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Yea, it's stunning that they claim the job market is strong. It's anything but. In addition to the folks falling off the roles, there is also the "alternative" workforce jobs. A larger category of “alternative” work has exploded, with contractors and temp workers—like home health aides, truck drivers, and call center workers—who often face unpredictable schedules and lack benefits like health insurance or a retirement package.

Perhaps an even worse development is the tech sweatshop of disposable worker cogs that Silicon Valley is now exporting to the rest of the country. So, yea, you've got a job - as long as you're willing to put the rest of your life on hold and live at the whim of some self-important douchebag pulling in stock options that he'll cash in as soon as your blood and sweat impresses the VCs.

Verizon had agreed to have fiber-optic cable for FiOS pass all three million homes in the city by the end of last year. Lawyers for each side, however, are arguing about the definition of “pass.” The company says it has met the deadline. The city’s response: not even close.

Verizon: We passed. We passed all of those homes. Nobody said "connect".

Read between the lines on the articles about the Blackberry. They already replaced the general key with one controlled by his handlers in the NSA.

You missed the recent lies told about the abortion comments.

NBC's Chris Matthews asked Trump, if abortion was illegal, should women who get abortions be arrested? Then every report on this seems to conveniently omit the original question when trying to cast him as hating women.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/tr...

All three of those articles fail to mention the bolded part above, all Trump was saying is "if it is illegal, of course your should get punished for it", they are all making it out to be that he thinks all women who get abortions should be punished, when he didn't even say that.

Totally And Permanently Disabled. That is, medically incapable of any sort of gainful employment.

Neither are the two equivalent (a legless veteran can still write software or work telephones), nor is gainful employment a requirement for solvency — one could have wealth and/or other sources of income: inheritance, family support, disability insurance, etc.

I'm guessing that involves more than a 35% drop in after tax employment income.

Wrong. The 35% drop I cited is average for people, who were disabled at least 10 years — that's as close to "permanent" as it gets with the current rate of scientific and engineering development. You are welcome to cite a different source, but "your guessing" is not acceptable.

what would be the point in needling such a person to pay off the student loan?

The point is three-fold: a) to collect the money owed from those, who are not in fact insolvent despite disability; b) to discourage cheaters from faking disability — a major fraud-magnet, which the "benevolent" government officials have no incentive to fight; c) to encourage people to get and carry disability insurance.

It comes from a supreme court case in 1910 when a corporation decided to pay it's workers a decent living wage, and cut margins a bit to afford that.

There is no legal duty to maximize corporate profits and 'shareholder value'.

And what supreme court case are you talking about? Dodge v. Ford Motor Co?
That was a Michigan Supreme Court case, not a US Supreme Court case. And even that case really has nothing to do with shareholder value.

Millions? Do the T's really number in the millions?

The New York Times had an article about the difficulties of estimating the number of transgender people. The estimate they came up with from various studies was 700,000 people in the US (between .2% and .3% of the population). NYT 700,000 Transgender Article.

As a point of comparison, there are 1.8 million Muslim adults in the US (and 2.75 million people - lots of kids). I quote the adult population because it was easy to find and the transgender population is pretty much all adult. There are 5.3 million jews in the US.

Compare that to 14 million asians, 38 million black people, 55 million latinos, and 256 million caucasians.

2 or 3 people per thousand is a pretty small minority but it's not infinitesimal. Assuming the NYT decided to tell the truth (not a guarantee), every major retailer in the US interacts with several transgender people per day. That's enough people to form a minority class that merit some special protections.

While the American SJW industry thrives on blowing things out of proportion, this is not an issue that is so rare that it hardly exists. Whether its a large enough issues to change our expectations of who we'll encounter in a public bathroom is a question that isn't so simple if you look at raw demographics. It get's clearer when you look at other factors.

Transgender people face a remarkable level of violence compared to other populations. That fact alone demands a certain amount of urgency. If allowing them to use a bathroom consistent with their appearance can reduce violent encounters for this minority, it seems like a relatively small sacrifice. Of course, I'm a college educated, urban, non-practicing Catholic, cis-gendered, white collar dude from California. If I was the test for these kinds of things they'd sell weed at Walgreens.

Even the NY Times has written about it. And contrary to what the Hillary camp/Obama Administration are trying to use to deflect, classified - and secret - information is rarely marked as such. It's implied in who it came from and what the subject is about. So you treat ALL information as classified at the beginning, and treat it as unclassified if after a review it's determined to be such. That's why everything starts on a secured e-mail system in the first place. And that's why Hillary using her own unsecured server is a major breach and illegal action.

it's Settled Science: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02...

Not only is that incorrect, in that it quite possibly could be misdemeanor, that is wholly inconsistent with historical precedent on these types of cases.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/hillary-clinton-prosecution-past-cases-221744

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-classified-information/2015/09/18/a164c1a4-5d72-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html

Obama is acknowledging what is common knowledge and the subject of numerous news articles -- the government grossly overclassifies documents and frequently does it with the sole purpose of saving some politician from embarrassment, which has nothing to do with National Security. Overclassification was named as an issue in the 9/11 Report.

The lesson of the Pentagon Papers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-classified-information/2015/09/18/a164c1a4-5d72-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html

NY Times Op-Ed in 2001: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/opinion/national-security-and-americas-unnecessary-secrets.html

President signs law in 2010 to reduce overclassification: https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/10/07/president-signs-hr-553-reducing-over-classification-act

not, in fact, a delusion. It is something that is really wrong with someone

It's not one kind of mental disorder - it's this other kind of mental disorder.
Which is "appropriately treated" with "sexual reassignment surgery".

Mental issues, fixed by surgery.

You know... that sounds a lot like the way lobotomy was a cure for... well... any mental issue.
But more specifically, as a the case where people claim their body is not right... it sounds very much like BDD and BIID.
With both those disorders, patients will seek surgery as "cure" for their otherwise healthy but unsatisfactory body.
Only, surgery not being that widely accepted as a cure for those conditions (BIID is not even recognized as one) they'll often try to "fix" their bodies using household appliances.
Like "accidentally" mangling their body parts with powertools or having "hunting accidents".
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03...

You are so blind in your rantings that you cannot see anything other than what you want to see.

Let me show you some points where you are deluding yourself to see what may not be there but what you FEEL is there:

Example #1:

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." - this is the way Trump haters "quote" what he SAID.

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. [Mexico is] not sending YOU [middle class people, his audience was of mixed ethnicity but mostly middle class]. [Mexico] is sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. There[are] rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." - this is and equally plausible transcription of what he SAID. He speaks like many Americans of all ethnic groups - a bit sloppy and without perfect anunciation. And, note, that he states that his assumption is that some of the immigrants illegally entering the country are good people.

Oh, and "Mexican" is a nationality. Opposing the behavior of the Mexican government which via its policies is indeed exporting the problematic parts of its population to the US is NOT racism. Hispanic activists have been playing that dishonest card for decades - insisting that anybody who opposes the Mexican government's actions against the interest of the US is a racist because the population of Mexico is generally all of one ethnicity. It's like claiming any opposition to the actions of China is racist because China (the nation) is populated with Chinese (the ethnicity) people. Do you have ANY evidence Trump hires/fires or promotes/demotes serves/refuses people based on their Hispanic ethnicity? Thought not.

Example #2: you have gone so insane that you assert that a basic FACT well-documented by Obama's HHS and NIS in testimony under oath to congress that immigrants illegally entering the US over the southern border are committing murders and bringing in diseases is "xenophobic" and "Linking a community with disease" (which is valid, when a community IS linked with a disease).

Example #3: You assert that Trump saying that some jobs returned from China will go to Hispanics is "Treating hispanics like dogs he can throw a bone to, that's racist too." .....hmmmm.... I guess when Hillary panders to Hispanics, treating them a group she can pander to she's also being a rayyyysist too????

Example #4: You assert that when somebody asserts that the Chinese government cheats on trade deals (something widely known and acknowledged by many western governments) and has been found to have cheated in the olympics as EVERY large communist regime has been proven to have done as a matter of policy, is "Claiming 1+ billion people are liars, cheaters and thieves, just for their ethnicity or the country they live in" is thus racism. So, basically, according to you one must not speak the truth because the truth is racist. Interesting and warped way of not thinking.

Example #5: "So he says he will use the force of law to discriminate on the basis of religion. In other words he is against freedom of religion and against the bill of rights." VERY interesting. Islam is BOTH a religion AND an alternate political and legal system that asserts than man-made laws are not legitimate and all people must live under sharia laws (which include murdering homosexuals, counting the votes of non-muslims as 1/4th the votes of muslims in juries, women being the property of men, etc). Islam stands for the elimination of the US Constitution. But you insist that If one opposes the importation of more members of the religion of Islam until out politicians can

To most SJWs, speech which offends is as bad as murder. "Microaggression" = physical assault.

Now give me my safe space with "cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets, and a video of frolicking puppies". Because confronting ideas that I don't like is harmful and makes me regress to 4 years old.

I know that people call him racist, but he has been against "illegal" (which is not a race) and urges caution in terms of Islam (once again, not a race, but a religion that creates more than 90% of terrorists).

Has he said something else that I have missed?

Donald Trump: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." So being a Mexican immigrant means you're either a drug dealer or a rapist according to Trump. That's racism.

Donald Trump: "But you have people coming in and I'm not just saying Mexicans, I'm talking about people that are killers and they're coming into this country." And that's xenophobic.

Donald Trump: "Likewise, tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border." Linking a community with disease. Where did I hear this before?

Donald Trump: "I’ll take jobs back from China, I’ll take jobs back from Japan. The Hispanics are going to get those jobs, and they’re going to love Trump.” Treating hispanics like dogs he can throw a bone to, that's racist too.

Donald Trump: "No surprise that China was caught cheating in the Olympics. That's the Chinese M.O. - Lie, Cheat & Steal in all international dealings." Note how he said it's the "Chinese modus operandi", not the "Chinese *government* M.O.". Claiming 1+ billion people are liars, cheaters and thieves, just for their ethnicity or the country they live in is racism.

Has Trump ever actually issued a call for violence? If so, I must have missed it.

Well he certainly did against protestors at his rallies.

But more importantly, "Donald Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." and "Donald Trump said that he would 'absolutely' institute mandatory registration." So he says he will use the force of law to discriminate on the basis of religion. In other words he is against freedom of religion and against the bill of rights.

While those are not direct threats of violence, it's already too much for someone who wants to be the chief of the world's most powerful army.

Except for the 13 million people in the US drinking well water with elevated levels of Arsenic. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/... For that though, I think Bangladesh is #1.

In fifteen years...do you think Trump will even be mentioned [in history books]?

If he loses the election: NO.

If he wins the election: YES.

If he wins the election but triggers Armageddon: NO. (There won't be any history books)

If he loses the election but triggers Armageddon anyhow via his YUUUGE mouth: NO.

Would you or have worked on tech which could enable torture?

You may be expecting an unqualified "no", but the right answer is it depends. The unacceptable kinds of torture are those, which leave the subject dead or damaged. (And I mean real damage — not as in "needs counseling"). It may be useful to confine the definition of "torture" to such methods only — as was done by some people already.

Waterboarding is certainly not damaging — a rough arrest by a police may be far more harmful to the suspect — and still be justified. Likewise, a prolonged criminal investigation may be far more damaging psychologically. And don't even get me started on the exploding use of "Hellfire" missiles (pun intended) by the highest-placed opponent of waterboarding:

no president has ever relied so extensively on the secret killing [emphasis mine -mi] of individuals to advance the nation’s security goals.

Don't know about you, but I'd rather be waterboarded by mistake, than killed by the same mistake.

Dealing with the government is rarely pleasant, but waterboarding does not cross any real lines. If the duly-elected President charged with protecting us deems it necessary, his subordinates better get on with it. Or resign. As George Orwell pointed out decades ago:

"Men sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Where does that put you morally and ethically?

Whether it is useful is another question, but "morally and ethically" there is nothing wrong with it. Deal with that.

The Imperial Japanese government, in league with NAZI Germany, was waging total war against the US, using American POWs as test subjects in biological and chemical weapons tests, working British POWs to death, EATING allied POWs, etc. and as Germany collapsed, Hitler sent a U-Boot to Japan with plans for NAZI jets and rockets and a supply of uranium to assist the Japanese nuclear bomb development program. Japan was meant to be Hitler's revenge from the grave. The Americans captured the Japan-bound U-Boot and transferred the fissionable material to the Manhattan project. Google: U-234

There’s new kids with new ideas all over the world. They’ll make their own places—it doesn’t matter whether it’s here or wherever it is.

The original article linked to by Vice expands on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10...

Please quote the exact clause(s) that create that obligation.

The budget is a law passed by Congress. From Article II, Section 3, Clause 5: "he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"

otherwise the wall along the Mexican border (already funded) would have been built.

I assume you're talking about the Secure Fence Act (2005), which authorized 700 miles of fence to be built. It was all but finished years ago. Subsequent plans to expand it have died in Congress.

The President takes an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." That would include preventing the spending of money for unConstitutional purposes.

The President can't refuse to enact the budget simply because it runs a deficit.

I don't expect much from the submitters and editors here, but it's kind of pathetic to see jabs like the "And on the other side of the isle, everyone surely already knows how likely Republican nominee Donald Trump feels about illegal aliens." one in the summary.

Of course, "isle" should be "aisle", but that's not the editorial problem I'm referring to here.

It's the unnecessary attack on Trump that just isn't needed or valuable here.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with Trump's position on illegal aliens. Upholding America's immigration and citizenship laws is something that a great many Americans feel is extremely important.

Even if left-leaning folks, like the submitter and perhaps the editors here, don't like Trump, they're going to have to accept that Trump is very likely going to be the next President of the United States of America.

A majority of Americans do support him now, and will support him during the election, even if they can't publicly admit it at this time.

In fact, by resorting to such pathetic jabs on such a constant basis, those on the left are actually driving more and more people to support Trump for President. These normal Americans are getting tired of leftists shitting all over American values and American laws. These normal Americans are getting tired of the disrespect that the left so often directs at them. These normal Americans are going to elect President Trump.

Nothing wrong with Trump's position on illegal aliens? Would that include his position that the number of illegal immigrants in the United States is "30 million, it could be 34 million." (July 24th, 2015, MSNBC Morning Joe)? Or his position that he "denies that he was aware of the working conditions at the site in 1980 or that any of the demolition workers were undocumented immigrants ...said he had resisted efforts to settle the case out of court. ''It would be cheaper, but on principle I won't,'' he said. ''We did nothing wrong.''" http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06... which he settled in 1999 http://www.nydailynews.com/arc...? Or the position that it would be possible to have 11 million people deported?
Frankly, I'd put more credence to the position that 70 years ago a bunch of joyriding Martian teens slammed their interplanetary scout craft into Roswell. That has at least a slight possibility of possibility.

President Reagan himself pretty much destroyed mental health facilities serving lower income populations in the United States.

This is a relatively common left-wing urban myth. The ACLU is still proud of ensuring the involuntarily committed were released out of the "institutions". That was in the 60s and 70s, before Reagan was President. You can't blame him for being governor of CA, either, as the number of patients in State mental hospitals went from 37,500 to 22,000 in the years before he took office.

So go complain to the left-wing ACLU and the academic psychiatrists who influenced the courts and the bureaucracy in the 60s and 70s to get them all out of mental hospitals, rather than simply assigning blame to people you don't like something they weren't responsible for.

Next you'll be telling us about how the right-wing is governing San Francisco into the group, despite Democrat-led City, County, State and Federal administrations....

Well, it wasn't Al Gore, it was Dr. James Hansen who, in 1988, claimed the NY West Side Highway would be underwater by now.

I've been looking for the specific statement. What I do know is that the White house censored and altered what he testified to>

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05...

Regardless, the only place I've found that testimonial quote is on a denialist website. You deniers have to have the cite from a transcript don't you?

I'll search the Government transcripts later today

How 'bout all of them? Russia's share of the market has dwindled significantly during the Obama years. Hillary's legacy is one to be real proud of, eh?

What corporation isn't a whore?

PayPal as per this story? The NFL? http://www.washingtonexaminer....

Arizona came close to losing the Super Bowl - heck that might have been 15 dollars of profit...

Georgia

http://www.breitbart.com/sport...

Indiana: http://www.indystar.com/story/...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03...

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/...

Ther are many more.

Because the peopel who want to impose their beliefs on othes are just a minority of loud assholes, most Americans simply don't give a dman about other peopels sex lives, and would prefer th loud assholes would just go bak to handling snakes,

Started under Bush, enhanced under Obama, and they still think there are two parties?

There are two parties. One is openly saying, we will use these nasty methods to protect the country. Weight your safety against the discomfort you feel about it, and vote for us, if you agree with us.

The other noisily denounce the very choice as "false", promises not to do anything unpleasant, gets elected based (in substantial part) on that promise, and then does it anyway. Because "it is complicated" — you bet it is, and so it was for the other guy, whom you denounced for "piping fear" and "shredding the Constitution".

Back in 1987, the late SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia said, "There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all." http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03... In today's world, he'd probably go on to say that decisions on privacy should not be decided by SCOTUS, but rather it should be up to the Legislative branch since the US Constitution doesn't ever mention the word privacy. It's a very frustrating world we live in.

One of the big problems with xeno-transplants from pigs is PERV (Porcine Endogenous RetroVirus).

Already being solved

The CRISPR/Cas9 technique used in that article to inactivate PERVs was prematurely reported. Specifically, it's nearly impossible to come up with an edit sequence that does not match another edit sequence, since you are typically talking, at most, about 28 base pairs.

This tends to be a problem for large genomes, in that it typically hits multiple locations that have the same sequences, rather than just the target location. This was seen in the Chinese experiments on human embryos regarding Juvenile Huntington's and DMD (Duchesne Muscular Dystrophy).

At present, you have to therefore make the modifications in vitro, then grow colonies of cell, and then sort out the ones that have off-target CRISPR modifications. So far this technique has only been used experimentally for autologous transplants from farmed cells from an individual with a disease that the experimenter is attempting to cure.

So while this might work to grow "safe pigs" to use for transplant material, you'd pretty much have to grow them as embryos in vitro, place the ones with the desired characteristics in vivo, row them into pigs, and then continue to grow them until the organs you wanted to harvest were large enough to be viable for transplant.

Not to downplay the blood protein IgE reaction suppression: it's a pretty cool breakthrough, but using the organs for transplant into humans is quite a ways off (we are actually more likely to edit the histamine complex on c6 to ensure histocompatibility instead, first).

In general, if you are considering a xenotransplant at all, it's usually time critical enough that you are not going to be able to wait for the pig to grow to the necessary size.

You're gonna compare giving just any person a free, tax supported college education to the GI Bill?

Going to college used to be free. The G.I. Bill was a government program that worked extremely well.

So what the hell does that response mean? You are avoiding my point altogether. Gas used to be 10 cents a gallon: should we subsidize drivers for the high costs of fuel now too? Because there isn't much of a difference between the two.

Now, to address the point that I THINK you are trying to make: the current outrageous cost of an education. How about trying to reduce the costs, rather than having society pick up the tab for everyone's education? The problem in academia right now is the cost of administration, and the 7-digit salaries that presidents seem to think they deserve (here's a reference for ya: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04...). FIX the problem, don't just drop it on the shoulders of society. And if the bill IS footed by society, then society should get to decide what that college education is. That decision should be taken out of the student's hands and put into the hands of those paying for it, who know what positions are needed to be filled.

These men and women put their personal and professional lives on hold to serve the country, making very little monetary compensation and many put their lives at risk, to protect assholes like you.

I work with veterans every day as a government IT worker to protect their personal data from the bad guys. They thank me for the daily service I put in on their behalf.

Maybe you should think about that a little more, before you write something that infers that a program meant for veterans is less important than one for someone who has not done anything for this country or society. Our veterans are treated like second-class citizens when you consider what they have given up for this country. Meanwhile, here you are, working for the government, with tax dollars as your payroll, suggesting that they DON'T deserve the meager benefits that this country DOES give them! What an asshole you are!

And note that I did NOT use AC for this! Those "fuck you"s are from my heart and soul!

You need mental help. Fortunately, Obamacare covers that.

First of all, I do not need Obamacare. I am lucky enough to have a job that has health insurance as a benefit (though they do not pay 100% and I make up the difference). That being said, I do believe that the PPACA is a needed program, and shouldn't simply be thrown out offhandedly. All of these PPACA resinders out there are complete and total idiots, as far as I am concerned. This country has been trying to get some kind of subsidized health insurance program in place for 50 years, and now we have one. Are there issues with it? I have no clue, and none of those in the "Rescind Obamacare" group seem to be able to show specific reasons why it should go. And they don't seem to be able to make the intellectual leap of FIXING the broken parts (that they can't point out). It's simply a matter of "They brought it into being, so it MUST be bad and needs killing!!!" That's extremely wasteful both fiscally and chronologically. So, no, I don't agree with the vaporization of the PPACA, rather I believe that if something is broken, fix it. Which, incidentally, flies in the face of today's society, so I am not surprised by the reaction.

Secondly, why do I need mental help? If I have an extreme prejudice to what you are saying, you think I should do it as a cowardly AC instead? That's probably what you would do, but I have the balls to stand up to an asshole like you in full view of the public, using my real account. Maybe in this current world that means I need mental help, but where I come from o

Am I insane because I identify as a woman?

Ok, sorry, let me clarify this a bit. You are not "insane" — that's a loaded term anyway. But you do have a delusion:

a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary

(That "superior evidence", in this case, is your "biological sex".)

Either that, or, maybe, you have a lighter disorder of pseudologia fantastica.

I'm sorry, but I'm not buying into this subtle differences between "being" and "identifying as". For a man to "identify as" woman is just as (if not more!) delusional (or fraudulent) as for a White to identify as Black. Your "bilogical sex" makes you a man, by definition — which destines you to M-labeled bathrooms, whatever you are wearing.

it depends if you're talking about sex or gender

Nonsense. "Sex" and "gender" are interchangeable synonyms, the latter employed purely to avoid the erotic connotations of the former, when discussing things like grammar. Your attempts to differentiate between these terms may itself be symptomatic of the delusion.

Swaab and others have demonstrated sexual dimorphism in the brain

Any references to "scientific papers" can not, unfortunately, be given much credence — because of how sensitive a topic this is politically. For example, imagine that same "sexual dimorphism in the brain" argument used to justify the wage-disparity between sexes. Heck, you don't even need to imagine, just consider the fate of one L.H. Summers.

So, you are claiming, that some organs of your body disagree with others in identifying your sex (brain vs. genitalia)? Even if that were true, you are "fixing" the wrong organs... Which is, of course, your choice — just do not demand, the rest of society changes the language (and bathrooms) to accommodate it.

One of the big problems with xeno-transplants from pigs is PERV (Porcine Endogenous RetroVirus).

Already being solved

Those are things that can be part of an honest debate, but that's not what Trump's proposal is. Instead, it's a bunch of disingenuous hand-waving that will make things worse for many people, while lying to them about it.

He's not alone in that - Cruz is very willing to lie about his policy as well.

Some other bits that an honest debate needs to include:

• - HSA-based plans predate the ACA - my employer switched one to one in 2005. Your employer may have used Obamacare as a scapegoat, but that's simply not true.

• - The only reason you can have no significant gap when changing jobs is because the federal government is dictating how health insurance must behave. It used to be when you changed jobs, the pre-existing conditions clauses kicked in. Employers used that to really screw over workers. For the portability change, you need to say 'Thanks Bill Clinton'.

Step by step... You shouldn't be so close-minded. Please avoid spreading that defeatist propaganda that you have been so conditioned to accept.

It's chip and PIN -- not as bad as the summary made it sound.

You didn't choose particularly good example with the death of Mr. Lesin in Washington, D.C. The problem is that first, US was saying this:

In the days after his death on the night of Nov. 4, neither the local police nor federal investigators appeared overly alarmed. One law enforcement official said there were no obvious signs of forced entry or foul play in his hotel room. Mr. Lesin did, however, appear disheveled when he returned to the hotel, according to the video surveillance cameras, the official said.

After four months they suddenly changed tune and now he died "of blunt force injuries to his head." So either US investigators are so incompetent they can't spot when somebody has been smashed in the head, or there is something else going on...

The man who once ran Putin's campaign to take over all independent media in Russia was found bludgeoned to death in a Washington, D.C. hotel room. He would have been privy to all kinds of insider information, including money Putin has stolen from the Russian people. Take note of the NY Times article where, before an investigation had even begun, the Russia state media was already lying about what happened to Lesin: he had a heart attack.

But this wasn't the first Russian who had inside knowledge of Putin's thefts, and who met a similar fate. Considering the billions Putin has squirreled away overseas, it's understandable people such as Lesin would need to be liquidated, especially, if the reports are true, they are giving inside information to the U.S. or others.

This other article from the Guardian appears to be more in depth, detailing how Putin and his oligarchs have amassed personal fortunes worth anywhere from hundreds of millions of dollars to billions of dollars, all stolen via the endemic corruption of Russian business. Bank Rossiya is essentially Putin's personal bank from which he doles out billions to those who please him. To those who fall out of favor, they have to watch their backs or face the same fate as Lesin.

I'm sure there will be denials about all the facts, but since there is no word for truth in Russian, it's understandable. After all, how can a report about someone's death being from a heart attack come out when the investigation hadn't even begun if you don't want the truth to be known?

One of my minor hobbies is making old or ancient recipes straight from manuscripts or books, as close as I can. Something I've noticed is how much they really aren't that good. They're edible, to be sure, and they get you full and they're nutritious because they're always made from scratch. But they just ain't that good. There is almost always some simple optimization that would make them taste much, much better.

As someone who also tends to make old recipes or experiment with traditional techniques myself, I can point out a number of problems with old and ancient recipes. Many are bland, because spices were expensive. And access to a wide variety of ingredients was seasonal and often only for the very rich. These recipes can be improved by "modernizing" them with accessible ingredients. Same thing with recipes whose ingredients have changed over time -- so-called "heirloom" varieties of vegetables, fruits, and even old varieties of grains can make a huge difference in flavor and texture. Just subbing in a food that has the same basic name today may not be getting at the original flavors at all. And of course tastes change over time and in different cultures.

A lot of people ridicule McDonald's hamburgers or Applebee's entrees in the boil-in bags. But damn, that food is super-tasty.

They're "tasty" because they're generally engineered to be a completely unnatural mixture of flavors our bodies are adapted to be attracted too, since those flavors were often rare in the past... And consuming them could be important to survival. Now the artificial combinations and availability of those flavors results in overeating and excessive calorie consumption.

I cook and bake a lot of things in fairly traditional ways, I bring them to parties or serve them to guests, and inevitably people are blown away by the flavors, which vastly exceed the quality and satisfaction from a McDonalds hamburger or boil-in-a-bag meal. I've taken a simple loaf of plain bread prepared in a traditional manner with only natural (sourdough) yeast, fresh whole-grain flour, salt, and water, with long traditional fermentation... And I've seen people just rip apart the plain loaf and eat it without accompaniment... Because it's so damn good compared to what they usually eat. Traditional simple fresh ingredients, old-school prep. Result is often: Wow.

I have nothing against fast food's achievements in terms of packing calories in cheaply and quickly. But the idea that traditional foods are all crap, and we should bow to the "super-tasty" Big Mac as if it were some amazing culinary achievement? I think you may just not have eaten enough traditional GOOD food prepared from good ingredients.

note also that edible industrial products are engineered deliberately to be non satiating; they stimulate the appetite, but do not satisfy it so "you can't eat just one". http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02...

Then again when writing someone's name in chalk causes as much of an uproar as it did, it makes me think that Trump doesn't have a monopoly on idiot supporters.

I'm still hoping that Sanders can come back and beat Hillary (really long odds, but stranger things have happened) but let's not pretend that some of the political left's supporters aren't the same kind of ignorant, hateful people. They merely spread a different kind of ignorance belief than those individuals on the political right, but beyond that they both act in the same way.

Would you rather [...]

Now, you are offering me a choice. FDA does not. And I don't need to "look into it" — I have a very close friend waiting for FDA's approval of "experimental" treatment for him. He's been waiting for over 18 months now.

I'm more worried about what happens to our medical system when doctors and companies have the freedom to put random chemicals into people's bodies.

Doctors would not have that freedom my way either. But people would.

Neither your way nor mine is bullet-proof — indeed, nothing would be. But my way preserves people's freedom, whereas yours takes the freedom away. This alone ought to be enough for my way to be accepted as better, but that's not all.

Your way is not remarkably safer either! The FDA was created after some spectacular abuses of patients' trust by "doctors" and "chemists", FDA has since had scandalous failures of its own, when the approved medicines and advice had to be withdrawn and reversed. As forewarned, we surrendered an essential liberty in exchange for temporary safety — and lost both...

It quickly becomes a situation where some data is much worse than no data at all.

Yes, yes, and too much freedom is too dangerous. Yours is a Statist argument — the State government knows best, citizens ought to defer to their benevolent and omniscient betters. And until those betters have enough data, the citizens should keep dying — because taking care of oneself causes chaos.

One of India's issues is that women are treated like second class citizens. I would be very surprised if even 1% of H-1B workers were female.

I encourage people to listen to what he says, and not just the indignant responses to his campaign rhetoric because it's interesting to hear an 'emperor wears no clothes' candidate as Trump occasionally is. Some of the things Trump says are plain lies, racist, and vulgar—reasons to reject supporting his campaign. But sometimes he tells the truth and gets booed for it (like when he pointed out the Iraq war was based on lies) or describes long-extant US mainstream foreign policy in clear language yet gets unfair flack for it from those who consider themselves a part of the US left (like the call-in to Fox News advocating a war crime). The real horror of his candidacy isn't Trump per se it's that so much of what he says is a plainly-worded description of what's going on and what has been going on for years before Trump's campaign began.

Consider Trump's call-in to which John Oliver provided a remarkably one-sided indignant reaction: On his 2016-02-28 show, John Oliver played a clip of Trump's call-in to Fox News saying "...the other thing with the terrorists, you have to take out their families. When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. They say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families." and Oliver replied "That is the front runner for the Republican nomination advocating a war crime." which is a true but incomplete and certainly nowhere near as damning as Oliver wants it to be.

Oliver never told his viewers that is also extant US foreign policy wherein President Obama hand-picks whom to assassinate with drones every Tuesday (the so-called "Terror Tuesday" meetings) and that these attacks have extrajudicially killed innocent family members of alleged (never arrested, charged, or tried) so-called "terrorists". Some killed on-purpose (like 16-year-old U.S. citizen Abdulrahman, son of U.S. citizen Anwar al Awlaki who was killed in a separate attack 2 weeks prior), some killed without the U.S. knowing who they are killing as the CIA apparently does with some regularity. This is what Noam Chomsky recently rightly described as "massive global terrorism": drone attacks firing missiles that destroy whatever the missile hits as well as a large area around the target, resulting in indiscriminate extrajudicial murder of innocent passers-by. When Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary and senior adviser to Obama's reelection campaign commented on Abdulrahman's murder shortly after it happened Gibbs said "I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children." a line on a par with Trump-level tact and recognition of responsibility.

Or when former NSA and CIA director, General Michael Hayden told Bill Maher "the American armed forces would refuse to act [on Trump's orders on torture and extrajudicial killings]" and Trump says "They won't refuse. They're not going to refuse me, believe me." Trump is right—they won't refuse. The proof has been staring the world in the face for years as Glenn Greenwald pointed out on Democracy Now! on 2016-03-29:

The idea that the U.S. military, in mass, refuses to follow orders if they constitute illegal conduct or war crimes is negated by the entire history of this country, including very recently. You do have isolated members of the armed forces who periodically refuse on grounds of conscience or legal and moral duty. They denounce certain tactics. They resign from the military. They

I would love to see what Toyota would come up with if they had to implement a TSA.

- In Lieu of Money, Toyota Donates Efficiency to New York Charity

- Meals Per Hour (Video on Toyota improving meals made per hour)

The entire flying process is a cluster of inefficiency.

I saw on the news the other day, that students were saying they had been traumatized by someone writing in chalk "Trump 2016". I mean, I'm no Trump supporter, but seriously, traumatized?

Others have pointed out that the report was utterly false.

Still, look at how well the lie plays among self-righteous bigots with a persecution complex. And yet we still allow Trump and his ilk to spew this shit, because free speech. Astonishing, isn't it, how people will allow people such as yourself to fill yourself with ill-informed tripe, and yet you're the ones who are persecuted?

If you aren't for the latest gay agenda...

Respectfully: What The Fuck is a 'gay agenda'? Equal rights? Enjoying the same rights as everyone else everywhere?

or if you raise the concern that a certain group does seem to have most of the terrorist problem coming from their ranks....

Just say it, for fuck sake: MUSLIMS. You mean those dirty, rag-headed, gutteral, snarly, infidels who chop people's heads off and want to impose Shariah law on you and your loved ones? That's who you mean, right, when you spew mealy-mouthed phrases like 'certain groups'? How fucking precious.

And how fucking wrong. In the United States, Muslims terrorists are not more numerous than others. Historically, levels of terrorism in the US and Europe are down, not up.

well, you just cannot speak about that without repercussions. It isn't even just being shunned, but you are actively suppressed these days.

Goddamn right, you're being suppressed. If by 'suppressed' you mean 'told to shut your fucking yap until you derive at least the slightest clue about the subject you keep ranting about'.

Look at how many comedians these days, won't do shows on college campuses anymore....

Okay, that one is a fair cop. People on both sides of the political spectrum are way touchier than they've a right to be.

That said, I would treat them to the same derision I'm showing you if they failed to adhere to the facts and basic logic.

Theres major concern that any dissenting speech is being supressed, if it goes even remotely against the new social agenda.

For as long as the 'new social agenda' constitutes actually caring about the truth, and upholding basic human rights and equality under the law... then Fucking A Right, nothing deserves—even remotely—to go against the new social agenda.

... and for as long as the 'new social agenda' is a bunch of gluten-free, artisanal hipster snowflakes busy enabling and affirming themselves while old Brooklyn cries in shame, then they can go get fucked too.

Even what used to be common sense has no place in the public square these days.

Bigotry used to be common sense for far too long and for far too many people. It deserves to die a death, and those people who perpetuate it deserve to be told to shut their cake-holes.

Look, I get how you feel, but dude, seriously, your views are not just wrong, they're hurtful and harmful. Not to people's precious feelings—to their lives. When you oppose the 'latest gay agenda', you're sentencing some very good friends of mine to not being able to hold a loved one's hand in the hospital. You're saying that someone who devoted their life to caring and tending for a home shoul

I wish I had mod points for you. I've pointed out in other articles that FBI Director Comey is one of the few good guys left in government. I still think he was wrong to pursue this strategy, but "wrong" doesn't necessarily mean "evil," as we see too often in our political discourse. Well done.

Plus since Cellebrite is a non-US company, they can't be "legally compelled" by anyone to reproduce this method for all the other iPhones that have been discussed by various District Attorneys.

The President nominates people, but the Senate either confirms or rejects them...

Except the Senate refuses to do either. Instead, they are rejecting their constitutional duty. They prefer to tie the justice branch to the executive election for some reason. Justice John Roberts (nominated by W. Bush) had an interesting piece on the whole process that should give the Republican controlled senate some thought. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03...

They then split that 5-10% with the prison administration.
See http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06...

I know of at least one counter example. Unfortunately the article does not discuss how many nuns, puppies, and legislators are shot every day.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03...

You're very wrong. Look at the graph here, and you'll see current debt as % GDP is below the average for the past 50 years. https://www.cbo.gov/publicatio... The increase in 2009 was due to the banking and auto industry bailouts both critical to the economic recovery since (and quickly brought down). http://www.nytimes.com/interac... The forecast increase after 2016 is more due to demographics than policy. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01... Regarding hospitals, here is a case from Ascension. http://kff.org/health-reform/i... Specifically "Compared to hospitals in states that did not expand Medicaid, Ascension Health hospitals in states that expanded Medicaid experienced larger increases in Medicaid discharge volumes and decreases in uninsured/self-pay volume from 2013 to 2014". " And "Despite somewhat smaller increases in patient revenue, hospitals in expansion states had larger relative increases in operating margins from 2013 to 2014 compared to hospitals in non-expansion states. Operating margins among hospitals in Medicaid expansion states increased from 2.1 percent in 2013 to 3.4 percent in 2014. Operating margins also increased among hospitals in non-expansion states, but the relative increase was smaller compared to hospitals in expansion states. The increase in operating margins in expansion states was due largely to almost zero growth in the costs of providing health care." To break that down for you: uninsured and self pay have much higher default risk so their reduction improves profitability (revenue forecasts), operating margin is how business make money, and it is increasing faster in states with full ACA rules than others, and quality (successful discharge) is key to avoiding unplanned costs from re-admissions. Notice that the CBO claims non-partisanship, while the other stories are from NY Times Business and Financial news, not the editorial pages. Kaiser Family Foundation covers health industry news, and is considered unbiased by Forbes. For some perspective on why you think they way you do, despite the evidence, see http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/...

You're very wrong. Look at the graph here, and you'll see current debt as % GDP is below the average for the past 50 years. https://www.cbo.gov/publicatio... The increase in 2009 was due to the banking and auto industry bailouts both critical to the economic recovery since (and quickly brought down). http://www.nytimes.com/interac... The forecast increase after 2016 is more due to demographics than policy. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01... Regarding hospitals, here is a case from Ascension. http://kff.org/health-reform/i... Specifically "Compared to hospitals in states that did not expand Medicaid, Ascension Health hospitals in states that expanded Medicaid experienced larger increases in Medicaid discharge volumes and decreases in uninsured/self-pay volume from 2013 to 2014". " And "Despite somewhat smaller increases in patient revenue, hospitals in expansion states had larger relative increases in operating margins from 2013 to 2014 compared to hospitals in non-expansion states. Operating margins among hospitals in Medicaid expansion states increased from 2.1 percent in 2013 to 3.4 percent in 2014. Operating margins also increased among hospitals in non-expansion states, but the relative increase was smaller compared to hospitals in expansion states. The increase in operating margins in expansion states was due largely to almost zero growth in the costs of providing health care." To break that down for you: uninsured and self pay have much higher default risk so their reduction improves profitability (revenue forecasts), operating margin is how business make money, and it is increasing faster in states with full ACA rules than others, and quality (successful discharge) is key to avoiding unplanned costs from re-admissions. Notice that the CBO claims non-partisanship, while the other stories are from NY Times Business and Financial news, not the editorial pages. Kaiser Family Foundation covers health industry news, and is considered unbiased by Forbes. For some perspective on why you think they way you do, despite the evidence, see http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/...