You are changing the subject, I never once said that defending rights was free, only the exercise of those rights. I emphatically agree that the defense of our rights it is not free. They are precious and worth protecting with money and blood.
The internet is becoming such a backbone to society that we should view it like electricity or water or sewage.
Sure, I'm for treating it like electricity, water or sewage. None of those are rights. You don't have a right to have the state build out power lines or water/sewage pipes to wherever you live. In more densely populated areas developers and property taxes pay for those things, but if you're in East Bumblefark, you might just have to deal with a generator, bore-hole well and septic tank.
Now "universal access" taxes have subsidized the building of power and phone infrastructure out to many places in Bumblefark, and I don't have a problem with doing the same for high speed net - I think it's a good idea, so I do agree with you on that level. It just sounds like the guy who reviewed this proposal thinks the FCC will F it up.
Ok, the right to a trial by jury isn't free, and neither is a defense attorney. This is an odd case, but I still say this is free, in that it is free to the individual, and only not-free in that it places limitations on the government which might incur a cost. Many of the other rights work the same way, such as no-quartering-troops meaning the Army has to pay for barracks.
The state is not forced to provide you an attorney, because it is not forced to prosecute you. However, bringing you to trial is an action forced on you by the state. Since the state pays for the whole court system, judge, lawyers, buildings etc. out of taxes, if the State chooses to prosecute you, this guarantees that it can not make you pay again for something you (ostensibly a tax payer) have already paid for. Since defendants can't appoint their own judge and prosecutor, if the state uses public funds to prosecute, it must use public funds to defend.
Now if the state doesn't want to prosecute you, or if you voluntarily bring suit as a plaintiff, then you don't have any "right" to a lawyer.
I know it might seem like splitting hairs, but this is an important distinction.
I think we are differing in our meaning of "Free". I say these rights are free because it costs nothing to exercise them. You are basically arguing that those rights aren't free because they force the government to spend money on actions that they could do cheaper by enslaving the population.
I must say I find this to be an odd argument, but I'll agree that a democratic republic is a more expensive system of government to maintain than a ruthless despotism. Heck, I learned that from Civ 3.
I wasn't talking about electrical or water utilities. Those do tend to be natural monopolies where competition is not feasible*, but telecommunications is most certainly NOT in that category. Competition is easily possible, and it works. There are towns near me that have multiple cable providers and they get lower prices than I do, because I'm stuck with a city-granted monopoly, or much slower DSL. Why cities keep up these agreements is beyond me.
*Although with electricity being all one grid, at my last place I had the option to buy my electricity from a "renewable energy" company. It cost more, but I'm guessing that had more to do with it's source than with any fee they paid to the owner of the powerlines.
I agree that sanctioned monopolies are bad, competition universally brings lower prices and better service. As for right of way access and easements, do you think that if we charged companies for that, they would not just pass the cost on to customers? Also, companies pay the government for spectrum, they don't get it free for commercial use.
Like free speech, or equal protection under the law, or not quartering soldiers in private homes without the owner's consent? That's expensive compared the alternatives, but our ancestors decided the costs were worth it. You can always move to Somalia if you think that would be a paradise on earth.
You do realize all those things you listed are perfectly free? As are the right to not be subject to unreasonable searches and the right not to incriminate yourself.
The right to bear arms is the right to be able to own a gun, which is a free thing. It is not the right to have a gun provided to you, in the same way the government doesn't owe you a printing press for your right to free speech.
Posting anon because you're new here? Here's a tip: If you're going to read Slashdot comments like it's a formal debate, you ought to just leave now.
My point still stands. The world is replete with examples of how state-run telecoms stagnate until private competition is allowed. Google is your friend.
Having lived in and visited countries with largely state-run telecom industry and then come home to the USA, I think it should be painfully obvious to all that government does not do a good job at running telecommunications. I know this isn't an attempt at running a telecom, but it sounds like they are going to screw the pooch just by trying to influence the market. The power of the FCC to f-things up is just that immense.
And I'm going to punch the next person that tells me "Broadband is a right". The hell it is. It is a good, a service that must be paid for, same as healthcare. You can not have a right to something that is non-free. Now I'm open to discussion on whether the state should pay for people to have a certain good, but see the above on how well states run telecoms.
For one, Sweden being so much smaller in size means that the most remote parts are likely to be closer to urban areas than in the USA. Also, the population distribution in the USA is more slightly more rural than in Sweden - 80.8% urban vs 83.4% urban respectively as of 2005 (globalis.gvu.unu.edu). True, there are some countries in the EU with more "rural" populations, but to put things into perspective the USA has the 9th largest rural population in the world:
#1 India: 780,437,700 #2 China: 777,482,000 #3 Indonesia: 114,469,600 #4 Bangladesh: 106,224,900 #5 Pakistan: 101,407,600 #6 Nigeria: 68,132,370 #7 Vietnam: 61,175,580 #8 Ethiopia: 59,855,040 #9 United States: 56,910,800 #10 Japan: 43,698,710 #11 Thailand: 43,485,580 (www.nationmaster.com, data from 2005)
This is significant because the USA is larger in area than ALL of those countries except China, most of them by an order of magnitude or two. Of the above list, I'd wager only Japan has better rural internet access than the USA and I don't think they define "rural" the way the USA does. With 57M rural people in a country that is over 9M km^2, you're a retard if you don't think size enters into the equation.
YES, there is a LOT of room for improvement. YES, our politicians are generally idiots when it comes to improving the series o' tubes BUT, Sweden can run one phatty line North-South down the middle and, at the absolute worst, nothing would be more than 150km from the backbone. The comparison to the USA is so dumb it burns.
*Adult Swim picks up reruns at low cost, following the same formula they did with Family Guy. They don't fund anything new
Oh ho? Adult Swim [Cartoon Network] produces plenty of original stuff: ATHF, Squidbillies, Robot Chicken, Metalocalypse, Venture Brothers... you get the picture. I happen to think those shows are pretty good, but then again, they probably have budgets well under what Futurama is used to operating with.
That aside: Futurama is such an excellent show, and a big part of what made it so good was the flawless voices: Lines can be good or bad on paper, but excellent voice actors can make bad lines excellent and good lines unforgettable classics. Futurama did that in spades.
The doctors only get free golf trips and paperweights with drug logos on them.
Just to clarify, since many people have the misconception that doctors get something every time they write a prescription for anything:
Kickbacks are illegal. When they are discovered, it results in things like jail and loss of license.
The free golf trips went away years and years ago, and I don't think they were ever very common.
Even the free paperweights, pens, clipboards, kleenex box etc were voluntarily stopped last year by the drug companies. Probably because doctors are actually smart enough to not be swayed by the "gift" of a $0.02 pen, and 2c x 800,000 doctors' offices adds up.
"informational" lunches and dinners are still happening, where doctors get free food and listen to pharma whargarrble about $NEW_DRUG_X, and they do get paid if they do actual work for a pharm company as a consultant or researcher, but that is all disclosed AFAIK.
It's not just because it burns at a higher temperature and compression: Diesel has ~10% higher energy density than gasoline. (37.3 compared to 34.2 MJ/Liter per Wikipedia), which goes a ways towards increased mileage.
Also, jet fuel is AFAIK refined kerosene, which is a fraction in-between diesel and gasoline in weight. It has lower energy density than either (33MJ/Liter also per Wiki). I'm guessing we use it because it works well in jet engines, and gasoline/diesel do not.
I'm not saying that doctors never commit crimes (sadly Medicare fraud is all too-common) and didn't mean to imply that kickbacks never happen, but citing two kickback cases 6 years apart is hardly an epidemic. There is oversight, probably not enough, but I think it's safe to say the in the overwhelming majority of cases, a doctor is NOT benefiting financially from ordering a test. Since the perception of many people is that doctors usually DO benefit, I would call that a myth.
Also, in both those cases, it was labs making sure they got all the tests from a particular doctor, not the doctor ordering unnecessary tests (the lab was then doing further cheating on their own, like un-bundling). Unnecessary tests would still (likely) get rejected by the insurance, where there is plenty of scrutiny. This would result in the doctor getting into trouble fast. What they did was still very wrong, but this is an important distinction.
As for doctors not having legitimate reasons for preferring one lab over another: Labs are not all the same. Some labs are avoided for known low quality, some for slow service - both of which can vary test to test, and some because they F-up billing or myriad other reasons. It might be that the doctor gets compatible electronic-medical-record results from one lab and paper copies from another that someone has to enter in manually. It may just be that the person who runs a lab has burned bridges with every doctor in the area and people don't want to send business to him/her. I have seen ALL of these happen in just a couple of years working in healthcare.
Ever heard of Medicare and Medicaid? Rather popular program with rates not set by the market.
"Not set by the market" is a pretty big problem with those. It's so big it's going to make them implode.
In my area*, Medicare and Medicaid reimburse doctors at such a low rate that more and more doctors are refusing to take on new Medicare/Medicaid patients, even doctors who do not have "full" practices. It's so low that it's basically worth more to them to spend the time catching up on paperwork. For those doctors who take them out of a sense of duty, in a some cases they end up LOSING money on the visit (what with still having to pay staff wages, other overhead etc).
And this is all BEFORE taking in to account the planned CUT in payments that were delayed.
Medicare and Medicaid are FUBAR. For the love of Motorcycle Jesus, we should not pattern a national health care around them.
All the doctors know is that they get a kickback from the lab/hospital/etc for ordering some test. They don't really care if it's necessary or useful.
This myth really pisses me off, and I have no idea why it is so pervasive.
Doctors do not get a kickback for ordering tests, or prescribing drugs. That is not only immoral, I believe it is illegal. The only way that a doctor could benefit financially would be if the doctor somehow personally owned the patent for the drug or the test, which I don't think happens. You get a bill for tests because someone has to pay for the materials and the people who analyze them. Did you think that would be free?
Doctors get samples to give out to patients who either can't pay, or can't fill a prescription right away. The monetary benefit to the doctor is 0. I suppose if the doctor pinches a few Viagra for personal use, there is a BIT of personal benefit, but they don't get anything for handing them out free or for writing a prescription. They don't even get free pens and clipboards anymore.
Having lived in (and taught sex-ed in) East Africa*, I can tell you a couple of things:
1) Internet cafes are in most mid-sized towns. All the regional capitals have multiple shops and most district capitals will have at least one.
2) Youths 15-19 (the group being targeted) make up a very large percentage of internet cafe customers. Even if they live far away and are poor, many of them will know how to use email and Google/Yahoo, and they will use it every chance they can.
3) When kids can't afford the cafe's rates, they will group together. I've seen 4 and 5 kids on one computer, sharing the cost**.
4) Many internet cafe computers already have some (likely pirated) games installed, so a good number of kids will have some idea how a game works. I also get the impression that they are making the game fairly simple to play.
*(My experiences are from Tanzania. Kenya is even more developed, but otherwise as similar as can be.) ** all too often, they are looking at nasty porn.
USAID, under Bush's watch, also launched and entire BRAND of condoms in Tanzania. They weren't officially handed out in schools as far as I know, but the students certainly knew about it from the accompanying advertising blitz. I even got a polo shirt with the logo and the USAID logo. There was no hiding the fact that the USA was funding it.
There was some crazy splitting of hairs when it came to funding some "abstinence ONLY" sex-ed and "regular" sex ed, but in my experience, that usually amounted to teaching the "abstinence only/delaying sex" to the younger kids (grammar school). I had no problem with that. All the high-school and adult sex-ed that I can recall teaching or hearing about from friends included both condoms and female condoms.
Bush was a lot of things, but he wasn't so fervent about abstinence only sex-ed that he cut funding. Bush, in what might be the only real bright point in his legacy, probably did more for Africa than any president before. He is, despite all his flaws, still liked in many places there where one would not expect it.
/Dume condoms, pronounced "do-may", but "do me" sounds more sexy.
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You are changing the subject, I never once said that defending rights was free, only the exercise of those rights. I emphatically agree that the defense of our rights it is not free. They are precious and worth protecting with money and blood.
The internet is becoming such a backbone to society that we should view it like electricity or water or sewage.
Sure, I'm for treating it like electricity, water or sewage. None of those are rights. You don't have a right to have the state build out power lines or water/sewage pipes to wherever you live. In more densely populated areas developers and property taxes pay for those things, but if you're in East Bumblefark, you might just have to deal with a generator, bore-hole well and septic tank.
Now "universal access" taxes have subsidized the building of power and phone infrastructure out to many places in Bumblefark, and I don't have a problem with doing the same for high speed net - I think it's a good idea, so I do agree with you on that level. It just sounds like the guy who reviewed this proposal thinks the FCC will F it up.
Ok, the right to a trial by jury isn't free, and neither is a defense attorney. This is an odd case, but I still say this is free, in that it is free to the individual, and only not-free in that it places limitations on the government which might incur a cost. Many of the other rights work the same way, such as no-quartering-troops meaning the Army has to pay for barracks.
The state is not forced to provide you an attorney, because it is not forced to prosecute you. However, bringing you to trial is an action forced on you by the state. Since the state pays for the whole court system, judge, lawyers, buildings etc. out of taxes, if the State chooses to prosecute you, this guarantees that it can not make you pay again for something you (ostensibly a tax payer) have already paid for. Since defendants can't appoint their own judge and prosecutor, if the state uses public funds to prosecute, it must use public funds to defend.
Now if the state doesn't want to prosecute you, or if you voluntarily bring suit as a plaintiff, then you don't have any "right" to a lawyer.
I know it might seem like splitting hairs, but this is an important distinction.
I think we are differing in our meaning of "Free". I say these rights are free because it costs nothing to exercise them. You are basically arguing that those rights aren't free because they force the government to spend money on actions that they could do cheaper by enslaving the population.
I must say I find this to be an odd argument, but I'll agree that a democratic republic is a more expensive system of government to maintain than a ruthless despotism. Heck, I learned that from Civ 3.
I wasn't talking about electrical or water utilities. Those do tend to be natural monopolies where competition is not feasible*, but telecommunications is most certainly NOT in that category. Competition is easily possible, and it works. There are towns near me that have multiple cable providers and they get lower prices than I do, because I'm stuck with a city-granted monopoly, or much slower DSL. Why cities keep up these agreements is beyond me.
*Although with electricity being all one grid, at my last place I had the option to buy my electricity from a "renewable energy" company. It cost more, but I'm guessing that had more to do with it's source than with any fee they paid to the owner of the powerlines.
I agree that sanctioned monopolies are bad, competition universally brings lower prices and better service. As for right of way access and easements, do you think that if we charged companies for that, they would not just pass the cost on to customers? Also, companies pay the government for spectrum, they don't get it free for commercial use.
Like free speech, or equal protection under the law, or not quartering soldiers in private homes without the owner's consent? That's expensive compared the alternatives, but our ancestors decided the costs were worth it. You can always move to Somalia if you think that would be a paradise on earth.
You do realize all those things you listed are perfectly free? As are the right to not be subject to unreasonable searches and the right not to incriminate yourself.
I know this is probably a troll...
The right to bear arms is the right to be able to own a gun, which is a free thing. It is not the right to have a gun provided to you, in the same way the government doesn't owe you a printing press for your right to free speech.
Posting anon because you're new here? Here's a tip: If you're going to read Slashdot comments like it's a formal debate, you ought to just leave now.
My point still stands. The world is replete with examples of how state-run telecoms stagnate until private competition is allowed. Google is your friend.
"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
Winston Churchhill
Having lived in and visited countries with largely state-run telecom industry and then come home to the USA, I think it should be painfully obvious to all that government does not do a good job at running telecommunications. I know this isn't an attempt at running a telecom, but it sounds like they are going to screw the pooch just by trying to influence the market. The power of the FCC to f-things up is just that immense.
And I'm going to punch the next person that tells me "Broadband is a right". The hell it is. It is a good, a service that must be paid for, same as healthcare. You can not have a right to something that is non-free. Now I'm open to discussion on whether the state should pay for people to have a certain good, but see the above on how well states run telecoms.
There is Arsenic in a lake, in California, that might support a unique form of life.
To me, the most surprising thing is that California has not already declared it a disaster zone and spent $45 million trying to "clean" it up.
...And the D-pad will still suck harbles. /I'm looking at you too, Xbox360
I was about to rip on TFA for being poorly informed and very out of date, then I re-read the top:
By Matt Hamblen
May 14, 2008 12:00 PM ET
Good job submitting a link that's over a year old CWmike, did you have to use the wayback machine to find that?
*sigh* Your math is overly simplistic.
For one, Sweden being so much smaller in size means that the most remote parts are likely to be closer to urban areas than in the USA. Also, the population distribution in the USA is more slightly more rural than in Sweden - 80.8% urban vs 83.4% urban respectively as of 2005 (globalis.gvu.unu.edu). True, there are some countries in the EU with more "rural" populations, but to put things into perspective the USA has the 9th largest rural population in the world:
#1 India: 780,437,700
#2 China: 777,482,000
#3 Indonesia: 114,469,600
#4 Bangladesh: 106,224,900
#5 Pakistan: 101,407,600
#6 Nigeria: 68,132,370
#7 Vietnam: 61,175,580
#8 Ethiopia: 59,855,040
#9 United States: 56,910,800
#10 Japan: 43,698,710
#11 Thailand: 43,485,580
(www.nationmaster.com, data from 2005)
This is significant because the USA is larger in area than ALL of those countries except China, most of them by an order of magnitude or two. Of the above list, I'd wager only Japan has better rural internet access than the USA and I don't think they define "rural" the way the USA does. With 57M rural people in a country that is over 9M km^2, you're a retard if you don't think size enters into the equation.
YES, there is a LOT of room for improvement.
YES, our politicians are generally idiots when it comes to improving the series o' tubes
BUT, Sweden can run one phatty line North-South down the middle and, at the absolute worst, nothing would be more than 150km from the backbone. The comparison to the USA is so dumb it burns.
*Adult Swim picks up reruns at low cost, following the same formula they did with Family Guy. They don't fund anything new
Oh ho? Adult Swim [Cartoon Network] produces plenty of original stuff: ATHF, Squidbillies, Robot Chicken, Metalocalypse, Venture Brothers... you get the picture. I happen to think those shows are pretty good, but then again, they probably have budgets well under what Futurama is used to operating with.
That aside:
Futurama is such an excellent show, and a big part of what made it so good was the flawless voices: Lines can be good or bad on paper, but excellent voice actors can make bad lines excellent and good lines unforgettable classics. Futurama did that in spades.
My kingdom for a mod-point, (that's about all my net-worth would trade for anyhow)
Someone mod parent up.
The doctors only get free golf trips and paperweights with drug logos on them.
Just to clarify, since many people have the misconception that doctors get something every time they write a prescription for anything:
Kickbacks are illegal. When they are discovered, it results in things like jail and loss of license.
The free golf trips went away years and years ago, and I don't think they were ever very common.
Even the free paperweights, pens, clipboards, kleenex box etc were voluntarily stopped last year by the drug companies. Probably because doctors are actually smart enough to not be swayed by the "gift" of a $0.02 pen, and 2c x 800,000 doctors' offices adds up.
"informational" lunches and dinners are still happening, where doctors get free food and listen to pharma whargarrble about $NEW_DRUG_X, and they do get paid if they do actual work for a pharm company as a consultant or researcher, but that is all disclosed AFAIK.
http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2008/07/pharma_to_ban_g.html
It's not just because it burns at a higher temperature and compression: Diesel has ~10% higher energy density than gasoline. (37.3 compared to 34.2 MJ/Liter per Wikipedia), which goes a ways towards increased mileage.
Also, jet fuel is AFAIK refined kerosene, which is a fraction in-between diesel and gasoline in weight. It has lower energy density than either (33MJ/Liter also per Wiki). I'm guessing we use it because it works well in jet engines, and gasoline/diesel do not.
Banana plants are also not trees.
Wait, how do you fit a shark into an eye socket?
Very carefully.
I've found it helpful to practice with a camel and a needle-eye before attempting sharks and real eyes.
I'm not saying that doctors never commit crimes (sadly Medicare fraud is all too-common) and didn't mean to imply that kickbacks never happen, but citing two kickback cases 6 years apart is hardly an epidemic. There is oversight, probably not enough, but I think it's safe to say the in the overwhelming majority of cases, a doctor is NOT benefiting financially from ordering a test. Since the perception of many people is that doctors usually DO benefit, I would call that a myth.
Also, in both those cases, it was labs making sure they got all the tests from a particular doctor, not the doctor ordering unnecessary tests (the lab was then doing further cheating on their own, like un-bundling). Unnecessary tests would still (likely) get rejected by the insurance, where there is plenty of scrutiny. This would result in the doctor getting into trouble fast. What they did was still very wrong, but this is an important distinction.
As for doctors not having legitimate reasons for preferring one lab over another: Labs are not all the same. Some labs are avoided for known low quality, some for slow service - both of which can vary test to test, and some because they F-up billing or myriad other reasons. It might be that the doctor gets compatible electronic-medical-record results from one lab and paper copies from another that someone has to enter in manually. It may just be that the person who runs a lab has burned bridges with every doctor in the area and people don't want to send business to him/her. I have seen ALL of these happen in just a couple of years working in healthcare.
Ever heard of Medicare and Medicaid? Rather popular program with rates not set by the market.
"Not set by the market" is a pretty big problem with those. It's so big it's going to make them implode.
In my area*, Medicare and Medicaid reimburse doctors at such a low rate that more and more doctors are refusing to take on new Medicare/Medicaid patients, even doctors who do not have "full" practices. It's so low that it's basically worth more to them to spend the time catching up on paperwork. For those doctors who take them out of a sense of duty, in a some cases they end up LOSING money on the visit (what with still having to pay staff wages, other overhead etc).
And this is all BEFORE taking in to account the planned CUT in payments that were delayed.
Medicare and Medicaid are FUBAR. For the love of Motorcycle Jesus, we should not pattern a national health care around them.
*rural Oregon
All the doctors know is that they get a kickback from the lab/hospital/etc for ordering some test. They don't really care if it's necessary or useful.
This myth really pisses me off, and I have no idea why it is so pervasive.
Doctors do not get a kickback for ordering tests, or prescribing drugs. That is not only immoral, I believe it is illegal. The only way that a doctor could benefit financially would be if the doctor somehow personally owned the patent for the drug or the test, which I don't think happens. You get a bill for tests because someone has to pay for the materials and the people who analyze them. Did you think that would be free?
Doctors get samples to give out to patients who either can't pay, or can't fill a prescription right away. The monetary benefit to the doctor is 0. I suppose if the doctor pinches a few Viagra for personal use, there is a BIT of personal benefit, but they don't get anything for handing them out free or for writing a prescription. They don't even get free pens and clipboards anymore.
Having lived in (and taught sex-ed in) East Africa*, I can tell you a couple of things:
1) Internet cafes are in most mid-sized towns. All the regional capitals have multiple shops and most district capitals will have at least one.
2) Youths 15-19 (the group being targeted) make up a very large percentage of internet cafe customers. Even if they live far away and are poor, many of them will know how to use email and Google/Yahoo, and they will use it every chance they can.
3) When kids can't afford the cafe's rates, they will group together. I've seen 4 and 5 kids on one computer, sharing the cost**.
4) Many internet cafe computers already have some (likely pirated) games installed, so a good number of kids will have some idea how a game works. I also get the impression that they are making the game fairly simple to play.
*(My experiences are from Tanzania. Kenya is even more developed, but otherwise as similar as can be.)
** all too often, they are looking at nasty porn.
USAID, under Bush's watch, also launched and entire BRAND of condoms in Tanzania. They weren't officially handed out in schools as far as I know, but the students certainly knew about it from the accompanying advertising blitz. I even got a polo shirt with the logo and the USAID logo. There was no hiding the fact that the USA was funding it.
There was some crazy splitting of hairs when it came to funding some "abstinence ONLY" sex-ed and "regular" sex ed, but in my experience, that usually amounted to teaching the "abstinence only/delaying sex" to the younger kids (grammar school). I had no problem with that. All the high-school and adult sex-ed that I can recall teaching or hearing about from friends included both condoms and female condoms.
Bush was a lot of things, but he wasn't so fervent about abstinence only sex-ed that he cut funding. Bush, in what might be the only real bright point in his legacy, probably did more for Africa than any president before. He is, despite all his flaws, still liked in many places there where one would not expect it.