I can't see how this is correct. My understanding is that the court has leeway to use legislative intent to deal with cases that are either ambiguous or where it does not adequately address a particular area. The original California legislation (section 23123) was passed in 2007. The first iPhone was released in June of that year. The timing alone shows that use of GPA navigation was not addressed in the original legislation (let alone adequately addressed). It also seems that the core regulation in the law, "A person shall not drive a motor vehicle while using a wireless telephone unless that telephone is specifically designed and configured to allow hands-free listening and talking, and is used in that manner while driving" is ambiguous (unclear in-exact) when being applied to an activity that involves neither listening nor talking. Also, the examination of judicial intent does include a look at judicial history which seems to me would include amendments to the original law like section 23123.5. If the legislature had intended to ban activities other than traditional phone use, then amending the statute would have been superfluous.

So, no I don't buy that what you say applies in this case.

Thank you. I understand your feeling. People are diverse. Atheists are no different. While some can be friendly and civil to religious believers or theists (like Teller of Penn and Teller), others can be extremely nasty and intolerant. It sounds to me like you have had some discussions looking at arguments from both sides only to have one side slapped down with insults and ad-hominem that made you feel put down even though you are trying to be objective, open minded and agnostic and not taking the theist side at all. It is all too common, and Christians/ theists are guilty of it too. Randi's link is enlightening and reflects a lot of this tension within skepticism where it is clear for the comments that some skeptics believe that a full skeptic does have to be an atheist. But I am still happy to hear Randi's response which is more on the tolerant side of the matter. It is notable to me that he focuses his skepticism most on targets that are of the most benefit to people.

I asked the question regarding whether a Christian could be a skeptic. I called Martin Gardner a "self-described liberal Christian" which I tried to correct in a comment to my original post. He was a theist and was raised as a Christian, but my thinking of him as a liberal Christian was based on a misreading of one of his books where he appealed to "Liberal Christians" or "Philosophical Theists" using both terms. So I confounded them. On further reading it seems clear to me that he rejected religious traditions including Christianity while retaining as stance as a philosophical theist. Randi's answer was both accurate and charitable. He is a great man.

I will back you up with links to a couple articles at The Economic Policy Institute.

The first is a bit dated, but is a fairly complete analysis of all of the related questions and disputes: The impact of the minimum wage.

The other is recent and addresses the affects of raising the minimum wage in the current environment: How raising the federal minimum wage would help working families and give the economy a boost.

No, but he does grow hair on his palms.

I am replying to my own post with a correction.

I said, based on some recollection, I think from the book, Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries", that Martin Gardner was a self-professed liberal Christian. But I can't find the reference, so I figure I am wrong on that. My understanding is that he was brought up in a somewhat fundamentalist Methodist home. Perhaps he did have a liberal Christian phase, but I have no evidence for it.

But I did find this from an online interview:

My wife Charlotte and I were a mixed marriage, by the way. She was Jewish, but we were both philosophical theists. When we got married, I wanted to affiliate with a reformed synagogue, but Charlotte refused because she had no beliefs in traditionalJudaism, any more than I have in Christianity. She countered by saying that we could join a Methodist Church, since my background was Methodist. I refused. So we didn’t go to any church, but we profess a kind of philosophical theism which enables me to admire many religious writers like Chesterton.

So Gardner was a philosophical theist, had no beliefs in Christianity.

If this question is selected to be sent, could our slashdot overlords please change "liberal Christian" to "philosophical theist"?

Thanks.

I ask this because I used to regard myself as a Christian skeptic. While I support what you do and much of the work of the skeptical movement, I now no longer make that claim because current skepticism seems joined at the hip with atheism. I am sure you know, one of the early leaders of the skeptic movement, Martin Gardner, was a theist and a self professed liberal Christian. Are people like Martin Gardner welcome in the movement today?

And, as a Christian I thank you for exposing the televangelist faith healing frauds.

I think that the summary created a red herring by using the phrase, "back-up". The article it links too only describes a way to "share and save documents" over the internet. The PC Mag article referenced by Spy Handler above only talked about synchronizing devices across multiple platforms. That is the real purpose for Dropbox -- I regard it as too expensive to use an a cloud storage or backup, though it does do that. Its main use is to allow users to share files across multiple devices. I am guessing that it would not have any kind of cloud storage component at all. So, regarding your points:

1. While random people might host temporarily mappable bits from your devices (as you would theirs), the actual files would not be reassembled or stored on other peoples machines, so random people would not have your file. If you got your file using BitTorrent Sync, you would be getting it from one of your other devices using bit torrent as the method of file transfer.

2. I agree that there is not a lot of risk having files in a Dropbox folder and available online, but the risk is not negligible. Will Dropbox someday fall into the hands of some PHB and MBAs who decide to make more money by sifting your data in order to serve up ads? Would you like to see ads based on your unsavory content popping up? Also, could any of such unsavory content (or copyrighted content) get turned over to over zealous government prosecutors? Also, could based storage may not always be secure -- Dropbox had its infamous failure a few years ago.

You are completely correct. But I hope you understand that the H-1B scam does not do this. H-1B workers are not immigrants. The H-1B program is badly abused to the determent of American workers. Slashdot has covered this before.

Yes. Just above RPG and well behind Logo at 29.

This thread is dead I know and I have only now went back to see any replies. I have a couple critics, one which thinks what I said is ridiculous and the other said it was grossly inaccurate to the point of making their jaw drop. First, I want to give them their due. Yes, hillbillies are all over the state. There is an old joke that says that Akron is the capitol of West Virginia. And, it is true that I have over-generalized. The included article was intended to give more information to those who wanted more details.

However, I would suggest that the county map election results for Ohio have vindicated quite strongly that my generalization -- even if it is a bit too general -- is fundamentally accurate. 15 of the 88 counties in Ohio went for Obama. Of the 15, only four were in central or south Ohio. Three of those are the more urban cities of Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati -- but only the core cities. The other 11 are all bunched up along the northern border of the state next to Lake Erie.

You can see the map for yourself here.