There is no free lunch, however, often by ordering in bulk you can get a significant discount. Which is pretty much the secret to government provided health care in many countries.
You see, if the government is buying health care for everyone in the country, they're buying a lot of health care. The more they're buying the more competitive the bids will be to provide that health care. There's a couple reasons for that, one is that landing those big government contracts bring in a lot of money and a lot of clients, and the other is that if you're billing one group for health care, you don't need to have a special billing staff to check over every one of 235 different health forms to make sure that your procedures can't be denied because of cosmetic errors on the paperwork. I've heard from several different sources that about 30% of American health care expenditures go to covering the cost of billing to insurance companies.
According to the estimate based on the latest draft the total cost to American tax payers for universal health care is going to be about $30 billion dollars. Contrast that with the $700 billion dollars that Bush distributed to Wall Street and couldn't be bothered to track where the money went or what people did with it. Contrast it with the money spent on a pointless war in Iraq.
You've made an obvious and easily correctable mistake. You've confused the "current system" with the "proposed system". You see right now your health care is dependent on how valuable you are (or were) to the private sector (with exceptions for the Military, and the retired).
If you aren't valuable enough to the company you work for, you get no health care.
Of course, your statement that infants and the elderly would not get health is pure fantasy. In the real world, most people recognize that retired people are rabid voters. No politician wants to piss off the people who vote at the highest rate in the country. After retired people, the next most active group is parents.
So why are people saying they won't get coverage if it makes no sense that they wouldn't? Because the people saying it want to scare the fucking pants off of people. As far as I can see there's two or three reasons for this:
1) They have profits to protect. The insurance industry is all about profiting by denying people health care, it's their own self-avowed "growth strategy". 2) They are politically opposed to the democrats, Fox News and the Republicans don't give a damn about 50 million Americans who primarily vote for the Democrats and thus defeating health care reform is win-win for them. It's more likely to sway unaffiliated voters towards their party and kill the people who don't vote for them anyway. 3) They are ideologically opposed to government. They believe that government is by definition incompetent and that only the private sector can do anything good ever.
There's some overlap between 2 and 3, but frankly when you hear people spouting crazy stuff you need to stop and check whether they're lying to you. Because there's a long, long history of people lying for money, power, and influence.
I'm not so sure about that. Once the ground has been trod by Google, the Authors Guild should be looking at anyone else who wants to do this as "extra cash", that should make it easier to get a follow up deal with them. It'd be expensive, but they should be willing to skip the lawsuit part.
Essentially, once it's been done once and deemed "legal" then there's nothing preventing them from cutting similar deals with anyone else who wants to do it to. After all why settle for one giant pile of cash when you can have seven?
Sorry bub, that's wrong. By the time Netscape 6 came out, Netscape was already dead. Netscape died after the release of Netscape 4. At the funeral the corpse was sold to AOL, who continued releasing "Netscapes" as a threat should Microsoft try to make a move against them with MSN.
Netscape 6 was AOL's browser, Netscape as a company was already long dead.
It's not as simple as the "better product won" because it was only the anti-competitive maneuvers of Microsoft that allowed them to eventually win. It's like saying the "better swordsman won" after you've poisoned one of the duelists. It wasn't a fair fight and nobody will ever know for sure which product would have won if Microsoft hadn't cheated.
You're a little dense there, bucko. While Microsoft isn't actually forcing people to only produce games for Windows, they did have a big hand in establishing that condition in the first place. They illegally manipulated the markets to eliminate their competition and now reap the rewards of being the biggest player in the marketplace.
So yes, it is Microsoft's fault, if they hadn't pressured computer manufacturers into accepting anti-competitive distribution agreements, we likely wouldn't have a huge Operating System monoculture that self-sustains itself. Most people don't switch off of Windows because "everyone else" is using Windows. Most companies don't develop games for platforms other than Windows because all the gamers have Windows on their computer because that's where the games are.
I think this is a case of the "Tiger protection rock". Do you see any tigers around? Then it must work. Without Bill Gates and Microsoft the world would be different, but I strongly doubt their disappearance would have curtailed the explosion of computing or the rise of the personal computer. IBM was pushing the personal computer, Microsoft is merely the lamprey eel that latched itself onto that particular force. Without Windows we'd probably be running OS/2 or one of the competitors that Microsoft locked out of the OS marketplace with their anti-competitive maneuvers.
Things would almost exactly as they are now, except for the distinct possibility that things would be much, much better. If no company had attained a monopoly on operating systems, we might have much better operating systems. Competition drives innovation, and Microsoft has always done it's best to drive competition far away. Logic therefore dictates that Microsoft is most likely to have slowed down the spread of computing, not sped it up.
Frankly, as far as I can tell, Windows, Office and MSN have done their best to derail modern computing and make it expensive and difficult for everyone thanks to criminals like Bill Gates. Fortunately, no single company can stand in the way of progress. The state of computers today exists in spite of Microsoft, not because of it.
Actually, here's a little known fact: Speedometers aren't very accurate. They can't be because they interpret the speed of the car based on how fast the wheels are turning, but they have no automated way of knowing the dimensions of the tire. New tires are thicker than old tires, and thus a car with new tires will actually be traveling faster than a car with old tires. One rotation of a thicker tire pushes the car further than one rotation of a thinner tire and thus while you're brand new speedometer may say 100 kph, you may actually be traveling at 106 kph.
Of course, this is goes to show that the person who set up the automated speeding ticket system is too ignorant to be allowed to continue doing that job. You need to build in margins of error into the systems and understand the logistics of the real world.
There was an ample demonstration of this principle outside Toronto, Canada. A pair of guys who got tickets for speeding for doing something like 106 kph on a 100 kph highway teamed up and drove at exactly 100 kph beside one another along the highway. The effect of both drivers actually driving at the speed limit was to create a giant traffic jam behind them that took hours to unsnarl itself. And while they were ticketed again for public mischief, I think they proved the point that the traffic system can't handle a large volume of people strictly obeying the laws.
The only problems were: A) They hired an actor to pretend to be a set builder. B) He was griping that he "only" worked 8 months a year. C) He was griping that he "only" earned $88,000 USD a year. D) He accused everyone watching the movie of being thieves.
We talked to a local movie theater owner and politely explained that the anti-piracy advertisement was insulting his customers and making them feel unwelcome in his theater. We also mentioned that the message that his customer's hard earned money (most of whom make less in a year than the fake set builder makes in 8 months) should go to pay a relatively well off guy living in California to work less and earn more than them was not going to be received the way it was intended. Lastly we pointed out that the people in the theater have already *paid* for their ticket, if they were going to steal the movie they'd be at home in front of their computers and never see the PSA. Since that chat, I haven't seen that PSA or any other anti-piracy PSAs in theaters around here.
Come on now, do you really expect us to think that you're this stupid? Of course Internet Explorer into Windows to kill a potential competitor. We've seen the notes that say "We're doing this to kill Netscape". Microsoft was worried that Netscape would enable people to use an operating system that wasn't Windows. It was a threat to the only profitable part of their company (this was before they killed off WordPerfect to corner the office market too). What is amazing is that you are either too ignorant to know recent history or are merely pretending you don't know.
Go away Microsoft apologist, you're getting stupid all over my Slashdot.
You need to think more like capitalism and less like communism. There's going to be a lot of people placing different bets. If some of them are wrong, others are going to be taking up the slack.
The real danger would be in a government mandated genetic change where everyone is required to have the same genetic code fragment.
You see evolution is actually defined as "the change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next". The methods of change include random mutation, and natural selection but are not limited to it by any means. Because you are not using the proper definition of evolution, once we as (supposedly) intelligent beings begin modifying our own genetic code, evolution does not, in fact, stop. Rather human evolution changes from a random process to a directed process.
It is true that we could stop evolution, if we chose to do so. However, your assumption that the inevitable result is an end to change in the human genome suffers from some very large flaws. People actually have differing preferences, I'm sure there are many, many people who do not desire their children to be blue-eyed and blond Germans. If you were correct, we could reasonably expect every child to be called "Hans" or "Gretta" and frankly, even massively popular names never reach a level of ubiquity where everyone has the same name.
Furthermore, anyone with even the remotest trace of training in search algorithms can tell you that randomly selecting your results is a terrible search algorithm. It's slow, it's inefficient, and it's unbounded. Sure, eventually the correct result should be returned, but the heat death of the universe might occur first. That might be why it took about 3.7 billion years to produce us and we might represent a "lucky" search.
As far as rights go, it is an interesting question. However, you shouldn't confuse genetic tailoring with genetic cloning. At the current level parents are only able to choose between a selection of viable embryos. They are able to choose from a variety of outcomes they could have naturally produced. Even if we could rewrite the genetic code of an embryo it seems unlikely that we would change everything to the degree where we'd produce the human monoculture you dread so much.
Frankly, giving the current prevalence of capitalism, it seems unlikely that most people would be able to afford the wholesale genetic rewriting of their children for the sake of vanity. So given that our unequal distribution of wealth is a problem unlikely to disappear at any point in the foreseeable future and that companies will almost certainly charge for the service of changing your offspring's DNA, you will, most likely, find that distribution of wealth enough to create a heterogeneous genetic population before we consider religious differences, cultural differences, personal preferences, aesthetics, trends, and fashion. And let's not forget that are significant populations who would likely choose not to engage in genetic engineering.
The fact that the clinic in question offered such frivolities as eye and hair colour screening shows people are interested in how their children will look. It has nothing to do with any of your other points, at least not without some type of information on what the parents who were allowed to screen their embryos chose. If you have some evidence to show that they all chose Nordic features, please do provide it.
In closing, you keep using that word "heuristics", I do not think it means what you think it means. A "vapid heuristic" would, in all honestly, best describe random mutation, not human genetic engineering.
I'm not sure that Congress wants any such thing. Remember Congress is a reflection of the people who voted for them. What Congress wants is to look good to their constituents so they'll get re-elected.
The legalization of marijuana is controversial enough that it might actually risk "safe seats". Therefore most congress critters won't even consider it, because it might upset people enough to mess up the gerrymandering predictions. Since about 95% of congress is essentially guaranteed re-election as long as they raise their funds, please their party voters enough to keep the nomination, and don't screw up in major, public way, there is never any incentive to rock the boat.
Having set up and administered a Dynamics CRM server, I think that's the last thing they want to do. The software might be cheap, the time to have someone unfamiliar with it set it up will likely be very, very costly.
Mostly Americans don't buy SUV because they need them, they buy them because they're ignorant and insecure.
No, seriously, a study (conducted by Ford) of SUV owners found them to be less informed than the average American, and the primary reasons expressed for buying the SUV involved feelings of safety and power due to sitting higher up than other drivers. The study was conducted to determine the best marketing approach to take to sell more SUVs.
Ironically, the majority of SUVs came with lower powered engines than trucks and the likely hood of being killed in an accident while in an SUV was higher than either a regular truck or a car. Of course, the owners in the study refused to believe that because they "felt safer" in the SUV.
Photoshop is simultaneously easier-to-use than GIMP and more powerful than GIMP. (GIMP's UI has fans, of course, and more power to you if you like it. But I think it's safe to say that the majority of people prefer Photoshop's UI)
I think it's safe to say that most people who find Photoshop easier to use than GIMP do so because they've previously used Photoshop and are therefore used to it's interface.
That's a lot like polling baseball players on whether the rules of baseball or cricket are easier.
However, I do have a hard time understanding why many Linux Lovers have such a hatred of Windows, and why they continually claim that Linux is better and can do EVERYTHING that Windows can do and more.
Personally, the reason I dislike Windows and much of Microsoft software is simple:
I'm forced to use it and administer it even when there are alternatives that are simply better. Specifically, I resent being forced to waste my time fighting to make Microsoft's software "good enough", when I could be using my time productively instead.
I'm sure there are many people who are in the same situation. Linux may not be able to do absolutely everything that Windows can do, but I have a lot less trouble getting Linux to do what I want when I want it.
The annoying thing about the Camry is that the roof is too low and/or the seats are too high on the more recent models. I have to put the seat back further than normal or my head rubs on the ceiling (I'm a little over 6 ft) as either driver or passenger. I have no such problem with my Corolla, though.
The problem for the OP, though might be girth rather than height.
Those are supposed to be absolute dollars. It's still pretty crazy to be paying double the average for inferior quality care.
Across the different charts that I can find using Google the values vary quite a bit year-to-year but it usually seems to be in the range of 20%-50% more than the next highest spender for the years 2002-2005.
Actually, it's interested, the current projections indicate that if he stayed with the Republicans, they'd defeat him in the primary and field a candidate who would be less successful in the general election. By switching parties he's increased his chances of winning both the primary and the general election.
In the end it kind of sounds like he's doing what's both his own best interest and that of his state. Seems like the Republicans shouldn't be bum-rushing the moderates out of their party.
That's pretty much it. The Republicans have been reduced to the anti-Democrat party. As long as Obama remains reasonable and intelligent, the Republicans are left with crazy and stupid.
I'd like them to take a little time, and find the party that used to be smart and conservative rather than the party that panders to the bottom half of the electorate.
While I agree with you in principle, I think your numbers might be a bit off. The ones I find indicate the U.S. is paying between 20% and 50% more than the next highest country (per capita). U.S. citizens pay about twice as much for health care as the average of all the other industrialized countries. However, it places second to last in terms of effectiveness among the industrialized nations, only beating New Zealand. World-wide the U.S. ranks 37th world-wide according to the WHO, and the only North American or European country it seems to beat in terms of health care results is Mexico.
So yeah, the U.S. system is a raw deal for U.S. citizens.
Slashdot Mirror
There is no free lunch, however, often by ordering in bulk you can get a significant discount. Which is pretty much the secret to government provided health care in many countries.
You see, if the government is buying health care for everyone in the country, they're buying a lot of health care. The more they're buying the more competitive the bids will be to provide that health care. There's a couple reasons for that, one is that landing those big government contracts bring in a lot of money and a lot of clients, and the other is that if you're billing one group for health care, you don't need to have a special billing staff to check over every one of 235 different health forms to make sure that your procedures can't be denied because of cosmetic errors on the paperwork. I've heard from several different sources that about 30% of American health care expenditures go to covering the cost of billing to insurance companies.
According to the estimate based on the latest draft the total cost to American tax payers for universal health care is going to be about $30 billion dollars. Contrast that with the $700 billion dollars that Bush distributed to Wall Street and couldn't be bothered to track where the money went or what people did with it. Contrast it with the money spent on a pointless war in Iraq.
You've made an obvious and easily correctable mistake. You've confused the "current system" with the "proposed system". You see right now your health care is dependent on how valuable you are (or were) to the private sector (with exceptions for the Military, and the retired).
If you aren't valuable enough to the company you work for, you get no health care.
Of course, your statement that infants and the elderly would not get health is pure fantasy. In the real world, most people recognize that retired people are rabid voters. No politician wants to piss off the people who vote at the highest rate in the country. After retired people, the next most active group is parents.
So why are people saying they won't get coverage if it makes no sense that they wouldn't? Because the people saying it want to scare the fucking pants off of people. As far as I can see there's two or three reasons for this:
1) They have profits to protect. The insurance industry is all about profiting by denying people health care, it's their own self-avowed "growth strategy".
2) They are politically opposed to the democrats, Fox News and the Republicans don't give a damn about 50 million Americans who primarily vote for the Democrats and thus defeating health care reform is win-win for them. It's more likely to sway unaffiliated voters towards their party and kill the people who don't vote for them anyway.
3) They are ideologically opposed to government. They believe that government is by definition incompetent and that only the private sector can do anything good ever.
There's some overlap between 2 and 3, but frankly when you hear people spouting crazy stuff you need to stop and check whether they're lying to you. Because there's a long, long history of people lying for money, power, and influence.
I'm not so sure about that. Once the ground has been trod by Google, the Authors Guild should be looking at anyone else who wants to do this as "extra cash", that should make it easier to get a follow up deal with them. It'd be expensive, but they should be willing to skip the lawsuit part.
Essentially, once it's been done once and deemed "legal" then there's nothing preventing them from cutting similar deals with anyone else who wants to do it to. After all why settle for one giant pile of cash when you can have seven?
Sorry bub, that's wrong. By the time Netscape 6 came out, Netscape was already dead. Netscape died after the release of Netscape 4. At the funeral the corpse was sold to AOL, who continued releasing "Netscapes" as a threat should Microsoft try to make a move against them with MSN.
Netscape 6 was AOL's browser, Netscape as a company was already long dead.
It's not as simple as the "better product won" because it was only the anti-competitive maneuvers of Microsoft that allowed them to eventually win. It's like saying the "better swordsman won" after you've poisoned one of the duelists. It wasn't a fair fight and nobody will ever know for sure which product would have won if Microsoft hadn't cheated.
You're a little dense there, bucko. While Microsoft isn't actually forcing people to only produce games for Windows, they did have a big hand in establishing that condition in the first place. They illegally manipulated the markets to eliminate their competition and now reap the rewards of being the biggest player in the marketplace.
So yes, it is Microsoft's fault, if they hadn't pressured computer manufacturers into accepting anti-competitive distribution agreements, we likely wouldn't have a huge Operating System monoculture that self-sustains itself. Most people don't switch off of Windows because "everyone else" is using Windows. Most companies don't develop games for platforms other than Windows because all the gamers have Windows on their computer because that's where the games are.
I think this is a case of the "Tiger protection rock". Do you see any tigers around? Then it must work. Without Bill Gates and Microsoft the world would be different, but I strongly doubt their disappearance would have curtailed the explosion of computing or the rise of the personal computer. IBM was pushing the personal computer, Microsoft is merely the lamprey eel that latched itself onto that particular force. Without Windows we'd probably be running OS/2 or one of the competitors that Microsoft locked out of the OS marketplace with their anti-competitive maneuvers.
Things would almost exactly as they are now, except for the distinct possibility that things would be much, much better. If no company had attained a monopoly on operating systems, we might have much better operating systems. Competition drives innovation, and Microsoft has always done it's best to drive competition far away. Logic therefore dictates that Microsoft is most likely to have slowed down the spread of computing, not sped it up.
Frankly, as far as I can tell, Windows, Office and MSN have done their best to derail modern computing and make it expensive and difficult for everyone thanks to criminals like Bill Gates. Fortunately, no single company can stand in the way of progress. The state of computers today exists in spite of Microsoft, not because of it.
Actually, here's a little known fact: Speedometers aren't very accurate. They can't be because they interpret the speed of the car based on how fast the wheels are turning, but they have no automated way of knowing the dimensions of the tire. New tires are thicker than old tires, and thus a car with new tires will actually be traveling faster than a car with old tires. One rotation of a thicker tire pushes the car further than one rotation of a thinner tire and thus while you're brand new speedometer may say 100 kph, you may actually be traveling at 106 kph.
Of course, this is goes to show that the person who set up the automated speeding ticket system is too ignorant to be allowed to continue doing that job. You need to build in margins of error into the systems and understand the logistics of the real world.
There was an ample demonstration of this principle outside Toronto, Canada. A pair of guys who got tickets for speeding for doing something like 106 kph on a 100 kph highway teamed up and drove at exactly 100 kph beside one another along the highway. The effect of both drivers actually driving at the speed limit was to create a giant traffic jam behind them that took hours to unsnarl itself. And while they were ticketed again for public mischief, I think they proved the point that the traffic system can't handle a large volume of people strictly obeying the laws.
Well, they actually did that PSA.
The only problems were:
A) They hired an actor to pretend to be a set builder.
B) He was griping that he "only" worked 8 months a year.
C) He was griping that he "only" earned $88,000 USD a year.
D) He accused everyone watching the movie of being thieves.
We talked to a local movie theater owner and politely explained that the anti-piracy advertisement was insulting his customers and making them feel unwelcome in his theater. We also mentioned that the message that his customer's hard earned money (most of whom make less in a year than the fake set builder makes in 8 months) should go to pay a relatively well off guy living in California to work less and earn more than them was not going to be received the way it was intended. Lastly we pointed out that the people in the theater have already *paid* for their ticket, if they were going to steal the movie they'd be at home in front of their computers and never see the PSA. Since that chat, I haven't seen that PSA or any other anti-piracy PSAs in theaters around here.
Come on now, do you really expect us to think that you're this stupid? Of course Internet Explorer into Windows to kill a potential competitor. We've seen the notes that say "We're doing this to kill Netscape". Microsoft was worried that Netscape would enable people to use an operating system that wasn't Windows. It was a threat to the only profitable part of their company (this was before they killed off WordPerfect to corner the office market too). What is amazing is that you are either too ignorant to know recent history or are merely pretending you don't know.
Go away Microsoft apologist, you're getting stupid all over my Slashdot.
You need to think more like capitalism and less like communism. There's going to be a lot of people placing different bets. If some of them are wrong, others are going to be taking up the slack.
The real danger would be in a government mandated genetic change where everyone is required to have the same genetic code fragment.
Your rant really makes no sense at all.
You see evolution is actually defined as "the change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next". The methods of change include random mutation, and natural selection but are not limited to it by any means. Because you are not using the proper definition of evolution, once we as (supposedly) intelligent beings begin modifying our own genetic code, evolution does not, in fact, stop. Rather human evolution changes from a random process to a directed process.
It is true that we could stop evolution, if we chose to do so. However, your assumption that the inevitable result is an end to change in the human genome suffers from some very large flaws. People actually have differing preferences, I'm sure there are many, many people who do not desire their children to be blue-eyed and blond Germans. If you were correct, we could reasonably expect every child to be called "Hans" or "Gretta" and frankly, even massively popular names never reach a level of ubiquity where everyone has the same name.
Furthermore, anyone with even the remotest trace of training in search algorithms can tell you that randomly selecting your results is a terrible search algorithm. It's slow, it's inefficient, and it's unbounded. Sure, eventually the correct result should be returned, but the heat death of the universe might occur first. That might be why it took about 3.7 billion years to produce us and we might represent a "lucky" search.
As far as rights go, it is an interesting question. However, you shouldn't confuse genetic tailoring with genetic cloning. At the current level parents are only able to choose between a selection of viable embryos. They are able to choose from a variety of outcomes they could have naturally produced. Even if we could rewrite the genetic code of an embryo it seems unlikely that we would change everything to the degree where we'd produce the human monoculture you dread so much.
Frankly, giving the current prevalence of capitalism, it seems unlikely that most people would be able to afford the wholesale genetic rewriting of their children for the sake of vanity. So given that our unequal distribution of wealth is a problem unlikely to disappear at any point in the foreseeable future and that companies will almost certainly charge for the service of changing your offspring's DNA, you will, most likely, find that distribution of wealth enough to create a heterogeneous genetic population before we consider religious differences, cultural differences, personal preferences, aesthetics, trends, and fashion. And let's not forget that are significant populations who would likely choose not to engage in genetic engineering.
The fact that the clinic in question offered such frivolities as eye and hair colour screening shows people are interested in how their children will look. It has nothing to do with any of your other points, at least not without some type of information on what the parents who were allowed to screen their embryos chose. If you have some evidence to show that they all chose Nordic features, please do provide it.
In closing, you keep using that word "heuristics", I do not think it means what you think it means. A "vapid heuristic" would, in all honestly, best describe random mutation, not human genetic engineering.
Wait, what? People who use Microsoft software aren't allowed to hate it now? Since when? Did they change the EULA again?
I'm not sure that Congress wants any such thing. Remember Congress is a reflection of the people who voted for them. What Congress wants is to look good to their constituents so they'll get re-elected.
The legalization of marijuana is controversial enough that it might actually risk "safe seats". Therefore most congress critters won't even consider it, because it might upset people enough to mess up the gerrymandering predictions. Since about 95% of congress is essentially guaranteed re-election as long as they raise their funds, please their party voters enough to keep the nomination, and don't screw up in major, public way, there is never any incentive to rock the boat.
Having set up and administered a Dynamics CRM server, I think that's the last thing they want to do. The software might be cheap, the time to have someone unfamiliar with it set it up will likely be very, very costly.
Mostly Americans don't buy SUV because they need them, they buy them because they're ignorant and insecure.
No, seriously, a study (conducted by Ford) of SUV owners found them to be less informed than the average American, and the primary reasons expressed for buying the SUV involved feelings of safety and power due to sitting higher up than other drivers. The study was conducted to determine the best marketing approach to take to sell more SUVs.
Ironically, the majority of SUVs came with lower powered engines than trucks and the likely hood of being killed in an accident while in an SUV was higher than either a regular truck or a car. Of course, the owners in the study refused to believe that because they "felt safer" in the SUV.
Photoshop is simultaneously easier-to-use than GIMP and more powerful than GIMP. (GIMP's UI has fans, of course, and more power to you if you like it. But I think it's safe to say that the majority of people prefer Photoshop's UI)
I think it's safe to say that most people who find Photoshop easier to use than GIMP do so because they've previously used Photoshop and are therefore used to it's interface.
That's a lot like polling baseball players on whether the rules of baseball or cricket are easier.
However, I do have a hard time understanding why many Linux Lovers have such a hatred of Windows, and why they continually claim that Linux is better and can do EVERYTHING that Windows can do and more.
Personally, the reason I dislike Windows and much of Microsoft software is simple:
I'm forced to use it and administer it even when there are alternatives that are simply better. Specifically, I resent being forced to waste my time fighting to make Microsoft's software "good enough", when I could be using my time productively instead.
I'm sure there are many people who are in the same situation. Linux may not be able to do absolutely everything that Windows can do, but I have a lot less trouble getting Linux to do what I want when I want it.
Frankly, I'd call not running on Linux a short coming of an obscure quilting application.
The gripe is all about perspective.
The annoying thing about the Camry is that the roof is too low and/or the seats are too high on the more recent models. I have to put the seat back further than normal or my head rubs on the ceiling (I'm a little over 6 ft) as either driver or passenger. I have no such problem with my Corolla, though.
The problem for the OP, though might be girth rather than height.
That's the one I was looking at, the U.S. was 37th and New Zealand was 41st.
Those are supposed to be absolute dollars. It's still pretty crazy to be paying double the average for inferior quality care.
Across the different charts that I can find using Google the values vary quite a bit year-to-year but it usually seems to be in the range of 20%-50% more than the next highest spender for the years 2002-2005.
Actually, it's interested, the current projections indicate that if he stayed with the Republicans, they'd defeat him in the primary and field a candidate who would be less successful in the general election. By switching parties he's increased his chances of winning both the primary and the general election.
In the end it kind of sounds like he's doing what's both his own best interest and that of his state. Seems like the Republicans shouldn't be bum-rushing the moderates out of their party.
This *is* politics. Permanent means a little over 7 years.
That's pretty much it. The Republicans have been reduced to the anti-Democrat party. As long as Obama remains reasonable and intelligent, the Republicans are left with crazy and stupid.
I'd like them to take a little time, and find the party that used to be smart and conservative rather than the party that panders to the bottom half of the electorate.
While I agree with you in principle, I think your numbers might be a bit off. The ones I find indicate the U.S. is paying between 20% and 50% more than the next highest country (per capita). U.S. citizens pay about twice as much for health care as the average of all the other industrialized countries. However, it places second to last in terms of effectiveness among the industrialized nations, only beating New Zealand. World-wide the U.S. ranks 37th world-wide according to the WHO, and the only North American or European country it seems to beat in terms of health care results is Mexico.
So yeah, the U.S. system is a raw deal for U.S. citizens.