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Let the Campaign Edit Wars Begin
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Megan Garber writes that in high school, Paul Ryan's classmates voted him as his class's 'biggest brown noser,' a juicy tidbit that is a source of delight for his political opponents but considered an irrelevant piece of youthful trivia to his supporters. 'But it's also a tension that will play out, repeatedly, in the most comprehensive narrative we have about Paul Ryan as a person and a politician and a policy-maker: his Wikipedia page,' writes Garber. Late Friday night, just as news of the Ryan choice leaked in the political press — the first substantial edit to that page removed the 'brown noser' mention which had been on the page since June 16. The Wikipedia deletion has given rise to a whole discussion of whether the mention is a partisan attack, whether 'brown noser' is a pejorative, and whether an old high school opinion survey is notable or relevant. As of this writing, 'brown noser' stands as does a maybe-mitigating piece of Ryan-as-high-schooler trivia: that he was also voted prom king. But that equilibrium could change, again, in an instant. 'Today is the glory day for the Paul Ryan Wikipedia page,' writes Garber. 'Yesterday, it saw just 10 [edits]. Today, however — early on a Saturday morning, East Coast time — it's already received hundreds of revisions. And the official news of the Ryan selection, of course, is just over an hour old.' Now Ryan's page is ready to host debates about biographical details and their epistemological relevance. 'Like so many before it, will be a place of debate and dissent and derision. But it will also be a place where people can come together to discuss information and policy and the intersection between the two — a town square for the digital age.'"
Then I'm pretty sure that what Paul Ryan did in high school can be too.
But seriously, I'm a lot less concerned with what Paul Ryan did in high school that what he has done since. I'm not sure what Romney was thinking on this one (excite a base that was ALREADY excited, that would have come out to vote against Obama no matter who you chose?). But he just gave the Democrats an incredible gift. Because he didn't just excite the Republican base, he also just excited the Democratic base (and scared the hell out of the independents, and conceded Florida). Many Democrats were disenchanted with Obama and probably wouldn't have come out to vote for him again in the fall. But stacking him up against an insane-right-wing Ayn Rand ideologue who wants to abolish Medicare and Social Security to give tax cuts to the wealthy is a pretty fucking great way to motivate them. I'm not sure if this is some form of political suicide or just incredibly bad advisers, but either way--speaking as a Dem--thanks, buddy.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Would it kill the editors to write half a sentence about who the hell this "Paul Ryan" guy(?) is supposed to be?
Why hasn't it been reverted to the preannouncment page and locked for editing with the addition of "prospective VP candidate for the Republican party? Seems like the best and only proper solution.
Shawn Moore http://www.teuse.net
I'm tempted to say that these kinds of articles aren't where Wikipedia works best. Articles where the majority of the editors are partisans, rather than scholars or knowledgeable enthusiasts, tend to attract a lot of heat and not as much improvement (I made the mistake once of trying to edit something that was in the Israel-Palestine crossfire).
On the other hand, it's quite possible that Wikipedia has the least bad coverage. It's Paul Ryan article is contentious, edited by partisans on both sides, and may or may not end up in a great state, but every other summary of Ryan I've been able to find so far is worse. Most are either pure attack pieces, or pure hagiographies.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Michael Kristopeit, is that you?
If anyone seriously takes the information on Wickipedia as "fact", if they are a (so called) journalist, they need to be flogged. Most of the things you find on the wicki site are at the mercy of whomever put it there, not backed up with FACTS. But, since we are talking about a conservative, it's fair game to trash. Now, since Obama is "the one", his wicki site is probably watched like a hawk, or locked down. I think all politicians wicki sites should be removed or locked down because trolls love to cause problems, and the general apathy of the American public. Most Americans, sadly, get more worked up over who is sleeping with whom, or the latest American Idol standings, than what the IDIOTS in DC are doing to us.
are, of course, pathetic.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
10. You can pretend to help decide which CIA-groomed figurehead will front for the banksters during the next four years.
9. If the rigged voting machines break down, your vote might actually be counted.
8. With a bumpersticker like "Don't blame me, I voted for Cynthia McKinney" (or your favorite 3rd party candidate) you'll feel superior to the sheeple for the next four years.
7. Poking little holes in computer cards is good exercise for the muscles in your hands and wrists - and since you only do it every four years, you won't get repetitive motion syndrome.
6. Voting offers an opportunity to do your civic duty: While standing in line waiting to vote, you can hand out 9/11 truth DVDs and explain to the sheeple that if voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
5. If each of the two major party candidates gets exactly fifty million votes not counting yours, your vote will determine which candidate can brag about getting the most votes. Unfortunately, due to the mysteries of the electoral college system, getting the most votes has nothing to do with being elected President.
4. You'll get to play a minor role in an outrageous, over-the-top farce, without having to get yourself hired as an extra in a Mel Brooks movie.
3. Since your vote has no effect whatsoever on the actual governance of the nation, you can go ahead and vote without feeling guilty about the mass murders and genocide that the government is guaranteed to keep right on perpetrating, regardless of the electoral outcome.
2. You can cast a write-in vote for a relatively honest president of some relatively honest country, like Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and hope that your local newspaper will mention it along with the write-in votes for Donald Duck, Ted Nugent, Ted Kaczynski, OJ Simpson, and Mishka the Talking Dog.
1. Casting a meaningless vote in a system rigged to victimize people like you is better than masturbation: It allows you to screw yourself, without requiring you to assume an anatomically impossible position and risk serious injury.
http://truthjihad.blogspot.com/2012/08/top-ten-reasons-to-vote-in-american.html
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I voted for Ryan as the biggest brown noser in the class, but only because Mitt was a year ahead of us.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Was Paul Ryan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Young_Ones_%28TV_series%29#Rick) modeled after Rick?
They're even look-alikes: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul3U_J37YCc
"Hands up, who likes me"
Hands all down.
This is a situation where the page should have locked to prevent the edit wars. Granted, no one knew who the VP pick was going to be, but as soon as humanly possible, the page should have been locked down and only selected individuals allowed to edit it for completeness, not remove things which, while not necessarily relevant, give a broader picture of who the person is.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Romney and Ryan want to increase Defense spending. Why? Do they want us to get us involved in more wars?
At least Obama has got us out of one unnecessary war started by the previous Republican administration, and is slowly scaling back the other one.
Tell the Republicans that if they want to lower the deficit they should cut back on the defense budget and stop getting us into wars.\
And the rich people don't need more tax cuts.
Was Paul Ryan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Young_Ones_%28TV_series%29#Rick) modeled after Rick?
They're even look-alikes: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul3U_J37YCc
"Hands up, who likes me"
Hands all down.
that is funny.
Be seeing you...
How long until we see PAC ads accusing him of being a big smelly poopy face? Wait, those already started? Hmm.
Welcome back to kindergarten, folks. I think I'll go hibernate for the next three months so I don't have to witness the ridiculous stupidity of American society when polarized by two equally bad alternatives.
The smart people have already looked at the real platforms of the candidates and know for whom they're voting. That leaves those who are too lazy to do any research; these are the ones swayed by stupid bullshit like how
Paul Ryan's classmates voted him as his class's 'biggest brown noser'
as well as attack ads and other campaigning that can be best summed up by "my opponent will destroy this country," even though a rational, objective thinker would realize that neither major candidate will likely do so.
The rest of us? We're not the targets of this late-stage campaigning so we're completely ignored. I'll be fast forwarding through the political ads like the rest of you and wishing it was already November 7. Hell, I can't even vote (yet) so this really just feels like being forced to watch a bunch of idiots fighting from the sidelines.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Since this is the era of the politics of personal destruction, anything is fair game.
Of course, it's dysfunctional, but we aren't going to change this soon. Our political process is too polarized now.
And of course, issues really don't matter to the side that sees them as a liability.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Just f'ing great. Just as the US is going down the tubes, let's all base our choice on politicians NOT by the policies they espouse [1], but by gossip someone posted just like they were in high school. (clap clap clap)Good job Internet, you brought out the best of humanity for voting.
[1] As if they won't change 180 deg. when they get into office anyways
Your HOSTS file is pathetic. You must cower in the shadow of MyCleanPC. Teehee.
he was also voted prom king
Damn dislexia - I saw "porn king" instead of "prom king".
EDIT real life.
The Philippines? US military forces were withdrawn from the Philippines in the early 1990s with the closure of Subic Bay. The only forces there now are a small unit (under 1000 people) helping them with anti-terrorist operations.
Germany and Japan are generally fine with US military forces being based there, though there have been heavy reductions since the end of the Cold War. It's not a hostile occupation in any way comparable to the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Bosnia isn't a war situation for the US at all, but a police operation. And EUFOR Althea doesn't have any US components that I know about.
But do keep blaming Democratic presidents for their historical actions as if you were genuinely offended. Such petty complaints only demonstrate the lack of authenticity from conservatives.
... you'd realize that the GP was talking about George Romney running for President DESPITE being born in Mexico ...
US Citizenship is not simply based on where you were born, it also depends on the citizenship of the parents. If your parents were US citizens it does not matter where the child is born. Basically its being the child of US citizens OR being born on US soil.
Similarly, even if it were true that Obama was born outside the US - which he was not, his mother was a US citizen so he would have been born a US citizen.
As for the usefulness of Ryan's brown-noser status: Well it's not particularly important except that Americans like to know the personality of their prospective leaders.
All politicians are brown nosers, even Obama. Witness the years of sitting through Rev Wright's sermons even though he severely disagreed, sitting there merely because Wright was the local "king maker" and getting elected to the Illinois legislature without the Rev's support would be impossible.
Somehow "Screw You if You're Over 55!" doesn't have the ring if an effective campaign slogan to me.
Its not a campaign slogan. Its a campaign lie from the Dems. Ryan has always said that nothing changes for the over 55. Its only for the younger that he *proposes* radical changes. Note "proposal". You always propose more than you actually want so you have something to negotiate away.
It seems that more people know what Paul Ryan's classmates thought of him than know who Libertarian VP candidate Jim Gray is, or Libertarian POTUS candidate Gary Johnson. Regardless of your views on Libertarians, it has to be considered an atrocity that the public isn't informed on all of the candidates who have a mathematical chance of winning the election. To me, that's a bigger concern about the media than what insignificant details they are squabbling over.
Brown noser? That's what they plan to run with? Amusing, maybe, but really irrelevant from a campaign standpoint. I agree with his supporters on that point.
The Left-leaning media is hard at work too.
FoxNation.com | 8/13
For some reason '60 Minutes' sent out a transcript of the Romney-Ryan interview but decided not to air the portion where Paul Ryan tells Bob Schieffer his mother is a "Medicare senior in Florida." Don't you think this is an important piece of information considering the Democrat Party's central line of attack against Ryan is that he "ends Medicare as we know it?"
BOB SCHIEFFER: You're going to have to see-- you're going to have to do a little selling.
PAUL RYAN: My mom is a Medicare senior in Florida. Our point is we need to preserve their benefits, because government made promises to them that they've organized their retirements around. In order to make sure we can do that, you must reform it for those of us who are younger. And we think these reforms are good reforms, that have bipartisan origins. They started from the Clinton commission in the late '90s.
http://nation.foxnews.com/cbs-news/2012/08/13/cbs-doesn-t-want-you-know-ryans-mother-medicare
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
I used to follow the political cycle quite closely, but over the years as the attacks have gotten nastier and the facts less important, I've found myself completely turned off by the whole thing. I was getting upset enough that it was actually causing me to stress out, which was when I decided to just tune out completely. I still vote and I still try and get the most unbiased facts about each candidate (not an easy task), but I don't listen to any of the news about the election and I've found that I'm a much happier person for having done so. As Ford Prefect said "Let them have their fun", I'm not going to be a part of the 'teh political drama' anymore.
Also, the vice presidential candidate was vote Biggest Brown Noser in high school. Really? This is the best we can come up with? Unless he was voted 'Most likely to become a homicidal maniac' I don't see how this is important. Funny? Yes. Something to actually seriously consider? No. Aren't there bigger things for us to worry about?
I had some great teachers in HS. It might not be cool to have liked them, but certainly there is nothing wrong with it.
I was hoping for a discussion about how technology (and the ubiquity of Wikipedia) now allows for revisionist history in real-time, potential guards, etc.
I feared the discussion would quickly devolve into a political debate and ignore the actual topic.
I discovered that it didn't even start to talk about the technical topic, but instead went straight for the political flamebait material.
Thanks a lot, Slashdot. You managed to underwhelm even my most pessimistic expectations.
That way we all could've voted for a ticket that is guaranteed to kill our country in one fell swoop AND keep the Democrats happy.
Seriously, you guys have Joe Biden, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Are you really feeling smug about this?
...in high school, Paul Ryan's classmates voted him as his class's 'biggest brown noser,'...
Damn, this is one hard-ass high school. In my high school, we voted for things like 'Best Dressed', and 'Most Likely Too Succeed". The school let something like 'brown-noser' into the yearbook? Harsh.
Note to Slashdot readers: You must hate Paul Ryan.
His classmates voted him as his class's 'biggest brown noser,'
McCain's eligibility was important enough that it was an issue in the 2000 primary and still important enough eight years later for the U.S. Senate to pass a resolution stating it believed McCain was eligible. White guy.
Actually George Romney being born in Mexico was an issue at the time he ran. Legally it never mattered. His parents were both U.S. Citizens and Mexico, then, didn't allow foreigner's children to be born Mexican citizens. That policy may have been in reaction to the influx of Mormons. You know, like the Romneys. White guy.
Almost 100 years ago, in 1916, a Supreme Court justice called Charles Evans Hughes ran for president and his eligibility was questioned because his father was a British citizen when he was born. It was a Democrat lawyer who later served in FDR's cabinet that brought the issue up. White guy.
A presidential candidate was born in the U.S. to one American and one British subject, who does THAT remind you of? Why that sounds like Barack Obama. Black guy. Must be racist.
How about Chester A. Arthur? In his day it was argued he was born in Canada rather than Vermont. White guy.
Yeah, it's never been an issue in a presidential campaign except for the black guy.
So STOP with the BULLSHIT that it's about RACISM.
Four years ago Hillary Clinton ran on the idea it is patriotic to criticize ANY administration. Four years later Obama is protected on the notion it's racist to criticize HIS administration. I reject this attempt to censor critics. It's an affront to victims of racism.
Only an idiot would read Wikipedia for accurate, unbiased information.
That's what MSNBC is for.
There are a variety of things that contribute to higher health care costs, but getting more services (particularly imaging) is expensive, and not driven by evil insurance companies. They quietly pay the bill. Insurance companies went through the hate of HMOs (when services were limited, price negotiations with providers were tough, etc). They don't do that anymore, they just pay whatever bill they are handed.
If you are going to extend the same standard of treatment the "haves" get right now in the US to the "have nots", you will have to dramatically increase the number of doctors, specialists, hospitals and equipment. That will cost more money, not less. The only way to provide the same service to everyone is to increase cost, limit service, or somehow force providers to work for little or nothing. 60% of health care costs are labor costs. If your going to make a big difference in cost, your going to have to touch labor somehow.
Overall, there are a number of contributers to higher prices:
Defensive medicine (extra tests/imaging, "just to be sure", and because when you are legally liable, you can't trust another doctor's tests/diagnosis without risk of a massive suit)
Extravagant use of medical care (ER for sniffles, etc - talk to an ER nurse, they are a cynical lot; hip replacements for extreme elderly - recall Obama's discussion of his grandmothers hip replacement (which he partially paid for, and quietly wondered whether it was worth it), etc, etc.)
Poor acceptance of responsiblity for one's own health amongst the American population (poor diet, poor exercise, poor compliance with dr. instructions - personal recollection of a 400lb-ish diabetic heart patient on dialysis "doc, just fix me")
Legislation restricting price negotiation by insurers, reimportation of drugs, training of doctors, etc.
Profit by providers
Profit by insurers
Lottery style lawsuit system (cost rolled back into the system via malpractice insurance, resulting in dr charging higher fees)
In other words, its not just greedy insurers. Pretty much everyone involved in heath care, including (especially) the recipients, is playing a part in making health care more expensive.
Generally, the way a voucher plan works is:
1) Companies offer insurance plans that have some set of defined benifits. This plan is required to have some minimun elements. It might use a different deductable/co-pay schedule. It might have different copays for different services. It might even have some restrictions on services (must see a plan doctor, must get approval of non-emergency services, doesn't cover brand names drugs for which there is a generic equivelent, etc). Medicare itself does these things to some basic degree (not all dr accept Medicare, not all services are covered, pays 80% on most services). This would include your NHS comparable level of benifit. It may have additional elements (plastic surgery, health clubs, international coverage, etc). But, you could not have exclusions for pre-existing conditions or not cover dialysis, for example.
2) Price of the plan set by the insurance company.
3) Value of the voucher set by the government.
4) Consumer chooses a plan, pays the difference (if any).
With the elderly, everyone has a pre-existing condition. Modern medicine can find something wrong with everyone, if they look. Only people without pre-existing conditions are those avoiding doctors.
The idea is that a privately run plan can be more efficient. As a Medicare recipient, I think this is highly likely. For example, Medicare requires a "diagnosis code" every time I get a service, including drugs. As it happens, I am a transplant recipient, and am on immunosuppressives. I will be on them for the rest of my life (barring some miracle medical advance), and the diagnosis code for those drugs will be the same for as long as I am taking them. But, Medicare continues to insist on this piece of bureacracy. Anthem/Blue Cross does not - they just pay the bill without question, so far.
I made no claim that our health costs are lower than those of nations with socialist health care, I said our economy is better off than it would be under such a system. Comparing the amount spent does not compare the effect on the economy. The economy is not a zero sum game, the amount of health care goods and services consumed per capita is not a constant, and the GDP per capita of a nation- and thus their ability to afford a given level of health care- would not stay constant when shifting to a socialist health care system.
A relatively free market generally leads to greater economic growth and greater prosperity. In a more prosperous nation, people are able to afford more - and higher quality - goods and services. When people can buy what they want rather than only consuming what some central authority decides they "need," they're likely to buy more.
If you had compared US per-capita spending on food or real estate to that of the USSR you would have seen the same effect. Saying "we were able to reduce health care costs by making everybody wait in a long queue to get most kinds of service" is just like saying "communism can feed the masses more cheaply- through rationing, we only spend $0.25 per person per day on food." The result is not prosperity.
as long as civilization exists, in whatever democratic political system possible, you will only get a choice between weakly appealing candidates
the point of a candidate is to appeal to as many people as possible. therefore, he or she will have beliefs that appeal broadly to many people, and therefore, as a direct consequence of that fact, also appeal weakly across that spectrum of people he or she appeals to. the alternative is to have a narrow set of beliefs that appeal strongly to a handfu of people. this is what you want. but you want, is for the candidate to lock themselves into a narrow ideology. they will excite a select few who strongly agree with the candidate, and therefore, obviously, the candidate will lose the election
because you are not a realist on this matter, because you are an idealist, you hold your vote hostage to a fantasy existence that will never take place
grow up, you petulant child
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why is parent "Funny"? How about +5, Informative
Looked so intently that you went off on a post that didn't actually have the comparison you were looking for? Interesting.....
It's obvious that the pages for President Obama, Vice President Biden, Governor Romney and Representative Ryan have been "locked" (which means only a very tiny cadre of editors can change the page) for some time. As such, this avoids most of the issues of editors putting in incorrect information.
Maybe more accurately modelled on Mr. Mayall's character Alan B'Stard from The New Statesman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVltOSC0JMQ
Pretty much love anything with Rik and/or Ade in it.
(The actor's autobiography, Bigger than Hitler, Better than Christ, is also quite funny!)
Also, I think a lot of Ryan's attitudes were shaped by Rowan Atkinson's address to the Conservative party conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg-4ATrE8n0
Wouldn't be too happy to see Romney step off the plane in the UK again. His pretty damn insulting attitude towards our abilities have to all intents and purposes left a pretty damaging image of a person who is in effect running for an office where he needs significant international diplomacy.