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-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
Frazzled wrote:Insults now Polonius? Thats kind of sad.
Of course not frazz. Just a living demonstration that if you're goal is not to be a jerk, going out of your way to show that is helpful.
My point is that it's hard to tell "terse, disagreeing frazz" from "terse, annoyed frazz" and from "terse, just throwing hip checks around for fun Frazz."
Here's another issue with money involved.
Compared to FDR and his recovery plan, what's the difference betweens Obama's and FDR's besides one actually working?
Well, FDR had people put onto the government payroll directly compared to Obama who relies on contractors to do the hiring. Here's another issue, most people who went to college for IT or other degrees(like a fantasy major known as art) now find themselves in competition with every schmuck who chose the same career. Instead of saying "Hey, chances are I'm not going to find an IT job so I should look for another." they keep applying for an IT job.
Here's a hint: Manual labor is always needed. Its easier for a government to hire manual labor than an IT person, so learn to dig a ditch and look for a job. I happily work for retail right now, and plan to work for the government after college(not as an IT guy, but in a M.A.S.H if possible). The government is evil, but its a source of income.
From youth movements for a brief second to a Healthcare debate for 2 pages and going. I think this thread is officially off the rails in almost record time.
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
Polonius wrote:With the current state of American Health care, I think we need to go one of two ways: increased regulation and outright nationalization to ensure that everybody is covered nearly regardless of cost (like we do with schools), or break up the interests that are artificially keeping prices out of reach of those wishing to pay a la carte. Build a dozen new medical schools. Aggressively pursue cheaper contracts at the federal level.
As it is, we have the worst of both worlds. A highly regulated and government involved system with outrageous waste and cost that still makes treatment unaffordable to those that want to pay cash.
Polonius '12.
Polonius wrote:
mstersmith wrote:
I am not with out empathy. I feel for those out of work. As my other post outlined though, I do not think we are getting what we want with this. The economy falling into the crapper and being finacially unstable is a personal responsibility. I have many friends in going into bankrupsy atm. I am tapped out on loans to friends or I will go under. I am tired of supposed entitlements and hand outs. I suppose my argument would have more credit if half the country were not out of work. Its a gak sandwich no matter what happens. If there is anything to be angry about it is the banks, CEO's and the laybor unions being bailed out while the rest of the Nation suffers. Were are those protests? I would like to see some demenstratuions like the ones we had during the WTO summit recently. If we pulled back the mony we give in foriegn aid we could pay for this health care system 10 times over. But we wont so we will further punish the haves to help the have nots. I am tired of it. If I was ordered to break up one of those riots I would tell my CO to feth off. We are devided on purpose. This Health care issue is nothing more than a distraction from the real issues at hand. Sorry this is a ramble.
So... not real response then. That's fine, I appreciate a good rant as much as the next guy. It's just good to realize it's a rant, and not, you know, an argument.
Actually, I believe it is in fact a ramble.
Anuvver fing - when they do sumfing, they try to make it look like somfink else to confuse everybody. When one of them wants to lord it over the uvvers, 'e says "I'm very speshul so'z you gotta worship me", or "I know summink wot you lot don't know, so yer better lissen good". Da funny fing is, arf of 'em believe it and da over arf don't, so 'e 'as to hit 'em all anyway or run fer it.
mstersmith wrote:
If we pulled back the mony we give in foriegn aid we could pay for this health care system 10 times over.
We only give out roughly 39 billion dollars a year. The notion that we give out massive amount of foreign aid, when compared to the total US economy, is a myth.
Edit: Somehow I missed KK explaining this.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2009/12/04 23:05:42
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
halonachos wrote:
Well, FDR had people put onto the government payroll directly compared to Obama who relies on contractors to do the hiring.
That's incorrect. Very little of the New Deal was about putting people on the government payroll. Read up on the Public Works Administration.
halonachos wrote:
Here's another issue, most people who went to college for IT or other degrees(like a fantasy major known as art) now find themselves in competition with every schmuck who chose the same career.
What do the liberal arts have to do with this? Liberal arts degrees (most of them, anyway) don't give you a career path.
What you're talking about, without realizing it, is the negative impact of specialization.
halonachos wrote:
Here's a hint: Manual labor is always needed. Its easier for a government to hire manual labor than an IT person, so learn to dig a ditch and look for a job. I happily work for retail right now, and plan to work for the government after college(not as an IT guy, but in a M.A.S.H if possible). The government is evil, but its a source of income.
If you can't get a government job after college, will you still happily work retail? If you say yes, I'll know you're lying.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2009/12/04 23:21:05
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
I think it is obvious to many that there are elements to both sides that are negative/not too smart. That doesn't mean that the entire sides arguments are invalidated though.
Personally, I don't see taking other peoples' money and spending it as giving anyone the moral high ground. That is just more of the same. While many on both sides truly just want better health care, there are some that just want to expand government power and control. Most "Crises" are covers for more government control. There will always be people that want to control other people, it's just a fact of life. I don't think it is wrong to oppose these people.
Both sides mainly agree there needs to be reform of health care/insurance. Many of the protesters simply believe the government is too intrusive now, and don't want to expand it even more, and are also concerned with the nonstop deficit spending. There are ways to reform healthcare/insurance without greatly expanding the government.
As for the idea that receiving aid from charity is worse than receiving aid from the government, charity is largely driven by people that want to help using money that was freely given. Americans are largely a compassionate people. Government "help" is run by people who are simply doing a job with many taken from other people, and is often inefficient.
But you can see why there is not as many protesters. If the demonstrators' goals are not in line with the establishment, the media typically finds the most obtuse, ignorant members of the demonstration and use them to describe and delegitimize the whole protest.
GNI and GDP are not exactly the same thing but they are close enough to tell us that cancelling all foreign aid would have almost no measurable impact on health spending.
mstersmith wrote:
Siting Wikipedia as a source=fail
Not if wikipedia itself cites the source of its information. This is standard protocol for any source which is not privy to direct experience (and even those have to be corroborated, usually).
If you want it from the horse's mouth, look here. Granted, that's 2 years out of date, but it gives you an idea about the actual scale of foreign aid (small).
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2009/12/05 07:30:11
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Normally in such a case I would cite the US Government or some such, however I know there are people don't credit any source which disagrees with their preconceptions so I did not think it worth the time.
Polonius wrote:Are we still immediately dismissing wikipedia? I'm all for healthy skepticism about it, but I thought we were long past knee jerk rejection.
Our professors drilled it into us, what can I say.
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
This isn't an academic essay. We’re not getting marked. The way to discredit a citation from Wikipedia is to find a citation from somewhere more authoratitive which disagrees.
Of course if we check the facts about US foreign aid, we quickly find they are true, which ruins the claim that cancelling foreign aid would pay for healthcare. We either have to change our mind (tacitly admitting we were wrong, which is a problem for a lot of us) or just say that Wikipedia doesn't count.
Wikipedia is a good first point to look up info since much of it is copied from more authoritative sources. The better articles cite their sources.
Kilkrazy wrote:This isn't an academic essay. We’re not getting marked. The way to discredit a citation from Wikipedia is to find a citation from somewhere more authoratitive which disagrees.
This is the internetz... there is only win and fail here... you decide... and try not to stamp everything, it gets tedious.
Wikipedia is a good first point to look up info since much of it is copied from more authoritative sources. The better articles cite their sources.
Wiki is awesome IMHO, it really gets around the whole, goddamit, where did I put that set of encyclopedias that I paid like hundreds of dollars for... hmmm...
In terms of information at your fingertips, Wiki really has no serious rival, all thoughts of the demise of Wiki set aside and pretty much abandoned. Not exactly a social networking site you know...
Kilkrazy wrote:This isn't an academic essay. We’re not getting marked. The way to discredit a citation from Wikipedia is to find a citation from somewhere more authoratitive which disagrees.
Of course if we check the facts about US foreign aid, we quickly find they are true, which ruins the claim that cancelling foreign aid would pay for healthcare. We either have to change our mind (tacitly admitting we were wrong, which is a problem for a lot of us) or just say that Wikipedia doesn't count.
Wikipedia is a good first point to look up info since much of it is copied from more authoritative sources. The better articles cite their sources.
C'mon, yer a MOD now, surely you know a winking ork ( ) when you see one.
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
Polonius wrote:Are we still immediately dismissing wikipedia? I'm all for healthy skepticism about it, but I thought we were long past knee jerk rejection.
But the peer review!?! The peer review?!? Whatever will I quote?
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
I mean, in some areas, wikipedia is on par or better with commercially available introductions. I got through con law using wikipedia in the second semester, and went from a B to an A.
Other things like the environment and refugees either don't affect me directly or noticeably..
Also I think western governments have learned to manipulate and deceive rather then confront.. Rather then ban alcohol (to go with my original example) they just up the tax again and again until no one can afford to drink.. Its already happen with cigarettes (70% tax in Australia).
Thats how you govern and avoid all this marching and attention.
Polonius wrote:I mean, in some areas, wikipedia is on par or better with commercially available introductions. I got through con law using wikipedia in the second semester, and went from a B to an A.
Some of the time it's a little less impressive, though.
Anuvver fing - when they do sumfing, they try to make it look like somfink else to confuse everybody. When one of them wants to lord it over the uvvers, 'e says "I'm very speshul so'z you gotta worship me", or "I know summink wot you lot don't know, so yer better lissen good". Da funny fing is, arf of 'em believe it and da over arf don't, so 'e 'as to hit 'em all anyway or run fer it.
Polonius wrote:I mean, in some areas, wikipedia is on par or better with commercially available introductions. I got through con law using wikipedia in the second semester, and went from a B to an A.
Oh, I don't doubt the power of wikipedia. Believe me, many of the essays I had to write began there.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Fairly soon it will run out of money and/or editors and that will be that.
The shame of it is that the world could really use a source for the history of Card Captor Sakura and other such pop ephemera which no-one else documents, while Wiki wastes a lot of effort duplicating better work by the Encyclopaedia Britannica and so on.
mstersmith wrote:Siting Wikipedia as a source=fail
Unacceptable. You sounded off with a popularly held but grossly inaccurate belief about the size of foreign aid and got called on it. Don't sidestep it by dismissing a source, man up and admit you got it wrong.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Just a living demonstration that if you're goal is not to be a jerk, going out of your way to show that is helpful. 
