Newspapers used to have a position called a "fact-checker" and rather than just reprinting corporate and political press releases verbatim, they fact checked them first and would write a story about the release, pointing out any falsehoods. It isn't about book sales versus newspaper sales, it is about journalistic integrity.
I figured fact-checking was mostly for original work. If the byline is AP or Reuters, you'd think the paper would be off the hook when they print their retraction on page C35 right before the obituaries. Maybe that's just how they are doing it now.
Well If that's true (I wouldn't be surprised), it can only be applied for french people, in France
No, it applies to French people, in England. The Normand invasion of 1066 pretty much set it off -- the nobility of England was dominated by French-speakers for a very long time.
Ah, then my response was incorrect... I should rather have said, "Go see a shrink and get on some meds."
you are NOTHING
If I am nothing, and you respond to me... that means you're arguing with a figment of your imagination. Do you often conduct arguments at a 2nd-grade level with figments of your imagination?
That tax table is a step function. The truth is that the person with $39999 in income is allowed to underpay their tax according to the tax table... if you actually calculate using the tax rates, they'd be paying more.
But that has nothing to do with tax brackets, which is what we were discussing.
Are you seriously saying that you got a $1 raise that, because of the step function in the tax table, caused you to receive less net pay? WTF? Even if it was a $50 raise, you'd have higher net pay.
I got a raise this year, bumped into a new tax bracket, and take home less than before the raise.
If you're in the US, you're a liar. Tax bracket don't work that way. When you get bumped up a bracket, the higher rate is only applied to the earnings over the threshold for the bracket.
but what if it was a hurricane or some other act of god?
Sorry, in the Gulf of Mexico, a hurricane should not be considered an act of god. They are frequent enough that companies should plan on being hit by a big one, and make sure that being hit won't cause harm to others.
you obviously don't realize i post using my real name, and my address is in the white pages. I AM NOT A COWARD, as you would have others believe you expect everyone else to be, presumably because you yourself are a coward and justify it with such beliefs.
Sure, you're not a coward. I'll buy that. But that doesn't make you less of an idiot.
We've discovered new bacteria that operate at those colder depths that seem to be metaolizing the oil at the rapid rate, and being atomized likely makes it easier for them.
Sure, and those bacteria create a hypoxic zone that kills the foodweb in that zone. Coupled with the very slow rate of mixing at that depth in the gulf, and you've got a dead zone that may persist for decades. Is it an ecologically important zone? We'll find out.
We won't know the full scope of the disaster for 5 or 10 years
Double that and I think we're talking sense.
it could realistically be a non-issue from a ecological point of view by the end of next summer.
Not bloody likely. I think that's beyond optimism. Realistically, I think (from my reading) that we're looking at much longer than that. How long does it take for toxins to be concentrated up the food web? What'll the impact be on apex predators? Considering many apex predators live multiple decades, what impact will a rapid decrease in population of apex predators have on the food web for years down the road?
All that said, commercial fishing probably has a bigger impact on apex predators than this spill will.
Think back a few generations from yourself. Heck think back 50 years before the EPA came into existence. Does that horrible lack of concern for the environment affect your daily life today? Do you even know what they dumped back then?
Yes, and yes.
It's more complicated than that, though. Most people are probably not affected at all. But some people are affected in tragic ways. And even though I haven't gotten sick from being exposed to toxins, I AM paying for Superfund site amelioration. Does that affect my daily life? To some extent. Here's a fun map to check out superfund sites.
Yes the people should be punished, but as previous posters have pointed out, it isn't criminal without intent.
Well, others may have pointed it out, but it's still incorrect. There does not need to be willful harm for criminal negligence to occur. Disregarding safety can be a criminal act, even if any harm that occurs is unintentional.
My point is that this is a measurable loss of oil, compared to "potential" loss. Why does "potential" loss impact things more than measurable loss?
Because there was no actual loss -- this oil was not entering the market prior to the spill. The only loss here is to the oil reserves of BP.
More generally, because more oil is traded on futures contracts than in the spot market. Actual loss, as a reduction in supply, will theoretically increase spot prices. But once the losses are actual, they don't really affect the futures market... except as "potential" losses if the disruption is predicted to continue.
And even more generally, pump gas prices are affected so much by these events because short-term demand for gas is relatively inelastic and sellers can get away with short-term price hikes without hurting themselves in the long run, as long as their competitors follow suit.
Millions of gallons leaking into the Gulf, however, seem to have had pretty much zero effect on gas prices.
And why exactly should it affect gas prices? It doesn't really change either supply or demand for oil (since this well was not supplying any oil to the market prior to the spill).
Furthermore, while this spill has potential for horrible local environmental and economic effects, the volume of oil spilled is a drop in the bucket compared to how much oil is consumed.
Keep in mind that most non-Catholic Christians don't accept the notion that original sin taints all of us.
Wait, what? I'm confused by your statement. Original sin is the very foundation of Christianity. Do most non-Catholic Christians choose to ignore Paul?
Don't buy any thing that you cannot afford. Use cash to pay for everything you can. I hate people who use plastic be it credit cards or debit cards for individual purchase of less than 10 dollars. If you cannot have at least 10 bucks in your wallet at all times then you do not deserve to call yourself an adult.
Using a credit card is being given free money, as long as you pay it off in full each month. You are getting an interest-free loan, and free money in the form of rewards programs. Why not make use of it?
Being stuck in the 1900s using cash only is ridiculous. You're wasting paper and ink, and you're spreading disease with your filthy currency.
Using cash for no reason is childish. People who refuse to change with the times are like little kids who won't give up their security blanket.
Thermos full of hot water, one of those sodium acetate phase-change heating pads... the number of ways to get a severed finger back to body temperature is legion.
Why bother with having to carry something around with you?
The thief's body has at least two accessible cavities that, when the severed finger is placed inside the cavity, will bring the finger up to room temperature. At least one of those cavities will not interfere with the ability to speak clearly.
You neglected to include something in your post -- namely, that what you wrote is Skyhook's allegations, and not necessarily a statement of fact. Seems like pertinent info that should have been included in your post, no?
SkyHook had a contract to supply Motorola (worth tens of millions of dollars - lifeblood to a company of that size) and when Andy Rubin (a Google VP) heard about it, he phoned up Motorola. "Conversation" ensued, involving the use of a "stop ship" order to prevent Android from shipping on that Motorola hardware. When the dust settled, Motorola was using Google's location services, not Skyhook's.
Hey, do you have any source to cite for that? Or is it personal knowledge due to being intimately involved in the situation?
It's not that I believe it couldn't be true -- that kind of stuff happens pretty often. But the specifics you mention... I just find it hard to lend them 100% credence without corroboration.
The only thing historically that has even partially worked at keeping government corruption reasonably under control while providing a decent balance of power and freedoms between government and the people is keeping the central national authority as weak as possible while making as much governing as possible a local affair.
As a resident of the state of NJ, I beg to differ. The corruption here on the local and state levels is mind-boggling. It is so inefficient to monitor for corruption at the local level that it just doesn't happen much; furthermore, it is too easy to subvert the monitoring when scale demands that the monitoring is done by at most a few people.
But the bigger issue with what you suggest is that there are public works on a larger scale than localities. It's something you and I may never agree on, but I believe that it is necessary and good for national government to institute national programs for the betterment of the country. The current economic situation is one of those cases; I lean towards Keynesian economic policy, just so you know where I'm standing. Another would be public healthcare; others are public transportation, communication, and energy infrastructure.
But we'll likely never agree on what the ideal scope of government is; I just wanted to make the point that local government is not a solution to corruption. If anything, we need strong federal AND state oversight of government to reduce corruption at all levels; good luck to us all with that.
No. Employees who had no culpability in the crime should not be punished one bit. There is no reason Bob the janitor should go to jail if Carol the CFO engaged in financial shenanigans. A corporation is not an association of employees; it's an association of investors.
It's the OWNERS of the corporation who should share punishment. Every individual who was responsible for the crime should be punished; so should every owner who has the potential to profit from the crime.
The corporation was created as a mechanism to distribute risk. Now it shields owners from an entire class of risk (legal repercussions of wrongdoing). They foist the risk, and the decision-making that leads to that risk, to Officers of the company. In return, they have to give lots of money to those Officers.
The problem with corporations is that OWNERS of corporations get to invest their money and make profits (though not without risk of loss) while being able to wash their hands of any wrongdoing that occurs in pursuit of that profit.
I said the people inside the corporation can have rights, like free speech for example. The individual workers inside the ISP are welcome to speak-out against this 25% proposal, as human beings. But not the corporation itself. ----- In other words, there would no such thing as Comcast and RIAA lobbyists wandering the halls of Parliament trying to steal control of the government from the People. They would be outlawed because corporations should not have free speech. They are things and things (rocks, trees, buildings) don't have rights.
So you would forbid people from associating to exercise free speech? The owners of a corporation have no rights?
Owners of corporations are people too, and have the same rights as any other person. The corporation as an entity is simply an association of the owners of the corporation[1].
The solution is not to get rid of corporations; it's to get rid of the influence of money on the political process, to make the owners of corporations be equivalent to any other individual who wants to effect change in a legislative body.
[1] As an aside, a corporation acts as a shield from negative repercussions; originally intended to shield against catastrophic loss (such as a shipwreck), now corporations shield against things like legal penalties from wrongdoing. I'm not sure if that's the best situation, since while it allows for greater liquidity of capital, it also allows for more wrongdoing.
This is purely being done in the copyright holders' interest, with zero positive effect for the public or ISPs.
Only if you believe that copyright serves no value to the public, is that statement of yours true.
If copyright has public value, then public enforcement of copyright also has value.
What you're missing here is that legal enforcement of copyright has been borne just by the public at large until now.
Why should one company have to either increase the cost to their customers or reduce their own bottom line because another company had the means to buy a law?
You're conflating a lot of topics here, and it results in a very loaded question. Instead of spending a ton of time deconstructing it, how about a counter-question using the same disingenuous techniques from the other side?
Why should a company have to suffer from a reduced bottom line because other companies are providing a service that encourages people to circumvent the law that protects people's creative works?
Slashdot Mirror
I figured fact-checking was mostly for original work. If the byline is AP or Reuters, you'd think the paper would be off the hook when they print their retraction on page C35 right before the obituaries. Maybe that's just how they are doing it now.
No, it applies to French people, in England. The Normand invasion of 1066 pretty much set it off -- the nobility of England was dominated by French-speakers for a very long time.
Wow, that's a pretty sharp wit you've got there. If you heat it up enough, you might even be able to slice butter.
If I am nothing, and you respond to me... that means you're arguing with a figment of your imagination. Do you often conduct arguments at a 2nd-grade level with figments of your imagination?
That tax table is a step function. The truth is that the person with $39999 in income is allowed to underpay their tax according to the tax table... if you actually calculate using the tax rates, they'd be paying more.
But that has nothing to do with tax brackets, which is what we were discussing.
Are you seriously saying that you got a $1 raise that, because of the step function in the tax table, caused you to receive less net pay? WTF? Even if it was a $50 raise, you'd have higher net pay.
If you're in the US, you're a liar. Tax bracket don't work that way. When you get bumped up a bracket, the higher rate is only applied to the earnings over the threshold for the bracket.
Get back on your meds.
Wow. Idiocy confirmed. Thanks for that.
Sorry, in the Gulf of Mexico, a hurricane should not be considered an act of god. They are frequent enough that companies should plan on being hit by a big one, and make sure that being hit won't cause harm to others.
Sure, you're not a coward. I'll buy that. But that doesn't make you less of an idiot.
And what's up with the two separate IDs?
Sure, and those bacteria create a hypoxic zone that kills the foodweb in that zone. Coupled with the very slow rate of mixing at that depth in the gulf, and you've got a dead zone that may persist for decades. Is it an ecologically important zone? We'll find out.
Double that and I think we're talking sense.
Not bloody likely. I think that's beyond optimism. Realistically, I think (from my reading) that we're looking at much longer than that. How long does it take for toxins to be concentrated up the food web? What'll the impact be on apex predators? Considering many apex predators live multiple decades, what impact will a rapid decrease in population of apex predators have on the food web for years down the road?
All that said, commercial fishing probably has a bigger impact on apex predators than this spill will.
Yes, and yes.
It's more complicated than that, though. Most people are probably not affected at all. But some people are affected in tragic ways. And even though I haven't gotten sick from being exposed to toxins, I AM paying for Superfund site amelioration. Does that affect my daily life? To some extent. Here's a fun map to check out superfund sites.
Well, others may have pointed it out, but it's still incorrect. There does not need to be willful harm for criminal negligence to occur. Disregarding safety can be a criminal act, even if any harm that occurs is unintentional.
Because there was no actual loss -- this oil was not entering the market prior to the spill. The only loss here is to the oil reserves of BP.
More generally, because more oil is traded on futures contracts than in the spot market. Actual loss, as a reduction in supply, will theoretically increase spot prices. But once the losses are actual, they don't really affect the futures market... except as "potential" losses if the disruption is predicted to continue.
And even more generally, pump gas prices are affected so much by these events because short-term demand for gas is relatively inelastic and sellers can get away with short-term price hikes without hurting themselves in the long run, as long as their competitors follow suit.
And why exactly should it affect gas prices? It doesn't really change either supply or demand for oil (since this well was not supplying any oil to the market prior to the spill).
Furthermore, while this spill has potential for horrible local environmental and economic effects, the volume of oil spilled is a drop in the bucket compared to how much oil is consumed.
Wait, what? I'm confused by your statement. Original sin is the very foundation of Christianity. Do most non-Catholic Christians choose to ignore Paul?
Using a credit card is being given free money, as long as you pay it off in full each month. You are getting an interest-free loan, and free money in the form of rewards programs. Why not make use of it?
Being stuck in the 1900s using cash only is ridiculous. You're wasting paper and ink, and you're spreading disease with your filthy currency.
Using cash for no reason is childish. People who refuse to change with the times are like little kids who won't give up their security blanket.
Why bother with having to carry something around with you?
The thief's body has at least two accessible cavities that, when the severed finger is placed inside the cavity, will bring the finger up to room temperature. At least one of those cavities will not interfere with the ability to speak clearly.
Ah, I see.
You neglected to include something in your post -- namely, that what you wrote is Skyhook's allegations, and not necessarily a statement of fact. Seems like pertinent info that should have been included in your post, no?
Dictionary skills fail.
OP used the word 'force' as a verb; you provided a definition of its use as a noun.
If you're going to cite a dictionary, please learn to use one first.
Hey, do you have any source to cite for that? Or is it personal knowledge due to being intimately involved in the situation?
It's not that I believe it couldn't be true -- that kind of stuff happens pretty often. But the specifics you mention... I just find it hard to lend them 100% credence without corroboration.
As a resident of the state of NJ, I beg to differ. The corruption here on the local and state levels is mind-boggling. It is so inefficient to monitor for corruption at the local level that it just doesn't happen much; furthermore, it is too easy to subvert the monitoring when scale demands that the monitoring is done by at most a few people.
But the bigger issue with what you suggest is that there are public works on a larger scale than localities. It's something you and I may never agree on, but I believe that it is necessary and good for national government to institute national programs for the betterment of the country. The current economic situation is one of those cases; I lean towards Keynesian economic policy, just so you know where I'm standing. Another would be public healthcare; others are public transportation, communication, and energy infrastructure.
But we'll likely never agree on what the ideal scope of government is; I just wanted to make the point that local government is not a solution to corruption. If anything, we need strong federal AND state oversight of government to reduce corruption at all levels; good luck to us all with that.
Are you feeling OK? That wasn't the response I expected.
:)
Or was that just a way to avoid having to bother responding?
No. Employees who had no culpability in the crime should not be punished one bit. There is no reason Bob the janitor should go to jail if Carol the CFO engaged in financial shenanigans. A corporation is not an association of employees; it's an association of investors.
It's the OWNERS of the corporation who should share punishment. Every individual who was responsible for the crime should be punished; so should every owner who has the potential to profit from the crime.
The corporation was created as a mechanism to distribute risk. Now it shields owners from an entire class of risk (legal repercussions of wrongdoing). They foist the risk, and the decision-making that leads to that risk, to Officers of the company. In return, they have to give lots of money to those Officers.
The problem with corporations is that OWNERS of corporations get to invest their money and make profits (though not without risk of loss) while being able to wash their hands of any wrongdoing that occurs in pursuit of that profit.
So you would forbid people from associating to exercise free speech? The owners of a corporation have no rights?
Owners of corporations are people too, and have the same rights as any other person. The corporation as an entity is simply an association of the owners of the corporation[1].
The solution is not to get rid of corporations; it's to get rid of the influence of money on the political process, to make the owners of corporations be equivalent to any other individual who wants to effect change in a legislative body.
[1] As an aside, a corporation acts as a shield from negative repercussions; originally intended to shield against catastrophic loss (such as a shipwreck), now corporations shield against things like legal penalties from wrongdoing. I'm not sure if that's the best situation, since while it allows for greater liquidity of capital, it also allows for more wrongdoing.
Only if you believe that copyright serves no value to the public, is that statement of yours true.
If copyright has public value, then public enforcement of copyright also has value.
What you're missing here is that legal enforcement of copyright has been borne just by the public at large until now.
You're conflating a lot of topics here, and it results in a very loaded question. Instead of spending a ton of time deconstructing it, how about a counter-question using the same disingenuous techniques from the other side?
Why should a company have to suffer from a reduced bottom line because other companies are providing a service that encourages people to circumvent the law that protects people's creative works?