I agree, but I feel like I have to speak up here to defend Governor Cox a bit (I live in Utah). He's actually an intelligent and very reasonable guy, and as close to a thoughtful centrist as has any hope of getting elected to a statewide office in Utah. His position on trans rights just about cost him re-election, even though he really wasn't saying anything other than "Hey, we have to be careful here, these kids are suffering and doing the wrong thing could cause a lot more suicides" (Utah already has among the highest teen suicide rates in the nation, and the US has pretty high rates relative to the world). His "disagree better" campaign, while exactly what we need in this country, IMO, also raised a lot of GOP eyebrows in the state. Which is just stupid, but it is what it is.

Anyway, the point is that he has to pick his battles. He often signs legislation he disagrees with because he knows the GOP-dominated state legislature can and will override him if he vetos, and being overridden is politically costly. And if you think that's a cop-out, you should look at the field of competitors he had in the GOP primary, none of whom could be called thoughtful, reasonable or anything close to centrist.

I'd prefer someone the left of how Cox acts, but he's not only the best we've got, he's the best we're likely to get. And I strongly suspect that Cox would prefer to move significantly leftward (which would still leave him right of center, nationally), but he's an astute politician and politics is the art of the possible.

A few comments, in reverse order.

First, code violations are civil, not criminal, in every jurisdiction I've ever heard of. What state are you in? The only way they become criminal is if you refuse to comply for long enough that a judge finds you in criminal contempt. In this case, I'd be shocked (even assuming shutting off the emergency disconnect would get you a citation, which seems unlikely, see below) that the first ticket would simply be an order to turn it back on. From there if you refused to comply it would escalate to fines, then increasing fines, then a court order to turn it on and pay the fines.

Second, the purpose of codes like this is to make sure that the house is livable. I expect the code (if it actually says a grid connection is required) was written before self-generation was realistically feasible and just wasn't considered. Odds are a house that has plenty of electricity but is technically in violation wouldn't be cited, unless you sold the place and the new owner complained, and even then they'd probably just require you to pay for reconnecting it. Further, I expect that as long as your house is still physically connected, it would be in compliance so if you were cited a judge would throw it out.

Of course, you shouldn't take my word for it, but it's pretty easy to find the laws and codes online. I'm curious enough that if you tell me where you are, I might even look them up for you :-)

That said, there very well might be something the power company can complain about if you try to get service disconnected so you don't have to pay the monthly connection fees. There might be some law giving them the authority to issue citations, essentially for non-compliance with their contracts. In practice, what would probably happen if they have that power and you called to disconnect is that they'd just tell you "no". But I'd really be surprised if they complained as long as you kept the service and paid the basic monthly fees; from their perspective it just looks like you're paying them money for nothing.

Finally, not having an exterior emergency disconnect is a serious code violation from what I can find (NEC 230.85 (that link is from NY, but the code is national)), so you might already have a code violation. I guess it depends when that requirement was added to the code vs when your system was installed, but you said your system was just redone recently?

The economic system has allowed the worst people to become wealthy and powerful since the earliest times. You're mostly right about the other stuff though, it at least had civility for some.

Once you've found out about fish sauce, not much is scary.

Wrong trope, it's you didn't build that. And it's accurate as stated. Practically every datasheet includes a reference design circuit which is intended and provided for people actually SmarterThanYou to integrate into their own designs. It's not a complete design for a product, so there is still potentially work to be duplicated if you are really into that.

It hasn't been proven in court, but there's been more solid evidence presented than there was against Cosby. Who, BTW, totally also did all that shit, inb4 some bullshit

Sure, makes sense.

I had plenty of reasons not to vote for her, I just had more reasons not to vote for you know who, and I know how first past the post voting systems work. A lot of people seem to have trouble with that and think that a protest vote is a real thing.

TBF the US was always such a threat, and it was obvious. It was always insane for other nations to use Microsoft products. They have been a US defense contractor all along. It's especially insane though since five eyes was established, because all of the member nations knew for sure that Microsoft was involved.

EU companies are subject to the same laws, the difference is that they act like it.

If these companies don't want to obey the laws they can pull out like your father should have

Taking legal action to protect customers and reduce waste is anything but ridiculous. Any real country that wants to be taken seriously should do those things.

I thought they didn't pay their public servants well either. Our agencies can't get the best people specifically because they don't do that, are they any different?

"If solar is so great and cheap, why does it require so much taxpayer money to "make sense"?"

You're pretending fossils and nuclear don't get subsidies.

Pretending is fun but it doesn't move this conversation forward.

But you have no problems voting for a traitor and child rapist as long as it has a penis?

Ok coward. Pay my way including my USA former resident slave tax.

Trump is the same kind of conservative as the rest of the Republicans, i.e. not actually interested in conserving or preserving anything but his own privilege.