Are there any practical effects of this? Could I name an existing mineral stralium and get goodies?
North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names
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Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names
#52It's ridiculous how much of our bills are completely written by interest groups like the coal industry. I'm surprised they even reviewed it enough to catch it In 2010 Arizona passed an anti-immigrant bill written by the private prison company Corrections Corporation of America (now CoreCivic). We know it was written by CCA because they literally left the logo on the bill
In a former job I worked on a tech co's policy response to a major piece of California AI legislation a couple of years ago and was stunned to learn that nonprofits (at least, I'd be shocked if this didn't also include companies) basically sponsor bills and just find lawmakers to introduce and champion them.
nonprofits like the that just happens to be funded by that very industry.
It's literally a laundering scheme. The industry can't wine and dine and send bills over to the politicians directly so they create some "clean" middle men to make it all look legit at first glance.
Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names
#53It's ridiculous how much of our bills are completely written by interest groups like the coal industry. I'm surprised they even reviewed it enough to catch it In 2010 Arizona passed an anti-immigrant bill written by the private prison company Corrections Corporation of America (now CoreCivic). We know it was written by CCA because they literally left the logo on the bill
There's not many things more "Stereotypically American" than legislation with a corporate logo on it.
In the interest of full transparency, it would be nice to stamp all laws with the logos of the companies that write them, so we at least know who our real legislators are for any given law.
Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names
#54[flagged]
Interesting. Is there a link about this? I did a search and of course it’s all trash about “no Canada didn’t ban video games.”
I assume he's referring to failed prototype rifles that never made it into mass production but appeared in videogames.
Ask H&K for a list of the all the military rifles they ever made and dump it onto the list and you get some cool-looking failed experiments made to bid for a military procurement contract that have only been seen in Call of Duty.
Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names
#55On mobile: does this article really consist of a single paragraph of text and a single illegible small screenshot, buried in an avalanche of ads, including things like "More >" links that open more ads?
There is 20 separate paragraphs/major sentences.
Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names
#56Are there any practical effects of this? Could I name an existing mineral stralium and get goodies?
If you're a more equal animal and have the right relationships with the power structure you can do that and make money hand over fist while it goes through the courts. If an upstart tries it the state will have law enforcement all over them in short order.
Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names
#57Apparently 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…
This is a good example of “not fixing the whole problem”. Once a “fake” mineral was discovered, a good idea would have been to demand an expert reviews the entire list.
Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names
#58I 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.
> Lawmakers really need to learn to use version tracking properly Not how reconciliation-based negotiations work. Behind every material lawmaker you’d have redlines circulating among their staff. Each industry group would have them circulating among its members. Each citizen group, too. These will be haphazardly combined among the groups, sometimes transparently, sometimes strategically. It’s still traceable. But not…
Even being able to credit a line to an individual lawmaker's office would be better than what we have now.
Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many Judicial opinions are done in the same manner. An attorney from the winning side prepares a draft opinion and a judge reviews/edits it and away it goes. The edits in the couple I've personally seen are incredibly light - more or less a rubber stamp with the judge's name on it. I imagine this holds true (via chatting with insider friends) for many such "industries" including lawmaking, scientific/academic papers,…
The judge still decided this was the winning side. I don’t really see a problem with this, especially as seeing it is at the end of a deliberative process. By that time, the winning attorney may have a good idea of where the judge stands, what the ruling would be and is also incentivized to stay on their good side.
The judge is supposed to be independent of influence, and fair to both sides. A decision for one side is rarely that 'one party gets everything they want'; it just leans in their direction, especially on the fundamental issues. The ruling also may yield an outcome more aligned with one party, but for different reasons.
> the winning attorney may have a good idea of where the judge stands, what the ruling would be and is also incentivized to stay on their good side.
You haven't seen many litigators at work. Their job is to "zealously" represent their client, getting as much as possible. The speculation about the rest is just hope, not due process.
Re: North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names
#60[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, expan…
Thanks for this exhaustive info.
Also it's worth noting that when the ban list was overreaching and included some common and venerable semi-auro WW2 rifles that were a bit too powerful or their fixed-size magazines/clips were a bit too large (eg M1 Garand), the Canadian government backed off on those.