Just so you know, in my other response to you, I read your post the same way. You objection was that anyone could walk up and get treatment. The appearance was you were offended that they were able to get treatment at all. This message says you're offended if they don't have to pay for their mandatory treatment. That makes more sense to me. I think you should be sure to include that in future posts on this topic :)

I don't understand this argument, and yeah I've heard the same thing on the airwaves. But the only conclusion I can come up with is that you and other conservatives don't want to allow illegal immigrants access to the emergency room if they need it. Or even worse, if I'm in a head on collision with a drunk driver and the paramedics weren't able to find my wallet in the wreckage, the hospital won't be able to verify my citizenship and therefore I don't get treatment.

Now it boggles the mind that anyone would actually argue that, but I've also come to realize that a lot of people are so angry about illegal immigration that they will go to any length to make life here as horrible as they can for them. It's not that I agree with illegal immigration either. We have national borders and crossing those borders illegally should be considered a criminal act. However, I'm also a humanitarian. Even native criminals get to have medical treatment. And, yes, they get to go to the emergency room. So, if you agree that crossing the border is a criminal act, then you should treat illegal immigrants the same way we treat other criminals.

And no medical treatment for foreign visitors who are here legally? Are you kidding me? If you're visiting Spain and have a heart attack, you'd rather be forced to endure an international trip back to the US to get treatment? That's beyond the pale.

If you want illegal immigration reform, we should wait until that is the actual item on the agenda. Health reform is about insurance reform. Illegal immigration reform, which is badly needed, will be taken up later. This is obviously an attempt to hijack the agenda by using people concerned about illegal immigration to undermine the work for health reform. I'd just recommend that you and Joe Wilson cool down and keep your eye on the ball. I just hope that when illegal immigration reform does happen that people like you will have enough decency to treat people here illegally humanely. And by humanity I just mean that tiny bit of positive respect that we give, or at least ought to give people, even our worst enemy. I don't see illegals as our enemy either, but as rather desperate criminals who are escaping the hell that Mexico has become. It is just like a thief who steals in order to feed his family. He is still a criminal and has broken the law. But to say that because he's a thief he doesn't deserve medical treatment is beyond the pale, in my opinion.

Hello. Could you speak at our next TEA Party meeting about your ideas. I think the word needs to get out.

Thanks!

That's hilarious. "Peaceful riot"--what kind of doublespeak is this? :) I could make a political point here, but that would be too obvious. Everyone make up your own witty comment bringing out the irony here. As for myself, I'll just point at you and say, "Hah hah!"

The "scratch your own itch" isn't the recommended problem-solving strategy. Rather, it is meant to express the motivation that free/open source developers have for writing free software in the first place. Another reason is ideology--that all software ought to be free.

But, yeah, "scratching an itch" is what has yielded the crazy situation we have today with free software.

Spend more time configuring their settings than getting work done? Or, in the worst case, trying to get GNOME to mimic some bizarre configuration they had set up in fvwm for 20 years. There are benefits to the Out of Your Way Interface (OYWI) that many power users don't understand.

Okay, I killed my mod points just to reply to you.

Just to tell you that I've wondered about the same thing. It's wildly entertaining and interesting that a big oil company thought it was interesting enough to ask about it :) I think I saw a Wikipedia article about some interplanetary space route that takes very little energy to navigate across the solar system, provided you were willing to wait a long time.

Someday...I bet it will happen. Unless we give up on space entirely.

Because I don't want a table piece, I don't want a fashion statement, I don't want an appliance. I want something I can make into my own. If technology is too expensive, I'll be afraid to hack it. This is the number one reason why netbooks are so popular among geeks, no matter how much snobbish Mac users and Wired writers hate it. It's not because netbooks are super great products, but because we're not afraid to hack them, we're not afraid of them breaking. If it breaks, we'll buy a new one, or even several. And that's why we hate proprietary cell phones where the manufacturer controls the device even after you own it. If I can't hack it then it's dead to me.

Hear hear! +1 :)

Then how will I be able to subscribe to the power station's live Twitter feed?

Wow, just imagine. All the taste and good judgment that went into this 7 Sins campaign put on television for millions to watch!

I think I'll die of embarrassment.

I was thinking more in lines of "natural disaster", so that the weather service can send everyone within a county a text message that there's a tornado warning.

But odds are, this will be used so that the grocery store next door to the shoe store you're shopping in can tell you about their sale on bread.

This is why I don't like the "unfair advantage" argument against using steroids in sports, because it really is a slippery slope, as nearly any advantage can be construed as being "unfair" (since not everyone has access to such advantage). My problem with steroids has always been that the advantage comes at a health cost, or at least a health risk; a risk that athletes shouldn't have to take to do well in their sport. If this lady has a natural hormonal imbalance that gives her an advantage, then I have nothing against it, especially if it doesn't harm her.

Name one sport where the winners aren't determined by "unfair advantages"?

Ask people about the space program. They say it's expensive, dangerous, and pointless. They are wrong on all counts, but that doesn't stop them from giving their opinion.

Democracy. Don't you love it?

You know, thanks to your post I finally figured out what those "I'm a Mac...I'm a PC" commercials are about. I think since Apple switched to Intel, they were afraid, and probably still are, that they would be seen as just another brand of computer. The purpose isn't to make people think Macs are better than PCs, but to make people think they are Different!

I'm going to call them Apple PCs from now on :)