Every continuously operated establishment that did not meet ADA standards when it was passed was grandfathered. Even public buildings at the time. I seriously doubt there's many public buildings that haven't upgraded at this point, but I'm sure there are many, many grandfathered establishments that still do not meet the requirements of the 30 year old legislation.

I have never heard of or seen a historic building that couldn't be modified to meet the requirements of the ADA, but if one existed it would probably be granted an exemption by the local building department. Demolition is usually pursued when its the cheapest option, not when its the only option.

To be clear on this. It is not legal in the US to bake shit in your Kitchen at home and sell it commercially. Not in any jurisdiction I want to visit, anyway.

There are minimum conformance standards in our society for good reasons. Some are enforced through regulatory inspections, some through the courts. The fact that you hung a shingle doesn't give you the right to discriminate against classes of people, or skirt other regulatory mandates. The fact that you said a business owner should get to choose which laws they want to follow is childish.

Posting a legal filing to a regulatory agency under a .docx format is like a double stuff oreo too. Assuming that consuming oreos equates to enthusiastic support for the kludgiest, most ubiquitous, garbage ever created.

Or maybe they're just nihilistic trolls.... well played Mediacom, well played.

People don't like this because its used as a source of revenue generation, not as a tool to benefit the public good. An officer with a speed camera can potentially save lives by stopping an incapacitated driver. The camera does nothing except get the municipality another cheque. My state has revoked the charter for municipalities that have abused such revenue generation schemes.

Yup you're right. Even though the economy is in much better shape than 2007 and entitlement spending is DOWN (as percent of GDP) as a result, in the long run we'd better get our house in order pretty soon or we'll all be screwed.

So maybe we should elect a president that won't get us boondoggled in pointless foreign wars. Austerity will work as well as it did in Europe, which is to say not at all.

oreally? Last time I checked the USA had a progressive income tax. So that is exactly the kind of country I live in.

I'd guess that the $23 tax in GP's example is less than the depreciation in value for the same mile. Also, probably less than the sales tax (yes, I know Oregon doesn't have one, but nearly every other state does so its applicable) if the tax was divided out by the number of miles driven. So yeah, GP's concept sounds pretty fair to me. If you don't like it, don't buy $2M vehicle. Or do buy one, just don't drive it.

Yeah, I've heard the same anecdote about the size of Harvard's endowment. The thing is, its annual budget is 4.2 billion, so its endowment is less than 10x - not even close to 25x. So this doesn't put Harvard in "Koch Brothers" rich territory, more like "Apple" rich.

Stop being obtuse. He's obviously stating an opinion. Proving this in court is not worth netflix's time. Much easier to lobby the FCC into making a decision on net neutrality than to sue every isp across the country.

In the US, every state licenses barbers. Google "board of barbering and cosmetology"

I'd argue this is a good thing, since I like to know that there's someone out there checking to see if barbers are keeping their shit clean.

That is the reason assault is separate from battery, but in reality they often go together.

tl;dr

But I'm going to assume your diatribe promotes alternatives to vaccination. And to strike down your argument all I need to do is point to the numerous preventable infectious disease outbreaks in recent years among anti-vaxer communities. Sure, not scientific, I get it. But the burden is on you to explain to me how not vaccinating wasn't the reason those outbreaks.

Also, people in the developed world who aren't allergic to the preservatives used in vaccines and who don't vaccinate anyway are assholes. They're assholes because they benefit from the practice of vaccination without participating in the shared risk of vaccination and because they increase the risk of infectious disease outbreaks, and therefore death, among the population that can't be vaccinated (compromised immune system, allergic, newborns, etc.). Sure, nothing illegal about being a selfish jerk in our society, but you should be self aware enough to know that you are being a selfish jerk and probably shouldn't try to convince other people to join you.

Ahem. One cannot be a "lame duck" in their first term unless one already LOST the election for the position one holds. Therefore all of your arguments are bunk. Please try again.

You are correct, in that the federal courts have jurisdiction in constitutional law. However, I think that what gp was really questioning was, "what happens to the legislators who pass unconstitutional laws?" The answer is, nothing [short of they may get voted out of office for passing such a law].

The state is accountable for the actions its employees, but the legislators themselves hold no personal liability to the actions of the state. Though I'm not sure about the executive branch- which in this case would actually do the chopping off of the hands. Is "just administering the law" really a get-out-of-jail-free card for doing anything, no matter how obviously bad? I think not since it didn't work in Nuremberg.