Then what about students who publicly denigrate teachers? Can the teachers and/or schoolboard handout detentions and/or expel students from school for being disrespectful little pricks? Or are double standards okay in this case?
In other news, top scientists have determined water is wet and bears not held in captivity do indeed shit in the woods.
And we STILL don't have a sustainable energy policy.
I wonder what it's going to take before we, as a nation, realize we're burning the candle at both ends. I know necessity is the mother of invention, and a crisis is a powerful motivator but do we always need to wait until the shit hits the fan? Why can't we just NOT throw shit at the fan in the first place?
I never said anything about cost-shifting Fat Bastard, nor was that the point of the GP. I was refuting the inane logic that market forces would somehow magically lower insurance premiums so that everyone can afford it. In fact, I believe I stated that insurance companies play the odds and don't make stupid bets (i.e. taking on coverage for Fat Bastard without an increase in premium).
The health insurance industry is not about getting people adequate health coverage, nor should it be. It's about making money. They make money by betting on the events that are most likely to happen. Thus, expecting health insurance to cover healthcare is sort of like expecting a booky to pay you even when your horse loses.
Health insurance should be for unexpected events. We have turned it into a catch-all for health-care, which is pretty ridiculous. For routine and preventative medical expenses and such (or those with chronic/genetic conditions), a general health care plan should be in place INDEPENDENT OF health insurance.
Rationing by price is the superior solution because then market forces will provide incentives to bring the costs down to increase the number of potential customers.
Now how the hell is that going to work with insurance? Insurance companies make money when they take your premiums and then GIVE YOU NOTHING BACK. Then add in the primary driver for insurance rates are the ODDS, and the whole market-driven mantra falls apart. No amount of market competition is going change the underlying odds the insurance companies are betting with.
Healthcare by price as you describe in your "superior solution" will screw over everyone who is not healthy or wealthy. Insurance companies DO NOT make money by paying out claims. They DO NOT make money betting against the odds. They DO NOT make money taking on high risk individuals or ones with chronic conditions.
To sum up: THERE ARE NO POSITIVE INCENTIVES PROVIDING COVERAGE FOR EVERYONE. Nor will the market provide any. If it were profitable to cover everyone, then an insurance company would have already done it.
Insurance companies don't make money by placing stupid bets, and no amount of "market forces" is going to change that.
Oxygen isn't necessarily a requirement for being habitable. As a matter of fact, oxygen was a poison to the first life forms on this planet.
If you're talking about being habitable by humans, then there needs to be oxygen. But even on this planet we have various life forms that don't require oxygen. Regardless, at the distances of these planets its quite unlikely we would be inhabiting any of them anytime soon.
You (and everyone else) have failed to identify the matter/energy constraint. That is to say, if there is an alternative, it must be expressed in matter, and maintaining more than one reality requires additional matter (or base state of energy).
That is not necessarily correct. There is no reason that other universes need to abide by the laws that govern this one. Other universes may not even have the concepts of matter, or energy, or even time. And there is no way to tell either until we gain the ability to observe "outside" the bounds of our own universe, which presents conundrums of its own.
Another alternative is that every universe shares the exact same "stuff", just in a different state. If these universes are quantized in such a way, you could have an infinite number of universe all existing from the same chunk of "stuff" (matter, energy space-time) without overlapping nor requiring more "stuff" to exist.
Assuming that every universe follows the same constructs as ours is pretty limited.
A deer is wandering through the forest. Suddenly, a physicist, engineer and a statistician appears 50 yards away holding guns.
The deer thinks about this carefully for a moment. The likelihood that a physicist, engineer and statistician being able to form a cohesive group is unlikely. Forming a cohesive group in a forest, even less likely, and forming a cohesive group with guns involved practically improbable, as they most likely would have killed each other arguing over some pointless aspect or theory that the deer had worked out ages ago.
The deer comes to the realization that the only way that this situation could be real is if some other being had concocted it as a piece of fiction in some alternate universe. The deer sighs and holds perfectly still as a shot goes long, and another goes short, and the third guy never shoots his gun, claiming the dear has been shot. The deer shakes its head sadly for the poor being who created this temporary reality, and for itself as he will have to endure this ritual for as many times as other beings invoke it. Eventually the deer will be allowed to return the ethereal pool of creation, where perhaps its next incarnation will be something more interesting, perhaps as the man from Nantucket or the woman from New Zealand.
Obama has little to do with it. CONGRESS controls the purse strings. So as much as Obama may want to do something sane like let the tax cuts expire, that'll never get through congress.
As president he can wield the veto pen and apply pressure, but ultimately if both houses of congress bless a budget there isn't much he can do.
Oh I wouldn't worry too much. Over the next century as the warm climates shift northward, the southern US will get their share of tropical diseases. Assuming we haven't driven this country straight into the ground by then, I expect cures and treatments in short order.
Fewer things will prod officials into motion faster than the cattle prod of their own constituencies.
Space travel could just be so expensive and consume so many resources that the civilizations decided it wasn't worth it. They may send out advanced robotic probes instead.
Earth may be primo real estate, but aren't exactly in the bright center of the galaxy. Anything this far out may be considered not worth going after. This also makes the assumption that a race is interested in populating the galaxy, which may not be the case.
We could be the first intelligent race in this galaxy. In which case, life could exist in plenty of other places but we just wouldn't know it.
We could be yet another intelligent race to form in this galaxy, and will at some point destroy ourselves before reaching space travel like the others did.
Galactic or star system events don't allow enough time for a space faring civilization to develop (asteroids, radiation bombardment, etc).
They could be out there listening and watching, but otherwise mask their presence. If they've mastered interstellar space travel then they would most likely have tech that would allow them to come down on Earth and poke around without ever being detected.
Any such intelligent species may be so far beyond us that the really do look at us as nothing more than ants, and therefore not worth their time.
That's why I home school. That way I don't need to worry about the ultra-religious/ultra-conservatives poisoning education with their inane rhetoric and beliefs. After the absolutely idiotic display of ignorance and political hackery provided by the Texas board of education, I'd had enough.
Unfortunately not everyone has the capacity, time, and resources to do so.
Yep. If you don't want you're secrets to be social, don't post them to a social networking site. Better yet, don't post them anywhere on the internet. Someone, somewhere will find them, and usually it's someone you don't want to have your secrets
This is all your fault, you let the mouthbreathing facebook hoard elect Sarah Palin as president on American Idol when you should have insisted that we deal with issues of substance.
Sure we can, as long as the substance is illegal or contains enough triglycerides to give a whale an aneurism.
I think Glenn Beck's Socialist Murder-a-thon might have a higher kill rate though. After all, he's got that chick with machine guns mounted on helicopters on his side.
I mean Al Gore's chastisements are a slower more painful death, but nothing beats a helicopter mounted machine gun. In the name of Jesus of course.
Having two stealth planes duke it out sort of like watching two blind and deaf people try and fight in in open field. Unless they get within arms reach of each other (or one of them has better capabilities) nothing much is going to happen.
Maverick: "Damn it! We're running out of gas again!" Goose: "These stealth fighters suck! How the fuck are we supposed to be cool when we can't fucking find each other to shoot at!" Maverick: "We can't stay up here forever. We're gonna crash if we don't get more fuel!" (Stealth Prius suddenly pulls up beside the F-22) Russian: "Hello Comrades! This is the new Russian SMUG 25. What do you think of her?" Maverick:"Jesus! It's a fucking Prius with wings! What the hell are you going to do in that?" Goose:"You don't even have any missles!" Russian:"All true comrade, but I still have an almost full tank of fuel." Maverick:"..." Goose:"..." Russian:"..." Goose:"....You know Mav, maybe we should..." (Maverick hits Goose's eject, breaking Goose's neck) Russian: *laughter* See you comrade. I'll be flying circles around your little boat while I wait for you to refuel! *zips off* Maverick: "Fucking hybrids."
Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for a private profit; decisions regarding supply, demand, price, distribution, and investments are made by private actors in the free market; profit is distributed to owners who choose to invest in businesses, and wages are paid to workers employed by businesses and companies.
We, as in this country, adore capitalism. Or rather, the capitalism that companies and politicians want us to think is capitalism.
It is still capitalism, and capitalism comes with positives and negatives. When companies control too much wealth and influence, it becomes corporatism or fascism.
Large monopolies? Government? Average Joe? Large monopolies have very little to do with capitalism, they are gov't created, gov't subsidized, gov't protected from competition, gov't stimulated, gov't subsidized.
Bullshit. Monopolies existed long before the government got involved. The reason why we have anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws is because monopolies were abusing their wealth and power.
All of this so that they return the favor to the gov't by re-electing those who want to be in power. It's a symbiotic relationship, but where is the 'capitalism' there?
Using money to ensure favorable legislation to make more profit and ensure against competitors entering the market seems like a pretty smart move to increase your capital.
Capitalism doesn't mean fair or equal markets. It means free competition and what better way to be king of the world than to prevent competitors from even coming near your hunting grounds?
Capitalism is not concerned with the well being of society as a whole. It is concerned only with private individuals or groups of individuals to further private gains. If those gains happen to benefit society as well, then so be it.
What do you think 'capitalism' is? Capitalism has a meaning - it's really collecting, saving capital to invest it, to organize the investment around tools and labor and ideas so that profit can be generated and more capital can be re-invested.
No, it's about private ownership and profit. The less money paid for generating profit the better. Capitalism has nothing to do with saving money.
So which of those who you think 'worship capitalism' actually worship it? Because in today's USA the savers are persona-non grata.
As I said, capitalism is not about saving. Capitalism is an economical philosophy based on private ownership and profit. There is no mention of saving one way or the other.
Big companies would love to have completely free unbridled markets and no regulations. The smaller companies and individuals, not so much.
The gov't has made it clear enough: do not save.
Do not save. Spend. Spend on consumables. Do not save and invest, spend instead. The gov't money does not come from savings or even just taxes, it's borrowed and then it's spent, how is that capitalism?
Our society tells us to spend. The government does not. Nobody is pointing a gun to your head to spend all your money. Nor does the government really care as long as you keep paying your taxes.
Government spending is a non-sequitur to capitalism and this discussion, as capitalism is not a political philosophy. Our government is not a capitalistic entity, nor a private one.
but we also tend to be an empathic and moral society (well, sometimes at least)
- I challenge this as well. We are not empathic and moral any more than the gov't that represents us. We are selfish and stupid and lazy, now that's true.
While I don't dispute that we can be selfish, stupid, and lazy at times, s
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Then what about students who publicly denigrate teachers? Can the teachers and/or schoolboard handout detentions and/or expel students from school for being disrespectful little pricks? Or are double standards okay in this case?
Does anyone want to be taught by someone who feels nothing but contempt for them?
Drill sergeants and special forces training seem to do a pretty good job.
In other news, top scientists have determined water is wet and bears not held in captivity do indeed shit in the woods.
And we STILL don't have a sustainable energy policy.
I wonder what it's going to take before we, as a nation, realize we're burning the candle at both ends. I know necessity is the mother of invention, and a crisis is a powerful motivator but do we always need to wait until the shit hits the fan? Why can't we just NOT throw shit at the fan in the first place?
I got dibs on the .wtf TLD!
I never said anything about cost-shifting Fat Bastard, nor was that the point of the GP. I was refuting the inane logic that market forces would somehow magically lower insurance premiums so that everyone can afford it. In fact, I believe I stated that insurance companies play the odds and don't make stupid bets (i.e. taking on coverage for Fat Bastard without an increase in premium).
The health insurance industry is not about getting people adequate health coverage, nor should it be. It's about making money. They make money by betting on the events that are most likely to happen. Thus, expecting health insurance to cover healthcare is sort of like expecting a booky to pay you even when your horse loses.
Health insurance should be for unexpected events. We have turned it into a catch-all for health-care, which is pretty ridiculous. For routine and preventative medical expenses and such (or those with chronic/genetic conditions), a general health care plan should be in place INDEPENDENT OF health insurance.
Rationing by price is the superior solution because then market forces will provide incentives to bring the costs down to increase the number of potential customers.
Now how the hell is that going to work with insurance? Insurance companies make money when they take your premiums and then GIVE YOU NOTHING BACK. Then add in the primary driver for insurance rates are the ODDS, and the whole market-driven mantra falls apart. No amount of market competition is going change the underlying odds the insurance companies are betting with.
Healthcare by price as you describe in your "superior solution" will screw over everyone who is not healthy or wealthy. Insurance companies DO NOT make money by paying out claims. They DO NOT make money betting against the odds. They DO NOT make money taking on high risk individuals or ones with chronic conditions.
To sum up: THERE ARE NO POSITIVE INCENTIVES PROVIDING COVERAGE FOR EVERYONE. Nor will the market provide any. If it were profitable to cover everyone, then an insurance company would have already done it.
Insurance companies don't make money by placing stupid bets, and no amount of "market forces" is going to change that.
Oxygen isn't necessarily a requirement for being habitable. As a matter of fact, oxygen was a poison to the first life forms on this planet.
If you're talking about being habitable by humans, then there needs to be oxygen. But even on this planet we have various life forms that don't require oxygen. Regardless, at the distances of these planets its quite unlikely we would be inhabiting any of them anytime soon.
You (and everyone else) have failed to identify the matter/energy constraint. That is to say, if there is an alternative, it must be expressed in matter, and maintaining more than one reality requires additional matter (or base state of energy).
That is not necessarily correct. There is no reason that other universes need to abide by the laws that govern this one. Other universes may not even have the concepts of matter, or energy, or even time. And there is no way to tell either until we gain the ability to observe "outside" the bounds of our own universe, which presents conundrums of its own.
Another alternative is that every universe shares the exact same "stuff", just in a different state. If these universes are quantized in such a way, you could have an infinite number of universe all existing from the same chunk of "stuff" (matter, energy space-time) without overlapping nor requiring more "stuff" to exist.
Assuming that every universe follows the same constructs as ours is pretty limited.
A deer is wandering through the forest. Suddenly, a physicist, engineer and a statistician appears 50 yards away holding guns.
The deer thinks about this carefully for a moment. The likelihood that a physicist, engineer and statistician being able to form a cohesive group is unlikely. Forming a cohesive group in a forest, even less likely, and forming a cohesive group with guns involved practically improbable, as they most likely would have killed each other arguing over some pointless aspect or theory that the deer had worked out ages ago.
The deer comes to the realization that the only way that this situation could be real is if some other being had concocted it as a piece of fiction in some alternate universe. The deer sighs and holds perfectly still as a shot goes long, and another goes short, and the third guy never shoots his gun, claiming the dear has been shot. The deer shakes its head sadly for the poor being who created this temporary reality, and for itself as he will have to endure this ritual for as many times as other beings invoke it. Eventually the deer will be allowed to return the ethereal pool of creation, where perhaps its next incarnation will be something more interesting, perhaps as the man from Nantucket or the woman from New Zealand.
"A device that cannot be replicated by legos is not worth understanding."
I propose a new protocol: Internet Delivers Information Over Twitter, or I.D.I.O.T for short.
You mean you still have equity to get a loan against?
Obama has little to do with it. CONGRESS controls the purse strings. So as much as Obama may want to do something sane like let the tax cuts expire, that'll never get through congress.
As president he can wield the veto pen and apply pressure, but ultimately if both houses of congress bless a budget there isn't much he can do.
Oh I wouldn't worry too much. Over the next century as the warm climates shift northward, the southern US will get their share of tropical diseases. Assuming we haven't driven this country straight into the ground by then, I expect cures and treatments in short order.
Fewer things will prod officials into motion faster than the cattle prod of their own constituencies.
There are several possibilities.
Space travel could just be so expensive and consume so many resources that the civilizations decided it wasn't worth it. They may send out advanced robotic probes instead.
Earth may be primo real estate, but aren't exactly in the bright center of the galaxy. Anything this far out may be considered not worth going after. This also makes the assumption that a race is interested in populating the galaxy, which may not be the case.
We could be the first intelligent race in this galaxy. In which case, life could exist in plenty of other places but we just wouldn't know it.
We could be yet another intelligent race to form in this galaxy, and will at some point destroy ourselves before reaching space travel like the others did.
Galactic or star system events don't allow enough time for a space faring civilization to develop (asteroids, radiation bombardment, etc).
They could be out there listening and watching, but otherwise mask their presence. If they've mastered interstellar space travel then they would most likely have tech that would allow them to come down on Earth and poke around without ever being detected.
Any such intelligent species may be so far beyond us that the really do look at us as nothing more than ants, and therefore not worth their time.
So on and so forth.
That's why I home school. That way I don't need to worry about the ultra-religious/ultra-conservatives poisoning education with their inane rhetoric and beliefs. After the absolutely idiotic display of ignorance and political hackery provided by the Texas board of education, I'd had enough.
Unfortunately not everyone has the capacity, time, and resources to do so.
Yep. If you don't want you're secrets to be social, don't post them to a social networking site. Better yet, don't post them anywhere on the internet. Someone, somewhere will find them, and usually it's someone you don't want to have your secrets
You'd think that would be obvious by now.
This is all your fault, you let the mouthbreathing facebook hoard elect Sarah Palin as president on American Idol when you should have insisted that we deal with issues of substance .
Sure we can, as long as the substance is illegal or contains enough triglycerides to give a whale an aneurism.
Are you being serious? I can't read you're poker face.
*ducks*
We used to have web surfing. But now, we have web serfing!
After. He needed the twinkies for the excellent sugar rush first.
I think Glenn Beck's Socialist Murder-a-thon might have a higher kill rate though. After all, he's got that chick with machine guns mounted on helicopters on his side.
I mean Al Gore's chastisements are a slower more painful death, but nothing beats a helicopter mounted machine gun. In the name of Jesus of course.
It will never fly. Given the amount of lead they use in paint for toys, I can't imagine how heavy that thing would be.
Having two stealth planes duke it out sort of like watching two blind and deaf people try and fight in in open field. Unless they get within arms reach of each other (or one of them has better capabilities) nothing much is going to happen.
Maverick: "Damn it! We're running out of gas again!"
Goose: "These stealth fighters suck! How the fuck are we supposed to be cool when we can't fucking find each other to shoot at!"
Maverick: "We can't stay up here forever. We're gonna crash if we don't get more fuel!"
(Stealth Prius suddenly pulls up beside the F-22)
Russian: "Hello Comrades! This is the new Russian SMUG 25. What do you think of her?"
Maverick:"Jesus! It's a fucking Prius with wings! What the hell are you going to do in that?"
Goose:"You don't even have any missles!"
Russian:"All true comrade, but I still have an almost full tank of fuel."
Maverick:"..."
Goose:"..."
Russian:"..."
Goose:"....You know Mav, maybe we should..." (Maverick hits Goose's eject, breaking Goose's neck)
Russian: *laughter* See you comrade. I'll be flying circles around your little boat while I wait for you to refuel! *zips off*
Maverick: "Fucking hybrids."
we worship capitalism
- seriously? Who is worshiping capitalism?
Let me clarify here.
Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for a private profit; decisions regarding supply, demand, price, distribution, and investments are made by private actors in the free market; profit is distributed to owners who choose to invest in businesses, and wages are paid to workers employed by businesses and companies.
We, as in this country, adore capitalism. Or rather, the capitalism that companies and politicians want us to think is capitalism.
It is still capitalism, and capitalism comes with positives and negatives. When companies control too much wealth and influence, it becomes corporatism or fascism.
Large monopolies? Government? Average Joe?
Large monopolies have very little to do with capitalism, they are gov't created, gov't subsidized, gov't protected from competition, gov't stimulated, gov't subsidized.
Bullshit. Monopolies existed long before the government got involved. The reason why we have anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws is because monopolies were abusing their wealth and power.
All of this so that they return the favor to the gov't by re-electing those who want to be in power. It's a symbiotic relationship, but where is the 'capitalism' there?
Using money to ensure favorable legislation to make more profit and ensure against competitors entering the market seems like a pretty smart move to increase your capital.
Capitalism doesn't mean fair or equal markets. It means free competition and what better way to be king of the world than to prevent competitors from even coming near your hunting grounds?
Capitalism is not concerned with the well being of society as a whole. It is concerned only with private individuals or groups of individuals to further private gains. If those gains happen to benefit society as well, then so be it.
What do you think 'capitalism' is? Capitalism has a meaning - it's really collecting, saving capital to invest it, to organize the investment around tools and labor and ideas so that profit can be generated and more capital can be re-invested.
No, it's about private ownership and profit. The less money paid for generating profit the better. Capitalism has nothing to do with saving money.
So which of those who you think 'worship capitalism' actually worship it? Because in today's USA the savers are persona-non grata.
As I said, capitalism is not about saving. Capitalism is an economical philosophy based on private ownership and profit. There is no mention of saving one way or the other.
Big companies would love to have completely free unbridled markets and no regulations. The smaller companies and individuals, not so much.
The gov't has made it clear enough: do not save.
Do not save. Spend. Spend on consumables. Do not save and invest, spend instead. The gov't money does not come from savings or even just taxes, it's borrowed and then it's spent, how is that capitalism?
Our society tells us to spend. The government does not. Nobody is pointing a gun to your head to spend all your money. Nor does the government really care as long as you keep paying your taxes.
Government spending is a non-sequitur to capitalism and this discussion, as capitalism is not a political philosophy. Our government is not a capitalistic entity, nor a private one.
but we also tend to be an empathic and moral society (well, sometimes at least)
- I challenge this as well. We are not empathic and moral any more than the gov't that represents us. We are selfish and stupid and lazy, now that's true.
While I don't dispute that we can be selfish, stupid, and lazy at times, s