He has been campaigning to prevent climate change since the 70s. This is not just some charlatan bandwagon he has jumped on since he had the election stolen from him. He has been committed to this cause since he became a congressman man, many, many years ago and has been attempting to get people to listen to the argument since long before it became a hot button issue, and long before it became an acceptable form of "anti patriotism" used by the GOP to attack their opponents (see also: terrorism, the patriot act, the Iraq war, privacy legislation and so on).
That he is required to fly all over the world to give his speech and meet people in the field, and global leaders and so on, is an unfortunate side effect of issue. He makes use of carbon credits (whether you agree with the system or not) to attempt to offset some of his higher energy consumption due to the nature of the job he does, but in the long run he is attempting to, sorry to use a cliche, save the planet. Or at the very least, get people interested enough to save the planet, regardless of which way you see him.
But he's not pushing any agenda himself, he is merely point out fallacies and ludicrous conclusions drawn by the original author of the report.
If I wrote a report that said "the average lifespan and quality of life of Americans has increased during the same period that CO2 concentrations have gone up, therefore quality of life is directly related to it" in a report that is meant to be about climate change and its effects on the Earth, you don't need to be a scientist or even an expert in the field to say "umm, what does that even have to do with the topic?"
While quality of life and lifespans in general is important, it's not really in the same sphere of science as the global climate system as it relates to global warming, unless you make the assertion that global warming doesn't matter because American quality of life continues to rise because fewer people per year die from heat stroke (how about those overpowered AC units eh?!).
I don't think you're an ass, just like I don;t think people who believe in God are asses.
The problem I have is that you are not qualified to debunk climate science (or if you are you are keeping it well hidden) - you dismiss the science out of hand because it doesn't fit with your world view, and you seem to have a massive axe to grind about Al Gore, who is not a scientist, but who is good at giving presentations and presenting the science in a way that is easy for non-scientists to understand.
This is not a new thing for him, or a passing craze he has picked up on. He has been campaigning to stop climate change since the 70s, long before it was a hot button issue like it is today.
The core argument "that humans can't possibly be affecting climate change" and that this "is a cyclical thing, the Earth does this every now and then" can be shown to be incorrect quite easily with the ice core graph of CO2 levels versus global temperature.
If nothing else, this graph clearly shows that at no point in the last 650 million years have atmospheric CO2 levels been anywhere close to what they are today. The line is clear. They go up and down over those 650 million years, through ice ages, through droughts, through continental shifts, through extinction events, through massive volcanic activity, through over half a billion years worth of natural processes. Now suddenly in the last 150 years, when humans began their relentless industrial revolution, the CO2 level in the atmosphere has jumped up to far, far above any previous high point over the past half a billion years.
Now, a scientist cannot say for absolute certainty that it is a human cause, but the evidence is overwhelmingly strong that we are causing this (in the absence of any other large scale source of CO2 being released into the atmosphere by some other means like volcanos, meteors, aliens, God, other), it is man's actions that are creating this enormous swing away from the natural line (which does indeed vary cyclically, but this is way off the chart).
Then it's just a case of plotting another graph of CO2 concentration versus global temperature over those same 650 million years and the two graphs look remarkably similar....
Note though, that you can't definitively prove that CO2 level in the atmosphere causes these changes in temperatures, the correlation in the graphs is striking (but again, you can only infer it since the graphs are *so closely related*). Now it's just a case of extending the temperature graph out in line with the CO2 one...
Where it all falls down for people like you is that you seize on the inability to definitively prove things as a fundamental weakness in the science, when in reality it is the greatest strength. In the absence of some other reasonable explanation (again, tested by the scientific method), the general scientific consensus right now is that humans are causing the huge rise in global CO2 concentration, and that CO2 concentration affects global temperature, thus, if we keep adding to it, the Earth's climate will change.
We might be totally wrong! It might be aliens all along. Or God. Or a temporal vortex only detectable by Geordi's visor, but right now, our best inference is the one we have. It's not a guess, since it has a lot of scientific research behind it, but it's not unlikely to be hugely wrong either (barring some major shift in human knowledge like finding an invisible CO2 generator put there by aliens).
A lot of people have been working on this, for a long time, and we are learning all the time. I am actually a scientist, and while I understand some of the science, I am not a climatologist (I am a chemist). I can show you that Antarctica used to be a rain forest with a temperate climate (the lake that formed due to rain when it was still hot down there is still there, just buried under ice). No one is claiming the Earth's climate doesn't change significantly over time (and we can look at 650 million years of time remember), or that North Dakota wasn't once a rain
and then combine that with the fact that poor, fat people can't afford to have bypass surgery so they just die. That's going to affect the life expectancy figures.
The rich guy has his bypass surgery then goes back to McD.
The NHS is in good shape, and continuing to improve (from its low point in the 80s).
Less than 10% of the population has health insurance, although it is an option if you want it. Jobs that offer it as a benefit are totally atypical, and are generally for much higher level positions.
Most middle class people do not have health insurance.
Addendum: wait lists for life-saving treatments tend to be low, whereas wait lists for things like life-changing procedures (like hip replacements) can be much longer.
The reason that the waiting lists in the US are much lower is that at least 50% of your population is excluded from even joining the queue, so you have to go through and find all those people who also need the "life saving" operation but who aren't rich.
It's just not an option to ignore them and say "there are no waiting lists for life saving surgeries in the US! Go USA! Rah!" since the ones excluded from the queue are hidden behind some curtains, dying, rather than on the list, making the statistics look worse.
No, this is the ground that the US healthcare industry chose to fight on. They introduced the "horror stories" of the social care system where the government tells you hat doctor you get to see and that you have no choice, and that doctors in socialised systems are paid peanuts for wages and so on, or that we can't afford things like MRI scanners.
It was their argument and lies, we are just refuting it.
You can find many stories about poor care received in socialised healthcare systems, but they are no more numerate than the nightmare stories patients in the US system have faced. You are going to see problems in any large system run by humans. The majority of care provided in the UK and Canadian systems is excellent, and easily a match for the best the US has to offer, and we give it to everyone, not just the extremely wealthy (or if given to the non-wealthy, we don;t leave them with the choice of "save your wife's life" or "be in crippling, inescapable debt for the rest of your life").
The UK spends approximately 8% of its GDP on the NHS and we are all the better for it, despite the problems it has. The US spends something like 15% of GDP on the monstrosity of a cartel you call "healthcare", which has nothing to do with treating sick people and everything to do with making vast profits.
I am a 28 year old UK citizen who can see any doctor he wants. I will confirm this in person if necessary, even on TV. Hell, just pick up the phone and dial anyone in the UK or Canada and they will tell you the same thing.
I am a British citizen and I live in the UK and I can choose to see any doctor I want.
I think you got that little "fact" from the propaganda video paid for by the US insurance companies who were trying (and eventually succeeded) to destroy Hilary Clinton's healthcare reform.
It is an easily disproved lie, like the bulk of the "facts" about socialised healthcare that the film trumpets. Easily disproved, for example, by just asking anyone who actually lives in Canada or the UK - it's not even like it's a manipulated fact skewed and presented to make social health care look bad - it's just an outright, liar liar, pants on fire, lie.
The NHS has bloat and problematic systems, but it is recovering from 15 years of neglect at the hands of a Tory government who would prefer to have killed it, but would have faced a revolt, so they did the next best thing - just neglected it enormously and it rotted, nearly to the point of collapse, and we are still paying for it today, many years later, as it struggles to find its feet again.
Government is for everyone, or do you think that nothing the government has any part of applies to people under the age of 18?
I'm not really sure what your non-point is?
Unless you're somehow making the assertion that children, if given the choice, would chose not to go to school because of the short term benefit of more time to play and missing the long term benefit of an education, whereas adults would of course save up for their old age with a pension plan because they can see the big picture and turning 18 automatically immunises you from making poor decisions.
Adults are just as bad as children in this regard.
Futurama had it right:
Young Farnswoth Junior: Stupid old age people getting social security with my tax money! Instantly aged Farnsworth Junior, not appearing 80 years old: I demand free money!
I have championed the UK national health service as a vastly superior system to the US system on these boards (I am a British citizen) many, many times and never have I said that is is perfect.
It has its flaws, as any large institution does, but these are flaws that are siezed upon by opponents and used as propaganda (check out the raft of TV commercials on US TV during Clinton's attempt to get a national system running in the US - "you can't choose your own doctor! you won't have access to cutting edge treatments! the doctors don't get paid a decent wage! you'll have to wait years for lifesaving surgeries!)
Now, in a system like the UK NHS you do have long wait times for certain things if the system is busy, and if there's one major criticism to be levelled at it, it's that it is a behemoth organisation with a lot of bloat in it, soaking up money like a sponge, yet still requiring huge investment with a lot of faults. It is still recovering from 15 years of neglect from a Tory government in the 80s, but it is coming around gradually.
Even with the horror stories that the newspapers and private healthcare shills love to jump on (I waited 4 hours in the ER when I broke my leg!), these are totally atypical of the experience, and even with these issues that arise (which do need to be addressed), it is still vastly superior to the US system which exists solely to make drug companies, senators, congressmen and other select individuals very rich and has nothing to do with actual healthcare, other than as a side effect.
Apologies for asterisks, the slashdot post box simply will not accept proper line breaks and mangles the post regardless of what text entry mode I set it to. * This is total bullshit. The big pharma companies have rolled this one out for years as the reason it is necessary to keep drugs expensive in the US where the same medicine in other counties cost less. It has nothing to do with research costs and everything to do with holding onto the goose that lays the golden egg: a healthcare system in a first world country that is exclusively set up to make a few people and companies rich. It has almost nothing to do with making people well, other than a side effect of making huge profits at the expense of people's health. They sell the drugs worldwide, at enormously variable prices. There is no shortage of research money at the prices and volumes sold outside the US. Also, not all drug companies are US companies.
* They'll also claim that FDA certification makes the drugs cost more in the US, which is also FUD of the highest order. If it does have an effect, it's not enough to explain the ludicrous prices. If there is anything that affects the cost of drugs, it's the money that buys senators and congressmen, though not directly passed on to the consumers as a cost of doing business, certainly affects the price of drugs with their purchased legislation.
* For a country that positions itself at the head of the world table, as a shining beacon and example to follow, the US healthcare system is a huge, nasty, malignant tumour that threatens to kill off a large portion of your population.
* There are so many things I like about the United States, but the healthcare system is most certainly not one of them - a society is judged by how it treats its poorest and most disadvantaged members, and looking after their wellbeing is extremely important. I don't think anyone could make a case that the US Social Security system should die (the people would not stand for it) - the health care system is no different. The current one has very, very limited support for the people that cannot afford to pay artificially inflated prices for insurance and drugs, and have to fight a system that employs people (who are not doctors) whose sole job it is to overrule doctors who say you need some treatment and list it as "optional" or "unnecessary" so that they don't have to pay for it with the insurance (and by the way, that'll be another $550 this month in insurance premium, pay up so you're covered!)...
* Even if you think the current US system is "fine" (which it clearly is not), there needs to be some system that runs along side it that helps the millions of Americans who simply cannot afford to sit at that table. For something like a fancy house or a fancy car it does not matter - if you can't afford one, you can go without, and perhaps envy the rich guy down the block who has a Lincoln Navigator. This is not true for healthcare though, since you simply cannot go without it, so you need to provide a system that they can take part in.
* "Get a job with good health insurance" you may say, but it's not always that easy. Remember that health insurance companies exist for one thing only, and it's not making sure people get good medical treatment. If you are in a "good" program, that is normally expensive, where they just simply cannot legally get out of paying for the treatment you are insured for then you are lucky. You may not even be able to get minimal coverage - a huge number of Americans exist in a salary range that they cannot escape from (easily) and that provides them with insufficient money to afford good treatment or insurance.
Oh come on, the old "not worth their time" excuse is as old as the hills.
You don;t think it would be a *massive coup* for a virus/malware creator to be the first to "break ground" on the "supposedly secure" Mac platform?
Whether you think the Mac platform itself is more secure than Windows doesn't matter - the public perception is that this is the belief.
So while we have the odd trojan in a pirated copy of Office for Mac, there is a distinct lack of malware for the Mac in general, and it won't be for lack of effort.
There are enough anti-Mac malware zealots out there just dying to prove the "Macs don;t get viruses" myth wrong.
And in all that time, we've had a proof of concept and a trojan via pirated software. Not a bad record really. The proportional rate of malware for Windows and Mac, even taking into account a huge biasing weight due to the disparity in market share, is still way off - two exploits, one of which is a social engineering issue and the other not in the wild really does speak volumes.
I'm not saying the Mac platform is immune (that would be silly) but it is demonstrably more secure and is most certainly not "trivial to launch exploits against" by any stretch of the imagination. Author is wilfully ignorant.
Re:Remember when Apple was going to buy Nintendo?
on
Apple Eyeing EA?
·
· Score: 1
Their games stink like fish eggs, so it's a strong possibility.
Slashdot Mirror
He has been campaigning to prevent climate change since the 70s. This is not just some charlatan bandwagon he has jumped on since he had the election stolen from him. He has been committed to this cause since he became a congressman man, many, many years ago and has been attempting to get people to listen to the argument since long before it became a hot button issue, and long before it became an acceptable form of "anti patriotism" used by the GOP to attack their opponents (see also: terrorism, the patriot act, the Iraq war, privacy legislation and so on).
That he is required to fly all over the world to give his speech and meet people in the field, and global leaders and so on, is an unfortunate side effect of issue. He makes use of carbon credits (whether you agree with the system or not) to attempt to offset some of his higher energy consumption due to the nature of the job he does, but in the long run he is attempting to, sorry to use a cliche, save the planet. Or at the very least, get people interested enough to save the planet, regardless of which way you see him.
But he's not pushing any agenda himself, he is merely point out fallacies and ludicrous conclusions drawn by the original author of the report.
If I wrote a report that said "the average lifespan and quality of life of Americans has increased during the same period that CO2 concentrations have gone up, therefore quality of life is directly related to it" in a report that is meant to be about climate change and its effects on the Earth, you don't need to be a scientist or even an expert in the field to say "umm, what does that even have to do with the topic?"
While quality of life and lifespans in general is important, it's not really in the same sphere of science as the global climate system as it relates to global warming, unless you make the assertion that global warming doesn't matter because American quality of life continues to rise because fewer people per year die from heat stroke (how about those overpowered AC units eh?!).
I don't think you're an ass, just like I don;t think people who believe in God are asses.
The problem I have is that you are not qualified to debunk climate science (or if you are you are keeping it well hidden) - you dismiss the science out of hand because it doesn't fit with your world view, and you seem to have a massive axe to grind about Al Gore, who is not a scientist, but who is good at giving presentations and presenting the science in a way that is easy for non-scientists to understand.
This is not a new thing for him, or a passing craze he has picked up on. He has been campaigning to stop climate change since the 70s, long before it was a hot button issue like it is today.
The core argument "that humans can't possibly be affecting climate change" and that this "is a cyclical thing, the Earth does this every now and then" can be shown to be incorrect quite easily with the ice core graph of CO2 levels versus global temperature.
If nothing else, this graph clearly shows that at no point in the last 650 million years have atmospheric CO2 levels been anywhere close to what they are today. The line is clear. They go up and down over those 650 million years, through ice ages, through droughts, through continental shifts, through extinction events, through massive volcanic activity, through over half a billion years worth of natural processes. Now suddenly in the last 150 years, when humans began their relentless industrial revolution, the CO2 level in the atmosphere has jumped up to far, far above any previous high point over the past half a billion years.
Now, a scientist cannot say for absolute certainty that it is a human cause, but the evidence is overwhelmingly strong that we are causing this (in the absence of any other large scale source of CO2 being released into the atmosphere by some other means like volcanos, meteors, aliens, God, other), it is man's actions that are creating this enormous swing away from the natural line (which does indeed vary cyclically, but this is way off the chart).
Then it's just a case of plotting another graph of CO2 concentration versus global temperature over those same 650 million years and the two graphs look remarkably similar....
Note though, that you can't definitively prove that CO2 level in the atmosphere causes these changes in temperatures, the correlation in the graphs is striking (but again, you can only infer it since the graphs are *so closely related*). Now it's just a case of extending the temperature graph out in line with the CO2 one...
Where it all falls down for people like you is that you seize on the inability to definitively prove things as a fundamental weakness in the science, when in reality it is the greatest strength. In the absence of some other reasonable explanation (again, tested by the scientific method), the general scientific consensus right now is that humans are causing the huge rise in global CO2 concentration, and that CO2 concentration affects global temperature, thus, if we keep adding to it, the Earth's climate will change.
We might be totally wrong! It might be aliens all along. Or God. Or a temporal vortex only detectable by Geordi's visor, but right now, our best inference is the one we have. It's not a guess, since it has a lot of scientific research behind it, but it's not unlikely to be hugely wrong either (barring some major shift in human knowledge like finding an invisible CO2 generator put there by aliens).
A lot of people have been working on this, for a long time, and we are learning all the time. I am actually a scientist, and while I understand some of the science, I am not a climatologist (I am a chemist). I can show you that Antarctica used to be a rain forest with a temperate climate (the lake that formed due to rain when it was still hot down there is still there, just buried under ice). No one is claiming the Earth's climate doesn't change significantly over time (and we can look at 650 million years of time remember), or that North Dakota wasn't once a rain
And we've had 40 years of listening to this messenger while he has worked for the government.
He was bought and paid for by big business a long time ago.
What? Jacko has been turning himself white for years.
He's like a male version of the Sugababes.
Or Michael Jackson when they told him he was black.
Or alive.
Google.
If you don't know the URL for google, you can just google it. Or ask jeeves.
Just don't hold the neutron source you use to do that experiment anywhere near you. Probably a bad idea.
We sent all the best cricketers to Australia.
If I go to Mars will I become so much better at a futuristic game that was invented by the British too?
Safari shows adverts?
Where?
(mine has a plugin to block them and it works flawlessly, just in case your browser lacks a "detect sarcasm" plugin).
and then combine that with the fact that poor, fat people can't afford to have bypass surgery so they just die. That's going to affect the life expectancy figures.
The rich guy has his bypass surgery then goes back to McD.
10 seconds in Google will show this the parent post is wrong.
The NHS is in good shape, and continuing to improve (from its low point in the 80s).
Less than 10% of the population has health insurance, although it is an option if you want it. Jobs that offer it as a benefit are totally atypical, and are generally for much higher level positions.
Most middle class people do not have health insurance.
Addendum: wait lists for life-saving treatments tend to be low, whereas wait lists for things like life-changing procedures (like hip replacements) can be much longer.
The reason that the waiting lists in the US are much lower is that at least 50% of your population is excluded from even joining the queue, so you have to go through and find all those people who also need the "life saving" operation but who aren't rich.
It's just not an option to ignore them and say "there are no waiting lists for life saving surgeries in the US! Go USA! Rah!" since the ones excluded from the queue are hidden behind some curtains, dying, rather than on the list, making the statistics look worse.
No, this is the ground that the US healthcare industry chose to fight on. They introduced the "horror stories" of the social care system where the government tells you hat doctor you get to see and that you have no choice, and that doctors in socialised systems are paid peanuts for wages and so on, or that we can't afford things like MRI scanners.
It was their argument and lies, we are just refuting it.
You can find many stories about poor care received in socialised healthcare systems, but they are no more numerate than the nightmare stories patients in the US system have faced. You are going to see problems in any large system run by humans. The majority of care provided in the UK and Canadian systems is excellent, and easily a match for the best the US has to offer, and we give it to everyone, not just the extremely wealthy (or if given to the non-wealthy, we don;t leave them with the choice of "save your wife's life" or "be in crippling, inescapable debt for the rest of your life").
The UK spends approximately 8% of its GDP on the NHS and we are all the better for it, despite the problems it has. The US spends something like 15% of GDP on the monstrosity of a cartel you call "healthcare", which has nothing to do with treating sick people and everything to do with making vast profits.
I am a 28 year old UK citizen who can see any doctor he wants. I will confirm this in person if necessary, even on TV. Hell, just pick up the phone and dial anyone in the UK or Canada and they will tell you the same thing.
I am a British citizen and I live in the UK and I can choose to see any doctor I want.
I think you got that little "fact" from the propaganda video paid for by the US insurance companies who were trying (and eventually succeeded) to destroy Hilary Clinton's healthcare reform.
It is an easily disproved lie, like the bulk of the "facts" about socialised healthcare that the film trumpets. Easily disproved, for example, by just asking anyone who actually lives in Canada or the UK - it's not even like it's a manipulated fact skewed and presented to make social health care look bad - it's just an outright, liar liar, pants on fire, lie.
The NHS has bloat and problematic systems, but it is recovering from 15 years of neglect at the hands of a Tory government who would prefer to have killed it, but would have faced a revolt, so they did the next best thing - just neglected it enormously and it rotted, nearly to the point of collapse, and we are still paying for it today, many years later, as it struggles to find its feet again.
Government is for everyone, or do you think that nothing the government has any part of applies to people under the age of 18?
I'm not really sure what your non-point is?
Unless you're somehow making the assertion that children, if given the choice, would chose not to go to school because of the short term benefit of more time to play and missing the long term benefit of an education, whereas adults would of course save up for their old age with a pension plan because they can see the big picture and turning 18 automatically immunises you from making poor decisions.
Adults are just as bad as children in this regard.
Futurama had it right:
Young Farnswoth Junior: Stupid old age people getting social security with my tax money!
Instantly aged Farnsworth Junior, not appearing 80 years old: I demand free money!
I have championed the UK national health service as a vastly superior system to the US system on these boards (I am a British citizen) many, many times and never have I said that is is perfect.
It has its flaws, as any large institution does, but these are flaws that are siezed upon by opponents and used as propaganda (check out the raft of TV commercials on US TV during Clinton's attempt to get a national system running in the US - "you can't choose your own doctor! you won't have access to cutting edge treatments! the doctors don't get paid a decent wage! you'll have to wait years for lifesaving surgeries!)
Now, in a system like the UK NHS you do have long wait times for certain things if the system is busy, and if there's one major criticism to be levelled at it, it's that it is a behemoth organisation with a lot of bloat in it, soaking up money like a sponge, yet still requiring huge investment with a lot of faults. It is still recovering from 15 years of neglect from a Tory government in the 80s, but it is coming around gradually.
Even with the horror stories that the newspapers and private healthcare shills love to jump on (I waited 4 hours in the ER when I broke my leg!), these are totally atypical of the experience, and even with these issues that arise (which do need to be addressed), it is still vastly superior to the US system which exists solely to make drug companies, senators, congressmen and other select individuals very rich and has nothing to do with actual healthcare, other than as a side effect.
Apologies for asterisks, the slashdot post box simply will not accept proper line breaks and mangles the post regardless of what text entry mode I set it to.
*
This is total bullshit. The big pharma companies have rolled this one out for years as the reason it is necessary to keep drugs expensive in the US where the same medicine in other counties cost less. It has nothing to do with research costs and everything to do with holding onto the goose that lays the golden egg: a healthcare system in a first world country that is exclusively set up to make a few people and companies rich. It has almost nothing to do with making people well, other than a side effect of making huge profits at the expense of people's health. They sell the drugs worldwide, at enormously variable prices. There is no shortage of research money at the prices and volumes sold outside the US. Also, not all drug companies are US companies.
*
They'll also claim that FDA certification makes the drugs cost more in the US, which is also FUD of the highest order. If it does have an effect, it's not enough to explain the ludicrous prices. If there is anything that affects the cost of drugs, it's the money that buys senators and congressmen, though not directly passed on to the consumers as a cost of doing business, certainly affects the price of drugs with their purchased legislation.
*
For a country that positions itself at the head of the world table, as a shining beacon and example to follow, the US healthcare system is a huge, nasty, malignant tumour that threatens to kill off a large portion of your population.
*
There are so many things I like about the United States, but the healthcare system is most certainly not one of them - a society is judged by how it treats its poorest and most disadvantaged members, and looking after their wellbeing is extremely important. I don't think anyone could make a case that the US Social Security system should die (the people would not stand for it) - the health care system is no different. The current one has very, very limited support for the people that cannot afford to pay artificially inflated prices for insurance and drugs, and have to fight a system that employs people (who are not doctors) whose sole job it is to overrule doctors who say you need some treatment and list it as "optional" or "unnecessary" so that they don't have to pay for it with the insurance (and by the way, that'll be another $550 this month in insurance premium, pay up so you're covered!)...
*
Even if you think the current US system is "fine" (which it clearly is not), there needs to be some system that runs along side it that helps the millions of Americans who simply cannot afford to sit at that table. For something like a fancy house or a fancy car it does not matter - if you can't afford one, you can go without, and perhaps envy the rich guy down the block who has a Lincoln Navigator. This is not true for healthcare though, since you simply cannot go without it, so you need to provide a system that they can take part in.
*
"Get a job with good health insurance" you may say, but it's not always that easy. Remember that health insurance companies exist for one thing only, and it's not making sure people get good medical treatment. If you are in a "good" program, that is normally expensive, where they just simply cannot legally get out of paying for the treatment you are insured for then you are lucky. You may not even be able to get minimal coverage - a huge number of Americans exist in a salary range that they cannot escape from (easily) and that provides them with insufficient money to afford good treatment or insurance.
I believe he was head script writer on "The Core", which would explain a lot.
The Polo is not a supermini.
It's a "compact" or whatever your marketing term is, but it's no smaller than a Prius or the actual revamped Mini.
Oh come on, the old "not worth their time" excuse is as old as the hills.
You don;t think it would be a *massive coup* for a virus/malware creator to be the first to "break ground" on the "supposedly secure" Mac platform?
Whether you think the Mac platform itself is more secure than Windows doesn't matter - the public perception is that this is the belief.
So while we have the odd trojan in a pirated copy of Office for Mac, there is a distinct lack of malware for the Mac in general, and it won't be for lack of effort.
There are enough anti-Mac malware zealots out there just dying to prove the "Macs don;t get viruses" myth wrong.
And in all that time, we've had a proof of concept and a trojan via pirated software. Not a bad record really. The proportional rate of malware for Windows and Mac, even taking into account a huge biasing weight due to the disparity in market share, is still way off - two exploits, one of which is a social engineering issue and the other not in the wild really does speak volumes.
I'm not saying the Mac platform is immune (that would be silly) but it is demonstrably more secure and is most certainly not "trivial to launch exploits against" by any stretch of the imagination. Author is wilfully ignorant.
Their games stink like fish eggs, so it's a strong possibility.