Sounds about right. Between medical procedures, the cost of the nurses, doctors, EMTs and miscellaneous emergency room maintenance costs that are rolled into that, I can easily see 4 grand an hour.
By the way, you might get your allergy meds for $12 at Walmart, but if you ever try to pay for a broken bone, whopping cough or heck, cancer, out of your own pocket, you'll be broke in no time flat.
By the way, the 20% the insurance brokers skim off the top is only a fraction of the delta between healthcare costs in the US and pretty much everywhere else - and that is after accounting for quality of care.
In other words, your attempts to create a sort of Newspeak that redefines your terms to suit your argument having been exposed, you now attempt to redefine my terms to suit your argument.
I'll call it the humpty dumpty market if it makes you happy. That doesn't change the fact that you have no idea what is necessary for the proper function of your humpty-dumpty market, or what a properly functioning market in general looks like.
Do you believe it's impossible to coerce a genetic trait into existence via selective cultivation and environmental pressure?
You have no idea of the math that is behind genetic mutations. There are 17 billion base pairs in wheat. What are the odds to get even a small chunk of the CP4 EPSPS gene through random mutation - say, maybe 500 base pairs? Especially in such a way that it doesn't come with any alterations of the rest of the wheat genome? It's longer than we've been farming wheat.
Stop waving your hands, you're embarrassing yourself.
All good points. It's a fine line between useful information and information overload, and there's always the chance that random mutations trip up best efforts. As I pointed out in another response though, there's an easy solution: list the genes that cause the product to be patented. It's a short, very well defined list.
Comments like that demonstrate the most irritating part of this bill. If you know very little about crop genetics, it is a no brainer. Think of it a bit deeper, while considering the full breadth of the topic, and it quickly becomes very murky.
Comments like that demonstrate the most irritating part of these types of discussions: there's always someone who thinks that because we can't do it perfectly, we shouldn't do it at all. Not only that, but because we can't know everything, we shouldn't bother with even discussing a partial solution.
Now who's arguing semantics? Sorry, but you can't just move the goalposts by redefining terms as you see fit. I know of nobody who believes that the term “free market” means anything other than a market free from government regulation.
I'm arguing semantics, because you brought up the subject. Don't pick a fight you don't want to commit to. Also, argument from ignorance. I can't help you with that, other than to point out when everybody - including your friends - refers to to the magic of the free market, they refer to the effects described by Adam Smith. And that wasn't about a market free of government regulation.
Do you also get upset when people refer to hackers instead of crackers? I can't help you there either.
Is your argument about health concerns or patent concerns?
Slow down, cowboy. Your mind is getting ahead of your eyes there. Did you read what I wrote? I described a method by which corporations could easily identify the genes that were modified in the GMO product. The parentheses, by their nature, indicate an aside or an expansion of the main point, but are not the main point. Seriously, this is middle school stuff.
Either you can claim some legitimate scientific reason why genes inserted via genetic modification are different from genes inserted by cross-breeding (which you can't, because they aren't actually any different), or you have no point whatsoever.
You really, really ought to read up on what a false dichotomy is. It's getting kinda sad. You're also begging the question now. And finally, you also ought to be really careful about how you think about your position. As you word it, it is trivially shown to be wrong by this: http://bio.sophiapublisher.com/html-94-16-tgg. Unless you want to argue that e. coli can crossbreed with wheat, there are genes that are introduced in GMO food that cannot come from cross-breeding.
At this point, you're just arguing because you don't want to admit defeat. I'm reminded of a meme that's been around since the Usenet days, and concede the floor. Have fun.
You don't know what you're talking about. Perfect access to information is a condition of a perfect market [wikipedia.org], not a free market. The only condition for a free market is a lack of government regulations. Free markets do not require perfect access to anything, either as a condition to exist or in order to function properly. Your entire argument is a strawman.
Thanks for the lesson in semantics. The problem is that everyone who talks about the magic of the free market is talking about a perfect market. In other words, what is known as a perfect market in economic theory circles is known as a free market on the talk-show circuit, in campaigns and during the current wave of demonizing regulations. You might say that your argument is based on a lack of understanding of current terminology.
You're under the mistaken impression that there's some identifiable difference between GMO and non-GMO foods, that couldn't be achieved through natural cross-breeding techniques that have been used for thousands of years.
You really might want to stop your jumping to conclusions - you might hurt yourself. Yes, GMO at its most benign is nothing but cutting short a few generations of selective breeding. However, just like I don't need the exact breakdown of every atom in the food I buy, so I don't need a breakdown of every gene in the food I buy. It's sufficient to list out the genes that were artificially inserted and that make up the patent for the food (I'm sure you know that one of the drivers behind GMO food is because it allows for patenting food, right?).
Do you expect the entire genome of any fruit you buy to be mapped out for you before you decide whether or not to purchase it? If not, then your position is invalid, because just knowing that a food is “genetically modified” tells you absolutely nothing about what's actually in that food.
You might want to also look into "false dichotomy", "relevance in decision making" and "silence is golden."
I find it interesting that one of the cornerstone requirements for a working free market - perfect access to full information - is being opposed by entities praising the free market at every turn. It couldn't be that those are just interested in preserving their own position in the market, and are using "free market" as an easy mantra with which to mislead the voting public?
All sarcasm aside, my biggest problem with this situation really isn't that GMO food might be inherently more dangerous than non-GMO food. It's that when I buy a banana, I want to know that this isn't a regular Chiquita banana, but the glow-in-the-dark version that is designed to keep nocturnal monkeys from eating it. In other words, I want to know what the product is that I'm buying. This bill would help me with that.
In other words, the parent AC hits it on the head: this bill should be a no-brainer, because I should be able to know what I am buying.
What is happening is that America (and most Americans) don't want the U.S. government to be subordinated below some global government.
Ironic.
We've already seen what happens when sovereignty is surrendered to a more universal government, and for the most part we don't want to see that happen again.
Paranoia based on ignorance.
You may like the fact that Germany is the same as Spain except for some quirky food and local slang differences
Fucking ignorant.
Have fun with your games in the European Union, but the American Union is already seen as too powerful (sort of implied by your statements above I should note).
Delusional.
If you are, get the hell out of here. If America is such a crappy country, you aren't wanted here either.
I have a better suggestion: YOU get the fuck out of MY country, and go create your own ignorant utopia somewhere else. America isn't crap, but a good chunk of its people are ignorant, xenophobic, paranoid and have a gun fetish.
Living in America as an ordinary citizen isn't nearly as bad as you make it out to be either.
It would be a whole lot better if people like you wouldn't advocate for torture of "others" and be so fucking ignorant as to make it impossible to have a productive discussion about anything other than whether the Cowboys suck.
All these are very good points, but I think what everyone is concerned about is this: why the hell is the UK threatening to revoke the diplomatic charter of the Ecuadorean embassy, just so that it can get to a bail jumper who is wanted for questioning on rape charges in Sweden? This is completely within the international legal framework, but also total and complete overkill. What's to stop the UK and Sweden from just rubber-stamping a US extradition request a "valid", based on the American assurance that Assange won't face the death penalty?
Yes, Sweden and the UK can't give the guarantees Assange was seeking. But again, why is the UK so gung-ho on getting a bail-jumper extradited? Why is Sweden so gung-ho to get a rape suspect to Sweden for questioning? Something's not adding up, and if I were Assange, I'd also look into alternatives to just heading to Sweden.
I'm pretty sure you're not a shill. You have too long of a history on Slashdot defending government actions to qualify as one. Instead, you qualify as a basic autocrat: the power and sanctity of the state and the nation trumps all. Personally, I prefer to keep company with shills. At least, I can buy them off if I disagree with their positions.
It's a calculated trade-off: how many countries support getting Assange behind bars, versus how many object to these types of tactics? What are the odds that Ecuador calls their bluff, versus how important is it to have Assange behind bars? How many countries will actually pull their embassies if the UK does storm the Ecuadorian embassy?
All I can say is: this shows just how much trouble he is for the powers that be. Bin Laden is the only other person to qualify for this type of treatment, and he had the good wits to disappear in the mountains of Afghanistan. Actually, I say that in the later years of the Bush administration, bin Laden was seen as less trouble than Assange.
Except.... how many people actually think that what Assange is doing is right? How many would be ok with strong-arming Ecuador into giving him up? Compare that with how many people are ok to just throw him in the slammer for creating, hosting and advocating Wikileaks. This won't even register on the PR-meter.
Except that Ecuador won't go to war over that. Russia, China, definitely, the rest of the countries probably won't, and Ecuador definitely will cave. It's a complete bluff, but one that Ecuador can't afford - or even is able - to call. Not a bad move on the part of the UK. Too bad that none of the other powers that be are willing to offer Assange asylum. Cuba and Venezuela might be interesting, but neither have any army to back up a dissent, and Venezuela isn't keen on getting embarrassed by Wikileaks either.
Impressive. I think this is the first time I've heard anyone threaten to storm an embassy. I haven't even seen the Chinese do this. Note to everyone: this is what happens if you threaten to thoroughly upend the balance of power, expose secrets everywhere, and generally fuck with people in power. If you do this, you better make sure you have an equally strong power backing you. Otherwise, you will spend the rest of your life in jail, regardless of whether you actually broke any laws.
On the upside, props to Assange. I don't think he saw this coming, but I do think that what he did was a service to the world.
Science IS hard, and if you are submitting to a journal without taking the hard steps of ensuring your measurements are accurate and your methods are not flawed, then you are contributing to bad science.
Spoken like someone who never did any research, where a flaky cable is responsible for that super-interesting trend you discovered.... until someone points out the flaky cable. Most people do exactly what you recommend, and are tripped up by flaws in their measurements that they did not foresee or find.
Finally, when you respond to this comment, geoffrey.landis, try to act like an adult. There is no need to be a smart-ass, or glib, or whatever it is you were trying to be.
If you want to be taken seriously when talking about how science works, what scientists should do to get results and how scientists should behave when working on their experiments, you might want to figure out what it is they're already doing. Otherwise, you just come across as naive and presumptuous.
Apparently, toilets that require modern-world standards of piping,maintenance and general house building don't work out in the boonies. Who would have thought.
Like all solutions designed to isolate yourself from the world, it's imperfect and suffers from bad things sneaking in through unexpected holes. In this case, that would be imports manufactured and transported via energy derived from oil, coal and gas. However, it is an improvement over direct exposure.
Heh. Can't keep your own rules straight about what wars qualify, actually don't know your history and get your facts wrong, make random accusations... you're entertaining. In a trainwreck way.
That's the best you can do? You're missing Grenada, Ruby Ridge and Panama in your comparison as well. I mean, while we are on the topic of "wars" that have nothing to do with what we're talking about.
So really, you have no clue even about what you're saying yourself. You're just trying to cheer for a particular team, and don't real care whether you get the reasons right why you're cheering.
Actually, from what I understand, that trend started in about 2006. Apparently, at least half the time of a lawmaker is spent on fundraising. It's crazy.
I normally try not to feed the trolls or the retards, but.... did it ever occur to you that there might be some differences in how troops are used in, say, Phillippines and Afghanistan? That there might be some differences in the costs associated with keeping troops in those countries? Or, heck, even a difference in how the troops are viewed and treated?
If anything, your pattern would indicate that Republican presidents are incapable of starting a proper war that has a good outcome for the US.
Ok - I can maybe see companies interested in this that do loans and other activities where it is important to know who their users are. But - Salesforce? I just don't understand what their interest is in this. Everyone who deals with Salesforce is known to Salesforce, because you need a license to use it. So - what gives? Even Google is suspect - yes, they have a vested interest in knowing who their users are, but I suspect that they have more data than they could get from this initiative. So, again - WTF? Something doesn't add up here. Either the people at Abraxas (hell of a name....) are selling snake oil and overselling who their dealing with, or this is something very different than is being described here.
Either way, I'm pretty sure we are not getting the full story here.
Bullshit. My personal experience is that of the women that I think that would tell me if they had been raped, I count the incidence of rate at about 16% (1 in 6). That's a guaranteed lower limit, because there are quite a few that might not tell me that they were raped. And that's actual rape, not just unwanted touching.
The reason that rape convictions are so low is because the vast majority of women do not report rapes, or they decide not to prosecute, or the charges get dropped for lack of evidence.
Seriously, talk to your female friends (you have some, do you? your feminist dig isn't encouraging). It's eye opening.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds about right. Between medical procedures, the cost of the nurses, doctors, EMTs and miscellaneous emergency room maintenance costs that are rolled into that, I can easily see 4 grand an hour.
By the way, you might get your allergy meds for $12 at Walmart, but if you ever try to pay for a broken bone, whopping cough or heck, cancer, out of your own pocket, you'll be broke in no time flat.
By the way, the 20% the insurance brokers skim off the top is only a fraction of the delta between healthcare costs in the US and pretty much everywhere else - and that is after accounting for quality of care.
In other words, your attempts to create a sort of Newspeak that redefines your terms to suit your argument having been exposed, you now attempt to redefine my terms to suit your argument.
I'll call it the humpty dumpty market if it makes you happy. That doesn't change the fact that you have no idea what is necessary for the proper function of your humpty-dumpty market, or what a properly functioning market in general looks like.
Do you believe it's impossible to coerce a genetic trait into existence via selective cultivation and environmental pressure?
You have no idea of the math that is behind genetic mutations. There are 17 billion base pairs in wheat. What are the odds to get even a small chunk of the CP4 EPSPS gene through random mutation - say, maybe 500 base pairs? Especially in such a way that it doesn't come with any alterations of the rest of the wheat genome? It's longer than we've been farming wheat.
Stop waving your hands, you're embarrassing yourself.
All good points. It's a fine line between useful information and information overload, and there's always the chance that random mutations trip up best efforts. As I pointed out in another response though, there's an easy solution: list the genes that cause the product to be patented. It's a short, very well defined list.
Comments like that demonstrate the most irritating part of this bill. If you know very little about crop genetics, it is a no brainer. Think of it a bit deeper, while considering the full breadth of the topic, and it quickly becomes very murky.
Comments like that demonstrate the most irritating part of these types of discussions: there's always someone who thinks that because we can't do it perfectly, we shouldn't do it at all. Not only that, but because we can't know everything, we shouldn't bother with even discussing a partial solution.
Now who's arguing semantics? Sorry, but you can't just move the goalposts by redefining terms as you see fit. I know of nobody who believes that the term “free market” means anything other than a market free from government regulation.
I'm arguing semantics, because you brought up the subject. Don't pick a fight you don't want to commit to. Also, argument from ignorance. I can't help you with that, other than to point out when everybody - including your friends - refers to to the magic of the free market, they refer to the effects described by Adam Smith. And that wasn't about a market free of government regulation.
Do you also get upset when people refer to hackers instead of crackers? I can't help you there either.
Is your argument about health concerns or patent concerns?
Slow down, cowboy. Your mind is getting ahead of your eyes there. Did you read what I wrote? I described a method by which corporations could easily identify the genes that were modified in the GMO product. The parentheses, by their nature, indicate an aside or an expansion of the main point, but are not the main point. Seriously, this is middle school stuff.
Either you can claim some legitimate scientific reason why genes inserted via genetic modification are different from genes inserted by cross-breeding (which you can't, because they aren't actually any different), or you have no point whatsoever.
You really, really ought to read up on what a false dichotomy is. It's getting kinda sad. You're also begging the question now. And finally, you also ought to be really careful about how you think about your position. As you word it, it is trivially shown to be wrong by this: http://bio.sophiapublisher.com/html-94-16-tgg. Unless you want to argue that e. coli can crossbreed with wheat, there are genes that are introduced in GMO food that cannot come from cross-breeding.
At this point, you're just arguing because you don't want to admit defeat. I'm reminded of a meme that's been around since the Usenet days, and concede the floor. Have fun.
You don't know what you're talking about. Perfect access to information is a condition of a perfect market [wikipedia.org], not a free market. The only condition for a free market is a lack of government regulations. Free markets do not require perfect access to anything, either as a condition to exist or in order to function properly. Your entire argument is a strawman.
Thanks for the lesson in semantics. The problem is that everyone who talks about the magic of the free market is talking about a perfect market. In other words, what is known as a perfect market in economic theory circles is known as a free market on the talk-show circuit, in campaigns and during the current wave of demonizing regulations. You might say that your argument is based on a lack of understanding of current terminology.
You're under the mistaken impression that there's some identifiable difference between GMO and non-GMO foods, that couldn't be achieved through natural cross-breeding techniques that have been used for thousands of years.
You really might want to stop your jumping to conclusions - you might hurt yourself. Yes, GMO at its most benign is nothing but cutting short a few generations of selective breeding. However, just like I don't need the exact breakdown of every atom in the food I buy, so I don't need a breakdown of every gene in the food I buy. It's sufficient to list out the genes that were artificially inserted and that make up the patent for the food (I'm sure you know that one of the drivers behind GMO food is because it allows for patenting food, right?).
Do you expect the entire genome of any fruit you buy to be mapped out for you before you decide whether or not to purchase it? If not, then your position is invalid, because just knowing that a food is “genetically modified” tells you absolutely nothing about what's actually in that food.
You might want to also look into "false dichotomy", "relevance in decision making" and "silence is golden."
I find it interesting that one of the cornerstone requirements for a working free market - perfect access to full information - is being opposed by entities praising the free market at every turn. It couldn't be that those are just interested in preserving their own position in the market, and are using "free market" as an easy mantra with which to mislead the voting public?
All sarcasm aside, my biggest problem with this situation really isn't that GMO food might be inherently more dangerous than non-GMO food. It's that when I buy a banana, I want to know that this isn't a regular Chiquita banana, but the glow-in-the-dark version that is designed to keep nocturnal monkeys from eating it. In other words, I want to know what the product is that I'm buying. This bill would help me with that.
In other words, the parent AC hits it on the head: this bill should be a no-brainer, because I should be able to know what I am buying.
What is happening is that America (and most Americans) don't want the U.S. government to be subordinated below some global government.
Ironic.
We've already seen what happens when sovereignty is surrendered to a more universal government, and for the most part we don't want to see that happen again.
Paranoia based on ignorance.
You may like the fact that Germany is the same as Spain except for some quirky food and local slang differences
Fucking ignorant.
Have fun with your games in the European Union, but the American Union is already seen as too powerful (sort of implied by your statements above I should note).
Delusional.
If you are, get the hell out of here. If America is such a crappy country, you aren't wanted here either.
I have a better suggestion: YOU get the fuck out of MY country, and go create your own ignorant utopia somewhere else. America isn't crap, but a good chunk of its people are ignorant, xenophobic, paranoid and have a gun fetish.
Living in America as an ordinary citizen isn't nearly as bad as you make it out to be either.
It would be a whole lot better if people like you wouldn't advocate for torture of "others" and be so fucking ignorant as to make it impossible to have a productive discussion about anything other than whether the Cowboys suck.
All these are very good points, but I think what everyone is concerned about is this: why the hell is the UK threatening to revoke the diplomatic charter of the Ecuadorean embassy, just so that it can get to a bail jumper who is wanted for questioning on rape charges in Sweden? This is completely within the international legal framework, but also total and complete overkill. What's to stop the UK and Sweden from just rubber-stamping a US extradition request a "valid", based on the American assurance that Assange won't face the death penalty?
Yes, Sweden and the UK can't give the guarantees Assange was seeking. But again, why is the UK so gung-ho on getting a bail-jumper extradited? Why is Sweden so gung-ho to get a rape suspect to Sweden for questioning? Something's not adding up, and if I were Assange, I'd also look into alternatives to just heading to Sweden.
I'm pretty sure you're not a shill. You have too long of a history on Slashdot defending government actions to qualify as one. Instead, you qualify as a basic autocrat: the power and sanctity of the state and the nation trumps all. Personally, I prefer to keep company with shills. At least, I can buy them off if I disagree with their positions.
It's a calculated trade-off: how many countries support getting Assange behind bars, versus how many object to these types of tactics? What are the odds that Ecuador calls their bluff, versus how important is it to have Assange behind bars? How many countries will actually pull their embassies if the UK does storm the Ecuadorian embassy?
All I can say is: this shows just how much trouble he is for the powers that be. Bin Laden is the only other person to qualify for this type of treatment, and he had the good wits to disappear in the mountains of Afghanistan. Actually, I say that in the later years of the Bush administration, bin Laden was seen as less trouble than Assange.
Except.... how many people actually think that what Assange is doing is right? How many would be ok with strong-arming Ecuador into giving him up? Compare that with how many people are ok to just throw him in the slammer for creating, hosting and advocating Wikileaks. This won't even register on the PR-meter.
Except that Ecuador won't go to war over that. Russia, China, definitely, the rest of the countries probably won't, and Ecuador definitely will cave. It's a complete bluff, but one that Ecuador can't afford - or even is able - to call. Not a bad move on the part of the UK. Too bad that none of the other powers that be are willing to offer Assange asylum. Cuba and Venezuela might be interesting, but neither have any army to back up a dissent, and Venezuela isn't keen on getting embarrassed by Wikileaks either.
Impressive. I think this is the first time I've heard anyone threaten to storm an embassy. I haven't even seen the Chinese do this. Note to everyone: this is what happens if you threaten to thoroughly upend the balance of power, expose secrets everywhere, and generally fuck with people in power. If you do this, you better make sure you have an equally strong power backing you. Otherwise, you will spend the rest of your life in jail, regardless of whether you actually broke any laws.
On the upside, props to Assange. I don't think he saw this coming, but I do think that what he did was a service to the world.
Science IS hard, and if you are submitting to a journal without taking the hard steps of ensuring your measurements are accurate and your methods are not flawed, then you are contributing to bad science.
Spoken like someone who never did any research, where a flaky cable is responsible for that super-interesting trend you discovered.... until someone points out the flaky cable. Most people do exactly what you recommend, and are tripped up by flaws in their measurements that they did not foresee or find.
Finally, when you respond to this comment, geoffrey.landis, try to act like an adult. There is no need to be a smart-ass, or glib, or whatever it is you were trying to be.
If you want to be taken seriously when talking about how science works, what scientists should do to get results and how scientists should behave when working on their experiments, you might want to figure out what it is they're already doing. Otherwise, you just come across as naive and presumptuous.
Apparently, toilets that require modern-world standards of piping,maintenance and general house building don't work out in the boonies. Who would have thought.
Like all solutions designed to isolate yourself from the world, it's imperfect and suffers from bad things sneaking in through unexpected holes. In this case, that would be imports manufactured and transported via energy derived from oil, coal and gas. However, it is an improvement over direct exposure.
Oil, coal and gas prices won't wreck havoc on the local economy.
Someone give this a guy a medal and some more modpoints. This is exactly the reason why the world went off of the gold standard.
Heh. Can't keep your own rules straight about what wars qualify, actually don't know your history and get your facts wrong, make random accusations... you're entertaining. In a trainwreck way.
That's the best you can do? You're missing Grenada, Ruby Ridge and Panama in your comparison as well. I mean, while we are on the topic of "wars" that have nothing to do with what we're talking about.
So really, you have no clue even about what you're saying yourself. You're just trying to cheer for a particular team, and don't real care whether you get the reasons right why you're cheering.
Actually, from what I understand, that trend started in about 2006. Apparently, at least half the time of a lawmaker is spent on fundraising. It's crazy.
I normally try not to feed the trolls or the retards, but.... did it ever occur to you that there might be some differences in how troops are used in, say, Phillippines and Afghanistan? That there might be some differences in the costs associated with keeping troops in those countries? Or, heck, even a difference in how the troops are viewed and treated?
If anything, your pattern would indicate that Republican presidents are incapable of starting a proper war that has a good outcome for the US.
Ok - I can maybe see companies interested in this that do loans and other activities where it is important to know who their users are. But - Salesforce? I just don't understand what their interest is in this. Everyone who deals with Salesforce is known to Salesforce, because you need a license to use it. So - what gives? Even Google is suspect - yes, they have a vested interest in knowing who their users are, but I suspect that they have more data than they could get from this initiative. So, again - WTF? Something doesn't add up here. Either the people at Abraxas (hell of a name....) are selling snake oil and overselling who their dealing with, or this is something very different than is being described here.
Either way, I'm pretty sure we are not getting the full story here.
Bullshit. My personal experience is that of the women that I think that would tell me if they had been raped, I count the incidence of rate at about 16% (1 in 6). That's a guaranteed lower limit, because there are quite a few that might not tell me that they were raped. And that's actual rape, not just unwanted touching.
The reason that rape convictions are so low is because the vast majority of women do not report rapes, or they decide not to prosecute, or the charges get dropped for lack of evidence.
Seriously, talk to your female friends (you have some, do you? your feminist dig isn't encouraging). It's eye opening.
Define "valid". From what I know about DMCA notices, it's a pretty low hurdle to clear.