Comments on: Victory In My Campaign Against The USDA Graduate School http://www.kungfuquip.com/victory-in-my-campaign-against-the-usda-graduate-school/ Thoughts On Life In The Swamp Sun, 05 Feb 2012 07:43:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Turk http://www.kungfuquip.com/victory-in-my-campaign-against-the-usda-graduate-school/comment-page-1/#comment-10866 Turk Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:38:21 +0000 http://www.kungfuquip.com/?p=889#comment-10866 The astute reader who flagged this indicated it was the result of the school being found to be anti-competitive. There is a big push to keep the government from doing things than can be done just as well by the private sector and undercutting private entities to do so. This was a response to that. My understanding is they are actually working to privatize the school (what? Privatization in a Democratic Congress? Is that allowed?). It's not clear what happens if they fail to complete that by October 1. The astute reader who flagged this indicated it was the result of the school being found to be anti-competitive. There is a big push to keep the government from doing things than can be done just as well by the private sector and undercutting private entities to do so. This was a response to that.

My understanding is they are actually working to privatize the school (what? Privatization in a Democratic Congress? Is that allowed?). It’s not clear what happens if they fail to complete that by October 1.

]]> By: svetcov http://www.kungfuquip.com/victory-in-my-campaign-against-the-usda-graduate-school/comment-page-1/#comment-10865 svetcov Sat, 23 Aug 2008 03:03:02 +0000 http://www.kungfuquip.com/?p=889#comment-10865 I'm going to rain on your parade....because I can and I'm not a lawyer (just a computer guy). Let's look at the last paragraph of this "law": (1) CEASE OPERATIONS- Not later than October 1, 2009, the Secretary of Agriculture shall cease to maintain or operate a nonappropriated fund instrumentality of the United States to develop, administer, or provide educational training and professional development activities, including educational activities for Federal agencies, Federal employees, non-profit organizations, other entities, and members of the general public. This sounds good, but the final clause is the problem, "for Federal agencies, Federal employees, non-profit organizations, other entities, and members of the general public." And the reason it is a problem is the word, "and". If you remove any of the following groups, the final clause logically becomes false. It appears from reading this that they could continue to have a school for "Federal agencies, Federal employees, non-profit organizations, and members of the general public." As long as they don't continue to provide services to "other entities". I think that they really wanted to use the word "or" in the final clause and not "and". From my perspective, I hope you will pop the cork on October 1...but the way I read it, the celebration could be premature :( Then again, this is a law and not a computer program....so I could be wrong :) I’m going to rain on your parade….because I can and I’m not a lawyer (just a computer guy).

Let’s look at the last paragraph of this “law”:
(1) CEASE OPERATIONS- Not later than October 1, 2009, the Secretary of Agriculture shall cease to maintain or operate a nonappropriated fund instrumentality of the United States to develop, administer, or provide educational training and professional development activities, including educational activities for Federal agencies, Federal employees, non-profit organizations, other entities, and members of the general public.

This sounds good, but the final clause is the problem, “for Federal agencies, Federal employees, non-profit organizations, other entities, and members of the general public.” And the reason it is a problem is the word, “and”.

If you remove any of the following groups, the final clause logically becomes false. It appears from reading this that they could continue to have a school for “Federal agencies, Federal employees, non-profit organizations, and members of the general public.” As long as they don’t continue to provide services to “other entities”.

I think that they really wanted to use the word “or” in the final clause and not “and”.

From my perspective, I hope you will pop the cork on October 1…but the way I read it, the celebration could be premature :(

Then again, this is a law and not a computer program….so I could be wrong :)

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