husmusen

Ahem, Sur Ströming. When you open the tin, bend your nose real close to ahhh, savour its impressive aroma. (This forum needs an evil grin smiley) Cheers.

Allright darth lets look at this a bit more closely. When someone on welfare refuses work because the paycheck is not more money that he/she would recieve on welfare, that is an abuse of the system. In Australia The Department Of Labour and Employment payment, or Newstart as it's called now, is less than the minimum wage. So if I was offered less than benefits I would indeed refuse as it would be an illegal arrangement. When a welfare Mom buys food with welfare money and sells it to neighbors at a discount to buy drugs, that is another abuse of the system. Why wouldn't she just use the money straight? That way she'd be able to buy more drugs, why give the neighbours discounted food? You're not making much sense here. When a welfare worker counsels a person to stay on welfare rather that seek work on the basis that the job does not provide other benifits. What other benefits? Could you be more specific. When a woman actually has more children in order that her check will be increased and then spends the money on alcohol or drugs instead of caring for the kids, that is an abuse. Funnily enough I have never heard of this being done on welfare because welfare in Australia just wouldn't pay. When a welfare worker witnesses this and does not take action, that is an abuse. No that would be negligence. When a young girl gets pregnant and the fist and most natural thing that she thinks of is getting on welfare, that is a case of the system abusing the recipient. as well as the taxpayer. Hint: The problem is not the welfare system, it's teenagers getting pregnant. I see little benefit in starving them to death, and few job opportunities for 14 year olds that you could raise a family on. When a welfare Mom puts her 14 year old daughter on the street as a prostitute to bring in money, that is an abuse. No, in Australia that's criminal, it's very very illegal and the dear sweet soul would go to jail for child prostitution. But it is clear that the welfare system does, at the very least, as much harm as good and in my opinion, more. How? Do you think the sort of people who would prostitute their daughters would suddenly become saints because there is no welfare system? Drunks magically become sober? I doubt it. I just can't get your link, If someone prostitutes their son or daughter that's because they have serious moral flaws, I suspect their moral flaws would remain even if there was no welfare. Besides this topic is mainly about homelessness not people on welfare, the average homeless person in Australia can't get welfare because you need an address and a bank account. Don't conflate the two. Of the thousands of companies in the world, the number of them that are run by criminals is low. And you know this the same way you know most homeless are scum I suppose, that being by the way? Avoidance of being cheated this way is dead simple--don't buy the stock. I see so It's the victims fault for buying the stock based on fraudulent accounting reports, fraudulently accreditted by a world respected(at that time) auditor? Anyway, enough off topic chat.

I don't pretend to know the rhyme or reason of it. But before he started eating tuna he was a walking cracking machine. After he started, poof it was gone, and at 3x a week he cannot crack them for love or money. Eating tuna doesn't do bugger all for me, so the conclusion I draw is : 1) There is a second cause linked to the tuna consumption. 2) The causes of his knuckles cracking are not the same as mine. Cheers.

paleolithic: Hey I didn't get the movie either but th science in it was quite good, especially the spaceship designs. And yeah, I was talking about B5 the Gathering. The Abyss, that wasn't too bad, although I didn't buy the haymaker taking out the elite commando guy. Cheers

Darth:

Yes, definately Gatacca, very good and very feasable. Some of the tech is beyond current human abilities but there is nothing against the laws of physics. Alien(The first one and, to some degree, the second) isn't too bad. Contact, except for perhaps the last 5 minutes, but they are good last five minutes. I particularly liked the consequences of the asymetry introuced by the human designers who assumed they knew better than a highly advanced race how to build the vehicle. 2001: A space odyssey. (I'm shocked this hasn't been mentioned this yet). I'd also recommend B5 as having a heavier emphasis on realistic laws of physics. For example they need different sections of the station for oxygen breathers, methane breathers etc and different sections of the station rotate at different speeds because not all species tolerate the same gravities. Very well thought out. I'd recommend the movie "The gathering" as the most science factual of the lot. Cheers.

Carpet snakes are fun, and in Queensland free(unoffically) if you catch your own. Cheers.

At the risk of sounding like I'm dumping on the yanks, it's the American education system so one teacher probably can stuff him up. Have you asked for the marking or assignment guide? Every teacher must have one, and in Australian schools, the question weights are public info, they often print them on the exam paper or assignment sheets. Oh believe me if you think your teacher is bad you will look back on this later and wonder how you ever found it difficult. Office politics 101: A co-worker who knew that he could not compete for the available promotion with his fellow co-worker, walked up to him and told him(quietly) that "I've slept with your whoring slut of a mother", comments about his mother being this workers weak point, the slimy co-worker got his nose broken and his lights punched out. When he came too his first words were, "I win". And off he went to file a complaint with the company, and an assault and battery claim with the police. Two days later, when the HR manager came around to decide on the promotion, worker one had a broken nose, worker two couldn't attend because he had a bail hearing, and also had a formal complaint against him on the company file. Guess who got the promotion? The, IMHO, flaming psychopath. Cheers. P.S. The other guy had friends so the Psychopath didn't last too long, funny how he kept getting reported for every little infringement, live by the complaint form, die by the complaint form.

Very nicely put Coral, Another group that suffers from this is people who have cared for relatives. If you are a 28 year old, who has cared for a relative for the last ten years. You have no current employment references. You have no current employment history. And it doesn't matter how qualified you are, it doesn't matter how sincere you are, or that you could do the job very well, you won't get the job. You can have a qualification with wall to wall High Distinctions in every subject, and you don't get in. You also don't have a cent to your name, usually, so you can't afford to get qualified. Infact that vicious circle of, no qualifications means you can't get job, no money means you can't get qualifications. So we end up with 1.2 Million unskilled unemployed, and 2.5 million skilled vacancies that can't be filled. Now since business is too constipated to train or pay for new employees to be trained,(since they could leave tomorrow) I think the government, in the interest of business the unemployed, and the economy /community in general, has a case to intervene, increase payroll tax by 1% for a period of years, and train people. Payroll tax is the logical choice because large comanies hire more people than small companies so it best matches the benefits to the taxpayers. And if an industry wants to train it's own new staff that should ofcourse be deductable. Funny however that once you've completed your first placement, and get a nice reference from the Division 1 Supervising nurse, suddenly you realise that wow there really is a worker shortage and all of a sudden everyone wants to know you, because before the average company would have died before employing you. P.S. I am speaking of South Eastern States of Australia, It's not so bad in Queensland and the Northern Teritory and(I imagine) W.A. As they are less formal in hiring. Obviously I can't speak about other countries, so maybe in the U.S. you don't need qualos and experience to get hired. Cheers

Ok Darth, since you have stated that you don't feel the need to prove anything or demonstrate any veracity to your statements beyond "Oh, I Knooow", I fully expect this to be my last reply to you in this topic. It took me a little while to penetrate your views but I think I have it now. Once again I don't expect you to agree or disagree, the benefit or loss is only yours. In my current work and study I am involved with treating people suffering from all manner of illnesses. The key is when you said you would 'call for an ambulance', here you behaved like any decent human being, there is indeed nothing wrong and everything right with calling an ambulance for a sick person. But when it comes to helping homeless people you feel this intense need to make sure they are: The right sort of homeless. Yet you didn't apply this to the collapsed man. You didn't check his pockets for cigarettes, You didn't check to see if he was obese, for all you know he may not have been taking care of himself. So you only apply this higher standard of morality to the homeless not to others who are ufortunate. When we treat people in hospitals, we do so without questioning their morality or values. When someone comes into a hospital seeling some AB's for a sexual infection, we don't quiz them to make sure they got it in a moral way, but we treat them and tell them how to avoid such infections. When a person comes in suffering from NID Diabeties, we advise them how to lose weight, how to eat properly, how to control the disease. If they don't do these things we don't withdraw treatment(ie. make the problem worse) because in the end the main person they are hurting is themselves. If they don't take care of themselves they will be the one in the coffin. But most people do because they are rational. The ones that don't often have some obstacle preventing them, and a few are just arrogant opinionated people who are quite sure that they, unlike everyone else with NID diabetes, can eat sugar all the long day long. It's the same with homelessness, if there are a few people who are unwilling to make use of the programs, let them, the ones who use the programs will benefit from them, they ones that don't , or misuse them, won't, it's that simple. So you see it's no different, when the heart attack guy goes and, ignoring everything we tell him, stuffs himself full of maccas and comes in two months later with only 60% of normal heart function, purple and gasping for air, even on Oxygen. We don't rub it in, if that condition doesn't open his eyes, nagging won't. And we don't despise him, we pity him because he is a twit, and we wouldn't be in his shoes for love or money. Ditto for the homeless guy, perhaps Darth, you should avoid the ostentaitious homeless and look for the scared frightened guys who hide themselves very well and that you never notice normally, they would perhaps benefit more from your free lunches. Cheers. P.S. No, Darth you're wrong again, my work is not a drag, by and large I enjoy my job.

I've been cracking my ankles for decades, my cousin also cracks every joint in his body. Those who are really bothered about it could try eating tuna 3x a week, it worked for my cousin but not for me. Cheers.

In Australia they allow donations to be written off, I don't see how doing it yourself is really any different to paying someone else to. I originally meant that last topic in a humerous vein, but coming back to it a few weeks later and also seeing your post, you've got me thinking now. Especially since a lot of poor people are people who are looking for work but can't get enough(I don't know how it is in your country), they would find it easier to find time to pay their taxes in labour, than to find scarce cash to pay the taxes. Hmmmmm, (cogitations). Cheers.

Hi Coral, I liked this book so much that I have trouble in not writing an essay. It's a book about about a homeless person(actually a number of them), living in Sydney, I think in 20 years time it will be considered a classic of literature. I sat down offline to write about it but it turned into an essay . (I've excerpted a paragraph from that essay) The book goes through life on the streets, drawing on the authors experiece of being homeless, and on meticulous research. So although the characters are fictional, all the stuff that happens in the book is pretty factual. The places are real, the sort of things that happen are real, the food vans and charities are real, the programes mentioned are real programs. I've got it, perfect decription, It's 'One day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch' only set amongst the homeless of Sydney as opposed to a Russian labour camp. He doesn't pretty up his characters, in that sense he is an artist, he strives for detail and accuracy and the result is deep, complex and flawed characters that feel much more real than your avg book. I think that's why I liked it. Cheers.

Darth: Yes, but not almost everyone does, in this case you just dumped on the Senior Economics Editor of the Australian equivalent of the London Times, the Sydney Morning Herald. Now this gentleman is a most respected economic analyst and I would suggest that he probably knows a lot more about these stats than you do, he found them credible enough to include in a book he put his name to, and when someone with that amount of experience says 'Hey we have a problem here' I am inclined to take what he has to say seriously unless I have reason to do otherwise. That is 'reason', some sound evidence to the contrary or logical argument, even personal experience at a scratch. Now if you can demonstrate a flaw, or you can find good solid stats that contradict his argument, I would enjoy seeing them. But statements in the vein of "Oh well anyone can write a book" aren't going to wash with me. I can show you the way things are but I'm not going to force you to open your eyes. The fact that you also refuse to provide your own sources and the basis for your own experience, ("No you may not"), can only invite speculation as to their ability to withstand the harsh light of day. Cheers.

Hey Coral, Just out of interest have you read Bryce Courtneys, Matthew Flinders Cat?

darth: Cool, write and tell your congressman, as he has probably not heard of it but it's an excellent scheme. There is hope yet. Darth: First I was thinking more of emergency shelter, a bunk and a bowl of oatmeal porridge and kasha, I can start giving consideration to permanent housing when emergency housing is not in crisis. Regarding the links comments, I don't know where you got Sudan from? Did you select the 'OECD countries' on TAB 1? You need to as it defaults to the poor countries, but the OECD countries are there as well. Show me a human being, club, organisation, think tank, NGO, that doesn't have an agenda? The Australian Nurses Federation for e.g. has a ton of agendas, but falsifying research is not one of them. One can lead horses to water ... I find the survey credible as it's a) A UN body and there are plenty of right wing think tanks around the world that would plaster them if they faked stuff. b) It's been released as part of a book that was sent around for fact checking before publication. No data source is perfect or 100% sure, but I think this one is pretty armoured. But it's a free country, if you are that bothered about how the survey was done email their chief library officer and ask him/her. or Email the publishers, (you can get them of amazon). Cheers.

Now regarding Darths query about online sources, I'm glad you asked as I've foiund a wealth of new data sources. 1) If all else fails the UN would probably send you the report if you wrote a letter and asked them nicely. (Including your debit card details would probably help ) Just kidding. 2) I have done a quick search, (Website was designed by committee ) http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/index_indicators.cfm It's on this page somewhere. or you can use the dynamic page http://cfapp2.undp.org/hdr/statistics/data/rc_select.cfm In STEP 2 its 'Human and income poverty OECD ....' and then below that in the box marked indicators its 'population living below $11 ...' Be sure to select the rich OECD countries in step 1. Cheers. Edit: Upon reaching his 50, husmusen raises his bat and acknowledges the polite applause of the crowd as the bowler returns to his crease.

Darth: From Page 143 "How Australia Compares" by Rod Tiffen and Ross Gittens. No, I am suggesting that if designed appropriately, schemes that allow the poor to help themselves, are used by the poor, but that bludgers don't tend to use them as they require effort. E.g. Australias HECS scheme, this allows a student to put his educational fees on the government tab, they are then reclaimed via that fearsome debt collector, the Australian Taxation Office once the student has graduated and got a job. Better qualified = More money for graduate. More money for the .gov. WIN-WIN. As for shelter, yes I think that's a basic right, just as if a person collapsed on the street I wouldn't ask questions about his character before calling an ambulance. I think that is a good use of my tax dollars and I vote accordingly. If a party thinks otherwise it's a democracy they can add it to their platform. Again, if someone is suffering from severe psychosis, (at least 30% of the homeless), it's not a case of refusal to house themselves but of inability. And many homeless people have *paid* tax, before their lives went sour. Why should they be denied aid they have, in effect, paid for? You seem to me to treat 'working class' as 'working caste' and it's a lot more fluid than that. Cheers

husmusen: (whole list of countries with lower poverty than U.S.)

I don't smoke so I don't speak from personal experience, but ex users of alchohol and tobacco have told me that increasing your caffiene intake(strong, black, sweet, coffee, seems to be the preffered source), at the time you stop smoking or drinking helps. Cheers.

Why would chemotherapy be dangerous, the fact that neurons divide at slower rates than most other tissues should (I would have thought) made chemotherapy more targetable. Cheers

Auburngirl: During my searches on the other info I found some interesting sites, the following should give you a very lucid idea of the global variation Blood type variation maps. Cheers.

On this then we agree. Fair enough, 1) I never said Spend more money. That may be one solution, but if you are already spending lots of money, it may be that the money is going missing, going to the wrong people(i.e. not the programs targets), or that what you are doing is not helping in which case the solution is not to stop and spend the money on something different, like say more free stuff for sitting members of parliament, but to study what went wrong, and reimplement with fixes. If I was the guy running the U.S. I would send people to every state in the world who were getting better outcomes with less money and be asking several questions, 'what are the essential differances that are causing that?' and 'Would changing our system effect a similar result?' Having knowledge and options never hurt a country. Cheers

Hi Darth, I couldn't help spotting your question In order of best to worst, Norway, How'd they beat us? Finland, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Canada, France, United states of America, United kingdom, Australia. No data available for Eight other countries includes Denmark, Japan, Iceland, Italy, New Zealand, Ireland, Belgium and Spain. These are from Table 8.11 on Page 142 of "How Australia Compares" By Gittens,Tiffen et al. They are absolute poverty rates, in relative poverty you come last, as you do in the UN human poverty index. I picked the best light for the US. Their data Source for 8.11 is the: UNDP, Human Development Report 2002, p160. Cheers Darth. P.S, the full table.

Reply to pangloss Well in a free country I can publicly advocate for the government to spend money on anything I choose, ofcourse if it's just me advocating it probably wont get very far. In democracy if the citizens don't like what the government is doing, they can dismiss that government. Ultimate force rests (in theory)with the citizen. As for 'is the use of taxpayer money to help the homeless a good or bad thing'. My response to that is that it's at least as good as public hospitals, public roads and other activities undertaken for the commongood or(in .au) the commonwealth. I could also argue that homeless relief defends a country from internal damage, and armed forces protect a country from external threats, if it's good for tax dollars to pay for one then it's good for tax dollars to pay for the other. Finally I would argue that that 'choice' may be a false one. The choice may be 'how you pay for homelessness?' not 'if you pay?' In which case the state should provide homeless relief, even based on purely mercantile arguments, because it's the cheapest entry point. Cheers Reply to Phi for all: Happens to the best of us. Cheers.