I think you're confused. I'm not saying EVs shouldn't be taxed in general. I'm saying they shouldn't be taxed due to the oil crisis. Governments should encourage, not discourage, the use of alternate energy-sources when one of them has supply-chains that are threatened.

And I made no claim that treating EVs (tax-wise) like ICE vehicles is "punitive"(*). But taxing EVs more than ICE vehicles because of the oil crisis certainly seems to be so. But see below...

You make a good point about road taxes, but not much else. The virtue of taxing gas consumption is that at least it correlates somewhat with road use and environmental impact. Perhaps we need something else for EVs, but I can't think of what it could be right now.

(*) please note how it's spelled.

Good points. Execpt for one that confuses me:

We may be living in upside-down-world right now, but I can't imagine that even the current government would punish the use of non-oil sources of energy during an oil crisis. Maybe for some other reason, but not "due to" the oil crisis.

I was hoping at the bottom of the article it would say that Professor Utonium accidentally added Chemical X.

The fines should be proportional to actual damage caused (ie: 100% coverage of any interest on loans, any extra spending the person needed to do in consequence, loss of compound interest, damage to credit rating along with any additional spending this resulted in, and any medical costs that can reasonably be attributed to stress/anxiety). It would be difficult to get an exact figure per person, but a rough estimate of probable actual damage would be sufficient. Add that to the total direct loss - not the money that went through any individual involved, and THEN double that total. This becomes the minimum, not the maximum. You then allow the jury to factor in emotional costs on top of that.

In such cases as this, the statutary upper limit on fines should not apply. SCOTUS has repeatedly ruled that laws and the Constitution can have reasonable exceptions and this would seem to qualify.

If a person has died in the meantime, where the death certificate indicates a cause of death that is medically associated with anxiety or depression, each person invovled should also be charged with manslaughter per such case.

The topic was intelligence. Not your false anti-female invective. Take it somewhere else, it's not welcome here.

Yes, that is in fact what I meant. Thanks for clarifying.

You'll rightly be modded Troll soon enough, but for the record: research has shown no significant difference in the average intelligence of male and female human beings.

However, there is some evidence that genders are better on average at certain kinds of tasks: females on average are better at verbal and memory-intensive tasks, whereas makes on average are stronger with spatial and mathematical reasoning. But of course, the two populations overlap significantly: we have plenty of outstanding female scientists and male lawyers, for example.

And ChatGPT is not necessarily correct here. Neither was George Carlin when he said:

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

ChatGPT and Carlin are confusing mean with median. The latter divides a population 50-50, the former not necessarily so.

That would indeed be an interesting study.

Religions generally accept wisdom from sacred texts. (Yes, I know there are exceptions.) So one would presume that those who are ready to accept information on the authority of sacred texts would accept it from an AI that is perceived as an authority.

On the other hand, those same religious people could recognize that AI is distinct from their religious texts, and apply a different standard to it.

I suggest:

First offence: Have to watch CSPAN for 5 hours a day, for a week, without sleeping through it - evidence to be provided in court

Second offence: Have to sing Miley Cyrus songs and Baby Shark on TikTok - sober

Third offence: License to practice and all memberships of country clubs and golf courses revoked

Michelle Obama was not in a position to drive government policy. Nor did she want to be then. Nor does she want to be now. She has stated repeatedly that she has no interest in serving in a policy-steering public office, elected or appointed. First Lady was her contribution.

It's all well and good to identify contaminants in drinking water, and try to filter them out. It's another to address how they got there in the first place. Per TFA, it seems the current administration is focused on the former, but not the latter.

It makes the mission relatable to the general public. Kind of like the Mars rover Curiosity sending its own tweets.

They tried that with Apollo 13. And.... that actually did work, sorta.

Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and Outlook; egg and Outlook; egg bacon and Outlook; egg bacon sausage and Outlook; Outlook bacon sausage and Outlook; Outlook egg Outlook Outlook bacon and Outlook; Outlook sausage Outlook Outlook bacon Outlook tomato and Outlook; Outlook egg sausage and Outlook, that's not got much Outlook in it.