"A coalition of minority groups made their objections known as well, saying, 'We are concerned that some of the proposed regulations on the Internet could, as applied, inhibit the goal of universal access and leave disenfranchised communities further behind.'"
Bullshit - "disenfranchised communities" (read "minority")being served now. The reason they are not going into those areas is lack of profit. So how is leaving the ISP's alone going to help that? Or how will net neutrality hurt it?
Of course, there could be another reason. Net Neutrality move ISP's closer to common carrier status. The effect of this will be to LESSEN the amount of pressure these politicians can bring on behalf of their "constituency". If the ISP's are treated as content providers, then the Fairness Doctrine will have more impact when it gets reapplied - they can try to force ATT, Comcast, L3, etc. to manipulate their traffic in a way that promotes "fairness". So the carriers could be forced to, say, throttle traffic from Rush Limbaugh's website so that its traffic level matches, say, Public Radio International (PRI). Or the NRA's website until it matches the Brady campaign.
But if Net Neutrality is the policy, that becomes harder - they'd be saying, in effect, that ISP's could control political speech, but NOT commercial speech. That wouldn't even make it past the District court, much less through appeals and SCOTUS. Net Neutrality would hobble a Fairness Doctrine for the internet, and THAT's why this group doesn't want it.
In the course of this debate, I mentioned it to my publisher Jim Baen. He more or less virtually snorted and expressed the opinion that if one of his authors -- how about you, Eric? -- were willing to put up a book for free online that the resulting publicity would more than offset any losses the author might suffer.
The minute he made the proposal, I realized he was right. After all, Dave Weber's On Basilisk Station has been available for free as a "loss leader" for Baen's for-pay experiment "Webscriptions" for months now. And -- hey, whaddaya know? -- over that time it's become Baen's most popular backlist title in paper!
And so I volunteered my first novel, Mother of Demons, to prove the case. And the next day Mother of Demons went up online, offered to the public for free.
Sure enough, within a day, I received at least half a dozen messages (some posted in public forums, others by private email) from people who told me that, based on hearing about the episode and checking out Mother of Demons, they either had or intended to buy the book. In one or two cases, this was a "gesture of solidarity. "But in most instances, it was because people preferred to read something they liked in a print version and weren't worried about the small cost -- once they saw, through sampling it online, that it was a novel they enjoyed. (Mother of Demons is a $5.99 paperback, available in most bookstores. Yes, that a plug. )
"Surely the publisher provided an editor to clean up the manuscript before publication, thus putting the copyright clearly in the hands of someone besides the author alone."
So does that mean Microsoft gets a piece of my copyright when I run the MS Word Spell Checker?
I'm pretty sure the editor is "work for hire" any way you look at it.
I'm sorry, but were you trying to be funny here? Aside from the fact that laws against fraud already exist, are you seriously advocating bringing the might of a state or federal judiciary system down onto the modern equivalent of a chain letter? Are your parents so weak that they couldn't demand accountability from the other kids parents?
There's a post higher up about people who believe that the law should take care of their needs, whatever they may be. You might want to read that.
Bullshit. I wasn't talking about the Brand X case, where the FCC held the position that cable ISP's were not telecommunications providers. In fact, the Brand X case only arose BECAUSE the 96 law was so effed up.
The point of the 95 act was to get ILECs (the Baby Bells) to open up their lines on a "reasonable and non-discriminatory" basis. But they let the ILECs decide what that meant. So, Verizon could price access so that competitors were at a disadvantage. The FCC tried to challenge that and lost in court. But, to make matters worse, the ILEC's engaged in all sorts of skullduggery to kill off the companies that WERE managing to compete, and the FCC did jack shit to stop them. Clinton's FCC, btw.
So, the cable companies stepped into competitive vacuum that the FCC's neglect had created. The case you cite was a suit by Brand X to treat the cable lines in the same manner as phone lines. Do I agree with the position the FCC took on it? Not really, but it was consistent with that of the previous administration's. And the case was 6-3 - hardly a squeeker. I read the opinions, and the concurrences, and the majority opinion is tortured precisely BECAUSE the underlying law wasn't clear enough. And it's not like Bush's FCC was any great friend to the cable companies in general, but how reasonable is it to force the cable companies to open up their lines when the telcos got a free ride?
Clinton's administration did a LOT of damage to the telecommunications system in the US that we are still dealing with.
"Imagine a law stating that every grocery store must allow other grocery stores to have stalls within their own store. That would present a bizarre conflict of interest because they must help their competitors... and on their own property."
If the "grocery stores" have regional monopolies, yes. For instance, I believe 90-something percent of the telephone poles in America were owned by the old AT&T. They bought the wood, hired the workers, ran the excavation equipment, etc. But ATT was/is REQUIRED to lease out space on those poles on a "reasonable and non-discriminatory basis", with a "reasonable" fee set by the FCC. Why? Because, as a matter of public policy, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to do it that way than to wind up with each service installing its own poles. It's established law, long ago, and was the model Congress was using. BUT, they let the ILEC's determine what was a "reasonable" fee - I wonder why?
"before the Bush administration gutted the rules and gave Verizon its monopoly back.before the Bush administration gutted the rules and gave Verizon its monopoly back."
I was waiting for that one. The FCC stopped enforcing those rules because the ILEC's had "opened" their lines in theory, but then had used every trick in the book to drive their competitors out of business. A ton of independent DSL operators sprung up in the late 90's, but they all disappeared. Why? Because the ILEC's were allowed to charge the DSL operators whatever they wanted for access, and then used dirty tricks to make the service crappy. By 2001-2002, they had almost all gone out of business. The ILEC's maintained their monopoly, legally, all under the watch of the previous FCC.
Open access already is required by law, but the FCC isn't enforcing it. Why? Well, getting past the "It's all Bush's fault" crowd, the law was so poorly written that it was practically unenforceable. The ILECs "opened" their lines to competitors, and then used paperwork, "reasonable" delays, and low level sabotage to ensure that their competitors didn't keep the clients they could get.
The problem isn't the FCC; the problem is a Congress that writes laws consist of
1) broad but vague edicts that are left to the Executive branch to complete ("Stimulus" Plan), and 2) "Disease of the Week" laws that are extremely narrow in response to whatever is in the news right now (banning ANY lead in childrens' items, no matter the exposure risk).
"The machine's software should not be capable of triggering the release of that much radiation; any change in the radiation levels should require some kind of hardware interaction. Even an idiot who did not RTFM should not be able to cause harm with the machine."
It's not nearly as simple as that. For one thing, the problem occurred when the radiologist overrode the existing, tested-as-safe protocols programmed into the machine.
For another, radiation dose is multi-variate - it's strength, time, and target dependent. Depending on the type of imagery, you could have high strength x-rays over a short time, or lower over a longer time. Or focused just on a small section of the brain, or your whole chest. So, with a general purpose machine, you need the capabilities of high power, long duration, and variable focus.
And now for the killer - there is NO SUCH THING as manual control or manual settings on these machines. The "C" in "CT" stands for "Computer". The machine is wholly controlled by software. How do you put a "hardware" interlock on one part of the system and not the others?
I agree 100% that there was a human/software interface problem - although the fact that the radiologists ignored the actual dose display on the machine leads me to think that GE isn't going to have to pay as much as the radiologist in the malpractice suit. But the only reason such diagnostic tools exist is 100% software control.
What the A-Team taught me was that all it takes to build an impregnable armored vehicle is a few empty 50 gallon drums. We'd have this Afghanistan thing wrapped up tomorrow if they could just ship a bunch of vans, empty 50 gal. drums and a welding torch or two over there.
I was more referring to the fact that you can't compel people to behave a certain way when they are free to up and leave. But you have a good point - you can't compel people to join when they don't like the environment. The problem is more intractable than the author thinks.
I will state up front that I believe there is sexism withing the FOSS movement. However...
I actually went back and read his original article (I know - suspend my membership) and the most glaring problem with his argument is his comparison with proprietary software companies. He bemoans that those organizations have a breat many more women, and why can't FOSS do the same? Well, here's some clues:
1) "FOSS" is not an entity. It is a philosophy that is practiced by a number of organizations, some of which hardly merit the term.
2) Backstopping employment of women in the proprietary software world is employment law. Microsoft MUST employ a certain number of women or get into legal trouble. But free software development is done largely by volunteers - very few people are being "employed". Note that I exclude the employees that work on FOSS as part of their position. Should they be excluded? Probably not, but it appears the original author did so, and this is a criticism of his essay.
3) Participants in a FOSS project are largely self selected, with few obstacles or inducements other than personal interest and skill level. In situations like this, people tend to self segregate. That goes for race, gender, interests, whatever. You can't compel someone to participate in a FOSS project they don't like, for whatever reason.
The author is trying to make a case for institutional racism to something that models itself on a completely different model. The "people" who participate in FOSS projects may be sexist, and their actions are probably driving away some women who would otherwise participate. But "institutional" solutions have a problem in that there is no "institution" involved here.
People can be boors, and crude. If the other participants don't censure him, he'll continue. The solution is for individuals to act and speak up. If a lead developer continues to make comments about T&A, and it bugs you, leave - and take a copy of the code with you! In many ways, the ideas behind FOSS make it easier to take a personal stand - you can dissociate yourself without losing your work. I don't know if my ideas will "solve" sexism in FOSS, but you'll feel better about yourself.
"But T-Mobile is in a potentially no-win situation. They obviously have to believe Danger/Microsoft that they have good processes to avoid and recover from such failures. They didn't, and now TMO is probably going to take the hit. On one hand, they should - if the service is important, take responsibility and ensure management. On the other hand, they have good assurances, so hey, how much is enough?"
"This a contract and contract management failure: the contract with the outsource was probably written without specifying that they must do the backups, AND no one established any sort of audit (formal or informal) test to ensure that there _were_ backups being taken and that the outsourcer was performing according to the contract.
Too often, the MBA doing the contract thinks "there, that's handled" once they've gotten all the signatures on the dotted line. "There, backups are handled now" he thinks, because many business folk (not ALL, I don't think it's fair to generalize that far) see these kinds of things as milestones, rather than ongoing processes to be managed."
That goes for a lot more than outsourcing. Construction contracts are a good example.
- In the perfect world, all the subcontractors do their work in accordance with the contract, and project management consists of making sure the procedures are followed.
- In the almost perfect world, sometimes subcontractors don't do their work in accordance with the contract, so you write provisions in on addressing changes to the work and non-performance. The PM is still making sure procedures are followed, but now there are more of them and are more complex.
- In the real world, the PM monitors subcontractor performance and addresses problems as they come up. Why? Because 2 weeks before a building opening is too late to discover a contractor is 2 months behind.
"Gerald Bull designed his "super gun" to put payloads into orbit. He approached the US government with the idea and they rejected it as a launch method but wanted a weapon. Disgusted and disillusioned (he was apparently treated very poorly) his response was to create a truly powerful weapon. Iraq hired him to build one for them. The Mossad killed him in Belgium, a country that exports arms all over the world."
100% unadulterated bullshit. The US Government sponsored his work in HARP, and it set altitude records for guns. The reason why the program was terminated was that HARP showed that putting a satellite into orbit using ballistic means wasn't feasible using the technology at the time. Aside from the fact that the projectiles couldn't make it to orbit, no one had yet figured out a way to have the electronics survive. And the US military didn't want a "supergun" - experience in WWII showed that they weren't tactically effective and were vulnerable.
So Bull lost his funding, but just would not accept that his idea wouldn't work at the time. So he started designing weapons. No one cared, until the Iraqis commissioned him to build one to point at Israel. At this point, one can argue that he stepped over the line - when one is actively working on a weapon that could ONLY be used to hit Israel (it was fixed in place, remember?) one could argue that he went from supplier to combatant. I don't endorse what the Mossad did per se, but portraying Bull as some kind of innocent scientist working for the good of mankind until he was ruined by the machinations of the US Military is ridiculous.
"Why is it you can't sue the makers of vaccines, if the vaccine makes you sick?"
In order for vaccination to "work" - from a public health standpoint - a majority of the population needs to be vaccinated. (I think the number's 75%.) If you are giving that many people a shot someone is going to get sick, even if there is nothing "wrong" with the vaccine. Add to that the fact that vaccines are a low margin product - per the supply/demand curve, it needs to be cheap as possible so the most people will get it.
So, you have a product that: 1) will definitely make someone sick and/or kill them 2) You are barely making any money on it 3) there is no "informed consent" defense - most vaccines are mandated.
Why would any company make such a product when they will inevitable get sued for far more than the profit from it? No one would. So the US government, in order to induce the production of vaccines, gave vaccine manufacturers immunity from suit and set up a fund to compensate the people they KNOW will be hurt.
Short answer - you can't sue for injury from a vaccine because, if you could, there would be no vaccines.
"Jimmy Carter holds a degree in nuclear engineering. But refresh my memory, didn't Three Mile Island happen when he was President? If so, I think that probably had a lot to do with the directive."
Yes, and that's what makes it more despicable. He KNEW the value in reprocessing, he KNEW reprocessing had absolutely nothing to do with TMI, and he went and did it anyway to appease certain political forces.
I also hold him up as a reminder to those on/. who complain about the lack of engineers in politics. The USNA is no slouch school - he was an engineer when he started out. But by the time he got to national level politics, it didn't mean a thing.
"However, it may be abusing its monopoly position by denying others entry into the market."
Not exactly. IBM made an agreement with the DOJ to license their mainframe software out to alternate hardware vendors. But that is NOT the only way into the mainframe market. It is the only way into "IBM OS" market. It allows customers to say I want to keep all my applications and software, etc., but migrate them to cheaper hardware.
"It's another to decontaminate the livingroom, car, Starbucks counter the guy stopped at for his coffee, etc, because he got liquid radioactive semiconductor on his fingers and wiped it on his pants."
The US has tons of the stuff that we can tap as an alternative energy source. It gets produced as a byproduct of nuclear power generation, mixed in with the spent fuel.
Which is just sitting there.
Decaying.
And we may not reprocess it because of a directive by former President Jimmy Carter, who was afraid of "nucular proliferation" (yes, he pronounced it that way too).
Can somebody, ANYBODY, hit our Nobel Prize winning President upside the head and get him to void that EO? Please?
Slashdot Mirror
Bullshit - "disenfranchised communities" (read "minority")being served now. The reason they are not going into those areas is lack of profit. So how is leaving the ISP's alone going to help that? Or how will net neutrality hurt it?
Of course, there could be another reason. Net Neutrality move ISP's closer to common carrier status. The effect of this will be to LESSEN the amount of pressure these politicians can bring on behalf of their "constituency". If the ISP's are treated as content providers, then the Fairness Doctrine will have more impact when it gets reapplied - they can try to force ATT, Comcast, L3, etc. to manipulate their traffic in a way that promotes "fairness". So the carriers could be forced to, say, throttle traffic from Rush Limbaugh's website so that its traffic level matches, say, Public Radio International (PRI). Or the NRA's website until it matches the Brady campaign.
But if Net Neutrality is the policy, that becomes harder - they'd be saying, in effect, that ISP's could control political speech, but NOT commercial speech. That wouldn't even make it past the District court, much less through appeals and SCOTUS. Net Neutrality would hobble a Fairness Doctrine for the internet, and THAT's why this group doesn't want it.
He may not have, but Eric Flint has.
http://www.baen.com/library/
Exerpt:
I prefer to think of Abbie this way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbie_Hoffman#Controversy_at_Woodstock
"Surely the publisher provided an editor to clean up the manuscript before publication, thus putting the copyright clearly in the hands of someone besides the author alone."
So does that mean Microsoft gets a piece of my copyright when I run the MS Word Spell Checker?
I'm pretty sure the editor is "work for hire" any way you look at it.
I'm sorry, but were you trying to be funny here? Aside from the fact that laws against fraud already exist, are you seriously advocating bringing the might of a state or federal judiciary system down onto the modern equivalent of a chain letter? Are your parents so weak that they couldn't demand accountability from the other kids parents?
There's a post higher up about people who believe that the law should take care of their needs, whatever they may be. You might want to read that.
Bullshit. I wasn't talking about the Brand X case, where the FCC held the position that cable ISP's were not telecommunications providers. In fact, the Brand X case only arose BECAUSE the 96 law was so effed up.
The point of the 95 act was to get ILECs (the Baby Bells) to open up their lines on a "reasonable and non-discriminatory" basis. But they let the ILECs decide what that meant. So, Verizon could price access so that competitors were at a disadvantage. The FCC tried to challenge that and lost in court. But, to make matters worse, the ILEC's engaged in all sorts of skullduggery to kill off the companies that WERE managing to compete, and the FCC did jack shit to stop them. Clinton's FCC, btw.
So, the cable companies stepped into competitive vacuum that the FCC's neglect had created. The case you cite was a suit by Brand X to treat the cable lines in the same manner as phone lines. Do I agree with the position the FCC took on it? Not really, but it was consistent with that of the previous administration's. And the case was 6-3 - hardly a squeeker. I read the opinions, and the concurrences, and the majority opinion is tortured precisely BECAUSE the underlying law wasn't clear enough. And it's not like Bush's FCC was any great friend to the cable companies in general, but how reasonable is it to force the cable companies to open up their lines when the telcos got a free ride?
Clinton's administration did a LOT of damage to the telecommunications system in the US that we are still dealing with.
"Imagine a law stating that every grocery store must allow other grocery stores to have stalls within their own store. That would present a bizarre conflict of interest because they must help their competitors... and on their own property."
If the "grocery stores" have regional monopolies, yes. For instance, I believe 90-something percent of the telephone poles in America were owned by the old AT&T. They bought the wood, hired the workers, ran the excavation equipment, etc. But ATT was/is REQUIRED to lease out space on those poles on a "reasonable and non-discriminatory basis", with a "reasonable" fee set by the FCC. Why? Because, as a matter of public policy, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to do it that way than to wind up with each service installing its own poles. It's established law, long ago, and was the model Congress was using. BUT, they let the ILEC's determine what was a "reasonable" fee - I wonder why?
I was waiting for that one. The FCC stopped enforcing those rules because the ILEC's had "opened" their lines in theory, but then had used every trick in the book to drive their competitors out of business. A ton of independent DSL operators sprung up in the late 90's, but they all disappeared. Why? Because the ILEC's were allowed to charge the DSL operators whatever they wanted for access, and then used dirty tricks to make the service crappy. By 2001-2002, they had almost all gone out of business. The ILEC's maintained their monopoly, legally, all under the watch of the previous FCC.
Open access already is required by law, but the FCC isn't enforcing it. Why? Well, getting past the "It's all Bush's fault" crowd, the law was so poorly written that it was practically unenforceable. The ILECs "opened" their lines to competitors, and then used paperwork, "reasonable" delays, and low level sabotage to ensure that their competitors didn't keep the clients they could get.
The problem isn't the FCC; the problem is a Congress that writes laws consist of
1) broad but vague edicts that are left to the Executive branch to complete ("Stimulus" Plan), and
2) "Disease of the Week" laws that are extremely narrow in response to whatever is in the news right now (banning ANY lead in childrens' items, no matter the exposure risk).
The kind where the company who receives the contract is located in a particular Representative's district.
"The machine's software should not be capable of triggering the release of that much radiation; any change in the radiation levels should require some kind of hardware interaction. Even an idiot who did not RTFM should not be able to cause harm with the machine."
It's not nearly as simple as that. For one thing, the problem occurred when the radiologist overrode the existing, tested-as-safe protocols programmed into the machine.
For another, radiation dose is multi-variate - it's strength, time, and target dependent. Depending on the type of imagery, you could have high strength x-rays over a short time, or lower over a longer time. Or focused just on a small section of the brain, or your whole chest. So, with a general purpose machine, you need the capabilities of high power, long duration, and variable focus.
And now for the killer - there is NO SUCH THING as manual control or manual settings on these machines. The "C" in "CT" stands for "Computer". The machine is wholly controlled by software. How do you put a "hardware" interlock on one part of the system and not the others?
I agree 100% that there was a human/software interface problem - although the fact that the radiologists ignored the actual dose display on the machine leads me to think that GE isn't going to have to pay as much as the radiologist in the malpractice suit. But the only reason such diagnostic tools exist is 100% software control.
Don't forget Murdock. Or rather Barclay.
(See how I brought it back on topic? Slick, no?)
I was more referring to the fact that you can't compel people to behave a certain way when they are free to up and leave. But you have a good point - you can't compel people to join when they don't like the environment. The problem is more intractable than the author thinks.
Yeah - it makes me think like there might be something different obout corporate employment and volunteerism.
Perhaps some kind of laws that requires the former to hire a certain indeterminate number of women or be sued.
And perhaps run by some government entity. A commission, perhaps. And it could be called "Equal Employment" or some-such.
It IS a self correcting problem - the bubble burst was the correction. We just don't want to live with the consequences.
I will state up front that I believe there is sexism withing the FOSS movement. However...
I actually went back and read his original article (I know - suspend my membership) and the most glaring problem with his argument is his comparison with proprietary software companies. He bemoans that those organizations have a breat many more women, and why can't FOSS do the same? Well, here's some clues:
1) "FOSS" is not an entity. It is a philosophy that is practiced by a number of organizations, some of which hardly merit the term.
2) Backstopping employment of women in the proprietary software world is employment law. Microsoft MUST employ a certain number of women or get into legal trouble. But free software development is done largely by volunteers - very few people are being "employed". Note that I exclude the employees that work on FOSS as part of their position. Should they be excluded? Probably not, but it appears the original author did so, and this is a criticism of his essay.
3) Participants in a FOSS project are largely self selected, with few obstacles or inducements other than personal interest and skill level. In situations like this, people tend to self segregate. That goes for race, gender, interests, whatever. You can't compel someone to participate in a FOSS project they don't like, for whatever reason.
The author is trying to make a case for institutional racism to something that models itself on a completely different model. The "people" who participate in FOSS projects may be sexist, and their actions are probably driving away some women who would otherwise participate. But "institutional" solutions have a problem in that there is no "institution" involved here.
People can be boors, and crude. If the other participants don't censure him, he'll continue. The solution is for individuals to act and speak up. If a lead developer continues to make comments about T&A, and it bugs you, leave - and take a copy of the code with you! In many ways, the ideas behind FOSS make it easier to take a personal stand - you can dissociate yourself without losing your work. I don't know if my ideas will "solve" sexism in FOSS, but you'll feel better about yourself.
3 words: "Trust, but verify"
That goes for a lot more than outsourcing. Construction contracts are a good example.
- In the perfect world, all the subcontractors do their work in accordance with the contract, and project management consists of making sure the procedures are followed.
- In the almost perfect world, sometimes subcontractors don't do their work in accordance with the contract, so you write provisions in on addressing changes to the work and non-performance. The PM is still making sure procedures are followed, but now there are more of them and are more complex.
- In the real world, the PM monitors subcontractor performance and addresses problems as they come up. Why? Because 2 weeks before a building opening is too late to discover a contractor is 2 months behind.
"Gerald Bull designed his "super gun" to put payloads into orbit. He approached the US government with the idea and they rejected it as a launch method but wanted a weapon. Disgusted and disillusioned (he was apparently treated very poorly) his response was to create a truly powerful weapon. Iraq hired him to build one for them. The Mossad killed him in Belgium, a country that exports arms all over the world."
100% unadulterated bullshit. The US Government sponsored his work in HARP, and it set altitude records for guns. The reason why the program was terminated was that HARP showed that putting a satellite into orbit using ballistic means wasn't feasible using the technology at the time. Aside from the fact that the projectiles couldn't make it to orbit, no one had yet figured out a way to have the electronics survive. And the US military didn't want a "supergun" - experience in WWII showed that they weren't tactically effective and were vulnerable.
So Bull lost his funding, but just would not accept that his idea wouldn't work at the time. So he started designing weapons. No one cared, until the Iraqis commissioned him to build one to point at Israel. At this point, one can argue that he stepped over the line - when one is actively working on a weapon that could ONLY be used to hit Israel (it was fixed in place, remember?) one could argue that he went from supplier to combatant. I don't endorse what the Mossad did per se, but portraying Bull as some kind of innocent scientist working for the good of mankind until he was ruined by the machinations of the US Military is ridiculous.
"Why is it you can't sue the makers of vaccines, if the vaccine makes you sick?"
In order for vaccination to "work" - from a public health standpoint - a majority of the population needs to be vaccinated. (I think the number's 75%.) If you are giving that many people a shot someone is going to get sick, even if there is nothing "wrong" with the vaccine. Add to that the fact that vaccines are a low margin product - per the supply/demand curve, it needs to be cheap as possible so the most people will get it.
So, you have a product that:
1) will definitely make someone sick and/or kill them
2) You are barely making any money on it
3) there is no "informed consent" defense - most vaccines are mandated.
Why would any company make such a product when they will inevitable get sued for far more than the profit from it? No one would. So the US government, in order to induce the production of vaccines, gave vaccine manufacturers immunity from suit and set up a fund to compensate the people they KNOW will be hurt.
Short answer - you can't sue for injury from a vaccine because, if you could, there would be no vaccines.
"Jimmy Carter holds a degree in nuclear engineering. But refresh my memory, didn't Three Mile Island happen when he was President? If so, I think that probably had a lot to do with the directive."
Yes, and that's what makes it more despicable. He KNEW the value in reprocessing, he KNEW reprocessing had absolutely nothing to do with TMI, and he went and did it anyway to appease certain political forces.
I also hold him up as a reminder to those on /. who complain about the lack of engineers in politics. The USNA is no slouch school - he was an engineer when he started out. But by the time he got to national level politics, it didn't mean a thing.
"However, it may be abusing its monopoly position by denying others entry into the market."
Not exactly. IBM made an agreement with the DOJ to license their mainframe software out to alternate hardware vendors. But that is NOT the only way into the mainframe market. It is the only way into "IBM OS" market. It allows customers to say I want to keep all my applications and software, etc., but migrate them to cheaper hardware.
"It's another to decontaminate the livingroom, car, Starbucks counter the guy stopped at for his coffee, etc, because he got liquid radioactive semiconductor on his fingers and wiped it on his pants."
You mean like they do with mercury, now?
You mean like how Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) imaging was renamed Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in the health care market?
I say we go back to Atomic.
The US has tons of the stuff that we can tap as an alternative energy source. It gets produced as a byproduct of nuclear power generation, mixed in with the spent fuel.
Which is just sitting there.
Decaying.
And we may not reprocess it because of a directive by former President Jimmy Carter, who was afraid of "nucular proliferation" (yes, he pronounced it that way too).
Can somebody, ANYBODY, hit our Nobel Prize winning President upside the head and get him to void that EO? Please?