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Re:Why Is American Teaching So Bad? on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @10:31AM (#8630517)
This isn't about your friend specifically. In elementary school, it's common for kids to only have two teachers for the entire school year. My sister, on one occasion, moved up in the grade she taught and ended up teaching the same kids for two years. Many of these kids spend more awake time around their teachers than their parents. Given how the government forces kids to attend schools I don't see how one can't think that they and their employees share a huge part of the burden.

On the other hand, my sister makes it seem like there are just a lot of bad parents out there. Even the ones that mean well, will often act in a way destructive to their child's education. Many of them are rude and self-righteous. Honestly I no idea what to do about that.

Have you considered that those rules and regulations will cause people to optimize PEDs for undetectablility rather than effectiveness leading to people taking even more dangerous drugs than if they were legal? You see a similar thing with recreational drugs where people can't get a hold of or can't risk a failed drug test for relatively harmless illegal drugs so they use much more harmful legal substances.

Look at Pride Fighting Championships(basically japanese UFC) which was around for 10 years without any doping tests. Where were all the problems we're supposed to be afraid of? Or hell, look at pro wrestling. The fear mongering over PEDs is absurd.

Not every detention encounter with the police results in a citation. If it does result in a citation, they have preformed a non-custodial arrest. If they want to search you, they can perform a full-custody arrest even if it's for a misdemeanor that is only punishable by a fine(Atwater v. Lago Vista).

I very strongly agree with Janice Rogers Brown's opinon here: http://www.volokh.com/posts/1125942214.shtml

edit: Hmmm after reading a few things, I now think it depends on the jurisdiction whether they define receiving a citation as a non-custodial arrest.

Receiving a citation is a non-custodial arrest.

edit just to make it clear: This is not my opinion. This is the legal definition. The study includes citations as arrests. This is why they make sure to point out that they do not include minor traffic offenses.

Re:How to use a super PAC to kill super PACs on Wednesday July 02, 2014 @06:24PM (#7980196)
I'd call it overturning the first amendment. Freedom of the press specifically concerned a few wealthy guys printing and distributing pamphlets to unequally influence politics. There is no loophole. I very strongly oppose your political preferences.
Re:Protecting Your Anonymity: A How-to for Sex Workers on Wednesday July 02, 2014 @10:22AM (#7977120)
Given that the DOJ harnesses people engaged in legal activities under the guise of operation choke point that is of relatively little relevance.
Re:For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins on Friday June 13, 2014 @09:45AM (#7888781)
@2 Not really a coherent argument there. Hoarding due to appreciation is balanced by the wealth effect. You can't just assume catastrophic runaway feedback due to upward price trends. That kind of human behavior is unknowable a priori. One could easily argue that an upward price trend will encourage buying, which increases adoption. This creates a feedback loop, which will help establish a transaction volume large enough to give bitcoin enough stability to appeal to the average person.
Re:How Corruption Is Strangling U.S. Innovation (2012) on Friday March 21, 2014 @03:17PM (#7444222)
Absolutely, it would be awesome if people utilized voluntary collective action rather than coercion or fraud to assert their preferences. But why create a new, coercive tool that carries additional negative consequences instead addressing the inability/inefficiency to deal with the problem through contracts and the courts? What do you think causes the inability/inefficiency? I can't help but get the impression that people think that issues can't be addressed without statutory regulation such that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Re:How Corruption Is Strangling U.S. Innovation (2012) on Friday March 21, 2014 @02:00PM (#7443692)
My response is, statutory regulation usually doesn't allow this, and they flaunt the rules anyway. I don't see how statutory regulation solves the problem you're arguing it's supposed to. Is your concern that courts do not punish contract violators as harshly as those who violate statutory regulation? Or maybe that allowing different management policies places too great a burden on consumers? Alternatively, I can see why hotels would favor blunt statutory regulation and that anti-competition aspect of it is of concern to me.

How many stay-at-home parents pay taxes on their income? Or would you be ok with AirBnB if payment mostly occurred through barter or a "gift economy?"

Re:How Corruption Is Strangling U.S. Innovation (2012) on Friday March 21, 2014 @12:47PM (#7443284)
Why is this person renting or buying an apartment in a building whose management allows their residents to rent their apartments out like hotel rooms? Why can't this function through contracts with disputes being adjudicated through a court system rather than through comparatively blunt statutory regulation? For example, replace "run a hotel with strangers coming and going at all hours" with 'smoke cigarettes' or 'own a pet.'
Re:Evicted in San Francisco on Tuesday March 11, 2014 @06:08PM (#7382540)
That's incorrect according to your own link:

Illegal Units are covered by rent control. Illegal units, such as in-law apartments, are covered by rent control.

Tenants can only be evicted for one of 15 "just causes." Most of these deal with allegations the tenant can dispute (e.g., tenant is violating the lease) but some are "no-fault" like owner move in or Ellis.

Historically, the largest debtors are governments followed by corporations, the rich, the middle class, and then the poor. You may be thinking of net worth as the poor and middle class are more likely to have negative net worth due to debt than the upper classes. However, this makes inflation even worse for the lower classes as the assets owned by the upper classes which offset their debt are rising in price due to inflation, further benefiting them. As well, the upper classes have greater access to investments that allow them to protect their wealth from inflation unlike the lower classes. In addition, the lower classes tend to have less bargaining power with which to keep their real wages from falling in an inflationary environment.

Inflation most definitely favors the upper classes relative to, if not at the expense of the lower classes.

This is such an asinine argument against loanable funds theory and is equivalent to saying, "Actually, it's the other way around. People drive their cars first. Only then do they worry about the amount of gas they have in their tank." You see the same kind of nonsense from MMTers who use their confused understandings of accounting identities to justify their policies. In addition, the notion that entities that have excessive amounts of wealth, ie they have accumulated capital through successful investments, would be less likely to put their money to good use is silly. It's not capital accumulation that leads to bubbles. Historically, it's been caused by an influx of money not supported by production due to currency debasement, precious metals stolen from the new world flooding into the Holland, various precious metal rushes, excessive printing of paper currency or bank money, or suppression of interest rates.
According to every small-time musician I've spoken to, piracy energized the indie music scene. In particular, I have a lack of anecdotes about Boston.

This is because how piracy changes the behavior of consumers toward searching for music rather than selecting from within a walled garden created by the major labels and distributors. The ability to experience being the "next big thing" along with the attendant fame and fortune, is what motivated many bands to get together and play and this is now available to more people than ever. These days the "next big thing" is starting to show signs of catching on when its music is pirated and all over BitTorrent. An incredible number of people can now have concert and T-shirt sales to support themselves or supplement some other income. More than ever can now play their music while putting food on the table. To most musicians, a "major label" isn't the only way to make a living with your music.

It also brings the quality of music down of the major labels who, hilariously, resort to "sure bets" like Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, or Justin Bieber. If the major labels keep this up either they'll lose their jobs, or change their economics in a way that incentives consumers to patronize them. Most can't achieve the critical mass that they used to and so most people's conception of what music is is no longer disproportionately influenced by the formulaic "sure bet" acts.

So support your local musicians. Search out new music. Go see them. Have fun.