The problem here is that encountering an errant office worker isn't likely to result in legal troubles for me, but encountering an abusive officer often does. More to the point, the concept that very few police officers abuse their powers is ludicrous in my experince with many police officers. The vast majority of officers don't maliciously abuse their power or do stuff that's extreme or egregious, but I've never met an officer who hasn't done stuff like running criminal checks on their neighbors just because they can or skating a traffic violation by flashing their badge to the arresting officer.

Part and parcel of the abusive officer's creed, this is. No, it's not necessary to be wrong to be mistreated by an abusive officer, because that's the definition of "abusive".

Virg

I don't see any disparity. "Right" in this context means "best" so it doesn't contradict "perfect".

Virg

You still haven't backed up your statement, since toxic isn't carcinogenic and more importantly, you didn't cover whether there's really stuff like that in there, whether non-lead paints contain stuff that lead paint doesn't, and whether painting more often to deal with things like fading makes for more released toxins.

Also, huffing is dangerous independent of the chemicals used (people can and have died from using helium to talk funny, and that's completely inert), I've never seen a case where someone was caught huffing house paint, and the whole point of huffing is to super-concentrate the fumes because under normal use it doesn't have any effect.

Virg

What does this have to do with the discussion? If you're arguing that more money should be spent on securing schools, then do so, but unless you're positing that the only way to secure schools with money is arming teachers, then your argument is off point. My point isn't in how tiny the threat is, it's the fact that arming the teachers is adding more threat than having them armed takes away, so it's a bad idea at any price.

Virg

Do you throw it somewhere that scavengers can't reach, and that doesn't result in the lead in the meat ending up in the environment at large? Didn't think so.

When your living of your own life results in an externality that can cause harm to others, it's the government's job to address it.

Virg

Declaring that arming teachers is a substantial improvement in security assumes that none of those teachers or guards will ever misuse their gun, have an accident with it or lose control of it, all to secure the school against the miniscule possibility of an armed assailant who said teachers or guards can take down without hitting any bystanders or getting shot themselves. I've never been a gun ban supporter but it's not hard to see the gaping holes in this argument.

Virg

This assumes that "removing lead from your environs" isn't also good for consumers, and plenty of tests show that it is a good thing.

Without citing what those "carcinogens" might be, this is just scaremongering drivel. Back it up or pack it up.

The level of lead exposure that the children will get from licking a roadway is vastly less than the exposure they historically got from old lead paints used in their houses. This is what normal people call reasonable risk management.

Virg

This doesn't follow logic at all. The concept that marriage has certain "special rights" both ignores the concept that it also has certain responsibilities that unmarried people don't have to deal with, and ignores the idea that (in a perfect world) anyone is free to enter into marriage and free to leave it. Your argument makes about as much sense as getting mad that people can incorporate a company and get into some "special rights club" that unincorporated people don't enjoy. It may be technically accurate but it's nonsensical.

Virg

This is a trivial positional problem to solve. Computers have been able to calculate this sort of thing since the Moon landings, so I don't see any insurmountable problems with pulling off doubling a target.

Virg

That's specifically how it works. The idea is that lots of small pieces are less damaging than the big chunk, because each little chunk can burn on its own instead of one big chunk making it to the ground. A bunch of small pieces reaching the ground do less damage than one big chunk (something the size of a house hitting the ocean is a tsunami, something the size of a city is a shockwave, and so on) so busting it up reduces the total damage by a huge amount even if total deflection isn't possible.

Firstly, setting up such a simulation is trivial so I'm sure it would be part of the plan. And to answer your question, vaporizing a big hole in one side would be extremely effective, since unlike an underground detonation there's no atmosphere in space. Turning a sizable divot in one side of an asteroid into liquid or gas would turn the divot into a natural rocket jet, as the matter blew off into space unrestricted by any air pressure. That kinetic energy would push the asteroid in a predictable direction, and that's the whole point of the operation.

Virg

The issue arises when the officials know about the evidence but they don't have direct access. For example, you keep a set of books for illegal activities. An undercover agent saw the books when you were interacting with someone but didn't get a look at the whole book. That's an example where they can compel you to produce the books even though they don't know what's in the books. Or, an officer pursues you into your house, and sees you throw something in a wall safe and lock it. You can be compelled to open the safe in that case. But, for example, if that same thing happens but you went into someone else's house, tossed it in their safe and locked it, you could make a reasonable argument that you can no longer assist in discovery because you don't know the combination to a safe you don't own, and in that case you can't be compelled under contempt to provide the combination to that safe.

In the case at hand, the prosecutors couldn't prove that he actually had access to the decryption key for the device and having that key would implicate him, so they can't hold him in contempt if he says he's unable to provide it.

Virg

He should have qualified this because he didn't consider easy-go singletons in his comment, but the cost of a move isn't the only cost of moving. If you rent, you need to get a new place, and unless you can arrange it pretty well you'll need cash reserves because you won't get your deposit on the old place before you need to sign for the new place. If you own your real estate, then the cost jumps by a huge margin. If your place is bigger than you can fit in a U-Haul truck, you'll have to arrange for more, and in that case one other person is also not going to be enough to move it all so that adds more unless you can get free help. Add all the expenses involved in a change of address and the trouble in things like house/apartment hunting and maybe changing schools for the kids and that just adds to the tab.

So, for a large swath of people, moving is a very expensive prospect so the tax load would have to be pretty onerous to motivate relocation.

Virg

There's more than one place in the U.S.A. that doesn't require insurance to drive legally, and you can be comtemptible even if he is too, so your logic failed you on two counts.

Virg

If you were serious, you'd consider that people who are born religious can change to atheistic (and vice versa) and that religious people can act in multiple ways (for example, by voting to maintain separation of church and state) so there's no real issue with the circumstances of someone's birth.

Virg

I don't agree. The problem here is that you're thinking like an honest person, and that's where a lot of these things fail. For example, if you own a casino game, then there's a reasonable understanding that you're following the rules and regulations concerning casino games laid out by your government, and therefore there has to be some way to prevent you from sidestepping the regulations and changing the odds, for example, so you're not defrauding people who wouldn't play your game if they knew what you did to it. The same is true of safety systems so that an airline can't cut out a safety interlock to save fuel or a utility company to overcharge their customers or a convenience store owner who skims credit card numbers in their ATM. In all these cases, the owner of the device needs to be restricted from changing something that they directly own due to rules outside their ownership.

Virg