You're not the only one confused by this quirk of UK tax-law... At a fundamental level, EVERY business is really just an "order fulfillment" business. If you can just apply that label and not pay taxes, what stops every company from organizing a Luxembourg shell-company to "own" the business, then self-applying the same label and never paying another nickel in corporate income tax?

Even though the cynic in me knows better, I desperately hope the answer isn't "nothing whatsoever."

Mod this up! Identical messages to hundreds (or thousands) of people in a few seconds are SPAM, and almost certainly violate the TOS. Seems like the technical challenge to blocking that sort of spam would be quite low.

Granted, it is hard to tell just what is "spam" on Twitter since, to those of us who aren't regular users of the site, almost all of it looks like unredeemable garbage. But I assume regular tweeters know the difference between what they "want to see" and what they don't.

This is the angle that so few people in our country seem to get... Nothing that Manning released was really all that "critical" to fighting a war. It was critical, however, in exposing the government's bottomless bucket of lies on the subject. So, obviously, Manning must die.

Yeah, he probably should have specified the unspoken ellipses there--i.e. ...

"We want Federal agencies to begin sharing as much data as they can. ...With each other... "

In all fairness, SECDEF probably assumed the people he was talking to were competent enough to fill in the blanks (you know, the part about not revealing the data to the Chinese mafia, for example.) Obviously, that assumption was a mistake.

He probably already got an insurance settlement and replaced it, so getting this "lost" boat back could create a PITA situation for himself... and really, who knows what shape its in after drifting across the Pacific... It's been adrift for a year. I understand why he doesn't want it back.

FOR SALE

One slightly used Fishing Trawler. Low hours, 2x Marine Diesels that ran like a dream when last started.
There has been some maintenance deferred last season, but otherwise perfect.
All controls Japanese.

$3,000,000 obo.

...as they are slashdotted into next Tuesday.

Why do I only have mod points on days when AC's post sensible things to mod up? Couldn't agree more: It's MY personal information, and data-marts have no right to collect/commercialize it without my consent...and a cut of the profit.

"Transparent aluminum.... It's all there, but it would take years to figure out the dynamics!"

You're right, of course.

The real challenge comes in updating the license-plate database (without being caught,) and hewing a plate (that looks real) with a new number to insert into that database because, of course, if you steal real license plates they'll end up being reported stolen and get flagged in the db...

This is the difference... In the U.S. trailers are titled and registered separately, so putting the plate from your car on the trailer would be illegal. I'm not sure how the UK has gotten by without separate trailer plates/registration for this long--a trailer can be very valuable depending on make/model/type and not having a separate title and registration seems like it leaves the door open for people to claim they "own" a trailer they've simply stolen.