Apparently, s/he is. This sort of FUD/misinformation is to be expected from uninformed, but committed (possible mental health care-related pun unintentional) individuals. There's also a crapload of money at stake, so the "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude will increase until the US invades Canada and shuts down the existing health care system.
Laser eye surgery is not covered by the Canadian government (and by extension, Canadian citizens' wishes) because it is not considered to be health-threatening.
Your link is pure FUD and relies on convenient anecdotes that keep popping up whenever the topic is mentioned.
The Vancouver-based right-wing think tank...
That part should have clued you in.
What do you consider to be "serious"? Liposuction? Facelifts? Bigger tits? Brain replacement?
Quebec actually has a government-run drug program that limits how much a citizen has to pay for prescribed drug treatment (if they don't have employer-provided or other coverage), I think the maximum cost is about CDN$30 per month.
I'll bet you scare little children with your freakish verticalness.
Seriously though, I'm a foot shorter and have ballooned to 170 over the past few years due to relative inactivity and "old age" (42). The metabolism really does slow down at around 35, but the brain keeps on going...uh,...stuff, oh, nevermind.
This whole thing reminds me of the book Human Error. Tight coupling (C depends on B, which depends on A, so objective Z will fail to be met if any of the previous 25 points fail)...
"Tight coupling" (please insert juvenile sex-related jokes here) is a major issue with complicated endeavours. Some people just don't understand that some undertakings require careful planning and thought in order to be successful.
When the shit hits the fan, so to speak, you want flexible, quick-learning, motivated and experienced people to manage the inevitable unexpected complications.
Sheesh, I just re-read what I wrote and it sounds like some kind of vague mission statement on a website.
Eventually the massively inferior Shermans and T34s won due to sheer numbers, they were cheap and easy to make, as well as reliable.
Many tank aficionados consider the Russian T-34 to be the best overall balanced design of WW2 with the German Panther a close second.
A legend from Panzer commanders is that one German Tiger was better than 4 American Shermans (this was before the British Firefly version) but there was always a fifth Sherman.
A documentary illustrated the battlefield techniques of the Shermans and explained the tactics they used against the more heavily-armed and armoured German tanks.
Maybe someone has a better description or link, but the American tank crews sacrificed 3 or 4 Shermans to get in behind the Tiger (swarming) and hit it where its armour was weakest.
The Tiger was heavy and slow and had a slow turret rotation apparently.
...in the new networked army, heavy tanks will play little or no role and the army will really be little more than roving bands of lightly armed and lightly armored guys carrying PDA's.
If the army had had Strykers at the front of the column, lots of guys would have been killed.
OK, so maybe this is what is important, then, and a possible "hidden agenda" behind the article in the first place: military dislike for the Stryker (a multi-wheeled armoured transport vehicule that is perceived to be less good than the alternatives).
Similar bitching was evident for the Bradley because of its aluminum construction if I remember correctly.
I must have missed something in the story (I just scanned it), but where does it list what eventually happened? That would seem to be a notable omission.
How many Iraqi troops were killed/captured/ran away vs. US losses? It couldn't have been a major defeat for the American forces.
The article reads like a puff piece that is designed to encourage more expenditure on surveillance.
What I've seen is essentially a garden hose thrown up on the roof, I never thought to check to what it was connected (given my domain name, this might be considered gross negligence). Maybe it's just for hard-to-get-to storage though.
Come to think of it, you have a point there. It could be used to melt ice on the roof. I'll get back to you, since this is the sort of thing that interests me. Yup, that's pretty pathetic, isn't it.
Every now and then I see homes where the owner has looped or coiled dark green garden hose onto the roof. Does anyone know what that's all about? Obviously, it must be a solar energy collection effort, but how does it work?
Maybe the heated water flows down into some piping tie-in to the house's water supply or something.
Were there any innovative tooth-whitening/straightening products?
Chuckie: [as a prank, drops a pencil into the crack of Homer's butt]
Carla: Bull's-eye!
Homer: Thanks a lot, Carl. Now I lost my train of throught.
Lenny's voice: Dental plan!
I think the difference lies in the fact that ALL Canadians can see a doctor, etc., without feeling that they are a recipient of someone else's "goodwill".
We pay lots of taxes (now at 65%) but at least we have a budget surplus of 9 billion. My opinion is that most Canadians don't mind paying high taxes as long as the result is a decent society.
Your system tends to instill a feeling of helplessness for those that don't have health coverage, even though "eveyone gets healthcare".
But as I've said before, the solution to any American problem is to throw money at it.
Whatever policies for "better healthcare for all Americans" may be proposed will have to grease the palms of those that will be excluded due to the change. Another option is to make it so complicated that it ends up in the same reality for the average person.
Canada made this change many years ago, and there were a lot of objections, but it got done (back then we didn't have powerful lobbying groups swaying public opinion in popular media).
With your dog-eat-dog fundamental economic philosophy, I doubt that you'll ever be able to get a good system going.
Health care will always have to be profit-oriented in your society.
I just watched the clip, and unless I missed something obvious, there was nothing notable about this exchange (oh, wait, I forgot that exposed boobies can result in huge fines in your country).
Perhaps in America this is a big deal, try paying attention to Canadian politics sometime. I know it's pretty hard to do because there's no blowjobs, wars and nekked women flying about, but you guys really have to get a grip and grow up.
BMW's have always looked purposeful. Chrysler's latest designs (which are also German-based because they are partially owned by Daimler) just looks nasty with its slit window presentation and horsepower. Much cooler than a SUV, and the presentation is very good.
Another pair of valves per cylinder would be a good trick. The HEMI is a pushrod engine, not OHC.
OK, lets learn what is the difference between the two. Two or three valves per cylinder are better (more efficient?) because they allow more air intake as compared to the total cylinder head available space. OHC vs. OHV, how does it work?
Could the latest HEMI design be 4-valved to produce a Ferrari-killing 650HP? No problem, but Ford will probably have an answer. Personally, I think that Ford and Chrysler can top Ferrari and Porsche.
The latest BMW flagship's "car control system" is being shitted upon by most test drivers for good reason.
IIRC, BMW semi-produced a Discovery Channel production which covered the creation of this car.
Myself, I'd buy a 350 HP cool-looking, slit-window Chrysler fordor and smoke that Eurotrash machine. This is especially important for technology since all the Chrysler guys have to do is add two more valves to make the engine truly competitive with the Japanese. The HEMI is still running with only two valves per cylinder!
Didn't cable TV originally not contain advertising because it was being paid-for in the first place?
I am noticing lately (only got cable a couple of years ago) that more and more channels are featuring more and more infomercials in place of real programming. If you notice carefully, the corporations that are pushing the 1000+ channel cable/satellite concept seem to be shuffling popular programs around in order to get existing subscribers to add more channels to their line-up.
Putting forced-to-view ads into games is ridiculous, as there's already enough product placement in most titles.
This reminds me of recent TV shows that blur out brand names on the surrounding stage decoration because (presumeably) the displayed advertising icons' owners refused to pay some kind of presentation fee. Am I going overboard with this observation, or is it some form of subtle "extortion" on the part of some producers?
Now, I certainly don't think the American system is perfect. Far from it, and I think the reason for it is that healthcare is paid for as part of a third-party payer system. Very few people here actually pay for their own healthcare; it's paid for by their companies.
Because the individual doesn't pay for their own healthcare, they have little incentive to keep costs down.
I took a quick look at the link you provided and I'm unsure of what it advocates. Maybe the United States is just too big of a society to have universal, taxpayer-supported healthcare (being 10x the size of Canada and other smaller nations that have implemented it).
There will always be people that will go to the hospital's emergency room for a hangnail ambulance call, but most people everywhere understand the difference between important, urgent health care and something that is able to be deferred.
With the US's well-known tendency to overdo everything, it doesn't surprise me that any attempt to "socialize" medicine would meet with huge resistance.
A) Americans are incapable of doing *anything* without spending insane amounts of money, and
B) Free medical care for everyone smells like communism.
In a parent post you wrote:
* under socialism, everybody suffers and is miserable, but at least everybody is equally-miserable and suffers equally
* under capitalism, only a small portion of the population suffers, but they suffer worse than those in the socialist system. But the majority under the capitalist system are better off than both groups
which followed this statement:
we have some 40m without healthcare, but that is 1/7 of the population
You have 40 million people without healthcare, and that's not a problem?
Don't you think that 40 million pissed-off people can be a problem? Even if your estimate was off by a factor of 10, 4,000,00 pissed-off citizens is something to be reckoned with, I would think.
Thanks. My next computer will definitely have a version of Linux on it. I forget if I mentioned in my original message that I messed around with Knoppix and liked what I saw.
Dual screens are very useful for 3D CAD work (ortho views on one screen for precise placement of objects, skewed view on the other for 3D view[1]) and for webpage work (HTML on one screen, preview in the other).
Enabling x-mouse (I.E., focus follows cursor) is probably a good idea.
[1] Some people like to put onscreen menus and buttons on one screen and the image on the other, but that seems like a lot of extra mouse movement compared to using keyboard shortcuts for commands.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you insane?
Apparently, s/he is. This sort of FUD/misinformation is to be expected from uninformed, but committed (possible mental health care-related pun unintentional) individuals. There's also a crapload of money at stake, so the "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude will increase until the US invades Canada and shuts down the existing health care system.
Laser eye surgery is not covered by the Canadian government (and by extension, Canadian citizens' wishes) because it is not considered to be health-threatening.
Your link is pure FUD and relies on convenient anecdotes that keep popping up whenever the topic is mentioned.
The Vancouver-based right-wing think tank...
That part should have clued you in.
What do you consider to be "serious"? Liposuction? Facelifts? Bigger tits? Brain replacement?
Quebec actually has a government-run drug program that limits how much a citizen has to pay for prescribed drug treatment (if they don't have employer-provided or other coverage), I think the maximum cost is about CDN$30 per month.
Admittedly I'm 6'7" but at 250...
I'll bet you scare little children with your freakish verticalness.
Seriously though, I'm a foot shorter and have ballooned to 170 over the past few years due to relative inactivity and "old age" (42). The metabolism really does slow down at around 35, but the brain keeps on going
Goddam kids, get off my lawn!
This whole thing reminds me of the book Human Error. Tight coupling (C depends on B, which depends on A, so objective Z will fail to be met if any of the previous 25 points fail)...
"Tight coupling" (please insert juvenile sex-related jokes here) is a major issue with complicated endeavours. Some people just don't understand that some undertakings require careful planning and thought in order to be successful.
When the shit hits the fan, so to speak, you want flexible, quick-learning, motivated and experienced people to manage the inevitable unexpected complications.
Sheesh, I just re-read what I wrote and it sounds like some kind of vague mission statement on a website.
Putting the anal back in analysis...
Eventually the massively inferior Shermans and T34s won due to sheer numbers, they were cheap and easy to make, as well as reliable.
Many tank aficionados consider the Russian T-34 to be the best overall balanced design of WW2 with the German Panther a close second.
A legend from Panzer commanders is that one German Tiger was better than 4 American Shermans (this was before the British Firefly version) but there was always a fifth Sherman.
A documentary illustrated the battlefield techniques of the Shermans and explained the tactics they used against the more heavily-armed and armoured German tanks.
Maybe someone has a better description or link, but the American tank crews sacrificed 3 or 4 Shermans to get in behind the Tiger (swarming) and hit it where its armour was weakest.
The Tiger was heavy and slow and had a slow turret rotation apparently.
I hear that the translation of the world's funniest joke into Arabic is going quite well, however.
If the army had had Strykers at the front of the column, lots of guys would have been killed.
OK, so maybe this is what is important, then, and a possible "hidden agenda" behind the article in the first place: military dislike for the Stryker (a multi-wheeled armoured transport vehicule that is perceived to be less good than the alternatives).
Similar bitching was evident for the Bradley because of its aluminum construction if I remember correctly.
I must have missed something in the story (I just scanned it), but where does it list what eventually happened? That would seem to be a notable omission.
How many Iraqi troops were killed/captured/ran away vs. US losses? It couldn't have been a major defeat for the American forces.
The article reads like a puff piece that is designed to encourage more expenditure on surveillance.
What I've seen is essentially a garden hose thrown up on the roof, I never thought to check to what it was connected (given my domain name, this might be considered gross negligence). Maybe it's just for hard-to-get-to storage though.
Come to think of it, you have a point there. It could be used to melt ice on the roof. I'll get back to you, since this is the sort of thing that interests me. Yup, that's pretty pathetic, isn't it.
Every now and then I see homes where the owner has looped or coiled dark green garden hose onto the roof. Does anyone know what that's all about? Obviously, it must be a solar energy collection effort, but how does it work?
Maybe the heated water flows down into some piping tie-in to the house's water supply or something.
Were there any innovative tooth-whitening/straightening products?
Chuckie: [as a prank, drops a pencil into the crack of Homer's butt]
Carla: Bull's-eye!
Homer: Thanks a lot, Carl. Now I lost my train of throught.
Lenny's voice: Dental plan!
[Simpsons references never go out of style...]
I think the difference lies in the fact that ALL Canadians can see a doctor, etc., without feeling that they are a recipient of someone else's "goodwill".
We pay lots of taxes (now at 65%) but at least we have a budget surplus of 9 billion. My opinion is that most Canadians don't mind paying high taxes as long as the result is a decent society. Your system tends to instill a feeling of helplessness for those that don't have health coverage, even though "eveyone gets healthcare".
But as I've said before, the solution to any American problem is to throw money at it.
Whatever policies for "better healthcare for all Americans" may be proposed will have to grease the palms of those that will be excluded due to the change. Another option is to make it so complicated that it ends up in the same reality for the average person.
Canada made this change many years ago, and there were a lot of objections, but it got done (back then we didn't have powerful lobbying groups swaying public opinion in popular media).
With your dog-eat-dog fundamental economic philosophy, I doubt that you'll ever be able to get a good system going.
Health care will always have to be profit-oriented in your society.
That is unfortunate.
I just watched the clip, and unless I missed something obvious, there was nothing notable about this exchange (oh, wait, I forgot that exposed boobies can result in huge fines in your country).
Perhaps in America this is a big deal, try paying attention to Canadian politics sometime. I know it's pretty hard to do because there's no blowjobs, wars and nekked women flying about, but you guys really have to get a grip and grow up.
This leaves us North Americans with only two natively-controlled manufacturers, Chevrolet and Ford.
No, not a troll.
I used to buy Hondas, then I bought American (noisy Saturn).
Now that the American car manufacturers have decided to truly kick the ass of BMW and the other German manufacturers, all bets are off.
The latest big-engined Chryslers probably have no challenge from the big BMWs.
BMW's have always looked purposeful. Chrysler's latest designs (which are also German-based because they are partially owned by Daimler) just looks nasty with its slit window presentation and horsepower. Much cooler than a SUV, and the presentation is very good.
Another pair of valves per cylinder would be a good trick. The HEMI is a pushrod engine, not OHC.
OK, lets learn what is the difference between the two. Two or three valves per cylinder are better (more efficient?) because they allow more air intake as compared to the total cylinder head available space. OHC vs. OHV, how does it work?
Could the latest HEMI design be 4-valved to produce a Ferrari-killing 650HP? No problem, but Ford will probably have an answer. Personally, I think that Ford and Chrysler can top Ferrari and Porsche.
The latest BMW flagship's "car control system" is being shitted upon by most test drivers for good reason.
IIRC, BMW semi-produced a Discovery Channel production which covered the creation of this car.
Myself, I'd buy a 350 HP cool-looking, slit-window Chrysler fordor and smoke that Eurotrash machine. This is especially important for technology since all the Chrysler guys have to do is add two more valves to make the engine truly competitive with the Japanese. The HEMI is still running with only two valves per cylinder!
I know Asprin won't get mod points as a result, but don't you think his comment should be modded as funny?
When I pay for cable TV, I expect advertising...
Didn't cable TV originally not contain advertising because it was being paid-for in the first place?
I am noticing lately (only got cable a couple of years ago) that more and more channels are featuring more and more infomercials in place of real programming. If you notice carefully, the corporations that are pushing the 1000+ channel cable/satellite concept seem to be shuffling popular programs around in order to get existing subscribers to add more channels to their line-up.
Putting forced-to-view ads into games is ridiculous, as there's already enough product placement in most titles.
This reminds me of recent TV shows that blur out brand names on the surrounding stage decoration because (presumeably) the displayed advertising icons' owners refused to pay some kind of presentation fee. Am I going overboard with this observation, or is it some form of subtle "extortion" on the part of some producers?
Now, I certainly don't think the American system is perfect. Far from it, and I think the reason for it is that healthcare is paid for as part of a third-party payer system. Very few people here actually pay for their own healthcare; it's paid for by their companies.
Because the individual doesn't pay for their own healthcare, they have little incentive to keep costs down.
I took a quick look at the link you provided and I'm unsure of what it advocates. Maybe the United States is just too big of a society to have universal, taxpayer-supported healthcare (being 10x the size of Canada and other smaller nations that have implemented it).
There will always be people that will go to the hospital's emergency room for a hangnail ambulance call, but most people everywhere understand the difference between important, urgent health care and something that is able to be deferred.
With the US's well-known tendency to overdo everything, it doesn't surprise me that any attempt to "socialize" medicine would meet with huge resistance.
A) Americans are incapable of doing *anything* without spending insane amounts of money, and
B) Free medical care for everyone smells like communism.
In a parent post you wrote:
* under socialism, everybody suffers and is miserable, but at least everybody is equally-miserable and suffers equally
* under capitalism, only a small portion of the population suffers, but they suffer worse than those in the socialist system. But the majority under the capitalist system are better off than both groups
which followed this statement:
we have some 40m without healthcare, but that is 1/7 of the population
You have 40 million people without healthcare, and that's not a problem?
Don't you think that 40 million pissed-off people can be a problem? Even if your estimate was off by a factor of 10, 4,000,00 pissed-off citizens is something to be reckoned with, I would think.
Thanks. My next computer will definitely have a version of Linux on it. I forget if I mentioned in my original message that I messed around with Knoppix and liked what I saw.
Here's a good site about multi-monitor setups.
Dual screens are very useful for 3D CAD work (ortho views on one screen for precise placement of objects, skewed view on the other for 3D view[1]) and for webpage work (HTML on one screen, preview in the other).
Enabling x-mouse (I.E., focus follows cursor) is probably a good idea.
[1] Some people like to put onscreen menus and buttons on one screen and the image on the other, but that seems like a lot of extra mouse movement compared to using keyboard shortcuts for commands.
Speaking of "gated communities", do these exist in other first world countries (say, Canada, for example)?