Interesting. I guess I just don't hear enough about Quebec to have been exposed to the word before.

It still sounds weird to me, though (as an English-speaking American). I'm surprised it isn't something more like "Quebecan" instead.

Now ... imagine that there were at least three stories a day about people being killed by malfunctioning Toyotas and then we found out that Toyota was using its onboard electronics to record everything everybody who rides in them is saying, to be used against them in the future, and remotely detonating a few of them every few days. Most people still get from point A to point B, but still a bunch of people are getting killed because they own a Toyota.

A car analogy, eh? Alright then, try this one on for size:

Let's pretend the company in your analogy were Mitsubishi instead of Toyota. Mitsubishi is a huge conglomerate that makes bunches of different things; automobile manufacturing is only about 10% (by revenue) of what it does.

We'll continue to imagine that Mitsubishi Automotive is still doing all the nefarious things listed above -- being really, really pissed off at Mitsubishi Automotive would still be perfectly valid.

There's also a division of Mitsubishi that makes pharmaceuticals (Kyowa Kirin). Let's imagine for a moment that Kyowa Kirin does something really great -- maybe it makes revolutionary vaccines that cure all the worst diseases, and then distributes them worldwide for free, for example.

Would you also be justified in being pissed off at Kyowa Kirin for Mitsubishi Automotive's actions, even though Kyowa Kirin had no control over them and the work it was doing itself was valuable, just because they had the same corporate ownership? Of course not!

And condemning the FCC just because the US Marshals fucked up makes just as little sense.

We support the government when it acts in the interest of the public, and oppose it when it acts against the interest of the public. Is that really so goddamn hard to understand?!

Considering how many of the damn things there are in syndication, that sounds like a recipe for alcohol poisoning.

I liked netforce series a lot. It was a cool idea of what-might-be and I really hope it materializes. The way I understood VR simulaitons is they were just UI, the semi-inteligent software was doing work. But instead of staring at a console as we do, he got to play interactive 'game'. Which is kinda cool when you think about it.

Remember that scene from Jurassic Park where the little girl said "It's a UNIX system! I know this!" and proceeded to ssslloooowwwlllyyy fix the system using FSN instead of a reasonable interface? That's how that VR shit would turn out if you actually tried to do it.

Having a computer is all about being able to use the right tool for the job... and VR is very rarely the right tool.

Brilliant! Because you chose to make that particular analogy, nobody can refute your argument without being attacked by feminists regardless of how poor an analogy it is.

That is only true if the EPA is relying on faulty science that cannot survive the scientific method.

Science is not "faulty" just because its hypotheses are difficult to test or take a long time to test... but opponents of regulation would argue it is (and courts, being made of lawyers instead of scientists, would treat such claims as plausible). That's the problem!

These bills are about subverting the scientific method into a political excuse to destroy all environmental regulations -- period.

You'll have a hard time proving in a court that you made a reasonable attempt to pay.

Theft is a criminal offense, so the burden is on the prosecution to prove that you failed to make a reasonable attempt to pay. And there's nothing stopping the defense from simply putting the waiter on the witness stand and asking "did the defendant attempt to give you cash in payment?" Unless said waiter perjures himself, I have a hard time seeing how the alleged-thief could possibly be found guilty.

I think it's the term 'Quebecker' (someone from Quebec) that is confusing people.

It confused me because I'd always heard that the name for people from Quebec was "Quebecois."

"Quebecker" sounds like some kind of anti-French reactionary thing, kind of like how some feminists insist on non-standard spellings of gender-related words. (Before somebody flames me, I should also point out that I have no opinion of anything related to Quebec, and am only vaguely aware that there's some kind of language-related controversy up there.)

The problem with you idea is that you're just assuming the government is doing the right thing. Look at the crap out of the NSA these days.

And if the EPA acted lawlessly like that, they'd just keep doing it even if these bills passed, so what's the point? "Oh no, you're acting illegally! So in retaliation, we'll... make it illegal a second time?" Yeah, that'll work really well!

If the problem is government acting illegally, the fix is oversight and enforcement of existing laws.

The government does dirty stuff sometimes. And what would stop the EPA from passing regulations that hurt one company but not another because some lobbyist paid off a politician that influences that. What defense would anyone have from that? None because you've removed all due process from the situation.

No, you'd still have exactly the same defense you have now. Since these bills are only concerned with science (at least, according to your reasoning in this thread), they can't possibly affect whether the EPA can write discriminatory rules because science is not necessary in order to challenge a discriminatory rule. In other words, to defend against a discriminatory rule you don't have to prove that it's unscientific, just that it's discriminatory.

Yes, it means the EPA gets taken to court, but being taken to court is not a bad thing. It is a normal part of our government.

Of course. But the EPA's regulation should be in force for the duration of the court case, rather than allowing entities to pollute unchecked until the court rules.

Its about science being used to shape regulation being open for review and people being able to reproduce it. I can pay for a study to say anything i want, but the EPA can ignore it as long as their science is sound (available and can be reproduced).

No, it's about being able to bludgeon the EPA in court with your bogus study, in order to delay regulations for as long as possible.

Oh, wait - [Environmental Impact Statements] are generally required anyway.

Yeah, and the Republicans hate that and are trying to change it, which is the issue we're discussing. The point of the proposed bills would be to preempt things like this.

So wait, what do you mean a company should have to prove whatever [thing with substantial potential for harm] they're doing is okay for the environment?

Fuck yes! Because if it didn't have substantial potential for harm, the EPA wouldn't bother trying to regulate it in the first place.

The people fighting this sort of thing ultimately are useful idiots for fascism. You want the government to do whatever it wants without anyone being able to defend themselves in court or hold the government to basic due process.

Clearly, you have no fucking clue what fascism actually is, because "you want [corporations who have effected regulatory capture on the government] to do whatever [they want] without anyone being able to defend themselves in court or hold the [corporations] to basic due process" and are too goddamn stupid to notice that you're advocating for exactly the same damn thing you're claiming is bad!

Basically, what you're trying to argue here is that government control is somehow worse than corporate control, even though the only real difference nowadays is that corporations are motivated entirely by greed and have no oversight by the public, while government is (supposed to be) motivated to serve the public good and does have oversight by the public.

Wow. How completely stupid can you be? You can pay anyone off to say it is not reproducable and anyone can prove them wrong by simply reproducing it. FFS, is logic lost on you? All anyone would have to do is reproduce the results.

And while you're off "reproducing the results," industry has had free reign to spend a decade or so fucking everything up. You might as well change the name from "Environmental Protection Agency" to "Environmental Hindsight Agency" since all it'll be able to do is say "yup, that really was a bad idea after all" after the damage is already done!

It seems like you are scared to have work used to claim global warming opened up for anyone to inspect. Why is that?

It "seems" like you're intentionally mischaracterizing the situation to suit your own argument. The burden of proof should be on you to explain why we should run full speed ahead changing the climate, not on the EPA to explain in excruciating detail precisely why erring on the side of caution might be prudent common sense.

The EPA should be subject to due process. If they're saying they're doing something because of a study... then that study itself should be subject to examination... that includes whether it is reprroducable and therefore science at all... and then you're going to want to know where the information came from so you can audit it.

You're holding the EPA to a lower standard then a corporation that files its yearly tax return.

You've got this entirely backwards: you're trying to argue that the EPA should be required to justify erring on the side of caution by prohibiting a potentially-harmful thing, when in reality the company wanting to do the potentially-harmful thing should justify that it isn't harmful before being allowed to do it.

If you have such contempt for the political process then just come out and say it now... just say you hate democracy. Say you hate due process. Say you hate freedom of speech. Just admit it.

You first.