If GM claimed to offer anyone that wants it help you finance any new car, then yes GM would be required to send you to Mercedes Benz Bank. That is why they don't claim to do it. Google on the other hand does claim to be searching everything, not just their own services.

Google is first and foremost a SEARCH engine, and as such they claim to show you other people's products, then yes, Google should not give special treatment to their own brands.

Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo similarly can not give special treatment for their own brands when they claim to be showing you everything

If you offer a service claiming to show everything, then no you can't rank yourself first or best. Doing so is a lie and lying to obtain business is fraud. Which is why they are in trouble.

So would you be, as you seem to think it is OK to falsely advertise what your business does.

No that is not what the FTC is saying. Google's business is to search websites. They are intentionally downgrading the quality of the search for their competitors. Apple store does not in any way claim to offer non-apple products.

The fact that you don't see that indicates your knowledge of economics and business is severely lacking.

Nor is it 'nice' that Google shows non-competioros offerings, it is a REQUIREMENT to running a search service. A search service that only shows your own products is not a search service, it is a search function for your products.

No one is saying that Google can't serve their own interests. What they are saying is that Google must first serve their customers interests, than their own interests.

The fact that you don't see that indicates you fail to understand rather basic concepts.

I see three levels of genetic engineering:

1) Copying DNA from one human to another.

2) Copying DNA from a non-human into a human (or a large amount of human DNA into a non-human creature)

3) Creating our own DNA from scratch.

These three things are dramatically different. Set 1, modifying a human to be like another human - for example giving anyone that wants the gene for blue eyes, the gene for blue eyes, is almost within our grasp - technologically and ethically. I see no problem with allowing that at all.

Set 2 is much more problematic. We don't know enough to do it safely and need to set up a long term panel to do it. Luckily right now it is too difficult for us to intentionally do. Hopefully by the time we learn how, we will have the proper safeguards in place.

Set 3 is pure science fiction now. Our knowledge of DNA is no where near advanced enough to attempt this in any but the most random manner. It should be forbidden at least until Set 2 becomes routine, then we might be able to do it safely, along with whatever new safeguards we will need to enforce.

At this point in time, we have effective energy generation - geothermal, solar,and wind all are cheaper than coal and approaching natural gas.

What we need is a better way to transmit, store or retrieve power (electrical, heat, momentum, pressure, chemical, it doesn't matter - and yes, a room temperature superconductor will count). Do that and pretty instantly several things will happen:

1)Coal plants will all shut down. They are too expensive now, even not accounting for their massively bad ecological issues.

2)New natural gas plants will cease to be created. A few might even shut down.

3) New nuclear plants will suddenly be approved .... in the middle of deserts and other areas safely far away from population centers

4) New geothermal, solar, tidal, and wind power plants will pop up to replace the coal plants.

Also, there is the possibility that cars will switch to the new power source, but no guarantee.

Yes - if the criminal knows you used it. Most criminals use a Public Defense Lawyer who does jack shit. They don't investigate, and never find out it was used and never complain, so the evidence is accepted.

OR the police lie about how they got your location "anonymous tip" was used in at least one legal proceeding, when the anonymous tip was called in by a police officer using a stingray.

Community Service hours are the way to go.

Consider a fine of 4 hours of community service for driving going 10 mph over the speed limit. For greater infractions, use more hours of community service.

The community will itself benefit, but it can't be used to fund the state, the way those SOB's in Ferguson tried to do.

Wealthy people will feel the pain, but at the same time the poor, retired, students, unemployed, etc. will not be excessively punished.

You negate the argument from greedy sob's that complain about people the salary based rates 'soaking the rich' - and negate the political impact of wealthy people buying off the politicians to stop this system.

You make it a LOT less likely that the clerks will 'fix' the ticket. People go from claiming financial hardship to being the dickwad that refuses to help the community. Why would you help him?

The only real problem is out-of-towners. We can handle that with an exchange program. Speed in New York, but pay the community service in Florida, etc.

P.S. I posted a shorter version of this earlier. I thought it out a bit more and re-posted it here.

I agree with this. Except jail costs the state money, while fines bring it in.

So make one change - replace 'jail' with community service,

One speeding ticket = 4 hours spent picking up garbage on the side of the road.

What possessed a Japanese Bank to write web comic?

Also, what webcomic would you like to guest write?

{ joke } You missed one option - kill massive number of people. Amazing how many people (excluding ISIL, et al.) don't bother to ask "What would Hitler do?" { / joke }

That only works with some people. But I will take your word that for you specifically, sugar can hide the taste. Not for everyone. Specifically, I am a supertaster and can taste alcohol no matter how much sugar you try to use to hide that bitter junk. Honestly I don't drink much (Martini was an example/joke)

And yes, all alcohol tastes like bitter junk to me. There is no such thing as a 'good' wine, beer, whisky etc. if you have the fully activated TAS2R38 gene. Only you poor non-super powered mortals, with your weak tongues with a puny, normal number of fungiform papillae can truly enjoy alocohol.

I, and many other people, drink only for the social and pharmaceutical aspects of drinking.

I heard a rumor (or possibly just started one :D) that one of Panda's competitors tagged Panda as a malware. So apparently Panda just took their word that Panda was malware.

You've got to be kidding, right? We take such a small amount of wind that it wouldn't matter at all. You might as well complain about all that light we are absorbing with PV panels will not leave enough for plants.

The politics of anthro climate change are "It doesn't exist, shut up, stop telling me the 'science'". You are stupid not because you disagree, but because your arguments SUCK.

You are correct that overpopulation used to be a problem, but the developed world has basically solved that issue. See Japan, where the population growth is basically negative. Note, we have always had a solution to overpopulation, it is called WAR - kill enough people and the problem is solved. But recently we have come up with far better solutions involving birth control.

Your malthusian prediction is garbage.

Overpopulation is no longer the primary cause of climate change, instead greed for the Western European lifestyle is the primary cause. The solution to that will almost certainly be technological improvements across the board, and energy - including wind - will be the primary tech improvement that eliminates the problem.

How exactly are you supposed to stick this thing in someone's non-alcoholic drink and them not notice the taste? Or are they talking about adding more alcohol to my martini - in which case, yes please.

They only people that need to worry about this are the teachers at a high school dance. And we all know how effective they are at stopping kids from drinking....

It started with short stories - magazines were popular back when TV did not exist.

Then books started taking over. They made more money for several reasons.

Now a book is not profitable, at least not first ones. It takes time for authors to become famous enough to get enough readers.

So the only way to make money writing a book is to do it in series. First one creates a market, the second one makes small profit, the third or greater one makes the real money.

I can't see the trend continuing - having to write multiple series before you make a profit seems extreme. Or worse, not making any profit until it moved to video would be ridiculous.

Part of the problem is that while talent is what people want, it is much harder to measure. It takes talent to find talent, and if they had talent in the first place, they usually don't really need it.

Skill on the other hand, can be easily teach, but they can also easily measure how much skill you already have.

So what ends up happening is they look for their keys directly under the streetlight, even though they lost them in the dark area on the other hide of the street.