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Actually I didn't say anything about the trend, I said the components were more popular than the whole, and it was more popular as a whole when explained (I couldn't track down that poll though it would be hard to do fairly). The only component that's particularly unpopular is the mandate but that's the part that's actually critical (and formerly endorsed by the Republican party).

As for the trend the polls have been pretty stable. There might be a slight negative trend in this year but the polling data is really noisy.

Btw, you didn't mention anything about my other points. The question about the shutdown/debt limit standoff, or the non-scandal with the IRS. Do you concede either of those points or do you have some issue with my reasoning?

It is not legal, but I doubt we will see any U.S. agent being extradited to Mexico, even for crimes considered as such by both countries.

First the U.S. got angry because a known drug lord was released from prison in Mexico on a technicality. Caro Quintero was accused of murdering a U.S. agent (Kiki Camarena) and running drugs to the U.S.

Then, three U.S. agents came forward declaring to a national magazine (Proceso) that the guy supposedly killed by Caro Quintero, was actually executed by U.S. intelligence agents.

This on top of the Fast and Furious operation from a couple of years ago, on which the U.S government supplied guns and asault weapons to drug lords in Mexico.

One has to wonder, exactly on which side is the U.S. government?

They are simultaneously arguing in lower courts that the lower courts have no jurisdiction because it's a matter for the SC, AND in the SC that the SC does not have jurisdiction, because it's a question for the lower courts.

Actually no, they aren't. The Supreme Court doesn't have original jurisdiction for the EPIC complaint. The lower court cases are running into other issues. The Supreme Court has already ruled about the status of phone records is one issue. Another is standing for a 4th Amendment challenge.

NSA Phone Records Collection Can't Be Challenged By The Callers, Government Argues

The government is arguing in the terrorism case that serves as the National Security Agency's primary public justification for its bulk collection of telephone records that criminal defendants have no constitutional right to challenge the agency's sweeping surveillance program.

In a filing made Sept. 30, U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy of the Southern District of California contends that only the telephone companies have a Fourth Amendment interest in their call records -- and therefore that Basaaly Moalin cannot challenge his conviction for providing material support to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab.

Moalin is a Somali immigrant and San Diego cab driver convicted in February with three other defendants of sending $8,500 to al-Shabaab. His case constitutes the only time the government has admitted using bulk phone records surveillance as the crucial step in a domestic terrorism investigation, and thus it has taken on an outsized significance in the debate over the NSA's program.

"[N]either Moalin nor his co-defendants have standing to challenge the United States' collection of the telephony metadata from the service provider, regardless of the collection's expanse," the government's filing asserts.
 

One example.

The rules were recently changed so as to thwart bipartisan sensibility in the house.

Though at least 28 House Republicans have publicly said they would support a clean CR if it were brought to the floor -- enough votes for the government to reopen when combined with Democratic support -- a House rule passed just before the shutdown essentially prevents that vote from taking place. ...

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), presiding over the chamber, told Van Hollen that the rule he was asking to use had been "altered" and he did not have the privilege of bringing that vote to the floor. In the ensuing back and forth, Chaffetz said the recently passed House Resolution 368 trumped the standing rules. Where any member of the House previously could have brought the clean resolution to the floor under House Rule 22, House Resolution 368 -- passed on the eve of the shutdown -- gave that right exclusively to the House majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/04/22/head-of-cdc-admits-on-cnn-that-vaccines-can-trigger-autism.aspx
"Recently Julie Gerberding, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), appeared on Dr. Sanjay Gupta's show House Call and explained that vaccines can trigger autism in a vulnerable subset of children. This is the claim that many parents have been making since at least the 1980s, and they have been dismissed and even mocked for making it."

At three minutes in, specifically, she suggests a stress could trigger autism, and such a stress could be a fever resulting from a vaccination injection, the result of which in children who are predisposed by a mitochondrial disorder could thus set off the symptoms of autism...

See also though, along the lines you suggest, for other more likely and more frequent causes of autism though, such as vitamin D deficiency and food additives and so on:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/autism/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html

Dr. Julie Gerberding has since left her position as head of the CDC and is now the president of Merck's Vaccine division. As you point out, people against vaccines also may have financial interests at stake (book sales, medical practices, product sales, etc.). Whatever one can say about vaccines, certainly understanding the conflicts of interest and weasel words pervading the whole field seems like a huge job...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Gerberding

To build on some other suggestions in comments to this article, since getting enough vitamin D, eating more vegetables, avoiding dairy, getting exercise, nursing children past age two, and so on have been proven to often improve health and increase disease resistance in humans, it seems like any family which is not doing all of those things is putting the community at risk. So, the question is, should we legally enforce "BlueZones" and "Nutritarianism" on the world in order to protect those with compromised immune systems because they avoid sunlight, eat poorly, don't exercise, were bottle-fed, and so on?
http://www.bluezones.com/
http://www.drfuhrman.com/children/default.aspx

Maybe we should start by cracking down on luncheonmeat consumers? :-)
http://www.ehow.com/info_8360513_luncheon-meat-dangers.html
http://institutefornaturalhealing.com/2012/04/processed-meats-declared-too-dangerous-for-human-consumption/

At the very least, as a deterrent to creating health hazards for themselves and others, perhaps people who admit to having eaten processed meats (or who otherwise can be identified by credit card purchase records) probably should not have any possibly related medical conditions covered by insurance?

The medical literature is very messy, for lots of reasons, such as expressed in quotes I've collected here:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html#Some_quotes_on_social_problems_in_science

It would help to have better tools to use to wade through all the muck (including for detecting statistical fallacies as the grandparent post by "Todd Knarr" points out). Some suggestion

There are now reports that Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras, two journalists with serious cred in the area of spying and national security, will join Greenwald at the new site.

From TFA:

"Scahill, a dogged investigative journalist who focuses on national security, and Poitras, a filmmaker who has extensively covered surveillance issues, had already been in discussions with Greenwald about starting a venture together when Omidyar approached with a similar vision for a new media outlet, sources said. The Washington Post reported Tuesday night that Poitras and Scahill may be potential âoehiresâ at the new site. But according to sources, they were already in talks with Greenwald about working together and are not only now being recruited for the venture".

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/16/glen-greenwald-media_n_4107289.html

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=obamacare+amendments+written+by+republicans the Chuck Grassley one is pretty funny: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/02/obamacare-congressional-coverage_n_3697021.html

US imports would either find somewhere else to go for cheap crap, or would build it themselves - but in the latter case, the goods produced would have to be more expensive (its just that they would all become more expensive, no-one could undercut competitors by outsourcing to china anymore) and that would kill off any consumer-led recoveries. And goods not produced in the US (eg electronics) would become more expensive still. And your exports would drop dramatically as the dollar strengthens compounding the problem.

Labor is a lot cheaper in China, India, Brazil. But shipping all of these things back to the US for consumption is very expensive. So, in the end, do you know how much more expensive for consumers electronics would be if they were built in the US instead of in China? Roughly 7%. That's it. With the increasing manufacturing costs happening in China right now, predictions are that it won't be cheaper to manufacturer in China anymore in as early as 2015.

Trust me, the situation for the US isn't nearly as bad as you believe. Well, the situation Congress is creating is exactly as bad as everyone claims, and if we were to default on our bonds we are literally killing the financial stability of this nation. The outsourcing of manufacturing issue? Eh...it has never been a problem.

Care to explain to us and the WHO specialists who reported Fukushima-Area Cancer Risks Are Higher Than Normal After Japan Nuclear Disaster why those doctors should not be allowed to practice medicine?

The point is that states implemented their own systems and none of them have been declared a disaster.

Not true.

The public has no idea about the level of US spending. They need to know things like Air Conditioning The Military Costs More Than NASA's Entire Budget. Until they understand that NASA does so much for so little they will never want to expand its budget.

There Are 3 Unemployed People Competing For Every Job Opening

But is this a measure of people competing for jobs in good faith, or is it merely the number of people unemployed divided by the number of jobs? From TFA, I see it's the latter.

This doesn't take into account people like, for instance, my sister, who hasn't worked since the mid-nineties and is grimly determined to do whatever it takes to remain on government assistance for the remainder of her life. Justified by "I had bad things happen to me in my youth; society owes me a comfortable living in the manner and place of my choosing as a result."

I'm pretty sure she's not the only one.

There Are 3 Unemployed People Competing For Every Job Opening

Neither is true in the slightest. There has recently been a slight regression, but it's pure IDIOCY to claim an "ALL TIME HIGH". Just look back to the great depression, when these programs were formed, to see VASTLY WORSE.

By many measurements, it's definitely true, but you are right that total poverty is below depression levels:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/07/supplemental-poverty-measure_n_1080160.html
http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2013/09/17/us-working-age-poverty-remains-near-record-high-in-2012/

Because everything the government does it does badly. That's the nature of government. If you want "good" government, you whittle it down to just those activities which history has shown aren't credibly done outside government -- military, justice system (police and courts), funding basic scientific research (not technology research!), and so on.

I agree. One such area is health care.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/26/charts-health-care-costs-americans_n_2957266.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/26/21-graphs-that-show-americas-health-care-prices-are-ludicrous/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-rock-positano/backpacks-can-cause-back-_b_63007.html

Google works. Try it sometime.

I wonder if it's possible to get lost in reorganizations and end up collecting a salary but not have to work.

Paying and not allowing you to work is not the same thing: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/22/new-york-teachers-paid-to_n_219336.html

Apparently, almost a year ago to the day, a "large amount" were stolen from a Philly airport. I couldn't find a follow-up (might be what I used for initial sources), but am I now to believe these theives can finally spend their cash? Or was the design tweaked since then? I suppose if it was, it would benefit the FBI investigation to not have that stated.

- Looks like if mass consumer "is given the choice" of having a windows 8 PC only or NOT having a PC overall, he prefers NOT having a PC at all (and goes now for something completely different, ie some tablet /mobile phone /PC-on-a-Stick instead))

"Minority" is correct, because it's referring to only a portion of the Republican caucus. Due to the House's self-imposed Hastert Rule, a vote on the continuing resolution is being prevented due to the wishes of a "majority of the majority," meaning 210 of the 232 Republicans. (The other 22 Republicans would be willing to compromise.) However, the total number of Representatives is 435, so the 210 that are preventing the vote represent only 48.3% of the total -- a minority.

Wasn't the operation of the military fully-funded by act of Congress, passed by the Senate, and signed into law by the President? Why are any military personnel on furlough?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/05/government-shutdown-back-pay_n_4049377.html

Backpay for the idle according to this. It's hard to imagine that those working will get less than that. Of course this pretty much implies that the shutdown is more expensive.

And this is why Obamacare is getting a bad rap. Too many people spewing things they don't know anything about, either maliciously or ignorantly.

Not only has this been discussed in DC already, but it passed the house already 407-0.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/05/government-shutdown-back-pay_n_4049377.html

Is that any worse than an elected official espousing a "second amendment solution" for her opponent in the senatorial election? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/16/sharron-angle-floated-2nd_n_614003.html

And as for the "trade liberty for security" crowd, I suspect you're talking about the 80% of people who wanted modest commonsense background checks following one or another horrific mass shooting. Rest easy, you may not remember that the republican lapdogs thwarted the will of the people quite handily in that case.

Sadly, the GOP alternative is "The free market solution which we have and which has no problems whatsoever." When you point out the problems, they ignore you and assume that since THEY have enough money to afford health insurance or get government health care by virtue of being a member of Congress, nobody else has problems ever.

Now that I mention it, all of those Congress folks who say how government run health care is evil and we should go free market... Are any of them waiving their Congressional health care in favor of purchasing their own health care plans? I'd think they were being hypocritical if they didn't.

Well, yes and no. Ted Cruz has made a big deal about waiving his benefits. Of course, he's been quieter about the fact that he also gets premium coverage from Goldman Sachs to the tune of ~$40k/yr, or approximately one median household's income, purely because he's married to a successful woman.

In other news, a Danish TV station I was watching yesterday had one of those round table discussions where everybody was scratching their heads over this strange situation. One of the panelists cited a survey that found that Congress has a 10% approval rating which it amused him to contrast with the fact that apparently socialism/communism has an 11% approval rating with the US public. If those percentages are correct, that last one is surprising. I figured the approval rating for socialism in the USA would be hardly measurable.

Unless the poll asked about policies without using the term 'socialism'.

Actually they just asked if people were in favor of "the US going communist" or not. The data apparently comes from a Sen. Michael Bennet:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/16/congress-approval-rating-porn-polygamy_n_1098497.html

If congress want to repeal Obamacare then they could, and should, try and pass a bill doing so...

They've tried 41 times already. Attaching it to this "must-pass" spending bill was attempt 42.

Not a single person will lose insurance due to this law. Blatant fearmongering.

You are blatantly incorrect. Scores of thousands have already lost their insurance due to this law:

Ten states where Obamacare wipes out existing health care plans

Trader Joe's Invites Part-Timers Losing Company Coverage To Seek Additional Obamacare Subsidy

Despite Obama Promise, Many Coloradans Losing Their Health Insurance Plans

What might work is to use urine from an animal that prey on rats

Many rodents have an innate fear of the smell of cats. So cat urine should work well unless the critter is infected with toxoplasmosis.

Here is a decent, though not unbiased, treatment of the subject. The hardest evidence in favor is Exodus 21:22-25, which specifies the penalty for miscarriage due to violence. Notably, it is distinct from the penalty for murder.

And here is a historical overview of how the position of Christian church on the subject changed. Note that e.g. St Augustine and Thomas Aquinas both only considered abortion murder if the fetus was "animated" - this basically meant that it was capable of moving in the womb, and usually the boundary of 40 days after conception was given as a threshold.

Yeah - no reason to get outraged. The NSA uses our tax dollars to inject weaknesses in applications, encryption techniques, and devices which make it easier to be a victim of identity theft. Worse, after we completed exporting our manufacturing economy during the 80s and 90s in favor of "knowledge jobs", the NSA makes it obvious that doing business with American companies is unwise at best, though moronic is a better descriptor. And if that's not enough, all those aforementioned weaknesses make it easier to hack into businesses and steal their work or otherwise damage them.

So we're talking something like $54 billion a year for ID theft (1), $35 billion for the cloud crap in the next three years (2), and $100 billion and 500k jobs or so due to industrial espionage (3).

What the NSA is doing to undermine security is costing Americans and American businesses billions every year, and harming employment to boot. The NSA is much more akin to a co-conspirator in a Russian computer crime gang than to some run of the mill spy who "always did this" because those others didn't screw with NIST, or use the force of the US Gov't to require backdoors. And worse, we have to pay for it with our tax dollars -- we're paying to get fucked by an agency that destroys American values and then turns around damages our economy. It's like paying to get robbed.

So you know what, you can just take a flying fuck with your idiotic "everyone does it" crap. Your complacency is allowing the NSA to continue directly harming America and Americans.

(1) http://www.westfieldinsurance.com/personal/pg.jsp?page=identity_theft_protection
(2) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/07/nsa-snooping-could-cost-u-s-tech-companies-35-billion-over-three-years/
(3) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/25/hackers-jobs_n_3652893.html

NOTE: certainly the NSA isn't responsible for the entire $160ish billion per year, but it is doing it's darndest to get there.

instead, people have bought the line that teachers are "overpaid" and don't bother to realize that teachers earn incredibly low salaries for the education and professional level of their work. that is insane.

You're both right. Teacher salaries are low, yet the U.S. spends more per student on education than any other country on the planet.

People think teacher salary = education spending. It isn't. Far from it. If you look at the latest educational expenditure stats (page 8 of the state level tables), you see that our schools spend $8649 per student on salaries, wages, and benefits. If the average class size is a modest 25, that's $216,255/yr per class being paid to educators. If the average teacher salary is $50k (call it $70k with benefits), who is the rest of the money going to?.

Obviously some of the extra is necessary (bus drivers, janitors, basic administration, etc). But from the research I've done, the bulk of the extra $145k goes to administrators. They've managed to worm their way into a position where they're in charge of how the money is allocated. If the budget is ever increased, they allocate most of it to themselves. If the budget is ever cut, they pass on the cuts to the teachers and rely on the teacher's union to stir up a firestorm about how we aren't spending enough money on education, when in fact we're spending more than any other country. Both you and OP have been suckered in by their ruse - thinking that teacher salary = education spending. When in fact teacher salary = education spending - administration overhead and other costs.

Incidentally, I should point out that the "teachers aren't paid enough" argument runs counter to the interest of current teachers. If your reasoning is that higher salaries will attract better teachers, then the logical course of action is to fire the current teachers and hire completely different teachers at the higher salaries. Retaining the current batch of teachers and simply increasing their salary won't change anything (other than improving the teachers' standard of living).

If this is true, then how come our schools are so awful?

We the people have been throwing more and more money at schoolteachers, and requiring ever-increasing levels of training and education to maintain their license to teach, yet the educational achievments of our students have been flatlined for 40 years, and have even fallen dramatically in some districts.

Have we really been throwing money at teachers? Teacher salaries have remained fairly constant in inflation-adjusted terms over the past few decades. W have definitely been throwing money at schools. With NCLB testing and gee-whiz-bang "let's give everyone a tablet" initiatives, and insanely overpaid administrators, we're spending way more, but we aren't seeing any results... hm...

Meanwhile home schooled children, taught by parents with no formal training as teachers, outperform government-schooled students so often that the high achieving home schooler has become a cultural meme, if not a cliche.

Charter schools have also been able to deliver superior results at lower cost.

Um, citation needed? Yes, some charter schools are great, but even more are worse.

No, I don't think we need professionally trained well paid teachers. What we need are voucher programs, more home schooling, teachers and schools that have to compete, the utter end to tenure of any kind, and pay/bonuses based on classroom performance instead of seniority.

Because tying pay raises to test performance doesn't give anyone an incentive to cheat. It would never happen.

Opening up the teaching profession to anyone with a bachelor's degree and a demonstrated knowledge of a subject (english, math, science) would be even better. There is no evidence that having a master's degree in early childhood education helps someone teach 3rd graders how to multiply. Let those who want to teach and who are good at it take the field, and get rid of parasitic space takers for whom a teaching job is a state-paid sinecure.

Most of all, outlaw public sector unions so that groups like the NEA aren't able to block real education reform.

I'm all for at-will employment, but let's be honest, if school systems could get away with paying teachers minimum wage, they would. After all, if all you need is demonstrated knowledge of a subject, why don't the 1st graders teach kindergarten? Too far? OK, well, certainly a high school dropout should be OK. After all, they know their colors and how to read "See Spot Run." I'm sure you wouldn't mind handing over your kids to a burnout stoner, right?

Look, as somebody who actually works in this industry

... And whose identity is "Anonymous"

, multibeam sounders operate on very high frequencies, way over what whales can perceive.

And yet, I can take away your hearing by emitting ultrasound if it's powerful enough. You won't hear yourself going deaf, you'll just go deaf. Actually, I can even kill you with exposure of 180dB of ultrasound. But, working (anonymously) in the industry, you'd know that frequency is only part of the equation.

What's hilarious here is that the Slashdot circle-jerkers are already screaming EXXON...BAAAAD!

Statements like these definately add to your credibility. By making juvenile sexual jokes, it's immediately obvious to everyone that this is a man who makes six figures in the field of Oceanography.

But do you know what kind of sonar does make whales' ears bleed?

Yes: The very loud kind. Just like any other animal's ears. In fact, whale's ears are more suseptible to damage due to high decibel emissions than humans because in the human ear, air waves hit a membrane behind which there is a liquid-filled area, thus the energy of the wave can be dissipated; Pressure waves travelling through air are much less powerful than underwater, because of the density of the medium. Whales, unfortunately, have inner ears filled with the same liquid is its surrounding environment, and at the same pressure... meaning there is no transitive barrier to protect them.

The big fucking' spherical and cylindrical arrays you find in the tips of the bulbous dicks of ships and submarines.

Well, without knowing which ship was involved in a 6 year old incident, it's impossible to know whether any phallic-shaped devices were mounted to the ship. However, while lacking your literary ability in the many uses of the word 'fuck', an independent science team, perhaps with less impressive credentials than yours, found the ships' activities were the likely cause of the sudden displacement and eventual death of the whales. Oh, and the names of the members of that scientific team were the International Whaling Commission, the US Marine Mammal Commission, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production (Northern Madagascar) Ltd, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Government of Madagascar. They all think you're full of crap, but what would over a hundred scientists know compared to someone who swears like a sailor anonymously on slashdot?

Have you even seen a fucking multibeam? The transducer array is roughly the size of a shoebox.

You must have very big feet then. That's a picture of the NOAA's multibeam echosounder, an ER60. It is a low-power model, and in this case is being used to track the migratory movements of fish, and is of limited range. The kind that several sources have indicated were used by ExxonMobile inject high pressure air into the water; These are considerably larger, and more powerful, than these systems, which modulate a diaphram. It's the difference between your laptop's speakers, and a pneumatically-driven organ like those seen at older churches. Needless to say, the organ is much louder.

Idiots. I'm surrounded by goddamn idiots!

Yeah... I know this feeling well. Look at how often I get downmodded for providing factual and relevant commentary, instead of simp

Sorry wedding cakes not cupcakes. (There was a cupcake one too in Wisconsin or something, but I can't find it ATM, however this business in Oregon is the one I had in mind when I wrote that.)

The proprietor didn't want to make a gay themed wedding cake supposedly. After the media storm, her business saw an immediate uptick:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/11/sweet-cakes-by-melissa-oregon-lesbian-couple-business-booms_n_2664036.html

That however was followed by bullying, which led to the close of the business:

"There's a lot of close-minded people out there that would like to pretend to be very tolerant and just want equal rights," Aaron said. "But on the other hand, they've been very, very mean-spirited. They've been militant. The best way I can describe it is they've used mafia tactics against the business. Basically, if you do business with Sweet Cakes, we will shut you down."

The Kleins cited a break-in to their bakery truck as one example of what's been happening to them. They said it was ransacked Sunday evening. We checked with the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office and learned there was a report filed, but no one has been apprehended.

They also said critics harassed their vendors to the point that vendors would no longer refer customers, which led to their income dropping off dramatically.

http://www.katu.com/news/investigators/Sweet-Cakes-responds-to--222094901.html

That's quite a bit more than a boycott.

As much as you like to pretend wind energy has no cost, it very much in fact does kill birds, including eagles.

The problem for you and your fellow revisionists is that people can actually see wind farms killing birds. So you can bring up all the studies you like but it doesn't change what actually happens in real life.

here's another one

An actual candidate for political power in your country. The politest thing that can be said about that woman was "boastful ignoramus", and your lot chose her, put her within reach of serious decision making. Such a close call for your country. Your hagiography of Reagan led your GOP drones to think that intelligence is a fault.

And you nearly elected a former beauty contestant and religious zealot to be leader-in-waiting.

It would have been the biggest incentive ever for cancer research though wouldn't it? All the money in the world would have been spent on stopping McCain getting ill, would have been twice as important as the Manhattan project and Apollo put together.

Here's one from another pretty lady.

"You have to pass the bill to know what's in it." - Nancy Pelosi

And this representative from California was re-elected. Huh. Well as Ron White says "You can't fix stupid."

If you wanted to fix the US Healthcare system by making care affordable for all and allowing people with pre-existing conditions to get insured, then it wouldn't take 2700 pages of other crap that's in the legislative package. What we didn't get was:

1) No direct influence over rising expenditures for Medical Care. You have a system which doesn't abide by market forces and hospital administrators get paid millions of dollars in salaries and benefits. When you're seriously ill, you don't usually have the time to shop around so whatever they charge you (or your insurance) is what's charged. Sure, there's negotiations and maximums that insurance companies negotiate but that drives further business through insurance companies, forcing you to deal with them.
2) There was no discussion on tort reform so thousands of ambulance chasers can still sue the doctors and hospitals when your scars comes out a little bit strange. A big component to care is the necessary malpractice insurance which can cost upwards of $200,000 in some high cost states. Add that to office staff, paying the Nurse, the building costs and the medical coder to bill the insurance companies correctly and you can see easily why it costs a lot to see a doctor over a routine sniffle.
3) The Drug companies were let largely intact. There are a few costs they'll have to put up with but they're still expected to rake in Billions in profits under the ACA. Ask yourself why that pill you're taking is $5 and why, if it was allowed, you could get it for $.25. Sure the drug industry will claim that "these are inferior" but really it's a smokescreen.
4) The Single Payer system died. Nobody wanted to go against the big Insurance Firms and their lobbyists so we love big business in this country, so why not throw a few billion dollars their way. Well, they do now have to spend more on direct costs for Insurance which is good but allowing interstate competition and other market driven forces into the process would have been much better. That's what the exchanges are supposed to do but here we have the US Government trying to create markets rather than creating incentives with appropriate regulatory oversight for markets to flourish. Oh wait, considering the Financial Collapse, the Regulatory Process failed, so DC can't be trusted with that.

To be honest, you could have taken this 2700 pages, cut out the BS, the Pork like the "Exchanges" which Deloitte is now merrily feeding upon it seems and done away with it and had legislation that was no more than 10 pages long. Starting next year you'll hear more pigs in DC all lining up because the Feds have just blessed one industry with unlimited monopoly powers and you have to pay what they want to charge you. You have no choice, so invest in big Pharma, Hostpital chains and big medical concerns because they'll be raking it in even more.

You are still misinformed, and mistaken.

The FISA court has rejected a small number of warrant requests, the government has withdrawn nearly three times as many itself, and many, many more have been modified by the court - about 4.3%.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court: A Look At The Judges Who Preside Over America's Secret Court

Companies that receive FISA warrants, like Yahoo, have challenged them in the FISA court.

Yes, there are some things you apparently aren't acquainted with.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court: A Look At The Judges Who Preside Over America's Secret Court

Between 2001 and 2012, the FISA judges approved 20,909 surveillance and property search warrants - an average of 33 a week. During that 12-year period, the judges denied just 10 applications. Prosecutors withdrew another 26 applications.

From 2007 to 2012, FISA judges also approved 532 "business record" warrant applications, the category used in the order that directed Verizon to release metadata on all phone calls inside the United States. No business record warrants were rejected.

The records also show that FISA judges ordered "substantial modifications" to 497 surveillance and property warrants and 428 of the business record warrants.

The statistics are especially intriguing for business record warrants for 2011 and 2012. Of 417 warrants authorized, the court "substantially modified" 376.

It's hard to believe you're right, especially since automated trading never fouls up or causes any problems.

"... Just to make sure that their government is free of ties to terrorism... "

Do you mean terrorism like the kind that involves killing unknowing bystanders? The U.S. doesn't do that. Oh wait...

You should vote PROGRAMS, whose points become law overriding everything else, with the parliament devoted to harmonize it into the existing situation and the government devoted to apply.

Remember, In the Obama platform in 2008 was a particular point regarding protecting whiteblowers. No matter what they say, they won't follow it if their real bosses tell them to do otherwise after they got elected or the situation arises.

All the big parties in US have the same bosses, electing any of them, no matter how "this time is different" the candidate looks, will keep things getting worse in the same direction, as was with the change from Bush to Obama, different person, different party, different skin color, no matter how much you change, the bosses are the same, the trend keeps in the same direction, and no matter how low we fell so far, they can do a lot of things to make the things much, much worse following the same trend.

You can elect minoritary parties, or choose the appropiate way to express make count your vote for nobody. But in the end, they don't have only control of the government, they control the media, people will buy again their candy thinking that this time, things will change. I just hope that the world can survive the remaining of Obama administration and the 8 years of whoever comes after (a woman? a recent drug addict? someone with a disability? oh, wait, that was Bush, anyway they need to push the boundaries if want to give the illusion of that something will change)

Unlike some regular readers of Slashdot, he just got laid. I think his grin is well deserved.

We need to get something out of the way. Croatia is not Belgium. Neither is it in Belgium. Nor was it ever, in some strange historical time before America existed, Belgian in any way. This does not seem to have prevented a Belgian lady from trusting her GPS enough to end up in Zagreb, Croatia's capital, when she was actually trying to go 90 miles from her home in Hainault Erquelinnes to Brussels. Both, remarkably, are in Belgium. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57563958-71/gps-sends-belgian-woman-to-croatia-810-miles-out-of-her-way/

Stupidity is universal and not limited to users of any specific brand. But if you really want to have a cheap shot at iPhone users I'd recommend that you aim at the ones that fell for the waterproof iOS 7 prank and sent their devices to an early demise as at least this one is brand specific (for now) in difference from GPS fuck ups caused by ignorant drivers since the first GPS hit the market.

Don't be so sure about physical security. The day after 12 people were killed in a shooting at Navy Yard in DC, some dude lobbed firecrackers at the White House.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/16/white-house-firecrackers_n_3937556.html

Likewise, you might need to go through millimeter wave scans to get through security, but your seeing million dollar scanners at the front door doesn't mean that the back door isn't wide open. It's criticized as "security theater" because it's only meant to make you FEEL safe. As XKCD explains, there are plenty of easy and common loopholes in the system:
https://xkcd.com/651/

If you were to arrange some kind of protest, you just might get arrested. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/23/parent-arrested-at-school-meeting-robert-small-maryland-video_n_3975658.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

From time-to-time we also have war being waged against the single exposed breast on the state seal of Virginia which is also on the flag. If they ever do manage to change the flag and seal, then the state I grew up in will have really jumped the shark. Oh, and to head off any pedants, "commonwealth" is just something you can say if you like. It's a state. There is no legal distinction.

Well, yea but, how can we make this Obama's fault?

Um, ok, I'll bite.

But really, it's more widespread than that. Were it entirely an Obama problem, we'd only have to live with it for a few more years. For people who actually believe that, I have a shiny new bridge to sell them.

But they were flat-out lying to me

Such harsh words for such a tiny company! Can't we all be friends?

My my, the guys you talked to on the phone didn't lie, they just "gave the 'Least Untruthful' Answer" possible. After all, the heads of departments and companies lead the way in ethics and showing us all exactly how it's done.