You have a good point there! In time, the concept of selling organs becomes even more insidious.

Allowing a person to sell his organs makes his organs just another asset. When that person then declares bankruptcy, the creditors are entitled to his assets. Could that person then be forced to sell off his assets (body organs) to settle the debt? Probably not in the near future, but with the way things are going, a law would be written to mandate just this.

"In all three of these outbreaks, someone who had not been vaccinated traveled overseas and brought the disease back with them"

One thing seems obvious to me. Ban our CITIZENS from reentering the US unless they can show that ALL of their vaccinations are current. We could delay reentry to the US by quarantining them in a place similar to Ellis Island for 21 days (or some suitable time) to make sure they were not carrying in a disease. Those people that have religious, moral (or just plain stupidity in the case of vaxers) could avoid the vaccinations by just being sequestered.

NOTE: Quarantining is not incarceration and has been proven legal such as in the case of "Typhoid Mary" and quarantining by the health department. I don't see any legal problems but IANAL.

Although it might not have been the reason for not including a way of moving on its own, as an anti piracy ploy, this might have merit. One of the first things that pirates do when capturing a ship is to move it to a frindly port. Without engines, it is much more difficult to do that. The pirates would have to take over not just the barge-supertanker but at the same time take over the tug. If more than one tugboat is needed to move the barge the pirates problems become much harder because they will have to take over more than one tugboat.

You don't get the point! While the quote was about the automotive industry, the basic point isn't specific to automobiles. It applies to all business enterprises.

Walter Ruether onde said this about robots to Henry Ford II...

  "Henry, how are you going to get them (robots) to buy Ford cars?"

He probably is right, the economy is predicated upon wage earners having enough money to buy stuff. Robots will never be able to buy what they produce. That is until robots have the freedom to "live a life" of their own and buy stuff. The companies will never let their robots to be that independent. After all, they own the robots. Right now, companies are breaking the unspoken agreement that they have with thier workers and consumers, that they need to prosper.

Consider this...

Just this week the head judge of the FISC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FISC) court that oversees the NSA, CIA etc. stated that the courts did not have nearly enough resources to verify what they were being told. In essence, they mostly have to "rubber stamp" those aagencies requests. In essence FISC is just a joke.

"not my problem - fuck you"

That line is ALMOST correct but is should read... ""not my problem , YET - fuck you"

Eventually, almost everyone will, at some time, get sick and eventually die. (The few that don't , die in some quick and catastrophic event.)

The problem with the phrase "of the people, by the people, for the people" is that at least the way SCOTUS sees it corporations are persons. The actual people of the US (The liittle folk NOT corporatios) will have to kick those politions that believe this crap out of office! When that happens, maybe such crap will not happen.

(Don't hold your breath.)

Writing the computer code is relatively simple. The hard part is getting all the graft and kickbakcs sorted out. Getting all those back room negotiations sorted out takes time. When all that is done, the public will be screwed properly.

Sorry for confusing you! This comment was meant for a different story. I posted it here by mistake.

Writing the computer code is relatively simple. The hard part is getting a;; the graft and kickbakcs sorted out. Getting all those back room negotiations sorted out takes time. When all that is done, the public will be screwed properly.

That reminds me of an old aviators saying.

"Takeoffs are optional, Landings are mandatory!"

Also if you get that landing wrong, there are no more takeoffs for you!

There is a slight misconception concerning the invention of the airplane. A lot of people can claim that theirs was the first heavier than air, and mechanically driven airplane. Where these inventors failed is that they did not have good way of controlling where their invention went. The Wright brothers solved the problem of controlling the direction and altitude of the airplane. Without this critical part of the equation, true flight was just a dream.

Cutting off funding should not be decided by business, the courts should make that decision. Garnted, the operators of such a website may be scumbags but they still deserve their day in court.

"No new genetic material is being created and it never will be."

Wrong! Mutations create new genetic material all the time. Most of the time, mutations are harmful but occasionally a mutation is helpful to that organism. If a new mutation allows an organism to be better adapted to its environment, that gene will be selected for. Soon, much of the population will have that gene. It's simple evolution.