'The Cardinal of the Kremlin' spends quite a bit of time on sensory deprivation as both interrogation and the prelude to, well, call it 'brainwashing.'

The way I see it, there's a big difference between prolonging life and prolonging death. In a lot of cases, it's the second one.

And, to be perfectly blunt, doctors need to stop hiding behind the 'do no harm' bit. Most modern medicine involves doing quite a bit of harm, to good effect. Do no harm? So much for surgery. So much for chemotherapy.

I get that it's scary to think that suddenly you are the chooser of the slain. I don't have a good answer for that. But something needs to be done; the system as it is is untenable.

Out of curiosity, what happens when a loved one contests those documents? What happens when your doctor decides that there's a five percent chance you could recover? One percent? .5 percent?

Why make the patient suffer for three days? Why not end it right then and there?

That's a damn fine way of putting it.

The difference between humans and animals is that doctors have industrial-strength pain-killers they will administer to humans. No matter how excruciating the pain, doctors can keep you drugged into a dream world, and can similarly keep you entirely unconscious for an indefinite period. If you could choose your method of departure, being drugged out of your mind on coke would be the near the top of most people's lists, so morphine or similar isn't a bad alternative.

Not so. My grandfather had an interesting thing happen, where his intestine started dying by inches. They tried excising the dying bits, but the rest kept dying too. So, palliative care.

They were quite frank about the fact that he was in enough pain that no painkiller they had would work on him. He was drugged into utter unconsciousness, yet still his face was spasming with pain. Yet when I suggested maybe they just up the dose, they said 'Any more would kill him.' 'Well, doctor,' I said, 'what are his chances?' 'None,' they said. 'He will die within a week. There's nothing we can do.' 'Exactly,' I said. And they looked at me like I was a monster, while they did everything they could to prolong his death. Not his life, his death.

Yet if I treated my dog that way, I'd be up on animal cruelty charges.

So the *signature* piece of Obama's second term agenda -- the legislation he's harped on loudly and constantly -- launches with an epic fail. The contractors working the site were sounding alarms well in advance of the launch. And yet Obama is somehow utterly unaware that the launch could be anything but a total success? I call bullshit. Either Obama is the most disconnected president in recent history when it comes to the success of his *core legislative agenda* or he's just bullshitting about not knowing there were issues on launch day.

Just ask Pelosi: they had to launch the website so they could find out what would crash it.

You're talking about RIDE checks? Don't like it? Don't drive on public roads. You'll never ever encounter one. I, personally, have never had a problem at a RIDE check, cuz I've never driven drunk. And I'm a long-hair who turns down the Slayer as I pull up. They go like this: "Evening, sir. Any alcohol tonight?" "Evening, constable. Nope." "Have a pleasant evening." During this ten second exchange, the constable is vaguely waving a flashlight around through the window, looking for open containers.

...this kind of government idiocy, ineptitude, and invasion of privacy is exactly the same kind of crap we're inviting into our healthcare system. TSA, NSA, DMV...ACA. Yeah, gimme more of that fucked up shit.

I do not think it means what you think it means. Classified documents originate from a classification authority. There is no classification authority within Apple. Classification authorities are within the state and federal government. While Apple is large (and last I heard had more money than the federal reserve), that doesn't mean they can classify documents :)

Now, there can be trade secrets, that's an entirely different thing. :)

Or, to restate: "Work for free, or you're fired. Either way, you're not getting paid."

It's a real bad road to start to go down.

No, but being forced to work with no pay is incorrect as well.

Being fired for failing an assignment? Fine. Contracted work with milestones and what not, with per-completion payment? No problem.

Government telling people that they will work, for free? Bad juju.

Nah, it's just that American politicos are wimps. Plenty of parliaments around the world have brawls, and even in the good old days, senators were known to beat down opponents.

It would also be unconstitutional. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out why. Here's a hint: check amendments.

...but good luck finding another sucker willing to take his place. The USS Blackberry has been sinking for a long time now. Nothing and nobody is going to save it. Whoever takes the helm at this point will preside over the dissolution of the company, not its revival.