We have the same thing in the US but it only applies to criminal cases. Copyright, etc are CIVIL CASES. That is, they are not government prosecuted, rather, they are prosecuted by the perceived vicitim (RIAA, MPAA, Big Company, etc) -- at the victim's expense. No jail time can be rendered. Only fines and penalties.
We do have entrapment laws when it comes to criminal cases, however. IANAL but there is lots of controversy around how entrapment is applied. The basics are just like you outlined above. Essentially, a law enforcement agent can not break the law in order to get YOU to break the law. That's a simplistic version but hopefully someone else smarter than me can chime in and explain it better.
This is a funny topic to me. I just went through this exact comparison.
I've had a paid Yahoo mail account for 5 years or so. I recently signed up with gmail and started using it. I've used it for a few months and in my opinion, Yahoo is still better. It's easier to use and has more features (spamguard, virus scan, plenty o' space, big attachments) and...it's just better. Gmail is nice. It's not that I don't like gmail. It's clearly a solid system and lots of other people do like it. It's just that Yahoo appeals to me more.
Just my personal opinion. I'm not affiliated with either company.
You know, he didn't HAVE to give a dime. He DID, because he wanted to. And now you are questioning whether it was enough (as measured by your criteria - percentage of wealth). If I were Bill Gates, I'd tell you to go fuck yourself.
Giving is just that. It's a gift. With no strings attached (usually). No doubt, there are wealthy non-givers out there -- and that is their choice. But dinging someone for giving $10mil is just crazy. You should be thankful for anything he gives to charity. He certainly doesn't HAVE to.
I think it's time YOU gained some perspective. It's his money and he can do whatever he damn well pleases with it (within the law). That, my friend, is capitalism. Argue all you want but it is what it is. The idea that he "must give X because he has Y" is ludicrous. It smacks of communism -- and I don't use that term lightly.
Did you know that the United States sends back a higher percentage of it's Congressional incumbents than most countries? In fact, and I have heard this from many places, we send back a bigger percentage of than the old Soviet Politburo did in it's heyday.
Wrong! Nobody, that I have EVER heard of, has ever been prosecuted in the US for denying the holocaust. In fact, there are plenty of people who deny the holocaust and they are allowed to continue on and print/publish/say whatever they want. While you can certainly point to some flaws in the Hate Speech legislation, we are nowhere near the state of Singapore. And for good reason.
Don't make a mountain out of molehill. It's not even a close comparison.
Which means "out in the middle of nowhere". I had heard that there was a city called "Bumfunk" or something similar but personally, I've never actually seen the city on a map so I am guessing someone was just joking with me.
It is a VERY common saying throughout the entire US. Don't know about our British friends across the pond, though.
I am not surprised in the slightest. Having been to Singapore many times, it is a VERY "tight" country. If you break the rules, the punishment is quite severe.
Drug dealers = death penalty. Vandalism = caning (remember that?). No selling gum. No chewing gum (at least in public). No joke.
While I don't think the totalitarianism is required, I will say that Singapore is VERY clear about the rules. Everybody knows them and everybody knows that if you break them, you do so at your own risk. They don't seem to have as many ambiguous laws as here in the US so it seems to work pretty well. The fact that some bloggers would post "maybe it will get me in trouble" stuff, is very ballsy.
My biggest gripe with FireFox is ONE bug. I have installed Firefox on every machine I touch and this issue has shown up on every installation -- so I know I am not alone. I've read the web and tried every solution offered with no success. And apparently, there are a LOT of people having this issue.
The problem occurs when I leave Firefox up and running but minimize it to do other work. After some period of time (no pattern that I can recognize), FireFox will freeze when I restore the browser to my desktop. It will unfreeze after it gets done "processing" whatever it is doing. But it takes about 30sec - 1min for it to unfreeze. The problem is repeatable over and over again and it is unbelievably frustrating. I've hung in there and dealt with it up to now but it seems to be so goddamn common that I have a hard time understanding why the issue persists and Firefox has not fixed it yet.
To reproduce the issue, open a/. thread and minimize it. Then after a while, restore the window to regular size. You should see the freeze.
This may be the same memory leak issue that was mentioned above. If so, FIREFOX TEAM LISTEN UP: please fix this or many of us will be forced to go elsewhere.
But property is how the REST of the world knows you.
And in this country, it also "weighs" how much your vote is worth. You can argue whether that's right or wrong but it really doesn't matter. It is what it is.
Well, I can't recommend a self contained unit because I have yet to find one that meets my needs. Nothing seems to play ALL the stuff I have and most importantly, many of the solutions out there are difficult to use or have significant limitations. I can, however, recommend a piece of software that can be "hacked" to make it whatever you want.
My network setup is simple. I have a server on my network that holds (4) categories of media. Pictures, movies (SVCD, DiVX, XViD, etc), TV shows (same as movies), and Music collection (mp3). I also play the occasional internet radio station. I wanted ONE box next to my TV that allows me to play all of the above through my home theatre, thus freeing me from burning DVD's to play on my Philips 642.
So anyway, I decided to use a standard computer with S-video out and digital audio out. Both video and audio go directly into my home theatre receiver. The HTPC computer is controlled by a $29 streamzap remote control. Now the trick to this whole deal is finding an interface that I can use with a remote (this is the wife test!). I don't want to use a mouse or keyboard at all. (sidenote: have you ever tried to use windows using nothing more than a remote? good luck.)
After, literally, 6 months of searching, I accidentally found this. I am not associated with these guys in any way shape or form but I can say that their software is pretty slick. Basically, it's a Tivo-like frontend that you can customize A LOT. There are plug-ins to do all kinds of things, like weather and news. And best of all, it's designed for use with a remote so you don't need a mouse or keyboard at all. So after about 4 hours of customizing, I have it setup to do the following:
- everyday (at 4am), it goes out to my shared media folders and imports any new items in those folders into the Meedio library. Movies, TV shows, pictures, and music. Note: it only imports new items since the last import. And for movies, I have many movies that are (2) files. Meedio will combine the two files into one entry, which is nice.
- for movies, it goes out and auto-downloads cover art and IMDB info
- everyday, it downloads weather info (including animated radar)
- everyday, it downloads the Streamcast radio stations and organizes them by genre and bitrate
- While I don't have it setup, you can also install a TV module and make it a PVR. I have TiVo so I didn't need this functionality. But it's there if you want it.
The net result is that I have ALL of my stuff integrated into Meedio. So when I run Meedio, I can play ANY of my media on my network shares. And Meedio will use the codecs installed on the local machine so playback is not an issue. Since everything I want to play is inside the Meedio library (which updates everyday, per above), I haven't needed to burn a DVD or transfer a file since I installed it.
All in all, it's a pretty cool setup and I don't forsee needing to change it for quite sometime. I have yet to find a "glitch" with it except that some of the navigation within Meedio is counter-intuitive. But fixing that is as simple as editing an xml-based config file. And this shouldn't be a problem for anyone who is a power-user or better.
Oilman? No wonder he has free time
on
Pornified
·
· Score: 1
I also remember that on two seperate occasions (Gulf War I and II), we were able to move hundreds of thousands of troops --- and supplies --- halfway across the world to fight an extended war. Yes, I realize it's the military but it shows that it is possible.
And you are suggesting that the complexity of this is beyond our capabilities? C'mon. ANYTHING can be done. It's a matter of money and resources. And I *know* our country has more resources that any country on earth.
I used to buy the "we are trying our hardest"...until now. It's been 4 days and we can't even seem to get the basic necessities to these people. How the hell does that happen? Why aren't the choppers dropping pallets of food, water, and medicine? Why aren't there evacs going on 24/7? Why aren't there Nat'l guardsmen keeping the order? You can say that all of these things are going on - and they are to a small extent. But it's a matter of scale. And we didn't scale very well to this one.
Anheuser-Busch is one of my largest customers and they are the real deal. I have spent a lot of time in St Louis with them and the company is full of stories like this. They really do "the right thing" most of the time.
I know that encryption is a topic unto itself but it is becoming more and more common for people to create PGP Disks or DriveCrypt disks.
How do those things fit into this topic? I mean, the filesystem stuff is great and interesting but it doesn't seem to do any good if all you can recover is a PGP Disk file*.
Can someone much smarter than me tell me how data forensics deals with that????
* PGP Disk: a pgp encrypted file that can be mounted as a drive letter. It is, literally, a file just sitting there on your harddrive. You mount the file (after providing the secret passphrase) and voila! - you now have an encrypted drive to copy files in and out of.
Wow, I haven't heard of the "UGL" in a loooong time. As best as I can recall, the most I got out of it in college was a few dates here and there. There is a lot of talent running around down there in those UT Undergrad libraries! Hell, it was almost like a club - with books.
And for those that don't know, UT has at least (7) libraries that I can think of. There are more, for sure, but it's a really big campus so I probably never got to them. This is NOT a big deal. UT is not "giving up" books. Jeez, get a grip.
It's called having your cake and eating it too. Seriously. I am not joking about this.
It is my belief that this is BY DESIGN. From a selfish national standpoint, why commit to one side when you can talk about both and actually do neither of them.
Yes, we are religous. Yes, we want to help those less fortunate. No, we won't help Africa. Why? Don't know and don't care but we'll leave it to the rest of the world to wonder why while we move on to other things. (note: Africa only provided as an example because it is current. There are many many other examples of this behavior. Iraq war comes to mind)
It seems like its working pretty well thus far given the parent post.
This is a classic prisoner's dilemma. Your idea is a great one -- as long as EVERYONE plays by the same rules and opens up. If one person (or entity) does not, then they have an advantage over the rest of us.
And this is why your idea will not work. As long as there is incentive NOT to open up, then someone, someplace won't do it.
And for those that don't know what a priosoner's dilemma is, let me try to explain. It goes something like this: 2 prisoners are in jail and awaiting trial. The expected outcomes of their sentence are are:
a) if person A cooperates and the other doesn't, the one who cooperated gets 0 years and the other gets 5 years.
b) if they both cooperate w/ authorities and turn on each other, the will both receive 2 years.
c) if they both don't cooperate, they both get 0 years
This creates an interesting problem because the natural reaction is to rat each other out and assure their own minimal sentence. However, if they both do that, then they both get screwed with a 2 year sentence. The best of all outcomes is that they both keep quiet and get 0 years --- but the likelihood of that happening is small because there is such an incentive to rat the other guy out.
Yes, I realize BitTorrent is a protocol. As is ethernet, ATM, and whole host of other protocols. But when you use them together, you get a "network". BitTorrent is a network because you have clients all participating in the same protocol.
And the internet IS anarchic. You can think it's not and pretend it's not but it is not goverened by any single entity. And without governance, you know what that is? Anarchy. Yes, we conform to standards -- but only because we WANT to. Not because we HAVE to. It's not illegal to use port 80 for e-mail. It's just that if you do, you run counter to the way that everyone else is running and risk alienating yourself because you don't conform to the agreed upon standards. But you CAN do it if you are so inclined.
You are correct about one thing, however: many of the features (and speed!) would not be here if it weren't for commercial companies. So, uhh, yea for that.
Like the internet as a whole, BitTorrent is a network. Anyone (including media companies) can put stuff ON the network assuming someone is willing to host it. Having said that, however, there are a few rules to follow (MEDIA COMPANIES PLEASE PAY ATTENTION!):
a) The network is not yours to do with as you please. It is OUR network and you are participants. Participants != owners, no matter how would much you would like it to.
b) You don't get to choose your neighbors on the network.
c) It is a priveledge, not a right, for you to participate on the network.
d) You don't get to control what goes OVER the network. Yes, there may be things you don't like but deal with it.
Tell your insurance industry. Like I said before, taking a principled stance is nice -- in theory. Until it hits you in the pocketbook.
Look, I would LOVE to snub my nose at this and say "screw that, it's wrong". But the price for doing so is very high in this case. And running a company using selective cost/benefit analyses is just....bad business. EVERYTHING in business is a cost/benefit analysis. If you don't think so, then you don't own a business.
I can argue with it. I can disagree with it. Hell, I can hate it. But it doesn't change reality. And in reality, my company gets much cheaper insurance rates by implementing a pre-employment drug screen. So we do pre-employment drug testing.
And just for the record, I think you are grossly overexaggerating the impact of this on employees. We don't treat our emps like an enemy and we sure as hell aren't "violating their human rights". Get real. This isn't genocide and anyone who doesn't agree with it is welcome to seek employment elsewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
We have the same thing in the US but it only applies to criminal cases. Copyright, etc are CIVIL CASES. That is, they are not government prosecuted, rather, they are prosecuted by the perceived vicitim (RIAA, MPAA, Big Company, etc) -- at the victim's expense. No jail time can be rendered. Only fines and penalties.
We do have entrapment laws when it comes to criminal cases, however. IANAL but there is lots of controversy around how entrapment is applied. The basics are just like you outlined above. Essentially, a law enforcement agent can not break the law in order to get YOU to break the law. That's a simplistic version but hopefully someone else smarter than me can chime in and explain it better.
This is a funny topic to me. I just went through this exact comparison.
I've had a paid Yahoo mail account for 5 years or so. I recently signed up with gmail and started using it. I've used it for a few months and in my opinion, Yahoo is still better. It's easier to use and has more features (spamguard, virus scan, plenty o' space, big attachments) and...it's just better. Gmail is nice. It's not that I don't like gmail. It's clearly a solid system and lots of other people do like it. It's just that Yahoo appeals to me more.
Just my personal opinion. I'm not affiliated with either company.
This comment is just fucking retarded.
You know, he didn't HAVE to give a dime. He DID, because he wanted to. And now you are questioning whether it was enough (as measured by your criteria - percentage of wealth). If I were Bill Gates, I'd tell you to go fuck yourself.
Giving is just that. It's a gift. With no strings attached (usually). No doubt, there are wealthy non-givers out there -- and that is their choice. But dinging someone for giving $10mil is just crazy. You should be thankful for anything he gives to charity. He certainly doesn't HAVE to.
I think it's time YOU gained some perspective. It's his money and he can do whatever he damn well pleases with it (within the law). That, my friend, is capitalism. Argue all you want but it is what it is. The idea that he "must give X because he has Y" is ludicrous. It smacks of communism -- and I don't use that term lightly.
Lots of panic on this thread. Let me try to add a little insight into what OTHER nations will think of this....
They won't.
Thank you. You all have been great. See ya next time.
Did you know that the United States sends back a higher percentage of it's Congressional incumbents than most countries? In fact, and I have heard this from many places, we send back a bigger percentage of than the old Soviet Politburo did in it's heyday.
Link to one story
Scary, huh?
Wrong! Nobody, that I have EVER heard of, has ever been prosecuted in the US for denying the holocaust. In fact, there are plenty of people who deny the holocaust and they are allowed to continue on and print/publish/say whatever they want. While you can certainly point to some flaws in the Hate Speech legislation, we are nowhere near the state of Singapore. And for good reason.
Don't make a mountain out of molehill. It's not even a close comparison.
BFE stands for Bumfuck, Eqypt.
Which means "out in the middle of nowhere". I had heard that there was a city called "Bumfunk" or something similar but personally, I've never actually seen the city on a map so I am guessing someone was just joking with me.
It is a VERY common saying throughout the entire US. Don't know about our British friends across the pond, though.
I am not surprised in the slightest. Having been to Singapore many times, it is a VERY "tight" country. If you break the rules, the punishment is quite severe.
Drug dealers = death penalty. Vandalism = caning (remember that?). No selling gum. No chewing gum (at least in public). No joke.
While I don't think the totalitarianism is required, I will say that Singapore is VERY clear about the rules. Everybody knows them and everybody knows that if you break them, you do so at your own risk. They don't seem to have as many ambiguous laws as here in the US so it seems to work pretty well. The fact that some bloggers would post "maybe it will get me in trouble" stuff, is very ballsy.
"That is not a Firefox specific bug, pre se. It's a bug in the interaction between Firefox and Windows"
:-)
Well, maybe it's not a Firefox bug. But Firefox is the ONLY application that I have ever seen with this problem.
Opera doesn't have it. IE doesn't have it. So I disagree with you as to who's issue it really is. Seems fairly obvious that it's a Firefox-only issue.
But thanks for the solution. I will give that a shot and see what happens. If it solves this problem, then you sir -- get the gold star award.
My biggest gripe with FireFox is ONE bug. I have installed Firefox on every machine I touch and this issue has shown up on every installation -- so I know I am not alone. I've read the web and tried every solution offered with no success. And apparently, there are a LOT of people having this issue.
/. thread and minimize it. Then after a while, restore the window to regular size. You should see the freeze.
The problem occurs when I leave Firefox up and running but minimize it to do other work. After some period of time (no pattern that I can recognize), FireFox will freeze when I restore the browser to my desktop. It will unfreeze after it gets done "processing" whatever it is doing. But it takes about 30sec - 1min for it to unfreeze. The problem is repeatable over and over again and it is unbelievably frustrating. I've hung in there and dealt with it up to now but it seems to be so goddamn common that I have a hard time understanding why the issue persists and Firefox has not fixed it yet.
To reproduce the issue, open a
This may be the same memory leak issue that was mentioned above. If so, FIREFOX TEAM LISTEN UP: please fix this or many of us will be forced to go elsewhere.
Exxon made about $9billion PROFIT last quarter. And by quarter, I mean 90 days.
Yes, it is an unbelievable amount of money. Staggering, in fact.
Agreed.
But property is how the REST of the world knows you.
And in this country, it also "weighs" how much your vote is worth. You can argue whether that's right or wrong but it really doesn't matter. It is what it is.
Well, I can't recommend a self contained unit because I have yet to find one that meets my needs. Nothing seems to play ALL the stuff I have and most importantly, many of the solutions out there are difficult to use or have significant limitations. I can, however, recommend a piece of software that can be "hacked" to make it whatever you want.
My network setup is simple. I have a server on my network that holds (4) categories of media. Pictures, movies (SVCD, DiVX, XViD, etc), TV shows (same as movies), and Music collection (mp3). I also play the occasional internet radio station. I wanted ONE box next to my TV that allows me to play all of the above through my home theatre, thus freeing me from burning DVD's to play on my Philips 642.
So anyway, I decided to use a standard computer with S-video out and digital audio out. Both video and audio go directly into my home theatre receiver. The HTPC computer is controlled by a $29 streamzap remote control. Now the trick to this whole deal is finding an interface that I can use with a remote (this is the wife test!). I don't want to use a mouse or keyboard at all. (sidenote: have you ever tried to use windows using nothing more than a remote? good luck.)
After, literally, 6 months of searching, I accidentally found this. I am not associated with these guys in any way shape or form but I can say that their software is pretty slick. Basically, it's a Tivo-like frontend that you can customize A LOT. There are plug-ins to do all kinds of things, like weather and news. And best of all, it's designed for use with a remote so you don't need a mouse or keyboard at all. So after about 4 hours of customizing, I have it setup to do the following:
- everyday (at 4am), it goes out to my shared media folders and imports any new items in those folders into the Meedio library. Movies, TV shows, pictures, and music. Note: it only imports new items since the last import. And for movies, I have many movies that are (2) files. Meedio will combine the two files into one entry, which is nice.
- for movies, it goes out and auto-downloads cover art and IMDB info
- everyday, it downloads weather info (including animated radar)
- everyday, it downloads the Streamcast radio stations and organizes them by genre and bitrate
- While I don't have it setup, you can also install a TV module and make it a PVR. I have TiVo so I didn't need this functionality. But it's there if you want it.
The net result is that I have ALL of my stuff integrated into Meedio. So when I run Meedio, I can play ANY of my media on my network shares. And Meedio will use the codecs installed on the local machine so playback is not an issue. Since everything I want to play is inside the Meedio library (which updates everyday, per above), I haven't needed to burn a DVD or transfer a file since I installed it.
All in all, it's a pretty cool setup and I don't forsee needing to change it for quite sometime. I have yet to find a "glitch" with it except that some of the navigation within Meedio is counter-intuitive. But fixing that is as simple as editing an xml-based config file. And this shouldn't be a problem for anyone who is a power-user or better.
Because the rest of the time, all he is doing is cashing his checks.
Damn I wish I owned some oil wells right now.
I also remember that on two seperate occasions (Gulf War I and II), we were able to move hundreds of thousands of troops --- and supplies --- halfway across the world to fight an extended war. Yes, I realize it's the military but it shows that it is possible.
And you are suggesting that the complexity of this is beyond our capabilities? C'mon. ANYTHING can be done. It's a matter of money and resources. And I *know* our country has more resources that any country on earth.
I used to buy the "we are trying our hardest"...until now. It's been 4 days and we can't even seem to get the basic necessities to these people. How the hell does that happen? Why aren't the choppers dropping pallets of food, water, and medicine? Why aren't there evacs going on 24/7? Why aren't there Nat'l guardsmen keeping the order? You can say that all of these things are going on - and they are to a small extent. But it's a matter of scale. And we didn't scale very well to this one.
Anheuser-Busch is one of my largest customers and they are the real deal. I have spent a lot of time in St Louis with them and the company is full of stories like this. They really do "the right thing" most of the time.
Tacit knowledge.
(been waiting to use that word in real life for almost 12 years now. Thank god I went to graduate school to learn it. LOL)
I know that encryption is a topic unto itself but it is becoming more and more common for people to create PGP Disks or DriveCrypt disks.
How do those things fit into this topic? I mean, the filesystem stuff is great and interesting but it doesn't seem to do any good if all you can recover is a PGP Disk file*.
Can someone much smarter than me tell me how data forensics deals with that????
* PGP Disk: a pgp encrypted file that can be mounted as a drive letter. It is, literally, a file just sitting there on your harddrive. You mount the file (after providing the secret passphrase) and voila! - you now have an encrypted drive to copy files in and out of.
Wow, I haven't heard of the "UGL" in a loooong time. As best as I can recall, the most I got out of it in college was a few dates here and there. There is a lot of talent running around down there in those UT Undergrad libraries! Hell, it was almost like a club - with books.
And for those that don't know, UT has at least (7) libraries that I can think of. There are more, for sure, but it's a really big campus so I probably never got to them. This is NOT a big deal. UT is not "giving up" books. Jeez, get a grip.
It's called having your cake and eating it too. Seriously. I am not joking about this.
It is my belief that this is BY DESIGN. From a selfish national standpoint, why commit to one side when you can talk about both and actually do neither of them.
Yes, we are religous. Yes, we want to help those less fortunate. No, we won't help Africa. Why? Don't know and don't care but we'll leave it to the rest of the world to wonder why while we move on to other things. (note: Africa only provided as an example because it is current. There are many many other examples of this behavior. Iraq war comes to mind)
It seems like its working pretty well thus far given the parent post.
This is a classic prisoner's dilemma. Your idea is a great one -- as long as EVERYONE plays by the same rules and opens up. If one person (or entity) does not, then they have an advantage over the rest of us.
And this is why your idea will not work. As long as there is incentive NOT to open up, then someone, someplace won't do it.
And for those that don't know what a priosoner's dilemma is, let me try to explain. It goes something like this: 2 prisoners are in jail and awaiting trial. The expected outcomes of their sentence are are:
a) if person A cooperates and the other doesn't, the one who cooperated gets 0 years and the other gets 5 years.
b) if they both cooperate w/ authorities and turn on each other, the will both receive 2 years.
c) if they both don't cooperate, they both get 0 years
This creates an interesting problem because the natural reaction is to rat each other out and assure their own minimal sentence. However, if they both do that, then they both get screwed with a 2 year sentence. The best of all outcomes is that they both keep quiet and get 0 years --- but the likelihood of that happening is small because there is such an incentive to rat the other guy out.
Unions. I never liked them but understood they were a necessity of management/labor relations.
Reminds me of a past professor who had a saying, "Any company that is unionized probably did something recently or in the past to deserve it".
And you know what? When I look around at who has a unionized workforce, he's exactly right.
Yes, I realize BitTorrent is a protocol. As is ethernet, ATM, and whole host of other protocols. But when you use them together, you get a "network". BitTorrent is a network because you have clients all participating in the same protocol.
And the internet IS anarchic. You can think it's not and pretend it's not but it is not goverened by any single entity. And without governance, you know what that is? Anarchy. Yes, we conform to standards -- but only because we WANT to. Not because we HAVE to. It's not illegal to use port 80 for e-mail. It's just that if you do, you run counter to the way that everyone else is running and risk alienating yourself because you don't conform to the agreed upon standards. But you CAN do it if you are so inclined.
You are correct about one thing, however: many of the features (and speed!) would not be here if it weren't for commercial companies. So, uhh, yea for that.
Like the internet as a whole, BitTorrent is a network. Anyone (including media companies) can put stuff ON the network assuming someone is willing to host it. Having said that, however, there are a few rules to follow (MEDIA COMPANIES PLEASE PAY ATTENTION!):
a) The network is not yours to do with as you please. It is OUR network and you are participants. Participants != owners, no matter how would much you would like it to.
b) You don't get to choose your neighbors on the network.
c) It is a priveledge, not a right, for you to participate on the network.
d) You don't get to control what goes OVER the network. Yes, there may be things you don't like but deal with it.
Thank you for your time.
Tell your insurance industry. Like I said before, taking a principled stance is nice -- in theory. Until it hits you in the pocketbook.
Look, I would LOVE to snub my nose at this and say "screw that, it's wrong". But the price for doing so is very high in this case. And running a company using selective cost/benefit analyses is just....bad business. EVERYTHING in business is a cost/benefit analysis. If you don't think so, then you don't own a business.
I can argue with it. I can disagree with it. Hell, I can hate it. But it doesn't change reality. And in reality, my company gets much cheaper insurance rates by implementing a pre-employment drug screen. So we do pre-employment drug testing.
And just for the record, I think you are grossly overexaggerating the impact of this on employees. We don't treat our emps like an enemy and we sure as hell aren't "violating their human rights". Get real. This isn't genocide and anyone who doesn't agree with it is welcome to seek employment elsewhere.