I know all about it. The only claims made about it's "dangers" are pushed by ... well, "cranks" would be the less offensive term. There's certainly no credible scientific data that suggests any inherent harm in corn syrup. The only real harm is the excessive use of sugar, period. HFCS has made it cheap to add sugar to all kinds of things, and our diets have become more sweetened - and, therefore, more calorie-dense - as a result. Replace HFCS with any other type of sugar at the same price, and the health effects would remain.

Well now you're just being a dick. If you made any other "links", I didn't see them. I can't respond to what I don't see - you can blame that on your inability to communicate, or on my eeeevil plan to make you look ridiculous; I guess the latter is more satisfying?

Ok, which ingredients? Names and evidence, please.

True. Also, in countries where they don't have you, diabetes rates are much lower. I guess we can conclude that you cause diabetes?

That's true, but I don't think it shows what you want it to show. It rather tends to prop up the anti-gun-control position. After all, the UK murder rate in the 1800's was generally less than 2 per 100,000, even though gun control was non-existent. The first real gun laws were passed around the end of that century, and even then, there was no control on the sale/purchase of firearms - they simply started requiring that you have a license in order to carry a weapon in public.

Those numbers tend to suggest that there are other factors which are responsible for the high rate of homicide in the US.

Also, it's interesting to note that the homicide rate in the US has pretty much mirrored the rates in Europe. In the 1600/1700's it was around 40 per 100,000, and has declined over time, with some hiccups here and there.

Given the disparity in gun ownership (and proficiency in the use of firearms) between the two political parties in the US, I'm thinking this would turn out very positive for one side ... not so much for the other.

Well, no, actually, people want to pay lower prices. Manufacturers don't lose money - they pass the cost on to the consumer. Sure, an individual farmer might go out of business if his entire crop goes tits-up, but a large corporation just ends up with a lower supply, and you end up paying a higher price for your carrots. Humans didn't invent preservatives so that businesses could save money - we invented them because we, as individuals:

1. Wanted our food to last longer, so we'd have less spoilage.
2. Prefer to pay lower prices at the market, which encourages our suppliers to also limit spoilage.

Having spent my childhood in a country where we often bottled/canned our own food, I can tell you we were quite happy to get our hands on whatever preservatives we could. Feeding the family was expensive enough without having to worry about whether half your supplies would go bad in a month. It's not until you're rich, fat, and happy, that you can start demonizing those big bad corporations and their horrible toxins. I can't think of a better example of White People's Problems.

 

Preservatives cause diabetes? Wow, who knew! Silly me - I thought it was a split between a genetic predisposition, and an adult-onset disease caused by poor fitness and over-consumption.

Sure, except "cause and effect" is a completely different thing. When I hit a light-bulb with a hammer, the light-bulb breaks. That's cause and effect, but it's certainly not analogous to a disease. What they're talking about here is a pattern of diffusion, with factors which prevent a spread into some areas, while other factors encourage spread into others. If your idea of modeling the spread of disease is just "well, this one guy coughed on me and then I got sick", then yes, the simplistic cause-and-effect model makes sense to you; however, what's being proposed here is something quite a bit more nuanced, and potentially a LOT more useful.

Totally. Like, we can't prove that god doesn't send you to hell for wearing a seatbelt, but they mandate wearing seatbelts anyway! And we can't prove that the christian god isn't the only one true god, yet, despite that, they refuse to mandate forced conversion to christiaity! The nerve of those people.

If you're new to the concepts of probability and uncertainty, I suggest taking a few college courses. The rest of us are quite comfortable evaluating each case based on the inherent risks and benefits.

He said it shouldn't be a choice, and he's absolutely right. Medical exemption is not a choice - it's an exemption granted by a qualified medical practitioner. The reason vaccination shouldn't be a choice is exactly because of exceptions like your son; herd immunity allows us to makes such exceptions, and still keep him safe. If we end up breaking herd-immunity, people with legitimate issues are the ones who are most likely to be harmed.

Kucinich has been a 9/11 denier for most of the last decade, along with pushing all kinds of other crazy conspiracy theories about mind-control satellites and chemtrails and such. The lunatic even proposed a bill that would ban "psychotronic" devices that are "directed at individual persons or targeted populations for the purpose of ... mood management, or mind control." He's a less-vocal version of Jessie Ventura. Why in the world would you ever have had any respect for him?

Was about to make a witty reply till i realized i stopped readin slashdot round about the time i got married.

Umm, i am wearing one right now. Sleeping in it just would not occur to me. Plus you have to take it off to charge it. So as a privacy thing, well the only reason it would get you in trouble would be wearing it during sex so you could get the fuel points. Not a security issue that worries me at all. Now the implants.. They might be an issue.

Why should I care if Apple knows what I do or where I go? They don't make their money by selling other companies access to me. They make money by selling electronics to me.

You don't know what you're talking about. You have no idea why Google's mapping services are no longer available. You don't know if it was Apple's decision, you don't know if it was Google's decision, you don't know if it was a mutual decision--and you don't know what factors played into that decision. You do know, however, that Apple is evil and therefore, ipso facto, everything's their fault. The end.

Yeah, and that app uses services made available to it (or not) by Google.

You're right, Google isn't obligated to provide anything to iOS. But I suspect they do so because it's making them more money than their entire Android operation. Why is Apple not providing ...something to Android? I'm not sure what they could be providing, but if you do think of something the answer would probably be because Google infringed many of Apple's patents when creating Android. Oh, sure you may not agree. But a court of law sure did. The Big Steve vowed to destroy Android because of how blatantly they stole from Apple.

Yes, I have heard of iAd. And you raise a good point. But the fact that it represents about 0.000001% of Apple's revenue, I somehow trust more that they won't succumb to shady privacy practices. Perhaps you think that's silly. I don't.

No. Apple's business is selling things to me. It isn't selling my information to others. That's Google's model. There really is a difference. I'm not imagining it.