the new claim is that if the gene is in your crops, you infringed the patent ... they have disputed the possibility of innocent gene transfer

Give me a citation, then, of Monsanto saying that innocent gene transfer, in general, doesn't happen, or that the mere presence of genes proves infringement.

Any claim that pollination cannot carry the gene to another crop should result in a conviction for perjury at this point.

Yeah, and it should also trigger a mental health evaluation. It's an undisputed (so far as I know) fact that cross pollination happens in (most) commercial crops.

claims based on poor viability of the crop without roundup should be barred from the trial as unfounded

I don't think it's played any significant role in any case, feel free to correct me. But (and please forgive me if I'm wrong) it appears that your knowledge of farming comes entirely from "Food, Inc." - and I really would like to know where you're getting your information from.

Except Galileo Galilei was famed for attacking people rather than their ideas.

And THAT'S why he got into so much flak.

Cause the Pope had been one of his biggest supporters and protectors. And Galileo had not been able to offer proof of his beliefs. Actually, more so that a number of his arguments in support were disproven (such as the tides sloshing about).

So basically, the Pope said you can discuss, but not advocate for the heliocentric view as a fact. Instead, Galileo, published a book arguing for it, and using some of the Pope's statements by a character named Simpleton.

This is like a venture capitalist saying "Please don't say we've discovered a cure for cancer. Until we have proved that it works. Instead, just say we are 'researching' a cure for cancer."

Then the researcher goes on the View. And well, a lot of the stuff he claims as proof of success is circumstantial and invalid.

I'm 31 with zero credit and zero debt

Those don't equal zero credit history.

You've never bought a car? Had a student loan? Rented an apartment? Had a credit card? Had a utility bill, cable/satellite, or cell-phone service in your own name? Had a regular above-the-table job?


fuck you

Sorry if I hit a little close to (your mom's) home dude, but if you can honestly answer "no" to all of the above - If not Amish, you pretty much prove my point. I hear this season's OG Kush has a heck of a kick!

Yes, but anyone who is making a mistake and insulting people over it = an ass.

Galileo Galilei was an ASStronomer!!!

Is that he was an arrogant ass and often wrong. The Catholic church did not have issue with Galileo's heliocentric view, in fact, the Catholic church has a method to accept and alter their understandings of such natural actions.

The issue is that Galileo's arguments left doubt. Ironically, there were some contemporaries whose work could have aided Galileo's proof of his view. However, he has pretty much dismissed those individuals and their works as wrong. And done so extremely rudely.

The real issue of Galileo's is that he came out postulating "FACT" while by-passing the equivalent of "peer review" for the day. The pope was actually rather fond of Galileo and his work. But refused to acknowledge Galileo's theories as fact, despite his fondness. Then Galileo chose to be a bigger arse. And wrote a book publicly insulting the Pope. It's funny, as we still have this issue in science today over peer review, and early publication statements.

Do you know what the big punishment was? I've read comments deriding the church for executing Galileo. When in truth, Galileo was given a backhanded patronage. He was put on a house arrest. But pretty much had most of his means taken care of, was free to continue his work. It was essentially a public censure.

Ironically, I was unaware of most of these facts until a few years ago. When reading the 1632 series, I started to research Galileo Galilei.

"The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, and they concluded that it could be supported as only a possibility, not an established fact."

That is not obstruction of science by the church, pope, nada. That is merely saying "Hey, before you declare something as fact, you need to be able to prove it."

Alas, the failure of science here, is to hide this blemish in the failure of history. So we go and teach how Galileo was persecuted for thinking differently. No, Galileo was in trouble for being a rude arrogant ass who couldn't back up his claims.

If I friend a guy I knew 20 years ago in high school who didn't pay off a loan, what does that have to do with my ability to pay off a loan? Not a damn thing.

If you still have no credit history at 38, then you almost certainly still smoke weed with that high school friend in his mom's basement. This has nothing to do with your "real" FICO score, think of it more like the "payday loans" version of a credit rating. Nothing to see here, move along.

As an aside, though - Why would you "friend" a deadbeat you haven't even bothered to talk to in 20 years? Anyone I would want to have stayed in contact with - I did.

Burning Man stands for absolutely nothing other than privileged, usually white people who want to go waste a lot of time while being very conscious of the fact that this supposedly makes them cool.

Yeah...bad time to be a white person. I mean, what are they all thinking...having time off and disposable income and wasting it on themselves rather than sharing it with the more deserving people who are having to do without.

Geez...the bastards.

Interesting.

When I was growing up, you got your learners permit at 14yrs, where you could drive with an adult in the car...at 16yrs you could get your license.

I never bothered with the learners permit, and I wasn't really interested in driving till I was 16yrs. But the test was only a written test, and a short driving test which consisted for me, with nothing more than driving across the st. from the police station to and abandoned shopping center, pulling into one of the parking spots in the empty parking lot, and then driving back.

There was no requirement for driving schools or hours behind the wheel or anything.

Hell, I never really tried parallel parking till about 15-20 years after I got my license...never had to really.

Worse! I don't remember ever switching between my desktop and a virtual machine by mistake. I often do so between Metro and the desktop.

I'm always hearing about the Start Menu, but really, this full-screen crap bothers me more than the absence of the Start Menu ever did. I can't even see the damn time on my computer (with Metro) unless I switch to a Clock app (which is also full-screen :-P )

Vista's UAC was one problem, and it was hard to avoid, though frankly I think MS should have done more to encourage the multi-user model when XP came out, and maybe Vista wouldn't have been such a PITA.

A bigger problem, IMO, was MS letting vendors claim their computers were "Vista ready" when they weren't. I've never tried to run Vista on the 512M boxes that were shipping with "vista-ready" labels, but I DID run it on a 1GB box, and it wasn't good. I shudder to think of what it was with half that RAM.

Their contention was that if you sprayed it with roundup and it didn't die, you must have knowingly infringed their patent.

I don't think that's true, testing for the gene (or rather the markers for it) is trivial at this point, and I know it has been used in lawsuits.

There certainly was by then a way for other varieties of canola to end up roundup ready that did not involve further GM techniques. There was also a way for plants to become roundup resistant with no GM techniques at all.

I don't know anyone who disputes that.

We need to shut down the suits while that research happens.

And I think that's a bit premature.

It was a solved problem (Wordperfect) then MS came along and unsolved it.

Nowadays, outside the USA, people are beginning to understand the significance of having a file format that is independent of the application. (odt). I would sell my MS shares if I had not already done so.

Kim Kardashian for CEO?