It's a little more complicated then that. The government of the area actually planted this seed in their minds.
on this site, under the heading Department of Education (DoE) Tasmania They place two sentences in the same paragraph that says
"This site presents information for school communities about the criminal offence of cyber bullying. Students should be informed that if they use technology in an inappropriate fashion then they could be committing a crime."
I have yet to find the actual site they are referring to, but it appears, at least from that site where they are reporting their efforts, that the Tasmanian police are suggesting the complaints should be made because cyber bullying could be criminal.
It is their own fault for implying they can do something.
According to this site they host or work with other sites to inform kids that what they are complaining about could be a crime. It's right there under the header "Department of Education (DoE) Tasmania"
"This site presents information for school communities about the criminal offense of cyber bullying. Students should be informed that if they use technology in an inappropriate fashion then they could be committing a crime."
My guess is that some people were sleeping in class when instructed on this, or some people got mad at comments posted and looked to find what could be done to discover that "It might be a criminal offense" connected to "cyber bullying" and considered the comments that offended them as bullying and a criminal offense.
This is probably why it's the Tasmania police taking this unusual step too.
I wasn't speaking to the article, I was expounding on the parent's claim of efficiencies and explaining why it would be efficient to store energy instead of manipulating the production.
Also, think about utility corridors in large building where an electrical fire or something of the sorts are a danger. Using gasses or toxic chemicals might present a danger to humans still inside the building. Mount a few rails with speakers connected and send them to the hot spot as needed.
Or use something like this and line evacuation routes people would take in case of fire helping ensure an open escape path for longer periods of time.
Not really speculators. Electric utilities have several rates it costs them for the power they generate or obtain and sell to the consumer. They are classified as base, peak, and overages of either.
They determine their base usage which can be done relatively easily and purchase or generate that much plus 10 or 15 % (I forget what the demand surplus by law was last time I checked but this is needed at all times to avoid brownouts and so on). They only purchase or produce enough energy to supply this needed amount the majority of the time. Excess energy is either sold to other utilities or not purchased. This is the cheapest rate by far because it can be purchased by long term contracts and the generation facility can be running at max performance at all times.
The next rate is the peak usages which is similar to the base but only applies during the peak times electricity will be used. It's a bit more expensive because peak times are generally within hours of each other all across the nation. This means that an electric producer somewhere has to have generating capacity on standby for these times and not in use for others. Of course if you have generating capacity and the investment needed to procure it, maintain it, and transmit it, you would do it all the time to get the benefits of economic of scale (producing 1000 units for sale with the same devices instead of 100 units). But because this is only needed for a relatively short period of time, the generation costs lost by not being needed the other times is recaptured in the increased pricing for the peak costs. This is also subject to long term planning so long term contracts can secure cheaper prices then the third type of energy, the overage type.
The overage type of energy a utility needs to purchase is all amounts of energy in excess of the base or peak estimates not covered by an existing contract and is purchased as needed when needed. This is the most expensive because someone has invested in a generation facility that doesn't make much money unless utilities plan poorly or something happens outside their control or expectations. This down time is also recaptured in the pricing. An example of when this is needed is when there is a heat wave and not only is everyone running their Air conditioners set on max, but they are turning on fans and everything else they can think of to keep cool. Perhaps a sale on plug in electric cars added to the load for a specific utility in a short period of time on top of that and everyone plugs in when they get home from their 9-5 job. Or there is a rash of burglaries and everyone is increasing their outside lighting and leaving more lights on at night in order to avoid being a victim. Whether the utility is on base or peak at the time, the amount of excess or overage capacity that needs to be available is purchased as needed and at the highest prices they have to pay for electricity to sell to their consumers.
All that is figured into your rates when you get a bill and isn't really obvious. The term overage might be the wrong term to use (I'm thinking it might be something else but am too lazy to look it up). Some utilities separate peak rates from base rates and charge more for peak to give you an option of trimming your usage during the peak. But buying on base rates and reselling on peak or even overage rates is sort of how the entire electrical utility industry operates except energy storage techniques haven't traditionally made it practical. It is the same concept except that the source fuel is separate by a conversion factor (natural gas or coal converted to electricity to be stored as compressed air to be converted back to electricity) instead of being converted to electricity only once.
This type of pricing to the utility is also something that makes the usage of solar and wind power difficult to use. Maybe if this project proves useful and profitable, alternative energy could use compressed air storage to store it's production and sell in the same ways to get around the problems of compet
I just want to add something that might be escaping some people.
Most natural gas generators on the scale of a public utility use a turbine engine which means that it's efficiency concerning getting work from the fuel used is pretty much in a narrow spot close to peak production. If you wind it down to generate less electricity it becomes less efficient and degrades the engine components faster so it's avoided. If you keep it in it's peak range but turn the generation down, you are being almost as wasteful as if the machine was producing full bore all the time whether it was needed or not.
This is even true for traditional internal combustion engines like in your car or motorcycles where it is geared so that your cruising range is between a certain RPM in order to take advantage of it. Outside that range is a little less efficient but isn't as pronounced as it is when you are dealing with an engine producing thousands of horsepower to drive gigantic generators.
What this compressed air storage does is allow the generation to be controlled by something that can be turned up or down easily as demand increases or decreases (compresses air) and the natural gas portion of it operates in the peak efficiency range of converting fuel to useful work when it is running.
how much of this translates into savings or overall efficiency improvements is something I don't know, But it seems to be enough (on paper at least) to throw millions of dollars at.
I'm sorry but this just isn't true and isn't relative to the situation being discussed. I know many of scientists who have restrictions on them due to work place rules. Some of these restrictions is about disclosing information only to certain people, some are about using data only from certain sources, some are about reviewing and or evaluating specific parts of something and they are expected to ignore the others. They do not like these restrictions, but they take the work and get compensated for it.
When you are a professional seeking employment, your first responsibility is to do your job the way it was described when you agreed to employment. If during that time, you find something wrong happening or something illegal, perhaps dangerous to the public or even workplace safety, you have a duty to report it to the proper authorities. You do not have a right to disclose confidential documents or trade secretes or anything outside of the extent of reporting the claimed offenses to the proper authorities.
If you get fired for using data from some university study that has not been validated against the testing protocols or for disclosing trade secrets when you run to the press and describe enough information about a device or process that enables a competitor to reverse engineer it, claiming "but I'm a scientist" will do squat for you in trying to get your job back or seek compensation for being terminated. Disclosing trade secrets by the way (as well as several other things) is explicitly exempted from federal whistle blower protections.
Now this is outside of the current situation with the FDA, but if you must insist on viewing the concept through the eyes of the situation, then we know that the scientists involved complained to several congress members (who unassumingly had power to do something or at minimum pressure those who did) and even President Obama himself who by nature of his office as the head of the executive, explicitly has the ability to do something, and nothing was done. Is that because congress as well as the President of the United States do not care about public safety? Or is it because something was being done, just not broadcasts to the people complaining? Could it be that the concerns of the involved scientists were exaggerated or misleading? Or could it be that they wanted to wait until the election so they could claim they were doing something important and get reelected?
lol.. Does it show that not all whistle blowing is protected? That was my claim, not that it was identical to this situation.
And no, whistle blowing to congress has only been explicitly illegal since the mid 1990's (1994 I think) when congress amended the 1989 whistle blower protection act with the one of the purposes of making that explicit. Previously, whistle blowing to congress was only protected when concerning certain specific matters. But the people involved did not just tell congress now did they? No, they told news outlets and even disclosed trade secretes which is explicitly excluded from whistle blower protections.
Screw all of this legal talk. All that WE need to know is whether it was ethical or not. Let us stop talking in technicalities and focus on the big picture.
If a scientist feels that something is going to hurt public safety, they have a moral duty to do everything they can to prevent that.
It was ethical to bring it to the attention of their supervisors or follow in house reporting procedures but not much more then that. It is not a matter of if something is going to hurt public safety, it is a matter of 5 scientists saying something did hurt public safety and things need to be done the way they want it done then throwing a fit when it wasn't.
Here is the problem with your concept concerning the FDA. It's not a situation where you have 5 employees and they are the only ones who will ever see the device or data. The FDA is required by law to work through advisory committees that consist of experts in the fields in question, industry advocated experts and consumer advocate experts or representatives who determine the scientific and technical relevant procedures, processes, and guidelines that are in place in order to test in the first place. After all tests are done and everything is evaluated, the information.collected is passed to one or several of these advisory committees depending on the subjects at hand (there are something like 50 of them in total which have several divisions under them and task forces or subcommittees who review the information before being sent to them). After the advisory committees view and comment on it, recommendations are sent from each, the industry advocate, the consumer advocate, the neutral expert advocates, to yet another FDA office where it is reviewed once again with the recommendations and concerns from the advisory committees, then an official pass or fail and/or why is issued or further investigation is ordered and the process starts again but on a fast track sort of path.
How the FDA evaluates something, the methods, tests, scientific qualifications and so on for each is pretty much dictated by the advisory committees. Threats to public safety can be overlooked if the good of the device or drug or whatever meets a greater need for the public to halt an existing harm. If the amount of harmful radiation patients are exposed to happens only one in 1000 times and randomly meaning not even that much and all those advisory committees advocates said undetected breast cancer and so one is a greater concern, then it could be approves according to guidelines. If the harmful radiation exposure is using OSHA levels for occupational hazards, brief exposures for medical purposes might provide an exception to that guideline making it not applicable to the specific evaluation criteria for the devices. That type of determination is not up to these five scientific researchers, it is up to the advisory boards and the FDA ultimately.
Not when your actions are protected by legislation. Then you have no obligation to follow instructions from your boss to the contrary.
I guess you better make damn sure your actions are covered by law then. Not all whistle blowing is, and i see little indication that this was. See Garcetti v. Ceballos who found that out first hand.
If someone takes a job as a scientific researcher for the government they are definitely entitled to follow proper scientific processes.
Only to the extent their job duties and department policies allow. You do not get hired to do your own thing, you get hired to do their thing. There is nothing special about a scientist or scientific researcher that excludes them from all the customary rules others have to follow.
They are putting their name and professional reputation to their work
If you are not comfortable with working within the confines of your employer, seek employment somewhere else. It really is that simple. No one has a right to any specific job or a right to ignore department policy or set rules and guidelines of the job. If you don't like it, move on to some place you do like.
I simply do not understand this mentality that just because you get hired, you are all the sudden entitled to anything you want or to do anything you want to do. Whoever told you that was the case, was probably trying to take the job you were looking at and decided to steer you wrong so even if you beat them out of it, you wouldn't keep it long and they would get another chance at it.
I'm not a scientist but I have worked in quality control and been pressured to sign off product that did not meet specification. Now I work as a tradesman and I've been pressured to do work that doesn't meet relevant standards. The answer is both cases was no. How could it be otherwise? What's the point of hiring scientists if you don't want them to do science properly?
To do the job they were hired to do. It really is that simple. If I hire an electrician to put extra outlets in a room, I'm not paying them to discover and rewire another room just because they think it should be done. I hired them to do a specific job and they should do that specific job, If they notice the other room, they can inform me and I will decide if they are going to repair it or someone else or not.
Read again: A confidential government review in May by the Office of Special Counsel, which deals with the grievances of government workers, found that the scientists' medical claims were valid enough to warrant a full investigation into what it termed "a substantial and specific danger to public safety."
What is so special about that? It says they wanted an investigation, not that the devices were a danger. Just that the claims represent their might be a danger and an investigation is warranted. For all we know, it could be a couple of bad scientists trying to find a way to become protected from being fired by making claims and accusations that do not pan out in reality. They certainly are not the only scientists there.
Their job as scientists was to identify that danger to public safety. When the boss didn't want to listen they went to the "boss's boss" and to the public (the boss's boss's boss) via the media, action that is legally protected for this very reason. They were doing their job.
You keep saying their actions were legally protected, tell me what specific law protects them? Don't say whistle blowers laws because I have yet to find one that covers employees at the FDA within their official duties.
Whether you want to believe it or not, not all whistle blowing activities are covered or protected by law and some, can actually be criminal.
And this is besides the point that you don't know their bosses didn't want to listen. I certainly do not respon
It doesn't matter if congress or the white house got mad. They are not the boss, they are the boss's boss.
The comment was directed at the op's claim of "Routing out whisteblowers isn't quality control" expressing the desire to want science without bureaucrats performing quality control". "and peer review (which means an independent review--not your boss)". If you want that, go work someplace that provides it. You are not entitled to it by default or anything.
Fortunately, federal law disagrees with you. Whistleblowing is the right of a worker, not an entitlement. And retaliating against a whistleblower is a crime.
You probably will want to review this information personally and not trust the idiot who told you that ever again.
Federal law in whistle blowing only covers certain subjects pertaining to certain parts of those subjects. There have been several cases in the last 10 years where people who thought as you do ended up on the losing side of the argument. Garcetti v. Ceballos come to mind off the top of my head, and we are still in the process of prosecuting Private Manning for what he calls whistle blowing and it doesn't look like he has any defense at all.
I had to deploy some software that did just this not too long ago. I forget which version or manufacturer we used, but it came with a signed certificate from an regular authority and the antivirus simply ignored it unless you boosted the heuristics up to the point about anything would trigger an alert.
Anyways, not too many people check their antivirus to see if someone placed a few exceptions in it. This is especially true when there is an IT department taking care of most of the computer related stuff. Even if the software was detected by the antivirus, the agency had control over the systems and could have placed exceptions for it. and of course this is assuming they used windows systems (we did) and not Linux or something where the Antivirus would probably see it as just another daemon running.
Oh yea, in my case of using it, we caught a person who was funneling bid information to a competitor for a commission and attempting to pad his own sales to scam bonuses.
I guess you should then go work for a university or something. No one is making you work at the FDA or for them for that matter. If you take the check, then prepare to be put under the control of whatever the FDA or whatever boss you have at the time decides is necessary for them to ensure whatever it is they need to ensure. You are not entitled to anything.
I haven't played Halo since the first version and I finished it in like 3 days or something. I'm a little out of date on it so please describe these reject kids to me.
It was actually the first movie cut into 5 segments in order to get you to go to the theater 4 more times then you should have to. Unfortunately, this plan backfired and most people stopped caring about the movie after sitting through it a second or third time. They then turned the franchise to marketing towards the 7 and under crowd who won't have a chance of understanding the concepts but are excited because the few strokes of genius initially released got Daddy excited.
The government creates and enforces the copyright from the start including the rules for libraries and so on. It's all an abuse of the legal system if you ask me, but it is an abuse the government (USA) has a constitutional right to do. Most other countries have obligations through international treaties that existed before the USA was even created and of course changed and added to afterwords.
if you have to sole right to copy and or distribute something, then when someone else does it to that something, they are taking away you right in regard to that something when they do it. The right does not exist only on copies i can control, but all copies, even the ones other make.
Actually, they are taking your rights granted by law over the extent of their infringement. It doesn't really matter if you have more left or an inexhaustible supply of items to exercise those rights over, for the items copied and distributed, that right is gone.
I do not know if you know it or not, but the copy of any book or magazine a legitimate library lends to the public is not priced the same as the like item you or I could run down to borders and get. The library pays an additional charge that is supposed to compensate the copyright holders for the entire lending process although it isn't as much as if every reader purchased it outright. But that is a right by law much in the same as any copyright holder has any control over their works.
Library Books are simply not free. Someone is paying for your access to them and just because it isn't directly you does not make it so.
Sigh.. why must it be brought up every time that possession of something is not the only thing of value associated with it. Copyright gives a legal right to control the copying and distribution of said material, If you copy my stuff and give it away, you are taking my legal rights associated with that and giving them away. Those legal rights can allow me to charge a fee or just give it to you to do anything you want for nothing in return at all, but you are completely missing the point that it is mine and not yours to begin with and you have absolutely no right to take that from me.
I own guns too. And about everyone I know does as well. We all know how to garden, hunt, skin, and preserve food. You would be surprised at how many people know this stuff.
But here is probably what you are not thinking of, this late in the season, you are probably going to have a 3 month wait for anything seeded unless you already have a garden. If you already have one, you will have to worry about it being raided by your neighbors and desperate people who have families too. You might say, well, I'll guard it, but you can't realistically do that without some punk just shooting you from 100 yards away when you are pissing in the bushes. So you are in reality probably going to have to abandon that garden and create a secrete one somewhere and hope no one finds it.
As for hunting, in most states, the deer population was almost extinguished from all the hunting done during the great depression int he 1930's. This is important to consider because there was a lot more habitat and a lot less people then. Granted, most people now will not have a gun, but it is not hard to make primitive weapons and hunt in groups.
The bottom line is you will not be as well off as you think for long. If you are not living on the side of a mountain where the wilderness runs for miles, you might be lucky to last 6 months without needing the help of someone else. So reach out to find others in like abilities or complimentary abilities and after a few months, look at pooling resources and efforts.
I am going to assume you have a comprehension and possibly other learning defects. Read this carefully, your failure to understand something written and presented to you is not a debating tactic or a race anywhere. You are not the final word on anything discussed between us and your comment is certainly not even close to anything posted.
You are saying that it is ok to, that we must ignore this puke because you say so but not ok to ignore someone who claims to be a professions. All I'm saying is dismiss the argument on the basis of the argument and not some bias against the person delivering it. If that it too complicated for you to do, then you probably should shut the hell up about the topic altogether. It certainly is not scientific to ignore an entire set of facts because you do not like the guy giving them to you so stop pretending you have some superiority of the subjects.
When people are deliberately spreading misinformation and making money for it you cannot ignore their past form and motives and just pretend their message is valid without being a complete sucker.
It seems to me that if you were saying his claim X was wrong because of Y and his claim D was wrong because of A, B, and C, and all those reasons were involved with his claims, we wouldn't be in the situation of you defending ignoring the guy altogether because you don't like him.
When people are deliberately spreading misinformation and making money for it you cannot ignore their past form and motives and just pretend their message is valid without being a complete sucker.
I suspect this has more to do with your position then most other things. Anyways, it is neither here nor there as if the message was purposely considered and it turned out to be completely incorrect, the payments for these speaking engagements would probably diminish considerable as well as the number of them. Right now, your insistence on shooting the messenger and not the message is probably increasing both the payments and the number of opportunities he has to get them.
I'm not asking you to like the guy, I'm not asking you to believe what he says either. But if you are going to rebuke and/or dismiss his message, do it over the message and not whatever other problems you have with him outside of it.
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It's a little more complicated then that. The government of the area actually planted this seed in their minds.
on this site, under the heading Department of Education (DoE) Tasmania They place two sentences in the same paragraph that says
I have yet to find the actual site they are referring to, but it appears, at least from that site where they are reporting their efforts, that the Tasmanian police are suggesting the complaints should be made because cyber bullying could be criminal.
It is their own fault for implying they can do something.
According to this site they host or work with other sites to inform kids that what they are complaining about could be a crime. It's right there under the header "Department of Education (DoE) Tasmania"
My guess is that some people were sleeping in class when instructed on this, or some people got mad at comments posted and looked to find what could be done to discover that "It might be a criminal offense" connected to "cyber bullying" and considered the comments that offended them as bullying and a criminal offense.
This is probably why it's the Tasmania police taking this unusual step too.
I wasn't speaking to the article, I was expounding on the parent's claim of efficiencies and explaining why it would be efficient to store energy instead of manipulating the production.
Also, think about utility corridors in large building where an electrical fire or something of the sorts are a danger. Using gasses or toxic chemicals might present a danger to humans still inside the building. Mount a few rails with speakers connected and send them to the hot spot as needed.
Or use something like this and line evacuation routes people would take in case of fire helping ensure an open escape path for longer periods of time.
Not really speculators. Electric utilities have several rates it costs them for the power they generate or obtain and sell to the consumer. They are classified as base, peak, and overages of either.
They determine their base usage which can be done relatively easily and purchase or generate that much plus 10 or 15 % (I forget what the demand surplus by law was last time I checked but this is needed at all times to avoid brownouts and so on). They only purchase or produce enough energy to supply this needed amount the majority of the time. Excess energy is either sold to other utilities or not purchased. This is the cheapest rate by far because it can be purchased by long term contracts and the generation facility can be running at max performance at all times.
The next rate is the peak usages which is similar to the base but only applies during the peak times electricity will be used. It's a bit more expensive because peak times are generally within hours of each other all across the nation. This means that an electric producer somewhere has to have generating capacity on standby for these times and not in use for others. Of course if you have generating capacity and the investment needed to procure it, maintain it, and transmit it, you would do it all the time to get the benefits of economic of scale (producing 1000 units for sale with the same devices instead of 100 units). But because this is only needed for a relatively short period of time, the generation costs lost by not being needed the other times is recaptured in the increased pricing for the peak costs. This is also subject to long term planning so long term contracts can secure cheaper prices then the third type of energy, the overage type.
The overage type of energy a utility needs to purchase is all amounts of energy in excess of the base or peak estimates not covered by an existing contract and is purchased as needed when needed. This is the most expensive because someone has invested in a generation facility that doesn't make much money unless utilities plan poorly or something happens outside their control or expectations. This down time is also recaptured in the pricing. An example of when this is needed is when there is a heat wave and not only is everyone running their Air conditioners set on max, but they are turning on fans and everything else they can think of to keep cool. Perhaps a sale on plug in electric cars added to the load for a specific utility in a short period of time on top of that and everyone plugs in when they get home from their 9-5 job. Or there is a rash of burglaries and everyone is increasing their outside lighting and leaving more lights on at night in order to avoid being a victim. Whether the utility is on base or peak at the time, the amount of excess or overage capacity that needs to be available is purchased as needed and at the highest prices they have to pay for electricity to sell to their consumers.
All that is figured into your rates when you get a bill and isn't really obvious. The term overage might be the wrong term to use (I'm thinking it might be something else but am too lazy to look it up). Some utilities separate peak rates from base rates and charge more for peak to give you an option of trimming your usage during the peak. But buying on base rates and reselling on peak or even overage rates is sort of how the entire electrical utility industry operates except energy storage techniques haven't traditionally made it practical. It is the same concept except that the source fuel is separate by a conversion factor (natural gas or coal converted to electricity to be stored as compressed air to be converted back to electricity) instead of being converted to electricity only once.
This type of pricing to the utility is also something that makes the usage of solar and wind power difficult to use. Maybe if this project proves useful and profitable, alternative energy could use compressed air storage to store it's production and sell in the same ways to get around the problems of compet
I just want to add something that might be escaping some people.
Most natural gas generators on the scale of a public utility use a turbine engine which means that it's efficiency concerning getting work from the fuel used is pretty much in a narrow spot close to peak production. If you wind it down to generate less electricity it becomes less efficient and degrades the engine components faster so it's avoided. If you keep it in it's peak range but turn the generation down, you are being almost as wasteful as if the machine was producing full bore all the time whether it was needed or not.
This is even true for traditional internal combustion engines like in your car or motorcycles where it is geared so that your cruising range is between a certain RPM in order to take advantage of it. Outside that range is a little less efficient but isn't as pronounced as it is when you are dealing with an engine producing thousands of horsepower to drive gigantic generators.
What this compressed air storage does is allow the generation to be controlled by something that can be turned up or down easily as demand increases or decreases (compresses air) and the natural gas portion of it operates in the peak efficiency range of converting fuel to useful work when it is running.
how much of this translates into savings or overall efficiency improvements is something I don't know, But it seems to be enough (on paper at least) to throw millions of dollars at.
I'm sorry but this just isn't true and isn't relative to the situation being discussed. I know many of scientists who have restrictions on them due to work place rules. Some of these restrictions is about disclosing information only to certain people, some are about using data only from certain sources, some are about reviewing and or evaluating specific parts of something and they are expected to ignore the others. They do not like these restrictions, but they take the work and get compensated for it.
When you are a professional seeking employment, your first responsibility is to do your job the way it was described when you agreed to employment. If during that time, you find something wrong happening or something illegal, perhaps dangerous to the public or even workplace safety, you have a duty to report it to the proper authorities. You do not have a right to disclose confidential documents or trade secretes or anything outside of the extent of reporting the claimed offenses to the proper authorities.
If you get fired for using data from some university study that has not been validated against the testing protocols or for disclosing trade secrets when you run to the press and describe enough information about a device or process that enables a competitor to reverse engineer it, claiming "but I'm a scientist" will do squat for you in trying to get your job back or seek compensation for being terminated. Disclosing trade secrets by the way (as well as several other things) is explicitly exempted from federal whistle blower protections.
Now this is outside of the current situation with the FDA, but if you must insist on viewing the concept through the eyes of the situation, then we know that the scientists involved complained to several congress members (who unassumingly had power to do something or at minimum pressure those who did) and even President Obama himself who by nature of his office as the head of the executive, explicitly has the ability to do something, and nothing was done. Is that because congress as well as the President of the United States do not care about public safety? Or is it because something was being done, just not broadcasts to the people complaining? Could it be that the concerns of the involved scientists were exaggerated or misleading? Or could it be that they wanted to wait until the election so they could claim they were doing something important and get reelected?
lol.. Does it show that not all whistle blowing is protected? That was my claim, not that it was identical to this situation.
And no, whistle blowing to congress has only been explicitly illegal since the mid 1990's (1994 I think) when congress amended the 1989 whistle blower protection act with the one of the purposes of making that explicit. Previously, whistle blowing to congress was only protected when concerning certain specific matters. But the people involved did not just tell congress now did they? No, they told news outlets and even disclosed trade secretes which is explicitly excluded from whistle blower protections.
It was ethical to bring it to the attention of their supervisors or follow in house reporting procedures but not much more then that. It is not a matter of if something is going to hurt public safety, it is a matter of 5 scientists saying something did hurt public safety and things need to be done the way they want it done then throwing a fit when it wasn't.
Here is the problem with your concept concerning the FDA. It's not a situation where you have 5 employees and they are the only ones who will ever see the device or data. The FDA is required by law to work through advisory committees that consist of experts in the fields in question, industry advocated experts and consumer advocate experts or representatives who determine the scientific and technical relevant procedures, processes, and guidelines that are in place in order to test in the first place. After all tests are done and everything is evaluated, the information .collected is passed to one or several of these advisory committees depending on the subjects at hand (there are something like 50 of them in total which have several divisions under them and task forces or subcommittees who review the information before being sent to them). After the advisory committees view and comment on it, recommendations are sent from each, the industry advocate, the consumer advocate, the neutral expert advocates, to yet another FDA office where it is reviewed once again with the recommendations and concerns from the advisory committees, then an official pass or fail and/or why is issued or further investigation is ordered and the process starts again but on a fast track sort of path.
How the FDA evaluates something, the methods, tests, scientific qualifications and so on for each is pretty much dictated by the advisory committees. Threats to public safety can be overlooked if the good of the device or drug or whatever meets a greater need for the public to halt an existing harm. If the amount of harmful radiation patients are exposed to happens only one in 1000 times and randomly meaning not even that much and all those advisory committees advocates said undetected breast cancer and so one is a greater concern, then it could be approves according to guidelines. If the harmful radiation exposure is using OSHA levels for occupational hazards, brief exposures for medical purposes might provide an exception to that guideline making it not applicable to the specific evaluation criteria for the devices. That type of determination is not up to these five scientific researchers, it is up to the advisory boards and the FDA ultimately.
I guess you better make damn sure your actions are covered by law then. Not all whistle blowing is, and i see little indication that this was. See Garcetti v. Ceballos who found that out first hand.
Only to the extent their job duties and department policies allow. You do not get hired to do your own thing, you get hired to do their thing. There is nothing special about a scientist or scientific researcher that excludes them from all the customary rules others have to follow.
If you are not comfortable with working within the confines of your employer, seek employment somewhere else. It really is that simple. No one has a right to any specific job or a right to ignore department policy or set rules and guidelines of the job. If you don't like it, move on to some place you do like.
I simply do not understand this mentality that just because you get hired, you are all the sudden entitled to anything you want or to do anything you want to do. Whoever told you that was the case, was probably trying to take the job you were looking at and decided to steer you wrong so even if you beat them out of it, you wouldn't keep it long and they would get another chance at it.
To do the job they were hired to do. It really is that simple. If I hire an electrician to put extra outlets in a room, I'm not paying them to discover and rewire another room just because they think it should be done. I hired them to do a specific job and they should do that specific job, If they notice the other room, they can inform me and I will decide if they are going to repair it or someone else or not.
What is so special about that? It says they wanted an investigation, not that the devices were a danger. Just that the claims represent their might be a danger and an investigation is warranted. For all we know, it could be a couple of bad scientists trying to find a way to become protected from being fired by making claims and accusations that do not pan out in reality. They certainly are not the only scientists there.
You keep saying their actions were legally protected, tell me what specific law protects them? Don't say whistle blowers laws because I have yet to find one that covers employees at the FDA within their official duties.
Whether you want to believe it or not, not all whistle blowing activities are covered or protected by law and some, can actually be criminal.
And this is besides the point that you don't know their bosses didn't want to listen. I certainly do not respon
It doesn't matter if congress or the white house got mad. They are not the boss, they are the boss's boss.
The comment was directed at the op's claim of "Routing out whisteblowers isn't quality control" expressing the desire to want science without bureaucrats performing quality control". "and peer review (which means an independent review--not your boss)". If you want that, go work someplace that provides it. You are not entitled to it by default or anything.
You probably will want to review this information personally and not trust the idiot who told you that ever again.
Federal law in whistle blowing only covers certain subjects pertaining to certain parts of those subjects. There have been several cases in the last 10 years where people who thought as you do ended up on the losing side of the argument. Garcetti v. Ceballos come to mind off the top of my head, and we are still in the process of prosecuting Private Manning for what he calls whistle blowing and it doesn't look like he has any defense at all.
I had to deploy some software that did just this not too long ago. I forget which version or manufacturer we used, but it came with a signed certificate from an regular authority and the antivirus simply ignored it unless you boosted the heuristics up to the point about anything would trigger an alert.
Anyways, not too many people check their antivirus to see if someone placed a few exceptions in it. This is especially true when there is an IT department taking care of most of the computer related stuff. Even if the software was detected by the antivirus, the agency had control over the systems and could have placed exceptions for it. and of course this is assuming they used windows systems (we did) and not Linux or something where the Antivirus would probably see it as just another daemon running.
Oh yea, in my case of using it, we caught a person who was funneling bid information to a competitor for a commission and attempting to pad his own sales to scam bonuses.
I guess you should then go work for a university or something. No one is making you work at the FDA or for them for that matter. If you take the check, then prepare to be put under the control of whatever the FDA or whatever boss you have at the time decides is necessary for them to ensure whatever it is they need to ensure. You are not entitled to anything.
I haven't played Halo since the first version and I finished it in like 3 days or something. I'm a little out of date on it so please describe these reject kids to me.
It was actually the first movie cut into 5 segments in order to get you to go to the theater 4 more times then you should have to. Unfortunately, this plan backfired and most people stopped caring about the movie after sitting through it a second or third time. They then turned the franchise to marketing towards the 7 and under crowd who won't have a chance of understanding the concepts but are excited because the few strokes of genius initially released got Daddy excited.
The government creates and enforces the copyright from the start including the rules for libraries and so on. It's all an abuse of the legal system if you ask me, but it is an abuse the government (USA) has a constitutional right to do. Most other countries have obligations through international treaties that existed before the USA was even created and of course changed and added to afterwords.
if you have to sole right to copy and or distribute something, then when someone else does it to that something, they are taking away you right in regard to that something when they do it. The right does not exist only on copies i can control, but all copies, even the ones other make.
I see,
I misread your post and thought you said something else. I do not disagree with what you said now.
Actually, they are taking your rights granted by law over the extent of their infringement. It doesn't really matter if you have more left or an inexhaustible supply of items to exercise those rights over, for the items copied and distributed, that right is gone.
I do not know if you know it or not, but the copy of any book or magazine a legitimate library lends to the public is not priced the same as the like item you or I could run down to borders and get. The library pays an additional charge that is supposed to compensate the copyright holders for the entire lending process although it isn't as much as if every reader purchased it outright. But that is a right by law much in the same as any copyright holder has any control over their works.
Library Books are simply not free. Someone is paying for your access to them and just because it isn't directly you does not make it so.
Sigh.. why must it be brought up every time that possession of something is not the only thing of value associated with it. Copyright gives a legal right to control the copying and distribution of said material, If you copy my stuff and give it away, you are taking my legal rights associated with that and giving them away. Those legal rights can allow me to charge a fee or just give it to you to do anything you want for nothing in return at all, but you are completely missing the point that it is mine and not yours to begin with and you have absolutely no right to take that from me.
I own guns too. And about everyone I know does as well. We all know how to garden, hunt, skin, and preserve food. You would be surprised at how many people know this stuff.
But here is probably what you are not thinking of, this late in the season, you are probably going to have a 3 month wait for anything seeded unless you already have a garden. If you already have one, you will have to worry about it being raided by your neighbors and desperate people who have families too. You might say, well, I'll guard it, but you can't realistically do that without some punk just shooting you from 100 yards away when you are pissing in the bushes. So you are in reality probably going to have to abandon that garden and create a secrete one somewhere and hope no one finds it.
As for hunting, in most states, the deer population was almost extinguished from all the hunting done during the great depression int he 1930's. This is important to consider because there was a lot more habitat and a lot less people then. Granted, most people now will not have a gun, but it is not hard to make primitive weapons and hunt in groups.
The bottom line is you will not be as well off as you think for long. If you are not living on the side of a mountain where the wilderness runs for miles, you might be lucky to last 6 months without needing the help of someone else. So reach out to find others in like abilities or complimentary abilities and after a few months, look at pooling resources and efforts.
I am going to assume you have a comprehension and possibly other learning defects. Read this carefully, your failure to understand something written and presented to you is not a debating tactic or a race anywhere. You are not the final word on anything discussed between us and your comment is certainly not even close to anything posted.
You are saying that it is ok to, that we must ignore this puke because you say so but not ok to ignore someone who claims to be a professions. All I'm saying is dismiss the argument on the basis of the argument and not some bias against the person delivering it. If that it too complicated for you to do, then you probably should shut the hell up about the topic altogether. It certainly is not scientific to ignore an entire set of facts because you do not like the guy giving them to you so stop pretending you have some superiority of the subjects.
It seems to me that if you were saying his claim X was wrong because of Y and his claim D was wrong because of A, B, and C, and all those reasons were involved with his claims, we wouldn't be in the situation of you defending ignoring the guy altogether because you don't like him.
I suspect this has more to do with your position then most other things. Anyways, it is neither here nor there as if the message was purposely considered and it turned out to be completely incorrect, the payments for these speaking engagements would probably diminish considerable as well as the number of them. Right now, your insistence on shooting the messenger and not the message is probably increasing both the payments and the number of opportunities he has to get them.
I'm not asking you to like the guy, I'm not asking you to believe what he says either. But if you are going to rebuke and/or dismiss his message, do it over the message and not whatever other problems you have with him outside of it.