Looks like you accidentally applied the teletext tag to your comment. Slashdot's comment system can be a bit complicated, but if you preview text looks all blocky in harder to read mono-space you know you've made a mistake.
Part of the issue is browsers/programs that portray cookies in a bad light. When malware scanners flag cookies as "harmful to your computer", people get nervous about all cookies and want them gone (then wonder why they have to keep logging in).
But realistically, the President doesn't have time to write the bill himself, so it's going to be some other people doing the writing who might as well be writing it with the legislature directly.
They are measuring how much students make after they graduate, so that will likely be a large factor. In the past they've cut for-profit school loans because the students would not be making enough to pay off those loans after graduating.
Well it's a more appropriate analogy. It's not like the Earth is just doomed now and there's nothing we can do about it. At the very least we can prolong the time it takes and slow the sea rise.
Most people have this crazy idea that the government is made to help its citizens. Things like stopping shortsighted citizens from doing things that will hurt everyone in the future fits pretty squarely in that realm.
You wouldn't be bothered by the hotter/more extreme weather? The huge food prices? The huge relocation costs of people close to sea level? The government is typically a fan of helping citizens, but it looks like you're from the Somalia-style government crowd?
But at the same time - that's not the reason why our health care costs are higher while our coverage is lower. You can look at the stats - there are the Scandinavian countries with great social programs that spend quite a bit on health care, then everyone else is less than half the costs of the US. We're spending over twice as much as most countries and we still have tens of millions without any coverage at all!
Even looking at Greece - a country that spent too much on social programs and is known for having citizens that don't work much is down at near 1/3 the costs the US. Now it's possible that all these countries are just better at educating their citizens and giving them preventative care - that could cut down on a lot of the factors that raise health costs later in life. Either way, we should be looking at what they're doing and what we're doing wrong, because what we've been doing the past few decades sure as hell hasn't been working.
I don't think there's anything biologically that different that makes us have such higher costs. You'd think there'd be at least one country of cancer-prone obese chain smokers that would out rank us, but we're at the top but a good margin
Just because they're legally required to block the content, doesn't mean they agree with the block or want to do it. On the contrary, it would be more in the ISP's interest to show that they're being legally pushed to block the content rather than the content just appearing not to work.
It's not the government in many of these cases that's doing the actual blocking, it's ISPs where the people that have to install the filters are your typical slashdotter.
True, no one's pointing a gun at them and telling them to buy the packs of raman rather than the 5lbs of carrots, but there are forces in play (market forces making it cheap to get a whole meal, time forces making it faster to prepare and eat the meal). It would be great to have an insurance company with an economic incentive working for these people to give them healthier alternatives.
I wouldn't call Switzerland's laws "lax" - there are lots of guns, but you won't see the American style gun toters that want to bring their handguns into the bar (hard to get a carry permit without a good reason there). The thing with the European solutions is many of them have health care that's cheaper overall - not just for the individuals, but the total healthcare spending per person is lower than in the US, including private and public costs.
Exactly! People are too busy to prepare healthy food and at the same time forced to take jobs where they aren't getting much exercise.
It's not even that the corporations making these foods are evil. They're giving people exactly what they want - tasty food with little or no preparation. The problem is that the healthier alternatives don't sell as well, so people end up getting pushed to buy the less healthy alternatives.
The strange thing about this debate is that conservatives can't point to a single country or time in history where their health care policies are working. There are lots of countries that have cheaper health care than us and lots that have healthier citizens. From a logically standpoint, you'd think we'd look at those and take the best parts for our own system, but we have this misguided notion from some that people should be severely punished (with death) for their mistakes instead of helping them.
You're not going to see the health benefits from a meaball sub. That's also still more than the $1-$2 a meal available from the grocery store. Do you think people are aiming to be obese? They eat what's available to them in their budget which is usually overly processed unhealthy food.
The great thing about providing health insurance to all these people is the insurance companies have an economic incentive to get them healthier. It's why I can get reimbursed for a gym membership and my insurance company sends literature about a healthy life style. Since healthier people cost less to insure than unhealthy people, the free market will come in to help people get healthier, and costs will go down. It's basically a win-win situation that you could only hate if you were afraid the party that passed it would look good because of it,
Sure that's great if they want to splurge for $8 at subway twice a day, but that's quite a bit of money. Those cheap pre-packaged meals (cheaper thanks to corn subsidies) are more likely to be in a good price range at a couple dollars per meal. Even eating a reasonable amount of heavily processed (and cheap) food will take it's toll on the health of most people.
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Your normal rate is £100/min? I gotta get into that industry!
Slashdot's gone through quite a few changes - sometimes the new versions take a little while to get used to
Looks like you accidentally applied the teletext tag to your comment. Slashdot's comment system can be a bit complicated, but if you preview text looks all blocky in harder to read mono-space you know you've made a mistake.
And we're the ones that understand what we're doing when we disable cookies or tracking for certain sites.
Part of the issue is browsers/programs that portray cookies in a bad light. When malware scanners flag cookies as "harmful to your computer", people get nervous about all cookies and want them gone (then wonder why they have to keep logging in).
But realistically, the President doesn't have time to write the bill himself, so it's going to be some other people doing the writing who might as well be writing it with the legislature directly.
Bills are written by the legislature, the President signs them. He can push an agenda, but he's not the one writing the actual bill.
They are measuring how much students make after they graduate, so that will likely be a large factor. In the past they've cut for-profit school loans because the students would not be making enough to pay off those loans after graduating.
Typical selfish Libertarian view I guess - you're right, it might not affect you very much in your life time.
Who else is going to take action on it if not a government? There's no short-term incentive for businesses to do it.
Well it's a more appropriate analogy. It's not like the Earth is just doomed now and there's nothing we can do about it. At the very least we can prolong the time it takes and slow the sea rise.
But it's not a single launch event - it's like we're bombarding Japan and have a choice of keep firing or cut back.
We certainly could stop the launch of the next bomb though.
We did something to create it, surely we can stop it
Most people have this crazy idea that the government is made to help its citizens. Things like stopping shortsighted citizens from doing things that will hurt everyone in the future fits pretty squarely in that realm.
You wouldn't be bothered by the hotter/more extreme weather? The huge food prices? The huge relocation costs of people close to sea level? The government is typically a fan of helping citizens, but it looks like you're from the Somalia-style government crowd?
But at the same time - that's not the reason why our health care costs are higher while our coverage is lower. You can look at the stats - there are the Scandinavian countries with great social programs that spend quite a bit on health care, then everyone else is less than half the costs of the US. We're spending over twice as much as most countries and we still have tens of millions without any coverage at all!
Even looking at Greece - a country that spent too much on social programs and is known for having citizens that don't work much is down at near 1/3 the costs the US. Now it's possible that all these countries are just better at educating their citizens and giving them preventative care - that could cut down on a lot of the factors that raise health costs later in life. Either way, we should be looking at what they're doing and what we're doing wrong, because what we've been doing the past few decades sure as hell hasn't been working.
I don't think there's anything biologically that different that makes us have such higher costs. You'd think there'd be at least one country of cancer-prone obese chain smokers that would out rank us, but we're at the top but a good margin
But if you're a good torrent user then in the process of downloading you'll also be uploading. If you're a bad torrent user then you suck
Verizon now has a "No sports" option for their TV service that costs $10/month less so I'd guess it's around that much.
Just because they're legally required to block the content, doesn't mean they agree with the block or want to do it. On the contrary, it would be more in the ISP's interest to show that they're being legally pushed to block the content rather than the content just appearing not to work.
It's not the government in many of these cases that's doing the actual blocking, it's ISPs where the people that have to install the filters are your typical slashdotter.
True, no one's pointing a gun at them and telling them to buy the packs of raman rather than the 5lbs of carrots, but there are forces in play (market forces making it cheap to get a whole meal, time forces making it faster to prepare and eat the meal). It would be great to have an insurance company with an economic incentive working for these people to give them healthier alternatives.
I wouldn't call Switzerland's laws "lax" - there are lots of guns, but you won't see the American style gun toters that want to bring their handguns into the bar (hard to get a carry permit without a good reason there). The thing with the European solutions is many of them have health care that's cheaper overall - not just for the individuals, but the total healthcare spending per person is lower than in the US, including private and public costs.
Exactly! People are too busy to prepare healthy food and at the same time forced to take jobs where they aren't getting much exercise.
It's not even that the corporations making these foods are evil. They're giving people exactly what they want - tasty food with little or no preparation. The problem is that the healthier alternatives don't sell as well, so people end up getting pushed to buy the less healthy alternatives.
The strange thing about this debate is that conservatives can't point to a single country or time in history where their health care policies are working. There are lots of countries that have cheaper health care than us and lots that have healthier citizens. From a logically standpoint, you'd think we'd look at those and take the best parts for our own system, but we have this misguided notion from some that people should be severely punished (with death) for their mistakes instead of helping them.
You're not going to see the health benefits from a meaball sub. That's also still more than the $1-$2 a meal available from the grocery store. Do you think people are aiming to be obese? They eat what's available to them in their budget which is usually overly processed unhealthy food.
The great thing about providing health insurance to all these people is the insurance companies have an economic incentive to get them healthier. It's why I can get reimbursed for a gym membership and my insurance company sends literature about a healthy life style. Since healthier people cost less to insure than unhealthy people, the free market will come in to help people get healthier, and costs will go down. It's basically a win-win situation that you could only hate if you were afraid the party that passed it would look good because of it,
Sure that's great if they want to splurge for $8 at subway twice a day, but that's quite a bit of money. Those cheap pre-packaged meals (cheaper thanks to corn subsidies) are more likely to be in a good price range at a couple dollars per meal. Even eating a reasonable amount of heavily processed (and cheap) food will take it's toll on the health of most people.