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Comment: Re:Idiot lawmakers (Score 4, Insightful) 517

by ArsenneLupin (#44029793) Attached to: Canadian Couple Charged $5k For Finding 400-Year-Old Skeleton

The next such skeleton found will just go into the trash...

Not necessarily a good idea either. In some places, trash is sorted manually, and human remains certainly will trigger police attention. Better not throw any identifiable items (envelopes...) into the same trash bag.

Better just leave it in the ground, that way you also have plausible deniability ("sorry, I just didn't notice anything weird...")

Comment: Re:TFA says that they can apply for relief (Score 1) 517

by ArsenneLupin (#44029749) Attached to: Canadian Couple Charged $5k For Finding 400-Year-Old Skeleton

Whereas in most of Europe, sidewalk maintenance is considered the state's responsibility.

Construction maybe, but maintenance, certainly not. Case in point: In Luxembourg, residents are responsible for keeping "their" sidewalk snow and ice-free in the winter.

Comment: Re:No.... (Score 1) 259

by ArsenneLupin (#43985417) Attached to: Disease Outbreak Threatens the Future of Good Coffee

if it's true that Fair Trade USA is gobbling a lot of it up in overpriced office supplies, at least I can console myself that it keeps office-supply companies in business

That's also a way of looking at it, sure :-) However, it doesn't benefit all office-supply (and marketing, and web service, and..) companies uniformly, but only those whose management are friends and/or family with Fair Trade management...

The original impetus for Fair Trade was that much of the middleman price of coffee was due to lenders whose rates and practices would make Shylock blush

Yeah, and that's why it's so much more ironing that Fair Trade wants to promote "microfinance", which really are just overpriced credits to fleece the small time producers...

Comment: Re:No.... (Score 1) 259

by ArsenneLupin (#43984719) Attached to: Disease Outbreak Threatens the Future of Good Coffee

a fair/free trade local brand that the company owners first sold to me at a local farmer's market.

If you bought it direct from the owner at a farmer's market, it's not fair trade. "Fair trade" is indeed a trademark granted by FTO (Fairtrade labeling Organization) for products shipped from the producing countries to the consumer countries that supposedly reward the producers in a "fairer" way. "Supposedly", because all they (FLO and subsidiaries) do is be another middleman who wants their share (for "licensing" feeds, that stay in the consumer country). Those fees are then usually squandered on glossy marketing campaigns, and excessively priced office supplies and services ("excessively priced" because bought from companies operated by friends and families of FLO employees), with little left to help the coffee farmers.

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