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Comment Re:8 million? (Score 3, Interesting) 143

You should write into your contract that you're allowed to take samples from fields where your bees work, and that the farmer is liable for damages if something happens to your bees, you test those samples, and find the bad pesticides.

Contract law is a lot simpler than laws to "protect nature", and since the nature in this case has an owner (you) it's not just a common resource to exploit.

No help if neighboring farms spray that pesticide, of course.

Comment Re:More (Score 3, Insightful) 150

There is nothing that civil law can do that is punitive to the managers. They didn't do anything; the company did things, and they are merely one of the louder of the company's schizophrenic voices. To get at them where it matters (their wallet), you'd have to go after company assets and hope it indirectly affects them as the parent suggests.

Only criminal law could pierce that veil and go after them directly, and while that can be quite punitive, it's not bloody likely.

Comment Re:This just in. (Score 1) 281

Stolen doesn't just apply to the physical world. It means that you've been deprived of something you previously possessed.

If your physical thing is stolen, you no long possess it.
If your asset is stolen, you no longer possess it. Most people have digital assets in the form of cash in a bank or stocks in an account; there is nothing physical for either. Bit coins fall in this category.
If your trade secret is stolen, you no longer have a secret.

If your copyright is infringed upon, you still hold the copyright.
If your patent is infringed upon, you still hold the patent.

Comment Re:Good. (Score 1) 188

Loving County, Texas, has a population of 82 or so. Buy enough land and move 83* voters into that county, and you can be elected sheriff, and become official law enforcement.

Simple as that.**

* Probably some of the 82 are kids, so you probably need fewer than this.

** This was tried. It didn't work. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Comment Re:Goodbye 1Click (Score 1) 220

They're "green eggs and ham" patents and shouldn't be approved.

If method x can't be patented, then it can't also be patented
on a computer, on the internet, with a touchscreen, with a mouse /
on a plane, in a car, on a boat, in a house.

If the method is nonpatentable when implemented somewhere /
then it's nonpatentable everywhere!

Comment Re:The science behind GMOs show they are safe. (Score 4, Insightful) 272

As I replied to the parent poster myself, anyone that says "GMOs are safe" or "GMOs are dangerous" should substitute the word "chemicals", as in "chemicals are safe" or "chemicals are dangerous". That makes both statements sound equally silly as both are broad categories that could readily contain both healthy and unhealthy products.

On the other hand, a statement like "companies must submit studies, and the FDA must approve them, before a chemical may be added to a food" sounds rather reasonable to most non-libertarians. Likewise, "companies must submit studies, and the FDA must approve them, before a genetic change may be added to a food" sounds equally reasonable and yet is labeled "zealotry" by folks like the parent poster.

Comment Re:The science behind GMOs show they are safe. (Score 4, Interesting) 272

Saying you are "pro-GMO" or that "GMOs are safe to injest" is like saying you are "pro-chemicals" or that "chemicals are safe to injest". Both statements are too overly broad to be anything but ridiculous.

There are most certainly genetic splices that could result in lethal "food" crops. For example, we could splice in genes from a variety of poisonous mushrooms and probably get them to express the lethal chemicals in, say, a tomato. Has Monsanto done that? No, of course not, that would be foolhardy of them, and they are evil, but not fools. Might one of the thousands of genetic modifications in the food supply yield something with unforeseen consequences? Without sufficient study, it's anti-science to say it's settled one way or the other. (That's the kind of sufficient study that *has* been done on global warming, but cannot be done on "GMOs" as a whole.)

GMOs need to be validated at the lowest level, one change to one crop at a time, where we can see what individual changes to certain plants do to their growth, production, and edible safety. Then we can approve those changes. Is this kind of approval being done? Not in the U.S. it isn't.

All of the above ignores the fact that some genetic changes are made to make the plants resistant to certain pesticides or other poisons, which are then slathered on the plants as they grow. Let's blanket assume that those genetic changes have been vetted, researched, and approved, and are 100% harmless for human consumption. Are the chemicals the plants have been bathed in suitable for human consumption? Just how long and how hard do I have to wash the food to get those chemicals off? Are they absorbed into the food? Is a non-GMO version less likely to have toxic chemicals in it? (Can I get a non-pesticide version without having to swing all the way to the other extreme and buy organic?)

The fact that you make such broad, unprovable statements such as "Anti-GMO hysteria is anti-science" and call your opponents "anti-GMO zealots" completely ruins the rest of your reasonable argument about the need for genetic modifications to food staples to ensure an adequate global food supply in the 21st century.

Comment Re:So long... (Score 5, Informative) 59

The link is like ten lines long. This is most of it:

Through the process of ending the program, we will be partnering more directly with a small set of developers whose applications have proven to be the most valuable for many of our members. Those applications will continue to operate beyond November 14, 2014. The following is a list of these applications:

        Instant Watcher
        Fanhattan
        Yidio
        NextGuide
        Flixster
        Can I Stream It?
        FeedFliks
        Instant Watch Browser for Netflix

Comment Re:Good (Score 1) 519

If only it worked that way. The thing is, it just doesn't, because the kind of people that become school administrators are generally suck-ups, at least in the limited experience I have, and that applies to sucking up both to higher-level administrators and to parents who would likely go over their heads and ruin their careers if they don't appease them.

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