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Clinton Takes Ohio, Texas; McCain Seals The Deal
You can read it pretty much anywhere, but Clinton took Ohio and Texas meaning that the democratic primaries are far from over. Unlike the Dems, McCain has locked his nomination for the Republicans by breaking the 1,191 delegates necessary. So there it is. Talk amongst yourselves.
she left the state with fewer delegates.. I'm trying to understand what a "win" means in this race.
There are less than 600 delegates remaining in the race and Obama has a 100 delegate lead. You do the math. There is no way for Clinton to win the nomination without a miracle.
I was hoping Obama would have been able to further his lead last night and put another nail in the campaign coffin of the Clintons, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Thankfully, Democratic primaries are proportional instead of winner take all, so even with these wins, Clinton won't be able to catch up to Obama.
My Sysadmin Blog
It never ceases to amuse me how McCain supporters will paint Clinton & Obama as hardcore Democrats and call McCain a moderate conservative while Clinton & Obama supporters paint McCain as a hardcore Republican and argue their candidate being a moderate liberal. Because they know the moderate will garner the most votes. I guess one thing they're split on should be the war though if McCain's smart, he'll promise to remain strong in our fight yet distance himself from Bush's attitude towards it (somehow).
I keep hearing people telling me that I shouldn't worry, that everyone's fed up with the war and it's time for a change--there's no way the Democrats could lose this one! Unfortunately, it's shaping up to be all too much like the last election which left me pretty dissappointed, especially in retrospect. Well, at least Clinton & Obama aren't as stoic, wealthy and lifeless as Kerry was. One thing's for sure, I would gladly welcome McCain over Bush as president any day even if people call him a maverick senator.
My work here is dung.
vote pedro....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
I voted for Kodos.
Now that McCain has clinched the nod, expect all those that would have voted for McCain 'when it mattered' to now vote for Clinton when possible. Clinton is by far the easier candidate to beat and everyone knows it. It's very possible the republicans are what helped Clinton win in the Texas primary.
We will now see McCain attacking Obama, Clinton attacking Obama, and republicans voting for Clinton all at once. I hope Obama is up for the fight.
There is no Vermont. Go home.
That statement is only valid for the few rights that haven't already been annihilated by the current administration.
Which would leave one to assume that the situation can only get better, but that was also what we thought when approaching the 2004 presidential election. Yet somehow we were proven wrong.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
As much as I'd like to see a woman or a (excuse the wording) black man in the White House, because it'll do the world as a whole a lot of good, I really don't think the slagging match that the Democrats are having is doing them any favours. Showing Obama wearing a turban (I think it was a turban) and making racial slurs is not a good way to win votes at election time.
Summation 2
There's plenty of evidence that in both Texas and Ohio, Republicans are voting for Hillary in order to "bloody Obama" politically. Rush Limbaugh has been urging his listeners to do that for weeks. http://www.middletownjournal.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/03/04/mj030408switchweb.html Similar stories are coming in about Ohio. The political machine is starting to conspire against Obama from both sides. But I still believe that Obama will win the nomination because Hillary has a math problem. http://www.newsweek.com/id/118240 But the feeling of dread comes from the notion that even if she loses the delegate count, that she'll still be able to pull out a victory via her usual shenanigans. She's going to fight to have Michigan and Florida's delegates seated even though in Michigan for instance, Barack's name wasnt even on the ballot.
Go Kevin!
... wait, what? Which country now?
Down with John Howard!
|>
Here be Dragons
The problem for the Democrats is that as the race wears on they risk looking childish and disorganised, as two candidates prone to infighting that have split their own party. McCain and the Republicans could easily steal the march by projecting the presence of a party united behind one candidate with a clear vision for his campaign and potential White House tenure. If I were a Democrat I would be hoping at the moment for a speedy resolution.
Remember folks, in the Primaries, republicans can vote for democrats... In caucuses, democrats vote for democrats. The results from the caucus have yet to be counted, (at least for Texas (cnn.com)). IMHO, the republican base came out in droves for HRC because she doesn't stand a chance against McCain, whereas Obama would probably defeat McCain. This is my opinion on Texas anyway... In Ohio, on the other hand, I would guess it's pretty much a win for HRC. Republicans see a McCain / Clinton race as a McCain win... so they do everything they can to give HRC the nomination.
Umm, did you all forget that Ron Paul is still running in the race as Republican?? McCain has sealed nothing yet..
Oday ouyay antway otay ayplay away amegay?
Sometimes I really hate being a Democrat. Sitting back and watching party leaders who seem determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory time and time again can make you want to weep.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I for one am hoping that Hillary gets into office because then the Second Coming will happen
The nifty thing for Obama, is that he is far enough ahead in pledged delegates that he still doesn't have to go sharply negative. Notice the things he hasn't talked about. Tax returns? Bill's last minute pardons (against the advice of the Justice Department, but for people who paid consulting fees to Hillary's brothers)? Kazakhstan? Clinton library donors? Lincoln bedroom guest list? Norman Hsu? Trying to win the nomination without getting these matters in the mainstream media is a kindness to the Democratic Party that the superdelegates would be blind to ignore.
The only question left is Florida and Michigan. Particularly the latter. If she manages to seat her Michigan delegates and none for Obama (since he wasn't on the ballot), I will be disappointed if Detroit doesn't take to the streets.
Not only did McCain seal his own party's nomination, he gets to take free shots at both Clinton and Obama for 7 weeks while they try to destroy eachother.
It's just an aside, as your sig made me think of a culture's values more generally...
Wikileaks, no DNS
"Which would leave one to assume that the situation can only get better..."
How do you come to that conclusion? Have you seen the same ads I have? "I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper" - "Healthcare for everyone". This can only translate into more of my labor going towards strangers.
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
TFA: In the Texas primary, [Clinton] won with 51 pecent of the vote compared to 48 percent for Obama.
3% is winning the state? Remember that Democratic state delegates are divided up by vote percentages, unlike the Republican "winner take all" delegate process. So Clinton's win in Texas is fairly thin, and frankly a poor showing after all the money and campaigning she's spent lately in a state that was always considered an automatic win for her.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Politics continues to sicken me, although not more than before. I'll even go so far as to say that I'm less sickened that I was in the past, because I now place the blame on where it should be placed: on the voters.
I don't vote (actually, I anti-vote, writing my own name in where possible). Voting is an act that provides the PTB a simple request from the voter: "Lead me as you think I should be led." I don't need a leader. My life is in my hands, as are the lives of my family. Instead of spending out of control, we save. Instead of relying on insurance for regular medical visits, we pay cash on the barrel and pay a low insurance premium just for emergencies. We eat healthy, exercise, and try to stay in shape so as not to need expensive medical visits and medication that many of our friends take (and want discounts for). Rather than being angered by people that are different from ourselves, we travel the world every year and meet those that the PTB say are our enemies. Most of the time they are people not so different from ourselves.
The country demands a leader, and they'll get one. Individuals, even the most pious and charitable, generally look out for themselves first. A leader is no different. A leader generally doesn't listen to those that he/she leads. A leader may only have said position for a few years, but will always be thinking about what they will do after their leadership position is over. In some situations, the most egomaniacal leaders may be thinking about how history will support their positions and actions.
The surprise to me is that we United States citizens believe we need a leader, at least in government. The Constitution doesn't give the President power to lead, only to execute the laws which we wanted put in place; equitable laws that infringe on everyone equally, rather than giving preferential treatment to the few at the cost of the many (or vice versa). The President is not the Commander-in-Chief until Congress actively declares war. We declared war in WW2, but since then, we have not had a legal CiC. The President is not there to save the economy, or even care about the economy, because economic issues are the domain of Congress, or even more preferably the States. The President isn't supposed to take positions on what he or she will support or wants to do, because the President merely reviews signed bills and their Constitutionality, and only then making the decision to support future execution of said bills into law if the bills mass Constitutional muster. Most don't.
It is sad when people demand a leader, but are too fearful of being leaders themselves. This is why I am disgusted -- not with politics -- but with you voters who have your head so far up your rears that you think your leader can lead me. I'll be forced to follow.
Well, Ron Paul SHOULD still be in at this point. That's not trolling.
There are a lot of Republicans who just WON'T vote for McCain. Ron should and will stay in the race, and those McCain haters are going to vote for him, just like they did for Huckabee. Hopefully they'll also learn something. The current election is always about the next one for the candidates who don't win. I think that inspite of what we know here, and the best efforts of many on this board, there are about 300 million citizens in the US who don't know anything more about Ron Paul's positions than that he is completely against the Iraq war. If the nation becomes better informed about the REAL cost of lowering interest rates and devaluing the dollar, things might actually change.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
If the Fascists wins, it will mean higher taxes on individuals, more unregulated business monopolies and more of a Big Brother state.
The candidates can say all they want to get elected, but as history has shown, words are cheap.
When I see the candidates, all I can think of is the line from 'Armegeddon' where Bruce Willis' character sees who NASA wants to send up and he comments:
In my case, all I can think is:
This is the best we can do? I mean, we're the United States of America. You're telling me that of all the people in the country eligible to run for President, these shills are the best we can do? That's what you're telling me?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The economy is tanking due to the Republicans. Whomever the next president will be is about to oversee the greatest collapse we've seen since the Great Depression, as the only thing shoring up our economy at the moment is over $600 billion of loaned capitol which is going to baloon to $2 trillion by years end at the current pace. If I were a strategist, I would throw the election, to let the Republicans take it, and watch as everything collapses around them.
Alternatively, put forth the strongest dream-team, a Regan/Bush 1980 style team. Idealist speechgiver as the main ticket, the strong and reasoned seasoned senate veteran in the VP chair. Push forward using the collapsing economy as your footprint. Forget the war, people don't think of war when they're worried about their jobs! It's the economy stupid!
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
The media was playing it up as Clinton's "last chance", so naturally that will energize people who are emotionally involved with that candidate and get them out to vote... just like in New Hampshire, where women came out strong for their candidate.
Personally, I find the level of racism and sexism involved in propping up Clinton's campaign disgusting. I'd like to think of Democrats as above and beyond that. If you look at the facts, Obama is a better speaker, more motivational, more liked overseas, less divisive. Obama has more experience in public service, he's made better decisions, and he's more likely to win against McCain. He's run a more organized and effective campaign. So given that he pretty much outclasses her in every way as a candidate, you have to ask yourself why people are voting for Clinton, and is it right.
Some people say that Obama is benefiting from being half-black by winning the black vote 10:1. I don't think that's really true, I think he'd be winning the other groups that much if not for the factors working against him. For instance, the Hispanic community has historically been at odds with African Americans. And whites and women, obviously, have a bias for a white woman. It seems to me that by merit he should be winning close to that ratio among most groups.
The Republican leadership doesn't seem to want McCain but the rank and file have forced him upon them. I guess they're going to suck it up and start supporting him. Since he's so frickin' old, I'm guessing they're going to seriously consider his VP as the next president of the United States. Even Reagan didn't seem this old.
On the Democrat's side, I agree that a contested convention is going to be a bad deal since the Republicans are already rallying behind their man while the Dems don't even know who their's is. I think that Obama has been very civil in his criticisms of Hillary, sticking to the record and the facts. Hillary's attacks are ad hominem and only serve to hurt Obama and by extension the party if he gets the nomination. I thought it was very telling the way she phrased that one statement, praising herself and McCain for "having foreign policy experience while all Obama had was a speech in 2002." She's pretty much saying that of the three choices involved, she's the best, McCain would be an acceptable second-best, and Obama shouldn't even be in the consideration because he lacks qualifications.
If she does manage to gain the nomination through seating banned delegates and other legalistic chicanery, I do believe this will split the party. It will be seen as a deliberate thwarting of the will of the people. "I hear what you are saying, I understand what you want, and the answer is 'fuck you, we're doing it my way.'"
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Pennsylvania on April 22. If Clinton can take Pennsylvania then she will most likely get the nomination. :=)
It is about time Obama had to face some of the issues instead of a free media pass. What is all this change he keeps carping on? All talk and no substance. His campaign is staffed by some seriously questionable folks as well. So remember.. Pennsylvania on April 22'nd folks.
"Healthcare for everyone". This can only translate into more of my labor going towards strangers.
Probably, but not necessarily. You're already paying for healthcare for everyone (if you spend anything on healthcare) in the form of high costs that have built in the assumption that something like 40% of the patients will never pay. Don't even get me started on emergency rooms.
It's not impossible that a universal healthcare solution could actually reduce the amount of money most people spend on healthcare.
that hatred from many nations including what were once very close allies and an economy that's been falling and falling and falling would be enough of a clue that it's time to end the Clinton/Bush era
I call BS. Obviously the Bush era sucks, but Clinton was a hugely popular president from a global prespective, the economy wasn't too bad either. Either you were too young to remember or your'e just trolling.
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
At a minimum we'll lose by either having a cranky old geezer who likes to throw his weight around in office through wars and limits on the Bill of Rights. The flipside is that we will end up with two tax-and-spend leftists who are both weak on civil liberties.
Those of us who remember the Clinton years from a civil liberties side remember that it was only less bad that the Bush years because the Clintons didn't have the convenient excuse of terrorism. OKC doesn't count because they dismantled the group responsible for that without much effort. McVeigh did not have the sort of connections that justified making him into the sort of boogeyman that Bin Laden could be.
I for one am sick and tired of hearing about change from everyone. No one is proposing change, unless by change you mean making us worse off than we already are. Here's a thought for all three: real change would be running on a campaign to severely limit the ability of the federal government to tax and regulate American citizens' lives instead of coming up with grandiose policies for spending our money and telling us what to do.
As I said, we'll lose no matter who wins, short of all three of these candidates dropping dead and Ron Paul being the last man standing with appeal to both sides.
My videogames... my precious videogames!
As opposed to the current system where the ER is often the first, last and only choice for the poor, resulting in increased medical bills that are unpaid and passed onto wealthier hospital patrons who do have insurance?
There are places that capitalism fails. Healthcare looks like it is one of them. Even if doctors could refuse treatment until after they were paid (what a dystopic thought!), the lack of access to healthcare would decrease the total health of the population, resulting in a population that is more prone to infectious diseases and epidemics.
PS: We have the ability to wipe out polio from the world relatively easily. That's due to government, not private practice footing the bill. We also have the ability to eradicate the MMR trio if we are willing to push for an international campaign to do so.
Wasn't it bad enough that her husband spent 8 years undercutting and selling-out the liberals in his own party? Must she now be a Brutus as well? IS Chelsea already planning how SHE is going to fuck us over too?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The US spends more than twice as much per capita on healthcare than the UK.
We now have the pissed-off ex-bra burner 60's retreads thinking this will be the final defeat of the paternal phallacracy vs. the Black Power 60's retreads who will be expecting their Reparations Checks to be in the mail next January 20. The icing on the cake will be another 1968-style riot at the convention.
It was a bunch of bullshit. No one ever grilled Ron Paul on the support he gets from far right wing racist groups on air. The initial question was absurd and the line that Russert followed was the worst sort of twisted reasoning. Sort of "your brother's, former roommate's sister's boyfriend said such and such and he supports you." or "Do you reject support from all of those black people who have committed crimes?"
A blog about stuff.
No one cares what you think. Seriously.
I think some do. Maybe not many, but in all honesty, let's look at the long term viability of my posting on slashdot:
1. People add me as their friend. This means they have some respect for my style of writing, even if they disagree with the content.
2. People email me often. My real name is up there, not a fake name or worse "Anonymous Coward." I appreciate that people connect me to my posts on slashdot, and when future customers Google me, they will get literally thousands of Slashdot posts pointing to my opinion. I even tell people to Google my name along with what they want to know about me, and Slashdot comes to the rescue, usually pulling up a few past posts over what I said. I profit from what I say here, as do those who learn from me (or help me learn from what I may have missed).
3. Slashdot provides a venue for alternative opinions, and not just a heads-or-tails situation. We have a fairly massive user base, but the content that comes out of the users is more varied than almost any other blog or forum. This means that we all learn from each other (or help each other learn). My posts are just a drop in the bucket, but they add something to this system of learning.
4. I am moderated generally high, but I am not a Karma whore. If you go through my mod history, you'll see that I am -1 about 1/2 the time as +5. That's fine with me, it helps me gauge "the market" of what people are interested in hearing, and what they're not. I no longer user the term "anarcho-capitalist" in my posts, because people didn't like my use of the term. I learned.
5. There are features that allow you to ignore me on the board completely. Make me a Foe, moderate foes to -5, and I'm gone from your screen. Easy as pie.
Let me tell you what's really sad, a (presumably) grown man like you who finds the need to repeatedly share the details of his life on a technology web board.
So I'll ask "GO THE FUCK AWAY". Will I receive?
Well, the first thing that you need to see is that Slashdot works for me as a community to bounce ideas off of. These ideas are either accepted fully by some, or denied fully by others. Rarely do I get any gray area in how people relate to what I have to say. Now, why would I share details on my life? Because Slashdot is heavily archived by Google, and I love to look over the years at how my opinions have changed, plus I can compare it to what other people said. My blogs don't get as much traffic as Slashdot does, so I have an excellent archive of how I have progressed over time, versus how technical/geek society has changed. When I first registered at slashdot, just saying "libertarian" was sure to get you moderated Troll. Now it is almost as sure to moderate you up. Tech society has changed, and I'd say for the better.
So I will go away, but you have to take the steps to do so.
While I believe that Gore was winnable, kerry never stood a chance. Dean did, according to polls of the time. Now, the polls show Obama will beat McCain handily, while Clinton has just an even chance (in fact, may actually lose). Yet, these dems vote for Clinton. If Obama wins, I hope that he realizes how close things are and pushes to change election laws that favor a 2 party system. We need to be multi-party system. It is the only way that we can prevent our nation from being hijacked by ppl W. or Clinton.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"It's not impossible that a universal healthcare solution could actually reduce the amount of money most people spend on healthcare."
Please read my reply again. What I am concerned about is the fundamental violation of my rights and the rights of my neighbors and fellow citizens. I am being told that I am less and less entitled to the fruits of my labor. Last year, Tax Freedom Day fell on April 30th. That basically means that, if you started on January 1st and put all of your labor toward taxes, you would have to keep doing that until April 30th before you would be free to get 100% of your income for the rest of the year. With universal healthcare, this date will surely come later in the, each year.
"You're already paying for healthcare for everyone (if you spend anything on healthcare) in the form of high costs that have built in the assumption that something like 40% of the patients will never pay."
Thank the government for the situation we are now in. If the market were free to function of its own accord (as it can and always will despite the public's irrational fears), competition would lower costs. But competition has been eradicated. The government granted tax exemption status to certain insurance companies (Blue Cross / Blue Shield), which then gained a monopoly. They were then able to modify the definition of insurance to include not only emergencies, but routine medical visits. This, combined with tax-breaks for employer-sponsored insurance, has minimized incentives for customers to comparison-shop for medical services, and also minimized incentives for doctors and hospitals to compete on price.
When people learn that the government should keep its claws out of money altogether, we'll stop getting these idiotic solutions that are only proposed in order to stir up support from voters, but end up having devastating effects that last well beyond the candidate's political career.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/4/162042/3056/80/468751
This assumes that Hillary somehow magically wins by 10% in every race. Which is NOT going to happen unless Barack gets caught with a dead girl or live boy. After today, there are 10 states left, plus Guam and Puerto Rico.
Number of 3 delegate districts left: 1
Number of 4 delegate districts left: 19 (including all 8 in Puerto Rico)
Number of 5 delegate districts left: 21
Number of 6 delegate districts left: 14
Number of 7 delegate districts left: 10
Number of 8 delegate districts left: 1
Number of 9 delegate districts left: 3
Number of 10 delegate districts left: 1 (Montana)
Setting aside Guam with its 4 delegates, there are 11 delegate apportionments based on statewide popular vote totals.
Wyoming - 5 statewide
South Dakota - 6 statewide
Montana - 6 statewide
West Virginia - 10 statewide
Mississippi - 11 statewide
Kentucky - 17 statewide
Oregon - 18 statewide
Puerto Rico - 19 islandwide
Indiana - 25 statewide
North Carolina - 38 statewide
Pennsylvania - 55 statewide
In order to cross all thresholds except the initial break that give you a +2 delegate swing, you need to win by an extra 200/X%, where X = the number of total delegates at stake. Let's see how this works by easy example - West Virginia and its 10 statewide delegates. 200/10 = 20%. To go from 5-5 to 6-4 there you have to win by over 10% (55-45). But to get ANOTHER +2 you need to add 20% to your win and win by 30% (65-35).
To work through one more example, Indiana and its 25. You start with someone winning 13-12. To get an additional +2 swing (ie, 14-11), you have to win by 200/25%, or 8% even. 54-46 + 1 vote is a 14-11 split. You can also calculate this way: 13.5/25 =
So, let's look at if Clinton wins every statewide total by 10%:
Wyoming +1
South Dakota 0
Montana 0
West Virginia +1, giving her the +1 vote benefit of the doubt.
Mississippi +1
Kentucky +1
Oregon +2
Puerto Rico +1
Indiana +3
North Carolina +4
Pennsylvania +5
Total +19 delegates.
Do you see how totally impossible it is, and how completely significant Obama's South Carolina and February blowouts were? Remember, Obama beat Clinton by 8% in Iowa (a huge win) and netted only 1 extra pledged delegate.
Now, let's assume, in a very unsurgical way, that this 10% is exactly the margin in all the congressional districts.
1 3-delegate district: +1
19 4-delegate districts: 0
21 5-delegate districts: +21
14 6-delegate districts: 0
10 7-delegate districts: +10
1 8-delegate district: 0
3 9-delegate districts: +3
1 10-delegate district: +1, let's give her the 1 extra vote benefit of the doubt.
Total +36 delegates
Overall total +55 delegates.
And it probably is +58, see below.
Obama currently leads by 160 pledged delegates.
I wish there was a fscking blue pill
The Obama campaign appears to be much better organized than the Clinton campaign. Clinton tried to run an "inevitability" campaign like Bush did in the Republican primaries in 2000. When that didn't work as well as expected for Clinton, it really looked like they weren't ready with any kind of backup plan. Also, Hillary Clinton is still following the strategy that allowed Bill Clinton to win the presidency twice: ignore huge parts of the country, take others for granted, and focus on a few "swing" states to get the minimum amount of votes to win. Obama's team appears to have understood the rules of the primaries and caucuses better than Clinton's, which is surprising, given how much Clinton plays up her experience as a Senator, an activist, and yes, as the wife of Bill Clinton. I can't imagine how they could not know how Texas's apportionment of delegates works, and yet they claim they didn't. While Clinton won the popular vote in three of four states (Rhode Island, Texas, and Ohio, but not Vermont), Rhode Island and Vermont basically canceled each other out (each was a blowout and both states have few delegates). Clinton won the popular vote in Texas and Ohio, but the final delegate count will be either a very small (single-digit) number of net delegates going to Clinton or even possibly Obama padding his three-digit lead by a few more delegates.
Obama's campaign ran hard and organized even in the states where he was way ahead. The result was blowout victories, which makes a difference in the primaries, because the apportionment of delegates depends on the margin of victory. Clinton scored one blowout yesterday and was blown out in another state, so the net effect is probably about 1 net delegate for Clinton. In the bigger states, Clinton scored two narrow victories, and in Texas, the combined primary-caucus may end up giving Obama a net win in delegates.
Clinton's campaign has tried to change the rules during the contest more than once, which is really lame. There's talk that the Clinton campaign will now sue over the nature of the Texas caucus-primary, but they had the same access to the rules as the Obama campaign did. They just seem not to have planned as well.
Obama appears to be more of a party-builder, like Howard Dean and his "50 State Strategy." While moron pundits like Paul Begala derided paying party workers to "pick their noses" in places like Montana and Mississippi, Dean set up the structure not only for the Democrats' retaking both houses of Congress in the 2006 elections, but also for extending their majorities and making gains in the state legislatures nationwide. Obama seems to have embraced that strategy, and it would make a difference in places like Texas, where Rick Noriega could have a chance of unseating Senator Cornyn if the presidential candidate doesn't ignore the state, and at the very least the Democrats could force the Republicans to spend money to defend what previously would have been considered a very safe seat. Clinton's campaign, as recently as last week, when it thought she might lose in Texas, was saying that "Texas does not figure into the electoral calculus of a Democratic (Presidential) candidate." That is a ridiculously narrow view, and since so many of Hillary's advisors and consultants also worked for Bill, I wonder if the Clintons' philosophy is responsible for the fact that Bill Clinton managed to win the White House, but then the Democrats almost immediately lost control of both houses of Congress, setting the stage for the Bush presidency, when White House power was basically unchecked by a Congress all too willing to let Bush and Cheney do whatever they wanted. Including taking a surplus and making it into record deficits. Oh, and a multi-trillion dollar war that destabilized the region and created more terrorists by making bin Laden and his ilk look really smart as the US government acted just as al Qaeda and others said it would.
Here's the thing: I'm pushing 40, and Bill Clinton was far and away the best president of
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
Are you sure about that? Al Qaeda came into prominence with anti-American hate during Clinton's rule. The economy appeared not bad, but was still beginning it's decline and only anywhere near good because the dot com boom was temporarily propping it up later in the 90s. The US' main competitors, China, Russia and India were still weak so didn't show up the US economy as being as weak as it actually was and further masked the decline somewhat.
Many also saw Clinton's warmongering and constant side-swapping in former Yugoslavia as rather atrocious and is the reason much of the genocide was able to occur. He'd also been a big backer of the IRA making many Brits hate him.
Perhaps whilst America was still living in fantasy-land pre-9/11 when it got it's wake up call you didn't realise these sort of things.
Yeah, but these kinds of people never really want to look at the optimistic side of things, or debate how things might turn out. They have their knee-jerk reactions, and they're going to stick by them come Hell or high water.
Me? I don't know how universal health care would turn out. Realistically, it's just an easy gimmick for the Democratic party to play upon, after Michael Moore's numbers came out and showed that a sizable percentage of people (read: potential voters) don't have insurance. It's just like when the Republican party discovered that pretending to have Christian values is a good way to get votes.
No one ever bothers mentioning that caring for your neighbor is a Christian value....
"As opposed to the current system where the ER is often the first, last and only choice for the poor, resulting in increased medical bills that are unpaid and passed onto wealthier hospital patrons who do have insurance?"
Have you thought about this one iota? How do you propose that a universal healthcare system would be any better? The money has to come from somewhere. If you are not paying it through insurance, you are paying it through taxes. The only difference is that one of those is forced upon you and violates your fundamental rights.
"Even if doctors could refuse treatment until after they were paid (what a dystopic thought!)"
If the public refused to visit such a doctor, the doctor would have to change his policies or risk going out of business. Remind me again how capitalism would fail?
"the lack of access to healthcare would decrease the total health of the population"
The lack of access to healthcare is due only to the lack of competition among insurance companies and healthcare providers. This is due to the unfair economic advantage (in the form of tax breaks) given to certain insurance companies (Blue Cross / Blue Shield) and tax breaks for employer-sponsored insurance. People accept it as a default position that their employer should provide them with insurance. Rather than shop around, the individual is forced to accept their employer's provider if they want to work, and in turn forced to accept the doctors under that plan. There is no incentive for insurance companies or doctors to compete to lower costs because there is no interest in comparison shopping.
"We have the ability to wipe out polio from the world relatively easily. That's due to government, not private practice footing the bill. We also have the ability to eradicate the MMR trio if we are willing to push for an international campaign to do so."
If you believe those to be noble efforts, feel free to put your hours of labor toward those causes, and ask others to support it as well. Why do you feel the need to violate the rights of your neighbors and fellow citizens by telling them that, if they want to live in this country, they have to support your chosen cause.
The AC had copied and pasted a cookie cutter troll. FYI.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
I spent some time in southern africa and germany during the end of the Clinton presidency. He was nothing but the brunt of jokes and was in no way popular, aside from being laughed at.
You think people made fun of the clinton/lewinsky thing here? You should have spent some time overseas.
The presidential election is almost 3/4 of a year away. Only a few months ago it looked like McCain didn't have a chance in hell.
Clinton is what she is. She has so many skeletons released from her (and her husband's) closet that nothing will surprise anyone.
She has stopped short of dragging Obama through the mud, however. This guy isn't as pure and churchy as his image portreys him currently.
There are documents from Obama's childhood listing him as a Muslim by his parents. As some know, any former Muslim who has converted must be executed per their "religion of peace" rules. He has ties to many dirty politicians in Chicago. He has supported organizations who have in turn supported terrorism.
Clinton is almost doing the Republican party a favor by not bringing these things up. They will look new in a few months.
...the more I think that the Democrats will need to utilize the so-called "Dream Ticket" to win in November. It's obvious that both candidates have very solid blocks of support that refuse to go down without a fight. Also, the turnout numbers for the Democrats this primary season have been much, much higher than the Republicans. Unless one candidate locks up this nomination soon (which would probably be Obama, due to the logistics at this point), the party will be so splintered that the only way to bring it back together in time for the general election would be to include both "finalists" on the ticket.
"It's a reverse vampire...they....they crave the sun!"
As an outsider, the Clinton administration looked successful so I'm not sure why anyone would hate on it. Certainly Clinton had his faults (e.g. the sex scandal) but he was smart, articulate, managed the country well, didn't start any major wars, was well respected internationally and left the country in better shape than he found it. The Bush administration on the other hand was and still is a total disaster.
http://lee-phillips.org/primary/ yes, my graphical skills are weak.
Here's something that occurred to me. Let's say (and I don't see this as terribly far-fetched) Clinton pulls off something with the superdelegates where she scores the nomination, despite Obama receiving the popular vote. I wonder, could Obama have a chance running as either an independent or create a 3rd party?
He was saying that RP could win NEXT election. He has a point too. Most people still don't know anything about RP and why he said the things he did.
A blog about stuff.
The problem with that comparison is that you are likely not currently counting your health insurance expenditures as a tax. If you are only counting the money that you directly pay to the government as tax, then yes your tax would go up under universal health care[1]. However, if you are currently purchasing health care through the for-profit system, you are essentially paying a tax to them. So really the "tax freedom day" calculation should be re-done to include health care costs currently paid, before you can compare it to where it may be in the future with universal health care.
[1]: No major candidate is actually proposing universal health care. I say this as a voter who wishes that one of them would. In particular if you look at Clinton's proposal today, it bears almost no resemblance to what she rallied for as first lady[2]. Previously she wanted universal care, now she just wants to help people buy into the for-profit system.
[2]: I mention her in particular because she is frequently attacked by people who claim her to be in support of universal health care. An actual reading of her current proposals will dispel that rumor.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Vote KANG! Only KANG!
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
The media, and the people, have very short attention spans. I seriously doubt that come November anyone is even going to remember the Obama/Clinton race. They'll all be focused on Obama/McCain at that point.
McCain, Clinton, Obama. It doesn't matter. George W. is going to hand them a shit sandwich.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
What the hek does it have to do with techno -in general-?
Another point to bring up, those "uncollected" health care costs come from more government interference, in the form of EMTALA. What other business in the United States is legally required to do pro bono work? Charity stops being charity at the point of a gun.
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
So why don't you run for office for real?
Skiffy is Spiffy, but Ort is tort.
I am a Texas resident who voted in both the primary and caucus, and so I naturally had a stake in closely following the primary results. At no time did Obama ever lead when the primary results came in, nor is he the leader in some ubiquitous Texas "popular vote." Hillary won that as well. Texas was a victory for Hillary in every sense of the word.
We are still awaiting the returns on the caucus, but that only accounts for a mere 1/3rd of the delegates awarded to each candidate, and the early returns indicate that whatever meager advantage that Obama may have in caucus votes will be all but swallowed up by Hillary's more impressive win in the primary election. Really we're talking about hundreds of extra Obama caucus votes vs. Hillary's hundreds of thousands of extra primary votes.
Now for some light editorializing: The reason we're still waiting on caucus results in many counties is because Texas had roughly double the expected turnout. The antiquated system we have in place requires that everyone in a precinct vote in the primary election before the caucus can be held. And the inability of many precincts to deal with the added influx of voters made it so that, in many cases, caucus voting could not start until 11 pm that evening.
Obama will likely fare slightly better in the caucus in Texas, only because the core of the Democrat party--the baby boomers who constitute the majority of Hillary supporters--had families to get back to and jobs they had to get up for the next morning. Hillary supporters simply didn't have the ability to "two-step" all the way into the early morning hours, while it apparently is far easier for the young, first time voters who make up Obama's base to spend literally six hours of their time at their local middle school or fire station.
If you think it's silly to have both a primary election followed by a caucus that runs into the late hours, then you've just joined the ranks of many Texans who think it's ridiculous as well. Not only is it hard for people to get a handle on the vote once / vote again thing, but it does tend to disenfranchise hard-working Democrats who can't be out all night caucusing. A 19 year-old UT student and Obama supporter who would just be out all night anyway? Welcome to the party. A 46 year-old mother of two and Hillary supporter who has to prepare for a shift working at the hospital? Congratulations, you effectively have no say in the caucus. So that's why there is a slight disconnect between the primary and caucus results.
Since irrational Obama supporters apparently run the internets, I fully expect this post to be modded "Troll" or something, because it doesn't contain the requisite amount of Obama bias and instead offers a firsthand account of what went down in Texas last night, and posits a reasonable theory for the disparity between primary and caucus votes. How scandalous. Do your candidate of choice proud, and suppress any relatively objective post you see.
I hear child molesters and dog abusers are big fans of Tim Russert. They watch his show religiously and purchase products from his advertisers. There for, every guest who come on his show has the responsibility to ask him for his side of the story, in a similar fashion:
"Tim, we all know that a lot of people who like kicking dogs and throwing puppies off cliffs are big fans of yours. We also know that you are widely respected in the child porn industry. What do you have to say about that?"
That's not a hard question, that's a loaded question. A hard question would be:
"Our economic advisers believe that your economic policy will fail for reasons X, Y, and Z. Explain how your plan will work to avoid X, Y, and Z."
But watching a man defend an economic policy is no where near as fun as watching him defend himself from accusations of being a terrorist, a Black Panther, Muslim, corrupt, Jewish, antisemitic, etc... If you want some tough questions, get some English interviewers over here to badger the candidates on the issues. If you want BS and fluff, stay tuned to American TV for it's 'Entertainment Value'.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Yes.
For starters, by getting more people to pay into insurance. Remember: universal health care does not mean free health care, at least in the Clinton and Obama plans. In their lingo, "universal health care" means everybody has options to pay into insurance plans, even outside of employers (something you seem to be advocating). In Clinton's plan, people are required to buy health insurance; Obama's plan only mandates insurance for children. However, both plans should increase the number of people paying into the insurance system.
The question is: how much money is it, and what will happen to insurance premiums and taxes as a result?
It's not as simple as "more health coverage for others = more cost to me". If more people are paying their way (vs. relying on ER-as-primary-care and similar schemes), that increases the available money. If, by being covered, ailments and conditions can be treated less expensively than if they fester, that decreases costs. By getting more people covered, we may be able to force down the per-person cost of prescription drugs, because the R&D costs remain fixed while the number of purchased doses increases.
Hop over to factcheck.org sometime and read their analyses of the candidates' health care plans. The biggest thing to take away from there is that lots of economists are still debating the overall financial impact of these plans. Saying you disagree with these plans because of a libertarian philosophy is one thing, saying you disagree with these plans because they'll cost you more is premature.
You mean auto insurance, right? That's forced upon you if you choose to own a car.
In other words, taxes aren't the only things "forced upon you".
Citation, please.
You're welcome to say something like "IMHO, the lack of access...". But if you're going to claim this as an indisputable fact, you need to provide some degree of proof. I actually agree with parts of what you say; however, it's those parts (e.g., more incentive to shop around) that seem to be addressed by the Democrats' universal health care programs, which you seem to despise.
Let's assume for the moment that the GP is correct, and that the MMR trio could be eradicated given government involvement (personally, I'm skeptical). Let's further assume that the projected cost of such an eradication effort is significantly lower than our current costs for vaccination and treatment, given that the eradication effort is a one-time campaign, whereas vaccination and treatment is ongoing and indefinite.
This is where I and knee-jerk libertarians part ways, I think.
The classic libertarian response to this would appear to be "who the cares? it infringes my rights, therefore it is evil incarnate".
This pragmatist's response to this is "damn! we can save money and improve quality of life in one shot? go for it!"
I appreciate the libertarian philosophy, if for no other reason than it's logically consistent (as opposed to the claptrap that passes for philosophies in the Democratic and Republican parties). However, libertarianism seems, often times, to boil down to "f*ck 'em all", and I think we can do better than that. Maybe the Internet will allow more people to collaborate and solve these kinds of problems outside the scope of government, and we can achieve the libertarian ideal of "few laws, lotsa volunteering".
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
A blog about stuff.
Ah yes, your rights to have everything you want. I take it you won't drive on any bridges, flush your toilet into any sewers, or rely on any police to keep you safe, because the government shouldn't be "clawing away" your money. And definitely you wouldn't want to put that money into a bank insured by the FDIC, or take a mortgage backed by the same federal guarantees (explicit and implicit), or participate in a stock market where liars and thieves are kept (somewhat) at bay by the SEC. Nor do you want any assurance that your medicines are not contaminated, your foodstuffs safe, and your children's teachers are not psychopaths.
The "market will solve everything if you only you set it free" meme was new (and woefully simplistic) in 1971. Now it's tired, overused and foolishly simplistic. Your whole lifestyle is made possible by a profound set of government-run or backed institutions. If they're broken, the answer is to fix them and work for fair, well-regulated markers, not scrap everything we've learned and go back to the 1860s (as appealing as them sometimes seems from within a fluorescent-lit cube). I'm all for leaner and more effective government (as, in fact, are almost all of us who think government has a key role in society), but the nonsense about greedy government taking all your tax dollars sounds increasingly petulant when bridges are falling down, tainted food and drugs are being allowed into our stores, and people are losing their homes in droves, and the top marginal tax rate is the lowest its been in decades.
Government regulation of healthcare is indeed a gigantic mess, and the Blues are a great example of that mess. And yes, government intervention in a market can indeed make a problem worse. But it takes two to tango, so let's recall Gingrich-led cuts to Medicare in the 90s, and permanent resistance to Medicaid's existence (because after all, that's just more poor - read "lazy" - people clawing your government-backed money away) and general conservative opposition to every government program that doesn't involve fat contracts for their buddies don't really to much to promote fair, orderly and efficient markets either.
Sure, comparison shopping for healthcare would improve the system and make the market for healthcare more efficient, if there were choices real humans could afford. Have you ever priced non-employer sponsored "insurance" (the quotes are because health coverage is much more a bundled service agreement that it is insurance against unlikely adverse events)? The prospect of paying $10,000-$15,000 per year sounds like great set of choices, huh? I've learned a fair bit about the dysfunction of the medical reimbursement system in my current job, and I'm not sure a government-run healthcare program is all peaches and cream, primarily because the current incarnations sidestep the hard questions we need to debate about how much care should really cost and who should pay for what. There is a cost control element to healthcare that's deeply difficult to answer once your parent gets cancer or your sibling gets a debilitating disease. But that's a debate about how to structure things well within government and the private sector, not a worn-out screed about drowning government in the bathtub.
Well, if the Dems were offering universal health care I'd be interested to see how it turns out, but they aren't. They are offering mandated insurance.
A blog about stuff.
First, an argument can be made that insurance is already forced upon you. Most post-secondary institutions in this country require all students and employees to carry insurance. Many private companies also require insurance as a condition of employment.
Even more so, what fundamental right is being violated in universal health care? The right to die? The conservatives have attacked that many times already (see the Terri Schaivo case, for example).
Why do you feel the need to violate the rights of your neighbors and fellow citizens by telling them that, if they want to live in this country, they have to support your chosen cause.
Well, somebody made the invasion of Iraq their chosen cause. I never supported it. I didn't support it before it was done, and I certainly don't support it now. But I don't get to chose to withhold the portion of my tax dollars that go to the war because I don't support it.
If I can't withhold the part of my tax dollars that are used to kill people, why do you get to withhold the part of your tax dollars that could be used to heal people?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?"
You mean the labor he did at the job he got to on public roads and learned to do in public schools and universities? At the company that was bailed out by the federal government in the 80s? That provides a paycheck he puts in a federally protected bank (that itself was bailed out by the federal government)?
You mean the sweat produced by his hard work as he breathes the clean air that the government mandates? The hard work that he'll thankfully get paid breaks and mandated lunch time away from, thanks to government regulation? At a work environment that his greedy bosses only keep relatively safe because the government forces them to?
No, he's not entitled to the sweat of his brow. At least not all of it.
Send them both down to the lake and see who the watery tart throws the sword at...
Starmen.net
>>This country desperately needs a REAL party for liberals, libertarians, and progressives.
It could use a party for real conservatives, too since this latest batch of Republicans is a spend-happy, big-government social-engineering disgrace. But even that would be a short-term solution as the real problem is that our Federal government is no longer bound by the limits of the Constitution, specifically the 10th Amendment. The Federals are supposed to just run the Navy, print the money, and mostly stay the hell out of our lives. Instead, well, we have our current situation of Bread & Circus.
10th Amendment to the Constitution reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." IOW, if the Constitution doesn't explicitly grant an authority, the Federals can't do it. What a quaint notion.
What I am concerned about is the fundamental violation of my rights and the rights of my neighbors and fellow citizens.
I believe that you are concerned with your rights, but I don't believe for a second that you give a rat's ass about your neighbor's rights when you're willing to let your neighbor die on the street in the name of being "entitled to the fruits of your labor".
You benefit from the fruits of others' labor on a daily basis, you wouldn't be able to have the fruits of your own labor were it not for the labor of others, and the only way you've given them any compensation is through your taxes. Why do you think you should be entitled to make use of the labor of others without giving anything in return? The view that everything you've acquired is solely the product of your own efforts is selfish and wrong.
No man is an island, no matter how much you may believe it to be so. That you would use that belief to refrain from compensating others' for their labors even as you blindly ride on their backs is exactly why we must have taxes.
The enemies of Democracy are
Ever heard of a monopoly? Ever heard of dumping of pollutants into the environment? The corporations cannot force me to act, but without government oversight, it can impose its will on me.
Blar.
As I understand (from the socialist side of the pond), the current American system denies all "early on" treatment from the poor and only when they are dying they get treated (and the money comes from taxes or other patients bills).
What if they got treated early on and required fever costly operations? Wouldn't that possibly save money?
Our politicians are talking about this here too and one interesting detail is that with enough money (think millions) modern medicine can do miracles. Now there isn't enough money to give this service to all people, so someone has to decide what is "enough." This is proving to be quite a problem for politicians and doctors.
the ER costs that are being passed on to you are far higher than reasonable doctors visits. Yes, the money comes from somewhere but it currently comes from somewhere too and a more logical use of that money could result in lower costs. Right now the uninsured are effectively "stealing" health care which drives up costs for everyone by quite a bit. A different distribution of the money could result in lower overall costs. Its like an HMO.
An HMO wants you to go to your PCP before going to a specialist, overall this saves money for the HMO since it prevents people from going straight to high cost specialists when they don't need to. HMOs are generally cheaper than PPOs. This would be a similar situation, if the poor no longer go to the very expensive ER (passing that cost on to you because they don't pay and as you say, the money has to come from somewhere) overall health care costs can be driven down.
Ultimately it should be employers paying for most of this and not individual tax payers. Corporations stand to save a lot of money no longer insuring their employees. Any reasonable plan should include taxing away that savings from corporations to fund universal health care. Anything less and you should expect an increase in wage from your employers if capitalism holds up.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Citation needed.
It was my understanding that the polio vaccine was developed at the (independent) University of Pittsburgh, not through government research. I may be wrong, but I think the burden's on you to support your claim that the eradication of polio is thanks to government work.
-- Note to Mods: There is a good reason there's no "-1 Disagree" option. --
The day you move out into the wilds and build yourself a 100% self-sufficient home, you can yammer about your so-called "rights". Since you use a computer, you obviously depend on others. Unless you barter for everything, and only trade items that you produced through 100% of your own efforts, you are relying on others for the economy. Part of that economy is the tax system. You have no natural right to any part of the economy, so you have no valid claim that any rights are violated by being taxed.
"You can't allow somebody to commit the crime before you detain them." [Condoleezza Rice]
I saw the effects of this in 2006 when the two candidates did their absolute best to turn voters away from the other candidate. The end result after the primary was a lot of people who were so burned by the attack ads, that they refused to aid the winning candidate against the opposition with campaign donations. (Many also refused to vote in the upcoming election, but most said that they'd hold their nose and vote for our candidate but that they intended to donate money to other members of the party in other elections.)
The net result: A landslide victory for the opposition as the candidate who won the primary was never able to reenergize the party base and unable to match the opposition's funding afterwards. Our candidate tried to run on issues and on the corruption of our opponent, and the opposition ran on personality and won hands down after the sour note left by the primary.
If voters are left saying, "Who's McCain?" then that's not necessarily a good thing if all they can remember about Clinton or Obama is months of attack ads. Brand recognition isn't a good thing when the product's tainted.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Right now the hospitals want to nickel and dime the customers. The insurance companies want the patients to suffer without health care or the least amount of health care they can legally get away with providing and the customers have no good choices. The negotiations between the patient, hospital and insurance company require an enormous overhead of lawyers, it staff and so forth. So basically the incentive structure is setup to spend the most money possible on everything besides patient care, making things very expensive for the amount of health care coverage provided.
I think then that the best way to fix health care is to outlaw providing medical insurance unless one is going to give the care. Once the premium is paid, the care cannot be billed for on an individual incident basis. So basically I think hospitals should provide health insurance. This would line up the economic incentives perfectly. Hospitals would compete to provide the best care and to make sure their subscribers don't get sick because that way they'll make the most money (have the most subscribers) and spend the least (preventative care to reduce costs). This will also greatly reduce the number of people involved in the medical industry who are not providing medical care.
"Every time I hear the absurd libertarian refrain I can do little but laugh."
Which libertarian are you referring to? I don't think you have replied to one yet.
"If you are in the U.S. you are the beneficiary of innumerable years of global hegemony funded by those very taxes you so hate."
Does that make it right? The people have voted for a system that violates their own rights. That does not make the system right. The system is still wrong. Four months of my labor go entirely to benefit others each year. If I were entirely in control of my work, I be able to directly stimulate the economy more by buying only from those individuals who I choose to buy from. Instead, the government is telling me that if I want to live in this country, I have to give my money over to those not of my choosing. This is a violation of the fundamental rights on which the US was founded.
"If the government weren't helping poor people this country would see termoil like you wouldn't believe."
What is this belief based on? Do you really believe the government is able to handle money more efficiently than the economy can?
"In fact, the whole reason we have social security and welfare and unemployment is because if we didn't we were going to get real socialism."
This is laughable. A system in which the government provides everything to the people in exchange for forced labor is socialism.
"A functioning free market requires perfect information for all of its participants."
It simply requires the participants to keep themselves informed. Any misinformation/disinformation will be weeded out in the long run, and those who misinformed will be subject to the law. A service only exists as long as people pay for that service.
Awww, doesn't it suck when the guy you support isn't treated with kid gloves by everybody? Poor baby.
Actually Ron Paul would have been 73 when he took office in 2009. Ronald Reagan is the current record holder, he was 69 when he took office. In four more years Ron Paul would be 77, as old as Reagan when he left office. I think if you are a white male and have lived to age 75, your life expectancy is about another 11 years. Does that mean Ron Paul would have about a 50% chance of not dieing in office?
What is the big thing about spending your money privately? Every time you buy a T shirt at the local mall, part of your money goes to paying the security guy. Here in Denmark, supermarkets don't have security staff, because the crime rates are so low. For every DKK I spend on social security, Americans have to spend a dollar on guns, alarm systems, private security and jails. But yeah, you get to choose the make of alarm system....
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
As an independent whose political beliefs have been picked from a variety of sources both left and right, I have to say that both Obama and Clinton seem pretty close to the center - with Clinton being holding a number of ideas that are definitely more right than left. McCain seemed to be solidly right-center a while back, but in this process (and from maybe a year and a half back when he was clearly setting himself up for this) he's been moving much further right - unhappily (for me) he's been seeming to pick all the worst beliefs of the right wing to glom onto.
Oh well. Another election of one sold-his-soul-to-the-idiots vs another.
"You mean the labor he did at the job he got to on public roads and learned to do in public schools and universities? At the company that was bailed out by the federal government in the 80s? That provides a paycheck he puts in a federally protected bank (that itself was bailed out by the federal government)?" You have just listed off more symptoms of the same problem. As long as the government continues to interfere in the economy we will continue to have our rights violated and these problems will continue to occur.
So after hearing about Clinton winning Texas and Ohio (and Rhode Island, for that matter), the second thing I read about the crazy pre-election election that seems so popular in the US right now was this article:
http://www.click2houston.com/news/15492166/detail.html
Seems that someone "helped" seniors register to vote, and then filed absentee ballots in their names.
Thing is, every election, every vote, every ballot that happens in the US seems to be tainted by fraud of some sort. Identity theft, ballot stuffing, turning away voters, rigged machines, middle-of-the-night changes to the law, you name it--it's all going on, and seems to be going on all the time. The worst part is that it hardly ever raises an eyebrow from the voting public or the media. In this example, there is solid evidence of election fraud, and it's getting a few column-inches on a local website. Why isn't this on the front page of the Houston Chronicle?
Don't you people even CARE about the failure of your democracy anymore?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
All I know is, everyone kept saying that Clinton wasn't going to win Ohio or Texas, and sure enough, she did! I just think that the democratic party makes it so confusing to actually win a state in terms of delegates. A Republican who wins a state automatically wins those delegates. Not so for Democrats. Even if you win the state, you still have to win delegates. In Texas' case, Clinton wins 2/3 of the delegates since she won the state, but there is still 1/3 of delegates up for grabs in the caucus. And we already know that Clinton is trailing behind Obama with delegates. All I know is, go CLINTON!!!!!
"No one ever grilled Ron Paul on the support he gets from far right wing racist groups on air . . ."
:-)
No one ever gave Ron Paul much air time to begin with, and we all know it.
This whole "guilt by association" thing is one of the most ridiculously flawed arguments in political discourse, whether we're talking about specific issues, parties, or individuals. The frequency with which this propaganda technique is used however highlights the unfortunate fact that it must be an effective one.
1. Person/Group A is BAD
2. Person/Group A supports P
3. Therefor P must also be BAD
It's utterly and completely absurd.
1. Hitler was evil
2. Hitler was a vegetarian
3. Therefore vegetarianism(vegeterians) must be evil.
Right?
It's an emotional BS argument that has no place in an intelligent debate. In fact, the Nazis and Hitler are used for this purpose so often that someone coined a term "Reductio ad Hitlerum" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum) to define the phenomenon.
We definitely need a new term in the lexicon of U.S. politics to represent the frequent attempts to associate people and organizations with racists/racism because of such ridiculously tenuous connections.
A system of healthcare exactly like what you described existed in the developed world from antiquity up until 1930 or so. There was no insurance, no regulation, no licensure, no anything; healthcare was exactly like any other trade, and those who would provide healthcare competed solely on the basis of price and advertising. The result was nothing short of miserable. Those who could afford it had the best medical and surgical treatment they could buy, although that generally wasn't much (no training requirements, remember?) Those who couldn't relied on folk remedies (what we now call "alternative medicine") and their own physiological reserves, and if they became seriously ill or injured, too bad. Oh, and the average lifespan was about 35 years give or take, and the sick were left to rot on the public streets - or, if they were very, very lucky, they were taken in by charitable groups and largely treated with benign neglect. I sincerely hope that you can figure out why we abandoned that model of healthcare.
In public health, it has been proven hundreds of times that when you have large numbers of sick people in circulation, the general health of the population tends to decline, and the diseases they suffer tend to increase in severity. In short, sick people make the people around them sick as well. If nothing is done about the sick (i.e. they're left to die), the population's health rapidly becomes so severely compromised that any suitable crisis - a plague, a famine, a drought, whatever - can kill off the entire population in one shot. Luckily, though, the reverse is also true: when a population is maintained at a certain level of health, the illnesses suffered by each individual tend to be less severe than they would be otherwise, and the lifespan, working capacity and general health of that population tends to increase. Thus, from a pure cost-benefit standpoint, you'd actually be smarter to provide a certain, basic level of healthcare to each individual out of the common treasury, since it costs far, far less to treat the minor illnesses than the severe illnesses, and it also results in massive net gains in productivity when everyone is healthy enough to work. Everything else, of course, the individual can pay for, but providing basic care - an annual physical, immunizations, emergency care when necessary, etc - ought to be a no-brainer.
Our current system is far from perfect - anyone will tell you that. However, throwing it out the window for some mythical "free-market" solution is just as foolish and ultimately even more harmful than single-payer care could hope to be. It is true that people in good health, who can be expected not to incur any particularly egregious health expenditures in their lifetimes, would pay less for their care at first. However, people in poor health, who not only cost more to care for but generally aren't physically capable of working hard enough or long enough to earn the required amount of money to pay for their healthcare and all their other expenses, will be in even worse straits. Meanwhile, thanks to the masses of sick people in circulation, now all of a sudden the healthy people are getting sick more often and more severely, which throws your putative cost savings right out the window. You're right back to the Middle Ages - either the sick would be rotting on the streets, or you'd be asking physicians, nurses and allied health providers to shoulder those patients' costs through charity care. How is that fair to me and my colleagues, for us to subsidize a tax break for you? Are we not entitled to the fruits of our labors?
I find it amusing how you and your ilk tout the wonders of the free market, without ever realizing that what you propose is neither free nor market-driven. You're just demanding that someone else pay the bill for you, whether through taxes or charity. Funny how that's so often true - the people who yell the loudest about free markets are also the ones who demand the biggest handouts, breaks and subsidies from said markets.
I'll thank you to take your trolling elsewhere, and good day to you, sir.
(Full disclosure: The author is a healthcare professional.)
First rule of trauma: Bleeding always stops.
At this point, there is pretty much no way that Clinton gets more pledged delegates (the ones voters select) than Obama. So the only way she gets the nomination is if the super delegates override the pledged delegates.
That means there are only three options here. Clinton quits before the convention, and the Democrats have a chance at winning with Obama, the super delegates honor the pledged delegate count and Obama gets the nomination and the Democrats have a chance at winning with Obama, or Clinton gets the nomination based on super delegates and gets killed in the general election.
So Hillary can't be President. She can't be President because so many people hate her so much that Republicans who will stay home in an Obama-McCain election will come out for a Clinton-McCain election. She can't be President because she, and the Democrats, will have no credibility running a candidate who was selected instead of elected. She can't win because the one advantage she claims on Obama - experience - she gets KILLED on by McCain. She doesn't even have more experience than Obama! Obama has been in public office since 1997, Clinton only since 2002. Clinton's experience is that she is MARRIED to someone with experience!
There is absolutely no way that Clinton becomes President. The fact that she is unwilling to put the party or the country before her own personal ambition just shows why she shouldn't be President.
Actually, I take that back. Clinton might become President if:
- Nader drops out and Ron Paul runs as an independent.
- She is Obama's running mate and Air Force One crashes after Jan 23, 2009.
I guess it is the party - if the super delegates all came to their senses and got behind Obama now, Clinton would be forced to drop out. I'm hoping that once the Texas Caucus results come in it'll be pretty obvious how the math works out and somebody will come to their senses.
paintball
I wonder if there's a way to get the First Gentleman in the White House, yet keep his wife out? That's a circus I'd pay a lot to see. Yet, if she took office, I have a deep-seated fear we would go the way of France.
Actually Ron Paul would have been 73 when he took office in 2009
John McCain will be 72 if/when he takes office, so your comments apply equally to him as well.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
You must be listening to different news outlets than I. I heard Clinton was expected to win Ohio and it was going to be close in Texas but she was expected to eke out a win there too. The question was if she could win by a large enough margin to make an impact in the delegate count. It doesn't appear that she has. In fact, she was leading by 25 points a few weeks ago in Ohio so it appears she's lost ground...
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
Some of use couldn't shop around even if there was viable competition form insurance companies. Why? Two words: Pre-existing condition.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
What is the mechanism by which a monopoly on, say, telephone service, won't stay a monopoly if it does not represent a 'win for the customers'? The customers do not have any other options. Are you suggesting that citizens for-go telephone service in an attempt to lure some other telephone provider into town?
I see. Rather than have government draw a line in the sand as to acceptable pollution levels, we should let business just spew crap and hope that enough citizens get together and bankroll a bid against the well-funded legal teams of the polluting businesses? Historically, that doesn't work. It took gov't regulation to get lead out of gasoline, private suits could not do it.
Blar.
As a former Marine that just got out of the Corps, I am personally afraid of all of the candidates, but even more of McCain. 100 years of war? This man needs someone to tell it to him straight, without all the scrubbing from men with brass or men with suits. Things are fubar, and we created a mess. We are doomed if we leave Iraq, leaving behind a huge mess we never could handle and did mishandle regularly. But we are even more doomed if we stay, creating a neverending stream of death in our wake, which in history and under scrutiny, will tell was the cause of lack of knowledge and foresight at best, and at worst, driven by economic and who knows what else motives conceived behind closed doors. No, McCain is not the best man for us (I think Ron Paul or Huckabee would have been, but the media ruled them out awful fast) I was born patriotic, and am patriotic, but I am not patriotic to the point of blindness. Wake up America, before some rude alarm clock of doom does it for you.
So much FUD from ppl like you. And this was on March 2'nd.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I heard it was even more simple than that, and Russert simply likes to molest dogs. I would ask him about that first. "Tim, have you stopped molesting dogs yet?"
Unles she wins it by a 99-to-1 margin, no, she won't get the nomination. In fact, unless she gets 72-25 wins in every single primary left, she won`t get the nomination. That is, assuming Obama's super-delegates aren't bought out by Clintonites.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
For their entire miseducation, several generations have been taught that white men are evil.
Therefore, a black or woman is automatically and completely good.
It's an easy A in any class, including math and science, to blame anything and everything on white men.
Those who enjoy the game are given PhDs in various fields, but the only thing they really know is how to hate white men.
Global Warming is caused by white men. The climate was perfect before white men. White men cause poverty because they hate people. Yadda yadda.
It is very sad that racial scapegoating is so respectable. We humans are an African species. All Americans are African-Americans.
I was standing in the 500 strong mob when the caucuses were supposed to open in Houston, but hadn't opened yet. They didn't open for 5 hours. The one thing I do know is the ratio didn't exactly change much, since from the beginning we were separated into groups depending on whom we were voting for. While waiting for the caucus to begin in the small public library, I asked a black woman in her 30's about her 7 year old pigtailed child sleeping in her lap: "She learning about democracy?"
"Elsewhere in the world, people walk for a day and stand in line for hours just to have a chance to vote. We're just spoiled. No one ever said change was easy" she replied.
Our ethnically and age diverse precinct (559) went 19-2 for Obama and the other precinct meeting in our library (620) went 25-7 Obama. The judge who was supposed to officiate the caucus is still MIA.
Off to work for a fortune 500....
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Seriously though, what is your source for that? I'm not doubting it, in fact it makes perfect sense from what I know about health care services in both countries (my mother is English), but I would like to see the breakdown.
Clinton order the US military to attack over 15 different countries over 5 of them with no other attempts to solve the problem. So far Bush has attack around 4, 2 where weeksor years of negotiating was done, the other 2 have been at the request of the legal government. The US is at this time in a war stance with over 5 of countries that Clinton order attacked.
Based on leaving the country in better shape I guess you mean economy, the US still has a better economy under Bush then at Clinton and Clinton had the dot com bubble. Clinton had nothing to do with the dot com bubble and Bush does not have anything to do the house market. The thing economy wise the US was better at would be the exchange rate, the dot com bubble was nice.
Will give you managing the country, he basically signed everything the conservative congress send to him. Now we have a president who is just pushing liberal ideas and getting them signed by a liberal congress.
He is a better speaker but what is there to indicate he was smarter, well except for him accepting the conservative laws pushed by Congress?
If you run for president for a year and most people still don't know anything about you, that pretty much proves that you have absolutely no chance of winning.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Well, let's say Ron Paul is elected four years from now at age 77. If his life expectancy is 86, he'll have on average 9 years left. Assuming a standard distribution, that means he has a 50% chance of dying after turning 86 and a 50% chance of dying before turning 86. Assuming even that he serves two terms, he would leave office at age 85, meaning he would have a less than 50% chance of dying in office. How much less we can't determine without knowing the standard deviation--and since we don't even know that age-of-death meets a standard distribution we probably can't even say as much as we have.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
It does not matter who wins in Texas. Besides the regular delegates (which they will split almost straight down the middle,) how can a super-delegate look at Texas and say "Hillary won in Texas, she gets my vote!" It is down to the super-delegates now and an win in Texas should have no impact whatsoever on who they vote for. A Democrat cannot win in Texas against a Republican! Texas is a red state! Why does it matter if Barack or Hillary won there?!?
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
"That statement is only valid for the few rights that haven't already been annihilated by the current administration."
What rights have been annihilated by the current administration? Name one.
The only real change in my rights that i have noticed is that i have more now. The sunset of the Assault Weapons Ban was a step in the right direction for my civil liberties, specifically my right to own firearms.
John McCain has suffered multiple plane crashes, imprisonment in a Vietnamese POW camp, and several bouts of malignant cancer. My theory is, he's immoral.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
If they get to change one letter of Obama's last name in order to make a comparison, I get to change one letter of Huckabee's.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
I don't need a "firsthand account" from anyone to know what happened in the Texas primary last night...Obama won
Hillary won the popular vote, yes, but as we all know from the 2000 election, the popular vote doesn't matter in the end. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE DELEGATES, and Obama has won the majority of Texas delegates, when the caucus is figured into the equation.
Let me repeat, Obama won the majority of delegates from Texas, therefore, in all the ways that matter, HE WON TEXAS.
The newsmedia gave Hillary the 'victory' checkmark for Texas b/c it makes a better 'story' and allows them to tie everything up in a nice bow before it gets too late into the evening. I don't want to hear any more bitching about a pro-Obama bias from the media.
Thank you Dave Raggett
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
I think if you are a white male and have lived to age 75, your life expectancy is about another 11 years. Does that mean Ron Paul would have about a 50% chance of not dieing in office?
The 11 years is an average. I don't know if Ron Paul's health is above or below average. We do know that the President of the US gets medical treatment that is better than Medicare. Not everybody in the US does. Therefore, we'd expect him to live for more than 11 years.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
The fundamental right is the right to choose your healthcare (at least for a lot of us). I look at the recent case in the U.K., where a woman with breast cancer was refused Avastin, even though she could pay for it herself, because it wasn't what everyone else got, and those were just the rules. I have no problems with a low level universal health insurance that covers against a basic set of serious and catastrophic problems and protects against the uninsured ER walk-in problem we have now (I'm not advocating we turn those people away). I do, however, have a problem when I can't buy additional insurance above the government mandated one. So when it seems that that's the way things are going, I get uncomfortable.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
I don't need a leader. My life is in my hands, as are the lives of my family.
Apparently, the rest of your family does need a leader.
The surprise to me is that we United States citizens believe we need a leader, at least in government.
Because we are human beings, and human beings seem to behave best when there is someone to guide them and resolve disputes. Why do corporations need CEOs? It seems necessary to invest certain powers in a single individual in order to decisions which are time-critical. The president has always been seen as a leader, ever since George Washington.
The Constitution doesn't give the President power to lead, only to execute the laws which we wanted put in place; equitable laws that infringe on everyone equally, rather than giving preferential treatment to the few at the cost of the many (or vice versa).
Well, Article II Sections 2 & 3 of the US Constitution seem to list the following responsibilities of the President:
1. Commander-in-Chief of the Army & Navy
2. Make treaties
3. Appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law
4. Give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient
5. Receive ambassadors and other public ministers
6. Take care that the laws be faithfully executed
7. Commission all the officers of the United States
To me, those responsibilities seem like those of a leader.
The President is not the Commander-in-Chief until Congress actively declares war. We declared war in WW2, but since then, we have not had a legal CiC.
Huh?! Article II Section 2 Paragraph i states: the President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices.
There is nothing in there about the CinC position only being available in times of war.
The President is not there to save the economy, or even care about the economy, because economic issues are the domain of Congress, or even more preferably the States.
The President has to execute the laws passed by Congress, and interstate commerce is the jurisdiction of the federal government.
The President isn't supposed to take positions on what he or she will support or wants to do, because the President merely reviews signed bills and their Constitutionality, and only then making the decision to support future execution of said bills into law if the bills mass Constitutional muster.
Huh?! Where in the Constitution does it say that? Article I Section 7 Paragraph ii states: Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it.
So, the President can veto any bill he disapproves of, regardless of its Constitutionality. The Constitution does not provide an explicit method for determining the constitutionality of a law; traditionally, the question has been left to the Supreme Court to decide.
It is sad when people demand a leader, but are too fearful of being leaders themselves.
Not everyone is good at being a leader. Are you disgusted at your family for not being leaders?
This is why I am disgusted -- not with poli
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
Ignoring your fear mongering, equivocation, and poor attempt at equating healthcare in a completely different (both socially and scientifically) era to today's era, the only argument of substance in your post is the claim that we need to help sick people because they can infect non-sick people. First of all, that would only be true for communicable diseases. This clarification alone eliminates 97% of the most common causes of death. As for communicable disease, individual property rights are enough to counteract unintentional outbreaks. In emergency situations, the government would be able to quarantine infected individuals. If an infected invidiual trespasses onto your property without your consent, they can be prosecuted. If someone you come into contact with misinforms you about their infection status, they too can be prosecuted. This serves as a deterrent and a retroactive means to compensation.
"I find it amusing how you and your ilk tout the wonders of the free market, without ever realizing that what you propose is neither free nor market-driven."
In what way is a society in which people are free to give their earnings to whoever they want not a free society? In what way is a society in which people compete to provide what people want at the lowest price possible not market driven?
"You're just demanding that someone else pay the bill for you, whether through taxes or charity."
Where is that even close to being implied by what I said? Can you please clarify how I am demanding someone else to pay my bill when I say that I should be able to pay my own bill and not pay others' bills?
McCain does not have enough delegates yet, most the state conventions haven't happened yet. Hell the county conventions in Washington State haven't even happened yet.
Don't Vote for Norm Dicks! http://www.nodicks2008.com Another nutless dirtbag that voted for the FISA bill!
So perhaps you would prefer something like the German or Australian health care systems, which offer the choice to purchase private supplemental coverage, but still guarantee a reasonable level of basic care for everyone?
I suspect that eventually this country will follow a path more similar to that, and I feel it would in itself be monumental progress over the catastrophe we currently have.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You can't take the sky from me...
He has strong appeal to centrist voters which are typically Mccain's base. Without the centrist voters, Mccain has to rely entirely on the party base which has already made moves to desert him.
3. He appeals to the young vote, and so is likely to bring more total voters into the democratic side, many of whom despise Hilary over her stance over net neutrality, video game censorship, and general hostility towards the baby boomer generation. In contrast, Hilary's elderly party regulars voting for her in the primary can be counted on to show up at the polls no matter what democratic candidate ends up in the general election.
If he keeps walking out on press conferences that ask hard questions he's going to lose a lot of independents, and perhaps some younger people. That just looks shady.
He can honestly say he was opposed to the war from day one.
You're not helping your case that he appeals more to independent and centrist voters here.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you run the numbers, the effect is not as dramatic as you claim - even with the extra votes, Hillary still would have come out on top in Ohio and probably still in Texas.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Survive five years of torture? That's nothing. Everyone in America with a brain has survived seven so far.
True enough, but I always figure eventually the real libertarians will eventually come back to Slashdot.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yeah, but doing so is more easily refuted and is obviously a loaded question.
Now, if you give me a bit of time, and the kind of budgets these candidates are working with, I assure you I can find someone who has been convicted of morally horrendous crimes who is a fan of Russert. Heck, if I could track down two or three that have seen his show a few times, I could go so far as to claim "a large number of child molesters like your show!", with some proper staging and demographics work, I could probably even come up with a cool graphic pie chart that shows 68.5% of all child porn photographers polled like his show.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Not to mention that he's a doctor himself. :-)
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
"Some of us have obligations that take precedence over politics."
Please tell me and the rest of us what obligations could possibly take precedence over ensuring your children's future? What do you think "politics" are?
You're complaining about being inconvenienced, and attempting to make your short term obligations to your family seem more important than your long term obligations to them.
Don't get pissed that some of us see through your rationalization and understand that you're being penny-wise and pound foolish.
Ron wants to move use back to the gold standard...
No, he wants to make gold an alternative legal currency by, among other things, eliminating sales tax on gold -- and, I bet, if one Executive could sign that order 6102, another can as well make it null and void.
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a dual currency, but that brings headaches of its own (like 2 price tags).
This is essentially his proposal. As to "2 price tags", it's unlikely. Let me tell you how it worked out in Russia (when USD was still stable, and rouble was going through quite bad inflation): most prices, for even moderately valuable items (and *salaries* in private sector) were in marked USD, you were paying for them in roubles at current exchange rate (posted all over the place). When (somewhat strengthened by that time) Russian government decided that this practice was a bit "unpatriotic", everyone switched to pricing in "accounting units" ("UE"), which were $1USD by definition.
Paul B.
Here's some stats from 2003 about per capita spending on health care by nation. If anything, the gap has only widened in those past five years too.
The right to a fair and speedy trial comes to mind. How many people are captive as a result of the terrorist scare that followed September 11?
But there are even more we could discuss if you'd like...
specifically my right to own firearms.
And exactly where does your right to own firearms come from? Are you trying to refer to the Second Amendment? Because the text of that amendment never states that everyone should have assault weapons. Indeed, it doesn't really say what type of weapons, or in what context it actually applies.
I'm certainly willing to debate the second amendment further with you if that is where you feel your right to own firearms comes from.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Those women would sure as hell have more say in setting an abortion policy at the state legislative level or amendment ratification level, than they did in having SCOTUS set the policy.
Seriously, I don't get it. Just what's so damn wrong with democracy? If you let people vote on this, sure, there will be some losers on each side (pro-lifers will see some "babies getting murdered", and pro-choicers will see some "women's bodies being treated like state property"), but you get the same result when you set a policy at the federal level, except that you have less representation in setting that policy, and less recourse if you end up being one of the losers. The only thing that could possibly be more fair and just than having states set abortion policy, would be having counties or cities set it.
Roe v Wade, regardless of it having a reasonably just (IMHO) conclusion, was an incredibly weak decision that didn't really rest on any precedents or written laws, and even worse, set no real precedents. They pulled the decision out of thin air, and didn't make any serious findings or arguments that can be cited in later civil liberties court cases. If SCOTUS hadn't done that, we might have a "people own their own bodies" amendment by now. We won the battle and lost the war.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I would like to contribute to your campaign.
How are you so biased that you read "employed" as "unemployed"!?
Typical Orwellian garbage.
Does this mean then that a national health care system in the US should not pay for geriatric care, cancer treatment, et. al., since those seem to go beyond basic care as you defined it?
It seems that any national health care plan would have to limit coverage in order to keep costs down. That seems to be what the NHS in the UK just did, although in their case they may have cut patient services a bit too deeply.
A Human Right
I couldn't reason out from this link what spending they were talking about. Just government spending? Also, I guess it depends on the details of what "basket of goods" they're selecting for the PPP adjustment, but I'm not convinced about the gap widening as you say - the weakening dollar might have a dramatic effect here.
What about the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search and seizure?
FISA court is set up to retroactively grant a warrant for any search that was committed in good faith. Circumventing FISA is a de facto admission that those searches were not done in good faith, and so are unreasonable, and directly contrary to the 4th amendment.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
However, they haven't stepped up to the plate when it comes to Impeachment, and for that they will suffer.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
We will never be able to go back once these psychopaths get into power.
heh - that quote and the current candidates made me think of this comic from super Tuesday week.
Well I guess you better get McCain on the phone. We don't want the poor man to think he has a chance.
word.
A series of absurdly racist newsletters were printed under Ron Paul's name.
Ron Paul knew about it for many years, and did absolutely nothing to stop it.
You could hardly call that "guilt by association."
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
>Americans are center-right as a rule, NOT center-left.
You are *way* off base. There are many more democrats than republicans in this country:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_U.S._states
and the democratic party is by far the largest.
America has been under conservative control in *recent* history, say since 94 during the republican revolution, and in many ways this has already ended with the democratic congress. It is now conventional wisdom (aka nonsense) that it has always been a conservative country this way. FDR, JFK, and Lyndon Johnson were the big movers and shakers of the 20th century, and they left the lasting impression. Compare them to Reagan and his legacy, the national debt, and beating the soviet union by default.
The brief republican majority was largely a historical accident, and had more to do with disorganization within the democratic party, Rush Limbaugh, and Monica Lewinsky than any underlying demographic trend towards conservatism.
>The youth vote
>is ALWAYS overrated - it hasn't made an impact since JFK,
Apparently you are pretty out of touch because young people have been turning out in enormous numbers during the past couple of elections. Also, there's a *reason* why people compare obama to JFK, and the youth vote is *part* of it.
http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/poll-shows-youth-vote-boost-favoring-obama-giuliani-in-presidential-race-2007-04-19.html
"
Turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds grew by nearly one-third between 2000 and 2004, from 36 percent to 47 percent. And 2006 saw significant youth-vote gains for a midterm election as well.
"
So then the problem in its essence is finding the talent. Find someone who's disciplined and successful and is willing to forgo material wealth for the good of all, a crappy paycheck, and unlimited ridicule and we'll have the next great president, maybe. The problem is you won't find anyone quite like that, because they go for the money or they get disillusioned by the rest who only go for the money while supposedly serving the public interest.
I shall counter your biased opinion, not backed by statistics or any other form of evidence, with an opinion of my own: Socialised healthcare can deliver essential services to more people at lower cost.
I think McCain is the best Presidential candidate I've seen in my lifetime.
I really wanted to like him too. I still do when I listen to him.
But before you vote for him, if you can, talk to people on Senate staff -- anyone who's ever worked for any senator, Democrat or Repbulican. There is a quiet but serious concern exuding from nearly everyone I know who's worked in a Senate office that McCain may not only be a *weak* candidate, he may actually be an unstable person. And the opinions I've heard relayed aren't just rooted in the inevitable political conflicts.
The Reagan "thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow republican" rule has already been tested in the primary. But if what I'm hearing is right, you're going to see something unusual soon: it will be tested *again*, over the months leading up to the election, even after the primary has been sewed up. Watch for be fewer endorsements, unusual crossovers, and possibly even some unusually public inside criticism.
Tweet, tweet.
There was no troll there.
I admit the weakening dollar may complicate these figures, but they're using PPP adjustment which should correct for at least some of that. It's *total* spending on healthcare, not just government spending on healthcare. The other interesting exhibit in that link is numbers 4 and 5 where it shows that the US spends a much larger share of its GDP on healthcare as well.
http://www.politicallore.com/presidential-candidates/john-mccain/not-so-fast-mccains-lingering-fec-problem/174
McCain won a clean sweep of the four March 4th Republican states, but in order to arrive at the RNC convention with a fighting chance against the eventual Democratic nominee John McCain needs to be able to withdraw from the Federal matching funds program.
If he is not released from the Federal funding program McCain is subject to spending limits that would lead to his campaign being outspent by Democrats at a ratio of 10 to 1.
The road to leaving the program is going to be a long and difficult one for McCain, despite what his lawyers would like the public to believe.
McCain was declared eligible for the matching funds program last summer, and he kept the door open to receiving funds all the way through Fall and up until just before Super Tuesday when he notified the FEC that he wished to withdraw from the program.
The FEC chairman David Mason then responded to McCain's request with a letter, which McCain's campaign received on February 19th , which stated that he can not officially leave the federal program until the FEC officially rules on his case and releases him.
Now the case itself (which hinges on the terms of a loan McCain received from a Florida bank and whether or not eventual federal funds were used by McCain as collateral thus trapping him in the federal program) is not a certainty although McCain's lawyers are declaring that the loan is not an issue.
Some legal experts say that the McCain team is on shaky legal ground. The problem is that no candidate has been this manipulative of the system before, so there is no firm legal precedent. McCain's legal team has simply stated that federal matching funds are constitutional because they are voluntary; implying it should also be voluntary to leave the program, but Chairman Mason disagrees.
Even assuming that McCain would be able to get the FEC board to rule in his favor, the biggest problem he is having right now is getting the case heard and ruled upon at all.
This is because the FEC is made up of a board of six seats, all of which are nominated by the President and approved by the Senate. Currently only two seats are filled. President Bush has nominated four, but the Senate is in gridlock about how to vote on the nominees. The Republican minority wants all four nominees to be approved or disapproved as a single group, either all in or all out. And the Democratic leadership wants individual hearings on each nominee. The reason for this is that the Senate Democrats point to one nominee in particular, Hans von Spakovsky, who they say has a questionable ethical record.
So right now, while the Senate is in gridlock, McCain is making the decision to charge forward like there is no problem; this strategy could work out several ways. One scenario would eventually see at least 4 of the 6 FEC board seats filled, allowing for a quorum that rules in McCain's favor releasing McCain from federal spending limits. In a different scenario the FEC board is not seated for several more weeks or even months, and by the time they rule McCain has already exceeded federal spending limits, and if they rule against him, he would have broken the law. The catch is that McCain's lawyers can argue until they are blue in the face about whether or not he should be allowed out of the federal funding program based on the terms of the loan, but it is an extremely clear cut rule that McCain has to wait to go over the spending limit until the FEC holds a quorum to officially release him with their legal decision. If the FEC board rules against him after he has already exceeded federal spending limits he would be facing criminal charges and a large fine that would be a huge black eye for his candidacy.
Regardless of what the final outcome of the case is, one thing is certain, McCain has gone from the straight talk express to being bunkered down with a team of lawyers to fight his way out of a shady deal that is justifiably being labeled by Democrats as unethical.
Don't Vote for Norm Dicks! http://www.nodicks2008.com Another nutless dirtbag that voted for the FISA bill!
The grandparent's point was that no candidate deserves that line of questioning, not just Obama.
Well thats the thing. To me Obama feels like a Manchurian candidate. He has no background... He was pretty much out of the blue. Its almost if he could just finish taking the oath for office and then pull off his mask and its Jeb Bush for all we know.
This is simply wrong, and I'm almost to the point where I think anybody caught repeating it ought to be completely stripped of their right to vote for the rest of their lives, if not actually institutionalized for drooling idiocy.
YOU may not know anything about Obama's background, and that's okay, I can forgive that. You may DISLIKE aspects of his recorded experience, rhetoric, and positions, and that's fine as well.
But to repeat the idea that he "has no background" with 10 years of elected office -- not to mention time as a community organizer in Chicago, time living abroad, degree in Political Science from Columbia stint teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago, among other things -- that's the kind of corrosive disinformation that may pass for conventional wisdom but actually saps the ability of the country to make useful decisions about candidates for elected offices.
There is plenty of meat to Obama for anyone genuinely interested in learning anything about him as a candidate to bite into.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
The proper way to resolve this ugly problem is to update our electoral system to something that works (Range Voting or Condorcet are both good options), but that is a difficult task and it's not going to happen in the near term
It's not difficult logistically. It's difficult politically (politicians part of the system that elected them are generally reluctant to change it) and difficult educationally (even some ostensibly smart americans been so conditioned to think "voting" == "plurality voting" that they have trouble wrapping their heads around anything else).
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Ron Paul was the 'star' of many of the major Republican debates. I've seen far more stumping, advertising, and grass-roots efforts on behalf of Ron Paul than I have for any other Republican candidate. People just didn't buy his message. Most people aren't Libertarians and don't believe in libertarianism.
No. It proves you hardly got any media coverage... ...even though you won straw polls, internet polls and raised a huge pile of cash from individual contributions.
Not near as sick as the case of the insurance company who cancelled a womans insurance because she had breast cancer
All this proves is that if you are denied media coverage, then sure, you have no chance.
The reason most don't know about Ron Paul is because the establishment has been actively manipulating America's choices. It has been blatantly obvious, but for those unable to see past the media's blinders there's the Ron Paul Timeline, which has attempted to document the media's concerted effort in keeping him out of the picture for more than a year.
Who would be better at solving the (then huge) problem than the guy that predicted it 4 years ago?
... And I don't care who wins this election so long as its not Hillary.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
You can still purchase suplemental coverage in Britain - I know because I did when I lived there.
Despite all the nonsense being spouted on this side of the atlantic, British doctors are still private practitioners who bill the government for their work, they're not part of some great communist conspiracy or anything.
The right to a fair and speedy trial comes to mind. How many people are captive as a result of the terrorist scare that followed September 11? Non-enemy combatants? None that i know of. Prisoners of war are typically held until the end of the war.
What about the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search and seizure? FISA court is set up to retroactively grant a warrant for any search that was committed in good faith. Circumventing FISA is a de facto admission that those searches were not done in good faith, and so are unreasonable, and directly contrary to the 4th amendment.
FISA = FOREIGN Intelligence Surveillence Act
If i am calling my cousin in dubai who is a known terrorist trying to smuggle a nuclear device into the US, i have no reason to expect privacy.
And exactly where does your right to own firearms come from? Are you trying to refer to the Second Amendment? [wikipedia.org] Because the text of that amendment never states that everyone should have assault weapons. Indeed, it doesn't really say what type of weapons, or in what context it actually applies.
The consitution does not grant rights. It places limits on government to prevent the abridgement of certain pre-existing rights. Many people make this mistake so dont feel bad.
The first amendment does not apply only to newspapers with regards to freedom of speech. The second amendment does not apply only to muskets with regards to the right to a means of tyrrany prevention.
My guess is Russert felt a little bit of a sting from the Clinton/Obama SNL videos.
The democrats can't keep from shooting themselves in the foot.
You're partially right - but only because at this point they can't even hit their own feet.
They have a golden opportunity here. The Republican president has terrible approval ratings.
But they are running against a Republican who has publicly disagreed with Bush on a number of things, who has been disliked by the farther right Republicans in fact.
And speaking of approval ratings...
The country in general is fed up with the current government.
Which includes the Democrat led House and Senate, both of which have even worse approval ratings than Bush - and either Democratic candidate that gets chosen comes from the same Senate.
I really think the election is a tossup whoever gets chosen, though I honestly think Obama is more electable as a number of heavily leaning Democratic friends I've spoken to actually have more admiration for McCain than Hillary, even if they disagree with many positions that McCain holds! They don't feel like they can trust Hillary.
But regardless I think the winner will come down to efficacy of campaigning this year, rather than past sins of either party.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...Why don't the Democratic House and Senate get some share of the blame? Inaction is just as much a problem as action.
If you're really thinking like a strategist you have to take into account the public already voted the Democrats into power, and nothing has come of it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ok, looking at the total math for yesterday. Clinton got 187 delegates, Obama got 183 delegates. Thats a net gain of 4 delegates for Clinton, I wouldn't call that a big win. Matter of fact it was pretty much a tie in my book. I know she's trying to make it look like she won, but honestly she got her butt kicked in some states she should have walked away with...
I like to 'take' Clinton herself if she'd bend over for me.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Hillary doesn't need to win on the first convention ballot.
Edwards has 26 pledged delegates. Barack needs to win by 50% to take it on the first convention vote.
Hillary only needs enough votes to force a second or third convention vote. Edward's votes are 'not for Barack' votes. Once those votes are freed, then all votes are freed and politics kicks in. Then its the momentum mood of the day and backroom deals that count.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
The US has universal health care today (if you are poor or over age 65) Medicaid/Medicare unfortunately it is about the bankrupt the country. Now you want to add everyone to this kind of program so we can all suffer together. That is socialistic equality at its best.
You have ignored the fact that if you take the profit out of health care you will also destroy the investments, R&D and incentive that people have to get into health care industry. Furthermore you will do nothing to bring down the cost of health care, only tax people for a way to pay for it. Look at what large government subsidies has done for the cost of higher education. Unfortunately there will be no change on day one, but socialized health care will diminish in quality over time as it destroys the economics of industry.
If profit was really the problem and government truly had a solution they should be able to create a non-profit, non-subsided insurance program that people could voluntarily buy to be covered. But they can't they can only propose manditory programs to force people to pay for something they obviously don't want (or need)
Again, if the surveillance were reasonable, FISA would allow it. In fact, if the surveillance were unreasonable, but performed in good faith, FISA would retroactively grant a warrant. The only possible reason to avoid the FISA court is to do unreasonable searches that you know are not reasonable. Since Bush is evading FISA, therefore he must be doing unreasonable searches and he knows it.
So if you're calling your cousin in dubai who's a known terrorist, FISA would allow that. That's not the issue here. Hell, if you were to call your cousin in Canada who once visited a mosque as part of an interfaith program, that wouldn't be reasonable but if done in good faith FISA would sign off on it.
The problem comes when the government is knowingly spying on lawyers, reporters, doctors, and peace activists with absolutely no reason to believe they are doing anything wrong. That would not be allowed under FISA, and that's what's been lost under Bush.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Speaking purely as an independent.
About the only way the GOP could have won this year was :
1. They nominate someone with appeal to centrists and independents. They nominated McCain. Check.
2. Get their nominee out there quickly or at least quicker than the Democrats. Check.
3. The Democrats have a brokered convention where a lot of ill-will is generated within the party amid allegations of overturning the voters' verdict. Could now happen as Obama will probably end with more elected delegates and these "superdelegates" (the ones John Stewart compares to delegates that glow green) give the nomination to Hillary. Check.
or,
4. The Democrat nominee is so badly damaged by the end of the nomination process that he has no room to recover. Check. Clinton is now doing this to Obama. And a formerly overly lenient media is now becoming overly harsh on him. Great strategy - in 4 years, she can walk to the nomination even if she cannot steal it now.
I was probably going to vote for Obama in the general, but if Hillary is the nominee, McCain gets my whole hearted vote and support. Sorry, two crooks in 16 years is about two too many.
There was a Time magazine poll less than a month ago that showed that Obama could beat McCain, but with Hillary against McCain it would be a tight race. Apparently independant voters like Obama, but not Hillary -- it seems unlikely to me that Hillary can manage any backroom deals that can conceal this fact: Obama is more electable, so the PLEOs (aka superdelegates) will back Obama.
Note that Rush Limbaugh suggested to his listeners that they should cross-over and vote for Hillary, just to mess up the Democratic party.
These trememdous "wins" and "loses" you keep hearing about are usually just symbolic: the assigned delegates are breaking nearly evenly between the two democratic candidates, with on average a slight preference for Obama. Neither candidate is going to reach the cut-off that puts the election in the bag: it's going to be a brokered primary (all praise the highly democratic Democratic party).
It would be better also because the data (which shows 10.7 years) is for age 75, so if he made it to 77 he would have already crossed a hurdle. He would be 77.5 though and with 85.7 being the life expectancy at age 75, that would give him almost exactly 8 years. Anyway the point is not to try and find the date of his death, which is impossible, but simply to point out that it would be a very real possibility. There's a big difference in health between 65 year olds and 75 year olds.
I tell the op that I'm glad he clarified his position and you find it necessary to mod me down.
You're obviously one of the people who I have outdebated recently, no one else would be that pathetic.
What kind of loser mods every comment in the thread down (including TWO which weren't troll/overrated)?
FUCK YOU mod, you can't shut me up and you can't prove me wrong, so modding me down is how your cowardly punk ass gets your passive aggressive jollies.
I don't know why I'm surprised, that's what happens when you give people like you a little power.
Mod me down, new accounts are free.
And what war would those be prisoners of?
There was no declaration of war. Even more so, there is no defined end for this war.
And shouldn't prisoners of war be people that are fighting against you? It has been demonstrated multiple times that there are people imprisoned who have nothing to do with the war other than being in a building that was being raided by our forces. We didn't randomly imprison French and German citizens while marching across Europe - and we certainly didn't ship earlier POWs half way across the world either.
The government games that are being played with the people taken hostage by the US military in this supposed war are absurd. These people deserve a trial and an opportunity to defend themselves against charges. They have been given neither.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Bill Clinton's era was economically successful primarily because he lucked into the internet explosion. He also was a free trader (good) and made a brilliant move to shift to short-term borrowing while interest rates were falling. His other policy initiatives were mostly disastrous and fortunately thwarted by a Republican congress.
Hillary is not Bill. Her policies are a secondary concern. She is a nasty person whose election would endanger our lives, our freedom, and our representative government.
McCain is no bonus. He's too willing to fight, and has no respect for Constitutional rights. He might be a budget cutter, which is good. If he's elected, we'll continue our 200 year stagger toward despotism at a slower rate than if one of the Democrats becomes President.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Much of Clinton's economic "successes" were brought about by spending on credit card. He depleted the social security trust fund and left an IOU in its place. If the US government were beholden to the same accounting principles as US corporations are, that "surplus" would turn into a deficit. And Greenspans managment of the fed then, essentially led to this whole sub-prime crisis.
The other half of Clinton's successes, I attribute to the government shut downs. I was a liberal back then and I was furious with him because nothing was ever getting done. Looking back now, as a conservative, I think that was a good thing. Had there not been the whole blowjob fiasco, I'm sure the taxing and spending would have gone on full tilt, thereby diminishing any economic legacy he had.
That being said, George Bush has destroyed this economy once and for all with his insane big government / big war policies. So I don't want to give the impression that I support that fucknut in any way shape or form. Can't we just settle on "they're all bad"?
I would be interested to know just how much of each dollar spent goes to actual health care, and how much goes to all those other things.
Slashdot is an anagram for Has Dolts, and I am Dolt number 468543
I could only get through about half this thread before I just got disgusted. Theres really that many people on slashdot falling prey to the horserace mentality? really? You guys don't see what you're playing into. Any discussion of these peoples actual platforms is completely missing from the discussion, its all about who's winning and what they did during the course of their campaign. Completely retarded, I can't believe that this shit really works. Don't you see that you're being pawns in the game between the two parties (and maybe if you're really cynical the mysterious overlords that really run things). Come on get a clue all these people are all assholes in ways you can never hope to be (do you think you run for president and win? Probably not, because theres a whole system in place stopping it), there will never be a politician you really agree with... the best that can happen is that their platform is clearly stated and once elected they are held accountable to it (and thats all right it arises out of the fact that there's a diversity of views in this country so theres no way around it). Whats not alright is that they get to never actually say anything about what their goals are and instead deflect the conversation towards this kind of he said she said crap that doesn't really matter.
Winning the popular vote pretty much Guarantee you don't win. See Gore 2000, Kerry 2004. Expect the Supreme Court to step in at the last moment and
Declare Ralph Nader the Candidate.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
I flush my toilet into a cellpool, not a government sewer.
Police only coincidentally contribute to safety, and courts have repeatedly ruled that the police have no legal responsibility to protect anyone.
All your other examples are just as easily contradicted, and it is particularly curious that you cite obvious government failure (bridge collapse) as a reason to support government.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The USA.
Often the Mayo clinic.
Don't come back BTW.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It is always interesting to listen to English journalists, even Canadian journalists seem to be more confrontational than Americans. And sometimes this is really satisfying, and sometimes it isn't. It gets a bit frustrating when they ask things a candidate can't reasonably explain in a short period of time, and it is even more frustrating when the journalist ends up grilling the person primarily as a result of some cultural thing that the journalist doesn't get. But over all, I think we could do with a British interviewer or two to keep the politicians on their toes.
omnia tua castra sunt nobis
Lighten up, it was a joke. I knew what you meant. Obviously I'm a republican, and I don't agree with you. Don't take everything so seriously.
the President of the US gets medical treatment that is better than Medicare. Not everybody in the US does. Therefore, we'd expect him to live for more than 11 years.
The President of the US is also one of the most stressful jobs on the entire planet. I don't think good medical care could negate this, and would expect a 75-year-old man to live a less-than-average amount should he win the Presidency.
"Most post-secondary institutions in this country require all students and employees to carry insurance. Many private companies also require insurance as a condition of employment."
The only difference is that you can walk away from such a job. You cannot walk away from the current system without leaving the country or going to jail.
"Even more so, what fundamental right is being violated in universal health care?"
I don't think you've understood this discussion at all. I want health insurance. I want to be prepared for emergencies. I don't want the fruit of my labor going to support other people's definitions of "insurance". Not only would my money be going to plenty of people trying to exploit the system, but it would be leaving my city and my state to benefit other cities and states; this is detrimental to the local economy.
As for fundamental rights - the right to property. I am working and being compensated for my labor. Taxation (such as universal healthcare) allows strangers to be compensated for my labor. That is a violation of a fundamental right.
"But I don't get to chose to withhold the portion of my tax dollars that go to the war because I don't support it.
Exactly, yours and my rights were violated in that case, and continue to be violated. Voluntary taxation I have no problem with. I too would not have given a cent to this war, but my only choice (literally made at gunpoint) was to accept it or go to jail.
"If I can't withhold the part of my tax dollars that are used to kill people, why do you get to withhold the part of your tax dollars that could be used to heal people?"
Two wrongs don't make a right. Rights violations are rights violations and the ends do not justify the means, ever.
Driving home today, NPR had an expert who indicated
when all the Caususes are in Obama definitely will beat
Hillary in Texas (he indicated 98 for Obama vs. 95 for Clinton),
despite Hillary's 51-48 popular vote advantage.
I guess the networks/media will have to recolor their maps
if this is true.
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
You're forgetting the long tail; this is a situation where the median would be much more useful.
The mean may be 10 years, but consider that he could die 25 years from now. On the other hand, it's impossible for him to have already died five years ago.
Fnord.
Indeed: and to calculate how real a possibility we would need the expected value of the date of his death along with the variance.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
I'm assuming a standard distribution, in which case the mean is the median.
The mean may be 10 years, but consider that he could die 25 years from now. On the other hand, it's impossible for him to have already died five years ago.That's probably the main reason a standard distribution wouldn't work well.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Err... this sounds fine, in a Libertarian sort of way, but how would you recoup the cost associated with catching a life-threatening disease from someone who have so few assets that what you could recoup would not be sufficient to pay for the treatment (if there was one)?
Or do we stick all the after-some-treatment-but-not-enough (I assume that you don't have the right to refuse care just because the person receiving it would not have the funds for a complete cure, which could alleviate some of the disease-generation I suppose) disease-spreading poor people in a place where they won't be bothering us currently-healthy?
Is this a "You must have at least this amount of money to be allowed outside of the sick people ghetto" type of future?
I, personally, would probably benefit from such a setup currently (being youngish, male and with a reasonably-paying job). I do know how small the step is between my current state and what would be required to wipe out my savings, just as I know what requirements there would be for getting insurance. "If you, THE INSURED, get a communicable disease, and does not prevent the disease from spreading by reasonable means - which, as pointed out by Jennings vs. McDonalds (fictional case) means that you stay in your own home, alone and with the windows closed - we, THE INSURER shall not be liable for any damages incurred by you to third parties."
This is not the kind of society I wish to live in.
Weeding out undesirables semi-permanently by putting them in ghettos or isolation wards at the point of a gun for the profit and protection of others... no, thank you.
I am willing to pay a tax to keep the amount of diseases down, so that I am healthier and that society does not need to confine ill people to a much greater extent.
While it may benefit the people with good immune systems, it has too many secondary and tertiary effects ("John went to work with a cold... and he was found out because he sniffled. Now he's liable for damages to all the people he may have infected.") that I do not want to experience.
OK, end of ranting (mostly).
There are some points I'd like to criticize in your post. First of all, I would argue that the main reason that communicable diseases are only at 3% (using your numbers) of the common causes of death at the moment is because of the amount of disease-preventative care we have right now. I realize that this is purely speculatively, but with the current social dynamics, people would not spend money on preventative care in the near future, because they would believe that the lowest-cost insurance will cover them ("just like it said in the commercial").
We would thus see a spike, at least temporarily, in the amount of communicable diseases being, well, communicated.
Secondly, some people will not allow themselves to be isolated just because they can communicate diseases. Even people with incurable communicable diseases today whose actions show that they will not stop spreading them are not kept separated from the population. This is mainly a social issue, not an enforcement issue, and will take time to change.
Thirdly, what you seem to be implying is that enforcement will need to be done by society against those who spread communicable diseases. In that regard, you are adding another cost to society (and thus, to everyone's bill). Your solution may or may not decrease the overall cost, but this is an *added* expense.
Fourthly, the ideal free market and free society assume that information is perfect, complete and has zero acquisition-cost. This is one of the reasons that we do not have free markets nor free societies (in the ideal sense).
Indeed - and still Clinton is considered a nice guy by a lot of other, non-US westerners. Strange huh?
;-)
Clearly this is proof of the Liberal Media being masterfully duped by the evil, conniving Clinton.
But seriously, comparing dot-com bubble with current day housing issues... I do think it is comparing apples and oranges.
While Bush certainly didn't create the housing problems, the policies espoused by his administration (as well as the lack of fiscal oversight) accelerates the wealth transfer and entices the lower middle class to do foolish things.
Telling people to spend money is a bad thing. People should be investing money (this is of course a bit impossible, since if too few people spend money the current majority-consumer-oriented businesses would fail). A house is only an investment because people need places to live, and only as long as people can actually afford living there. If you need vast loans in order to be able to live somewhere, on the order of only being able to pay back the loans with the money you get from the price of the house going up, something is very, very screwed up.
It's not "media coverage or no." Without media coverage, a candidate cannot win because without it, the majority of America will not know you exist.
A prime example of what I'm talking about from August 2007:
Fox news reporting on the Iowa Ames Straw Poll. TV broadcast top, actual results below.
Notice who was not included even though he received many more votes than two of the other media darlings combined. The networks have all done stuff like that since day one. And yet people love to cite how poorly he did in those polls. I'm still waiting for someone to explain how anyone without media coverage is supposed to poll well, let alone if they don't include your name to begin with. Again, see the timeline for more examples.
In reality though, it really has little to do with Ron Paul and everything to do with the media picking and choosing the candidates for you. It won't be any different in 2012 only because Americans won't be any more outraged at the media than they are today.
"how would you recoup the cost associated with catching a life-threatening disease from someone who have so few assets that what you could recoup would not be sufficient to pay for the treatment (if there was one)?"
These are all symptoms of the same problem. Ideally costs would be a fraction of they are now thanks to competition (both among insurance companies and among doctors) reducing the cost of insurance, medication, and treatment, and setting up payment plans that are of the most benefit to the customer. This would mean you could set up a payment plan with the healthcare provider and a payment plan with the defendant. Alternatively, requests could be made to the community for donations - this is exactly what taxes are, except that in the tax-free situation, competition would drive down costs for everyone involved. It is the government that is (unintentionally?) keeping these costs inflated.
"Weeding out undesirables semi-permanently by putting them in ghettos or isolation wards at the point of a gun for the profit and protection of others... no, thank you."
Who is suggesting doing this? Forcing people to do anything at the point of a gun is immoral and illegal.
"I am willing to pay a tax to keep the amount of diseases down, so that I am healthier and that society does not need to confine ill people to a much greater extent."
This is key here. There is no problem with voluntary taxation, just as there is no problem with donating part of your income to a cause you deem worthy. The problem occurs when you tell everyone else in the country that they must support your chosen cause.
"Or do we stick all the after-some-treatment-but-not-enough disease-spreading poor people in a place where they won't be bothering us currently-healthy?"
Forcing anyone off of their property is a violation of their fundamental rights. So no, we don't stick anyone anywhere!
"I realize that this is purely speculatively, but with the current social dynamics, people would not spend money on preventative care in the near future, because they would believe that the lowest-cost insurance will cover them. We would thus see a spike, at least temporarily, in the amount of communicable diseases being, well, communicated."
Can we agree that it is the poor that are primarily spreading communicable disease? How would a competition-driven cost-reducing insurance system not enable more poor people to get basic healthcare and afford drugs (also competition-driven) that would prevent these diseases.
Additionally, those 3% of (the most common) causes of death that are caused by communicable diseases were specifically caused by influenza and pneumonia, both of which have various vaccines. Insurance companies would have an incentive to persuade its customers to vaccinate (fewer infected customers to treat in the future) - this incentive would lead to increased access to vaccines, reduced cost to the customer, and (most importantly) increased vaccination.
"Secondly, some people will not allow themselves to be isolated just because they can communicate diseases. Even people with incurable communicable diseases today whose actions show that they will not stop spreading them are not kept separated from the population."
As long as they are not trespassing on others' property, or spreading the disease onto others' property (such as if they stood on the sidewalk and coughed all over your mailbox), what problem would they be? The moment they trespass onto private property without the owner's consent, or the moment they are found to have been concealing their disease from an affected property owner, they can be prosecuted. In the case of an emergency situation such as a plague, things are different. The military would be called in to set up quarantines and infected individuals would be forcibly quarantined to avoid violating the rights of the rest of the public. This situation is in fact ide
I would be interested to know just how much of each dollar spent goes to actual health care, and how much goes to all those other things.
I don't have a link handy, but I've read in the past that the split is 10/90.
The enemies of Democracy are
"Fourthly, the ideal free market and free society assume that information is perfect, complete and has zero acquisition-cost. This is one of the reasons that we do not have free markets nor free societies (in the ideal sense)."
Regarding your fourth point in more detail, it is not necessarily true that the free market requires perfect competition or perfect information to function. There are arguments both ways. Follow through the following example and analysis as provided by Brian Simpson's book "Markets Don't Fail!" (quoted from a review of the book):
"One of the most popular criticisms of the market involves asymmetric information. This term is 'used to describe a situation where either the buyer or seller in a market exchange has some information that the other does not have.'(p.189)
This situation, it is claimed, can lead to complete breakdown of a market. The most famous example is the lemons problem in the used car market, analyzed by George Akerlof. Buyers of used cars have much less information that dealers about which cars are "lemons." "Because of this uncertainty, buyers will be reluctant to pay as much money for any particular car when compared to a situation in which they know for certain that a car they are buying is not a lemon."(p.190) Sellers will react by withdrawing the best cars from the market, since they will deem the prices offered for them inadequate. This in turn induces buyers to offer even lower prices, since, with the best cars withdrawn, the chances of getting a lemon increase. A spiraling process threatens to destroy this market entirely.
"Simpson's strategy of response should by now be familiar. He first notes that the free market has means of supplying information to those who need it. "For instance, businesses often stand behind their products to show that they think their products are worth buying. They use warranties and guarantees to protect customers from defects and to insure that customers are satisfied." (p.193) If car buyers want more information about used cars, why will they be unable to secure it? And, after all, there is a flourishing used car market, Akerlof to the contrary notwithstanding. I venture to add an additional point. Why is it assumed that sellers of the best cars, when they set their asking prices, will not take into account the buyers' lack of information?
"Just as with network effects, Simpson carries his criticism further. It is almost impossible to find a transaction in which persons have exactly equal information. Asymmetries of information are everywhere present, and no acceptable criteria have been advanced for separating "acceptable" from "unacceptable" asymmetries. And suppose that a market does break down, in just the fashion that Akerlof has described. This would come about through the voluntary acts of people that do not violate rights. If so, the government is not justified in interfering , even if it could increase "efficiency" by doing so."
I think some do.
Then they get what they deserve. You are 100% wrong about gold and pretty much all economics. You political views are great fodder for fiction books, and have been written up as such, but no society could function that way, nor will one ever. Those that listen to what you say will be more confident in their ignorance and failed ideas, and that's ok by me. The real problem is that you are presenting your wrong opinions as fact. Gold, over long periods of time, *always* underperforms the stock market. Capitalism always fails. It failed in the US and we ended up asking the government to step in and make up numbers for minimum wages and work week hours. We tried it and abandoned it, so how do you think it will work? It's proven to fail in the real world, so your comments otherwise are useless mental masturbation. It's this clinging to things that have been proven false and presenting them as not only true, but The Truth that makes you a nutcase. And even nutcases get modded up, see David Koresh.
Learn to love Alaska
The housing bubble is an interesting case and shows really what the government cannot do.
The bubble started in 1998 time period when housing morgages denial rates started to drop, the push by politicians to have banks approve more subprime mortgages, along with other factors. It really got going in 2000-2001 period because of the crash of the dot com bubble, lot of money taken out of stocks and put into housing, the rise of the flipping craze and the only thing the federal government can take credit for lowering interest rates.
As for the the Bush administration telling us to save you do have a couple of speechs from him telling that along with various reports and speechs from the Bush appointees warning about the housing market crashing back in 2005. Do we really want a federal government that does more in that area then warn when nothing had actually happened? Should they have made banks tell people that they were to dumb to understand a house market and for that reason they were not getting a loan? Besides what could the federal government do besides raise interest rates and make subprime and Alt-A mortgages illegal, and it was politicians who were pushing the banks to do start making more of theses available back in the 90s. As with all bubbles they are going to pop.
So back to what did Bush do about the mortgage crash he help caused it by lowering interest rates he did the same thing that was done to stop the dot com bubble, nothing but let market forces take control.
Let one's goal be X. Let one alone be able to accomplish X/1e6. Also, imagine a situation in which the value of any percentage less than 100% of accomplishment of X to be 0. X knows that his work toward X is literally meaningless then. One also knows not a million people. Thus, one does no work toward X because it would be (from even a utilitarian point of view) a detriment to society to attempt goal X alone.
However, with government forcing people to do something, the goal will be met if the population is greater than one million.
We can see this phenomenon on a regular basis in politics. What do you think "momentum" is in the current Democratic run for president? Clearly there are people who don't like Clinton and love Obama. Clearly vice versa. When the race is close, many people show up to vote. However, suppose Clinton (without loss of generality) were losing badly. Fewer people would show up than if their votes were closer, simply because they know that their vote would (1) waste their time, and (2) accomplish practically nothing if the Democratic system were a winner-take-all system.
Similarly, there are probably a great number of Democrats in Utah who just don't vote in the general election since they know there's no way their votes will affect the 70% (or whatever) that definitely will vote Republican in the election.
To demostrate how Democrats in Utah actually voting when their votes will not affect the fact that the Republican candidate will take all of the electoral college votes, let's consider a cost-benefit analysis:
Costs
It wastes the Democrat voters' time that could go towards accomplishing a different personal or social goal
gasoline would be wasted to drive to the election
Benefits
Maybe the 20% or 30% Dem vote makes Republicans in Utah act a little more liberal to attract some of that vote, but not likely, since it's such a landslide for Republicans. No benefit here.
There is a "moral imperative" to vote.
The Democratic candidate for president realizes no electoral college votes
In my opinion, the voters just won't show up in droves because they know it "doesn't matter," but there is a moral reason for them to.
Basically, here's my 3am summary: People do not exercise morals that are a burden to exercise unless they know that through their exercise they will be effectual.
Finally, here's a bit of self-revelation: I believe in universal health care of the socialized variety, but I won't give any money to a private entity dedicated to providing health care to all because I know that my donation won't accomplish my goal of universal health care because not enough other people are similarly motivated. If we all shared one mind and knew of each others' desires, we'd probably get together and donate. However, because we are thousands of miles away and are actual individuals, we fail and thus go on with our lives.
Yeah I know I can't use that word cause I'm one O' them derned registered thinking republicans. Why is it that we have a staggered primary. I am here in Pennsylvania and am registered to vote, so that I can vote in the primaries. But at this point I have no say in who the party that I had to choose. ((Since I have nothing in common with the Democratic wing of our exceptionally broken political system)) This is the epitome of being disenfranchised. Sure I can vote but my vote has absolutely no effect on the outcome of this primary. I am personally one of the few who believes that our primaries should be ALL on the same day. Course that would only make sense to me aparently. I really just want a voice in what my party does. Not some of this stupid, oh well it's all fair to the states deals. I'm not one of these people who thinks that the electoral college doesn't belong because it does. This isn't a MOB RULES country it's a Representative Republic. Look it up people this is not a Full Democracy. But then that probably doesn't matter to anyone any way... and I'm probably speaking to the breaze here since this topic is a few days old.
Where's that cap to the Decanter of Endless water???