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Is facing? Corruption, especially in Chicago and New York has been widespread for generations. Look up the Chicago Machine for example.

Crime in the US overall continues to fall 4-8% depending on the type.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0524/US-crime-rate-is-down-six-key-reasons

Excluding Detroit and New Orleans, what cities are suffering from urban decay?

National debt is up, but personal saving rates are up.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Savings-Rate-zacks-3817749700.html?x=0&.v=1

Your whole post shows ingorance and stupidity. You've insisted on twisting facts and altering the truth to show only Apple. And you've gotten more and more childish. How pathetic.

So, why don't Google and Microsoft have successful products? News flash, they do and unlike Apple, they lead in their given field. Google is about Search Engines and online programs which it is the global leader in, anything it does beyond that is just fun and games for them. They really don't make smartphones, they released an OS for them and didn't market it because it wasn't there big business concept. And Microsoft's business is desktop OS and game consoles which is where they rock. Over 90% of OS's on desktops are Windows, and they are neck to neck on the console market with Sony, beating Apple on both of those levels since Apple has gone into both of those markets. So much for your bullshit of how those 2 companies aren't successful. Apple is either barely leading or is in a second-third place in the markets they are attempting, and they are going for market leadership in those fields and still can't reach full market leadership which means Apple is more of a failure then these companies.

As for Apple products have design flaws, lets see. Apple's had failing graphic cards in its MBP multiple times which leads to a more likely answer that its an engineering fault on their end (Google it, they way you might learn something). Snow Leopard has been a nightmare for Apple. Then there is the fact that the iPod batteries keep exploding, you'd think they would learn to make them right. There are a few for you to start, and as you can see, they aren't isolated incidents, they were big issues that effects all units.

Oh, and retard, Droid is a US only device and I'm not in that country so its hard to be a fanboi of something I don't own. Suck it hard bitch, like its your dad.

Many outstanding Supreme Court justices were not lawyers. John Marshall, Earl Warren, William Rehnquist - not a judge among them.

That dogma is about 6000 years old.

Its interesting how some people would rather believe one man's hearsay testimony points to some hidden mystery - but disbelieve eyewitnesses with photo and video evidence discomfiting their existing beliefs.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2010/0430/Chinese-explorers-stand-by-claim-of-Noah-s-Ark-find-in-Turkey

http://www.noahsarksearch.net/eng/

Yes, people live in nuclear submarines, often for months at a time. Then the submarine comes back to port, takes on fresh supplies and fuel, undergoes any necessary repairs and maintenance, and everyone gets off the boat for a while and enjoys some shore leave. It's the regular visits back to "Earth" that keep the crew alive, healthy, and sane -- and those visits would not be possible for people living at the bottom of some other gravity well.

Oh really?

No, they don't. The ONLY thing they do is raise enrollment. The year after a team wins a championship or does well, they've seen enrollment rise.

UConn lost roughly $280,000 in football, according to the numbers. Only three BCS programs lost more — Syracuse, which lost $835,000, Wake Forest ($3.07 million) and Duke ($6.72 million). Rutgers, which spent $19.07 million on its football program, was the only other school to fail to make a profit, although the Big East school broke even.

Basketball doesn't make money either.
"Let's just take a look at two schools, my own Holy Cross and big-time power North Carolina to highlight the flaws. According to the article, the Holy Cross basketball team racked up $1,549,329 in expenses while generating an identical amount in revenue and therefore exactly broke even.".

And as a whole, only 19 D1 Football schools were in the black.

I hope you're being sarcastic. Those who ignore history are indeed doomed to repeat it. Prohibition with its police corruption and gang wars, and economic depression, for example. It's happened before.

Raises an interesting question, am I the only one who thinks we'd be better of as a world if the UN Bill of Rights was as absolute in it's protections as particular clauses in some of our constitutions (like the first in America for example) and ALL U.N. member states were REQUIRED to implement it as part of their own constitutions (and where no constitution exists as in Britain be required to create one and make said bill of rights the entirey there-off ?)

Considering that there's been a push multiple times by many countries in the UN to make religious beliefs protected from ridicule and blasphemy http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2008/1113/p09s02-coop.html this would lead to bad stuff very quickly. Also, note that not having a constitution works ok. Britain protects most rights pretty well compared to most of the world, and in some respects does a better job protecting rights than the US does. However, both Syria and Jordan have written protection of free speech in their constitutions and that doesn't really do much. What is on paper doesn't matter as much as wide institutional issues. Don't force written constitutions on other countries just because that happens to have worked well for the US.

http://2007-08.archives.ebudget.ca.gov/BudgetSummary/SUM/1249561.html

California spends 10,000,000,000 dollars or so a year for prisons

http://nicic.gov/Library/021777

Says 20% of males are in prison for drug related offences, 30% of females but as im rounding the hell outta some numbers im not going to include them as women only account for 7% of the overall population in prison

20% of 10 billion? 2 billion

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1884956,00.html

Says California's Pot Crop is worth around 14 billion
The estimate the tax will bring in another 1.3 billion per year

3.3 billion

The current budget deficit in california is 19.1 billion

So legalizing weed could see an impact as much as 1/6 of the deficit.

That doesnt take into account that all of those prisoners will be consuming, working, and paying taxes.
Or it could help with the litigation expenses for the prison overcrowding lawsuits that the state is paying for.. all the way to the supreme court

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0614/Supreme-Court-to-hear-California-prison-overcrowding-case

People sitting in jail are a BIG reason that California is having difficulty.. I mean 150,000 people sitting in facilites designed for 80,000 people costs alot of money.. guards.. food.. clothing.. electricity.. medical.. mental health.. dental.. courts.. parole boards.. probation officers.. electronic monitoring.. they all cost money..

You may be surprised to hear that I saw nothing about the Internet filtering issues when Gillard took office. At the time I was in Europe and reading the International Herald-Tribune and the Financial Times. The conflicts over carbon trading and the mining tax were the ones described in the foreign media as the keys to Rudd's departure. Here's a representative sample from another, well-respected paper: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/0624/Julia-Gillard-takes-helm-in-Australia-after-Kevin-Rudd-ouster

I read some of the follow-on stories in the days after; Internet filtering was never mentioned.

Does this trend have something to do with the shifting of the balance of power in the world?

The Japanese language is well-known for absorbing foreign words and language concepts into its own domestic use, especially from cultures / societies it deems powerful or dominant. It was Chinese during the Ming dynasty, Portuguese/Spanish during the 1600s, German during the 1800s, English from WW2 onwards.

Now that China is a relative economic superpower, maybe the trend is now to absorb Chinese words again?

Japanese students now prefer to study abroad in China rather than the U.S.

There is a couple of pictures of the "sinkhole" there, and especially one of the bottom, it seems there is a big cave

http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Guatemala-sinkhole/(photo)/2

THANK YOU, thank you, thank you!

I've been looking for a better view, and wondering where that big slice of earth went.

There is a couple of pictures of the "sinkhole" there, and especially one of the bottom, it seems there is a big cave

http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Guatemala-sinkhole/(photo)/2

I find it exceptionally ironic that Chicago is one of the places this is illegal, because the city is blanketed with police surveillance cameras.

how about a large rubberized canvas funnel connected to a hose to the surface?

Basically that was one of the first things they tried: "If successful, the containment box would begin funneling as much as 85 percent of the oil plume into a pipeline pumping the oil into a barge on the surface as early as Sunday." That was May 7.

As for the boom, A) they're not working all that well and B) with the well a mile underwater, it could disperse over a huge area before reaching the surface.

They erased mention of the "slave trade" and replaced it with "Atlantic triangular trade." Why would they do that?

When China does it, the world protests. all the space junk created. However, when the US does it, it's to save other satellites.

The US did it before China and people were very critical:

The official explanation – that the US wanted to prevent the toxic contents of the spacecraft's fuel tank from hitting the ground – seems a bit thin, according to James Lewis, director of the technology and public policy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Thus critics from around the world have speculated about ulterior motives, ranging from a desire to test US ballistic missile defenses to poking China in the eye.

It's a sort of anti-satellite arms race and status thing between two super power. Or in playground terms, the two assholes are having a dick measuring contest.

If it ends up like Vladez oil spill BP won't have to pay anything.

The compensatory damages, that Exxon is on the hook for, exceed half a billion dollars. That's in addition to their spending on the actual clean-up...

The Supreme Court (in a 5-to-3 vote, with your beloved David Souter writing for the majority) did remove the punitive $2.5 billion as "excessive"... But the compensatory $507 million were left standing... Yes, it took much too long. Maybe, if the plaintiffs weren't greedy (greed is only good, when you are making something, that other people want), they would've gotten their compensation 20 years earlier...

while the people pay.

"The people" (including The Children[TM]) also use the oil. Every day... We can't do anything without it.

Here you go

Solicitor General Elena Kagan argues in a friend of the court brief that local, state, and federal prosecutors must enjoy absolute immunity from citizen lawsuits - even when they sent innocent men to prison for life by fabricating incriminating evidence and hiding exculpatory evidence.

As I said before, she's evil.

-jcr

But as solicitor general, she has to defend the administration position on this whether she wants to or not, so we don't know if she personally supports that position also.

Here you go

Solicitor General Elena Kagan argues in a friend of the court brief that local, state, and federal prosecutors must enjoy absolute immunity from citizen lawsuits - even when they sent innocent men to prison for life by fabricating incriminating evidence and hiding exculpatory evidence.

As I said before, she's evil.

-jcr

There will always be people decrying any fuel source for some reason, but I think it should be obvious now that any disaster from a wind farm or solar power plant pales in comparison to an offshore oil disaster.

On that note, this suggests an early estimate of $12.5 billion to clean up, and Wikipedia states Three Mile Island's accident as being just short of $1 billion to clean up. It doesn't look to be on the order of Chernobyl yet, but it makes you think.

Over 10 years ago, it was apparent that Saddam Hussein had to be removed from power.

No, it was not at all "apparent".

It was apparent that he was cruel SOB of a dictator, and no one was going to shed many tears if he was up against the wall, but it was also apparent that Gulf War I was a fairly ordinary border dispute jacked up into a full war by the lies of the Bush I administration, that Iraq was no longer any significant threat to any other nation, that cruel SOB of a dictators are a dime-a-dozen in this world, and that removing them by force just kills a bunch of people and usually just puts a different cruel SOB of a dictator in their place.

It was apparent over ten years ago that American policy in the Middle East -- like our foreign policy in general -- is brutal and stupid, and is geared to the interests of our corporate plutocracy, not to the interests of the people of the United States or of the nations of that region.

Except that in actual scientific tests it has been http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0202/Abstinence-only-study-could-alter-sex-education-landscape
See another of my posts for more details.

The numbers don't lie. Trying to pretend teenagers will not have sex does not have sex. Teaching abstinence only and restricting access to birth control methods such as is often seen in fundamentally religious communities leads to more teenage pregnancies, abortions and STD's transmitted, not less.

Sorry to reply a second time right away, I missed this the first time. According to this study ( http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0202/Abstinence-only-study-could-alter-sex-education-landscape ) you are wrong. This study took kids and randomly assigned them to four groups, each of which received different types of sex education. The abstinence only kids had the lowest rate of beginning sexual activity. It is not in this article, but the study also found that the rate of condom use by those who had sex was statistically similar across all four groups.
I would agree that restricting access to contraceptives is counterproductive. However, there is a difference between not restricting access to contraceptives and providing contraceptives.

The health-care fiasco passing at all even with a huge majority is a travesty.

26% of poll respondents call their attitude towards the legislation "anger". 65% of respondents say it creates too much more of a role for government in healthcare. 49% say they think overall healthcare will decline in quality. 55% say they'll spend too much more on healthcare personally. 64% say the government's tab for healthcare will be too large. 53% said the tricks used to pass it were an abuse of power. These are reported in The Christian Science Monitor, which is a paper primarily for people who don't even use the healthcare system. They are citing multiple polls by multiple other organizations.

I'd say that a body which has a roughly 10% approval rating which it takes as a mandate to pass partisan legislation against the protests of its own members and their constituents has a hard time doing so despite a large majority of one party is evidence that something is working, not broken. Things a vast majority find harmful to the well-being of the vast majority should be difficult to pass.

If the spirit of science moves you, I recommend combining techniques...

Thanks to the, er, miracles of globalization, you can get a surrogate mother in India for $2500 to $6500. That way you can, at relatively low cost, you can produce numerous donor combinations, without any messy biological involvement on you or your wife's part. The bigger the sample size, the more scientific the science!

"Even the poor are starting to turn against him."

citation?

"His attempt a couple of years ago to amend the constitution to allow him to run for president forever turned out to be an embarrassing failure."

Not true. He won the referendum on the second try.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/15/AR2009021500136_pf.html

When right-wing US friend Uribe in Columbia tries the same thing, there's complete silence about it in the western mainstream media.

Is Colombia's Uribe pulling a Chávez on term limits?
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2009/0902/p06s05-woam.html

Get a cell phone that can also use your wireless net connection like a lot of today's cell phones do.

Or get with AT&T and use their micro Cell (which is actually a femtocell) that uses your broadband to feed a home-cell just for your phones (or any you authorize).

You have to get over the bit about paying them to allow you to provide extensions to their infrastructure, but once you climb off that soap box it provides pretty good service.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2010/0325/AT-T-Microcell-could-help-improve-home-cell-service

It just went nation wide.

"Fourteen months after his first attempt failed, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez won a referendum Sunday to eliminate term limits"

As the article you linked points out, there was a referendum.

When right-wing US friend Uribe in Columbia tries the same thing, there's complete silence about it in the mainstream media. Who's biased which way now?

Is Colombia's Uribe pulling a Chávez on term limits?
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2009/0902/p06s05-woam.html

"Combined with the allegations of vote fraud and voter suppression in opposition neighborhoods, the man has crossed that line that divides "pompous but legitimate ruler" from "dictator in all but name.""

Ah yes, because when it comes to vilifying a left-wing government, allegations are evidence.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0324/The-2010-Census-Will-your-answers-stay-private

What I mean stems from this: "On April 15, the US Treasury will be required by law to issue a report naming countries deemed to be “currency manipulators.”".

If the report names China as a currency manipulator that creates vast trade deficits to benefit their economy (which, for all intents and purposes, they are), you can bet the Chinese government will lash out and claim we are protecting and siding with our corporations.

The cutoff level would be an income of four times the federal poverty level. For one person, that’s about $44,000 a year. For a family of four, the comparable figure is about $88,000.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0320/Health-care-reform-bill-101-Who-gets-subsidized-insurance

It's a noble cause, but there are questions as to whether or not Brain Age and its ilk work as advertised. Some have found success in improving math scores. Still, results are inconclusive. Given how strapped our schools are for cash right now, it's hard see them snapping up a bunch of DS' and software for questionable benefits.

Well a week ago most people (76% of americans, 87% of chinese) think it is or should be a right.

So China is building infrastructure that will let them transport goods throughout Asia and Europe very quickly and cheaply. Meanwhile, here in the US, people are fighting against the idea of building highspeed rail even between a handful of cities that are right next to each other.

Hey, you must be talking about Cal HSR! The amount of absurdity when dealing with NIMBYs in the supposably progressive Bay Area never ceases to amaze.

You're right that the US has let our infrastructure fall behind. The North American electric grid can be taken out by a squirrel. Our roads are in desperate need of repair. Our telcom networks are behind Europe and Asia. Quite honestly, we've rested on our laurels for 50 years, and we've seen that national infrastructure is too important to be left to Wall Street. (Indeed, it always has been.)

That said, China might also be broke.

It just happened, and not the way you described. Jim Bunning is currently reviled by lots of people for trying to enforce the Paygo system. The bill did not have a way to pay for continued unemployment benefits, and he held it up until someone came up with a way to pay for it. His explanation was legit, or seemed to be, but all of the coverage is "Bunning is a dickhead."

Bunning's explanation:
http://bunning.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=NewsCenter.NewsReleases&ContentRecord_id=21648539-d0e8-4c3b-6078-362af45228d7&Region_id=&Issue_id=

News coverage:
House Moves to Repay U.S. DOT Workers Furloughed by Bunning Filibuster
Crazy Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning throws a curveball at helping poor, struggling Americans
Seven states hit hard by Jim Bunning's delay on unemployment benefits

Thats not true.

My wife is a teacher and you can be fired for being seen in a bar, having a facebook page, or just wearing a bikini in public. There is zero tolerance as teachers need to be holier than thou and the union can not save you. Also, teachers do not become immune from being fired until about 3 to 4 years and even then you can still be fired for gross negligence such as coming to work drunk. Infact, this happened with a new teacher. He just got hired and partied all night the night before class to celebrate his new job and passed out in the bushes by lunch. He was fired on the spot before the first day finished.

Even a picture of you smoking in public outside the school can get you canned. They are that strict. Firing teachers is quite popular in this political climate. This is true even in minority districts where 65% of students do not speak English as a native language. hmm why do not the students there test at grade level in English?
Must be the teachers fault right? Fire them!

Teachers are fired left and right every 1 to 2 years and rehired so they do not get the union benefits of job security. My wife is always let go and rehired every year. It has a devastating psychological effect as the kids and I freak out every summer about living out in the street only to be rehired. I tell you one thing. If this happens again she will not be a teacher anymore. This crap has got to stop and teachers are anything but un-fireable. Infact, I would even say teachers have less job security than most professions. You do not just go in and teach. Your lesson plans and your schedule have to be very very detailed in a particular format that takes a few college level courses to do it right. Think of it as writing an APA paper? This is for every day and the principals love to ring you in by the neck if its not 100% perfect or not to their liking. Its not fun nor easy anymore.

And folks dealt with him we he started invading our friends. He might be a nutter but Chavez has not invaded anyone yet.

Wrong:

Venezuela plotted to kill Colombia president, Spain judge says

A Spanish judge on Monday charged that Venezuela plotted to kill Colombia President Álvaro Uribe, collaborating with rebel groups ETA and FARC to kill other political officials as well.

...

Information used in the indictment came from the laptop computer of a top FARC guerrilla commander killed by Colombian forces in 2008. In the months that followed, the computer files revealed what international intelligence officials say are close ties between the FARC and top members of Mr. Chávez's government.

So, not only has Chavez invaded other countries (a proxy invasion is still an invasion), Chavez has tried to assassinate the democratically-elected leader of another country.

And that's what we know of.

So you can stop lying for your favorite thug.

Yup, It isn't out for the PC yet. (I am sure they delayed the PC launch as to maximize console profits where piracy is less of an issue.**cough cough** I was looking forward to buying this game, but now with UBI-Soft's great DRM scheme, I may wait for a "fix" to come out before I even consider buying or installing it.

Ever hear of CO2 scrubbers? Burying CO2 is a hell of a lot more green than burying radioactive waste in containers that will eventually leak. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage

There are already working plants using this method. That's why they are building new coal fired plants in Europe, which is a lot more environmentally conscious than we are. That's as here, now and possible as building nuclear plants.

These new plants being built prove we are behind the times. I'd rather have my kids deal with inert minerals containing CO2 than radioactive crap that will probably be our undoing.

"Finally, the produced carbonates are unarguably stable and thus re-release of CO2 into the atmosphere is not an issue. "

Ok now couple this development with a complete shutdown of the nuclear waste storage program at Yucca Mountain.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0201/Nuclear-waste-storage-in-limbo-as-Obama-axes-Yucca-Mountain-funds

This administration amazes more every day with it's shortsightedness. This spending bill is a big fat FAIL. Cut spending on nuclear waste storage and use the money to create more nuclear waste. Brilliant!

I agree that you get more bang for the buck out of nuclear energy, but until the waste storage problem is handled, it's not a sustainable option. We can get by on coal until solar and wind is ready for prime time.

We are sitting on one of the biggest coal reserves in the world. We need to use it.

"Xbox360 has had a huge struggle with hardware failures. WinMo is old and clunky, Vista left a really bad taste in peoples mouth, Office is facing competition from Google Docs and OpenOffice, and Play For Sure failed publicly."

Not exactly. Xbox 360 is far ahead in the media center game, which is what people want, the days of a $300 gaming only system are over. Only thing PS3 still has going for it is the built-in blu-ray drive, but to do something as simple as stream Netflix requires a Netflix disc that the Xbox 360 does not. Microsoft designed the Xbox 360 to be a media center, while the PS3 seems to be focused on being a blu-ray player, probably so Sony can protect and encourage movie sales.

We're still waiting for our all-in-one solution, the company that will provide us with all our devices. Apple has surprisingly made some great strides in the last ten years with the iPhone, Apple TV and being a major media content provider with iTunes. They appear to be the front runner in this game, all they need now is to add gaming to the Apple TV and they'd be hard to beat. Only thing they keep missing on is Flash support: iPhone/Touch only does Youtube streaming, no other sites. If they removed that limitation it'd be a far more attractive form factor.

Well, the Afghans have mules, that cost nearly 0 and already pass where Humvee's stop.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2009/0504/p22s01-usmi.html

If mules cost a $1,000 a piece then what in the hell is the military going to do with 32,000 of them? You've got to think like the military. It makes more sense spending 32 million for one prototype than for 32,000 live mules. There's far less support needed for one robotic mule than 32,000 live ones. Just buy one mule? Then what are they supposed to do with the other $31,999,000.00????? Buying live ones just doesn't make sense.

Well, the Afghans have mules, that cost nearly 0 and already pass where Humvee's stop. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2009/0504/p22s01-usmi.html

Bono comes off as a pious f*ck when U2 is more than happy to dodge taxes. Reality Check: Bono is a business folks.

The OLPC needs to be coupled with software that gives children a basic education with little or no teacher assistance.

This is the fantasy that sank OLPC the first time around.

Every culture has its own educational tradition. Its own theory of how children should be taught,what they should be taught, and by who they should be taught.

There are gatekeepers, secular and religious.

"No" means "no." No purchase orders. No deployment. No support. No protection.

You can't work openly.

You can't work secretly without someone paying the ultimate price.

"If you educate a boy, you educate an individual; but if you educate a girl, you educate a community. No other factor even comes close to matching the cascade of positive changes triggered by teaching a single girl how to read and write." Stones Into Schools

Taliban bomb schools in NW Pakistan

The geek will blithely hand the Afghan girl a lime-green laptop that can never be openly carried or displayed.

It would be suicidal even to speak of it to a stranger.

The girl is illiterate, like her sisters, her mother, her grandmother.

True literacy implies a basic understanding of all forms of communication. The girl needs to learn how to see. The girl needs to learn how to hear.

The girl needs a teacher. She needs a school - a defensible space in which to learn.

I thought that "Artists Conception" looked oddly familiar. Then I remembered this; http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Discoveries/2009/0729/are-astronomers-watching-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-betelgeuse

I seem to remember it was also in a Slashdot article that references this.

Uhm... so which is it, people? Or is it just clip art?

Please refrain from using the term "black hole" as it is offensive to african-americans. The correct term is now "white hole." For reference please see http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0723/p09s01-coop.html

What the hell does your health insurance rant have to do with the subject at hand?

The subject at hand outrages Illiberal slashdotters because the government's law enforcers find it "too easy" to get GPS-data about their suspects (the subset of suspects, who are also Sprint customers) from Sprint. The "health insurance rant" is related to that, because people with self-consistent beliefs ought to be even more outraged, by the government's attempts to learn about each citizen's (suspected of anything or not) health care, linked precisely to their financial information.

It's funny that you say "self-consistent [beliefs]" when you really mean "consistent with my beliefs".

I think there are pretty clear differences between having a database of database of medical records subject to the same HIPAA regulations we have now and a warrentless GPS tracking program. Those differences mainly being usefulness to me, accountability for abuse, and intention of use to spell it out.

I did read your link btw, and it hinges on:

HIPAA's so-called privacy law permits individuals' personal health information to be exchanged – for many broad purposes – without patients' consent (See 45 CFR Subtitle A, Subpart E – Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information; section 164.502(a)(1)(ii) "Permitted uses and disclosures").

So I went to see who could look at your identifiable health information http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2003/octqtr/45cfr164.502.htm. In short it's no one you wouldn't expect: you, registered doctors/nurses treating you, your insurance provider for billing purposes, and specific exceptions like parent/legal guardians for minors.

If you're worried about you non-identifiable information then a lot of researchers can get a hold of that data. However I'd argue that data is doing more good than harm by being released.

What the hell does your health insurance rant have to do with the subject at hand?

The subject at hand outrages Illiberal slashdotters because the government's law enforcers find it "too easy" to get GPS-data about their suspects (the subset of suspects, who are also Sprint customers) from Sprint. The "health insurance rant" is related to that, because people with self-consistent beliefs ought to be even more outraged, by the government's attempts to learn about each citizen's (suspected of anything or not) health care, linked precisely to their financial information.

That's what links the two topics fairly closely. I hope, I was able to address your concern.

You sir, can take your tinfoil hat and leave and we'll not shed a tear... Go form your own country or find one that you like better. You don't even have to wait until 2010.

Didn't you promise to leave for Canada in 2004? What happened — the door slammed you too hard on your way out?..

The true 1984 will come, when all your health records will be known to the Federal Government so that it can monitor both the health care you are getting and whether you are complying with the mandate to carry health insurance.

It sure is "Orwellian" and it is true... Republicans may have skirted some laws (although no more than Democrat Roosevelt did, when arresting thousands of Americans of Japanese, German, or Italian origin) in their "war on terror", but to establish a true Big Brother, a nation needs an Illiberal in office...

Or it needs to have one party, the Statist Party. This party has two factions; one is called the Democrats while the other is called the Republicans. Their value to the Statist Party is derived from maximizing small, petty differences and minimizing fundamental similarities. I'll explain one such similarity.

Traditionally, the Democrats/Leftists prefer personal freedoms at the expense of economic freedoms, while tradtionally the Republicans/Rightists prefer economic freedoms at the expense of personal freedoms. This is the case even though a freedom, once restricted, is never made unrestricted again. So the parties take turns being in power, and while there they implement their particular brand of restrictions. When the other party reacquires power, they further implement their brand of restrictions without lifting those enacted by the party that was previously in power. This guarantees that over time, you end up with less freedom and eventually end up with a total police state. This is only one technique in use. The notion that over generations of time, no one in those parties would have noticed this and decided to change it is absurd. Therefore there can be nothing accidental about it.

The important thing about this system is that it appears to provide choice to the electorate. The electorate must remain convinced that their votes matter and might really change the system, or else they lose all incentive to participate in the system and accept it as valid. This is necessary because the British have already tried to control this region by brute force and overt authority and were not successful; therefore something more deceptive is needed.