There is a point to which verbal abuse should be considered to evoke a primal defensive response. I have seen people literally followed around with a harrassing mouth shoved in their faces that they couldn't get away from. While it is honorable to try to defuse a situation like that without resorting to violence, I can also see where someone who is stressed by unknown factors might simply throw a punch. And if I were a judge, in a case like that I might very well just let them walk, considering it legitimate self-defense.

As for internet harrassment, it might be better to sentence people to perform ass kissing services for the harrassed for some period of time. The movement of the justice system away from pushing people to make restitution for harm done, and instead toward universal incarceration for every possible infraction, is a second injustice to victims, as well as being corrosive poison to society. If a guy is an asshole and threatens someone but didn't really mean it, do we really want to spend societal resources to imprison them for TWO FUCKING YEARS! Does anybody ever think? I mean really THINK about the implications of what they are saying when they cheer on the state to put the boot to more faces? Do you really think the "there ought to be a law" model can go on forever without that boot ultimately winding up on your own face?

That we can simply fix all social problems with another law and more imprisonment is going to lead us to our doom.

Why sodium bezoate? What is the basis for thinking that? Do you know of some toxic compound produced when benzoate is metabolized? Or any other toxicological connection between benzoate and cell or DNA harm?

You are advocating that one person should be liable for the actions of another person.

This is sloppy without clarifying how the different categories of criminal vs. civil liability should be handled.

Holding parents criminally liable is intractable because there is no certain way to control a child or any other person. I'm talking absolute control. Any law that holds you responsible for forces that you cannot control must be invalidated, or else societal disintegration will eventually result. Such inherent contradictions predictably lead to disaster.

Furthermore, there are also laws making it felony child abuse to employ nearly any sort of corporal punishment (not that I advocate that) and laws are interpreted so liberally that nearly any attempt to employ physical force to restrain, control, or restrict the behavior of a child may be interpreted as felony child abuse. So our society wants a person to be liable for the actions of a child, and also makes them criminally liable if they try to use force to discipline a child.

Also, as has been mentioned by others, children are legally mandated by the state to attend school. Parents cannot possibly control a child while they are at school. Yet they should be prosecuted if the child commits a crime while under state mandated separation from the parents?

This is all complete insanity. Of course, I only expect matters to get much, much worse...

Almost no media accounts of energy savings using LEDs vs. HIDs are normalized for lumens.

Top binned Royal Blue Cree XP-E, XP-E2, XT-E, and Lumileds Rebel and "M" LEDs that I'm working with in the lab are pushing 55% conversion efficiency electrical to optical. Green OTOH is always about 1/3 of this, and red is 1/2 to 2/3. These are the efficiencies for current densities in the range of 0.35 to 1.0A/mm^2, which is the typical range of test to absolute maximum currents. Die temperatures at about 70-85 deg C.

Soraa LEDs might be reaching about 66-75% conversion efficiency (LED die only, not incl. phosphor). I will be sampling some soon to test this.

This is becoming a truly remarkable and world changing technology.

Part of the problem is low interest rates, set by the central economic planners at the Fed. 0% for short money is an emergency level, yet it's been 6 years of this shit. Interest rates should be HIGH, around 5-7% for intermediate term money would be good.

The .gov needs to just END all "aid" for paying for college. Then people would stop borrowing to pay for college. The price would collapse, and vast numbers of administrators and economically useless liberal arts ideology degree programs would vanish. There is no need to borrow to pay for college, unless the price has been artificially inflated. The same with home prices. High interest rates would reduce home prices to levels more in line with people's incomes.

Then you'll get arrested, they will demand your Facebook password, then lock you up indefinitely when you can't produce it.

Or if they can't do that now, they will eventually. Basically where we're headed folks is, the government can do anything it wants to you, any time.

This simply follows from asking the government to do everything for you.

But by no means have we reached the global minimum!

There is something very wrong with the moral compass of a society that accepts the premise of luring people to commit crimes so they may be prosecuted while we cheer.

People who are on the verge of misdeeds, and where this is known to authorities, should be given warnings to change course lest they commit an act that warrants their removal from society.

Then it should be made a crime to entice people to cross the line.

Yes. Don't you just love government backed loans that can't be discharged in bankruptcy?

Which DOE lab has tenured staff? Or calls them "faculty" for that matter? The ones here in Livermore have "Technical Staff" and there is no tenure, per se.

Check out this guy's essays on hiring. Really great insights, and just plain fun to read. Plus you can kill an afternoon reading his other stuff too: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/...

You are engaging in deliberate intellectual dishonesty.

Libertarians do not reject laws. Someone selling food made from non food-grade oil could simply be charged with the crime of fraud. If actual medical harm was done, then they could also be charged with reckless endangerment, or in the worst case that someone died, manslaughter.

They would also be subject to civil lawsuit(s) for damages. In fact, such an act would warrant severe, most likely business liquidating damages just for the psychological stress and possibility of harm they subjected patrons to.

THAT is respect for private property rights. It starts FIRST with the individual's right to life, liberty, and property. Violate that, and there should be hell to pay.

You can be sure that 2000 pages of regulations aren't necessary when two or three simple lines in the law book are sufficient--provided that law gets enforced impartially no matter the wealth of the offender. One or two business getting liquidated and their owners going away for fraud charges will have the other busineses clamoring to establish a private standards consortium in a hurry, complete with self-motivated compliance and public posting of their independent lab assessments.

That is libertartianism.

Well then, there's no problem caused by top-down control and institutionalization that can't be fixed by more top-down control and institutionalization, eh?

are the Rahm Emanuel's of the world. I can't help feeling, ever since this started getting a lot of attention, that entry of Ebola into the USA was a fully planned consequence of our intentional complete inaction.

Do you even have a fucking brain?

So you want the government to control the performance of your internet connection, and wireless phone? Because they are going to give you a free and open platform, plus yearly doubling bandwidth, right? After all, they have so much incentive to do so.

If you have been on this planet at any time during the past few years, you might have noticed that the first priority that any government has is making sure all your digital communications go through THEIR taps and get or stay unencrypted, so they can record your every move and search for any modicum of an excuse they can find to send a SWAT team over to your house to shoot your dog, blow your infant's face off with a flash grenade, haul you off to prison, and suffer no repercussions from their deadly mistakes.

And you are asking for more of it. Literally ASKING for more of this fucking totalitarian BS.