Control shape is arbitrary, just like the number of possible bindings. Many people use WASD with space for jumping, I use Q and E instead of A and D because it's more comfortable.
What position my hand rests in is entirely up to me, the controls are never too large or too small.
Absolutely. I'm always a little confused at first by people that claim things about a key being "a bit of a stretch to all but the pianists" because my primary control keys are in the middle of the keyboard (TFHV), and not off to the side like the normal WASD or your QWES. I never did understand why those keys were used, other than someone not thinking of taking the keyboard and moving it a few inches to the left. It's a rare desk that doesn't have the room for it. (At the time that the current primary control schemes became prevalent, notebook computers weren't terribly common in gaming, so weren't a factor in determining popularity.)
AFAICT, the studio isn't offering them less than they made, just not as much as they're asking for. Let's say your happy job paid you $60K per year when they had to let you go for financial reasons. They call you after a few years and ask you to come back. You say, "Sure, but I want $300K per year." They'd rightly turn you down on that number, but may well come back and offer you $100K or more if they really felt they needed you and you provided that much value. Would you take it? Depends on your circumstances and how much you wanted back into the role. But it's still more than you were making at the time.
An old car, maybe. Private flight is not really for the environmentally-conscious. At 8000 feet, Cessna 172 burns ~9-10 gallons per hour at 120kt cruising speed, the equivalent of about 14-15 statute miles per gallon. Even at much lower power settings, a pilot would be burning 6.2 gallons per hour for 90kt, or about 16 miles per gallon. It's not the most efficient aircraft out there, but even more aerodynamic private planes don't get much better efficiency when at their recommended cruise speeds. Believe me, pilots would love to have a plane capable of cruising at the equivalent of 25 miles per gallon. It would make things much less expensive.
There was at least one mission that returned satellites to Earth. STS-51A returned two satellites that had malfunctioned; these were later repaired and successfully relaunched. I thought there were one or two others that did the same (and perhaps they were military missions), but I can't immediately find them.
This is one of the reasons that Los Angeles has no professional football team. The city refuses to chip in any significant monies or concessions, and did so even when it wasn't facing a massive budget problem. Surrounding cities just don't have the money in the first place.
Of course, it doesn't help that even when a team is successful, there are problems putting fans in the stands. LA appears to be a basketball and baseball town, and not so much for the NFL.
I remember reading something about it back in the 1980s. There was an active ethical debate over the temperature research that was done, and while the two sides agreed on the accuracy of the data, they were essentially opposed on the basis of whether it was ethical to use data gained unethically.
It wasn't just temperature and pressure, though. Surgical and anesthetic techniques were tested first on prison and concentration camp inmates. A number of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and criminals found themselves the subjects of successful treatments to injuries or disease (some directly inflicted by the German government), only to be worked to death, murdered, or gassed before the war was over.
The Japanese did similar things, though with even less care, to the Chinese. Their research focused more on military matters, though. Data like the lethal blast radius of a grenade or artillery shell were gleaned by placing Chinese out on stakes at different distances from a shell to be exploded. The length of time someone could survive an untreated gunshot wound in different parts of the body under different conditions was investigated. Chemical weapons were tested in closed and open air conditions.
As servognome mentioned, though, the US (and quite a few other countries) engaged in unethical research, such as the Tuskeegee experiment (which started out ethically but changed over the years).
Back to the original point, the question is this: Is it ethical to use data gained unethically? If it is not ethical, then the victims suffered for nothing. If it is ethical, it risks a perception of approval of violating ethical guidelines if the results provide some benefit. It's not always an easy call when balancing the value of lives, whether past, present, or future, against the damage inflicted.
The 1MT number would be from the link I provided. The poster had commented on the lack of destructive power for a 10MT weapon. The next largest size on the linked page was 25MT.
I never said anything about the arsenals of any country, and I mentioned nothing about the long-term effects of the weapons.
You take a shot at aged meat, and then proclaim yourself to enjoy cheese, a product which is often aged? Hmm.
BTW, simply declaring the mozzarella is preferable to cheddar opens up some questions. What kind of mozzarella? Cow's milk mozzarella tastes different than mozzarella di bufala, and there is a very wide variety of cheddars out there, with taste varying based on ingredients, geography, and aging. There's a cheese shop on my way home (I think I'll stop by tonight, in fact) that sells a marvelous 24-month aged cheddar that I much prefer to that aged only 3-6 months.
Aside from that, I had a Cabernet Sauvignon last week that was very different from every other Cabernet I've ever had. It was lighter and had more of a fruit taste than what I've experienced before. One of my friends is not particularly inclined to drink any red wines, and yet I think she might well have been able to enjoy a glass of this, whereas almost every time I've seen her try a Cabernet, she nearly spits it out.
Everyone has their own particular tastes. It may well be that there is no red wine in the world that you will like, and you may genuinely like all mozzarellas over all cheddars. But by making such broad declarations, you come off as more resistive than knowing.
You are really underestimating the power of nuclear weapons, or you're using a different definition of complete destruction than everyone else. If by complete, you mean "vaporized," then you may be correct. However, according to this site, a one-megaton surface blast would leave a crater 200 feet deep and a thousand feet across, and everything within about 3200 feet of of the detonation would be gone except for some foundations. Out to 1.7 miles, only heavily reinforced building still have some remnants. Out to 2.7 miles, some multi-story buildings would still have their skeletons standing, and significant damage to structures would extend out to about 4.7 miles.
This doesn't get anywhere close to the documented blast of Tsar Bomba, which was a 50MT bomb that had a 4.6km fireball, caused damage at significant distances (with atmospheric lensing causing damage hundreds of miles away), and would have caused third-degree burns to creatures 60 miles away. It was detonated on the island of Novaya Zemlya, and it broke windows in Finland and Sweden.
I don't think that either nation could ever have blanketed the entire planetary surface with nuclear weapons; blast effects and areas just don't match up. But to suggest that nuclear weapons are little more effective than conventional weapons -- which is essentially what your post says -- is dead wrong.
I was loosely in favor of RealID until states began to protest and revolt. At that point, I became an opponent of it purely for the purpose of seeing the states get some sense of federalism back into the system. I value that far more than I value any of the suggested benefits of RealID.
I learned that the dice were out to get me, and even when they weren't, it was a trap laid to get me to believe in them before they could take me down.
Hence why I play poker. At least then I can blame the guy across the table and secretly plot his demise.
That depends very much on where you have your social life. I frequently see movies at first or second showings on weekend mornings, which can be as early as 10am. I do this to avoid the crowds for certain movies, but because most of my friends sleep in until nearly 10, I often see movies alone. However, I also watch movies at a friend's house, with two or three others coming over as well, and thus that becomes the social event.
Perhaps you should take into consideration that Schenck v. US was superseded by Whitney v. California, which was overturned entirely by Brandenburg v. Ohio. I'm not sure if it was you who posted above, "In the eyes of the judiciary--it's equivalent to handing out fliers," but that is clearly no longer the case, as Brandenberg is the established law and not Schenck.
The current idea is that yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater knowing that there is a substantial likelihood of a stampede and thus placing the patrons in danger is at best criminal negligence under the terms of "inciting or producing imminent lawless action," if one knows or should know the potential for nearly-immediately lethal effects.
I never said any such thing. I'm quite aware of the actions of the US government during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, a war that was far more complex than most people realize.
However, the Taleban are largely not the successors of the Mujahideen. Former Mujahideen fought on their side, but that was in many cases because the Taleban were the ones in power. The Taleban were armed largely by those countries that saw them as legitimate, especially Pakistan. Since 2001, the Taleban's arms come from illegal shipments or manufacturing paid for by private donors and the profits from the Taleban's drug trade.
At what point does the US arming someone fall away as arming its enemies? The Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan twenty years ago. Whatever weapons were sent to the Mujahideen are not likely to be the primary weapons being used in the fighting now, especially since most of them were used up in the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal.
Most of our current presumed enemies were either armed by the Soviets and Chinese (North Korea), or developed their own military industries by initially illegally copying from the Soviets and/or the US (China, Iran). Venezuela is modernizing using largely Russian technology, and has been trying to figure out how to get rid of its F-16s to US enemies without violating transfer agreements. Most of the rest (primarily terrorist or insurgent groups) use weapons that are either stolen from wherever they can find them, or produced in knock-off machine shops (AKs, RPGs, and Katyushas).
Actually, I had the Leatherman on my belt while in NYC in March for a week, where I traveled almost entirely by walking or by subway. Aside from being blocked from going up to the top of 30 Rock, I had no issues with it.
Irizarry was stopped based on the knife. While he was being searched, the gun was found. The judge threw out the arrest during the original trial. There was no conviction on the gun charge that followed the arrest for which the cop's stated probable cause was the knife, which was thrown out as evidence, tossing the arrest, and negating the actual charge.
That trial isn't what ruined his life, as it were. He was already a convicted felon, so he already made choices that messed up his life. That he was carrying an unlicensed handgun with the serial number filed off doesn't suggest that he's doing his best to walk the straight and narrow. That said, he was working construction, which is a step or two up from a hairnet.
No, he shouldn't have been arrested, but yes, the system did work very much in his favor. He was actively breaking the law, and could have ended up in prison for several years.
As for DHS, you can't expect perfect decisions in government all the time. It's why we have the system that we do, which attempts to catch or address such mistakes. There's a concerted effort going on right now to get Congress to address the issue, and it has some support on both sides of the aisle. Whether it will happen in time, I don't know, but even if it doesn't, odds are that it will be reversed. The battle seems to have turned to the Senate. Maybe you should drop your senators a note about it. I am doing so with mine.
You fail to mention that in that particular US v. Irizarry, the cop that arrested him also found a loaded, concealed handgun on his person. That handgun charge was thrown out when the judge ruled that carrying the utility knife did not amount to probable cause, and so the entire arrest was nullified. (This case was about John Irizarry, to be specific. The Supreme Court last year issued an opinion on a case involving Richard Irizarry to settle a matter about sentencing guidelines.)
It's unfortunate that Mr. Irizarry was arrested in the first place, but the system did work in his favor, despite carrying an illegally-concealed firearm.
The DHS has issued a proposed ruling, which does not go into effect until July, that will address how Customs handles imported knives. There is a lot of commotion over this, and it probably is something that needs to be addressed legislatively or in the rule-making process as an overzealous action, but I have no fears about continuing to carry my Leatherman with its two single-hand-extensible blades, even at work where knives are prohibited but multi-tools are allowed.
OK, got it. That makes sense. I got locked into trying to figure out how to fit a shotgun into most luggage, and missed the part specifying the action.
Being hassled by airport police varies by airport. At LAX, even in the old days they didn't let you stop for an extended period, even when there was plenty of space around you (like when picking up friends from a 2am arrival). At DFW, though, at least along some of the terminals, there's space to stop off and park, and I've seen people parked and reading a magazine or newspaper for a half-hour and no one hassles them.
Common misconception on Slashdot (and a lot of other places). Board members and employees can still be held liable -- criminally and/or civilly -- for gross negligence. It's a necessarily high bar, though. The business largely takes the liability for the employees' simple mistakes, and for decisions made by the board members, they need some level of insulation against civil claims. Running a business involves risk, and they can legitimately make the wrong decision about a path to follow. If that happens because of a simple oversight or just a wrong bet (figuratively speaking), they shouldn't be held liable for it.
Had they been completely insulated, we'd never have seen Bernie Ebbers charged, convicted, and sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.
A single-shot shotgun? Or a single-shot pistol? Based on the shaving kit bag, I'd think it was the latter.
I've heard of professional photographers doing something similar when traveling. They can't take their entire lens and camera collection on the plane with them, so they buy a starter pistol and include it (locked up, of course) with their gear. They don't do it to speed through, but just to be able to trace it, since airport security tracks bags and containers with firearms much more closely.
This is true, and I'm absolutely willing to consider a way of handling such occurrences through regulatory fixes. However, it is not fair to the insurance companies to force them to provide insurance for such people in such a fashion that they can get it for a few months, paying in perhaps a few thousand dollars for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars of treatment, and then dropping away.
The uninsured need to be classified according to circumstance, and then the individual issues can be addressed. I am not opposed to, say, preventing those who do not have insurance simply because they didn't want to pay for it from getting salary liens if they are unable to pay for their insurance, and preventing most or all of the numbers from being discharged in bankruptcy.
My then-89-year-old grandfather had to have triple-bypass surgery just a couple of years ago. Medicare denied him, saying that his odds of surviving the operation were too low. His private insurance wanted a second opinion, and my mother was able to use that to help convince him that even at his age, he could survive it. The man was working 40 hours a week by choice.
It's anecdotal, yes, but an example that has led me to mistrust government bureaucracies. I've also learned a little from the local NPR station about how much of the Medicare budget is handed out as giant, multi-billion-dollar grants to regional companies who handle the distribution of the monies to claimants. In one such case, billions of dollars are missing and cannot be accounted for, and this grows by a billion or two each year. What I have not yet been able to ascertain is how much administrative overhead this effectively adds, since the claims of Medicare's very low overhead percentage are one of the arguments used by those backing a single-payer system.
I also worry about a UK-style system showing up. The budget for the NHS has tripled in the last decade to over 100 billion pounds, and yet the NHS is pleading poverty and saying that if they don't get another seven billion pounds next year, massive layoffs could be in store.
A significant portion of those 47 million people can't afford it. But depending on the source, they're only about half of those who don't have health care; the rest can afford it but don't want to pay for it. I forget the proportion, but some of those who cannot afford it and don't have it are between jobs, or have changed jobs but have to wait a few months for health insurance to be available.
The picture is far more complex than it is often portrayed.
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Absolutely. I'm always a little confused at first by people that claim things about a key being "a bit of a stretch to all but the pianists" because my primary control keys are in the middle of the keyboard (TFHV), and not off to the side like the normal WASD or your QWES. I never did understand why those keys were used, other than someone not thinking of taking the keyboard and moving it a few inches to the left. It's a rare desk that doesn't have the room for it. (At the time that the current primary control schemes became prevalent, notebook computers weren't terribly common in gaming, so weren't a factor in determining popularity.)
AFAICT, the studio isn't offering them less than they made, just not as much as they're asking for. Let's say your happy job paid you $60K per year when they had to let you go for financial reasons. They call you after a few years and ask you to come back. You say, "Sure, but I want $300K per year." They'd rightly turn you down on that number, but may well come back and offer you $100K or more if they really felt they needed you and you provided that much value. Would you take it? Depends on your circumstances and how much you wanted back into the role. But it's still more than you were making at the time.
An old car, maybe. Private flight is not really for the environmentally-conscious. At 8000 feet, Cessna 172 burns ~9-10 gallons per hour at 120kt cruising speed, the equivalent of about 14-15 statute miles per gallon. Even at much lower power settings, a pilot would be burning 6.2 gallons per hour for 90kt, or about 16 miles per gallon. It's not the most efficient aircraft out there, but even more aerodynamic private planes don't get much better efficiency when at their recommended cruise speeds. Believe me, pilots would love to have a plane capable of cruising at the equivalent of 25 miles per gallon. It would make things much less expensive.
There was at least one mission that returned satellites to Earth. STS-51A returned two satellites that had malfunctioned; these were later repaired and successfully relaunched. I thought there were one or two others that did the same (and perhaps they were military missions), but I can't immediately find them.
This is one of the reasons that Los Angeles has no professional football team. The city refuses to chip in any significant monies or concessions, and did so even when it wasn't facing a massive budget problem. Surrounding cities just don't have the money in the first place.
Of course, it doesn't help that even when a team is successful, there are problems putting fans in the stands. LA appears to be a basketball and baseball town, and not so much for the NFL.
Cow's milk mozzarella does exist. It's called mozzarella fior di latte, and it is by far the most common mozzarella consumed in the US.
I remember reading something about it back in the 1980s. There was an active ethical debate over the temperature research that was done, and while the two sides agreed on the accuracy of the data, they were essentially opposed on the basis of whether it was ethical to use data gained unethically.
It wasn't just temperature and pressure, though. Surgical and anesthetic techniques were tested first on prison and concentration camp inmates. A number of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and criminals found themselves the subjects of successful treatments to injuries or disease (some directly inflicted by the German government), only to be worked to death, murdered, or gassed before the war was over.
The Japanese did similar things, though with even less care, to the Chinese. Their research focused more on military matters, though. Data like the lethal blast radius of a grenade or artillery shell were gleaned by placing Chinese out on stakes at different distances from a shell to be exploded. The length of time someone could survive an untreated gunshot wound in different parts of the body under different conditions was investigated. Chemical weapons were tested in closed and open air conditions.
As servognome mentioned, though, the US (and quite a few other countries) engaged in unethical research, such as the Tuskeegee experiment (which started out ethically but changed over the years).
Back to the original point, the question is this: Is it ethical to use data gained unethically? If it is not ethical, then the victims suffered for nothing. If it is ethical, it risks a perception of approval of violating ethical guidelines if the results provide some benefit. It's not always an easy call when balancing the value of lives, whether past, present, or future, against the damage inflicted.
The 1MT number would be from the link I provided. The poster had commented on the lack of destructive power for a 10MT weapon. The next largest size on the linked page was 25MT.
I never said anything about the arsenals of any country, and I mentioned nothing about the long-term effects of the weapons.
You take a shot at aged meat, and then proclaim yourself to enjoy cheese, a product which is often aged? Hmm.
BTW, simply declaring the mozzarella is preferable to cheddar opens up some questions. What kind of mozzarella? Cow's milk mozzarella tastes different than mozzarella di bufala, and there is a very wide variety of cheddars out there, with taste varying based on ingredients, geography, and aging. There's a cheese shop on my way home (I think I'll stop by tonight, in fact) that sells a marvelous 24-month aged cheddar that I much prefer to that aged only 3-6 months.
Aside from that, I had a Cabernet Sauvignon last week that was very different from every other Cabernet I've ever had. It was lighter and had more of a fruit taste than what I've experienced before. One of my friends is not particularly inclined to drink any red wines, and yet I think she might well have been able to enjoy a glass of this, whereas almost every time I've seen her try a Cabernet, she nearly spits it out.
Everyone has their own particular tastes. It may well be that there is no red wine in the world that you will like, and you may genuinely like all mozzarellas over all cheddars. But by making such broad declarations, you come off as more resistive than knowing.
You are really underestimating the power of nuclear weapons, or you're using a different definition of complete destruction than everyone else. If by complete, you mean "vaporized," then you may be correct. However, according to this site, a one-megaton surface blast would leave a crater 200 feet deep and a thousand feet across, and everything within about 3200 feet of of the detonation would be gone except for some foundations. Out to 1.7 miles, only heavily reinforced building still have some remnants. Out to 2.7 miles, some multi-story buildings would still have their skeletons standing, and significant damage to structures would extend out to about 4.7 miles.
This doesn't get anywhere close to the documented blast of Tsar Bomba, which was a 50MT bomb that had a 4.6km fireball, caused damage at significant distances (with atmospheric lensing causing damage hundreds of miles away), and would have caused third-degree burns to creatures 60 miles away. It was detonated on the island of Novaya Zemlya, and it broke windows in Finland and Sweden.
I don't think that either nation could ever have blanketed the entire planetary surface with nuclear weapons; blast effects and areas just don't match up. But to suggest that nuclear weapons are little more effective than conventional weapons -- which is essentially what your post says -- is dead wrong.
I was loosely in favor of RealID until states began to protest and revolt. At that point, I became an opponent of it purely for the purpose of seeing the states get some sense of federalism back into the system. I value that far more than I value any of the suggested benefits of RealID.
I learned that the dice were out to get me, and even when they weren't, it was a trap laid to get me to believe in them before they could take me down.
Hence why I play poker. At least then I can blame the guy across the table and secretly plot his demise.
That depends very much on where you have your social life. I frequently see movies at first or second showings on weekend mornings, which can be as early as 10am. I do this to avoid the crowds for certain movies, but because most of my friends sleep in until nearly 10, I often see movies alone. However, I also watch movies at a friend's house, with two or three others coming over as well, and thus that becomes the social event.
Perhaps you should take into consideration that Schenck v. US was superseded by Whitney v. California, which was overturned entirely by Brandenburg v. Ohio. I'm not sure if it was you who posted above, "In the eyes of the judiciary--it's equivalent to handing out fliers," but that is clearly no longer the case, as Brandenberg is the established law and not Schenck.
The current idea is that yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater knowing that there is a substantial likelihood of a stampede and thus placing the patrons in danger is at best criminal negligence under the terms of "inciting or producing imminent lawless action," if one knows or should know the potential for nearly-immediately lethal effects.
I never said any such thing. I'm quite aware of the actions of the US government during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, a war that was far more complex than most people realize.
However, the Taleban are largely not the successors of the Mujahideen. Former Mujahideen fought on their side, but that was in many cases because the Taleban were the ones in power. The Taleban were armed largely by those countries that saw them as legitimate, especially Pakistan. Since 2001, the Taleban's arms come from illegal shipments or manufacturing paid for by private donors and the profits from the Taleban's drug trade.
At what point does the US arming someone fall away as arming its enemies? The Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan twenty years ago. Whatever weapons were sent to the Mujahideen are not likely to be the primary weapons being used in the fighting now, especially since most of them were used up in the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal.
Most of our current presumed enemies were either armed by the Soviets and Chinese (North Korea), or developed their own military industries by initially illegally copying from the Soviets and/or the US (China, Iran). Venezuela is modernizing using largely Russian technology, and has been trying to figure out how to get rid of its F-16s to US enemies without violating transfer agreements. Most of the rest (primarily terrorist or insurgent groups) use weapons that are either stolen from wherever they can find them, or produced in knock-off machine shops (AKs, RPGs, and Katyushas).
Actually, I had the Leatherman on my belt while in NYC in March for a week, where I traveled almost entirely by walking or by subway. Aside from being blocked from going up to the top of 30 Rock, I had no issues with it.
Irizarry was stopped based on the knife. While he was being searched, the gun was found. The judge threw out the arrest during the original trial. There was no conviction on the gun charge that followed the arrest for which the cop's stated probable cause was the knife, which was thrown out as evidence, tossing the arrest, and negating the actual charge.
That trial isn't what ruined his life, as it were. He was already a convicted felon, so he already made choices that messed up his life. That he was carrying an unlicensed handgun with the serial number filed off doesn't suggest that he's doing his best to walk the straight and narrow. That said, he was working construction, which is a step or two up from a hairnet.
No, he shouldn't have been arrested, but yes, the system did work very much in his favor. He was actively breaking the law, and could have ended up in prison for several years.
As for DHS, you can't expect perfect decisions in government all the time. It's why we have the system that we do, which attempts to catch or address such mistakes. There's a concerted effort going on right now to get Congress to address the issue, and it has some support on both sides of the aisle. Whether it will happen in time, I don't know, but even if it doesn't, odds are that it will be reversed. The battle seems to have turned to the Senate. Maybe you should drop your senators a note about it. I am doing so with mine.
You fail to mention that in that particular US v. Irizarry, the cop that arrested him also found a loaded, concealed handgun on his person. That handgun charge was thrown out when the judge ruled that carrying the utility knife did not amount to probable cause, and so the entire arrest was nullified. (This case was about John Irizarry, to be specific. The Supreme Court last year issued an opinion on a case involving Richard Irizarry to settle a matter about sentencing guidelines.)
It's unfortunate that Mr. Irizarry was arrested in the first place, but the system did work in his favor, despite carrying an illegally-concealed firearm.
The DHS has issued a proposed ruling, which does not go into effect until July, that will address how Customs handles imported knives. There is a lot of commotion over this, and it probably is something that needs to be addressed legislatively or in the rule-making process as an overzealous action, but I have no fears about continuing to carry my Leatherman with its two single-hand-extensible blades, even at work where knives are prohibited but multi-tools are allowed.
OK, got it. That makes sense. I got locked into trying to figure out how to fit a shotgun into most luggage, and missed the part specifying the action.
Being hassled by airport police varies by airport. At LAX, even in the old days they didn't let you stop for an extended period, even when there was plenty of space around you (like when picking up friends from a 2am arrival). At DFW, though, at least along some of the terminals, there's space to stop off and park, and I've seen people parked and reading a magazine or newspaper for a half-hour and no one hassles them.
Common misconception on Slashdot (and a lot of other places). Board members and employees can still be held liable -- criminally and/or civilly -- for gross negligence. It's a necessarily high bar, though. The business largely takes the liability for the employees' simple mistakes, and for decisions made by the board members, they need some level of insulation against civil claims. Running a business involves risk, and they can legitimately make the wrong decision about a path to follow. If that happens because of a simple oversight or just a wrong bet (figuratively speaking), they shouldn't be held liable for it.
Had they been completely insulated, we'd never have seen Bernie Ebbers charged, convicted, and sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.
A single-shot shotgun? Or a single-shot pistol? Based on the shaving kit bag, I'd think it was the latter.
I've heard of professional photographers doing something similar when traveling. They can't take their entire lens and camera collection on the plane with them, so they buy a starter pistol and include it (locked up, of course) with their gear. They don't do it to speed through, but just to be able to trace it, since airport security tracks bags and containers with firearms much more closely.
This is true, and I'm absolutely willing to consider a way of handling such occurrences through regulatory fixes. However, it is not fair to the insurance companies to force them to provide insurance for such people in such a fashion that they can get it for a few months, paying in perhaps a few thousand dollars for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars of treatment, and then dropping away.
The uninsured need to be classified according to circumstance, and then the individual issues can be addressed. I am not opposed to, say, preventing those who do not have insurance simply because they didn't want to pay for it from getting salary liens if they are unable to pay for their insurance, and preventing most or all of the numbers from being discharged in bankruptcy.
My then-89-year-old grandfather had to have triple-bypass surgery just a couple of years ago. Medicare denied him, saying that his odds of surviving the operation were too low. His private insurance wanted a second opinion, and my mother was able to use that to help convince him that even at his age, he could survive it. The man was working 40 hours a week by choice.
It's anecdotal, yes, but an example that has led me to mistrust government bureaucracies. I've also learned a little from the local NPR station about how much of the Medicare budget is handed out as giant, multi-billion-dollar grants to regional companies who handle the distribution of the monies to claimants. In one such case, billions of dollars are missing and cannot be accounted for, and this grows by a billion or two each year. What I have not yet been able to ascertain is how much administrative overhead this effectively adds, since the claims of Medicare's very low overhead percentage are one of the arguments used by those backing a single-payer system.
I also worry about a UK-style system showing up. The budget for the NHS has tripled in the last decade to over 100 billion pounds, and yet the NHS is pleading poverty and saying that if they don't get another seven billion pounds next year, massive layoffs could be in store.
A significant portion of those 47 million people can't afford it. But depending on the source, they're only about half of those who don't have health care; the rest can afford it but don't want to pay for it. I forget the proportion, but some of those who cannot afford it and don't have it are between jobs, or have changed jobs but have to wait a few months for health insurance to be available.
The picture is far more complex than it is often portrayed.