happyscrappy

>violence could be decreased through a reduction in laws such that the amount of enforcement -- and thus violence -- is reduced.

Gang members seem to have no regard for enforcement of any kind and throw their lives away with abandon, but I still think less enforcement will only embolden them.

Yes this is dealers fighting for territory not users shooting each other.

It is hard to dispute that inner city gun violence is drug related, which is probably why they don't mention it.

I don't, I said it is a threat, but the bigger threat is someone else getting them. Every group is made of people with various agendas so that is a pretty vapid statement.

Except Google. But standing on principle is pricey.

If there is a successful attack politicians will be questioned about why they did not do more, no conspiracy needed. Is it dangerous to have encryption keys stored? Of course, but the danger is mostly that they will be stolen not used by the government, although that is still a risk but smaller.

In the US you cannot forcibly put someone in a homeless shelter, if they refuse to go there is nothing you can do about it. People die on the streets in Boston every year because of this but it would be impossible to pass a law forcing them.

The EU is urging all 28 member countries to start their own investigations.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-24/vw-cheatin...

> But how much more damaging? Not much, especially since diesel cars are a very small fraction of VW's sales in the US.

If they are really spewing 40x the limit, then we're talking emissions equivalent to almost 20 million cars that do meet the limit. This is around 1 to 2 years of total new cars sales, or roughly 10% of the active light-duty vehicle fleet in the US. Europe allows more pollution but I doubt it is 40x, and they have a lot of diesels.

Except that poor air quality has a severe impact on people.

There is a study linked in the article and European cities have much worse air quality than the US, which is why Paris wants to ban diesels outright. Hybrids would have been a better way to go. Poor air quality is a nightmare.

Bing and Yahoo move up?

Certainly the engineers must have known what they were doing but I find it hard to believe they would act criminally without pressure from higher up.

The engineering team met the demands by cheating, which is not meeting the demands and is criminal. Being afraid to tell your boss it can't be done is not an excuse.

European emission standards are lax, and I would imagine the rest of the world even laxer.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-23/no-cheatin...

European cities have much worse air pollution than American ones because they went with diesels instead of hybrids in an attempt to be more green and partly because of German auto lobbying.

The 500ppm to 15 ppm is Sulfur not particulates and Europe is now trying to move away from diesel because of their air pollution problems. Paris wants to ban them altogether by 2020. Biodiesel does not have the same problems.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/11878435/E...

"Despite lower carbon dioxide emissions, diesel cars may promote more global warming than gasoline cars."

http://news.stanford.edu/pr/02/jacobsonJGR1023.html

Apparently they used to have higher sulfur but as of 12/2010 are all supposed to be Ultra Low Sulfur, although diesels will run on heating oil.

I think part of the problem in the US is "off-road diesel" is taxed far less and therefore much cheaper encouraging people to use it on road, and it is terrible. By the way does anyone know of a good way to test for diesel particulates? I swear Boston commuter rails are leaking diesel fumes into the passenger cabins.

"Despite lower carbon dioxide emissions, diesel cars may promote more global warming than gasoline cars.

Laws that favor the use of diesel, rather than gasoline, engines in cars may actually encourage global warming, according to a new study. Although diesel cars obtain 25 to 35 percent better mileage and emit less carbon dioxide than similar gasoline cars, they can emit 25 to 400 times more mass of particulate black carbon and associated organic matter ("soot") per kilometer [mile]. The warming due to soot may more than offset the cooling due to reduced carbon dioxide emissions over several decades, according to Mark Z. Jacobson, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University."

http://news.stanford.edu/pr/02/jacobsonJGR1023.html

Are diesel vehicles actually more environmentally friendly? It sure doesn't seem that way driving behind one.

>the world hate against the US will keep raising

And some day in the future there might be a single European candidate that may run on an anti-US platform. Or maybe not.

Well, in the US at least, there is a homeowner exemption, meaning that you can do the work unlicensed as the homeowner, it still has to be inspected though.

How exactly are they able to introduce exploits into his code?

Maybe he doesn't like polonium.

That is a self fulfilling prophecy. It is quite ironic that a European company has devolved to committing fraud to try to get around stricter emission rules in the US.

Not holding your own politicians to account for their actions guarantees that the status quo is unchallenged, much to the benefit of the US.

Did VW have to do this in Europe as well or are their air standards more lax?

Are there any examples of democratic communism?