But if it’s worth losing a 4G iPhone over?

Next you know, Microsoft will advertise with something like “when you lose Windows 7 phone, it’s sure to be there, waiting, when you get back”

Freemasons and the devil

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The women paid their premiums on time. Before they fell ill, neither had any problems with their insurance. Initially, they believed their policies had been canceled by mistake.

They had no idea that WellPoint was using a computer algorithm that automatically targeted them and every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies, according to government regulators and investigators.

Once the women were singled out, they say, the insurer then canceled their policies based on either erroneous or flimsy information. WellPoint declined to comment on the women’s specific cases without a signed waiver from them, citing privacy laws.

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In his push for the health care bill, President Barack Obama said the legislation would end such industry practices.

But many critics worry the new law will not lead to an end of these practices. Some state and federal regulators — as well as investigators, congressional staffers and academic experts — say the health care legislation lacks teeth, at least in terms of enforcement or regulatory powers to either stop or even substantially reduce rescission.

“People have this idea that someone is going to flip a switch and rescission and other bad insurance practices are going to end,” says Peter Harbage, a former health care adviser to the Clinton administration. “Insurers will find ways to undermine the protections in the new law, just as they did with the old law. Enforcement is the key.”

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In August of last year, a Saudi law firm brought legal action against all the Danish newspapers that published the Mohammed cartoons. It was a blatant probe of the infidel system of defenses, using lawfare to breach the virtual walls of Danish society in order to inflict maximum damage on the culture that dared to insult the prophet.

[..]

And now a new organization has sprung up to take exactly the action I was hoping for last year: it is countersuing the descendants of Mr. Mohammed Pbuh, Esq. Led by Hans Erling Jensen, a group called Eticha has filed a libel lawsuit on behalf of all the non-Muslims whom Mohammed defamed and insulted in the Koran.

Mr. Erling sent me a copy of the letter he sent to the Saudi law firm. The full text and his introductory explanation are included at the bottom of this post, but here’s the meat of his case:

You and your clients apparently continue to insist that Muhammed ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Hashimi al-Qurashi may not be portrayed or caricatured. This implies that you and your clients give your unconditional support to the text of the Quran, as it exists today, as well as to the Hadith that, combined with the Quran (and the Sirat) form the basis of Islam and Sharia.

The descendants of the people whom your clients’ forefather compared to apes, pigs and rats, and whose case we now represent, feel not only personally insulted, but also emotionally aggrieved by these denigrations, as their own ancestors have been ridiculed, persecuted and expelled from their lands, since the Quran and Hadith imply that non-Muslims are the enemies of Allah and therefore were and are to be treated as outlaws. Due to the fact that Muhammed ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Hashimi al-Qurashi claimed, that not he, but Allah was the author of this insult and thus ascribed the saying to him, we find this not only blasphemous but also a thinly disguised attempt to decriminalize Muhammed ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Hashimi al-Qurashi’s own misdemeanors. This will possibly be addressed in a later court case.

The lawsuit demands an apology, and also that the offending passages of the Koran be changed or removed from all publicly available copies of the book in mosques, libraries, etc., by the end of this year.

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One of Belgium’s bishops has resigned over a paedophile case, adding to a growing list of churchmen tainted by abuse scandals that have been shaking the Catholic Church.

The Belgian episcopal conference called a media conference today to be attended by the head of the Belgian Catholic Church, Andre-Joseph Leonard, as well as officials of a church committee inquiring into paedophilia.

It did not name the bishop concerned or give the exact reasons for his resignation, but Belga news agency said he was the bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe.

A source close to the affair told AFP that it was a case of paedophilia while Belga, quoting “reliable sources”, reported that “serious facts” were behind the resignation. However it was not clear whether the churchman himself was guilty or whether he had covered up for someone else.