Prolog - Re: Postdoc position in program development, analysis and transformation

Author

Re: Postdoc position in program development, analysis and transformation

Don Groves

2004-03-27, 12:10 am

On Fri, 05 Mar 2004 06:00:29 -0600, Paul F. Dietz <dietz@dls.net> wrote:

> Wim Vanhoof wrote:
>
>
> Hmm. In the US, I think that would be a violation of federal age
> discrimination laws. (But IANAL)

How come requiring a US president to be at least 35 isn't
a violation of those same laws?
--
dg
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/

Yoyoma_2

2004-03-27, 12:10 am

Don Groves wrote:
> On Fri, 05 Mar 2004 06:00:29 -0600, Paul F. Dietz <dietz@dls.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> How come requiring a US president to be at least 35 isn't
> a violation of those same laws?

Its constitutionally based, meaning you cannot have a law that
superseeds the statements in the constutitions, whatever they may be.
Thats the first article of pretty much any constitution.

If someone would appeal the supreme court would rule in favor of the
constitution.

And that law could probably be judged as antequated though. The US
constitution isn't a "modern" constitution. IT has a lot of stuff in it
that shouldn't be there nowa days. Or sentences that should be re-made,
or dropped. Like the ammendments granting prohabition and then
repealing it.

But that's just my cannuck view of US law :)

Erik Max Francis

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

Don Groves wrote:
>
> On Fri, 05 Mar 2004 06:00:29 -0600, Paul F. Dietz <dietz@dls.net> wrote:
>
>
> How come requiring a US president to be at least 35 isn't
> a violation of those same laws?

By definition, no, because it's in our Constitution. A law changing or
removing that age limit would be unconstitutional, and would get thrown
out by the Supreme Court.

But really what you're talking about here can't be discrimination (as
the term is usually meant). Children can't vote, much less hold public
office. It's well-established that children do not have the same rights
as adults until they reach a certain age (what age that is varies from
state to state). You don't, for instance, need a search warrant to
search a child's school locker (with the principal's permission), a
search that would be deemed illegal if it were an adult's personal
locker at work (even if the boss gave permission to perform the search).

Infants are incapable of voting or holding public office or being
drafted into the armed services (or _speaking_ for that matter), so a
line has to be drawn somewhere. Certainly one could debate where that
line should be drawn -- but clearly an age limit on holding public
office isn't unconstitutional, since age limits are everywhere and,
quite frankly, _required_ in the justice system.

--
__ Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
/ \ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && &tSftDotIotE
\__/ If the sky should fall, hold up your hands.
-- (a Spanish proverb)

Joan Estes

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

Erik Max Francis <max@alcyone.com> wrote

> By definition, no, because it's in our Constitution. A law changing or
> removing that age limit would be unconstitutional, and would get thrown
> out by the Supreme Court.

Which is a fundamental flaw in the U.S. system. Without a formal notion
of human rights that supersedes the constitution, the U.S. would
perhaps be better off having no constitution at all. As evidence,
I present the current sorry efforts to change state and federal constitutions
to make certain discriminatory practices universal.

Yoyoma_2

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

We were discussing age discrimination...

Richard C. Cobbe wrote:
> Marc Spitzer <mspitze1@optonline.net> writes:
>
>
>
>
> Oh, brother. Here we go again. (I'm going to be awfully glad when this
> issue finally goes away, although it'll probably take 30-50 years.) I'm
> getting really tired of hearing the same old arguments against same-sex
> marriage, especially because I haven't heard one yet that holds up under
> scrutiny.
>
> They (well, ok, we) *are* being discriminated against, in the very real
> sense that we are not allowed to marry whom we choose, in a way that does
> not affect heterosexuals. In general, a heterosexual person is not
> prevented from marrying the person of his/her choice.
>
> Of course, there are consanguinity laws that do affect heterosexual
> marriage. I don't have a problem with these; here, the state clearly has
> an interest in forbidding such couples from having children, for reasons of
> public health. No one has proved that the state has a similar interest in
> the case of same-sex marriages.
>
> And, to tie in another favorite anti-same-sex-marriage argument, how does
> telling gay men to suck it up and marry a woman (or vice versa) protect the
> "sanctity of marriage" (whatever that means)? Then, you have people
> getting married primarily for tax benefits. That's not the kind of
> commitment that marriage is supposed to be about, and that's not the kind
> of commitment that the seven couples in Goodrich v. Department of Public
> Health are trying to make.
>
>
>
>
> Well, not since Lawrence v. Texas, anyway.... (Granted, this wasn't about
> their right to live together in a monogamous relationship, but it's pretty
> closely related, and it's an indication of how bad things were until very
> recently.)
>
>
>
>
> This argument doesn't hold water. In particular, in its recent decision,
> the Massachusetts SJC specifically said that Mass. state law does not
> contain any justification for the claim that marriage exists only for the
> purposes of procreation.
>
> So, Gov. Romney and Speaker Finneran made some noises about passing a law
> that established procreation as the basis of marriage. While this effort
> seems to have died off, I think it would have been absolutely wonderful to
> have this law on the books. Because then, we could enforce it. Vigorously.
>
> Depending on how such a law would be worded, it would forbid marriage to
> those straight couples in which:
>
> - either he or she is naturally infertile
> - he's had a vasectomy
> - she's had her tubes tied
> - she's had a hysterectomy (which, BTW, are sometimes required to protect
> the health of the woman in question, regardless of whether or not she
> wants to have children)
> - they've simply chosen not to have kids
> - (sort of extreme, but possible depending on how the law is worded) he
> prefers to use a condom.
>
> Is that really what you want?
>
> This isn't just a Massachusetts issue, either. I don't think there's a
> state in the union that forbids marriage to any couple that meets one of
> the preceding conditions. So it's awfully hard to justify the claim that
> marriage is all about procreation.
>
>
>
>
> Because they may want to adopt children? Because they may have children of
> their own from previous straight marriages? Because the benefits of
> marriage are also available to straight couples who do not or cannot have
> children?
>
>
>
>
> Um, IIRC, the constitutional convention in Philadelphia lasted only a
> summer, not "years of trying."
>
> That said, I agree with your argument that the Constitution, and
> particularly the Bill of Rights and other such amendments, do serve as our
> (legally) fundamental notion of human rights. Trying to add another layer
> above that is somewhat problematic.
>
>
>
>
> Agreed. This stands a good chance of making sure the Federal DOM amendment
> fails. If only state constitutions were as hard to change.
>
>
>
>
> This certainly sounds plausible, but do you have any hard evidence to back
> this claim up?
>
> Richard

Ketil Malde

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

Yoyoma_2 <Yoyoma_2@[at-]Hotmail.com> writes:

> We were discussing age discrimination...

Well, if you see gay marriage as a discriminated union, it brings us
back on topic for at least a couple of newsgroups...

:-)

-kzm
--
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants

Yoyoma_2

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

Ketil Malde wrote:
> Yoyoma_2 <Yoyoma_2@[at-]Hotmail.com> writes:
>
>
>
>
> Well, if you see gay marriage as a discriminated union, it brings us
> back on topic for at least a couple of newsgroups...
>
> :-)

I don'want to comment on the actual, previous or future state of US
civil rights. But lets say that the US should maby model itself after
pretty much every other modern country in terms of civil rights :). So i
guess that was my comment hehe.

>
> -kzm

Anton van Straaten

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

Marc Spitzer wrote:
> Now no one is stopping them from living together in a monogamous
> relationship if they want to. Now the financial and legal benefits
> of marriage are there because the social purpose of marriage is to grow
> the next generation of citizens and that is very expensive to do. Now
> gay(same sex) couples do not produce children so they do not get the
> economic drain that regular couples do so why should they get the
> benefit's?

This argument makes no sense. First, gay people can and do adopt, and this
would presumably be easier for gay couples if they were legally recognized.
Second, there's no legal requirement for married couples to have children,
so childless gay couples should be able to obtain the same marital benefits
as childless straight couples.

Really, you can't argue issues like this on rational grounds. It boils down
to your acceptance of principles. If you fundamentally don't believe in the
concept of same-sex marriage, and perhaps believe that some book written
thousands of years ago prohibits this (alongside its exhortations to kill
all the women and children in the villages of your enemies[*]), then no
amount of rational argument is going to help, and whatever happens will have
to be decided as the result of a political war.

Anton

[*] http://mindprod.com/biblestudy.html references, among many others,
Ezekiel 9:6, "Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children,
and women".

Thomas A. Russ

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

Don Groves <dgroves_AT_ccwebster_DOT_net> writes:

>
> On Fri, 05 Mar 2004 06:00:29 -0600, Paul F. Dietz <dietz@dls.net> wrote:
>
>
> How come requiring a US president to be at least 35 isn't
> a violation of those same laws?

US courts have recently ruled that the US age discrimination laws only
prohibit discrimination against older workers. They do nothing to
protect younger workers.

The case dealt with pension rights where younger workers were being
given less desireable treatment than older workers. They sued under the
age discrimination statute and lost, since they were not in the age
group that was protected by those laws.

--
Thomas A. Russ, USC/Information Sciences Institute

Don Groves

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

On 22 Mar 2004 14:24:19 -0800, Thomas A. Russ <tar@sevak.isi.edu> wrote:

>
> US courts have recently ruled that the US age discrimination laws only
> prohibit discrimination against older workers. They do nothing to
> protect younger workers.
>
> The case dealt with pension rights where younger workers were being
> given less desireable treatment than older workers. They sued under the
> age discrimination statute and lost, since they were not in the age
> group that was protected by those laws.

Ah, thanks!

--
dg
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/

Simon Helsen

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

This is off-topic in a somewhat bizarre manner, and the relation with any
of the comp.lang.* newsgroups above is really hard to see ("discriminated
sums": that's a good one ;-). Well, I can find at least one point of the
discussion which is related to elementary logic.

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004, Marc Spitzer wrote:

>First of all courts should not make law, and that is what they did in
>this case. And If you wanted to talk about way out in left field that
>is a pretty hard court to beat.

Courts should not make law. I absolutely agree. In fact, they have never
done so and even today, are not doing this! People claiming that courts
are making new laws, should take a introductory course in logic. A supreme
court in any democracy has one primary goal: make sure that our body of
laws remains internally consistent. So, when certain laws or bills exist
(or are introduced), it is their role to make sure they do not violate
"soundness" as your theoretical computer scientist would say. In order to
do this effectively, there is a priority mechanism and the constitution is
at the highest level (everyone agrees). In all gay marriage cases where a
court has decided (negatively or positively), they only did something
along the lines of: "this cannot be forbidden, because it violates...", or
"this cannot be allowed, because it violates..." etc. They *never* say
something like "we think this is a good thing, so let us make a law
saying...". This is, of course, why Bush wants/needs a constitutional
ammendment, which is a purely political decision made by a political
person (in this case the executive). It is like changing your axiom
system. Here in Canada, people were criticising along the same lines
because the supreme court of Canada had decided that you cannot forbid a
gay marriage if you want to stay consistent with the "charter of rights".
That latter - I beleive it is tied to the constitution - has a higher
priority and basically says that every person (or every Canadian) is equal
in his/her rights and duties. Forbidding gay people to marry each others
obviously violated the charter, so, they told the government: "change the
laws". They did *not* say "legalize same-sex marriage", even though that
is the obvious answer (I think they recommended it as a possible solution,
but that is something entirely different!) The alternative answer is to
change the charter of rights and make not everybody equal for the law. But
most Canadians wouldn't want that either. Interesting enough, Bush's wish
to change the constitution is also rejected by a majority of the
Americans. Of course, because the body of laws is incomplete and not
entirely formal, judges interprete them one way or the other. This is why
such verdicts are made by several people and voted for. Saying that they
are making new laws is simplistic and wrong.

To me, it seems that people just want a logically inconsistent set of laws
and society ('some sheep are jmore equal than others'). Hence my
recommendation above: they ought to take an introductory course in logic
(or admit hypocrisy - but I do not assume that everybody is like that)

My 5c,

Simon

Jeff Gaines

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

On 22 Mar 2004 22:26:03 +0100, Ketil Malde <ketil@ii.uib.no> wrote:

>Yoyoma_2 <Yoyoma_2@[at-]Hotmail.com> writes:
>
>
>Well, if you see gay marriage as a discriminated union, it brings us
>back on topic for at least a couple of newsgroups...
>
>:-)
>
>-kzm

But why comp.lang.prolog?

This might be interesting in a politics group but it's a nuisance
here.

--
Jeff Gaines - Damerham Hampshire UK

Remko Troncon

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

> This might be interesting in a politics group but it's a nuisance
> here.

Actually, the original post was cross-posted to a dozen newsgroups, without
specifying a followup-to newsgroup. I don't think a lot of people of
comp.lang.prolog are involved in the discussion, but unfortunately the
group keeps on being included in replies :(

The only thing you can do is reply on the post to all newsgroups, put
the followup-to to another newsgroup, and make a very controversial statment
in the hope that people will start responding on your post (and thus not
replying to this newsgroup) ;)

cheers,
Remko

Wim Vanhoof

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

> This is off-topic in a somewhat bizarre manner, and the relation with any
> of the comp.lang.* newsgroups above is really hard to see ("discriminated
> sums": that's a good one ;-).

.... and saying that I just wanted to make some publicity for a postdoc
position! :-)

For those that seem to question the validity of my original post (see at the
bottom of this mail):
I can assure you that the position *is* available (and that it was *not*
attributed beforehand, as
was suggested by some). Deadline for applications still is April 2nd.

Regarding the age (and other) restrictions that started the whole
discussion; these are imposed
by the institution that provides the funding.

For the record, my *personal* interest is in finding a postdoc. I don't mind
whether this
person is younger or older than 35, has a PhD from a belgian or a
non-belgian university,
is gay or straight, married or not married,... Nor do I mind whether he or
she has an inner
or outer belly button!

Regards,
Wim.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------
(apologies for multiple copies)

Dear all,

I would like to announce that the department of computer
science of the University of Namur, Belgium, is s

ing a
post-doctoral researcher for a one-year fellowship in the area
of

(logic-based) program development, analysis and transformation.

Candidates should not be older than 35 years and hold a PhD in
computer science (or equivalent) acquired within the past five
years at a university outside Belgium.

For more details, please contact Wim Vanhoof (wva@info.fundp.ac.be)
or visit http://www.info.fundp.ac.be/~cri/Po...ects/index.html
Please note the deadline for application is april 2, 2004.

Kind regards,
Wim Vanhoof.

------------------------------------------------------------
Wim Vanhoof E-mail: wva@info.fundp.ac.be
University of Namur Tel. ++32(0)81.72.49.77
Rue Grandgagnage, 21 Fax. ++32(0)81.72.52.80
B-5000 Namur http://www.info.fundp.ac.be/~wva
Belgium

Rob Warnock

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

Thomas A. Russ <tar@sevak.isi.edu> wrote:
+---------------
| US courts have recently ruled that the US age discrimination laws only
| prohibit discrimination against older workers. They do nothing to
| protect younger workers.
+---------------

And they do nothing to protect older workers if they coincidentally
happen to make more than younger workers. A recent (well, a year or
two ago) federal court decision ruled that a company *can* lay off
employees based on the salary they're making, as in, "O.k., people,
everybody in this division with a position lower than Director who
is making over $90K/year is outta here!" And if it just so happens
that the vast majority of the targeted group making over that trigger
amount are "older" workers? Well, tough. It's legal.

-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock <rpw3@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607

Johan

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

(this post just an excuse to dump some interesting links on you, that
I've stumbled accross in the last couple of days. it doesn't get much
more off topic than this; I'm off topic and already off topic discussion)

> Anyway, I think that's enough of this debate. I think it's
> fairly clear that I'm not going to change your mind, and you're
> not going to change my mind, and there we are.

You can't argue these things; for some reason, otherwise sane people
decide that they must stick sticks into people who wear towels on their
heads (because for some reason that gets in the way of the first group's
be-nice-to-each-other credo). Similarly, the fact that some woman in
texas doesn't use recreational chemicals is somehow justification for
incarcerating 10-15 % of black males [1] in some states. I guess the
point I'm trying to make is that if you approach this as a rational
discussion, you've already lost. You're either open minded or not.

[1] http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/race/

Personally, I'm tempted by biblical marriage, but that's just because
they've promised me virgins, polygamy, AND concubines [2] (unclear
whether the concubines were virgins, tho). However, if they don't
deliver the virgins soon, I'll be switching sides.

[2] http://www.thecommongood.org/CGN/3_...almarriage.html

The MIT open courseware project has a fascinating [3] (but annoyingly
image heavy---accessibility advocates abandon hope ye who enter) website
on how japanese and western artists painted the same events.

[3] http://blackshipsandsamurai.com/
[color=darkred]
> Therefore, we now return you to your regularly-scheduled programming
> language holy wars. Static vs. dynamic typing, anyone? :-)

Kill! Burn the unbeliever!

David Fisher

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

cobbe@ccs.neu.edu (Richard C. Cobbe) wrote in message news:<t2pad2763k7.fsf@denali.ccs.neu.edu>...

[...]

Maybe Marc indeed gave poor arguments against gay marrage, but at
least his arguments weren't religious. Some here were just trying to
misrepresent his opinion.

Here's my $0.02. Any ambiguity in the law should be amended (if there
is any). Some laws in some jurisdictions give homosexuals equal rights
(for different or ambiguous meanings of "equal"). The laws have to be
followed (without laws we have anarchy). However, what you are saying
here goes far beyond the legal argument. You are suggesting that
homosexual sex is somehow very moral and natural, and needs to be sort
of encouraged by the state by giving homosexual relationships legal
status.

Johan

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

David Fisher wrote:
> cobbe@ccs.neu.edu (Richard C. Cobbe) wrote in message
> news:<t2pad2763k7.fsf@denali.ccs.neu.edu>...
>
> [...]
>
> Maybe Marc indeed gave poor arguments against gay marrage, but at
> least his arguments weren't religious. Some here were just trying to
> misrepresent his opinion.

I must not have been paying attention. Can you please quote where this
mis-attribution was made?

> You are suggesting that homosexual sex is somehow very moral and
> natural, and needs to be sort of encouraged by the state by giving
> homosexual relationships legal status.

Fundamentally, society either disallows something, or condones it. Our
laws are not about encouraging anything (appart from not breaking laws),
they are about prohibiting illegal things. In effect, anything not
specifically prohibited is explicitly condoned. This is part of the
fundamental rights that we take as inalienable, and I think a good thing.

Now, whether one thing or anther should be prohibited is another debate
(which we appear to have already had, ad-exhaustion) altogether.

Daniel C. Wang

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

Johan wrote:
{stuff deleted}
> Our
> laws are not about encouraging anything (appart from not breaking laws),
> they are about prohibiting illegal things.
{stuff deleted}

Have you looked at the tax code recently? There are tax laws written to
encourage home ownership, sending the kids to college and all other sorts of
economic tax incentives to encourage behavior that the government feels is
advantageous.

BTW the legal system and our laws need not be logically consistent. They
fundamentally reflect the values of the society however logically
inconsistent societies view points are.

Thant Tessman

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

Daniel C. Wang wrote:
> Johan wrote:
> {stuff deleted}
>
>
> {stuff deleted}
>
> Have you looked at the tax code recently? There are tax laws written to
> encourage home ownership, sending the kids to college and all other
> sorts of economic tax incentives to encourage behavior that the
> government feels is advantageous.
>
> BTW the legal system and our laws need not be logically consistent. They
> fundamentally reflect the values of the society however logically
> inconsistent societies view points are.

No, they don't. They reflect the values of the politically influential.
There's a difference. Hell, none of the representatives that voted for
the so-called "Patriot Act" had even read it.

Power lies not in the hands of the voters, but in the hands of those who
decide for what and whom it is we are given the 'opportunity' to vote.

-thant

Daniel C. Wang

2004-03-27, 12:11 am

Thant Tessman wrote:
{stuff deleted}
>
>
> No, they don't. They reflect the values of the politically influential.
> There's a difference. Hell, none of the representatives that voted for
> the so-called "Patriot Act" had even read it.

Fair... my real point is that the values of the politically influential are
not and in fact need not be logically consistent. Just sufficently
consistent to keep the peons happy.

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