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President Bush Signs Genetic Nondiscrimination Act
artemis67 writes "This past week, President Bush signed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), which would prevent health insurers and employers from discriminating against individuals on the basis of their genetic information. GINA is the first and only federal legislation that will provide protections against discrimination based on an individual's genetic information in health insurance coverage and employment settings.'"
Whomever marked this "flamebait" chose the wrong F-word: factual.
If you take this as a political statement, that's your mistake.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Recently there was quite a bit of an uproar in the EU over this issue.
Apparently, some Irish company put out an ad saying something on the line "With all the talk about how smoking is bad for you, with all the health problems it incurs, and all the money it wastes, we concluded that anyone still smoking is an idiot. And we don't want idiots in our company."
And since anyone who wants to stop smoking can do so and has every incentive to, yes, it is a disease. A self-inflicted one, with patients who reject treatment.
As far as I'm concerned, they're signing their own death sentence.
If and when I become an employer, if I have to hire a smoker (as in: by far the best for the job, and that is their only flaw), I don't care; smoking at work is grounds for instant dismissal.
(Note: in Croatia, smoking is banned in certain areas, and nobody really gives a shit. And if they do, smokers start squealing that we lack tolerance and that we are mean and don't want to accept them for who they are. Well, I don't give a fuck if you poison yourself; if you want heroin, sure, I'll even hold a lighter under your spoon. If you want a cigarette, stay away from me; poison yourselves all you want, but don't make me breathe your exhaust fumes. Anyway, I'm a bit touchy on that matter.)
Ignore this signature. By order.
I tend to favor the opinion of professionals over some random jerkoff on the internet.
If you've studied the issue for more than a decade and also have a legitimate reason for going against the consensus of your peers, I'd love to hear it.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
As an ex-smoker [I smoked for ten years and quit eleven years ago] I find that the following chain of (admittedly somewhat-incoherent) reasoning helped me quit (on the third or fourth attempt):
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Thinking about the board of directors and the shareholders of tobacco companies; all healthy and wealthy and able to set themselves apart from those poor unfortunates that they prey upon; all profiting from my slow but sure death. They have their tendrils entwined into every aspect of society so that everywhere you look are signals, cues, testimony that smoking is a choice; 'a way to express the "inner you"'.
Children and young adults are seduced by the media (and indeed by the envoys of tobacco, the smokers themselves, who sing its praises to the extent to which they deny their own addiction), into buying something which once tasted will harness their addictive nature and soon will have them 'willingly' consume more and more, despite the growing awareness that it is killing them; simply because some groups of people want your money and will use any means to get it.
Think about it, it's like conversion of matter into energy but it's people's lives being converted into cash. That's all you are, like a cow to the slaughter to tobacco companies.
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So yah, extreme dislike of being maniupulated and abused for (someone else's) profit was stronger than chemical dependence; but that's just me; maybe you like helping them buy yachts and vast mansions and that's your 'choice'.
Requiem for the American Dream