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North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

bismarcktribune.com

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Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#31

Post by GuestFAUniverse »

zdragnar wrote: post #25
ctoth wrote: post #8

> The fake minerals are friezium and stralium, apparent references to Christopher Friez and David Straley, attorneys for North American Coal who were closely involved in drafting the bill and its amendments. > “It would be kind of embarrassing for the rest of the country to look at us and say ‘Really? Do you guys even know what you’re doing?’” > Anderson said the amendments were prepared by a group of attorneys and l…

You've literally described most state legislators and federal Congress. The Affordable Care Act was 906 pages long (nevermind the accompanying 11,000 some odd pages of regulations typically quoted). You can bet very few Congress critters actually read all 906 pages. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (the year is part of the name) was over 5,500 pages long. Definitely none of the people in Congress bothered re…

I'm sick of such nonsene. Laws should be limited in volume.

Comments to the law: feel free to explain the intentions, to improve the wording in future revisions.

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#32

Post by phil21 »

ctoth wrote: post #8

> The fake minerals are friezium and stralium, apparent references to Christopher Friez and David Straley, attorneys for North American Coal who were closely involved in drafting the bill and its amendments. > “It would be kind of embarrassing for the rest of the country to look at us and say ‘Really? Do you guys even know what you’re doing?’” > Anderson said the amendments were prepared by a group of attorneys and l…

This is the standard way of lawmaking, as far as I'm aware.

A lobbyist presents a bill to a congressional sponsor, and the congress critter more or less forwards it to committee for vote. Perhaps a staffer or two skim it and suggest edits.

Exceedingly few bills are actually initially drafted by elected lawmakers.

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#33

Post by cogman10 »

zdragnar wrote: post #25
ctoth wrote: post #8

> The fake minerals are friezium and stralium, apparent references to Christopher Friez and David Straley, attorneys for North American Coal who were closely involved in drafting the bill and its amendments. > “It would be kind of embarrassing for the rest of the country to look at us and say ‘Really? Do you guys even know what you’re doing?’” > Anderson said the amendments were prepared by a group of attorneys and l…

You've literally described most state legislators and federal Congress. The Affordable Care Act was 906 pages long (nevermind the accompanying 11,000 some odd pages of regulations typically quoted). You can bet very few Congress critters actually read all 906 pages. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (the year is part of the name) was over 5,500 pages long. Definitely none of the people in Congress bothered re…

At the federal level, I think it's somewhat forgivable. They generally have a fair number of staffers working for them who are the ones that ultimately digest the bills.

State level, though, is unacceptable. It's unusual for a state rep to have any sort of staff which means it is completely on them to read and digest a bill before passing it.

The much bigger issue is that we have corporate and advocacy group sponsored bills at both the state and federal levels. That simply should not be a thing. Several very red or very blue state ultimately work as incubators for these bills and they simply adopt them as is.

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#34

Post by superkuh »

Nearly as bad, this website encrypts it's text using a simple cipher intentionally breaking it for those that don't successfully run all of their untrusted third party code.

>kAm%96 :?4=FD:@? @7 7:4E:@?2= DF3DE2?46D :D 36:?8 42==65 2? 6>32CC2DD>6?E 3J @?6 DE2E6 @77:4:2=[ 2 A@DD:3=6 AC24E:42= ;@JDE:7J:?8 3J E96 =2H>2@?:E@C]4@>^a_ad^`a^`h^?@CE9\52:?6C2=D\32D65\@?\4@2=\=2HJ6CD\?2>6D^Q E2C86ElQ03=2?That's the first time I've encountered this particular affront. Nasty stuff. We should not be giving them web traffic. https://northdakotamonitor.com/2025/12/19/north-dakota-law-a... is much better in that it actually has readable text on the page.

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#35

Post by cogman10 »

phil21 wrote: post #32
ctoth wrote: post #8

> The fake minerals are friezium and stralium, apparent references to Christopher Friez and David Straley, attorneys for North American Coal who were closely involved in drafting the bill and its amendments. > “It would be kind of embarrassing for the rest of the country to look at us and say ‘Really? Do you guys even know what you’re doing?’” > Anderson said the amendments were prepared by a group of attorneys and l…

This is the standard way of lawmaking, as far as I'm aware. A lobbyist presents a bill to a congressional sponsor, and the congress critter more or less forwards it to committee for vote. Perhaps a staffer or two skim it and suggest edits. Exceedingly few bills are actually initially drafted by elected lawmakers.

At the federal level, AFAIK most bills are ultimately drafted by staffers. Lawmakers very rarely draft the bill, they mostly just signal their intent and let the staffers pound out the details. Not saying there aren't a lot of lobby sponsored bills, but I believe volume wise the staffers are making most of the bills.

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#36

Post by sdoering »

poplarsol wrote: post #4

[flagged]

The claim that Canada banned firearms “that only appear in video games” is a popular internet talking point, but I couldn’t find evidence supporting it in the official Canadian firearms ban lists. What actually happened:

1. The Government of Canada has banned more than 2,500 makes and models of assault-style firearms since May 2020.

2. The 2020 Order in Council (OIC) banned approximately 1,500 firearms by name, expanded in 2024 and 2025. These are predominantly real-world firearms – AR-15 variants, AK-47 variants, the Ruger Mini-14, various shotguns, and many specialized rifles.

3. Critics have raised legitimate concerns about the ban’s logic – some firearms that were banned were “never designed for the battlefield, and never adopted by any military in the world, nor ever used in any battlefield” – but that’s different from being fictional.

4. Some rifles were banned “that probably came into Canada in insignificant numbers; indeed, there may be none of them in-country,” like obscure variants or rimfire lookalikes. Rare or uncommon isn’t the same as fictional.

Sources used:

https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/cntrng-crm/frrms/index-en...

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/sor-98-462/f... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Canada https://ottawafirearmsafety.ca/firearms-ban/ https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/more-illogical-gun-bans-... https://www.chroniclejournal.com/news/national/fact-file-ame... https://rcmp.ca/en/firearms/firearms-reference-table

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#37

Post by defrost »

simonw wrote: post #29

I find the fact that nobody seems to know how those names got into the bill particularly frustrating. Lawmakers really need to learn to use version tracking properly. It's shouldn't be possible for a single line of text to make it into a bill without a digital trail leading back to whoever added it.

Yes, that .. but also - heat map activity tracking.

It's often not so much what's in the three thousand pages of filler and bumf, rather more what's in the several paragraphs that get the bulk of the rewrites and horse trading - that and the last apparently unrelated change that kicks a proprosed Bill over the line to pass.

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#38

Post by Analemma_ »

simonw wrote: post #29

I find the fact that nobody seems to know how those names got into the bill particularly frustrating. Lawmakers really need to learn to use version tracking properly. It's shouldn't be possible for a single line of text to make it into a bill without a digital trail leading back to whoever added it.

I don’t want to pick on you specifically, because this is just one example of a very common pathology, but this is such an “HN-brained” comment. “They didn’t use version control” is ten million miles from the real problem here, and adopting version control would improve literally nothing about this situation.

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#39

Post by [deleted] »

simonw wrote: post #29

I find the fact that nobody seems to know how those names got into the bill particularly frustrating. Lawmakers really need to learn to use version tracking properly. It's shouldn't be possible for a single line of text to make it into a bill without a digital trail leading back to whoever added it.

[deleted]

Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names

#40

Post by Y_Y »

randycupertino wrote: post #2

Apparently one fake mineral was flagged and removed but these two made it through to the law: > The fake minerals are friezium and stralium, apparent references to Christopher Friez and David Straley, attorneys for North American Coal who were closely involved in drafting the bill and its amendments. > Bjornson said a Legislative Council attorney flagged and removed a fictional mineral, “docterium,” earlier in the se…

Remove it!?

But that's the only evidence of something fishy!

You shouldn't just silence an error without knowing how it came to be there.

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