If ever there was a time to put on a pair of rubber gloves, hold your nose, and actually contact the lying scumbag who calls him/herself your Congressman or Senator, now is the time. The misbegotten, money-grubbing, opportunistic corporate blowboys will do what's right ONLY in one situation: they're so afraid their constituents will kick their sorry asses out of office that they don't dare touch the campaign money, free trips and other forms of legalized bribery that the telcoms are offering.
If ever there were a few sites that needed a thorough slashdotting, it's the ones associated with an addy that looks something like, "Ima.Douchebag@mail.house.gov".
Go to town, folks. Maybe you'll even get the government, just this once, to do what's right.
You just managed to pull off the all-time, number one, best ever, most successful exploit in the world for getting yourself asked out on dates by people with enough class to adore you for your brains, wit and style and worship you for your sense of humour.
If you happen to be in the market, of course. If you aren't, non-jerks everywhere must weep bitter tears.
OK, I can deal with the fact that the Tinfoil Hat people have been right all along. Fine. I apologize for some of the unkind things I've said about them.
But dammit, I'm NOT going to start being nice to all the Moonbats, People Who Live In Their Parents' Basements, Loons, Head Cases, Half-wits, Technophobes, Technophiles, UFO Abductees, Conspiracy Nuts, Jerks, Berks and Wanna-be Captain Kirks just because, like a broken clock, they might manage to be right twice a day.
Add me to your fan base. I'd LOVE to see your suggestions put into effect. Frankly, if they're going to dump sudden-death overtime in favour of those stupid hockey and soccer shootouts, I think some kind of intellectual challenge would be a better way to resolve to a tie.
I suddenly see a new way to conduct contract negotiations in pro sports.
Don't just watch the sport, watch the agents and owners duke it out over who gets paid what. Who wouldn't want to see those thin-wristed weasels who pad their wallets by blackmailing the fans beat the crap out of each other?
These swine seem to come around just about every generation and attempt to throw individual rights into the nearest garbage can. What frightens me, though, is that each time, the technology to make their efforts more likely to succeed gets better and better.
Kiss your mother with that mouth, do you? It's a cinch it wouldn't be a girlfriend, unless she's also a foul-mouthed cretin.
We'll leave your apparent failure to understand the origin of the term "loophole" for another occasion. In the mean time...um, "go forth and multiply".
Since I don't know a lot of telepaths, you might consider upgrading your writing skills to the point where people can accept what's written rather than being expected to figure out what you meant to say.
You seem unable to grasp the basic fact underlying the situation: Private companies in Canada do not have the same financial incentive to get hold of personal medical information. What private operations there are provide services such as lab testing, elective surgery and such. They don't have to worry about getting "stuck" bearing the cost of caring for a chronically ill or elderly person, as an HMO does.
And that's the best you can do? A three-year-old link to a private company that doesn't even MENTION medical data? A company with a strong financial interest in promoting paranoia with selective and misleading reporting? Nice try.
As a matter of fact, a relevant case is probably on its way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Nothing much will be done about new or re-written legislation, if that is deemed necessary, until it rules on a case involving extra-national companies and contractual arrangements they enter into in Canada. Practically, this has meant companies that warehouse their data outside Canada have taken a hit.
If you want to think you're right, you just go on deluding yourself. Nobody is safe from criminal activity and conscious misrepresentation. That doesn't imply that a government body is actively assisting by designing legislation to facilitate it.
The Act is a law of the Province of Ontario. Look it up for yourself, if your research skills are up to the task. And please don't assume that we do things up here the way you do in the US. Your implication that I would "leave out all the loopholes" is offensive. I know you people live like that, but I don't. If you were in the same room as me and virtually called me a liar like that, I'd haul your sorry ass outside and beat the living crap out of you.
I had 3.0 beta virtually from the get-go. On my machine, it's crash-happy. So is the official release. Not often. Not all the time. But I occasionally get a nice little grey box telling me that Firefox has crashed, and asking me if I'd like to report the circumstances.
I don't know why I'd want "non-emergency anonymous treatment", but in the event that I couldn't get to my family doctor, I'd simply show my health card and be treated. In Ontario, the card carries my name, photograph and signature.
In order to prevent the kind of "ID Creep" that has occurred in other cases (such as teenyboppers in video stores trying to demand your Social Insurance Number), the health card is not acceptable identification for any purpose except to confirm that I am a resident, and therefore entitled to receive free health care in Canada. The doctor treating me could, with my permission, contact my family doctor and be given access to my records if that was necessary.
Ontario's Personal Health Information Protection Act puts it like this: "Health care providers are not allowed to give your personal health information to people who do not provide you with health care, unless you specifically give them your permission".
That's the law, and there are some pretty severe criminal penalties for disobeying it. Clear enough?
You have to be a pretty trusting soul to put business-critical information or private health data under the control of complete strangers, and with security assurances that amount to little more than, "We keep everything strictly private that the US government doesn't want to see", and, "If we screw up, we promise not to screw up again until the next time".
Thanks anyway. I'll keep my financial data, medical records and such a wee bit closer to home.
You can bet your bottom dollar that as the kill switch idea penetrates further and further into society, bean-counters will ensure that a lot of people who decide when to use one will be about the same pay grade as airport screeners. That is, minimum wage drones who are bored beyond endurance by their job. So we'll all have to put up with being late for appointments and getting cop-shop phone calls from teenage kids who found some stupid but harmless way to get a bunch of cars stopped in the middle of a major intersection, while genuine security threats skate around the system with impunity.
So once again, our quality of life will be compromised, our freedom will be diminished and the net effect on security will be, at best, zero.
...but threaten to get between these a-holes and a week off and they'd even put legislation that would save starving children and kittens on the back burner.
It sounds to me like a lot of Senators and Congressmen (from both parties) need to be given a permanent holiday. And the added joy of a fine-tooth-comb tax audit as a going away present.
Having been paid in full to have an ailing father's Bell service switched over, a friend of mine is now having to fight Bell to get some money back. They cashed the cheque immediately, then, after his death used their direct deposit privilege on the old boy's bank account to pay themselves twice.
And they're making the family deal with the problem through the bank rather than refunding or crediting the phone bill of the survivor.
If Bell Canada had a totem, it would be a rabid, starving rat.
Actually, that's why I said, "take a close look at the cases where there was a large discrepancy." I didn't advocate using such a discrepancy to create a presumption of guilt.
Your brother's situation would easily bear scrutiny. The losers wouldn't.
...to design a test that could be administered under secure circumstances that would demonstrate clearly whether the little twits actually knew anything about the stuff they allegedly had covered?
If you wanted to be REALLY nasty, you'd then match up marks on the exam with marks on course work and use that as the basis to take a close look at the cases where there was a large discrepancy.
And then, of course, I nice, public Academic Misconduct hearing.
A deer was saved recently from a hopeless attempt to swim across Lake Ontario to the US. There's a rumor that it was trying to escape from Hamilton, Ontario.
Lovely. Some jackass is going to wreck my car because he's trying to read an e-mail from his boss telling him if he wrecks the company car again, he's going to get fired.
And the spam will be 'way too predictable..."Make her scream loud as you split her tail open with your huge, supercharged V-8!"
Slashdot Mirror
If ever there was a time to put on a pair of rubber gloves, hold your nose, and actually contact the lying scumbag who calls him/herself your Congressman or Senator, now is the time. The misbegotten, money-grubbing, opportunistic corporate blowboys will do what's right ONLY in one situation: they're so afraid their constituents will kick their sorry asses out of office that they don't dare touch the campaign money, free trips and other forms of legalized bribery that the telcoms are offering.
If ever there were a few sites that needed a thorough slashdotting, it's the ones associated with an addy that looks something like, "Ima.Douchebag@mail.house.gov".
Go to town, folks. Maybe you'll even get the government, just this once, to do what's right.
You just managed to pull off the all-time, number one, best ever, most successful exploit in the world for getting yourself asked out on dates by people with enough class to adore you for your brains, wit and style and worship you for your sense of humour.
If you happen to be in the market, of course. If you aren't, non-jerks everywhere must weep bitter tears.
OK, I can deal with the fact that the Tinfoil Hat people have been right all along. Fine. I apologize for some of the unkind things I've said about them.
But dammit, I'm NOT going to start being nice to all the Moonbats, People Who Live In Their Parents' Basements, Loons, Head Cases, Half-wits, Technophobes, Technophiles, UFO Abductees, Conspiracy Nuts, Jerks, Berks and Wanna-be Captain Kirks just because, like a broken clock, they might manage to be right twice a day.
I mean it!
Add me to your fan base. I'd LOVE to see your suggestions put into effect. Frankly, if they're going to dump sudden-death overtime in favour of those stupid hockey and soccer shootouts, I think some kind of intellectual challenge would be a better way to resolve to a tie.
I suddenly see a new way to conduct contract negotiations in pro sports.
Don't just watch the sport, watch the agents and owners duke it out over who gets paid what. Who wouldn't want to see those thin-wristed weasels who pad their wallets by blackmailing the fans beat the crap out of each other?
If that dismissal can be called "without prejudice", then so is a Klan cross burning. They should pay "I'm a Dick Tax" as well as attorney's fees.
These swine seem to come around just about every generation and attempt to throw individual rights into the nearest garbage can. What frightens me, though, is that each time, the technology to make their efforts more likely to succeed gets better and better.
Kiss your mother with that mouth, do you? It's a cinch it wouldn't be a girlfriend, unless she's also a foul-mouthed cretin.
We'll leave your apparent failure to understand the origin of the term "loophole" for another occasion. In the mean time...um, "go forth and multiply".
Since I don't know a lot of telepaths, you might consider upgrading your writing skills to the point where people can accept what's written rather than being expected to figure out what you meant to say.
You seem unable to grasp the basic fact underlying the situation: Private companies in Canada do not have the same financial incentive to get hold of personal medical information. What private operations there are provide services such as lab testing, elective surgery and such. They don't have to worry about getting "stuck" bearing the cost of caring for a chronically ill or elderly person, as an HMO does.
And that's the best you can do? A three-year-old link to a private company that doesn't even MENTION medical data? A company with a strong financial interest in promoting paranoia with selective and misleading reporting? Nice try.
As a matter of fact, a relevant case is probably on its way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Nothing much will be done about new or re-written legislation, if that is deemed necessary, until it rules on a case involving extra-national companies and contractual arrangements they enter into in Canada. Practically, this has meant companies that warehouse their data outside Canada have taken a hit.
If you want to think you're right, you just go on deluding yourself. Nobody is safe from criminal activity and conscious misrepresentation. That doesn't imply that a government body is actively assisting by designing legislation to facilitate it.
Sorry, the quote is a doctor who looks after kids and was explaining your rights. This is the specific URL I took the quote from: http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/News/Ontarios-new-privacy-law-and-its-impact-on-your-childs-care.aspx?articleID=8161&categoryID=news-poh2
The Act is a law of the Province of Ontario. Look it up for yourself, if your research skills are up to the task. And please don't assume that we do things up here the way you do in the US. Your implication that I would "leave out all the loopholes" is offensive. I know you people live like that, but I don't. If you were in the same room as me and virtually called me a liar like that, I'd haul your sorry ass outside and beat the living crap out of you.
I had 3.0 beta virtually from the get-go. On my machine, it's crash-happy. So is the official release. Not often. Not all the time. But I occasionally get a nice little grey box telling me that Firefox has crashed, and asking me if I'd like to report the circumstances.
I don't know why I'd want "non-emergency anonymous treatment", but in the event that I couldn't get to my family doctor, I'd simply show my health card and be treated. In Ontario, the card carries my name, photograph and signature.
In order to prevent the kind of "ID Creep" that has occurred in other cases (such as teenyboppers in video stores trying to demand your Social Insurance Number), the health card is not acceptable identification for any purpose except to confirm that I am a resident, and therefore entitled to receive free health care in Canada. The doctor treating me could, with my permission, contact my family doctor and be given access to my records if that was necessary.
Ontario's Personal Health Information Protection Act puts it like this: "Health care providers are not allowed to give your personal health information to people who do not provide you with health care, unless you specifically give them your permission".
That's the law, and there are some pretty severe criminal penalties for disobeying it. Clear enough?
I'm Canadian. We do things differently here.
You have to be a pretty trusting soul to put business-critical information or private health data under the control of complete strangers, and with security assurances that amount to little more than, "We keep everything strictly private that the US government doesn't want to see", and, "If we screw up, we promise not to screw up again until the next time".
Thanks anyway. I'll keep my financial data, medical records and such a wee bit closer to home.
You can bet your bottom dollar that as the kill switch idea penetrates further and further into society, bean-counters will ensure that a lot of people who decide when to use one will be about the same pay grade as airport screeners. That is, minimum wage drones who are bored beyond endurance by their job. So we'll all have to put up with being late for appointments and getting cop-shop phone calls from teenage kids who found some stupid but harmless way to get a bunch of cars stopped in the middle of a major intersection, while genuine security threats skate around the system with impunity.
So once again, our quality of life will be compromised, our freedom will be diminished and the net effect on security will be, at best, zero.
It sounds to me like a lot of Senators and Congressmen (from both parties) need to be given a permanent holiday. And the added joy of a fine-tooth-comb tax audit as a going away present.
Having been paid in full to have an ailing father's Bell service switched over, a friend of mine is now having to fight Bell to get some money back. They cashed the cheque immediately, then, after his death used their direct deposit privilege on the old boy's bank account to pay themselves twice.
And they're making the family deal with the problem through the bank rather than refunding or crediting the phone bill of the survivor.
If Bell Canada had a totem, it would be a rabid, starving rat.
Actually, that's why I said, "take a close look at the cases where there was a large discrepancy." I didn't advocate using such a discrepancy to create a presumption of guilt.
Your brother's situation would easily bear scrutiny. The losers wouldn't.
If you wanted to be REALLY nasty, you'd then match up marks on the exam with marks on course work and use that as the basis to take a close look at the cases where there was a large discrepancy.
And then, of course, I nice, public Academic Misconduct hearing.
A deer was saved recently from a hopeless attempt to swim across Lake Ontario to the US. There's a rumor that it was trying to escape from Hamilton, Ontario.
No! I will not do it! I WILL NOT DO IT!!! Somehow, some way, I shall find the moral strength not to succumb.
I WILL NOT denigrate this incredible technology with a cheap, sleazy joke about Pr0n v2.0.
Whoever moderated this as "Flamebait" obviously hasn't read the legislation. If you're a Canadian, you should do so, then come back and apologize.
Lovely. Some jackass is going to wreck my car because he's trying to read an e-mail from his boss telling him if he wrecks the company car again, he's going to get fired.
And the spam will be 'way too predictable..."Make her scream loud as you split her tail open with your huge, supercharged V-8!"