It's not just to race. There's quite a bit more to the Registries than that.

Let's see... It's to...

- Race.
- Show in Working Cow
- Show in Cutting
- Show in Ranch Sorting
- Looking for specific characteristics for a horse for the task you're looking at one for.

There's a whole host of things. Say, for example, you want to get a good-to-awesome Cutting horse to do real cattle work with. You're not going to just buy a horse and hope for the best (though some do...)- you're going to go look at who's won out of the registry roles for that breed and then look for horses that tie back to those bloodlines. A clone kinda will work for that, but it really muddies up the whole registry.

The main reasoning they have for this is to have a clone for a major producer under their own control (hint: Cloning a horse is rather expensive, really...quarter of a million) or if one were to die due to old age or accident to have a "backup" of something like Rocking Rodder or King so they can continue showing and breeding a prize stallion.

Honestly, I'd love to have a "backup" of my $500 gem (She took the first-ever Arabian Horse Association Youth Nationals in the Half-Arabian division and is 2012's Reserve National Champion- I bought her as a minimum bid at one of the big Arabian Horse auctions... Oh, little did they know about her... :-D )- but I can't see where it's a monopoly to exclude them like the Judge and the Jury saw it. The registry's purpose is to verify and certify parentage (A clone has but one "parent"- the animal being cloned) and to manage things like competitions. The rules state a purebred foal/horse is one of two purebred parents, a dam and a sire, a mare and a stallion. A clone doesn't HAVE that. Genetically, it's a purebred, so long as you're not genesplicing it as well- and how do you prove that one out?

There's a mess there and it's not something where the decision is a good one. Worse, the suit was brought by a group of individuals that are really solely doing it for financial gains- they're involved with one of the main companies doing the horse cloning. It wasn't a case of someone wanting to clone a Rocking Rodder...it was a case of the bunch doing the cloning to open the floodgates for their business.

Actually, Medicare's out of touch with reality.

It's bureaucrats determining what is medically necessary and when they do how much they're willing to pay for it so that they can cover their own *sses and make their budgets look "good" so they can get more from Congress.

Supplying the device? I don't think so. It'd probably injure you. Honest.

It's not just insurance companies, lawyers, and big pharma to blame. You fingered a solid part of the cause and then you go and blame insurance companies (which are part of the problem, but not the root cause...they typically only pay 30% over what Medicare pays- and typically, they'd have paid only $25, not $35- that's more the private insurance payout in most cases...)- go for one of the root causes. Big pharma just simply comes out of your pockets in most cases and not out of the doctor's hide. Not so sure about the malpractice story. Some of this is legitimate. Much of it isn't. Thing is...could you tell? Could anyone else? In the end, what you're seeing is government regulation causing a LOT of these woes.

Try a little different line there and you'd have it.

Private insurance typically pays out 30% of what Medicare pays out.

Medicare pays out 25-30% maximum in most cases with a few exceptions like powered wheelchairs for the disabled. They don't do dental. They don't do vision.

Tell me again that it's JUST the for-profit industry...

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.