I cannot determine which of the narrowly defined punishable exemptions from the first amendment the Okies would fall under? They weren't inciting, they weren't fighting, there was no public danger, etc. It was just plain, dumb, hateful speech. And hateful speech is protected.

What do you think?

Not exactly. A noise ordinance that specifically targeted, e.g., loud rap music (but not loud classical music or loud NPR playing--if such a thing exists!), would be considered an unconstitutional law. The law doesn't have to be vague or confusing to be unconstitutional, though vague or confusing laws certainly can be unconstitutional tool!

Seems to me you've just picked a couple more unpopular groups to insult!

Whoever claimed that "malice" was involved in the standard is quite wrong, but it's worth noting that local noise ordinances are struck down as unconstitutional all the time.

Right in terms of predictions? In a couple of months or years? :-) Right in terms of "good outcome or bad outcome"? That's another question. I don't believe the government should be able to punish unpopular speech. That's also pretty much the accepted case law--universities cannot punish students based solely on unpopular speech.

I should have been more clear. Absolutely there are a very few specific exceptions. Threats of immediate violence are not protected speech--for instance, if the frat members had said "we're going to kill some n*rs" that is a clear threat of violence. That is not protected. Another (famous) example is shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater creating a potentially deadly situation. None of these situations apply here.

Contrary to what you say, you can be aggravating and you can even try to deliberately aggravate people without breaking the law! Think of those "god hates fags" morons. That's pretty much as hateful, stupid, and aggravating as you can get, but it's still protected speech.

Well, actually, the University of Oklahoma is a public--meaning government--institution. Given your errant assumption, I don't think the rest of your post needs replying to?

Accusing someone you don't like of "latent homosexual" tendencies is actually pretty insulting to homosexuals (and nonsensical, but I was planning on ignoring that part!).

Disagree. I believe this will go to court (and I hope it does), and I believe the university will lose (and it should).

"Put up with it" is an interesting phrase. If you don't like my speech, you can ignore me. You can denounce me. You can organize a boycott. But, you cannot compel me with law to stop.

Agreed. As a private organization, github can do whatever they want. Note that this is different from how, for instance, private bakeries or florists, are allowed to operate. They cannot pick and choose their customers based on customer speech!

This is the only thing you said that I disagree with. If the comparison is being made that "A typical german household is not using half of an american but less then a fifth," then you are having to compare apples and oranges. The net energy usage (or, if you get right down to it, the carbon usage) is the point, rather than an irrelevancy.

HVAC--for most areas--remains the largest consumer of residential electricity.

Like you, my electrical rate is $.105/kw. I live in a sunny area (far more so than Germany) but the mathematics for solar don't really make sense for me. Even with tax breaks my payback would be a decade out. Plus, most of my electricity is from the local nuclear plant and I likewise don't feel guilty at all (I've never been into self flagellation). I do more to conserve water as that can be (during droughts) more scarce.

I've run the numbers, clothes drying is not that significant for our household numbers. It is dwarfed by HVAC. For a time we were using cloth diapers and I was counting the number of loads (which, as you might expect, was very high!).

I would like to use a clothesline, but living where I do, we have extreme humidity in the summer that adds some difficulty. A major annoyance of mine is the fascist nature of American home owner's associations, many of which BAN clotheslines. Ridiculous.

I also log local weather station data. For July 2014, the average temperature near my house at 1PM was 33 C and the average humidity was around 80% (with 97% not at all uncommon). You would appreciate the air conditioning too if you lived here (and indeed, a German couple who live in my neighborhood are NOT fans of the humidity during July and August at all!).

Yes, I would expect that outcome, or very close to it anyway.

In 2014, my maximum monthly kWh and lowest monthly:

July: 1599 kWh (almost continual AC usage. max electrical)
April: 489 kWh (min, zero AC usage)

I have smart thermostats and a python script running on cron that logs their status every 3 minutes. I have exact HVAC usage records going back three years, so I can say this with some confidence :)

So, establish a baseline of ~500 kWh if you take away my HVAC usage. Almost 50% of all of my electrical usage is HVAC. If you reduced my house space in half, I would expect the HVAC portion to decrease by more than half. For one thing, I could probably ditch one of the HVAC units, for another thing the external wall portion of the house would be proportionally smaller (fewer leaks, etc). Lighting and wiring losses would add some additional reductions in electrical usage.

So, I think watt per square meter of home is a very informative measure.

If you would rather argue kWh / person, I'm guessing--giving the GP's data--that I would still compare favorably to many European households! It's possible I'm missing something, but that GP's data is the first real numbers I have seen of individual, not aggregate, European (German) household usage.

I have 3 cats and I can guarantee they have never killed a bird (they are indoor only)! They did catch a mice once...

To be fair, in both rural and urban areas in many parts of the country, there are large feral cat populations. I still don't believe the 4 billion number.

Fully agreed that those numbers look totally specious.

This discrepancy is almost entirely a function of living space size and the cost to heat or cool this space.

Where I live, 100 sq meters would be a fairly average or small studio (meaning one room with integrated kitchen and separate bathroom/closet) or one-bedroom apartment. I doubt apartment energy usage per sq/meter in the US vs Germany is very different at all.

The real difference comes down to houses. My house is right around 270 sq meters, with a disconnected basement (outside access, though it is heated and cooled) and two living levels, two potable natural gas water heaters (also used for heating) and two HVAC systems. My house was constructed around 1995 and still has all original equipment. The windows are poorly insulated. I run many LED lights, no CFLs, and some incandescents (bathrooms). I have a 55" tv, two desktop computer, one NAS, two laptops and an array of smaller rechargeable electronics. Clothes washer and dryer (both electric), refrigerator, and an extra freezer in the garage are included. Out of curiosity, I just pulled my energy usage for the last year (2014-02-01 through 2015-01-31). Total electricity usage from the electric company was 10,067 kWh. The biggest single month was July when I used almost 1600 kWh on air-conditioning.

So, on the face of it, I use almost 3x the energy you do in a year! I'm one of those pig Americans!

As a rough calculation, your flat gets 3500 kWh / 100 m^2 = 35 kWh / m^2.

My house gets 10,067 kWh / 270 m^2 = 37.2 kWh/m^2

What's that--a 3% difference when you take into account the area?

In all honesty, when I ran these numbers, I was very surprised to see this. I was expecting that you would be far more efficient per area, but the difference is really inconsequential. Is there some error in your numbers (or my math) that I am missing?? The much larger number on my side really just comes down to my much larger space. In fact, if you include the fact that I have 5 people in my space, I think I would be considered more efficient! Americans still do tend to have larger families than Europeans (that's true when comparing immigrant populations in both regions and when comparing non-immigrant populations).

I also pulled the natural gas numbers for my house for the year 2014 (I couldn't get the exact same range) and total usage was 735 CCF (centum cubic feet). I'm not sure what you measure natural gas usage in--m^3? If so, approx 20.8 m^3. I don't know this would compare to you.

Americans a generation ago were used to much smaller houses, and Europeans today are certainly used to smaller spaces and, I should note, smaller families. The reason we moved to our current house (our previous house was ~140 sq meters) was with the birth of our 3rd child, we wanted more space. Not everybody wants to live in the same size space. I'm happy to pay more for the difference.

What will they think of next--fake Rolex watches? Fake Oakley sunglasses? I'm shocked--SHOCKED--by this most recent development.