Funny how Bush got a pass for 9/11, despite having been in office longer than Obama, and despite having point-blank warnings from the intelligence community.
Now Obama comes in, and it's his fault that everything hasn't been put back in order after the clusterfuck of the Bush years.
Nice try.
Really? Bush got a pass? So, was that Micheal Moore movie about Clinton? I must have missed that.
Besides, how many security measures had Bush passed (or rejected) between Jan 01 and Sep 01? So if Bush didn't do anything with national security during that time, we were pretty much running on Clinton security. Oh, OK.
Now, how many spending bills has Obama passed since taking office? So now if the economy is recovering, who gets credit? The stock market was up today. It reached the 2009 high. Why are you not praising Bush for the recovery?
Read the sig, dipshit. If the person modded it down for the reasons you sited, then they broke the moderator guidelines.
OH, and I don't pay high copays, I have not been turned down for pre-existing conditions and I don't have benefit caps. My health insurance is awesome. If it were not, I'd get on my wife's insurance that is just as good. Why do I have such good coverage? Is it because I'm privileged? Nope. It's because I busted my ass to get an education while working full time, joined the US Military to help pay for it, and continued to put in the extra hours to learn new skills after I got hired. I've worked my ASS off get what I have. Just because you're too fucking lazy to put down the bong and leave the basement doesn't mean that I should have to pay YOUR way as well as my own.
The sad part is that under this new government option health care plan, you will be required by law to have health insurance. That means you're gonna have to get a fucking job to pay for it anyway, even if you're paying the government for shitty coverage at a doctor of their choice. So much for your freedom to be lazy.
But when you have millions of people with no health care plan...
See, we are a free country. We know that you can't have freedom without responsibility. We are free to work hard, buy the health plan of our choice and succeed in life. However, that's only half of what being free is all about. We are also free to sit on our fat asses and watch TV every day and do the bare minimum, which includes the freedom of NOT paying for health insurance..
LOL! How is this flamebait? What good does it do you if you free to succeed if you are not free to fail?
Actually, the quote was stolen from Penn Joulette (sp) who said the same thing. He said something like, "Part of being free is not just the freedom to succeed, but it is also the freedom to do nothing if you so desire."
So looking at extreme scenarios and admitting that a model has some unknowns is equal to "doctoring his data"?
The data didn't change. His tone and presentation of it might have.
The unknown variables was mine. It's well known that we don't know all there is to know about climate. There are many variables we simply don't have the answers to. So instead of filling these variables in with... say, real time or real world data, they fill in their own numbers, either pulled out of their collective asses, or calculated from earlier "simulations". This is how the hockey stick graph came into being. An analogy to what they saidis, "It's been getting warmer since March. If we take the rate of increase and apply it to the future, all life will be dead in four years."
Now, I noticed you did not touch the quote of Hansen where he said, "Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time..." Picking out the most extreme scenarios and presenting them as fact while omitting anything that is contradicts your predetermined conclusion is "doctoring the data".
please note that the information sheets include all war spending approved to date...
Do you see the word I bolded, "ALL"? Notice that it didn't say "please note that the information sheets include all budgeted war spending approved to date," or "...all Bush war spending...". Nope. They said ALL, meaning 100%. This means all budgeted, all supplemental, and all of anything else that went over there. All is ALL.
You did not address if those War Supplemental Bills were included in GWB's budget. They weren't.
The reason they all passed as war supplemental bills is because they weren't part of the standard budget. All you have done here is to validate that nearly a trillion dollars of Obama's budget are hold overs from the Iraq war.
So what you are saying is that all of the sites that I quoted are wrong, or at least omitting half the money because... well, for no good reason (remember, these were two anti-war sites and the LA Times), and $1 trillion out of the $1.6 trillion deficit that is being pegged on Obama is just left over war funding, and Obama, nor anyone else is saying a word about it? RRRRRight!
Actually, what wasn't included in the budget to pay for wars was simply added to the deficit year after year, but it was still accounted for. Sorry, but Obama's $1.6 trillion is all his own.\
Unless of course, you have a source to back that up. I gave you three, which you just said were wrong. Yeah, I'm gonna take your word over three sources that have everything to gain by inflating the numbers as much as possible.
You are blaming a new president and an administration who have been in power for LESS THAN A YEAR for the current state of the budget, while ignoring the past 8 years of what happened?
Yes I am. Because it's Obama's budget. Actually, Congress controls the purse strings, so it's really Congress's fault. They just give Obama everything he asks for and he signs it.
The simplest explanation I can provide to someone like you is that something mysterious and strange happens when you start spending more than ever before and yet decide to lower taxes across the board at the same time. Guess what happens when you do that?
That's right, you run DEFICITS.
You're half right. While I agree that government spending is out of control, and this is not an Obama thing, Bush was just as guilty, cutting taxes actually increased revenue. Look up the Laffer Curve for an explanation.
See, in 2000, under President Clinton, Federal Tax receipts were $2025.5 billion or 20% of the GDP. In 2008, under President Bush, they were $2524.3 billion, but only 17.7% of the GDP. See, when you cut taxes, the GDP (economy) grows, meaning you are taking a smaller percentage of a larger pie, meaning more $$$ for the government.
But again, I agree about the drunken sailor spending. Bush spent WAY too much money. Obama is spending much much more money. So if you are upset about Bush's spending, you should be really pissed about Obama's. If not, you are blinded by your own partisanship.
For the first time in 6 years the Iraq war is INCLUDED in the budget. Part of that 1.8 trillion dollars is the war that George Bush kept off the books the whole time he was in office.
TRY AGAIN
Do you have a citation? I do. It's the same site listed above, which is an anti-war site, btw.
To date, $915.1 billion dollars have been allocated to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The national, state, and local numbers we provide are based on the total approved amounts through the end of Fiscal Year 2009.
In addition to this approved amount, the FY2010 budget shows a $130 billion request for more war spending. This would bring total war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan to more than $1 trillion. When all FY2010 war-related amounts are approved, we will adjust the counter so that it reaches the new total at the end of FY2010.
If you should compare the amount displayed on the numbers in our information sheets with the Cost of War counter, please note that the information sheets include all war spending approved to date, the same number that the counter will reach at the end of the 2009 fiscal year.
Looks like they are including what was in the budget.
The first instance you cite discusses emphasis. That doesn't sound like "doctoring data." The second discusses the IPCC's projection methodology, not Hansen's personal "data doctoring." If anything, it sounds like slanting interpretation of data. Data doctoring seems to require more, in my opinion.
What you call "slanting interpretation of data", others may call "omitting data that may weaken your point".
But when you have millions of people with no health care plan...
See, we are a free country. We know that you can't have freedom without responsibility. We are free to work hard, buy the health plan of our choice and succeed in life. However, that's only half of what being free is all about. We are also free to sit on our fat asses and watch TV every day and do the bare minimum, which includes the freedom of NOT paying for health insurance..
People whine about Obama spending a trillion dollars to bail out the American economy, when we've spent three times that much bailing out Iraq socially, and it hasn't worked; it just makes no sense to me.
The White House raised the 2009 budget deficit projection to a staggering $1.8 trillion today. For context, it took President Bush more than seven years to accumulate $1.8 trillion in debt.
So, let's see. $915 billion (Iraq war) is less than $1.8 trillion (Obama deficit). So you were off by 6X.
How can we take you seriously when you can't get your facts straight. Hell, you weren't even close.
And you ignore the fact that the ice is at a greater level today than it was a year ago.
From August 1 to 17, Arctic sea ice extent declined at an average rate of 54,000 square kilometers (21,000 square miles) per day. This decline was slower than the same period in 2008, when it was 91,000 square kilometers (35,000 square miles) per day, and for the same period in 2007, when ice extent declined at a rate of 84,000 square kilometers (32,000 square miles) per day. The recent rate of ice loss has slowed considerably compared to most of July. Arctic sea ice extent is now greater than the same day in 2008.
Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue, and energy sources such as "synfuels," shale oil and tar sands were receiving strong consideration.
Above, James Hansen admits that he used the "extreme scenarios" and under emphasized the more moderate ones.
... The IPCC, however, does not specify the likelihood of the scenarios or examine the direction of current real-world growth rates.
Here, Hansen admits that they rely exclusively on their models, which use many "unknown" variables that require a best guess, and ignore what's really happening outside in the real world.
Yes they do. OK, big businesses may have apps that dial into big banks, but small businesses use local banks and local banks can not afford a custom written proprietary app that they give to their business customers. The vast majority of small businesses that use local banks do most of their banking through a web browser. I've seen businesses to payroll, wires, ACH payments, transfers, you name it, all through a common web browser.
However, most of these systems are cookie limited to a single computer per login and Mulit-Factor challenged if the IP changes. The biggest problem we've seen have been phishing scams looking for credentials of non-business accounts. Although these sites are usually shut down within hours of the bank finding out what is up.
Seiple works with four patients who train with the BrainPort once a week and notes that his patients have learned how to quickly find doorways and elevator buttons, read letters and numbers, and pick out cups and forks at the dinner table without having to fumble around.
OK, but then what do they do with it. They'll be able to pick a fork or spoon up, but they won't be able to see where the food on the plate is one they start eating. After you pick up the fork and begin to feed yourself, this things kinda worthless.
I'm failing to understand why this issue of limiting treatment is such a red flag.
Because in a government run system the government decides who gets treatment and who doesn't! Do you really want to give the government the power over life and death?
The system under discussion when we talk about the "public option" isn't anywhere near a single-payer system
You are absolutely correct... for now. Individuals will have a choice as to stay with their current private coverage or to go with the new government option (now called "public option).
Of course, the government option will have to be as good as any private insurance, right? Otherwise why have it? If health insurance is a right, then everyone, regardless of income should have equal access to it.
Next, it will have to cheaper than private insurance. The whole point is universal coverage. That means the poor should be able to afford it as well. The only way the poor will be able to afford it is if it's cheap. How do you make it cheap? Well, tax the rich, of course. (Obama has already stated that this is how it will be paid for)
So now you have a competitor to the private sector that is just as good or better than the private sector, at half the cost. It is financed by the American taxpayer so it can profit is not a concern. For that matter, it doesn't have to break even. It can lose billions of dollars every single year and it does not matter. Oh, and it can make it's own rules because it has the backing of the United States Congress. They are the people who write laws.
Now tell me. How long do you think it will take before every private health insurance company is out of business? Obama says 10, 15 or 20 years.(watch the whole thing, but it's about 50 seconds in where he says eventually, he plans for there to be a single payer system.)
Handing anybody power over life and death is worthy of close examination, but the fact is, someone will have to do it. It's far from clear that the government is any less trustworthy than the private sector, and it's at least theoretically more accountable.
If an insurance company screws over enough of its customers, word gets out and it loses its customers and goes out of business. It has to keep a vast majority of its customers happy or they'll become the competition's customers.
But you are correct about one thing. If there is going to be a single payer system, I would prefer that the monopoly be the government and not some corporation. But we don't have a monopoly now and we won't if we keep the government out of it.
With that said, I agree that there needs to be reform. For example, I don't believe an insurance company should allowed to consider your health history when providing coverage or deciding what to charge. They should not be allowed to drop a customer for any reason other than lack of payment, and in the case of unemployment due to the illness, the government should pick up those payments as part of unemployment benefits. But we don't need the government to compete directly with the insurance companies.
The NHS cannot, and never has been able to, offer every treatment to everyone who needs it.
The NHS is funded from taxes, and it spends more than £42bn every year - £779 for every person in the UK. But it is not a bottomless pit of funds and some treatments have to be restricted.
Raising taxes to pay for every possible need is politically unthinkable, as it would require a massive increase in income tax to raise enough revenue to make a significant difference to spending.
This means some treatments have to be restricted, or rationed.
Guess you have been lucky to not need any of the restricted or rationed treatments.
The only health care program that really works is the single payer option.
More accurately, a single payer system that will cover you if you need it to. Companies should always be welcome to compete against the single payer system... if they can make money, then good for them!
And that's the problem. No company will be able to compete with a tax payer funded health care system because the government can mandate which patients a doctor sees and how much they will be paid. First, the government will decide how much to pay for each procedure. This is how they will "save money". They do this now with Medicare/caid. Next, once a few doctors refuse to take government funded patients because they lose money on them, the government will mandate that a doctor may not refuse treatment to a government insured patient. The doctors, who are now overwhelmed with government-funded patients and losing money on every one will have to raise prices on non-government-insured patients to make up the difference. The private insurers will be the ones paying the bills. So, with private insurers having to pay more than before and more than the government, they will have to raise their rates, causing them to lose customers to the government option until the government option is all that is left.
At this point, the government will have control over life and death!
Seriously, how can a private company compete with a insurer that is tax-payer funded and can literally write the rules?
Single payer health care with required nutritional counseling.
Why is single payer health care required for the Government to mandate anything? They mandate things for health insurance companies all the time.
True, but if the government IS the insurance provider, they actually have an excuse to mandate what you eat, how much you eat, how much you exercise, the type of exercise you do, who you sleep with, if you get tattoos, how many hours you sleep and every thing else that can affect health (read: everything!). The fact is that whoever pays the bills makes the rules. If the government is paying for health care, they are in control of your health. How many livers are alcoholics going to receive before the taxpayers revolt? How many lung cancer surgeries for smokers will there be before you start seeing the billions it costs the government to care for these people splashed across the screen on Good Morning America? Once the outrage starts, the government will either have to ban unhealthy habits or refuse the treatment for them. God forbid you have heart problems one day and the government discovers you had Chicken Fried Steak with Cream Gravy for dinner one night in 2004.
I don't know if I would be called a "Rushie", but I am a Libertarian leaning Conservative.
It's not just the end-of-life counseling that makes us think of "death panels". It's the fact that countries that already have a "public option" or single (government) payer system are having to ration medical care. Of course, there will always be rationing of some sort. Right now the limiting factor is price and availability. Insurance companies can decide not to cover a medication or procedure due to price or necessity. For example, you wouldn't give a new hip of gastric bypass surgery to a patient that will die from pancreatic cancer in six months. If the patient doesn't like it, they can take the company to court and let a judge decide. The problem with a government run system is that you can not sue the government. If a government-based -insurance panel decides that you don't need a new hip or breast cancer medication, then you're simply SOL. You only option is to pay your taxes and die.
However hysterical some of the US attacks may be, the central core of the argument is indisputable: the NHS relies on the principle of rationing. Whatever resources there are should be distributed absolutely evenly (which may mean thinly) regardless of circumstances, and no one should receive what can not be made avaliable to everyone. If a given drug or procedure cannot be offered to the entire population (or to all those who might benefit from it), then it should not be offered to anyone at all because that would be "unfair". This doctrine is carried to its logical conclusion by the prohibition on top-up payments in which patients can be refused NHS treatment (even when they have paid for it through years of taxation) if they choose to buy medication out of their own funds. This is something that most Americans would find shocking and even positively immoral. And there are a good many British patients (and doctors) who would agree with them.
Is this how an American system would operate? Who would decides who gets what drugs? Who decides who DOESN'T get what drugs? What happens if a private insurance company is willing to pay for a procedure that a government panel has deemed unnecessary? That panel that decides to deny a potentially life saving drug or treatment is the panel that is referred to as death panels.
Personally, I think the government has to much power as it is. I certainly don't want to literally give them power over life or death.
It's sad that you don't think a press that not only believes what the government says, but goes out of their way to support it is dangerous. The job of the press is to act as a watchdog to the government, informing the citizens of what the government is doing, not just what they are saying. The vast majority of the media has failed miserably at that job and are voluntarily reporting as if they were state controlled. Basically, there is no difference between the CNN today and USSR's Pravda of 1965.
I'm not whining, I'm warning. Honestly ask yourself how you would respond if the media acted toward GWB the way it is acting toward BHO. Would you have cared if Bush's Sec of the Treasury was a tax cheat? Would you mind if GWB set up a government email address for good citizens to turn in their non-patriotic neighbors? Would you sit silent as GWB took over the banking system, insurance industry, automobile industry and health care? You would seriously be OK if the media let all of this slide? Really? Honestly, ask yourself those questions. Ask yourself why everyone was so upset at "illegal" wiretapping, but no one cares about the government handing over the census to an organization under investigation and found guilty for voter fraud, fraud that helped the current government get elected.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny how Bush got a pass for 9/11, despite having been in office longer than Obama, and despite having point-blank warnings from the intelligence community.
Now Obama comes in, and it's his fault that everything hasn't been put back in order after the clusterfuck of the Bush years.
Nice try.
Really? Bush got a pass? So, was that Micheal Moore movie about Clinton? I must have missed that.
Besides, how many security measures had Bush passed (or rejected) between Jan 01 and Sep 01? So if Bush didn't do anything with national security during that time, we were pretty much running on Clinton security. Oh, OK.
Now, how many spending bills has Obama passed since taking office? So now if the economy is recovering, who gets credit? The stock market was up today. It reached the 2009 high. Why are you not praising Bush for the recovery?
So um.... Nice try.
Read the sig, dipshit. If the person modded it down for the reasons you sited, then they broke the moderator guidelines.
OH, and I don't pay high copays, I have not been turned down for pre-existing conditions and I don't have benefit caps. My health insurance is awesome. If it were not, I'd get on my wife's insurance that is just as good. Why do I have such good coverage? Is it because I'm privileged? Nope. It's because I busted my ass to get an education while working full time, joined the US Military to help pay for it, and continued to put in the extra hours to learn new skills after I got hired. I've worked my ASS off get what I have. Just because you're too fucking lazy to put down the bong and leave the basement doesn't mean that I should have to pay YOUR way as well as my own.
The sad part is that under this new government option health care plan, you will be required by law to have health insurance. That means you're gonna have to get a fucking job to pay for it anyway, even if you're paying the government for shitty coverage at a doctor of their choice. So much for your freedom to be lazy.
But when you have millions of people with no health care plan...
See, we are a free country. We know that you can't have freedom without responsibility. We are free to work hard, buy the health plan of our choice and succeed in life. However, that's only half of what being free is all about. We are also free to sit on our fat asses and watch TV every day and do the bare minimum, which includes the freedom of NOT paying for health insurance..
LOL! How is this flamebait? What good does it do you if you free to succeed if you are not free to fail?
Actually, the quote was stolen from Penn Joulette (sp) who said the same thing. He said something like, "Part of being free is not just the freedom to succeed, but it is also the freedom to do nothing if you so desire."
So looking at extreme scenarios and admitting that a model has some unknowns is equal to "doctoring his data"?
The data didn't change. His tone and presentation of it might have.
The unknown variables was mine. It's well known that we don't know all there is to know about climate. There are many variables we simply don't have the answers to. So instead of filling these variables in with... say, real time or real world data, they fill in their own numbers, either pulled out of their collective asses, or calculated from earlier "simulations". This is how the hockey stick graph came into being. An analogy to what they saidis, "It's been getting warmer since March. If we take the rate of increase and apply it to the future, all life will be dead in four years."
Now, I noticed you did not touch the quote of Hansen where he said, "Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time..." Picking out the most extreme scenarios and presenting them as fact while omitting anything that is contradicts your predetermined conclusion is "doctoring the data".
Oh, and again, let me quote my very first site:
please note that the information sheets include all war spending approved to date...
Do you see the word I bolded, "ALL"? Notice that it didn't say "please note that the information sheets include all budgeted war spending approved to date," or "...all Bush war spending...". Nope. They said ALL, meaning 100%. This means all budgeted, all supplemental, and all of anything else that went over there. All is ALL.
That is all.
You did not address if those War Supplemental Bills were included in GWB's budget. They weren't.
The reason they all passed as war supplemental bills is because they weren't part of the standard budget. All you have done here is to validate that nearly a trillion dollars of Obama's budget are hold overs from the Iraq war.
So what you are saying is that all of the sites that I quoted are wrong, or at least omitting half the money because... well, for no good reason (remember, these were two anti-war sites and the LA Times), and $1 trillion out of the $1.6 trillion deficit that is being pegged on Obama is just left over war funding, and Obama, nor anyone else is saying a word about it? RRRRRight!
Actually, what wasn't included in the budget to pay for wars was simply added to the deficit year after year, but it was still accounted for. Sorry, but Obama's $1.6 trillion is all his own.\
Unless of course, you have a source to back that up. I gave you three, which you just said were wrong. Yeah, I'm gonna take your word over three sources that have everything to gain by inflating the numbers as much as possible.
You are blaming a new president and an administration who have been in power for LESS THAN A YEAR for the current state of the budget, while ignoring the past 8 years of what happened?
Yes I am. Because it's Obama's budget. Actually, Congress controls the purse strings, so it's really Congress's fault. They just give Obama everything he asks for and he signs it.
The simplest explanation I can provide to someone like you is that something mysterious and strange happens when you start spending more than ever before and yet decide to lower taxes across the board at the same time. Guess what happens when you do that?
That's right, you run DEFICITS.
You're half right. While I agree that government spending is out of control, and this is not an Obama thing, Bush was just as guilty, cutting taxes actually increased revenue. Look up the Laffer Curve for an explanation.
See, in 2000, under President Clinton, Federal Tax receipts were $2025.5 billion or 20% of the GDP. In 2008, under President Bush, they were $2524.3 billion, but only 17.7% of the GDP. See, when you cut taxes, the GDP (economy) grows, meaning you are taking a smaller percentage of a larger pie, meaning more $$$ for the government.
But again, I agree about the drunken sailor spending. Bush spent WAY too much money. Obama is spending much much more money. So if you are upset about Bush's spending, you should be really pissed about Obama's. If not, you are blinded by your own partisanship.
you need some better sources.
Whatever. Deficits are not what we are arguing here. The GP was saying that the Iraq war is 3X Obama's deficits.
For the first time in 6 years the Iraq war is INCLUDED in the budget. Part of that 1.8 trillion dollars is the war that George Bush kept off the books the whole time he was in office.
TRY AGAIN
Do you have a citation? I do. It's the same site listed above, which is an anti-war site, btw.
To date, $915.1 billion dollars have been allocated to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The national, state, and local numbers we provide are based on the total approved amounts through the end of Fiscal Year 2009.
In addition to this approved amount, the FY2010 budget shows a $130 billion request for more war spending. This would bring total war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan to more than $1 trillion. When all FY2010 war-related amounts are approved, we will adjust the counter so that it reaches the new total at the end of FY2010.
If you should compare the amount displayed on the numbers in our information sheets with the Cost of War counter, please note that the information sheets include all war spending approved to date, the same number that the counter will reach at the end of the 2009 fiscal year.
Looks like they are including what was in the budget.
Here's another one from the LA Times:
If Congress approves a request for another $87 billion, the Iraq war will have cost about $694 billion.
Here is a quote from another anti-war site. The title is Iraq War: The Cost of Bush Lies and His Influence of Not Being Accountable :
$800 billion through mid-2009 in U.S. taxpayer money
Sorry. Either you're wrong or everyone else is.
The first instance you cite discusses emphasis. That doesn't sound like "doctoring data." The second discusses the IPCC's projection methodology, not Hansen's personal "data doctoring." If anything, it sounds like slanting interpretation of data. Data doctoring seems to require more, in my opinion.
What you call "slanting interpretation of data", others may call "omitting data that may weaken your point".
But when you have millions of people with no health care plan...
See, we are a free country. We know that you can't have freedom without responsibility. We are free to work hard, buy the health plan of our choice and succeed in life. However, that's only half of what being free is all about. We are also free to sit on our fat asses and watch TV every day and do the bare minimum, which includes the freedom of NOT paying for health insurance..
it's only that the foreign wars that the US is fighting right now (and in the past) didn't exactly help anyone besides maybe Haliburton etc.
I saw a bunch of Iraqi and Afghan women with purple fingers who would disagree with that statement. Or do brown women not count?
People whine about Obama spending a trillion dollars to bail out the American economy, when we've spent three times that much bailing out Iraq socially, and it hasn't worked; it just makes no sense to me.
BZZZZT! Wrong!
From HERE:
To date, $915.1 billion dollars have been allocated to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And from HERE:
The White House raised the 2009 budget deficit projection to a staggering $1.8 trillion today. For context, it took President Bush more than seven years to accumulate $1.8 trillion in debt.
So, let's see. $915 billion (Iraq war) is less than $1.8 trillion (Obama deficit). So you were off by 6X.
How can we take you seriously when you can't get your facts straight. Hell, you weren't even close.
You lost all credibility when you said:
(well, apart from the global depression created by Americans)
Yeah and you can just ignore the FACT that the North Atlantic is melting because it is some NASA plot!
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/arcticice_decline.html
And you ignore the fact that the ice is at a greater level today than it was a year ago.
From August 1 to 17, Arctic sea ice extent declined at an average rate of 54,000 square kilometers (21,000 square miles) per day. This decline was slower than the same period in 2008, when it was 91,000 square kilometers (35,000 square miles) per day, and for the same period in 2007, when ice extent declined at a rate of 84,000 square kilometers (32,000 square miles) per day. The recent rate of ice loss has slowed considerably compared to most of July. Arctic sea ice extent is now greater than the same day in 2008.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
In several minutes of searching, I am able to find no credible, objective evidence of this (no, Fox News is not credible or objective).
Would believe James Hansen?
Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue, and energy sources such as "synfuels," shale oil and tar sands were receiving strong consideration.
Above, James Hansen admits that he used the "extreme scenarios" and under emphasized the more moderate ones.
...
The IPCC, however, does not specify the likelihood of the scenarios or examine the direction of current real-world growth rates.
Here, Hansen admits that they rely exclusively on their models, which use many "unknown" variables that require a best guess, and ignore what's really happening outside in the real world.
Businesses do not use the web browser
Yes they do. OK, big businesses may have apps that dial into big banks, but small businesses use local banks and local banks can not afford a custom written proprietary app that they give to their business customers. The vast majority of small businesses that use local banks do most of their banking through a web browser. I've seen businesses to payroll, wires, ACH payments, transfers, you name it, all through a common web browser.
However, most of these systems are cookie limited to a single computer per login and Mulit-Factor challenged if the IP changes. The biggest problem we've seen have been phishing scams looking for credentials of non-business accounts. Although these sites are usually shut down within hours of the bank finding out what is up.
From TFA:
Seiple works with four patients who train with the BrainPort once a week and notes that his patients have learned how to quickly find doorways and elevator buttons, read letters and numbers, and pick out cups and forks at the dinner table without having to fumble around.
OK, but then what do they do with it. They'll be able to pick a fork or spoon up, but they won't be able to see where the food on the plate is one they start eating. After you pick up the fork and begin to feed yourself, this things kinda worthless.
I'm failing to understand why this issue of limiting treatment is such a red flag.
Because in a government run system the government decides who gets treatment and who doesn't! Do you really want to give the government the power over life and death?
The system under discussion when we talk about the "public option" isn't anywhere near a single-payer system
You are absolutely correct... for now. Individuals will have a choice as to stay with their current private coverage or to go with the new government option (now called "public option).
Of course, the government option will have to be as good as any private insurance, right? Otherwise why have it? If health insurance is a right, then everyone, regardless of income should have equal access to it.
Next, it will have to cheaper than private insurance. The whole point is universal coverage. That means the poor should be able to afford it as well. The only way the poor will be able to afford it is if it's cheap. How do you make it cheap? Well, tax the rich, of course. (Obama has already stated that this is how it will be paid for)
So now you have a competitor to the private sector that is just as good or better than the private sector, at half the cost. It is financed by the American taxpayer so it can profit is not a concern. For that matter, it doesn't have to break even. It can lose billions of dollars every single year and it does not matter. Oh, and it can make it's own rules because it has the backing of the United States Congress. They are the people who write laws.
Now tell me. How long do you think it will take before every private health insurance company is out of business? Obama says 10, 15 or 20 years.(watch the whole thing, but it's about 50 seconds in where he says eventually, he plans for there to be a single payer system.)
Handing anybody power over life and death is worthy of close examination, but the fact is, someone will have to do it. It's far from clear that the government is any less trustworthy than the private sector, and it's at least theoretically more accountable.
If an insurance company screws over enough of its customers, word gets out and it loses its customers and goes out of business. It has to keep a vast majority of its customers happy or they'll become the competition's customers.
But you are correct about one thing. If there is going to be a single payer system, I would prefer that the monopoly be the government and not some corporation. But we don't have a monopoly now and we won't if we keep the government out of it.
With that said, I agree that there needs to be reform. For example, I don't believe an insurance company should allowed to consider your health history when providing coverage or deciding what to charge. They should not be allowed to drop a customer for any reason other than lack of payment, and in the case of unemployment due to the illness, the government should pick up those payments as part of unemployment benefits. But we don't need the government to compete directly with the insurance companies.
Works fine from where I'm sitting (UK). Always been able to access it, never had treatment refused. The same is true for everyone else in my family.
Funny. The BBC disagrees.
The NHS cannot, and never has been able to, offer every treatment to everyone who needs it.
The NHS is funded from taxes, and it spends more than £42bn every year - £779 for every person in the UK. But it is not a bottomless pit of funds and some treatments have to be restricted.
Raising taxes to pay for every possible need is politically unthinkable, as it would require a massive increase in income tax to raise enough revenue to make a significant difference to spending.
This means some treatments have to be restricted, or rationed.
Guess you have been lucky to not need any of the restricted or rationed treatments.
The only health care program that really works is the single payer option.
More accurately, a single payer system that will cover you if you need it to. Companies should always be welcome to compete against the single payer system... if they can make money, then good for them!
And that's the problem. No company will be able to compete with a tax payer funded health care system because the government can mandate which patients a doctor sees and how much they will be paid.
First, the government will decide how much to pay for each procedure. This is how they will "save money". They do this now with Medicare/caid.
Next, once a few doctors refuse to take government funded patients because they lose money on them, the government will mandate that a doctor may not refuse treatment to a government insured patient.
The doctors, who are now overwhelmed with government-funded patients and losing money on every one will have to raise prices on non-government-insured patients to make up the difference. The private insurers will be the ones paying the bills.
So, with private insurers having to pay more than before and more than the government, they will have to raise their rates, causing them to lose customers to the government option until the government option is all that is left.
At this point, the government will have control over life and death!
Seriously, how can a private company compete with a insurer that is tax-payer funded and can literally write the rules?
Single payer health care with required nutritional counseling.
Why is single payer health care required for the Government to mandate anything? They mandate things for health insurance companies all the time.
True, but if the government IS the insurance provider, they actually have an excuse to mandate what you eat, how much you eat, how much you exercise, the type of exercise you do, who you sleep with, if you get tattoos, how many hours you sleep and every thing else that can affect health (read: everything!). The fact is that whoever pays the bills makes the rules. If the government is paying for health care, they are in control of your health. How many livers are alcoholics going to receive before the taxpayers revolt? How many lung cancer surgeries for smokers will there be before you start seeing the billions it costs the government to care for these people splashed across the screen on Good Morning America? Once the outrage starts, the government will either have to ban unhealthy habits or refuse the treatment for them. God forbid you have heart problems one day and the government discovers you had Chicken Fried Steak with Cream Gravy for dinner one night in 2004.
I don't know if I would be called a "Rushie", but I am a Libertarian leaning Conservative.
It's not just the end-of-life counseling that makes us think of "death panels". It's the fact that countries that already have a "public option" or single (government) payer system are having to ration medical care. Of course, there will always be rationing of some sort. Right now the limiting factor is price and availability. Insurance companies can decide not to cover a medication or procedure due to price or necessity. For example, you wouldn't give a new hip of gastric bypass surgery to a patient that will die from pancreatic cancer in six months. If the patient doesn't like it, they can take the company to court and let a judge decide. The problem with a government run system is that you can not sue the government. If a government-based -insurance panel decides that you don't need a new hip or breast cancer medication, then you're simply SOL. You only option is to pay your taxes and die.
Here is a good quote from THIS article:
However hysterical some of the US attacks may be, the central core of the argument is indisputable: the NHS relies on the principle of rationing. Whatever resources there are should be distributed absolutely evenly (which may mean thinly) regardless of circumstances, and no one should receive what can not be made avaliable to everyone. If a given drug or procedure cannot be offered to the entire population (or to all those who might benefit from it), then it should not be offered to anyone at all because that would be "unfair". This doctrine is carried to its logical conclusion by the prohibition on top-up payments in which patients can be refused NHS treatment (even when they have paid for it through years of taxation) if they choose to buy medication out of their own funds. This is something that most Americans would find shocking and even positively immoral. And there are a good many British patients (and doctors) who would agree with them.
Is this how an American system would operate? Who would decides who gets what drugs? Who decides who DOESN'T get what drugs? What happens if a private insurance company is willing to pay for a procedure that a government panel has deemed unnecessary? That panel that decides to deny a potentially life saving drug or treatment is the panel that is referred to as death panels.
Personally, I think the government has to much power as it is. I certainly don't want to literally give them power over life or death.
Your crybaby routine is hilarious. Bless.
It's sad that you don't think a press that not only believes what the government says, but goes out of their way to support it is dangerous. The job of the press is to act as a watchdog to the government, informing the citizens of what the government is doing, not just what they are saying. The vast majority of the media has failed miserably at that job and are voluntarily reporting as if they were state controlled. Basically, there is no difference between the CNN today and USSR's Pravda of 1965.
I'm not whining, I'm warning. Honestly ask yourself how you would respond if the media acted toward GWB the way it is acting toward BHO. Would you have cared if Bush's Sec of the Treasury was a tax cheat? Would you mind if GWB set up a government email address for good citizens to turn in their non-patriotic neighbors? Would you sit silent as GWB took over the banking system, insurance industry, automobile industry and health care? You would seriously be OK if the media let all of this slide? Really? Honestly, ask yourself those questions. Ask yourself why everyone was so upset at "illegal" wiretapping, but no one cares about the government handing over the census to an organization under investigation and found guilty for voter fraud, fraud that helped the current government get elected.