- THINKING ABOUT REMOVING BILL O'REILLY FROM MY TiVo SEASON PASS LINEUP
- Progressive Socialist Democrat Frank Pallone tells Obamacare hearing: It's a monkey court
- California Corruption: Want to see how the California's progressive socialist democrats really do business behind closed doors?
- OBAMA: LITERALLY RAMPING UP THE PAIN: FDA PROPOSES RESTRICTIONS FOR COMMON PAINKILLERS
- CAN YOU TRUST VERIZON WITH YOUR LIFE OR PERSONAL AND PRIVATE HEALTHCARE DATA? THE RISE OF THE REMOTE ASSASSIN?
THINKING ABOUT REMOVING BILL O'REILLY FROM MY TiVo SEASON PASS LINEUP Posted: 26 Oct 2013 01:44 AM PDT Bill O’Reilly is, in all likelihood, one of the best, most prolific, and self-contained host/writer/producer/directors in the business. That being said, I am finding the repetitiveness of his presentations, and his feigned humbleness as a “simple man” looking out for “the folks” wearing thin. As is his rotating crop of regular talking heads. Not to mention the constant self-promotion of himself, his tschokes, his concert engagements, and his books. His social commentary segments with Greg Gutfeld, Bernard McGuirk, Dennis Miller, and Adam Carolla are amusing, but inane (the word of the day). I find myself comparing O’Reilly’s program with that of newcomer Megyn Kelly who was given Sean Hannity’s timeslot. I find her smart, engaging, and willing to fight as hard to get a truthful answer as Bill O’Reilly. But the quality of her guests, questions, and the follow-up questions surpasses what I am currently seeing on the O’Reilly program. Especially in the Catholic-related rants involving Christmas and Christians. Therefore, I am thinking of eliminating O’Reilly from my TiVo Season Pass. -- steve  |
Progressive Socialist Democrat Frank Pallone tells Obamacare hearing: It's a monkey court Posted: 25 Oct 2013 01:59 PM PDT If you ever wanted to see a dysfunctional government in action, look no further than the hearing chamber of any congressional committee. Not only are stupid and incompetent members of congress speechifying for the cameras, they are asking nonsensical questions that they themselves do not even understand. And, when they receive a coherent, cogent answer, they rarely follow-up and reply with more speechifying and another inane question. Remember this is not a court of law – although you can be held in contempt, if such a thing is even possible in this circus, or prosecuted for perjury – so do not expect any rules of evidence or even any semblance of order or sanity. See progressive socialist democrat Frank Pallone make a mockery out of partisan proceedings that will never arrive at the truth – even by accident … What is the truth … As he former Chief Technologist of Interactive Computer Corporation, I can tell you that the reason for the system failure stems from the selection of vendors on political grounds, a design influenced by stakeholders that have little comprehension of their own jobs, let alone a digital system – in many cases simply trying to automate a paperwork model, specifications and change orders that change hour-by-hour, inadequate time for the development, phasing, integration, and testing of key code components, a reliance on integration partners might not be able to deliver on their portion of the project, and a management that wants to hide the truth from their superiors. Short answer: a clusterfuck not managed by a competent manager with the overall authority and decision-making power to say “no” to the political hacks and asshats who are trying to gain recognition by claiming membership in the design team. Can it be fixed? Most certainly. If these asswipes simply went to Amazon.com and asked them to build-out an existing shopping cart mechanism that would allow the purchase of insurance products based on a front-end selection module, all would be well with the world. All of the security and other backend infrastructure would exist and the integration using APIs (application programming interfaces) would be relatively easy. After all – a procedural call to a credit card company for verification is similar to a call to the social security administration for verification of a social security number, or a procedure call to the IRS to verify tax return data. The biggest design flaw was an overly ambitious shopping experience that demanded the user first create an account and provide personal information to simply look at sample plans. Not exactly a wise decision considering that all of the complexity could have been integrated into the back-end when the user decided to purchase insurance. In the case that the verifications were done “after the fact,” the transaction could have been placed in “suspended” mode and correct information solicited from the user before retrying the transaction. Bottom line … Hundreds of millions of dollars siphoned off into the ether with little or nothing to show for the expenditure seems to be the signature move of most large government projects. Especially under the incompetent and inept leadership of the Obama Administration. -- steve Reference Links … Opening Statements:
Witnesses:
 |
Posted: 25 Oct 2013 11:24 AM PDT Here is a prime example of governmental corruption, undue influence, and extortion perpetrated by some of California’s top progressive socialist democrats …
Bottom line … There is little doubt in my mind that California’s corrupt progressive socialist democrats are bleeding the taxpayers for their personal and political benefit. Including excessive support of corrupt unions that seem to have a stranglehold on California politics. Many of those involved are minority public officials who seem to have more allegiance to the sovereign country of Mexico than they do to the citizens of California. And, these are the people who want to increase their political power base by opening borders, granting amnesty to illegal aliens, and greatly enlarging the size and scope of a centrally-planned government by granting growing entitlements to the poor and perks to the privileged to secure campaign funds and voter support. When are these people going to be arrested and jailed for corruption? When are these people going to be denied the opportunity to file amended documents retroactively or plead to lower charges without substantial fines and the possibility of jail time? When are the people in California – especially the liberals – going to realize that they are enabling a corrupt kleptocracy. -- steve  |
OBAMA: LITERALLY RAMPING UP THE PAIN: FDA PROPOSES RESTRICTIONS FOR COMMON PAINKILLERS Posted: 25 Oct 2013 08:40 AM PDT If it sounds familiar, it is is because the current thinking of the Obama Administration parallels gun control – screw over a majority of law-abiding citizens in pain to try a curtail a relatively few miscreants who abuse drugs. Not that the legitimate drug makers do not ship tons of drugs legally to countries like Mexico, only to see these drugs return illegally to the United States. Not that drug manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacists would turn their back on greatly increased pricing and profits for relatively generic drugs using the proposed government regulations as an excuse. The government is already threatening doctors who appear to overprescribe – in the eyes of the government – pain medications to an aging population with more painful ailments. From the social engineering Obamacons at the Food and Drug Administration …
Bottom line … The government, once again, is attempting to insert themselves between the doctor and their patient in a matter beyond the control of most doctors. It should be noted that most doctors are not prosecuted for drug-related offenses and that the state medical associations are reluctant to publicly identify doctors going through drug treatment or diversion programs; even though they represent a clear and present danger to the public. The great majority of drug users are not addicts and do not get high from taking prescription painkillers. If anything, it provides the relief that they need to actually go to sleep. If you want to pursue the futile, mismanaged, and crazy war on drugs … go after drug dealers and abusers with a mandatory stint in confined rehab. I wonder how the progressive socialist democrat Hollywood community, a significant abuser of prescription drugs of the type mentioned above, will react … after all it is their problem that contributes to the pain and suffering of America, Perhaps why they are progressive socialist democrats as they are too self-absorbed or drug-addled to think for themselves. -- steve  |
Posted: 24 Oct 2013 05:16 PM PDT Verizon seeks to be a major data management player in the healthcare arena … Addressing yet another critical issue faced by the U.S. healthcare system, Verizon Enterprise Solutions today announced the immediate availability of Converged Health Management, a remote patient-monitoring medical platform designed to help clinicians and patients manage patients’ health in between doctor visits. Verizon’s system is insecure by government mandate and design … CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) specifies that all communications carriers modify their hardware/software systems to allow government to access the private and personal communications of individuals. But, given the unprecedented, warrantless access to personal and private communications provided by Verizon to the government, one wonders if it is prudent to trust any common carrier with health-related information that can be conveyed to the government without the knowledge of an individual.
Even though Verizon claims HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)compliance which deals with the security of healthcare information … there are no real guarantees.
Unfortunately for consumers, no court has heard a case that provides a definitive answer regarding which law, CALEA or HIPAA, takes precedence and that healthcare information transmitted by an individual over a common carrier is not somehow protected in ways that voice and data communications are not. Until there is a specific law, criminalizing the access and use of this information, any connection with a common carrier should remain suspect. And, in the name of national security and secret courts – who can be assured of anything? Loss of privacy is one thing, being killed remotely by a government agent is something all together different … It does not take much imagination to see that a rogue government agent, sitting in an office in Washington, D.C. or perhaps out of the country, could kill you with the push of a button. “Intervention by the patient’s clinician” could mean a reset or recalibration of a life-critical electrical device or the controlled administration of a drug through a controllable system. Or, in an extreme case, murder or assassination.
While remote assassins are a “remote” possibility, there is a more dangerous government-related scenario looming … We have seen that the government has attempted to socially engineer the behavior of the public using the tax codes. Incentivizing preferred behavior with tax credits, and disincentivizing discouraged behavior with increased taxes. Something more than hinted at by Verizon when they note: “including a reward system that incents patients to make healthier lifestyle choices.” Might that be raising government-mandated insurance premiums based on healthcare information accessed and analyzed by the government? Or, even worse, denying lifesaving healthcare to those with unacceptable lifestyles as determined by some anonymous president-appointed panel like the 15-member IPAB (Independent Payment Advisory Board). Since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act already includes provisions for a massive government healthcare database and the forwarding of electronic patient records to the government – it is a very small leap to suggest that this real-time electronic healthcare data might also be transmitted to the government. Who are Verizon’s customers and how much do you have to say about the use of the system and the transmitted data?
Is this system yet another Hobson's “take it or leave it” choice foisted upon the consumer who, in reality, has little or nothing to say about the use of the system? Even worse, is Verizon protected by one of those unilateral “terms of service” agreements that disclaims all liability for any adverse consequences, even those involving negligence? What does the Food and Drug Administration have to say about the first iteration of this health management device …
Bottom line … In its first iteration, the CHMD (Converged Health Management Device) looks relatively benign and somewhat useful. It is what additional iterations, improvements, and adaptations might look like that is troublesome. What is needed is a comprehensive data privacy and protection law that prevents government employees, contractors, consultants, informants, and others from accessing, storing, or using personal and private financial or healthcare information for political use, personal profit, or any other use not specifically authorized by a single issue law that cannot be part of any other piece of legislation. Where mandatory criminal penalties (with no possibility of plea bargains, parole, or sentence reductions), fines, and the indemnification of victims serves as a deterrent. We have seen those high-ranking officials and others with “keys to the kingdom” like Private Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden – as well as a number of law enforcement officials – misuse official systems for political and personal purposes. We have seen our nation morph into a surveillance nation where hardware, software, and communications companies build-in backdoors and other means to compromise the safeguards guaranteed by the United States Constitution. We need to solve the problem by electing honest politicians and restrict the activities of those companies who would collect, store, and sell our personal non-public information. To this end, I suggest that you may want to join the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org) to help fund an effort to reconcile analog protections with a digital world. Perhaps it was said best by Thomas Jefferson …
Somewhere, the government has come to believe that they are the masters, not the servants of “We the People” and to this end, are attempting to enlarge the size and scope of the law to criminalize any behavior which they, the politicians and bureaucrats, believe threatens their cushy existence. -- steve Reference Links … |
No comments:
Post a Comment