Not necessarily. Let's say cost of entry to a particular industry is high for reasons completely outside government control. Let's say a company has grown so large that they have enough resources to buy out any smaller company that starts up. If the cost of entry is high enough, the rate at which new startups happen is fairly slow then there could be more money made via having a monopoly than the cost of buying all the competition. In such a scenario, the monopoly holder can then charge whatever they want, offer whatever level of service they want, and there is NOTHING anyone legally can do to stop them. All done without coercion.

Additionally, you ignore human nature. You say that monopolies that form naturally are not long for this world. Hogwash. Why? Because if a company has gained that kind of power, however short the tenure of that power would have been naturally, once attained they WILL use that power to purchase laws which will then enforce their control. Letting it get to that point in the first place where they would be in a position to have that level of influence is the problem; the entire reason for anti-trust laws. Anti-trust laws are about making it so it is difficult to attain a position of power that gives enough legal influence to enforce legislation and regulation which is counter to the public interest and the market interest.

As explained, not necessarily true. The large company could potentially purchase all market entrants to prevent competition. If the cost of entry is great enough, the frequency and number of entrants will be low enough to make this economically feasible to the larger company.

Additionally, there are legal ways in which a large company can potentially artificially increase the cost of entry without use of government power. For example, if cost of entry to an industry requires the use of a limited resource of which the larger company has already cornered the market on, then the larger company can inflate the price of that resource to a level that makes cost of entry to the market too high to be economically feasible. Worse still they can simply refuse to sell that resource to parties interested in entering the marketplace in that other industry making entry flat out impossible.

It is true that such behavior, when let to run rampant will eventually lead to the demise of those companies; it will only do so when there is a world-wide economic crash. Said crash would be a direct result of this behavior. We know this happens because there is a history of this happening about once every 20 years during the 19th century. There were very minimal business regulations of the time, and the results were disastrous.

Ultimately the reason the free market doesn't work is the same reason true communism doesn't work. Not because the idea is unsound, but because it simply can't exist in a world run by corruptible human beings.

Not all regulation is created equal, and that is why the argument from the "free market" folks is a false dichotomy. For example, letting a company gain a monopoly in a particular region/industry is bad. Enacting regulations which actually FORCE a monopoly is even worse. One is free market, the other is not, both are bad.

It is not a matter of free market or not a free market. It is a matter of what regulation.

I would be willing to sacrifice my time, and give the gift of my knowledge and skills to the task of reviewing grant proposals. But first, let me just right up this grant proposal...

There's an Emacs command for that.

Umm, what does the Flu, a VIRUS, have to do with antibiotics, which are treatment for BACTERIAL infections?

Ok, I have an odd question. If a patient comes in with one or more ailments, and those ailments can all be cured by exercise, then why can't a doctor prescribe exercise and that's it? Why isn't the doctor allowed to say "no, a pill won't help you, exercise will"?

You can try to say it's because the person isn't statistically likely to follow up and actually do the exercise, but by the same token, that's the same as if a person is prescribed one or more pills and doesn't take them. Once the doctor gives the prescription, if the patient doesn't follow it, it's their own fault.

Of course we know why doctors prescribe pills and surgery where exercise would work better. Because they make more money that way. They get kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies. They make tons of cash from expensive surgeries. They make practically nothing when someone goes and exercises to cure themselves of their ailments. So really, the problem with the healthcare system is that the incentives are out of whack. Doctors do not have an incentive to cure people, they have an incentive to bill them as much as possible. So the real answer to fixing the healthcare system is finding a way to change the incentives to improving the health of patients. In a private system, I just don't see that as possible. For government run hospitals and government paid doctors though, it could be done by showing how many to what degree patients' health has improved, and issue bonuses and pay raises based on that alone, rather than basing compensation on how much was billed.

If you look at the trial manuscript and evidence presented, you'll see that the woman didn't just get burned. She had the flesh literally melted off of half her thigh. It was remarked that her burns looked like something from a napalm victim. Additionally, all she and her family had asked of McD's was that they pay her medical bills and no more. FFS, she had to have multiple skin grafts and couldn't walk because of the incident. McD's didn't serve "hot coffee." They served napalm in a cup.

I was just going to say the same thing. Stripping someone of all they have leaves them with nothing to lose, and people with nothing to lose have a tendency to do very rash and sometimes very violent things.

They aren't just making her penniless. They aren't just taking everything she HAS. They are taking everything she has, and everything she ever WILL have. This doesn't just take away a person's possessions, it takes away their entire ability to ever hope to gain anything. In that scenario, prison may be far more attractive than life on the street. Essentially, the RIAA are incentivising felony crime through this judgement.

In other words, they aren't just inviting violence against them and their associates via injustice. They are actually indirectly REWARDING violent reaction by those they strip of property and capability to generic income.

Do that to one or two people and you can keep track of them. But do it to dozens, hundreds, and don't expect your buildings to stay standing for very long.

What separates two species form one another is a rather arbitrary set of rules invented by human beings, and not always so clearly marked. The concept of different species is an entirely artificial construct, and thus whether or not evolution brings it about is a somewhat pointless question if you seek some kind of deeper knowledge into the nature of life. This is made all the more true when you realize that the definition of species has changed and continues to change to fit new models.

Life does not really fit into different discrete categories very well because there tend to be a lot of gradients. Personally I think eventually they will come up with a better model for life than the current one involving various hierarchies. Perhaps one that maps genetic drift as opposed to cataloging physical traits.

Come on! How hard is it to pop some triggers on the DB so that any change whatsoever results in the current record being written to the audit trail? Really, how hard is that?

And haven't these folks heard of logical deletes instead of actually deleting it? Use a delete flag, folks! I find it amazing that such concepts are strict requirements for simple things like clinical trial systems, and regulated heavily and audited regularly by the FDA, but our voting system has no such regs or audits.

I'll be happy with Champions Online if they make it more "solo friendly." I like having the option to team up with friends and strangers alike, but City of Heroes fell into the trap of thinking that just because it is an MMO means it should force you to team up to do anything.

The forced teaming in City of Heroes made me feel decidedly less than heroic. Which is ultimately why I stopped playing.

While I agree ancient cities were not so large, modern cities can be larger.

Los Angeles, California is 469 square miles (of land)
Houston, Texas is 579 square miles (of land)

Mind you these cities are defined by borders. From above, there are areas that appear to be extremely large contiguous cities which are actually numerous cities with rather arbitrary borders. Such areas are frequently referred to as megalopolises. Some example of megalopolises are BosWash and ChiPitt.

I'm guessing the next iPhone killer will actually be the next iPhone.

Ah, I just noticed that. Missed it on my first skim through the article.

My statement remains valid. Under Hustler Magazine, Inc. vs Falwell, a public figure cannot sue for emotional damages. Harassment, a more serious charge, but stemming from the same core action, thus cannot be the resultant sentence for her, even if she hadn't put in the disclaimer. With the disclaimer, this even more blatantly is protected under free speech.