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Comment: Re:No reproduction (Score -1, Troll) 309

As someone that has performed similar radiation experiments as part of my research into zero-light horticulture, faking this is very doubtful, as I've encountered the same issues.

Wow! Did you publish these results? If so, can you post a photo of your Nobel Prize?

If you didn't publish your results, why should anyone believe you?

Comment: Re:No reproduction (Score 0, Troll) 309

The only reason someone would accuse 9th grade students of scientific fraud is that they are themselves prone to committing fraud.

Well, you got me there. I faked my way through most of my college science labs. I figured out that just faking the data to give the expected result is less work and results in a higher grade. I hadn't figured that out by ninth grade, but maybe these kids are smarter than I was.

You don't like the result because you are a computer geek.

No, I would love to see their result confirmed. It would mean there was some new force in the Universe that we are unaware of. In addition to its use as a herbicide, maybe this new force could be used for ESP or superluminal communications. The possibilities are endless. It would be wonderful.

Comment: Re:No reproduction (Score -1, Troll) 309

Or the ninth graders just forgot to water one side of the tray.

Or just as likely, they just faked the data. These kids aren't stupid, they understand that the only way to get a good grade on such a lame experiment is to get unexpected results. If the router had no effect, they would received a B minus, they would not have won the science fair, and we certainly wouldn't be discussing their experiment on Slashdot.

Comment: Re:Well, he's not afraid his company might fire hi (Score 1) 482

by ShanghaiBill (#43753821) Attached to: Larry Page: You Worry Too Much About Medical Privacy

I shouldn't have to pay the medical expenses for smokers

You don't subsidize them. They subsidize you. Do you know how high cigarette taxes are? They are more than high enough to cover the expected additional health care costs of smoking. Much of this is because many smoking related diseases, such as lung cancer, are not that expensive because they kill fairly quickly and there are no good treatments. Additionally, smokers pay into social security and medicare just like everyone else, but they are more likely to die before they collect their share of the benefits.

alcoholics

Alcohol is trickier than tobacco, because in moderation it is actually good for you. But alcohol taxes hit everyone, whether they drink to excess or not.

or drug users.

If you want drug users to pay their own way, then you should support legalization and taxation.

Comment: Re:Well, he's not afraid his company might fire hi (Score 1) 482

by ShanghaiBill (#43753607) Attached to: Larry Page: You Worry Too Much About Medical Privacy

Insurance needs to be decoupled from industry.

Bingo. There is no logical reason that people should get their health insurance from their employer. I makes no sense. We do it that way for quirky historical reasons (wage controls during WWII), and not for any rational reason.

In communist China, employers provided education to their workers' children. Each factory ran a school. So if you switched jobs, your kids had to switch to a different school. That seems (and is) stupid, but it is no stupider than what we do with health care.

Single payer is the only system that makes sense

Well, I will admit that if you look at all the different systems in use around the world, single payer seems to work the best.

Comment: Re:I do believe it because it based on sound scien (Score 3, Informative) 993

But saying that 97% of climate science papers agree on it does not validate it.

The article does not say that. What it says is that 97% that take a stance, take a pro-human-cause stance. But nowhere does it say what percentage take a stance.

Comment: Re:so why not set up shop elsewhere? (Score 1) 284

social security...

Of the things you listed, this one is more than all the others combined. So lets see if that makes sense ... corporate profits are distributed to shareholders either through growth (capital gains) or dividends. Who are these shareholders? Mostly institutional investors, which are dominated by retirement funds. So if the government takes $1 out of your 401k retirement fund, spends half of it on bureaucratic overhead (as the GGP is proposing) and gives you back $0.50 in your social security check, you really think that is a "good investment"?

Comment: Re:pfftt... (Score 4, Interesting) 544

Might as well go to the game farm and shoot the deer in the small holding pen with a shotgun.

There are plenty of places that raise and release tame gamebirds with little fear of humans, and charge people to go out and shoot them. Dick Cheney was on of these "hunts" when he shot a lawyer in the face.

Comment: Re:so why not set up shop elsewhere? (Score 1) 284

If the government can get a $1 return on a $0.50 investment in policing tax then they have recovered additional money, so it was a good investment.

It is only a good investment if you believe a $0.50 increase in government revenue is worth sucking twice that amount out of the economy. What is the government going to spend that $0.50 on that would be better than a company investing a $1 of profit back into growing their business?

Comment: Re:so why not set up shop elsewhere? (Score 2) 284

In some countries they then wind up the targets of investigation and receive tax bills and fines.

... and other corporations notice that, and locate their new facilities someplace more welcoming.

I don't think your comment supports dropping the corporate tax rate to zero, but rather better policing and tax law management.

Every dollar the government spends on better policing and better tax law management is one dollar less for something else. Likewise with every dollar that corporations spend on tax avoidance. US corporations already spend about $200 billion per year on tax avoidance. If the corporate income tax was cut to zero, all of that money could go into something productive, and the end result would be higher overall tax revenues from payroll taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes etc.

I've seen the claim that corporate income taxes inhibit job creation, but I've not seen convincing evidence that it does.

When a company moves its headquarters overseas, the executive and administrative jobs go with it. When American businesses spend hundreds of billions on accountants and tax attorneys, that is just dead end spending that results in no useful goods or services, and no job growth.

Comment: Re:so why not set up shop elsewhere? (Score 1) 284

2. Because if a company isn't paying corporate tax, then it is much harder for it to be worth having them in the country (the cost of servicing their existence may exceed their return to society/government)

I got news for you: Most corporations pay little if any corporate income tax. Big corporations avoid most income tax by funneling their profits through overseas subsidiaries. Small corporations avoid income tax by electing S corp status. A good tax collects revenue efficiently while having few deleterious consequences. Corporate income taxes are the opposite: they collect almost no revenue while inhibiting the creation of jobs. But corporations still pay plenty of payroll taxes, excise taxes, sales taxes, etc.

Comment: Re:Three Gorges Dam (Score 1) 471

by ShanghaiBill (#43733449) Attached to: Global Warming Shifts the Earth's Poles

A nautical mile is a radial measure, meaning that it is based on an angle from a central reference point.

No. Here is the complete, absolute and exact definition of a nautical mile: 1852 meters.

Since it is defined in terms of the meter, it can be used for anything a meter can be used for, including ... measuring distance.

The origin and raison d'etre for the nautical mile is its relationship to an arc-minute of the Earth's circumference, but there is nothing that limits it to that use.

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