What about pharmaceutical residues in the urine? When we take prescription or over-the-counter drugs, a portion of the dose passes through us unchanged and is excreted in our urine. When we use flush toilets that are connected to sewers, these residual drugs pass largely unchanged through the treatment plant in about twenty-four hours and then go directly into rivers, lakes, or the ocean, where they can harm sensitive aquatic life and end up in our drinking water. If we spread the urine on agricultural land instead, the robust soil ecosystem has a chance to break down the drugs and biodegrade them over a much longer period of time, greatly reducing or eliminating their levels before they ever reach a body of water. In this way, soil application is a great improvement over current practice. On the other hand, plants have the ability to absorb some pharmeceuticals, which could potentially affect people eating crops grown with urine. We plan to investigate pharmaceutical levels in crop plants and, if necessary, test methods of removing pharmaceuticals from urine before using it as a fertilizer.
Yeah, no. I get what you are saying, but what's really going on is quite a bit simpler than your description would have it. What's really going on is that the vendor is selling the car for more than it cost to build (they have to on average to break even). And they want a higher profit margin (who wouldn't?). And so they come up with a way to extract more revenue from people with deeper pockets, while doing a single build.
This is all perfectly understandable. But the point is that it's bullshit. They are trying to recover a sunk cost with chicanery. More power to them if they can pull it off; the point is that they probably can't, because the chicanery is so obvious in this case. And in order to protect their ability to do this, they'll probably want a law that makes it illegal for me to unlock features my car has without paying them, even though I bought the car.
It is this last bit that makes me really averse to this practice. I totally understand why they want to do it. But no. Just no.
Yup. The funny thing about this plan is that it reveals a truth that isn't really in the best interest of the car companies: their car is actually worth quite a bit less than they are charging you for it. They are giving you a car with all the features, but charging you the price of none of them, instead holding them hostage in hopes of future payments. Any fool can see that this means that the price they were charged for the car was much more than they should have had to pay. I predict this strategy will backfire big time.
They aren't charging the low-bandwidth customers for narrower pipes. They are charging for less data. The pipes do cost money. The data does too, but not nearly as much. So really they are trying to push the cost, which is mostly the same for all customers, onto those who use it the most.
A heretic uses XEmacs. An apostate doesn't take the time to install Emacs where it is not available, instead using vi. A blasphemer suggests that emacs and vi are essentially interchangeable, denying emacs' uniqueness and primacy. All three prefer emacs; only pagans and barbarians prefer something else.
No you didn't. By voting for a third party presidential candidate, you voted for (McCain || Obama). That is, you chose not to vote. Nobody cares what message you send at the voting booth. Nobody notices the tiny percentage of votes third party candidates get. If you want to be "principled," go for it, but don't brag about it to anybody who can do math. Politics is a numbers game, not a matter of principle. If you want principled politicians, make the numbers work for you. Don't waste your time tilting at windmills.
I used to like McCain a lot. I even voted for him once. But Obama is clearly a better president than McCain would have been. And he's actually been pretty consistent and done what I expected. I don't _like_ what he's done, but it hasn't surprised me. But that is all entirely beside the point. Did you bother to read past the first sentence of what I wrote? It's important—if you care about having honest politicians, don't just make it into a debate to have to make yourself feel smart. Participate in the political races that actually have some hope of changing things. Be a citizen, not a spectator.
The ACA does a lot more than that. It ensures that your children can get insurance up to the age of 25 on your health plan. It ensures that you can't be dropped or bankrupted if you have bad luck with your health. It limits the amount of your premiums that can be spent on things other than delivering health care. It ensures non-discrimination. It's a pretty crappy plan compared to what we progressives actually wanted, but it's definitely an improvement over the status quo. The subsidies are in fact described as and delivered as subsidies, just as you suggest they should be.
This is like the two people one parachute problem: a hypothetical that you are using to prove a point that is obviously wrong. The point of health coverage is to spread the cost evenly. As a heterosexual male, who apparently is not _actually_ sterile, you are in fact part of the risk pool for pregnancy—it's just someone else who actually has to carry the child. Even if you were not, the point of spreading the cost out is so that people who need health services are able to get them. The lady you assure us you aren't going to get pregnant will never get testicular cancer. But she's paying into the same risk pool, and that's okay—the point is to cover everyone's risk, not to try for some unattainable notion of fairness where the exact costs are calculated down to the last basis point.
You just said it perfectly. "Consumer choice" is a propaganda phrase, which means "letting corporations run roughshod over you." That's one way that propaganda works—you use a catchphrase that is palatable but untrue to refer to the unpalatable truth, and everybody who believes you supports the thing that is against their interests, because they believed you. It's brilliant when it works, as it has with you.
Your "gay man" example is absurd, by the way—there are in fact health issues that disproportionately affect gay men, and I suspect most of them would prefer to pay into the common kitty rather than being forced into a "gay men only" class. Another classic propaganda tactic—set two people with largely common interests against each other by finding a small subset of their interests which aren't in common, and presenting those differences as the primary issue, rather than as the minor side issue they really are. This tactic has been hugely successful in keeping working people at each others' throats over stupid issues like, I don't know, contraception, for example.
In the old days, your corporate HR department could pick and choose what procedures and medications your policy would cover, at least in theory, but only if you worked for a really big company. Small companies got whatever the standard package was. And of course, that meant viagra, but not the pill, for the most part, which is the whole point of mandating coverage for contraceptive hormones.
It is very typical for reactionaries to argue about a "good old days" that never existed, and this is a classic example. What has changed is not that you have no choice, but that what is on offer is somewhat less unfair toward women than it used to be. Unless the Supremes decide otherwise, of course.
Ironically, someone who is celibate might still need to use "birth control pills" as a medicine to treat a variety of ailments. So if they get their way here, they might actually pay for it with their lives. Which, much as I disagree with what they are doing here, would be a shame.
Yeah, it really sucks to have to cover treatments that nobody in your church winds up using. E.g., if nobody in your church gets cancer this year, why the hell did the church have to pay for coverage of cancer? It's just a waste of money, right?
The whole point of health "insurance" is to spread the costs out so that everybody who needs medicine can get it, without breaking the bank for anybody. It's not so that we can each pick and choose what risks we choose to pay for. Oh, "contraceptives" aren't a risk? Incorrect. The hormones in birth control pills are used to treat a variety of health issues. Writing a health plan so that it excludes paying for particular medicines is antithetical to the goal of universal health coverage. It's making a petty point, at great expense to those who might need the medicine, because you, a supposed Christian, care more about winning than you do about caring for the sick. I'm pretty sure that's not what Jesus would do.
I voted against McCain/Palin, not for Obama. It sucks that we can't get a president who's trustworthy, but it's pointless to cry over spilt milk. The presidential election is too high profile and expensive, and there are too many people with too many differing viewpoints, so we are always going to get someone who's less objectionable, not someone we really want. The place to focus your efforts is in primary races for representatives and senators, and of course in the general election for these folks. The tea party has used this very effectively in the past, and the progressives are starting to do it too.
Another important place to focus your efforts is on local races, both statewide and city (or town). Statewide races matter because both parties have shown a willingness to gerrymander; if we want fair elections, we should be electing statewide representatives who are in favor of preventing gerrymandering and willing to work to make that happen. And local races are what feed statewide races.
The idea that what matters is the presidential election is so backward that it's horrifying to watch it every four years. If you want to bow out of an election, bow out of the presidential election and vote in the mid-term elections, rather than vice versa. But better to vote in every election.
If you want to be safe from unreasonable searches of your personal data while crossing borders, keep no data (none!) on your computer when you cross borders. Anything you need, keep somewhere where you can download it using a memorized password once you're in a place where you feel you have some reason to assume you won't be searched again. When you need to re-cross the border, erase the data again. Don't even keep passwords on your computer. If there's no data on your computer, then they won't be in a position to ask you for your password.
Of course, the police can always stop you, and the border patrol can always demand to search your computer if they stop you within 100 miles of the border (claims the administration) so you're still not out of the woods once you're on the other side of the border, but unless they are specifically targeting you, you're unlikely to be further searched. Realistically, if they aren't targeting you they aren't going to search your devices when you cross the border either, but you never know.
Probably the most important takeaway from this story is that if you are doing anything related to Islam or the study of Islam, you should not advertise that in any way that can be found by googling you. By restraining your freedom of speech voluntarily, you can avoid being punished for thoughtcrime.
Yes, that is the status quo. Are we not allowed to be scandalized by it? Remember when Peter Watts got beaten and arrested near the border by one of these searches, because he had the temerity to talk back to the cop who started searching his vehicle without permission? That's the status quo as well.
"It's one of the basic tenants [sic] of national sovereignty" is the obsequious response of a collaborator, not the response of a citizen. Get a backbone.
You obviously never read the childrens' books lionizing Thomas Edison for his persistence in finding a good filament for light bulbs. It seems easy now because we've been doing it for a long time. Don't confuse "reduced to practice" and "easy." They are two very different things.
Yeah, people are forced by their own unwillingness to do basic research to pay more in the short term for something that's beneficial to them and society in the long term. Cry me a river. Then stop whining. The fact is that this is not a draconian rule. People who need to continue to use incandescents can, but the path of least resistance will be to use something better. That's a good thing.
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From the FAQ:
Those aren't very mysterious—they are salmon farms. The Shetland Islands are big on aquaculture in their sheltered lagoons (sea lochs).
Yeah, no. I get what you are saying, but what's really going on is quite a bit simpler than your description would have it. What's really going on is that the vendor is selling the car for more than it cost to build (they have to on average to break even). And they want a higher profit margin (who wouldn't?). And so they come up with a way to extract more revenue from people with deeper pockets, while doing a single build.
This is all perfectly understandable. But the point is that it's bullshit. They are trying to recover a sunk cost with chicanery. More power to them if they can pull it off; the point is that they probably can't, because the chicanery is so obvious in this case. And in order to protect their ability to do this, they'll probably want a law that makes it illegal for me to unlock features my car has without paying them, even though I bought the car.
It is this last bit that makes me really averse to this practice. I totally understand why they want to do it. But no. Just no.
Yup. The funny thing about this plan is that it reveals a truth that isn't really in the best interest of the car companies: their car is actually worth quite a bit less than they are charging you for it. They are giving you a car with all the features, but charging you the price of none of them, instead holding them hostage in hopes of future payments. Any fool can see that this means that the price they were charged for the car was much more than they should have had to pay. I predict this strategy will backfire big time.
They aren't charging the low-bandwidth customers for narrower pipes. They are charging for less data. The pipes do cost money. The data does too, but not nearly as much. So really they are trying to push the cost, which is mostly the same for all customers, onto those who use it the most.
I need a unicorn chaser!
(But that was pretty awesome.)
Naw, the cultists of gosmacs live in caves in the Utah desert, and haven't been seen in years. They aren't heretics so much as ultra-orthodox.
A heretic uses XEmacs. An apostate doesn't take the time to install Emacs where it is not available, instead using vi. A blasphemer suggests that emacs and vi are essentially interchangeable, denying emacs' uniqueness and primacy. All three prefer emacs; only pagans and barbarians prefer something else.
No you didn't. By voting for a third party presidential candidate, you voted for (McCain || Obama). That is, you chose not to vote. Nobody cares what message you send at the voting booth. Nobody notices the tiny percentage of votes third party candidates get. If you want to be "principled," go for it, but don't brag about it to anybody who can do math. Politics is a numbers game, not a matter of principle. If you want principled politicians, make the numbers work for you. Don't waste your time tilting at windmills.
I used to like McCain a lot. I even voted for him once. But Obama is clearly a better president than McCain would have been. And he's actually been pretty consistent and done what I expected. I don't _like_ what he's done, but it hasn't surprised me. But that is all entirely beside the point. Did you bother to read past the first sentence of what I wrote? It's important—if you care about having honest politicians, don't just make it into a debate to have to make yourself feel smart. Participate in the political races that actually have some hope of changing things. Be a citizen, not a spectator.
When was this?
The ACA does a lot more than that. It ensures that your children can get insurance up to the age of 25 on your health plan. It ensures that you can't be dropped or bankrupted if you have bad luck with your health. It limits the amount of your premiums that can be spent on things other than delivering health care. It ensures non-discrimination. It's a pretty crappy plan compared to what we progressives actually wanted, but it's definitely an improvement over the status quo. The subsidies are in fact described as and delivered as subsidies, just as you suggest they should be.
This is like the two people one parachute problem: a hypothetical that you are using to prove a point that is obviously wrong. The point of health coverage is to spread the cost evenly. As a heterosexual male, who apparently is not _actually_ sterile, you are in fact part of the risk pool for pregnancy—it's just someone else who actually has to carry the child. Even if you were not, the point of spreading the cost out is so that people who need health services are able to get them. The lady you assure us you aren't going to get pregnant will never get testicular cancer. But she's paying into the same risk pool, and that's okay—the point is to cover everyone's risk, not to try for some unattainable notion of fairness where the exact costs are calculated down to the last basis point.
Oral contraceptives don't kill babies. They prevent conception.
Yup. God gets quite irate.
You just said it perfectly. "Consumer choice" is a propaganda phrase, which means "letting corporations run roughshod over you." That's one way that propaganda works—you use a catchphrase that is palatable but untrue to refer to the unpalatable truth, and everybody who believes you supports the thing that is against their interests, because they believed you. It's brilliant when it works, as it has with you.
Your "gay man" example is absurd, by the way—there are in fact health issues that disproportionately affect gay men, and I suspect most of them would prefer to pay into the common kitty rather than being forced into a "gay men only" class. Another classic propaganda tactic—set two people with largely common interests against each other by finding a small subset of their interests which aren't in common, and presenting those differences as the primary issue, rather than as the minor side issue they really are. This tactic has been hugely successful in keeping working people at each others' throats over stupid issues like, I don't know, contraception, for example.
In the old days, your corporate HR department could pick and choose what procedures and medications your policy would cover, at least in theory, but only if you worked for a really big company. Small companies got whatever the standard package was. And of course, that meant viagra, but not the pill, for the most part, which is the whole point of mandating coverage for contraceptive hormones.
It is very typical for reactionaries to argue about a "good old days" that never existed, and this is a classic example. What has changed is not that you have no choice, but that what is on offer is somewhat less unfair toward women than it used to be. Unless the Supremes decide otherwise, of course.
Ironically, someone who is celibate might still need to use "birth control pills" as a medicine to treat a variety of ailments. So if they get their way here, they might actually pay for it with their lives. Which, much as I disagree with what they are doing here, would be a shame.
Yeah, it really sucks to have to cover treatments that nobody in your church winds up using. E.g., if nobody in your church gets cancer this year, why the hell did the church have to pay for coverage of cancer? It's just a waste of money, right?
The whole point of health "insurance" is to spread the costs out so that everybody who needs medicine can get it, without breaking the bank for anybody. It's not so that we can each pick and choose what risks we choose to pay for. Oh, "contraceptives" aren't a risk? Incorrect. The hormones in birth control pills are used to treat a variety of health issues. Writing a health plan so that it excludes paying for particular medicines is antithetical to the goal of universal health coverage. It's making a petty point, at great expense to those who might need the medicine, because you, a supposed Christian, care more about winning than you do about caring for the sick. I'm pretty sure that's not what Jesus would do.
I voted against McCain/Palin, not for Obama. It sucks that we can't get a president who's trustworthy, but it's pointless to cry over spilt milk. The presidential election is too high profile and expensive, and there are too many people with too many differing viewpoints, so we are always going to get someone who's less objectionable, not someone we really want. The place to focus your efforts is in primary races for representatives and senators, and of course in the general election for these folks. The tea party has used this very effectively in the past, and the progressives are starting to do it too.
Another important place to focus your efforts is on local races, both statewide and city (or town). Statewide races matter because both parties have shown a willingness to gerrymander; if we want fair elections, we should be electing statewide representatives who are in favor of preventing gerrymandering and willing to work to make that happen. And local races are what feed statewide races.
The idea that what matters is the presidential election is so backward that it's horrifying to watch it every four years. If you want to bow out of an election, bow out of the presidential election and vote in the mid-term elections, rather than vice versa. But better to vote in every election.
If you want to be safe from unreasonable searches of your personal data while crossing borders, keep no data (none!) on your computer when you cross borders. Anything you need, keep somewhere where you can download it using a memorized password once you're in a place where you feel you have some reason to assume you won't be searched again. When you need to re-cross the border, erase the data again. Don't even keep passwords on your computer. If there's no data on your computer, then they won't be in a position to ask you for your password.
Of course, the police can always stop you, and the border patrol can always demand to search your computer if they stop you within 100 miles of the border (claims the administration) so you're still not out of the woods once you're on the other side of the border, but unless they are specifically targeting you, you're unlikely to be further searched. Realistically, if they aren't targeting you they aren't going to search your devices when you cross the border either, but you never know.
Probably the most important takeaway from this story is that if you are doing anything related to Islam or the study of Islam, you should not advertise that in any way that can be found by googling you. By restraining your freedom of speech voluntarily, you can avoid being punished for thoughtcrime.
It doesn't matter whether the constitution applies in theory or not. What matters is whether it applies in practice.
Yes, that is the status quo. Are we not allowed to be scandalized by it? Remember when Peter Watts got beaten and arrested near the border by one of these searches, because he had the temerity to talk back to the cop who started searching his vehicle without permission? That's the status quo as well.
"It's one of the basic tenants [sic] of national sovereignty" is the obsequious response of a collaborator, not the response of a citizen. Get a backbone.
You obviously never read the childrens' books lionizing Thomas Edison for his persistence in finding a good filament for light bulbs. It seems easy now because we've been doing it for a long time. Don't confuse "reduced to practice" and "easy." They are two very different things.
Yeah, people are forced by their own unwillingness to do basic research to pay more in the short term for something that's beneficial to them and society in the long term. Cry me a river. Then stop whining. The fact is that this is not a draconian rule. People who need to continue to use incandescents can, but the path of least resistance will be to use something better. That's a good thing.