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Comment Re:what is interesting is not that it won (Score 4, Interesting) 591

It's a basic principle of statutory interpretation that legislatures define laws by their written text.

LMFTY: It's one basic principle in English Jurisprudence, known in legal circles as "the plain meaning rule". The other two are: "the golden rule" and "the mischief rule".

The golden rule allows a judge to depart from a word's normal meaning in order to avoid an absurd result.

The mischief rule sets the court to determine the "mischief and defect" that the statute in question has set out to remedy, and what ruling would effectively implement this remedy.

When America was founded those three principles were firmly in place. Over the years the courts and the laws themselves have been moving away from that tradition, creating the (in)famous loopholes that are the bread and butter of corporate law practice.

Comment Meh (Score 5, Insightful) 371

then we are talking about a nationwide crisis,

Crisis: the most overused word of the environmental movement. Nothing is ever a snag or a bump along the way that needs to be sorted out. No siree, everything is a world ending crisis. Not enough demand for recycled cardboard? OMG. it's a crisis.

Comment Re:Paul Ehrlich? (Score 1) 294

I agree that at present we are not doing our best to have a sustainable society, but we easily could: increase recycling efforts, switch over to renewable energy sources, live in denser configurations, change diet to be less meat based.

In other words, that currently we are not living sustainably doesn't mean in the future we couldn't. There really is no solid evidence to suggest that if we put our hearts and minds to it we couldn't do it.

And you know what? we have it even better: population is likely to top at 9 billion and then start falling rapidly. See Japan where population is falling at a rate of .250K a year and likely to be aroun 30% less than present by 2060. Most other countries in the world are tracking the Japanese curve, some a mere few years behind others a couple of decades, but essentially every one is tracking it, from Germany to the fastest growing countries in Africa.

Comment Re:Paul Ehrlich? (Score 1) 294

it's just not possible to sustain 15-20 billion people on Earth.

[Citation needed]

People were saying the exact same thing 70 years ago, except with "it is not possible to feed 7 billion people".

And guess what? here we are feeding all 7 billion. Just because you cannot see a way to sustain 15 billion people it doesn't mean one doesn't exist.

Comment Re:Paul Ehrlich? (Score 1) 294

It is clear you've reached a conclusion and will reject all evidence to the contrary: you rather go on a side tangent about the Israel-Palestinian conflict than pause and think about the main point: 50% of Israel water comes from artificial sources, up from 15% less than a decade ago.

Talk of water shortage is nonsense on the face of these figures.

Comment Re:Paul Ehrlich? (Score 3, Informative) 294

We have plenty of oil, or did you miss the current drop in price? and if that wasn't enough solar continues to drop in price along an exponential curve.

As for the Israeli situation, here's the reality:

A major national effort to desalinate Mediterranean seawater and to recycle wastewater has provided the country with enough water for all its needs, even during severe droughts. More than 50 percent of the water for Israeli households, agriculture and industry is now artificially produced. [New York Times]

Comment Re:Paul Ehrlich? (Score 3, Insightful) 294

I understand the term perfectly well, and the carrying capacity of the earth is at least 15 perhaps 20 billion. Currently we produce more food that we can consume. The problem is we distribute it rather badly.

In terms of water, we wast so much of it, that this is not really a problem. Call me back when we have ripped out our lawns, moved to high efficiency European washing machines, 1 gallon toilets, drip irrigation, etc. Then I'll believe your claims of water shortages.

Just because Ehrlich was wrong doesn't mean we aren't facing a crisis.

Ah crisis, the most over used word of the environmental movement. Everything is a crisis. Ebola is a crisis of a million dead with an actual final tally of thousands, rape on campus (which happens at lower rates than elsewhere) is a crisis, water "shortages" are a crisis even though Israel seems to manage fine (though not without trouble and ingenuity), population is a crisis even though most countries are moving rapidly towards below replacement fertility levels .

Comment Re:Paul Ehrlich? (Score 3, Informative) 294

How much of our problems stem from overpopulation?

Almost none. Human indicators have improved markedly over the last forty years while world population doubled.

I think he was right about the dangers of overpopulation,

He was particularly wrong about this, just like other Malthusians, and just like all of them 200 years of wrong predictions have made no difference in their opinions.

Comment Re:Mostly because our food is shit. (Score 1) 409

Don't tell anyone, but I'm using this web site I discovered called Google. It's full of useful tidbits like that. I don't know how it does it, but if I ask for "raw potato alkaloid" I get tens of thousands of matches including many reputable sources like FDA.

But please, I must insist, please keep this Google thing just between you and me. I'm afraid that if many more people hear about it it would become overloaded and not be there anymore.

Comment Re:Ah baseball (Score 1) 105

It doesn't? Every time I try to watch a game it feels like it does: Kick the sand, scratch balls, swing bat in practice three times, step out of the box, adjust the elbow protector and step back in the box. Exciting as this sounds it gets a bit boring after the batter does for the fifth time without a single pitch being thrown.

Comment Re:Mostly because our food is shit. (Score 1) 409

what else is sweet raw and right from the ground, potatoes.

DON'T. I repeat DO NOT eat raw potatoes. and I quote:

Raw potatoes contain alkaloids. You can have diarrhea, cramps and vomiting. Whereas green potatoes with lots of solanine can cause hallucinations and heart rhythm problems. And if you eat a lot of raw green potatoes, it could kill you.

Comment CS degree needed for good jobs (Score 1) 306

On CS-as-a-major, Cappelli says, "If you look at most of the people who are in computer programming, for example, they have no IT degree-they just learned how to program. Maybe they had a couple of courses in it, maybe they were self-taught.

I've worked with six software companies over my career and in all of them the vast majority of programmers have a CS degree. Mind you this is advanced software development. I do not doubt that people out there developing web sites never got a CS degree.

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