Normally I'd agree with you about the melamine content being too low (and/or the bribes were too low). However, considering the public example they made of the guy responsible for the milk scandal (execution even though he was a wealthy, influential, individual) I have to say that unless the guys at the Ministry of Agriculture are incredibly stupid this is probably a legit complaint on their part.

"you could probably pop open the machine yourself and take a look see if you're competent enough to understand them in the first place. I suggest you do this if you're skeptical. Heck, you might do us a favor and post them."

So, now you're assuming I own an x-ray machine? Were they supposed to come free with every apply computer and I just didn't get mine? That would certainly explain the excessive price for the hardware...

Sorry, I don't actually feel that way but just felt like jumping on the snark train for a bit ;-) . Actually, the point I was trying to make is that if the camera and/or indicator light are mounted on a multi-layer PCB then there is a good chance you can't visibly see the power traces with the naked eye. You also would have to know which of the camera pins was the power pin.

If they cared even remotely enough to do that, then they would have already hardwired the indicator light to the same power source as the camera so that one couldn't be run without the other regardless of the firmware.

Well, first you attach them to the tip of a pointy stick...

Uh, no. You're taking a half-remembered fact and mangling it. Almost all of the corn raised in this country is usable for food. However, the fact you are mis-remembering is that most of the corn isn't edible by humans straight off the stalk. Just because you can't eat it without processing doesn't mean it isn't still food. Even discounting corn syrup (which is still food) there is hominy, corn meal, etc. Even the stuff used as animal feed is still part of the food chain and increasing it's price still increases the cost of human food.

No vaccine is EVER 100% effective for all people. That is, simply, the nature of vaccines and why many of these articles talk about "herd immunity". The reason we still see diseases effectively disappear when vaccines are implemented correctly is that a truly successful vaccine (like this one) will work for a large enough percentage of the population to ensure that it's statistically unlikely that a person who doesn't have the protection will encounter someone who is carrying the disease. The problem is that, the way the statistics work, it doesn't take the number of anti-vaccine nutters to be very large before the numbers reach a kind of tipping point and the number of outbreaks starts to dramatically increase. Also, as with anything statistic based, one anecdotal event (or even a few) like the one you described is meaningless in this discussion.

Uhm, no. That's stupid. First off, that doesn't protect the children themselves (who aren't to blame for their parents' stupidity). Secondly, that doesn't 100% protect the other people in society who are at risk (babies too young to be vaccinated yet; the percentage of people for whom the vaccine simply doesn't work for that exists for ANY vaccine; etc.) The only way something like this might work would be if we put every one of these fmilies under guarded 24/7/365 house arrest for the rest of their lives to make sure they don't spread the disease while doing things like waiting in line at the supermarket. At that point, again, it's a lot more humane to the blameless child to just forcibly vaccinate them by court order.

I doubt it. If there really was a warrant out for a similar vehicle or similar looking person he wouldn't need any additional justification to hold you there for identification. He was probably just an asshole cop who decided that in "his" town people aren't allowed to make use of the yellow light.

IANAL but as I believe (as others have pointed out) it's not illegal for a police officer to enter a vehicle being used in the commission of a crime (at least in all the US municipalities I'm familiar with). However, that said, the more I think about it the more I believe you've just touched on the REAL reason for the absurd $0.05 theft of service charge. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the cop is using that as a way to legalize what would otherwise have been an illegal fishing expedition searching through the guy's car for more serious contraband. If he didn't charge the guy with SOMETHING, he risks becoming the criminal.

$100 Billion may sound like a lot to you but that doesn't mean it's meaningful in regards to the actual damages done. More often than not when massive horrible things are done by Corporations (the crash of the financial/real estate markets, the Gulf oil spill, etc.) large corps get hit with penalties that look massive to an individual but actually only represent a small part of the true cost of restitution and only represent a day or two of operating profits at most for the company.

What happened in the story is so astonishingly unjustly inverted from that scenario because, in contrast, this guy was hit with the entire cost of the damages (even though he was only a tiny contributor to the actual crime, and that penalty probably represents many years worth of profits for him (minus the basic costs of living and taxes). It would be like fining JP Morgan all the Trillions of dollars that were estimated to have been lost throughout the economy because the courts didn't feel that they were likely to be able to clearly identify any of the other big players in the crime. Then, for good measure, make it so that the costs of litigating appeals of that verdict would be so expensive that it was guaranteed to drive the company into complete bankrupts (since even if this guy has a decent job and was able to afford a non-state appointed attorney for this trial it's unlikely he'll be able to hire a highly competent set of lawyers throughout the entire appeals process in the same way major companies to in order to successfully drive down the original, already too small, fines they are hit with).

They won't be reexamining much for very long if they keep standing in the light of a massive gamma-ray burst (by which, of course, I mean that it's hard to take the time to examine anything if you're constantly flipping out and going on green-skinned rampages).

Good idea, don't ever admit to it. There's no statute of limitations on that kind of thing.

Yes, a work of fiction based extremely closely on the real-life working conditions of the meat-packing industry of the time. The fact that there was a fictitious narrative added to make the story more interesting/readable doesn't invalidate the parts that happen to disagree with your personal political beliefs.

Wow, I'd imagine that'd make Cheney-style hunting accidents kind of awkward...

For the people who are still alive.