Well, from my own experience, our healthcare flat SUCKS. Maybe I am not rich enough to get to enjoy the 'speed of our healthcare.' Maybe I just have a bitchass HMO, but I had a high priced PPO and it was no different. The insurance companies that are for profit are telling the doctors what to do and when they can do it.

Let's see - a broken bone that 3 doctors couldn't seem to diagnose (they didn't want to do new x-rays) but that I KNEW existed....leading to death of the bone....then 9 more years of begging someone to x-ray it or something because it hurt....then 6 months after I finally got the freaking x-ray to be able to get an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon...then... through 2 years of 'prescribed conservative treatment' when my doctor knew immediately what my problems were and wanted to do surgery. I couldn't have the surgery until I ran on the conservative treatment treadmill for 2 years, during which time, the conservative treatment that the HMO prescribed actually exacerbated my RLS, which is now so very severe and my nerve damage so extensive that they say I cannot have the surgery that I needed to start with and it would not work NOW anyway.

So here I am with a neurological disorder from HELL that compels me to walk to relieve the pain and I can't even freaking walk.

So, I just can't see how a person could hate the US's wonderful healthcare system as much as I do. IT DOESN'T FREAKING WORK and it costs out the ASS!

RE: The New Yorker: The Moral Hazard Myth

] While it's important to respect your children's privacy,
] understanding what your teenager's online slang means and
] how to decipher it is important as you help guide their
] online experience. While it has many nicknames,
] information-age slang is commonly referred to as
] leetspeek, or leet for short.

Wow.

Best quote:

] It's important to remember that the leetspeek community
] encourages new forms and awards individual creativity,
] resulting in a dynamic written language that eludes
] conformity or consistency.

Microsoft at their most transparently self serving:

] Their use could be an indicator that your teenager is
] involved in the theft of intellectual property, particularly
] licensed software.

:-o

OMG lolol MS needs to get a grip!

Microsoft guide to l33t speak.

k wrote:

In a sign of growing lawlessness, Tenet HealthCare Corp. asked authorities late Wednesday to help evacuate a fully functioning hospital in Gretna after a supply truck carrying food, water and medical supplies was held up at gunpoint.

"There are physical threats to safety from roving bands of armed individuals with weapons who are threatening the safety of the hospital," said spokesman Steven Campanini. He estimated there were 350 employees in the hospital and between 125 to 150 patients.

Tempers flared elsewhere across the devastated region. Police said a man in Hattiesburg, Miss., fatally shot his sister in the head over a bag of ice. Dozens of carjackings were reported, including a nursing home bus. One officer was shot in the head and a looter was wounded in a shootout. Both were expected to survive.

We've reached postapocalyptic.

One of the police chiefs said there are rapes happening inside the Superdome. There are reports of gangs of armed men walking the streets raping women. People shooting at helicopters. This thing you just reported.

This disaster has been a wake-up call to me. Your best bet in a disaster for your survival is guns and ammo. The government is not going to protect you.

I've also read where National Guard troops threatened to kill a group of people who broke into a kitchen looking for food. If you're starving in that cess-pool, what would you do? I'd do the same thing. People looting for TV's, fine, shoot to kill. Looting for food? It's going to go bad anyway. Might as well let it nourish someone.

I predict the sale of guns will increase greatly in the next month.

RE: Superdome evacuation suspended because of fires and gunshots

What started as a sale turned into a mob scene as thousands of people pushed their way through the Richmond International Raceway gates to buy a $50 iBook laptop computer from Henrico County Schools this morning.

Just wait until it's oil, or food, instead of laptops.

I bet at least half of them were eBay sellers.

Mob scene, several hurt in rush for cheap laptops

Initially, Cisco and ISS were happy with Lynn presenting his research result. They changed their minds at the last minute. Lynn gave an interview to Wired that talks about some of the details; I am impressed with his integrity in this matter.
 . . .
I can't imagine the discussions inside Cisco that led them to act like thugs. I can't figure out why they decided to attack Michael Lynn, BlackHat, and ISS rather than turn the situation into a public-relations success. I can't believe that they thought they could have censored the information by their actions, or even that it was a good idea.

High praise for Abaddon's integrity, and a well-deserved criticism of Cisco's actions, from the crypto-luminary Bruce Schneier in this month's issue of Crypto-Gram.

Crypto-Gram: Bruce Schneier on the Cisco/ISS Story

Have you ever rifled through your socks drawer to find only three socks. One green, one blue and the other yellow? Where did the other one go? Unfortunately these lonely socks are usually thrown away like a piece of rubbish. :(

We're all too embarrassed to walk into Marks and Spencer and ask for one sock. This is the true motivation behind the site. To reunite socks with their long lost partners.

Such a noble cause

We don't match socks. I buy everyone in this house plain white socks, of all the same brand, and they just go in a basket - they always match and it doesn't matter if one gets a whole or not. I refuse to spend time mating socks.

Reuniting socks

Burger Kings new PR campaign. It begs the question, is their advertising executive out of the loop, or do they just not care that their slogan is COCK ROCK!?

ANyway, a bit of humor in these troubled times....

Oh man - someone is SO stuck in the 80's.

Coq Roq

This is an annoyingly short article about how Mike is now getting probed by the FBI because of ISS.

Mike Lynn Is Being Investigated by the FBI

In the wee hours of this morning, the house voted to extend and make permanent fourteen provisions of the sixteen provisions that make up the US Patriot Act.

Surely Ben Franklin is achieving in excess of 10,000 RPM as he spins in his grave.

-- Catonic

Patriot Act Extended

read this later

Looks interesting. Thanks.

Covert Channels in the TCP/IP Protocol Suite