"Journalists take heed: Your coverage has consequences. All those media outlets who trumpeted the global warming "pause" may now be partly responsible for a documented decrease in Americans' scientific understanding."
Really? More people questioning a theory that is 1) often presented in a more political than scientific way, 2) calls for individual sacrifice for a common good 3) who's most vocal supporters often as not do *not* make those individual sacrifices 4) proponents loudly protest that all objectors are ignorant or politically motivated
During a period when inflation adjusted average personal income is continuing a long downward slide.
And this is a 'documented decrease in scientific understanding'?
How about 'times are tough and people are fed up with being told they need to give up what little they have by hypocrites' as a better explanation?
Why are you assuming that the burden of proof is on the person without theistic beliefs?
Agnostics would say "I cannot find a proof either way, so I do not know" and as such need show no proof as they make no factual claims, they only state their uncertainty on the matter.
Theists would say "I believe God exists" and as such may be called upon to try and show a proof for their belief
Atheists would say "There is no God" and as this is a definitive claim, there must be a proof for it to be considered a true fact.
If you make a claim that something is a certain way(such as God does or does not exist), you may be called upon to provide a proof of that.
If you claim that something cannot be known(such as an agnostic claiming it is not possible to know if God exists), you may be asked to provide a proof of that impossibility.
If you merely say "I have yet to see a convincing proof" then you have nothing to prove as you are stating an opinion about your own experiences and not attempting to assert anything as a fact.
Facts can be proved or disproved and any statement of fact can be challenged as such.
A response I've seen to this argument is, "the majority of the population don't murder and rape. So, we don't need those laws on the books about these crimes then?"
Not a stance I personally side with, but "have to do something as the perfect is the enemy of the good" can be a valid argument for gun control bills.
How is that in any way relevant to the argument you responded to?
Its not that laws in general are useless - merely that laws that exist solely as an attempt to keep someone from breaking another law are useless.
A more apt comparison would be: 'Any time you commit a rape, you break 5 laws, why not simplify the books by just combining those all into one law' That, to me, seems like an eminently reasonable suggestion if the laws are similar enough for that to work.
You think you do, but if you knew more about how the planet operates, you'd know that a warmer planet won't be as pleasant to live in.
Social evolution can happen at a very rapid pace when needed, so I am not worried about that. Humans can and will adapt as needed.
What I do know, is that Geologically speaking, we are still in an ice-age(inter-glacial period, but still an ice age as we currently have ice-caps), so I know for a fact that earthly life as a whole will be quite happy once we have moved away from the unusually cold climate and can return to a warmer and more fruitful climate instead.
Sure there will be disruptions, but change is both disruptive and unavoidable, so we will deal with it.
I don't know how much time they actually had between the passing of the ACA and the deadline. But don't you think 12 month should be enough for any website project if you have fairly large resources and absolutely need to be finished on time? Don't you think that kind of project should be possible? Or did the ACA not pass before October 2012?
The original law may have been passed in 2012, but all those sections with 'to be determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services' were obviously not completed by that time.
I would be rather surprised if all of those sections have been addressed, let alone completed, even today.
Then there are all of those declarations like waivers and delaying the Employer mandate, changing the law by fiat after it was passed.
Reminds me a bit of the first application I ever wrote that used a Flash front-end, every day there were new toys and functionality requested by a customer or the CEO. Scope creep can easily turn a 1 month project into a 6 month project, even without all the political BS that was doubtlessly required for Healthcare.gov.
The Government did allow you to keep your plan. It's Aetna that decided to screw you over and try to get you to blame someone else. It seems to have worked, because instead of directing your ire at the insurance industry's thieving, scheming, middle-men, you're angry at the administration trying to reform a horribly broken system in a political climate where it's virtually impossible to get anything done even when you're willing to adopt ideas from the other side as a compromise.
Actually, the Health and Human Services department is empowered to make rules that *all* healthcare plans must obey, including grandfathered ones.
So, you can only grandfather a plan if: A) it never changes, not even to account for inflation B) it obeys all new regulations put out by the Health and Human Services department for health insurance.
The only exception is plans that are part of a collective bargaining agreement(aka unions), those plans are allowed to change without losing grandfathered status so long as the changes are to make it come into agreement with HHS regulations.
And let me tell you, no plan I have ever had will provide female oral contraceptives without a co-pay, so no plan I have ever had could be grandfathered under the current rules.
Still, I don't know why we get all hung up in debate. National health care works. There is proof everywhere. The question you ask really is irrelevant. There are models that work well we can simply copy.
My problem is less with Single Payer, but more with who will be in charge of it all.
There have been 18 government shut-downs since 1976 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdown_in_the_United_States). The Us government has a track-record of grasping for more and more power, regardless of the cost.(Income tax was originally a 'wartime' thing, and taxes are currently used to manipulate every sector of the economy) The US government has a track record of poor management and blatant cronyism(Copyright reform anyone? Oh, right, we mean extension, not reform; Can't afford a house? We'll require the banks to give it to you for $0 down anyway because it is unfair not to!)
*IF* we got reasonable term limits(2 terms in the senate, 8 years in the house, or less) and we started having a significant percentage of trustworthy elected representatives, I would be much more willing to consider a system similar to that of Canada(federal funding, state implementation), but with the current crop of dirt-bags we have in office? Not a chance.
They already play chicken with the national government, why should I hand them yet another way to screw me over when they clearly care more about themselves than those that they 'serve'
Last time I was in a small plane(1-2 seating) the seat hurt my hips and I had to spend most of the( thankfully short) flight kneeling in the aisle(I could not stand straight and had to hunch over to walk back to my seat)
Airlines do *not* cater to those > 2m tall (6'6"+)
We already have our tickets for this year, but I am trying to talk my wife into letting us drive up for the next visit to her parents.(~1900 miles)
The American Dream (TM) is that anyone can make it, but the assumption is for one person to get rich others must remain poor.
That's your assumption. I don't have to assume any such. In practice, those who get rich by providing valuable services whether in the US or elsewhere make others rich as well. The zero-sum game is imaginary.
By definition, most people cannot be rich.
Only if you keep moving the goal-posts.
Merriam Webster: Rich: having a lot of money and possessions
Compared to Europe in the 1500's, everyone in America is rich, even those on food stamps. Compared to the 1200's almost everyone in America that is not homeless lives in amazing luxury.
The only reason 'most people cannot be rich' is if you cannot consider yourself 'rich' when most others around you are as well off as you are, regardless of how amazing your actual wealth is. That has nothing to do with wealth and everything to do with wanting to feel superior to others.
Personally, I prefer to be happy with my modest level of wealth than to be perpetually unhappy because someone else has more than I do.
there are more than two candidates... it is people like you that cause this ridiculous shit to occur. use your brain, vote for a third party. if enough ppl actually vote for who they want instead of "the lesser of two evils", we wouldnt have had to deal with obama in the first place.
There is also the option of getting involved earlier in the process. On the Democrat side tehre were at least 2 candidates: Hillary Clinton, and Barak Obama On the republican side there were several: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Fred Karger, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Buddy Roemer, Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman, Jr., and Michele Bachmann according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_candidates,_2012
In my own district, there was even a party meeting the night after the primaries where there was a discussion of what should be on the party platform and a group of representatives were selected to go to the next higher level caucus(State?). There were actually fewer attendees at the meeting I went to than there were slots for representatives from our district, so everyone who wanted to go was selected, plus a few people someone knew who had gone in the past.(I did not go as I had a schedule conflict, but I could have).
If you want to fix things, get involved earlier in the process when there are so few people who care, every voice is magnified.
You need to either settle for what you're worth or endeavor (through school, training, etc) to make yourself worth more.
That's easy for someone like you or to say, who presumably make more than $60k per year. But the reason I make 6 figures isn't because I chose to make 6 figures, it's because I got lucky and happened to both have the interests and innate ability in said interests to command those kinds of wages.
The problem isn't that people are too lazy to make themselves worth more. The problem is that we don't need an entire population of Doctors, Developers and Stock Brokers. Some people due to their economic status as children didn't have the access or exposure to the necessary prequalifications for a high paying career. Some people are just too dumb. Some people are really good at things that don't pay very well. There are a lot of people out there who are really good at Basketball. I'm terrible at Basketball. But even the people who are really good at Basketball still probably aren't good enough to qualify for the minuscule job market for professional basketball players. And highschool PE teachers isn't a $60k a year job.
You want to know why I currently make > 60K/year? Because back when I was in public school(a below average school in a below average district), I decided that if I wanted to be an above average earner, I had better start working on that. I looked at my interests and talents, going from more avid interests to less avid interests until I found something that I was willing to commit to that was also in demand and would provide a good wage. I worked at learning and developing what I would need for that profession, refining my goals as I went, Went to my local state school while living at home, often working in the computer labs late into the night so that after the buses stopped running, I had a 2 hour bike ride to get home.
I see no reason any early teen that is willing to apply themselves could not do the same thing that I did and put forth a concentrated effort towards giving themselves a better future. (Admittedly it was not easy, and even with a rather generous definition, I had perhaps 3 dates before I graduated with my 4 year degree, but if you prioritize what is important, you can achieve it)
Sure it may take more effort from some, or less effort from others, but there would be very very few for whom the required effort is outside the bounds of human endurance.
Well, until the trend of oceans sinking up the carbon dioxide ends, it will become more and more acidic, killing all the marine life.
You purport that no marine life can live in an ocean with a ph of 7? The ocean is currently a base(how else could you have so much undissolved calcium carbonate in it? Aka coral), 'ocean acidification' from CO2 will only bring it to a neutral PH (7)
While I am sure some critters will have problems with a neutral ocean(Coral for example), I strongly doubt all of them would.
They've tried 41 times [huffingtonpost.com] already. Attaching it to this "must-pass" spending bill was attempt 42.
So what's your point. If you can't do something properly you should do whatever it takes instead? You can't ask someone you don't know 41 times to give you $1000 and if they refuse the 41st time tell them they need to give you the money or you'll key their car and then claim they are being unreasonable.
There's a democratic president who got elected on a platform including this bill, there's a democratic senate and the majority of voters voted for democratic congresspeople. The Republicans can't do this legitimately because the voters chose not to give them the power to run the country so they're using economic vandalism to try and get their way instead.
It is not like they went through the normal process to pass the ACA in the first place.
The ACA was passed using Reconciliation(something that previously was only used for getting budgets passed), so it seems reasonable that another budget-related method is used to adjust it ore remove it.
It does seem a little hypocritical that Obama, who always seems to be calling for compromise, is refusing to compromise now that something he values is at risk.
Your definition is also off. The OP had it right with their definition of American Exceptionalism. In human history, The United States of America is the first country founded with the concept of inherent human rights and a government that is intended to protect those rights, as opposed to providing wealth/power to the governing body.
By that definition that claim would have to go to England 500 years before the US were founded. Although one could argue the Provisions of Oxford were about civil rights as was the Magna Carta.
The idea of human rights is quite a bit older. A lot in fact. The first thing that springs to mind is the rule of Cyrus the Great. Even if the major philosophical underpinnings of how we understand them today were done in the Age of Enlightenment they still remembered that one.
The US is only the first country where it stuck to some extent. With the caveat that you'd better be rich and your skin had the right hue. The idea was there but the execution was a bit half-assed.
If that is supposed to be the basis of the US Exceptionalism then it does disregard a couple of thousands of years of human history, the history of the US and only reinforces the profound fact that it is puerile nonsense.
At any rate, the Anglo-Saxons, including Saxonified Britons, progressively spread into England, by a combination of military conquest and cultural assimilation, until by the eighth century some kind of England really had emerged.
Not quite the same as
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Yes, this builds on lots of ideals and attempts tried previously, but the US of A is the first nation *founded* on these principles and encoding them in the very structure of our government, as opposed to lots of nations that discovered them to be valid and then tried to fit that in with their existing governmental structures. (admittedly, some of the structures put in place to limit the government seem to be failing these days, but that was the intent)
If you can identify a single other nation so founded before 1776, please point it out to me. I would even be interested in a list of nations so founded since 1776, as I suspect they exist, but I am not certain of that, and the potentials I come up with do not seem to actually fit.
That's not what exceptionalism means. Exceptionalism is when you say "other rules ought to apply to us, because obviously we're special".
Your definition is also off. The OP had it right with their definition of American Exceptionalism. In human history, The United States of America is the first country founded with the concept of inherent human rights and a government that is intended to protect those rights, as opposed to providing wealth/power to the governing body.
While we as a country have indisputably lost some of our way, that does not change how the country was founded, and why a country less than 200 years old was recognized as one of the top two countries in wealth and power in a world with countries thousands of years older. That foundation is still there, just a little buried in cruft right now.
Pardon my complete ignorance... whats the answer, or could you explain the point of the question more? My only response is 'thats a stupid question, it can't work that way unless they are breeding in the room, in which case, I have no idea how many are left?', so can someone enlighten me as to the purpose here?
This is just an example of a mathematical abstraction that does not map well to the real world. Room contents = 4 Room Contents=Room Contents -7 What is Room Contents?
We know that a room cannot have a negative number of people, but math has no such limitations when it comes to representing a room. The same way Math has no limitations when representing higher dimensions. (which may or may not exist in reality, but the OP suspects not)
Lets say we look at the same picture from different angles, you from a corporate standpoint, me from society's.
Fair enough., but would you agree that if a company cannot make a profit it will not say in business or be able to provide jobs?
Would you consider it a reasonable assertion that without private sector companies and employees to pay taxes, that the government would run out of money very quickly and not be able to employ much of anyone either?
I am just trying to assert that a higher minimum wage does bad things: * reduces employment (and thus taxes, while increasing the number of those that need government help) * Increases the risk to employers thus making them more reluctant to hire * increases prices(inflation) * (see previous discussion for more)
While on the other end, it only helps: * The lowest tier of entry-level jobs(mostly by eliminating any lower paid jobs that would otherwise be available) * Union workers who have their compensation tied to the minimum wage(Things like '3.2x min hourly wage'; a much larger group than the other one, and a major campaign contributing one. Probably the real driving force behind the whole thing)
You (and Billy) miss the point, I was writing about people with a family to support through a real job.
That's different to people still studying, a trainee should be in an apprenticeship program and that's a whole different cost/benefit analysis.
But yes, I expect entry level jobs to pay a fair wage, nothing fancy but sufficient to live till you are ready for a full job.
If you have an entry level job and want to support a family on that, then you had better have an education that makes you more valuable then the average HS graduate/GED recipient, otherwise you are in for a world of financial hurt.
By the way, a fair wage is one that pays what the job is worth.
If a Walmart greeter reduces theft or saves customer support rep time, then a fair wage is a majority of that savings(which may or may not be a living wage). If an assembly line worker can be replaced by a $50K machine that will last for 10 years, then that worker is worth at most $5K/year(including any benefits), and probably a bit less(humans tend to be less reliable for machines and assembly work wants reliability).
A wage being 'fair' has nothing to do with it being a living wage and only depends on the value of the work performed to the employer.
Lets flip the tables and examine your argument? Do you have any idea what you are asking for?
I am for raising the minimium wage in the US by the way. But a fair wage would devestate the economy. Case in point in the US there is a strike of fast food workers wanting to unionize. I make the same about 2x minimium wage for I.T. work doing admin work and desktop support for a fortune 1,000 company. Why the hell should I after investing $30,000 in school and $9,000 in Microsoft certification make the damn same amount as someone who dropped out of school and has no debt! Fuck that!... back to economic argument (relates to my rant) You talk about savings? How much savings would you make if your Starbucks coffee would cost $8? Hungry for lunch, that subway sandwhich is now $11. The gas is 15% higher which means your monthly savings take a hit too.
Now lets look at the long term? Billly Gates making the same as a McDonalds worker? Oh hell no! Me and my coworkers will walk if we cant get $23 an hour. Oh my gf works as a teacher and she makes $18/hr and has all the debt? What she makes just $3/hr above the McDonalds worker? Think she will put up with that? No teachers will quit unless they too get a raise etc. Now you have real inflation and rents go up, food goes up, consumables go up, your savings take a hit and so does your purchasing power each month because you want to be fair right?
In the end if harms the economy as McDonalds closes half its stores as people are not willing to pay $10 for a Big Mac combo. Starbucks shuts down its stores too as people think "hmm I can brew my own coffee at work rather than pay $8 instead." Worse if you are retiring you are now fucked as you wont be getting that raise to make up for the spike in the cost of living.
Unemployment now doubles in proportion to the doubling of the minimium wage.
Don't forget the removal of 'entry level' jobs and positions where you are learning your trade 'on the job' while making a lower wage. If you set the minimum wage to $X/hr, you automatically remove all jobs from the job pool that are worth less than $X/hr to the employer. This often includes jobs like the trainee who would work for 3 months at $X/2 per hour so that they can then become worth $3X/hr to the employer thereafter(presumably the training period would be longer with a more gradual increase in pay, but you get the idea)
And if an employer is willing to take the risk to pay the trainee more than they are worth, there will be an eventual need to pay them less than they are worth to balance that. A smart employee would then go somewhere else and get paid what they are worth, leaving the risk-taking employer with a loss that needs to be made up somewhere else(charging more, paying others less, or going bankrupt because they owe more than they can pay)
I saw some comments from someone who works in the insurance industry about the problems. From what I understand, most of the health insurance systems currently synchronize once per day(or less). So, if you are $20 short of your annual cap for this year and get sick, you go to the Dr. and pay your $20 co-pay or whatever(capped at $20 because that is all you can be required to pay). Then you take your prescription to the pharmacy, and their computer still says that you should pay up to $20, so they charge you $20 and bill the insurance for the rest.
The pharmacy has now violated federal law and you can sue them, possibly your insurance company as well. (they have required that you pay more than your annual cap allows)
The current system handles things just fine with occasional synchronization, but making the annual caps a federal law means: A) The systems need to become real-time (not generally a trivial change) B) They need to change their billing systems to make sure they never collect any payments that will take you over your limit, but still get your share of the payment.(even in edge cases, such as if you go doctor shopping to get extra prescription pain medications or some-such) and C) they need to do all of this coordination on an externally specified time-scale without violating HIPPA or any other state/federal regulation that may or may not apply, including any new ones hidden in the couple thousand of pages of the Affordable Care Act.
That sounds like a pretty nasty position to be in to me.
My wife is Canadian and believes strongly in both government intervention and government/single payer/universal health care. But the more she is exposed to American politics and American politicians, the more she is willing to agree that it might not be a good idea to let them be the ones in charge of an American single payer system.
If I felt I could trust my national government in any way shape or form to pursue my best interests, I might feel differently. Right now I believe it probable that, should the US deploy a national health system, lobbyists in DC will have more say in my healthcare than my doctor or my family.
How do you 'Reboot' windows if not even unplugging the machine can re-set your state?
This will cause every windows Help-Desk script to be re-written, and I can only hope that the new script does not change to 'go out and buy a new machine'.
Slashdot Mirror
"Journalists take heed: Your coverage has consequences. All those media outlets who trumpeted the global warming "pause" may now be partly responsible for a documented decrease in Americans' scientific understanding."
Really?
More people questioning a theory that is
1) often presented in a more political than scientific way,
2) calls for individual sacrifice for a common good
3) who's most vocal supporters often as not do *not* make those individual sacrifices
4) proponents loudly protest that all objectors are ignorant or politically motivated
During a period when inflation adjusted average personal income is continuing a long downward slide.
And this is a 'documented decrease in scientific understanding'?
How about 'times are tough and people are fed up with being told they need to give up what little they have by hypocrites' as a better explanation?
It would be more about the to and from the theater than at the theater most times, I would think.
(ask Batman's parents about that)
Of course they may occasionally be a need for a gun while in the theater as well...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis
Why are you assuming that the burden of proof is on the person without theistic beliefs?
Agnostics would say "I cannot find a proof either way, so I do not know" and as such need show no proof as they make no factual claims, they only state their uncertainty on the matter.
Theists would say "I believe God exists" and as such may be called upon to try and show a proof for their belief
Atheists would say "There is no God" and as this is a definitive claim, there must be a proof for it to be considered a true fact.
If you make a claim that something is a certain way(such as God does or does not exist), you may be called upon to provide a proof of that.
If you claim that something cannot be known(such as an agnostic claiming it is not possible to know if God exists), you may be asked to provide a proof of that impossibility.
If you merely say "I have yet to see a convincing proof" then you have nothing to prove as you are stating an opinion about your own experiences and not attempting to assert anything as a fact.
Facts can be proved or disproved and any statement of fact can be challenged as such.
Does that help clarify things?
A response I've seen to this argument is, "the majority of the population don't murder and rape. So, we don't need those laws on the books about these crimes then?"
Not a stance I personally side with, but "have to do something as the perfect is the enemy of the good" can be a valid argument for gun control bills.
How is that in any way relevant to the argument you responded to?
Its not that laws in general are useless - merely that laws that exist solely as an attempt to keep someone from breaking another law are useless.
A more apt comparison would be:
'Any time you commit a rape, you break 5 laws, why not simplify the books by just combining those all into one law'
That, to me, seems like an eminently reasonable suggestion if the laws are similar enough for that to work.
You think you do, but if you knew more about how the planet operates, you'd know that a warmer planet won't be as pleasant to live in.
Social evolution can happen at a very rapid pace when needed, so I am not worried about that. Humans can and will adapt as needed.
What I do know, is that Geologically speaking, we are still in an ice-age(inter-glacial period, but still an ice age as we currently have ice-caps), so I know for a fact that earthly life as a whole will be quite happy once we have moved away from the unusually cold climate and can return to a warmer and more fruitful climate instead.
Sure there will be disruptions, but change is both disruptive and unavoidable, so we will deal with it.
I don't know how much time they actually had between the passing of the ACA and the deadline. But don't you think 12 month should be enough for any website project if you have fairly large resources and absolutely need to be finished on time? Don't you think that kind of project should be possible? Or did the ACA not pass before October 2012?
The original law may have been passed in 2012, but all those sections with 'to be determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services' were obviously not completed by that time.
I would be rather surprised if all of those sections have been addressed, let alone completed, even today.
Then there are all of those declarations like waivers and delaying the Employer mandate, changing the law by fiat after it was passed.
Reminds me a bit of the first application I ever wrote that used a Flash front-end, every day there were new toys and functionality requested by a customer or the CEO. Scope creep can easily turn a 1 month project into a 6 month project, even without all the political BS that was doubtlessly required for Healthcare.gov.
The Government did allow you to keep your plan. It's Aetna that decided to screw you over and try to get you to blame someone else. It seems to have worked, because instead of directing your ire at the insurance industry's thieving, scheming, middle-men, you're angry at the administration trying to reform a horribly broken system in a political climate where it's virtually impossible to get anything done even when you're willing to adopt ideas from the other side as a compromise.
Actually, the Health and Human Services department is empowered to make rules that *all* healthcare plans must obey, including grandfathered ones.
So, you can only grandfather a plan if:
A) it never changes, not even to account for inflation
B) it obeys all new regulations put out by the Health and Human Services department for health insurance.
The only exception is plans that are part of a collective bargaining agreement(aka unions), those plans are allowed to change without losing grandfathered status so long as the changes are to make it come into agreement with HHS regulations.
And let me tell you, no plan I have ever had will provide female oral contraceptives without a co-pay, so no plan I have ever had could be grandfathered under the current rules.
Still, I don't know why we get all hung up in debate. National health care works. There is proof everywhere. The question you ask really is irrelevant. There are models that work well we can simply copy.
My problem is less with Single Payer, but more with who will be in charge of it all.
There have been 18 government shut-downs since 1976 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdown_in_the_United_States).
The Us government has a track-record of grasping for more and more power, regardless of the cost.(Income tax was originally a 'wartime' thing, and taxes are currently used to manipulate every sector of the economy)
The US government has a track record of poor management and blatant cronyism(Copyright reform anyone? Oh, right, we mean extension, not reform; Can't afford a house? We'll require the banks to give it to you for $0 down anyway because it is unfair not to!)
*IF* we got reasonable term limits(2 terms in the senate, 8 years in the house, or less) and we started having a significant percentage of trustworthy elected representatives, I would be much more willing to consider a system similar to that of Canada(federal funding, state implementation), but with the current crop of dirt-bags we have in office? Not a chance.
They already play chicken with the national government, why should I hand them yet another way to screw me over when they clearly care more about themselves than those that they 'serve'
Some forms of deafness are also caused by hair loss(the little hairs in the inner ear).
Last time I was in a small plane(1-2 seating) the seat hurt my hips and I had to spend most of the( thankfully short) flight kneeling in the aisle(I could not stand straight and had to hunch over to walk back to my seat)
Airlines do *not* cater to those > 2m tall (6'6"+)
We already have our tickets for this year, but I am trying to talk my wife into letting us drive up for the next visit to her parents.(~1900 miles)
The American Dream (TM) is that anyone can make it, but the assumption is for one person to get rich others must remain poor.
That's your assumption. I don't have to assume any such. In practice, those who get rich by providing valuable services whether in the US or elsewhere make others rich as well. The zero-sum game is imaginary.
By definition, most people cannot be rich.
Only if you keep moving the goal-posts.
Merriam Webster: Rich: having a lot of money and possessions
Compared to Europe in the 1500's, everyone in America is rich, even those on food stamps.
Compared to the 1200's almost everyone in America that is not homeless lives in amazing luxury.
The only reason 'most people cannot be rich' is if you cannot consider yourself 'rich' when most others around you are as well off as you are, regardless of how amazing your actual wealth is. That has nothing to do with wealth and everything to do with wanting to feel superior to others.
Personally, I prefer to be happy with my modest level of wealth than to be perpetually unhappy because someone else has more than I do.
there are more than two candidates... it is people like you that cause this ridiculous shit to occur. use your brain, vote for a third party. if enough ppl actually vote for who they want instead of "the lesser of two evils", we wouldnt have had to deal with obama in the first place.
There is also the option of getting involved earlier in the process.
On the Democrat side tehre were at least 2 candidates: Hillary Clinton, and Barak Obama
On the republican side there were several: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Fred Karger, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Buddy Roemer, Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman, Jr., and Michele Bachmann according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_candidates,_2012
In my own district, there was even a party meeting the night after the primaries where there was a discussion of what should be on the party platform and a group of representatives were selected to go to the next higher level caucus(State?). There were actually fewer attendees at the meeting I went to than there were slots for representatives from our district, so everyone who wanted to go was selected, plus a few people someone knew who had gone in the past.(I did not go as I had a schedule conflict, but I could have).
If you want to fix things, get involved earlier in the process when there are so few people who care, every voice is magnified.
You need to either settle for what you're worth or endeavor (through school, training, etc) to make yourself worth more.
That's easy for someone like you or to say, who presumably make more than $60k per year. But the reason I make 6 figures isn't because I chose to make 6 figures, it's because I got lucky and happened to both have the interests and innate ability in said interests to command those kinds of wages.
The problem isn't that people are too lazy to make themselves worth more. The problem is that we don't need an entire population of Doctors, Developers and Stock Brokers. Some people due to their economic status as children didn't have the access or exposure to the necessary prequalifications for a high paying career. Some people are just too dumb. Some people are really good at things that don't pay very well. There are a lot of people out there who are really good at Basketball. I'm terrible at Basketball. But even the people who are really good at Basketball still probably aren't good enough to qualify for the minuscule job market for professional basketball players. And highschool PE teachers isn't a $60k a year job.
You want to know why I currently make > 60K/year?
Because back when I was in public school(a below average school in a below average district), I decided that if I wanted to be an above average earner, I had better start working on that.
I looked at my interests and talents, going from more avid interests to less avid interests until I found something that I was willing to commit to that was also in demand and would provide a good wage.
I worked at learning and developing what I would need for that profession, refining my goals as I went, Went to my local state school while living at home, often working in the computer labs late into the night so that after the buses stopped running, I had a 2 hour bike ride to get home.
I see no reason any early teen that is willing to apply themselves could not do the same thing that I did and put forth a concentrated effort towards giving themselves a better future.
(Admittedly it was not easy, and even with a rather generous definition, I had perhaps 3 dates before I graduated with my 4 year degree, but if you prioritize what is important, you can achieve it)
Sure it may take more effort from some, or less effort from others, but there would be very very few for whom the required effort is outside the bounds of human endurance.
Well, until the trend of oceans sinking up the carbon dioxide ends, it will become more and more acidic, killing all the marine life.
You purport that no marine life can live in an ocean with a ph of 7?
The ocean is currently a base(how else could you have so much undissolved calcium carbonate in it? Aka coral), 'ocean acidification' from CO2 will only bring it to a neutral PH (7)
While I am sure some critters will have problems with a neutral ocean(Coral for example), I strongly doubt all of them would.
The Simpsons actually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Fish,_Two_Fish,_Blowfish,_Blue_Fish
Season 2, Episode 11
So what's your point. If you can't do something properly you should do whatever it takes instead? You can't ask someone you don't know 41 times to give you $1000 and if they refuse the 41st time tell them they need to give you the money or you'll key their car and then claim they are being unreasonable.
There's a democratic president who got elected on a platform including this bill, there's a democratic senate and the majority of voters voted for democratic congresspeople. The Republicans can't do this legitimately because the voters chose not to give them the power to run the country so they're using economic vandalism to try and get their way instead.
It is not like they went through the normal process to pass the ACA in the first place.
The ACA was passed using Reconciliation(something that previously was only used for getting budgets passed), so it seems reasonable that another budget-related method is used to adjust it ore remove it.
It does seem a little hypocritical that Obama, who always seems to be calling for compromise, is refusing to compromise now that something he values is at risk.
Your definition is also off.
The OP had it right with their definition of American Exceptionalism.
In human history, The United States of America is the first country founded with the concept of inherent human rights and a government that is intended to protect those rights, as opposed to providing wealth/power to the governing body.
By that definition that claim would have to go to England 500 years before the US were founded. Although one could argue the Provisions of Oxford were about civil rights as was the Magna Carta.
The idea of human rights is quite a bit older. A lot in fact. The first thing that springs to mind is the rule of Cyrus the Great. Even if the major philosophical underpinnings of how we understand them today were done in the Age of Enlightenment they still remembered that one.
The US is only the first country where it stuck to some extent. With the caveat that you'd better be rich and your skin had the right hue. The idea was there but the execution was a bit half-assed.
If that is supposed to be the basis of the US Exceptionalism then it does disregard a couple of thousands of years of human history, the history of the US and only reinforces the profound fact that it is puerile nonsense.
Sorry I meant 'founded on' not 'founded with'.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_England:
At any rate, the Anglo-Saxons, including Saxonified Britons, progressively spread into England, by a combination of military conquest and cultural assimilation, until by the eighth century some kind of England really had emerged.
Not quite the same as
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Yes, this builds on lots of ideals and attempts tried previously, but the US of A is the first nation *founded* on these principles and encoding them in the very structure of our government, as opposed to lots of nations that discovered them to be valid and then tried to fit that in with their existing governmental structures.
(admittedly, some of the structures put in place to limit the government seem to be failing these days, but that was the intent)
If you can identify a single other nation so founded before 1776, please point it out to me.
I would even be interested in a list of nations so founded since 1776, as I suspect they exist, but I am not certain of that, and the potentials I come up with do not seem to actually fit.
That's not what exceptionalism means. Exceptionalism is when you say "other rules ought to apply to us, because obviously we're special".
Your definition is also off.
The OP had it right with their definition of American Exceptionalism.
In human history, The United States of America is the first country founded with the concept of inherent human rights and a government that is intended to protect those rights, as opposed to providing wealth/power to the governing body.
While we as a country have indisputably lost some of our way, that does not change how the country was founded, and why a country less than 200 years old was recognized as one of the top two countries in wealth and power in a world with countries thousands of years older.
That foundation is still there, just a little buried in cruft right now.
Pardon my complete ignorance ... whats the answer, or could you explain the point of the question more? My only response is 'thats a stupid question, it can't work that way unless they are breeding in the room, in which case, I have no idea how many are left?', so can someone enlighten me as to the purpose here?
This is just an example of a mathematical abstraction that does not map well to the real world.
Room contents = 4
Room Contents=Room Contents -7
What is Room Contents?
We know that a room cannot have a negative number of people, but math has no such limitations when it comes to representing a room.
The same way Math has no limitations when representing higher dimensions.
(which may or may not exist in reality, but the OP suspects not)
Lets say we look at the same picture from different angles, you from a corporate standpoint, me from society's.
Fair enough., but would you agree that if a company cannot make a profit it will not say in business or be able to provide jobs?
Would you consider it a reasonable assertion that without private sector companies and employees to pay taxes, that the government would run out of money very quickly and not be able to employ much of anyone either?
I am just trying to assert that a higher minimum wage does bad things:
* reduces employment (and thus taxes, while increasing the number of those that need government help)
* Increases the risk to employers thus making them more reluctant to hire
* increases prices(inflation)
* (see previous discussion for more)
While on the other end, it only helps:
* The lowest tier of entry-level jobs(mostly by eliminating any lower paid jobs that would otherwise be available)
* Union workers who have their compensation tied to the minimum wage(Things like '3.2x min hourly wage'; a much larger group than the other one, and a major campaign contributing one. Probably the real driving force behind the whole thing)
You (and Billy) miss the point, I was writing about people with a family to support through a real job.
That's different to people still studying, a trainee should be in an apprenticeship program and that's a whole different cost/benefit analysis.
But yes, I expect entry level jobs to pay a fair wage, nothing fancy but sufficient to live till you are ready for a full job.
If you have an entry level job and want to support a family on that, then you had better have an education that makes you more valuable then the average HS graduate/GED recipient, otherwise you are in for a world of financial hurt.
By the way, a fair wage is one that pays what the job is worth.
If a Walmart greeter reduces theft or saves customer support rep time, then a fair wage is a majority of that savings(which may or may not be a living wage).
If an assembly line worker can be replaced by a $50K machine that will last for 10 years, then that worker is worth at most $5K/year(including any benefits), and probably a bit less(humans tend to be less reliable for machines and assembly work wants reliability).
A wage being 'fair' has nothing to do with it being a living wage and only depends on the value of the work performed to the employer.
Lets flip the tables and examine your argument? Do you have any idea what you are asking for?
I am for raising the minimium wage in the US by the way. But a fair wage would devestate the economy. Case in point in the US there is a strike of fast food workers wanting to unionize. I make the same about 2x minimium wage for I.T. work doing admin work and desktop support for a fortune 1,000 company. Why the hell should I after investing $30,000 in school and $9,000 in Microsoft certification make the damn same amount as someone who dropped out of school and has no debt! Fuck that! ... back to economic argument (relates to my rant)
You talk about savings? How much savings would you make if your Starbucks coffee would cost $8? Hungry for lunch, that subway sandwhich is now $11. The gas is 15% higher which means your monthly savings take a hit too.
Now lets look at the long term?
Billly Gates making the same as a McDonalds worker? Oh hell no! Me and my coworkers will walk if we cant get $23 an hour. Oh my gf works as a teacher and she makes $18/hr and has all the debt? What she makes just $3/hr above the McDonalds worker? Think she will put up with that? No teachers will quit unless they too get a raise etc. Now you have real inflation and rents go up, food goes up, consumables go up, your savings take a hit and so does your purchasing power each month because you want to be fair right?
In the end if harms the economy as McDonalds closes half its stores as people are not willing to pay $10 for a Big Mac combo. Starbucks shuts down its stores too as people think "hmm I can brew my own coffee at work rather than pay $8 instead." Worse if you are retiring you are now fucked as you wont be getting that raise to make up for the spike in the cost of living.
Unemployment now doubles in proportion to the doubling of the minimium wage.
Don't forget the removal of 'entry level' jobs and positions where you are learning your trade 'on the job' while making a lower wage.
If you set the minimum wage to $X/hr, you automatically remove all jobs from the job pool that are worth less than $X/hr to the employer.
This often includes jobs like the trainee who would work for 3 months at $X/2 per hour so that they can then become worth $3X/hr to the employer thereafter(presumably the training period would be longer with a more gradual increase in pay, but you get the idea)
And if an employer is willing to take the risk to pay the trainee more than they are worth, there will be an eventual need to pay them less than they are worth to balance that. A smart employee would then go somewhere else and get paid what they are worth, leaving the risk-taking employer with a loss that needs to be made up somewhere else(charging more, paying others less, or going bankrupt because they owe more than they can pay)
I saw some comments from someone who works in the insurance industry about the problems.
From what I understand, most of the health insurance systems currently synchronize once per day(or less).
So, if you are $20 short of your annual cap for this year and get sick, you go to the Dr. and pay your $20 co-pay or whatever(capped at $20 because that is all you can be required to pay).
Then you take your prescription to the pharmacy, and their computer still says that you should pay up to $20, so they charge you $20 and bill the insurance for the rest.
The pharmacy has now violated federal law and you can sue them, possibly your insurance company as well. (they have required that you pay more than your annual cap allows)
The current system handles things just fine with occasional synchronization, but making the annual caps a federal law means:
A) The systems need to become real-time (not generally a trivial change)
B) They need to change their billing systems to make sure they never collect any payments that will take you over your limit, but still get your share of the payment.(even in edge cases, such as if you go doctor shopping to get extra prescription pain medications or some-such)
and C) they need to do all of this coordination on an externally specified time-scale without violating HIPPA or any other state/federal regulation that may or may not apply, including any new ones hidden in the couple thousand of pages of the Affordable Care Act.
That sounds like a pretty nasty position to be in to me.
My wife is Canadian and believes strongly in both government intervention and government/single payer/universal health care.
But the more she is exposed to American politics and American politicians, the more she is willing to agree that it might not be a good idea to let them be the ones in charge of an American single payer system.
If I felt I could trust my national government in any way shape or form to pursue my best interests, I might feel differently. Right now I believe it probable that, should the US deploy a national health system, lobbyists in DC will have more say in my healthcare than my doctor or my family.
How do you 'Reboot' windows if not even unplugging the machine can re-set your state?
This will cause every windows Help-Desk script to be re-written, and I can only hope that the new script does not change to 'go out and buy a new machine'.