This is such a brilliant example of how attention to detail and treating every customer as your most valuable customer is crucial. Such a simple situation to show:
1. you never know which customer is the one that will tweet/publish their experience (good or bad). Offering to pay the $12 immediately would have solved this and caused no negative PR
2. you have to make sure your entire business and it's assets are up to date, all the time. It might be a rookie mistake to have a website that the proprietor can't update ... but I feel they plain forgot to make the change. If your website isn't integral to the way you run your business and considered in every decision you make, close down your website.
I completely disagree. The restaurant owner has no right to overcharge, and the customer - Harvard professor or minimum wage worker - has every right to be compensated for the business' dishonesty.
Looks like a smart move by Yahoo to be the default search for a major browser: google/chrome, bing/ie. This also means that Firefox will likely get some serious support from Yahoo in $$s to build back market share. Question is can they catch Google?
I don't think so...but maybe in Yahoo's next 3 or 4 earnings reports they can say 'search revenues are up 50% this quarter' which will boost their stock price and lead to financial articles titled 'Will $YHOO kill $GOOG?'
It'll be very interesting to see what this does to Bing's marketshare in six months or so, since Yahoo's search runs through Bing.
Although we might never find out, I'm very curious to find out the terms of the deal. Did Yahoo pay more? What about Microsoft? Were MS as motivated since they, essentially had two horses in the race (Bing and Yahoo) vs. Google? Lots of fun little details.
>It'll be very interesting to see what this does to Bing's marketshare in six months or so, since Yahoo's search runs through Bing.
Does Yahoo do their own tweaks? I just checked my site's ranking for a few terms in Bing vs. Yahoo. Bing gave much the same results as Google, whereas my site ranked significantly worse in Yahoo.
But for how long? They've reached the mid-point on the Bing deal. Yahoo has been working on two search projects internally. They want to own search once again.
Yahoo! never owned search before. The brief period where Yahoo! Search was an independent, rather than provided by a third party, was after Google became dominant (and Google was the last exclusive provider of Yahoo! Search before that independent period, which ended with the most recent Bing deal.) Before Google, Yahoo! Search was Inktomi (who was later bought by Yahoo! after Yahoo! stopped relying on them), and before that AltaVista (also later bought by Yahoo!)
Yahoo! has only ever owned being the interface to search.
I remember both AOL, and Prodigy defaulted to Yahoo, when you had to list your site with Yahoo to be returned in results. When they called themselves a Directory. It was not quite search, but it was their own results, and they dominated the market.
> I remember both AOL, and Prodigy defaulted to Yahoo, when you had to list your site with Yahoo to be returned in results. When they called themselves a Directory.
Yeah, that was the pre-search strategy that Yahoo! (and others) pursued, and Yahoo! did own that for a while (I'd argue that their focus on such a curated list while search ramped up is what left them behind on search, leading to them relying on series of search providers -- which they kept buying up even after abandoning them as search providers), but they never caught up even when after those acquisitions they tried to go it alone.
So, sure, maybe they want to own search the same way they owned curated-directory-based web information, but that's different from wanting to own search again.
Does Yahoo's 10-year search deal with Microsoft/Bing restrict Yahoo from working on competing (i.e. not internal) search engines? Is Yahoo developing their own search engine, just waiting to deploy it when the Microsoft/Bing deal expires in 2020? :)
Good questions heh. The Mozilla deal is 5 years right? Plausible that this allows them to push forward in the search avenue without compromising the Bing deal while continuing the work on their own tech. I'm a big believer in Marissa Mayer's strategy so in full support of this Mozilla deal.
I suppose they could, if they went for the same questionable bundling [1] and SEO [2] tactics as Google :)
Adding to that the fact that Google occasionally promotes Chrome on their various products (search engine et. al.), they haven't been particularly fair all in all. I doubt Mozilla will go that low, and I doubt they could gain significant ground even if they did.
I hadn't thought about it before, but I wonder if Yahoo would be willing to front a Firefox advertising campaign across its portals; similar to how Google used to (stil does?) promote Chrome across its own properties.
It comes down to percentages. I think what the author is trying to say (and referencing others) is that your chance of success is lowered by being a single founder vs a team. He references the support network and skill sharing. I would argue that a large additional part of the value of co-founders are that by having to at least convince someone else of your decisions, you avert the true howlers. Similarly, you have someone that validates your priorities (really, assessing another shade of green on the logo vs calling the customer/PR/etc?).
While Japan continues to build and push the boundaries of train travel (regardless of the cost), other countries (USA, Australia) get mired in cost benefit analysis and special interest morass on any big nation building train works. It is interesting to note that the original lines are now considered 'super profitable'. It would be fascinating to see the original cost benefit analysis (if any was done) when they started their journey 50 years ago.
Outside of the northeast, train travel isn't that feasible, and Japan had the right population densities before they built the first shinkansen (it helps that the country is mostly mountainous with limited areas for population that are quite close to each other). And even the northeast lacks much of the population concentrations of Japan. The density problem could be much worse in Australia.
Even in a place like China the benefits are dubious. It is still often more cost effective to fly from Beijing to Shanghai than take the bullet train.
>Even in a place like China the benefits are dubious. It is still often more cost effective to fly from Beijing to Shanghai than take the bullet train.
The price of flying has been driven down in China thanks to the bullet train.
Bullet trains are a very long term investment so they look terrible up-front - they are much more energy efficient per journey, however, so amortizing the cost of billions of passengers they're often a MUCH, MUCH better deal even though the upfront cost is very high. There are a couple of possible Boondoggles in China (I'm a bit dubious of the Wuhan-Guangzhou route), but Beijing-Shanghai along with many other routes makes perfect sense, much like LA - SF or the Northeastern Corridor.
Additional benefits include creating infrastructure that will let you wean yourself off oil and thus aid a reduction in global warming, not to mention reducing the country's exposure to the vicissitudes of the global oil markets and instability in the middle east.
The US would probably have a lot more of it by now if the upper echelons of power weren't infested with austerity/inflation hawks and oil company executives shaping policy for their own personal benefit.
> Bullet trains are a very long term investment so they look terrible up-front - they are much more energy efficient per journey, however, so amortizing the cost of billions of passengers they're often a MUCH, MUCH better deal even though the upfront cost is very high
That's assuming there are no technological improvements in transportation in the long, long term. Which is, honestly, in this time and age, ridiculous.
That's assuming there are no technological improvements in transportation in the long, long term. Which is, honestly, in this time and age, ridiculous.
I understand what you're saying and you might be right. But you could just as easily have said the same thing in the 1960s ("we'll have flying cars"), and yet here we are in 2014 and the places that built and maintained mass-transit systems are on average doing better than those that haven't (Richard Florida discusses this in a couple of books; so does Edward Glaeser in The Triumph of the City.)
The countries which invested in train in the 1960s are not really doing very well as far as I can tell. Japan and France are both in recession or stagnant, and it's not like trains has replaced other means of transportations. If anything, plane carriers have become cheaper than trains now, and there's also competition from the road (bus lines). So I'm not sure, country wise, that investing in high speed trains has been very profitable for the countries involved.
We're not on the precipice of technological advancements in transportation? The physics are what they are, and most of what can be done has been. Its worth noting that, e.g., the investments into subways from a century ago still haven't been rendered obsolete by technology. We're only further along that plateau.
Subways make sense because they are short lines within the city. I'm talking about inter-city transportations. We'll soon (well, in 10-20 years maybe) have self driving cars, potentially faster planes (some are in development), maybe better train technologies even (that will probably need new lines - so you need to rebuild everything). And let's not forget that some sources of energies may get cheaper over time and change the transportation landscape as well. I wouldn't bet on "nothing changing" over the next 30-50 years.
>Subways make sense because they are short lines within the city. I'm talking about inter-city transportations. We'll soon (well, in 10-20 years maybe) have self driving cars
You're kidding right? This is not a substitute for high speed rail. Cars are SLOW.
>potentially faster planes (some are in development)
You mean like the Concorde?
>maybe better train technologies
Or maybe not. Especially since without large scale investment train technology basically doesn't go anywhere. You could have said this in the 1960s yet we're still running the same shitty passenger Amtrak lines we did back then.
> You're kidding right? This is not a substitute for high speed rail. Cars are SLOW.
hahaha! You forgot that trains only go to a single place, and you often have to take other transportations means after to get to where you need to be. Cars can go directly everywhere you need, and once they are automated I'm pretty sure we will see at some point motorways for automated cars where cars will go way above current speed limits AND bring you right where you have to be without moving out of the vehicle. And if you want to work during transportation, cars will be the best way to do it, really. Nobody looking over your shoulder, more space, more comfort. If you are just saving 1 or 2 hours with the train but losing much more in productivity, the calculation is quickly done.
>Although he wouldn’t give a timeframe to when it could be done — hopefully “within my lifetime,”
In other words "don't hold your breath" and "I wouldn't make any long term economic decisions based upon this guys' pie in the sky notions".
The fact that this technology has regressed (can't cross the atlantic in 3 hours any more!) means that your assumption that future forms of transportation will always be better, faster and cheaper is horribly shortsighted and wrong.
You'd have told us in the 80s that we'd have something better than that by now. We don't. Actually what we have now is slower, and while planes like the A380 are more fuel efficient, isn't efficient enough to mitigate the rising cost of oil.
Sure, if you compare technology currently in commercial use to technology where prototypes are just being built (or even better, technology that Richard Branson wants to have), the latter must look shinier. Hardly surprising.
By the way, you didn't really address "Cars are SLOW" part.
> By the way, you didn't really address "Cars are SLOW" part.
Not scientific but: Top Gear's race in Japan for example.
Car absolutely obliterated the public transportation network which included the Shinkansen (ignoring the "I turned the satnav off accidentally and lost an hour" bit).
Although hard to determine just how much Clarkson was breaking the speed limits..
But it shows that direct point to point travel can make up for slower average speed.
As others have pointed out, cars can go directly to your end destination, which trains cannot do.
But aside from that, I suspect we'll see at least a doubling of car travel speeds in the next few decades.
Speed limits are an artificial constraint in the name of fuel efficiency and safety. With automated cars, the safety limit is at a much higher speed, and even fuel efficiency can be improved with computer controlled 'trains' of cars drafting and reducing wind resistance overall (made possible by automation making the idea safe).
Still a long way from bullet trains and aircraft, but much better than car speeds today.
There are trains with rubber wheels...anything that has to deal with grades. They are still tracked, but the advantages are a bit less. Trains support more density, I think you'll see automated cars and trains support each other.
If we could feasibly build roads that better dealt with wear, we would do so, instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars each year repaving them. Highways today aren't dirt wagon roads, but neither were the highways Romans were constructing two thousand years ago. Meat space technology advances slowly.
The "train of cars" proposal is just absurdly inefficient. Carting on or two individuals in one-ton steel cages on highly inefficient rubber tires, versus a train running on a steel track. All the inefficiencies in play go up dramatically with velocity: energy lost due to deformation of the tire, energy lost due to friction, wear on the road, etc.
You seem to be wedded to the idea that one thing will change and the rest of the system will remain the same, thereby making the original change impossible.
That's just not how things work.
Roads are made the way they are as balance of various tradeoffs. When one part of that equation changes, other parts will change as well to adjust to the new balance.
For example, if all cars were fully automated, safety margins would allow roads to be notably narrower, requiring less construction and maintenance costs all around. In addition, increased throughput could have much the same effect- no need for so many lanes.
And of course cars themselves are the same way- a system of tradeoffs balanced to optimize for current constraints. Change one of the constraints and the system changes. Cars won't be "one-ton steel cages" if they don't need to be. And lighter cars will reduce road wear, as vehicle weight is a primary factor. Tires formulated for optimal performance at current speeds (and weights for that matter) will be reformulated.
Systems are complex, and changing one variable means the rest will adjust.
And you seem to be wedded to the idea that change can happen regardless of physics. Automated cars isn't going to eliminate the need for a certain level of crash protection, and reformulating tires isn't going to change the basic physics of energy loss due to deformation versus the need to have deformable tires to get adequate traction.
There is a reason advances in transportation (or energy) technology are so slow and expensive. The physics really are not in your favor.
Current systems are optimized for current constraints. When a constraint changes, the entire system changes.
You can keep saying "Physics! Physics!", but the entire point is that once you change the one input in the physics equations, you can change all the others to keep the balance.
A change in one constraint might allow you to move to a different point in the design space, but it doesn't change the physics by which the system must abide.
More concretely, replacing a human driver with an automated one isn't going to change all the physical constraints that make it inefficient to have cars that cruise at 100+ mph: http://energy-ecology.blogspot.com/2010/05/optimal-vehicle-s.... Whether you're in a Honda Civic or a Ford Explorer, doubling speed from 90 kph to 180 kph triples fuel consumption.
Even if self-driving cars can be a little lighter, that's not going to change the shape of the curve.
Well, its not like Japan hasn't been spending lots of money on Shinkansen existing lines since they've been built. Actually, they upgrade them constantly. Having the right away from the first line cleared out makes continuous upgrades more feasible, however.
>That's assuming there are no technological improvements in transportation in the long, long term. Which is, honestly, in this time and age, ridiculous.
That's dumb. Japan has invested in it since the war and has reaped the benefits despite (relatively steady) technological improvements in HSR.
Assuming that there will be sufficient unknown black-swan technological breakthroughs to render it uneconomic is frankly, absurd.
* Far lower CO2 emissions for long distance travel.
* Greater social interconnectivity between cities, enabling denser, richer industrial networks. The Keiretsu economic structure to which Japan owes so much of its industrial success would not have worked nearly as well without easy long distance intercity travel. Horizontal networks of large numbers of small businesses spread across large distances that combine together to form, e.g. a Nikon digital camera, would not be possible if executives in these businesses did not have easy access to one another and one another's factories.
* Lower trade deficit - it's better for Japan's economy that the money spent by its citizens on long distance travel isn't filtered overseas into the pockets of rich Arab dictators via oil purchases (who then spend it on gambling in Parisian casinos or American fighter jets). Instead, it is spent at home, generating additional economic activity, enriching Japanese rather than Arab princes.
* It serves as a good form of Keynesian stimulus - keeping people employed and levels of economic activity stable during debt-crisis driven economic slumps.
All of these are economic benefits that occur in addition to the cost savings.
> * Far lower CO2 emissions for long distance travel.
Yeah, except that electricity in Japan is mostly not nuclear, so you consume CO2 to produce electricity to run your trains anyway.
> Greater social interconnectivity between cities, enabling denser, richer industrial networks.
Most of the fabric of the industrial world in Japan is around Tokyo - that is the main point of the article, too, by the way. Most of the other cities in Japan are underdeveloped compared to Tokyo. Not sure where you get the idea the train is making things better for everyone.
> long distance travel isn't filtered overseas into the pockets of rich Arab dictators via oil purchases
Electricity is produced with petrol and gas in Japan mostly. You are feeding the same rich Arab dictators anyway.
> It serves as a good form of Keynesian stimulus
Yeah and we all know how well Keynesian stimulus works. It works as long as you spend, and then poof, nothing, and people get back to unemployment - it's a loss for everyone.
"Even using electricity generated from coal or oil, high-speed trains are significantly more fuel-efficient per passenger per kilometre traveled than the typical automobile because of economies of scale in generator technology[42] as well as lower air friction at the same speed."
Nonetheless, it will also make it easier to reduce emissions as renewable energy output ramps up. You can run HSR on hydro, wind and solar power - you can't run planes on electricity.
>Most of the fabric of the industrial world in Japan is around Tokyo
Japan's industry stretches a LOT further than just Tokyo, as do its Keiretsu, and MANY of its household-name brands (not to mention most factories) are not headquartered there (e.g. Toyota, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Sharp, Nintendo, etc.). Japan is NOT just Tokyo.
>Most of the other cities in Japan are underdeveloped compared to Tokyo. Not sure where you get the idea the train is making things better for everyone.
I've no idea where you got the idea that the rest of Japan is undeveloped. Perhaps you should pay a visit to Osaka.
>Electricity is produced with petrol and gas in Japan mostly. You are feeding the same rich Arab dictators anyway.
Since Fukushima, yeah, but A) it is STILL more energy efficient and B) it's easier to move on to renewables (currently cheaper than oil) if your long distance travel depends largely on electricity rather than kerosine.
>Yeah and we all know how well Keynesian stimulus works. It works as long as you spend, and then poof, nothing,
It works perfectly well as a way of stabilizing demand and employment until the private sector works through a bad debt overhang and demand picks up again. This has been proven time and time again despite many economic junk-science attempts to disprove it.
If the stimulus is large enough (c.f. WW2 spending in US or Nazi public works programs pre-WW2) it ends depressions.
Japan's stimulus was enough to prevent widespread unemployment the likes of which Spain has right now, but not enough to end its serial economic malaise.
> I've no idea where you got the idea that the rest of Japan is undeveloped. Perhaps you should pay a visit to Osaka.
Haha, I live next to Osaka. But you're gonna tell me I dont know the place where I live, I guess?
I won't go into the debate about stimulus BS, because that's another entire topic, but as a side note Japan has been doing Keynesian stimulus for like 20 years with no effect whatsoever on the economy, so yeah, great proof of concept.
I don't see how living near Osaka makes you any the less wrong about calling it undeveloped.
>I won't go into the debate about stimulus BS
That's probably best for you.
Japan has managed to keep its unemployment level pretty low and has had a protracted albeit mild depression over the last 20 years. This is undeniable.
The alternative (no stimulus at all / spiraling self-reinforcing depression) would have resulted in ending up like Greece or Spain. This is also undeniable.
I guess you think 50% youth unemployment vs. 5% counts as "no effect whatsoever"? I would beg to differ.
> Oh really, you live next to Osaka and you declared it undeveloped? What the fuck is up with that?
Underdeveloped vs Tokyo, certainly. Look at the number of companies and major industries and revenues in both areas and you'll be in for a good laugh. And in case you did not know, many large companies are leaving Kansai. Not to return.
> Japan has managed to keep its unemployment level pretty low and has had a protracted albeit mild depression over the last 20 years. This is undeniable.
Low unemployment in Asia is not hard. Ever seen how many people are working for super low salaries, doing nothing but making sure people don't go over the cones put on the side of the road? The whole service industry in Japan guarantees low unemployment rates, this has NOTHING to do with stimulus. It's just the way Japanese approach services in the first place anyway.
> The alternative (no stimulus at all / spiraling self-reinforcing depression) would have resulted in ending up like Greece or Spain. This is also undeniable.
No, it would have resulted in unprofitable businesses going bankrupt, followed by a short recession and coming back to a period of growth. Instead of that, the Stimulus is making the recession last forever, and there's no end in sight. But you are probably one the guys who think devaluating 40% of the Yen value is the best way to increase Japan's productivity. Abenomics all the way !
Because Tokyo is the largest city in the world bar none: a phenomenon that would likely not have happened without high speed rail.
>Low unemployment in Asia is not hard.
Low unemployment is not an Asian phenomenon and high unemployment is not a Western phenomenon. Both are the results of economic policymaking.
>No, it would have resulted in unprofitable businesses going bankrupt
Unprofitable businesses were kept alive thanks to the Japanese banks doing extend and pretend. It had precisely nothing to do with stimulus.
A lack of stimulus would have meant GOOD businesses going bankrupt due to a lack of demand while the politically protected ones with their debts being extended-&-pretended STILL staying alive.
Stimulus isn't making the recession last forever. Japanese banks' insistence on extending and pretending is.
> But you are probably one the guys who think devaluating 40% of the Yen value is the best way to increase Japan's productivity.
No, but it would be a great way of bringing back Japanese industry from its current semi-dead state. Wanna know why Koreans and Chinese are eating their lunch in the electronics industry? This.
>Abenomics all the way !
Abenomics is business as usual. If you think there is a significant difference to what came before you are an idiot. The stimulus portion was small and the rest of it was just more QE (because that worked fucking great for the last 20 years!)
Nonetheless, the small stimulus was responsible for a dribble of Japanese growth over the last year or so.
It's more cost effective in Japan to fly from Tokyo to Osaka than to take the Shinkansen too (Shinkansen costs ~140USD, flights 120USD).
However flying is a lot more time consuming and inconvenient. The Shinkansen system integrates well with the regular train/subway system. And of course serves locations without airports.
It costs a bit to get to/from the airport too, whereas with shinkansen you have all-you-can-ride JR within the city you arrive at, until you exit the final gate. I'd say there comparable in price.
It depends where you are. In areas not well served by the JR you can end up spending quite a bit on the Metro. But you're right the costs are comparable.
However given that, I think convenience is the deciding factor in the Shinkansen's favor.
Perhaps Tokyo<->Fukuoka is a better example. Shinkansen is ~250USD while fligths are ~150USD, and Fukuoka's airport is only 15min away from downtown by subway.
> It is interesting to note that the original lines are now considered 'super profitable'.
They are super profitable because they are super expensive as well, and because they carry mainly businessmen. I take the shinkansen relatively often and most of the time it's all people wearing suits, not leisure travelers. When it's not your company paying for your trip, it's way cheaper to take the bus, the plane or drive with your own car (at least if you are not alone).
Note that JR Shinkansen lines never have any discounts. There is a single price, and that's it. No price elasticity, even if some mid-day Shinkansen run half empty. Their marketing is also stuck in the 50s.
For the benefit of HNers thinking they might want to visit Japan someday:
There are basically only two discounts for the shinkansen -- one is multi-trip tickets (回数券 -- which are mostly for businesses).
The other is something which is half a discount and half just outright subsidization of policy goals, the JR Rail Pass. It is a special ticket, only available to people who are visiting Japan and don't hold either a Japanese passport or mid/long-term visa, which gets you all-you-can-eat access to all of the JR lines (including the shinkansen, less one class of them). The cost for a week-long pass is less than that of a roundtrip ticket from Tokyo to Kyoto.
If you ever come to Japan, make sure you buy a voucher for one of these before you leave home, since they're not sold here.
Many countries/regions have similar passes. I've used both BritRail and EuroRail passes in a similar way. Very much worth looking into; I got to see Scotland on a result.
They are not official discounts. They are high volume rebates coming from third parties who buy tons of tickets and then resell them at a little cheaper price.
But you don't save much, really. It's in the order of 5 to 10% most of the time.
While Apple is known to be less than open in its relationship with the media, this does seem like an overreaction. Probably on both sides.
I posit that the local German response of Apple was an overreaction, the magazine's response has probably exacerbated the conflict. It will be interesting to see how this resolves itself.
Very interesting about the density and energy impacts on sapphire vs glass. In a watch context (where the chance of dropping is less than the chance of scratching the face) the use of sapphire presents some additional challenges for battery life. If the Apple Watch intends to use sapphire, this might play into some of the rumours that release has been delayed because of battery life concerns.
Agreed - if ever there was an example of why performance matters on a web app. I gave up after the spinner was still spinning after I had navigated away and back (and replied to 5 emails)
There are massive global political ramifications that restrict the ability of those countries that do want to make a difference. As the article refers to, it is ultimately the UN that has the powers to essentially trample on a country's sovereignty (that is what you need to do to make a difference). The UN has been called a toothless tiger in many respects - this is another example where they can and should take a more proactive and aggressive stance. Only then can we comment on the actions of other Western nations.
The way that South Africa dealt with their AIDs epidemic (from a western perspective, true head in sand activity) is a case in point: despite many aggressive offers of help from western governments, the South African's continued their denial. To make a change would have required going against the government policy of the time. This is viewed legally as an invasion by an outside force.
I am not sure what relation your (or the article's) talk of trampling sovereignty has to do with the present situation on the ground.
The articles I read describe the problematic issues being; a lack of running water in existing clinics, a lack of medical supplies, a lack of clinics and notably a lack of food everywhere - patients are escaping isolation in efforts to find food.
Liberian officials have pleaded for help in fairly abject terms (one official mentioned the possibly of nation ceasing to exist - I think that means they're worried). The details of what Western nations have done so far is fuzzy but it seems like there not been a sufficient rush to deliver these acutely needed supplies.
Sure, once the existing clinics have food, supplies and running water, parachuted in field clinics sound grand. There's no evidence I've seen that the Liberians would refuse these.
The article references having burial specialists. This would require certain people having the right to take deceased corpses and burying without regard for the family/tribal/religious requests/requirements etc. This would at the very least be seen as impinging on the rights of the family, it would likely need armed support. If these burial specialists were say American, they would NOT be deployed without American armed support. Having American armed support (most likely the army) on the ground supporting people who are likely to be impinging on perceived rights will be viewed as trampling sovereignty.
Australia and the Netherlands had a similar issue with the downing of the Malaysian Airliner in Ukraine. In this case, the Ukrainian government had to pass legislation to allow armed Australian and Dutch military to support inspectors. They were just 'inspecting', not creating forced closures of specific areas, forcing burials, witholding care, etc all under significant armed guards.
The present situation on the ground (and the lack of 3rd party government level interaction) is largely a result of weak leadership by the UN. The better question is why the UN hasn't taken ownership of the outbreak?
Liberia does have Liberian burial specialists now, who do what you describe and it indeed is probably the most awful job in the world. Indeed, the Liberian government, with varying levels of competence, has attempted to do most of what you describe. Essentially, there's no evidence, no indication that the Liberian state would resist UN or US aid but also very little evidence of such aid. If anything, the Liberian government has done some stupid impingements on rights itself (quarantining the entire poor sector of Monrovia for example).
Yes, the Liberian state is already taking desperate and extreme measures but when most clinics without running water, their options are limited. I'm sorry, this stuff make me so angry I could ask what it says about you and your ilk when you're so eager solve things with guns that you don't notice that lack of food and water is the primary problem?
Obama some announcements about military assistance but I've read not article about anything materializing.
Seriously, we're talking pretty well unprecedented disaster - the response has been much than even the response to "typical" third world disasters, much less than the response to the Haitian earthquake for example.
> no evidence, no indication that the Liberian state would resist UN or US aid
It is not official action that the parent commenter is referring to. Individuals themselves could treat actions they see as counter to their religion and belief as very hostile.
