You are totally right...I mean except for that part where your entire statement is complete and utter bullshit typed on a computer connected to a network where everything is powered by electricity all thanks to various corporations. Oh and your clean water, your food, and all of that other stuff that you enjoy today in any first world nation. All of these things have basically been delivered by those "parasitic life" corporations.

There are plenty of reasons to be pissed about various corporate behaviors, and plenty of ways to try and control some of the more disturbing abuses of power we have seen. However this "corporations are all evil" neohippie bullshit is the product of mental masturbation by people with too few braincells. But hey, I would much rather live as a permanent peasant under the boots of some totalitarian government given all the powers required to crush those evil corporations...

Hush you! You must be a Fan Boi or something to dare say something that could be construed as non negative about Apple! What kind of irrational freak are you to not demand your cake and eat it too (despite that phrase not making any damned sense in the first place).

Actually pigs do like rolling in the mud. Though it has to do with staying cool and keeping the sun off rather than liking the dirt.

Jailbreak :) I played with an Android a while ago and was not terribly impressed. Exchange and Cisco VPN support were major issues for me and getting that working on an Android was a nightmare. It may be different now, but at the time it was an insane mess. If android gets to a nice "Just Works" level like the iPhone then I can see it offering some serious competition outside of the geek arena. However, the geek arena alone is not exactly a well catered to market that carries much weight.

So you restated what I said with roughly the same point. You don't need GPS. It isn't mandatory. It is a significant advancement over other cars with no GPS. The rusty pinto comment is to illustrate how whiney it is to complain that you didn't get *EVERYTHING* you wanted out of a device that was considerably more advanced than the previously available devices. Welcome to reality, you don't get everything you want just by throwing a tantrum about the people that build stuff. If you want it different, you go out and build it. Use your cash to build the next iPhone killer rather than whining that the current iPhone isn't everything you want. Pretty simple. Hell, what really amuses me is that the iPhone could cause the major carriers to really compete on plan options if they break the exclusive dealing crap. At which point all of the howling about how evil Apple is would actually benefit AT&T a great deal. I don't know about you, but I will take Apples "draconian" behavior over AT&Ts actually pretty draconian behavior. Wiretaps for freedom baby!

Well, I think the point was that before the iPhone there really wasn't much of a sane market for cellphone apps. I totally agree with you on the walled garden crap, but the iPhone was still leaps and bounds ahead of most smart phones at the time. It's like bitching that your brand new shiny sports car doesn't have leather seats and they won't let you put in aftermarket leather seats without voiding the warranty while conveniently forgetting that you were driving a rusty pinto before. Now that other devices are catching up it is putting pressure on Apple to play a little nicer and be less draconian. I don't expect an overnight change since big part of their success is that they can deliver a very simple and identical user experience across the board. The worst part is, that if they just opened the gates for whatever app and a malicious app made it through they would be taking flak from the same people that howl about their strict control of the gate. You know, the same way Microsoft takes so much crap over shitty third party software crashing worse than a heroin addict in rehab. Also, people that don't like them don't have to buy them. However, they seem compelled to go on at length about how that device is evil and doesn't actually meet the needs of the owner and that they know exactly what would meet those needs. You know...kinda the same crap that those companies pay their marketing departments to do. The only real difference is that the marketing company actually knows more about the competing product than what they read on the internet, and they have a vested interest in getting people to switch.

Well sure, but the GP was talking about "liberal" policies stopping military members from doing their jobs right. I'm saying it isn't liberal policies causing the problem. The funny thing is, this Republican bias crap is a relatively recent development. I suspect the driving force was the anti-military behavior of the left leaning civilian populace during Vietnam. It was some of the most divisive weak minded behavior possible. Prior to that military support was fairly united regardless of political leanings. WWI/WWII vets were heroes. The braindead hippie attitude that blames the military instead of the politicians is pathetic. Sadly, it even extends into today serving to keep the military a mostly Republican base. I love listening to these idiots whine about how the military should just not do X, Y or Z thing they don't like. I just calmly explain that what they are asking for is a violation of the constitution. The constitution promises a publicly controlled military, and if the military is doing what it wants instead of what it is told then it isn't publicly controlled. So, effectively, they are demanding a military coup. If that doesn't get their little hippie brain in a panic I ask "And what makes you think that the military, the new owner of all of the power, is going to do what YOU want them to do now that they have been liberated from taking direction from elected leaders?"

Wrong. All of that only applies to civilians. The UCMJ is what makes disparaging remarks made about the officers appointed over you (to include the POTUS) a punishable offense. That is what irritates me. I watched more than a few people get tongue lashings for saying bad things about Bush, and then those same people giving the tongue lashings say some insanely derogatory shit about Obama. This lopsided enforcement basically implies that you aren't allowed to talk bad about Republicans, but others are OK.

Oh pft. That only counts when the wrong person is president. When a Dem is president it is apparently perfectly acceptable to go on long anti-government/presidential rants while wearing the uniform. In fact, as far as I can tell that whole "disparaging remarks" bit is completely reversed when a non Republican is in office. Go ahead and try to report someone saying "someone should just shoot him" through a long chain of people who vocally agree.

It isn't some liberal whining policy nonsense that stopped anyone reporting and any attempt to blame that is just more of the same political scapegoating bullshit. What it was is that those people were spineless no integrity clowns just happy to write a shiny review and pass him off to someone else. God forbid they jeopardize their own ability to make disparaging remarks when they don't agree with their leadership or have to actually show an ounce of leadership ability while dealing with problem troops. Honestly, if those people were paying any attention to anything other then their own self absorbed world they probably could have headed off the problem before Mr nutjob went totally bonkers. I am 100% certain that he had to listen to the same crap I have heard for years. Babbling about kill all the muslims, cheering at civilian casualties, other such disgusting behavior. I had a friend take shit for being an "arab" because he was dark skinned... He was a fucking Hawaiian. There is an identical total lack of leadership in dealing with that kind of crap. We have soldiers of arabic descent that have their lives threatened on a daily basis in the field by the very people who are supposed to be serving with them. If your own team is constantly threatening you, what do you think that will do for unit cohesion? Do you think that guy is ever going to believe they won't just leave him to die somewhere? Maybe they will just kill him and cover it up. A total and complete lack of integrity is tearing the military to ribbons, not some liberal agenda.

Just watch, that kid that supposedly leaked those documents... When it turns out that they include a bunch of dirty dealing of the Big O and Hillary they will be cheering that he is a hero instead of a traitor. However, if it implicates Bush/Cheney then they will still be screaming "off with his head".

That is the point though. There have been many cases of the "justified" back doors being exploited like this. From what I have read, it seems that this latest China business is in fact one of those cases.

I don't know anywhere that officers are assumed to be more responsible. In fact, it is quite well known that the opposite is frequently true, yet they are given more privileges anyways. This is actually all part of morale and unit cohesion. You see, if the officers weren't out screwing things up then the enlisted folk wouldn't have things to bitch about with each other as they fix the screw ups. It is all a clever plot to keep up unit cohesion because in any given unit there are more enlisted people to band together and bitch about the few officers that are in charge of them. If officers weren't there to screw things up there would be much more infighting within a unit as they wouldn't have a common enemy or as much meaningless busywork to keep them occupied. The fact that you aren't allowed to beat them, shoot them, or otherwise maim them allows the pressure to be kept high, where as with real enemies you just shoot them.

This entire arrangement has been maintained for many many years by clever senior enlisted ranks. This is the real reason E-9's tend to get so much more respect than many of the officers roaming about. The Os just get the better treatment so they never think to question their true purpose.

You were saying something about OPSEC in your other post right?

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.