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Comment Re:Question (Score 1) 86

"To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

Congress has the explicit authority to do make the laws needed to do their job. So what are the "foregoing powers?" Well one of them... the first one listed in fact... is the authority to provide, and collect taxes to pay for, the defense and general welfare of the nation.

It is unarguably in the nation's interest - its general welfare - to decouple our energy needs from international market influences for the sake of our independence and national security, to reduce local and global pollution for the sake of its citizen's health, to preserve critical resources, and to foster an environment that will support future the population.

The federal government has the legal authority to invest in clean energy in exactly the same way it had the authority to invest in literally everything else. If you don't like it, get off the internet, throw out all your computer equipment, and cut your power lines, because the federal government invested heavily in all that shit and you wouldn't want to be a hypocrite, would you?

> why don't we abide by those that were ratified in 1789

Because the world isn't like it was 235 years ago, asshole. Even the people who wrote the constitution understood that the world would change and included mechanisms to expand and evolve both the Constitution itself and the laws that apply it. Fuck man, by saying 1789 you even cut out the bill of rights (ratified 1791) so I guess you should throw out your guns, let the cops search and take your shit without a warrant, and let yourself be jailed without trial... none of that was in the 1789 version either.

=Smidge= /Bet you're super pissed about the 16th amendment too lol

Comment Re:Good old fashioned shake down (Score 1) 121

> I'm posting this from a windows 7 machine. It also works just fine.

It won't if you ever go to upgrade your hardware. It's more than just security concerns, it's an entire industry literally conspiring to make what you own obsolete and force you into their ecosystem.

I'd still be using Win7 myself except several of the applications I use decided that they will no longer support anything older than Win10 for no clear reason. Hell, the laptop I'm typing this on came with Win10 and I spent three whole days getting a custom modified Win7 to install because there aren't sufficient drivers for this hardware. Even when it was working the USB was kinda janky...
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Comment Re:Actually doing it is harder than writing a rule (Score 1) 120

> The states ABSOLUTELY have to rezone things

They absolutely do not. Would be nice if they did, maybe, but the chargers usually get installed on private property and, other than local building permits, requires no government intervention. Even on government property there's no need for the government to get involved beyond giving permission (via a contract.)

> because while we pretend that private companies do that stuff, in effect they are government-sanctioned monopolies

They are still private companies and the state cannot compel them to build anything. To the extent there is any state control, it's almost entirely economic. They are not operated or managed by the government, only regulated.

> I'm pretty sure a charging station needs to sit on land, no? Who buys it?

Nobody necessarily needs to buy any land; If it's private property, then it's up to the owner to install the chargers. If it's public property, the the government that owns that land will put out an RFP and contract out the development of that infrastructure to a private company. Now, is it possible that some private company would seek to purchase property explicitly for this purpose? Sure, I guess, but that's usually a poor business strategy compared to piggybacking off of an existing business and cutting a deal with the existing owner. EV chargers by themselves are not much of a business.

> Quite often where there are private companies actually involved

If by "quite often" you mean "always" then yes.

> RFQ

RFP. Request for proposal. Assuming the construction is the state's responsibility at all instead of just offering cash incentives to private developers, they will seek a turnkey solution from a vendor who can coordinate everything from groundbreaking to ribbon cutting, then contract the maintenance as well. States generally do not have the excess manpower sitting around to do that work on top of the other charter-obligated responsibilities they're already underfunded to do. Source: It's in the fucking article and the underlying law that they bid out the work. (See subsections starting at "[[Page 135 STAT. 550]]").

"An eligible entity receiving a grant under this subsection shall only use the funds in accordance with this paragraph to contract with a private entity for acquisition and installation of publicly accessible electric vehicle charging infrastructure ..."

In other words, the government, tribe, territory etc. that gets the funding is obliged to hire someone who knows what the fuck they're doing to install and maintain everything. The government's involvement is essentially limited to outlining approximately where the stations should be located and explaining to the feds how their plan complies with the requirements to get the money.
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Comment Re:Three docs that were (Score -1, Flamebait) 350

> For the FDA to imply that ivermectin wasn't safe for human use when they had approved it to be, they should have been sued.

They were saying to stop eating veterinary ivermectin sold as a dewormer.

There's a world of difference between a doctor prescribing a human-formulated drug for off-label use and eating tablets or paste you bought at the local Tractor Supply intended for livestock.
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Comment Re:Are chargers compatible with any brand? (Score 2) 120

> For instance, can a Tesla super charger charge a BMW or GM EV and vice versa?

This isn't an issue in Europe; The EU had the sense to force Tesla to use the CCS2 standard before they became entrenched with their proprietary connector and protocol. All EVs in Europe use CCS2 so you can use any charger from any brand no problem.

In North America, Tesla is opening up their network to other manufacturers and other manufacturers are gearing up to have their vehicles use the J3400 connector. Ford and Rivian owners already have access to the Tesla network via adapters. Everyone else is expected to follow in turn. In the coming years all vehicles sold in NA will have the J3400 port. The caveat is older Tesla stations that use the old protocol need to be physically replaced with compatible hardware, so it's still not 100%. Yay "free market!"

If you drive a Tesla, you can use every charger out there with an adapter.

Worth noting that this is only possible because the EU forced Tesla to use CCS2, which is identical to CCS1 except for the physical connector, so all Tesla vehicles produced after late 2020 already use the underlying GreenPHY protocol that connects vehicle to charger. Not only does this mean all vehicles are physically compatible with both networks via adapter, but it actually makes V2X possible for Teslas if they ever get off their ass and implement it.
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Comment Reminds me of "Jan 6 insurrection" guilty pleas (Score 2) 94

This reminds me of the sentencing of the "January 6 insurrection" guilty pleas. As I (a non-lawyer) understand it...

Regardless of whether you consider it an insurrection or a protest march petitioning the government for redress of grievances...

In the wake of the events, the fed busted a bunch of the participants and left them rotting in prison for months (over a year), with no end in sight. In many cases this left families with no breadwinner, enormous legal costs, and expectations of losing all their property as part of some eventual conviction.

Then the prosecutors offered some of the defendants a plea deal; Plead guilty to a misdemeanor or short-sentence felony and we'll drop any other charges.

Rule of thumb: a misdemeanor generally is a crime with a max sentence of no more than a year in prison, a felony more than a year - which is why you see "year and a day" max sentences on some crimes. An accused person already in prison for over the max sentence would expect that accepting the deal would result in immediate release with "credit for time served" (and others near the max might expect release much sooner). So some of them went for it.

Came the sentencing some judges applied a two-year sentence enhancements for "substantial interference with the 'administration of justice.'" OOPS! No release for you.

I'd expect them to pull the same sort of thing on Assange if he were foolish enough to plead guilty to anything, no matter how minor.

(By the way: This particular form of the practice, as used on the Jan6 participants, was just recently struck down. But the decision was based on Congress' certification of the presidential election not qualifying as "administration of justice.'" So this wouldn't apply to whatever enhancement trick they might pull on Julian.

Comment Re:I heard pregnant women are (Score 2) 29

I don't know what you heard, but baby cells can only stay baby cells, they can't become mommy cells,

Sez who?

There's been evidence for some time that post-pregnancy mothers often have clones of stem cells derived from the previous foetus. Sure such a clone would likely start out with its epigenitc programming set for whatever function it had in the baby's development (unless, say, some error in its differentiation is what led to it migrating to the woman's body to set up shop). But once established on the mother's side of the placental barrier, and especially after the birth, the stem cell clone can be expected to continue to run its program under direction of the growth factors in the mother's blood.

That amounts to a transplant of younger stem cells which could be expected to produce differentiated cells for tissue growth and replacemtnt,, with the aging clock set farther back and with some genes from the father to provide "hybrid vigor", filling in for defective genes in the mother's genome or adding variant versions of molecular pathways.

Comment Re:Gateway Pundit, seriously? (Score 1) 214

Let's set aside that FOX News - which is only one part of News Corp owned and operated by Rupert Murdoch (see my last post) - boasts viewerships roughly equal to CNN and MSNBC combined which undermines your argument quite substantially...

CNN is not left. At least, nobody left of center considers them left... they have been carrying a lot of water for the Republicans over the past decade in a cynical attempt to appear more "balanced" which actually tanked their reputation.

If you're going to include ABC, NBC and CBS then you'll need to include Newsmax, Infowars, OANN and Blaze because those all exist and they are all comparable in terms of reach and actually larger in terms of influence. Basically you're confusing number of outlets for influence of those outlets, while simultaneously ignoring just how many right and far-right outlets there are. You also ignore how virtually all right-wing media is centrally controlled by a handful of individuals (again, see my previous post), meaning they are more coordinated in their attempt to warp your perception of reality and push their agendas.

So the only issue I see here is you apparently need to lie to make your point (as right-wingers are wont to do)... which consequently means you do not have a point.
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Comment Re:Gateway Pundit, seriously? (Score 1) 214

> could that be because the left runs the media?

What "Left" runs the media? Rupert Murdoch owns like half the newspapers and new media companies on the planet. Sinclair Broadcasting probably owns your local TV news station(s). Go ahead and block Sinclair scripts from your web browser and see how many news sites stop working. Conservative to far-right talk shows dominate broadcast radio and podcasts in ratings.

What left-run media are you talking about? That's a real question.

=Smidge=

Comment And so... (Score 1) 14

...the ouroboros of AI fuckwittery has finally caught its own tail. "Garbage In, Garbage Out" applied recursively.

People who use AI to write science papers will use this detection tool to refine their methods to avoid detection, which of course will require tweaks to this tool to detect the improved AI written papers. Repeat ad nauseam.

And nothing of value was created.
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Comment Re:Pay Up, Or Else (Score 1) 33

This strikes me as a bit of a shakedown, settle with out patent claims or we'll screw up your IPO by creating a new potential liability.

Back in the early days of the personal computer explosion there was a patent for the "XOR cursor" which I hear was used as a trolling operation. Story goes that every time a new hi-tek company was in that sensitive period just as they're about to go public, they'd get a notice that they were believed to be violating that (even if whatever they were doing didn't even involve a display with a cursor, XOR or otherwise) and an offer to license the patent for something substantial but far lower than the cost and risks of fighting it. ($10,000?) So the companies generally paid up rather than derail their IPO.

It was jokingly referred to as a tax on incorporation. There are rumors of discussions of buying a hit on the trolls. Apparently this netted over $50,000,000 before the patent expired. (Also there was apparently prior art discovered - AFTER the expiration.)

Comment Re:So did Tesla Motors lie... (Score 1) 214

The issue appears to be collision repair costs. This is probably in large part to Teslas use a lot of aluminum which is harder to repair, so body components are more likely to be swapped out entirely rather than be hammered back into shape.

I have to wonder if reluctance of repair shops to work with EVs thanks to all the fear mongering is also a factor, though you'd think Hertz would have enough clout to work around that.
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Comment Re:Gateway Pundit, seriously? (Score 0) 214

I don't want to imply causation, but there is an overwhelmingly strong correlation between "right wing" media and lies, sensationalism, and defamation. It's at the point where assuming the two are synonymous is going to be more often correct than not.

It's not too difficult to find "left wing" media that is equally untrustworthy, but for whatever reason it never gets the mainstream traction that "right wing" disinformation enjoys... and you very rarely find anyone on public message board and forums tripping over themselves to defend it.

> and keep the same narative. If it doesn't, then it is clearly misinformation

Well, when the "narrative" in question is objective reality then yes, anything that doesn't "keep the same narrative" is indeed misinformation... and when a particular source has developed a reputation for misrepresenting the facts then it's fair to be critical of it, is it not?
=Smidge=

Comment Re:Streisand effect, of sorts (Score 0) 428

> If you want to sell sneakers, remember that Republicans buy sneakers too. So best not to try to attach a political valence to tour product.

Hey, remember when Nike made a deal with Kaepernick for their ad campaign? Remember when Republicans lost their god damn minds and started shredding/burning their Nike branded athletic wear in protest? Nike's net worth increased like $6 billion dollars as a result. So maybe it is best to try and attach a political valance to your product. Apparently making conservatives throw fits of impotent rage is very profitable!

> Similarly, there'd probably be a lot more liberals who have a gun in the house if the NRA hadn't attached itself to the Republicans so tightly.

Oh dear sweet summer child... liberals own guns too. Lots of guns. We just don't fetishize them like conservatives do because we're not desperately trying to convince ourselves we're worthy as human beings.
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