It would work better if you identify weak minded first and then only weed them out but I guess it works either way.

As if Class A narcotics weren't available in the UK when these excuse-stuffed buffoons did have unimpeded access to everyone's private communications.

I am sure it was pushed - maybe somebody rebased it out of existence tho....

Quite frankly I agree with you - I have a bad taste in the mouth and pain in the lower back of my body every time I think about the way corporations are good for us. Yet there is nothing small that can prevent corporations suck you dry. There have been solutions that worked:

1. being part of cooperatives
2. state
3. being an owner

The last solution is by design not possible for everybody. The solution no1 does not always work. State on the other hand is the only force that helps capitalism kind of work. Without state there is only tribal warfare like in Somalia. It is of course true that the state in its different forms failed us many more times that it helped - sometimes because design was flawed, sometimes because bigger state invaded (US has a good record at invading, Russia for instance much less rosy). Some state/societies managed to destroy basis on which their livelihoods were based. All modern functioning states, over their and their predecessors history, had the state intervention as a basis for their success. This intervention was usually not complete, not as overwhelming as in the case of say NK but it was there.
You can of course argue that EU and its drive for power is sick and makes us all sick. I can buy this argument albeit I disagree that this is the only effect of EU on our lives and economy - there are also positive ones. I think however if not EU our arses would be as painful as they are now.

I had a 'chick' and she took all my money. The other 'chicks' were only slightly better and still left me with less money. Just about the only ones that were kind of OK comparing with the rest were hookers because they charged a fee for time used and (mostly) did not increase it during that admittedly short period of time. That leads me to the conclusions that 'chicks for free' do not really exists.

Technology is just a tool it is a hard heart that kills.
This is true for rifles and true for any other technology. As for guns - there are countries where a junta owns it all as much as it does in US of A and yet the murder rate is significantly lower. There are countries where average income is much lower than in US of A and where societal tensions are handled mostly without use of violence and growth in prison industry. Shall I continue?
Still the fact is the same in US as it is in Germany: globalization, progress in logistics, technology but also mrket saturation leads to situation where wages and salaries stagnate and eventually fall. This does not have to be a bad thing in itself as long people have something meaningful to do (not poverty but luck of stimuli is a significant factor for massive drug abuse it seems) and have hope for the future. Every generation had an existential challenge to resolve except maybe the one that is going into pension now. It would be odd if a good ride went on forever.

embalming?

Where I live they clean up, cloth up and bury the dead. Sometimes we go for a celebration with family and close friends. Burial house gets its share of money anyway. You can save on quality of coffin and some such. You still need a burial house to bury or otherwise process the remains. There is usually a place where some speeches are done and/or people can say g'd riddance to the dead - they can skip that too and save on it, while streaming burning of remains (direct from furnace for additional fee). From this perspective I do not see why would anybody in the industry worry about this - if at all, this is an opportunity for additional fees (e.g. camera in the furnace etc).

I can hardly believe that sometimes too, but sometimes people have real concerns and do their job as well as they can. Maybe there are places where this is different and mostly driven by profit (Murica comes to mind) but I suspect, that this is a general human thing, so there are plenty of folks everywhere, that can combine profit drive with honesty, hard work and respect for others. This hardly applies to international companies and I would be hard pressed to name a corporation that does that (not at the levels above production floor).

The exact predictions of course do not exist because, with current level of knowledge, they cannot be done. It has been said however, that number of extreme conditions will increase and it did although possibly not in US. It is of course appropriate politically to talk about single aspect of huge and complex thing and pick an exceptional area as US surely is and then claim - 'lies and bad science' as the GP did.
Arguing with this lot is pointless. Not because we know all about how weather patterns change and why, but because the nut cases do - there is a huge number of them out there claiming, that burning fossil fuels at steadily increasing pace and cutting the forests of the world does not make any difference at all because they 'know' weather does not change or if it does, it is some external force, we cannot control, thus nothing can be done and we shall not even think if we have something to do with it and/or more importantly, if we can do anything about it.

It is not bakshish that is stopping doctors from prescribing generic in this case. It is rather the law on what is to be prescribed - generics if the same branded drug exists. If you stop production of old drug on which patent expired and started production and marketing of a new slightly different under different brand then this rule does not apply, generic makers lose out market share and new brand which is only slightly different from older one (as you suggest) can make bigger profits again. BTW: the issue as per linked articles is not with lack of profits (they made more than a billion on this drug alone last year) but production facilities (or so they say). If they cannot produce the shit then they should release the old patent - sell it to generic maker or make it free for what I care. That is not what they want - they aim at market share to maximize profit. This would be OK in anything else or rather it would go unnoticed but in medicine costs are so high and demand is forced by suffering of patients, that this makes courts decide so. In other words court does not think company should be in business of riding IP laws but in making and selling medicine.
This is a sidetrack but still important one I think. The way free market was alleged to function is to provide cheapest goods for the customers and biggest profits for the businesses. That is inherent conflict that no market can resolve as big profit is there only for limited time and product becomes cheap over time. Companies ride the patent war to increase profit knowing very well that patients are forced to take medications by their suffering. Come to think of it unholy aliance of IP rigihst and privatized healthcare is worse than racket schemes mafias of different origins have run trough cities of the world since ?

First of all the 'no profit' argument that is used here is a wrong - the company still makes a profit in this particular medicine and decision to stop production was made only to stop generic makers from being able to continue from the point the patent expires.
This said one can imagine that (possibly oversimplified) analysis of options available to company and society (and its arm called state) gives: either produce the drug till patent expires or if you cannot then you declare bankruptcy and pass over to for instance: generic producers (which as per actions and motivations of the company were just waiting for it anyway).
So all the bollocks about what the owners have to do is pointless. They are not obliged to do anything under normal conditions. Possibly a court can force them to do things like it does to us all to follow the laws, pay taxes, serve in the army if need be etc. But I think we are far from that point as the drug still brings money.

I still think that US is exceptional. All other nations use torture in a way that is less effective and not done according to scientific standard. I see millions of US taxpayers money spent effectively for a change. Looking at the opponents of the greatest nation (that would be almost everybody else except maybe UK but who knows what future brings) we can see that their torture chambers are just fun places made up for power trips of their sponsors unless of course they are rented by US authorities because standard scientific methods of extended interrogation do not suffice to satisfy the needs of said authorities.
What was the reason US republic was grounded again? Was it oppression and no justice of corrupted regimes of old continent or just taxes? I guess it was just taxes.

Wait a minute. They forced pureed food into detainees butts, in one case causing severe tearing and prolapse.

But hey, this Anonymous Coward says that's not brutality so we can all go back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Seriously, fuck you.

Saw OwnCloud in the title, stopped by to say that it is EXCELLENT. One of the most exciting (new) packages to hit open source in many years. Some things I use mine for:

Syncing OneNotes across multiple devices - 2 PCs, a Mac and a phone.
Automatic file sync (with binaries for Mac, Win & Linux)
Publishing documents to clients
Contacts & Calendar sync across multiple devices
WebDAV file shares offer native access for Mac, Windows and Linux.
... In a seriously slick interface with fairly simple and flexible deployment.

Seriously, can't recommend it enough. This reminds me, I should get back to submitting my patch for LibreOffice Spreadsheet previews..

Considering that ex is wearing one I should be able to agree but I have a problem with this because so many people wear them these days. I consider most of humanity slightly more intelligent than a earthworm but general standard of stupidity are much lower than mine so only some tatooed people are in fact of substandard intelligence. In general I was thought at home and confirmed that myself in life - judging people on basis of their clothing is bound to yield wrong results and people relying on such attributes are usually bad or stupid persons themselves.

Well there can be an argument for homeopathy and it can go as follows. For most of the patients coming to practitioners the best option is actually wait and see and treat only if body does not cope with common cold on its own going into complications. prescribing antibiotics makes no health sense if you have common cold but it does make financial sense for a doctor - the legal costs from malpractice charges fall away. If so one can argue it would be better to prescribe homeopathic stuff instead of antibiotics. Granted it is annoying being forced to listen to blabbering of people about how good homeopathic stuff is but it is sometimes good to have something that 'helps' /- being a parent is not always easy....