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Each member of our household flushes the toilet after defecation because the sight of a toilet bowl filled with feces is disgusting. However, because of the drought here my parents have suggested to me that I should not flush the toilet after I urinate because that would waste too much water. They suggest letting the toilet water get more and more concentrated with urine before flushing it. This saves money as well as the environment. But what I wonder is whether an unflushed toilet is a health hazard. How concentrated should the toilet water be before we flush it to avoid any health problems or is it better to just flush after each urination? I would like to convince my parents to flush the toilet all the time because I hate walking into a toilet that smells like urine.

The answer for the (i) is 0.049, which I got by evaluating Poisson pdf [math]\frac{e^{-3}3^{0}}{0!} = e^{-3} \approx 0.049[/math], but I'm not sure what to do for (ii) and (iii). The answers are (ii) 0.0446; 0.9826 and (iii) 0.2798. I just don't know how the answers were obtained.

From http://www.ballet.co.uk/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=printer_format&forum=happening&om=5262&omm=16 Can someone explain Winston's reasoning? How would the desire for raising one's own biological children increase evolutionary fitness?

Many people have a very juvenile idea about what political debate is. They form an emotional connection to a team or a group then then argue for that group without regard to truth or whether they are being more critical of out-group beliefs versus in-group beliefs. In other words, behavior in political debate resembles behavior among crazy football fans. So perhaps instead of taking the model of the crazy football fan take the model of science and apply it to political debate, if that's possible.

Is Sprite any better?

I drink on average 1.6 cups (400 milliliters) of Coca-Cola per day. Is this too much? What is a safe rate of Coca-Cola consumption? Here is my basic knowledge of biology. Too much sugar in the bloodstream I don't think is that harmful, as there are many different types of sugars. However, the type of sugars in Coke are processed simple sugars (monosaccharides). How is this harmful as opposed to sugar from, say, fruits? Can too much sugar lead to diabetes or is diabetes influence more by genes?

I think I may have posted a thread here or in another health forum about any possible dangers of leaving gladwrap or any other plastic on food when you put it in the microwave. Recently a friend of mine who is doing honors in chemistry told me that heating gladwrap on food can lead to dioxin poisoning. Or at least what is released into your food is carcinogenic. Is this true? I'd like to know the definitive answer to this issue because I've been getting lots of mixed messages.

I was taught in high school bio that a species is defined in terms of whether two organisms can mate and produce viable offspring. No simple rule exists for the definition of a race so I'm not too sure.

Members within political parties change over time, so this is expected. Democrats may also find it useful to try send their kids into the Republican party to change it from the inside so that it resembles the Democrats party. The Republicans may be doing the same. __________________ Content Protect Macro90 Phase 2403933013

Those environmentalists who burnt SUVs would be happy. Forget street protests. From now on target oil refineries and create war in the Middle-East.

I will add, it is bad that workers lose jobs. (I'm not some kind of elitist who hates workers or anything.) But if they have the energy, most should get new jobs (assuming they channel their efforts into getting a new job instead of blowing it on unproductive pursuits like complaining). The extra money flowing in the economy from the extra profits the firm owners make from lowing costs will drive entrepreneurs to find ways to grab that extra money. They may hire more workers. For example, Ford outsources its factory to another country. Workers are unemployed. Rich Ford executives become even richer. They can afford to buy Mercedes instead of Toyotas now. Mercedes hires more salespeople in response to higher demand. Workers who used to work at Ford find jobs in the Mercedes dealership, selling cars to executives who fired them. From Wikipedia it says: "Drezner ... points out that large software companies such as Microsoft and Oracle have increased outsourcing and used the savings for investment and larger domestic payrolls. Nationally, 70,000 computer programmers lost their jobs between 1999 and 2003, but more than 115,000 computer software engineers found higher-paying jobs during that same period." Watch China in the Red to see that workers in America are not the only ones doing it tough. With market reform in China, with the Chinese government becoming more and more capitalistic, Chinese workers are losing jobs and must struggle to stay competitive. But it is this extra competition that is good for the economy.

If that's true that's very sad. Think of production as a black box. You put inputs in it (labor, raw materials, electricity, etc) and then this black box spits out output (cars, medicine, etc). The economist looks at it this way. If you increase output for each unit of input, then technology increases. For example, initally you produce $10 worth of cars with $5 worth of labor. Then you get machines and with $3 worth of machines (including electricity costs) you are able to produce $10 worth of cars. The machine is a technological improvement because it increases the firm's productivity. Outsourcing a job overseas, when you think about it, is similar. Instead of putting money into a machine, you're just putting it into another "machine" overseas, i.e. workers overseas who work for cheaper, thereby making the whole offshore outsourcing a technological improvement. What I mean is that although offshore outsourcing may not be strictly a technological improvement by most people's definition of technological improvement, its economic effects are very similar. Mechanical technology leads to job losses. In fact the tax argument used against offshore outsourcing could be used against mechanical technological improvements. If machines took the place of workers in a Toyota plant in the U.S., these workers, assuming they don't find new jobs, will not pay taxes. Firm owners will earn more and if we assume that the evil corporations engage in tax evasion (and the workers do not) then the government really loses when it comes to tax revenue. Of course, when firms pay for machines and for the running of the machines they pay local electricity companies (should we assume they pay taxes?) and either local or foreign machine makers whereas if they offshore outsources this money would go overseas. Some may suggest that firms be forced to only buy machines locally. As for wages, stopping offshore outsourcing won't stop wages from going down. If wages in America are higher than wages in China and trade in factor markets were allowed (i.e. workers allowed to move around) then wages will converge, Chinese wages go up and American wages go down. However, if we put a barrier between China and America prevent movement of labor but allowed for free trade of the good that these workers made, then this has the same effect. Workers' wages will go down in America. This is due to free trade of goods. See Factor-Price Equalization. If the argument is that jobs or workers should not be able to move between countries because of wage equalization, government would have to prevent movement of goods as well. This certainly would conflict with the free trade ideology ingrained in many Americans. Read about the Luddites, a group of people who smashed and destroyed machines because of the threat they had on their jobs. Maybe. But would banning outsourcing stop this? Perhaps consumers don't have incentives to save because of the taxes. Or perhaps they're just impatient. See http://www.mises.org/story/1488 where Austrians talk about the buy-back-the-product argument.

There are those who believe that if a sector is dying it should be left to die. The market culls out inefficient sectors so that resources can be channeled into efficient sectors, and specialization allows for gains from trade, leading to greater overall output. This of course assumes that labor is perfectly mobile because a worker who spent his whole life making shoes cannot instantly become, say, an accountant or an engineer. Is there evidence that a significant proportion of those who lose jobs don't find new jobs? Even IF a significant number of workers lose jobs or receive lower wages from their new job, is the magnitude of this loss negligible compared to the gain from trade reaped from specialization? (Comparative advantage.) If home workers lose jobs AND cannot find another job or finds another job with a lower wage, then tax revenue decreases. The foreign worker whom the local firm now hires is in another country and therefore doesn't pay taxes to the home government. However, the lowering of costs allows those who own home firms to increase income. Wouldn't this be taxed? Furthermore, because of the progressive income tax system in America and Australia, etcetera, then wouldn't they be taxed at a higher rate, leading to higher tax revenue? With the freedom to offshore outsource, people engage in trade, and trade allows for two-way exchange, not one-way. Parties to a business transaction do not leech. Both parties enter the contract with the expectation of mutual gain. The argument made here is that payments to labor (wages) are going to China but nothing is coming back. But this is not so. In exchange for the wages from American firm owners to Chinese workers, Chinese workers are providing services. The U.S. firm owners gain from increasing their profits. The Chinese workers gain from increasing their wages (otherwise, why would they accept the job?). This assumes that Americans only spend locally. Nearly all goods are wholly foreign owned or partially foreign owned. Furthermore, there is international investment. If money goes to China it may go to a U.S. firm operating in China. The U.S. firm operating in China may have one-third of its shareholders from France or Japan. So really, in the globalized economy nationality really is meaningless. As I said, this is right. But many things lead to job losses, such as change in consumer tastes and technology. It is just the nature of capitalism. One year everyone loves Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola workers are well off. But in another year let's imagine people start disliking Coca-Cola and prefer Pepsi instead. Coca-Cola starts cutting jobs. Pepsi won't hire the workers because Pepsi and Coke operate factories differently, meaning that skills used to work in a Coke factor is not transferable to a Pepsi factory. (Note: this is just an illustrative example, not necessarily what is happening in the real world.) As for technology, film camera are being replaced by digital camera. Many Kodak workers have lost jobs. But what should the government do? Prevent innovation? Stop technology? Prevent people from changing preferences or tastes? A government dictated by workers' welfare instead of consumer demand--that is a communist government. Ford is definitely irrelevant today. For one, most cars are made by machines, leading to job losses. Furthermore, car part manufacturing is highly specialized. While in the old days your whole car may be made by one company, in today's car, the gearbox may be made by one company, the steering wheel may be made by another company, the wheels by yet another company, and so forth. This specialization leads to lower costs and, some would argue, even better quality because each company specializes in one part of the car, allowing them to focus on their core competencies...all that textbook stuff. Not true at all, especially with labor. Since developed countries have similar wages, then how will any opprtunities to trade or outsource labor arise? To conclude, under communism you expect the state to look after you. Under capitalism, it's the other way around. You look after yourself. Your skills, your education, your job, and your life. It's your own responsibility. That is freedom. Capitalism Magazine

[math]L(\theta)=[\frac{1}{4}(1+\theta)]^{112} \times [\frac{1}{4}(2-\theta)]^{94} \times (\frac{1}{4}\theta)^{53} \times [\frac{1}{4}(1-\theta)]^{31}[/math] For the function above, simplify, take logs, derive with respects to theta, and then equate with zero to find the the value of theta that maximizes L(theta). My working out is below. I think I have made a mistake beacuse I'm not sure if I'm supposed to get a negative number. Have I done it right?

This is true. Most economic models do overlook labor mobility. This is why it is good to have job training programs. Because without globalization, these people would not have the jobs they voluntarily choose to do. You must agree that having no job is worse than having a bad job. How come this is bad thing? Mining companies like BHP are very well off. The Economics of Outsourcing - Mises Institute

"The only relevant divisor of humanity is socioeconomic. There are those with money and power and there are those without. Everything else--race, gender, and religion--is a smokescreen." Would you agree with this statement?

The thing about freedom is that it doesn't alway lead to happiness. Just to give an example, say forcing people to live a certain way gives then happiness of 5 utils. And then you give them freedom and then, because they are lost and have no clue what to do, their happiness decreases to, say, 4.5 utils. But still, in my opinion, I believe freedom is more important than happiness. For example, a society could emerge in which all humans, from infancy, were plonked in front of TV screen and were fed through tubes. For their whole lives the individuals would watch highly entertaining TV shows and movies and achieve happiness quite high, say 6.6 utils stable over 50 years before they die. But they don't have freedom. This is a little like The Matrix, in fact.

Read the Wikipedia piece below http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing Which do you think is more convincing, the argument for offshore outsourcing or the argument against?

Can someone explain what this example is trying to say? How was 1/(n+1) obtained?

What do you think about the property damage done to billboards when it is modified by a culture jammer? http://www.smh.com.au/multimedia/jamming/bbustersSMH.html

A friend of mine believed it is okay for religious people to influence government (as they do) and attempt to effect laws that punish homosexuality. He argued that they are just following normal legislative procedure. The person who argued this was religious, so I argued that this is analogous to an anti-religious person who influences government to establish laws that punish religious people (in a similar way that Hitler slaughtered Jews).

If you were a dictator of a country (e.g. you purchased a country) would you make homosexuality legal? Why? Would you have freedom of religion? Why? What will be the primary principle you will adopt when running your country, liberty, order...?

If you are for freedom, does that necesarily mean you must be for the freedom of people to be homosexuals? And does the opposite apply: if you are against homosexuals you are against freedom? When I say against homosexuals, I should distinguish between two types of homosexual aversion. One is when you find homosexuality not to your taste but you don't mind if others engage in gay acts because you respect their freedom. The other is when you believe gay acts should be punished, jailed, etc. I'm talking about the latter not the former because the former is pro-freedom but the latter is obviously anti-freedom.

Maybe ignorance is fashionable? http://www.strom.clemson.edu/teams/ced/econ/8-3No29.pdf

I was having lunch with one of my friends at a food court and once he had finished eating his meal he threw the rubbish on the floor for the cleaners. Everyone was staring at us, so I tried to stop him, but he told me that littering by people leads to job creation. His reasoning is that by making the food court messier the managers will hire more workers to clean up the place to keep consumers happy with the appearance. Would this be a good argument? I thought about the issue a little and I think maybe his reasoning may be too short term. If the manager hires more workers to clean up rubbish in the food court then the manager's profits may go down, which may have further adverse effects on the economy. For example, the manager may not consume as much, which means that more workers are laid off at a Lexus plant due to lower production because of decreased demand because managers don't make as much money because they have to hire more cleaners because there is more litter because someone thinks that littering leads to job creation.