All your links mostly either comment upon news generated by journalists or or link to primary data sources. They do little news gathering themselves. Rather they comment on the news. This is fine (and an important part of a free society) but someone has to do news reporting and it's a very expensive business. Without newspapers these blogs would have very little to comment on to begin with.
The issue is that those sites are not nearly as in depth as the New York Times. CNN is a joke beyond a few big headlines and the The daily Mail is more a propaganda machine than newspaper. There really aren't many newspapers that compare. Maybe thee WSJ (which already charges), the Financial Times (which has a metered approach), the Washington Post (still free) and maybe the Guardian (also free but very ideologically driven to the left).
I think the whole situation is ironic. Quite often when I hear stories about immigrants with degrees getting jobs in the USA, people go ballistic about how they are stealing Americans' jobs and depressing wages.
When they go back to their home country, people then complain about a brain drain and about how they should make a 'contribution' to the country that educated them (never mind that they paid highly inflated tuition and quite often even their graduate education was paid for by moneys outside of the USA + grad students essentially work for $10 an hour - slave wages).
So they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Even if cocaine and other drugs were completely harmless, their ability to give serious but unearned pleasure would seriously warrant their banning. I admit, that this sounds religion-motivated, but that's hardly a drawback of an argument...
Arguments like that boggle the mind. What is wrong with people actually experiencing pleasure? Do you have data that suggests that 'unearned' pleasure is ruinous as opposed to merely hypothesizing about what someone may do to your daughter? (BTW Perhaps your daughter can decide for herself what is appropriate for her.)
They really cause mental illness, crime, lower workplace productivity and generally f*ck up society.
Of course its always the right wingers who love Jesus, who somehow think that pleasure = bad, torture = good and somehow use seriously fu**ed up reasoning to justify it.
And of course the earned pleasure of bankers who earn $150 million a year - that's SO TOTALLY earned. And those drug companies and health care lobbyists who use all there nice 'earned' money which was so rightfully earned to begin with. That's all pleasure that is morally right, sitting in their private yachts and jet-setting around in private planes. That' all OK, especially as its earned on the backs of the uninsured. Cause Jesus thinks it's MUCH MORE IMPORTANT that people not get too much pleasure and die cause they don't have health insurance. Good old moral values!
But god forbid some poor person who makes $8 an hour living on the poverty line who actually IS making an economic contribution by actually 'Working', if they want to get high - that is just SO bad. Can't have hard working and underpaid people enjoying life- no that's just for the rich. Cause the bible told me so.
We don't get to live for that long in the grand scheme of things - 70 - 90 years. Cant we just enjoy what little life we have?
Hearing loss is bad if it is caused by MP3 players, but it's okay when it's caused by police using crowd control devices against innocent civilians.
Yeah the cops get free reign. They also don't seem to care about the ill effects of being beaten up by a cop - really nasty health consequences there.
Why can't the government get out of my business??? If I choose turn the volume too high - its MY problem. Leave ME alone!!!
It's just like religion, opposition to abortion and stem cells on the political right - if you don't want to have an overly loud mp3 player, then turn down the volume (for yourself). Leave everyone else alone.
Another example of the destruction of personal liberty.
The price mechanism is a form a rationing. It determines who gets what and how much of it people get. The problem is that you can't just not get health care or get very crappy care. You can live in a studio appartment with a roommate and have just the bare essentials of life and get by on $10.00 an hour. But you can't just get bare essentials of health-care.
If you get cancer and need chemotherapy and you don't have insurance - you die. Health-care is a necessity that everyone needs quite a bit of. So we need to distribute it in a rather 'equal' manor as opposed to everything else where distributing it unequally doesn't mean people suffer and die.
A few reforms would make it much closer to one and it would greatly reduce costs. These reforms wouldn't socialize medicine, but you could add socialism a lot cheaper if you had these reforms:
1. Price lists - health providers MUST have and PUBLISH them, and MUST follow them ALL the time. No negotiated rates for anybody. If you want an operation done you can comparison shop from a catalog.
2. Up-front cost disclosures. If the patient's name isn't on a piece of paper disclosing the cost of a procedure, then the service provider doesn't get paid, in general. Acute emergency procedures can be handled differently, but should be the exception. They could probably be socialized as well with regulated prices (which would of course encourage providers to avoid calling everything an emergency).
Just those reforms alone would greatly lower the cost of healthcare by commoditizing much of it. Those without insurance would also get fair prices, and if this care was socialized then the taxpayers would save money as well.
I think that other changes could be made more opt-in, so that people can choose from a number of different insurance options. I think that catastrophic coverage is something to consider - there is no reason that people should need insurance for routine care unless they have a serious chronic problem.
I very much agree with the tenure of you arguments. Is there a thinktank, set of articles, or a blog that articulates you idea in greater detail?
I have two concerns. Firstly income in the USA is very unevenly distributed at the moment. For a family of 4 earning $120,000 it's totally affordable to be financially responsible for most health care needs (in a cheaper commoditized market). But what about the bottom 50% who are earning less than $50,000. And what about the bottom 32% earning less than $30,000 a year. And what about people earning $8.00 an hour? You may be able to bring the cost of seeing a physician down to $25. But what about an MRI? It currently costs between $900 and $5000 depending on what is being done. Because of the significant capital costs you are not going to be able to bring the cost below $500. So how do you deal with the fact that $500 is simply money that the bottom 30% does not have?
They may run up bills of $2000 in a single (unlucky) year and be financially ruined. Or they may simply may be shut out of getting care. Or what about a hernia repair operation? If you include all docs fees, hospital fees, drugs fees etc the whole thing costs between $5000 and $13,000. Even if you could get the price down to $2000 that is still very high for the bottom 50%.
Secondly how do you deal with the cost of prescription drugs. The generics are cheap. But the non generics and even a few generics can cost between $200 and $800 for a 1 months’ supply. Again this is money that the bottom 50% simply does not have.
So I could go with you plan with the following adjustments:
1. Nurse practitioner’s have similar patient outcomes to GPs. In other words doctors are over qualified and over trained. And it costs us a fortune as a result. This is a consequence of the fact that you need an undergrad degree, normally 2 years spent in addition to getting a long list of pre reqs (and the list keeps on growing) + getting volunteer experience. The average age of just starting med school is 26. Then 4 years of med school. Then 3 - 10 years residency. It’s a huge waste if resources. http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/jcn/abstract.00004471-200902000-00016.htm;jsessionid=LvVTpv7L1qJW3Lgt2D62GJ6bhy9Sv6pTCM9HnYWJ7PPMmgL2Wmpr!713630137!181195628!8091!-1
Too maximize efficiency I would suggest 2 levels of physician:
Level i – This would involve a 6 year undergrad degree with internships and residen
When I was young Republicans wanted a less powerful government who couldn't regulate anything. Why is there a call by three Republicans for more government control? Do they not remember the values of their party?
Maybe they only want a powerful government when it's convenient for them?
Republicans only care about less government when that means lower taxes and the government not providing services to it's citizens - especially the poor ones. But when it comes to a police state, defense spending and going to war they don't give a crap about liberty.
There really is no option (with respect to a viable political party) for someone who believes in liberty in all areas. The democrats want to take away economic liberty.
And both major parties don't seem to have common sense, eg we cant run deficits year after year since 2001 without severe consequences, IP is out of control and the gini coefienient is way too high. And except for a few on the hard left, there seems to be serious brain damage in the American political system when the majority of people think that you can have an effective health care system delivered by the free market. The free market doesn't work for health care.
This is the problem with where you balance free speech versus everything else. In the USA with the exception of national security, judges err on the side of free speech. In the EU it's on whatever is opposing it. eg blackmail., libel, hate speech, offensive speech, privacy etc. And in this case if the information is publicly available and is accurate then IMHO it's a great shame that it's been censored. I also think that the crime for blackmail should be to make the threat but NOT to publicize already public information.
Secondly it seems this is just another example of the law online going down to the lowest common denominator. What is the point of having the first amendment in the USA if some foreign court can gut it when they see fit (and Wikipedia is incorporated in the USA)? Part of the point of living in the USA is that you trade in some security (eg high gini coefficient, little welfare state compared to Europe) and in return you get more liberty (both personal and financial). Here though you get screwed both ways - getting the stringencies of both systems.
The US is doing what their law says to do. They have an extradition treaty with the UK. Therefore, they requested extradition.
REQUESTED extradition. They didn't "demand" it. They didn't "order" the UK to.
When the USA 'asks' for something it quite often is in fact an implicit demand. All sorts of behind the scenes sanctions applied when things don't go its way. For example this occurred when Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi (the lockerbie suspect) was freed because he had cancer. He was also appealing his conviction and there was good reason to believe that he was going to get off. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdelbaset_Ali_Mohmed_Al_Megrahi
But the USA still screamed bloody murder. This despite that Tony Gauci, the chief prosecution witness at the trial, was alleged to have been paid $2 million for testifying against Megrahi. Mebo's owner (the company that made the timer), Edwin Bollier, claimed that in 1991 the FBI offered him $4 million to testify that the timer fragment found near the scene of the crash was part of a Mebo MST-13 timer supplied to Libya. A Former employee of Mebo, Ulrich Lumpert, swore in an affidavit in July 2007 that he had stolen a prototype MST-13 timer in 1989, and had handed it over to "a person officially investigating the Lockerbie case". So there was all this exculpatory evidence and yet the USA still wanted him locked up. There were calls for intelligence sanctions on the UK as a result.
If the prosecutors and the administration chose not to be complete douchebags, they could at their own discretion choose not to pursue this case. Deciding to ask for extradition is entirely discretionary.
I cannot contemplate why the people from the UK who are angry at the US are angry at the US.
People are angry because the USA is being a bully and it can get away with it because it's a super power.
Secondly the issue with prisons in the USA is very much about punishment. Why is this guy liable to get up to 70 years in prison? It's about revenge. 70 years = dieing in prison - no option in being rehabilitated and existing later on outside prison in such a state. If it was about rehabilitation the sentence would be 6 months to a year in a treatment facility.
And is all the rape that is common in American prisons part of the rehab? Maybe on your planet it is - not on this one.
If you took the time to actually read what I was responding to you would see that myowntrueself said:
"I don't believe the brain-wiring problem thing, not for a moment; its an affectation. An eccentricity."
All I have been trying to say is that there is plenty of evidence that there is a neurophysiological basis for it and that saying one doesn't 'believe it' ignores the evidence. It's plain unscientific to for a layman to just suddenly 'not believe' in some area of research that they are no familiar with. How does he 'KNOW' that it's an eccentricity? How can he be so sure in the light of so much evidence. It's plain stupid to ignore all the last decade of research in neuroscience - and to be so sure that one 'doesn't believe it for one minute'.
Secondly if you as you claim are not familiar with the issue why are you suggesting to use your own words 'this guy has real concerns as a layman about the underlying causes of Asbergers'. If you don't know much about this area how would you know if this person's concerns are legitimate? Maybe they are just ignorant??? Maybe you are too and it would appropriate for you to read up on this area before you spout off.
As to your Ad hominem arguments, I wont bother to grace them with a response. Stick to the science!
Please don't compare natural sciences with social sciences so freely. There are certainly biological indicators supporting the Autism diagnosis, particularly the old studies of monozygotic twins raised apart. I haven't heard any extremely strong neurophysiological evidence about it, however. This guy's paper seems to sum that up as well: http://www.mattababy.org/~belmonte/Publications/Papers/98_Garreau/ . I think this guy has real concerns as a layman about the underlying causes of Asbergers. I think he is quite incorrect in that. But it has nothing to do with him completely dismissing science, and making that argument is disingenuous. That is not to say that I have any real insight into the issue either, of course. All I am saying, is quit running your mouth off.
So you haven't heard of any strong neurophysiological basis for Aspergers. Well I guess then it just does't exist. Silly me for running me mouth off and looking at the scientific literature. Seriously maybe you should research the literature first. hmmm?
Ok well to get you started:
Neurophysiological evidence for cortical discrimination impairment of prosody in Asperger syndrome. Neuroscience Letters, Volume 383, Issue 3, 5 August 2005, Pages 260-265 T. Kujala, T. Lepistö, T. Nieminen-von Wendt, P. Näätänen and R. Näätänen
Neurophysiological responses to face, facial regions and objects in adults with Asperger's syndrome: An ERP investigation. International Journal of Psychophysiology, Volume 63, Issue 3, March 2007, Pages 283-293 Kate O'Connor, Jeff P. Hamm and Ian J. Kirk
The neurophysiological correlates of face processing in adults and children with Asperger’s syndrome
Brain and Cognition, Volume 59, Issue 1, October 2005, Pages 82-95 Kate O’Connor, Jeff P. Hamm and Ian J. Kirk
Abnormal imitation-related cortical activation sequences in Asperger's syndrome Nobuyuki Nishitani, Sari Avikainen, Riitta Hari Annals of Neurology Volume 55, Issue 4 , Pages558 - 562 2004 American Neurological Association
Here is the abstract for this one:
Abstract Subjects with Asperger's syndrome (AS) are impaired in social interaction and imitation, but the underlying brain mechanisms are poorly understood. Because the mirror-neuron system (MNS) that matches observed and executed actions has been suggested to play an important role in imitation and in reading of other people's intentions, we assessed MNS functions in 8 adult AS subjects and in 10 healthy control subjects during imitation of still pictures of lip forms. In the control subjects, cortical activation progressed in 30 to 80-millisecond steps from the occipital cortex to the superior temporal sulcus, to the inferior parietal lobe, and to the inferior frontal lobe, and finally, 75 to 90 milliseconds later, to the primary motor cortex of both hemispheres. Similar activation sites were found in AS subjects but with slightly larger scatter. Activation of the inferior frontal lobe was delayed by 45 to 60 milliseconds and activations in the inferior frontal lobe and in the primary motor cortex were weaker than in control subjects. The observed abnormal premotor and motor processing could account for a part of imitation and social impairments in subjects with AS.
He stands little or no chance of a fair trial. Where does a foreigner get money for a lawyer while getting a new job, while paying his previous mortgage, loans and somehow finding health insurance all at the same time? And while he is clinically depressed and feeling suicidal.
And then he stands to get 70 years in prison (the feds are really gunning fro him - they have said as much) for hacking into the pentagon system and in a maximum security prison - he might as well be summarily executed. It would be more merciful.
I think there is a lot of paranoia out there that god forbid someone might get off a little easier and that somehow that is terrible. We must make sure there is zero chance of someone evading responsibility for their actions.
Is there actually any evidence that people are using Asperger's to really get away with much (in a statistically measurable way - and I don't mean personal anecdotes)? hmmm?? Nope! The rate of using mental illness as defense has actually declined in recent years in the USA.
Some people are just vengeful, bloodthirsty and love to punish. And I am sure these people make all sorts of excuses when big business bribes congressman or when certain big powerful countries commit torture and unnecessary aggressive wars. Then it's ok. But if some little guy hacks into a pentagon computer - yeah punish the f*ck out of him. 70 years cause its worse than rape or murder.
It's not important where the physical effects are, its important where the perpetrator is. Look if someone is in country x and an action effects country y then it's irrelevant what country y thinks about it. The country lacks jurisdiction. Crimes are not absolute, they are defined by law. What is a crime in one place may be not a crime elsewhere. The above example of a bullet changes a lot when it's war. Why is that? Because killing people in war (even if you the aggressor) is not a crime for the soldiers involved. Why? Because what defines a crime is a legal definition, not some absolute sense of an event occurring. That's why soldiers in the US army did not commit any crime in killing people when they invaded Iraq. We define war differently. Getting upset about some action (in a legal sense) only has relevance in as much as the perpetrator is in the jurisdiction of the place where a crime has been committed.
My point is that his his threatening to kill himself should prevent extradition in this case given that mental illness is involved and his suicide is plausible.
I never understand how you can have extradition without financial support for the defendant - otherwise it's impossible to get a fair trial.
As the previous poster pointed out, how is this guy supposed to support himself if he makes bail? How the heck is he supposed to pay for health insurance?
If someone is already clinically depressed how are they going to survive in very hostile climate in a foreign country with absolutely no support system? What about if someone has a mortgage in their home country, how will they afford to keep on making payments? What about student loans and credit card debt?
If we are going to take the concept of extradition + a fair trial seriously I suggest:
1. Upon extradition you are given financial aid to pay for initial legal and cultural advice.
2. A grant to pay for health insurance
3. Help finding a job, housing etc with interim financial help.
If at the end of it you are found NOT guilty then you are given compensation for losing your career, home, credit rating, friends in your home country (ie having your whole life permanently f***ed up) and the opportunity to keep your current job in the new country.
Additionally if the UK is going to extradite mentally ill people then facilities have to be provided for proper mental health treatment and rehabilitation - not the current bs that is the US prison system. Also if this guy needs extra help because he is mentally ill then the US government should pay for friends and relatives to come and visit him on a regular basis.
Also a guarantee should be given that the person being extradited will not be raped or beaten up in prison.
The irony of this whole legal question is that the whole reason why the USA was created to begin with was to establish individual freedoms within the context of a limited government (ie the USA wanted to establish liberty that the UK was unwilling to provide). In seeking unjust extradition in this case the USA now becomes the land of tyranny. Indeed this case makes a mockery of the spirit of the US constitution and everything the founding fathers stood for.
And people in jail are put on suicide watch all the time. That doesn't mean that they stop their prosecution of them, they just keep them from hurting themselves. Expressing an intent to kill yourself does not get you off the hook for committing a crime.
No-one is saying that expressing an intent to commit suicide gets you off the hook but it should come into the discussion when talking about extradition. You can't extradite someone if doing so would cause their death.
Do you also choose not to 'believe' in gravity or the electrostatic force? Perhaps the whole world is run by the tooth fairy?
I never know what to say when people just outright reject decades of scientific evidence. And if on Slashdot of all places people don't understand the scientific method or just flatly deny it then maybe humanity is in big doodoo.
The issue here is that US courts have mysteriously 'found' that they do have jurisdiction even when the crime is committed outside of the USA. Well in the same way as a foreigner would think a US court to be silly if a US court decided it had jurisdiction as to whether 3+3=6, so too it's way to self serving to take seriously a US court that claims jurisdiction for an action taken outside of the USA. It goes to core of what a legislature can do. For example the congress could decide that anyone who cooks vegetables in Indonesia is committing a crime. And the courts would take it seriously, but that doesn't mean that the whole notion is not ridiculous.
It also goes to the whole question of sovereignty. Country A is sovereign in and only in country A. It simply doesn't have the authority to legislate beyond country A. Even if country A's courts recognize extra territorial authority - the issue is moot because some other country is sovereign in some other place in the world. This is important because it's what distinguishes the rule of law from highway robbery and murder (ie when a police officer arrests someone it's not kidnapping because they have authority to arrest someone but that authority is not unlimited.)
Ever heard of the Insanity defense? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insanity_defense#Temporary_insanity] Ever heard of Cruel and Unusual punishment - 50 years for hacking into a computer. (hint see the Eighth Amendment of the US constitution)
He committed a crime (defined that way under US law) in the UK. The crime was not carried out in the USA. Yes his actions had consequences for the USA but he did not do anything in the USA. Why the USA has jurisdiction os beyond me.
Slashdot Mirror
All your links mostly either comment upon news generated by journalists or or link to primary data sources. They do little news gathering themselves. Rather they comment on the news. This is fine (and an important part of a free society) but someone has to do news reporting and it's a very expensive business. Without newspapers these blogs would have very little to comment on to begin with.
The issue is that those sites are not nearly as in depth as the New York Times. CNN is a joke beyond a few big headlines and the The daily Mail is more a propaganda machine than newspaper. There really aren't many newspapers that compare. Maybe thee WSJ (which already charges), the Financial Times (which has a metered approach), the Washington Post (still free) and maybe the Guardian (also free but very ideologically driven to the left).
I think the whole situation is ironic. Quite often when I hear stories about immigrants with degrees getting jobs in the USA, people go ballistic about how they are stealing Americans' jobs and depressing wages.
When they go back to their home country, people then complain about a brain drain and about how they should make a 'contribution' to the country that educated them (never mind that they paid highly inflated tuition and quite often even their graduate education was paid for by moneys outside of the USA + grad students essentially work for $10 an hour - slave wages).
So they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Even if cocaine and other drugs were completely harmless, their ability to give serious but unearned pleasure would seriously warrant their banning. I admit, that this sounds religion-motivated, but that's hardly a drawback of an argument...
Arguments like that boggle the mind. What is wrong with people actually experiencing pleasure? Do you have data that suggests that 'unearned' pleasure is ruinous as opposed to merely hypothesizing about what someone may do to your daughter? (BTW Perhaps your daughter can decide for herself what is appropriate for her.)
We know Combat stress reaction aka Shell shock does huge amounts of harm, so do traumatic childhood experiences and so does torture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_stress_reaction
They really cause mental illness, crime, lower workplace productivity and generally f*ck up society.
Of course its always the right wingers who love Jesus, who somehow think that pleasure = bad, torture = good and somehow use seriously fu**ed up reasoning to justify it.
And of course the earned pleasure of bankers who earn $150 million a year - that's SO TOTALLY earned. And those drug companies and health care lobbyists who use all there nice 'earned' money which was so rightfully earned to begin with. That's all pleasure that is morally right, sitting in their private yachts and jet-setting around in private planes. That' all OK, especially as its earned on the backs of the uninsured. Cause Jesus thinks it's MUCH MORE IMPORTANT that people not get too much pleasure and die cause they don't have health insurance. Good old moral values!
But god forbid some poor person who makes $8 an hour living on the poverty line who actually IS making an economic contribution by actually 'Working', if they want to get high - that is just SO bad. Can't have hard working and underpaid people enjoying life- no that's just for the rich. Cause the bible told me so.
We don't get to live for that long in the grand scheme of things - 70 - 90 years. Cant we just enjoy what little life we have?
Hearing loss is bad if it is caused by MP3 players, but it's okay when it's caused by police using crowd control devices against innocent civilians.
Yeah the cops get free reign. They also don't seem to care about the ill effects of being beaten up by a cop - really nasty health consequences there.
Why can't the government get out of my business??? If I choose turn the volume too high - its MY problem. Leave ME alone!!!
It's just like religion, opposition to abortion and stem cells on the political right - if you don't want to have an overly loud mp3 player, then turn down the volume (for yourself). Leave everyone else alone.
Another example of the destruction of personal liberty.
The price mechanism is a form a rationing. It determines who gets what and how much of it people get. The problem is that you can't just not get health care or get very crappy care. You can live in a studio appartment with a roommate and have just the bare essentials of life and get by on $10.00 an hour. But you can't just get bare essentials of health-care.
If you get cancer and need chemotherapy and you don't have insurance - you die. Health-care is a necessity that everyone needs quite a bit of. So we need to distribute it in a rather 'equal' manor as opposed to everything else where distributing it unequally doesn't mean people suffer and die.
A few reforms would make it much closer to one and it would greatly reduce costs. These reforms wouldn't socialize medicine, but you could add socialism a lot cheaper if you had these reforms:
1. Price lists - health providers MUST have and PUBLISH them, and MUST follow them ALL the time. No negotiated rates for anybody. If you want an operation done you can comparison shop from a catalog.
2. Up-front cost disclosures. If the patient's name isn't on a piece of paper disclosing the cost of a procedure, then the service provider doesn't get paid, in general. Acute emergency procedures can be handled differently, but should be the exception. They could probably be socialized as well with regulated prices (which would of course encourage providers to avoid calling everything an emergency).
Just those reforms alone would greatly lower the cost of healthcare by commoditizing much of it. Those without insurance would also get fair prices, and if this care was socialized then the taxpayers would save money as well.
I think that other changes could be made more opt-in, so that people can choose from a number of different insurance options. I think that catastrophic coverage is something to consider - there is no reason that people should need insurance for routine care unless they have a serious chronic problem.
I very much agree with the tenure of you arguments. Is there a thinktank, set of articles, or a blog that articulates you idea in greater detail?
I have two concerns. Firstly income in the USA is very unevenly distributed at the moment. For a family of 4 earning $120,000 it's totally affordable to be financially responsible for most health care needs (in a cheaper commoditized market). But what about the bottom 50% who are earning less than $50,000. And what about the bottom 32% earning less than $30,000 a year. And what about people earning $8.00 an hour? You may be able to bring the cost of seeing a physician down to $25. But what about an MRI? It currently costs between $900 and $5000 depending on what is being done. Because of the significant capital costs you are not going to be able to bring the cost below $500. So how do you deal with the fact that $500 is simply money that the bottom 30% does not have?
They may run up bills of $2000 in a single (unlucky) year and be financially ruined. Or they may simply may be shut out of getting care. Or what about a hernia repair operation? If you include all docs fees, hospital fees, drugs fees etc the whole thing costs between $5000 and $13,000. Even if you could get the price down to $2000 that is still very high for the bottom 50%.
Secondly how do you deal with the cost of prescription drugs. The generics are cheap. But the non generics and even a few generics can cost between $200 and $800 for a 1 months’ supply. Again this is money that the bottom 50% simply does not have.
So I could go with you plan with the following adjustments:
1. Nurse practitioner’s have similar patient outcomes to GPs. In other words doctors are over qualified and over trained. And it costs us a fortune as a result. This is a consequence of the fact that you need an undergrad degree, normally 2 years spent in addition to getting a long list of pre reqs (and the list keeps on growing) + getting volunteer experience. The average age of just starting med school is 26. Then 4 years of med school. Then 3 - 10 years residency. It’s a huge waste if resources.
http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/jcn/abstract.00004471-200902000-00016.htm;jsessionid=LvVTpv7L1qJW3Lgt2D62GJ6bhy9Sv6pTCM9HnYWJ7PPMmgL2Wmpr!713630137!181195628!8091!-1
Too maximize efficiency I would suggest 2 levels of physician:
Level i – This would involve a 6 year undergrad degree with internships and residen
When I was young Republicans wanted a less powerful government who couldn't regulate anything. Why is there a call by three Republicans for more government control? Do they not remember the values of their party?
Maybe they only want a powerful government when it's convenient for them?
Republicans only care about less government when that means lower taxes and the government not providing services to it's citizens - especially the poor ones. But when it comes to a police state, defense spending and going to war they don't give a crap about liberty.
There really is no option (with respect to a viable political party) for someone who believes in liberty in all areas. The democrats want to take away economic liberty.
And both major parties don't seem to have common sense, eg we cant run deficits year after year since 2001 without severe consequences, IP is out of control and the gini coefienient is way too high. And except for a few on the hard left, there seems to be serious brain damage in the American political system when the majority of people think that you can have an effective health care system delivered by the free market. The free market doesn't work for health care.
This is the problem with where you balance free speech versus everything else. In the USA with the exception of national security, judges err on the side of free speech. In the EU it's on whatever is opposing it. eg blackmail., libel, hate speech, offensive speech, privacy etc. And in this case if the information is publicly available and is accurate then IMHO it's a great shame that it's been censored. I also think that the crime for blackmail should be to make the threat but NOT to publicize already public information.
Secondly it seems this is just another example of the law online going down to the lowest common denominator. What is the point of having the first amendment in the USA if some foreign court can gut it when they see fit (and Wikipedia is incorporated in the USA)? Part of the point of living in the USA is that you trade in some security (eg high gini coefficient, little welfare state compared to Europe) and in return you get more liberty (both personal and financial). Here though you get screwed both ways - getting the stringencies of both systems.
I don't understand why everyone's mad at the US.
The US is doing what their law says to do. They have an extradition treaty with the UK. Therefore, they requested extradition.
REQUESTED extradition. They didn't "demand" it. They didn't "order" the UK to.
When the USA 'asks' for something it quite often is in fact an implicit demand. All sorts of behind the scenes sanctions applied when things don't go its way. For example this occurred when Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi (the lockerbie suspect) was freed because he had cancer. He was also appealing his conviction and there was good reason to believe that he was going to get off. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdelbaset_Ali_Mohmed_Al_Megrahi
But the USA still screamed bloody murder. This despite that Tony Gauci, the chief prosecution witness at the trial, was alleged to have been paid $2 million for testifying against Megrahi. Mebo's owner (the company that made the timer), Edwin Bollier, claimed that in 1991 the FBI offered him $4 million to testify that the timer fragment found near the scene of the crash was part of a Mebo MST-13 timer supplied to Libya. A Former employee of Mebo, Ulrich Lumpert, swore in an affidavit in July 2007 that he had stolen a prototype MST-13 timer in 1989, and had handed it over to "a person officially investigating the Lockerbie case". So there was all this exculpatory evidence and yet the USA still wanted him locked up. There were calls for intelligence sanctions on the UK as a result.
If the prosecutors and the administration chose not to be complete douchebags, they could at their own discretion choose not to pursue this case. Deciding to ask for extradition is entirely discretionary.
I cannot contemplate why the people from the UK who are angry at the US are angry at the US.
People are angry because the USA is being a bully and it can get away with it because it's a super power.
Firstly if you think for one moment that prisons in the USA are going to provide appropriate mental health treatment you are living on another planet.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/06/AR2006090601629.html
Secondly the issue with prisons in the USA is very much about punishment. Why is this guy liable to get up to 70 years in prison? It's about revenge. 70 years = dieing in prison - no option in being rehabilitated and existing later on outside prison in such a state. If it was about rehabilitation the sentence would be 6 months to a year in a treatment facility.
And is all the rape that is common in American prisons part of the rehab? Maybe on your planet it is - not on this one.
If you took the time to actually read what I was responding to you would see that myowntrueself said:
"I don't believe the brain-wiring problem thing, not for a moment; its an affectation. An eccentricity."
All I have been trying to say is that there is plenty of evidence that there is a neurophysiological basis for it and that saying one doesn't 'believe it' ignores the evidence. It's plain unscientific to for a layman to just suddenly 'not believe' in some area of research that they are no familiar with. How does he 'KNOW' that it's an eccentricity? How can he be so sure in the light of so much evidence. It's plain stupid to ignore all the last decade of research in neuroscience - and to be so sure that one 'doesn't believe it for one minute'.
Secondly if you as you claim are not familiar with the issue why are you suggesting to use your own words 'this guy has real concerns as a layman about the underlying causes of Asbergers'. If you don't know much about this area how would you know if this person's concerns are legitimate? Maybe they are just ignorant??? Maybe you are too and it would appropriate for you to read up on this area before you spout off.
As to your Ad hominem arguments, I wont bother to grace them with a response. Stick to the science!
Please don't compare natural sciences with social sciences so freely. There are certainly biological indicators supporting the Autism diagnosis, particularly the old studies of monozygotic twins raised apart. I haven't heard any extremely strong neurophysiological evidence about it, however. This guy's paper seems to sum that up as well: http://www.mattababy.org/~belmonte/Publications/Papers/98_Garreau/ . I think this guy has real concerns as a layman about the underlying causes of Asbergers. I think he is quite incorrect in that. But it has nothing to do with him completely dismissing science, and making that argument is disingenuous. That is not to say that I have any real insight into the issue either, of course. All I am saying, is quit running your mouth off.
So you haven't heard of any strong neurophysiological basis for Aspergers. Well I guess then it just does't exist. Silly me for running me mouth off and looking at the scientific literature. Seriously maybe you should research the literature first. hmmm?
Ok well to get you started:
Neurophysiological evidence for cortical discrimination impairment of prosody in Asperger syndrome. Neuroscience Letters, Volume 383, Issue 3, 5 August 2005, Pages 260-265
T. Kujala, T. Lepistö, T. Nieminen-von Wendt, P. Näätänen and R. Näätänen
Neurophysiological responses to face, facial regions and objects in adults with Asperger's syndrome: An ERP investigation. International Journal of Psychophysiology, Volume 63, Issue 3, March 2007, Pages 283-293
Kate O'Connor, Jeff P. Hamm and Ian J. Kirk
The neurophysiological correlates of face processing in adults and children with Asperger’s syndrome
Brain and Cognition, Volume 59, Issue 1, October 2005, Pages 82-95
Kate O’Connor, Jeff P. Hamm and Ian J. Kirk
Abnormal imitation-related cortical activation sequences in Asperger's syndrome
Nobuyuki Nishitani, Sari Avikainen, Riitta Hari
Annals of Neurology
Volume 55, Issue 4 , Pages558 - 562
2004 American Neurological Association
Here is the abstract for this one:
Abstract
Subjects with Asperger's syndrome (AS) are impaired in social interaction and imitation, but the underlying brain mechanisms are poorly understood. Because the mirror-neuron system (MNS) that matches observed and executed actions has been suggested to play an important role in imitation and in reading of other people's intentions, we assessed MNS functions in 8 adult AS subjects and in 10 healthy control subjects during imitation of still pictures of lip forms. In the control subjects, cortical activation progressed in 30 to 80-millisecond steps from the occipital cortex to the superior temporal sulcus, to the inferior parietal lobe, and to the inferior frontal lobe, and finally, 75 to 90 milliseconds later, to the primary motor cortex of both hemispheres. Similar activation sites were found in AS subjects but with slightly larger scatter. Activation of the inferior frontal lobe was delayed by 45 to 60 milliseconds and activations in the inferior frontal lobe and in the primary motor cortex were weaker than in control subjects. The observed abnormal premotor and motor processing could account for a part of imitation and social impairments in subjects with AS.
He stands little or no chance of a fair trial. Where does a foreigner get money for a lawyer while getting a new job, while paying his previous mortgage, loans and somehow finding health insurance all at the same time? And while he is clinically depressed and feeling suicidal.
And then he stands to get 70 years in prison (the feds are really gunning fro him - they have said as much) for hacking into the pentagon system and in a maximum security prison - he might as well be summarily executed. It would be more merciful.
If this guy is going to have to be put in restraints, isn't that a sign that he should not be extradited to begin with?
I think there is a lot of paranoia out there that god forbid someone might get off a little easier and that somehow that is terrible. We must make sure there is zero chance of someone evading responsibility for their actions.
Is there actually any evidence that people are using Asperger's to really get away with much (in a statistically measurable way - and I don't mean personal anecdotes)? hmmm?? Nope! The rate of using mental illness as defense has actually declined in recent years in the USA.
Some people are just vengeful, bloodthirsty and love to punish. And I am sure these people make all sorts of excuses when big business bribes congressman or when certain big powerful countries commit torture and unnecessary aggressive wars. Then it's ok. But if some little guy hacks into a pentagon computer - yeah punish the f*ck out of him. 70 years cause its worse than rape or murder.
It's not important where the physical effects are, its important where the perpetrator is. Look if someone is in country x and an action effects country y then it's irrelevant what country y thinks about it. The country lacks jurisdiction. Crimes are not absolute, they are defined by law. What is a crime in one place may be not a crime elsewhere. The above example of a bullet changes a lot when it's war. Why is that? Because killing people in war (even if you the aggressor) is not a crime for the soldiers involved. Why? Because what defines a crime is a legal definition, not some absolute sense of an event occurring. That's why soldiers in the US army did not commit any crime in killing people when they invaded Iraq. We define war differently. Getting upset about some action (in a legal sense) only has relevance in as much as the perpetrator is in the jurisdiction of the place where a crime has been committed.
My point is that his his threatening to kill himself should prevent extradition in this case given that mental illness is involved and his suicide is plausible.
I never understand how you can have extradition without financial support for the defendant - otherwise it's impossible to get a fair trial.
As the previous poster pointed out, how is this guy supposed to support himself if he makes bail? How the heck is he supposed to pay for health insurance?
If someone is already clinically depressed how are they going to survive in very hostile climate in a foreign country with absolutely no support system? What about if someone has a mortgage in their home country, how will they afford to keep on making payments? What about student loans and credit card debt?
If we are going to take the concept of extradition + a fair trial seriously I suggest:
1. Upon extradition you are given financial aid to pay for initial legal and cultural advice.
2. A grant to pay for health insurance
3. Help finding a job, housing etc with interim financial help.
If at the end of it you are found NOT guilty then you are given compensation for losing your career, home, credit rating, friends in your home country (ie having your whole life permanently f***ed up) and the opportunity to keep your current job in the new country.
Additionally if the UK is going to extradite mentally ill people then facilities have to be provided for proper mental health treatment and rehabilitation - not the current bs that is the US prison system. Also if this guy needs extra help because he is mentally ill then the US government should pay for friends and relatives to come and visit him on a regular basis.
Also a guarantee should be given that the person being extradited will not be raped or beaten up in prison.
The irony of this whole legal question is that the whole reason why the USA was created to begin with was to establish individual freedoms within the context of a limited government (ie the USA wanted to establish liberty that the UK was unwilling to provide). In seeking unjust extradition in this case the USA now becomes the land of tyranny. Indeed this case makes a mockery of the spirit of the US constitution and everything the founding fathers stood for.
And people in jail are put on suicide watch all the time. That doesn't mean that they stop their prosecution of them, they just keep them from hurting themselves. Expressing an intent to kill yourself does not get you off the hook for committing a crime.
No-one is saying that expressing an intent to commit suicide gets you off the hook but it should come into the discussion when talking about extradition. You can't extradite someone if doing so would cause their death.
Do you also choose not to 'believe' in gravity or the electrostatic force? Perhaps the whole world is run by the tooth fairy?
I never know what to say when people just outright reject decades of scientific evidence. And if on Slashdot of all places people don't understand the scientific method or just flatly deny it then maybe humanity is in big doodoo.
The issue here is that US courts have mysteriously 'found' that they do have jurisdiction even when the crime is committed outside of the USA. Well in the same way as a foreigner would think a US court to be silly if a US court decided it had jurisdiction as to whether 3+3=6, so too it's way to self serving to take seriously a US court that claims jurisdiction for an action taken outside of the USA. It goes to core of what a legislature can do. For example the congress could decide that anyone who cooks vegetables in Indonesia is committing a crime. And the courts would take it seriously, but that doesn't mean that the whole notion is not ridiculous.
It also goes to the whole question of sovereignty. Country A is sovereign in and only in country A. It simply doesn't have the authority to legislate beyond country A. Even if country A's courts recognize extra territorial authority - the issue is moot because some other country is sovereign in some other place in the world. This is important because it's what distinguishes the rule of law from highway robbery and murder (ie when a police officer arrests someone it's not kidnapping because they have authority to arrest someone but that authority is not unlimited.)
Ever heard of the Insanity defense? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insanity_defense#Temporary_insanity]
Ever heard of Cruel and Unusual punishment - 50 years for hacking into a computer. (hint see the Eighth Amendment of the US constitution)
He committed a crime (defined that way under US law) in the UK. The crime was not carried out in the USA. Yes his actions had consequences for the USA but he did not do anything in the USA. Why the USA has jurisdiction os beyond me.