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BP Finds Way To Bypass US Crude Export Ban
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Bloomberg reports that the oil industry is pressuring President Barack Obama to end the 41-year-old ban on most crude exports but British Petroleum (BP) isn't waiting for a decision. The British oil giant has signed on to take at least 80 percent of the capacity of a new $360 million mini-refinery in Houston that will process crude just enough to escape restrictions on sales outside the country. 'It's a relatively inexpensive way around the export prohibition,' says Judith Dwarkin 'You can lightly ruffle the hydrocarbons and they are considered processed and then they aren't subject to the ban.' Amid a flood of new US oil, the demand for simple, one-step plants capable of transforming raw crude into exportable products such as propane is feeding a construction boom along the Gulf Coast. The first such mini-refinery, built for 1/10 the cost of a complex, full-scale refinery, is scheduled to open the first phase of its 100,000 barrel-a-day crude processing plant in July, The mini-refineries take advantage of the law that allows products refined from oil to be sold overseas, though not the raw crude itself. 'The international buyers of these products will likely need to refine them further, so this is basically a veiled form of condensate exports,' says Leo Mariani."
But ... the CO2!
No sig today...
crude oil, lightly shaken, and exported to the world.
revenues, lightly tossed, and exported to Bermuda.
Both cases just avoiding the law through legal means. In other words, the law's an ass.
They're only breaking the spirit of the law, not the letter.
That makes it perfectly OK, just ask the NSA if you don't believe me.
No sig today...
Politicians do the same thing.
In fact, everyone does that... its not criminal... its human.
We are as a species... opportunists. It is our default attitude as a species.
We are not predators, herd animals, ambushers... etc... we are opportunists. We pick the low hanging fruit. It is our nature.
You put something in front of us that blocks us from getting what we want and we'll find ways around it or through it. Or we'll just do something else if that's more profitable.
In this case, they found a cheap way around the export ban. So they started doing it.
It is a little ballsy of BP though... given their recent history I'd think they'd want to stay away from that sort of thing.
I do agree they shouldn't be doing that. But don't blame all corporations for that behavior. It is human.
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A Typical Mix-Maxer response. The rules _technically_ allow this, so I will ruin the game for everyone by twisting/optimizing them to the limit to win even if I have to destroy the game to do it.
Future generations will see the mass influx of STEM geeks into the finance and business arena as a catastrophic social development in early 21st century industries.
May the Maths Be with you!
Why have a law like that in place at all. If the US government wanted the crude, they could buy it. Why stop someone from selling what they've legally worked for?
BP hasn't been very British in quite a while, a better name might be "Standard Oil" given how many of the component companies it is made up of came from that particular operation. It gets called British whenever it's politically expedient.
This is why I sometimes like the Finnish system of law in which something that is clearly done in order to circumvent a current law is considered as breaking it. This removes all the stupid verbal acrobatics that US lawyers resort to in order to interpret a law differently than what was intended.
Example: Say you want to donate someone a large sum of money, but don't want to pay taxes for it. One might try to circumvent the tax by marrying someone, immediately divorcing and having a contract that in case of divorce the other person has a right to precisely the amount of money that you were supposed to donate to them in the first place.
Technically if you do that, you don't have to pay any tax, but the tax authorities would immediate judge this as an attempt to bypass taxes and you would be ordered to pay the tax doubled. This applies to practically all laws and the ways that courts interpret them. Most Americans probably think this is stupid, since they see possible abuse. However, this hasn't materialized in Finland.
BP haven't been known as British Petroleum for many years. It seems to be a tag most used (now) by the US. [I wonder if there have been any recent events that might cause the folks in the US to think that US folks weren't involved? Better to point the finger elsewhere.]
They're only breaking the spirit of the law, not the letter.
True. They are 'getting around' the law against exporting crude, by not exporting crude. It seems the law needs to be amended to define better what is considered exportable if they want to stop this.
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
The world runs on oil.
Fuzzy bunnies and magic unicorn dreams don't change that. All the hot air from politicians won't change that.
Every last drop of oil is going to be burned, damn the consequences - it's too profitable. Developing viable real alternatives for energy transfer and storage will require a focused engineering effort on the scale of the Manhattan project deployed in conjunction with mass adoption of nuclear energy.
Utilities desperate to find alternatives are building LNG generation plants. This is stupid.
I bet the retirement fund on every drop of oil being burned. So far I've been right. We'll see if I end up eating cat food - but I don't think that's likely...
the Finnish system of law
I'd be happy if they just enforced the American system of law. Does that mean no action in this case? Yes, until or unless the laws or changed. However, there are so many egregious violations of law by major corporations (*cough* Wall Street *cough*) that don't get investigated, let alone prosecuted, that I'd be thrilled if they enforced existing laws.
Politicians and regulators still have yet to realize that people will do what they see fit, despite laws, regulations, and penalties. On the personal side, if you're trying to regulate people harming themselves, they are willing to spray paint in a bag and destroy their brains by inhaling it to "get high"...what law can you make that will affect such a naked desire to harm one's self? Outside of the brain damage, this seems to be the same sort of thing, on a much larger scale. The market always exists, and always will exist, because it's nothing but a measure of how much people value certain things and outcomes and what sort of price they're willing to pay to get them. BP spending some money to export crude this way just shows that they're willing to go a little higher over these regulations.
..don't you have a concept about an "agreement" and the "spirit of an agreement", and how violating one means also violating the other?
Would you want to be arrested for violating the spirit of a law in the opinion of the arresting officer?
The goal of a corporation is to maximize profit at whatever cost to anyone else.
Tim Cook might not agree with you. The goal of a corporation is whatever its owners decide the goal should be.
If the USians want to cast it in a bad light, they call it "British Petroleum". It makes it sound sinister and evil.
What is so bad about this? The U.S. has some stupid protectionist law and BP finds a way around it.
Technically if you do that, you don't have to pay any tax, but the tax authorities would immediate judge this as an attempt to bypass taxes and you would be ordered to pay the tax doubled. This applies to practically all laws and the ways that courts interpret them. Most Americans probably think this is stupid, since they see possible abuse. However, this hasn't materialized in Finland.
In the US, the scenario you described would be called tax evasion and you would be charged by the IRS. Even in Finland, I am sure there are illegal ways to do things and legal ways to do things. Surely, every time you buy something from the store you aren't charged for larceny because it is illegal to steal and you circumvented that law!
Technically, what BP is doing is legal under the law. The correct solution, if the US doesn't like it, is to change the law.
It's the same thing people.
No it's not. Forget the simple minded propaganda that copyrights are a form of property like physical property - they're a government granted and enforced monopoly that raises prices many fold by artificially restricting what would otherwise be almost cost free production of copies. That's nothing like petroleum or any other physical property. Moreover, unlike creative works, or even manufactured items or services, there is a fixed quantity of petroleum available. The situations are the exact opposite of each other.
People really don't get this principle when they say "There ought to be a law..." as if declaring something by fiat will make it so. Should people respect the environment? Yes. Should they behave in a socially responsible way? Yes. Etc... The problem is that unless people's desires align with that sort of thinking, they're not going to change how they act. It's a social problem, where we live in a society that values excessive individualism (although, in an oddly conformist way, material wealth, quick and shallow self-gratification (i.e. all your problems go away with a pint of ice cream or a little pill), and so on. People should also remember that regulators and politicians are cut from the same sort of cloth as the people in BP who're trying to get around these bans (and then our political system and government makes more sense all of a sudden).
I did some reading to find the basis of the 1975 law, administered by my "favorite" federal agency, the Bureau of Land Management (Jack Abramoff's digs). Apparently it was originally passed during the OPEC embargo when the USA was concerned about domestic shortages. Then it becomes like ethanol or agricultural subsidies, it stays because it reduces competition. Probably a violation of the WTO as well, same as when USA, EU and Japan challenged China's rare earth metal export bans... which China tried to express as an "environmental law"... which is the only current argument I can find for the crude export ban (CO emissions).
So is it a case of corporations skirting a government law, or a government skirting an international fair trade treaty?
Gently reply
The number of slashdotters that bleat about "teh evil corporations that break teh law!"
But support bypassing copyright law and getting their content for free because "information must be free".
It may be the same thing, but it isn't necessary the same people. We aren't a borg collective who all think alike. Some people defend Free Software, which requires copyright law in order to exist. Some people download all the torrents. There may be a cross-section that does both, which is as you say hypocritical. But the existence of that cross-section does not invalidate the opinions of those who consistently hold one position or the other.
Also, not all laws are created equal. Some people may support political measures such as export controls and sanctions, while not supporting copyright. If you broke the speed limit last year, does that mean that you are not entitled to justice if someone assaults you today?
Technically if you do that, you don't have to pay any tax, but the tax authorities would immediate judge this as an attempt to bypass taxes and you would be ordered to pay the tax doubled. This applies to practically all laws and the ways that courts interpret them. Most Americans probably think this is stupid, since they see possible abuse. However, this hasn't materialized in Finland.
In the US, the scenario you described would be called tax evasion and you would be charged by the IRS. Even in Finland, I am sure there are illegal ways to do things and legal ways to do things. Surely, every time you buy something from the store you aren't charged for larceny because it is illegal to steal and you circumvented that law!
Technically, what BP is doing is legal under the law. The correct solution, if the US doesn't like it, is to change the law.
In the UK it would be "tax avoidance" if it did not break any law. members of parliament would wring their hands and call "shame" - then do the same things themselves. -- ~~~~
In what way is our individualism excessive?
Should we subsume our identity into something else?
What? Nationalism and patriotism? If not that then what legitimacy would that identity have?... Organized religion?
I don't think our individualism is excessive. In fact, i think many of the problems we've had lately have come from an erosion in our individualism.
You note that much of our individualism is conformist. Well, is it individualism at all then? Probably not.
Individuals don't seek conformity. They seek individual fulfillment. This strikes some as anti social. But then conformist pressure is considered "social" behavior despite being restrictive and frequently harmful to the individual.
Here is the other issue with individuals. They're individual. Once someone truly divorces themselves from conformity they cannot be grouped without misrepresentation. Thus, once that happens you can point at ONE individual and judge him. But you can't judge them all since they're all distinct.
Most of the tragedies in human history can be traced to misguided GROUP action.
Go through history and find examples of individuals that did great harm.
The most you'll find is the occasional serial killer. They're very uncommon and their harm while traumatic is relatively minor.
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Its a nice concept, in theory. But in practice it probably creates (or at least enhances) the same one of the problems we already have in our "justice" system here in the US. It creates overly broad laws that can be interpreted any number of ways. That wouldn't be a problem in a system with respectable prosecutors & judges, but we don't have that in any way shape or form. If you want evidence of just how bad things have you don't have to go far. Look at the Aaron Swartz case, a college student crushed for "stealing" electronic copies of publicly funded research papers. Do a search on "civil forfeiture" and you'll find hundreds of cases where prosecutors weren't able to prove any illegal activity, but were still able to seize peoples homes, cars & life savings.
Ahh the rule makers always love to complain about how people follow their rules.
Another way to say the same thing is that the export restrictions created a market for lightly processed oil products. If there is demand there is demand, it doesn't go away because you will it to. If that demand can be met in some way that fits in the rules and is still profitable, people WILL do it.
Trying to call that getting around a restriction is like the magic player complaining that someone insisted on playing stuff at the end of your turn after you said you were done. Duh read the rules, it isn't getting around anything...its what they say! Its following them.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
If we can only export refined oil, it means we have to refine it on US soil. This is a dirty business, producing loads of crap you don't want in your environment. This ban forces us to destroy our own environment, while exporting the goodies that come out of it. This doesn't seem long-term smart.
int main(void) {while(1) fork(); return 0;}
The more you tighten your grip, the more will slip through your fingers.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Calling it a British company is debatable, but more defensible than calling it "British Petroleum (BP)". British Petroleum isn't even its previous name.
I would say Tim Cook is doing an excellent job of maximizing profit.
He may be doing a lot of other, more noble things as well, but its all causing his company to maximize its profit.
Is he noble, or just good at what he does and picking 'the right way' to give people what they want?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I think that the United States has a vested political interest in controlling the sale of oil. Which is not to suggest that you are wrong per se, but I think that the US oil policies are better understood in the context of hegemony than fair trade. However, the oil industry has been putting all of their propaganda efforts towards lifting this ban; I mark a half-dozen articles in Forbes alone within the last two years. As long as they can keep away from any concerns about national security, they might get their wish.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
I expect that the stockholders will agree with him as long as the stock increases in value and/or provides dividends better than the competition. As soon as what he wants starts costing them serious money, he's gone.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
More general statement: groups of individual people find ways of rationalizing anything through a process of "everyone else is doing it so it must be okay" and kicking out the people who oppose the groupthink.
Corporations, government agencies, religions, industries.
Even when it was called British Petroleum it was mostly owned by the camel-jockeys.
But that's Thicky Pickens for you...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What's appalling isn't that, but the ones who bleat about the evil corporations breaking the law when the evil corporations are NOT breaking the law.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
>>...new $360 million mini-refinery...demand for simple, one-step plants capable of transforming raw crude into exportable products such as propane is feeding a construction boom along the Gulf Coast.
Call me cynical, but it seems that most legislation aims to protect the existing jobs of stalwart political supporters in sponsors' districts. (e.g., Obama's first term "stimulus," which was mostly used to shore up the existing salaries and pensions of his political base.) Perhaps the intent of this bill was to continue a Gulf Coast construction boom, leading to more voter, er, labor-intensive refinery jobs?
Well - sort-of.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/avoidan...
There are problems with this sort of approach - implementing 'anti-abuse' rules means that now instead of (in principle) understandable legislation - you have a collection of people all of which may take a slightly different approach to decision-making.
The other issue is that it's not practically going to impact (for example) Amazon - or any of the other major tax avoiders - as they are able to use international financial structuring to avoid national tax, in a way that these rules do not impact.
Regardless of the ecological effects of our chemical energy dependency and the grey-area nature of this workaround, I applaud the move in general.
The world has given too much power to oil- and gas-funded dictatorships. Right now, the West is hesitating about sanctions against Russia (which are required for peaceful settlement of the crisis in Ukraine) because they depend too heavily on the Russian resource exports.
The proper way is of course to lift the restrictions, but that is a heavy, lengthy political process, and this clever workaround provides a quick solution that we need urgently today.
We can gradually move to renewable energy later. It makes more sense to use the oil for other things anyway.
It always amused me that some people thought more domestic drilling would return us to the days of cheap fuel. They seemed to think that the oil companies would ignore that they could get a higher price overseas and sell to us cheap out of the goodness of their hearts.
Here is the deal. The US historically had reserves of oil and other natural resources just in case something happened, we as a nation could keep our strength and keep going. These never were for exporting, as that would weaken the nations position in the future. This is the key reason why I'm personally against drilling in Alaska and other places.
Now, BP wants to tempt fate when Oil Companies already have a bad reputation and go against the public good. If they have enough crude to be able to sell internationally, then they don't need as many pumps. I don't hold any hope of them being slapped down for breaking the spirit of the law, but I do want it.
I hate that all fuel refining pretty much goes through them, so no matter what gas station I visit, they have a hand in it.
They're only breaking the spirit of the law, not the letter.
True. They are 'getting around' the law against exporting crude, by not exporting crude. It seems the law needs to be amended to define better what is considered exportable if they want to stop this.
I doubt that is even possible. There is no law that you can write that somebody else won't find a way to bend. Just look at wall street.
Rich people who pay less of a tax rate than people who make a whole lot less aren't violating any laws, but they are surely fucking this country over, their flag-waving and jingoism notwithstanding.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
End our dependence on foreign oil!
Drill here and use it here to offset imports!
Another retarded right-wing meme also slaughtered by this: obama is destroying oil production because he hates america!
The goal of a democratic government is to maximize the population's well being."
That is not at all the goal of a democratic government.
A lot of people mistakenly think that "insure domestic tranquility" and "promote the general welfare" mean "try to make everyone happy" and "give the people what the want", when they really mean is "maintain order so things runs smoothly" and "provide a system of laws that allows people to pursue their interests without undue interference from the government". Note that the Surpreme Court ruled that "the Preamble indicates the general purpose for which the people ordained and established the Constitution" and went on to point out that "[the Preamble] has never been regarded as the source of any substantive power conferred on the Government...", in Jacobson v. Mass
Best possible answer:
Let them finish their mini-refinery. Let them ramp up production. Let them sign hundreds of contracts obliging them to deliver on partially-refined product.
Then, and only then, really fuck 'em by ban the export of insufficiently-refined product.
I have gotten so sick of companies dodging the intent of the law lately. I by no stretch of the imagination count as a hardcore law-and-order authoritarian, but it doesn't take Mother Jones to point out that we simply can't allow situations like this, or the whole Apple/IBM/Google/etc paying no US tax, and so on, to continue. If a company wants to play on our field, they need to follow our rules as intended.
"Well whatd'ya know, the rules of golf don't explicitly ban using a tunnel-boring machine to dig a straight shot to the cup! You sure got us, have fun turning Augusta into a strip-mine."
They're only breaking the spirit of the law, not the letter.
True. They are 'getting around' the law against exporting crude, by not exporting crude. It seems the law needs to be amended to define better what is considered exportable if they want to stop this.
Perhaps they should get rid of the ban altogether? Seriously, with the trade deficit spiraling out of control, it makes no sense at all to ban exports.
Rather than question BP for 'getting around' the law, we should question why we have such bad law in the first place.
Opportunism isn't evil though.
That's that problem with more interpretations of people's morality. You have to remember that at base level, people are amoral. That isn't to say they are unmoral... just amoral. The natural response is a response without morality.
Now we can condition morality into people, but its just a condition. Its an artificial construct imposed on natural behavior.
And an artificial construct can be pretty much anything. If you want to talk about human nature, then you have to examine humanity WITHOUT that construct. And that humanity is opportunistic.
If you're interested in the real truth of it, then you'll see you have to strip away culture to see what people are actually like at base level.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
They're only breaking the spirit of the law, not the letter.
True. They are 'getting around' the law against exporting crude, by not exporting crude. It seems the law needs to be amended to define better what is considered exportable if they want to stop this.
Perhaps they should get rid of the ban altogether? Seriously, with the trade deficit spiraling out of control, it makes no sense at all to ban exports. Rather than question BP for 'getting around' the law, we should question why we have such bad law in the first place.
Agreed. That's why I said 'if they want to stop this'.
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
This is basically the same thing that we saw the other day, when the judge said that Upskirt videos were not against the law. The problem is, there is no shame left in the world, because that is harmful to little sensitive minds.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
No idea what you're talking about. Here's the top line from Wikipedia:
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Fedora is doing the same thing: skirting the law.
The theory was that an unjust law could be ignored. In this case, export laws to certain countries was being skirted by simply not asking where the code came from, wink wink, nod nod.
Perhaps BP thinks the law is "unjust" and thus has a right to ignore the law?
Why can Fedora do this and people applaud it and BP is a villain?
Seems to me sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and allowing people or corporations to selective ignore laws means there is no rule of law, it is rule by mob.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
The world has given too much power to oil- and gas-funded dictatorships.
It is not a coincidence that some of the world's most odious governments are major petroleum producers. Oil revenues can buy off opponents, and allow otherwise disastrous economic policies to continue. Putin and the Saudi Monarchy would both be long gone without money from oil exports to keep them afloat. Venezuela's economy appears to finally be collapsing, despite their oil exports, but that should have happened long ago. The worst cases are countries like Nigeria, that are basically run as kleptocracies, with most of the oil revenue flowing into overseas bank accounts.
The world would be a far better place if more oil was produced in, and exported by, liberal democracies.
You must be pretty naive to think that the "possible abuse hasn't materialized in Finland". First of all, this idea is also present in the German tax code ( 42 AO). It is a constant reason of judicial trouble, and it puts the state above the law - because it only works against the taxpayer and not in other circumstances. It is a clear indication of a cleptocratic government. Second, there are hidden costs: In your example, a couple marrying and then divorcing again is clearly f*cked. Their marriage is lost, and so is their money. And, of course, their belief in justice. Which is the greatest cost of all.
But I know, people with collectivist tendencies see the "state" or "society" as standing above individual justice.
Which is kind of curious to mention. Since speed limits started being enforced all around the world to reduce oil consumption in the 1970s.
They're only breaking the spirit of the law, not the letter.
TL;DR: then write better laws that account for that in the first place.
This sounds like you're somehow upset. Why? No, seriously? Ignoring the fact that I'm an atheist and think spirits only exist inside bottles [but none of mine, they're all empty], why is this a problem?
SAY what you mean, but don't have an unwritten agreement about what it's supposed to mean. Now you can argue all day long over what the meaning of words like "IS" is (at least if your name is Bill), but damnit write the law in an unambiguous way.
If you write it incorrectly then don't be surprised if people interpret it differently. Yes, I know -- companies are evil and always trying to just barely stay on the legal side of the law. Well: GOOD. FOR. THEM. Not everyone was present when it was written and perhaps missed the wink wink nudge nudge dance about it's actual meaning.
If you wanted something else to happen, then it should have been written that way in the first place. If a law is outdated, "wrong", or if you don't like it then get it changed -- but then don't go make and make it retroactive, either. Laws are supposed to enforce certain actions and discourage others, but it's impossible to change PAST actions.
Also, if you have unintended consequences for a law, maybe you should have read/thought about it more before you enacted it. I swear, I think the only ones that actually read a law before it's passed are the flunkies who actually type it in; everyone else goes off what it's SUPPOSED to say.
And (I think) we have too damn many of them -- everyone's a criminal now-a-days. Let's enforce the ones on the books, ditch the ones that are wrong (...from who's standards? But still enforcing them while they're on the books), and reword the ones with problems.
The NSA? Oh, I think they're mostly the good guys. It's the senior level managers that are supposed to keep them in check. But the NSA Chief lied to Congress and they don't hold him accountable, so why should be be surprised when that trickles on down? Hell, you can even see how the lawyers bend things into shape if you read "Privacy" as "No human knows". (If a message is read by a computer and NEVER by a human, is it still private?)
For that matter, why don't "We, the People" hold our own representatives accountable for their (IN-)actions? We're just as bad as them -- even MORE so since we're the ones ultimately responsible for the things being done in our name.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
It's not ever done, but corporate charters can be revoked at the whim of government.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
IMHO, too much focus has been done on the US on the Middle East. In reality, what needs to be the focus is Eastern Europe and the Pacific Rim. A Middle East in turmoil is a norm. A pissing contest between Japan, China, Russia, Singapore, the Koreas, and other nations in the area will be no less than World War 3 with its effects felt worldwide.
Oil is a nice thing to have, but keeping China and Japan from going to war with each other is far more important because that conflict would fundamentally affect the US and Europe's economies.
I'm curious, how much time in court is spent debating wether something was "clearly done" for a specific purpose?
Sometimes I wonder about the US building its own refineries for national security's sake. Not contracted out to some offshore firm, but owned by the Federal government. As of now, refineries are a bottleneck. Oil can be a glut, but gas prices remain high because refineries are at capacity, with no new ones (other than the ones mentioned here) being made. Strategic oil reserves are one thing... but having refining capacity to deal with a disaster at another refinery can be just as critical.
Add more refining capacity into the mix, and this will stabilize what can be a very volatile market which affects virtually every other market. For example, one of the biggest causes of price hikes in everything from milk to airline tickets are fuel prices.
A better question is can congress even ban the export of anything? The Constitution forbids export taxes, is a ban materially different than say a tax of eleventiy billion percent?
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Moreover, unlike creative works, or even manufactured items or services, there is a fixed quantity of petroleum available.
How is that? Songwriters have been found liable of accidental "plagiarism" (copyright infringement without attribution) over having copied an eight-note phrase. Now each note has a length and a pitch, other than the last note in a phrase. The last note in a phrase has no duration because there is no following note, and a phrase can be transposed to end on any note. There are about two distinct lengths (short and long), and seven distinct notes within any scale (do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti). This gives 14 possibilities for all notes but the last, or 14^7 = 105 million possible eight note phrases. How is this not "a fixed quantity"?
Sometimes "maintain[ing] order so things run[s] smoothly" includes a social safety net so that people who have fallen on hard times don't turn to crime just to eat, as depicted in the novel Les Miserables and the film Aladdin, or turn to crime to obtain medical treatment, as depicted in the film John Q.
Venezuela's economy appears to finally be collapsing, despite their oil exports, but that should have happened long ago.
That's because Venezuela's oil exports have been dropping. When the oil industry was nationalized, Chavez installed a bunch of his yes men to run it. Knowing something about the petroleum industry was secondary to being a pro-Chavez stooge. Also, since it was nationalized, the "good enough for government work" mentality takes over and productivity goes down.
there is a lot of anger towards e.g. pedophiles who get round the ban on underage sex by waiting until they are old enough
The trouble is that different constituents have different rules as to what defines "old enough". Some people would apply the rule popularized by F. Hugh Herbert's play The Moon Is Blue of the age difference plus fourteen years, or equivalently half the older partner's age plus seven years. Under this rule, 19 and 17 is OK but 23 and 18 isn't. Others would claim that no age is old enough outside a state-recognized marriage or other domestic partnership.
Hell, don't stop there. Why not ask them why our President is circumventing Congress in order to make up new laws, or edit them, or eliminate them? Or perhaps ask why our Attorney General finds it perfectly acceptable to state publicly that we're just not going to enforce laws he doesn't like.
And it's not a new thing. Not only does government at all levels choose what they will or will not enforce based on political expedience, they also abuse the intent of the law in order to use it as a weapon against their adversaries.
In a very real way industry is simply following the lead of government.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
"It is not a coincidence that some of the world's most odious governments are major petroleum producers. "
The USA is currently no. 3 in terms of oil production at about 10% of the world's total. North Korea is 110th, according to Wikipedia. Just sayin'.
So when I create a song, I am not allowed to enforce how that song will be used, or demand payment for its use?
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
The world would be a far better place if more oil was produced in, and exported by, liberal democracies.
They would probably get less liberal and less democratic as time went on.
See, for a minor example, Margeret Thatcher.
I would choose Margaret Thatcher over Putin any day.
Also, exporting oil seems to work fine for Norway and Canada without turning them into aggressive dictatorships. I agree that oil money corrupts, but when there is a developed society in place, it's not too bad.
This is the exact reason for the Keystone XL pipeline terminating at Houston. It was never for supplying the US domestic market; it is solely for the export of crude (or meta-crude) on the more lucrative international market, resulting in not one penny lower gas prices for consumers.
This is why it's so hard to have respect for the extremist Right supporters: slavishly voting against their own interests in the childish fantasy that by letting billionaires become trillionaires, they themselves - by some inexplicable miracle - will become millionaires instead of the real downward spiral into poverty.
Of course the problem with your example is you don't pay taxes for giving anyone any amount of money.
The Canadian governing Conservative party is currently about to pass the "Fair Elections Act" which is going to disenfranchise many voters, stop Elections Canada from even advertising elections including telling people where they vote, stop Elections Canada from prosecuting campaign overspending and various other irregularities and put in massive loopholes on the political contributions limitations. They already removed all tax funded political funding.
Along with many of their other moves they're totally changing Canada character including making us much more aggressive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
..which was actually a good decision.
As much as people would like it to be otherwise our economy runs on oil. Without cheap oil we'd be living a life not much different than Little House on the Prairie right now. We burn oil now to drive our economy and we will burn oil for another century.
I'm glad that BP found a way around this stupid law, we need to keep the oil that drives our economy flowing or we will have to choose between starving or freezing to death. President Obama is doing everything he can think of to drive out oil and doing next to nothing to find a replacement. Without a replacement to cheap oil we starve.
Sure, he gave gobs of money to people that claimed they could turn sunshine into gold but anyone that took even a glancing look at their business plans would have to know they were just throwing that money away. We need real solutions. We need nuclear power.
I've seen research in fusion power and I think it looks promising if given the freedom to conduct their research and government funds even close to on par with solar. Advanced fission power is even better. People like Flibe Energy have designs that they claim can burn up our existing nuclear waste. It seems that they aren't even asking for government money, just permission to conduct their research.
Wind power has promise IMHO, but it has to be set free from the constraints of government subsidies. There isn't profit in it unless they qualify for government funds so no one is doing any real research in it. Instead of trying to make it profitable through competition they make it profitable by lobbyists.
We'd have all kinds of jobs if only the federal government got out of the way. We'd be building nuclear power plants, oil wells, and windmills. We'd be swimming in cheap energy. It's energy that drives the economy, everything we produce, ship, or compute takes power. Cheap power means cheap everything else. We'd be exporting energy if the government got out of the way. Instead we have to play nice with dictators in far off places. We have to send our young men and women over to these hell holes to die because we just can't seem to figure out that it'd be much cheaper, easier, and safer if we drilled for the oil here instead.
We're going to be importing and exporting oil until we figure out something better to power our way of life. Dumping money into solar panels, windmills, and bio-energy is going to leave us cold, hungry, and poor. We've been subsidizing these things for decades and have little to show for it. Research in nuclear power has brought us a long way. We need more. Mostly we just need government approval, not their money. People know nuclear is safe, clean, and most importantly it is profitable.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
And if you read the sidebar you'll see that its name changed to BP Amoco plc in 1998 and to BP plc in 2001.
Oh god, not this ill-informed tripe again.
They pay the same rates you do on the same types of income. It isn't their fault you put your extra income into alcohol/tobacco/entertainment/toys rather than an investment portfolio.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
You are disputing that people are born with no morals?
What innate morals did you have as an infant?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
The restrictions should stay in place and in fact should be tightened. The US is a net importer of both crude oil and derivative products like gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, lubricant oils etc and should be doing everything it can to supply as much of that demand from domestic supply as possible to reduce the dependance on foreign oil.
Oil shortage would also fundamentally affect the US and Europe's economies by utterly annihilating them, followed by their populations. We're not talking about a bookkeeping problem like the current financial crisis, but an actual total end to almost all production. After all, even France, which runs on nuclear energy, still needs oil to transport goods, including food.
It's fun to live at the end of the era and see the abyss open wide and deep before us, eh? And nothing but windmills and a few failing old nukes to keep our technical civilization, just taking off now, afloat to cross it. And at the same time people like cayenne8 whine when anyone so much as mentions the controls.
Kinda makes one wonder if humanity's not currently encountering the Great Filter.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Yes! And get rid of the import-restriction on sugar while they're at it.
I made up the limitations to approximate the model that a district court judge would use to determine whether two musical phrases are "substantially similar". With which of the made-up limitations do you disagree, and for each, why?
I suppose that for consistency you always refer to Nintendo as Marafuku and AOL as Quantum Computer Services?
So it's not fair to call them by the name they've used for the overwhelming majority of their existence, because they very quickly changed their name, not once but TWICE in 3 years?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
And that makes perfect sense, if selling my one song to one person will allow me to eat and put a roof over my head. But you and I know this isn't true, and you're using this "scarcity" argument to justify you avoiding the burden of spending a whopping $1.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi