I broadly agree with your credible link, I don't agree with your conclusion. Everyone here is already covered and the tax levy of 1.5% has not changed in 30yrs, others have pointed out with simarly credible links that it costs around half the price of what you are currently taxed in the US (ignoring private health cover), and with statistically much better medical outcomes. And yes the private insurance companies have been crying poor for the last three decades but they still exist and still turn a profit. Since the govt system is cheap and effective the market for basic care has simply dissappeared (no point in privately insuring when you have already paid for in taxes). Because of my well above average income I am penalized $500yr for not having private health cover but all things considered it a bargain compared to the old system.
In short you are absolutely correct that the system must be adequayely funded but similarly whatever funds are collected must also be spent wisely and from my viewpoint the US is not doing the later because they are too busy beancounting.
Yes you can "queue jump" elective surgery with private cover but there is still a slightly shorter private queue, the main reason for the increase in speed is that the patient is paying the relatively small extra cost of the private hospital bed. Many people will do this out of their own pocket and pay an extra few hundred for thier elective surgery and this does indeed relive pressure on the public queue as was intended. "Depending on the severity of the illness" is a key phrase in all of this, private hospitals will transfer seriously ill people to a public hospital because that is where the best equipment and care is.
Anyway I'm sure you won't take my word for it (after all I'm just another dumass ranting on slashdot) so I invite you to come here on a holiday one day and see how it does "work". As for socialisim vs capitialism, in my mind neither can work in perfect isolation from the other, refer to my sig for more information.
I agree, the "rich" are worse off financially, in relative terms my Australian income is similar to the GP's, but my 1.5% + $500 "rich tax" is providing (judging by this thread, exceptional) health care for more than just myself.
When I was younger (and in the bottom 10% of taxpayers rather than the top 10%) it also covered my wife and two kids. Now I am divorced and the kids have grown I look at covering a handfull of "average" non-taxpayers as a philanthropic bargain at that price. Who knows I might end up poor again in my old age for some unforseen reason, but I'm pretty sure any future finacial woes won't be the result of a doctors bill.
Another good idea introduced in phases over the last couple of decades is madatory super contributions from your employer (currently 9% of BT earnings), unlike the US the government can't touch the super as it is invested with real super fund managers and is capital gaurenteed. OTOH: They may one day see fit to hike the 15% tax due on annuities, annuities and withdrawals are only allowed when you reach 55, if you get divorced the super is split, other than exceptional circumstance such as a home deposit after a divorce, there are severe financial penalties for taking it as a lump sum even after 55.
Rather than the hyped "looming crisis in social security" we now have millions of super accounts in the "free market" financial system totaling trillions of dollars in stocks, bonds, bicks and motar. Because it was introduced slowly with company tax breaks and an inching up of the contribution rate the economy has had time to absorb it, unemployment has remained low, standard of living has remained high, the budget has been in surplus since the early 90's, companies still manage to build skyscrapers, and no cracks have been seen that would indicate the sky is going to fall any time soon.
Maybe I'm wrong and these type of schemes would not work for some (as yet unheard) reason in the US, but when I look at the stories about the US problems with health care and social security it looks and sounds like the same political debate we had here in Australia decades ago, the dire predictions from vested interests and the far right have all evaporated in the harsh light of reality.
Disclaimer: I am neither a "socialist" nor a "capitalist", refer to my sig for further information.:)
"Wouldn't you call someone like this incredibly gullible?"
Yep, and if they can't be bothered to buy a "for dummies" guide when I suggest it then the only thing I do for them is repeat the suggestion. My point was you have to learn to drive a PC around the net and we have all had the odd collision with a virus at one time or another. Those who are willing to learn will eventually do so and will put their PC to good use (regardless of O/S), those who don't end up with an expensive paperweight that is no longer a problem to anyone. Either way the blame for botnets and such lies with the people who are "taking candy from babies".
My other beef when someone buys a windows box is that they come with advertising masqurading as "bundled apps". When the user boots up for the first time there are half a dozen full sized nag screens all warning of dire consequences and demanding a credit card number. If the user is lucky enough to pick the XP "getting started" manual out of the half dozen or so available, the screen they see does not look anything like the pictures in TFM. Looking through the other manuals just enhances the users growing distrust of the manuals. The most gratefull people I come across are people I show how to turn off pre-installed crapplications.
"People _would_ start blaming you if a group of criminals was entering your home, stayed there for months making loud music and trashing the neighbourhood, all because you refused to close and lock your doors."
They are called "squatters", they turn up in gangs with vicious dogs while you are not there, they pay no mind to locks and doors and will burn your furniture to stay warm, once discovered they may require expert help to "delete" or "vault".
"Just plain wrong", thats a revealing argument from you and every other dumass. Provide some credible evidence via a link, just once would do, your anecdotal rants about Canada are simply nonesense. Patients often think their own case is "life threatening" but since you used politicians for you anecdotes I'm sure neither were parinoid about "advisers".
Anyway we have had this debate before and you are sprouting the same anecdotes, in the interest of brevity and absent a credible link I will stop now and let your final rant go unanswered.
BTW: I don't mark people as foes, I remeber the more seriously brainwashed facists by name.
My father was a mechanical engineer, he has bought a couple of mac's on my say-so. Being an engineer he likes to pull things apart, 10 or so years after his first mac he is now 75 and no longer uses one, he has an XP AND a Linux box AND some neat video editing equipment. When he started asking me the difference between different pin standards for parrallel ports I said "I dunno Dad, RTFM". He also writes some slick kids games in Delphi for fun (solitare-yahtzee was his last one, complete with rolling dice visuals, sound effects and an installer. Naturally the code is open source.)
Mum and Dad are kinda spritley for their age, Dad gave up towing their caravan all around the bush and sold it last year, they put the money towards their 3 week cruise to Antartica! I hope it's genetic.:)
"Anyway, since neither of them chose not to follow my advice, she gets no technical support from me."
I try to advise without prempting their choice, often I will spens a couple of hours to help kick start someone if I like the person. Regardless of what they choose, people who expect me to help are made aware of my hourly rate and lack of free time.
As an Aussie on vacation in the UK, I recieved similar treatment in the UK (twice) for "free" because of a recipricol arrangement by the two govt's. I paid $0.00 for two consultations and two courses of anti-biotics, the doctor actually laughed when I asked about payment. I didn't have to show any ID, I just told them my name, address and phone number!
The main reason for the "reasonable rate" for an (uninsured?) American is that GP's can no longer refuse to bulk bill (ie: send the bill to the govt), the doctor can charge what they like but will only get back the schedule fee, the rest they have to chase the patient for, most people avoid the extra charge for a "celebrity" doctor. "Market forces" drive the average price down to (or just above) the "reasonable" scheduled fee. Doctors who are over billing by using (too many?) fake patients are usually tripped up by statistics around tax time.
The main hole is dentistry and ambulances are not covered, dentists are within the means of most but it's a struggle for some, ambulance insurance is very cheap as it's collected by the ambulance system itself (no third party profit). The ambulance is well worth it, it's a big country and a ride/flight in an ambulance can potentialy set you back thousands (after the fact).
Ahhh sumdumbass we meet agian, I have no real inclination to refute your dogma except to say that reality has a way of crushing armchair economic theories. The same misinformed rants were prevelent here 30yrs ago and yet the sky has not fallen. Look up the facts on the Australian system yourself or pay a group of vultures twice as much for half the "freedom" from disease, I really don't care in your particular case.
"but my insurance and medical bills (including prescriptions) over the last 5 years have averaged about $1000 / year, which works out to less than 1.5% of my annual income."
So tell me what sort of things are you covered by this insurance, do you have a link to the policy's terms so I can laugh my arse off?
I can't speak for Canada but that is not true of Australia. Wealthy countries rarely send patients overseas for lack of equipment, usually it is because of a new procedure that has not yet been taught internationally.
"Just how close to the center of power do you have to be to get the same sort of special treatment accorded the PM?"
Money is what buys the luxury enjoyed by a successfull politician, a successfull drug dearler can buy the same level of luxury. Both will automatically get the same level of govt subsidy as everyone else. The upper-middle class have an extra $500 levy if they don't buy any private health insurance, many people pay the levy.
What other insights do you have and this time look a few facts up first.
Exactly, and I also get sick of "experts" ridiculing and blaming the victims of vandalisim and crime for messing up "their" playground. Nobody blames a homeowner when a thief kicks down their flimsy door and robs them, or a vandal rips up their mail and knocks down the letterbox.
As I have been doing for nearly two decades, I set up a friends PC just before christmas, and told him "just say no" to unknown applications. He had no troubles until about a week ago, he got a message from the virus scanner about a trojan and didn't understand the options so he just pulled the plug from the wall, called his bank and waited until next time he saw me.
The first thing I said to him was..."you said 'yes', didn't you?"...he complained bitterly..."No porn videos, No screensavers" I asked in a mocking accusation...."is a screen saver an application" he replied with a puzzled look. I booted it up and showed him how the scanner gets rid of the trojan and admired his new screen saver. The VS options were something like "vault" and "delete", there wasn't a "no" or "cancel" button so he panicked and enacted the "emergency procedure" I had advised previously.
The guy is not an idiot, he is middle aged but has had virtually nill exposure to PC's, until he went out and bought one. He restores antique furniture for a living, he is over the moon about ebay and other stuff to do with furniture but has ignored FPS games. Not that he doesn't like them he has a PS3 and loves it because "it doesn't do things that are not in the manual". For him the curve is still too steep (and life is too short) to learn how to install and register games with confidence.
As an Aussie I concur, few people here have private health cover, and the cover normally boils down to a gaurentee of a private hospital for elective sugery. All private hospitals are fairly small and some have nice nice garden's, they are generally less well equiped and use the same doctors/surgeons as public hospitals, if something goes seriously wrong with a patient they are immediately transfered to a better equiped public hospital.
If you are just interested in your health then use the "free" (1.5% of taxable income) universal health cover, even millionaires are not forced to pay more than $1200yr for prescriptions. The doctors are well paid, nurses are well trained and the PUBLIC hospitals measure up to anything offered overseas. What's more I recently visited the UK and got a chest infection, went to casualty twice and got antibiotics "free". The doctor laughed when I ask "should I pay at reception", seems our governments have a recipricol arrangement to look after each other tourists.
A company must make a profit, that is it's sole reason for existance, if the government can't do it to a higher standard with less money then they are doing something wrong. No Australian politician would dare dismantle the public scheme and go back to the early 70's privatised "pay or die" scheme, the voting public would tie them to an ambulance and drag them through the streets. This situation is also boosted by a "balance of power/share the blame" component, the fed's collect the money and the various states spend it. If you are seriously ill in this country there is absolutely no fucking around, especially with admin, accountants and lawyers, because guess what - prevention and early treatment is much cheaper than "the machine that goes ping". Oh and guess what - a healthier population is less profitable for private hostpitals and more productive in...what's that thing called...oh yes, "the market".
Having said that I will also point out Godel has proven no system is complete, some doctors are butchers and that is when the lawyers, accountants and admin come out of the woodwork. However all I ever hear from American's when asked "why not have UHC like just about every other wealthy country", is a ranting reply about their pathological fear of "socialisim" and vacuous examples of "higher costs". Some will listen and are surprised by the reality they find, others are like the people who talk about global warming on Mars to deny it on Earth, there is no possible reply to that level of brainwashed dogma other than sarcasam and abuse.
And before some free market zealot starts waving the WSJ to point out the painfully obvious: yes UHC is a form of "socialisim", some things just work better that way, New York's central park for example or does Disney sell tickets to walk your dog now?
"Writing apps to rank and sort web pages strikes me as the type of problem that a lot of smart people would find a lot of fun."
Your at least a decade too late, the ship has sailed and it's called google.
"Yeah, the shine's definitely gone off Google, eh? at the rate google (and yahoo) are swallowing up other sites there's going to be some major monopolising going on."
Playing one state of against another is just the regular kind of "evil" found in all big-bussiness, big-bussiness don't pay tax bills like ordinary folk, they negotiate thier tax bill (global corporatization on a smaller scale). Google are paying tax and staying in the US. The politicians did thier job by attracting a large corporate to thier turf and getting gauranteed revenue for 30yrs plus all the spin-off effects on the economy, what more do you want?
Attacking google for this behaviour is like kicking the cat after a bad day, if you want to attack "evil" there are plenty of targets, corporations that lay the planet to waste and supply waring tribes with modern weapons. They destroy lives and feed from the public trough rather than create meaningfull employment and a nice pot of tax money. OTOH: "Kick the cat" often enough and it will scratch your eyes out while your sleeping.
Evil is as evil does - Gump.
The state where I live (not part of the US) built a power plant specifically for an Aluminium smelter, gaurenteed cheap dirty (and drit cheap) electricity for 30yrs or so. They also built a massive sewer to take the waste from a large paper mill and dump it in the ocean and called it a "green project" to rehabilitate the river the mill had already killed. The mill threatened to move overseas/interstate if it had to spend money and went so far as to infiltrate "enemy" community groups in order to discredit them. The crap these places spew and the fairy tale propoganda they use to justify it, is IMHO "evil", but try telling that to anyone who's livelyhood depends on it. Try telling the guy at the nuclear missle plant or the biological warfare lab that his work is "evil" and he will claim he is "preseving freedom" or some such rationalization, to him the thought of not planning for nuclear war is "evil".
I get kind of sick of the "we caught google being evil" shit that accompanies so many articles, it's not like they are claiming they have God on their side or that anyone else is "evil". Here in Australia we have some odd expressions, the one that fits google on slashdot is Tall poppy syndrome.
Disclaimer: "you" - not picking on "you" personally, just the general sociopathic pendantry that surround google's brilliantly provocative slogan.
Slashdot Mirror
I broadly agree with your credible link, I don't agree with your conclusion. Everyone here is already covered and the tax levy of 1.5% has not changed in 30yrs, others have pointed out with simarly credible links that it costs around half the price of what you are currently taxed in the US (ignoring private health cover), and with statistically much better medical outcomes. And yes the private insurance companies have been crying poor for the last three decades but they still exist and still turn a profit. Since the govt system is cheap and effective the market for basic care has simply dissappeared (no point in privately insuring when you have already paid for in taxes). Because of my well above average income I am penalized $500yr for not having private health cover but all things considered it a bargain compared to the old system.
In short you are absolutely correct that the system must be adequayely funded but similarly whatever funds are collected must also be spent wisely and from my viewpoint the US is not doing the later because they are too busy beancounting.
Yes you can "queue jump" elective surgery with private cover but there is still a slightly shorter private queue, the main reason for the increase in speed is that the patient is paying the relatively small extra cost of the private hospital bed. Many people will do this out of their own pocket and pay an extra few hundred for thier elective surgery and this does indeed relive pressure on the public queue as was intended. "Depending on the severity of the illness" is a key phrase in all of this, private hospitals will transfer seriously ill people to a public hospital because that is where the best equipment and care is.
Anyway I'm sure you won't take my word for it (after all I'm just another dumass ranting on slashdot) so I invite you to come here on a holiday one day and see how it does "work". As for socialisim vs capitialism, in my mind neither can work in perfect isolation from the other, refer to my sig for more information.
I agree, the "rich" are worse off financially, in relative terms my Australian income is similar to the GP's, but my 1.5% + $500 "rich tax" is providing (judging by this thread, exceptional) health care for more than just myself.
:)
When I was younger (and in the bottom 10% of taxpayers rather than the top 10%) it also covered my wife and two kids. Now I am divorced and the kids have grown I look at covering a handfull of "average" non-taxpayers as a philanthropic bargain at that price. Who knows I might end up poor again in my old age for some unforseen reason, but I'm pretty sure any future finacial woes won't be the result of a doctors bill.
Another good idea introduced in phases over the last couple of decades is madatory super contributions from your employer (currently 9% of BT earnings), unlike the US the government can't touch the super as it is invested with real super fund managers and is capital gaurenteed. OTOH: They may one day see fit to hike the 15% tax due on annuities, annuities and withdrawals are only allowed when you reach 55, if you get divorced the super is split, other than exceptional circumstance such as a home deposit after a divorce, there are severe financial penalties for taking it as a lump sum even after 55.
Rather than the hyped "looming crisis in social security" we now have millions of super accounts in the "free market" financial system totaling trillions of dollars in stocks, bonds, bicks and motar. Because it was introduced slowly with company tax breaks and an inching up of the contribution rate the economy has had time to absorb it, unemployment has remained low, standard of living has remained high, the budget has been in surplus since the early 90's, companies still manage to build skyscrapers, and no cracks have been seen that would indicate the sky is going to fall any time soon.
Maybe I'm wrong and these type of schemes would not work for some (as yet unheard) reason in the US, but when I look at the stories about the US problems with health care and social security it looks and sounds like the same political debate we had here in Australia decades ago, the dire predictions from vested interests and the far right have all evaporated in the harsh light of reality.
Disclaimer: I am neither a "socialist" nor a "capitalist", refer to my sig for further information.
"Wouldn't you call someone like this incredibly gullible?"
Yep, and if they can't be bothered to buy a "for dummies" guide when I suggest it then the only thing I do for them is repeat the suggestion. My point was you have to learn to drive a PC around the net and we have all had the odd collision with a virus at one time or another. Those who are willing to learn will eventually do so and will put their PC to good use (regardless of O/S), those who don't end up with an expensive paperweight that is no longer a problem to anyone. Either way the blame for botnets and such lies with the people who are "taking candy from babies".
My other beef when someone buys a windows box is that they come with advertising masqurading as "bundled apps". When the user boots up for the first time there are half a dozen full sized nag screens all warning of dire consequences and demanding a credit card number. If the user is lucky enough to pick the XP "getting started" manual out of the half dozen or so available, the screen they see does not look anything like the pictures in TFM. Looking through the other manuals just enhances the users growing distrust of the manuals. The most gratefull people I come across are people I show how to turn off pre-installed crapplications.
"People _would_ start blaming you if a group of criminals was entering your home, stayed there for months making loud music and trashing the neighbourhood, all because you refused to close and lock your doors."
They are called "squatters", they turn up in gangs with vicious dogs while you are not there, they pay no mind to locks and doors and will burn your furniture to stay warm, once discovered they may require expert help to "delete" or "vault".
"Just plain wrong", thats a revealing argument from you and every other dumass. Provide some credible evidence via a link, just once would do, your anecdotal rants about Canada are simply nonesense. Patients often think their own case is "life threatening" but since you used politicians for you anecdotes I'm sure neither were parinoid about "advisers".
Anyway we have had this debate before and you are sprouting the same anecdotes, in the interest of brevity and absent a credible link I will stop now and let your final rant go unanswered.
BTW: I don't mark people as foes, I remeber the more seriously brainwashed facists by name.
Dioxins were/are a problem depending on who you listen too.
My father was a mechanical engineer, he has bought a couple of mac's on my say-so. Being an engineer he likes to pull things apart, 10 or so years after his first mac he is now 75 and no longer uses one, he has an XP AND a Linux box AND some neat video editing equipment. When he started asking me the difference between different pin standards for parrallel ports I said "I dunno Dad, RTFM". He also writes some slick kids games in Delphi for fun (solitare-yahtzee was his last one, complete with rolling dice visuals, sound effects and an installer. Naturally the code is open source.)
:)
Mum and Dad are kinda spritley for their age, Dad gave up towing their caravan all around the bush and sold it last year, they put the money towards their 3 week cruise to Antartica! I hope it's genetic.
"Anyway, since neither of them chose not to follow my advice, she gets no technical support from me."
I try to advise without prempting their choice, often I will spens a couple of hours to help kick start someone if I like the person. Regardless of what they choose, people who expect me to help are made aware of my hourly rate and lack of free time.
As an Aussie on vacation in the UK, I recieved similar treatment in the UK (twice) for "free" because of a recipricol arrangement by the two govt's. I paid $0.00 for two consultations and two courses of anti-biotics, the doctor actually laughed when I asked about payment. I didn't have to show any ID, I just told them my name, address and phone number!
The main reason for the "reasonable rate" for an (uninsured?) American is that GP's can no longer refuse to bulk bill (ie: send the bill to the govt), the doctor can charge what they like but will only get back the schedule fee, the rest they have to chase the patient for, most people avoid the extra charge for a "celebrity" doctor. "Market forces" drive the average price down to (or just above) the "reasonable" scheduled fee. Doctors who are over billing by using (too many?) fake patients are usually tripped up by statistics around tax time.
The main hole is dentistry and ambulances are not covered, dentists are within the means of most but it's a struggle for some, ambulance insurance is very cheap as it's collected by the ambulance system itself (no third party profit). The ambulance is well worth it, it's a big country and a ride/flight in an ambulance can potentialy set you back thousands (after the fact).
Maybe, most people ask after they have already bought a box from the department store and have become frustrated trying to set it up.
Ahhh sumdumbass we meet agian, I have no real inclination to refute your dogma except to say that reality has a way of crushing armchair economic theories. The same misinformed rants were prevelent here 30yrs ago and yet the sky has not fallen. Look up the facts on the Australian system yourself or pay a group of vultures twice as much for half the "freedom" from disease, I really don't care in your particular case.
"He is also asuming that If you and everyone else was somehow covered, that the 1.5% or whatever that you already pay"
The emprical data shows the levy has remained fixed for about three decades.
"Canada has socialized medicine and a socialized retirement program and they are running budget surpluses"
Ditto for Australia.
"but my insurance and medical bills (including prescriptions) over the last 5 years have averaged about $1000 / year, which works out to less than 1.5% of my annual income."
So tell me what sort of things are you covered by this insurance, do you have a link to the policy's terms so I can laugh my arse off?
I can't speak for Canada but that is not true of Australia. Wealthy countries rarely send patients overseas for lack of equipment, usually it is because of a new procedure that has not yet been taught internationally.
"Just how close to the center of power do you have to be to get the same sort of special treatment accorded the PM?"
Money is what buys the luxury enjoyed by a successfull politician, a successfull drug dearler can buy the same level of luxury. Both will automatically get the same level of govt subsidy as everyone else. The upper-middle class have an extra $500 levy if they don't buy any private health insurance, many people pay the levy.
What other insights do you have and this time look a few facts up first.
Exactly, and I also get sick of "experts" ridiculing and blaming the victims of vandalisim and crime for messing up "their" playground. Nobody blames a homeowner when a thief kicks down their flimsy door and robs them, or a vandal rips up their mail and knocks down the letterbox.
As I have been doing for nearly two decades, I set up a friends PC just before christmas, and told him "just say no" to unknown applications. He had no troubles until about a week ago, he got a message from the virus scanner about a trojan and didn't understand the options so he just pulled the plug from the wall, called his bank and waited until next time he saw me.
The first thing I said to him was..."you said 'yes', didn't you?"...he complained bitterly..."No porn videos, No screensavers" I asked in a mocking accusation...."is a screen saver an application" he replied with a puzzled look. I booted it up and showed him how the scanner gets rid of the trojan and admired his new screen saver. The VS options were something like "vault" and "delete", there wasn't a "no" or "cancel" button so he panicked and enacted the "emergency procedure" I had advised previously.
The guy is not an idiot, he is middle aged but has had virtually nill exposure to PC's, until he went out and bought one. He restores antique furniture for a living, he is over the moon about ebay and other stuff to do with furniture but has ignored FPS games. Not that he doesn't like them he has a PS3 and loves it because "it doesn't do things that are not in the manual". For him the curve is still too steep (and life is too short) to learn how to install and register games with confidence.
As an Aussie I concur, few people here have private health cover, and the cover normally boils down to a gaurentee of a private hospital for elective sugery. All private hospitals are fairly small and some have nice nice garden's, they are generally less well equiped and use the same doctors/surgeons as public hospitals, if something goes seriously wrong with a patient they are immediately transfered to a better equiped public hospital.
...what's that thing called...oh yes, "the market".
If you are just interested in your health then use the "free" (1.5% of taxable income) universal health cover, even millionaires are not forced to pay more than $1200yr for prescriptions. The doctors are well paid, nurses are well trained and the PUBLIC hospitals measure up to anything offered overseas. What's more I recently visited the UK and got a chest infection, went to casualty twice and got antibiotics "free". The doctor laughed when I ask "should I pay at reception", seems our governments have a recipricol arrangement to look after each other tourists.
A company must make a profit, that is it's sole reason for existance, if the government can't do it to a higher standard with less money then they are doing something wrong. No Australian politician would dare dismantle the public scheme and go back to the early 70's privatised "pay or die" scheme, the voting public would tie them to an ambulance and drag them through the streets. This situation is also boosted by a "balance of power/share the blame" component, the fed's collect the money and the various states spend it. If you are seriously ill in this country there is absolutely no fucking around, especially with admin, accountants and lawyers, because guess what - prevention and early treatment is much cheaper than "the machine that goes ping". Oh and guess what - a healthier population is less profitable for private hostpitals and more productive in
Having said that I will also point out Godel has proven no system is complete, some doctors are butchers and that is when the lawyers, accountants and admin come out of the woodwork. However all I ever hear from American's when asked "why not have UHC like just about every other wealthy country", is a ranting reply about their pathological fear of "socialisim" and vacuous examples of "higher costs". Some will listen and are surprised by the reality they find, others are like the people who talk about global warming on Mars to deny it on Earth, there is no possible reply to that level of brainwashed dogma other than sarcasam and abuse.
And before some free market zealot starts waving the WSJ to point out the painfully obvious: yes UHC is a form of "socialisim", some things just work better that way, New York's central park for example or does Disney sell tickets to walk your dog now?
I've got it! Bostonians could blow up their own infrastucture, but please stand at a safe distance and use protective eyewear.
"Screw that. I'm going to copyright "bring woman to orgasm."
:-o
As a work of fiction?
"True, but apparently you can copyright choreography"
So you can copywright body movements! Excuse me while I copyright "scratching one's arse".
Quite a few others have posted their terms and conditions, by accepting the service you enter into a contractual agreement, signature or otherwise.
"I think I'm going to stop sleeping with your cat."
So that's why she won't look me in the eye when she comes home late at night.
Always, always, always, read the contract!
"There's nobody infiltrating your groups, you're just surrounded by idiots!"
They are not MY groups.
"Arms companies provide plenty of meaningful employment"
Yes, to the people who work there, that is what I said.
"Very few people seem to understand what the world "evil" means"
You are simply projecting your confused world view onto others.
"Writing apps to rank and sort web pages strikes me as the type of problem that a lot of smart people would find a lot of fun."
Your at least a decade too late, the ship has sailed and it's called google.
"Yeah, the shine's definitely gone off Google, eh? at the rate google (and yahoo) are swallowing up other sites there's going to be some major monopolising going on."
Playing one state of against another is just the regular kind of "evil" found in all big-bussiness, big-bussiness don't pay tax bills like ordinary folk, they negotiate thier tax bill (global corporatization on a smaller scale). Google are paying tax and staying in the US. The politicians did thier job by attracting a large corporate to thier turf and getting gauranteed revenue for 30yrs plus all the spin-off effects on the economy, what more do you want?
Attacking google for this behaviour is like kicking the cat after a bad day, if you want to attack "evil" there are plenty of targets, corporations that lay the planet to waste and supply waring tribes with modern weapons. They destroy lives and feed from the public trough rather than create meaningfull employment and a nice pot of tax money. OTOH: "Kick the cat" often enough and it will scratch your eyes out while your sleeping.
Evil is as evil does - Gump.
The state where I live (not part of the US) built a power plant specifically for an Aluminium smelter, gaurenteed cheap dirty (and drit cheap) electricity for 30yrs or so. They also built a massive sewer to take the waste from a large paper mill and dump it in the ocean and called it a "green project" to rehabilitate the river the mill had already killed. The mill threatened to move overseas/interstate if it had to spend money and went so far as to infiltrate "enemy" community groups in order to discredit them. The crap these places spew and the fairy tale propoganda they use to justify it, is IMHO "evil", but try telling that to anyone who's livelyhood depends on it. Try telling the guy at the nuclear missle plant or the biological warfare lab that his work is "evil" and he will claim he is "preseving freedom" or some such rationalization, to him the thought of not planning for nuclear war is "evil".
I get kind of sick of the "we caught google being evil" shit that accompanies so many articles, it's not like they are claiming they have God on their side or that anyone else is "evil". Here in Australia we have some odd expressions, the one that fits google on slashdot is Tall poppy syndrome.
Disclaimer: "you" - not picking on "you" personally, just the general sociopathic pendantry that surround google's brilliantly provocative slogan.