... and as a Canadian citizen I was royally pissed when I left Canada for a TN1 INS interview in Buffalo, NY, and returned an hour later. I wasn't even asked to identify myself. I could've had half a dozen AR-15s in the trunk (I didn't).
My tax dollars at work... I think not. At least ask to see our passports and run the license on the Ontario-licensed car.
I have always found U.S. Customs and Immigration far more thorough, as well as polite: reentering the U.S. to enter in H1B status 6 months later after "doing the loop" at Blaine, WA involved verification of extensive paperwork by the INS (approval notices, passports, birth and marriage certificates, expired passports with TN1 stamps, etc.) and it was done with surprising rapidity. I get really angry when I hear of Canadians complaining about U.S. border crossing delays -- Hello? It's a foriegn country! If you don't like their rules, stay home!
<ObOnTopic> I recently called an old Canadian employer to enquire why I hadn't received my T4 (a W2 equivalent) -- all the drone asked for as proof of identity was my name. She then spouted off my earnings, address of record (which was wrong), and old address of record, and said she'd send a PDF via email. She sent a plain, unencrypted email, not an encrypted PDF (say encrypted with my employee ID or SIN (Canadian equivalent to U.S. SSN)). How can there be privacy when there is no security of information? This was typical of my experiences in Canada in 2003/2004. </ObOnTopic>
With GWB, and all that implies, I'd still take the U.S. over Canada any day. That isn't an endorsement of the U.S. as perfect (it certainly isn't) as much as a condemnation of Canada as absolutely, bizarely, screwed up: If (well, when, unless a Green Card is forthcoming) I return to Canada, I go to jail -- as a married man the law requires me to provide for my wife in the "manner to which she has become accustomed". Of course, there is no job commensurate with my skills in Canada that even comes close to paying (after taxes) what I can earn in the U.S. No excuse ("You shouldn'tve left!") -- go directly to jail. The Canadian governments (federal and provincial) are so desperate for tax dollars, they (a) effectively make it illegal for the most productive to earn less and thus pay less taxes, eroding the tax base, and (b) place horrible restrictions on eligibility for tax-funded social benefits (like healthcare, which itself is a joke) such as requiring provincial residency to be permanent (at least in Ontario). If one does not apply, one can theoretically lose one's kids (refusing government healtcare means putting one's kids at risk for lack of healthcare, in theory -- grounds for removal from the home).
Given that she start's off each school day reciting the Pledge of Allegiance:
'I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all;'
I consider it the height of hyporcracy for the school to disrespect that to which they request such unwavering allegience.
(And yes, personally, I'd prefer if 'under God' were removed -- it's a recent (c. 1952, IIRC) addition. Or, do we accept GB I's view that athesists and agnostics not count?)
Despite the tramplings the U.S. Constitution may have received as of late, it holds great value to those of us who have sufferred under other regimes. It is reasonable that the flag serve as a symbol of the ideals within (and lest someone scoff at symbolism, overt expression of intangible ideas can only occur via representative symbolism, the dangers of confusing the symbol for the ideals duely noted).
So, desecrate it if you must -- you have that right, after all. But, do not expect me to be supportive. Given that all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing, I'd even consider the school's indifference a greater offence.
If it was illegalized tomorrow, I'd be on the street with some gasoline and the stars and stripes in a flash.
I suppose I'd have to support such an action, with vigor, knowing what it represents in that limited context. I'd probably even supply the matches (though, as a foreigner, I would not think it my place to actually participate fully).
Still, regardless of the justification, it is not something I would welcome -- if the legal environment permits such desecration, I can't see it as warranted; and if it is warrented for the reason you mention, I would not wish for such a legal environment to come to pass.
While it is true that people have died for lots of stupid things, I don't think believing to be supporting the First Amendment is one of them. Tragic, if the belief is misguided, but not stupid.
The very reason that one has the freedom to burn the flag should encourage sufficient pause before actually doing so.
If not, well then, go ahead, as you note, you have that right. But don't expect me to invite you to dinner afterward.
As others have noted, burning the U.S. flag (in protest) is not illegal.
However, while I will defend another's rights be exercised in that manner, I also consider it about the most offensive thing one can do, considering how many died fighting for the ideals it represents -- surely there must be a better way to protest a present government: hanging an straw charicature of the president in efegy, perhaps. (Though, threats against the life of the U.S. president are serious crimes, and not taken lightly by the Secret Service.)
While not an American citizen, I presently reside (legally, I am a resident for tax purposes, and a non-resident for immigration purposes present with a valid non-immigrant visa) in the U.S. and have a great deal of respect for the ideals behind the flag, if not always agreeing with the present policies of the government. I was royally pissed off, for example, when my daughter's elementary school flew the flag at full staff, after sunset, with no illumination.
Bottom line: while it may be legal to burn the U.S. flag in protest, I would not want to be the company who wrote the life insurance policy on anyone doing so. It really ranks up there as things not to do.
Method to facilitate media duplication by includeing machine readable represetations of external human-readable passive identifying information not requiring interpretative equipment.
It is not a fair comparison. If you had an existing library to make loading CSV data easy, would you still come to the same conclusion?
If the issue is one of "Which external data format is better?", I don't think it's fair to answer it on the basis of which one is supported better by existing tools. While that is certainly a factor when implementation expediency is concerned, it is not the only characteristic worthy of optimizing.
The big issues with XML encoding are encoded-object size, and incremental parsing.
The scary thing is that there is a damn fine justification for this... but the "architect" in question likely doesn't know it.
Using an XML representation for method parametrization provides a common interchange format when linking bitween different implementation languages, and, obviously, across network boundaries. Furthermore, the natural XML specification of method signatures makes possible the compilation of said method signatures by different compilers.
Of course, the right thing to do is to compile to a more appropriate native format if the linked/networked methods are known before execution time -- not doing so if they are (i.e. for a monolanguage in process lingage) would be quite silly. One would resort to XML all the way to execution time only if the target of a call was implemented in an unknwown manner (which is why XML works well in public networked applications -- it's inefficient, but a reasonable lingua franca for structured data).
Then again the reverse is true: any modern compiler worth its salt should be able to produce XML representations of method signatures.
The real extensibility question here is whether the method call semantics in your application lend themselves naturally to in-process as well as networked process implementations: what is naturally a synchronous method call in process might be better as an asynchronous method call in a networked environment -- it can sometimes help permit the use of single-threaded multi-instance clients instead of multi-threaded synchronous clients.
Well, yeah, but that's cheating, using a parser you get for "free". The table format for structured data is a hack. I've seen it used to store tree-structured data in databases. With very bushy trees, XML is a more compact representation. With deep sparse trees, it's the opposite.
The big advantage to XML is its ability to represent tree-based structures. The anount of fiddling needed to represent self-referential structures is on a par with table-based encoding of tree structures, so that extention is easy.
Of course, there are lots of ways to represent structured data -- XML is but one and the grandparent's post illustrates another. Perhaps the right approach is to separate the structure of the data from the means used to encode it, with a few standard methods. (Anyone beside me remember XDR/RPC?)
I happen to love using XML for a config-file text-based representation of small amounts of tree-structured data. The hodge-podge of formats in the typical/etc directory is absurd. However, parsers that insist on parsing an entire XML document at once are useless for arbitrarily complex documents of which only part is of interest. XML is bloated and slow -- no argument. But then, so is interpreting source code. An XML to binary-XML compiler would be welcome.
Other than the problem with obscene calls originated from one's POTS line, I wonder what one could do if one already had a pay VoIP service, like Vonage. I can make free calls to anywhere in Canada and the U.S. for a nominal fixed monthly charge. I don't think that Vonage would like the idea of me patching out going calls from Bellster and offering U.S./Canada calling, even if I don't explicitly charge for them (reselling, and all that).
The US system does not compare favourably with other industrialised nations.
That, of course, depends on the standard of comparison that you use. It sure compares better to Canada, as far as I'm concerned. But, the flaw in your argument is the implication that if something is "worse", by some measure, than the status quo; then the status quo is acceptable. That's patently absured: Is rape acceptable because it isn't murder? Conversely, if one would rather die than be raped, does that make murder aceptable because it isn't rape? Both are vile.
At best you can argue that the U.S. is a flawed society. That does nothing to mitigate the heinous criminal nature of Canadian society.
And still you bang on about taxation being theft, and socialised medicine being either murder or homicide.
What other conclusion can one come to?
Taxation is the taking of funds from those who earn them (in the case of an income tax), by force, or threat of harm, if necessary. How can that be anything other than theft? What mitigating argument can be made?
Popular support? That just makes the thief a mob. The rendering of a service for the funds taken? In a free market one can choose to engage in trade, not have it forced upon one. "Here, we're giving you a can of soda. Give us $1.00 or go to jail!!"
Status quo -- it always has been this way, so it is right? That would make all injustices justified - an absurd world where the Nazi massacre of Jews was accpetable solely because it occured. Add the Rwandan genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus by "good Hutus", Mao's and Stalin's murder of millions of their own. To include the U.S. in the criticism, slavery, McCarthyism, Japanese American internment, and present day homophobia were all good and right by your reasoning. It might be convenient for the coward to "go along", but certainly not just.
I don't buy that bullshit - might does not make right, and greater evils do not mitigate lesser ones.
How can healthcare that picks and chooses who to serve after rendering patients impotent in seeking service themselves by stealing their resources, resulting in otherwise preventable deaths be anythng but murder? It is not mitigated by any argument that lives helped and saved exceed those hurt and lost. The state has no place playing God.
Good people enter into voluntary cooperative insurance arrangements, formal or otherwise, to share the risks they all face. There is no need to force participation in a well-run system. People flock to churches and similar institutions of faith solely on the basis of pursuasion, and shunning. These organizations have traditionally been the bedrock of community self-insurance, unrelated to whatever dogma they preach. The amazing thing is that no priest, rabbi, or muslim cleric need ensure attendance at the point of a gun. Is truely sad that your kind have even usurped faith to promote a diseased discriminatory agenda.
Government is force, nothing more. Force in defense is one's inalienable right, and arguably one of the few justifications for government. Force in oppression is the heinous purvue of parasites, murders, and opressors.
Last question : do you know why all my posts are AC?
It is self-evident that you are a coward, afraid to associate yourself publicly with your vile nature, even when part of a comatose social majority.
Not surprising, really.
You, and all like you, deserve no less than the painful death you inflict on others. You sit there and breed in your parasitic, corrupt moral filth, spawning innocent lives to be indoctrinated in the ways of opression, sustaining your progeny through theft, all the while crying "Think of the Children!" Perverters of charity, compassion, and caring, you soil and dishonour the meaning of these noble words, in order to prosper without effort.
No wonder you cower in fear in the face of the truths of liberty.
Where my father once gave thousands of dollars to pre-Communist E
Myself, like millions of others, I deliberately chose to come to Canada precisely because I *do* want to live and raise my family in a society based on respect, tolerance and an individual understanding of rights *and* responsibilities.
Ah, you have voluntarily chosen to participate. That's far different from I, who was born to that hell, and am struggling to leave and never have to return. I saw the rise of socialized medicine as well as its present decay.
I rather prefer the sense of individual rights in the U.S. (as eroded as they recently have become) and am glad to be here for as long as I legally can. You have experience with life in Canada (and onbviously like it). I wonder, what first hand experiences you've had in the U.S., or if you dislike it simply on the basis of heresay.
I don't expect my house insurer to pay for me to replace my roof regardless of the fact that it wasn't blown off this year.
No, of course not. I understand insurance fully well. In fact I pay quite a bit in term life insurance premiums upon which I hope my family will not collect.
However, here participation is mandatory, and even when a valid claim is presented, it is not honoured. The insistance of receiving at least as many benefits as premiums paid is not predecated on having paid those premiums -- you correctly note that that insurance is not savings, but rather, the fact that those premiums were collected by force -- it is making one as "whole" as possible against an injustice.
I would consider that unacceptable too, but I seriously doubt that's what actually happened.
It plainly did. Pragmatically, Canada does not have the medical expertise to perform AAA repair surgeries with any degree of expectation of survival. But, it exists elsewhere in the world. When the insurer can not meet their obligation, they are bound to refund premiums less benefits already paid. In this case, that refund may have saved a life.
The Canadian healthcare system provides treatment on the basis of need. Doctors make the assessment of what treatment a patient requires based on a clinical assessment, not some accountancy chart.
Then why are there procedure quotas? Try getting essential surgery late in the year.
Seriously, you have my sympathy that your father had a bad experience
Forget the sympathy. Because of the obvious potential for personal bias, I've examined the situation from a strictly contractual and financial perspective. He was robbed, which lead to his death. I call that murder.
...the plural of anecdote is not data, and to extrapolate this instance and apply it to make some sweeping (and wrong) generalisation about the healthcare system as a whole is specious.
Ah, but many similar anecdotes do data make, and I've heard plenty. Besides, even if a system saves millions of lives, it is still murderous if it takes even one that would otherwise be left to the perils of its own existence.
The only matter at issue is whether this killing was premeditated murder or involuntary homicide, and whether that is true on a systemic or procedural level. In other words, is the system designed to chose who lives and who dies amont those who have no choice but to participate, or was there a procedural error in an otherwise sound system?
Obviously, I subscribe to the notion that a system which forcibly takes money from people, and, through the non-return of that money, may contribute directly to their inability to save their own lives, is murderous. I do not subscribe to the idea of the state playing at God.
The only possible way to avoid such a charge would be for the system to be designed to leave a person no worse off than if the system had never existed. That is why I harp on refund of premiums in extremis -- it is the only thing that can possibly be argued to give the system a modicum of morality (it's still theft, but a far cry from murder). Most would contribute, and not get value, but not be worse off for it (though not having the choice to forgo health insurance in order to have a more lavish vacation each year). Some would receive benefits far in excess of their premiums paid. And some, to whom the system can not meet its promise, would be refunded their premiums and left to their own devices. That, at least, I could stomach.
Oh come on, even from a fringe right-winger such as yourself, such a claim is ludicrous
Perhaps the example was an exageration, but the claim is valid: Canada takes money from people for health care, by force, and then may provide less care to people than what the monies taken from them could otherwise purchase. Sometimes, this means that people die, when, otherwise left to their own devices, they could have realistically saved their lives. That is the state playing at God. I violently disagree with this.
While people may die in the U.S. from an inability to afford care (the odds, as noted in another thread, which I do not dispute are 18,000 deaths / 300,000,000 population, or about 1/16700), they do not die because of lack of funds that were stolen from them (arguably, to provide that very care). This is sad, but not reprehensible. It is no one's fault when someone dies because "nothing's done". Claims of "depraved indifference" fall flat since that refers to inaction where such action would not be a heavy burden -- funding nationalized health care is a heavy burden.
When the state intervenes forcibly and people die as a result, it is no defense to argue that more people's lives were saved. Again, that is the state playing at God, and inexcusible.
Except the ones taking the large cut and distributing the dregs are the for-profit private health care insurers and providers.
I have not found the level of care I receive for the premiums I pay to be "dregs". In any case market inefficiencies are irrelevant to a discussion of how Canada kills people in the name of helping them. In the U.S. I can select among any of a number of health insurers, or none at all. That choice may be predetermined by my financial circumstances, but is not mandated by government decree.
The bottom line is that while health care in the U.S. may be available only in an expensive and inefficient market, it is not directly tied to state-sanctioned murder. By any measure, if I steal someone's money, and they can't buy a necessary drug as a result, and they die, I have certainly contributed to their death.
The worst level of urgent care, available to uninsured Americans is better than the level of health care available to all Canadians.
How many countries' healthcare systems do you have experience with? Two, I'll wager.
Two is enough since I am comparing between them, and which one is better for me. Canada's nationalized health care ambition may be a noble goal, as is all charity, but it's execution is grossly immoral.
Would it be better for them if I died? Because that's the Canadian option. Perhaps ten people can have sprained ankles set instead of saving one person's life.
I don't buy that one bit.
It is fair and reasonable that those who "can't" are at the mercy of the charity of those who "can", and "then some" in a society based on the rule of law (and yes, no society is perfect in such regard -- some approximate it better than others).
The alternative of some self-anointed busybody "saviour" to "make the rich pay", and "help the poor" invariably results in said "saviour" taking a rather large cut and distributing the dregs of what is left, possibly improving the lot of the very poorest, but not by very much.
What one sees in the U.S. are some of the most advanced medical techniques anywhere else -- I'd say conservatively 20 to 50 years ahead of other countries. Naturally, at first, they are available only to the very wealthy. But, it is amazing that they exist at all, and, over time, they become comoditized. Sometimes they are made available to some poor, destitute, wretch, often a child, who'd have no hope to afford them.
But, without the incentive of wealth, such procedures would not be developed. One would have the sort of technical stagnation one sees in Canadian and other third-world medicine.
I was not making a comparison with Hitler, but rather noting that my father was, indeed, a weaker man than Hitler and his death machine, and so emigrated to Canada. The reference was appropriate given the historical context.
No of course not. But treatment should not even be considered as ending until at least the premiums collected have been expended, espescially if those premiums have been collected involuntarily.
Tolerant, my ass. "Tolerant" in Canada means "shut up and pay" and not "I disagree with you but will defend your right to express your opinion."
In the U.S. there is this notion called "freedom of speech". And, many vile things are said in the exercise of that freedom. But, threat of force against offensive speech is still a crime.
You know it's funny. Despite all the anti-foreigner hype I hear about, Americans who know I'm a foreigner generally welcome me and what I can contribute. Whereas Canadians, desperate for tax revenue, cut off their noses to spite their faces simply because they can not stand my calling a spade a spade, and drive me to take my tax dollars away.
So desperate to save their crumbling social safety net and yet driving out the very people who can fund it simply because of greed and an unwillingness to provide value for the tax dollar. Perhaps they should start by ridding themselves of the one in nine parasites that have government jobs sucking the tax revenues before they ever reach their target purpose.
Well no, but it sure explains a lot. U.S. policy id driven by two things: (1) that which is perceived to be in the best interest of the U.S. and (2) the ability to effect it.
The U.S. has great power to use force to get what it wants.
To counter this, other nations must respond either by (1) offering the U.S. a better deal for it and sumultaneously getting a better deal for themselves than if the U.S. was not detracted from its present direction (even if it is worse than the status quo; (2) exerting pressures that they can, particularly economic ones.
"Because the can" is an explanation, not a justification.
300,000,000 a year, that's 1/16666.6666.... or 6/100000. Still pretty damn good.
Whereas, in Canada 25% of people diagnosed with heart disease and referred to a cardiac specialist die before ever seeing one, because of the waiting lists.
More people in the united states have NO HEALTH COVERAGE than the entire population of Canada
Given that the U.S. population is about 10 times the size of that of Canada, this is not surprising.
However, no American hospital can legally refuse to provide urgent care to anyone, regardless of their ability to pay. One won't get a private room, but one won't die on the street outside the hospital of a heart attack waiting for an ambulance to arrive because the hospital staff would violate union rules helping a dying man in.
And frankly if there are 18,000 "unnecessary" deaths out of a population of some 300,000,000 a year, that's 1/60,000. Sounds like the best place on Earth to me.
If you are an American, that means your tax dollars are being wasted to support a health care system that caters primarily to the wealthiest citizens of the country.
1) I am a Canadian (which means I may have to return to that wretched hell-hole some day).
2) The wealthiest pay for their own health care outright.
3) Do not be confused about what is "wealthy" in the U.S. Where I live US$60,000 for a family of four is considered the poverty line. The American cost of living is so far above that of Canada, the American middle class live like kings compared to the Canadian middle class. Medical technology advancements here are absolutely astounding. Of course the bleeding edge is only available to the select few, but they trickle down over time. Canadian medical technology has, with few exceptions, stagnated since the 1970s.
Any libertarian who does not support single payer health care is either a) stupid or b) ignorant. Perhaps both.
The risk advantages of a large pool of insureds are outweighed by mercy at which one is when dealing with a single payer. A few large insurers would likely be best. If you want to criticize American health care, you'd be better off criticizing the inefficiencies of procedural differences among hundreds of insurers (and a given doctor will deal with dozens, not to mention the hospital with which he is affiliated), as well as frivolous malpractice suits without caps -- those would be valid criticisms. I manage to earn enough to absorb the increased cost of my health insurance premiums due to such market inefficiencies. I've seen the alternative, and it is far worse.
"The government refused to pay for [surgery] to be performed"
The government doesn't make such calls, doctors do.
No doctor has any business refusing to provide the service for which he or she has already been paid. Let the doctor opt out before accepting stolen monies.
And by the same "reasoning", private, for-profit health insurance companies are profiteering people to death?
I don't find my health insurance premiums unreasonable, but let's be generous to your argument and say that private insurers place money above lives. The difference is that one chooses a private insured but is stuck with a state insurer.
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My tax dollars at work... I think not. At least ask to see our passports and run the license on the Ontario-licensed car.
I have always found U.S. Customs and Immigration far more thorough, as well as polite: reentering the U.S. to enter in H1B status 6 months later after "doing the loop" at Blaine, WA involved verification of extensive paperwork by the INS (approval notices, passports, birth and marriage certificates, expired passports with TN1 stamps, etc.) and it was done with surprising rapidity. I get really angry when I hear of Canadians complaining about U.S. border crossing delays -- Hello? It's a foriegn country! If you don't like their rules, stay home!
<ObOnTopic> I recently called an old Canadian employer to enquire why I hadn't received my T4 (a W2 equivalent) -- all the drone asked for as proof of identity was my name. She then spouted off my earnings, address of record (which was wrong), and old address of record, and said she'd send a PDF via email. She sent a plain, unencrypted email, not an encrypted PDF (say encrypted with my employee ID or SIN (Canadian equivalent to U.S. SSN)). How can there be privacy when there is no security of information? This was typical of my experiences in Canada in 2003/2004. </ObOnTopic>
With GWB, and all that implies, I'd still take the U.S. over Canada any day. That isn't an endorsement of the U.S. as perfect (it certainly isn't) as much as a condemnation of Canada as absolutely, bizarely, screwed up: If (well, when, unless a Green Card is forthcoming) I return to Canada, I go to jail -- as a married man the law requires me to provide for my wife in the "manner to which she has become accustomed". Of course, there is no job commensurate with my skills in Canada that even comes close to paying (after taxes) what I can earn in the U.S. No excuse ("You shouldn'tve left!") -- go directly to jail. The Canadian governments (federal and provincial) are so desperate for tax dollars, they (a) effectively make it illegal for the most productive to earn less and thus pay less taxes, eroding the tax base, and (b) place horrible restrictions on eligibility for tax-funded social benefits (like healthcare, which itself is a joke) such as requiring provincial residency to be permanent (at least in Ontario). If one does not apply, one can theoretically lose one's kids (refusing government healtcare means putting one's kids at risk for lack of healthcare, in theory -- grounds for removal from the home).
Given that she start's off each school day reciting the Pledge of Allegiance:
'I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all;'
I consider it the height of hyporcracy for the school to disrespect that to which they request such unwavering allegience.
(And yes, personally, I'd prefer if 'under God' were removed -- it's a recent (c. 1952, IIRC) addition. Or, do we accept GB I's view that athesists and agnostics not count?)
Despite the tramplings the U.S. Constitution may have received as of late, it holds great value to those of us who have sufferred under other regimes. It is reasonable that the flag serve as a symbol of the ideals within (and lest someone scoff at symbolism, overt expression of intangible ideas can only occur via representative symbolism, the dangers of confusing the symbol for the ideals duely noted).
So, desecrate it if you must -- you have that right, after all. But, do not expect me to be supportive. Given that all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing, I'd even consider the school's indifference a greater offence.
I suppose I'd have to support such an action, with vigor, knowing what it represents in that limited context. I'd probably even supply the matches (though, as a foreigner, I would not think it my place to actually participate fully).
Still, regardless of the justification, it is not something I would welcome -- if the legal environment permits such desecration, I can't see it as warranted; and if it is warrented for the reason you mention, I would not wish for such a legal environment to come to pass.
The very reason that one has the freedom to burn the flag should encourage sufficient pause before actually doing so.
If not, well then, go ahead, as you note, you have that right. But don't expect me to invite you to dinner afterward.
However, while I will defend another's rights be exercised in that manner, I also consider it about the most offensive thing one can do, considering how many died fighting for the ideals it represents -- surely there must be a better way to protest a present government: hanging an straw charicature of the president in efegy, perhaps. (Though, threats against the life of the U.S. president are serious crimes, and not taken lightly by the Secret Service.)
While not an American citizen, I presently reside (legally, I am a resident for tax purposes, and a non-resident for immigration purposes present with a valid non-immigrant visa) in the U.S. and have a great deal of respect for the ideals behind the flag, if not always agreeing with the present policies of the government. I was royally pissed off, for example, when my daughter's elementary school flew the flag at full staff, after sunset, with no illumination.
Bottom line: while it may be legal to burn the U.S. flag in protest, I would not want to be the company who wrote the life insurance policy on anyone doing so. It really ranks up there as things not to do.
Method to facilitate media duplication by includeing machine readable represetations of external human-readable passive identifying information not requiring interpretative equipment.
If the issue is one of "Which external data format is better?", I don't think it's fair to answer it on the basis of which one is supported better by existing tools. While that is certainly a factor when implementation expediency is concerned, it is not the only characteristic worthy of optimizing.
The big issues with XML encoding are encoded-object size, and incremental parsing.
Using an XML representation for method parametrization provides a common interchange format when linking bitween different implementation languages, and, obviously, across network boundaries. Furthermore, the natural XML specification of method signatures makes possible the compilation of said method signatures by different compilers.
Of course, the right thing to do is to compile to a more appropriate native format if the linked/networked methods are known before execution time -- not doing so if they are (i.e. for a monolanguage in process lingage) would be quite silly. One would resort to XML all the way to execution time only if the target of a call was implemented in an unknwown manner (which is why XML works well in public networked applications -- it's inefficient, but a reasonable lingua franca for structured data).
Then again the reverse is true: any modern compiler worth its salt should be able to produce XML representations of method signatures.
The real extensibility question here is whether the method call semantics in your application lend themselves naturally to in-process as well as networked process implementations: what is naturally a synchronous method call in process might be better as an asynchronous method call in a networked environment -- it can sometimes help permit the use of single-threaded multi-instance clients instead of multi-threaded synchronous clients.
The big advantage to XML is its ability to represent tree-based structures. The anount of fiddling needed to represent self-referential structures is on a par with table-based encoding of tree structures, so that extention is easy.
Of course, there are lots of ways to represent structured data -- XML is but one and the grandparent's post illustrates another. Perhaps the right approach is to separate the structure of the data from the means used to encode it, with a few standard methods. (Anyone beside me remember XDR/RPC?)
I happen to love using XML for a config-file text-based representation of small amounts of tree-structured data. The hodge-podge of formats in the typical /etc directory is absurd. However, parsers that insist on parsing an entire XML document at once are useless for arbitrarily complex documents of which only part is of interest. XML is bloated and slow -- no argument. But then, so is interpreting source code. An XML to binary-XML compiler would be welcome.
Das computermachine is nicht fur geffingenpoken und mittengrabben!!
Yeah, it was handy.
Other than the problem with obscene calls originated from one's POTS line, I wonder what one could do if one already had a pay VoIP service, like Vonage. I can make free calls to anywhere in Canada and the U.S. for a nominal fixed monthly charge. I don't think that Vonage would like the idea of me patching out going calls from Bellster and offering U.S./Canada calling, even if I don't explicitly charge for them (reselling, and all that).
That, of course, depends on the standard of comparison that you use. It sure compares better to Canada, as far as I'm concerned. But, the flaw in your argument is the implication that if something is "worse", by some measure, than the status quo; then the status quo is acceptable. That's patently absured: Is rape acceptable because it isn't murder? Conversely, if one would rather die than be raped, does that make murder aceptable because it isn't rape? Both are vile.
At best you can argue that the U.S. is a flawed society. That does nothing to mitigate the heinous criminal nature of Canadian society.
And still you bang on about taxation being theft, and socialised medicine being either murder or homicide.
What other conclusion can one come to?
Taxation is the taking of funds from those who earn them (in the case of an income tax), by force, or threat of harm, if necessary. How can that be anything other than theft? What mitigating argument can be made?
Popular support? That just makes the thief a mob. The rendering of a service for the funds taken? In a free market one can choose to engage in trade, not have it forced upon one. "Here, we're giving you a can of soda. Give us $1.00 or go to jail!!"
Status quo -- it always has been this way, so it is right? That would make all injustices justified - an absurd world where the Nazi massacre of Jews was accpetable solely because it occured. Add the Rwandan genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus by "good Hutus", Mao's and Stalin's murder of millions of their own. To include the U.S. in the criticism, slavery, McCarthyism, Japanese American internment, and present day homophobia were all good and right by your reasoning. It might be convenient for the coward to "go along", but certainly not just.
I don't buy that bullshit - might does not make right, and greater evils do not mitigate lesser ones.
How can healthcare that picks and chooses who to serve after rendering patients impotent in seeking service themselves by stealing their resources, resulting in otherwise preventable deaths be anythng but murder? It is not mitigated by any argument that lives helped and saved exceed those hurt and lost. The state has no place playing God.
Good people enter into voluntary cooperative insurance arrangements, formal or otherwise, to share the risks they all face. There is no need to force participation in a well-run system. People flock to churches and similar institutions of faith solely on the basis of pursuasion, and shunning. These organizations have traditionally been the bedrock of community self-insurance, unrelated to whatever dogma they preach. The amazing thing is that no priest, rabbi, or muslim cleric need ensure attendance at the point of a gun. Is truely sad that your kind have even usurped faith to promote a diseased discriminatory agenda.
Government is force, nothing more. Force in defense is one's inalienable right, and arguably one of the few justifications for government. Force in oppression is the heinous purvue of parasites, murders, and opressors.
Last question : do you know why all my posts are AC?
It is self-evident that you are a coward, afraid to associate yourself publicly with your vile nature, even when part of a comatose social majority.
Not surprising, really.
You, and all like you, deserve no less than the painful death you inflict on others. You sit there and breed in your parasitic, corrupt moral filth, spawning innocent lives to be indoctrinated in the ways of opression, sustaining your progeny through theft, all the while crying "Think of the Children!" Perverters of charity, compassion, and caring, you soil and dishonour the meaning of these noble words, in order to prosper without effort.
No wonder you cower in fear in the face of the truths of liberty.
Where my father once gave thousands of dollars to pre-Communist E
Ah, you have voluntarily chosen to participate. That's far different from I, who was born to that hell, and am struggling to leave and never have to return. I saw the rise of socialized medicine as well as its present decay.
I rather prefer the sense of individual rights in the U.S. (as eroded as they recently have become) and am glad to be here for as long as I legally can. You have experience with life in Canada (and onbviously like it). I wonder, what first hand experiences you've had in the U.S., or if you dislike it simply on the basis of heresay.
No, of course not. I understand insurance fully well. In fact I pay quite a bit in term life insurance premiums upon which I hope my family will not collect.
However, here participation is mandatory, and even when a valid claim is presented, it is not honoured. The insistance of receiving at least as many benefits as premiums paid is not predecated on having paid those premiums -- you correctly note that that insurance is not savings, but rather, the fact that those premiums were collected by force -- it is making one as "whole" as possible against an injustice.
I would consider that unacceptable too, but I seriously doubt that's what actually happened.
It plainly did. Pragmatically, Canada does not have the medical expertise to perform AAA repair surgeries with any degree of expectation of survival. But, it exists elsewhere in the world. When the insurer can not meet their obligation, they are bound to refund premiums less benefits already paid. In this case, that refund may have saved a life.
The Canadian healthcare system provides treatment on the basis of need. Doctors make the assessment of what treatment a patient requires based on a clinical assessment, not some accountancy chart.
Then why are there procedure quotas? Try getting essential surgery late in the year.
Seriously, you have my sympathy that your father had a bad experience
Forget the sympathy. Because of the obvious potential for personal bias, I've examined the situation from a strictly contractual and financial perspective. He was robbed, which lead to his death. I call that murder.
Ah, but many similar anecdotes do data make, and I've heard plenty. Besides, even if a system saves millions of lives, it is still murderous if it takes even one that would otherwise be left to the perils of its own existence.
The only matter at issue is whether this killing was premeditated murder or involuntary homicide, and whether that is true on a systemic or procedural level. In other words, is the system designed to chose who lives and who dies amont those who have no choice but to participate, or was there a procedural error in an otherwise sound system?
Obviously, I subscribe to the notion that a system which forcibly takes money from people, and, through the non-return of that money, may contribute directly to their inability to save their own lives, is murderous. I do not subscribe to the idea of the state playing at God.
The only possible way to avoid such a charge would be for the system to be designed to leave a person no worse off than if the system had never existed. That is why I harp on refund of premiums in extremis -- it is the only thing that can possibly be argued to give the system a modicum of morality (it's still theft, but a far cry from murder). Most would contribute, and not get value, but not be worse off for it (though not having the choice to forgo health insurance in order to have a more lavish vacation each year). Some would receive benefits far in excess of their premiums paid. And some, to whom the system can not meet its promise, would be refunded their premiums and left to their own devices. That, at least, I could stomach.
Perhaps the example was an exageration, but the claim is valid: Canada takes money from people for health care, by force, and then may provide less care to people than what the monies taken from them could otherwise purchase. Sometimes, this means that people die, when, otherwise left to their own devices, they could have realistically saved their lives. That is the state playing at God. I violently disagree with this.
While people may die in the U.S. from an inability to afford care (the odds, as noted in another thread, which I do not dispute are 18,000 deaths / 300,000,000 population, or about 1/16700), they do not die because of lack of funds that were stolen from them (arguably, to provide that very care). This is sad, but not reprehensible. It is no one's fault when someone dies because "nothing's done". Claims of "depraved indifference" fall flat since that refers to inaction where such action would not be a heavy burden -- funding nationalized health care is a heavy burden.
When the state intervenes forcibly and people die as a result, it is no defense to argue that more people's lives were saved. Again, that is the state playing at God, and inexcusible.
Except the ones taking the large cut and distributing the dregs are the for-profit private health care insurers and providers.
I have not found the level of care I receive for the premiums I pay to be "dregs". In any case market inefficiencies are irrelevant to a discussion of how Canada kills people in the name of helping them. In the U.S. I can select among any of a number of health insurers, or none at all. That choice may be predetermined by my financial circumstances, but is not mandated by government decree.
The bottom line is that while health care in the U.S. may be available only in an expensive and inefficient market, it is not directly tied to state-sanctioned murder. By any measure, if I steal someone's money, and they can't buy a necessary drug as a result, and they die, I have certainly contributed to their death.
The worst level of urgent care, available to uninsured Americans is better than the level of health care available to all Canadians.
How many countries' healthcare systems do you have experience with? Two, I'll wager.
Two is enough since I am comparing between them, and which one is better for me. Canada's nationalized health care ambition may be a noble goal, as is all charity, but it's execution is grossly immoral.
I don't buy that one bit.
It is fair and reasonable that those who "can't" are at the mercy of the charity of those who "can", and "then some" in a society based on the rule of law (and yes, no society is perfect in such regard -- some approximate it better than others).
The alternative of some self-anointed busybody "saviour" to "make the rich pay", and "help the poor" invariably results in said "saviour" taking a rather large cut and distributing the dregs of what is left, possibly improving the lot of the very poorest, but not by very much.
What one sees in the U.S. are some of the most advanced medical techniques anywhere else -- I'd say conservatively 20 to 50 years ahead of other countries. Naturally, at first, they are available only to the very wealthy. But, it is amazing that they exist at all, and, over time, they become comoditized. Sometimes they are made available to some poor, destitute, wretch, often a child, who'd have no hope to afford them.
But, without the incentive of wealth, such procedures would not be developed. One would have the sort of technical stagnation one sees in Canadian and other third-world medicine.
I was not making a comparison with Hitler, but rather noting that my father was, indeed, a weaker man than Hitler and his death machine, and so emigrated to Canada. The reference was appropriate given the historical context.
Try not paying a portion of your taxes and see how fast the guns come out.
I would consider a diagnosis of "If you don't get this fixed, you will die. We refuse to do it because of the expense" unacceptable.
No of course not. But treatment should not even be considered as ending until at least the premiums collected have been expended, espescially if those premiums have been collected involuntarily.
In the U.S. there is this notion called "freedom of speech". And, many vile things are said in the exercise of that freedom. But, threat of force against offensive speech is still a crime.
You know it's funny. Despite all the anti-foreigner hype I hear about, Americans who know I'm a foreigner generally welcome me and what I can contribute. Whereas Canadians, desperate for tax revenue, cut off their noses to spite their faces simply because they can not stand my calling a spade a spade, and drive me to take my tax dollars away.
So desperate to save their crumbling social safety net and yet driving out the very people who can fund it simply because of greed and an unwillingness to provide value for the tax dollar. Perhaps they should start by ridding themselves of the one in nine parasites that have government jobs sucking the tax revenues before they ever reach their target purpose.
The U.S. has great power to use force to get what it wants.
To counter this, other nations must respond either by (1) offering the U.S. a better deal for it and sumultaneously getting a better deal for themselves than if the U.S. was not detracted from its present direction (even if it is worse than the status quo; (2) exerting pressures that they can, particularly economic ones.
"Because the can" is an explanation, not a justification.
Whereas, in Canada 25% of people diagnosed with heart disease and referred to a cardiac specialist die before ever seeing one, because of the waiting lists.
Given that the U.S. population is about 10 times the size of that of Canada, this is not surprising.
However, no American hospital can legally refuse to provide urgent care to anyone, regardless of their ability to pay. One won't get a private room, but one won't die on the street outside the hospital of a heart attack waiting for an ambulance to arrive because the hospital staff would violate union rules helping a dying man in.
And frankly if there are 18,000 "unnecessary" deaths out of a population of some 300,000,000 a year, that's 1/60,000. Sounds like the best place on Earth to me.
If you are an American, that means your tax dollars are being wasted to support a health care system that caters primarily to the wealthiest citizens of the country.
1) I am a Canadian (which means I may have to return to that wretched hell-hole some day).
2) The wealthiest pay for their own health care outright.
3) Do not be confused about what is "wealthy" in the U.S. Where I live US$60,000 for a family of four is considered the poverty line. The American cost of living is so far above that of Canada, the American middle class live like kings compared to the Canadian middle class. Medical technology advancements here are absolutely astounding. Of course the bleeding edge is only available to the select few, but they trickle down over time. Canadian medical technology has, with few exceptions, stagnated since the 1970s.
Any libertarian who does not support single payer health care is either a) stupid or b) ignorant. Perhaps both.
The risk advantages of a large pool of insureds are outweighed by mercy at which one is when dealing with a single payer. A few large insurers would likely be best. If you want to criticize American health care, you'd be better off criticizing the inefficiencies of procedural differences among hundreds of insurers (and a given doctor will deal with dozens, not to mention the hospital with which he is affiliated), as well as frivolous malpractice suits without caps -- those would be valid criticisms. I manage to earn enough to absorb the increased cost of my health insurance premiums due to such market inefficiencies. I've seen the alternative, and it is far worse.
The government doesn't make such calls, doctors do.
No doctor has any business refusing to provide the service for which he or she has already been paid. Let the doctor opt out before accepting stolen monies.
And by the same "reasoning", private, for-profit health insurance companies are profiteering people to death?
I don't find my health insurance premiums unreasonable, but let's be generous to your argument and say that private insurers place money above lives. The difference is that one chooses a private insured but is stuck with a state insurer.