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Comment Re:For example, picking up a feather (Score 2) 163

Comment Re:So how aren't they spying on US citizens? (Score 1) 323

How do they know who is a US citizen and who isn't?

The fourth amendment protects all people, not just citizens:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

As Glenn Greenwald explains, "persons" and "citizens" have entirely different meanings in the Constitution.

Comment He has no chance (Score 1) 52

Minority parties need to get at least 7% of the ‘first preference’ vote and be able to agree to an ‘exchange of preferences’* with other minority parties to have a chance at a seat in the Senate.

the quota for the election of each senator in each Australian state in a full Senate election is 7.69%, while in a normal half-Senate election the quota is 14.28%.

Comment Re:A Jesuit Pope -- this could be very interesting (Score 1) 915

your original question asked the OP to test God as an hypothesis, which you recognize is absurd.

Yes, that is the Socratic method.

God is an axiom, exactly like the idea that science can work at all.

"Like a sniper using bollocks for ammunition.."

You can collect evidence supporting them, but not disproving them.

You clearly do not understand what "evidence" means. If some possible observations would support a hypothesis then alternative possible observations would cause it to be rejected. As the god hypothesis is constructed to avoid the latter possibility, it also cannot be supported by any observation.

Comment Re:A Jesuit Pope -- this could be very interesting (Score 1) 915

Ah, the old "solipsism, therefore anything goes" argument.

Do you realize that science relies on logic, logic relies on sets of axioms, and axioms can't be disproved by empirical evidence, only by inconsistencies in the formal system?

So I resist the urge to ask Storm whether knowledge is so loose-weave of a morning when deciding whether to leave her apartment by the front door or a window on the second floor.

The existence of $DEITY$ can't be proven nor disproven by empiric data, because it's a logically consistent system.

Why, yes, god is not testable..

How would you disprove that the COBE prediction is proof of the Will of God?

.. and, in particular, god is not falsifiable.

FYI I'm an atheist, but in my day I did my duty learning a bit about philosophy of science.

Good for you. Next time go beyond the first chapter in the book.

Comment Re:!(Prisoner's Dilemma) (Score 1) 626

And a grant of immunity from prosecution for conspiracy would eliminate that privilege, no?

No. Any person may take the fifth at any time in any place if they fear their answers may implicate them in any crime at all. The Court has emphasized that one of the Fifth Amendment's basic functions is to protect innocent persons who might otherwise be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.

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