I'm a hindu, and although I've never heard of any specific hindu denomination worshiping Jesus as the supreme deiety, it wouldn't surprise me if one exists; after all what's one more God among the millions that we have already, and almost all of them have their own sects worshiping them above the others.
Evidence of this religious assimilation can be found at my local temple where among the myriad of icons on the walls can be found a picture of Jesus and Mary, donated by a local church, right next to a picture of the Golden Temple donated by the local Gurdwara, and I believe Hunuman is on the other side.
Of course considering the history of Hinduism this should be of surprise to no one, the way it spread through the Indian sub-continent was by assimilating all the gods from various tribal and other religions and incorporating them into it's pantheon. Seeing as it's been going on over the last five thousand years, why should it stop now?
Well, since it's acceptable for you to ban laser pointers on behalf of the 0.001% of users who use them inappropriately, let's also ban airplanes. Here in the US, we've had a problem with a very small portion of airplanes crashing into large buildings. The flaw in your analogy is that you need proper training and acquire a licence in order to fly an aeroplane; any idiot can buy a laser pointer.
I don't see anywhere it says we should throw children into dangerous situations they can't cope with. ...and I'm sick of self-righteous soccer moms telling me what is "too dangerous" for MY kids. They don't want their crotch-fruit to catch sight of a tit until they're 18, fine. They've no right to make that determination for the rest of us under the guise of "it'll warp their poor lil' minds!". Tits are fine here in the UK, you can see them on page 3 of the Sun(a mainstream tabloid newspaper for those who don't know. It's circulation figures are greater than that of any other in the UK despite the lack of actual news) any day of the week. It's gus and violence that get the "thinkofthechildren" brigade out in this country.
I have a similar problem as the GP. Giving somebody an absolute right (healthcare in this case), deprives somebody else (a doctor for example) of their rights. By saying that everybody is entitled to healthcare you have said that a doctor does not have the right to set his/her fees. Instead, decisions made by the government will mandate what the doctor does. If I were looking for a profession, I would not want to enter such a profession.
Maybe the congress-people should go to medical school in their spare time so they can provide for the general welfare of the populace.
I live in the UK where we have universal healthcare; but we have a mixed economy, so private healthcare is available for those who wish to pay for it. If he so wishes a doctor could work purely in the private sector and set his own rates. The way it actually works is that many doctors work most of their time in the National Health Service and do private work as well.
These is no reason a similar system couldn't be arranged on your side of the pond so that doctors can keep their rights.
Being a Brit, I love comparing US news sources to others around the world, including those of our "enemies", and I regularly find that news sources from the USA are very introverted compared not only to the BBC, but even Al Jazeera and Chineese State news are more outward looking (even if somewhat biased). It's not just the news of our enemies either I look at other allies news, they too are less introverted than their USequivilents. And it's not that you can't produce quality news from around the world, compare the versions of CNN: http://www.cnn.com/ http://edition.cnn.com/
But who would think to put "edition" at the beginning of a URL?
Even very annoying people still retain the right to life in most situations in 48 states of the US. This is happening here in the UK; we view things differently.;p
one is a high nanny-state insanity party and the other is a bunch of right wing arsebags. The trick here is figuring out which one is which...
No, seriously I'm socially liberal but fiscally conservative so neither of the main three parties are in my ball park; we don't really have a libertarian party equivalent, so I end up basing my vote on weather I dislike the Tory or Lib-dem manifesto least. To add to the fun I live in a Tory-Lib Dem marginal (so my vote will actually make a difference in our FPTP system), and that means millions of visits from Tories and Liberal Democrats alike. Funnily enough, the next Parliament looks like being a hung one with the Tories being the largest party & the Lib-Dems holding the balance of power: the closest thing to my ideal given our current system.
Just because someone who shares some viewpoints with a wacko, it doesn't mean he is a wacko, too. The GP was advocating murder due to political beliefs. I'd say that's the very definition of wacko.
Case in point - prescriptions. A consultant puts you on a long term drug, but he can't issue it. That has to be done by a GP. For this they require written notice (no email, web, or phone allowed and they don't open weekends of evenings so you have to take time off work to do it). Having received this request it takes them 3-4 days to sign a little piece of paper, which you then have to take more time off work to collect, and manually walk 20 feet to the chemist next door to have it dispensed (which typically takes over an hour). This has to be repeated every month. I know, I go through the whole charade repeatedly. Wow, you've had a really bad experience, I thought the e-mis system was national, I request my repeat prescription on-line, and just need to pick it up and take it to the pharmacy*. This can be done before work in the morning (I usually pick it up at 8:15 and visit the pharmacy after work at 5:30) I can also arrange appointments with my GP after work in person or over the phone, unfortunately options are limited with my consultant, but "choose & book" is supposedly coming in at some point.
I don't know why your consultant won't sign a prescription, my neurologist would do it regularly so that I could pick up the new medication from the hospital pharmacy. Any repeat prescriptions after that are done by my GP though.
*pharmacies aren't government controlled; if the one you go to takes over an hour, visit another one; I rarely have to wait over 15 minutes, even on the rare occasions I have to visit Boots they take a maximum 30 to 45 mins. Get to know your local independent pharmacist, he'll give you better customer service for it.
PR in Westminster's not dead and buried yet: on current poles, the next General Election looks like being a hung Parliament, with the Lib-Dems holding the balance of power. The Lib-Dems would stand to gain from a PR system and would hopefully make it a precondition of any coalition that they are part of. I can see a Tory-Lib coalition implementing some form of PR if the numbers are right i.e. if the Tories would have gotten more seats under PR than they end up with after the next election; a situation that happened in *England* after the previous one. IIRC the Tories had more votes in England but ended up with less English seats (Labour obviously had a majority in Scotland and Wales).
In other news, the British judiciary has released a statement that it intends to ask for a review of current legislative policy. In the future, people in court should be considered guilty until proven innocent. According to the British judiciary, this will lead to an increase in convictions and reduce the amount of unsolved crimes. Terrorist suspects will no longer be able to walk free if evidence against them is insufficient, or simply not available. "Quite simply put, this adjustment will make the public safe from Terrorists. There really is no better way to safeguard the nation." In a first response, a police spokesperson revealed to be "cautiously optimistic" about this possible new policy, and announced that it would be a great help to dealing with crime and terrorism, especially in combination with a new police policy that would allow people to be arrested because they "looked funny" or "somewhat suspicious". Recently our judges have actually been doing the opposite and effectively declaring oppressive government legislation illegal (British judges don't have the same powers as American ones; they can't strike down legislation, they can only declare it incompatible with existing legislation)see the example of control orders to understand what I mean.
"But that would deprive the American people of the benefits of professional politicians!" Did the reporter involved follow up with "and what are those"? Because I'd certainly like to know...But to follow up on the GPs point, here in the UK we don't have Term limits even for the Prime Minister, and we don't have fixed terms either, he can call an election whenever he wants so long as they are no longer than 5 years apart (in reality, they are every 4 yearsish, and usually some time in the summer; May is always good.)
Back to democracy though, I dare say that getting Proportional Representation implemented would drive up those turnouts since every vote would count, but what party with a chance at winning First Past The Post is going to support that?:) The next election has a good chance of being a hung Parliament, and the Lib-Dems may well hold the balance of Power, since they would benefit from a PR system, I think that they'd side with whoever offers it to them.
Politician's careers can be seriously damaged or even sunk on a single incident of sexual misconduct, a single drug offense, a few suspicious meetings with unpopular corporate or special interests, and a million other things. I don't live in the UK, so it might be different there. But here in the US a single drug offense is enough to put college out of the reach of many people. Government grants and financial aid eligibility are removed, if one already has grants, stipends or other federal aid, it gets cut off right there.
It's different here, we have the right to universal free education until age 18 (compulsory education finishes age 16, we call 16-18 "college" and 18-20 uni). After that university depends on grades, and how much student loan you can get; no one checks your criminal history; hell at some universities *not* having taken drugs would probably be a disadvantage. A *lot* of people I know have did some form of drug whilst at uni; I didn't are because of medical problems I have, and the school I went to was a virtual dug den causing me to have an irrational hatred of druggies.*
I'm not really sure that, that really is different than having ones political career destroyed because of a relatively minor mistake.
Meeting with unsavory people, unpopular groups and any sort of recorded sexual promiscuity isn't as separate from ones work life as it used to be. Even a minor infraction like an adult drinking can be enough to torpedo a career over here. Such as that woman who was training to be a teacher. I can't recall what the end of that story was, but the fact that she was dismissed from college in the first place is what I'm getting at. The only people that get background checked out on this side of the pond are those that deal with children and vulnerable adults. No one is going to get the sack for drinking in this country, I know a couple of teachers and occasionally go drinking with them. There's no problems there, if they were to break the law whilst drunk they might face problems however.
However, it is impractical because the same power disparity that makes this desirable means that there is no chance in hell of us actually receiving accurate information about them - if we got anything it would likely have been scrubbed clean. The reason why it won't happen there is the same reason why it won't here, the voters lack the will to tell their elect officials to cram it. Here our countries are the same.
*It was a posh public (Amrican==private) school, so it couldn't expel drugged up pupils in case it hurt their image. Of course, having stoned or otherwise drugged people in class, didn't do much to help the learning environment.
As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread I think that Predictive text technology means that the number of people who use "text speak" is over estimated, at least amongst my peer group in the UK. I know that many teens still use it, but I think that most educated 20-somethings* and upwards, have stopped in favour getting a clear message across just as quickly.
Interestingly my dad *tries* to use text speak whereas my brother, 8 years younger than me, uses normal speak. I know it's only anecdotal evidence but it's (along with incomprehensible IMs from teenage cousins)is what leads me to believe that use of "text speak" is more a perception than reality.
Do you and your friends happen to have phones with qwerty keyboards? No, but we all have Nokias with Predictive text entry. So it's usually quite fast unless you're using an unusual word. However I will admit that I personally am a little anal about punctuation, and even use semi-colons and apostrophes etc. in SMS(e?)s. Not somthing most people do (when I mentioned punctuation earlier I should have said "full stops and question marks").
I'd say a quicky hierarchy of information transfer (from highest bandwidth to lowest) would be:
Book/Essay
Lecture
Letter/Email
In person conversation
telephone conversation (lack of non-verbal context)
IM
and lowest being SMS
I think you have IM and SMS the wrong way round in that list, I (and many people I know) write out and even punctuate SMS messages, but will resort to acronyms in IM. When was the last time you used "brb" (for example) in a SMS? However if I get distracted whilst on IM I'll use it without thinking.
Your list was also missing IRC; I think that would probably go above IM and SMS.
Now it's true that things like religion and licenses tend to act as amplifiers (thus why I don't buy the classic "people will kill each other anyway" argument about religion) Surely the first part of you statement contradicts the second and implies that if it wasn't for religion people would be killing each other over GPL vs BSD or vi vs Emacs...;p
I use a supplier (Novatech) that will supply PC's without the Micro$haft tax, You're not the only one, I use Novatech as well, they're not far away from where I live so I order online, and it's ready to pick up by the time I get to the Novatech store. The prices are good too.
This is totally OT*, but I love your sig; so I'm adopting it.
*note to mods before you quite rightly mod me off topic, please find someone else to mod up first. I'm posting without my Karma or Subscriber bonuses so I'm down one anyway.
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I'm a hindu, and although I've never heard of any specific hindu denomination worshiping Jesus as the supreme deiety, it wouldn't surprise me if one exists; after all what's one more God among the millions that we have already, and almost all of them have their own sects worshiping them above the others.
Evidence of this religious assimilation can be found at my local temple where among the myriad of icons on the walls can be found a picture of Jesus and Mary, donated by a local church, right next to a picture of the Golden Temple donated by the local Gurdwara, and I believe Hunuman is on the other side.
Of course considering the history of Hinduism this should be of surprise to no one, the way it spread through the Indian sub-continent was by assimilating all the gods from various tribal and other religions and incorporating them into it's pantheon. Seeing as it's been going on over the last five thousand years, why should it stop now?
Not quite; it's perfectly legal to carry folding blades under 3 inches as per the the criminal justice act 1988
Yes, becaue
<a href=(url here)>Title here</a> is so much quicker than
[url=(url here)]Title here [/url]
</sarcasm>
they both require 33 key-strokes, so why's either quicker?
since when is a mobile phone "mission critical"?
I have a similar problem as the GP. Giving somebody an absolute right (healthcare in this case), deprives somebody else (a doctor for example) of their rights. By saying that everybody is entitled to healthcare you have said that a doctor does not have the right to set his/her fees. Instead, decisions made by the government will mandate what the doctor does. If I were looking for a profession, I would not want to enter such a profession.
Maybe the congress-people should go to medical school in their spare time so they can provide for the general welfare of the populace.
I live in the UK where we have universal healthcare; but we have a mixed economy, so private healthcare is available for those who wish to pay for it. If he so wishes a doctor could work purely in the private sector and set his own rates. The way it actually works is that many doctors work most of their time in the National Health Service and do private work as well.These is no reason a similar system couldn't be arranged on your side of the pond so that doctors can keep their rights.
Being a Brit, I love comparing US news sources to others around the world, including those of our "enemies", and I regularly find that news sources from the USA are very introverted compared not only to the BBC, but even Al Jazeera and Chineese State news are more outward looking (even if somewhat biased). It's not just the news of our enemies either I look at other allies news, they too are less introverted than their US equivilents. And it's not that you can't produce quality news from around the world, compare the versions of CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/
http://edition.cnn.com/
But who would think to put "edition" at the beginning of a URL?
The trick here is figuring out which one is which...
No, seriously I'm socially liberal but fiscally conservative so neither of the main three parties are in my ball park; we don't really have a libertarian party equivalent, so I end up basing my vote on weather I dislike the Tory or Lib-dem manifesto least. To add to the fun I live in a Tory-Lib Dem marginal (so my vote will actually make a difference in our FPTP system), and that means millions of visits from Tories and Liberal Democrats alike. Funnily enough, the next Parliament looks like being a hung one with the Tories being the largest party & the Lib-Dems holding the balance of power: the closest thing to my ideal given our current system.
He already has one of those, it's the Clarke orbit named because he came up with the idea.
I don't know why your consultant won't sign a prescription, my neurologist would do it regularly so that I could pick up the new medication from the hospital pharmacy. Any repeat prescriptions after that are done by my GP though.
*pharmacies aren't government controlled; if the one you go to takes over an hour, visit another one; I rarely have to wait over 15 minutes, even on the rare occasions I have to visit Boots they take a maximum 30 to 45 mins. Get to know your local independent pharmacist, he'll give you better customer service for it.
PR in Westminster's not dead and buried yet: on current poles, the next General Election looks like being a hung Parliament, with the Lib-Dems holding the balance of power. The Lib-Dems would stand to gain from a PR system and would hopefully make it a precondition of any coalition that they are part of. I can see a Tory-Lib coalition implementing some form of PR if the numbers are right i.e. if the Tories would have gotten more seats under PR than they end up with after the next election; a situation that happened in *England* after the previous one. IIRC the Tories had more votes in England but ended up with less English seats (Labour obviously had a majority in Scotland and Wales).
It's different here, we have the right to universal free education until age 18 (compulsory education finishes age 16, we call 16-18 "college" and 18-20 uni). After that university depends on grades, and how much student loan you can get; no one checks your criminal history; hell at some universities *not* having taken drugs would probably be a disadvantage. A *lot* of people I know have did some form of drug whilst at uni; I didn't are because of medical problems I have, and the school I went to was a virtual dug den causing me to have an irrational hatred of druggies.* I'm not really sure that, that really is different than having ones political career destroyed because of a relatively minor mistake.
Meeting with unsavory people, unpopular groups and any sort of recorded sexual promiscuity isn't as separate from ones work life as it used to be. Even a minor infraction like an adult drinking can be enough to torpedo a career over here. Such as that woman who was training to be a teacher. I can't recall what the end of that story was, but the fact that she was dismissed from college in the first place is what I'm getting at. The only people that get background checked out on this side of the pond are those that deal with children and vulnerable adults. No one is going to get the sack for drinking in this country, I know a couple of teachers and occasionally go drinking with them. There's no problems there, if they were to break the law whilst drunk they might face problems however. However, it is impractical because the same power disparity that makes this desirable means that there is no chance in hell of us actually receiving accurate information about them - if we got anything it would likely have been scrubbed clean. The reason why it won't happen there is the same reason why it won't here, the voters lack the will to tell their elect officials to cram it.
Here our countries are the same.
*It was a posh public (Amrican==private) school, so it couldn't expel drugged up pupils in case it hurt their image. Of course, having stoned or otherwise drugged people in class, didn't do much to help the learning environment.
As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread I think that Predictive text technology means that the number of people who use "text speak" is over estimated, at least amongst my peer group in the UK. I know that many teens still use it, but I think that most educated 20-somethings* and upwards, have stopped in favour getting a clear message across just as quickly.
Interestingly my dad *tries* to use text speak whereas my brother, 8 years younger than me, uses normal speak. I know it's only anecdotal evidence but it's (along with incomprehensible IMs from teenage cousins)is what leads me to believe that use of "text speak" is more a perception than reality.
*this is my peer group.
Book/Essay
Lecture
Letter/Email
In person conversation
telephone conversation (lack of non-verbal context)
IM
and lowest being SMS
I think you have IM and SMS the wrong way round in that list, I (and many people I know) write out and even punctuate SMS messages, but will resort to acronyms in IM. When was the last time you used "brb" (for example) in a SMS? However if I get distracted whilst on IM I'll use it without thinking.
Your list was also missing IRC; I think that would probably go above IM and SMS.
This is totally OT*, but I love your sig; so I'm adopting it.
*note to mods before you quite rightly mod me off topic, please find someone else to mod up first. I'm posting without my Karma or Subscriber bonuses so I'm down one anyway.