In the U.S., if you're sick and you can get to a hospital, you will be cared for.
And that care will be based directly on the patients ability to pay. For instance, it may be in the best interests of the patient to reattach a dismembered finger or toe, but if the patient can't afford the surgery, or if their insurance won't cover it, the finger or toe ain't getting reattached, even though it's in their best interests.
It's easy to say people will get help when it's a life or death emergency because to turn people away for that would be ridiculous and inhumane. But when it's a quality of life issue, it seems that dollars and cents rule the day just as much as they do in any other area.
I saw this myself with my step-sister when she got bladder stones while outside of her coverage area, she had two options, an endoscopic surgery that would have had her home the next day, or a traditional one that would have left her bedridden for weeks (an impossibility; she had a 2 year old at home). The hospital would not perform the endoscopic surgery, period, and advised her to just go home and get it done there. They were kind enough to give her a scrip for pain-killers, though, so there's that, I guess...
Of course it isn't. But it seems to me that picking and choosing which tenets from a religion you're going to follow and which ones your going to ignore trivializes the religion entirely. If I ignore all the teachings but the above quoted verse, am I still a Christian? Is there a certain percentage of the bible I must follow and believe in order to call myself that, and who makes that determination?
Don't get me wrong, I have a general disdain for all religion, Christianity is just the easiest one to reference since most people are familiar with Christianity in the west.
So God basically said "Hey, ignore all those things I commanded you about earlier, I changed my mind?" I thought the word of God was immutable? Did God make a mistake? Was he misquoted?
And religious people wonder why Atheists don't take them seriously...
For the record, I believe everyone is entitled to their beliefs, but that comes with the caveat that everyone is entitled to mock them if they so choose. You can't have it both ways.
On another note, racism/sexism/etc will only exist as long as people get offended.
Very true. In my own group, which is pretty ethnically diverse (in the interests of disclosure, I admit that we all have received a higher education), we occasionally use the racist terms of yesteryear among each other, not to belittle and demean each other, but more in a mocking way towards those that actually held those beliefs in the past. So when a friend calls me the "jew bastard" of the group, I know that there is no real antipathy there, it's turned into a term of endearment...although I admit that outsiders may not understand that.
I mean, there's an incredibly obvious distinction to be made between me feeling that your post is sophomoric and inane, and me broadcasting the notion with a megaphone.
Ask the Westboro Baptist Church about that distinction, they've been megaphoning their inanities at military funerals for years, singing songs with choruses like "Thank God for Dead Soldiers"...
It's funny how so many people have a blind spot when it comes to Christian hatred and bigotry but zero in on any other type. As an Atheist that grew up deep in Southern Baptist country in Georgia, let me tell you, there's just as much nastiness coming out of them as there is anyone else, but as miserable as it was growing up in that environment, I'd rather they be allowed to spew their filth, so long as I get to spew my own anti-Christian message.
The First Amendment disagrees with you. Ask Fred Phelps and those disgusting pieces of shit at the Westboro Baptist Church about that.
Besides, when does speech go from being unpopular to being hate speech? Who decides? Better to allow it all and tell people to grow thicker skin than to start heading down that slippery slope...
I'm pretty sure it was a prank by someone that has nothing to do with the place. How much you want to bet the router login/password was "admin/admin"? People that don't change their router login and password are why we can't have nice things...
Yup. The Kids For Cash Scandal. You want to read about something fucking disgusting, read about that. If a judge can be corrupted like that, how could our legislature not be corrupt? They're getting millions of dollars a year from people like that...
So I assume you'd see the same parallel with drug dealers?
Yeah, honestly, I would. The only reason why they make the money they do is because drugs laws are retarded; they ruin the lives of simple users, do nothing to stop actual drug use or the cost of drug use on society, and foster organized crime. Even in places where the penalty for possession is death or life imprisonment, people get caught smuggling drugs constantly.
If they legalized drugs and regulated them, they could take the criminal element out of the equation, put the proceeds towards treatment as opposed to incarceration, and actually make people's lives better, but the DEA and CIA make far too much money off of drugs and the war on drugs for that to ever happen.
True, I don't think anyone else had a CD burner at that point; my step-father got it through his employer for work purposes (they were $300 retail), but I used it far more than he ever did. Then again, pretty much everyone else was on dial-up as well (it was the late 90's, after all), so the fact that it took them 10+ minutes to download a 3MB 128k song file, compared to my ~30 seconds, probably had something to do with it as well...
I was long out of the "business" when burners and hi-speed internet became ubiquitous; within a couple years I wasn't even making music CD's for myself anymore...
In the era when the internet was just taking off, I remember people selling CDs of software, movies, music and games. Many people could not download, or did not have a fast connection, so others stepped in, providing a service for a price.
I made a decent amount of money in high school selling mix discs to people back in the late 90's before the war on Napster. My customers were not just my peers, but their parents and even authority figures, such as my teachers. Nobody gave a fuck about the piracy aspect. They just wanted to buy a CD with the songs they wanted on it, and since there was no way to do so legally, they came to me...
Blank CD's weren't cheap in those days (nor was high-speed internet), but I made enough profit to not have to work my senior year...and it certainly beat flipping fucking burgers or cashiering at Food Lion.
Sadly, I haven't turned on my Wii in so long that I can't even remember the last time.
Ditto. I bought my Wii a week or so after launch and had a blast playing with it for about 6 months or so, then it just got boring. Looking back on it, I think it was just the novelty of the controls that kept me interested in it even for that short amount of time. Outside of a handful of Wii exclusives (Zelda, Mario Galaxy) there was really nothing to pique my interest and keep it piqued...
Such a shame...I grew up on the NES, SNES, and original Gameboy, but they've really slipped a lot since the N64 days. Maybe I just crave more mature content than Nintendo is willing to provide? How many M rated games did they even have in the Gamecube and Wii generations? A handful?
Mod parent up! I was in a special program for gifted kids in high school, and while a lot of the parents were concerned that we were too "cut off" from the general population (we didn't follow the regular school schedule; we spent the bulk of the day in the same classroom and teachers came to us, and our curriculum was obviously accelerated, among other differences) but honestly, all it really did was cut us off from the distractions.
When I moved to a new school after my junior year (yay army brat) they did not have a program similar to this, and because I had already met a lot of the graduation requirements (but not enough to actually graduate early, nor a work study program) I ended up taking 2 core curriculum classes and 5 electives my senior year and it was almost torture being held back to the pace of the lowest common denominators in the class. I spent more time quietly reading a book by myself than actually participating a lot of the time; my grades were always good, my assignments were always done on time, but I just did not need a week to cover a concept that I had already assimilated in 2 days. Consequently, 3/5 of the time I could have been learning ahead, I instead read pop fiction. It was either that or stare at the wall and/or doodle.
Socially, I was even more cut off being in the "general population", because instead of being in a class of 30 kids that shared my interests and were learning at the same level I was, I was in a class with about 5 other people I could relate to, 20 people that were basically just running out the clock until they could go home, and 5 criminals that really shouldn't have even been there if attendance wasn't compulsory. It was pretty miserable...
No, that's basically a description of the free google music system. It works pretty well if you have the patience to upload (it has a cap of 20000 songs and I've calculated that would take me something like 6 months to upload at my current measured real world upload rate)
I had similar concerns, but it's not that bad if you do it right. I had about 15,000 tracks to sync (I have diverse musical tastes, and yes, I have actually listened to all of it) and it took me a few nights at max upload and a week or so of minimum during the day while I was using the computer for other things.
Unless you're actively using your internet connection 24 hours a day, or have a lame-ass bandwidth cap, you might as well max out your upload when you're not actively using the internet connection. If you're on shit-tier DSL or dial-up, though, I concede that you will be sitting there for years...
Frankly, I would have tendered my resignation in that hospital bed. No employer that callous and demeaning is worth working for. Some things are more important than money. Self respect, for one.
Slashdot Mirror
In the U.S., if you're sick and you can get to a hospital, you will be cared for.
And that care will be based directly on the patients ability to pay. For instance, it may be in the best interests of the patient to reattach a dismembered finger or toe, but if the patient can't afford the surgery, or if their insurance won't cover it, the finger or toe ain't getting reattached, even though it's in their best interests.
It's easy to say people will get help when it's a life or death emergency because to turn people away for that would be ridiculous and inhumane. But when it's a quality of life issue, it seems that dollars and cents rule the day just as much as they do in any other area.
I saw this myself with my step-sister when she got bladder stones while outside of her coverage area, she had two options, an endoscopic surgery that would have had her home the next day, or a traditional one that would have left her bedridden for weeks (an impossibility; she had a 2 year old at home). The hospital would not perform the endoscopic surgery, period, and advised her to just go home and get it done there. They were kind enough to give her a scrip for pain-killers, though, so there's that, I guess...
Of course it isn't. But it seems to me that picking and choosing which tenets from a religion you're going to follow and which ones your going to ignore trivializes the religion entirely. If I ignore all the teachings but the above quoted verse, am I still a Christian? Is there a certain percentage of the bible I must follow and believe in order to call myself that, and who makes that determination?
Don't get me wrong, I have a general disdain for all religion, Christianity is just the easiest one to reference since most people are familiar with Christianity in the west.
No, eventually, the cartels become the government. The United States is effectively ruled by a slew of them; Big Media, Big Pharma, Big Oil...
Come on now, everyone knows the GOP and their base are afraid of computers. "Hackers on Steroids, AIEEEEE!!!!!"
So God basically said "Hey, ignore all those things I commanded you about earlier, I changed my mind?" I thought the word of God was immutable? Did God make a mistake? Was he misquoted?
And religious people wonder why Atheists don't take them seriously...
For the record, I believe everyone is entitled to their beliefs, but that comes with the caveat that everyone is entitled to mock them if they so choose. You can't have it both ways.
On another note, racism/sexism/etc will only exist as long as people get offended.
Very true. In my own group, which is pretty ethnically diverse (in the interests of disclosure, I admit that we all have received a higher education), we occasionally use the racist terms of yesteryear among each other, not to belittle and demean each other, but more in a mocking way towards those that actually held those beliefs in the past. So when a friend calls me the "jew bastard" of the group, I know that there is no real antipathy there, it's turned into a term of endearment...although I admit that outsiders may not understand that.
I mean, there's an incredibly obvious distinction to be made between me feeling that your post is sophomoric and inane, and me broadcasting the notion with a megaphone.
Ask the Westboro Baptist Church about that distinction, they've been megaphoning their inanities at military funerals for years, singing songs with choruses like "Thank God for Dead Soldiers"...
It's funny how so many people have a blind spot when it comes to Christian hatred and bigotry but zero in on any other type. As an Atheist that grew up deep in Southern Baptist country in Georgia, let me tell you, there's just as much nastiness coming out of them as there is anyone else, but as miserable as it was growing up in that environment, I'd rather they be allowed to spew their filth, so long as I get to spew my own anti-Christian message.
The First Amendment disagrees with you. Ask Fred Phelps and those disgusting pieces of shit at the Westboro Baptist Church about that.
Besides, when does speech go from being unpopular to being hate speech? Who decides? Better to allow it all and tell people to grow thicker skin than to start heading down that slippery slope...
And the white bit... well, with one or two exceptions, that's just how it's working out.
Guns, Germs and Steel. That's pretty much why white Eurasian culture rules the modern world, because they were in the right place at the right time...
I know, right? Every time I see a stubborn and rebellious child in public, I inform the parent that it is their religious duty as Christians to bring him to the elders so that he or she may be stoned to death, but I always get such odd looks...
How can you call yourself a Christian if you ignore such important verses?
I'm pretty sure it was a prank by someone that has nothing to do with the place. How much you want to bet the router login/password was "admin/admin"? People that don't change their router login and password are why we can't have nice things...
Of all the times to be out of mod points...
This is more akin to Rosa Parks taking a shit in the back of the bus.
Best analogy I've heard today...
Yup. The Kids For Cash Scandal. You want to read about something fucking disgusting, read about that. If a judge can be corrupted like that, how could our legislature not be corrupt? They're getting millions of dollars a year from people like that...
So I assume you'd see the same parallel with drug dealers?
Yeah, honestly, I would. The only reason why they make the money they do is because drugs laws are retarded; they ruin the lives of simple users, do nothing to stop actual drug use or the cost of drug use on society, and foster organized crime. Even in places where the penalty for possession is death or life imprisonment, people get caught smuggling drugs constantly.
If they legalized drugs and regulated them, they could take the criminal element out of the equation, put the proceeds towards treatment as opposed to incarceration, and actually make people's lives better, but the DEA and CIA make far too much money off of drugs and the war on drugs for that to ever happen.
True, I don't think anyone else had a CD burner at that point; my step-father got it through his employer for work purposes (they were $300 retail), but I used it far more than he ever did. Then again, pretty much everyone else was on dial-up as well (it was the late 90's, after all), so the fact that it took them 10+ minutes to download a 3MB 128k song file, compared to my ~30 seconds, probably had something to do with it as well...
I was long out of the "business" when burners and hi-speed internet became ubiquitous; within a couple years I wasn't even making music CD's for myself anymore...
In the era when the internet was just taking off, I remember people selling CDs of software, movies, music and games. Many people could not download, or did not have a fast connection, so others stepped in, providing a service for a price.
I made a decent amount of money in high school selling mix discs to people back in the late 90's before the war on Napster. My customers were not just my peers, but their parents and even authority figures, such as my teachers. Nobody gave a fuck about the piracy aspect. They just wanted to buy a CD with the songs they wanted on it, and since there was no way to do so legally, they came to me...
Blank CD's weren't cheap in those days (nor was high-speed internet), but I made enough profit to not have to work my senior year...and it certainly beat flipping fucking burgers or cashiering at Food Lion.
As someone living in Madison, WI, sometimes I feel the same way...I'm sure they just file my letters under the "Pinko Soshulist" heading upon receipt.
Dude, whoever you are, please stop. I'd rather read a stupid frist psot comment than this crap on every fucking article.
Oh, you actually thought you were going to use them again one day? That's funny. Pretty much everyone I know only kept theirs for office dressing.
Sadly, I haven't turned on my Wii in so long that I can't even remember the last time.
Ditto. I bought my Wii a week or so after launch and had a blast playing with it for about 6 months or so, then it just got boring. Looking back on it, I think it was just the novelty of the controls that kept me interested in it even for that short amount of time. Outside of a handful of Wii exclusives (Zelda, Mario Galaxy) there was really nothing to pique my interest and keep it piqued...
Such a shame...I grew up on the NES, SNES, and original Gameboy, but they've really slipped a lot since the N64 days. Maybe I just crave more mature content than Nintendo is willing to provide? How many M rated games did they even have in the Gamecube and Wii generations? A handful?
Mod parent up! I was in a special program for gifted kids in high school, and while a lot of the parents were concerned that we were too "cut off" from the general population (we didn't follow the regular school schedule; we spent the bulk of the day in the same classroom and teachers came to us, and our curriculum was obviously accelerated, among other differences) but honestly, all it really did was cut us off from the distractions.
When I moved to a new school after my junior year (yay army brat) they did not have a program similar to this, and because I had already met a lot of the graduation requirements (but not enough to actually graduate early, nor a work study program) I ended up taking 2 core curriculum classes and 5 electives my senior year and it was almost torture being held back to the pace of the lowest common denominators in the class. I spent more time quietly reading a book by myself than actually participating a lot of the time; my grades were always good, my assignments were always done on time, but I just did not need a week to cover a concept that I had already assimilated in 2 days. Consequently, 3/5 of the time I could have been learning ahead, I instead read pop fiction. It was either that or stare at the wall and/or doodle.
Socially, I was even more cut off being in the "general population", because instead of being in a class of 30 kids that shared my interests and were learning at the same level I was, I was in a class with about 5 other people I could relate to, 20 people that were basically just running out the clock until they could go home, and 5 criminals that really shouldn't have even been there if attendance wasn't compulsory. It was pretty miserable...
No, that's basically a description of the free google music system. It works pretty well if you have the patience to upload (it has a cap of 20000 songs and I've calculated that would take me something like 6 months to upload at my current measured real world upload rate)
I had similar concerns, but it's not that bad if you do it right. I had about 15,000 tracks to sync (I have diverse musical tastes, and yes, I have actually listened to all of it) and it took me a few nights at max upload and a week or so of minimum during the day while I was using the computer for other things.
Unless you're actively using your internet connection 24 hours a day, or have a lame-ass bandwidth cap, you might as well max out your upload when you're not actively using the internet connection. If you're on shit-tier DSL or dial-up, though, I concede that you will be sitting there for years...
No surprise I left them later that year. >.>
Frankly, I would have tendered my resignation in that hospital bed. No employer that callous and demeaning is worth working for. Some things are more important than money. Self respect, for one.
If only we could mod him up to 11...