Slashdot Mirror

They struck in 2003, and largely lost.

Orchestra minimums have been a point of contention for a long time, at least since 1998. 'Canned' music is also an issue for at least as long. On tours, this is a big hassle, since every single person you bring along means expenses and troubles. On Broadway, musicals are expected to include live music, but that's also expensive, especially for rehearsals, and every show that closes in one night is a sinkhole of expenses. A lot do.

And in the end, successful shows tend to make a LOT of money, and it seems a shame to not bring the live performance in all its glory.

Yeah that's what it means genius, it's fucking nutritional supplement.

On the other hand, it could be a contributor to the fact that people living in industrial countries are much more likely to get cancer.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/canc-a26.shtml

Try and get air time. You can't. That's control of the delivery channels. When Prince broke with the labels, he disappeared, no air time. The labels need a monopoly on the delivery channels to prevent real music. The way the media shutdown Dixie Chix over politics is a lesson in both the level of control and of the political nature of today's media.

A new paragraph or sentence would make clear that the RIAA / MPAA whine about reviews is a separate item.

It was New Zealand http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jul2007/newz-j05.shtml

"Why do we continue to build up the manufacturing base of potential enemies, and either destroy or export our own to those same potential enemies?"

ummm, cuz the decision makers end up with a shit-pile of money?
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/forb-m12.shtml

--

As a citizen of Europe, I'm going to have to point out passionately how full of neutering all such "Constitutions" are.

For example, in Germany I cannot freely:

- State that only 1,000,000 Jews died in the Holocaust: utter bullshit, but if the above clause has any effect, I must be allowed to do this, lest the principle leading to the exception is used to restrict me from legitimate review and criticism of policy based on established scholarship;

- Parade with swastikas: fairly stupid, but if the above clause has any effect, I must be allowed to do this, lest I am restricted from parodying a government going where it's gone before ("we're not like Nazis - we ban the swastika!").

Also, such exceptions inevitably ride the slippery slope to encompass the restriction of far more freedoms. I'm sure the CoS will explain why their detractors are "like Nazis" oppressing religious freedom, their speech thus outlawed - enjoy that hurdle.

Consolidation of wealth is the single most dangerous aspect of the American economy, and should disturb any country depending on the American economy. Everyone pays a few cents extra for gas, for insurance, for cell phones, for grain-based foods, operating systems, movies, entertainment. It doesn't look like a lot at the time, but it adds up, and the average consumer runs out of money. 1000 people control $3.6 Billion, and most of that comes from consumer goods, directly or indirectly. At some point, unless this trend stops, we will be right back to feudalism where we can't even afford land to build a house on. Working will be a requirement in order to use the rich man's land.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/03/17/1928-resemblances/
Some ranting in this one:
http://www.theygaveusarepublic.com/diary/995/

"Between 2000 and 2007, the average American worker's productivity rose 19.2%, yet more of those gains are going to top managers,... Adjusted for inflation, average wages have grown just 0.7% per year since June 2000. In 1979, the ratio between the average CEO's pay and the typical workers pay was 27 to 1. By 2007, it had widened to 275 to 1."
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/sep2009/econ-s05.shtml

Carlos Slim - Mexican cell phones
Bill Gates - Convicted operating system monopolist
Warren Buffet - invests insurance float from Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO), basically you pay him to borrow your money interest-free.
Mukesh Ambani - Oil/gas
Lakshmi Mittal - Indian steel. Who doesn't use steel?
Lawrence Ellison - Oracle. You pay a business a few cents extra, that company sends a lump check to Oracle
Bernard Arnault - Luxury goods, France. The rich man's consolidation of wealth target. But wait - don't normal people spend way too much on Louis Vuitton and Moet & Chandon just to keep up appearances? Yes, they do
Eike Batista - Brazilian Mining, Oil - more fuel
Amancio Ortega - fashion retail, normal people covering themselves from the elements using dollar bills.
Karl Albrecht - German supermarkets. Your grocery bill pads this guy's wallet, and he's #10 in the world. Germany's population is estimated at 81,757,600, so he has $287 for each person in Germany, or 1% of Germany's GDP.
Ingvar Kamprad - Ikea, selling to poor college students everywhere
Christy Walton - Wal-mart. Poor people everywhere throwing money at cheap goods with limited lifetimes
Stefan Persson - Fashion
More Waltons, fashion, makeup

Witness the corporate theft of Haiti. Aided by the humanitarian NGO's, funded by "charitible" donations from the MegaBanks and agribusiness, etc.

The military of the US comes in and does the "muscle". Marines work for Monsanto and GoldmanSachs. They will shoot YOU on sight, if told.

This is how it's done boys.

Why Is The US Military Occupying Four Airports In Haiti?

Phyllis Bennis said in Huffington post that "the reality is, on the ground, U.S. military forces take charge, as the United Nations is pushed aside."

http://www.politicaltheatrics.net/2010/01/why-is-the-us-military-occupying-four-airports-in-haiti/

US Troops Pouring; Haitians Fleeing, UN Rescuers "Going Home"

General Douglas Fraser, the head of US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), said Thursday that over 2,676 US troops were currently operating on the ground in Haiti to boost the still struggling aid effort in the aftermath of a killer quake. He said that number was expected to swell to 4,600 by the weekend, and that another 10,445 (!) were currently afloat aboard vessels offshore.

(This is roughy 33% of the US troop strength in Afghanistan)

http://www.politicaltheatrics.net/2010/01/us-troops-pouring-haitians-fleeing-un-rescuers-going-home/

Haitians dying by the thousands as US escalates military intervention

With the Haitian catastrophe now in its 10th day, it is becoming increasingly clear that the response of the Obama administration and the Pentagon, which have made military occupation of the Caribbean nation its first objective, has deepened the immense suffering of millions of injured, homeless and hungry people.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/hait-j22.shtml

The irony of military robots is that we are using them to enforce a global economic system that is based on forcing humans to do labor in exchange for the right to consume the fruits of industry. Why not just build robots to do the work directly instead? Why not use global networks to freely share information about how to make the world a better place that works for everyone? The same is true for nuclear missiles intended to fight over oil and land instead of using the same technologies to build nuclear power plants (or solar ones and wind ones) or to create self-replicating space habitats or seasteads for endless new land. We need to start thinking in 21st century terms now that we have 21st century technology. Otherwise, we will likely accidentally kill ourselves with the tools of abundance.

As Albert Einstein said:
    http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~cheshire/EinsteinQuotes.html
"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."

Or further:
    http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/nuclear1.htm
"""
"Concern for man himself must always constitute the chief objective of all technological effort -- concern for the big, unsolved problems of how to organize human work and the distribution of commodities in such a manner as to assure that the results of our scientific thinking may be a blessing to mankind, and not a curse."
"""

Or more on how Einstein was more than the disconnected absent minded professor he is made out to be:
    http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/sep2002/eins-s03.shtml
    http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm

It is not the nukes and drones that may kill us all eventually, it is the unrecognized irony.

Well, if it weren't so sad, it would actually be kind of funny, I guess. The profiteers are certainly laughing their asses off, like "Gazprom Schröder" (former German Chancellor, details here, older article), the most prominent example of corruption, bribery and corporatism.

Anyone -- citizen and non-citizen -- in Germany and France is entitled to freedom of speech.

Unless you're in Germany and you say anything that contradicts the official party line with regard to The Holocaust.

FFS, just ask your friends if they're planning on having any kids when the job market is crap. There's plenty of evidence that bad economic times or reduced earnings result in people postponing starting families, so obviously, when the good times return, they breed.

Japan's economy has been in the shitter for more than a decade. Just search for "japan lost decade". They're still not out of it; 2 decades later asset prices haven't recovered. The US is going to have the same problem - at least a lost decade, probably a lost generation, in terms of economic growth. The problem was the same, and we're seeing the same refusal to mark to market and clear out bad debts. The government continues to try to prop up real estate prices, but it simply can't be done.

The Chinese made it quite clear during the first half of the decade that $10T was their limit; they are now in the process of diversifying their holdings; so are other countries, who are now investigating ways to abandon the greenback as a reserve currency. China has been quite vocal about it; the increase in the US debt (projected to hit $20 trillion) is a disaster.

The US can't pay it off without a significant reduction in the standard of living. It's the same as any other debt - paying it down means less cash for other spending.

Thanks for bringing Italy up - it's exactly the sort of example I'm talking about. It's public debt is rated AA2, two levels below AAA. Do you really want the US to have its' debt downgraded, which is seen as more likely nowadays? Every notch down costs billions in interest points, with further impacts on state and municipal bonds (California is already junk ..)

Forecast: Even without a downgrade, there will be less appetite for US dollars, since they no longer hold their value over even the medium term. Less demand means higher interest rates. Debt spirals are an ugly thing to watch.

Suspected terrorists. Let's not through due process out the window just yet.

Dur process was already thrown out the window. It was thrown out as soon as the first name of someone who had not been convicted of a terrorist action was put on a no fly list. Sen Ed Kennedy may of been a danger to liberty but he wasn't going to blow up a plane. And Cat Stevens wasn't about to force you to listen to him singing, as if that would kill you.

Falcon

there is not much you can do if that person is at the other side of the globe. Yes you can call police, but they will seldom do something.

Don't count on it:

The federal government can extradite a man to face a first-degree murder trial in the United States on charges of killing his wife, even though the evidence presented against him does not meet the test for the same charge in Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled. Top court okays U.S. extradition [Oct 16]

A Briton accused of hacking into secret military and Nasa computers has had his extradition to the US put on hold as new psychiatric evidence is considered. Hacker's extradition put on hold

This is Gary McKinnon pitching his last-ditch "Asperger's defense" to the Home Office.

The Swiss Justice Ministry rejected on Tuesday film director Roman Polanski's appeal for an immediate release from custody. Polanski was arrested September 26 upon arriving in Zürich, Switzerland, to attend a film festival and has remained in prison ever since, awaiting possible extradition to the United States. Roman Polanski denied bail in Switzerland

Comedian and talk-show host Whoopi Goldberg had on The View on September 29 tried to defend his actions.
"It wasn't rape-rape," she had said.
The next day, Debra Tate, sister of Polanski's murdered wife, Sharon, argued on the Today show that it was consensual sex even though the victim was 13.
"There's rape, and then there's rape," she said.

Shannon Gilreath, Wake Forest University Law Professor for Interdisciplinary Study and a nationally recognized scholar on issues of equality, sexual minorities, and constitutional interpretation, believes there are really two perspectives involved in the case. "One is the perspective of people who look for any reason imaginable to excuse the victimization of women and girls that is rampant: it happened long ago, she was mature for her age-she wanted it," he explained. On the other side of this are those of us who are saying that every victim matters, even those victimized by people rich enough to evade jurisdiction for many years."

But Gilreath says that statutory rape is a clear offense under the law, and at the age of 13, the girl was underage. Polanski defenders 'define' rape

They are protecting their corporate donators (the Fed, the Banks, et cetera) from audit

'the administration' is Obama and the Whitehouse

Wrong. If the 'administration' allows the fed to be audited, it's game over for them.

Yes, and my point was that you're wrong.

No, you're wrong.

No, it's not.

Yes, it is.

Shit, all these years of my trying to look at the evidence, and all I needed to do was just disagree.

However, you getting your political views from a comedian tends to indicate that you're probably not the brightes bulb in the pack.

You don't have a clue where I get my political views from. Bright bulbs don't make stupid assumptions about people based on a single quote on a forum. (And I can't help but notice your persistence in attacking the messenger, instead of the message).

Right, because McCain and Palin would have been trying to implement socialized healthcare right about now. Sure. Whatever you're smoking, you're getting your moneys worth.

No, they'd probably be implementing something that was to the benefit of big pharma and insurance, which is exactly what Obama's doing. Maybe there will be some benefit to Americans, but I know who will be reaping most of the reward. I don't care what fancy names they give it, that's what his health care plan represents.

Incidentally, at the time of writing, Obama has already said that "The public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform". Ooops. Did anyone, except maybe people like you, really think "socialized health care" was on the agenda? I'll guarantee you it was proposed in full knowledge that it would NEVER HAPPEN. Senator Kent Conrad who authored a proposal from the Senate Finance Committee (which is likely to be implemented instead) noted that "The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for a public option. There never have been." Please pay attention to the words "in the United States Senate". Why is that, I wonder? Could it be because there's too much money involved between Democrats and Republicans and Corporations? Too much vested interest?

But, since you think it's socialist, well, let's see what Socialists actually think about Obama's Health Care reforms. They should be happy, hey? Well, they're not: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/pers-j16.shtml

It is becoming increasingly clear that the essence of the administration's health care policy, under the guise of universal coverage, is a downgrading of care for the majority of the population so as to cut health care costs for business and the government.

Administration spokesmen have also indicated that Obama is receptive to the idea of taxing workers for the health benefits they receive from their employers - something for which he denounced his opponent, Senator John McCain, during last year's presidential election campaign.

In a speech before the American Medical Association (AMA) in Chicago on Monday, President Obama made it clear that his health care reform would in no way impinge on the profit interests of insurance companies, hospital chains and drug companies. He added that he was open to limiting the ability of patients to pursue medical malpractice suits.

Oh, but I suppose we shouldn't listen to socialists and their opinions about socialist policies.

The official unemployment rate of 9.5 percent does not take into account so-called "discouraged" workers who have given up looking for a job and those forced to work part-time because they cannot get full-time employment. According to the Labor Department report, when these workers are included, the jobless rate soars to 16.5 percent.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that this figure is "above a discontinued and even broader measure that hit 15 percent in late 1982, when the official unemployment rate was 10.8 percent." The Journal added that "... comparisons to the Great Depression (when 25 percent of Americans were out of work) may not look so wild, even if overall economic activity is holding up better."

The US has lost 6.5 million jobs since the recession officially began in December of 2007. All growth in jobs over the last nine years has now been wiped out, and there are fewer jobs in the US today than in May 2000, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute.

So, the economy has given up all growth in the first decade of this century, is less than 10% away from matching the Great Depression in terms of unemployed ... many states and cities are insolvent, the US fed credit rating is in danger, banks and manufacturers are going bust left and right, the median house sale price in Detroit is under $8 grand, there are millions of people who are in default on their mortgages ... the economy has collapsed.

If you are starting from the UK, Ireland has to be the easiest country to move to.

Ireland is broke. Companies (and people) are abandoning it en masse. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/irel-m06.shtml Ireland: Unemployment expected to reach 17 percent
By Steve James
6 May 2009

A report released early May by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) states that Ireland is expected to go through the sharpest economic contraction of any industrialised country since the 1930s. The ESRI's spring quarterly commentary predicts that Ireland's gross domestic product (GDP) will fall 9.2 percent this year.

The report continues, "Ireland's economy will contract by around 14 percent over the three years 2008 to 2010. By historic and international standards this is a truly dramatic development."

It continues: "Prior to this, the largest decline for an industrialised country since the 1930s had been in Finland, where real gross domestic product declined by 11 percent between 1990 and 1993."

The 9.2 percent figure for 2009 doubles the scale of contraction predicted only three months ago in the institute's previous quarterly commentary, where a contraction of 4.6 percent was anticipated. Even the figure of 14 percent over three years assumes a "moderation of the pace of decline" and a "bottoming out" in the latter part of the year.

Unemployment is expected to continue rising. The ESRI predicts unemployment will average 292,000 over 2009, or 13.2 percent, and by 2010 will peak at around 366,000, or 16.8 percent of the workforce.

Wages are expected to fall by 3 percent on average, while the impact of recent budget changes is expected to reduce average household incomes by around 4 percent.

The ESRI also predicts annual net emigration from Ireland, historically an escape from appalling conditions that was sharply reversed over the last two decades, to reach 30,000 between 2009 and 2010. Emmigrate to Ireland? Sounds like the drunk driving the wrong way down a one-way street who, when asked where he thought he was going, replied "I don't know, but I must be late. Everyone's already coming back."

But you don't understand. The science is "settled". Didn't you hear? The conclusions are "settled". It's a consensus. Everyone who disagrees is a "denier". The calls for these deniers to be prosecuted have already begun.

Why is there new data? What is it for? Why does the new data almost always support the position of the "deniers"?

Maybe we should prosecute these researchers as denier-accomplices so we can stop anyone else from undermining the settled consensus with new data.

I've heard that benefits for employees are also vastly in big 3 workers favor.
I found one 'for example'
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/pers-n13.shtml

[i] Like Friedman, he writes indignantly of decades (now ended) during which Big Three workers received "gold-plated medical benefits that virtually no one else had," under which United Auto Workers members had "no deductibles, copays or other facts of life in these United States."[/i] opinions of the validity of the argument aside, such benefits add a lot to the bottom line....

Addendum:

I'm sorry, I don't have the figures, but I'd rather live in a country where the police are rarely seen, and when they are they act with (relative) prudence, instead of like drunken cowboys.

I'd also prefer to live in a country where they don't incarcerate 1/8 of all black males under the age of 30, or detain people without charge indefinitely.

Those topics are far more important to me than some cameras placed in public places.

Is this what we want all of America to be? I don't think Americans should think so.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3086/2375928618_8f579450f2.jpg?v=0

http://www.wsws.org/images/n25-fire-480cap.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1011/1138545413_4870e4c2b2.jpg?v=1193596229

http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/Abandoned%20Factory,%20Luckey%20OH/IMG_2774.JPG

http://www.boatnerd.com/news/newpictures03/2003-11-d-03-mission.jpg

http://hadesarrow.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/cle_3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v348/troubledxdreams/IMG_3244.jpg

http://flickr.com/photos/11135669@N07/1132803997

Yep, free trade is working great. The evidence is there for everyone to see!

Looks like you've got a winner of a plan there.

Retard.

Kick the foreign occupiers companies out.

... if it weren't for the fact that I'm skeptical enough to know better.

Ignoring the fact that they spend twice as much on advertising as on R&D, routinely dump their toxic crap in underdeveloped countries; the truth is that the majority of their products are worthless, and may do more harm than good

Is your Google broken?

Seriously, this isn't exactly a controversial point. Iran has *huge* government subsidies for the poor, but its theocracy is not otherwise popular (and even if they just stop having elections, a government needs money to exist).

I remember a certain el presidente who likes to revoke the right to a fair trial to people who are not full-blood citizens...

if were thinking of the same person, to be fair, he does appear to be in favor of equal treatment given to those born in the USA:
(google search shows:)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_captives_in_Guantanamo
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/aug2006/trib-a01.shtml

The simpsons raised the same question, why make sure all the people who are welcomed legaly are well versed and show a aptitude towards applying for every little thing they can from the government. I would rather welcome those who want nothing to do with government, that want just to get a decent wage for a hard days work, and be left alone and will never request un-employment, welfare, medicare, etc.

Explain how the tax structure favors the rich. Please don't avoid the fact that the rich pay a larger share of their income in taxes in your answer.

Rather than retype how our progressive tax structure is tilted to favor the rich, I will forward you two articles.

One, from 2001 -- the aptly titled "How Bush's Tax Cut Plan Favors the Rich" -- call this the "before" article. There was another 2001 USAToday story basically saying the same thing posted elsewhere in this slashdot thread.

Then there's this one, the "after" tax plan article, showing the Bush plan's efforts worked: "Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows". And here's a third bonus link: this one: "Report Says That the Rich Are Getting Richer Faster, Much Faster". The lede:

The increase in incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans from 2003 to 2005 exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans, data in a new report by the Congressional Budget Office shows.

There is plenty more data available, should you really have any interest in how the richest are getting richer and the poorest poorer and the middle class disappearing due to Bush's focused effort to "spread the wealth" upward.

That is not even counting the tricks corporations play to not pay taxes at all...

Happy reading!
 

Though I guess I should congratulate him on not fucking up the place...

Oh? Didn't Clinton start the deregulation that led us to today? See here.

How about the waiting list for maternity wards? Last I checked it was over 9 months...

That's a great headline, but in reality, it was in one city during a population explosion due to booming economy.

I've had 2 kids in the last couple years in Vancouver, we had no issue whatsoever getting access to a delivery room nor pre or post care in either case. The overloaded maternity wards was a temporary and localized problem due to a rash of babies being born at once, that could have just as easily happened in the states, and it has.

Indeed...

"The UC Davis Medical Center declared an internal state of emergency Wednesday morning and began turning away all but the most seriously ill and injured patients from the trauma center and emergency room because the hospital is completely full.

Elective surgeries are being postponed to free up operating rooms for patients with life-threatening conditions.

UC Davis -- and other local hospitals -- have been operating close to capacity for much of the year. The rapidly growing population in the Sacramento region, a growing number of uninsured patients who crowd emergency rooms because they cannot get care anywhere else, and a critical shortage of nursing staff are causing the strain. "

http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2003/03/17/daily25.html

Sacramento? Where is that again? Oh... right.

These headline grabbing anecdotes however aren't representative of either system.

I've never seen anyone die in the street because he didn't get his surgery. Get real.

Probably, because "didn't get his surgery" can't be listed as a cause of death on a coroners report.

But this comes pretty close:

"A paraplegic man wearing a soiled hospital gown and a broken colostomy bag was found crawling in a gutter in skid row in Los Angeles on Thursday after allegedly being dumped in the street by a Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center van, police said."

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/02/la_hospital_all.html

Or this:

In Baltimore, Maryland, on July 27, 1998, a 70-year-old man accompanied his daughter to the hospital with a sick child. When they arrived, the man told his daughter he didn't feel well and would wait outside the hospital. Passersby noticed something was wrong and called security. The security officer's log stated: "911 notified intoxicated male ... ER notified (refused)" An emergency medical technician with a private ambulance leaving the hospital initiated CPR while the officer contacted the emergency department for assistance. The emergency department again refused assistance. Another ambulance arrived and transported the man to the ER. About one-half hour after the man was first seen lying in the grass, he was pronounced dead of cardiac arrhythmia.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/nov2001/dump-n07.shtml

or this:

"In Chicago, Illinois, a 19-year-old patient came to the ER of Provident Hospital of Cook County with symptoms of threatened miscarriage. The hospital sought HMO approval, which was denied. The young woman was not given an exam or treatment. Because of the delay, she began to deliver a nonviable fetus as she waited for a taxi to take her to another hospital."

again from:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/nov2001/dump-n07.shtml

or:

"In 2006, criminal charges were filed against Kaiser Permanente after one of its hospitals was caught on tape dumping a 63 year old women on the street, wearing nothing but a hospital gown, and still very ill."

http://ezinearticles.com/?Crack-Down-on-Patient-Dumping&id=100321

How about the waiting list for maternity wards? Last I checked it was over 9 months...

That's a great headline, but in reality, it was in one city during a population explosion due to booming economy.

I've had 2 kids in the last couple years in Vancouver, we had no issue whatsoever getting access to a delivery room nor pre or post care in either case. The overloaded maternity wards was a temporary and localized problem due to a rash of babies being born at once, that could have just as easily happened in the states, and it has.

Indeed...

"The UC Davis Medical Center declared an internal state of emergency Wednesday morning and began turning away all but the most seriously ill and injured patients from the trauma center and emergency room because the hospital is completely full.

Elective surgeries are being postponed to free up operating rooms for patients with life-threatening conditions.

UC Davis -- and other local hospitals -- have been operating close to capacity for much of the year. The rapidly growing population in the Sacramento region, a growing number of uninsured patients who crowd emergency rooms because they cannot get care anywhere else, and a critical shortage of nursing staff are causing the strain. "

http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2003/03/17/daily25.html

Sacramento? Where is that again? Oh... right.

These headline grabbing anecdotes however aren't representative of either system.

I've never seen anyone die in the street because he didn't get his surgery. Get real.

Probably, because "didn't get his surgery" can't be listed as a cause of death on a coroners report.

But this comes pretty close:

"A paraplegic man wearing a soiled hospital gown and a broken colostomy bag was found crawling in a gutter in skid row in Los Angeles on Thursday after allegedly being dumped in the street by a Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center van, police said."

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/02/la_hospital_all.html

Or this:

In Baltimore, Maryland, on July 27, 1998, a 70-year-old man accompanied his daughter to the hospital with a sick child. When they arrived, the man told his daughter he didn't feel well and would wait outside the hospital. Passersby noticed something was wrong and called security. The security officer's log stated: "911 notified intoxicated male ... ER notified (refused)" An emergency medical technician with a private ambulance leaving the hospital initiated CPR while the officer contacted the emergency department for assistance. The emergency department again refused assistance. Another ambulance arrived and transported the man to the ER. About one-half hour after the man was first seen lying in the grass, he was pronounced dead of cardiac arrhythmia.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/nov2001/dump-n07.shtml

or this:

"In Chicago, Illinois, a 19-year-old patient came to the ER of Provident Hospital of Cook County with symptoms of threatened miscarriage. The hospital sought HMO approval, which was denied. The young woman was not given an exam or treatment. Because of the delay, she began to deliver a nonviable fetus as she waited for a taxi to take her to another hospital."

again from:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/nov2001/dump-n07.shtml

or:

"In 2006, criminal charges were filed against Kaiser Permanente after one of its hospitals was caught on tape dumping a 63 year old women on the street, wearing nothing but a hospital gown, and still very ill."

http://ezinearticles.com/?Crack-Down-on-Patient-Dumping&id=100321

"george w. bush" iraq -- 2001: 21,400 results
"george w. bush" iraq -- 2008: 15,400,000 results

interesting find: "Will George W. Bush launch a new US war of aggression against Iraq?" -- January, 2001

wikipedia -- 2001: 681
wikipedia -- 2008: 287,000,000

guantanamo bay -- 2001: 33,500
guantanamo bay -- 2008: 7,200,000

waterboarding -- 2001: 43
waterboarding -- 2008: 1,940,000

al qaeda -- 2001: 1670
al qaeda -- 2008: 20,400,000

If by *far* more down to earth you mean they only occupy countries for oil^H^H^Hstability purposes, instead of invading, you are damn right.

The right was granted in the Constitution, and while the Constitution allows it to be temporarily suspended, it has not been lost.

It's not been lost? Tell it to those in Guantanamo Bay, or those held without legal consul, notification to their families, or admissions of their presence in this and similar facilities. Since their names are secret, and even admitting that you know the names can get you thrown in jail as a security risk, that's about as serious a violation of habeas corpus as you can commit. It's also a major violation of the Geneva Convention.

For those that still refuse to believe the US government disrespects human rights nowadays, the best evidence you can provide are reports from reliable sources such as Amnesty International, other human rights organisations, and even the UK government.

Actually I did. Just how stupid are you? Try reading. it. again.

The link is there now. It wasn't when I responded to your posting earlier. Why? I don't know. My account is configured to insert the domain name after linked text (to avoid the URL trolls), and it wasn't there when I pasted your quote into my reply.

But, I went to look at your link. To be clear, WSWS.org is the World Socialist Web Site. I prefer to avoid citation of clearly partisan sources, but I read through the article and found the assertion you quoted:

The top .1% of Americans earned almost as much as the bottom 150 million Americans.

Based on other data I've seen, something didn't add up. So, I went to look at the actual report. I was only able to find the version dated through 2002, but the home page of one of the authors has the Excel data, updated through 2006. I wasn't able to find the statement in question in the report. I also wasn't able to find the NY Times article that the WSWS article cites. So, I don't know the source for the statement.

But, we should be able to verify it ourselves. Download the Excel workbook and take a look at the worksheet named "Table0". There, you can see the average income (including capital gains) for the top 0.1% is $3.7M. Multiply that by the number of families (133,325) and you get a total of $495B. In the same table, the total number of families is 148M. Dividing 495B by 74M (1/2 of 148M) yields an average income per family for the bottom 50% that must be less than $6,672, if the statement in question were correct.

The workbook doesn't contain information by percentile, for less than 90%. But, this graph was derived from Table A-3: Selected Measures of Household Income Dispersion: 1967 to 2003. The table on the same page shows the same data, and in 2003, the average income of the lowest quintile is $10,536 -- substantially higher than the implied average of $6,672 for the lowest 50% that is claimed above.

I'm not claiming that the report is in error, although there is certainly some controvery about it. However, it appears that someone's interpretation doesn't meet the smell test. You might want to take some time reading the entire report and corroborate it against other sources.

The graph from Wikipedia (derived from a US Census report) appears to support part of your claim: the gap between the 95th percentile and the 10th percentile has certainly gotten wider since 1967. The gap between the 10th and 50th percentiles also has gotten wider, although to a lesser extent. However, the gap has leveled off or even declined slightly since 1999 -- ironically since Bush 43 took office.

Nice how you didn't mention the income disparity - it's at the highest rate since just before the great depression - along with tax rates. The top .1% of Americans earned almost as much as the bottom 150 million Americans. And focusing only on income taxes is a classic dodge that ignores the taxes that make a significant percentage of the middle classes tax burden.

Speaking of tax burdens, those who make their income through investments rather than a wage pay a much lower tax rate - 15%. Warren Buttet bet Fortune 400 CEO's a million dollars if they proved they paid a higher tax rate than their secretaries. So far no one has collected.

Let us all be correct in the terminology here. It is not Russian Invasion, but Russian Retaliation. It was Georgia, with support from USA and Israel, who first initiated the attack against Russian peace keepers. In my opinion, it is dangerous to have the US as an enemy but fatal to have as a friend. I encourage everybody to read the articles at WSWS for a good analysis.

Do some more research. Prison is anything but profit in the US. It is a burden on local resources and eats tax dollars like candy.

I already did some research, thank you. It's not profit for you but it's profit for certain groups with a seeming ability to influence your government. For a start, yes, it eats up tax dollars. In other words, it's a nice way of shifting money from the public into private hands. The more people are locked up and for lesser and lesser crimes, the more the prison industry makes. Again, because it's really worth thinking about, the USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world. For one of the richest countries in the world, that should really make you question what's gone wrong. Now on the subject of prison labour, I've already given you a list of major US businesses that employ convicts at dirt-cheap rates. Do you think they would do this if it wasn't increasing their profits? If you want to see just how much of a business prison labour in the USA really is, then look at the website for Unicor aka, Federal Prison Industries, where you can grab yourself some "bargain" prison labour. The main issue is that exploiting people (80% non-violent crimes, by the way) to work for less then 50 cents an hour is wrong in itself, assuming you agree slave labour is wrong. But you might also consider the depressing effect such sub-market rates has on the wages of non-prisoner workers who are just trying to hold down a job.

You're right in several ways when you say that prison is a burden if you're talking about the general public. But you're wrong (and I wish you weren't) if you think there aren't powerful private interests that make very large sums of money from it. There is a financial incentive to get as many people as possible imprisoned and the people who benefit have lobbyists in Washington. I know this, because they're over here (UK) now as well and our own politicians are busy building super-prisons touting the same "tough on crime" rubbish that was used on your lot.

Check out a couple of the links. I've done my research. Your turn. ;)

Clever use of the "Poisoning the well" logical fallacy. Your Marketing professor would be proud of you.

There are very valid reasons to be suspicious of Gates' new-found generosity. And there are certainly very valid reasons to be wary of the path the Gates Foundation is taking to world health.

Their close financial ties to large pharmaceutical companies is another example.

According to a report published January 7 in the Los Angeles Times, the Gates foundation invests its assets in companies whose operations induce some of the health problems it seeks to combat.

Unfortunately, such bases are a bit of extraterritoriality that I don't think anyone has ever answered the question of. In the past, American military bases on foreign soil have been used as a sort of a sanctuary for US citizens (at least members of the military) who have broken local laws (for a recent one: http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/mar1999/ital-m06.shtml ). So, my opinion is that you can't have your cake and eat it too. If US military bases can, in effect, act as extraterritorial facilities (rather like an embassy), then they are in fact bound by US law, and in that case, detainees of such bases are protected by US law.

Unfortunately, what this will encourage more of is rendition; passing off suspected terrorists to countries with, shall we say, much looser rules about how suspects are treated and interrogated. That's a much different battle.

The mujaheddin is to Afghanistan what the cowboy is to the US. Calling them terrorists is hard as they were heavily sponsored and acclaimed as freedom fighters by the US.
They have decades of battle experience, against USSR, and each other. Afghanistan, today, is just the result of the Colonial "great game" followed by brilliant idea Carter had when he gave the USSR its Vietnam War... So stop whining, you had the chance to survive to the results of US history, and you helped writing another page your children will have to live with.

a highly advanced form of guessing

Assuming that a given trend continues is exactly what?

:D I obviously didn't think about it that way, but yes, you're implication is correct. Assuming a trend will continue is assuming that the factors that created the trend will remain in place, and this is a lot of assuming. (I'm sure you've heard this: to assume is to make an ass out of u and me.) A case against such is the news that the life expectancy in the U.S. has dropped. What factor changed that reversed the trend of increasing life expectancy? It's believed to be that we Americans are getting fat and lazy.

However, trends have inertia and if the trend model is built on good research, it's usually a very good guess. The WHO report, while built on solid information such as the knowledge that the older a population, the higher the incident rates of cancer, it doesn't take into account the complete complexity of the issue when making the projections. It mentions various complexities, but there are no numbers, no math to show how it all relates to their projections. Essentially, their report simply says that the world population is aging and older populations show more cancer, so we'll see more cancer. Also, as I mentioned before, they use hard numbers, but show no per capita data or trends.

Besides, quote: "Sources of electromagnetic fields, such as equipment using electricity, television, radio, computers, mobile telephones, microwave ovens as well as radars and equipment used in industry have seen an unprecedented increase, but the carcinogenicity of these fields is not clear, according the study."
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/canc-a26.shtml (emphasis added by me)

The very next statement (after your quote) of the report says, "[h]owever, exposure to ionizing radiation, such as medical X-rays and occupational exposures, particularly in the medical and nuclear industries, can cause a variety of neoplasms, including leukemia, breast cancer and thyroid cancer." They point out what we know, that ionizing radiation is linked to cancer and other issues, but this seems to be trying to link it to non-ionizing radiation, such as the radio sources of the first quote. I pointed out already that the studies have, so far, only muddied the issue. Some show a correlation, others do not. And, of course, correlation != causation, with causation having not been determined at all. The two don't equate and we've already beat to death the fact that the reports on the non-ionizing radiation have thus far proven nothing.

(BTW: On a side note, I want to thank everyone who is participating constructively in this. I'm really enjoying myself, whether I am right or 'get schooled'. Fun stuff!)

my understanding is that all the offshore drilling is off the Gulf Coast: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, etc

There's drilling or potential drilling sites along the US Atlantic coast as well. The Sierra Club has been trying to block exploration and drilling off the Atlantic as well as off California. Meanwhile drilling's picking up off the coast of Latin America, Africa, China and Taiwan, and in Australia especially in the Timor Gap, between Australia and East Timor. The high prices of petroleum makes drilling in these places economically feasible.

One third of the wealth is in the highest ONE PERCENT. the middle class doesn't start anywhere near the 99% mark. The top 10% (which owns 80% of the investment wealth) doesn't start until $350k a year, and that's by 2005 numbers. High capital gains taxes don't hurt people making under $100k because so little of their income is capital gains based. While many of the wealthiest make most of their money via capital gains like warren buffet and hedge fund managers. Now if capital gains goes up 2% that would let income tax come down 1% (yes this is a rough estimation). So anyone who makes less than a third of their income off of capital gains would pay less tax, that means the middle and lower classes.

Or the US Navy changes its contract for refueling planes from Boeing (a US company) to Airbus (a French company)?

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/boei-m27.shtml

I am just waiting for the inevitable breaking of Godwin's law.

I don't know why this is causing such a big ruckus, spying just seems commonplace for any country that holds power. And anyways, last time I checked the US were A-Okay with spying on China.

You'd think they'd go with IBM. Their track record supporting Hitler was so impressive:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jun2001/ibm-j27.shtml

But will they use linux?

Wht I've sen pretty often as well is that once the strikers get all they wanted after weeks of strikes: pay us our strike days or we keep going.

On top of that unions often behave as mobs; torture, kidnaping and even eco-terrorism (dump toxic stuff in rivers) is not beyond them.

The U.S. fascination with the Constitution stems from the fact that its existence, combined with the existence of the U.S. Supreme Court, means that potentially every law and every judgement can be turned into a constitutional issue. In countries that don't have a constitution, or where the courts are not allowed to test laws for constitutionality, this type of legal argument simply cannot arise -- Jammie's only remaining option would be to plead to the general population for financial support (and for political activism to put pressure on lawmakers to fix this silly law, or the excessive statutory damages clause anyway).
Unfortunately, the U.S. Constitution is sufficiently vague on many matters that almost everyone seems to think they can use it to argue their side. As a result, the Supreme Court gets bombarded with cases that really aren't legal but political, and many of its judgements become political decisions instead of decisions of law. This is not exclusively a U.S. problem; witness the recent controversy over Muslim headscarves in public schools, and the blatantly political judgement handed down by the German Supreme Court (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/oct2003/scar-o09.shtml -- echoes of the States' Rights argument popular with the far right in the U.S.).

...were also processed like cattle in the 1930's, thanks to Big Blue. I am saddened that they haven't changed all that much, assisting a totalitarian government in having an omnipresent peering eye. Read up on it. The past is being repeated.