Admittedly, that's true. However, I suspect the customer service agent wasn't subjected to that.:)
You obviously didn't get the memo about the new customer service program that was recently enacted. I'll see that you get a copy of it.
By the way, have you been having a problem with your TPS reports? Um...yeah...You see, we're putting the new cover sheets on all TPS reports before they go out. Did you see the memo about this? If you could be sure that you do that from now, that would be great. I'll get you another copy of that memo too.
What the fuck? Where does "allowing" come into play? You don't need laws to allow things. Laws restrict; laws punish; laws force; laws do not "allow". And indeed, by increasing the demand for doctors while eliminating the natural sign of that demand, an increase in price, any "universal" health care system must compromise the quality of care. Allow...as in, you are allowed to speak your mind, you are allowed guns(maybe), you are allowed due process, you are allowed to vote...Not all laws restrict.
That system is called the universe. It's called the laws of fucking physics. It's called you can't get something from nothing, and it's called "scarcity exists." It's called life, and life is unfair (Flansburgh et all 2000). You aren't getting something from nothing. The society we live in paid for it. Just like the society that we live in paid for those roads you drive on. The society we live in paid for that school you went to from kindergarten on through high school. The society we live in paid for that military that protects you. The society we live paid for that water treatment plant that gives you clean water to drink and bathe in. The society we live in paid for the police that protect you from violent criminals. The society we live in paid for all those things you take advantage of.
Part of living in a society is working together so that all members of it can reap the benefits of living in that society. While you may not need the healthcare, someone else does. While someone else doesn't need the roads(say they bike or walk everywhere), someone else does. While the grandmother no longer needs the grade school, the grandchild does. Trust me, there is something that you need that someone else doesn't need, and they still pay for it. Yet yourself and others like you are not willing to part with 'your hard earned money' for whatever reason. One thing, it isn't technically your money, it is property of the government. They merely let you use it. Hence it is a felony to destroy or deface money. It really isn't enforced, but the law is there.
Lest we forget, gun control is what caused the first shots to be fired during the Revolution. American armories were being raided by the British Army in the towns of Lexington and Concorde, and we wacky Americans defended our rights with brute force. And here I always thought it was taxation without representation, the Navigation Acts, the Proclamation of 1763, the Sugar Act, Currency Act, Stamp Act, the Townshend Act, the Tea Act, the Intolerable Acts, the Boston Massacre, and the political pamphlets made by people such as Locke, Paine, and Henry.
You're right though, Lexington and Concord were the entire reason for the revolution. Gun Control. It is true, the first shots fired during the 'official' engagement were in response to British Regulars trying to capture military supplies stored by the militia. Nevermind that the revolutionaries of the colonies were in the process of committing treason, that the area that Lexington and Concord were in had been the center of operations for most of the rebel activities, and that the Regulars were there to confiscate their arms and arrest the revolutionaries.
In reality, the Revolution had almost nothing to do with gun control.
I was not putting forth any personal opinion. I do not wish to get into a gun control argument right now. Personally, I can see both sides.
I was merely pointing out that what is obvious to one is inconceivable to another. To use another 'hot topic': Abortion is completely justifiable and an obvious help to some, but to others, it is obviously murder. Does this clear up any confusion? Is it clear as mud?
Your obvious unconstitutional gun ban is my obvious constitutional neighborhood safety concern.
While I do agree with most of your points, and I have wished for a similar plan to be enacted, be careful of using the word obvious. What is obvious today as all people having life, liberty and pursuit of happiness only meant white, landowning males at the time of the founding fathers.
When HIV and AIDS were first discovered, and the epidemic that was unleashed started, the life expectancy of the unfortunate recipient was about 10 - 15 years. Now, however, after only 10 years of drugs and healthcare being on the market, life expectancy is much, much better. How are these drugs making people's condition worse? Is living a worse fate than dying?
And you can't tell me that all those people who are now surviving the various types of cancer that would have died just 20 years ago is proof that people are being denied healthcare and drugs. People that would have died 20 years ago are now living full, happy lives. Well, not happy, that that's another story about how people were lied to 50 years ago about having flying cars now. On second thought, where are the flying cars...
But I digress. Seriously, for all of Big Pharma's flaws, they do help people. Medicines do cost a ton of money to research, develop, test, retest, go through FDA testing, test one more time for good measure, and finally release. Plus, after releasing the drug, more testing is done through the doctors prescribing it, as well as the company having to spend money to get the word out. Yes, advertising. It is part of it. The best wonder drug in the world won't work if nobody knows about it.
Plus, part of those high costs are for all the research on drugs that didn't work. Just because a drug is researched and millions spent on it doesn't mean it will ever get to market. One hiccup along the way can be enough to send the companies back to the drawing board. On the topic of this, costs are also raised when the company has to basically protect itself financially from when a drug reacts poorly with someone, they die, and the company is sued. Sure, it may have worked on 99,999 other people, but one wrongful death lawsuit can set a company back millions of dollars.
Last, but not least, when a drug doesn't work, it is not a complete loss. The company then knows what won't work. They can still salvage research from the drug, how it affected the virus/bacteria, and move on from there. Storage of these maybe-medicines can't be cheap, what with regulating everything from temperature and humidity to making sure that the computer backups of the backups are always up and running, because if these people lose files, it isn't just the courts they have to worry about, it is also the fact that people can die from lack of information. So their systems have to be top notch at all times. That isn't cheap.
Oh, and one last thing. As much as everyone demonizes Bill Gates, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation does do a lot to help people. Just because his business practices weren't always on the up and up doesn't mean he's a total loss in the way of morality.
I know that I just lost half the support of Slashdot when I wrote that last comment. Oh well. Can't win them all.
I am not claiming to be some fancy emergency room doctor or whatnot. I am just saying what I have been trained to do. If it will save the life of one of my friends, I am going to do it. Say whatever insults you want to me. I know what I have been trained to do, and I am going to do it exactly as I have been trained. If my friend is missing a leg, and I know that direct pressure is not going to stop that artery from spurting, I am going to use a tourniquet immediately.
Unlike your nice, clean emergency room, we don't have all the fancy tools that you do. We have only what we carry, and all that we carry adds weight. We can't afford to have the latest and greatest in medical care that you obviously have access to. We have a small pack of basic medical supplies, dressings, a couple IV kits, and the tourniquet. That's it. Sorry if it isn't good enough for you, but for us, it saves lives.
I don't know what the hell your problem is, but I am done with this conversation.
So why not run along and watch some more of your DVD collection of 'real life' trauma-dramas or work on your MySpace before your mom makes you go out and mow the grass. And if I am ever in a car wreck and you find me. Just call 911 for me, ok?
Wow. What an asshole you are.
This isn't training I got off of the game America's Army. This is training I received from the Army. As in, Army medics said, 'This is what you do in this situation, and this is what you do in that situation.' One of the things that they said, and I quote: If the bleeding is not likely to stop on its own, or you can tell it will not stop with the pressure dressing, apply a tourniquet first and be done with it. They made us repeat it several times. Sorry if your training says otherwise, but my training says to use it. There isn't enough time in combat to use direct pressure and hope it stops. It needs to be stopped and it needs to be stopped right now.
Not to mention the intolerable pain that most people get unless they are sedated or have a regional block done... which you'd probably know about if you had ever actually used one.
One of the things we have to do in our training is apply a tourniquet to another person and then have one applied to ourselves, so I know exactly how it feels.
Maybe the 'mere scratch' comment is throwing you off. Sorry, I did it as a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor that didn't go over as well as I initially planned. I didn't mean that direct pressure wouldn't work in many cases. But the cases that we can already tell it won't work, i.e. half the leg is gone, use a tourniquet.
Maybe you should have reread my clarification comment. Here it is again:
Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my explanation. The way we are trained to deal with bleeding in combat is that if we think that it will eventually require a tourniquet, due to significant bleeding, apply it first, rather than go through the steps of pressure dressing, wait for bleeding to stop, another dressing, wait for bleeding to stop, then finally a tourniquet. Is this clearer?
See where it says
if we think that it will eventually require a tourniquet
That means, again, that if we can already tell that direct pressure isn't going to work. Again, major tissue damage, and we can tell that the casualty is going to bleed out without one.
Maybe it was this comment that you didn't like:
As in, the bleeding isn't likely to stop anytime soon by itself, and could be life threatening.
That's why I added the clarification. Hence why in this current rebuttal of what I said, you probably should have used the clarification paragraph. But I suppose that if you had used that, you couldn't have insulted me as much as you wanted to.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my explanation. The way we are trained to deal with bleeding in combat is that if we think that it will eventually require a tourniquet, due to significant bleeding, apply it first, rather than go through the steps of pressure dressing, wait for bleeding to stop, another dressing, wait for bleeding to stop, then finally a tourniquet. Is this clearer?
The thing about tourniquets is this:
If there is bleeding that is more than a mere scratch, apply a tourniquet. As in, the bleeding isn't likely to stop anytime soon by itself, and could be life threatening.
People seem to have a fear of tourniquets, but they can be left on for several hours without any damage. Put them about 2 inches above the wound, but not on a joint. Write the time on the casualty's head. Better to just put it on right away rather than using up the casualty's dressing on something that won't work anyway.
Just because someone is baptized Catholic doesn't mean they agree with everything the Pope says. Despite what other Christian denominations would have you believe, not all Catholics are mindless drones to the papacy.
This is wonderful news. I've always wanted my own Triceratops, ever since I was a young child. And if these benefits work, and I get one, I could even go on to get more and more kinds of dinosaurs! I figure I can set up some kind of biological preserve somewhere off the cost of Costa Rica(I've heard the island rental rates there are awesome). Then I just have to invite a few paleontologists, for science, a mathematician, for more science, a lawyer, for legal issues, and some kids, to see if it is fun. What could possibly go wrong?
What do you use to copy papers? A Xerox Machine.
What do you put on a cut? A Band-Aid.
What do you listen to music on? An iPod.
People buy certain products because of brand awareness. I do not own an iPod, I own a different brand of mp3 player. However, anytime I hear people talking about mp3 players, they use the term 'iPod' to refer to mp3 players. Of course that is what people are going to buy. When people use a brand to mean an entire apparatus, people naturally check out the brand first. If it does what they want, in this case, play music, they will generally buy it.
There is, however, a loss of time in the process, and my time is important to me. There is a loss of usable cpu cycles, an increase in needed power, and a subsequent increase in my bills (basically requiring me to pay twice). Add to the fact that when I rip back into a lossless format, I am ballooning a small file into a large one, even though it is essentially still the small file, just a larger size, thus a loss of valuable hard drive space. Even though it appears to be lossless, I am losing a lot when I subscribe to your theory.
Slashdot Mirror
You obviously didn't get the memo about the new customer service program that was recently enacted. I'll see that you get a copy of it.
By the way, have you been having a problem with your TPS reports? Um...yeah...You see, we're putting the new cover sheets on all TPS reports before they go out. Did you see the memo about this? If you could be sure that you do that from now, that would be great. I'll get you another copy of that memo too.
Man...banner ads with sound and porn/viagra spam beamed directly into my head. And I thought it was bad now...
Part of living in a society is working together so that all members of it can reap the benefits of living in that society. While you may not need the healthcare, someone else does. While someone else doesn't need the roads(say they bike or walk everywhere), someone else does. While the grandmother no longer needs the grade school, the grandchild does. Trust me, there is something that you need that someone else doesn't need, and they still pay for it. Yet yourself and others like you are not willing to part with 'your hard earned money' for whatever reason. One thing, it isn't technically your money, it is property of the government. They merely let you use it. Hence it is a felony to destroy or deface money. It really isn't enforced, but the law is there.
Because they are neutral? Or because nobody wants to become banned from all that chocolate?
You're right though, Lexington and Concord were the entire reason for the revolution. Gun Control. It is true, the first shots fired during the 'official' engagement were in response to British Regulars trying to capture military supplies stored by the militia. Nevermind that the revolutionaries of the colonies were in the process of committing treason, that the area that Lexington and Concord were in had been the center of operations for most of the rebel activities, and that the Regulars were there to confiscate their arms and arrest the revolutionaries.
In reality, the Revolution had almost nothing to do with gun control.
Something is wrong here...I can't quite put my finger on it...
Wait a minute, that's it!
You're a spy! No self-respecting Slashdotter would willingly still have a Hotmail address! You're one of them!
If people want to discuss video games as an art form...These guys have taken Monkey Island and turned it into a play.
I was not putting forth any personal opinion. I do not wish to get into a gun control argument right now. Personally, I can see both sides.
I was merely pointing out that what is obvious to one is inconceivable to another. To use another 'hot topic': Abortion is completely justifiable and an obvious help to some, but to others, it is obviously murder. Does this clear up any confusion? Is it clear as mud?
Your obvious unconstitutional gun ban is my obvious constitutional neighborhood safety concern.
While I do agree with most of your points, and I have wished for a similar plan to be enacted, be careful of using the word obvious. What is obvious today as all people having life, liberty and pursuit of happiness only meant white, landowning males at the time of the founding fathers.
So when will we start fixing all those black holes around the universe with duct tape? They seem to be a nuisance for everything around them.
Wait, wait...that's not what universal repair technology means? Lies!
Or an AOL user.
When HIV and AIDS were first discovered, and the epidemic that was unleashed started, the life expectancy of the unfortunate recipient was about 10 - 15 years. Now, however, after only 10 years of drugs and healthcare being on the market, life expectancy is much, much better. How are these drugs making people's condition worse? Is living a worse fate than dying?
And you can't tell me that all those people who are now surviving the various types of cancer that would have died just 20 years ago is proof that people are being denied healthcare and drugs. People that would have died 20 years ago are now living full, happy lives. Well, not happy, that that's another story about how people were lied to 50 years ago about having flying cars now. On second thought, where are the flying cars...
But I digress. Seriously, for all of Big Pharma's flaws, they do help people. Medicines do cost a ton of money to research, develop, test, retest, go through FDA testing, test one more time for good measure, and finally release. Plus, after releasing the drug, more testing is done through the doctors prescribing it, as well as the company having to spend money to get the word out. Yes, advertising. It is part of it. The best wonder drug in the world won't work if nobody knows about it.
Plus, part of those high costs are for all the research on drugs that didn't work. Just because a drug is researched and millions spent on it doesn't mean it will ever get to market. One hiccup along the way can be enough to send the companies back to the drawing board. On the topic of this, costs are also raised when the company has to basically protect itself financially from when a drug reacts poorly with someone, they die, and the company is sued. Sure, it may have worked on 99,999 other people, but one wrongful death lawsuit can set a company back millions of dollars.
Last, but not least, when a drug doesn't work, it is not a complete loss. The company then knows what won't work. They can still salvage research from the drug, how it affected the virus/bacteria, and move on from there. Storage of these maybe-medicines can't be cheap, what with regulating everything from temperature and humidity to making sure that the computer backups of the backups are always up and running, because if these people lose files, it isn't just the courts they have to worry about, it is also the fact that people can die from lack of information. So their systems have to be top notch at all times. That isn't cheap.
Oh, and one last thing. As much as everyone demonizes Bill Gates, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation does do a lot to help people. Just because his business practices weren't always on the up and up doesn't mean he's a total loss in the way of morality.
I know that I just lost half the support of Slashdot when I wrote that last comment. Oh well. Can't win them all.
But since it has already been established that out of the 8th Circle of Hell came lawyers, would fire really do anything to them?
I am not claiming to be some fancy emergency room doctor or whatnot. I am just saying what I have been trained to do. If it will save the life of one of my friends, I am going to do it. Say whatever insults you want to me. I know what I have been trained to do, and I am going to do it exactly as I have been trained. If my friend is missing a leg, and I know that direct pressure is not going to stop that artery from spurting, I am going to use a tourniquet immediately.
Unlike your nice, clean emergency room, we don't have all the fancy tools that you do. We have only what we carry, and all that we carry adds weight. We can't afford to have the latest and greatest in medical care that you obviously have access to. We have a small pack of basic medical supplies, dressings, a couple IV kits, and the tourniquet. That's it. Sorry if it isn't good enough for you, but for us, it saves lives.
I don't know what the hell your problem is, but I am done with this conversation.
Wow. What an asshole you are.
This isn't training I got off of the game America's Army. This is training I received from the Army. As in, Army medics said, 'This is what you do in this situation, and this is what you do in that situation.' One of the things that they said, and I quote: If the bleeding is not likely to stop on its own, or you can tell it will not stop with the pressure dressing, apply a tourniquet first and be done with it. They made us repeat it several times. Sorry if your training says otherwise, but my training says to use it. There isn't enough time in combat to use direct pressure and hope it stops. It needs to be stopped and it needs to be stopped right now.
One of the things we have to do in our training is apply a tourniquet to another person and then have one applied to ourselves, so I know exactly how it feels.
Maybe the 'mere scratch' comment is throwing you off. Sorry, I did it as a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor that didn't go over as well as I initially planned. I didn't mean that direct pressure wouldn't work in many cases. But the cases that we can already tell it won't work, i.e. half the leg is gone, use a tourniquet.
Maybe you should have reread my clarification comment. Here it is again:
See where it says
That means, again, that if we can already tell that direct pressure isn't going to work. Again, major tissue damage, and we can tell that the casualty is going to bleed out without one.
Maybe it was this comment that you didn't like:
That's why I added the clarification. Hence why in this current rebuttal of what I said, you probably should have used the clarification paragraph. But I suppose that if you had used that, you couldn't have insulted me as much as you wanted to.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my explanation. The way we are trained to deal with bleeding in combat is that if we think that it will eventually require a tourniquet, due to significant bleeding, apply it first, rather than go through the steps of pressure dressing, wait for bleeding to stop, another dressing, wait for bleeding to stop, then finally a tourniquet. Is this clearer?
Actually, this is how we are trained to deal with bleeding in combat...
The thing about tourniquets is this: If there is bleeding that is more than a mere scratch, apply a tourniquet. As in, the bleeding isn't likely to stop anytime soon by itself, and could be life threatening.
People seem to have a fear of tourniquets, but they can be left on for several hours without any damage. Put them about 2 inches above the wound, but not on a joint. Write the time on the casualty's head. Better to just put it on right away rather than using up the casualty's dressing on something that won't work anyway.
I agree. We shouldn't use slogans in our signatures to try to get our philosophical message across.
--
DeBeers: A Diamond is Forever
This is why I shouldn't be allowed to post on slashdot before I've had my coffee...
Just because someone is baptized Catholic doesn't mean they agree with everything the Pope says. Despite what other Christian denominations would have you believe, not all Catholics are mindless drones to the papacy.
This is wonderful news. I've always wanted my own Triceratops, ever since I was a young child. And if these benefits work, and I get one, I could even go on to get more and more kinds of dinosaurs! I figure I can set up some kind of biological preserve somewhere off the cost of Costa Rica(I've heard the island rental rates there are awesome). Then I just have to invite a few paleontologists, for science, a mathematician, for more science, a lawyer, for legal issues, and some kids, to see if it is fun. What could possibly go wrong?
What do you use to copy papers? A Xerox Machine.
What do you put on a cut? A Band-Aid.
What do you listen to music on? An iPod.
People buy certain products because of brand awareness. I do not own an iPod, I own a different brand of mp3 player. However, anytime I hear people talking about mp3 players, they use the term 'iPod' to refer to mp3 players. Of course that is what people are going to buy. When people use a brand to mean an entire apparatus, people naturally check out the brand first. If it does what they want, in this case, play music, they will generally buy it.
There is, however, a loss of time in the process, and my time is important to me. There is a loss of usable cpu cycles, an increase in needed power, and a subsequent increase in my bills (basically requiring me to pay twice). Add to the fact that when I rip back into a lossless format, I am ballooning a small file into a large one, even though it is essentially still the small file, just a larger size, thus a loss of valuable hard drive space. Even though it appears to be lossless, I am losing a lot when I subscribe to your theory.