The gain is theoretical, as there are many ways to get past the best tamper-proof equipment and such - UV sensitive dust on the keypad and check for fingerprint on the PIN keys..
At one customer site, there was an access keypad for a door, where the buttons themselves had little LED numbers in them. Because of the lenses built into the buttons, it was difficult to read the numbers unless you were within about 12" of the keypad, and only directly in front. When you press the start button to activate the keypad, it scrambles the numbers under the buttons. You punch in the numbers in the entry code, and then press the enter key.
Fingerprints, UV-sensitive dust, not even a videocam over the shoulder wouldn't work here.
Of course, there's always torture.
Not to mention the fact that the number for this door was frequently given out to unauthorized persons - so even the best technology can be overcome by poor procedures.
Forcing developers to develop "as a User" is not the answer.
Developers DO need to understand LUP principles in their development (it's all part of "know your trade") - but they also DO need special rights and privileges on their development machines.
I agree, that stuff should be (successfully) tested and should run under unprivileged logons - and that there are far too many developers who abuse the privilege of running as Admin, and just plain have no clue about writing software for LUP environments. It's probably one of the biggest problems facing the software industry today. But the answer to this problem is to educate developers. Not put chains on them.
SDC applies ONLY to desktop systems (not servers) and ONLY to NIPRNET-connected systems.
Put your dev box on an isolated test LAN, and just about anything goes.
Plus - there's always security waivers for functionality that's required for any particular conops. Just because some non-standard rights and privileges are granted in some cases, doesn't always mean there's a vulnerability. In a lot of cases, security is applied in a layered approach, so taking down one layer doesn't compromise them all.
and recently I realized that procrastination is actually due to anxiety-you feel anxious about a task, so you choose to ignore it for the time being.
I think that in more cases than most people will admit, this anxiety-driven choice to ignore tasks, is really a passive-aggressive response to having a deadline imposed on one, by a person one does not respect. There are plenty of examples of workers who do not respect a boss, either out of feelings of superiority, or genuine incompetence of the boss who set the deadline.
This lack of respect feeds a passive-aggressive response to ignore the task, to procrastinate.
The response by an incompetent boss is usually a carrot-and-stick approach. Beatings if the deadline is missed, extra chocolate rations if it's met or exceeded. This does not solve the problem. The problem is; respect must be honestly earned. A parent can earn the respect of his children. A teacher can earn the respect of a student. A manager can earn the respect of the workers. A coach can earn the respect of a team. But none of that is accomplished without a certain degree of competence, and leadership. People will fight lack of competence in a leader, even if they don't know that they're fighting it consciously. People have an inherent sense of justice. And this drives a lot of human behavior.
Most historians agree that the nation would have been much worse off with the protracted political fight that would have resulted from the trial.
How would it be better had justice not been served?
How is sticking our head in the sand as a nation "better for us"?
That justice was not done, set the stage for the future. The Iran-Contra traitors are all back on the job, instead of jail, where they belong. Karl Rove actually served on Nixon's campaign, and his poisonous brand of divisive politics or character assassination is still turning our nation's political discourse into something akin to pro-wrestling.
I think in the short term, yes, it would have harmed the country. But in the long run, we would have been much better off had we, as a nation, faced the corruption of our political system, drew a line in the sand and said "No more. There will be justice this time, and every time henceforth."
But it does not matter that those who claim a "higher moral standard" are hypocrites.
That "higher moral standard" is used as a weapon to control others, through fear.
You can share all the details of your life. Your arrest record. Your past indiscretions. Your National Guard records. Your life is an open book, and you can be judged. Those who would compare their "moral" life to your immoral life, will not return the favor. The power they wield is tied up in the fact that they have privacy, and you do not.
If you disagree with them, or challenge them, or question them, your indiscretions will be on the 6 o'clock news, and your character and credibility called into question. Whether you've ever done anything or not. We can be certain that they have (done things). But the evidence won't be shared. And that won't be what the news commenter will be talking about.
unlike many people, I freely admit that I simply don't know whether patents are good or bad.
I tend to think that they are good. But like any tool, they can be misused. Right now, they're being misused. They're like candy that a congressman tosses to his pharmaceutical lobbyist, who returns the favor by giving the congressman campaign donations, and giving his friends and cronies cushy jobs and speaking engagements and whatnot.
I don't know if it's mathematically possible to come up with any set of lobbying rules that won't result in a set of easily exploitable loopholes. Especially when the rulemakers are the ones who stand to benefit from exploiting the loopholes (which is why we're supposed to have 3 independent branches of government). Somehow, the way patents are granted, extended, and defined, got broken, or maybe their implementation in the Constitution is flawed from the getgo.
But like any engineering effort - there are trade offs. Make patents too restrictive, and you stifle competition. Make patents too loose, and you stifle innovation. There's a happy middle-ground, obviously. And we're far from it, because the system has a built-in feedback loop between those who have the power to modulate patents' restrictiveness, and the industries who benefit from that restrictiveness. I don't know if adding some kind of judicial or executive oversight to the process would help. Or maybe just sitting back and letting the system strangle itself (as it ultimately will) is the answer.
That you don't lynch-mob government officials that engage in gerrymandering is proof enough that you don't even care if your elections are even remotely representative. Even allowing the existence of "lobbying" (AKA bribery) is an embarassment for any nation in which it occurs.
These mechanisms are favored by the minority upper class whites, because these mechanisms perpetuate their dominance on political and economic power in this nation. Yeah, people like my parents. People like my neighbors. Sometimes, even I am afraid of what could happen in this nation under true Democracy.
It's pretty clear that it's an unsustainable path. I don't think that, even given the recent turnover in elections, that any real change is going to happen. We're stuck in that catch-22 - that limiting campaign money is philosophically equivalent to limiting speech. And we're pretty fond of the IDEA of free speech (even if there are people who are willing to sacrifice it for a feeling of security). This contradictory approach is driving a lot of the ire and conflict in our political process, and it is escalating more and more with each election cycle. Everybody feels it. Everyone senses that it's wrong that individual citizens have no voice, in comparison to the mass media. Everyone is pissed about it. Yet, every time we get mad at the incumbents and toss them out on their asses, the folks that come in to replace them are still interested in preserving the status quo. I don't really know what's going to happen when Congress opens next week under Democratic power. I tend to be pessimistic. I tend to think that power corrupts - and the machinery of government that the Democrats have taken control of, will corrupt them too. And next election cycle, an angry electorate will throw them out and put the Republicans back in power - wash, rinse, repeat. But with each cycle, the dissatisfaction and anger builds. And the lies aren't holding fast anymore. And the people have the Internet, to call out these lies and expose them. The Internet could be the catalyst for some real change in the USA. But I don't see it happening for at least two more cycles. We're not angry enough to leave our jobs, march in the streets, get tear-gassed (or worse). Not yet.
and it is by far the stupidest nation in the Western Hemisphere
I don't know about that. If you know the history of some of these South American countries (in particular, Argentina), and how they seem to, over and over, elect the fascist dictators (I'm thinking specifically of Peron, and Pinochet - and I haven't really made up my mind about Chavez); the USA isn't quite that far gone yet.
Personally, I think it all went wrong when we let Reagan deregulate the newsmedia industry, which allowed too much consolidation, and gave a few ultra-wealthy industrialists almost complete control of all the information we get. Cable TV was poised to break the monopoly of the three major TV news networks - and that was nipped in the bud. They've been trying to nip the internet in the bud too. But I think they were too late.
As a Republican, having indictments and convictions on your record is practically a requirement. It shows that one's been "harassed by the evul gubmint". Hey, yeah, this is just politics, criminalized by the Liberals, of course.
Well, he was a Republican, so that means while he was in college, (which he paid for, himself), he was also working two jobs, getting paid less than minimum wage, all while serving in the military. Doesn't leave much time for studies.
One does not come to truly appreciate the wretchedness of Rowling's prose, until one reads the series aloud. The adverb-abuse, particularly in the third book is painfully annoying, and I can't give her any sort of free pass on style. To her credit, after the third book, she seems to have figured out how to occasionally slip a sentence or two in with less than 3 adverbs.
The importance of this truth to the Potter books hit me when I was reading one of the many passages in which Professor MacGonagle, a good and benevolent adult character, fails to listen and uses her authority in an unreasoning way
Holy crap that's gotten tiresome after 6 fucking books about "dumb adults".
In other words, the message of the Harry Potter books is subversive.
But not subtly so. Reading Rowling's subversive message is like stepping in front of a train. There's another series of books out there called "A Series of Unfortunate Events" - which is also centered around the idea of stupid adults. Only the book is so obviously on the campy side, it's not as painful to watch as the lives of the protagonists get worse and worse on the failings of adults. It's funny, in a black way. The subversive genius of these books is the moral self-doubt the protagonists go through, as they question the morality of their own actions, as necessity for survival. Mister Snickett's prose is a lot more fun to read as well. Rowling had started out on the campy side in her first book, but quickly abandoned that, so now the whole series is situated uncomfortably somewhere inbetween campy and serious.
Rowling makes Harry exceptional only in ways that enable him to fight power, never in ways that allow him to wield it over others.
Two words. Septus Semprum. To me - this is the only interesting thread in the whole series; Will Harry learn the lesson Snape learned (though failed to teach, out of his inability to forgive)? - only it's the same lesson Anakin Skywalker learned.
While there is still innovation in socialized democracies, it truly pales in comparison to the free market of the US of A.
Where's the innovation in non-healthcare-related industries in the US? R&D dollars are flooding out of traditionally US-dominated industries (like the auto industry) to Pharmaceutical and Insurance industry profits. The Auto industry in the US has not innovated in something like 20 years. Chrysler was already bought out. Ford and GM are moving manufacturing to countries like Canada where they can get skilled workers, and don't have to pay for their health insurance. (or rather, the indirect cost of healthcare is far less than the US's extremely inefficient system).
Eventually, this is going to catch up with Big Pharma, the HMO's and the Hospital chains - and all that "innovation" is going to come to a screeching halt, as these companies move operations to more profitable countries (like China or India);
The other large cost is Malpractice Get Rich schemes by parasite lawyers.
This canard has been debunked. Cash awards were shown to be less than 1% of healthcare cost increases in a 2004 study. States that instituted caps in malpractice suits had cost increases higher than the national average.
Don't socialize my medicine, because I don't want the resulting crappy service that people from socialize countries are fleeing from. There is a reason why people from Canada come to the US for major problems (Heart, Cancer etc), and that is because they can't wait for 8 months while the bureaucracy grinds forward.
I realize that most socialists, it is just implicit and assumed that government is good, everything else is bad, and so the question answers itself.
What complete and utter bullshit. This is the contrapositive of the same generalization about Capitalists (that it's implicit and assumed that government is bad, and only the Free Market can solve problems).
Socialism addresses the FACT that not all problems can be solved by Market Economies. Not all human needs are met by Market Economies. This fact became evident when the Mesopotamians got together some thousands of years ago to do something about the impact of seasonal flooding on their agriculture. They thrived as a civilization where nomadic cultures that lived in that region for the previous thousands of years failed.
There is a point to civilization. And that point is to collectively solve problems and meet needs. Leaving everything to "natural forces of the market" is akin to leaving your crops to deal with the tender mercies of natural floods. Can the farmer prosper if he is then forced to give all his food away (which was the case, in ancient Mesopotamia)? Of course not. That's why (one reason) Mesopotamia fell to Persian invasion, and why the Soviet Union failed.
A civilization that succeeds, empowers individuals, but individuals still need to work together for mutual benefit in order to survive.
no one can tell me why I should be so excited to give government so much damn power over my life.
It would be nice, if humans were just naturally compelled to care about their fellow humans. But by nature, humans are selfish, and distrustful. In any case - in America - pursuing this Libertarian ideal, at least for the past 10 years or so, has meant giving your vote over to the Republican Party, who damn well does want to give the government a lot of control over your life - to their perverse Theocratic Socialism. And now; Corporate Socialism (which is exactly what a patent is).
Personally, I think that what is broken with our US Healthcare system could (in theory - probably not in practice) could be fixed if much of the regulatory mess that is our patent system, and the influence of the AMA, could be radically reformed, and more strict limits on healthcare corporate consolidation enforced. Absent those reforms, a single-payer system looks very attractive. On the other hand - given the corruption in our current system, lobbyists, and politicians, (especially very clearly illustrated by Medicare Part-D) I have no confidence that a single-payer, or any other form of socialized medicine, could possibly be executed in good faith, in the US.
I fully expect the situation in the US to continue on for some time, perhaps as long as 10 years, in a continually downwardly spiraling fashion, until enough wealth has been transferred out of the country, that we will have effectively no domestic healthcare for the vast majority of our population.
(i.e. "It's your fault I have bad health... I had to click twice to find that piece of info.")
I look around at my co workers, and I see 2, maybe 5 percent are wearing a wrist brace of some sort. RSI is no laughing matter, and the constant negative feedback of pain for every mouse action builds up a stimulus-response relationship as surely as pavlov's bell. I don't suffer from RSI, but I understand this relationship every time I have to bend over with my bad back to pick something up off the ground that somebody else left there our of negligence or laziness. I understand why it would cause anger. And it has nothing to do with "entitlement".
There's no reason why we can't have an industrial economy that operates efficiently, fairly, and responsibly. There is a balance between the extremes of Communism and Anarcho-Capitalism. As long as dollars vote, then capital will always be pushing the balance over towards the capitalism side. When reasonable, enlightened arguments by individuals count as much as an attack-ad in how policy is set, we'll find that balance. And trust me, pure socialism isn't the answer either, and it's not necessarily the result of such "mob rule".
I have to stop and think how things such as TV, Telephone, power, water and sewer are 'plumbed' into each suite. That would have to be an interesting problem to solve.
No plumbing.
The well and the outhouse are on the ground floor, outside. But each apartment WILL have its own bucket so their servants can go fetch water.
Slashdot Mirror
The gain is theoretical, as there are many ways to get past the best tamper-proof equipment and such - UV sensitive dust on the keypad and check for fingerprint on the PIN keys..
At one customer site, there was an access keypad for a door, where the buttons themselves had little LED numbers in them. Because of the lenses built into the buttons, it was difficult to read the numbers unless you were within about 12" of the keypad, and only directly in front. When you press the start button to activate the keypad, it scrambles the numbers under the buttons. You punch in the numbers in the entry code, and then press the enter key.
Fingerprints, UV-sensitive dust, not even a videocam over the shoulder wouldn't work here.
Of course, there's always torture.
Not to mention the fact that the number for this door was frequently given out to unauthorized persons - so even the best technology can be overcome by poor procedures.
Forcing developers to develop "as a User" is not the answer.
Developers DO need to understand LUP principles in their development (it's all part of "know your trade") - but they also DO need special rights and privileges on their development machines.
I agree, that stuff should be (successfully) tested and should run under unprivileged logons - and that there are far too many developers who abuse the privilege of running as Admin, and just plain have no clue about writing software for LUP environments. It's probably one of the biggest problems facing the software industry today. But the answer to this problem is to educate developers. Not put chains on them.
SDC applies ONLY to desktop systems (not servers) and ONLY to NIPRNET-connected systems.
Put your dev box on an isolated test LAN, and just about anything goes.
Plus - there's always security waivers for functionality that's required for any particular conops. Just because some non-standard rights and privileges are granted in some cases, doesn't always mean there's a vulnerability. In a lot of cases, security is applied in a layered approach, so taking down one layer doesn't compromise them all.
but there is a reason that after several breakups that they just coming back together.
Legalized bribery of politicians?
Selective enforcement?
There's speculation on reports out there of US use of Chemical Weapons in Vietnam, Panama, and Iraq (GW1+2).
And of course, there was strong evidence of CW use by the Soviets in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
Interesting to know if any of this was true or not.
Here is an additional (recently compiled) list of Bush Administration coverups:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002237.php
and recently I realized that procrastination is actually due to anxiety-you feel anxious about a task, so you choose to ignore it for the time being.
I think that in more cases than most people will admit, this anxiety-driven choice to ignore tasks, is really a passive-aggressive response to having a deadline imposed on one, by a person one does not respect. There are plenty of examples of workers who do not respect a boss, either out of feelings of superiority, or genuine incompetence of the boss who set the deadline.
This lack of respect feeds a passive-aggressive response to ignore the task, to procrastinate.
The response by an incompetent boss is usually a carrot-and-stick approach. Beatings if the deadline is missed, extra chocolate rations if it's met or exceeded. This does not solve the problem. The problem is; respect must be honestly earned.
A parent can earn the respect of his children. A teacher can earn the respect of a student. A manager can earn the respect of the workers. A coach can earn the respect of a team. But none of that is accomplished without a certain degree of competence, and leadership. People will fight lack of competence in a leader, even if they don't know that they're fighting it consciously. People have an inherent sense of justice. And this drives a lot of human behavior.
Build a third bridge, use the middle one as a bidirectional flow.
There, problem solved, that will be $42 million dollars please.
And yet not too early to post on slashdot
You can complain about it, or you can embrace it. But you can not stop it.
Nobody has that much karma.
he wasn't going to go to "pound you in the ass federal prison" regardless of the outcome.
Yeah - that's what people were saying about Hussein 5 years ago. Now the fucker's going to hang.
(too bad Pinochet escaped justice).
Most historians agree that the nation would have been much worse off with the protracted political fight that would have resulted from the trial.
How would it be better had justice not been served?
How is sticking our head in the sand as a nation "better for us"?
That justice was not done, set the stage for the future. The Iran-Contra traitors are all back on the job, instead of jail, where they belong. Karl Rove actually served on Nixon's campaign, and his poisonous brand of divisive politics or character assassination is still turning our nation's political discourse into something akin to pro-wrestling.
I think in the short term, yes, it would have harmed the country. But in the long run, we would have been much better off had we, as a nation, faced the corruption of our political system, drew a line in the sand and said "No more. There will be justice this time, and every time henceforth."
Yeah, that would be nice and all.
But it does not matter that those who claim a "higher moral standard" are hypocrites.
That "higher moral standard" is used as a weapon to control others, through fear.
You can share all the details of your life. Your arrest record. Your past indiscretions. Your National Guard records. Your life is an open book, and you can be judged. Those who would compare their "moral" life to your immoral life, will not return the favor. The power they wield is tied up in the fact that they have privacy, and you do not.
If you disagree with them, or challenge them, or question them, your indiscretions will be on the 6 o'clock news, and your character and credibility called into question. Whether you've ever done anything or not. We can be certain that they have (done things). But the evidence won't be shared. And that won't be what the news commenter will be talking about.
unlike many people, I freely admit that I simply don't know whether patents are good or bad.
I tend to think that they are good. But like any tool, they can be misused. Right now, they're being misused. They're like candy that a congressman tosses to his pharmaceutical lobbyist, who returns the favor by giving the congressman campaign donations, and giving his friends and cronies cushy jobs and speaking engagements and whatnot.
I don't know if it's mathematically possible to come up with any set of lobbying rules that won't result in a set of easily exploitable loopholes. Especially when the rulemakers are the ones who stand to benefit from exploiting the loopholes (which is why we're supposed to have 3 independent branches of government). Somehow, the way patents are granted, extended, and defined, got broken, or maybe their implementation in the Constitution is flawed from the getgo.
But like any engineering effort - there are trade offs. Make patents too restrictive, and you stifle competition. Make patents too loose, and you stifle innovation. There's a happy middle-ground, obviously. And we're far from it, because the system has a built-in feedback loop between those who have the power to modulate patents' restrictiveness, and the industries who benefit from that restrictiveness. I don't know if adding some kind of judicial or executive oversight to the process would help. Or maybe just sitting back and letting the system strangle itself (as it ultimately will) is the answer.
That you don't lynch-mob government officials that engage in gerrymandering is proof enough that you don't even care if your elections are even remotely representative. Even allowing the existence of "lobbying" (AKA bribery) is an embarassment for any nation in which it occurs.
These mechanisms are favored by the minority upper class whites, because these mechanisms perpetuate their dominance on political and economic power in this nation. Yeah, people like my parents. People like my neighbors. Sometimes, even I am afraid of what could happen in this nation under true Democracy.
It's pretty clear that it's an unsustainable path. I don't think that, even given the recent turnover in elections, that any real change is going to happen. We're stuck in that catch-22 - that limiting campaign money is philosophically equivalent to limiting speech. And we're pretty fond of the IDEA of free speech (even if there are people who are willing to sacrifice it for a feeling of security). This contradictory approach is driving a lot of the ire and conflict in our political process, and it is escalating more and more with each election cycle. Everybody feels it. Everyone senses that it's wrong that individual citizens have no voice, in comparison to the mass media. Everyone is pissed about it. Yet, every time we get mad at the incumbents and toss them out on their asses, the folks that come in to replace them are still interested in preserving the status quo. I don't really know what's going to happen when Congress opens next week under Democratic power. I tend to be pessimistic. I tend to think that power corrupts - and the machinery of government that the Democrats have taken control of, will corrupt them too. And next election cycle, an angry electorate will throw them out and put the Republicans back in power - wash, rinse, repeat. But with each cycle, the dissatisfaction and anger builds. And the lies aren't holding fast anymore. And the people have the Internet, to call out these lies and expose them. The Internet could be the catalyst for some real change in the USA. But I don't see it happening for at least two more cycles. We're not angry enough to leave our jobs, march in the streets, get tear-gassed (or worse). Not yet.
and it is by far the stupidest nation in the Western Hemisphere
I don't know about that. If you know the history of some of these South American countries (in particular, Argentina), and how they seem to, over and over, elect the fascist dictators (I'm thinking specifically of Peron, and Pinochet - and I haven't really made up my mind about Chavez); the USA isn't quite that far gone yet.
Personally, I think it all went wrong when we let Reagan deregulate the newsmedia industry, which allowed too much consolidation, and gave a few ultra-wealthy industrialists almost complete control of all the information we get. Cable TV was poised to break the monopoly of the three major TV news networks - and that was nipped in the bud. They've been trying to nip the internet in the bud too. But I think they were too late.
Loss of job?
As a Republican, having indictments and convictions on your record is practically a requirement. It shows that one's been "harassed by the evul gubmint". Hey, yeah, this is just politics, criminalized by the Liberals, of course.
Well, he was a Republican, so that means while he was in college, (which he paid for, himself), he was also working two jobs, getting paid less than minimum wage, all while serving in the military. Doesn't leave much time for studies.
Man, if you're right, the Christianists are going to go absolutely batshit crazy over this book.
I can't wait.
One does not come to truly appreciate the wretchedness of Rowling's prose, until one reads the series aloud. The adverb-abuse, particularly in the third book is painfully annoying, and I can't give her any sort of free pass on style. To her credit, after the third book, she seems to have figured out how to occasionally slip a sentence or two in with less than 3 adverbs.
The importance of this truth to the Potter books hit me when I was reading one of the many passages in which Professor MacGonagle, a good and benevolent adult character, fails to listen and uses her authority in an unreasoning way
Holy crap that's gotten tiresome after 6 fucking books about "dumb adults".
In other words, the message of the Harry Potter books is subversive.
But not subtly so. Reading Rowling's subversive message is like stepping in front of a train.
There's another series of books out there called "A Series of Unfortunate Events" - which is also centered around the idea of stupid adults. Only the book is so obviously on the campy side, it's not as painful to watch as the lives of the protagonists get worse and worse on the failings of adults. It's funny, in a black way. The subversive genius of these books is the moral self-doubt the protagonists go through, as they question the morality of their own actions, as necessity for survival. Mister Snickett's prose is a lot more fun to read as well. Rowling had started out on the campy side in her first book, but quickly abandoned that, so now the whole series is situated uncomfortably somewhere inbetween campy and serious.
Rowling makes Harry exceptional only in ways that enable him to fight power, never in ways that allow him to wield it over others.
Two words. Septus Semprum. To me - this is the only interesting thread in the whole series; Will Harry learn the lesson Snape learned (though failed to teach, out of his inability to forgive)? - only it's the same lesson Anakin Skywalker learned.
While there is still innovation in socialized democracies, it truly pales in comparison to the free market of the US of A.
= a8vosisrgmd0
Where's the innovation in non-healthcare-related industries in the US?
R&D dollars are flooding out of traditionally US-dominated industries (like the auto industry) to Pharmaceutical and Insurance industry profits. The Auto industry in the US has not innovated in something like 20 years. Chrysler was already bought out. Ford and GM are moving manufacturing to countries like Canada where they can get skilled workers, and don't have to pay for their health insurance. (or rather, the indirect cost of healthcare is far less than the US's extremely inefficient system).
Eventually, this is going to catch up with Big Pharma, the HMO's and the Hospital chains - and all that "innovation" is going to come to a screeching halt, as these companies move operations to more profitable countries (like China or India);
The other large cost is Malpractice Get Rich schemes by parasite lawyers.
This canard has been debunked. Cash awards were shown to be less than 1% of healthcare cost increases in a 2004 study. States that instituted caps in malpractice suits had cost increases higher than the national average.
Don't socialize my medicine, because I don't want the resulting crappy service that people from socialize countries are fleeing from. There is a reason why people from Canada come to the US for major problems (Heart, Cancer etc), and that is because they can't wait for 8 months while the bureaucracy grinds forward.
People in America are fleeing to India for major problems. And that is because one can get a new heart valve for $7000 in India, where it costs $200,000 in the US.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=nifea&&sid
Sad to say - this is probably the future of the American Healthcare industry.
I realize that most socialists, it is just implicit and assumed that government is good, everything else is bad, and so the question answers itself.
= a8vosisrgmd0
What complete and utter bullshit.
This is the contrapositive of the same generalization about Capitalists (that it's implicit and assumed that government is bad, and only the Free Market can solve problems).
Socialism addresses the FACT that not all problems can be solved by Market Economies. Not all human needs are met by Market Economies. This fact became evident when the Mesopotamians got together some thousands of years ago to do something about the impact of seasonal flooding on their agriculture. They thrived as a civilization where nomadic cultures that lived in that region for the previous thousands of years failed.
There is a point to civilization. And that point is to collectively solve problems and meet needs. Leaving everything to "natural forces of the market" is akin to leaving your crops to deal with the tender mercies of natural floods. Can the farmer prosper if he is then forced to give all his food away (which was the case, in ancient Mesopotamia)? Of course not. That's why (one reason) Mesopotamia fell to Persian invasion, and why the Soviet Union failed.
A civilization that succeeds, empowers individuals, but individuals still need to work together for mutual benefit in order to survive.
no one can tell me why I should be so excited to give government so much damn power over my life.
It would be nice, if humans were just naturally compelled to care about their fellow humans. But by nature, humans are selfish, and distrustful. In any case - in America - pursuing this Libertarian ideal, at least for the past 10 years or so, has meant giving your vote over to the Republican Party, who damn well does want to give the government a lot of control over your life - to their perverse Theocratic Socialism. And now; Corporate Socialism (which is exactly what a patent is).
Personally, I think that what is broken with our US Healthcare system could (in theory - probably not in practice) could be fixed if much of the regulatory mess that is our patent system, and the influence of the AMA, could be radically reformed, and more strict limits on healthcare corporate consolidation enforced. Absent those reforms, a single-payer system looks very attractive. On the other hand - given the corruption in our current system, lobbyists, and politicians, (especially very clearly illustrated by Medicare Part-D) I have no confidence that a single-payer, or any other form of socialized medicine, could possibly be executed in good faith, in the US.
I fully expect the situation in the US to continue on for some time, perhaps as long as 10 years, in a continually downwardly spiraling fashion, until enough wealth has been transferred out of the country, that we will have effectively no domestic healthcare for the vast majority of our population.
Here's what I think will happen:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=nifea&&sid
The individuals who will not be served by this system, will be in no position to effectively fix it (as is the case today).
(i.e. "It's your fault I have bad health ... I had to click twice to find that piece of info.")
I look around at my co workers, and I see 2, maybe 5 percent are wearing a wrist brace of some sort. RSI is no laughing matter, and the constant negative feedback of pain for every mouse action builds up a stimulus-response relationship as surely as pavlov's bell. I don't suffer from RSI, but I understand this relationship every time I have to bend over with my bad back to pick something up off the ground that somebody else left there our of negligence or laziness. I understand why it would cause anger. And it has nothing to do with "entitlement".
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Yeah. False dichotomy.
There's no reason why we can't have an industrial economy that operates efficiently, fairly, and responsibly. There is a balance between the extremes of Communism and Anarcho-Capitalism. As long as dollars vote, then capital will always be pushing the balance over towards the capitalism side. When reasonable, enlightened arguments by individuals count as much as an attack-ad in how policy is set, we'll find that balance. And trust me, pure socialism isn't the answer either, and it's not necessarily the result of such "mob rule".
Progress was going on long before corporations were given personhood in the 19th century.
Yeah. That's why they had to slow it down a tad.
. . . people who catch fewer colds generally have a more positive outlook?
I have to stop and think how things such as TV, Telephone, power, water and sewer are 'plumbed' into each suite. That would have to be an interesting problem to solve.
No plumbing.
The well and the outhouse are on the ground floor, outside.
But each apartment WILL have its own bucket so their servants can go fetch water.