Tax evasion is illegal. Tax avoidance, which is what these companies are practicing, is not.

I've heard this argument from neoliberals on CNBC. It reminds me of a teenager whose parents catch him high as a kite: "You said I shouldn't smoke pot. You didn't say anything about cooking it in brownies and eating it."

It's a reminder about why corporations are regulated. They will do their best to circumvent laws using lawyers, unless they can be sufficiently frightened into behaving. Human beings are capable of discerning right and wrong and society holds them accountable. Corporations' charters specifically require that they not discern between right and wrong and then avoid accountability by saying, "But I didn't pinky swear!".

"Terrorism" is a word that only the winners are allowed to use, apparently.

I mean who cares that a backwards-ass country like Palestine ...

Thank you for acknowledging that they are a country. Maybe you can convince the government of Israel to do the same.

but the problem is that their offer used words like "truce" instead of "peace" to describe what they would be signing up for.

Given what happened to Fatah for using words like "peace", I'm not sure why any other words should be used with Israel.

That is true, but does it really matter for any purpose other than assigning blame

I'm just afraid that "assigning blame" is something only Israel is allowed to do.

I wouldn't want to be the person tasked with solving this problem. It's way hard. But I do believe that pressure should be applied to the combatants a little more evenly. As you say, Hamas may not be a party that can be negotiated with, but it's pretty clear that Netanyahu most certainly cannot be negotiated with. He has said so both with words and actions. There is a right wing in Israel that is holding the whole region hostage, and the current administration does not appear willing to put them in their place, because they are the "base".

I have been to Kinko's dozens of times. I have copied pages out of book, manuals, and magazines. I have also brought in many downloaded PDFs, including complete technical manuals. All of this stuff was obviously copyrighted. Never, not even once, did they even hesitate to let me copy it.

I'm plenty curious, but won't be signing up for that first manned mission to the surface of the Sun -- we haven't been there either, the movie Sunshine not withstanding (and it didn't go too well for them anyway) :-)

The goal of Hamas, on the other hand, is the complete destruction of the State of Israel and Jews as pe

Or so we are told by Israel.

The only thing is, the very existence of Hamas and their stance on recognizing Israel is a product of Israel's double-dealing with Fatah, and before that the PLO.

I'm convinced that the government of Israel wants this conflict to continue, because it guarantees them political power, support from the US and each time there is a flareup, there are more Palestinian houses bulldozed to make way for settlements. It's a classic expansionist/eliminationist game plan.

My entire view of the situation has changed over the past 10 years from absolute support of Israel in their struggle against their hostile neighbors to questions about Israel's unorthodox way to seek peace through expansion to horror over the Israeli concentration camps where Palestinians are held and the cage they have made of Gaza to my current inability to believe anything that comes from the Israeli government or the Zionist press. It has not been a willing or comfortable transition. I had to undergo the conversion from hasbara tourist (as a non-Jew) to someone who has seen the horror in Gaza with his own two eyes.

There were three types of law in the old Jewish custom -- ceremonial, civil, and moral.

You are citing the usual legalistic apologia regarding Bible. That the really ridiculous rules didn't apply, because God didn't realize that when he was writing the Bible it would be taken seriously two thousand years later. That certain rules in the books of law (funny word, "law"), aren't really laws because geez, God must have been kidding and anyway, crab meat is good. And we don't stone adulterers because things would have gotten kind of bloody around the Gingrich household. We are told that certain commandments are not really commandments and Christ was the original free-market capitalist and He would have been the first to load up undocumented Central American children on a bus at gunpoint to send them back into the meat grinder. In my lifetime, we've been told that God didn't want miscegenation, or civil rights, or racial integration, or gay people married, but God is OK with capital punishment and bombing brown people and greed and "Stand Your Ground". Are there any greater moral relativists than modern American Christians?

Christ Himself stopped that practice

When you say "stopped" you mean, "didn't say anything about it". There's a whole list of things he didn't say anything about, including homosexuality and abortion and women being subservient and on and on. Most of that stuff was left for that old fraud Paul, who had his own little kinks, and more than anyone else, including Christ himself, defined Christianity. Funny how the Word of God is so fungible.

More recently, of course, there are great doubts about whether Paul even existed at all. More likely he was a creation of Josephus. The Cult of Rome.

I have yet to hear of a single lawsuit based on 3D parts. Even if there was, all legal precedence says that it is person ordering the part, and not the service provider, that is responsible. Otherwise Kinkos would have never existed.

Then they will likely lose to other companies that are willing to offer parts-as-a-service. Staples already has 3D-print-on-demand at a few of their stores.

As you might know, although in the racist sectors of israel's society this view is present...

And currently running the government.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is someone who has benefited from and promoted death his entire career. And not just beginning with leading a parade which carried a mock coffin of Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered by one of Netanyahu's followers shortly thereafter.

When Netanyahu called for generalized violence against Hamas in response to the crimes of the few who were involved in the death of those three teens, he knew exactly what he was starting. It's his goal to "cleanse" Gaza, once and for all, and he's been itching for this opportunity. It's as if the United States had responded to the assassination of President Kennedy by bombing and invading Texas.

Just go read Netanyahu's series of statements and tweets following the discovery of the deaths of the teens. Look at the timeline of his incitement of violence against Palestinians, the subsequent murder of the 15 year old Palestinian, the severe beatings of others and the burning death of a Palestinian child. And finally, his use of so-called "DIME weapons" against Palestinian civilians. Committing war crimes to stay in political power is pretty despicable.

http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

If a business accommodates the customer's lifestyle, it will prosper. If it does not, it will go out of business.

Nope. I am going to continue to rationalize. I have better things to do than sit around feeling guilty.

Home Depot has a tool rental program. It would be really slick if they offered 3D printers for rental, either in-store (it could print your part while you shop), or take home for a weekend project.

This past school year I helped out with an after-school programming class at my son's elementary school. One of the projects was to design a 3D part using Python and FreeCAD. We tried to have the parts printed at TechShop, but they wouldn't let kids under 18 into their facility. So we had them printed by an online service and mailed to us. It would have been really cool to have a 3D printer at the school, so the kids could see their parts being made, and maybe fine-tune the design and print again. One of the boys designed a working toilet for his sister's Barbie dollhouse.

Since you're on /. it's likely that no one's been to your penis either, but I'm not going to recommend NASA mount an expedition there... :-)

While "Because it's there and we haven't been" is a valid answer, it isn't really a good answer.

And, of course, once we start naming Dwarf planets, will want Elf planets, Hobbit planets, Orc planets, etc...

Though there's no absolute rules against a planet having those characteristics. Perhaps a planet caught by, not formed within, the system might match some/all of those, etc...

I can see the desire for have more specific names for different types of things, but I can also see the appeal in keeping things simple.