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North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

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Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#141

Post by staticman2 »

hervature wrote: post #133

> But Wayne’s troubles began when he when he agreed to help his son, Kyle, a North Carolina attorney, with a case about a piping system that allegedly flooded a few local homes. Is anyone more disturbed by the fact that a family member can serve as an impartial expert witness?

Expert witnesses are pretty much never impartial. Each attorney picks their own witness subject to the judge's approval on professional qualifications. The attorney, not the judge, chooses the witnesses. They get paid to say what the defense attorney wants them to say or the plaintiff attorney wants them to say. A plaintiff expert witness who doesn't say what the attorney wants will soon be out of work or vice versa.

So you often get each side with a biased witnessess arguing the other biased witness is wrong.

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#142

Post by thaumasiotes »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #33

Texas may do a lot of crazy things when it comes to state government, but one thing I think we definitely got right is the Texas Sunset Commission ( https://www.sunset.texas.gov/ ). Basically, all boards set up by the state government are automatically abolished every 10 years I believe unless the state legislature passes a law to continue the board. So every 10 years the Sunset Commission evaluates agencies/boards a…

What benefits is Texas seeing from the Sunset Commission? https://www.tdlr.texas.gov/ shows a lot of what appear to be wholly spurious licensing types:

- barbering

- cosmetology

- dietitians

- dyslexia therapy

- behavior analysts

- polygraph examiners (!)

- auctioneers

- etc. etc.

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#143

Post by foolinaround »

breck wrote: post #106
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #33

Texas may do a lot of crazy things when it comes to state government, but one thing I think we definitely got right is the Texas Sunset Commission ( https://www.sunset.texas.gov/ ). Basically, all boards set up by the state government are automatically abolished every 10 years I believe unless the state legislature passes a law to continue the board. So every 10 years the Sunset Commission evaluates agencies/boards a…

I wonder if all laws should have such a thing.

I would suggest that for laws, it should be the other way around.

The longer a law has been in place, more care needs to be taken in changing it. (not that it should not be changed )

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#144

Post by echelon »

travisjungroth wrote: post #87
beebeepka wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it not create jobs? Not saying it's good nor bad.

According to their website, there are 15.5 FT employees. I don't consider healthy adults getting paid to do meaningless work a benefit to society.

It can function as a jobs program, giving living wages to more people, and letting them spend their salary back into the economy.

But it would be nice if jobs programs produced more benefit.

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#145

Post by dasudasu »

clejack wrote: post #5

I first read this and immediately thought it was ridiculous. After a second read, I'm wondering if there is some deception going on. The idea that a license should be required to make advisement on designs impacting the public is reasonable. While nothing is guaranteed, it allows for a simple verification of skills. I find it hard to believe that any engineer would not know this because I was told companies and the g…

Licensed professions have such things as "reserved acts". This is the issue at hand. Offering legal engineering advice is apparently protected. It's not only that the the judge should dismiss the opinion if presented, it's that even the act of trying to make one in front of a court is possibly illegal. Disclaimers are irrelevant when one is trying to perform such a reserved act, especially if one knowingly does it while ignoring the law.

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#146

Post by echelon »

travisjungroth wrote: post #111
an_opabinia wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. Much, if not all, of politics, on both sides, for ordinary people, is concerning who gets what welfare. For every Oregon FAA there are probably 100 offices in the military and government agricultural sector that provide a small number of good but sort of meaningless jobs. For every 1 soldier actually shooting bullets or 1 bonafide back-bending farmer there are 999 comfy desk…

> Is that good or bad? I’m gonna go with bad.

Do you just fire them and let them go on unemployment? If everything else is held constant, then there's nothing done and more people without money. It's an even greater drain on society, not to mention these people's lives.

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#147

Post by thaumasiotes »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #102
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://oll.libertyfund.org/quote/thomas-jefferson-on-whethe... > The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water… (But) between society and society, or generation and generation there is no municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. We seem not to have perceived that, by the law of nature, one generation is t…

This one of the principles of parliamentary sovereignty in the UK: No Parliament can bind a future parliament. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty

Didn't the UK establish a Supreme Court in 2009 with the power to bind Parliament?

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#148

Post by thaumasiotes »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #42
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #33

Texas may do a lot of crazy things when it comes to state government, but one thing I think we definitely got right is the Texas Sunset Commission ( https://www.sunset.texas.gov/ ). Basically, all boards set up by the state government are automatically abolished every 10 years I believe unless the state legislature passes a law to continue the board. So every 10 years the Sunset Commission evaluates agencies/boards a…

The US was actually founded with the idea that this should be done to the entire constitution every couple of decades.

Apparently the traditional law of Iceland required a guy to appear every year and recite the law. Whatever he forgot to include was no longer the law.

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#149

Post by brianwawok »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #142
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #33

Texas may do a lot of crazy things when it comes to state government, but one thing I think we definitely got right is the Texas Sunset Commission ( https://www.sunset.texas.gov/ ). Basically, all boards set up by the state government are automatically abolished every 10 years I believe unless the state legislature passes a law to continue the board. So every 10 years the Sunset Commission evaluates agencies/boards a…

What benefits is Texas seeing from the Sunset Commission? https://www.tdlr.texas.gov/ shows a lot of what appear to be wholly spurious licensing types: - barbering - cosmetology - dietitians - dyslexia therapy - behavior analysts - polygraph examiners (!) - auctioneers - etc. etc.

Why should these not be licensed?

A dietitian giving bad advice could cause serious harm.

A dyslexia therapist could provide no benefit to the patient.

A cosmetologist could cause someone's hair to fall out.

Like, having something deeper than yelp reviews to help make someone's hair not fall out seems reasonable...

Re: North Carolina tells retired engineer he can't talk about engineering

#150

Post by inopinatus »

bennysomething wrote: post #91
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #33

Texas may do a lot of crazy things when it comes to state government, but one thing I think we definitely got right is the Texas Sunset Commission ( https://www.sunset.texas.gov/ ). Basically, all boards set up by the state government are automatically abolished every 10 years I believe unless the state legislature passes a law to continue the board. So every 10 years the Sunset Commission evaluates agencies/boards a…

Brilliant. I wish they had this in the UK. Seems like a great way to keep government size in check.

The UK’s equivalent plan is that every couple of decades it will flip-flop on being a member of the EU.
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