Clearly, sir, you don't know the first thing about conservative principles. However, because you want to inject politics into this, let's do that. Tell me, do you think that conservatives support competition or not? In other words, do most conservative policies, such as school vouchers, less regulation, lower union involvement, a desire for reduced government subsidies, tend to support competition amongst companies or discourage it? That's right, they support competition ... and which is why conservative intellectual stalwarts like Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell have pointed out again and again that big business is NOT pro-competition. History has shown that big business can collude amongst themselves and with their partners in Washington to take actions that are detrimental to the consumer: think of sugar subsidies that raise the price of sugar far above the international price to the benefit of large sugar interests. I don't know of any conservatives who support this kind of effort. Contrary to what you might think, conservatives don't think that everything a company does is magically right because it comes from the private sector - look at the Tea Party angst about the Wall Street bailouts. I think your assumption that conservatives are somehow in knee-jerk support of whatever corporations do is misguided. Think harder.

That's Business Ethics 101 - if you're doing something at work that you wouldn't want posted on the front page of the local newspapers, don't do it.

Ummm ... do a Google search under "Trayvon eyewitness" and then get back to me ...

You lost me at "You Americans ...." I wish there was a way to tabulate how many people here on Slashdot who enjoy commenting on American current events are actually from America. I imagine the percentage would be high.

Local Fox affiliates are not the same as the Fox news you see on cable TV - the local Fox affiliate in Chicago is well regarded by people on the left and the right.

You lost me at "my non-American perspective" ....

You gotta wonder who is behind this push? Who benefits the most? I am not aware of there even being some "national conversation" (to quote Hillary Clinton) about this issue - yet, ALL new automobiles will have to have these features in less than two years? WTF?

Who is the dipshit blogger here? What has Tesla said to refute the claim that a completely discharged battery is not covered by warranty or that owners of the car have to shell out $40,000 to have the batteries replaced? The IDC Analyst says: "The first is if all 8,000 cells individually fail (highly unlikely except in the case of something catastrophic like a fire). The second failure mechanism is if the battery management system tells the pack to shut down because it has detected a dangerous situation, such as an extremely low depth of discharge. If that's the case, all that needs to be done is to tow the vehicle to a charger, recharge the batteries and then reboot the battery management system." If it's so easy to recharge the batteries, where does the $40,000 bill come from? Was the whistleblower hallucinating that?

So Bricked = failed and unrepairable ... which is why Tesla requires owners to shell out $40,000 to REPLACE a completely discharged battery. The funny thing here is that the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt were both designed specifically to avoid this type of thing - you'd think someone asking you to shell out over $100,000 for a car would've been smart enough to think of that too.

Ummmm ... does it cost $40,000 to fill your car up with gas? To reinflate tires? It sounds like people who purchased these automobiles were not told that if they failed to keep their cars charged pretty much continuously, they were facing a $40,000 bill. Nothing Tesla has said in response has refuted that. Probably the most intelligent thing I've read about this controversy is that most peoples' understanding of automobiles is developed ad-hoc and that it's dangerous to apply conventional wisdom about gasoline engines to electric vehicles. Nevertheless, people need to know the potential expense they face if, for some reason, they leave their Tesla uncharged or connected to a sub-standard charging source for a long-time.

No, economics is about resource allocation. Politics is about compelling others to serve your interests.

Who owns those shares? Penson plans, 401(ks), Endowments, IRAs, etc. It's not all just Scrooge McDuck. I swear, the level of knowledge of some Slashdotters when it comes to dealings in the financial markets is laughable. Stick to flogging Linux.

What would the point be to buy shares, vote and then sell them? Why would someone do that? Your understanding of financial markets is weak, to say the least.

Yes, because everyone assumes that Wal-Mart is a charity, right? Clearly, this is a way to generate interest in order to get people to come into their stores. Just like American Idol is about generating interest in a musician to get people to buy their music. Oh, the horror!

In looking over the terms of the contest, they are offering what they say they are offering: the chance to SELL your product on Wal-Mart's shelves, which is essentially access to one of the largest retail distribution systems in the world. They are not offering to manufacture your product, they are not offering to market your product, they are offering to put in on their shelves. That's what you're winning ... which is precisely what they said the contest is about. If you went ahead and read the rules of the contest, you'd see that. But because it's Wal-Mart, let's all just bury our heads in the sand and assume the worst, right?