps in question deserve the rights of humans. The defence argument is closely related to the "mens rea" argument I put forward above : "Only people can have rights, the court states, because only people can be held legally accountable for their actions. âoeIn our view, it is this incapability to bear any legal responsibilities and societal duties that renders it inappropriate to confer upon chimpanzees the legal rights ⦠that have been afforded to human beings.â"
That's a pretty good argument. But I'm sure that the NhRP's lawyers are looking for a way around it - and power to them!
Footnote on deer : it cuts both ways though, as the property of the landowner may have caused damage to your vehicle if you were on a public road. OTOH, if you were on a private road, then you may have gone past a sign where you accepted the risk of wildlife damage to your vehicle - I've seen such signs, while putting them up in car parks.) Getting lawyers involved wasn't such a good idea, was it?
WHEN the Sun goes red giant, most of the Solar System population of hominids will just be able to move orbits. Unless some nostalgic people decide to bring in a replacement star.
Now, how to do that without violating Newton? I'm working up a plan
(I don't do this for a living. But when we've had operational issues I've had to do this sort of ball park to determine if we need to mobilizations another 1 or 2 earth moving machines to site, and operators. Before doing the numbers, I was sure of the answer. )
To return to the original point, the storage pond will have been built ON the flood plain, and when full it WILL have pushed it's base DOWN into the flood plain. So the base of the storage lake will be at or below the flood level of the river. And that makes it pretty hard for it to dry out (this being temperate Europe, not a desert somewhere). Unless someone deliberately disturbs the lake, it is unlikely to dry out for a substantial time. The area has more urgent problems.
There is an alternative way of arriving at the construction decisions above. Start to dig your pit: it starts to fill with water : you pump and continue to dig : the hole continues to fill with water. Joy and happiness do not follow...
The trouble that would be caused by things like giving the ex-pat workers a gun each were far greater than each crew having a translator and a security guard.
The biggest danger remained being shaken-down by the police though. Hence the translator. Get a receipt for agreed bribes, and call the Chief of Police if any of his boys were going freelance.
Your job in line-cleaning for BR (or whatever they're called since the unmitigated lunacy of breaking up the system) awaits. Free bucket of opprobrium included for the next time that the line-cleaning system fails to perform adequately. It won't be long before it fails - they never last long.
I should go back and delete all my old posts too. Standard hygiene ; nearly 6 months since I did that.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." -- Isaac Asimov
