Every book review on Slashdot has such a link; it's been like this for at least as long as Amazon has had an affiliate policy (though I seem to recall the links used to go to Barnes & Noble, though I could be mistaken).
Couldn't this be used the other way round? Couldn't potential pedophiles monitor the typing speed of the "12-year old girl" with whom they're chatting to determine whether it's really a 40-year old FBI agent?
Does his head have an occipital bun? Do his ribs flare out at the waist? Are his hips set back further than yours? Do his legs bow outward? No? Then he doesn't look like a neanderthal, he just looks like a guy with lots of testosterone. Doesn't sound like someone I'd want to tease all the time.
Africa? You mean that place where millions of people starve to death every year? Can't imagine there's anything in the environment there that might result in lower IQs.
Waah, someone else did something that was unconstitutional, now we should, too! My youngest kids (10 & 12) understand that two wrongs don't make a right, why don't you?
Each clause of the Preamble was specific clauses later in the document that specify how and when the Congress or other branches may do things in pursuit of those goals. "General welfare" is not mentioned with the exception of raising taxes to pay for the operations of the government. To say that stretching those two words to include a massive overhaul of the health care system of the nation is absurd would be putting it mildly.
Personally, I hate the idea of forcing anyone to do anything. For me, that's the essence of libertarianism: don't force others to do anything they don't want to do (or prevent them from doing anything that doesn't prevent anyone else from doing something, for that matter). But of your three choices, I think #3 is the lessor evil. I wouldn't have been happy if Congress had gone that route, but I could've lived with it. As it is, they have such a muddled version of #s 1&2 that I can't see how anyone will come out ahead in the long run.
Never mind that losing your job has meant a double whammy of losing your health insurance too.
This bill won't change that. We already have COBRA coverage, which allows you to extend your employer-sponsored plan, you just have to pay the full premium, including the part your former employer paid. Under this bill, if you lose your job, you can still continue your current insurance; but guess what? You have to pay the full premium now or get your policy canceled. So again, the same exact situation we already have.
I'll grant one minor difference: COBRA coverage expires after a term of 18 months with extensions for things like disability. Under this bill, as I understand it, your coverage won't ever expire, as long as you make your premium payments. But really, unless you're disabled, most people get a new job within 18 months, anyway. So again, no difference.
Yep, pretty much sums it up. This bill accomplishes none of the goals it was supposed to but still manages to set up a major part of the American economy to fail.
I'm seriously considering emigrating because of this thing. Not because I'm opposed to a government-mandated health care 100%, but because I'm opposed to the way this bill goes about it. That and the fact that it's going to bankrupt our country much faster than would otherwise be the case (10 years instead of 60 years).
There are ways to achieve health care for a large population; forcing everyone to buy private insurance and preventing private insurance companies from denying coverage that's too expensive is not the way to go about it. I'd much rather have a system where the government provides a basic level of service (in a Federal system like the US, this should be at the state level, not the national) with secondary insurance or private funds to cover really expensive treatments than the bastardized plan the Congress just rammed down our throats.
You haven't really thought about what it means, have you? The youngest (and healthiest) in the population WON'T BUY INSURANCE, they'll just pay the fine, which is cheaper. Then, the overall costs to the insurance companies to cover the people who have insurance will rise on a per capita basis, so they'll raise rates. Oh, and when those young, healthy people suddenly develop expensive cancer, they'll go buy insurance at some absurdly-low rate and cost the insurance company millions of dollars for treatments. Which means the company will have to raise rates on everybody else to make up for their losses. Which means more healthy people will drop their coverage and wait until they get really sick before buying in again. Rinse, repeat.
The only way you can make something like this work is if insurance companies can look at people without insurance and say "Hmm, you've gone this long without it, guess you don't need it now, either." That would be a much stronger incentive for healthy people to maintain coverage than the stupid fine they have now.
Science? Are you kidding me? We need someone well trained in diplomacy to speak on our behalf. Someone who's only trained in science won't have the requisite background in deal making, understanding different points of view, and convincing others more powerful than we not to wipe us out. Honestly, I wouldn't trust a pure scientist on any of that.
Some games are obviously violent (GTA, Call of Duty, Quake). But what about cartoon violence, like Pokemon or even old school Pacman? Maybe the measure addresses this problem, but I have a hard time trusting politicians to come up with a meaningful definition that would apply to things that might need it but not to those that don't.
Of course all of this ignores the issue of one group of people deciding what larger group of can enjoy as entertainment when said entertainment isn't hurting anyone. Any state willing to do that can't call itself "free" without twisting the definition of freedom beyond anything meaningful.
Yes, it would've been much better for this guy not to publish his research so we wouldn't know about this problem and leave it wide open. We should be thanking this man for his hard work, not lambasting him just because he happens to be Chinese.
If the Chinese government were interested in disrupting our power systems, wouldn't they be a little more secretive about their intentions than shouting out our flaws to all the world?
Why should they have to release information to the non-paying public at the same time they release it to their paying clients? That would be like Macafee making a anti-virus update available to everyone in the world at the same time they made it available to their subscribers. That's just asinine.
Slashdot Mirror
Holy crap, that's your name, TOO?
Every book review on Slashdot has such a link; it's been like this for at least as long as Amazon has had an affiliate policy (though I seem to recall the links used to go to Barnes & Noble, though I could be mistaken).
It's like saying that cars suck because they don't have cruise control!
"under the hood"
It's like saying that you should have a stick-shift car because automatic transmissions don't go as fast.
the "socialist" health car plan that just passed
Do you see now? Do you see what happens when you use too many car analogies? Do you?
Something tells me having a million bucks laying around would make it awfully easy to avoid people.
Couldn't this be used the other way round? Couldn't potential pedophiles monitor the typing speed of the "12-year old girl" with whom they're chatting to determine whether it's really a 40-year old FBI agent?
Does his head have an occipital bun? Do his ribs flare out at the waist? Are his hips set back further than yours? Do his legs bow outward? No? Then he doesn't look like a neanderthal, he just looks like a guy with lots of testosterone. Doesn't sound like someone I'd want to tease all the time.
Africa? You mean that place where millions of people starve to death every year? Can't imagine there's anything in the environment there that might result in lower IQs.
I'm inclined to think it's more about freedom. After all, there really isn't anything you can't sell with big-breasted women.
In India it's a weapon, in Texas it's a condiment. Yeah, that sounds about right. ;)
For $8500, I want a table with compartments to keep the hooker(s) in. And it better come with some hookers already installed.
Behold, these are my brains, which are given up for you. Whosoever shall eat of them shall not die but shall live forever.
Way to prove you're not a jerk, jerk.
You can't start a health insurance company that just hands out band-aids.
WTH? So I spent all afternoon filling out those LLC forms on LegalZoom for nothing?!?
Waah, someone else did something that was unconstitutional, now we should, too! My youngest kids (10 & 12) understand that two wrongs don't make a right, why don't you?
Each clause of the Preamble was specific clauses later in the document that specify how and when the Congress or other branches may do things in pursuit of those goals. "General welfare" is not mentioned with the exception of raising taxes to pay for the operations of the government. To say that stretching those two words to include a massive overhaul of the health care system of the nation is absurd would be putting it mildly.
Personally, I hate the idea of forcing anyone to do anything. For me, that's the essence of libertarianism: don't force others to do anything they don't want to do (or prevent them from doing anything that doesn't prevent anyone else from doing something, for that matter). But of your three choices, I think #3 is the lessor evil. I wouldn't have been happy if Congress had gone that route, but I could've lived with it. As it is, they have such a muddled version of #s 1&2 that I can't see how anyone will come out ahead in the long run.
Never mind that losing your job has meant a double whammy of losing your health insurance too.
This bill won't change that. We already have COBRA coverage, which allows you to extend your employer-sponsored plan, you just have to pay the full premium, including the part your former employer paid. Under this bill, if you lose your job, you can still continue your current insurance; but guess what? You have to pay the full premium now or get your policy canceled. So again, the same exact situation we already have.
I'll grant one minor difference: COBRA coverage expires after a term of 18 months with extensions for things like disability. Under this bill, as I understand it, your coverage won't ever expire, as long as you make your premium payments. But really, unless you're disabled, most people get a new job within 18 months, anyway. So again, no difference.
Yep, pretty much sums it up. This bill accomplishes none of the goals it was supposed to but still manages to set up a major part of the American economy to fail.
The Constitution says what the government may do. If it's not specifically in there, they're not supposed to do it.
But that really hasn't been the case for a long time now, has it?
I'm seriously considering emigrating because of this thing. Not because I'm opposed to a government-mandated health care 100%, but because I'm opposed to the way this bill goes about it. That and the fact that it's going to bankrupt our country much faster than would otherwise be the case (10 years instead of 60 years).
There are ways to achieve health care for a large population; forcing everyone to buy private insurance and preventing private insurance companies from denying coverage that's too expensive is not the way to go about it. I'd much rather have a system where the government provides a basic level of service (in a Federal system like the US, this should be at the state level, not the national) with secondary insurance or private funds to cover really expensive treatments than the bastardized plan the Congress just rammed down our throats.
You haven't really thought about what it means, have you? The youngest (and healthiest) in the population WON'T BUY INSURANCE, they'll just pay the fine, which is cheaper. Then, the overall costs to the insurance companies to cover the people who have insurance will rise on a per capita basis, so they'll raise rates. Oh, and when those young, healthy people suddenly develop expensive cancer, they'll go buy insurance at some absurdly-low rate and cost the insurance company millions of dollars for treatments. Which means the company will have to raise rates on everybody else to make up for their losses. Which means more healthy people will drop their coverage and wait until they get really sick before buying in again. Rinse, repeat.
The only way you can make something like this work is if insurance companies can look at people without insurance and say "Hmm, you've gone this long without it, guess you don't need it now, either." That would be a much stronger incentive for healthy people to maintain coverage than the stupid fine they have now.
Science? Are you kidding me? We need someone well trained in diplomacy to speak on our behalf. Someone who's only trained in science won't have the requisite background in deal making, understanding different points of view, and convincing others more powerful than we not to wipe us out. Honestly, I wouldn't trust a pure scientist on any of that.
Some games are obviously violent (GTA, Call of Duty, Quake). But what about cartoon violence, like Pokemon or even old
school Pacman? Maybe the measure addresses this
problem, but I have a hard time trusting politicians to come up with a meaningful definition that would apply to things that might need it but not to those that don't.
Of course all of this ignores the issue of one group of people deciding what larger group of can enjoy as entertainment when said entertainment isn't hurting anyone. Any state willing to do that can't call itself "free" without twisting the definition of freedom beyond anything meaningful.
Yes, it would've been much better for this guy not to publish his research so we wouldn't know about this problem and leave it wide open. We should be thanking this man for his hard work, not lambasting him just because he happens to be Chinese.
If the Chinese government were interested in disrupting our power systems, wouldn't they be a little more secretive about their intentions than shouting out our flaws to all the world?
Why should they have to release information to the non-paying public at the same time they release it to their paying clients? That would be like Macafee making a anti-virus update available to everyone in the world at the same time they made it available to their subscribers. That's just asinine.