alvvayson

https://nos.nl/artikel/2561959-belgische-geneeskundestudent-die-schuldig-is-aan-verkrachting-wordt-geschorst

They changed it though. Now they are saying she wanted him to be ineligible to practice medicine.

And an American Republican at that.

It is quite safe. What I heard about this case is that the victim was happy with the outcome.

They met at a party, she was drunk. He said he asked consent, she said he raped her. There was no evidence or allegation of force, just that she couldn't have consented in her drunken state.

He had a clean record.

He got convicted and ordered to pay €3500 and if he commits another crime, then this one will count too.

She was satisfied with the outcome. She especially wanted recognition that it was rape.

I think this is a good outcome. If he ever rapes someone again, he'll be a serial rapist and get the book thrown at him.

And on the flipside, I find it difficult to throw the book at people under the circumstances in these kind of cases.

Another reason to live in a blue state if you can.

There is nobody more entitled on this planet than the Orange man and his followers.

People really don't understand how much wealth is being siphoned off the middle class.

Our technology is advanced enough that we can provide everyone on the planet a very comfortable life. Basically a European middle class lifestyle, but with less meat and air travel than the average European has today.

The fact that we don't is because of greed.

Yeah, I was wondering how they are going to expel an EU citizen.

Germany, like really WTH is wrong with you.

They use those things when they want the world to know it was them. The number of countries with access to Polonium or Novichok is extremely limited, and both are very easy and obvious to detect in an autopsy.

When they don't want the world to know, they make it look like a suicide or accident, e.g. falling out of windows.

Sure, nice idea. I supported it back in 2008 or so.

But it will never get passed in any functioning democracy.

So better to figure out schemes that most people will actually support.

You are on the right track, but you have to be a bit more strategic.

Here is my proposal to get a LVT-like system with property owners embracing it and with less legal hurdles.

Keep the current system and make the minimal necessary changes.

E.g. if property tax is 0.6%, then make it 1.2% for houses that are vacant for a long period. This right there is a tax on speculation.

For undeveloped, derilict and/or underdeveloped lots, also double the property tax. E.g. if the property is worth less than 50% of the average property per area of land.

Now this extra revenue should flow directly to home owners and affordable housing.

For owner-occupied housing, make property tax up to half the average property tax deductible. E.g. if the average property tax is 6K, then two adults owning a home together with an 8K bill could deduct 6K from their tax.

For affordable rent, if the house is occupied, then half the property tax is given to the tenants.

All these figures are illustrative. Exact figures should be determined by good analysis.

Such a scheme would easily enjoy popular support and fix the housing crisis.

And it would kinda approximate the LVT, in the sense that it also provides similar corrections to the housing market that a LVT would have.

You could have made this same analysis in 2000 and it would be equally valid.

Yes, the business world is willing to pay big bucks to reduce labour costs and that business case is solid.

But we already see that success is not determined by the size of the model, but by the data and providing and processing that data in a smart way to the AI. And the companies that are successful in this area are model agnostic. They can, and will, switch to cheaper to run models that are good enough for their purposes.

So the dogma that whoever has the biggest model wins, just doesn't apply. AI is already hitting diminishing returns.

Once the investment money pumping the hype is gone, there will be a glut of capacity and a heavy price competition, which will drive down margins.

I will say that Israel is many times more evil than Hamas.

But Hamas definitely is evil, too.

They torture and kill Palestinians to maintain power. They had even smuggled a Yezidi slave girl into Gaza.

Of course, I do understand that they are resisting oppression. And that is justified. And I also know that a lot of the propaganda against them is false, such as the beheaded babies thing.

But there are enough credible reports of them doing really shady stuff.