Slashdot Mirror

Well, I guess 9 out of 10 isn't bad. However, I am going to have to disagree with you, not because of what I wrote, but because you've misinterpreted it, implying something I didn't write.

I didn't say pets were humans ... there's a difference between being a thinking, feeling entity, and being, moe specifically, a "human".

My dogs are most certainly living beings with personalities and characters, as well as a few characteristics that many humans would do well to emulate, though we mostly fail. There are thinking, acting, feeling, and to a certain extent self-aware consciousnesses inside those skulls. They don't only just learn behaviours, they've invented a few ways to communicate their wants w/o being shown how, and they most certainly engage in negotiating strategies, so it's not simple mimicry. That makes them pretty much functionally equal to many humans at both extremes of the age spectrum.

What next - claiming that apes who can communicate with us using sign language and tel jokes are not persons? Or dolphins (whose brains are larger than yours, btw) who pass the mirror test for self-awareness.

You know, people used to apply the same flawed "standard" you're applying to humans based on nothing more than skin colour - "if it don't look like us, ain't really a person, and has no rights. Make it a slave." And there have been court judgments within the last century ruling that women are not "persons" within the meaning of the law, and do not have the same rights as "people" (men).

Really, it's the 21st century, and we force the population to do hours of manual labor per day to even get to work? Make them sit in a car and force them to drive to get to work? They can't read a book or work on their computer while going to work? Really?

Umm, we live in a corporatocracy, the car companies already screwed our public rail systems, what makes you think there's any chance they'd allow something like this?

Of course, most non-idiots have known for some time that the CIA and Mossad have been in a state of undeclared war with Iran for several years now--assassinating their best nuke scientists and engineers, spying on their facilities, helping fund the Green movement, releasing Stuxnet and other viruses aimed at sabotaging them. etc., etc.

Not to justify any of that, but you make it sound one-sided. Iran is well known as a state sponsor of terrorism. Don't gloss over the fact that Iran has a government run by evil people who horribly oppress their own population, and would love to destroy the population of other countries too. The US and Israel are just first on their list, but the list does not end there.

the same people who believe the Pakistani government when they claim they had no idea Osama Bin Laden was in that compound in Abbottabad and that they're still our good friends

I don't think anybody actually believes that, even if they have to act as if they do.

China's population growth is still positive, which means their actual rate is the near the usual 2.3 children per family, not "one child per family".

No, that's wrong. From about.com:

China's total fertility rate is 1.7, which means that, on average, each woman gives birth to 1.7 children throughout her life. The necessary total fertility rate for a stable population is 2.1; nonetheless, China's population is expected to grow over the next few decades. This can be attributed to immigration and a decrease in infant mortality and a decrease in death rate as national health improves.

Do you have a source for the 2.3 figure?

Except when it doesn't

King Jong Il is the grinch! What a twist!

I know, right? He sounds as bad as an ACLU Lawyer!

This is the 10th grade math course.

I can see how a successful person from one or two generations ago could fail 100% of it.

And I don't think such material should be requirement for everybody. People with other skill sets (social, artistic, etc.) should be recognized and valued too. The world needs musicians and clothes designers and yes, managers and salesmen, as much as we need good scientists and engineers.

I haven't seen a BSOD in a long while.

Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they didn't happen.

Windows 7 is configured by default to restart immediately after a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) or other major system problem. This reboot usually happens too fast to see the error message on screen.

I've had Windows 7 BSOD (actually, I've seen a few different colors), usually because of a driver problem at startup. The last one was due to a multi-port USB -> RS232/485 serial converter. Installed the drivers and *POW*, instant BSOD when we restarted the system. To Win7's credit, we let it run an automatic repair (which took about an hour) and when it was done everything worked fine. I have no idea what it did, but it did manage to fix itself.

The converter used an FTDI chipset: I've had driver issues with those things before, on a number of products from different vendors that all used one of FTDI's chipsets.

I haven't seen a BSOD in a long while.

Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they didn't happen.

Windows 7 is configured by default to restart immediately after a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) or other major system problem. This reboot usually happens too fast to see the error message on screen.

This one's been around for a while, but it never gets old.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blbyol3.htm

Though I agree with your sentiment, BP decides what "BP" stands for.

What does BP stand for?

Semantics, perhaps. But actually, BP != "British Petroleum" now.

I take T4 too and so does my mom. Synthroid doesn't work for her, tho Levoxyl does. Theoretically identical, but not so in practice. -- Costco's generic is actually Unithroid (Lannett). I don't know if there's a general requirement to put the actual mfgr on the label, but Costco does.

Reformulating to use microcrystalline cellulose as the major binder seems to be a common factor in "brands that suddenly stop working for a bunch of users", or where they abruptly develop side effects.

Some people have a genetic variant that reduces conversion efficiency (http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/93/3/910.full.pdf) ...and it's still an uphill battle to get T3 prescribed even when it's clearly needed. One of T4's degradation products in storage is T3... so a little instability is not entirely a bad thing. ;) (I have to add some ancient stuff to the Unithroid, otherwise I get side effects. Hmmm...)

I don't usually think much of about.com but in this case it's run by a patient advocate with a science degree. http://thyroid.about.com/
Some fruitbattery but a great deal of sound info as well.

After reading probably a couple hundred research articles on the T4/T3 controversy, I've concluded that NEJM and JCEM are still open to research that goes against prevailing practice... but JAMA not so. When one paper concluded "patients claimed to feel better on this regime, but we don't believe patients know how they feel", JAMA lost all credibility with me. :(

If e-mail is irrelevant why is the number sent going up?

Not that "about" is a relevant source but it is the first I found:

http://email.about.com/od/emailtrivia/f/emails_per_day.htm

There were 50 billion more e-mails in 2010 than 2009. Sure most of them were for enlarging body parts... but still- it is not a dead medium.

Einstein, stop telling God what to do!
~Neils Bohr

you need to read this: http://geology.about.com/od/geophysics/a/aaoklo.htm turns out, we've only harnessed nature.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/smallbusiness/a/whybusfail.htm

Why do you want to run a business?

Ah yes, China has "borrowed" USD.

And I thought they borrowed USD to the US government, and not a small amount either:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/moneymatters/ss/How-Much-US-Debt-Does-China-Own.htm

It is correct that China keeps the Yuan Renminbi low, in order to do so, it has to sell Yuan Renminbi and buy USD from people willing to sell USD. It also will invest these USD somewhere, or buy US debt. This works due to the USA and other states importing tons of goods from China and increasing US living standards with them. It is ironic that "communist" China is better at "free trade" than the USA, with the assistance of the US industry, which finds it more profitable to do so.

Your country would be broke without China, and it is quite disconcerting to have such a cause of conflict between two large nations.

And yes, you are right with one of your arguments, but this is because your arguments contradict each other: You blame China both for withdrawing USD and not withdrawing them.

I wonder how many people said the same exact thing when taxes were levied in the name of community revival or laws enforced for the "public good" only to be left open ended to the point where they're a point of abuse by whomever takes office under any whim they choose?
 
Interested in seeing this abuse? Check out the Pennsylvania Alcohol Tax. See? Aren't rational social interests just a fine thing when used by politicians to hoodwink the masses?

The Washington Post article give me a 404.

The aacr journals talks about the positive effects of the THC on cancer treatment (something I already stated in some other post).

Now, my turn: http://alcoholism.about.com/od/pot/a/effects.-Lya.htm (please be advised of the immense quantity of links to another sources on this page).

In special:

Smoking marijuana, even infrequently, can cause burning and stinging of the mouth and throat, and cause heavy coughing. Scientists have found that regular marijuana smokers can experience the same respiratory problems as tobacco smokers do, including:

Daily cough and phlegm production
More frequent acute chest illnesses
Increased risk of lung infections
Obstructed airways

And

Because marijuana smoke contains three times the amount of tar found in tobacco smoke and 50 percent more carcinogens, it would seem logical to deduce that there is an increased risk of lung cancer for marijuana smokers. However, researchers have not been able to definitively prove such a link because their studies have not been able to adjust for tobacco smoking and other factors that might also increase the risk.

And more

Research indicates that THC impairs the body's immune system from fighting disease, which can cause a wide variety of health problems. One study found that marijuana actually inhibited the disease-preventing actions of key immune cells. Another study found that THC increased the risk of developing bacterial infections and tumors.

Finally:

When high doses of marijuana are used, usually when eaten in food rather than smoked, users can experience the following symptoms:

Hallucinations
Delusions
Impaired memory
Disorientation

Of course all the information can be disputed.

But, please, pretty prease, stop all that ad hominen attacks. This is just childish.

http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/ucmj/blart-10.htm

Any person subject to this chapter charged with an offense under this chapter shall be ordered into arrest or confinement, as circumstances may require; but when charged only with an offense normally tried by a summary court-martial, he shall not ordinarily be placed in confinement. When any person subject to this chapter is placed in arrest or confinement prior to trial, immediate steps shall be taken to inform him of the specific wrong of which he is accused and to try him or to dismiss the charges and release him.

http://usliberals.about.com/od/homelandsecurit1/a/IraqNumbers.htm

Using a little arithmetic, I would think that we could send two Marines (or one with enough supplies to survive) into LEO for every Marine sent to Iraq.

Not sure if mexicans are cool with space travel.

Can't be that much different than sneaking across the border stuffed in the dashboard of an '86 Nova.

The military is has also recently been a good place for gangs to send their members for training.

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/justicelawlegislation/a/gangs.htm

Nuclear technology must be abolished and destroyed, and anyone possessing it must be put to death for the greater good of mankind.

Groan. You do realize that once the genie has been let out of the bottle, you can't just put it back in, right? The knowledge has been released, and if you try to obliterate that knowledge, all you are going to do is drive it underground. Even if you *could* convince every country in the world to do as you suggest -- and just to be clear, you won't -- that means the only people to still have nuclear technology are the very people you DON'T want possessing it.

...Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Several atolls in the Pacific... How many more places must be contaminated before we admit defeat? WE CAN STILL MEASURE RADIOACTIVITY AT HIROSHIMA!

Yeah...so what's your point? You may still be able to measure the radioactivity at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but those are currently thriving, populated cities teeming with normal, healthy people. You may be able to measure some amount of residual radiation there, but obviously it isn't causing any significant health effects. I saw an article within the last year or two claiming that life was even returning to the Chernobyl area much quicker than scientists expected. There were some definite genetic anomalies there so I wouldn't recommend moving the family there yet, but animal life was thriving nonetheless. IIRC, the scientists studying the site claimed that life was actually more diverse near Chernobyl than in the surrounding areas because of the lack of human activity there...despite the increased radiation levels.

[HIROSHIMA] THE OLDEST NUCLEAR EVENT IN HISTORY!

Ummm...may I humbly suggest you check your facts before spouting things that are just patently untrue? Hiroshima was the second nuclear explosion. The first was near Alamagordo, New Mexico, USA, one month before Hiroshima. The first sustained nuclear chain reaction occurred in a lab three years earlier in Chicago. And nuclear fission was first demonstrated in Germany seven years before Hiroshima (source: http://inventors.about.com/od/timelines/tp/nuclear.01.htm, found in about 30 seconds via Google).

I'm not saying that nuclear doesn't have its problems and that we should immediately rip out all coal, oil and natural gas power plants so that we can replace them with Fukushima Daiichi plants across the world. But really, dude...at least try to make a reasoned argument against nuclear power instead of just "screaming" hysterically.

In the words of Arthur Carlson "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!!!"

http://radio.about.com/od/thanksgivingradio/a/WKRP-In-Cincinnati-Turkey-Drop-Episode.htm

Yeah, if only Siri could send a text message:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQfxGTYuRz0
or do navigation:
http://gps.about.com/od/mobilephonegps/a/Siri-GPS-Navigation-Travel.htm

But yeah, Siri says it can't create contacts. Yet.

If god really was clearly speaking in metaphor so that even sheep herders could understand, then there shouldn't have been such a blatant miscommunication; the Bible has been used to explain that the earth is flat and to justify slavery, among other things that most people would find disagreeable today.

Do you really think that it's believable for an all-knowing god to tell a sheep herder two millenia ago about the evolution of the universe using non-descriptive and misleading metaphors? Do you honestly believe that this same god would communicate something like this to a simple sheep herder as a means of explaining something about the universe because humanity was still in an intellectual infancy, but disappear into the clouds to never explain anything to us further despite our greater knowledge today?

How about you cite something enlightening... If it's more advanced than the AC above suggested, you might change my mind, but I am seriously skeptical. I've read enough on sociology and political science to say that those fields are hopeless as far as hard science goes. Maybe there's something special about psychology that we've all missed...

How about the classics?

On obedience to authority figures

On conditioning

And, of course, the Pit of Despair.

The only reason it's difficult to reproduce some psychology experiments is because of ethical concerns. There's nothing about the data being measured or the methodology used that is unscientific. I mean, I'm sure you can find bad experiments out there, but you can say that about any field, what you consider to be a hard science included. I'm an EE, and I've read some pretty bad papers in my field.

no, he wasn't. He was a lawyer.

Another approach is to find an imaging technique that is cheap and harmless enough that you could image someone's whole body every week.

Assume we have a can opener...

1. Some are available only because Google developed it e.g. keyboard.
2. Launchers get inspired by new UI enhancements and may provide similar features for earlier OS versions too.
3. Some are for technical users.
4. Some are for newer hardware features e.g. NFC and secondary camera.
5. Back-end code to take advantage of newer processor / GPU features for new phones
6. A freedom to progressively assume more RAM

5 and 6 are why OS upgrades for older phones at times screw up experience on older phones.

7. Because there are features in several major releases that some non-tech users may care about because they either don't know or can't get them on the App Market.

Maybe lack of personal comments? F? Strawmen? Tone?

Tone, like speaking as though you are the authority on what "all" Android users care or don't care about? Dismissive of anything that doesn't agree with your outlook?

If there's absolutely nothing useful to a user in the OS upgrades because it's all already available, then why is Google wasting time developing them?

1. Some are available only because Google developed it e.g. keyboard.
2. Launchers get inspired by new UI enhancements and may provide similar features for earlier OS versions too.
3. Some are for technical users.
4. Some are for newer hardware features e.g. NFC and secondary camera.
5. Back-end code to take advantage of newer processor / GPU features for new phones
6. A freedom to progressively assume more RAM

5 and 6 are why OS upgrades for older phones at times screw up experience on older phones.

I suppose "civilized manner" is

Maybe lack of personal comments? F? Strawmen? Tone?

Don't use paper. Seriously, it's the 21st century already. Let them try reconstruction after you shredded it.

Please list the ten biggest examples of innovators[tm] whose efforts wilted because of copying.

To be clear: I want ten examples of failure not because the inventor threw his toys out of the pram ("I'm not writing any more music until u guise stop downloading pirated MP3s I'm entitled to more money!!!") but because their efforts became genuinely financially unsustainable.

Easy...

Eli Whitney was driven to ruin after rampant copying of his patented cotton gin. He did not continue inventing.
http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/cotton_gin.htm

Edison slavishly copied Swans patented carbon filament light bulb slavishly.
http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/edison.asp

Elisha Gray filed his patent on the telephone before Alexander Graham bell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Gray_and_Alexander_Bell_telephone_controversy

But I doubt anything could convince you. But in the mean time please stop using the telephone, or lights or wearing cotton.

So, if you marry a quadriplegic, it is rape to have sex with them?

It follows the spirit of the law perfectly, which of course is to force upon other people what they can and can not do while consenting in the privacy of their own home.

In most states it was illegal to have anal sex, even with your married partner that is opposite sex and over 18.

In quite a few states it was illegal to give oral sex in any fashion, also with your married partner of opposite sex over 18 years of age.

These laws have been struck down from most states, but it took until the year 2003 to do it. It hasn't even been a decade yet where it's been legal to get a blow job from your wife anywhere in the USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States

If you are in the US military (over the age of 18) then it is STILL a federal crime to have oral sex with anyone, including your wife.

http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/ucmj/blart-125.htm

The law is worded as "unnatural" sex (Which of course is nothing, since by using the human body to do it makes it a natural thing the human body can do) so it would be pretty easy for them to get away with saying for example "the missionary position is illegal since doggy style is the only form of sex that occurs in nature."

No, it's Picasso and maybe a bunch of other artists. But Jobs stole that quote (or borrowed it depending on your view of him).

"THERE IS NO COMMAND LINE IN WINDOWS... by hairyfeet (841228)
Protip: Never go full retard."

A listing of the 230 commands available from "command prompt" is here.

Of course, Microsoft says it is not a "DOS prompt", but, if it looks like a DOS prompt, talks like a DOS prompt and walks like a DOS prompt, then it must be a .... "Command Prompt":
http://0.tqn.com/d/pcsupport/1/G/R/5/-/-/command-prompt-windows-7.jpg

Translation: for Joe and Sally Sixpack it's a "DOS box".

Not if the map is also off by 18 meters. How do they put the roads on the map in the first place? Most likely, by GPS, or whatever GPS was calibrated against when it was implemented.

The current datum for GPS is WGS84. Locations of many places on Earth were carefully measured for centuries, using astronomy and trigonometry. I don't know if they are accurate enough to calibrate the GPS.

A systematic, uniform error, like a translation of the entire datum, would have no effect on the OPERA experiment - however you slide or rotate the outer shell of a sphere it doesn't change the distance between two points. It would require a systematic but non-uniform error to cause this effect. I guess it is possible, since there is no explanation so far of the OPERA results. Such an error has to be location-specific and it should be invisible to the WAAS.

Are you kidding?

Nope. I've never heard of this. Now maybe I just had my head under the sand all this time, but I'd still like to read an article from a reputable source that backs this claim. That's not too much trouble is it?

Not at all. Short summary. Your state might (or might not) require you to write a check for an unpaid sale/use tax (specific to your state and county) whenever you order something online (unless the seller/retailer collects that tax for you.) An even shorter summary: if the seller (either in person, online or through a sales/order magazine) doesn't collect a sale/use tax from your purchase, chances are you are obligated - by the laws of your location - to calculate that tax and mail it to your local/state tax collection agency.

Google to the rescue:

At the federal level, with the onus on the seller:

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/industries/article/0,,id=209348,00.html

Internet Sales are Taxable Misinformation about laws such as the prohibition of the taxation of Internet access (Internet Tax Freedom Act) and limiting sales tax on interstate sales have lead some to incorrectly believe that Internet sales income is not subject to income tax.

An online business may be subject to liabilities for income tax, self-employment tax, employment tax, or excise tax. Your sales may result in capital gains, nondeductible personal losses, or you may have ordinary business income.

At the state/local level, similar sales taxes on income might apply to an online seller. In addition to that (and unlike the federal level), a state or local government might require a *sales* or *use* taxes on the purchaser (including on online purchases of items), *and might require the seller* to collect that on the state/county's behalf. In our case here in FL, we pay a between 6% and 7% depending on the county.

http://dor.myflorida.com/dor/taxes/sales_tax.html

Sales Tax

Each sale, admission charge, storage, or rental is taxable unless the transaction is exempt. Sales tax is added to the price of the taxable goods or service and collected from the purchaser at the time of sale. Florida's general sales tax rate is 6 percent.

Use Tax

Use tax is due on the use or consumption of taxable goods or services when sales tax was not paid at the time of purchase. For example:

If you buy a taxable item in Florida and didn't pay sales tax, you owe use tax.

If you buy an item tax-exempt intending to resell it and then use the item in your business or for personal use, you owe use tax.

If you buy a taxable item outside Florida and bring or have it delivered into this state and you didn't pay sales tax on the item, you owe use tax.

Although this particular, state-specific tax regulation does not make any explicit mentioning of online sales or purchases, it is inclusive for all state sales and purchases unless explicitly stated as exempt.

http://jacksonville.com/news/florida/2011-08-11/story/florida-wants-collect-its-sales-tax-online-buys

Just because there isn't a Florida sales tax charge on certain online purchases doesn't mean the buyer doesn't owe the tax. Though many buyers don't know it, they are on the hook to scratch a check to Tallahassee for 6 percent of the purchase or pay it online. Consumers voluntarily paid about $8.7 million last year - pennies on the dollar compared to the $1 billion to $2 billion some estimate goes uncollected every year.

Still, the chance of Fl

Even people who are primarily known for their evil often have done good things for the countries they otherwise subjugated. A good example: Adolph Hitler, obviously our poster child for evil, he also orchestrated the building of the autobahn road network in Germany prior to WW2.

Actually, no, Hitler orchestrated nothing, he just happened to come into power around the time the autobahn road network was actually build:

Construction of the Cologne-Bonn autobahn begins in October [1929] - using mostly human labor and very few machines in an effort to create jobs in a period of high unemployment. [...] This first German autobahn segment will be completed in 1932, a year before Hitler comes to power. [emphasis mine]

and

Hitler inaugurates "his" autobahn network with the so-called "first cut of the spade" (erster Spatenstich) near Frankfurt on 23 September [1933]. This would have been impossible without the earlier work of HaFraBa and Stufa in the 1920s.

reference

What happened to:

  - knotting / macrame --- a few lengths of small stuff, some beads (which can easily be whittled, see below) and one can make all sorts of things --- http://www.amazon.com/Ashley-Book-Knots-Clifford-W/dp/0385040253
  - whittling / carving / carpentry --- I used to make all manner of things w/a pocket knife (and saws, planes and drills from my father's tool box) when I was a kid --- http://www.amazon.com/Carving-Kids-Robin-Edward-Trudel/dp/1933502029 / http://www.amazon.com/Carpentry-Children-Lester-R-Walker/dp/0879519908
  - making ceramic pots and other items --- I built a small kiln in the backyard so that I could fire the things which I made of a natural clay deposit in the field next to my house --- modern materials like Sculpey mean that one needs nothing more than a toaster oven (if that, some are air-drying)
  - solutions &c. for basic chemistry --- made black powder using saltpeter collected from under the cow manure in local farmer's fields, sulfur from sulfur candles purchased at a local store and charcoal which I made in the afore-mentioned kiln --- http://chemistry.about.com/library/goldenchem.pdf
  - basic metalworking --- used to grind basic tools --- a teacher actually took one of my screwdrivers, heat treated it (and kept it ::grr::) --- still furious w/ my father that he sold his anvil. Next project at home is a lathe (since it's the one tool in a metal shop which can reproduce itself and be used to make other tools: http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/lathe1.html / http://www.amazon.com/Charcoal-Foundry-Build-Metal-Working/dp/1878087002/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1318508452&sr=8-2 )

That kids don't do these things is a arguably a big part of why manufacturing jobs are going overseas.

William

Not high up on the scale, for sure, but at least it's to report a crime in progress. Unlike, say, calling to ask a 911 operator for a date.

The police stressed that the man did nothing wrong. Their point was that you don't know when a situation will get out of control and turn on you, and it's best to leave it to the professionals. But, in reality that is of course totally out of line with what they can or will actually respond to in a timely fashion.

"No imaginable military target", huh? Just because you say it doesn't make it true. A nuke would do a pretty severe amount of damage to just about any military installation. Anywhere a lot of military facilities were built close together is a good military target for a nuke. So is anywhere a large number of troops are massed.

It so happens that the last few war the US has been involved in have been against asymmetric guerilla opponents. Nukes are largely useless against relatively small groups of people hiding in plain sight. But that doesn't mean there's no military application for nukes. To the contrary - if it ever had come to nuclear war against the Russians, the Pentagon would have been one of the first places they blew up. That's a classic military target. For an enormous list of other military targets, see this list of US military bases.

This is a recurring theme in Mark Twain's writing.

In addition to the opening chapter of Tom Sawyer, where the title character tricks his peers into purchasing shares of his punishment, there is this, which seems to be relevant at least weekly for me.

Given Twain's prescience and his being born and dying the year of Halley's comet, I can only attribute the lack of a cult based on his works to his scathing critiques of superstition and organized religion.

Three years ago, the FCC defined broadband as 768 kbps down. Two years later, it was changed to at least 4 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up, which would imply 400 to 500 kB/s downloads.

So, this makes you either an ignorant fool that should read a book, or an unashamed partisan propagandists that must resort to such obvious lies. I hope its the prior. The latter is just so Joseph Goebbels (that's not a compliment btw).

Funny, that's what I thought about you.

Confident that I hadn't accidentally brainwashed myself with revisionist history, and encouraged by the fact that you couldn't be bothered to casually mention a single issue that would contradict my argument despite the alleged abundance of such issues, I decided to dedicate my evening to proving my point.

First of all, I'd like to cover the role reversal on civil rights issues which you know less about than a foreigner:

http://harrisschool.uchicago.edu/programs/beyond/workshops/ampolpapers/fall07-schickler.pdf
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/History_of_the_Democratic_Party_(United_States)#The_Johnson_Years:_1963.E2.80.931968
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s6980.html
tl;dr-friendly summary: http://civilliberty.about.com/od/historyprofiles/p/democratic.htm

Next I want to continue your timeline up to the present day, but I had to help a relative with a cell phone problem and won't have time to finish it tonight, however I'll try again tomorrow evening. It will start with the (SPOILERS horrifyingly racist /SPOILERS) history of the Reagan administration.

It's gauche, but I'm gonna follow up to myself to ask the questions that came to mind.

• What precise role did SAIC have in this? As I mentioned, I don't remember SAIC being involved in Tricare administration "back in the day".
• Why, exactly, does Tricare think HIPAA privacy protections don't come into effect in this case? If this had been Blue Cross/Blue Shield, you can be damn well sure the HIPAA police would have been down there with sirens screaming. The only difference is that Tricare is a government-administered program. Maybe that's enough? ("We make the rules. We decide who they apply to.")
• What 4.9 million people are we talking about? That's a lot of beneficiaries for just the San Antonio area, although if you count transient residents (trainees, active duty military that rotate through the bases every 2-5 years, etc.) that number might actually work.

Overall, I'm quite disappointed at Tricare's lackadaisical response. You'd think they had a captive customer base. Which is quite literally true for a lot of it. You can be jailed for removing yourself from coverage without permission.

Who gives a shit where something was invented precisely, if it was made CHEAP and USEFUL and MARKETABLE and it was SOLD by a US company?

Whoever you are - you don't have a fucking idea about what production actually means.

It gets worse: The US Navy is now killing Pirates!

Pirates are NOT part of a Government and the US is NOT at war with Pirates, so they should NOT be shot at without a TRIAL first! These pirates were doing NOTHING WRONG, no US lives were at risk, just Americans thinking they're World Police again!

UPDATE: Turns out the US Navy has been fighting Pirates off Africa for hundreds of years! They called it the "Barbary War" but Barbary is just a location where the battles took place, the Barbary Coast, it wasn't a true "war" against a foreign government.

Shame on you US Govt! Hundreds of years of World Police and look what it's gotten us! A superpower and (mostly) safe seas! Boo!

/sarcasm>

Actually even though you only get Chicken Pox once the virus can reinfect and then it's called Shingles. The Chicken Pox Vacinne does not stop the potential of reinfection resulting in Shingles.