Re: Fears that Supercollider may destroy the Earth. (MSNBC)

In article <8qpav3tfmk1s66rornv1nsnq6orhh60dfc@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
 John Schilling <schillin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:30:12 -0400, Thanatos <atropos@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
> >In article <nqq4v39esmofobb15e2p8t1791gahdp0vq@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> > John Schilling <schillin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
> >> On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 06:17:35 -0400, Thanatos <atropos@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> >And if the Swiss say, "Yeah, well "some control" doesn't mean an 
> >American judge gets to shut the whole thing down with the stroke of a 
> >penb because some crank files a lawsuit in America. You go ahead and 
> >have your court case but don't think we're going to let your judges
tell 
> >us what we can and can't do in Switzerland"... then what?
> 
> As I said, that depends on the wording of the contract.  But if the 
> contract has terms that would allow the US partners to veto or even
> just delay startup, and I can think of several ways that's likely to
> be true, then your hypothetical Swiss judge is also saying, "...and
> we won't let the contracts we signed tell us what we can and can't
> do in Switzerland!"

First, my hypothetical judge was American, not Swiss.

Second, even if the contract has terms that would "allow the US partners 
to veto or even just delay startup", then only the *partners* could use 
those terms to sue to stop the project. Some cranky third party would 
have no standing under the contract to demand an injunction and no 
American court would have jurisdiction to grant him one.

> Then what?
> 
> Thousands of Americans who have between them billions of dollars
> deposited in Swiss banks say to themselves, "Hmm, I thought my Swiss
> bank deposits were pretty secure on account of that contract that
> says I can withdraw my money at any time, and I know that any American
> judge would rule in my favor if I had to sue to get my money back

Umm... no. An American court would tell the plaintiff "Your contract was 
signed and executed with a Swiss bank in Switzerland. The proper place 
for your lawsuit is in a Swiss court, not an American court."

> but now Swiss judges are saying that the Swiss will just
> ignore both the contracts

Why do you think Swiss courts will just allow banks to ignore banking 
contracts executed in Switzerland under Swiss law? You seem to think the 
entire world economy will collapse without American courts to enforce 
other countries' laws for them.

> Law and diplomacy favor the status quo over everything.

The judge hearing this case is not a diplomat and the diplomats in 
Switzerland don't much care what other governments think or want when 
their best interests are at stake. If they did, Switzerland wouldn't 
tell the other governments of the world to go pound sand when it comes 
to banking secrecy. The Swiss are notorious pain in the ass when it 
comes to such things. It took something on the scale of 9-11 to get them 
to agree to small concessions in banking secrecy in terrorism cases and 
even those concessions have since reverted back to the status quo.

> The status quo *does not change*, until A: everyone involved
> has agreed that it should change, and how, or B: everyone
> involved has spent at least six months trying to come to an
> agreement, failed, and some of them have decided the issue is
> worth making an enemy over.

Really? Where do you get this stuff? Where is this six month requirement 
set out?