redmoddata/lines_train_2M · Datasets at Hugging Face

text stringlengths 1 330k
Justice Cardozo's self-description
1. Asch, Sidney, The Supreme Court and Its Great Justices, Arco, 1972, pg. 153.
2. Schwartz, Bernard, A History of the Supreme Court, Oxford University Press, 1993, pg. 229.
Good idea gone bad
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha
1. There is no feasibility study of the project]
2. The project was approved in haste
3. The system has far-reaching consequences for national security
4. The project is directionless with no clarity of purpose
5. It is built on unreliable and untested technology
What was said before the elections:
NPR & UID aiding Aliens – Narendra Modi
Search This Blog
Saturday, March 12, 2016
9484 - Your 10-Point Cheat Sheet On Aadhaar Bill Passed By Lok Sabha - NDTV
Cheat Sheet \| Reported by Sunil Prabhu, Edited by Varun Sharma \| Updated: March 11, 2016 17:56 IST
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the Aadhaar number will not be misused since the overseeing authority can respond to an authentication query only with a positive, negative or other appropriate response.
The Lok Sabha has passed the Aadhaar Bill, 2016, which aims at empowering the government to ensure that its subsidies and services reach the right people and directly. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said this takes the massive scheme beyond merely assigning a unique identity to residents.
Aadhaar Bill made easy in 10 points:
1. Once the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, bill is enacted, the government can provide targeted services to beneficiaries using the unique identity numbers, called Aadhaar, assigned to them.
2. It will be given to every person who is a resident.
3. Mr Jaitley said today that 97 per cent adult Indians now have an Aadhaar card, while 67 per cent children have also been enrolled for Aadhaar. The minister said five to seven lakh people are being added to the system each day.
4. Mr Jaitley rejected apprehensions raised by Biju Janata Dal lawmaker Tatagatha Sathpathy that the Aadhaar card can be misused for "ethnic cleansing." He also allayed fears on privacy being affected, promising confidentiality of information.
5. Mr Jaitley said the Aadhaar number will not be misused since the overseeing authority can respond to an authentication query only with a positive, negative or other appropriate response. It is not permitted to share biometric attributes, including finger prints and iris scans.
6. Such details, the minister said, can be shared only under two circumstances - for national security or on court orders.
7. The bill also calls for imprisonment of up to one years and a minimum fine of Rs.
10 lakh for any person extending unauthorised access to the centralised data-base, or for revealing any information stored in it.
8. The Aadhaar card can be used as proof of identity, but not as a proof of citizenship or domicile status.
9. The bill calls for the government to ask a person to apply for an Aadhaar number, if he doesn't have one, while providing alternative means of identification in the interim.
10. The Aadhaar Bill was passed today by the Lok Sabha by voice vote as a Money Bill. This means that the Rajya Sabha can only discuss it and will be deemed to be passed after 14 days.
Story First Published:March 11, 2016 17:43 IST
Mort Mather Author Writer Organic Farmer Philosopher Thinker Restauranteur
How to improve your life and save the world.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
How Congress can cut spending
Line item expense reduction
Ronald Regan and Bill Clinton both asked for line item veto power in State of the Union addresses but the Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional because it circumvents a power vested in Congress. I suggest the concept should be used by Congress to decrease federal spending. Here’s how it might work:
Wire the House Chamber with “voting” buttons that will record each congress person’s vote. When a button is pushed by the congress person their vote is recorded and available to anyone to see so that a voter or a newspaper can easily find out how any individual has voted. The total is displayed in the Chamber at the time of the vote.
Both Houses of Congress meet together as for the State of the Union. They are informed beforehand on what will be voted on that day giving lobbyists and voters time to fill their ears with biased information or, less cynically, to inform themselves more fully on the issue. There will be no discussion or debate during the meeting. A question will be projected on a screen for all including the television cameras to see and then the vote will be taken. The results of the vote, totals, will be projected for all to see. Television pundits can comment to their audience.
An Example: Congress and the media are told the farm bill will be up for spending cut review in a week. On the fateful day Representative and Senators take their seats and log into the network that they are present. The issue flashes on the screen:
Crop Insurance
Over the past decade taxpayers have paid $59.5 billion
Your vote”
A. no change
B. eliminate for wealthiest farmers
C. reduce premium subsidy
D. eliminate federal subsidy of crop insurance
If the vote for A or D is 60% or more that vote carries. If B receives 41% or more another vote screen is displayed:
Define “wealthiest farmers.
A. grossing over $5 million annually
B. grossing over $2.5 million annually
C. grossing over $1 million annually
D. grossing over $500,000 annually
If C receives 41% or more:
Reduce premium from current 62% to:
A. 50 %
B. 40%
C. 25%
D. 10%
The congressional delegation from Rhode Island might vote to eliminate the subsidy while the delegation from Nebraska will most likely vote for no change. This system is far from perfect since lobbyists might well tell the Rhode Island folks that they will make a significant contribution to their campaigns if they vote no change. Perhaps we should allow them to vote for a secret vote. If the substantive vote was one their constituents, we the people, didn’t like, someone running against them would have them on record as voting for a secret vote.
This is a rough proposal with room for refinement but the basic idea is the best shot we have at making serious budget cuts. Both Republicans and Democrats have refused to get specific about budget cuts because any specific cuts will stir up a hive of reaction and no elected person wants to stick their hand in the hive.
I do think that corporate welfare could be cut without loosing votes--gross contributions from the corporations that now unduly influence our congresspeople but not votes. I would sure like to know if my congressional delegation voted to keep subsidizing Exxon just to name one of the very profitable companies our tax dollars subsidize.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Genetically Modified Salmon
FDA poised to approve genetically engineered salmon despite unknown risks to human health. Inevitable accidental release of transgenic fish into the wild could devastate native fish populations and ecosystems!
I used the following link to submit my comments to the FDA
One must wonder what the point of the FDA is if it allows something so potentially dangerous to our health as genetically modified food without extensive testing. Your past record is bad enough. It should be clear that a) many people don’t want to eat genetically modified food that you haven’t tested (The industry should be urging you to test the safety of these foods. That they aren’t should be a red flag for you.) b) The industry fights every effort to label GM food; another indication they know there are problems. c) Most importantly GM crops have already escaped into the wild. You must know that genetically modified salmon will. If you allow it, ultimately, salmon will be contaminated world-wide.
Please, please, please don’t do this.
For more information:
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Strap on your weapons
I chided my friend for getting a concealed weapons permit “as a deterrent”, he said, and I suggested a better deterrent would be if he strapped it on his hip. Right here in Portland, Maine someone apparently thought my idea was a good one and wandered around the city carrying a loaded AR-15. The police received 65 calls but, since he was doing nothing illegal, they could not even get his name. Imagine the Wild West with assault weapons—Wyatt Earp, Jessie James, Tombstone, OK Coral. Imagine the good old days with today’s weapons. Surely one of the three cowboys Wyatt shot in 30 second at the OK Coral would have gotten him first.
The NRA got all upset because a newspaper printed the addresses of all those with gun permits in its reading area. Hey, NRA, we keep hearing that owning a gun was a good idea for protection and that it would be less likely nutcases would open fire in a school if there were armed people there. If you believe that you ought to believe that letting people know you were armed and dangerous would be a pretty good deterrent. Wouldn’t criminals take a list like that and decide those were the houses to avoid?
Instead the reaction has been that publishing the list has made it dangerous for the gun owners. What?! The neighbors without guns are going to attack with baseball bats? Or will those with guns start attacking others with guns, you know, like a feud.
Assault weapons should not only be banned, they should be confiscated. That would do little to reduce the nearly 30 deaths by guns that occur daily in our great country but it would slow down the insane.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Eric Weiner, an author I highly recommend
Eric Weiner has given me great pleasure in two books, The Geography of Bliss and Man Seeks God. There is nothing better than learning good stuff from a thoughtful person with a good sense of humor.
Toward the end of his quest it dawns on him: “God is to religion as food is to a menu. Both the menu and the religion suggest a variety of options, and while the waiter can make recommendations, ultimately the choice is ours. To say you know God because you are religious is like saying you have dined well because you read the menu.”
I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying Mr. Weiner’s books.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Everyone Understands English As Long As You Speak It Slowly Enough
John Howard speaks his mind on Muslim refusal to integrate:
"Fully integrating means accepting Australian values, it means learning as rapidly as you can the English language if you don't already speak it," the Prime Minister said during a radio talkback discussion.
"And it means understanding that in certain areas, such as the equality of men and women ... people who come from societies where women are treated in an inferior fashion have got to learn very quickly that that is not the case in Australia."
Despite his words coming after a rather dhimmi-like preface:
Mr Howard said: "There is a section, a small section of the Islamic population, and I say a small section, which is very resistant to integration."
Islamic groups were nonetheless outraged:
"There's a whole lot of other ethnic communities whose parents, whose grandparents don't speak the English language, and it's never a problem in the mainstream Australian community for them to go on living their everyday life without speaking language.
"Yet as soon as it's a person of a Arab descent or a Muslim person ... politicians feel like they need to bring it to mainstream attention as the only group, like marginalising us even more then we already feel marginalised today."
Actually, born and bred English-speaking Aussies have always been pissed off at migrants of any race or creed who won't learn the language. But they've also been willing to put up with non-English speaking Greek grandmas and Italian poppas because they weren't trying to kill us:
(Howard) told The Australian in February: "You can't find any equivalent in Italian, or Greek, or Lebanese (Christian), or Chinese or Baltic immigration to Australia. There is no equivalent of raving on about jihad, but that is the major problem."
One doesn't mind the monetary cost of the Prime Minister's Muslim Reference Group - at $35M, it's cheap - but one is concerned about some of the outcomes:
Under the $35 million strategy, the Government has agreed to a series of programs ranging from a university for imams to issuing police with a detailed booklet explaining Islam.
Would this be an instruction book such as that issued to British police, telling them to respectfully take off their shoes before entering a terrorist's house?
It would be more useful to issue a booklet to arriving Muslim migrants. In fact, it could be given to all new arrivals as the disastrous experiment of multiculturalism slips into the trashcan of history. The booklet would be cheap as it needs only one page:
"If you don't like where you've come to, go back to where you came from."
That should do it.
-- Nick
In the story Nicky referenced, these two paragraphs caught my eye:

Justice Cardozo's self-description

1. Asch, Sidney, The Supreme Court and Its Great Justices, Arco, 1972, pg. 153.

2. Schwartz, Bernard, A History of the Supreme Court, Oxford University Press, 1993, pg. 229.

Good idea gone bad

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

1. There is no feasibility study of the project]

2. The project was approved in haste

3. The system has far-reaching consequences for national security

4. The project is directionless with no clarity of purpose

5. It is built on unreliable and untested technology

What was said before the elections:

NPR & UID aiding Aliens – Narendra Modi

Search This Blog

Saturday, March 12, 2016

9484 - Your 10-Point Cheat Sheet On Aadhaar Bill Passed By Lok Sabha - NDTV

Cheat Sheet | Reported by Sunil Prabhu, Edited by Varun Sharma | Updated: March 11, 2016 17:56 IST

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the Aadhaar number will not be misused since the overseeing authority can respond to an authentication query only with a positive, negative or other appropriate response.

The Lok Sabha has passed the Aadhaar Bill, 2016, which aims at empowering the government to ensure that its subsidies and services reach the right people and directly. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said this takes the massive scheme beyond merely assigning a unique identity to residents.

Aadhaar Bill made easy in 10 points:

1. Once the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, bill is enacted, the government can provide targeted services to beneficiaries using the unique identity numbers, called Aadhaar, assigned to them.

2. It will be given to every person who is a resident.

3. Mr Jaitley said today that 97 per cent adult Indians now have an Aadhaar card, while 67 per cent children have also been enrolled for Aadhaar. The minister said five to seven lakh people are being added to the system each day.

4. Mr Jaitley rejected apprehensions raised by Biju Janata Dal lawmaker Tatagatha Sathpathy that the Aadhaar card can be misused for "ethnic cleansing." He also allayed fears on privacy being affected, promising confidentiality of information.

5. Mr Jaitley said the Aadhaar number will not be misused since the overseeing authority can respond to an authentication query only with a positive, negative or other appropriate response. It is not permitted to share biometric attributes, including finger prints and iris scans.

6. Such details, the minister said, can be shared only under two circumstances - for national security or on court orders.

7. The bill also calls for imprisonment of up to one years and a minimum fine of Rs.

10 lakh for any person extending unauthorised access to the centralised data-base, or for revealing any information stored in it.

8. The Aadhaar card can be used as proof of identity, but not as a proof of citizenship or domicile status.

9. The bill calls for the government to ask a person to apply for an Aadhaar number, if he doesn't have one, while providing alternative means of identification in the interim.

10. The Aadhaar Bill was passed today by the Lok Sabha by voice vote as a Money Bill. This means that the Rajya Sabha can only discuss it and will be deemed to be passed after 14 days.

Story First Published:March 11, 2016 17:43 IST

Mort Mather Author Writer Organic Farmer Philosopher Thinker Restauranteur

How to improve your life and save the world.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

How Congress can cut spending

Line item expense reduction

Ronald Regan and Bill Clinton both asked for line item veto power in State of the Union addresses but the Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional because it circumvents a power vested in Congress. I suggest the concept should be used by Congress to decrease federal spending. Here’s how it might work:

Wire the House Chamber with “voting” buttons that will record each congress person’s vote. When a button is pushed by the congress person their vote is recorded and available to anyone to see so that a voter or a newspaper can easily find out how any individual has voted. The total is displayed in the Chamber at the time of the vote.

Both Houses of Congress meet together as for the State of the Union. They are informed beforehand on what will be voted on that day giving lobbyists and voters time to fill their ears with biased information or, less cynically, to inform themselves more fully on the issue. There will be no discussion or debate during the meeting. A question will be projected on a screen for all including the television cameras to see and then the vote will be taken. The results of the vote, totals, will be projected for all to see. Television pundits can comment to their audience.

An Example: Congress and the media are told the farm bill will be up for spending cut review in a week. On the fateful day Representative and Senators take their seats and log into the network that they are present. The issue flashes on the screen:

Crop Insurance

Over the past decade taxpayers have paid $59.5 billion

Your vote”

A. no change

B. eliminate for wealthiest farmers

C. reduce premium subsidy

D. eliminate federal subsidy of crop insurance

If the vote for A or D is 60% or more that vote carries. If B receives 41% or more another vote screen is displayed:

Define “wealthiest farmers.

A. grossing over $5 million annually

B. grossing over $2.5 million annually

C. grossing over $1 million annually

D. grossing over $500,000 annually

If C receives 41% or more:

Reduce premium from current 62% to:

A. 50 %

B. 40%

C. 25%

D. 10%

The congressional delegation from Rhode Island might vote to eliminate the subsidy while the delegation from Nebraska will most likely vote for no change. This system is far from perfect since lobbyists might well tell the Rhode Island folks that they will make a significant contribution to their campaigns if they vote no change. Perhaps we should allow them to vote for a secret vote. If the substantive vote was one their constituents, we the people, didn’t like, someone running against them would have them on record as voting for a secret vote.

This is a rough proposal with room for refinement but the basic idea is the best shot we have at making serious budget cuts. Both Republicans and Democrats have refused to get specific about budget cuts because any specific cuts will stir up a hive of reaction and no elected person wants to stick their hand in the hive.

I do think that corporate welfare could be cut without loosing votes--gross contributions from the corporations that now unduly influence our congresspeople but not votes. I would sure like to know if my congressional delegation voted to keep subsidizing Exxon just to name one of the very profitable companies our tax dollars subsidize.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Genetically Modified Salmon

FDA poised to approve genetically engineered salmon despite unknown risks to human health. Inevitable accidental release of transgenic fish into the wild could devastate native fish populations and ecosystems!

I used the following link to submit my comments to the FDA

One must wonder what the point of the FDA is if it allows something so potentially dangerous to our health as genetically modified food without extensive testing. Your past record is bad enough. It should be clear that a) many people don’t want to eat genetically modified food that you haven’t tested (The industry should be urging you to test the safety of these foods. That they aren’t should be a red flag for you.) b) The industry fights every effort to label GM food; another indication they know there are problems. c) Most importantly GM crops have already escaped into the wild. You must know that genetically modified salmon will. If you allow it, ultimately, salmon will be contaminated world-wide.

Please, please, please don’t do this.

For more information:

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Strap on your weapons

I chided my friend for getting a concealed weapons permit “as a deterrent”, he said, and I suggested a better deterrent would be if he strapped it on his hip. Right here in Portland, Maine someone apparently thought my idea was a good one and wandered around the city carrying a loaded AR-15. The police received 65 calls but, since he was doing nothing illegal, they could not even get his name. Imagine the Wild West with assault weapons—Wyatt Earp, Jessie James, Tombstone, OK Coral. Imagine the good old days with today’s weapons. Surely one of the three cowboys Wyatt shot in 30 second at the OK Coral would have gotten him first.

The NRA got all upset because a newspaper printed the addresses of all those with gun permits in its reading area. Hey, NRA, we keep hearing that owning a gun was a good idea for protection and that it would be less likely nutcases would open fire in a school if there were armed people there. If you believe that you ought to believe that letting people know you were armed and dangerous would be a pretty good deterrent. Wouldn’t criminals take a list like that and decide those were the houses to avoid?

Instead the reaction has been that publishing the list has made it dangerous for the gun owners. What?! The neighbors without guns are going to attack with baseball bats? Or will those with guns start attacking others with guns, you know, like a feud.

Assault weapons should not only be banned, they should be confiscated. That would do little to reduce the nearly 30 deaths by guns that occur daily in our great country but it would slow down the insane.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Eric Weiner, an author I highly recommend

Eric Weiner has given me great pleasure in two books, The Geography of Bliss and Man Seeks God. There is nothing better than learning good stuff from a thoughtful person with a good sense of humor.

Toward the end of his quest it dawns on him: “God is to religion as food is to a menu. Both the menu and the religion suggest a variety of options, and while the waiter can make recommendations, ultimately the choice is ours. To say you know God because you are religious is like saying you have dined well because you read the menu.”

I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying Mr. Weiner’s books.

Friday, September 01, 2006

Everyone Understands English As Long As You Speak It Slowly Enough

John Howard speaks his mind on Muslim refusal to integrate:

"Fully integrating means accepting Australian values, it means learning as rapidly as you can the English language if you don't already speak it," the Prime Minister said during a radio talkback discussion.

"And it means understanding that in certain areas, such as the equality of men and women ... people who come from societies where women are treated in an inferior fashion have got to learn very quickly that that is not the case in Australia."

Despite his words coming after a rather dhimmi-like preface:

Mr Howard said: "There is a section, a small section of the Islamic population, and I say a small section, which is very resistant to integration."

Islamic groups were nonetheless outraged:

"There's a whole lot of other ethnic communities whose parents, whose grandparents don't speak the English language, and it's never a problem in the mainstream Australian community for them to go on living their everyday life without speaking language.

"Yet as soon as it's a person of a Arab descent or a Muslim person ... politicians feel like they need to bring it to mainstream attention as the only group, like marginalising us even more then we already feel marginalised today."

Actually, born and bred English-speaking Aussies have always been pissed off at migrants of any race or creed who won't learn the language. But they've also been willing to put up with non-English speaking Greek grandmas and Italian poppas because they weren't trying to kill us:

(Howard) told The Australian in February: "You can't find any equivalent in Italian, or Greek, or Lebanese (Christian), or Chinese or Baltic immigration to Australia. There is no equivalent of raving on about jihad, but that is the major problem."

One doesn't mind the monetary cost of the Prime Minister's Muslim Reference Group - at $35M, it's cheap - but one is concerned about some of the outcomes:

Under the $35 million strategy, the Government has agreed to a series of programs ranging from a university for imams to issuing police with a detailed booklet explaining Islam.

Would this be an instruction book such as that issued to British police, telling them to respectfully take off their shoes before entering a terrorist's house?

It would be more useful to issue a booklet to arriving Muslim migrants. In fact, it could be given to all new arrivals as the disastrous experiment of multiculturalism slips into the trashcan of history. The booklet would be cheap as it needs only one page:

"If you don't like where you've come to, go back to where you came from."

That should do it.

-- Nick

In the story Nicky referenced, these two paragraphs caught my eye: