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Wireless Contraception
Kittenman writes: The BBC is carrying information on a type of contraception (funded in part by Bill Gates) that takes the form of a microchip, inserted under the skin. The chip releases contraceptive hormones to the body until wirelessly advised not to do so. This device has several interesting applications and issues associated with it. The researchers are already working on making the device secure against unauthorized transmissions. There's also the issue of making it easier for governments to control population levels. The chip will be available from 2018. This correspondent will watch the issues with interest.
What "they" need to develop is a chip that releases "sperm poison".
Or, you know, a sex education program that's not absolutely retarded.
This is, of course, assuming the end goal is limiting unwanted pregnancies.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
First the Nest thermostat is said to be enough to make the Stasi blush, then insurance companies are compared to the Panopticon and now a birth control device is supposedly a government plot to control population levels?
This is supposed to be news for nerds. Not news for delusional paranoiacs.
I mean, aside from trying to make Aldous Huxley's fantasy a reality, what's the friggin' point?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
WTF? "hyper-reactionary" "liberal".
Sorry -- did I just find myself in a parallel universe?
Thankfully you still can't get pregnant when you use the back door.
Nope, not a parallel universe. To hear my liberal friends tell it, the supreme court ruled that Hobby Lobby has completely barred their employees from even looking at contraceptives and opened the door for any sort of flimsy religious excuse for any sort of employer abuse of employees. The reaction makes my conservative friends' Bengazi reactions look rational.
If only getting pregnant always required long, conscientious, deliberate effort, and avoiding pregnancy were the easy result of one night's drunken whim.
But that's now how it is, and this proposal won't make it so.
I think it would be great to have a phone app that tells me whether the women I have just me in a bar has an operational chip implanted. Then I would not have to trust her saying "I'm safe" or that the condom will malfunction.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
The Hobby Lobby case was about a corporation demanding religious freedom to reject paying for the medical care of their employees based on the religious view of the company owners.
It's a terrible decision, as it means that somehow not only are corporations 'persons', but they have the religious freedom to impose their will on their employees.
This immediately led to companies saying they also want to claim the right to not hire LGBT people, against Federal laws, because they say so.
Sorry, this isn't 'hyper reactionary', this isn't 'liberal propaganda', this is entirely about the right of religious people to be able to discriminate based on their beliefs -- and somehow expecting it to remain illegal to discriminate against them.
If you think this is such a good ruling, wait until a Muslim business starts saying they don't want to follow laws which violate Sharia law, or that women are required to wear veils if they work for them,
No, this is about asshole Republicans and religious people deciding they should be exempt from the laws of civil society and be able to opt out.
It's you who has no idea of what that case was about.
It's about more than just "abortifacients". http://www.nationalreview.com/... Except, the four methods Hobby Lobby objected to are not "abortifacients". http://www.newrepublic.com/art... But I guess, if their faith tells them they're abortifacients, then abortifacients they shall be. Isn't that the whole point of the decision of the five (male) Supreme Court justices? And we already have cases being brought to use the Hobby Lobby precedent to allow all sorts of civil rights violations, nullification of laws, and even special exemption from taxation based on religious faith. It's going to be a few interesting years until Hobby Lobby is overturned, which it almost certainly will be, Hobby Lobby is the 21st century's Plessy v. Ferguson. But that's the whole point, right?
You are welcome on my lawn.
"Then we have secure encryption. That prevents someone from trying to interpret or intervene between the communications."
The NSA will want a backdoor.
Government-supported access to contraception is likely highly cost effective - it makes not just intuitive sense, but studies seem to bear this out. Without all the bother of just letting teen moms and their homeless kids, you know, die in the streets and spread measles all around.
Population control is far better than the other alternatives (War, Famine, or Disease).
The Hobby Lobby case was about a corporation demanding religious freedom to reject paying for the medical care of their employees based on the religious view of the company owners.
It's a terrible decision, as it means that somehow not only are corporations 'persons', but they have the religious freedom to impose their will on their employees.
The Hobby Lobby case is/was about individual owners of a company not losing their rights just because they formed a corporation for tax or liability purposes. It treats these individuals just like they were still a sole proprietorship or partnership. Simply put, the decision says that if you form a business, you do not give up any rights regardless of the form of that business.
This immediately led to companies saying they also want to claim the right to not hire LGBT people, against Federal laws, because they say so.
That is really surprising. Do you have a citation to support that? I ask, because individuals before the Hobby Lobby case did not have a right to not hire LGBT, so the Hobby Lobby case has zero impact on the LGBT community. If something was discriminatory prior to Hobby Lobby for an individual to do, then it is still discriminatory post Hobby Lobby. Nothing has changed in that regard.
Sorry, this isn't 'hyper reactionary', this isn't 'liberal propaganda', this is entirely about the right of religious people to be able to discriminate based on their beliefs -- and somehow expecting it to remain illegal to discriminate against them.
If you think this is such a good ruling, wait until a Muslim business starts saying they don't want to follow laws which violate Sharia law, or that women are required to wear veils if they work for them,
No, this is about asshole Republicans and religious people deciding they should be exempt from the laws of civil society and be able to opt out.
It's you who has no idea of what that case was about.
Again, the Hobby Lobby case had nothing to do with what you post. It was about not losing one's individual rights because of the way a business is organized. Of the 1,200 approved contraceptives on the market in the US, Hobby Lobby provides for 1,196 of them. How is that discrimination? To win it's case, over those four contraceptives, the government had to show there was no other reasonable way to provide them short of violating the owner's religious rights. That was not the case and the court said so. The Hobby Lobby case did not bestow religious freedoms on corporations. It did, however, keep the owners of those corporations, if fewer than five individuals from losing their religious freedoms.
Me not paying for your stuff is not the same as me keeping you from having it. Everyone knows how HL feels about this now. Seems simple, don't work there if you don't agree.
The Supreme Court majority can't even get their excuses for the Hobby Lobby verdict right. When the verdict came out, they said it was a limited verdict on just those forms of birth control and the form declaring the institution a religious institution was a good workaround. The next day, they said the verdict applies to all forms of birth control. (Apparently, the company just needs to "religiously believe" that something is wrong and they don't need to cover it in their health care plans.) The next day, they made a preliminary ruling in another case that said that the form declaring that an institution has religious issues with something wasn't good. The very form they pointed to 2 days earlier as a good thing. Now, merely requiring an institution to declare "we are religiously offended by X" is offensive.
Of course, Hobby Lobby apparently has no problem covering Viagra regardless of the marital state of their male employees.
I'd boycott Hobby Lobby, but we never shop there anyway as we've known about - and had issues with - the owners making personal religious beliefs into company policy for years. We much prefer Michael's or JoAnn's.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
It's about more than just "abortifacients".
http://www.nationalreview.com/...
Except, the four methods Hobby Lobby objected to are not "abortifacients".
http://www.newrepublic.com/art...
But I guess, if their faith tells them they're abortifacients, then abortifacients they shall be. Isn't that the whole point of the decision of the five (male) Supreme Court justices?
And we already have cases being brought to use the Hobby Lobby precedent to allow all sorts of civil rights violations, nullification of laws, and even special exemption from taxation based on religious faith. It's going to be a few interesting years until Hobby Lobby is overturned, which it almost certainly will be,
Hobby Lobby is the 21st century's Plessy v. Ferguson. But that's the whole point, right?
It's not their faith telling them they are abortifacients, It is the US Government Department of Health and Human Services. HHS says the 2 IUDs in question and the morning/week after pills in question keep a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. Their faith says that life begins at conception, so being force to pay for something that keeps that life from implanting in the uterus is a violation of their religious belief.
The courts found that since this is a valid religious belief AND the government could provide the 4 questioned contraceptives through other means, that they could not force the owners of Hobby Lobby to violate their religious belief.
The Hobby Lobby case is/was about individual owners of a company not losing their rights just because they formed a corporation for tax or liability purposes. It treats these individuals just like they were still a sole proprietorship or partnership. Simply put, the decision says that if you form a business, you do not give up any rights regardless of the form of that business.
Which is why it's a bad ruling. Corporations are a specific grant of public privilege and as such should have different rules than a sole proprietorship or partnership. A corporation is a public institution not a private one and thus has to be held to a higher standard. As a libertarian I completely agree that private institutions should be able to do exactly what the owners of The Hobby Lobby desire, a corporation should not. The correct response would be to revoke their corporate charter and require them to reform as a sole proprietorship or partnership.
If they were a privately held company and not incorporated, i would not have an issue with the ruling. If you are going to insulate yourself from the company, then your religious beliefs should not dictate what the company denies its employees.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Yea, it's a weird situation, but we have already make people pay for things they don't want. A real big one is war, you are required to pay taxes to support a war. It's irrelevant that you may or may not approve of it, or that you might be against killing people, even if that's your religious belief. You are required to pay for the food for the soldiers, which may involve killing sacred animals. You are also required to pay for courts, that may preside over divorce cases.
That's the real issue, the government can and does make you pay for things you disagree with, and you don't have a say in it (other than your vote). So why can't the government make you pay for health care that you don't agree with? If the receiver disagrees with it, that's usually when your choice comes into play. But we found that doesn't really matter either, for example in a draft. Being against the war doesn't exempt you from being required to kill someone.
"The Hobby Lobby case is/was about individual owners of a company not losing their rights just because they formed a corporation for tax or liability purposes.
except you ARE giving up those rights ine xchange for the protection it gives you.
You can't have all the advantage of private ownership and all the advantages of private ownership.
will, Apparently now you can.
LGBT will be next. SO will gay people. I mean, the logic used in the case can be applied to ANY federal law about ANY religious tenant.
Read that case you can swap contraception with anything.
". Of the 1,200 approved contraceptives on the market in the US, Hobby Lobby provides for 1,196 of them. How is that discrimination?"
I understand people like you get locked into a biased narrative and you don't have the skills to change you narrative based on facts, but you also can't do math?
with your numbers, there are 4 ways they are discriminating.
"owner's religious rights. "
it's a corporation NOT a private solely owned business.
IT WAS the case, and members of the court sided with there Personal Religious Belief.
IT is yet another underscore of how religion in government is bad.
Hobby Lobby case is not about religious freedom. Not at all. It's about religious oppression. Using corporate power and enforcing their belief on to others.
Here is a clue: paying for insurance that covers contraception is NOT against any tenant of their religion.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Me not paying for your stuff is not the same as me keeping you from having it.
"I'm not denying treatment, I'm denying payment."
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
The Hobby Lobby case was about a corporation demanding religious freedom to reject paying for the medical care of their employees based on the religious view of the company owners.
It's a terrible decision, as it means that somehow not only are corporations 'persons', but they have the religious freedom to impose their will on their employees.
The Hobby Lobby case is/was about individual owners of a company not losing their rights just because they formed a corporation for tax or liability purposes. It treats these individuals just like they were still a sole proprietorship or partnership. Simply put, the decision says that if you form a business, you do not give up any rights regardless of the form of that business.
I have never heard of this case, but you've just described exactly the opposite of 300+ years of corporations. You DO trade in rights as an individual when you form a corporation and you gain tons of rights too - such as protection from personal asset seizure. The whole point of a corporation is that the corporation is separate and distinct from your personal assets and it is NOT a partnership or sole proprietorship that can have assets seized..
The Hobby Lobby case did not bestow religious freedoms on corporations. It did, however, keep the owners of those corporations, if fewer than five individuals from losing their religious freedoms.
Those are the same thing, so it does appears to have bestowed religious freedom on corporations if their owners want it. Again, if you want to own a corporation you ave to give something up in return. Size of the corporation is not relevant.
Is this in appeal somewhere? Because a single judge just fundamentally changed the way the western world functions.
The researchers are already working on making the device secure against unauthorized transmissions.
You're going to trust your body chemistry (moods, behaviors, etc) to a company that considers security as an afterthought?
Good luck.
Paying taxes is a little different than paying a third party insurance company isn't it?
Well, in this specific situation, there is a constitutional amendment that bars congress from making any law prohibiting the free exercise of an establishment of religion. This has been narrowed down a bit over the years so the democrats along with the republicans passed a law that said all rules (and yes, the birth control mandate is a regulation created by the DHHS not the actual law passed by congress which is why the mandate doesn't override previous laws when in conflict) need to have a good reason to overcome someone's religious rights. It sets a criteria of (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and
(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
We can assume 1 is true as otherwise, they wouldn't have made the rule. What the court did is find that 2 wasn't satisfied because the government already exempted other groups and people for the same objections.
So why, because not only is there a constitutional prohibition that the government likes to ignore, but there is a law that supersedes a rule made and that law passed almost unanimously by congress.
The courts found that since this is a valid religious belief AND the government could provide the 4 questioned contraceptives through other means
Why are certain beliefs privileged? Could a non-religious person decide they "believed" in not providing certain healthcare to their employees and just let the government pick up the bill instead?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I don't think "boycott" means what you think it does.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Fair? ITs freaking constitutionally barred. Should kids give up their rights to not have to pray in order to go to public school? It's the same concept or principle here- they can be home schooled or go to a private school if they don't want to pray to my God right. The government cannot say forget the constitution if you want to do X that we provide. If they did, X would be unconstitutional as well as the violations of the constitutionally protected rights.
Can the government say no one can ever vote democrat again and have a bank account because the government regulates banks? Secret ballots aren't in the US constitution so the mechanism can be created. And of course the answer is no- because your freedom of speech, freedom of association, cannot be limited by the government.
The Hobby Lobby owners are not forced to pay for other people's contraception out of their own pocket. However, they decided to form a corporation to take advantage of a lot of tax and liability incentives. Apparently, the SCOTUS decided that incorporating is all upside and zero downside.
Can I form a corporation, and, because I sincerely believe that paying taxes is immoral (I'll even provide some documentation that I sincerely believe that), not pay taxes on any money I take in through the corporation?
Yeah, didn't think so. Don't hide your religious bigotry behind a legal construct.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Then please tell me: how does this decision not apply to any other "sincerely held religious belief of a closely held corporation"? The SCOTUS might say that the decision is only supposed to apply to these particular scenarios, but I can't see how you can distinguish one sincerely held religious belief from another. Unless, of course, you let the government get into the business of deciding which religious beliefs trump which.
Then again, this is already happening, thanks to some enlightened congress critters wanting to legislate Baptist beliefs into government law.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
They did not ask to be put into the situation where they control the womans healthcare. The government forced them, by law, to provide health care. Then the government forced them, by law, to include contraceptive devices that abort a fertilized fetus. (many of the contraceptive devices covered kill the post-fertilized egg) Their only option out was to pay a fine that would go directly to paying for the very same services they oppose.
From their point of view the government just required them to pay for their employees to have the ability to murder babies. Now, you can disagree with that point of view, I know I do. But it really is their point of view. They really do view it has killing babies. That's a violation of their ability to freely express their religion. The government could have addressed this a dozen different ways. Exempting them from the penalties if they didn't provide the care would have been the simplest. But they didn't. The whitehouse should have seen this coming, they should have provided a religious exemption, but they didn't.
This is getting a bit muddled, so I'd like to list a couple points of fact:
- HL is required to provide healthcare to their employees. The legislation has been enacted, it's a done deal.
- This birth control is part of that healthcare.
Nobody is telling the owners of HL not to use birth control. They have the right to make that choice for themselves.
We are talking about weather HL has the right to selectively refuse to provide this federally mandated medical care coverage to their employees because they (HL) don't like/agree/approve of it.
...people that run businesses must not be abused by the government and having their freedoms revoked just because they are running a business.
As I mentioned above, the owners of HL are free to use (or not) contraceptives as they choose. Weather they should be required to provide the insurance in the first place is a different matter entirely.
In this case which would you support, the freedom of the employees to make their own choices or the freedom of HL to try to dictate those choices for them?
Now now, you can only discriminate on the basis of your religion if you share the religion of the supreme court justices.
Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian Scientists beliefs are still subject to the constitution.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.