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Google has been doing it for year: Google's Tax Tricks: 'Double Irish' And 'Dutch Sandwich' Published October 21, 2010

Arstechnica had the balls to report it in 2013, it is also a tech site.

Slashdot is run by pussies, whoever the new owner is.

Google is moving even more money through a shell corporation in Bermudaâ"reaching a total of â8.8 billion ($11.91 billion) in 2012, 25 percent more than it did in 2011. By employing a legal yet ethically questionable practice, Google is saving itself billions in taxes worldwide.

The new figures were first reported by the Financial Times on Friday, citing âoe[recent] filings by one of Googleâ(TM)s Dutch subsidiaries.â This widespread strategy of moving money around involves two specific tactics known as the âoeDutch Sandwichâ and the âoeDouble Irish.â (Ars obtained a copy of this filing, dated September 27, 2013, from an anonymous source.)

As the Times concluded, these disclosures mean âoethat royalty payments made to Bermudaâ"where the company holds its non-US intellectual propertyâ"have doubled over the past three years. This increase reflects the rapid growth of Googleâ(TM)s global business.â

The British newspaper cited filings from Google Netherlands Holdings, which represents the âoeDutch Sandwichâ part of the equation.
Bermuda triangle of taxation

As Ars has reported before, hereâ(TM)s how the Double Irish works. Bloomberg first described the process in 2010: a company sells or licenses its foreign rights to intellectual property developed in the United States to a subsidiary in a country with lower tax rates. The result? Foreign profits that come from that techâ"like the rights to Googleâ(TM)s search and advertising technology, effectively the keys to the kingdomâ"are now attributed to that offshore subsidiary rather than the Mountain View, California headquarters. The subsidiaries have to pay âoearmâ(TM)s lengthâ prices for those rights, just like an outside company would.

Actually, "Except that doesn't tell the whole story. In fact, there were at least a dozen tiebreakers — and "Sen. Sanders won at least a handful," an Iowa Democratic Party official told NPR." from http://www.npr.org/2016/02/02/... But it does make a good story. Before you flame me, I'm actually a big Bernie fan. But false stories don't strengthen any argument!

There were many more than six tosses, and Sanders won some of the others http://www.npr.org/2016/02/02/...

Coin flips did not win Iowa for Hillary Clinton.

Clinton wasn't going to(and didn't) cheat to win Iowa and it wasn't decided by a coin toss. What most people don't understand is that she doesn't need to win Iowa. Bernie doesn't have a chance because he doesn't have any super delegates. The McGovern nomination showed the democrats decades ago that allowing a more ideologically pure candidate win the nomination will likely end any chance of presidential win. This is a lesson the republicans are learning the hard way. The republicans are racing to the right to win the nomination which will alienate the general public and cost them the election again(and again and again).

http://www.npr.org/sections/al...

Similar laws have been proposed in California. Given the overall climate on the subject of gun control there, they're virtually guaranteed to pass once they're submitted.

Nice straw man fallacy!

The straw man argument was from TFA: Julia Wolfson. "This has been one of the biggest arguments against smart guns, that people just don't want them. This research shows otherwise." No, the biggest argument was concerning the trigger laws that New Jersey and other areas set up mandating the smart gun technology on all firearms after it became available anywhere. Lawrence Keane, of the National Sport Shooting Foundation, said "If people think there's a market for these products, then the market should work," in other words absent these laws the gun industry would endorse the further development of smart gun technology.

Incidentally during the whole fight back in 2014 about smart gun technology one was reviewed. They found it prone to misfire and slow to start up among other things. Obviously not a proven technology as of yet.

The only thing keeping terrorism at bay is the technical knowledge necessary to mess with it.

Doesn't take much technical knowledge to cut cables in an underground vault and shoot transformers with a sniper rifle.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/05/272015606/sniper-attack-on-calif-power-station-raises-terrorism-fears

Leftist activists trying to promote foist their hippy lifestyle on the rest of us.

Damn those hippy Koch brothers!. Get a hair cut!

First, if you're appealing to nature, transgentic organisms do happen naturally, so the current process "mimics" nature just as much as hybridzation and mutagenesis do. But the key thing here is that your argument isn't addressing what's happening now. If and when we get to the point where it's possible to construct new organisms largely ex nihilo, I'll be with you in being very concerned about what we create. But that's not what people are currently trying to prevent.

What's going on now is these companies are starting with a whole, well understood organism and modifying a gene or two, generally by taking a well-characterized gene from another whole, well understood organism. Comparing that to arbitrary synthetic genomes is like saying that we shouldn't use smart SPAM filtering software because someday, a self-aware computer program may get out of control. We need to take things one step at a time, and the current step is just not that risky.

As it is, we have people saying that taking one gene from one organism and moving it into another well understood organism is crazy, but mashing together two complete genomes with thousands of genes with countless possible permutations in random ways through hybridization is totally safe. Or that moving one gene in a very specific way is super dangerous, but using mutants we've created with radiation and chemicals is nothing to worry about. This is ridiculous. It is objectively not true. Current GMOs are, in many ways, a lot less modified than other new types of crops.

As part of the license agreements that come with the GMO seeds, Farmers are no longer permitted to keep behind a portion of their crop to plant the following year, should they wish, and are thus forced to buy new seed every year.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Another myth spread by the organic foods industry. Top Five Myths Of Genetically Modified Seeds, Busted
Myth 1: Seeds from GMOs are sterile.
Myth 2: Monsanto will sue you for growing their patented GMOs if traces of those GMOs entered your fields through wind-blown pollen.
Myth 3: Any contamination with GMOs makes organic food non-organic.
Myth 4: Before Monsanto got in the way, farmers typically saved their seeds and re-used them. By the time Monsanto got into the seed business, most farmers in the U.S. and Europe were already relying on seed that they bought every year from older seed companies. This is especially true of corn farmers, who've been growing almost exclusively commercial hybrids for more than half a century. (If you re-plant seeds from hybrids, you get a mixture of inferior varieties.) But even soybean and cotton farmers who don't grow hybrids were moving in that direction. This shift started with the rise of commercial seed companies, not the advent of genetic engineering. But Monsanto and GMOs certainly accelerated the trend drastically.
Myth 5: Most seeds these days are genetically modified.

Yes,although the AC was incorrect, it is a good point that the DOE loans have received bad publicity even though they have had been a net positive: http://www.npr.org/2014/11/13/... I think most people believe the government is "giving" people money in situations where they are providing loans. As much as I personally view "Wall Street" as overpaid jerks and "Detroit" as under-performing losers, the bailouts they received were loans that have been profitable for our government...my tiny share of this profit, seen in the form of contribution to other government programs, is probably better return on investment than my pathetic IRA whose fees eat ~95% of my returns each year.

Please, don't be fawning about the US nuclear weapons and how we take care of them, and pretend that we would be attacked if we didn't have them. Pure nonsense.

The nuke guys were all caught cheating on tests.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

We have lost nukes and sent them accidentally across the country, and had all sorts of problems that show we don't "maintain them well"..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.npr.org/templates/s...
http://www.businessinsider.com...

I am sure you know all this, but you are hoping that no one else knows or is paying attention. They will never be used because they are not needed, and can't be used. They are not stopping Russia or China from attacking us because Russia and China have no intention of attacking us. This kind of utter nonsense has to stop. I thought we were supposed to be smarter than that here at /. No country is about to attack the US, and it has nothing to do with the fact that we have nukes. Stop the idiocy.

The only reason they don't need to be used is because we have them. The only reason Russia and China have no intention of attacking us is because we have them. If they never existed we already would've either attacked or been attacked by Russia between now and the end of WW2. You know that the Soviets were very seriously considering not stopping in Germany at the end of WW2 before we showed off our nukes. Having them makes Russia or China directly going to war with us suicide for both sides. The west getting getting rid of all our nukes dramatically increases the chances of WW3 and a nuclear holocaust.

Only very few of the problems the military has had with nuclear weapons created a realistic risk of a accidental detonation, launch, or theft.

This is like people on psych meds thinking they don't need the meds because they are sane on them, even though they are only sane because they are taking the meds.

When was the last accidental detonation, launch, or theft of a nuclear weapon?

Congratulations your one of the few people on Slashdot that is both naive enough and dumb enough to think they way you.

Hillary was a big supporter of AJAM back when she was in the State department

Those "cumbersome distribution contracts with cable companies" generated millions of dollars for AJAM - they are reason Al Gore got so much for his failed 'Current TV' network.

Please, don't be fawning about the US nuclear weapons and how we take care of them, and pretend that we would be attacked if we didn't have them. Pure nonsense.

The nuke guys were all caught cheating on tests.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

We have lost nukes and sent them accidentally across the country, and had all sorts of problems that show we don't "maintain them well"..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.npr.org/templates/s...
http://www.businessinsider.com...

I am sure you know all this, but you are hoping that no one else knows or is paying attention. They will never be used because they are not needed, and can't be used. They are not stopping Russia or China from attacking us because Russia and China have no intention of attacking us. This kind of utter nonsense has to stop. I thought we were supposed to be smarter than that here at /. No country is about to attack the US, and it has nothing to do with the fact that we have nukes. Stop the idiocy.

A few posters nailed it, this is a 'Fear campaign' against an OS that LEO's have never been able to penetrate. FACTS: 1. The core of the Blackberry 10 OS is QNX which is used for Aerospace/Defense systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... 2. The current LEO issued "Smartphone Recovery Kit" as advertised does NOT support BB, but does crack iPhone & Android Smartphones http://www.npr.org/2014/03/20/... 3. Not one shred of ACTUAL/PHYSICAL evidence? Just numerous 'stories' or references to vague third-parts apps... 4. While other Gov. Officials in various countries have had their communications hacked, Obama (and the last few Pres) have NEVER had their phone compromised......guess what Obama himself uses? dun..dun...dun.........BLACKBERRY http://www.zdnet.com/pictures/... I feel sorry for BB as a company, there has been a coordinated campaign for years to discredit and destroy them, granted US consumers aren't smart enough to value security and chose Free Apps/Cheap Price (Android) and Hip/Youthful (Apple) which, in a word, sucks :( THIS IS MY FIRST POST TO /. I know this is a polarizing opinion argument, but I tried to post links where possible and hope this helps clear some misconceptions! 3 Slashdot

Shill #2, right on schedule.

A few posters nailed it, this is a 'Fear campaign' against an OS that LEO's have never been able to penetrate. FACTS: 1. The core of the Blackberry 10 OS is QNX which is used for Aerospace/Defense systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... 2. The current LEO issued "Smartphone Recovery Kit" as advertised does NOT support BB, but does crack iPhone & Android Smartphones http://www.npr.org/2014/03/20/... 3. Not one shred of ACTUAL/PHYSICAL evidence? Just numerous 'stories' or references to vague third-parts apps... 4. While other Gov. Officials in various countries have had their communications hacked, Obama (and the last few Pres) have NEVER had their phone compromised......guess what Obama himself uses? dun..dun...dun.........BLACKBERRY http://www.zdnet.com/pictures/... I feel sorry for BB as a company, there has been a coordinated campaign for years to discredit and destroy them, granted US consumers aren't smart enough to value security and chose Free Apps/Cheap Price (Android) and Hip/Youthful (Apple) which, in a word, sucks :( THIS IS MY FIRST POST TO /. I know this is a polarizing opinion argument, but I tried to post links where possible and hope this helps clear some misconceptions! 3 Slashdot

who ultimately wants more cheap labor..

This. I have been wondering whether they have been trying to setup the future for big corporations to gain cheaper labor. They can later claim it was intended all along to help both the H1B problem and keeping America as the top innovation country.

Except they forget programming isn't for everybody. People who are genuinely interested in programming will learn it.

I suspect part of the problem are the cute and idiot-friendly logic games presented with a glossy UI for the general population. They suspect that's what real programming is like. Then someone tells them about the WYSIWYG/drag-drop in C# and other languages, and they jump all over that. Everything being made into a game to introduce people into a field isn't helping either. Kids these days already easily bored from technology bombardment. But the defense will always be "so you don't want to get kids introduced and excited into a STEM field?"

I'd love for that to be the case, unfortunately New Jersey made that impossible.

Basically, 30 months after a smart gun is available for sale ANYWHERE in the USA, ALL firearms sold in New Jersey MUST be smart.

Imagine what developers of self-driving cars would face from professional and recreational drivers if there was a similar law stating that ALL cars sold must be self-driving less than 3 years after the first one hits the market, no matter how lousy it is. BTW, the police are exempt from the mandate.

Fact is, when comparing unions to corporations, there are no angels.

While I've never seen angels — and doubt they exist in this sorry world of ours — corporations are inherently better than unions.

Troll my tail — for a corporation to make money, it has to sell something people want. Unions far too often have a captive "customer base — one must join, if one wishes to work in a properly "unionized workplace". Such as be a public school teacher or even a New York City carpenter.

TFA — and the overall decline of union-membership in this country — shows, that, given a choice, people usually prefer to not join a union. Their bosses may whine about it, and make grotesque claims about our not working on weekends, but the simple fact is, their services are overpriced and shoddy. And where they still hold power, they manage to sabotage things while gobbling-up vast amounts of money.

They are stupid and evil — a rare combination. Bugger them. Bugger them with a splintered broomstick. Sideways.

Early satellite data is saying it was just an atomic bomb, the kind they have tested previously.

Some experts' very early assessment was that North Korea's device may not have been a true hydrogen bomb, and might instead have been a simpler fission device that had been "boosted."

NPR Story

Because folks might bother hacking crap like FitBits or baby monitors or drug pumps or Barbie dolls, or maybe even cars, but it's not like a refrigerator has ever been proven to be insecure.
Oops.

Please explain how you come to that decision. I'm sure the world would like to know..

Probably was brainwashed by Fox News and talk radio.

Of course, people like that don't have much in the way of brains to wash.

Nobody is more close-minded than a "progressive".

Campus speech codes, shouting down speakers that aren't "progressive", "microagression", calling people "racist" or "sexist" because they don't think "X" is the proper approach to something when "X" is the hive-mind-agreed-upon "progressive" policy.

Watch the shit hit the fan if you simply point out that by far the largest contributor to gun violence in the US is black-on-black crime with already-illegal guns and almost all of that occurs in very restricted geographical areas almost all under one-party Democrat rule. Those are facts that make a "progressive" head explode because it doesn't fit their preconceived notions.

Point out that when you control for things like education, hours worked, experience, and all other variables that there is no "gender gap" in pay, and you get to watch "progressives" go crazy.

Mention the fact that Michael Brown was a 300-lber who just robbed a convenience store - beating on the clerk in the process - instead of some harmless "innocent teen", and was probably panicked and desperate to escape when the Ferguson police started questioning him a few minutes later and watch "progressives" spit and sputter.

But hey, you can pat yourself on the back all fucking day with your close-minded "facts have a liberal bias". I do wonder if Detroit's treasurer would agree with you, though.

And I also have to wonder how many "progressive" loons (but I repeat myself...) who ranted about "BOOOOSH LIED!!!!" are going to vote for Hillary!, who claimed, among her myriad documented lies, was named after Sir Edmund Hillary seven years before he climbed Everest. Who lied about not having classified data on her illegal mail server.

Indeed:

http://www.npr.org/sections/mo...

How many trees on Earth....

3,000,000,0000,000 - 3 trillion

http://www.npr.org/sections/go...

Interestingly, I read an article about a photographer who noticed, while taking images of indigenous people, this exact posture. What she also noticed was that there were 80 year old women bending over from the waist with no apparent pain while picking vegetables. This diverged into reviewing old plates in medical textbooks which showed a much greater curvature at the top and bottom of the spine; an "S" shape, as opposed to our "J" shape. She now teaches a method based on her observations.

The article: http://www.npr.org/sections/go...

Her website: http://gokhalemethod.com/

There's no such thing as "Only Black Lives Matter."

When is the last time you saw someone hold up a "Black Lives Matter" poster at a rally for a white kid shot by cops? You think Al Sharpton organized a rally for this kid?

But if you want to drive coast to coast anonymously, you can do that. Stay within the speed limit and don't have any malfunctioning vehicle parts, and you have given no one Probable Cause to see you and your license. Avoid those particular toll roads where your license plate is photographed for billing purposes.

License plate scanners are everywhere.

On the other hand, if one ticket costs me the loose change that's been piling up for the last several months and gives me three or four days to daydream while I'm stuck doing an otherwise unpleasant job, so be it. That's $2.00 for three or four days of a greater degree of happiness, and no letdown because I know that I'm not actually going to win.

I was listening to a show on NPR recently about gambling.

Here's some excerpts from it. http://www.npr.org/2015/09/29/...

They spoke about different people, and why some go on ot become gambling addicts, while others do not.

It turns out that for some people such as myself, if we don't win, we get not enjoyment from it. This would seem correct to me, as in my one experience with gambling was tears ago on a return trip from the West coast, where my wife and I stayed a couple nights in Las Vegas. I tried out the slot machines, won a little then lost it. I figure I lost a total of 50 cents in the end.

But I lost it, and came out with a little less money. No happieness there for me, no real emotional content at all.

Sot some other folks would have been all excited about the initial winning, then disregarded the eventual loss. Seems different folks might be wired a little differently.

But in the studies done, they had people getting the happy reaction even if they almost won. Missing one number on the lottery ticket or one fruit on a slot machine actually makes them feel as good as if they had won.

Whereas for me, it just annoyed me a little.

Yeah, everyone is treated equally in Texas. Here's an example:

http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

Something that leached into your bottled water, since all (yes, all) plastic bottles leach toxics into their contents over time? It doesn't support your assertion.

LOL, so now you're believing everything you read in those chain emails? Hate to piss in your cheerios, but those emails are chock full of urban myth:

And then you proceed to link something which doesn't actually speak to my assertions. It addresses one chemical. It's also from the American Cancer Society, which makes it dubious on its own. They are Big Pharma whores. Guess what? There are multiple known carcinogens commonly used in plastic drinking water bottles, and they leach into their contents. The government insisted that BPA was safe, and we saw how much bullshit that was. Now they're insisting that BPS and the rest of of this shit is safe, and you're eating it up. How's about paying attention to the lessons of history? If it looks like a hormone, and gets into your body, it can do shit there. And these plastic compounds overwhelmingly do look like hormones to your body. They're shaped just like them.

There was this event recently.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04...

http://www.npr.org/sections/mo...

It is clear that the image of a static 1 and 99 percent is largely incorrect. The majority of Americans will experience at least one year of affluence at some point during their working careers. (This is just as true at the bottom of the income distribution scale, where 54 percent of Americans will experience poverty or near poverty at least once between the ages of 25 and 60).

This isn't exactly a secret either; this has generally been known for a long time, Hirschl and Rank just put some recent numbers on it.

Fundamental right of the government (all the three branches put together) to deprive citizens of liberty or property is not under any dispute.

That does not mean, the Government is the source of the rights.

Your property rights are limited to what We, the People, grant you through the Government, that we set up for ourselves to form a more perfect Union.

So, you'd be Ok with Congress deciding — collectively and through all proper procedures — to confiscate an arbitrary property or prohibit certain uses of it? Not because you hate the particular property (like firearms), but because you think, Congress can pass any law?

And, forget Congress, are you Ok with towns banning brass-knuckles, for example? Just how would you reconcile such a position with the Bill of Rights? Do we even need a Constitution — or is it just an impediment — if majority's opinion is the sole source of laws, rules, and rights?

As far the rights granted to you by your Creator ... pray for enforcement.

If, as I insist, the rights are granted by the Creator, I can — in addition to prayer — hire the government to help me enforce them. You call my stance "childish", but are unable to point out, what is wrong with it. Yet, I can demonstrate, what's wrong with your approach of placing "community" (Collective) above the Individual — bad things start happening very quickly, when this idea is given a free reign (see USSR).

Worse, by your logic of might makes right, we should be ruled by the military — and any objector can only pray...

The mayor and 3 council members are Democrats, the final council member is unaffiliated.

Woodland is 65% registered Democrats. The state does have a single House member who is a Dem and one GOP senator and one Dem senator and a GOP governor.

So this is a Dem town, like other longtime Dem towns like Detroit, Baltimore and D.C.

Is it that your argument is that Slashdot expects the Democrats to always be the smart ones or that we think all Republicans are stupid? Because, from where I sit, that's pretty ignorant. What we do know is that these people are poor and poorly educated. And to make matters worse, the state is now run by Republicans hellbent on decimating the education system there and they have been quite successful in doing so.

Apparently, you do think Dems are the smart ones. Unless they're rural black people who don't want another solar plant in their backyard. Look through all the comments here and at Ars that blithely assume it just has to be some wascally Republicans. But they are only one-third of Woodlawn's residents, judging by their votes for president in 2008 and 2012.

Wiki has the census data. Northampton county is 60% black, 39% white. Woodland itself is 48% black, 51% white. And, without going too far, we're talking about a low-income rural area with an apparent stagnant economy. The two existing solar plants have done nothing to help Woodlawn except to make it look like a sacrifice area. A shiny solar farm (or set of windmills) does not ever attract anyone to move into an area (which is not to say that it will make young people leave the area).

So, if this Woodlawn story has you wondering how bad things are currently, how about if we predict how North Carolina looks in another 20 years? I would also ask everyone to consider the real cost for us to carry these people once the crisis fully matures. How do we as a country handle the long term damage caused by this short term thinking and are we going to accept that we will have to pay for this stupidity the Republicans caused during their tenure?

Complain as you like about the recent rise of the state GOP but the fact remains: Dem mayor, 3 of 4 council members are Dems, the other is unaffiliated, the town is half black and voted for Obama in total votes by 65% in 2008 and by 67% in 2012. Obama carried the state in 2008, lost it 51-48 in 2012.

The only decision makers in this "story" -- a label that lends too much dignity to this cheap hateful hit piece on rural black Obama voters that Ars published just to generate some clickbait hits -- were elected Democrats in a dusty rural Democrat town.

Are you libs really so comfortable calling your poor rural black voters all these names and heaping abuse on their little village like this, a real opprobrium that will tar this little town in search engine listings for years to come? I think you should be ashamed of yourselves. These people, poor rural black Dems, deserve better than to be held up for such unrelenting ridicule and making their town's name infamous just so the biggest weasel over at Ars can generate clickbait traffic for his generally lousy and shallow reporting on science matters.

I'd like to know more about the existing solar plants who are undoubtedly chasing federal subsidy dollars. Perhaps they are driving up the costs of electricity to the residents of Woodland. If this was a real news story, the reporter would have dug into these larger issues.

The mayor and 3 council members are Democrats, the final council member is unaffiliated.

Woodlawn is 65% registered Democrats. The state does have a single House member who is a Dem and one GOP senator and one Dem senator and a GOP governor.

So this is a Dem town, like other longtime Dem towns like Detroit, Baltimore and D.C.

Is it that your argument is that Slashdot expects the Democrats to always be the smart ones or that we think all Republicans are stupid? Because, from where I sit, that's pretty ignorant. What we do know is that these people are poor and poorly educated. And to make matters worse, the state is now run by Republicans hellbent on decimating the education system there and they have been quite successful in doing so.

So, if this Woodlawn story has you wondering how bad things are currently, how about if we predict how North Carolina looks in another 20 years? I would also ask everyone to consider the real cost for us to carry these people once the crisis fully matures. How do we as a country handle the long term damage caused by this short term thinking and are we going to accept that we will have to pay for this stupidity the Republicans caused during their tenure?

The idea of a reverse auction is probably the best suggestion on how to cure the problem to date. Start out with prices 100 times as much as normal, and after a time have the ticket prices drop. The site could even allow people to place a bid and if the tickets are sold out for that area or tow, it would automatically purchase them for the buyer once the price dropped to what was asked.

On one hand, as a business person, I agree with you 100%. This is absolutely the most rational way to squeeze scalpers out of the market and maximize profit for the musician/event/whatever performer. If these people were economically rational, this unquestionably should be how all tickets are sold.

On the other hand, I think we are generally pretty aware that rock musicians et. al. are remarkably stupid when it comes to money. I had always wondered why these people were clearly cheating themselves out of profit by pricing tickets the way they do, and my question was answered by an episode of NPR's Planet Money podcast. It turns out that the answer is altruism - of a sort - on the part of the "artists."

Most rock musicians apparently hate the idea that only rich fans will be able to go to their concerts - which would likely be the result in a reverse-auction scenario. Instead, they prefer to keep ticket prices low in a (possibly naive?) attempt to ensure that their concert tickets are accessible to all their fans. They are willing to sacrifice the revenue they, by any economic theory, should be collecting by offering tickets in a market-based environment, in order to gamble that some average fans will be able to beat the scalpers and buy tickets at a low face value. Musicians also seem to be particularly worried about the perception that their events are only available to the rich (because of high face value prices), although in practice this is mainly what happens because of scalping.

Interestingly, they noted that Kid Rock - who I would never have picked out of a lineup for intelligence - was actually taking some steps towards defeating scalpers while maintaining low ticket prices by offering certain tickets only to members of his fan club through a lottery. So some musicians at least are taking steps to deter the scalpers... although not the obviously economically rational one that you pointed out above.

You're right, you're not getting any benefit. The US gets only a very tiny amount of oil from the Middle East. We get it from North and South America, mostly - actually by a huge margin. I don't recall the number but I think it's a single digit percentage of our oil comes from the Middle East the last time I looked.

Hmm... In 2012 NPR had it at about 12% but it's gone down since then as we've ramped up our production and Canada's sending us millions of barrels as they've ramped up too.
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/11/...

So, yeah, we get pretty much Jack and Shit for oil from the Middle East. We're certainly not dependent on them. Those stats are a few years old. I believe we get more from Africa now than we get from the Middle East. China, on the other hand, is the major importer of oil from the Middle East. Conclude what you will from that but it's true that you're not getting any benefit directly. (We do get some petrochemicals and resultant products from China's oil consumption.)

They aren't really "Knock-Offs," there really isn't an official manufacturer of "Hoverboards."

http://www.npr.org/sections/mo...

Bullshit, Inventist/Solowheel's Hovertrax was the first and patented. They did a kickstarter though to get started and every Shenzen factory compied it en mass before they could even ship to their backers though. Problem is, patents don't mean shit with the ITC in the US unless you have big money to back you, and it's a whack-a-mole game as blocking import of one manufacturer/shipper doesn't stop the next bastard from renaming and re-exporting again.

Hell, I think the Hovertrax might be the only one with regenerative braking to boost range, and their chargers aren't going to fry your house. But they are still kinda expensive compared to the clones.

They aren't really "Knock-Offs," there really isn't an official manufacturer of "Hoverboards."

http://www.npr.org/sections/mo...

There was actually a very timely Planet Money podcast on how the hoverboards were developed. Apparently the concept was created by a Chinese inventor who quickly lost control of the idea to the Shenzhen wild west where dozens of firms began creating variants of the hoverboard. Given the nature of how the product was introduced, through numerous companies with no clear originating firm, it's no surprise why you have so many quality control issues without a single manufacturer that has a "brand" on these hoverboards they're trying to maintain.

Cellulose powder/sawdust in food isn't really a new idea.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB...

http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

Probably not hurting anything though.

How can a company sue a farmer who plants a seed from a supposedly sterile plant

You have fallen for the . No GMO plant produces sterile seeds. Under the license that every farmer who buys Monsanto GMO seeds signs they are not allowed to plant the next crop by saving the seeds.

I think sterile (in therory) seeds of a monoculture are a long term risk to the food supply.

There you go spouting a falsehood. No Monsanto seeds have ever produces sterile crops. Monsanto just does not allow the fertile crop to be planted without a license.

If there was proper labeling, those of us with money could vote against that with our wallets

So you would vote with your wallet based on false information.

Additionally, there's been allegations that weeds are rapidly developing resistance anyway (I haven't seen anything that credible either for or against this), so in the end we end up using tons more herbicides (allegedly).

Would you base your decisions on allegations rather than reality?

I'm not anti-GMO, and I eat corn products, so I definitely eat it, I still think it should need to be labeled.

You seem like a smart person who has actually looked into the issue and even you are acting on false information. How do you think that most people who do not take this time will think when they hear "GMO bad, Big business just wants your money. They will kill you if they want. Don't believe a word they say". It does not matter what big business says they have lost to hype and hysteria.

Many people in that region are joining ISIS just so they can get better food, cheaper electricity, and luxuries like Redbull. Seriously, why do they have access to American luxuries like Redbull. If we can do a trade embargo on Iran, surely we can do something about ISIS getting Redbull.

People aren't joining ISIS because of goddamn Redbull. It's about money, plain and simple. A couple days ago NPR ran a piece on ISIS gaining a foothold in Afghanistan, and the interviewee had this to say:

So Afghan army, they get $300 per month. And most of the time it's delayed. After five months they get two months' salary. And they cannot support their family. And that's why thousands of Afghan troops left the army. But ISIS offer $700 and they pay monthly. And without any delay. And most of the Afghan people, especially the young generation, they are unemployed. So of course everyone going to join them. They are poor. They don't have anything to eat. And they want to support their families. And also the way they - they pitch their ideas - their opinions on these people - they are very clever. They say and God says this and Quran says this and because these people are uneducated, they can't read Quran. They don't know about Islam. So they think, yes. He is right. Let's do whatever he's saying. So that's why ISIS succeed in Afghanistan.

Take away their money, and you remove the major reason why so many people join them. Add education for the poor and you take away the other reason. This is why the Taliban fights so hard against education. An educated girl is way more of a threat to their existence than a US bomb.

Here is a link to the NPR story.

http://www.npr.org/sections/al...

Here is an NPR article the includes some opinions from both sides: http://www.npr.org/sections/th....

Some times yes, some scepticism is in order. In the case of the downed Russian plane, I'd even agree. But in this case, no. If you can't tell the difference too bad for you. It's obvious the IS claim is genuine, at very least it's a similar islamic group. Who do you want to blame? The Russians?

I understand your "at the very least" gist but it covers a lot of ground these days. You should check out Adam Curtis' 2004 documentary The Power of Nightmares . It describes the rise of the American neo-conservative movement in the United States and the rise of radical Islam in the Middle East, and dares to compare them, finding some striking similarities. Curtis' documentary describes how Sayyid Qutb was scandalized by what he experienced in America and what was happening in Egyptian society at the time, and was instrumental in re-planting the ancient seeds of ultra-orthodox Islam 'Wahhabism' in modern times.

What we call "radical Islam" these days would be more appropriately described as "radical action to promote ultra-conservative Islam". In the 1950s, many places in the Middle East were becoming 'Westernized' as they were becoming 'modernized' --- two terms one cannot always use interchangeably --- in places very similar to the urbanization occurring in the US. Nothing communicates this more clearly than these photographs taken in Kabul. Ironically it was the US and USSR way by proxy starting in 1979 that set the country back, handing control to the victorious CIA-ISI-supported mujahideen.

Those who engage in such acts are murderous fucks, and if they claim they are Muslim they should be fed to hogs.

To identify them directly with any religion, even if they are completely enthralled by it, is no favor to you. It elevates them and the religion more than either deserve. Yes some Muslims are assholes. Certainly not the family running the grocery store next door who gave me food and electricity when I had none. State sponsors of these terror groups, including our own CIA (through the Pakistani ISI) should also be held accountable for their actions --- not just by people who remember certain periods in history --- but everyone with the courage to stand up and demand answers to questions today. Like where exactly are the modern weapons and training support coming from? If our allies are involved, what is the true extent of the involvement? And how is Russia's involvement in Syria today similar to what happened in Afghanistan in 1980?

There are no easy answers. If you reach back far enough in time there aren't even any good guys.

Why do I fail to equate the tenets of any sect of Islam with any Middle Eastern country, including the newest one --- Europe?
Because I am an American and I believe in the separation of Church and State.

Why do I believe States should be held more accountable than Religions in sponsoring terrorism?
Because I am an American and I do not believe in the establishment of an official religion for anything at all.

Utah has a rather low cost of living with a very vibrant and active tech community. Driving down the main highway through the state you will see billboards every few miles for developer related hiring. There are dozens of established tech companies as well as many many smaller startups. A few are:
Qualtrics
Pluralsight
Novell
Adobe
DOMO
WorkFront
MX
InsideSales
FusionIO
Instructure
L3 Communications
Boeing
Oracle
Microsoft
Overstock.com
HireVue

See more at http://siliconslopes.com/deal-...

There is also a vibrant tech community in Utah with a variety of meetups including:
AngularJS Utah ~1400 members
Utah Java Users Group ~1100 members

There are also Python, Elixir, Elm, Haskell, ReactJS, Go, Lambda Lounge, Ionic, F#, Big Data, DevOps, Drupal, C++ and BitCoin meetups.

Also the most common profession currently in Utah is Software Developer - http://apps.npr.org/dailygraph...

Utah is also a great place to live: http://siliconslopes.com/about...

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/177496734/how-congress-quietly-overhauled-its-insider-trading-law

Maybe you think insider trading shouldn't be a crime, but there are a lot of us who would disagree with you.

There was no "drop" in the 80s with women and computers, facts do not back up this fantasy.

First google hit: When Women Stopped Coding.

You say "There are no barriers to entry in any job field for women." This is an extraordinary claim, considering the huge disparity in gender participation in different fields. The data referenced above doesn't match your assertion so how about you provide something substantive supporting your position? Your extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence and I haven't seen it.

If you can't provide any factual defense of your claims, then it seems safe to assume that you are yet another internet ideologue with little concern for reality.