Comments on: Some skin scrapings too?....

Some skin scrapings too?....

troutfishing — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:41:25 -0800

Hello Gattaca : "The federal government is planning to overhaul its employee drug testing program to include scrutiny of workers' hair, saliva and sweat, a shift that could spur more businesses to revise screening for millions of their own workers."

By: namespan

namespan — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:43:35 -0800

Clearly, the time has come to invest in a small desktop vacuum cleaner and prosthetic genitalia.

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:48:22 -0800

Can I now mention an impeccable investment opportunity?

By: weston

weston — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:49:29 -0800

These would replace urine tests, namespan. And a nitpick: these aren't really genetic tests. Of course, the SSN wasn't ever going to be used for anything else, either...

By: bshort

bshort — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:06:15 -0800

When citizens have to wear prosthetic genitalia the terrorists will have won.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:07:11 -0800

So, civil service jobs are being outsourced to the prison industrial complex...

By: McBain

McBain — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:33:24 -0800

War on Drugs Abortion Gay Rights The War on Lungs, Wombs, and Anuses.

By: keswick

keswick — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:42:40 -0800

I'm mailing the White House a sample of my feces immediately.

By: interrobang

interrobang — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 23:15:07 -0800

Don't play into their hands, Keswick!

By: adamgreenfield

adamgreenfield — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 23:20:10 -0800

Will the new National Anthem at least be written by Michael Nyman? That'd be showing some class.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 00:33:16 -0800

One of America's top scientists is calling for a ban on insurance companies and other businesses gaining access to the brain scans of potential customers.

By: shepd

shepd — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 04:42:01 -0800

Haha, you spelled gattaca wrong troutfishing! (Ok, ok, ok, not trolling, just being silly). Seriously, though, this is more an attempt to refine drug tests. In a country where hiring a drug addict can cause one to have to re-arrange office hours, turn off lighting, and other such insane things it only makes sense to ensure you don't hire them. Oh wait, did I just prove that the disability act reduces the ability of a disabled person to get a job? Yikes! I'd better keep quiet! :-)

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 06:04:24 -0800

shepd - we'll be expecting samples of your skin scrapings, urine, feces, saliva and sweat when you show up for work tomorrow morning. Don't worry. It's routine. Oh, I forgot to mention - we need a quick brain scan too. You can, of course, opt to bar us from selling this information to advertising research firms and other commercial interests, as we see fit. We are also not legally obliged to tell you this, but to prove our good faith we are informing you that all personal information we gather may be secretly provided to the Department of Homeland Security, per the provisions of the Patriot ll Act. This is merely routine. But really now - are you a team player? What do you have to hide, anyway? Team players have nothing to hide.

By: mert

mert — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 06:31:15 -0800

Very troubling news, especially the suggestion that this might spread outside the government.

By: kozad

kozad — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 07:18:14 -0800

I guess I must be the only one who hasn't seen the movie. What do the CBS story and the Google Search Results page have to do with each other?

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 10:01:21 -0800

I can't believe you folk put up with this shit. What an utterly intolerable level of distrust.

By: schlaager

schlaager — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 11:40:14 -0800

kozad, see this. Minus the part about genetic engineering, this is what it looks like we're coming to, in a nutshell. i will impotently express my displeasure by voting with my brain and writing to my congressman. this is starting to get worse and worse everyday.

By: Fupped Duck

Fupped Duck — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 11:41:51 -0800

And a nitpick: these aren't really genetic tests. Patriot Act I - Passed Patriot Act II - Stealth Passed Now this. How can you really be sure what they're testing for?

By: greengrl

greengrl — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 12:23:40 -0800

When I hired in at a global Fortune 500 company back in 1998 (I no longer work there, by the way), they insisted on a hair test for drugs. At the time I had a very short double-processed platinum 'do, and by insisting on taking hair as close to the root as possible, I was left with an inch sqaure area of missing hair on the back of my head. Of course, I didn't realize that until it was over, and there was nothing I could do about it. I really wonder if they could've gotten anything out of my super-bleached and toned hair... I did find it both offensive and horrifying, but at the time I really needed the job. I'm happy to say that my current employer (a much smaller business) does no drug testing at all. They (apparently) trust their employees.

By: kozad

kozad — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 12:35:58 -0800

thanks, schlaager Although urine testing has always seemed disgustingly invasive, hair testing is way more (though less disgustingly) invasive. Corporations and governments interpreting - and inevitably misinterpreting - chemical evidence from months of your personal history points toward the kind of world Orwell and Huxley and Dick warned us about.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 13:00:19 -0800

And you guys are accepting that Orwellian/Huxleyan/Dickian world with nary a protest! That's what is most offensive: how complacently y'all go with what your corporate and government overlords tell you to do. I keep hoping that America snaps out of it and starts taking action about these invasions of privacy, limitations of freedom, Diebold elections, adminstration lies, etcetera. But, no, American roll over and wags their tails.

By: DragonBoy

DragonBoy — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 13:20:32 -0800

I don't know about you all, but there will be a new item in my bathroom if this gets widespread: the headblade. In a few months I am going to a country where smoking pot is legal in designated places. I'm damn sure going to enjoy that, and when I get back to the office if they want a drug test I'll be happy to fail it for them. What I do with my free time is none of my employer's business. Period. End of story. If I want to host orgies for middle aged big beautiful women on the weekends, it's none of my boss's business. What is is business? What I do from 8 til 5 when I'm on the clock.

By: quonsar

quonsar — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 13:26:28 -0800

American roll over and wags their tails. perhaps we await your leadership in storming the white house with automatic weapons. after you, sir.

By: ed

ed — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 14:12:25 -0800

I don't think Americans will start protesting until the roaring white balloons are in place.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 14:28:51 -0800

Feds Bust Medical Pot Patients In Courtroom

By: Keyser Soze

Keyser Soze — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 17:10:00 -0800

Its too bad they have overturned every bill requiring senators to take a drug test on capital hill.

By: precocious

precocious — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 17:45:27 -0800

And you guys are accepting that Orwellian/Huxleyan/Dickian world with nary a protest! Some of us have gotten past the apathetic a.k.a. "sitting on your ass and crying in despair" phase, thanks. If you were in Philadelphia 'round 10th and Market and saw a bunch of crazy kids protesting, passing out leaflets, singing "Jesu Meine Freude" and engaging the passersby in discussions about physics, humanity and the economy from 9 a.m. to about 5 p.m., I was the chick with blue hair. Next time, feel free to join in.

By: schlaager

schlaager — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 22:05:19 -0800

when i lived in DeKalb, IL, there were always students on the town square on Friday afternoons, holding signs and chanting and whatnot. Trouble is, anywhere west of the suburbs is not a good place to catch people walking around. We are for the most part a state of cars. So i always got a good eyeful of a blurry sign.

By: IshmaelGraves

IshmaelGraves — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 22:30:10 -0800

But, no, American roll over and wags their tails. I've come to realize that there won't be the rioting in the streets that our government so richly deserves until the government mind control waves start interfering with the TV remote.

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Sun, 18 Jan 2004 09:08:22 -0800

IshmaelGraves - You could be right, but I think the mind control mechanisms are much more subtly organic. Americans everywhere are too moody, depressed, tired, spaced out and generally ill from high sugar diets of crappy processed food (and far too much of it), lots of alcohol, a lack of exercise, and a constant diet of brain shrivelling television (the #1 Alzheimer's risk factor, by the way) to put up much of a fight. I don't think this was at all intentional, on the part of the US government. This sad state of affairs came about without much planning - if any - I would say. But, still, it is rather convenient.

By: agregoli

agregoli — Mon, 19 Jan 2004 07:55:18 -0800

Whatever you think about this, don't see Gattaca. It's a miserable movie filled with pee. No, really.

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Mon, 19 Jan 2004 08:42:24 -0800

I liked it. But there is a lot of pee.