Slashdot Mirror

So adter decades and decades of work people figured out Ulcers were bacterial not a defect in proteins coating the stomach walls..

Just a minor correction so no reader is misinformed: So after decades and decades of work, people figured out ulcers can be caused by a certain bacterium.

And by "can be" you really mean is in more than 90% of cases.

Just so no reader is misinformed.

Your monthly bill for Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and other streaming entertainment services could go up soon as states such as Illinois try to find ways to offset declining sales taxes and other revenue shortfalls.

Illinois sales tax revenues (2016 is the last table available) are actually rising:

Total Sales Taxes

FY2013 | FY2014 | FY2015 | FY2016
$ 10,151,497,166 | $ 10,547,896,792 | $ 11,013,086,296 | $
11,184,156,224

In fact, sales tax revenues are up around 10% over 4 years. If you look at the table, excise taxes are flat and gas taxes are up. Income, gaming, and other taxes are down. Income tax being down is a no brainer with the economy how it is.

If sales tax revenues go up 10% over 4 years (in a state with one of the highest sales tax rates in the nation) and they are looking for more ways to tax, then there is a serious problem with fiscal policy. Even if you factor in the decline in income, gaming, and other taxes the total decline is 10%. If a 10% decline over fours years wreaks that much havoc, then, well, there is a serious problem with fiscal policy.

"Two-party consent" in Illinois

Decision in People v. Clark (PDF)

The eye is in D.C. but the hole at the other end is here

Fixed that. For the record its Illinois not Texas.

All the studies i checked (sorry no ref, that was 15 years ago) on the subject correlated closely drops of burglary with increase of outdoor lightning in the same area.

Most household burglary happens during the daytime.

You should read some more recent studies from 2000.

"These findings indicate that, during the study period, there did not appear to be a suppression effect on crime as a result of increased alley lighting. In fact, it appears that with the increased lighting came an increase in the number of crimes reported to the Chicago Police Department."

There's plenty more. Security lighting generally helps the thief more than the homeowner. The thief can see clearly and hide in shadows.

http://exhibits.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/larson/LP_extinction.html shows a couple of maps of glacial retreat. The past few years are merely the logical continuation of a ice cover retreat that's been going on for the past 18,000 years. Yes, there have been a few speed bumps along the road (e.g. Younger Dryas and Little Ice Age) but the macro trend has been decreasing ice cover for the past 18,000 years.

And 18,000 years ago, the planet's total human population was approx a million people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Antiquity_and_Middle_Ages They weren't running around in CO2-spewing SUV's. So we must agree that the retreat of the icecaps for most of the past 18,000 years was not caused by human civilization. Why is it suddenly humanity's fault today?

I know this because my wife is a teacher, but a quick googling reveals:

http://www.isbe.state.il.us/nclb/htmls/highlights.htm

http://www.broward.k12.fl.us/hrd/Articles/FactSheet-AYP&NCLB.pdf

From the second article:

These annual objectives are based on the goal to have 100 percent of students proficient by 2013-14. All students, as well as 8 identified subgroups, must meet the proficiency target in order for a school to make AYP.
...

The subgroups are: each of the five race/ethnicity groups; economically disadvantaged students (students receiving free or reduced price lunch), students who are limited English proficient (LEP), and students with disabilities.

The result of this is that if even one subgroup doesn't make the score target on the state test, the whole school fails.

no retailer, ANYWHERE, pays sales taxes on purchases you make

That may be true somewhere, but it isn't true in Illinois. Quoting the Illinois Department of Revenue: "Sales tax is a combination of “occupation” taxes that are imposed on sellers’ receipts and “use” taxes that are imposed on amounts paid by purchasers. Sellers owe the occupation tax to the department; they reimburse themselves for this liability by collecting use tax from the buyers."

And, 35 ILCS 120/2 "A tax is imposed upon persons engaged in the business of selling at retail tangible personal property ...".

In Illinois, at least, sales tax is quite clearly imposed upon the retailer, and not the retail purchaser. On a related note, when I was running a small business in Illinois I contacted the DOR and asked if I was obliged to collect sales tax from my customers. They advised me that I was under no obligation to collect sales tax, my only obligation was to pay it.

So what do you use to pay it? Is it, perhaps, paid from your business's revenue? Assuming it is, where are you obtaining revenue if not from your customers?

no retailer, ANYWHERE, pays sales taxes on purchases you make

That may be true somewhere, but it isn't true in Illinois. Quoting the Illinois Department of Revenue: "Sales tax is a combination of “occupation” taxes that are imposed on sellers’ receipts and “use” taxes that are imposed on amounts paid by purchasers. Sellers owe the occupation tax to the department; they reimburse themselves for this liability by collecting use tax from the buyers."

And, 35 ILCS 120/2 "A tax is imposed upon persons engaged in the business of selling at retail tangible personal property ...".

In Illinois, at least, sales tax is quite clearly imposed upon the retailer, and not the retail purchaser. On a related note, when I was running a small business in Illinois I contacted the DOR and asked if I was obliged to collect sales tax from my customers. They advised me that I was under no obligation to collect sales tax, my only obligation was to pay it.

Quoting the Summary:

Pfizer is employing unprecedented tactics to hold onto as many Lipitor prescriptions as it can with an aggressive marketing plan and forging deals with insurers, pharmacy benefit managers and patients to meet or beat the price of its generic replacements

As long as the Meet or Beat tactic is used I fail to see the problem. If a pharmacy can get a better price on the original Lipitor, make a profit and still beat the generic price fine by me.

Even if the pharmacy has to sign an exclusivity agreement and not carry the generic but still gets to beat the price, fine.

Not every pharmacy carries every drug, and doctors often allow substitutions,. generic or otherwise. In fact they are encouraged to NOT prescribe brand name drugs. Some states limit this specifically for patients under state programs.

Most drugs that have widely accepted generic equivalences are no longer routinely prescribed with the stipulation of Dispense As Written (DAW), because it raises a red flags with insurance companies and is often a financial burden on patients.

Interesting thought. Although before WWII you would typically see the well to do being chubby if not outright fat and underdeveloped while the farm kids (exception for the the ones in the dust bowl) ate good food and got plenty of exercise. These farm kids are the ones that are currently living to be 100+ a perfect example is my great aunt Pearl who is 96 and still goes bowling twice a week and my grandmother who is 91 and doing great and is basically a full time volunteer at the nature center near her house where she leads nature walks. Granted they are sisters so there is probably some genetics but they both grew up out on the farm and both stayed active their whole lives aren't overweight. My great aunt Pearl lived on a farm her whole life and now leases the land but still lives in the farm house while my grandmother went to college and became a chemist and stayed active even living in the cities. Now with modern medicine, exercise and current cultural norms we now see the fit and healthy being the upper and middle classes while the unhealthy and unfit being the poor. The poor as a group also tend to be less educated so we may very well be heading towards a split society.

As far a good quality food buying direct from the farmer is much cheaper than even buying the crap they have at the grocery store or even worse fast food. I get good quality (not quite organic as the farmer will give a cow antibiotics if it gets sick) beef from a farmer I know that hasn't been fed ground up animals, pumped full of hormones, and stuck in a feed lot, and only paid $3.24 a pound for the meat and that includes everything from ground beef to rib roasts. I get eggs, and chickens from a farmer near my house, eggs are $0.99 a dozen and a whole live chicken is $7 (you butcher it), and organic bison from a friend of my step mom for $3.71 a pound. Add in a small garden plot in my backyard to grow corn, tomatoes, peppers, squash and beans with a pear tree and a patch of wild raspberries and the weekly grocery bill in the summer is around $30 and in the winter is about $60 for a family of 4. Granted you need to have a large chest freezer (I have 1/8 of a cow and 1/8 of a bison along with pounds of beans, squash, raspberries, and peppers) and know how to can food (I canned 15 gallons of chile and 4 gallons of tomatoes a couple of weekends ago.) but you can eat well on not much money (it looks like I spend less on food for my family of 4 than the maximum benefit for a family of 4 on food stamps in Illinois).

One more thing I almost forgot. Load shedding > Peaker Plants.

You don't want the utility being able to shut your AC compressor down. OK. My utility also has the same plan, where they pay you for the ability to shut my compressor down for 2 hours every so many hours. Why? Peak demand. It's cheaper to perform load shedding (i.e. remotely shut down compressors) than it is to maintain and operate gas turbine peaker plants that sit idle 95% of the year, and than consume costly (comparatively) natural gas when called upon to provide peak power.

Distribution infrastructure is one thing. Peak power needs a quite another. You want better infrastructure, which is fair. It's also fair that utilities should provide time of use power costs, so their power costs are passed on to customers instead of them insulating customers with a flat rate. If you don't allow market pricing to work, poor decisions result.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9803658-7.html

http://www.epa.state.il.us/air/fact-sheets/peaker-power-plant.html

http://www.google.com/search?q=peak+power+cost

http://energypriorities.com/entries/2006/02/pse_tou_amr_case.php

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/connecticut-power-light-proposes-10-1-ratio-for-peak-power/

I love how people complain about tax. Illinois has some of the highest tax rates in the country. People usually end up around 25% tax, and 9.25% sales tax.

According to http://www.revenue.state.il.us/businesses/taxinformation/income/individual.htm Illinois has a flat income tax rate of 3% of net income, which is lower than some other states.

But as the parent poster pointed out, Philly can't tax assets that aren't located in it's jurisdiction.

Ah, most tax collectors in this situation would just argue that creating the content in Philly gives the city jurisdiction.

And this is peanuts. Illinois takes the trophy for overly broad interpretations of jurisdiction and nexus; take a look at this letter of ruling (PDF) for example of this abuse. In this case:

• This is a New York company running a vehicle database for insurance companies.
• This company does not have an office, data center, or any other physical property in Illinois.
• This company does not have any employees in Illinois.
• No employee of the company sets foot in Illinois for anything work related.
• Independent dealers and inspectors who do own shops in Illinois forward the results of their inspections to the company in New York.

The ruling? The company is liable for Illinois income tax. (And probably New York, as well, but the letter does not identify the company.)

http://www.isp.state.il.us/docs/cii/...g27_to_200.pdf Here is the Illinois State Police report for 2007. They haven't released the 2008 report as of yet. Crime was up in 2008, but has dropped back down for 2009 so far..... Cook County: 80 murders for 2,455,801 people - 3.25/100,000 Chicago City: 443 murders for 2,832,854 people - 15.64/100,000 Total: 554 murders for 5,288,655 people

Source: http://www.city-data.com/forum/chicago/667826-where-can-you-find-cook-county.html

You're a little off.
Outdoor air carbon dioxide levels were typically around 300 ppm 60 to 100 years ago, in fact, they've rarely exceeded 280 ppm for the last 400,000 years.. Nowadays they're around 360 ppm to 400 ppm - that's 20% more than just 50 years ago - a pretty abrupt change. It's also more than 25% above the previous four interglacial CO2 peak levels.
Indoor air carbon dioxide levels are typically kept around 600 ppm (at least, that's the attempt). Above 800 to 1000 ppm there's probably inadequate ventilation, though that may be using the CO2 level as a surrogate for other indoor air pollution as much as a direct problem of too much CO2. Above around 1,000 ppm people begin to complain of headaches and drowsiness
OSHA's 8-hour limit is 5,000 ppm, which you might find in an industrial environment. At that level you're also significantly affecting the percentage of O2 in the air.

could you provide some sort of documents on vapor being recovered by a system that is provably 1 way??

Wikipedia is among the hits describing vapor recovery at the pump.

Imagine the increased danger of filling your tank when for every gallon of fuel you pumped in, close to a cubic foot of concentrated gas vapor gushed out around the nozzle. Just thinking about that gives me a headache, a common reaction to inhaling gasoline vapor.

And it's referred to as "Vapor Recovery" when filling underground station tanks from the trucks. Google for "gas pump vapor recovery" for more information. I'd actually not considered that before seeing it just now, but it's probably equally important when filling the station tanks. Just imagine the cloud of gas vapor hanging around the big tanker truck by the time it's done offloading on a calm day.

During and after Katrina everyone attacked Bush, often very personal attacks for the Federal and even state responses to that event.

Yet here we are nearly two months after this started and there has been very little vitriolic attacking on the current President.

Why is that I wonder? The Obama administration was in charge of the offices at the Interior that oversaw this and no changes were made. The Justice Department could have been turned on to BP and people could be in jail right now, but nothing was done.

I'll field this one.

Why is the difference between Deepwater and Katrina? Well multiple reasons. First, Katrina was a natural disaster, and Deepwater was a man-made one, no matter how many times BP and anti-government apologists claim it was a "natural disaster" or an "Act of God". While not all the facts are in, it's looking increasingly likely criminal negligence and lack of proper enforcement of regulations due to long time corruption in the Mines and Minerals Service are to blame. The government has always had a role in the preparation and recovery after natural disasters. In fact, there's a whole agency dedicated just to that, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. States and even large cities have similar agencies. Man made disasters? Not so much. The government simply doesn't have the tools or expertise in repairing deepwater drills. It never did. Now we can argue whether or not the government should have the tools and the expertise in-house for future events, but it has never had this. Second, Katrina had warning. Days of warning for Katrina specifically, and years of warning about the possibility. Sadly, the devastation of Katrina pretty much played out exactly as predicted. The Bush Administration simply failed to prepare because he appointed political allies instead of the (albeit recent) tradition of professional emergency managers. Finally, and this is the biggest difference. The economic and human toll of the two disasters are simply incomparable. The death toll for Katrina is literally 100 times greater. The economic impact is equally disproportionate.

You talk about coverups, but the only coverup I'm aware of is BP's not the government's. Keep in mind, BP was repeatedly denying access to the site by outsiders and providing the absurdly low estimates. Not the Coast Guard, nor any other government agency.

While I'm not going to give you a lecture on aerosol effect, I will point out how readily mercury evaporates.
To quote: "Mercury exposure can occur by breathing vapors, by direct skin contact or by eating food or drinking water contaminated with mercury. Many people are exposed by breathing vapors, which are readily absorbed by the lungs. Mercury can enter the body through the skin, especially if it contacts a cut or wound. [...] Spills from the breaking of a blood pressure device [with the same amount of mercury as a CFL bulb] can produce airborne levels high enough to cause serious poisoning and even death ." (Emphasis mine)

I don't think Apple's concern is for the health safety of the technician. It rarely is.

I think Apple has it written that it has the right to classify the devices used by smokers as being operated in extreme environments.

1 b Limitations (ii) Damage to the Covered Equipment caused by accident, abuse, neglect, misuse (including faulty
installation, repair, or maintenance by anyone other than Apple or an Apple Authorized Service
Provider), unauthorized modification, extreme environment (including extreme temperature or
humidity), extreme physical or electrical stress or interference, fluctuation or surges of electrical
power, lightning, static electricity, fire, acts of God or other external causes;

Specifications for engineering do account for a quality of air standard being implicit to the design. Industrial installations (areas known for pollution) will require industrial filtration for computers. IBM, Compaq, HP and others used to sell such as they knew their boxes would be in such situations where dust and or ambient pollution would be sucked in and deposited over the fans, heatsinks, electronics. Induced humidity and heat stress, fatigue and failure on electronics used to be very common.

Being a California company Apple forgets that other places and regions of the world are not yet so "progressive" to eliminate all forms of indoor pollution as their legislatures.

Computers & electronics used in medical Offices, Centers, Hospitals, etc where airborne disease is commonly encountered ought to also be equipped with industrial grade filtration and the mice/keyboards regularly decontaminated and eventually changed out and safely recycled.

Also I've been known to use dust masks for servicing inside computers deployed at schools, archives and warehouses due to possible hantavirus conditions. I

There's no technical problem making a wood building that strong. It's the enforcement that's the problem. Wood has good tensile strength, but the joints usually used in wood construction don't.

A few years ago, after some hurricanes, many Florida builders were discovered not to be building to code. Hurricane-proofing for small wood structures mostly consists of putting in metal brackets at joints to give wood-to-wood joints tensile strength. Not only do the brackets have to be put in, nails have to be hammered into all the holes in the brackets. Many contractors were sloppy about that, resulting in a big loss of tensile strength and major damage (like roofs ripped off) during hurricanes.

A big problem in the Third World is bad concrete mixes. Much concrete construction goes up without enough cement in the mix, and that results in building collapses.

Here's a good project for someone - develop a low-cost hand held device for concrete testing. The existing techniques are slow, labor-intensive, and a pain to use. Tests for hardened concrete usually involve cutting out a plug and sending it to a lab elsewhere. Small portable devices would be a big help here.

Even in Illinois you don't get fingerprinted for purchasing a firearm. You do require a Firearm Owner's Identification card however. Which costs a whole $10 and can be done by mail. You just need a state issued ID and a recent photograph.

most Dems I talk to today seem to claim "He would be a Democrat if he were alive today".

I think they are forgetting one little bit about him:

AUGUST 14, 1862 -- President Lincoln meets with a "Committee of colored men" and proposes a voluntary program to relocate blacks living in America to a Central American country. Lincoln explains, âoeYou and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two racesâ¦this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence.

Most computer hardware is sold at surplus auctions four times a year in Illinois. I worked for Illinois government as a contractor for 9 years and saw countless pallets of PCs and Macs move through there. Lots of other cool stuff too, including a powered drafting table I picked up for $75. I locked the table flat and can raise and lower it depending if I want to work standing up or sitting down.

Go to http://www.state.il.us/CMS/1_buying/statesurp.htm, which is the firs tlink on Google when searching for "Illinois state surplus auction" for more info.

Go to our state online auction site to see if they end up there, too.

There's a reason Central Management Services exists -- it's to provide the central management of the services all state agencies need to kkeep duplication of effort to a minimum. One thing all state agencies need is to dispose of surplus equipment.

Go to http://www.state.il.us/CMS/1_buying/statesurp.htm, which is the firs tlink on Google when searching for "Illinois state surplus auction" for more info.

Go to our state online auction site to see if they end up there, too.

There's a reason Central Management Services exists -- it's to provide the central management of the services all state agencies need to kkeep duplication of effort to a minimum. One thing all state agencies need is to dispose of surplus equipment.

Union labors here in Chicago make over $33/hour. That is a base salary of $68,640 which does not include pension, sick time or medical, thats another $10-15 an hour or so. You are now looking around $100k a year. Now add in overtime pay.

Don't believe me, here is the latest union wage rates for Cook County, pdf warning, http://www.dot.state.il.us/wagerates/011808/area1.pdf

My compensation is right in line with my field and experience and right along the same lines as my colleagues, none of us make even $80k. My point is that those "ditch diggers" although frowned upon apparently, probably make more that most do. How many college graduates do you know that start off earning much higher than $50,000?

Mercury Poisoning is a little vague, as is Illinois Fish and Your Health, but that is understandable because fishing and hunting is a significant source of income, I know in Michigan, during the late seventies early eighties, Mother's milk was generally unfit for human consumption!

The anti-smoking vaccine, NicVax, is in phase 2B clinical testing, and appears to work. Sort of: "High antibody responders (top 30%) continued to show statistically significant abstinence at nine months: 9-Month continuous abstinence rate: NicVAX=20% (12/61, p=0.0076) vs. Placebo=6% (6/100)" That's not impressive, yet it's better than most anti-smoking programs.

Nicotine addiction is the toughest one to break. Programs for getting people off cocaine are about 40% successful. Programs for getting people off smoking are about 10-20% successful. Also, addicts tend to "age out" of cocaine and heroin addiction; after age 40, most of them eventually give it up. Not nicotine; people smoke their way to the grave.

One problem with a vaccine approach is that encourage overdoses, to overcome the antibodies. For nicotine, this is less of a problem, because smoking has a limited intake rate. But for cocaine, it's a real issue.

It's encouraging, though, that no side effects of this vaccine have been detected so far vs. the placebo.

The real promise for this vaccine is as a preventative measure. The average age for a new smoker is 13. Only 10% start after age 18. So if this works, a school inoculation program might be the way to prevent smoking.

Vista is not horrible. Is is great? Not really. But it works and it works pretty well.

And you would pay $500 for "not horrible but not great, but it works" that nobody seems to be able to come up with anything that makes it worth the price? Where do you work, I'm obviously not making near enough money.

It is a bit overly secure (but that is because of install base that makes Microsoft OS worth attacking; Apple is expected to be targeted within the next 2 years due to increasing popularity)

I heard that about Apple ten years ago, son. If writing viruses for Mac and Linux were as easy as it is for Windows, both OSes would be NEARLY as virus-ridden as MS ("nearly" because of Windows "popularity". Which is a funny word in the context. Something popular that everyone hates).

People be all acting like
Linda? Is that you? You have an internet connection at Dwight?

Office is 10x worse

Puke's not bad tasting. Shit is 10x worse.

-mcgrew

You're wrong about Illnois.

Here's a copy of the regs for IL: Title 86 Part 130 Section 130.1935 Computer Software http://www.revenue.state.il.us/LegalInformation/regs/part130/130-1935.pdf

You can carry on your own property, residence, and fixed place of business. Also, security personnel (working for a licensed company) are excempt from Chicago's unlawful carry restrictions.

http://www.isp.state.il.us/foid/ordinances.cfm

Babies are not routinely being given carry permits

Increasing the lights in Chicago's alleys, with a control area, found that crime increased 21% in the brighter area. The Chicago Alley Lighting Project: Final Evaluation Report (PDF)

I agree on the fear for no reason. As long as safety is the number one concern of the plant (even before power generation) then I see no problem with nuclear power proliferation. Wasn't there a study that showed that living close to a nuclear power plant versus not had negligible differences in cancer rates? All I could find was a PDF on it but I thought there was something also listed on /.

You should probably explain what a eurypterid is (an extinct marine or brackish-water "sea scorpion"). Most people aren't going to know that critter very well.

Also, even though you didn't find much in terms of insect remains (and it is understandable why given the time and focus of your study), people might be interested to know that fossil insects are well known from rocks of this age, and there are some famous localities in Illinois (e.g., Mazon Creek). In Carboniferous rocks there's everything from cockroaches to giant dragonfly-like ( Meganeura ) and millepede-like ( Arthropleura ) creatures. Imagine a metre-long millepede with trackways as wide as a car tire and a dragonfly with a wingspan of 50cm (19in)!

Anyway, I know you know all this stuff. Just trying to fill in some background for others and save you some typing.

When I was a kid in the early 60s my dad got a console stereo. It was pretty amazing: radio, record changer, amplifier and speakers all in one device, encased in a solid-wood cabinet, and with true hi-fidelity (better than your iPods, kids). The separate components of the hi-fi systems of the years before had been merged into one convenient device! What a technological advance!

And then, what? By the early 70s most of the console stereos were in the junk yards. Every audiophile wanted - gasp - a system built of separate components.

History may repeat: The all-in-one device will be perfected, and enjoy a brief domination of the market based in part on its cool factor. Then everyone will revert to the natural preference for individual flexibility and control, which favors separate but combinable devices. There's no reason your music player, for instance, won't be able to connect to whatever local network access is available at the moment - including your cell phone in the other pocket - without any necessity to combine them it the same case.

Paul Campbell began his career as an Investigator for the Internal Revenue Service focused on reducing financial fraud.

Unnecessarily subsiding a monopoly using taxpayers money, could well be considered fraud.

He later served as a Special Agent for the Office of the Inspector General, General Services Administration, investigating public corruption.

Let's not ask why he never looked at alternative suppliers in his current role.

As an attorney, Paul worked as an Assistant State's Attorney in Illinois and in private practice at Piper Rudnick concentrating on commercial and business litigation matters. In 2001, after earning his M.B.A. at Northwestern University, Paul also served as Piper Rudnick's Knowledge Partner. He joined CMS as Assistant Director in February 2003 and was named Director of the Department in June 2005. Under Paul's leadership, CMS continues to achieve savings and enhance services as it implements new technologies, reduces waste and rethinks many of the administrative operations of the state.

Where's the scientific data to support that claim? Where are the case studies?

In light of this guys comments and history, IL residents should complain to their governors office. I'm sure Campbell would happily consent to an audit to ensure everything is above board.

Telecommunications infrastructure maintenance fees (TIMFs) are imposed on persons in the business of transmitting, supplying, or furnishing telecommunications and all associated services in Illinois for compensation (i.e., telecommunications retailers).

And this says that:

The TIF (Texas Infrastructure Fund) is assessed against telecom utilities and wireless providers based on taxable telecommunication receipts.

Which seems to say that these taxes are directed at telecoms, though they are probably passed along to consumers.

Furthermore, http://www.opc.state.tx.us/Phoneb~1.htm says:

The Texas Infrastructure Fund was created by the Texas Legislature to ensure that all Texans have access to advanced telecommunications services. The TIF distributes grants and information to public schools, public hospitals, and public libraries in an effort to improve Texas telecommunications technology across the state.

So the money is given to public schools, public hospitals, and public libraries so they can buy telecommunications access.

So far, there is no information on how much tax money is distributed directly to telecoms to build infrastructure, and what percentage of building expenses that money accounts for.

Where do you assume this is physically hardwired?

That is specious and presumptious at best, and intellectually dishonest at worst.

As far as I know there have existed a number of socieities that have been quite permissive of pedophiles and in some cases made it socially expected.

This hardly indicates a hard-wired aversion.

It IS social conditioning of the strongest kind. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, but you are inventing science to support your moral argument, which is disingenuous.

Ok, now lets actually address what you SAID.

statistics show paedophilia charges and convictions are on the rise.

The only thing that is "obvious" is that media reports of these charges are on the rise.

Please cite statistics that show charges and convictions are on the rise. Or you can simple let me illustrated that you are ignorant of the facts and are simply pontificating on moral grounds with your "epidemic" "on the rise" claims

Here, let me do it for you

Statistics show a decline in child abuse and neglect
The decline in child sex abuse cases
national child abuse and neglect statistics continued to decline
Child-Abuse and Neglect Cases Decline for Fifth Year, HHS Says ...
national child abuse and neglect statistics reported by states continued to decline
Statistics Show Decline in Child Abuse
national child abuse and neglect statistics reported by states continued to decline
total decline of 39% in identified sexual abuse cases over a 7-year period
New Child Maltreatment Statistics Show Continuing Decline
Department of Justice: CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE CASES FALL 31 PERCENT OVER SIX YEARS
he hotline has seen a 24 percent annual decline in child abuse reports

I'm sorry, that's just the first two pages out of about 40 in my google search.

Speaking of head in the sand...

Stewed

Where do you assume this is physically hardwired?

That is specious and presumptious at best, and intellectually dishonest at worst.

As far as I know there have existed a number of socieities that have been quite permissive of pedophiles and in some cases made it socially expected.

This hardly indicates a hard-wired aversion.

It IS social conditioning of the strongest kind. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, but you are inventing science to support your moral argument, which is disingenuous.

Ok, now lets actually address what you SAID.

statistics show paedophilia charges and convictions are on the rise.

The only thing that is "obvious" is that media reports of these charges are on the rise.

Please cite statistics that show charges and convictions are on the rise. Or you can simple let me illustrated that you are ignorant of the facts and are simply pontificating on moral grounds with your "epidemic" "on the rise" claims

Here, let me do it for you

Statistics show a decline in child abuse and neglect
The decline in child sex abuse cases
national child abuse and neglect statistics continued to decline
Child-Abuse and Neglect Cases Decline for Fifth Year, HHS Says ...
national child abuse and neglect statistics reported by states continued to decline
Statistics Show Decline in Child Abuse
national child abuse and neglect statistics reported by states continued to decline
total decline of 39% in identified sexual abuse cases over a 7-year period
New Child Maltreatment Statistics Show Continuing Decline
Department of Justice: CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE CASES FALL 31 PERCENT OVER SIX YEARS
he hotline has seen a 24 percent annual decline in child abuse reports

I'm sorry, that's just the first two pages out of about 40 in my google search.

Speaking of head in the sand...

Stewed

Climate on our planet is never constant. It could be global cooling that we were bitching about instead of global warming. Obviously, it was warmer 1,000 years ago in 986 when Greenland was settled but then got a lot colder 400 years later. Think of the slashdot story that would have been.

We are in an ice age already. Personally, I'm glad my house isn't under a mile or two of ice. If we have to loose a little coastline to keep it that way, then so be it.

http://www.courts.state.ny.us/courts/nyc/smallclai ms/general.shtml

A claimant or defendant may hire an attorney if they choose to do so, but it is not necessary.

Is an Attorney Required? In small claims court you can handle your personal or business legal matters without an attorney; however, you can hire an attorney to represent you if you wish. If the other party has an attorney, your chances of winning might be better if you also have an attorney.

Under normal condidtions Mercury is a liquid. Still toxic, but not breatable.

Inhalation of elemental mercury vapor is the most common route of exposure. When liquid mercury is spilled or allowed to come in contact with air, it evaporates.

The point here is that passengers can be both the distraction that a cell phone can be (conversation) plus the visual distraction. Not only that, it is easier to hang up or turn off a cell phone than it is to get passengers (particularly young ones) to stop being a distraction.

As always, the actual effects vary from person to person. You'll probably find folks who are less distracted by cell phones than by passengers, but in general my belief is that passengers are a greater distraction.

One example: Illinois has taken measures in addition to cell phone bans to limit passengers for novice teen age drivers. http://www.dot.state.il.us/press/cellban.html

My own belief is that if you are a sound, safe driver, the cell phone is not a huge distraction. Then again, I don't believe that half of US drivers would qualify as sound or safe.