Thanks.

I've always understood that in English, "well regulated" meant it had to be orderly and controlled, etc. - not just some folks who are separately doing their own thing. While I understand that that interpretation is unpopular, coming from the outside the founding fathers never struck me as anarchists. So I always considered it more of a "Swiss homeguard" type of militia they envisioned and less a "everyone for themselves" type of militia. Which isn't really a militia but a mob.

And while I understand the political interpretation, I would truly like to know how ambiguous "well regulated" would be in the context of the health service. Would any random association of people without oversight and control qualify as long as each member got a permit?

So if you live in Uganda and I out you as a homosexual, it's the culture that's to blame for what will happen next. Not me.
If you live in Afghanistan and the local cleric accuses you of burning a Quran, and the mob stones you, that's your fault for living in such a horrible culture. Not that of the cleric who knew full well what would happen.
Similarly, if you cry "Fire!" in a packed theater and the casualties are piled up on top of eachother, it's their fault for panicking.

I don't think I agree with that reasoning, and neither did the judge in this case.

In my jurisdiction, stolen goods cannot be returned if the buyer purchased them in good faith. In that case, the original owner has to recover the item from the thief. So if I had bought the book, then Amazon suddenly removed it, it would have been they who'd be doing the stealing, where *I* live.

I always think that if a company treats people that way, the company or its management probably did something very bad and are afraid of the consequences. Because a company that treats its co-workers like normal people shouldn't have to act that way. Unless even basic security measures aren't in place. Both are reasons to leave for greener pastures while you can.

We should have avoided that psychosis in the first place by not locking the cabin doors. If they had locked cabin doors on september 11, they would have opened them as per the then standing instructions on hijacks and even flight 93 would have ended inside a skyscraper or the Pentagon.

Even in 9/11 the cabin wasn't rushed with grenades and explosives, but with box knifes. Suppose it happens again? How long do the pilots hold out when the hijackers slaughter the passengers one by one outside their door, on their camera? And that assumes the passengers will happily play along - how many hijackings have occurred since 9/11 where the passengers sat idly by, waiting for their fate to be sealed? I bet it's a binary number.

And another thing: now the pilots are in control of all those people. Quite literally untouchable. If you have even the smallest inclination towards a Messiah complex, this will set it right off. Couple that with the enormous pressure on pilots who are in debt, with airlines in trouble and sacking pilots, and you have a recipe for disaster.

The cabin door lock was not meant to protect the passengers, it's meant to protect the skyscraper. I say we should get rid of it.

And the exception... Dutch judges are using international agreements to see if the laws are violating them. If they are, the plaintiffs will be released/compensated based on the international agreements as they are overriding national laws, especially when they are EU judicial guidelines.

So there is no constitution, but in the EU we are now getting a weird mix of Roman law and case law.

That depends on whether the law is based on case law and precedents, or statutes. If the laws are based on what parliament passes as law (which is used in most countries under Roman law but perhaps not in the UK) then it would be a matter of looking at the relevant laws. Several centuries of history would not matter one whit if there was a new law passed that allowed it.

True, but the reverse can happen as well.

My in-law's cousin was top of his class in a city about 150km from Shanghai. Scoring high on tests, he made it into Shanghai university where he also scored pretty high. This got him and his parents a Shanghai Hukou and a job as finance manager after graduation at the same time.

But yeah, if you're of average intelligence you are ordered to stay where you are. Only the very gifted will be mobile both up and sideways.

Totally different from the USA, where every poor kid attends Harvard, of course.

I know they have a horrible track record on brown coal. But right now when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, they produce rather a lot of clean energy quite cheap - so much so the long-standing discussion about grid integration is getting rather urgent.

I think closing their nuclear plants was the wrong decision, in light of the CO2 debate - global climate change is much more urgent than closing well-managed and quite secure nuclear plants. It did take the wind out of the opposition for the government though, which was probably what mattered after Fukushima.

That said, Germany is switching to more green energy because they are running rather low on alternatives.

Actually there's quite a lot of experience with this type of roof nowadays.

Standard roofs locally are covered with bitumen waterproof covering. THis is affected mostly by UV light, which is countered by layering it over with earth and having vegetation on top of it. This can double the lifespan of the waterproof covering.

The weight of a light covering with Sedum (very small, fatty ground-covering foliage that is very robust) will weigh between 50 and 60 kilograms per square meter. If your roof can't hold that, it will have serious trouble with a big snowlayer. Roofs are mandated to hold at least 100 kg/m^2 over 10m^2, and roofs meant to be used as terrace or walked upon for inspection have to be able to hold 250 kg/m^2.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

Actually, several Dutch companies are trying to either move their company to Germany, OR build a long cable to draw power from Germany, precisely because of this point.

Right now it turns out that they were so succesful that Germany actually has a competitive advantage over its neighbours who don't have that nice clean and low-cost energy source between 9 and 5. I bet that half the reason France is doing this is because they're seeing the writing on the wall: clean energy is not just clean, it's also becoming cheaper than fossil fuels once you factor in the cost of pollution in densely populated areas.

I'll take "stupid apple fanboys" for 5 points.

Aptly put :)

... I'm off to set up a new marketplace on Tor. Apparently, criminals are really gullible AND use untraceable money! What a great combination :)