Comcast / NBC merger is crap - editorial opinion included if you couldn't tell from the word crap

I'm going to go off, sorry stop reading if that bugs you.

I don't care what your political persuasions are, I think we can all agree that "too big to fail" was crap, No one likes bailing out giant corporations on the tax payer dollar, well no one but those who benefit from it. People have all sorts of ideas on how to regulate business to address the issues. Maybe that works, maybe it doesn't. My personal belief is that it doesn't, because the regulators can't get the regulations right, because they are two steps behind industry, things change too fast, and there are always loopholes.

What does work, is to not allow the companies too get so big in the first place. Regulation is hard, breaking companies up is hard, but not allowing them to get too big, create monopolies, screw the consumers, etc, etc, is really not that hard. All you have to do is say, "nope sorry, not going to do it". Show some god damn backbone and say no, you squirrelly, on the pay, stupid, ignorant, non-visionary, self serving bureaucrats and politicians.

The fact that only one guy seems to think this was even a bad idea completely escapes me. This goes well beyond this deal or net-neutrality, its a big problem. From the day we gave the corporation the same rights as the individual we made a colossal mistake of epic proportions, and as we allow them to get more and more power that crosses international barriers and laughs in the face of government and the consumer, we pretty much destroy our freedom. I mean freedom in terms of creating and maintaining personal wealth. Allowing monopolies, horizontally, vertically, in the 3rd dimension, is bad. Bad, bad, bad. It doesn't take a genius to figure this out.

This for me, it is a big strike against this administration. Its totally clear that neither the left nor right has any idea what's going on, gives two craps, or is able to do anything about it. I'm not saying they did in the past administration either, trust me, hated those bastards too, probably even more.

I'm a small government guy. I believe the government, especially federal government, has a pretty limited set of responsibilities. For me, this is one of them. They need to regulate interstate commerce, and make sure there is a level and fair playing field. Capitalism, really needs that, the people need that. Get it right, don't screw this up. Its not hard. You just don't allow them to merge, end of story. No 2000 page documents, nothing complicated, just deny it, and fight it. If you swing more to the left, I think you'd end up in a similar place as me, but maybe with a different justification. That's ok. How we get there doesn't matter, lets just agree monopolies are bad, and too big too fail is bad.

Glad to see a lot of other folks pissed off about this, check out the following thread:

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/01/19/0032229/Comcast-NBC-Merger-Approved-By-FCC?from=rss

Time for a new game. Is this quote from the Koran or the Bible ?

"If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; ... Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. "

Koran or Bible ?

"If your own full brother, or your son ordaughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly toserve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any othernations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: donot yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare orshield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; therest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death,because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God"

All you insane people who think morality comes from God via the Bible ?

Imagine if our immigration policy was based on this...

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

This might change the rules of engagement a little...

As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you. (Deuteronomy 20:10-14)

Don't get raped, cause you are going to die

If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who isbetrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gateof the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry outfor help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated hisneighbors wife. (Deuteronomy 22:23-24NAB)

Its ok to rape, but just don't rape ugly chicks

If a man is caught in the act of raping a youngwoman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father.Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never beallowed to divorce her.

Kill People Who Don't Listen to Priests

Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)

Kill Witches

You should not let a sorceress live. (Exodus 22:17 NAB)

Kill Homosexuals - I know probably a lot of you are ok with this one"If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put todeath for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)

Kill Fortunetellers

A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their death. (Leviticus 20:27 NAB)

Death for Hitting Dad

Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15 NAB)

Death for Cursing Parents

1) If one curses his father or mother, his lamp will go out at the coming of darkness. (Proverbs 20:20 NAB)

2) All who curse their father or mother must be put to death. They are guilty of a capital offense. (Leviticus 20:9 NLT)

Death for Adultery

If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10 NLT)

Death for Fornication

A priest's daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death. (Leviticus 21:9 NAB)

Death to Followers of Other Religions

Whoever sacrifices to any god, except the Lord alone, shall be doomed. (Exodus 22:19 NAB)

Kill Nonbelievers

They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)

Kill False Prophets

If a man still prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall say to him, "You shall not live, because you have spoken a lie in the name of the Lord." When he prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall thrust him through. (Zechariah 13:3 NAB)

Kill the Entire Town if One Person Worships Another God

Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

Kill Women Who Are Not Virgins On Their Wedding Night

But if this charge is true (that she wasn't a virgin on her wedding night), and evidence of the girls virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her fathers house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father's house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst. (Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB)

Kill Followers of Other Religions.

1) If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)

2) Suppose a man or woman among you, in one of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, has done evil in the sight of the LORD your God and has violated the covenant by serving other gods or by worshiping the sun, the moon, or any of the forces of heaven, which I have strictly forbidden. When you hear about it, investigate the matter thoroughly. If it is true that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, then that man or woman must be taken to the gates of the town and stoned to death. (Deuteronomy 17:2-5 NLT)

Death for Blasphemy

One day a man who had an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father got into a fight with one of the Israelite men. During the fight, this son of an Israelite woman blasphemed the LORD's name. So the man was brought to Moses for judgment. His mother's name was Shelomith. She was the daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan. They put the man in custody until the LORD's will in the matter should become clear. Then the LORD said to Moses, "Take the blasphemer outside the camp, and tell all those who heard him to lay their hands on his head. Then let the entire community stone him to death. Say to the people of Israel: Those who blaspheme God will suffer the consequences of their guilt and be punished. Anyone who blasphemes the LORD's name must be stoned to death by the whole community of Israel. Any Israelite or foreigner among you who blasphemes the LORD's name will surely die. (Leviticus 24:10-16 NLT)

Kill False Prophets

1) Suppose there are prophets among you, or those who have dreams about the future, and they promise you signs or miracles, and the predicted signs or miracles take place. If the prophets then say, 'Come, let us worship the gods of foreign nations,' do not listen to them. The LORD your God is testing you to see if you love him with all your heart and soul. Serve only the LORD your God and fear him alone. Obey his commands, listen to his voice, and cling to him. The false prophets or dreamers who try to lead you astray must be put to death, for they encourage rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of slavery in the land of Egypt. Since they try to keep you from following the LORD your God, you must execute them to remove the evil from among you. (Deuteronomy 13:1-5 NLT)

2) But any prophet who claims to give a message from another god or who falsely claims to speak for me must die.' You may wonder, 'How will we know whether the prophecy is from the LORD or not?' If the prophet predicts something in the LORD's name and it does not happen, the LORD did not give the message. That prophet has spoken on his own and need not be feared. (Deuteronomy 18:20-22 NLT)

Infidels and Gays Should Die

So God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies. Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever. Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relationships with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men and, as a result, suffered within themselves the penalty they so richly deserved. When they refused to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their evil minds and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, fighting, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They are forever inventing new ways of sinning and are disobedient to their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, and are heartless and unforgiving. They are fully aware of God's death penalty for those who do these things, yet they go right ahead and do them anyway. And, worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too. (Romans 1:24-32 NLT)

Kill Anyone who Approaches the Tabernacle

For the LORD had said to Moses, 'Exempt the tribe of Levi from the census; do not include them when you count the rest of the Israelites. You must put the Levites in charge of the Tabernacle of the Covenant, along with its furnishings and equipment. They must carry the Tabernacle and its equipment as you travel, and they must care for it and camp around it. Whenever the Tabernacle is moved, the Levites will take it down and set it up again. Anyone else who goes too near the Tabernacle will be executed.' (Numbers 1:48-51 NLT)

Kill People for Working on the Sabbath

The LORD then gave these further instructions to Moses: 'Tell the people of Israel to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you forever. It helps you to remember that I am the LORD, who makes you holy. Yes, keep the Sabbath day, for it is holy. Anyone who desecrates it must die; anyone who works on that day will be cut off from the community. Work six days only, but the seventh day must be a day of total rest. I repeat: Because the LORD considers it a holy day, anyone who works on the Sabbath must be put to death.' (Exodus 31:12-15 NLT)

New health care plan business plan #1

Ok so if you don't have insurance you are going to be fined, hard to find the exact number but I think its somewhere between $750-1000. Also, we are going to have this no denials for existing conditions thing.

So that means you could get insurance on the way to the hospital. So you setup an insurance company that doesn't provide any real insurance but just gives you a little card to look like you have insurance and avoid the $1000 fine. Charge people 50-100 for it. Advertise at check cashing places and convenience stores and other places you find riff raff, have sales guys hang outside ERs.

Probably will be hard to create this insurance company will all the damn regulations and such, but maybe could skim off enough to high tail it to the cayman islands.

My Health Care Policy

based on having 2 kids, dealing with a few surgeries my wife has had, and a bunch of ER visits here are my practical ideas:

1. Remove stupid and costly ER policies

There is an ER by my house that has a policy that anyone that comes into the ER gets an IV automatically, unless you tell them no. Most people don't say no. How much does that needle cost, the bag they hook up, the nurse's time,etc. I'm pretty sure most people don't need a freakin IV.

2. Stop unnecessary procedures

There seems to be a C section epidemic in this country. As a witness to 2 natural births, and one at home, I'm pretty sure this C section thing is out of control. We have the highest C section rate of any industrial nation. Its really bullshit, and its not hard to figure out how it happened. Doctors and the hospital make a ton more money from surgery, than letting nature take its course. The human race has existed for at least 6000 years (probably more, depends who you ask), without surgery to get babies out.

I'm sure C sections are just one of a bunch of unnecessary procedures going on. I know in some cases they are needed, but shouldn't be more than 12-17%, not more than 50%.

3. Fix our diets and bad habits

Obesity, diabetes, heart problems, etc, etc, etc,. I blame is all on the corn lobby, we are addicted to high fructose corn syrup and processed foods. Its killing us.

I know this idea won't be popular but because we Americans want our cake and eat it too, but maybe premiums need to take into account your behavior and charge accordingly, much like auto insurance works. You smoke you pay more, you are overweight you pay more, you exercise you pay less, etc. There needs to be some personal responsibility for health, seems like a cost structure like this might go some way towards addressing the issue.

4. Stop charging for crap I didn't even get, or $40 for aspirin

We got billed for an episiotomy that wasn't even performed with our first daughter, and what's up with $40 aspirin when you are at the hospital.

5. Fix our medical schools or whatever they hell is culturally wrong with how we deliver care

I may have read one too many andrew weil books, but this guy makes a lot of sense to me. The way we treat people is just insane, we probably have a lot to learn from eastern medicine. No one is talking about how the doctors suck, its all about the insurance companies. But IMHO, most doctors suck. They often don't listen, want to just prescribe medicine, or surgery. The body is the best healer, the role of medicine should be to let the body do its job better. Really they need to get out of the way more often. Whatever happened to "do no harm". One procedure leads to another, one drug side affects treated with another. Its totally insane.

6. Remove the employer/employee thing in health care

Everyone wants choice right? Well lets stop letting employers make our decisions for us. I should get a pool of money from my employer in which I'm free to use with any insurer I choose. We should be able to shop around for insurance like we do for car insurance. This needs to be universal, no more gov't or unions or anyone negotiating special deals for their people. Everyone has choice. You want expensive plan for everything, fine you pick that. You want a program that specializes in preventive care or eastern medicine, fine you pick that. This would force the companies to be competitive beyond what any public option could do. It would also spur diversification in the insurance offerings out there and shitty companies that drop coverage when you are sick, or wont pay would go out of business, because people would drop them, instead of the other way around.

7. Force the medical community to either regulate themselves or somehow regulate them better

This would probably help with #1, 2, and #4. I've read 5% of the doctors are responsible for 85% of the malpractice law suits. So Tort reform maybe, but if we just get rid of the bad apples problem solved.

8. Put some incentive behind doctors actually fixing your problems

Right now the more procedures, tests, drugs, a doctor gives you the more they make. There needs to be some way to encourage doctors to actually address problems efficiently. I'm not really sure how this would work, I think single payer countries like France do it. There's got to be someother ways to do it without a single payer system.

Now I know I haven't addressed the un-insured thing, but I'll let the big boys figure that one out.

Gays in the military

The most annoying thing about this whole subject of gays in the military is that if you are the sort of person who really hates gays, isn't the military the exact sort of place you'd want them to be? That way they could die or at least be totally screwed up afterwards so that they wouldn't be able to pass their gay genes onto the next generation.

Oh wait, being gay isn't biological, I forgot. Its some sort of flu you catch by listening to the wrong music or hanging out with the wrong sort of people.

Gay or not gay, if you want to serve I don't see how it matters at all.

This whole subject is confusing to me. I really don't see the conflict here.