What? There's no license to be a teacher, or a banker, or a police officer. At least not where I live. There are job requirements, but not licenses. If you're going to conflate job requirements with licenses, then everything requires a license.

Look, I'm not saying that I would ever hire a lawyer that wasn't certified in some way, I'm just saying that it seems unnecessary to mandate it. If the bar was effective at keeping bad lawyers out, then we wouldn't have bad lawyers (ha), and if we believe in a free market (which, the last time I checked, lawyers charge money), then the market should be able to sort it out on its own. I am, in fact, in favor of regulation of industries, but the bar seems like a relic of a bygone era when only "gentlemen" were permitted to do certain things. It may be more meritocratic and less political these days, at least as far as getting admitted -- though law firms themselves are nothing if not political -- but it still reeks of elitism. And it's certainly done nothing to prevent incestuous relationships between public defenders and DAs and judges.

Law is a profession where an incompetent or corrupt practitioner can cause customers tremendous (and not readily correctable) harm.

So is teaching. So is banking. So is policing. So is being President.

Having a licensing process that ensures that practitioners are at least marginally competent, and a way to prevent the corrupt from robbing others

How does it do that? And how does it do that in ways that the law does not?

Thanks, friendly ISP customer service representative, but you forgot the part where I looked over and saw half the lanes were closed for no damned reason except to get me to pay for the toll road

I've heard that before, but repeating a lie doesn't make it true.

http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa...
http://www.cracked.com/article...

It'd be a real shame if anything happened to that nest.

Something like this probably:
https://www.google.com/search?...

Yeah, that's what happens in the majority of states that don't mandate bar membership. Attorneys watch videos and then we force people to hire them.

Good comparison otherwise, though.

I think we need to throw out the baby with the bathwater at some point, such as when the baby is dead and stinking up the whole place. Our tax code is a dead baby. There is no part of it worth keeping. There, I've said it.

The obvious solution is to remove tax exempt status for religious institutions altogether. It's not just Scientology taking advantage of this, it's so-called megachurches and televangelists too. If they want to have a charitable division, fine, but a religious organization should pay taxes like any other.

"Well, then," Jesus said, "give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God." His reply completely amazed them.

The concept of mandatory bars and disbarring seems, ironically, to be unamerican. I can see having bar membership as an optional accreditation. We have ASE certified mechanic, or CCNA IT guys. Actually disallowing someone from doing a job, though, merely because someone else says they're unqualified seems incongruent with basic capitalism and free market principles.

It was a comparison of judgment. I'll allow it.

I would be kind of surprised if it was generally noticable

Amazon reviews are quite positive.

Good posting.

What most ppl miss is that the 5-eyes and others actually do not spy on many at all.
I suspect that they have unique capabilities to listen in, but not with humans, but with computers. As it is, there was far too many connections just in the cell world, let alone land lines, voip, etc. And that does not include all of the e-mail, IM, etc.
Most likely NSA and others check things with computers, but only items which have a high probability of terrorism, criminal connections to ppl outside of America, etc. will be flagged.

Now, with that said, I am shocked that we actually spied on Germany's gov. I certainly never expected that. And it sounds like we were up to other actions that I am NOT happy about, but it was legal for the NSA to do.

who do you want spying on you? If you buy a commercial product that was produced in China, I guarantee that it has a backdoor. That is why the DOD insists that Cisco manufacture their network equipment here in America (and they do).

Our best bet for staying off radars is to not trust ANY commercial product, and go with OSS. FreeBSD is good. So is Linux. Using Commercial OSs from any nation will get you spied on, simple as that.

But in the end, for those of us in the west, it is better to have European govs, or the 5-eyes (now bigger, though I am not certain how big), spy on us, rather than Chinese and Russian.

So, what exactly was 9/11 if not a terrorist act?
And I did not say that NSA had to ask for backdoors. They are everywhere. BUT, when data is encrypted, it makes it harder for ANY government to get around.

Oh, yes, ALL of the european govs are involved in spying on their citizens as well.

No, NSA passes information up the ladder and then ppl inside of DOJ, along with president and others decide what filters down to the FBI.
You will find that no information about citizens is making it to FBI, unless it involves acts of terrorism, or criminal issues from outside of America.

In 2005-2006, the GOP pretty much removed the oversight of NSA. I know. I was working on PAT act then and was very aware of what was going on.