Well, to recieve the health care would require me to apply for it, and in Ontario, that means agreeing to live in the province permanently, something I was not willing to do. (I can understand a mnimum residency requirement, but "permanently"? I don't think so. The law actually stipulates that 153 days of residency are required after getting coverage, but makes no mention of agreeing to longer residency being an unenforcable contract.)
The odd thing is that it is illegal for someome eligible for health care (i.e. sign away the right to move out of province), to pay for it.
However, my character would not let me take advantage of a system with which I disagreed, so I found a way to pay. (I simply claimed that I did not have a health card).
Yes, un-Canadian: I do not believe in theft, even when sanctioned by a mob.
The parent poster did too, as he himself admitted when he was "down on luck" in the States
At no time did Canadian health insurance cover any of my medical expenses in the U.S. As a non-resident I was not eligible for coverage (and rightly so), nor was I liable for taxes.
In fact, it is technically possible for one to be a resident for tax purposes in Canada, taxed on world-wide income (e.g. I might own a house in Canada), and still not be eligible for Canadian health care coverage if I did not physically reside there.
I wouldn't expect thieves to believe that there are honest people in the world who do not take what they believe they are not entitled to, even if they can do so easily and conveniently.
I do not believe in universal healthcare as practiced in Canada, and to the degree possible, refuse to subscribe to it. Note, that for a Canadian citizen living in Canada, this choice is illegal, even if one pays the taxes to support the system.
It is you who is the thief: suggesting that I pay for something I do not use at a price I can not afford. Oh, and I'd appreciate it if you kept your comments from appearing as part of something you quoted me as writing. I guess you slipped a closing tag, or something.
Your numbers growing is everything that you ever cared for
I was referring to Canadians leaving Canada, because of the high taxes and poor services, not net worth. But, if you want to bring it up, yes, I want my net worth to increase. So that, in my old age, I can afford to pay for my health care needs without being a burden on others, and so that I can support the charities of my choice today. I trust the Sally Ann a heck of a lot more than I trust old Uncles Jean and Paul, eh? Cousin Ralph, well him I like, but then Albertans were always more decent folk. I wouldn't mess with them if I were you though, they might still be a bit sore over old Uncle Pierre taking their oil and "sharing" it.
When I left Canada, I had to "settle the score", tax wise: realizing capital gains, and so on. According to Canadian laws, I was "free and clear" and didn't owe anything. In fact, I never received more than I paid in taxes. Canada would have been worse off revenue wise if I never lived and worked there. The only Canadian laws I ever may have broken related to my paying for services instead of sucking at the taxpayer's teat -- I'd rather be a criminal than a hyocrite.
But, you see a revenue source in the skilled worker, to be enslaved and taxed. How dare I not let you enslave me!
Well, I don't. Nyeah, nyeah, nyeah! Go, go close your borders in desparation. Keep your productive citizenry behind bars, taxing them. The faster you make it worse, the sooner the revolution will come.
As a foreigner in the U.S., I am very much a second class person. Still, it is far better than my life in Canada ever was, and someone has to expose the horrors of socialism there. Call it a twinge of left-over patriotism: the best thing I can do for Canada is to not feed the tax monster and hasten the withdrawl from the addiction of bogus social services.
That is what any sane group of people would do when faced with a problem of scarce resources.
Funny. Doctors weren't scare in Canada until there was universal health care coverage and their fees were fixed by the government.
We know not of this "scarce resources" problem, at least when applied to doctors, in the U.S. If you'd stop taxing your "scarce resources" away, perhaps they'd not be so scarce.
Then again you count MRI machines per province, whereas we count MRI machines per hospital.
It's funny how scarcity is a self-fulfilling prophesy of socialist societies.
The funny thing is that even planned societies sometimes get lucky. If Syncrude ever gets its act together, you'll be sitting on sh*tpiles of oil, and I doubt any private firm would ever risk the resources to try to develop the tar sands. It's one of the reasons alternative energy isn't big in the U.S. -- the oil shortage isn't bad enough yet. Besides, if you ever get oil out of the 'sands, we can just come and Iraq it away. (Not that I'd expect force to be used, but it's fun to feign force and see the defenseless get all upitty).
Now shut up, before the U.S. decides to block export of cheap meds your way.
That fuck says it all about you. Do not come back here you fucking leech!
Leech?
Geez, I actually went out of my way to not subscribe to any social services during my short return -- I specifically did not reapply for health cards, and paid (quite illegally, actually) for whatever care I required, precisely to not be a hypocrite. My son, an American citizen, was permitted to have health insurance. It was rather funny, arguing with hospital administrators who insisted that he was a Canadian by blood: I produced his American passport and challenged them to prove his Canadian citizenship so they could deny him the right to pay for services.
In fact, most of my family's health care expenses were incurred in the U.S.: I've been hospitalized twice: once for a nasty viral infection ($25k) and once for cellulitis surgery ($5k), my daughter had eye surgery ($6k) and my son had his tonsils removed ($2k). Then there is the matter of his birth ($3k). Canada paid for non of that, despite happily collecting taxes on my income when I lived there.
No, I am quite certain that I received far less in services than I ever paid in taxes (and that included not collecting the child credit -- we believe that parents should support their own children).
You are not angry because you think I will take what my taxes would entitle me to -- you are angry because I refuse to be robbed by your ilk.
Look at your brain drain: I am independent of your chains and my numbers are growing.
Watch now, as Canada seals its borders to emmigration.
Sure and they get to eat whenever the bank happens to have some food, i.e. whenever you and other economic-rape artists feel pangs of conscience
Actually, our local food banks never run out, though I expect that some might. Then, there are various shelters, and of course, the Sally Ann and other organizations. Private charity is quite vibrant in the U.S., partly because people aren't taxed to death.
What bothers me about the parent is that I fully expect him to crawl back here as soon as he gets into any medical trouble over there.
You should know that I can not do that. Having become a non-resident of Canada, I can't simply return and be covered. I'd have to (and be allowed to temporarily) purchase private health insurance until the third month after my return (so a wait of 60 to 90 days). And, if I had a serious pre-existing condition, I would not be able to obtain such insurance, even for 90 days.
I have personal experience with people paying high taxes all their lives for Canada's health care, and then were denied a lousy $20k surgery (AAA repair: $US19,985 +/- 7396 for endovascular or US$12,546 +/- 5944 for open repair reference) that was a death sentence for them. Oh, and if you're over 65 in the U.S., Medicare reimburses about US$19k of that. (AAAs are typically a condition of the elderly, though they can strike the young as well).
I now know of another relative that needs this surgery and is not getting it. Tick, tick, tick.
If anything, once I obtain U.S. citizenship, I'll likely renounce my Canadian citizenship -- one can not serve two masters.
But, your comment is telling of the desparation among Canadians -- every one wants what they think they are entitled to, but no one else who may also be entitled should get it. This attitide and behavior where quite prominent when I lived in Markham, and Whitby, Ontario, for a while. It is typical of a fight over scarce resources, and reminided me of rats on a sinking ship.
I;d be inclined to agree, except that I find housing more affordable in the U.S. than in Canada, for comparable neighborhoods.
The mortgate interest deduction doesn't matter all that much, since it's only available if you don't take the standard deduction (you have to pick either a standard or itemized deductions).
However, I would strongly support a national health care that was about 1,000 times the minimum wage (about $5k).
Indeed. I think most would suppor that.
Canada is the only country in the world with universal health care -- other socialist nations with national health care have "two tier" systems -- basic care "for free" and additional care for which one can purchace private insurance.
However, in Canada, the mantra is that it is unfair that "the rich" can purchase better health care than the not so rich. So much so, that it is illegal for a Canadian citizen to purchase (and a doctor sell) health care services that are "covered" -- even if one has to wait in pain for that covered service.
A recent court decision in Quebec struck down that provision of the Quebec Health Care act (the provinces administer their own health care plans under control of the federal government) as unconstitutional, but because the Canadian constitution has a "notwithstanding clause", the government can overrule the Supreme Court of Canada. Effectively, "Here are your rights unless we say so". I dunno if the politicos are more evil for pulling that stunt, or the electorate is more stupid for accepting it.
Many Canadians I've met can not understand how the U.S. can function at all without universal healthcare. But, function it does.
Oh sure, one can read all sorts of sensationalist articles about collapse, and large numbers of uninsured. But, when one looks deeper, one sees that the percentage of the population in the worst case scenario is (a) actually quite small and (b) there is opportunity to move out of poverty. In contrast, Canada's "social safety net" is, for many, an illusion. Rather like a lottery: everybody knows of someone who won, but the chances of doing so are quite slim.
Before any Canadian criticizes the U.S., they should get a legal work visa, come here, and live here for several years, preferably in several different parts of the country. We have, went through boom and bust, having to return to Canada for a while (always staying in legal status), and are now back. All in my family agree, for those who don't mind working, the standard of living, including health care is far better. Heck, my son is an American citizen, and the rest of us hope to be soon, as well.
As for Bush, "that too, will pass."
There is poverty everywhere. I happen to like that I can donate substantial funds a month to the local food bank (generally more around the holidays) rather than have some fat-ass politoco tax that money from me "for the poor on welfare (after expenses of course -- mmmm, leather chair, mmm".
You did, of course, not being a disingenious shill, include the $200-600
Actually, yes. I had a complex spreadsheet trying to be as balanced as possible.
In my case, the cost of our health coverage is more like $1200 a month, but my employer covers all of it, and it's for far better care than I can get in Canada -- much of what it covers is not covered by provincial health care programs.
Even then, it's still cheaper. The big thing is being able to file jointly.
Funny, my father was told he needed an AAA repair, and after 40 years of paying top dollar taxes, was also told it was too expensive, there were no doctors to perform it in Canada. That was a death sentence. He did not have the resources to go to the U.S. for the surgery, what with all the health care taxes he paid.
I've read that access to surgery often depends on who one knows -- a relative of mine has been waiting close to four years for a hip replacement. I suppose I could ask who your mother had to blow to get that hip for dear old dad, but that would be crass.
While living in Whitby, ON, we could not even find a doctor that was seeing new patients. Furthermore, the Ontario health insurance application requires one to agree to live in the province permanently. I would never restrict mine, or my family's movements like that. I can understand a waiting period, and minimum residency requirement, to avoid having to provide care to transients, but "permanently"? WTF?
Yes, still cheaper. Much. Furthermore, the proposed removal of mortgage-interest deductability is to be phased in at high-levels of deductability. The primary opposition comes from States where a middle-class home can cost $1,000,000 (some parts of California).
In my case, it amounts to about some $10,000 a year that would be subject to federal income tax (it is already subject to social security and medicare taxes). In a 25% tax bracket, that would be $2500, or a little over $100 a pay.
Now, I have arranged my affairs to be tax-efficient, and my federal marginal tax rate is only 15%, though adding another $10k of income would push some of that to be taxed at 25%, so the effect on my would be around $1800 a year of extra taxes. Still, much cheaper, mostly because my wife and I can file jointly in the U.S. and can not in Canada.
No doubt, some will notice that 25% marginal tax rate, and note that Canadian federal rates don't get that high for middle-class income earners. However, that 25% rate arises at a much higher level of income in the U.S., and when filing jointly, it arises higher still.
What's wrong with that aren't information systems conceived for humans ?
Because it isn't only humans that are expected to manage and transform the information, and in fact, humans rarely play a part in the process.
Computers deal far more efficiently with data in a format that their fundemental instruction sets are designed to work with. This generally means optimization in the interest of time and space (these can be at odds with eachother, but there are some optimizations for one that are not detremental to the other).
For a simple example, consider the way that numbers are respresented: a two's complement base-2 representation of integers and the mantissa and exponent of floating point numbers, with varients regarding size of integers and digits of precision of floating point numbers. Such representations are very unfriendly for humans, and perfectly adapted to electronic manipulation. So, what does one do? One translates at the human/machine and machine/human interfaces.
This does not happen with XML: XML is used for an inter-machine structured data representation despite being much better suited for a human/machine or machine/human translation of structured data. It might make sense to have stuff traditionally found in/etc config files in XML, for example, because humans have to deal with it, as well as machines. But, historically such data had a fixed, simple structure implied by the name of the file.
But, it is possible to have an inter-machine structured data exchange format that is much easier to deal with by machines, than XML. XDR offered this to allow RPC between machines using different numberic representatons, for example. XML remains too "high-level" to allow for efficient manipulation. If you think that XML is great then you probably think that non-tokenizing BASIC interpreters are great tool. What they are (in both cases) is s l o w.
The slowness of XML parsing is well-known, and often a bottleneck in machine to machine communications: every machine parsing and re-parsing XML. One can argue that we have more processor speed, memory, and bandwitdh these days, and that is true, but you will still reach a performance-bottleneck as you scale up. And more scalability is better than less.
Just wait, you will soon see an "Accelerated XML" or "Compiled XML" standard on the horizon, and XDR will be reborn.
I'll have to followup later, but, having been born in Canada, and lived in Texas, I can assure you that it is much cheaper in Texas, tax-wise. Property is dirt cheap, though property taxes and insurance can be high (the property taxes generally pay for great schools, at least they did in Allen). There is not state income tax.
At just about any income level, a family with a single income, filing jointly, and owning their home will be much better off just about anywhere in the U.S. compared to Canada: there is no deduction for morgtage interest for non-investment property in Canada, and couples with a single income can't file jointly (and the spousal credit is mediocre, about CA$7-8k at the *lowest* marginal tax rate taken off your gross tax burden).
I once figured out that for marrieds, taxes in the U.S., in a no-income tax state, are generally lower once income goes above $US15k.
It's the main reason we left Canada for the U.S. -- we could not afford to live in Canada anymore with the high taxes, and mediocre health care (free, perhaps, but non-existent for the most part).
That's it, "cute": it's a nice way of describing structured data that a human can easily understand. As for portability, well, yeah, but it stands to reason that a "source code" representation of data and structure would be portable, so that isn't any great brilliance. It isn't like we didn't have machine-agnostic structured interchange formats already: witness XDR: my littne endian machine clients have been talking to big-endian machine servers for years. And, XDR to XML translaters wouldn't have been difficult to write. Hech, XDR to C/C++ data structures translators wouldn't have been difficult to write. In fact, that's exactly what IDL compilers did
XML is nothing more than a generalization of HTML, which itself is a watered down SGML. But, while a structured textual representation of textual data makes sense, it isn't clear that a structured textual representation of non-text makes sense -- it's a useful way for people to communicate the structure of data, but machines? Geez, that's just a bunch of parser-writers mentally masturbating.
But, as HTML came into vogue, people became comfortable with textual markup, and structure (not as if SGML hasn't been around already - TBL just made it "accessible"). Combine that with textual represenation of non-textual data, and you have a recipe for XML.
Bottom line: XML is a machine-agnostic structured data interchange format designed by those who have just sufficient knowledge about computers to be dangerous.
If you want to put software on my computer, you'd better disclose what it does.
If it causes harm intentionally, then you are guilty of fraud and destruction of property, and should be subject to criminal as well as possible civil penalties.
If it causes harm unintentionally, you should still be subject to civil penalties.
There is no excuse for software that causes harm unless I clearly waived my rights to redress and that harm was unintentional.
While this may be reasonable if the software is free (as in either speech or freedom), it is not reasonable if the purpose of the software is to protect someone else's property interests.
The bottom line, is that such untrusted, unvetted code, should only be deployed to dedicated machines where the harm is not likely to be wide-spread (i.e single purpose devices), and particularly where the harm will affect those who would naturally benefit from what the software should do: if a firmware upgrade is sent to my cable box by my cable company, and it kills the box so that I get a refund on not being able to view content, this is likely reasonable. But it should certainly not kill a general purpose computer. If anything, that is an argument for dedicated devices who's sole purpose is the decryption and display of encrypted content.
I used to like Sony products -- particularly their higher-end TVs. While others have claimed poor quality control and warranty support on ther sets, I've been lucky -- until recently: a four year old 4:3 HDTV set is starting to die.
You need two electrons to make a hydrogen molecule out of two hydrogen ions. (Damn,/. does not support <sub> and <super>).
So, to get one mole of hydrogen gas (22.4 litres at STP), weighing 2 grams, one needs two moles of electrons, or -2 Faradays of charge. A Faraday of charge is 96.5 kilo Coulombs. And, a Coulomb is the amount of electrons transported by one Ampere for one second.
So, to get 22.4 litres of hydrogen gas, one needs 193,000 Amperes of current for one second, or 193 amps for 1000 seconds, etc. Lets say you draw an extra 160 Watts at 16 Volts from the alternator for electrolosis, and you need 1.6V to elecrolosyze the water. You can have 10 electrolosis cells in series. Each cell carries a curent of 10 amps (160W/16V), so in one second, you get 22400 ml / 19300 = 1.16 ml hydrogen gas, or 11.6 ml hydrogen gas per second for the bank of electrolosis cells. Since 160W is 0.214 horsepower, you get 54.1 ml of hydrogen per horsepower of alternator draw.
The engine in my 1995 Ford Thunderbird DOHC V8 (thirsty little bugger) has a displacement of 4.6l or 4600 ml. At 2000 RPM, the engine "breathes" 500 times, being a four stroke engine using the Otto cycle. So, in one minute, it consumes 2300 litres of fuel-air mix. In one second, it consumes 38.3 litres of fuel-air mix. Let's say we need to augment with 1% hydrogen. That's 383 ml of hydrogen, which, given ideal alternators, and electrolosis, would require 7 horsepower.
Surely it's a No Brainer that putting the excess power back into the engine (electrolysis, hydrogen, blah blah) is Good Thing.
Yes, but the more current you draw, the more the alternator serves as a brake on the engine. You know all those "regenerative braking" hybrid systems? Same principle: they brake by dumping electricity from motors now running as generators back into the batteries.
...I disagree with communist, and I challenge you to prove that it is
Oh, in spades it is!
Do not confuse communism, an economic model, with socialism -- the form of government in the former United Sovient Socialist Republic. Often, the word "socialism" is used as a watered down version of "communism", where the former is a harsh socio-political model, and the latter an economic one.
Economically, Canada is extremely communist: At the macro level, the federal government manages the economy heavily via transfer payments from the "have" provinces to the "have not" provinces. So, one can not "vote with one's feet" to a better run province -- the feds would just redirect the bounty. Just ask Alberta.
Economic activity is heavily regulated. It is almost impossible to get anything trivial done: attempting to bring in a "Hot School Lunch" program into the schools under the school board where my daughter attended school, where local catering companies bid anually to supply lunches to students at school (generally at lower cost than what parents would spend to provide cold sandwitches because of the economies of scale caterers enjoy that are passed on in savings because of the competition between them to get the lucrative contract) ran into so many hurdles, it was rediculous: 1) Because there were no regulations on the nutritional standards of such lunches, they could not be offered until there were some (so, use existing national standard on balanced nutrition). 2) The school board did not have the authority to so contract. 3) Many schools were so decrepit, there was no where for students to eat -- in crowded U.S. schools, the gyn often doubles as the caffeteria, but many schools didn't even have gyms! Students ate their cold sandwitches in class. 4) No program could be offered unless there was a subsidy for those who "could not pay"? WTF? It is cheaper to subscribe to a school's hot lunch program, than it is to send a cold sandwitch, drink, fruit, and small desert: I can't feed my kid lunch for under $2 a day (what the local program costs here). Poor kids already get welfare assistance. (In the U.S. in every school my daughter attended, milk was free, and some had subsidies for the poor beyond that.) Indeed, there was violent opposition to the notion of such a program on the assumption that it would be entirely taxpayer subsidized -- people can't even fathom paying for anything anymore.
Now, that is one small example, and it brings in economoic communism along with political socialism, but it is typical.
Just look at the tax code: except for small businesses, there is no incentive to invest in one's own present welfare: home ownership is made unaffordable for many through the non-deductability of mortgage interest (Of course, I would argue, that a deduction is not a subsidy since you earned the taxed income already): owning one's home being a bourgois luxery (Ironically, those with substantial investment accounts can pull some tax wizardry to make the mortgate interest deductable). Traditional families with one breadwinner and one stay at home parent can barely survive: it's bad enough that a substantial income is required to support a family on one income alone, but then it is taxed solely in the hands of the earner (with but a token non-refundable tax credit for a spouse at the lowest marginal tax rate). There is no filing jointly with one's spouse -- recognizing that the income supports two people (at least) and not one. No, the pressure is for both spouses to work, putting the kids in daycare, and thus propping up the daycare industry. Adding insult to injury is that "high income" (over US$50k, which is modest by American middle class standards) earners that do support their own family often subsidize that daycare with their tax dollars(used to be $5 a day in Quebec -- dunno if it still is).
The result has been the stagnation of the very services that Canada prides itself on: education and universal healthcare. Compare Canada and the form
Slashdot Mirror
The odd thing is that it is illegal for someome eligible for health care (i.e. sign away the right to move out of province), to pay for it.
However, my character would not let me take advantage of a system with which I disagreed, so I found a way to pay. (I simply claimed that I did not have a health card).
Yes, un-Canadian: I do not believe in theft, even when sanctioned by a mob.
At no time did Canadian health insurance cover any of my medical expenses in the U.S. As a non-resident I was not eligible for coverage (and rightly so), nor was I liable for taxes.
In fact, it is technically possible for one to be a resident for tax purposes in Canada, taxed on world-wide income (e.g. I might own a house in Canada), and still not be eligible for Canadian health care coverage if I did not physically reside there.
Translation: they would like to earn what someone is willing to pay them.
Frankly, if that attracts the best surgeons at astronomical prices to a country, then it is better than not having those surgeons at all.
What, you're going to restrict what they can earn, effectively put a gun to their head, and order them to operate!?
Yeah, sure, tell ya what, you can go under their knife first, O.K.?
I wouldn't expect thieves to believe that there are honest people in the world who do not take what they believe they are not entitled to, even if they can do so easily and conveniently.
I do not believe in universal healthcare as practiced in Canada, and to the degree possible, refuse to subscribe to it. Note, that for a Canadian citizen living in Canada, this choice is illegal, even if one pays the taxes to support the system.
It is you who is the thief: suggesting that I pay for something I do not use at a price I can not afford. Oh, and I'd appreciate it if you kept your comments from appearing as part of something you quoted me as writing. I guess you slipped a closing tag, or something.
Your numbers growing is everything that you ever cared for
I was referring to Canadians leaving Canada, because of the high taxes and poor services, not net worth. But, if you want to bring it up, yes, I want my net worth to increase. So that, in my old age, I can afford to pay for my health care needs without being a burden on others, and so that I can support the charities of my choice today. I trust the Sally Ann a heck of a lot more than I trust old Uncles Jean and Paul, eh? Cousin Ralph, well him I like, but then Albertans were always more decent folk. I wouldn't mess with them if I were you though, they might still be a bit sore over old Uncle Pierre taking their oil and "sharing" it.
When I left Canada, I had to "settle the score", tax wise: realizing capital gains, and so on. According to Canadian laws, I was "free and clear" and didn't owe anything. In fact, I never received more than I paid in taxes. Canada would have been worse off revenue wise if I never lived and worked there. The only Canadian laws I ever may have broken related to my paying for services instead of sucking at the taxpayer's teat -- I'd rather be a criminal than a hyocrite.
But, you see a revenue source in the skilled worker, to be enslaved and taxed. How dare I not let you enslave me!
Well, I don't. Nyeah, nyeah, nyeah! Go, go close your borders in desparation. Keep your productive citizenry behind bars, taxing them. The faster you make it worse, the sooner the revolution will come.
As a foreigner in the U.S., I am very much a second class person. Still, it is far better than my life in Canada ever was, and someone has to expose the horrors of socialism there. Call it a twinge of left-over patriotism: the best thing I can do for Canada is to not feed the tax monster and hasten the withdrawl from the addiction of bogus social services.
Funny. Doctors weren't scare in Canada until there was universal health care coverage and their fees were fixed by the government.
We know not of this "scarce resources" problem, at least when applied to doctors, in the U.S. If you'd stop taxing your "scarce resources" away, perhaps they'd not be so scarce.
Then again you count MRI machines per province, whereas we count MRI machines per hospital.
It's funny how scarcity is a self-fulfilling prophesy of socialist societies.
The funny thing is that even planned societies sometimes get lucky. If Syncrude ever gets its act together, you'll be sitting on sh*tpiles of oil, and I doubt any private firm would ever risk the resources to try to develop the tar sands. It's one of the reasons alternative energy isn't big in the U.S. -- the oil shortage isn't bad enough yet. Besides, if you ever get oil out of the 'sands, we can just come and Iraq it away. (Not that I'd expect force to be used, but it's fun to feign force and see the defenseless get all upitty).
Now shut up, before the U.S. decides to block export of cheap meds your way.
Leech?
Geez, I actually went out of my way to not subscribe to any social services during my short return -- I specifically did not reapply for health cards, and paid (quite illegally, actually) for whatever care I required, precisely to not be a hypocrite. My son, an American citizen, was permitted to have health insurance. It was rather funny, arguing with hospital administrators who insisted that he was a Canadian by blood: I produced his American passport and challenged them to prove his Canadian citizenship so they could deny him the right to pay for services.
In fact, most of my family's health care expenses were incurred in the U.S.: I've been hospitalized twice: once for a nasty viral infection ($25k) and once for cellulitis surgery ($5k), my daughter had eye surgery ($6k) and my son had his tonsils removed ($2k). Then there is the matter of his birth ($3k). Canada paid for non of that, despite happily collecting taxes on my income when I lived there.
No, I am quite certain that I received far less in services than I ever paid in taxes (and that included not collecting the child credit -- we believe that parents should support their own children).
You are not angry because you think I will take what my taxes would entitle me to -- you are angry because I refuse to be robbed by your ilk.
Look at your brain drain: I am independent of your chains and my numbers are growing.
Watch now, as Canada seals its borders to emmigration.
Sure and they get to eat whenever the bank happens to have some food, i.e. whenever you and other economic-rape artists feel pangs of conscience
Actually, our local food banks never run out, though I expect that some might. Then, there are various shelters, and of course, the Sally Ann and other organizations. Private charity is quite vibrant in the U.S., partly because people aren't taxed to death.
You should know that I can not do that. Having become a non-resident of Canada, I can't simply return and be covered. I'd have to (and be allowed to temporarily) purchase private health insurance until the third month after my return (so a wait of 60 to 90 days). And, if I had a serious pre-existing condition, I would not be able to obtain such insurance, even for 90 days.
I have personal experience with people paying high taxes all their lives for Canada's health care, and then were denied a lousy $20k surgery (AAA repair: $US19,985 +/- 7396 for endovascular or US$12,546 +/- 5944 for open repair reference) that was a death sentence for them. Oh, and if you're over 65 in the U.S., Medicare reimburses about US$19k of that. (AAAs are typically a condition of the elderly, though they can strike the young as well).
I now know of another relative that needs this surgery and is not getting it. Tick, tick, tick.
If anything, once I obtain U.S. citizenship, I'll likely renounce my Canadian citizenship -- one can not serve two masters.
But, your comment is telling of the desparation among Canadians -- every one wants what they think they are entitled to, but no one else who may also be entitled should get it. This attitide and behavior where quite prominent when I lived in Markham, and Whitby, Ontario, for a while. It is typical of a fight over scarce resources, and reminided me of rats on a sinking ship.
The mortgate interest deduction doesn't matter all that much, since it's only available if you don't take the standard deduction (you have to pick either a standard or itemized deductions).
Perhaps Canadian companies can't afford the payroll taxes.
Indeed. I think most would suppor that.
Canada is the only country in the world with universal health care -- other socialist nations with national health care have "two tier" systems -- basic care "for free" and additional care for which one can purchace private insurance.
However, in Canada, the mantra is that it is unfair that "the rich" can purchase better health care than the not so rich. So much so, that it is illegal for a Canadian citizen to purchase (and a doctor sell) health care services that are "covered" -- even if one has to wait in pain for that covered service.
A recent court decision in Quebec struck down that provision of the Quebec Health Care act (the provinces administer their own health care plans under control of the federal government) as unconstitutional, but because the Canadian constitution has a "notwithstanding clause", the government can overrule the Supreme Court of Canada. Effectively, "Here are your rights unless we say so". I dunno if the politicos are more evil for pulling that stunt, or the electorate is more stupid for accepting it.
As you note, this is unsustainable.
Many Canadians I've met can not understand how the U.S. can function at all without universal healthcare. But, function it does.
Oh sure, one can read all sorts of sensationalist articles about collapse, and large numbers of uninsured. But, when one looks deeper, one sees that the percentage of the population in the worst case scenario is (a) actually quite small and (b) there is opportunity to move out of poverty. In contrast, Canada's "social safety net" is, for many, an illusion. Rather like a lottery: everybody knows of someone who won, but the chances of doing so are quite slim.
Before any Canadian criticizes the U.S., they should get a legal work visa, come here, and live here for several years, preferably in several different parts of the country. We have, went through boom and bust, having to return to Canada for a while (always staying in legal status), and are now back. All in my family agree, for those who don't mind working, the standard of living, including health care is far better. Heck, my son is an American citizen, and the rest of us hope to be soon, as well.
As for Bush, "that too, will pass."
There is poverty everywhere. I happen to like that I can donate substantial funds a month to the local food bank (generally more around the holidays) rather than have some fat-ass politoco tax that money from me "for the poor on welfare (after expenses of course -- mmmm, leather chair, mmm".
Actually, yes. I had a complex spreadsheet trying to be as balanced as possible.
In my case, the cost of our health coverage is more like $1200 a month, but my employer covers all of it, and it's for far better care than I can get in Canada -- much of what it covers is not covered by provincial health care programs.
Even then, it's still cheaper. The big thing is being able to file jointly.
I've read that access to surgery often depends on who one knows -- a relative of mine has been waiting close to four years for a hip replacement. I suppose I could ask who your mother had to blow to get that hip for dear old dad, but that would be crass.
While living in Whitby, ON, we could not even find a doctor that was seeing new patients. Furthermore, the Ontario health insurance application requires one to agree to live in the province permanently. I would never restrict mine, or my family's movements like that. I can understand a waiting period, and minimum residency requirement, to avoid having to provide care to transients, but "permanently"? WTF?
In my case, it amounts to about some $10,000 a year that would be subject to federal income tax (it is already subject to social security and medicare taxes). In a 25% tax bracket, that would be $2500, or a little over $100 a pay.
Now, I have arranged my affairs to be tax-efficient, and my federal marginal tax rate is only 15%, though adding another $10k of income would push some of that to be taxed at 25%, so the effect on my would be around $1800 a year of extra taxes. Still, much cheaper, mostly because my wife and I can file jointly in the U.S. and can not in Canada.
No doubt, some will notice that 25% marginal tax rate, and note that Canadian federal rates don't get that high for middle-class income earners. However, that 25% rate arises at a much higher level of income in the U.S., and when filing jointly, it arises higher still.
Because it isn't only humans that are expected to manage and transform the information, and in fact, humans rarely play a part in the process.
Computers deal far more efficiently with data in a format that their fundemental instruction sets are designed to work with. This generally means optimization in the interest of time and space (these can be at odds with eachother, but there are some optimizations for one that are not detremental to the other).
For a simple example, consider the way that numbers are respresented: a two's complement base-2 representation of integers and the mantissa and exponent of floating point numbers, with varients regarding size of integers and digits of precision of floating point numbers. Such representations are very unfriendly for humans, and perfectly adapted to electronic manipulation. So, what does one do? One translates at the human/machine and machine/human interfaces.
This does not happen with XML: XML is used for an inter-machine structured data representation despite being much better suited for a human/machine or machine/human translation of structured data. It might make sense to have stuff traditionally found in /etc config files in XML, for example, because humans have to deal with it, as well as machines. But, historically such data had a fixed, simple structure implied by the name of the file.
But, it is possible to have an inter-machine structured data exchange format that is much easier to deal with by machines, than XML. XDR offered this to allow RPC between machines using different numberic representatons, for example. XML remains too "high-level" to allow for efficient manipulation. If you think that XML is great then you probably think that non-tokenizing BASIC interpreters are great tool. What they are (in both cases) is s l o w.
The slowness of XML parsing is well-known, and often a bottleneck in machine to machine communications: every machine parsing and re-parsing XML. One can argue that we have more processor speed, memory, and bandwitdh these days, and that is true, but you will still reach a performance-bottleneck as you scale up. And more scalability is better than less.
Just wait, you will soon see an "Accelerated XML" or "Compiled XML" standard on the horizon, and XDR will be reborn.
At just about any income level, a family with a single income, filing jointly, and owning their home will be much better off just about anywhere in the U.S. compared to Canada: there is no deduction for morgtage interest for non-investment property in Canada, and couples with a single income can't file jointly (and the spousal credit is mediocre, about CA$7-8k at the *lowest* marginal tax rate taken off your gross tax burden).
I once figured out that for marrieds, taxes in the U.S., in a no-income tax state, are generally lower once income goes above $US15k.
It's the main reason we left Canada for the U.S. -- we could not afford to live in Canada anymore with the high taxes, and mediocre health care (free, perhaps, but non-existent for the most part).
XML is, how can I put this? "Cute."
That's it, "cute": it's a nice way of describing structured data that a human can easily understand. As for portability, well, yeah, but it stands to reason that a "source code" representation of data and structure would be portable, so that isn't any great brilliance. It isn't like we didn't have machine-agnostic structured interchange formats already: witness XDR: my littne endian machine clients have been talking to big-endian machine servers for years. And, XDR to XML translaters wouldn't have been difficult to write. Hech, XDR to C/C++ data structures translators wouldn't have been difficult to write. In fact, that's exactly what IDL compilers did
XML is nothing more than a generalization of HTML, which itself is a watered down SGML. But, while a structured textual representation of textual data makes sense, it isn't clear that a structured textual representation of non-text makes sense -- it's a useful way for people to communicate the structure of data, but machines? Geez, that's just a bunch of parser-writers mentally masturbating.
But, as HTML came into vogue, people became comfortable with textual markup, and structure (not as if SGML hasn't been around already - TBL just made it "accessible"). Combine that with textual represenation of non-textual data, and you have a recipe for XML.
Bottom line: XML is a machine-agnostic structured data interchange format designed by those who have just sufficient knowledge about computers to be dangerous.
Even if you take it's sectors out of the free space?
Yes, "the math" won't add up if you do that, but that's a real subtle thing to check.
Besides, the right thing to do is to show them in the free space, but allocate them last (i.e., never in practice). (I scare myself sometimes).
If it causes harm intentionally, then you are guilty of fraud and destruction of property, and should be subject to criminal as well as possible civil penalties.
If it causes harm unintentionally, you should still be subject to civil penalties.
There is no excuse for software that causes harm unless I clearly waived my rights to redress and that harm was unintentional.
While this may be reasonable if the software is free (as in either speech or freedom), it is not reasonable if the purpose of the software is to protect someone else's property interests.
The bottom line, is that such untrusted, unvetted code, should only be deployed to dedicated machines where the harm is not likely to be wide-spread (i.e single purpose devices), and particularly where the harm will affect those who would naturally benefit from what the software should do: if a firmware upgrade is sent to my cable box by my cable company, and it kills the box so that I get a refund on not being able to view content, this is likely reasonable. But it should certainly not kill a general purpose computer. If anything, that is an argument for dedicated devices who's sole purpose is the decryption and display of encrypted content.
Wishfull thinking. :-)
I used to like Sony products -- particularly their higher-end TVs. While others have claimed poor quality control and warranty support on ther sets, I've been lucky -- until recently: a four year old 4:3 HDTV set is starting to die.
Now this.
Camel's back: meet the last straw.
You need two electrons to make a hydrogen molecule out of two hydrogen ions. (Damn, /. does not support <sub> and <super>).
So, to get one mole of hydrogen gas (22.4 litres at STP), weighing 2 grams, one needs two moles of electrons, or -2 Faradays of charge. A Faraday of charge is 96.5 kilo Coulombs. And, a Coulomb is the amount of electrons transported by one Ampere for one second.
So, to get 22.4 litres of hydrogen gas, one needs 193,000 Amperes of current for one second, or 193 amps for 1000 seconds, etc. Lets say you draw an extra 160 Watts at 16 Volts from the alternator for electrolosis, and you need 1.6V to elecrolosyze the water. You can have 10 electrolosis cells in series. Each cell carries a curent of 10 amps (160W/16V), so in one second, you get 22400 ml / 19300 = 1.16 ml hydrogen gas, or 11.6 ml hydrogen gas per second for the bank of electrolosis cells. Since 160W is 0.214 horsepower, you get 54.1 ml of hydrogen per horsepower of alternator draw.
The engine in my 1995 Ford Thunderbird DOHC V8 (thirsty little bugger) has a displacement of 4.6l or 4600 ml. At 2000 RPM, the engine "breathes" 500 times, being a four stroke engine using the Otto cycle. So, in one minute, it consumes 2300 litres of fuel-air mix. In one second, it consumes 38.3 litres of fuel-air mix. Let's say we need to augment with 1% hydrogen. That's 383 ml of hydrogen, which, given ideal alternators, and electrolosis, would require 7 horsepower.
Will one get better than 7 horsepower in return?
Sounds like something to appease the French.
Yes, but the more current you draw, the more the alternator serves as a brake on the engine. You know all those "regenerative braking" hybrid systems? Same principle: they brake by dumping electricity from motors now running as generators back into the batteries.
Oh, in spades it is!
Do not confuse communism, an economic model, with socialism -- the form of government in the former United Sovient Socialist Republic. Often, the word "socialism" is used as a watered down version of "communism", where the former is a harsh socio-political model, and the latter an economic one.
Economically, Canada is extremely communist: At the macro level, the federal government manages the economy heavily via transfer payments from the "have" provinces to the "have not" provinces. So, one can not "vote with one's feet" to a better run province -- the feds would just redirect the bounty. Just ask Alberta.
Economic activity is heavily regulated. It is almost impossible to get anything trivial done: attempting to bring in a "Hot School Lunch" program into the schools under the school board where my daughter attended school, where local catering companies bid anually to supply lunches to students at school (generally at lower cost than what parents would spend to provide cold sandwitches because of the economies of scale caterers enjoy that are passed on in savings because of the competition between them to get the lucrative contract) ran into so many hurdles, it was rediculous: 1) Because there were no regulations on the nutritional standards of such lunches, they could not be offered until there were some (so, use existing national standard on balanced nutrition). 2) The school board did not have the authority to so contract. 3) Many schools were so decrepit, there was no where for students to eat -- in crowded U.S. schools, the gyn often doubles as the caffeteria, but many schools didn't even have gyms! Students ate their cold sandwitches in class. 4) No program could be offered unless there was a subsidy for those who "could not pay"? WTF? It is cheaper to subscribe to a school's hot lunch program, than it is to send a cold sandwitch, drink, fruit, and small desert: I can't feed my kid lunch for under $2 a day (what the local program costs here). Poor kids already get welfare assistance. (In the U.S. in every school my daughter attended, milk was free, and some had subsidies for the poor beyond that.) Indeed, there was violent opposition to the notion of such a program on the assumption that it would be entirely taxpayer subsidized -- people can't even fathom paying for anything anymore.
Now, that is one small example, and it brings in economoic communism along with political socialism, but it is typical.
Just look at the tax code: except for small businesses, there is no incentive to invest in one's own present welfare: home ownership is made unaffordable for many through the non-deductability of mortgage interest (Of course, I would argue, that a deduction is not a subsidy since you earned the taxed income already): owning one's home being a bourgois luxery (Ironically, those with substantial investment accounts can pull some tax wizardry to make the mortgate interest deductable). Traditional families with one breadwinner and one stay at home parent can barely survive: it's bad enough that a substantial income is required to support a family on one income alone, but then it is taxed solely in the hands of the earner (with but a token non-refundable tax credit for a spouse at the lowest marginal tax rate). There is no filing jointly with one's spouse -- recognizing that the income supports two people (at least) and not one. No, the pressure is for both spouses to work, putting the kids in daycare, and thus propping up the daycare industry. Adding insult to injury is that "high income" (over US$50k, which is modest by American middle class standards) earners that do support their own family often subsidize that daycare with their tax dollars(used to be $5 a day in Quebec -- dunno if it still is).
The result has been the stagnation of the very services that Canada prides itself on: education and universal healthcare. Compare Canada and the form