Plastic straws are an absolute JOKE compared to the mass of unnecessary plastic packaging used for almost everything in every store these days.

Why ban plastic bags but not blister packs? It's inconsistent to the point of stupidity. Apparently the politicians have decided it's OK to poison ourselves if industry wants to, but they're throwing us a token effort here and there to make it look like we're doing something.

It's external costs. What we need is a recycling plant - however expensive - that can break long chain polymers down to atoms using only electricity. Then you take the cost of that and fund it with a tax on plastic products at the point of production (or tariffs for imports). People will scream when they find out what the true cost of plastic is.

It's the way the entire system is set up - anything that doesn't involve jail time for the decision makers is just a cost, and the company seeks the path of least costs to highest profits.

They'd be crazy not to pay fines or insurance premiums if that is the least costly path for the company.

So if the lawmakers are serious, we need to start jailing executives.

Maybe I'm optimistic that even though Pooh took a pass, Putin will send a nice Russian lady my way to try and compromise me.

Or maybe you don't understand that anyone who could connect the real me to my Slashdot post could find out about my employment history and its implications without checking here first.

Or maybe you don't understand what is and isn't permitted when you have a security clearance.

Yep. It's probably one of the factors that got me my current position that doesn't require a government security clearance. I still have access to a lot of confidential things, but it's private industry and not government for me at the moment.

Still, I'm not going to do anything to risk my ability to get through the process again as I don't know where my next job might be. And also, as I mentioned previously, I'm just serious about things like that by nature. Probably drank a little too much koolaid while working in government or something.

China isn't likely to find me useful enough to bother with - I've spoken with a Chinese 'political officer' or whatever they are called, and she made no attempt to honeypot me. Not that it would have worked, I'm very serious about security and like my clearance... But c'mon, at least flirt. Smile. Whatever. Give me something!

CSIS, the RCMP, and the OPP are far more likely to want to mess with me than the CCP. They're human and make mistakes, and they have jurisdiction here to do so legally. And American agencies have an agreement to share information so where barred from domestic surveillance they can ask a foreign agency what they might have noticed. Because rules don't really apply to them. And it's a reciprocal agreement. Facebook etc., aren't exactly private.

TL;DR - I'd rather have China spy on me than Canada or the US, but I understand at the national level why it's a bad idea.

If there are geographic restrictions on the services they are supplying, I can't really call this 'malicious compliance'. It's more like 'minimum effort'.

Please do not take the previous statement as an endorsement of Apple business practices in general.

A site VPN terminated in the EU should circumvent this, at least for WiFi testing. Throw in a GPS spoofing device for the office if they're using location services.

Synthetic fuel costs more, because nature didn't put it in the ground pre-loaded with energy waiting to be released - you're going to need to add your own. If you use fossil fuels to do this you're making things worse. If you use green energy that could have gone elsewhere and someone else used fossil fuels instead, you're making things worse.

But the increased cost would probably reduce air travel and be a net reduction in carbon release, so there's always that to consider.

Deploying reason against a paranoid rant against 'the man'. It'll be interesting to see how that goes.

I think sequestration is a mistake... if you can't use the power elsewhere.

In a situation where you just can't to the point you're paying people to consume so your base load nuke plants can operate, THAT is power that should be used for sequestration projects instead.

For legal purposes, using your Visa card will be consent.

>Everyone pretends like the US doesn't do the same thing,

Oh god no. The US has a filthy, bloody history of treating other countries like playthings. I don't doubt there are cybercrimes to add to the list.

I've retired phones because apps I have to have working for my job had mandatory updates and weren't compatible with the phone OS.

Of course, they probably were, but it's not like I had an "ignore the warning and install anyway" option.

We know Russia's been doing this since hacking was a thing. Presumably we're now past the point of being concerned with the diplomatic issues that may result from openly acknowledging it.