Or the whole Google/China thing being related to the back doors they put in place for law enforcement easy access...

It is disturbing to how quickly people are willing to give up all of their info to Google. Some other points to remember... Google has asked the NSA to come help them secure their network. The conflict of interests there is staggering. For the NSA to succeed at their given mission they rely heavily on insecure systems so they can gather information. They have absolutely ZERO interest in assisting to secure any product that foreign (or domestic) actors are using. Now, they really aren't supposed to be collecting on citizens and all, but if those citizens willingly gave all of the information to someone, and they just happened to see that information while helping that someone "secure their network", that would probably be a pretty different story... Even if no one at Google is actually "in" on it, you can bet your ass that the NSA is going make damned sure that they understand every corner of the Google network and any defenses employed at a bare minimum.

Remember folks. Our very own U.S. Government has that whole Constitution thing that goes MUCH farther in actually defining "Don't Be Evil". Most people easily accept that the U.S. Government has frequently overstepped the boundaries laid out in the Constitution, yet why is it that Google can trot out "Don't Be Evil" and everyone quickly accepts that is enough.

CAPTCHA: Congress - How ironic...

Funny. There was a test for Lupus that was developed, even got FDA approval, and not available to anyone because no Big Pharma company was convinced that it was profitable enough to actually distribute. So much for the big warm fuzzy teddy bear Big Pharma that is out to help people and not suck the cash out of their pockets.

Now, I will agree with you that they do not want anyone dead. Dead people don't buy things. However, neither do cured people. So they want expensive life extending treatments, not cures. This isn't even evil boogeyman conspiracy stuff, it is just good business. Unfortunately, in healthcare, good business is frequently not that beneficial to the patient. Good business is zapping everyone that walks in the door with X-Rays and CT Scans and then treating them for cancer at the end of their life because they have been zapped so many times over the years. You get paid on the zappings AND on the cancer treatments. Win Win baby!

Now, on the subject of ethics. Most of the docs that I have worked with are far more ethical than that. In fact, most of them have donated lots of time and effort to various things. I know a few that routinely do the doctors without borders thing. I know at least one that went to Haiti to assist in the relief efforts. However, there was is also a doc in my area that is known to prescribe more pills himself than some of even the larger practices around here. The drug reps are almost permanent fixtures and they pay for large catered meals for the entire office when they come around. So...all it really takes is a few dirty docs to boost the bottom line considerably.

As for drug reps... I have only been around one that didn't make my skin crawl. He did exactly as you described, and talked about some alternate treatments for children with diabetes rather than just stuffing them full of drugs. All of the rest of them show up with oodles of food and coffee and other such garbage. Hell, the cost of health care would go down considerably if they didn't seem to do so much of their training on cruises and other hot vacation spots.

If that wasn't enough, go examine how the whole patent and FDA process works. They spend oodles of bucks tweaking their existing drugs just enough that they can squeeze out a few studies that show enough of a change that they can qualify for a new patent. But wait! There is more! If the changes are above X% they get a new patent, but below Y% and they can put the drug on the market using the previous FDA approval! That's right, they hit that tiny margin of change and they can rush it to market just in time to compete with the generics that will hit the market from their previous patent all without timely and costly FDA approval process. Who gives a shit about side effects and risks when they can get their drugs on the market at just the right time to keep profits up!

Oh...and just for some real fun... throw Thalidomide Babies into Google and enjoy.

Big Pharma does do a lot for the world in their development of new drugs and treatments, but that good is a side effect. They are a big monster that needs very close scrutiny to keep them from doing some unbelievably dirty things.

Uhm...what price? Less foreigners coming into the country? I don't think you have actually been paying attention. That is EXACTLY what they want. That isn't a "price" that is a "goal". The folks that put most of this psychotic crap into place manage to blame EVERYTHING on a few things. Gays marrying, women working, and foreigners entering the country. The only things they don't specifically blame one of those three issues for they simply pin on those godless liberals for supporting the gays marrying, the women working, and foreigners entering the country.

Government is a scam to tax us... Sure...they sorta provide useful services, but anymore the percentage of their doings, taxings, and spendings as it relates to those things like police, fire departments, roads, is such a tiny fraction of the shit they are actually up to it is pathetic.

Also...it is the defense contractors that you have to worry about screaming "but, the jobs!". Government bailing out defense contractors to save jobs is what Eisenhower warned about and the neocon's have taken it as the guidebook for economic planning. Forever Wars are pretty profitable when you are the guy building the weapons.

Forcing kids to do homework or eat vegetables or stopping drunk drivers, rapists, murders, thieves, genocidal dictators, slave owners/traders, and so on is all morally wrong? To say "almost always" is a little overboard, not that I disagree with the notion you are trying to get across. I just think the situations in which it is not morally wrong to stop someone happen a lot more often than you imply.

In this case...the trouble is that the government is giving verizon special permission in order for them to operate their service (frequency usage, tower locations, etc). Additionally, the whole notion of contracts that one side can unilaterally change at any given time is pretty stupid too.

That said, fraud is one of those things that should be stopped. There are plenty of conmen that tell "the truth" but do it with so much smoke and mirror tapdancing that people still sign up. What you are attempting to do is blame the victim by letting verizon totally of the hook. So...they say it is to help subsidize the phone. Why is it that I would get subjected to the termination fee if I brought my own phone? This also adds to the issue that they claim they recoup the cost of the phone through their rates and the ETF makes up for the people who leave early. Well...why don't I get a lower rate for bringing my own phone? Or why don't I get my rate reduced after I have paid back the subsidized portion of the phone? I am guessing you haven't seen the leaked meetings where they talk about how many billions they make using various fraudulent billing tactics. They force people to burn minutes as they sit through the ever growing "welcome to your verizon voice mail and blah blah blah and blah and blah blah blah pres blah blah blah" messages.

I agree that we shouldn't hire the government to force Verizon to do things against their will. However, calling them out for deceptive and fraudulent bullshit is not the same. (Their argument for why they hide the ETF is that it is 'not important' and they got busted on that when it was decided that big ETFs qualify as materially important pieces of a contract). I think the best solution would actually to slap "users of any service provided using these frequencies cannot be subject to early termination fees or have their service terminated for excessive roaming" in the fine print of the agreements they have with the FCC to even operate. I bet they would scream bloody murder at such a one sided contract change...and then we can tell them "Well you shouldn't have signed anything with the FCC, you could have started your service in the Sahara where there is no FCC."

I bet there will be some good jobs to be had at Umbrella Corp. I can't wait! I hear they have some great underground areas I could hide out in until everything clears up.

There are much cheaper and effective ways to piss off a Republican and it isn't exactly difficult to convince a Republican that your money should be their money. (Ok, to be fair, that last part applies to all politicians, but Republicans are the only ones eager to explain to you that isn't what they stand for while they take the money...not unlike this very case...funny that...)

Hit the fucking power button. Seriously... I haven't had TV in my house for years and I am expected to pay higher taxes because a bunch of whiney little shits can't be bothered to hit the volume, mute, or power buttons? What kind of lazy fucks are we assisting here? Neighbors don't come with a simple set of buttons to adjust their loudness, TVs do, so the two don't even begin to be remotely similar.

Oh and in fact...they have. I know I have seen TVs that attempt to autoadjust to keep the volume at a similar level. I know I have seen hordes of DVRs and the like meant to skip over channels. So the market has already adjusted for this, it is a bunch of lazy whiney fucks that can't be bothered to shell out their own money for the solution and would rather spend mine!

Don't bother trying. "Rar Rar evil Socialists" types don't have the braincells required to understand that, let alone any of the concepts involved. This is evident in the whole "stealing" garbage you have gotten in reply. One of the key pieces is the meritocracy piece that is disconnected from social status, that those who truely excel at what they do are rewarded rather than those who just happened to inherit their position in society.

In practice the ideas fail miserably in any environment where there isn't 100% willing participation. However, the reality is that it is a better system when it does work. I cannot even begin to imagine the dysfunction of a "capitalist" family life. Families behave in very socialist/communist ways and it has worked very well for a very long time. Now, if we could just convince all of those "woo hoo capitalism is always the bestest for everything" types to live that way at home they will die off as their children starve because they were not able to produce anything worth exchanging for food and care.

At the end of the day idiots and zealots cannot disconnect ideas rather than implementation from good/evil. Human sacrifice isn't necessarily evil. Implemented in basements by people with robes and candles and knives and brainwashed victims...yeah...I think we can agree that is probably pretty evil. Implemented on the battlefield by men and women in uniform making willing sacrifices...we give out great honors and medals to people who engage in that kind of sacrifice for their fellow soldiers.

Well, it does make me feel better about the standard groupthink. I would have been really shocked if two whole posts made it through that mentioned Republicans in anything other than a extremely negative fashion. I am afraid the world would simply stop spinning if ultra-partisan garbage ever subsided.

Though, it does make me wonder if there is a form of energy that could somehow be harnessed by causing an interaction between left terminal stupidity and right terminal stupidity. I suspect attempting to harness it may be more dangerous than hanging out naked in a nuclear reactor, but whatever.

My favorite is when I hear die hard lefties explaining the military should just refuse to do XYZ. I just go up and ask "So you think the military should just not do what they were told?" and their empty heads typically start bobbing up and down. Then I explain that if the military is deciding what to do and what not to do that they are actually the ones running the show. That what they are advocating is a military coup. Then I ask them to please visit their local library or book store and go look up how often that goes well for the civilian populace. The reality is that the military must do exactly as told and blaming the military is just a pathetic scapegoating kind of thing. It is their own damned fault for allowing shitty civilians into the positions that are allowed to tell the military what to do.

Our "left" and "right" have diverged into absolute stupidity in extremist positions. Their only plans and "solutions" are kneejerk stupidity in one direction or the other. The sad reality is the only people qualified to sit in those offices are the people who don't want the job.

Well, color me shocked. You just repeated the talking points of a Republican and didn't get modded into oblivion. Even more surprising is that it got a +5 Insightful. I wonder if the groupthink is waning, or if it is that no one knew that Eisenhower was actually a Republican. My guess is most people here didn't know he was a Republican since he sounds so different than the current breed.

For those of you watching at home... Go look up the speech that this came from. The man had no kind words for the military industrial complex and it wasn't just a passing mention. He also had some amazing dialog about what he thinks of the people who would promote the idea of "preemtive war".

I want to build me a frankenPOTUS using Jefferson, Eisenhower, and a handful of others. Maybe then we could get shit back on track.

What nonsense, just apply the .45 patch to their head and they will never have a problem again!

Just like they did with the various copyright extensions and DMCA where they all got together, held hands, sang kumbaya, and then passed them all nearly unanimously...wait...shit... that is the opposite of what you are hoping they do.

I should point out that economists have squat to do with assigning dollar values. Economics is ultimately a study of decision making based on scarcity. If anything it is a field of study that seeks to represent human behavior and decision making using math and graphs.

For all of the intellectual superiority that comes out of slashdot there is a stunning lack of understanding of what economics is and how it works.