> Most problems in automatic verification are either undecidable, or intractable.

Who was speaking of automatic verification?

Some things may be over-engineered. But in my experience, more often it is the case, that people rather re-invent the wheel,
than they bother to try to understand, what someone else has done, and how it is supposed to work.
And over time, it will bite. Usually not the one who wrote the code, because that person is gone, but the project in whole.
And no, I don't see a difference in "own code" and foreign libraries, from a "long" term perspective, it is the same.

> I don't see any reason, why the version would have to change in the middle of a file in any case.

It is probably not due to the fact, that the version might change in the middle of the file, but in case, you only have a part of the file.
This makes it more robust, and better suitable for streaming: You can simply start sending from an arbitrary position, and the parser should
be able to recover at some point.

Not really. Event driven programming is more about decoupling caller and callee than responsiveness. So, instead of calling the handler directly by function call it either get
routed through a message loop, or is fired over a delegate. Just try to handle a complex function in such a handler, and look how responsive the GUI remains. It will become dead.
Yes, you can work around it, by loading of the code to OnIdle or Timer event, but that is essentially a poor-man's multi-threading, as now you have to break down
your code in smaller interrupt-able chunks yourself. Hence, the standard approach suggested in API documentation is: Use a worker thread.

Yes, you are right, why doesn't the porn industry get the same subventions as the crop industry.
How dares the executive to set priorities, instead of spreading the money equally amongst men.

Maybe equal protection has nothing to do with it?

> Both 43B (1) (a) and (b) are applicable.

Those sections are referring to disclosure, not "acquiring" information. As paragraph (c) points out, illegal acquired information is not
covered.

> Here you go.

Well, that is fairly damning and hardly a moment of glory for the people involved. I have to give you that point.
But fortunately, I can still retreat to ad hominem.

> > Which requirements of the FOIA have they supposedly been trying to circumvent?

> The emails referenced in the above link are subject to FOIA requests. Deleting them is a felony.

You keep re-iterating it. I fail to see it written in law.

> Given the title of the leaked file, it is quite reasonable to conclude that the whistleblower was tasked with complying with an FOIA request, and when that request was denied leaked the information compiled to comply with it anyways. And quite rightly so, both as a matter of honour and a matter of law.

Hardly, because if the request was denied, they are de jure not subject to FOIA request.
So it is not within his rights to release the mail. That is why the police is investigating that person, instead of the scientists.

Actually, no. Simply thought experiment: What would happen, if you requested your professors correspondence?
Personal communications are exempt under Section II, 40, as they are protected by the Data Protection Act 1998,
which overrules FOIA as explicitly stated in several places.

Let me reiterate, the FOIA is a personal right in your relation to a public authority, not a person.
There is no contradiction in the fact, that a public authority is composed by private persons, it simply makes it more difficult to
separate those to.

> Actually, it was neither.

Strangely enough, the BBC refers to i stolen. The police has been informed and is investigating. Unless you can point out, under which law such an action is legal, my point still stands.

> In fact, *not* revealing it would be a crime!

Hardly, there is no legal requirement to publish ones personal communication, unless there is a court order.

> There is quite clear evidence [...]

I can only reiterate my wish for actual facts, instead of half-baked assertion.

> evade the requirements of the FOIA

Which requirements of the FOIA have they supposedly been trying to circumvent?

> that is a felonious activity, to conceal your knowledge of it is the crime of misprision.

The FOIA is a law pertaining the legal rights of a person in relation to a public authority. I am intrigued, where you derive the legal framework from for judging a person working there. Enlighten me, by pointing out the name of the passed law, and the section.

Even if it were a crime, you seem to claim that the persons in questions are the perpetrators, which in turn would make not publishing it not a crime. The right against self-incrimination is fairly well established.

I followed you up to this point:

> Only instead of a few million Windows computers getting botted, our very economy is at stake from the "warmers" and their political machinations.

Those, as you called them, "warmers" are actually scientists publishing in peer reviewed journals. Despite the illegal and unethical breach of their private communication, no new facts concerning data and/or methods have been unveiled, only adding further to the list of ad hominem attacks.

Concerning the effect of assumed counter-measurements against climate change, I am astonished, that you can claim to know the economical impact, as at least to my knowledge, economic models are several orders less reliable than climate models, as recent events may indicate.

Care to share your insight, which seems to exceed that of the tree huggers at McKinsey's?

> But once the scientist sees himself as a politician, it is far too easy for ego and self-interest to blind them to what they should be observing, instead of what they wish to observe.

Sorry, that is only an ad hominem argument.
A scientist is always challenged by that problem, regardless whether one is politically active or not:
You can try to leave out important data to make your methods look more successful or your results more exciting.
It happened in the past even if it was not the topic of current events in probably any scientific field.

And why do we know about it? Because other people will scrutinise the results, and the higher the impact of the results, the more scrutinising people will be.

Finally: I'd argue all went down, when people left politics to the politicians.
Since when did it become unappropriate for educated persons to act for a change in the field they are actually experts in.
Leave it to the politician, yeah, great idea.

> not a big fat swastika but some more obscure symbols. [...]
> I know I wouldn't stand for it. I recognize the horrors of my own country and we will forever keep things like slavery and repression in general in front and center of our attention -- a mandatory history lesson -- so that we never repeat those mistakes.

Actually, it was a Swastika.
The SS insignia are hardly obscure, especially to Germans, because they learned about those symbols in school in mandatory history lessons, which you so kindly suggested.

May I point out a certain point of the law, which might have slipped your eye:

(3) Subsection (1) shall not be applicable if the means of propaganda or the act serves to further civil enlightenment, to avert unconstitutional aims, to promote art or science, research or teaching, reporting about current historical events or similar purposes.

> Quite simply the USA's Founding Fathers didn't mean for "general welfare" to be used to get around the limits of the Constitution.

The USA's founding fathers are hardly homogeneous bunch of people, which almost makes "what the founding fathers meant" almost a moot point, especially if you simply refer to one or two people.
For the moment, let's disregard that and have a look at your quotes.

The problem is, we were arguing about what the limitations of the Constitution are. Thomas Jefferson's only states, that universal rights granted in the constitution should not be constructed to circumvent specific limits imposed. For example, signing an international treaty, which abolishes Habeas corpus. The spending and taxing clause, however, is a fairly specific clause, it states how the Congress may attain money, and for what reasons. So, can you provide a similar specific law, which actually limits congress from enacting such a law?

From my understanding, James Madison is not arguing against general welfare, or levying taxes for that purpose, but the actual execution of welfare through the federal level:

> If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare [...]

Congress is not actually meant to spend the money directly, without check and balances. Probably, from his point of view, the states should take care of the actual spending.
But he is actually one of the people, which were for a more limiting meaning of the law. For a different point of view, may I refer to Alexander Hamilton.

> Can you point to one place in there where the federal government is given the power control health care and medicine?

Section 8, powers of the congress, first sentence: General welfare.

People learn from mistakes, smart people learn from other people's mistakes.

I find it always depressing, when my government tries to come up with its own plan and doesn't bother to have a look how other nations did it.
That is either ignorance, arrogance or misplaced pride.

> EU Parliament tried to do something about Berlusconi, but the parties on the right blocked all declarations on the subject.

The liberal party block tried a issue a statement which reprimanded the lack of freedom of expression in Italy due to the Berlusconi imperium.
What would the effects of that be, and what had that to do with the pending legal proceedings of Mr Berlusconi, besides the person himself?
Nothing and none.

> Who did you vote?

As long it isn't Berlusconi, what would it matter?