You basically just outlined the second episode (which aired the other day). It wasn't really Muhammad in the bear suit, they were just lying about it. It was Santa Clause. Muhammad was still in the U-Haul (which is apparently acceptable).
Also, they started bleeping out all mentions of the name "Muhammad" as well keeping the "Censored" bar over him as he walked around.
Being aroused, without your control, pretty much 24/7. Yes, I'd call that humiliating -- I'm assuming you're male, so how would you like to walk around with a constant erection?
So now she finally understands what it's like to be a 13 year old boy?
I repeat my statement from another thread: Gutting the manned space program to save money is shortsighted and idiotic policy. NASA is not the reason that Federal red ink is spiraling out of control.
While I agree entirely with you, I think it's very important to point this out:
Gutting ________ to save money is shortsighted and idiotic policy.
Feel free to plugin any of the following terms: social security, medicare, defense/military, education, unemployment, the penal system.
The budget is the way it is because there are sizable chunks of the population who feel that _____ is absolutely vital for the future of our society and that ____ pay too many taxes while simultaneously maintaining that ____ is a waste of money and ____ doesn't pay their fair share.
Will it? Last year SciAm had an article on what may happen to the universe in the future. If I recall right of 5 theories or scenarios only one had the universe collapse on itself. Another one had the universe continually expanding. While today we can see other galaxies in the future humans, if we still exist, won't be able to see beyond our galaxy.
I'm assuming that was a serious question. The explanation is too long for a post on slashdot, but I highly recommend you watch 'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence Krauss for an explanation of why the universe will end with a whimper.
He also thoroughly explains quite a few other things (proof the universe is expanding, age of the universe, etc.).
I'm too lazy to look up sources right now, but I read a report fairly recently that claimed about 60% of the toxic mortgages were fraudulent--on the lender's side. The system was setup to encourage fraud by the lenders and their agents since the loans were immediately resold at a profit and the risks offloaded.
Yes, everybody should've read the fine print, should've known the lenders were falsely reporting their income (or going back and filling it in later with an extra digit?), should've had a thorough understanding of ballooning ARM mortgages, blah blah blah. But it's pretty unfair to lame the blame more than 50% on the borrowers. The borrowers were following the popular wisdom that "real estate ALWAYS goes up in value!" while the lenders knew damned well the system was a scam.
All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Sorry, I've gotta be pedantic. Flak vests are designed to protect from flak, not knives and "tazers". "Military" body armor isn't usually designed to protect from knives. Typically they're somewhat heat resistant and at least Level III-A, but by definition they're only designed to protect from ballistic threats. The fact that ceramic plates can stop a knife is only incidental, and they're not designed to protect from sharp weapons in other vulnerable parts of the body (wrist, neck, face, etc.)
Here's a nice little body armor levels page, and there's another one at Global Security I linked to in my last post.
You must be a cop;) not sure if you were deliberately leaving ceramic plates out of the discussion, so I'll bring up the differences a tad
Vests can have metal or ceramic plates, or they can be made entirely of something like kevlar. Global security has a pretty good List of Body Armor Classes that explains them.
Plates are almost always removable because that just makes the most sense in so many damned ways (as I'm sure you know). Here's a cheap-o type III with optional removable steel plates: GatorHawk Talon Spike... it seems metal plates are still popular with the press and similar outfits?
As for DOD systems, SAPI were ceramic plates used with Interceptor and IOTV. You can find more information all over the place, but the key take-away is that the military's plates are designed to protect from high-caliber rounds rather than trauma.
Im republican by the way, so my stake is actually in defending the military but I feel like these judgement calls were just way off and weaken the public image of the military (laughing about bodies being run over??? Come one...)
I've seen Democrats and Republicans do a lot of good things for troops, and I've seen both parties abuse the military while playing their political games. Neither party really does more for the military than the other, but Republicans certainly like to claim they're the only ones who "support the troops". Anyways, your political affiliation doesn't matter. Your lack of combat experience, however, certainly does.
Im sorry but since when do militants mozy around lazily, talking on their cell phone, engaging in friendly banter, when there is us military copter hoveriing above their heads??? That makes absoloutely no sense at all.
All. The. Time. It's really not like in the movies. Also it's pretty obvious in the video that the helicopter wasn't "above their heads". It was a good distance away, as you can see in the video. You hear the "bang", wait a few seconds, then see the rounds hit their targets.
Yup, these guys could've been more cautious. Yes, in hindsight, that looks somewhat like a camera and the guy looks a little too white. But this is also really how militants behave the 99.99% of the time they're not shooting at troops or setting off IEDs. Scratch that, the guy with the phone could be setting off an IED, couldn't he?
Exxon-Mobil is one of the largest funders of research in Alternative Fuel/Alternative Energy in the world
Of course. They know the oil will eventually run out and they'll have to make money on energy elsewhere. Their goal in the mean time, however, is to keep the black gold flowing as long as possible because it's such a lucrative business.
I remember an old joke floating around about the NSA: If the NSA ran a rowing crew it would have 7 people calling out "stroke" (managers) and 1 guy actually rowing (geek/nerd).
So shouldn't it be 7 people calling out "stroke" while 1 guy fumbles and reaches for his inhaler?:)
Why pay Americans to sort in the US when you can have it done in a location eg latin/south America, Asia, Africa, Australia ect at lower rates?
... because these are rare earths we're talking about. You might need to process thousands of tons of raw materials (or more) to get a pound of a particular rare earth.
Find a way to ship millions of tons of raw materials to Indonesia for processing and I'm sure you'll be able to make a fortune outsourcing it.
It's obvious from your use of the term "sort" that you know absolutely nothing about this process. It's not labor intensive; it's energy, time, space, equipment, etc. intensive. It's not like some guy is standing at a conveyor belt with tweezers picking the rare earth metals ouf of dirt that's moving by.
No. Long, delaying impact studies are only necessary when you're doing something the conservatives oppose... like allowing gays to serve openly in the military.
Sorry, Wovel is still correct. It's more precise to say we live in a "democratic republic" than that we live in a democracy, and it's also correct to say we live in "Republic rather than a Democracy". Europeans will use the term "representative democracy", but internationally the US is still accepted as a republic. More accurately, as a Federal Republic.
My first piece of evidence, the pledge of allegiance:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands...
What dictionary did you pull your definitions from? You should know better. If you want proper explanations of a medical condition you won't consult M-W, you'll look it up in the PDR. If you want to know the difference in poli sci terms, you need a good poli sci encyclopedia (or dictionary if you can't find an encyclopedia).
Since I'm too lazy to re-type explanations from my own books, here are the entries from iAmericanSpirit.com:
democracy - government by the people; the rule of the majority. There is no precise definition of democracy on which all could agree. Even communist countries tend to call themselves democratic, and the mere fact that a government is elected by a majority of the popular vote does not of itself guarantee a democracy. A broad definition might include the following points (based on Thomas R. Dye and L. Harmon Ziegler's book The Irony of Democracy): Participation by the mass of people in the decisions that shape their lives; government by majority rule, with recognition of the rights of minorities; freedom of speech, press, and assembly; freedom to form opposition political parties and to run for office; commitment to individual dignity and to equal opportunities for people to develop their full potential.
republic - the form of government in which ultimate power resides in the people, who elect representatives to participate in decision-making on their behalf. The head of state in a republic is usually an elected president-never a hereditary monarch. A republic is founded on the idea that every citizen has a right to participate, directly or indirectly, in affairs of state, and the general will of the people should be sovereign. The U.S. is a republic.
A $130,000 per home debt, climbing at $10,000 per year, is not sustainable. It doesn't matter whose fucking fault it was - it matters that we STOP SPENDING before we end up bankrupt like Iceland or Greece.
Car analogy incoming! That's like saying you should slam on the brakes as hard as you can when you see an obstacle ahead of you on the road, regardless of how wet the road may be or whether you might be safer steering around it.
I know you're a total conservative, and I get that because I've been there. But you really should know that the worst thing you can possibly do in the middle of a deep recession is cut spending+raise taxes. If we drastically cut spending last year and raised taxes we'd probably be in a depression right now.
That said, I think we all agree that the budget ultimately needs to be balanced. Most of us just subscribe to some model resembling Keynesian and think now really isn't the best time.
What a load of crap. There's still one traditional family farmer left in the US! Every time lobbyists need him to star in ads for farm subsidies he gets on his farm and plows by hand then poses in his pickup truck!
Also, there are some organic farmers who are still doing things the old way. Or pretty close to it.
I was staying in a hotel with a group of friends. I was out on my balcony in my robe and I dropped my Motorola RAZR from the 12th floor!
It was in a protective leather case (which flew off mid-air and landed on another balcony), the cell phone kept falling and hit the ground. I saw pieces fly into the air and watched one piece fly over the wall. My friend ran down to try to find it (I think I was still in my robe). She had found the RAZR and pieced it back together! The SIM card and battery had been ejected from the phone, the battery compartment cover had been on the other side of the wall, and the leather case was working, but damn, it worked! Everything worked fine, even the camera.
The next day we were in the cab to get back to the airport, and a friend of mine says he found a leather case on his balcony! It was the same one!
That phone worked for another year, it just had a dent in the bottom of the phone.
I'm not sure if it makes sense to continue within this thread since we are already several levels deep and at this point, it's probably just us reading it anyway. I'd like to continue offline, but not sure how without posting my email address to the world here. That being said, I'll respond to a few of your items.
I agree that we're probably the only ones reading at this point, but I'd be happy to continue this conversation privately. You can reach me at my username at gmail.
Sorry for the slow reply, I was waiting to see what the Republicans would propose at the summit. Unfortunately that was a pointless delay since they didn't offer anything substantive.
My apologies for the 95% remark. I dont' know that stats and was only trying to convey a clear majority. Yes, the average person is moderately healthy, but no, the distribution of medical expenses is not even remotely normal. That's precisely why medical insurance is so ridiculously complicated and expensive. Even if you exclude the uncontrollable factors, the costs are greatly varied.
Unfortunately getting all the proper stats for this debate will take far more time than either of us likely have, so I'll also have to overgeneralize and pull numbers out of my ass when discussing this issue. Feel free to call me out if I don't give the proper disclaimers or citations and I'll do the same when I see unfounded assertions. Apology more than accepted, I'm sure I'm guilty of the same in this thread.
That said, the strongest predictor of health care expenditures is age. Although individual expenditures definitely vary, I'd argue there's a pretty large average, moderately healthy population. Barring serious disabilities or diseases, most people should pretty closely follow the curve. To quote The Lifetime Distribution of Health Care Costs:
After the first year of life, health care costs are lowest for children, rise slowly throughout adult life, and increase exponentially after age 50 Bradford and Max (1996) determined that annual costs for the elderly are approximately four to five times those of people in their early teens. Personal health expenditure also rises sharply with age within the Medicare population. The oldest group (85+) consumes three times as much health care per person as those 65–74, and twice as much as those 75–84 (Fuchs 1998). Nursing home and short-stay hospital use also increases with age, especially for older adults (Liang et al. 1996).
Admittedly no individual perfectly fits the model, but when you have a large pool (say 100,000 or more people) it actually works quite well. There are, of course, outliers. Most of the outliers on the expensive side of the house are probably due to defect, disease, or injury. Insurance is, by its very nature, supposed to be the fortunate subsidizing the treatment of the unfortunate when it comes to disease and injury. As we've already discussed, pre-existing conditions are a bunch of BS and babies born with defects shouldn't be guaranteed uninsurable. Health care isn't a one-time use kind of thing, so rates shouldn't become financially impossible just because you had your first major expense before you hit 65.
Exclusive monopoly contracts are no different than government programs. Unless there is competition, there is no incentive to do a better job. My point was, it's not economical to have 5 fire service companies competing against each other. If your doctor sucks, you can get another doctor. If your fire department sucks, your house burns to the ground. You could make the same argument for Emergency Rooms, but I don't hear anyone saying that government should own the hospitals or emergency rooms.
Exclusive monopoly contracts with private enterprises mean that the private company has a fiduciary responsibility to yield the largest return for its investors as it ca
Regarding the need for actuaries, sure, there are certain high risk areas, and it would be logical for those people choosing to live there to pay more in taxes to accomodate the neccessary public services. But for the other 95% of us, the chances of our house burning down is about equal.
I can't comment on proportion or risk spread in house fires, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say your 95% figure sounds entirely fictional. I will say that medical costs and risks are pretty predictable for a similar proportion in the general population, though. If you control for income, inherited diseases, uncontrollable environmental conditions (contaminated drinking water, living near superfund sites, etc.), and normally high end-of-life expenses, you should have a pretty normal distribution of medical expenditures in society. People who are involved in catastrophic accidents will have higher expenditures than the more fortunate among us, but overall the average person is moderately healthy when they have access to routine care.
If it were economical to privatize fire & police services, I would support it. I just have yet to see a business model where several fire/police departments can compete against each other and offer the same level of EMERGENCY service.
Usually the business model is "Company signs an exclusive monopoly contract to provide fire services for _____ County. ____ re-hires existing firefighters at reduced pay, reduces training programs, and citizens eventually discover that the contract wasn't written the way they thought it was." Government programs aren't inherently less efficient than private industry, and they certainly are sometimes better bang for the buck than private for-profit industry.
I think you are really stretching here. You seriously think lifestyle, eating habits, and exercise significantly affects the probability that your house burns down? Housing location? Maybe, but not for the majority of us.
Stretching? What percent of house fires are caused by cooking accidents? Overloaded or poorly maintained electrical systems? Smokers who fall asleep with the cigarette in their hand? People who light candles and leave them unattended? What about old space heaters? The majority of house fires are preventable. We've launched a lot of public education programs over the years, but we say "even if you're responsible for the fire, it's good public policy for the government to go and put it out." Fact: the majority of home fires in the US are preventable.
Yes, the [municipal] government-run firecare program doesn't reimburse you for your lost goods, but a national health care program wouldn't reimburse you for your lost wages or time, either.
Regarding the factors not in our control, they are pretty much taken care of already. DNA testing is not (currently) being used to determine your insurance eligibility.
DNA testing isn't currently being used, but family history of illness and conditions is. So is such an exhaustive list of pre-existing conditions that it's essentially impossible to get insurance without declaring one. If you were ever diagnosed with a genetic disorder, or diagnosed with a disease later, you will forever have that held against you in the insurance system. Likewise for things you never were diagnosed with but "should have known".
If you are in a car accident, you will be treated in the emergency room. If you are the victim of a crime, you will also be treated.
Car accident, yes, but if the other party is un/underinsured and can not afford your care, and your insurance doesn't cover you, you will probably end up bankrupt.
Victims of crime, however, are given no special exemption from these enormous bills. I submit to you Heather Sherba, the LA Fitness shooting survivor who was desperately stru
What is practical about creating an international health care system? What would make the EU or any larger organization qualified to run such a system?
International health care systems will probably slowly evolve from national health care systems. I hate how people throw the buzzword around, but in this case it really is something that could be forced by globalization. As borders are broken down, particularly in the EU, it makes a lot of sense for formal peering agreements to be implemented between the systems. Who pays when a German citizen is on vacation in Italy and has a heart attack? What about a German citizen who's working for six months in Spain for a large German corporation? Likewise for Turkish migrant workers in Germany. National health care systems tend to shoulder those costs, and it would make a lot of sense for them to agree upon better standards for preventive care... just as they already have with many economic policies as part of membership to EU.
What ammendments to the US constitution need to be added?
Depends on how you interpret the elastic clause and that whole "for the general welfare" thing... Personally I feel that medicare and social security were a) a good idea and b) required a constitutional amendment. Along the same lines, I feel a proper national health care system (single payer or nationalized) would require a constitutional amendment to be constitutional under all but the loosest interpretations. Federal regulation of insurance can easily fall under the interstate commerce clause, though.
Outside of abortion (I'm conservative, but am also pro-choice), which rights do the "conservatives" want to take away?
When I wrote that statement I was thinking about the flag burning amendment that conservatives have been pushing for ever since 9/11. Of the potential amendments that are being publicly discussed, that one seems to have the largest support and it's primarily from conservatives. Just a few weeks ago a Republican Governor (McConnell) signed an executive order changing equal opportunity laws in Virginia to remove protection for homosexuals. It's now legal for VA state to fire someone for being homosexual. Wouldn't you consider someone's sexuality a fundamental right?
When it comes to rights, though, conservatives have been opposed to pretty much everything for the last 100 years. Conservatives opposed the end of slavery, women's suffrage, desegregation, truly free elections, and alcohol use. In the last few decades, conservatives have been behind the vast majority of restrictions of "moral" freedoms: sex, prostitution, pornography, marijuana (medical or otherwise), and drugs, just to name a few... and that's not even getting into all the stuff that happened under Bush re: habeas corpus, advanced interrogation techniques, "enemy combatant" status, etc.
I think you are just spouting your liberal ideals hoping that the complex problems of the world can be solved by simply having everyone be equal, with peach, love and harmony.
Not at all. I'm also a supporter of gun rights, tort reform, and plenty of conservative ideals. Primarily, I'm trying to be pragmatic: I'll advocate progressive policies when they make sense, particularly when they've already been tested and proven effective elsewhere. By every metric the average American is getting screwed over by a broken health insurance system and it's seriously hampering large and small businesses alike.
The primary argument against a legislative approach to overhauling the healthcare system is that "the government can't do anything right so they're going to screw this up too!" The problem with that argument is that it a) ignores government successes elsewhere and b) does not provide any actual solution to the
Slashdot Mirror
** SPOILER ALERT **
You basically just outlined the second episode (which aired the other day). It wasn't really Muhammad in the bear suit, they were just lying about it. It was Santa Clause. Muhammad was still in the U-Haul (which is apparently acceptable).
Also, they started bleeping out all mentions of the name "Muhammad" as well keeping the "Censored" bar over him as he walked around.
I also find it annoying that repeatedly clicking "Not Spam" doesn't automatically add them to a whitelist, but...
you can always just create some filters. If ___, do not send to spam folder. Really easy.
Being aroused, without your control, pretty much 24/7. Yes, I'd call that humiliating -- I'm assuming you're male, so how would you like to walk around with a constant erection?
So now she finally understands what it's like to be a 13 year old boy?
I repeat my statement from another thread: Gutting the manned space program to save money is shortsighted and idiotic policy. NASA is not the reason that Federal red ink is spiraling out of control.
While I agree entirely with you, I think it's very important to point this out:
Gutting ________ to save money is shortsighted and idiotic policy.
Feel free to plugin any of the following terms: social security, medicare, defense/military, education, unemployment, the penal system.
The budget is the way it is because there are sizable chunks of the population who feel that _____ is absolutely vital for the future of our society and that ____ pay too many taxes while simultaneously maintaining that ____ is a waste of money and ____ doesn't pay their fair share.
Will it? Last year SciAm had an article on what may happen to the universe in the future. If I recall right of 5 theories or scenarios only one had the universe collapse on itself. Another one had the universe continually expanding. While today we can see other galaxies in the future humans, if we still exist, won't be able to see beyond our galaxy.
I'm assuming that was a serious question. The explanation is too long for a post on slashdot, but I highly recommend you watch 'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence Krauss for an explanation of why the universe will end with a whimper.
He also thoroughly explains quite a few other things (proof the universe is expanding, age of the universe, etc.).
I'm too lazy to look up sources right now, but I read a report fairly recently that claimed about 60% of the toxic mortgages were fraudulent--on the lender's side. The system was setup to encourage fraud by the lenders and their agents since the loans were immediately resold at a profit and the risks offloaded.
Yes, everybody should've read the fine print, should've known the lenders were falsely reporting their income (or going back and filling it in later with an extra digit?), should've had a thorough understanding of ballooning ARM mortgages, blah blah blah. But it's pretty unfair to lame the blame more than 50% on the borrowers. The borrowers were following the popular wisdom that "real estate ALWAYS goes up in value!" while the lenders knew damned well the system was a scam.
All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Sorry, I've gotta be pedantic. Flak vests are designed to protect from flak, not knives and "tazers". "Military" body armor isn't usually designed to protect from knives. Typically they're somewhat heat resistant and at least Level III-A, but by definition they're only designed to protect from ballistic threats. The fact that ceramic plates can stop a knife is only incidental, and they're not designed to protect from sharp weapons in other vulnerable parts of the body (wrist, neck, face, etc.)
Here's a nice little body armor levels page, and there's another one at Global Security I linked to in my last post.
You must be a cop ;) not sure if you were deliberately leaving ceramic plates out of the discussion, so I'll bring up the differences a tad
Vests can have metal or ceramic plates, or they can be made entirely of something like kevlar. Global security has a pretty good List of Body Armor Classes that explains them.
Plates are almost always removable because that just makes the most sense in so many damned ways (as I'm sure you know). Here's a cheap-o type III with optional removable steel plates: GatorHawk Talon Spike ... it seems metal plates are still popular with the press and similar outfits?
As for DOD systems, SAPI were ceramic plates used with Interceptor and IOTV. You can find more information all over the place, but the key take-away is that the military's plates are designed to protect from high-caliber rounds rather than trauma.
Im republican by the way, so my stake is actually in defending the military but I feel like these judgement calls were just way off and weaken the public image of the military (laughing about bodies being run over??? Come one...)
I've seen Democrats and Republicans do a lot of good things for troops, and I've seen both parties abuse the military while playing their political games. Neither party really does more for the military than the other, but Republicans certainly like to claim they're the only ones who "support the troops". Anyways, your political affiliation doesn't matter. Your lack of combat experience, however, certainly does.
Im sorry but since when do militants mozy around lazily, talking on their cell phone, engaging in friendly banter, when there is us military copter hoveriing above their heads??? That makes absoloutely no sense at all.
All. The. Time. It's really not like in the movies. Also it's pretty obvious in the video that the helicopter wasn't "above their heads". It was a good distance away, as you can see in the video. You hear the "bang", wait a few seconds, then see the rounds hit their targets.
Yup, these guys could've been more cautious. Yes, in hindsight, that looks somewhat like a camera and the guy looks a little too white. But this is also really how militants behave the 99.99% of the time they're not shooting at troops or setting off IEDs. Scratch that, the guy with the phone could be setting off an IED, couldn't he?
Exxon-Mobil is one of the largest funders of research in Alternative Fuel/Alternative Energy in the world
Of course. They know the oil will eventually run out and they'll have to make money on energy elsewhere. Their goal in the mean time, however, is to keep the black gold flowing as long as possible because it's such a lucrative business.
I remember an old joke floating around about the NSA: If the NSA ran a rowing crew it would have 7 people calling out "stroke" (managers) and 1 guy actually rowing (geek/nerd).
So shouldn't it be 7 people calling out "stroke" while 1 guy fumbles and reaches for his inhaler? :)
Indeed. For example: 6 out of 7 dwarves aren't Happy.
Reminds me of the joke that 4 out of 5 people enjoy gang rape.
The problem is that gmail is the #1 source of spam that I'm seeing, as well as the #1 source of bogus spam registration attempts.
gmail as in "signed by gmail" actually originating from gmail servers gmail?
Why pay Americans to sort in the US when you can have it done in a location eg latin/south America, Asia, Africa, Australia ect at lower rates?
... because these are rare earths we're talking about. You might need to process thousands of tons of raw materials (or more) to get a pound of a particular rare earth.
Find a way to ship millions of tons of raw materials to Indonesia for processing and I'm sure you'll be able to make a fortune outsourcing it.
It's obvious from your use of the term "sort" that you know absolutely nothing about this process. It's not labor intensive; it's energy, time, space, equipment, etc. intensive. It's not like some guy is standing at a conveyor belt with tweezers picking the rare earth metals ouf of dirt that's moving by.
No. Long, delaying impact studies are only necessary when you're doing something the conservatives oppose... like allowing gays to serve openly in the military.
Sorry, Wovel is still correct. It's more precise to say we live in a "democratic republic" than that we live in a democracy, and it's also correct to say we live in "Republic rather than a Democracy". Europeans will use the term "representative democracy", but internationally the US is still accepted as a republic. More accurately, as a Federal Republic.
My first piece of evidence, the pledge of allegiance:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands...
My second piece of evidence:
lexrex Democracy vs. Republic.
What dictionary did you pull your definitions from? You should know better. If you want proper explanations of a medical condition you won't consult M-W, you'll look it up in the PDR. If you want to know the difference in poli sci terms, you need a good poli sci encyclopedia (or dictionary if you can't find an encyclopedia).
Since I'm too lazy to re-type explanations from my own books, here are the entries from iAmericanSpirit.com:
democracy - government by the people; the rule of the majority. There is no precise definition of democracy on which all could agree. Even communist countries tend to call themselves democratic, and the mere fact that a government is elected by a majority of the popular vote does not of itself guarantee a democracy. A broad definition might include the following points (based on Thomas R. Dye and L. Harmon Ziegler's book The Irony of Democracy): Participation by the mass of people in the decisions that shape their lives; government by majority rule, with recognition of the rights of minorities; freedom of speech, press, and assembly; freedom to form opposition political parties and to run for office; commitment to individual dignity and to equal opportunities for people to develop their full potential.
republic - the form of government in which ultimate power resides in the people, who elect representatives to participate in decision-making on their behalf. The head of state in a republic is usually an elected president-never a hereditary monarch. A republic is founded on the idea that every citizen has a right to participate, directly or indirectly, in affairs of state, and the general will of the people should be sovereign. The U.S. is a republic.
(emphasis mine)
A $130,000 per home debt, climbing at $10,000 per year, is not sustainable. It doesn't matter whose fucking fault it was - it matters that we STOP SPENDING before we end up bankrupt like Iceland or Greece.
Car analogy incoming! That's like saying you should slam on the brakes as hard as you can when you see an obstacle ahead of you on the road, regardless of how wet the road may be or whether you might be safer steering around it.
I know you're a total conservative, and I get that because I've been there. But you really should know that the worst thing you can possibly do in the middle of a deep recession is cut spending+raise taxes. If we drastically cut spending last year and raised taxes we'd probably be in a depression right now.
That said, I think we all agree that the budget ultimately needs to be balanced. Most of us just subscribe to some model resembling Keynesian and think now really isn't the best time.
What a load of crap. There's still one traditional family farmer left in the US! Every time lobbyists need him to star in ads for farm subsidies he gets on his farm and plows by hand then poses in his pickup truck!
Also, there are some organic farmers who are still doing things the old way. Or pretty close to it.
I was staying in a hotel with a group of friends. I was out on my balcony in my robe and I dropped my Motorola RAZR from the 12th floor!
It was in a protective leather case (which flew off mid-air and landed on another balcony), the cell phone kept falling and hit the ground. I saw pieces fly into the air and watched one piece fly over the wall. My friend ran down to try to find it (I think I was still in my robe). She had found the RAZR and pieced it back together! The SIM card and battery had been ejected from the phone, the battery compartment cover had been on the other side of the wall, and the leather case was working, but damn, it worked! Everything worked fine, even the camera.
The next day we were in the cab to get back to the airport, and a friend of mine says he found a leather case on his balcony! It was the same one!
That phone worked for another year, it just had a dent in the bottom of the phone.
I also wanted to mention another little research article by AHRQ: Research in Action, Issue 19.
The intro does say that spending is unevenly distributed, but if you read the rest I think you'll find it backs up my previous post.
I'm not sure if it makes sense to continue within this thread since we are already several levels deep and at this point, it's probably just us reading it anyway. I'd like to continue offline, but not sure how without posting my email address to the world here. That being said, I'll respond to a few of your items.
I agree that we're probably the only ones reading at this point, but I'd be happy to continue this conversation privately. You can reach me at my username at gmail.
Sorry for the slow reply, I was waiting to see what the Republicans would propose at the summit. Unfortunately that was a pointless delay since they didn't offer anything substantive.
My apologies for the 95% remark. I dont' know that stats and was only trying to convey a clear majority. Yes, the average person is moderately healthy, but no, the distribution of medical expenses is not even remotely normal. That's precisely why medical insurance is so ridiculously complicated and expensive. Even if you exclude the uncontrollable factors, the costs are greatly varied.
Unfortunately getting all the proper stats for this debate will take far more time than either of us likely have, so I'll also have to overgeneralize and pull numbers out of my ass when discussing this issue. Feel free to call me out if I don't give the proper disclaimers or citations and I'll do the same when I see unfounded assertions. Apology more than accepted, I'm sure I'm guilty of the same in this thread.
That said, the strongest predictor of health care expenditures is age. Although individual expenditures definitely vary, I'd argue there's a pretty large average, moderately healthy population. Barring serious disabilities or diseases, most people should pretty closely follow the curve. To quote The Lifetime Distribution of Health Care Costs:
After the first year of life, health care costs are lowest for children, rise slowly throughout adult life, and increase exponentially after age 50 Bradford and Max (1996) determined that annual costs for the elderly are approximately four to five times those of people in their early teens. Personal health expenditure also rises sharply with age within the Medicare population. The oldest group (85+) consumes three times as much health care per person as those 65–74, and twice as much as those 75–84 (Fuchs 1998). Nursing home and short-stay hospital use also increases with age, especially for older adults (Liang et al. 1996).
Admittedly no individual perfectly fits the model, but when you have a large pool (say 100,000 or more people) it actually works quite well. There are, of course, outliers. Most of the outliers on the expensive side of the house are probably due to defect, disease, or injury. Insurance is, by its very nature, supposed to be the fortunate subsidizing the treatment of the unfortunate when it comes to disease and injury. As we've already discussed, pre-existing conditions are a bunch of BS and babies born with defects shouldn't be guaranteed uninsurable. Health care isn't a one-time use kind of thing, so rates shouldn't become financially impossible just because you had your first major expense before you hit 65.
Exclusive monopoly contracts are no different than government programs. Unless there is competition, there is no incentive to do a better job. My point was, it's not economical to have 5 fire service companies competing against each other. If your doctor sucks, you can get another doctor. If your fire department sucks, your house burns to the ground. You could make the same argument for Emergency Rooms, but I don't hear anyone saying that government should own the hospitals or emergency rooms.
Exclusive monopoly contracts with private enterprises mean that the private company has a fiduciary responsibility to yield the largest return for its investors as it ca
Regarding the need for actuaries, sure, there are certain high risk areas, and it would be logical for those people choosing to live there to pay more in taxes to accomodate the neccessary public services. But for the other 95% of us, the chances of our house burning down is about equal.
I can't comment on proportion or risk spread in house fires, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say your 95% figure sounds entirely fictional. I will say that medical costs and risks are pretty predictable for a similar proportion in the general population, though. If you control for income, inherited diseases, uncontrollable environmental conditions (contaminated drinking water, living near superfund sites, etc.), and normally high end-of-life expenses, you should have a pretty normal distribution of medical expenditures in society. People who are involved in catastrophic accidents will have higher expenditures than the more fortunate among us, but overall the average person is moderately healthy when they have access to routine care.
If it were economical to privatize fire & police services, I would support it. I just have yet to see a business model where several fire/police departments can compete against each other and offer the same level of EMERGENCY service.
Usually the business model is "Company signs an exclusive monopoly contract to provide fire services for _____ County. ____ re-hires existing firefighters at reduced pay, reduces training programs, and citizens eventually discover that the contract wasn't written the way they thought it was." Government programs aren't inherently less efficient than private industry, and they certainly are sometimes better bang for the buck than private for-profit industry.
I think you are really stretching here. You seriously think lifestyle, eating habits, and exercise significantly affects the probability that your house burns down? Housing location? Maybe, but not for the majority of us.
Stretching? What percent of house fires are caused by cooking accidents? Overloaded or poorly maintained electrical systems? Smokers who fall asleep with the cigarette in their hand? People who light candles and leave them unattended? What about old space heaters? The majority of house fires are preventable. We've launched a lot of public education programs over the years, but we say "even if you're responsible for the fire, it's good public policy for the government to go and put it out." Fact: the majority of home fires in the US are preventable.
Yes, the [municipal] government-run firecare program doesn't reimburse you for your lost goods, but a national health care program wouldn't reimburse you for your lost wages or time, either.
Regarding the factors not in our control, they are pretty much taken care of already. DNA testing is not (currently) being used to determine your insurance eligibility.
DNA testing isn't currently being used, but family history of illness and conditions is. So is such an exhaustive list of pre-existing conditions that it's essentially impossible to get insurance without declaring one. If you were ever diagnosed with a genetic disorder, or diagnosed with a disease later, you will forever have that held against you in the insurance system. Likewise for things you never were diagnosed with but "should have known".
If you are in a car accident, you will be treated in the emergency room. If you are the victim of a crime, you will also be treated.
Car accident, yes, but if the other party is un/underinsured and can not afford your care, and your insurance doesn't cover you, you will probably end up bankrupt.
Victims of crime, however, are given no special exemption from these enormous bills. I submit to you Heather Sherba, the LA Fitness shooting survivor who was desperately stru
What is practical about creating an international health care system? What would make the EU or any larger organization qualified to run such a system?
International health care systems will probably slowly evolve from national health care systems. I hate how people throw the buzzword around, but in this case it really is something that could be forced by globalization. As borders are broken down, particularly in the EU, it makes a lot of sense for formal peering agreements to be implemented between the systems. Who pays when a German citizen is on vacation in Italy and has a heart attack? What about a German citizen who's working for six months in Spain for a large German corporation? Likewise for Turkish migrant workers in Germany. National health care systems tend to shoulder those costs, and it would make a lot of sense for them to agree upon better standards for preventive care... just as they already have with many economic policies as part of membership to EU.
What ammendments to the US constitution need to be added?
Depends on how you interpret the elastic clause and that whole "for the general welfare" thing... Personally I feel that medicare and social security were a) a good idea and b) required a constitutional amendment. Along the same lines, I feel a proper national health care system (single payer or nationalized) would require a constitutional amendment to be constitutional under all but the loosest interpretations. Federal regulation of insurance can easily fall under the interstate commerce clause, though.
Outside of abortion (I'm conservative, but am also pro-choice), which rights do the "conservatives" want to take away?
When I wrote that statement I was thinking about the flag burning amendment that conservatives have been pushing for ever since 9/11. Of the potential amendments that are being publicly discussed, that one seems to have the largest support and it's primarily from conservatives. Just a few weeks ago a Republican Governor (McConnell) signed an executive order changing equal opportunity laws in Virginia to remove protection for homosexuals. It's now legal for VA state to fire someone for being homosexual. Wouldn't you consider someone's sexuality a fundamental right?
When it comes to rights, though, conservatives have been opposed to pretty much everything for the last 100 years. Conservatives opposed the end of slavery, women's suffrage, desegregation, truly free elections, and alcohol use. In the last few decades, conservatives have been behind the vast majority of restrictions of "moral" freedoms: sex, prostitution, pornography, marijuana (medical or otherwise), and drugs, just to name a few... and that's not even getting into all the stuff that happened under Bush re: habeas corpus, advanced interrogation techniques, "enemy combatant" status, etc.
I think you are just spouting your liberal ideals hoping that the complex problems of the world can be solved by simply having everyone be equal, with peach, love and harmony.
Not at all. I'm also a supporter of gun rights, tort reform, and plenty of conservative ideals. Primarily, I'm trying to be pragmatic: I'll advocate progressive policies when they make sense, particularly when they've already been tested and proven effective elsewhere. By every metric the average American is getting screwed over by a broken health insurance system and it's seriously hampering large and small businesses alike.
The primary argument against a legislative approach to overhauling the healthcare system is that "the government can't do anything right so they're going to screw this up too!" The problem with that argument is that it a) ignores government successes elsewhere and b) does not provide any actual solution to the
Both links on your site are referral links r=skytopia. No thanks.