they just happen to have religious beliefs that match the science on a few points.

Isn't that better than religious beliefs that don't match the science on any points?

For personal loans this is true - not so much as illegal as a lot of regulation to discourage it. Most bonds have penalties for early repayment.

When we're talking about public expenditures/loans to business, early repayment penalties don't make sense. As I said, the government isn't making these loans in order to profit from the interest. They're making the loans to help industry and the economy.

And your data on how government investments have been very profitable? profitable for who? and by who's standards are you measuring this profitability?

Do you really need data to tell you that the interstate highway system has been profitable for everyone? The Internet?

The fact that there is even an argument about whether government investment has been beneficial shows just how far the country has shifted from fact-based to tribal/faith-based when it comes to politics. All I can say is "Good luck with that".

Interesting thought, but in this world of "eBay" selling things sourced from China, that's sometimes hard to do.

That said, I also disagree with the notion of consumers being sued. What if I made the device with my own two hands using off-the-shelf components and some software I wrote?

The law is ill-equipped to deal with hate preachers and their adherents, and the offenders' community seems half-hearted in their denunciation, despite the offenders slandering Islam by committing these atrocities in its name.

Citizens need to take direct action to make such people vanish. They are the enemy.

For a lawyer to cook up this operating scheme strongly suggests that what he is doing is technically legal in the sense that it is likely within the letter of the law.

If nothing else defines what is wrong with the notion that "legal == right" this does. (Yes, I know there are things that do this better.)

I think a very simple law should be put into place which outlaws "NPEs." That would put a dent in the operations of these low-overhead trolls. But it would serve to embolden a select few who would claim to have a failed business based on their patent holdings and seek out damages from these others who are 'doing it better.'

There is no single silver bullet. But reforming the patent system, which effectively lies about the human condition by suggesting that nothing would be invented without a profit motive, one or more failing aspect of the patent system would be addressed.

The more I think about it, the more I think that any such "NPE" limitations should be carefully considered. Such measures threaten to raise the bar preventing pedestrian inventors from participating in the patent system leaving it available only to big business.

I think it will be difficult to stop the trolls without hurting real people.

There's a good risk of loss in many cases (see the history!)

Taken as a whole, government investments like have very rarely lost. Even in the contentious past 5 years, the government investment in emerging technologies have been very profitable, even with the poster boys like Solyndra which are used to argue that all government investment in technology is a bad idea. This argument is usually made on the Internet, which is more than a little bit ironic.

Did Tesla have to pay a penalty for early repayment?

Early repayment penalties are illegal in most of the US.

The benefit of this kind of loan program is not in the interest earned, but in the fact that you get a successful company that creates jobs and pays taxes, which used to be considered a good thing. Having an additional player in a heavy industry also creates competition in a fairly consolidated sector, which also used to be considered a good thing.

These kind of government loans to business in the US go back to the 18th century, and were considered a very good idea until recently, when one of the two political parties lost its mind.

First time I went down on a girl I was surprised to discover it was a little bit like licking a (dead) 9-volt battery. Turned out she had an exceptionally low pH level (high acidity).

You know how you can power a clock with a potato? I wonder...

It's even noticeable when you have sex with another partner who has a different PH.

I can only imagine the blank looks on the faces of Slashdot users reading that sentence.

Arthur Prysock.

Linking to Prysock gives you credibility.

Linking to a Fox News poll does not. Do I have to remind you just how far off Fox's polls have been when it comes to Obama?

This is a moral discussion.

it's worth noting that what Apple does is probably considered morally acceptable by Apple. Why should I give the original poster's opinion on moral acceptability any more weight than Apple's?

If you were to explain exactly what Apple has done to 100 Americans chosen randomly from the phone book, I bet you'd get 90-plus to say that Apple was acting immorally.

Apple doesn't have a defined share of taxes.

They kind of do. It's called the "corporate tax rate". Further, on the moral side, at least you could say that Apple's share of taxes should be enough to cover the expense that the US government goes through to protect Apple's patents, no? Given the number of government organizations that are charged with the enforcement of intellectual property (everyone from Customs, Dept of Defense, CIA, FBI, State Department, Justice Department, etc), we can come up with a number of what the government is giving Apple directly. You don't believe Apple should be getting welfare do you? Or do you? And that doesn't even include the use of the infrastructure and the legal system (of which Apple makes very profitable use).

The problem with my "representation" is that it is diluted by a lot of other people.

So, you admit that you don't like the American system of government and the Constitution. It's good that we get that out of the way because now we're actually having an honest discussion.

I'll just leave this here:

http://www.ibtimes.com/obama-approval-rating-not-suffering-benghazi-irs-ap-scandals-cnn-poll-1269577

There, fixed it for ya...

I generally agree, but since they aren't exactly an organized group, philosophical differences will come about from time to time.

That said, it's kind of hard to imagine doing something against their site without harming innocents while at the same time doing anything which draws attention to problems there. The SA police response was initially denial followed by "no comment." So they still aren't doing anything as far as anyone can tell. And according to the two articles, they are also quite negligent in some areas while active in others which speaks of agendas, laziness and/or political biases among other problems. This is "a shaming."

I have been casually following the problems of South Africa and I am less than impressed. Somehow I had rather hoped that they had learned that the answer to racist law and policy is to do away with racist law and policy, not to "reverse it" by creating more racist law and policy which punishes the "race" of a person rather than individuals responsible. So it goes to show that both the US and South Africa (as well as many others) have some growing up to do.

And seriously, while I wouldn't do it, I can understand why a group interested in justice and equality would expose the sensitive details of people in the databases. If/when harm comes to them as a result of the leak, it would bring more global attention to the actual problems. And it's not like there's not already a whole lot of danger and unfairness in South Africa -- the "net condition" will not really change. But pubic awareness and especially global public awareness will have been raised, which makes it a "net improvement."