The problem _is_ the corporation, because corporations are legally obliged to maximise the value of investments, and the only way to do this is by charging the highest price that customers will pay for the worst deal they'll swallow.
legally? Really? (Honest question, I could see the US or at least some states require it, but it would see..... quite over the top/counterproductive).
Western Europe is socialist. What you're talking about is communism, which inevitably decays to centralized authoritarianism, much like an atom of uranium will inevitably decay to lead. Don't confuse the proven ideas of socialism with the misguided efforts of communists. You poison the concept of socialism that way.
Technically the examples of communism we've seen have come after revolutions which brought down authoritarian dictatorships in mostly rural/non-industrialised nations. So in those cases there was very little change of creating any kind of democratic system. (also technically speaking no country ever achieved communnism, since that would imply a utopian nation without much of a government at all, but as a label to differntiate between the two systems it's quite useful </pendantic observation >).
While I'm sure the Canadian healthcare system is all of those things, it requires tremendous Faith in the US government to implement such a system so light on bureaucracy that it can actually be effective. I for one lack that kind of faith and I think the real root of the problem is that most people in the US feel that way as well.
The fun part is that the US government already runs a highly successful single payer health care system: the Veterans Health Administration.
One big problem would be health care tourism. People with expensive illnesses would be likely to move to a state with free/cheap universal health care. Depending on the system they could even just visit the state. No state will therefore be too free with it's system.
I'd say blame the media. They're the ones who made more of Gore's "wooden appearance" than of Bush's cocaine use, his many business failures or the fact he dodged Vietnam.
and of course blame an electoral system which a) makes it possible to become president if you get second place and b) (and more importantly) allows partisan people to run state elections.
Often true (though in some cases YMMY for "clearly unconstitutional"). However the arguments used to create rights or stop laws is often very far fetched. Roe vs. Wade being a good example. Abortion rights would be a lot more secure in the US if they didn't hinge on first creating a right to privacy (which isn't numerated in the constitution) and then decide that abortion itself could be illegal, but you can't enforce it since women have the right to privacy.
Obviously not all (conservative or progressive) jurispudence is like that, but far to much is.
Ideed, and one of the reasons that LotR works so well is that Peter Jackson used whatever effect worked best. SO you have a lot of old school "camera angle tricks" to make characters appear smaller or larger, instead of all green screen all the time. (
Mind you a lot of the CGI was still... questionable and I imagine that will the parts that will age the most. CGI is great, but when possible you should use other effects.
The problem I have with this argument is this. Where does faith come from? That is how do you know to believe in Jesus/Mohammed/Shiva/Budda/FSM?
Most of the time you get it from your parents or your community. So it isn't faith in God(s) so much as faith in your family/community.
Converts are, in a way, worse. They decide for themselves that something is "True" and consequently have fiath in it. (Though you could argue that this is the Holy Spirit/True submission/sauce of the FSM that reaches the individual).
but if you do, then don't be so bleak about mankind, you do it a disservice to have so little faith in it
I believe that there is progress (materialy as well as spiritually). However I don't believe that progress is automatic and I certainly don't believe we humanity can't relapse.
Interestingly enough, the US is one of the few countries that bucks that trend and has a growing population (even without immigration...)
wellllll. Not entirely. A quick google says it's at roughly replacement rate. And I'd imagine that a lot of that is from recent immigrants (e.i. the cilderen born to first generation immigrants) since they tend to have higher birthrates (when they come from countries with a high birthrate).
however, mankind has always favored personal freedom. there is nowhere on this planet, now or ever, where people preferred to be slaves. so i depend upon that basic impulse to keep up the good fight
The problem is not whether or not people favored personal freedom. The problem is whether society as a whole believes slavery is ok. Remember: for most of human civilization there have been slaves.
I have the same impuls whenever terraforming mars is concerned. In many ways Venus has much more to work with (90% of gravity, an sufficiently think atmosphere). The high pressure and tempertature are a problem but could be resolved with reducing the share of CO2 in the atmosphere. There are some interesting ideas for the use of engineered/bred plankton or microbes which could be sowed in the upper atmosphere in relatively small amount and by simple repriduction could quickly (that is in the course of a few decades) reduce the amount of CO2 to acceptable levels.
However Venus has to big (somewhat related)problems. On is that its rotation speed is almost equal to its year, i.e. one side is (almost) always turned towards the sun and the other almost always dark.
The second problem is that it doesn't have a magnetosphere, and therefor no defense against the (proportional much stronger) solar radiation. I believe current theory is that the earths magnetosphere comes from the fact that the planets core is rotating at a different speed to the crust, creating a magnetic field.
The first problem is hard, but could be solved with sufficient asteroid/planetoid strikes (just a few million tons of rock that need transport. Difficult, expensive, but theoretically possible even with todays technology).
The second problem however may be unsolvable, except by magic-hand-waving-technology on a massive scale. Since earth is the way it is because it impacted with another large mass in its earliest days and since it's likely that Venus doesn't even have a liquid core there is really no way to create a magnetosphere.
Of course it "could". Anything could be done. But the question was not "how can we give this game the lowest possible rating". It was "which rating does this game deserve". See as to how you can apparently lengthen the time it takes you to kill someone (making the murder extra gruesome) I'd say it perfectly falls under "prolonged scenes of intense violence". .
It's a bit of a difficult issue. On the one hand you're right. No one is specifically censoring the game, it's just a matter of interlocking rules which result in it not coming out. On the other hand this means that classification boards de facto have the power to censor, at least were consoles are concerned.
Overall quite similar to the way it is for movies in the US (an X/NC-17) rated movie had very little chance of making more than a couple of million since companies won't allow it be played/advertised in most of the normal channels). The thing that makes this interesting is that for once it isn't about nudity/sex, but about violence/murder.
In the end I'd sat the "not on consoles" thing makes it not about free speech and therefor ok. If you really want to publish a brutal murder/porn game, you can do it on the PC. If you're stupid enough to do it on the console, it's your own fault.
For me, it's just that she's TOO ambitious... She's going after it, not being "pushed" into it by others... and that's sort of a red flag to a lot of people to watch out.
That seems like a.... weird reason. DO you honestly believe any of the current candidates (the ones declaring their intention 18 months before the election) or even any major party candidate in any of the last 40 presidential elections to have been pushed into it?
You don't become president (or senator or congressman etc.) if you're not wildly ambitious.
That isn't to say nothing can be done, if the president has broken a law he can be impeached by congress, but for now congress doesn't seem to be very interested in trying that, even though the Democrats now have majority control of both houses.
You know that's the part I haven't understood at all. There are a lot of Bash scandals which are murky, and which so far have insufficient proof. But what about the wiretapping scandal? I mean if there are exact laws which allow you to request warrants retroactivly, with a secret court (FISA) and the president still orders to bypass this system, how van you not impeach and try him?
Except that they admitted to using the RNC mail system for government business (like firing US attorneys). Obviously if you're going to use a separate system for "political" work because you know the rules, you, re going to keep the mails. Unless you've got something to hide. Plausible deniability anyone? (though looking at Gonzales' testimony it seems that the plausible part isn't all that important these days)
I must admit that I've never heard of people being sent to France, but I would support it if it was the best way to treat people.
Actually they aren't. That is: some people who where told they'd have to wait quite some time for a non-critical procedure went to France to get surgery there. The NHS (the UK's national healthcare provider) refused to pay for it, since it hadn't been done in the UK. The people involved sued and won. So now it's possible to get your treatment anywhere in the EU.
At no point that I know of were people sent to France because the NHS couldn't provide critical are.
Actually Germany (and the Netherlands and a few others) don't exactly have socialized insurance. What they have is a lots of private insurers who are mandated by law to a) have a basic insurance which covers all necessary care. b) offer it to anyone without checks on health. c) offering premium insurance (private room, alternative medicine etc.) only as an extension of the private package.
Since the majority takes just the basic package, health care insurers are compelled to compete on price. I've always thought this would be an attainable system for the US with it's anti socialized anything bias. As far was I can tell the main problem in the US is that HMO's are allowed to refuse patients.
I seem to remember that the travel ban to Cuba was once challenged in court and eventually justified with "national security" in relation to the cold war. Wouldn't that defense have run out by now?
The cost of defending U.S. malpractice claims is estimated at $6.5 billion in 2001, only 0.46 percent of total health spending. The two most important reasons for higher U.S. spending appear to be higher incomes and higher medical care prices.
The medical insurance companies are making lots and lots of money, and that's not because they are giving services for the dollars they are taking in.
That's defending the claims. How much for the pay outs/insurance to cover the potential pay-outs? Paul Krugman makes a reasonable argument for bureaucracy being one of the main culprits of higher US healthcare cost. i.e. that H.M.O.'s spend enormous amounts of time and money to filter their client base to only healthy people and on fighting payments when illness does occur.
Also, I seem to remember that US specialist salaries are quite a bit higher than in most onther countries. Though that might be a false rumour.
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legally? Really? (Honest question, I could see the US or at least some states require it, but it would see..... quite over the top/counterproductive).
Technically the examples of communism we've seen have come after revolutions which brought down authoritarian dictatorships in mostly rural/non-industrialised nations. So in those cases there was very little change of creating any kind of democratic system. (also technically speaking no country ever achieved communnism, since that would imply a utopian nation without much of a government at all, but as a label to differntiate between the two systems it's quite useful </pendantic observation >).
The fun part is that the US government already runs a highly successful single payer health care system: the Veterans Health Administration.
One big problem would be health care tourism. People with expensive illnesses would be likely to move to a state with free/cheap universal health care. Depending on the system they could even just visit the state. No state will therefore be too free with it's system.
and of course blame an electoral system which a) makes it possible to become president if you get second place and b) (and more importantly) allows partisan people to run state elections.
Often true (though in some cases YMMY for "clearly unconstitutional"). However the arguments used to create rights or stop laws is often very far fetched. Roe vs. Wade being a good example. Abortion rights would be a lot more secure in the US if they didn't hinge on first creating a right to privacy (which isn't numerated in the constitution) and then decide that abortion itself could be illegal, but you can't enforce it since women have the right to privacy.
Obviously not all (conservative or progressive) jurispudence is like that, but far to much is.
Mind you a lot of the CGI was still... questionable and I imagine that will the parts that will age the most. CGI is great, but when possible you should use other effects.
By that logic it would be fair to include holocaust denial in the curriculum the day after the last person dies.
The problem I have with this argument is this. Where does faith come from? That is how do you know to believe in Jesus/Mohammed/Shiva/Budda/FSM?
Most of the time you get it from your parents or your community. So it isn't faith in God(s) so much as faith in your family/community.
Converts are, in a way, worse. They decide for themselves that something is "True" and consequently have fiath in it. (Though you could argue that this is the Holy Spirit/True submission/sauce of the FSM that reaches the individual).
I believe that there is progress (materialy as well as spiritually). However I don't believe that progress is automatic and I certainly don't believe we humanity can't relapse.
wellllll. Not entirely. A quick google says it's at roughly replacement rate. And I'd imagine that a lot of that is from recent immigrants (e.i. the cilderen born to first generation immigrants) since they tend to have higher birthrates (when they come from countries with a high birthrate).
... unless some else comes along with superior weapons and fancy new epidemic diseases. Then you just get a few reservations.
You do, however, get to earn taxfree profits from casinos.
The problem is not whether or not people favored personal freedom. The problem is whether society as a whole believes slavery is ok. Remember: for most of human civilization there have been slaves.
I have the same impuls whenever terraforming mars is concerned. In many ways Venus has much more to work with (90% of gravity, an sufficiently think atmosphere). The high pressure and tempertature are a problem but could be resolved with reducing the share of CO2 in the atmosphere. There are some interesting ideas for the use of engineered/bred plankton or microbes which could be sowed in the upper atmosphere in relatively small amount and by simple repriduction could quickly (that is in the course of a few decades) reduce the amount of CO2 to acceptable levels.
However Venus has to big (somewhat related)problems. On is that its rotation speed is almost equal to its year, i.e. one side is (almost) always turned towards the sun and the other almost always dark.
The second problem is that it doesn't have a magnetosphere, and therefor no defense against the (proportional much stronger) solar radiation. I believe current theory is that the earths magnetosphere comes from the fact that the planets core is rotating at a different speed to the crust, creating a magnetic field.
The first problem is hard, but could be solved with sufficient asteroid/planetoid strikes (just a few million tons of rock that need transport. Difficult, expensive, but theoretically possible even with todays technology).
The second problem however may be unsolvable, except by magic-hand-waving-technology on a massive scale. Since earth is the way it is because it impacted with another large mass in its earliest days and since it's likely that Venus doesn't even have a liquid core there is really no way to create a magnetosphere.
Of course it "could". Anything could be done. But the question was not "how can we give this game the lowest possible rating". It was "which rating does this game deserve". See as to how you can apparently lengthen the time it takes you to kill someone (making the murder extra gruesome) I'd say it perfectly falls under "prolonged scenes of intense violence". .
It's a bit of a difficult issue. On the one hand you're right. No one is specifically censoring the game, it's just a matter of interlocking rules which result in it not coming out. On the other hand this means that classification boards de facto have the power to censor, at least were consoles are concerned.
Overall quite similar to the way it is for movies in the US (an X/NC-17) rated movie had very little chance of making more than a couple of million since companies won't allow it be played/advertised in most of the normal channels). The thing that makes this interesting is that for once it isn't about nudity/sex, but about violence/murder.
In the end I'd sat the "not on consoles" thing makes it not about free speech and therefor ok. If you really want to publish a brutal murder/porn game, you can do it on the PC. If you're stupid enough to do it on the console, it's your own fault.
How is it censorship by the British to say that this game isn't suitable for people younger than 18?
That seems like a .... weird reason. DO you honestly believe any of the current candidates (the ones declaring their intention 18 months before the election) or even any major party candidate in any of the last 40 presidential elections to have been pushed into it?
You don't become president (or senator or congressman etc.) if you're not wildly ambitious.
Except that they admitted to using the RNC mail system for government business (like firing US attorneys). Obviously if you're going to use a separate system for "political" work because you know the rules, you, re going to keep the mails. Unless you've got something to hide. Plausible deniability anyone? (though looking at Gonzales' testimony it seems that the plausible part isn't all that important these days)
Hmm. I never got over the fact that the game had a better cast than the movie.
At no point that I know of were people sent to France because the NHS couldn't provide critical are.
Actually Germany (and the Netherlands and a few others) don't exactly have socialized insurance. What they have is a lots of private insurers who are mandated by law to a) have a basic insurance which covers all necessary care. b) offer it to anyone without checks on health. c) offering premium insurance (private room, alternative medicine etc.) only as an extension of the private package.
Since the majority takes just the basic package, health care insurers are compelled to compete on price. I've always thought this would be an attainable system for the US with it's anti socialized anything bias. As far was I can tell the main problem in the US is that HMO's are allowed to refuse patients.
I seem to remember that the travel ban to Cuba was once challenged in court and eventually justified with "national security" in relation to the cold war. Wouldn't that defense have run out by now?
That's defending the claims. How much for the pay outs/insurance to cover the potential pay-outs? Paul Krugman makes a reasonable argument for bureaucracy being one of the main culprits of higher US healthcare cost. i.e. that H.M.O.'s spend enormous amounts of time and money to filter their client base to only healthy people and on fighting payments when illness does occur.
Also, I seem to remember that US specialist salaries are quite a bit higher than in most onther countries. Though that might be a false rumour.