We need to enforce these laws much more heavy handedly to protect our children from sexual predators! You do realize how many child molesters there are out there waiting to prey on children MANY TIMES A DAY! You all know this to be true! Most of you were molested as children many times per day by the same person in many years of cruel sexual abuse. That person was always there, waiting for the next opporunity to strike.
Everyone under the age of 18 that gets caught masturbating should be immediately sent to prison for child molestation!
Actually I was refering to all the wonderful benefits listed as a product of the required research as they apply to life here on Earth. I am actually a little depressed that my gallows humor on the subject was modded +Insightful.
Ok, look, it is great this story broke and the CEO apologized. But now, the new claims all center around a username that matches this guys real name. Now, it could be legitimate, but this is f'ing slashdot of all places and you are going to immediately accept "well the online nickname matches his real name, it must be him" like the same bunch of morons that sees "Obama caught naked with Bush daughters" in their Inbox and thinks "Well, it must be true, I gotta see this" and clicks on the link. Seriously... I mean...wouldn't it be a pretty good stunt for some internet troll to use that guys name to post positive reviews in light of the original claims? Just because the story didn't gain traction right away doesn't mean other people didn't also know about it before the story DID get widespread coverage.
How the hell is slashdot going to link front page "HAHA caught again" to a damned blog that says "well the user's nickname matches the sales guy, it MUST be him". Now, I'm not even saying it isn't him, it is entirely possible he is that much of a dumbass and I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it was him. However, calling that article "Fresh evidence" is a pretty far stretch. "Suspicious behavior" maybe, but "fresh evidence of wrongdoing" is a bit of that guilty until proven innocent that only seems to be OK when being applied against people you don't like.
Good luck on removing conflicting ideologies and justifications for armed conflict. But it is certainly a nice thought. At least we will have a clean place to bury the dead.:)
The data storage certainly leaves things to be desired. While HL7 is a "standard" for sending 'messages' back and forth among systems, it isn't exactly a fully agreed upon standard, and you are still absolutely correct in terms of dealing with vendors, storage methods, and conversion.
I'm not entirely sure how concerned to be on the data mining piece if they truely do eliminate personal info. The Insurance and Pharm companies can burn burn burn burn BURN! for all I care, they won't stop doing dirty shit until they are beaten sensless anyways. The statistical research that could be done with a database like that is just staggering. Risk vs Reward really. It makes me a tad nervous, but imagine being able to trend out the spread of a strain of disease through lab results with such rapid accuracy.
The real trouble as I see it is not the existance of these massive databases of information, but the tremendous lack of oversight in their use. Everyone complains about governments doing nefarious things with these databases and suggests that we somehow stop them from being created. The idea that you can somehow stop the march of technology in that manner is pretty laughable. The idea that we should even be attempting that rather than fixing the REAL problem of having governments that can do nefarious things is stunning. It is a treating the symptom instead of the cause kinda problem. You can treat the symptoms of cancer, but if you don't fix it you still die.
Well, actually there ARE standardized ways for those databases to share information and it is a huge money maker for most of the various healthcare related vendors. HL7 is a standard that medical systems use to communicate patient data back and forth. When you get checked in and they say you need a MRI, the EMR sends a message to the MRI machine that fills out all of the information about you the MRI machine will need to build the study. Then the MRI tech selects your name (rather than handjaming all of it in based on paper records that may or may not get there in a timely fashion) and proceeds to scan away. The images get sent on to the imaging storage thing and the machine sends messages back to the EMR "ok done". Then the EMR shows the Doctors that will be reading the images say "Hey, Patient X has their images done", they go in and dictate what they see. Then it tells the transcriptionists "Hey, Doctor X finished dictating" so they go listen and type up the report into the EMR. Then it send BACK to the Doctor "Hey, transcriptionists are done, read it and verify then electronically sign that it is correct". THEN! It send a message to the ordering doctor "Hey, your tests are complete". Now In most cases at a minimum the EMR had to communicate with a MRI machine, a Dictation system, and more than likely a PACS (image storage) system all made by different vendors to achieve all of this.
Now...as far as it being "Easy" or "Standard", yeah it gets a little fuzzy. Vendors tend to "Well we support HL7 v3, but not v2, and we need field 57 to have a value of X" and other strangeness, but ultimately, the pieces required are indeed there to make it all happen and vendors are more than happy to charge a kings ransom for these "interfaces" as they call them.
I think hospitals have a long way to go to improve IT security, however, on the behavior end I think they are leaps and bounds ahead of the credit industry. I doubt that it is entirely altruistic and "don't be evil", but the penalties for screwing up with medical information are MUCH higher than screwing up with credit info. I can tell you from (rather frightening experience) that most of the US docs I have dealt with have NO love for the money grubbing insurance companies.
I can't even begin to the imagine the fun of catching a company using healthcare information in such an unbelievably illegal fashion. Now, I agree there are security things to be addressed. But, medical records already exist in a fairly extreme state of paranoia even if some of the IT pieces are lagging. If anything, I would want the credit industry held to the same standards that medical records are. If you are a nurse and you access a record that isn't one of your patients you can be expected to be called out on it and likely lose your job. Shit like that is actually tracked in an EMR system. It is actually more secure against snooping than the current paper copies given that there is no per access tracking that happens when you thumb through a paper record.
The problem with the credit industry is that they are not held accountable for the losses of information, so it is more profitable for them to play fast and loose with it and hand out loans and credit in the hopes of profit. Hospitals ARE held accountable for lost information, and their model of profit doesn't even begin to resemble the credit industry. In fact, hospitals LOSE money when the records aren't accurate because insurance/medicare/medicaid/etc refuse to pay out. Hospitals invest a tremendous amount of resources in making sure all of their records are as accurate as humanly possible for that very reason.
I agree. I think we have a long way to come on that portability piece. I work in healthcare IT and I don't think a day goes by that I don't want to do horrible things to our vendor reps just so they wind up in our hospital and suddenly have a vested interest in their systems behaving EXACTLY as advertised. That said, having been around elderly patients (which is probably the majority of any patient population), they tend to be far more likely to remember personal identification material rather than medical history stuff.
EMTs are trained to look for those. However, is it still there? Did they even wear one? In the situation I suggest I probably wasn't clear enough, but initial emergency response isn't the same as the following hospital treatment. I doubt EMTs are going to pull up your medical record on the spot to care for you even if they could. Every second counts n all that. However, once stabilized and sitting in a hospital bed those medical history questions start becoming more important. Even more so for the elderly n such. When you go to the hospital they will ask you the same series of questions a dozen times. It isn't because they are stupid, or think you are stupid, its because there is a HIGH rate of "oh yeah, I forgot about..." happening the 2nd or 3rd time the question is asked.
It also provides accurate records of those mistakes. The lack of medical information following you is going to be FAR more dangerous than a mistake in that record. Picked up on emergency? Can't talk? I hope you don't have any allergies or you could be killed by the response team. Heart condition, diabetes, etc... The number of circumstances where NOT having this information readily available is extremely dangerous outnumber your circumstances by a large factor. Nevermind that EHRs can be corrected and probably far easier than the existing mess of paper records.
In other news, going outside your house is extremely dangerous. For that matter, just staying inside your house is extremely dangerous. Driving to the store for food is extremely dangerous.
This is getting dangerously close to that whole Linux vs GNU/Linux rant. The reality is Ubuntu has thrust Linux onto the mainstream desktop and Linux is just the kernel. The truth is "Ubuntu" "Red Hat" "Linux" "GNU" and so on have been horribly abused from the getgo in terms of prefered terminology. The (rather unnerving) truth is that your toaster CAN run Linux along with a WIDE variety of other mundane devices that has fucking squat to do with the use of the Linux kernel on a PC. The issue you are complaining about is basically that because Ubuntu has exploded onto the personal computing scene and has taken the Linux kernel to a leader in recognized methods of running a PC you want to split hairs about what people call it. The unfortunate reality is that the vast majority of users have no fucking clue what a kernel is, or what GNU even has to do with any of it. The most important part is that the proprietary land finally does not have quite the same squeezing power on the vice grips attached to the consumer's balls.
To go with a more extremist analogy... By all means...complain about how a former Soviet refers to that complicated mess of political parties, diverse opinions, and that whole "election" and "voting" thing. For the time being everyone should just be happy about the encouragement of moving away from that...get them out of the dark before you try to explain how the light bulb really works...
You have provided enough proof that you are indeed a lawyer and act pretty convincingly human...but, now you are asking us to believe that lawyers have human parents? I think we need some proof here... If you are indeed human I think the most imporant work you can do is to prove that these other lawyers are highly evolved leeches that had absorbed human DNA. We wouldn't have to worry about their court room antics if we can get them all quarantined in genetic research facilities. Think of all the congress critters we could replace by showing they are all leechpeople taking over human society! They would probably build statues of you!
Disclaimer: I really do totally support the work that you do, but you are still a lawyer and subject to the jokes.:)
Actually, when only counting the second $350 billion it comes out to something like $2000 per tax payer. Nevermind the difficulty in finding all of the people that don't file income tax to deliver said funds back, it is pretty insane to count every American since a great number of Americans are still in diapers. Of course this means that every American could have recieved $4,000 had they just given the damned money back instead of using it for bailouts.
Sorry, you are right, it was the pledge. However, last I checked the Pledge of Allegiance has about as much importance and legal standing as the National Anthem. Either way, it most certainly does not invalidate the post.
Also, with precious few exceptions pretty much all religions refer to their higher power as God in some fashion and last I checked we don't have any thought police that will arrest you for thinking about a different God than the person next to you. Now personally, I could live without "under God" in it, but I think it is a pretty stupid thing to quibble over and watching the incessent fighting over that and the whole prayer in school nonsense is infuriating. One school is getting sued over having a moment of silence because that is "prayer"...that is bullshit and nothing more than some militant athiest twat trying to force their own views on others (not unlike the right wing religious wackaloons when they are to force everyone to participate in a Christian prayer).
Finally, as far as the "state loyalty oath". I only fucking wish that half the idiot asshat citizens in this nation had a fucking clue what it even meant. "and to the Republic, for which it stands" is pretty fucking important given that the Republic for which it stands is what is outlined in our Constitution that these same whiney bastards that either want to fight the pledge, or just don't actually pay any attention to what the hell it says, have allowed our idiot asshat leaders to use as fucking toilet paper these days. "with liberty, and justice for all" is pretty much the part we lost by not pledging to support the damned Republic as outlined in the Constution that was written by felons and revolutionaries. Now...the first time they pledge allegiance to (insert current leader here) I will get concerned...in the mean time I think it is about damned time that there should be forced readings of the Constituion every morning in every school before saying the pledge. Maybe at least a few people will get the damned clue as to what it is really about (which isn't quibbling over stupid verbage rather than the true intent).
You should also look up things like the oath of enlistment for the military or pretty much any of the swearing in stuff that our leaders do. You should note that "to support and defend the Constutition against all threats foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiane to the same" comes BEFORE "and follow the orders of... appointed over me". But hey...we should ditch that whole thing too because it has "so help me God" at the end.
Our entire system was designed so that loyalty to the State meant loyalty to the Constitituion. Eisenhower clearly understood that and spoke to that meaning at great length on multiple occasions. To equate him adding "under God", to the right wing fundie fucks that are running the show and shit like their "Faith Based Initiatives" that allow them to funnel tax payer money into the churches of their choice is unbelievably stupid.
It really isn't a case of misunderstanding. Aristotle wrote quite a bit down on this Earth/Air/Fire/Water business of "Elements". The elements as we know them are called just retained that naming for sharing the definition of "what all things were made of". Aristotle wasn't really a scientist or chemist, but pretty much any Chemistry class I have ever taken started with a discussion of Aristotle and the elements as somewhat of a beginning of the thought that things are composed of more basic (elemental) things.
What in the hell did you watch? It wasn't Cowboy Bebop. The English voice acting was terrible. Faye sounded like some dumb bimbo and almost all of the dialog was terribly unnaturally delivered.
You need to read up more on the ideas surrounding a holographic universe. There are plenty of things on that that actually suggest that model as a reason for many of the phenomenon we observe. It isn't anti-science at all. Science generally advances quite a bit when "well, we can't see what we wanted to...we must have been wrong...we should try something else".
"Elements" are called elements because EARLY chemistry believed that all things were made up of a combination of elements in nature (earth, fire, water, etc). Of course over the years this was refined, and then refined again, and then once again refined some more. Atomic theory has come a LONG way from the expectation that all things were made out of the "elements of nature" through these constant refinements and NOT finding what we expected to find.
I guess I should have clarified. As other posters have pointed out, the "extremeness" of the problems makes me suspect that this could very well be a huge setup to make Dell/Ubuntu look bad. Or she is just really damned stupid and completely incapable of solving her own problems. I just meant the problems with the computer/software in general.
I don't blame the woman at all. Her complaints are entirely legitimate and are a direct result of marketing based education. NO ONE explains how anything fucking works these days. Its all "put the CD in and MAGIC!" So of course the populace has no fucking clue what is going on with how stuff works or even how to choose an alternative product. That is kind of the point of this style of marketing education. You don't want educated consumers, you want consumers that believe whatever you tell them.
I have had this battle on multiple occasions with my online classes trying to explain that I don't use Windows or MS Office. The difference is that I am an experienced user and I actually understand why the college is incorrect. They say it "requires Office XYZ" but what they mean is "you need to be able to create and edit Word compatible documents". Most users are going to take the statement "requires Office XYZ" literally because they don't understand the alternatives, and the people saying "requires Office XYZ" are probably even less likely to understand that there are even alternatives available.
You are talking about President Eisenhower and he added it to the anthem. Now...if you are such a militant atheist that you will get your panties in a twist about "under god" in a damned song then I seriously doubt you will be bothered to actually go look at anything he said or did other than that. So here are some choice words from Ike
Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.
He also had a rather lengthy speach warning America of the Military Industrial complex and how allowing the privitization of the military will only lead to more conflict due to its profits (Halliburton?). So all of you out there who just rant and whine about "evil Republicans" I suggest you actually read up on some of them and realize that this new breed of psychotic right wing religious bastards don't even begin to resemble one of the greatest Republicans ever. By all means though, go on whining about "under god" in the damned anthem if you can't be bothered to actually look into anything. Oh and last time I checked "under God" was not the establishment of a state religion by a LONG LONG LONG damned stretch, so really...might wanna look up what that whole separation of church and state is actually about before blathering on about any of that being "illegally".
To be fair, I don't think all lawyers are evil by any stretch...just most of them.:) However, this tends to be true of any profession that gets so much money and reverence. It tends to attract a lot more douche bags. Doctors frequently have the same types of behavior. Lots of good doctors out there that got into it to help people, but there are a shit ton that got into it for the money and prestige and they fuck it up for everyone.
I would actually like to see the fight shift away from stopping the RIAA and move towards fixing our screwball legal system that allows this kind of legal terrorizing.
Slashdot Mirror
Flamebait? Did you not read the whole post? You are hereby metamoderated -1 Poor Reading Skills or -1 No Humor, or both.
We need to enforce these laws much more heavy handedly to protect our children from sexual predators! You do realize how many child molesters there are out there waiting to prey on children MANY TIMES A DAY! You all know this to be true! Most of you were molested as children many times per day by the same person in many years of cruel sexual abuse. That person was always there, waiting for the next opporunity to strike.
Everyone under the age of 18 that gets caught masturbating should be immediately sent to prison for child molestation!
My logical technique...typed on a Logitech keyboard and mouse that I absolutely love. Best product ever!
Actually I was refering to all the wonderful benefits listed as a product of the required research as they apply to life here on Earth. I am actually a little depressed that my gallows humor on the subject was modded +Insightful.
Ok, look, it is great this story broke and the CEO apologized. But now, the new claims all center around a username that matches this guys real name. Now, it could be legitimate, but this is f'ing slashdot of all places and you are going to immediately accept "well the online nickname matches his real name, it must be him" like the same bunch of morons that sees "Obama caught naked with Bush daughters" in their Inbox and thinks "Well, it must be true, I gotta see this" and clicks on the link. Seriously... I mean...wouldn't it be a pretty good stunt for some internet troll to use that guys name to post positive reviews in light of the original claims? Just because the story didn't gain traction right away doesn't mean other people didn't also know about it before the story DID get widespread coverage.
How the hell is slashdot going to link front page "HAHA caught again" to a damned blog that says "well the user's nickname matches the sales guy, it MUST be him". Now, I'm not even saying it isn't him, it is entirely possible he is that much of a dumbass and I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it was him. However, calling that article "Fresh evidence" is a pretty far stretch. "Suspicious behavior" maybe, but "fresh evidence of wrongdoing" is a bit of that guilty until proven innocent that only seems to be OK when being applied against people you don't like.
Good luck on removing conflicting ideologies and justifications for armed conflict. But it is certainly a nice thought. At least we will have a clean place to bury the dead. :)
The data storage certainly leaves things to be desired. While HL7 is a "standard" for sending 'messages' back and forth among systems, it isn't exactly a fully agreed upon standard, and you are still absolutely correct in terms of dealing with vendors, storage methods, and conversion.
I'm not entirely sure how concerned to be on the data mining piece if they truely do eliminate personal info. The Insurance and Pharm companies can burn burn burn burn BURN! for all I care, they won't stop doing dirty shit until they are beaten sensless anyways. The statistical research that could be done with a database like that is just staggering. Risk vs Reward really. It makes me a tad nervous, but imagine being able to trend out the spread of a strain of disease through lab results with such rapid accuracy.
The real trouble as I see it is not the existance of these massive databases of information, but the tremendous lack of oversight in their use. Everyone complains about governments doing nefarious things with these databases and suggests that we somehow stop them from being created. The idea that you can somehow stop the march of technology in that manner is pretty laughable. The idea that we should even be attempting that rather than fixing the REAL problem of having governments that can do nefarious things is stunning. It is a treating the symptom instead of the cause kinda problem. You can treat the symptoms of cancer, but if you don't fix it you still die.
The most horrifying thing about this whole story is that Virginia is indeed a commonwealth and not a state.
Well, actually there ARE standardized ways for those databases to share information and it is a huge money maker for most of the various healthcare related vendors. HL7 is a standard that medical systems use to communicate patient data back and forth. When you get checked in and they say you need a MRI, the EMR sends a message to the MRI machine that fills out all of the information about you the MRI machine will need to build the study. Then the MRI tech selects your name (rather than handjaming all of it in based on paper records that may or may not get there in a timely fashion) and proceeds to scan away. The images get sent on to the imaging storage thing and the machine sends messages back to the EMR "ok done". Then the EMR shows the Doctors that will be reading the images say "Hey, Patient X has their images done", they go in and dictate what they see. Then it tells the transcriptionists "Hey, Doctor X finished dictating" so they go listen and type up the report into the EMR. Then it send BACK to the Doctor "Hey, transcriptionists are done, read it and verify then electronically sign that it is correct". THEN! It send a message to the ordering doctor "Hey, your tests are complete". Now In most cases at a minimum the EMR had to communicate with a MRI machine, a Dictation system, and more than likely a PACS (image storage) system all made by different vendors to achieve all of this.
Now...as far as it being "Easy" or "Standard", yeah it gets a little fuzzy. Vendors tend to "Well we support HL7 v3, but not v2, and we need field 57 to have a value of X" and other strangeness, but ultimately, the pieces required are indeed there to make it all happen and vendors are more than happy to charge a kings ransom for these "interfaces" as they call them.
I think hospitals have a long way to go to improve IT security, however, on the behavior end I think they are leaps and bounds ahead of the credit industry. I doubt that it is entirely altruistic and "don't be evil", but the penalties for screwing up with medical information are MUCH higher than screwing up with credit info. I can tell you from (rather frightening experience) that most of the US docs I have dealt with have NO love for the money grubbing insurance companies.
Androids?! Body snatchers?! The situtation appears to be even more critical than I had originally thought!
I can't even begin to the imagine the fun of catching a company using healthcare information in such an unbelievably illegal fashion. Now, I agree there are security things to be addressed. But, medical records already exist in a fairly extreme state of paranoia even if some of the IT pieces are lagging. If anything, I would want the credit industry held to the same standards that medical records are. If you are a nurse and you access a record that isn't one of your patients you can be expected to be called out on it and likely lose your job. Shit like that is actually tracked in an EMR system. It is actually more secure against snooping than the current paper copies given that there is no per access tracking that happens when you thumb through a paper record.
The problem with the credit industry is that they are not held accountable for the losses of information, so it is more profitable for them to play fast and loose with it and hand out loans and credit in the hopes of profit. Hospitals ARE held accountable for lost information, and their model of profit doesn't even begin to resemble the credit industry. In fact, hospitals LOSE money when the records aren't accurate because insurance/medicare/medicaid/etc refuse to pay out. Hospitals invest a tremendous amount of resources in making sure all of their records are as accurate as humanly possible for that very reason.
I agree. I think we have a long way to come on that portability piece. I work in healthcare IT and I don't think a day goes by that I don't want to do horrible things to our vendor reps just so they wind up in our hospital and suddenly have a vested interest in their systems behaving EXACTLY as advertised. That said, having been around elderly patients (which is probably the majority of any patient population), they tend to be far more likely to remember personal identification material rather than medical history stuff.
EMTs are trained to look for those. However, is it still there? Did they even wear one? In the situation I suggest I probably wasn't clear enough, but initial emergency response isn't the same as the following hospital treatment. I doubt EMTs are going to pull up your medical record on the spot to care for you even if they could. Every second counts n all that. However, once stabilized and sitting in a hospital bed those medical history questions start becoming more important. Even more so for the elderly n such. When you go to the hospital they will ask you the same series of questions a dozen times. It isn't because they are stupid, or think you are stupid, its because there is a HIGH rate of "oh yeah, I forgot about..." happening the 2nd or 3rd time the question is asked.
It also provides accurate records of those mistakes. The lack of medical information following you is going to be FAR more dangerous than a mistake in that record. Picked up on emergency? Can't talk? I hope you don't have any allergies or you could be killed by the response team. Heart condition, diabetes, etc... The number of circumstances where NOT having this information readily available is extremely dangerous outnumber your circumstances by a large factor. Nevermind that EHRs can be corrected and probably far easier than the existing mess of paper records.
In other news, going outside your house is extremely dangerous. For that matter, just staying inside your house is extremely dangerous. Driving to the store for food is extremely dangerous.
This is getting dangerously close to that whole Linux vs GNU/Linux rant. The reality is Ubuntu has thrust Linux onto the mainstream desktop and Linux is just the kernel. The truth is "Ubuntu" "Red Hat" "Linux" "GNU" and so on have been horribly abused from the getgo in terms of prefered terminology. The (rather unnerving) truth is that your toaster CAN run Linux along with a WIDE variety of other mundane devices that has fucking squat to do with the use of the Linux kernel on a PC. The issue you are complaining about is basically that because Ubuntu has exploded onto the personal computing scene and has taken the Linux kernel to a leader in recognized methods of running a PC you want to split hairs about what people call it. The unfortunate reality is that the vast majority of users have no fucking clue what a kernel is, or what GNU even has to do with any of it. The most important part is that the proprietary land finally does not have quite the same squeezing power on the vice grips attached to the consumer's balls.
To go with a more extremist analogy... By all means...complain about how a former Soviet refers to that complicated mess of political parties, diverse opinions, and that whole "election" and "voting" thing. For the time being everyone should just be happy about the encouragement of moving away from that...get them out of the dark before you try to explain how the light bulb really works...
You have provided enough proof that you are indeed a lawyer and act pretty convincingly human...but, now you are asking us to believe that lawyers have human parents? I think we need some proof here... If you are indeed human I think the most imporant work you can do is to prove that these other lawyers are highly evolved leeches that had absorbed human DNA. We wouldn't have to worry about their court room antics if we can get them all quarantined in genetic research facilities. Think of all the congress critters we could replace by showing they are all leechpeople taking over human society! They would probably build statues of you!
:)
Disclaimer: I really do totally support the work that you do, but you are still a lawyer and subject to the jokes.
Actually, when only counting the second $350 billion it comes out to something like $2000 per tax payer. Nevermind the difficulty in finding all of the people that don't file income tax to deliver said funds back, it is pretty insane to count every American since a great number of Americans are still in diapers. Of course this means that every American could have recieved $4,000 had they just given the damned money back instead of using it for bailouts.
Sorry, you are right, it was the pledge. However, last I checked the Pledge of Allegiance has about as much importance and legal standing as the National Anthem. Either way, it most certainly does not invalidate the post.
... appointed over me". But hey...we should ditch that whole thing too because it has "so help me God" at the end.
Also, with precious few exceptions pretty much all religions refer to their higher power as God in some fashion and last I checked we don't have any thought police that will arrest you for thinking about a different God than the person next to you. Now personally, I could live without "under God" in it, but I think it is a pretty stupid thing to quibble over and watching the incessent fighting over that and the whole prayer in school nonsense is infuriating. One school is getting sued over having a moment of silence because that is "prayer"...that is bullshit and nothing more than some militant athiest twat trying to force their own views on others (not unlike the right wing religious wackaloons when they are to force everyone to participate in a Christian prayer).
Finally, as far as the "state loyalty oath". I only fucking wish that half the idiot asshat citizens in this nation had a fucking clue what it even meant. "and to the Republic, for which it stands" is pretty fucking important given that the Republic for which it stands is what is outlined in our Constitution that these same whiney bastards that either want to fight the pledge, or just don't actually pay any attention to what the hell it says, have allowed our idiot asshat leaders to use as fucking toilet paper these days. "with liberty, and justice for all" is pretty much the part we lost by not pledging to support the damned Republic as outlined in the Constution that was written by felons and revolutionaries. Now...the first time they pledge allegiance to (insert current leader here) I will get concerned...in the mean time I think it is about damned time that there should be forced readings of the Constituion every morning in every school before saying the pledge. Maybe at least a few people will get the damned clue as to what it is really about (which isn't quibbling over stupid verbage rather than the true intent).
You should also look up things like the oath of enlistment for the military or pretty much any of the swearing in stuff that our leaders do. You should note that "to support and defend the Constutition against all threats foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiane to the same" comes BEFORE "and follow the orders of
Our entire system was designed so that loyalty to the State meant loyalty to the Constitituion. Eisenhower clearly understood that and spoke to that meaning at great length on multiple occasions. To equate him adding "under God", to the right wing fundie fucks that are running the show and shit like their "Faith Based Initiatives" that allow them to funnel tax payer money into the churches of their choice is unbelievably stupid.
It really isn't a case of misunderstanding. Aristotle wrote quite a bit down on this Earth/Air/Fire/Water business of "Elements". The elements as we know them are called just retained that naming for sharing the definition of "what all things were made of". Aristotle wasn't really a scientist or chemist, but pretty much any Chemistry class I have ever taken started with a discussion of Aristotle and the elements as somewhat of a beginning of the thought that things are composed of more basic (elemental) things.
What in the hell did you watch? It wasn't Cowboy Bebop. The English voice acting was terrible. Faye sounded like some dumb bimbo and almost all of the dialog was terribly unnaturally delivered.
You need to read up more on the ideas surrounding a holographic universe. There are plenty of things on that that actually suggest that model as a reason for many of the phenomenon we observe. It isn't anti-science at all. Science generally advances quite a bit when "well, we can't see what we wanted to...we must have been wrong...we should try something else".
"Elements" are called elements because EARLY chemistry believed that all things were made up of a combination of elements in nature (earth, fire, water, etc). Of course over the years this was refined, and then refined again, and then once again refined some more. Atomic theory has come a LONG way from the expectation that all things were made out of the "elements of nature" through these constant refinements and NOT finding what we expected to find.
I guess I should have clarified. As other posters have pointed out, the "extremeness" of the problems makes me suspect that this could very well be a huge setup to make Dell/Ubuntu look bad. Or she is just really damned stupid and completely incapable of solving her own problems. I just meant the problems with the computer/software in general.
I don't blame the woman at all. Her complaints are entirely legitimate and are a direct result of marketing based education. NO ONE explains how anything fucking works these days. Its all "put the CD in and MAGIC!" So of course the populace has no fucking clue what is going on with how stuff works or even how to choose an alternative product. That is kind of the point of this style of marketing education. You don't want educated consumers, you want consumers that believe whatever you tell them.
I have had this battle on multiple occasions with my online classes trying to explain that I don't use Windows or MS Office. The difference is that I am an experienced user and I actually understand why the college is incorrect. They say it "requires Office XYZ" but what they mean is "you need to be able to create and edit Word compatible documents". Most users are going to take the statement "requires Office XYZ" literally because they don't understand the alternatives, and the people saying "requires Office XYZ" are probably even less likely to understand that there are even alternatives available.
You are talking about President Eisenhower and he added it to the anthem. Now...if you are such a militant atheist that you will get your panties in a twist about "under god" in a damned song then I seriously doubt you will be bothered to actually go look at anything he said or did other than that. So here are some choice words from Ike
Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.
He also had a rather lengthy speach warning America of the Military Industrial complex and how allowing the privitization of the military will only lead to more conflict due to its profits (Halliburton?). So all of you out there who just rant and whine about "evil Republicans" I suggest you actually read up on some of them and realize that this new breed of psychotic right wing religious bastards don't even begin to resemble one of the greatest Republicans ever. By all means though, go on whining about "under god" in the damned anthem if you can't be bothered to actually look into anything. Oh and last time I checked "under God" was not the establishment of a state religion by a LONG LONG LONG damned stretch, so really...might wanna look up what that whole separation of church and state is actually about before blathering on about any of that being "illegally".
Ack a lawyer! *hides*
:) However, this tends to be true of any profession that gets so much money and reverence. It tends to attract a lot more douche bags. Doctors frequently have the same types of behavior. Lots of good doctors out there that got into it to help people, but there are a shit ton that got into it for the money and prestige and they fuck it up for everyone.
To be fair, I don't think all lawyers are evil by any stretch...just most of them.
I would actually like to see the fight shift away from stopping the RIAA and move towards fixing our screwball legal system that allows this kind of legal terrorizing.