One analysis shows that family of 4 will have an increas of $7500 a year, Obama promised a cut of $2500 a year

I've never seen such a study but I would be interested in viewing it if it does indeed exist.

You think the mandate sucks but think universal is good? What is the difference? Let me answer. Mandate = corporations run it, universal = government runs it. You are required to buy it either way, one through premiums with a choice, the other through taxes with no choice.

Incorrect. A mandate has nothing to do with who actually implements health care. All it means is that the action is on you whereas universal means action is not required. Now we can quibble whether a tax is considered "buying something" but the fact remains that health care would far cheaper since there would be no shareholders or profit margins in the equation.

As for the GOP input, give me a SPECIFIC example of what they put in it.

This took me all but two seconds to find. Like I said, I watched all the proceedings:

"Republican Sen. John Ensign scored a victory in his pursuit of healthy lifestyle rewards with passage of his amendment to health care reform legislation that would offer deep discounts to those who quit smoking, lose weight or otherwise meet healthy milestones." -- source: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/oct/01/john-ensign-scores-win-health-care-amendment/

There is ONE section and Obama has decided he will ignore that, and that was the part where Congress was required to be on exchanges and pay for it themselves

From my understanding, this is a popular conservative talking point. I haven't felt the need to research it.

I have health insurance, idiot. My health insurance was deemed illegal by obamacare.

I don't know your situation so I'm only speculating, but it sounds like your policy didn't provide basic coverage. You may not think so, but the law is actually doing you a service in case you end up in a real mess. I would be interested to hear some details about the policy and the process it was deemed illegal.

Premiums around the country are doubling to tripling due to this legislation

The law may have contributed to increased premiums as insurance companies can do no longer discriminate again their customers. But you're not seeing the whole story. Customers have been receiving refunds due to these increases since the law states that 80% of a premium must be used for health care. Over one billion dollars have been refunded in 2012 because of the 80/20 rule. Also, there's also inflation, so there's a whole lot of stuff going on. Just keep in mind that even if the law didn't pass, your premiums would still be going up.

You wanted something. And you didn't care who you hurt to get it. It didn't matter that you were pissing our rights. It didn't matter that it would hurt the economy. Nothing matters to you if you get what you want. I'd call that evil if weren't so oblivious that you didn't even realize it.

We obviously see things differently from one another. I'm interested in why you think expanded health coverage is "evil" and why you see it as a freedom issue. The truth of the matter is that every person will require health care at some point in their lives. By not electing to be covered, I'm paying for your freedom through higher premiums in the worst possible way.

Now as for the mandate ... that sucks. I think we can agree on that. I don't like the idea of government requiring me to purchase a product. I believe in universal coverage. It's the most pragmatic option. We get the most bang for our buck, if we pool our bucks together and buy insurance together as a group. And no one loses coverage.

But here's the thing ... as a nation ... we needed something to address health care spending. Have you looked at the rate of health care spending in our country before the law took effect? It was simply unsustainable. Because of the law, medicare spending is at its lowest in fifty years. That's a huge victory.

I wish Obama had made a push for universal care, then allowed Republicans to negotiate back to Romneycare (which is really what it is) so that Republicans would feel that like "they won" (remember, this is a republican plan once championed by the heritage folks). Now Republicans have nothing to offer outside of high risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions which some states don't even offer.

Democrat stooge here with my "snarky" replies. Please enjoy.

Every trick in the book is on the table with this thing. By hook, crook, nail, and claw... this thing is going down or it will be so horribly scrambled that the democrats will wish it did die.

I can't really respond to this one. I will agree that the law isn't without issue. A lot of us on the progressive side believe in universal health so this was not the bill that we wanted. The good thing is that it does allow states to opt out of the implementation so long as they can provide their own implementation. Vermont is actually doing this in providing universal care to all its residents, but if your state has better ideas, then you do have options.

Granted, opting out of the law isn't an option. I'm sorry for you feel that you don't need health insurance, but I will that I am glad that you will have it when you need to go the hospital.

Politically, the republicans were completely sidelined for this thing. Utterly emasculated.

This is a talking point I hear a lot and I'm sorry, but it just is not true. The original legislation was drafted by three democrats and three republicans. Baucus ultimately shut down the drafting because Grassley was intentionally dragging his feet. I watched all the open committee hearings as the law was being debated because I was about to quit my job and deeply concerned about my family not being insured. Yes, there were lots of ridiculous amendments that were voted down without discussion, but there were lots of republican amendments that were accepted as well. For example, John Ensign was deeply concerned about the implications of the mandate and his suggestions were incorporated into the law.

To survive as a political organization, the republicans need to so thoroughly annihilate this move that the democrats for generations to come remember it.

Repealing the health care law alone will not save the republican party. Changing demographics is the huge issue. Can you believe analysts are predicting Texas may go purple in the next ten years? Granted, these are democrat analysts and may be foolishly optimistic, but they are actually investing money into the state which says more to me than press releases.

Let me opt out and we have peace. That's all we've ever wanted in this venture. Let people vote with their feet. If its such a great program you wont' need to force people to join it. If you do need to force people then its not actually a great program you irredeemable lying aholes.

Unfortunately, when it comes to healthcare, we are all in the same boat. To really let you opt-out of the health care system would mean forcing health care providers to require proof-of-insurance or ability to pay before being treated. Lack of proof would mean no treatment. I just don't see any other way.

As a long time slashdot user to another slashdot user, hang in there.

Yes, there will be a shitstorm. Microsoft really screwed up this launch and I think that's why he's leaving. After the DRM reversal, his number was up.

But I don't think for a moment that Microsoft is out of the console race. They're in it for the long game and as far as launches go, I still think the PS3 holds the title of the worst console launch.

I imagine in 2015 after the inevitable price drop, no one will even remember all the Microsoft cockups, but it's going to be a lot of painful months before Microsoft gets there.

Old trek fan here. I recently watched Star Trek 5 to some Plinkett and Rifftrax commentaries, and got a good laugh at it. Yet, to me, that cheesy movie, arguably the worst of all the star trek films, embodies the spirit of trek whereas the 2009 version does not.

It was about the collective drive to explore the unknown (and well, fly around in cheesy rocket boots) whereas the 2009 trek was about punching a bad guy in the face (and the enterprise being powered by beer brewing tanks). Mind you, I had a good time, but I don't consider it trek. That'd be like considering a child who dresses up in his father's clothes as the father himself.

And yes, some old trek episodes ARE GOOD as I remember. That has nothing to do with nostalgia but everything to do with good writing. Just sayin'.

Great argument guys ... It's a pleasure to read two very intelligent people discuss the pros and cons of languages without devolving into feces tossing. It's kind of rarity these days.

Hats off to both of you!

Once you learn that, and how to use GrdiBagLayout properly then you are 'away laughing'

heh ... laughing from insanity? I think this sums up my experience with Gridbag. I ended up switching to Mig Layout which was a paradise compare to Gridbag. It actually made Swing work fun.

And therein lies the crux of the problem. The grandparent makes a good point. We may be impressed by his hacking skills but what is his daughter actually learning? Daddy can fix it.

As a parent myself, I want my kids to be self reliant. If my daughter wanted to see gender equality in Donkey Kong, then I'd include her in the process of hacking. Granted, she'd probably pick her nose and walk away but then it wasn't that important to her. And that's fine by me. More time to pick my own nose :)

But if she was interested it -- and you'll be surprised about kids -- they like all kinds of crazy things -- you will have opened up a new landscape.

You may argue that she's only three and may treat her like she's only three, but that's recipe for creating a three-year old adult.

Also, she's going to learn more about gender relations from how you treat your wife (and other women in your life) than any video game could teach her (hacked or not).

naah ... I can handle a story like this one every day or so. What almost drove me away not too long ago was the stream of flamebait mobile stories slashdot was publishing not so long ago. Those stories were literally tearing the community apart for pageviews.

Thankfully, things have calmed down to the point where discussions don't fly off the rails at the mention of iOS or Android anymore.

Yeah ... I was "that guy". The first time I installed Linux in 2000, I was annoyed that I needed "permission" to write to a directory outside of my home directory. I was coming from a Windows world, after all.

I solved this "problem" by chmod 777 the entire filesystem. Hah. Problem solved. Needless to say, I couldn't start the machine back up again. I'm guessing it killed itself from the shear embarrassment. After that, I decided it may be in my best interest to read the manual.

I'll do that one of these days :)

Wow ... you seem to be lacking some basic empathy skills. Do you have any idea what it is like to be squeezed by some institutional power for no other reason than doing the right thing? It's brutal enough to be squeezed when you have some experience under your belt, but this kid was only twenty years old.

Now, let's say he finds himself in the same position a few years down the road and he repeats his actions, expecting a different result. Then, I'd call him an idiot. In this case, I call him exactly as he was: a student. It was a shitty lesson, but that's the point of college. It's not to get a job or join some pro football team. It's to learn and he learned by fire.

Delivering a hardware is not a hard thing to do ....

Hmm ... methinks the backers of the zioneyez project will disagree with you here.