Why shouldn't people be able to ask for deductions for their medical insurance for being healthy or, for instance, not smoking?
If you are so confident of your health, simply terminate your insurance.
Besides, smoking decreases your life expectancy, which in turn decreases the chances that you'll spend decades worth of treatment for some chronic illness when old. I'm not at all certain that it's in the best interests of the insurance company to have their clients live long past their career, rather than drop dead of heart attack or lung cancer the day they retire.
Cynical, but this is insurance business we're talking about.
I pay over $500 a month for medical insurance, and rarely use it. That's nuts. I'm lucky that I can afford it (barely), but there are a lot of people out there who can't afford it, and end having to pay huge medical bills because they don't have insurance.
I guess they'd better hope US gets over its childish "paying for something communally is evil because someone else might need it more than me so they might get more bang for their buck than me" attitude and establishes socialized healthcare like a civilized country.
$500 a month ? That's crazy. But of course a private insurance firm would hike the rates as far as they can, to get the most profit.
I'm not obese...I'm not even mildly overweight, and I exercise regularly. Why should I have to pay extra for health care because other people live unhealthy lifestyles?
Why should other people pay more than you just because you happen to be a vain masochistic nut who lives in the gym ?
I don't have the data in front of me, but it is safe to say that more people in Iraq have died from religious conflict that came out of the destabilization of Iraq than from U.S. forces in Iraq.
Seeing how the "destabilization" of Iraq was a direct and expected cause of US assault, I really don't see your point; the casualties were known beforehand and accepted as collateral damage by the US.
There is really no comparison between nuking Japan and the civilian casualties in Iraq. The U.S. was faced with losing hundreds of thousands more soldiers in order to defeat Japan in WWII. The Japanese military was wracked with fanaticism that forced Allied forces to earn each foot with spilled blood. If time was turned back to just before that point so the U.S. could make the decision again, I would still be in favor of nuking them to save Allied soldier's lives.
Really ? From what I've heard, Japan was offering to surrender on the condition that the Emperor could keep his office (which he did in the end). But even ignoring that, there was no need to drop the bomb on a city; dropping it on some uninhabited area would had worked just as well as far as threats go. In fact, simply surrounding Japan would likely had won the war, since the country has few natural resources, that being the reason they attacked in the first place.
Besides, it seems to me that you just said that using nuclear weapons against civilian targets is acceptable if it helps win a war. This does not contradict my point, if anything it confirms it: the US is willing to nuke civilians for a strategic advantage, so better get your own nukes to act as a deterrent.
Similarly, making copies of music creates "Musical Inflation".
Do you know what else causes "Musical Inflation" ? Competition. We must immediately forbid anyone from distributing music, their own or anyone else's, except through the official channels which can properly control the supply and price of music to prevent falling prices (or "Musical Inflation", as you put it).
Congratulations for making the normal, expected and hoped for result of free competition sound something sinister and foreboding. Consider a career in the Ministry of Truth - or would that cause "Propaganda Inflation" ?
If you send somebody up there into an environment that has not been properly characterized -- if the environment is far more electrical than we are imagining it to be -- we could subject them to massive equipment failures and they could die.
Since the Rover, which has a lot of very sensitive electronics, doesn't show any signs of failing, I'd say that this seems unlikely.
Perhaps conventional airstrikes might be an incentive, but a pre-emptive annihilating nuclear strike on Iran would almost certainly forestall other nations from threatening to develop nuclear weapons.
Are you kidding ? It would make them even more desperate to get nukes from any source.
However, such an attack would both be immoral as it would kill tens of millions of innocents
Civilian casualties didn't stop the US in 1945 and they didn't stop them invading Iraq. I think it's pretty obvious at this point that the US is quite happy to kill those tens of millions of innocent people for a perceived advantage; that's propably the top reason why Iran and NK are so desperate to get nukes.
Industrial-sized gas spectrometer. Drop the garbage through an electric arc, change it to a plasma, pass it by a magnet. Lighter atoms hit the pipes furthest to the side, heavier elements those straight ahead. Empty the "plutonium" bin often.
And just how much energy is melting, boiling, and ionizing a ton of metal going to take ?
Go play Xenosaga Episode 3 on the PS2 (a game released last fall) for the PS2 and compare it to any modern PC game, if that game proves anything, it proves that artists and art direction is much more important then simply having high resolution. High resolution doesn't matter much if you're art is not that great or you game isn't either.
"Our cards are designed for playing bad and ugly games!" is not a good sales pitch...
What's your point? If the election staff are compromised, then no voting system in the world (at least as long as you want one that's anonymous) is going to save you.
Wrong. A system which can be monitored by anyone at any stage will save you.
Bring the box which will contain the votes to the election room. Display to everyone within that it is empty, and seal it. Do all this in front of the public.
Provide seats for anyone who wishes to remain in the election room and keep an eye on the box for the entire election.
After the votes have been cast, open the box and start counting. Again, anyone who wants can sit behind you and see for themselves that you'll counting the votes correctly.
After the local votes have been counted, phone the central location and tell them what you got. Then hand over the phone to any member of the public present so they can talk to their associates there so those associates can make sure that the votes are correctly added.
If neccessary, repeat the previous step to move towards even larger centers.
The voting system should not require trust. Build one where anyone who wants can personally ensure that his vote is included in the totals correctly, and no extra ones appear out of nowhere.
Star Trek tries to imagine a future where socialism is viable due to the harnessing of unlimited energy. Granted, most of it is focused on the military, but every once in a while they do an episode about the society.
Star Trek depicts a future where the world is mostly at peace due to the ready availability of bug-eyed aliens threatening the entire space-time continuum to use as external threats. Which, I guess, is about the best we can hope for...
It still doesn't explain the mechanism for speciation occuring.
Speciation is simple: if a species gets split into two or more separated population somehow (say, the continent they are living in gets torn in two by the continental drift), the populations are likely to evolve in different directions (since the conditions are likely to be somewhat different, and mutations occur by chance). If two populations evolve in different directions from the same starting point, they become different. When two populations are different enough, we consider them to be separate species.
The key here is to remember that "species" is an entirely arbitrary human concept; it refers to a set of living things which seem similar to us. Consequently, "speciation" is a non-event as well; it doesn't refer to any particular event in nature, but simply means that two populations wich we would have considered to be of same species at some point in time would be considered to be different species at some later point in time. Since speciation is a non-event, it doesn't require any particular mechanism either, but is simply a natural result of evolution of separated populations.
So if a dissident is going to mount a resistance he/she has to be aware who else they're "involunteering", because it won't just be the dissident paying the price.
This is a very good point, and a very good reason to support anonymous free speech. Real rebels wear masks. They are a neccessary safety device. That they are also the tools of trade for bank robbers does not change this.
String "theory" is a pseudoscientific wankfest that siphons funds from people who are actually doing real science. Its only redeeming feature is that some interesting mathematics has come out of it.
Are you kidding ? The strings are so thin you don't even know you've been assassinated before your head drops off some three hours after the Ninja has strangled you ! I'd call that an impressive result !
Better look behind you - for all you know, a Ninja could be string-strangling you this very moment...
God demands faith. God does not provide proof, because proof kills faith. If you see something that you think is proof of God's existence, you're wrong. He's ineffable. That means you can't effing figure him out.
This is typical Abrahamic religion thought, and not common to all religions. And to make it worse, the fact that it's a typical argument in Abrahamic religious traditions, doesn't make it an essential feature of them.
Actually, this is an idiotic thought in Abrahamic religions. After all, the religions are called "Abrahamic" since they trace their origin to Abraham and his supposed interactions with and faith on God. Since the interactions - up to directly discussing with God - would prove the existence of God to Abraham beyond any shadow of doubt, this would mean that Abraham didn't have any faith, which in turn directly contradicts the basic premise that Abraham did have faith.
Of course the exact same applies to Jesus, Muhammed, and various jewish prophets. If faith requires belief without proof, none of these would qualify as having it, despite being considered to be God's servants by their respective religions. So, either you don't have to have faith in God in an Abrahamic religion to qualify as God's servant - something which at least Christianity and Islam disagree with - or the claim that evidence destroys faith is rubbish.
"Freedom of speech" does not mean that you get to post suggestive billboards for your torture porn flick across from every schoolyard.
Why not ? Having to suffer through official sex education cartoons was pretty torturous, so if the combination is unhealthy, I'd say that the damage is already done:).
Remember Snakes On A Plane? Cost $32 million to produce. Grossed $62 million world-wide. The Geek got the movie produced. But the Geek couldn't deliver the audience to make it profitable.
Based on these figures it produced $30 million dollar profit and about 100% return on investment. Seems pretty profitable to me, but then again, I'm not a movie producer.
Yes, I think she seriously does. If the court upholds the law, that expectation isn't unrealistic.
That's a big "if". After all, we're talking about a mere mortal vs. one of the modern gods; a human being vs. an immortal, vastly powerful, amoral entity not unlike the members of the ancient Greek panthenon. And we all remember how such fights ended in old Greek myths...
It may - someday - dawn on you that ultra-violence and graphic sex is an adolescent obsession and not an adult's.
I guess that means I'm still young at heart:).
Seriously, thought, reality seems to disagree with you; just look at how most mythologies and stories, both ancient and modern, are about who kills and sleeps with whom.
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When I was in school, our teachers would propably had been moved to tears of happiness if we'd cared enough to bother to cheat ;).
Are you seriously claiming that you'll get jail time for fucking with shopping carts ?
If you are so confident of your health, simply terminate your insurance.
Besides, smoking decreases your life expectancy, which in turn decreases the chances that you'll spend decades worth of treatment for some chronic illness when old. I'm not at all certain that it's in the best interests of the insurance company to have their clients live long past their career, rather than drop dead of heart attack or lung cancer the day they retire.
Cynical, but this is insurance business we're talking about.
I guess they'd better hope US gets over its childish "paying for something communally is evil because someone else might need it more than me so they might get more bang for their buck than me" attitude and establishes socialized healthcare like a civilized country.
$500 a month ? That's crazy. But of course a private insurance firm would hike the rates as far as they can, to get the most profit.
Everything I know about surgery, I learned by browsing Gurochan.
Why should other people pay more than you just because you happen to be a vain masochistic nut who lives in the gym ?
Seeing how the "destabilization" of Iraq was a direct and expected cause of US assault, I really don't see your point; the casualties were known beforehand and accepted as collateral damage by the US.
Really ? From what I've heard, Japan was offering to surrender on the condition that the Emperor could keep his office (which he did in the end). But even ignoring that, there was no need to drop the bomb on a city; dropping it on some uninhabited area would had worked just as well as far as threats go. In fact, simply surrounding Japan would likely had won the war, since the country has few natural resources, that being the reason they attacked in the first place.
Besides, it seems to me that you just said that using nuclear weapons against civilian targets is acceptable if it helps win a war. This does not contradict my point, if anything it confirms it: the US is willing to nuke civilians for a strategic advantage, so better get your own nukes to act as a deterrent.
Do you know what else causes "Musical Inflation" ? Competition. We must immediately forbid anyone from distributing music, their own or anyone else's, except through the official channels which can properly control the supply and price of music to prevent falling prices (or "Musical Inflation", as you put it).
Congratulations for making the normal, expected and hoped for result of free competition sound something sinister and foreboding. Consider a career in the Ministry of Truth - or would that cause "Propaganda Inflation" ?
Since the Rover, which has a lot of very sensitive electronics, doesn't show any signs of failing, I'd say that this seems unlikely.
Actually, it sounded more like Gnutella. In fact, it sounded exactly like Gnutella. Which, to be fair, did revolutionize P2P, but is not exactly new.
Are you kidding ? It would make them even more desperate to get nukes from any source.
Civilian casualties didn't stop the US in 1945 and they didn't stop them invading Iraq. I think it's pretty obvious at this point that the US is quite happy to kill those tens of millions of innocent people for a perceived advantage; that's propably the top reason why Iran and NK are so desperate to get nukes.
Sounds like a libertarian paradise all right.
And just how much energy is melting, boiling, and ionizing a ton of metal going to take ?
From the link:
"Should the government be keeping me from showing my son how to direct brave goblin suicide bombers against their elven oppressors?"
I think he just demonstrate that he shouldn't be teaching strategy to anyone. Talk about bad PR...
"Our cards are designed for playing bad and ugly games!" is not a good sales pitch...
Wrong. A system which can be monitored by anyone at any stage will save you.
The voting system should not require trust. Build one where anyone who wants can personally ensure that his vote is included in the totals correctly, and no extra ones appear out of nowhere.
Star Trek depicts a future where the world is mostly at peace due to the ready availability of bug-eyed aliens threatening the entire space-time continuum to use as external threats. Which, I guess, is about the best we can hope for...
Speciation is simple: if a species gets split into two or more separated population somehow (say, the continent they are living in gets torn in two by the continental drift), the populations are likely to evolve in different directions (since the conditions are likely to be somewhat different, and mutations occur by chance). If two populations evolve in different directions from the same starting point, they become different. When two populations are different enough, we consider them to be separate species.
The key here is to remember that "species" is an entirely arbitrary human concept; it refers to a set of living things which seem similar to us. Consequently, "speciation" is a non-event as well; it doesn't refer to any particular event in nature, but simply means that two populations wich we would have considered to be of same species at some point in time would be considered to be different species at some later point in time. Since speciation is a non-event, it doesn't require any particular mechanism either, but is simply a natural result of evolution of separated populations.
This is a very good point, and a very good reason to support anonymous free speech. Real rebels wear masks. They are a neccessary safety device. That they are also the tools of trade for bank robbers does not change this.
Are you kidding ? The strings are so thin you don't even know you've been assassinated before your head drops off some three hours after the Ninja has strangled you ! I'd call that an impressive result !
Better look behind you - for all you know, a Ninja could be string-strangling you this very moment...
Not to mention "I have no evidence of God, therefore God cannot exist."
I agree, these debates do little except generate lots of posts and pageviews - which, I guess, is why they keep on getting posted.
Actually, this is an idiotic thought in Abrahamic religions. After all, the religions are called "Abrahamic" since they trace their origin to Abraham and his supposed interactions with and faith on God. Since the interactions - up to directly discussing with God - would prove the existence of God to Abraham beyond any shadow of doubt, this would mean that Abraham didn't have any faith, which in turn directly contradicts the basic premise that Abraham did have faith.
Of course the exact same applies to Jesus, Muhammed, and various jewish prophets. If faith requires belief without proof, none of these would qualify as having it, despite being considered to be God's servants by their respective religions. So, either you don't have to have faith in God in an Abrahamic religion to qualify as God's servant - something which at least Christianity and Islam disagree with - or the claim that evidence destroys faith is rubbish.
Why not ? Having to suffer through official sex education cartoons was pretty torturous, so if the combination is unhealthy, I'd say that the damage is already done :).
Based on these figures it produced $30 million dollar profit and about 100% return on investment. Seems pretty profitable to me, but then again, I'm not a movie producer.
That's a big "if". After all, we're talking about a mere mortal vs. one of the modern gods; a human being vs. an immortal, vastly powerful, amoral entity not unlike the members of the ancient Greek panthenon. And we all remember how such fights ended in old Greek myths...
I guess that means I'm still young at heart :).
Seriously, thought, reality seems to disagree with you; just look at how most mythologies and stories, both ancient and modern, are about who kills and sleeps with whom.