The story is self-congratulatory and implies that the authorities only did their job because of the publicity on the issue. While it is true that the authorities only acted because of the original story, there is no evidence that once they were made aware of the story that they did not move at a deliberate pace in order to determine how widespread the infraction was and to prosecute it. The fact of the matter is that depending on how the plant was set up, there would have been no reason for a government official to observe the pollution. That is the only reason that they needed the original story in order to act. They had to know there was something to act on.
AT&T, before Judge Greene, was the biggest company in the world by any measure (revenue, assets, market cap). They had become a monopoly through the actions of the federal government. When AT&T was broken up, everybody thought the big money was in long distance.
You are correct that the tax laws should be simplified, but I am not sure how that would correct the problem of the government spending money on things it should not be spending money on. Our problem in this country is NOT insufficient government revenue. Our problem is excessive government spending.
The telcos were independent, and a long distance network consisted of AT&T, ITT, and others.
AT&T WAS the phone company. Oh, there were a handful of tiny, independent telephone companies, but for the most part everybody in the U.S. had AT&T (you know Mama Bell). If it wasn't for Judge Greene, there would not have been any Baby Bells to consolidate. They would all still be AT&T.
Sure, that will go over well...right after the country that subsidiary is located in agrees to stop taxing it. Of course, if you pass that law and get other countries to agree to not tax the subsidiaries, pretty soon the "parent" company will be based in a no-tax country.
When government spending is at a level where the bulk of it is for things that the overwhelming majority agree are important things for the government to do, then you would be correct that tax avoidance is wrong. However, the world we currently live in has few if any countries where the overwhelming majority agree that the bulk of government spending is on important things for the government to spend money on. There may be disagreement as to what the important things are, and you might not be able to get a majority to agree to cut any one thing (although I am pretty sure that if Congress were to start passing spending bills that each contained only one thing, the budget would drop in size overnight--not just because they would never have time to pass all of the bills).
I did not say that I was for people taking advantage of uninformed consumers. I said that people should be free to do so. However, fraud goes beyond taking advantage of uninformed consumers. Fraud involves misinforming people.
Sort of like how the U.S. has spent the last 10 years "reconfiguring" Southeast Asia by arming various nasty people and is now busy deploying troops and carrier fleets around the pacific?
Such as? I have not been following what is going on in Southeast Asia very closely, but my over all impression has been that the political configuration of the region as it existed in the 80s and 90s suited U.S. interests in the region. Which makes me skeptical of claims that the U.S. is attempting to destabilize the region, but feel free to enlighten me (I am well aware that some political figures in the U.S. act in ways that are not in what I perceive to be the best interests of the U.S., for that matter there have certainly been those who clearly did not act in the best interests of the U.S. in the past and there will be such in the future).
That sounds like what socialist economist in Karl Marx mold like to say.
Except that they want there to be laws to make it so. I do not. I believe that people should be free to take advantage of uninformed consumers. However, I also believe that everybody will be better off in the long run if merchants do not do so (even the merchants). I am going to quote from the Anonymous Coward who replied to you in case you do not see his reply. He did a very good job of laying out part of the point I was making. First,
You didn't understand what he was saying. He will at some point become aware that he is being fooled and then he will spend his time on defeating the merchants' individual pricing. That is time spent on doing something entirely unproductive for anyone. The other person who is "able to spend money more efficiently" is in fact spending it less efficiently if he is using too much of his time on comparing prices. That effort just goes into a black hole.
Yes, exactly this. Time spent figuring out the ways in which a merchant is attempting to get me pay more for a product than he is willing to sell it for is time that I could instead spend doing something productive.
Second,
He is saying that he wants everyone to be an informed customer in order for the economy to better approximate the capitalistic ideal of a competitive market and he wants to minimize the effort that needs to be wasted on becoming sufficiently well informed.
I think that speaks for itself in light of the first quote.
China will squash NK like a gnat if they threaten regional stability...
No, China will use NK to destabilize the region in order to "re-stabilize" it in a configuration more to China's liking. Unfortunately for the world, there is no such stable configuration.
It is bad for the economy. It means that I have to spend extra time making sure that I am not spending more for an item than I need to. I may be willing to spend more for an airline ticket to a particular destination than you are, but if I end up spending that greater amount, that is money I do not have to spend on something else. The optimal pricing structure is one where merchants sell their goods at the same price to everyone and set that price at the lowest price that makes it worth their while to bring the goods to market.
I do not believe that this is something that should be mandated by law, but I do believe the attempt to scrape the maximum amount of profit out of every transaction creates economic inefficiency.
The people who redefined the original words to make them mean something else will just redefine the new words to the same effect. Define "direct manipulation of genes". I believe that I know what you mean, but if you are going to make a law, you must define it in a way that cannot be distorted by those seeking to profit from the distortion (whether corporations who want to make something you intended to be "genetic modification" not be genetic modification, or lawyers looking to sue someone over something as genetically modified that you never intended to be considered genetically modified).
Write that definition so that a lawyer is not able to use it to sue someone for violating it with a a plant or animal product from a plant or animal produced by selective pollination or breeding in a lab. What if someone alters the genetic structure but does not do it in what is defined as a laboratory? What exactly is the definition of a laboratory?
If you do not understand the problem with words that "everybody knows what they means", just look at the discussion over "assault weapons". An "assault rifle" is traditionally defined as a "selective fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine". "Assault weapons" on the other hand are weapons that some people think look like assault rifles, even though they have no functional equivalence.
Why not? If a genetically engineered food had exactly the same threat level as peanuts, do you believe it would have a chance of getting approved for human consumption?
So, I guess you don't eat any food. Since that is the best standard we have for any food. It is not possible to scientifically arrive at "will not pose a threat." There are only two possible scientific answers when discussing safety: "will cause harm" and "does not appear to cause harm". Those are your choices.
You do know that many foods that humans have eaten for centuries have been discovered to pose a threat in recent years? I have no objection to labeling foods that have been genetically engineered by modern techniques, but exactly how are you going to define that? I take it you do not eat corn? That is a "Biotech" food by certain definitions of the term "Biotech" (including some of the definitions used by those opposing "Biotech" foods).
I hope you enjoy it when a few of his buddies come home and take you to the hospital after you trip, fall, and break a few bones when they come up to you thank you for your part in baking those wonderful cookies. Perhaps no one ever told you that it is a really bad idea to piss off someone who kills people for a living.
I believe that they are planning on placing this in Earth orbit, since the summary mentions capturing an asteroid that is between the Earth and the Moon.
a, 'asteroid capture capsule' would be attached to an old Atlas V rocket and directed towards the asteroid between the earth and the moon. Once close, the asteroid capsule would release a 50ft diameter bag that wrap around the spinning rock using drawstrings. The craft would then turn on its thrusters, using an estimated 300kg of propellant, to stop the asteroid in its tracks and tow it into a gravitationally neutral spot.
Generally, when we talk about calories in terms of nutrition we are not talking about the amount of energy in the food like we would talk about when we talk about fuels such as gasoline. The term calories when used in nutrition is actually kilocalories AND it refers to the amount of energy that can extracted by the digestive tract. So, this study (and several previous ones) have observed that some people can extract more calories from food than the normal amount that is calculated. So, to rephrase my original example. Person A, who does not have these bacteria, can extract 500 calories from a meal that Person B, who has these bacteria, can extract 750 calories from.
Now the question is, are you stupid, or just deliberately obtuse?
Slashdot Mirror
The story is self-congratulatory and implies that the authorities only did their job because of the publicity on the issue. While it is true that the authorities only acted because of the original story, there is no evidence that once they were made aware of the story that they did not move at a deliberate pace in order to determine how widespread the infraction was and to prosecute it. The fact of the matter is that depending on how the plant was set up, there would have been no reason for a government official to observe the pollution. That is the only reason that they needed the original story in order to act. They had to know there was something to act on.
AT&T, before Judge Greene, was the biggest company in the world by any measure (revenue, assets, market cap). They had become a monopoly through the actions of the federal government. When AT&T was broken up, everybody thought the big money was in long distance.
You are correct that the tax laws should be simplified, but I am not sure how that would correct the problem of the government spending money on things it should not be spending money on. Our problem in this country is NOT insufficient government revenue. Our problem is excessive government spending.
You're funny. The last string of balanced budgets was under Clinton.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CBO_-_Revenues_and_Outlays_as_percent_GDP.png
Which were not passed by Democrats. The Republicans controlled Congress at the time.
The telcos were independent, and a long distance network consisted of AT&T, ITT, and others.
AT&T WAS the phone company. Oh, there were a handful of tiny, independent telephone companies, but for the most part everybody in the U.S. had AT&T (you know Mama Bell). If it wasn't for Judge Greene, there would not have been any Baby Bells to consolidate. They would all still be AT&T.
Sure, that will go over well...right after the country that subsidiary is located in agrees to stop taxing it. Of course, if you pass that law and get other countries to agree to not tax the subsidiaries, pretty soon the "parent" company will be based in a no-tax country.
When government spending is at a level where the bulk of it is for things that the overwhelming majority agree are important things for the government to do, then you would be correct that tax avoidance is wrong. However, the world we currently live in has few if any countries where the overwhelming majority agree that the bulk of government spending is on important things for the government to spend money on. There may be disagreement as to what the important things are, and you might not be able to get a majority to agree to cut any one thing (although I am pretty sure that if Congress were to start passing spending bills that each contained only one thing, the budget would drop in size overnight--not just because they would never have time to pass all of the bills).
I did not say that I was for people taking advantage of uninformed consumers. I said that people should be free to do so. However, fraud goes beyond taking advantage of uninformed consumers. Fraud involves misinforming people.
Sort of like how the U.S. has spent the last 10 years "reconfiguring" Southeast Asia by arming various nasty people and is now busy deploying troops and carrier fleets around the pacific?
Such as? I have not been following what is going on in Southeast Asia very closely, but my over all impression has been that the political configuration of the region as it existed in the 80s and 90s suited U.S. interests in the region. Which makes me skeptical of claims that the U.S. is attempting to destabilize the region, but feel free to enlighten me (I am well aware that some political figures in the U.S. act in ways that are not in what I perceive to be the best interests of the U.S., for that matter there have certainly been those who clearly did not act in the best interests of the U.S. in the past and there will be such in the future).
That sounds like what socialist economist in Karl Marx mold like to say.
Except that they want there to be laws to make it so. I do not. I believe that people should be free to take advantage of uninformed consumers. However, I also believe that everybody will be better off in the long run if merchants do not do so (even the merchants). I am going to quote from the Anonymous Coward who replied to you in case you do not see his reply. He did a very good job of laying out part of the point I was making. First,
You didn't understand what he was saying. He will at some point become aware that he is being fooled and then he will spend his time on defeating the merchants' individual pricing. That is time spent on doing something entirely unproductive for anyone. The other person who is "able to spend money more efficiently" is in fact spending it less efficiently if he is using too much of his time on comparing prices. That effort just goes into a black hole.
Yes, exactly this. Time spent figuring out the ways in which a merchant is attempting to get me pay more for a product than he is willing to sell it for is time that I could instead spend doing something productive.
Second,
He is saying that he wants everyone to be an informed customer in order for the economy to better approximate the capitalistic ideal of a competitive market and he wants to minimize the effort that needs to be wasted on becoming sufficiently well informed.
I think that speaks for itself in light of the first quote.
China will squash NK like a gnat if they threaten regional stability...
No, China will use NK to destabilize the region in order to "re-stabilize" it in a configuration more to China's liking. Unfortunately for the world, there is no such stable configuration.
It is bad for the economy. It means that I have to spend extra time making sure that I am not spending more for an item than I need to. I may be willing to spend more for an airline ticket to a particular destination than you are, but if I end up spending that greater amount, that is money I do not have to spend on something else. The optimal pricing structure is one where merchants sell their goods at the same price to everyone and set that price at the lowest price that makes it worth their while to bring the goods to market.
I do not believe that this is something that should be mandated by law, but I do believe the attempt to scrape the maximum amount of profit out of every transaction creates economic inefficiency.
Well, yes, since non-serious peanut allergies do not represent a threat, of course it is serious peanut allergies.
Considering the history of human consumption of food, WWII is "recent years". The awareness of serious peanut allergies is post-WWII.
The people who redefined the original words to make them mean something else will just redefine the new words to the same effect. Define "direct manipulation of genes". I believe that I know what you mean, but if you are going to make a law, you must define it in a way that cannot be distorted by those seeking to profit from the distortion (whether corporations who want to make something you intended to be "genetic modification" not be genetic modification, or lawyers looking to sue someone over something as genetically modified that you never intended to be considered genetically modified).
Write that definition so that a lawyer is not able to use it to sue someone for violating it with a a plant or animal product from a plant or animal produced by selective pollination or breeding in a lab. What if someone alters the genetic structure but does not do it in what is defined as a laboratory? What exactly is the definition of a laboratory?
If you do not understand the problem with words that "everybody knows what they means", just look at the discussion over "assault weapons". An "assault rifle" is traditionally defined as a "selective fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine". "Assault weapons" on the other hand are weapons that some people think look like assault rifles, even though they have no functional equivalence.
Why not? If a genetically engineered food had exactly the same threat level as peanuts, do you believe it would have a chance of getting approved for human consumption?
THe answer to your question is, NO, I have not heard about credible studies where mice developed cancer after being fed with GMO.
Peanuts is an example. For most people they are a great food, for a significant subset, they are deadly.
So, I guess you don't eat any food. Since that is the best standard we have for any food. It is not possible to scientifically arrive at "will not pose a threat." There are only two possible scientific answers when discussing safety: "will cause harm" and "does not appear to cause harm". Those are your choices.
You do know that many foods that humans have eaten for centuries have been discovered to pose a threat in recent years? I have no objection to labeling foods that have been genetically engineered by modern techniques, but exactly how are you going to define that? I take it you do not eat corn? That is a "Biotech" food by certain definitions of the term "Biotech" (including some of the definitions used by those opposing "Biotech" foods).
I hope you enjoy it when a few of his buddies come home and take you to the hospital after you trip, fall, and break a few bones when they come up to you thank you for your part in baking those wonderful cookies. Perhaps no one ever told you that it is a really bad idea to piss off someone who kills people for a living.
I believe that they are planning on placing this in Earth orbit, since the summary mentions capturing an asteroid that is between the Earth and the Moon.
a, 'asteroid capture capsule' would be attached to an old Atlas V rocket and directed towards the asteroid between the earth and the moon. Once close, the asteroid capsule would release a 50ft diameter bag that wrap around the spinning rock using drawstrings. The craft would then turn on its thrusters, using an estimated 300kg of propellant, to stop the asteroid in its tracks and tow it into a gravitationally neutral spot.
Generally, when we talk about calories in terms of nutrition we are not talking about the amount of energy in the food like we would talk about when we talk about fuels such as gasoline. The term calories when used in nutrition is actually kilocalories AND it refers to the amount of energy that can extracted by the digestive tract. So, this study (and several previous ones) have observed that some people can extract more calories from food than the normal amount that is calculated. So, to rephrase my original example. Person A, who does not have these bacteria, can extract 500 calories from a meal that Person B, who has these bacteria, can extract 750 calories from.
Now the question is, are you stupid, or just deliberately obtuse?