Slashdot Mirror

During the shutdown, a hundred-some countries sent delegations to Kumamoto and Minamata, Japan, for the signing of the new global Minamata Convention on Mercury, in which everybody agrees to reduce or eliminate production and use of mercury since it's toxic. US delegates were sent, but on a day-by-day basis. The wording of the Convention had been agreed, but some accompanying resolutions were hashed out on October 7 and 8. The Convention opened for signature on October 10 - but the US delegates had been told on the morning of October 9 to change their tickets and fly home. Presumably the US will sign sometime soon - we already have the world's strictest regulations on mercury, and getting lots of other countries to play by our rules is probably a good thing - but it never looks good to pull your delegation back in mid-week - and probably spend more doing so.

I arrived in Romania just in time for the "coup" but only for a couple weeks, and now that I've flown back out, I can non-anonymously second what the AC said. (Although to be fair, Ponta is hardly the first Romanian politician to plagiarize, from what I hear.)

As an aside, I was able to walk unhindered right into a session of the National Executive Council of the Social Democratic Party while Ponta was speaking, and take a photo of him to prove I was there, so if he wants to stay in power, he'd better hope no disillusioned Romanian with any social engineering skills is packing more than a camera.

I'm happy that you're enjoying access to the resources you want.

I was in Beijing from October 14-23 at an international (read: U.N.) conference hosted by China at the Beijing International Conference Center, not far from where the Olympics will be in 2 years.

While American press web sites were pretty readily accessible, the BBC rather pointedly was not. (I'm American, but I like some diversity in my news.)

Also, when it came time to upload some coverage of the last day of the conference to a web site in Canada, I discovered that strangely, I could get from China to all kinds of other places, and could get from all kinds of other places to that site in Canada, but could no longer get from China to that site in Canada directly.

So... I think a flashing red "YMMV" belongs right about here.

On the other hand, the buses and trains were clean, well-utilized and on-time, and the pandas in the zoo were cute, and donkey meat turned out to be tastier than I ever expected.

Come on, we've got enough geeks of all varieties here - surely someone else must be in Nairobi for the 12th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and 2nd Conference of Parties/Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol... right?

(Of course, if any other Slashdotters are here, they probably know, as I do, that "Global Warming" is an overly simplistic term that hardly anyone serious about climate change would ever think to use any more, since global climate change has different effects different places...)

Anyway, if anybody else from /. is here at Gigiri, drop me a line or something - I'm here doing tech for the Earth Negotiations Bulletin reporting team, and you can find an email link to me at the bottom of our coverage of the conference.

I believe that the former danish goverment (who wrote the note in question in 1999) thought of the subsidies as a way of supporting to the danish wind turbine industry, and there is no question that the support has helped the danish factories to sell a lot of wind turbines. However lately a report from the danish economic counsel, has concluded that from a pure economical point of view, the subsidies to the wind turbine industry was a bad investment for the danish state.

Nevertheless many danes are very happy about the wind turbines, because we feel very globally conscious :)

Frowning on an act would indicate some remedial conscience or morals, and as we see everyday corporations have NONE.

While you and I may believe that, evidently others do not.

We allow corporations to donate soft money, thereby influencing the political process, probably more so than the votes. We even allow them to give favors to candidates and politicians. They have property rights, can invent, can author creative works, can be exempted from laws, can buy other laws, can be sued, and can even sue for wrongs done to it! In the meantime, we also award companies for being "good corporate citizens"!

For something that only exists on paper, and that has no morals, ethics, conscience, spirit or life...corporations sure do have a lot of corporate rights. As if a they were "...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...".

Indeed I am caught out having not read TWON in full.

However, my position is that the Microsoft is in a competitive market where all participants have the ability to make decisions free of coercion.

While I imagine Microsoft does accept certain subsidies (property tax abatements and the like) I personally don't think that their competitors are under any disadvantage attibutable to any alleged "monopoly".

I don't think is is fruitful to debate my libertarianess but I will state my committment to the following statement...

"We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.
We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.

We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life -- accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action -- accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property -- accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.

Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market."

I probably have to state my philosophical definition of individual includes those joint endevors including corporations.

I do not per se support or oppose Microsoft. I do however oppose each and every effort of government to punish businesses who have been indicted of nothing except victimless crimes such as 'monopoloy practices'.

If they have committed an actual crime or fraud upon someone, let that person or business come forward and swear out an oath or affadivit against Microsoft.

Allowing government to create actions combined with extensive government business operations (such as the highways) to oppress individuals and businesses is a large problem in and of itself. It leads to organized highway robbery (speeding tickets), the subjugation of citizens to government and a host of other afflictions.

I fear no monopoly save that of government and I hold that no monopoly can exist save those perpetuated by the fist of government.