Tell me, with all this and the news of the massive NSA metadata trolling (even outsourcing to private companies), can anyone explain to me why U.S. veterans are waiting for years just to have their medical claims even looked at let alone processed in even the smallest way?

Anyone? Anyone at all?

Yea I hear that, it's like he just follows the narrative and accepts the conclusion! And he implies he's media savvy too. lol

[Dr. Evil Voice] Yeeaaaa riiiiiiight.

Remember kids, if WE do it it's to fight terrorism. When someone ELSE does it they are bad, bad people.

rotfl! I mean really? Really? Sure, smaller companies thrive on this sort of socialized creative commons. It's how ANY creative enterprise is actually innovative. Steve Jobs and Woz didn't do it all themselves, the collective hobby culture they were plugged into stimulated everything that they created. But, once anyone creates something that sells, the corporate 'buy out' crowd shows up (I'm looking at you Bill Gates!) and the CEOs take control. Of course everyone here is aware just how corporations swallow everything, so they can own it. That's their reason for existing.

The driving force of our consumer culture isn't innovation, it's markets. Corporations sometimes, in desperation, might spend some cash to fund innovative creation but why the fuck would creators just work-for-hire and give up their creations to their bosses? In the market place many are well aware that the creative, innovative business model functions for only as long till a corporation comes and buys it. That's the model! That's how most start-ups see their end game.

Besides, corporations often just wait for the government funded research to innovate so they can get that for a song, if not free, and then create that market. That's how computers and the Internet came to us in the first place.

imho, of course.

Everyone is going on and on about why this is happening and isn't this stupid. Well, if you want answers, follow the money. Who had the money and influence to make this happen in the first place? Who will make money off this in the future? After all, most of the money flowing around American public schools is corporate privatization efforts that use any and all ugly politics and fear to make a buck.

You don't really believe that they just made a mistake and didn't inform the parents until a week later, do yas?

Just to start yas off, Stanley Convergent Security Solutions has so many tentacles in government and corporate interests they make Bond villains look like amateurs.

My FUD-o-meter just went into the red.

Capitalism, the conservative definition - The free competition of business... except when we don't like it.

Yea, there was never an "Al Qaeda" as the media and government defines it - As a world-wide organization of Islamist terrorists. The CIA came up with the term to describe it's recruits, etc. (mostly from Saudi Arabia) in the Afghanistan war against the Soviet invasion.

Just a thought, but, I'm a bit amazed at the large scope of this. That's a lot of data that's just disappeared and can be sold on the black market. And by black market I mean, ya know, the market. Now, reading a little of the history of this company (even Wiki has an alarming review of the game and the company) and especially the companies leaders one wonders if perhaps they just didn't give a damn. Or... something else.

Reminds me of the economist/criminologist William Black, who said that the best way to rob a bank is to be a banker.

Because here we have yet another slashdot post of an issue that is completely germane to the Internet and technology world and culture yet there isn't a Conservative here who hasn't used it as an opportunity to troll the ideological 'talking points' that roll out of the Republican echo chamber.

Obama is a socialist... in spite of the Dims having the same economic policy as the Gips since 1992.
The New York Times is liberal propaganda... as if there is such thing as a liberal mainstream media.
Taxes are going up... sure, for the poor, whom conservatives universally condemn as parasites while corporations paid nothing, at all!

All of which is OT. Oh, that's Internet talk for Off Topic! I didn't want the guys in the boiler room to be confused. ;p

You mean a climate study (that is critical of aaalll the other scientists in the world who have been screaming things have, thanks to VERY recent evidence in the last few years not to mention last year which saw huge droughts, storms, and heat (Australia had to come up with a new colour for their frickin'
  weather map it was so hot), gotten far, far worse), from the Norway who's entire economy derives from oil?

What a co-inky-dink.

And I'm the one with the 'tin foil hat'???

approachingZero wrote; "they couldn't have done anything to shitcan the US economy any more effectively than seeing Obama reelected."

And, my favorite; "the Persians"

First... the Persians??? lol! And, it's Obamas fault? He's in league with (ppfft hahahaa) Iran!?! Oh sry, Persians(!?!). Dude, the economy (that is the entire Western economy) tanked in 2008, that's BEFORE Obama ever saw the inside of the White House. It was only FOUR FUCKING YEARS AGO. The nation, at the time, was being run by someone else. Wonder who that guy was... can't remember...

I could be crazy but I reckon Irans oil has been desired by the West for decades. And it's important to China, Russia, etc. You have a glut pal? Well good for you. What's that costing us per gallon? Glut you say? What? Sorry, I can't hear you through my tin foil hat.

I found this from the article typical; "It's fascinating that Iran continues to do nothing more despite the fact that U.S. critical infrastructure currently has the defensive posture of a dog waiting for a belly rub. Keep that in mind the next time you hear that a 'cyber Pearl Harbor' is imminent."

Rubbish! Will not happen. Thinking... the Iranians aren't stupid? Just a guess but if you are being attacked by the most powerful empire the Earth has ever seen, it's something you just put up with. DOSS attacks in retaliation for the most technical cyberattack yet goes to show they know what they're up against. Everyone in the West seems to think that Iran will bring the 'cyber Pearl Harbour' while AT THE SAME FRICKIN' TIME describing the Stuxnet attack and others which, especially considering these attacks hit a NUCLEAR station, is itself a Pearl Harbour moment. Just not in the US. The fact is US policy is to attack Iran, presumably to trick it into an offensive action and providing a window for the US to attack the oil rich nation (brinkmanship gentlemen). The US has already murdered Iranian scientists, bombed Iranian citizens, and flown spy-drones over Iran. All flat out war-crimes.

Reading US fears of Iranian threats is flippin' hilarious.

Sooo when this story first appeared and I pointed out bogus weed studies are a dime a dozen, especially from any nation anywhere near Scandinavia, and everyone scoffed at me, I gotta wonder if anyone is now willing to concede this sorta thing goes on all the time AND is a waste of Slashdot space?

The only significant study on weed I've seen in a looong time is one from the NIH. It's significant because no one the the US has done any inquiry into medical uses of weed since the 60s or so. The study had a small paragraph suggesting that weed can stifle cancer growth in cells. Wish I had a link but it was a couple of years ago.