And you'd regulate the heck out of it. The more regulation you have the more costs you have. Pure and simple. Got to be a happy medium- and YOU aren't asking for that.

Is that Medicare pays approximately 25% of those so-called rack-rates. Private insurance typically pays 30% over the Medicare pay rates.

Overcharged? Perhaps. It's all this BS, though, that we're discussing right now (and Congress is mandating) that's causing it.

Want to actually make affordable healthcare? FIX THAT FIRST.
(Hint: It doesn't get fixed by bureaucracies like this and it doesn't get fixed by doing socialized medicine.)

...and a wooden stick shift...

Here's a hint...you've got the same functionality (Just not the PL/SQL language) with Postgresql. In fact, you can do it in something resembling PL/SQL(PL/pgSQL), Tcl, Perl, or Python in Postgresql. Take your pick.

Sorry, just not buying the line you're selling there- it's not a net positive over Postgresql like you're making it out to be.

Doesn't mean much. This is peices of their idiot MotoBlur software. Google only probably half realizes it's still running, etc.

Middle? How about some executive sandblasting... The middle management only gets to screw up as long as the executives LET them. If you contemplate long and hard, all the issues there stem not from the people executing things- but from the people supposedly there to provide direction and vision to all of it.

Can you manage to have an intelligent conversation without deviating from the subject with an ad-hominem?

In actuality, the one we have in hand (we have it for differing reasons than this BS...) works PRECISELY like a regular ATM/Debit card- and has a checking account with ABA/Account number associated with the account and is accessable by the bank in question. It depends on the issuing bank, etc. as to what all of what you're talking to is in effect. We know this because it's been used for a debit transaction booking a hotel, booking a rental vehicle, paying for fuel, getting money orders, etc. Again, it REALLY depends on which bank is actually backing the card (and there IS one there...).

Please inform yourself about all of it much better than you did here before you post...

Based on some of the commentary, I'd have to sadly concur on that score.

I'd contend that the bulk of it are inbred pissing contests ran by the Personality Disordered. Given that this is the case, the bulk of the subject, AS TAUGHT, is worthless as an avenue of any study by anyone sane.

Now...if you're talking about an honest rational thinking discourse and study...bit different. The problem lies in actually FINDING one.

It's not that there's no intelligent design there- it's that you can't comprehend where it might be.

Some of it is brilliant. Some of it, I think they need to quit leaving the hits of Acid next to their drafting workstation.

Ah, but you missed the point of the parent poster.

Ever thought that maybe Evolution is the ground rules for things and with Creation, you've got little (or big shoves) in changes a' la animal/plant husbandry or genetic engineering?

There's nothing in Creationism that precludes the other, save that the Creationists tend to ignore the parts of Evolution that we can actually prove. The converse of that last statement is also a pretty accurate summation of things.

Neither theory is correct (seriously) or even remotely close to "complete" because there's gaps, peices which don't "work" within the framework of the theory- or "and a miracle happens" like the cartoon where the proof has that in it. But, sadly, neither side is willing to own that the theory's wrong and try to find the other answer. There's no more rational thought there than those following a given religion blindly- in fact, I'd contend that it was little more than a religion with the trappings of science wrapped around it.

I would say not. Sony and people defending how they did this might want to try to paint people that way- but it'd be, heh, yet another lie.

They're already offering a printer in the class shown in the "Dreambox" promo video for $1200.

Go to select Staples and buy it. If your Staples isn't one of the select ones, you can have it ordered site-to-store with no shipping from their web site.

I see it being something "useful" for students and people that can't afford that printer- but it's not such the big deal as people are making of it here.

In the cases of most of the lawsuits that Monsanto's filed it's been one of genuine contamination as well- but they sued anyway.

The stuff's nowhere near as "controlled" as they'd like for you to believe.

Sinclair ZX-80 basic and Z-80 assembly on one of the first overseas kits from Sinclair.