The author of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act intended for all electronic communication to have the same level of protection a postal communication has. Since it was passed, the government’s been doing a great deal to water it down. Dad would be turning over in his grave if he’d been buried instead of cremated. He spent the last year of his life writing this Act.

SouthernDragon, I would do this instantly were the opportunity offered to me. However, if it’s structured along the lines of the military, it’s likely to be age-limited, and some of my best physicians are physicians as a second career; my GP, for example, was a research chemist first. I know a lot of prospective physicians would jump on this, but question whether I’d be permitted to at my current age of 51, to say nothing of when I get older, despite the fact that I actively seek to be a GP and not a specialist.

I don’t think age limitation here is necessarily reasonable as current GPs retire and there are few coming out of the medical schools now to replace them. Let those who can and choose to do, do, regardless of age.

A good point. I have some arable land (not a lot, less than 5 acres and a good deal of that is forested, but some) and could grow food to donate as well as to eat and/or maybe host an illegal second small house to house a homeless family, but due to kidney failure and dialysis, I do not have the energy to build a house or put in and keep up a large garden. Work-trades would be awesome, where some other people could help with the gardening, weed and blackberry bush control in return for produce and perhaps a place to stay, but where do I find the people who are willing to put up with such an arrangement?

the President is really serious about raising taxes on the rich, and will be fighting for that for the next two years

Uh-huh, suuuuuuure he will. If you believe that, I have a bridge under water in Tacoma to sell you.

I post the occasional comment here at FDL from time to time and have been for a couple of years now at least. I know I have friends here, people whom I really respect and like, like indiemcemopants, who is someone I know in person and a good friend. I don’t comment a lot (that may change in the not-too-distant future) but I enjoy it here.

I am getting about as mad at Mr. Obama as I ever get at anyone. I find I’m in good company here with that!

I taught a dog to log onto the internet, back in 1988…really, I did.

I was a geeky and greatly disliked girl from way back when. I guess I had too thin of a skin (still do) and that didn’t help matters, and responded when I was picked on. For six years nobody stood up for me until a kid told me that a bunch of other boys were planning to jump me and beat me up, and that he’d escort me to the bus so I wouldn’t get hurt. I guess this was about 1970 or so. I grew up in Berkeley, CA and even there, smart was not OK. I was smart as hell, with a seriously high IQ (to the point where my mother wouldn’t tell me but said something like I was in the top 1/10th of 1%) and a voracious reader. I talked like an adult to adults and found them a lot more interesting than my peers. I would read rather than go out and play. I wanted to be a doctor, a scientist, stuff like that but was always told “that takes math and you don’t like math”, which was a lie until I was in the second grade and did my math work quickly and well so that I could get back to reading, enough so that the teacher gave me busywork and called it busywork. That was the end of liking math. I actually got turned back onto it by hanging around in and listening to graduate level math classes at Cal Berkeley, which I’d cut my geometry class to do. Those I understood, enjoyed, and had a good time in. Not so geometry.

Ah well. I am still a voracious reader and don’t have a degree, but I’m looking into what I need for premed.