explodingman
Okay, I'm confused. My anecdote, which comes from Australia, indicates a 100% expectation of a judge. Are you saying that in Texas, a $US6K matter is likely to be considered too vexatious/trivial to receive a trial?
Or is it actually possible to decline a lawsuit in the USA?
This is an "explain it to me like I'm five years old" moment. I really don't know what you guys are talking about.
The judge will know that the other driver's insurance will ultimately pay, so he can punish the insurance company for its intransigence by putting a heavy financial penalty onto the other driver.
A friend of mine had the same experience from the other side. She ran into some guy's car, apologised for her mistake and told him not to worry because she was fully covered. The first sign that something wasn't right was when a summons to appear at the magistrate's court appeared in the letter box.
She asked the insurance company what was going on and they said "just send the paper work to us and don't worry, we'll take care of it".
Then she got a knock on the door from a pair of court-appointed officers who were there to discuss her financial situation and assist her in arranging a payment plan to pay off her fine. Her insurance company had not sent a representative to the trial, so the magistrate found in favour of the only party that had turned up.
After some screaming on the phone, the insurance company paid the full amount of the judgement.
Any judge worth his salt will understand the global implications (courts clogged with litigants, inability of poor people to use cars) if insurance companies stonewall when their client is at fault, whatever the odd lot who comment in HN think. The judge should hit the other party.
Bear in mind that this is a matter of public interest and romwell has not signed an NDA. S/He should name that insurance company!
The proposition that the vaccines are safe and effective, and predictions around Brexit or Trump, come from completely separate fields. The two "elites" in those two fields hardly ever overlap, use very different methods, have quite different histories and different internal cultures.
But the author did a very good job of it. Well written garbage.
Australia's strategy involves relaxing/reducing lockdowns when vaccination rates reach 70% and again at 80%. These levels are less ambitious than they seem because they don't count the 20% of the population under 16 years old.
Other thresholds are:
* when vaccines become available to anyone, which should be the case by December (Australia's vaccine roll out has been excruciatingly slow)
* the national budget anticipates opening up in the middle of 2022
My expectation is that the country will spend the first half of 2022 screaming and arm-twisting at the vaccine hesitant to get jabbed, and will then open up anyway on June 30.
With COVID-19, the relationship between risk and hazard is nonlinear in a way that doesn't apply with most personal risk choices. Analogies with driving, climbing ladders, etc. are false.
is there any way to disable browser compliance with websites that pull this stunt?
Like most people, I'm astonished at how social media mediated news seems to disable so many people's bullshit detectors, but there's no denying that it is so.
Anyone who wants to persuade Australians that their government should not go ahead with the planned regulation of FB and Google needs to come up with an alternative suggestion that would keep Australia's democracy functional. I can't see anything in the anti-regulation commentary on HN that passes this test.
In the study, the bottom group by activity contains 63% of the population, while the bottom group by obesity contains only 18% of the population. So shifting from bottom to middle by obesity is a bigger move than shifting from bottom to middle by activity level. Not sure the author is comparing apples with apples here.
In reality, we need to be aware of what lifestyle changes we can sustainably make given our particular circumstances, whatever the whole-population results might look like. To quote the author, “Fighting obesity and inactivity is equally important; it should be a joint battle. Weight loss should remain a primary target for health policies together with promoting active lifestyles".
I don't know for sure if this is their business model. I think it is, and it makes sense as a strategy.
Something is better than nothing. More is better than less.
[1] (audio and transcript) https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/m...