When you drive, you don't pay the full price of driving. The damage you do to the environment is unaccounted for. This is an example of market failure. The government imposes a tax roughly equal to the damage you do through polluting. Then, you are paying the full cost for your activities. Since you now have better information, or better yet, are forced to take into account all of that information, you make different decisions in the market place. That is how a tax would allow the market to decide.

Stop the subsidies, tax carbon to account for externalities, and then let the market decide. The negative effects of biofuels have been on display ever since the Dutch dropped palm oil. Instead of the government pushing this obviously failed product, they should make sure that consumers bear the entire cost of their decisions and let companies develop a way to reduce fossil fuel consumption. And less biofuels means the price of my beer goes down, dammit! Won't someone think of my beer?

Not all companies are motivated purely by profit--that's just the legal default. There are entire classes of corporations dedicated to things other than making money--non-profits, for instance. Even for profit companies, such as Google.org, can have goals other than profit maximization, as long as they specify those goals in their by-laws. I am unsure that purely profit motivated companies are even the majority, as it seems every student has a non-profit registered these days. For profit are definitely the largest by market cap, though, as people generally donate money to non-profits, and invest money in for-profits.

Very true, and I wish more large shareholders--pension plans, for example--would do so. The problem is when a majority shareholder wants a large, short term profit and pressures the company to maximize short term value. The board can hide behind the business judgement rule, but then the shareholder will replace them with someone who will maximize profits in the short term.

Bond holders lend money to a company; shareholders own part of the company. Since the shareholders own the company, the board and CEO work for the shareholders. That is why they must maximize shareholder value. Then the shareholders can take the money they make and spend it how they like. Saying a corporation is evil is a silly, populist gloss over the way things work. Corporations are neither good nor evil. The people who own them are. Corporations maximize shareholder value, and then we, as shareholders, determine whether that value is used for good or for evil. Sorry- not all of that was directed at you, just the definitional part at the beginning.

Bringing in a case about the death penalty is an interesting tactic. I'm surprised he didn't use a school speech case, as they seem to be more on point. Oh well, hope he loses regardless.

Really? If you can't be more sympathetic than that, why would you think anyone would be sympathetic to your views? And as far as the manners thing goes, kettle meet pot.

There is no assurance they will be charged with a felony, especially if they give the police evidence on you. You can sue for the civil equivalent without the DA's say so. Thus, it is more important to look at what would happen in the face of a civil charge.

No, that's not true. If someone gets evidence, and then submits it to the police--or the police discover it while investigating the PI--it's probably coming in. I am not aware of evidence being excluded as a remedy for a private civil violation. Maybe some states have laws that work in that way, but it isn't the way the federal system works. If your buddy steals your drugs and turns them over to the cops without pre-arrangement with the cops, the drugs are probably coming in. In fact, I think there is case law out there in the context of hacking-someone can hack your computer and then turn the evidence over to the police. Yes, you can sue the hacker for the crime, but the evidence he found is likely coming in to convict you.

Neither article says, but based on the language quoted, it was probably the Fourth Amendment. If so, there is no reason for a variance among the various courts. If New York, through their state constitution or by statute, has extended the protections provided by the Fourth, then it is hard to compare the cases. However, based on Supreme Court precedent, Wisconsin seems to have the better take on Federal Law. The police can put a beeper on a car, as long as they don't acquire any information they would have had if they tailed you the entire time. A GPS doesn't seem that much different. Of course, there may be additional facts not present in the excerpts that would change that analysis.

No, someone working for the cops is an agent of the cops, and gets some additional responsibilities. Informants are a little different, but informants are dealt with under the whole reasonable expectation of privacy part of the 4th Amendment.

He WASN'T talking for his client at the time. Sorry.

We had a symposium on this issue, and a lawyer talked from the plaintiff's side. Much of their theory dealt with the length of the cable, based purely on a statutory reading. While I understand he has a duty to attempt to apply the statute in his client's best interests, his construction made little sense. Still, he had to rely on that construction to get around Sony. Essentially, it is legal for me to time shift in my house. So why can't I put my time shift device outside of my house, say in a warehouse with a lot of other time shift devices? And what if I make those time shift devices virtual devices on a single server? His point was that moving the device outside of my house was the difference-it became a transmission. He could not provide a length of cable that would trigger that definition, though. And, of course, he was speaking for his client at the time. I will be curious to see how this case works out if SCOTUS does take it. The statutes need some re-writing, honestly.

I participated in this as a Cadet in 2001. We used a variety of operating systems, including Windows 2000, Solaris, Linux, and Mac OS9. Even back then, the Linux server and desktop client had by far the greatest uptime. Well, except for me, as I was attempting to rebuild the Windows server after they had taken it down, yet again.

EA has a market cap of 6.5 billion. Apple has over 20 billion in cash and short term investments. Even with a hefty control premium, they could easily acquire EA. If they were only interested in a majority share, so that they could force more consideration of their platforms, it's even easier.