ParanoiA

It's not size, it's human nature. A government run business doesn't have any reason to save money, cut costs or anything. If they're losing money, they just raise taxes. Look at the US education system. In my city, they just poured 2 Billion freaking dollars into kansas city schools....guess what? Scores plummeted even worse - and now they want to pump in another 1.2 billion. Private business can't do that. It has to be competitive or customers go elsewhere or they go bankrupt. There's no incentive for quality service. Who cares if you don't like the service, where else are you going to go? There's no punishment for losing business when you are a government enabled monopoly. Private business can't get away with that. Crappy service usually leads to a folded business. When's the last time you had to deal with a government employee? Been to the department of motor vehicles lately? Have you ever seen any of these people give a shit about anything other than their sweet time? Have you ever seen any of these people get in a hurry for you? Please... These are the idiots some want to handle healthcare. I thought everyone wanted to fix healthcare (as if something is wrong with it) , not bury it... Look, I know socialism is trendy. But capitalism is our chosen system. It works and has problems. Socialism works and has problems too, but we didn't pick socialism. We're capitalists. We choose the benefits and disadvantages associated with capitalism. When you socialize medicine, you're just going to employ the same advantages and disadvantages as the other socialist countries deal with. How is that better? Wouldn't it be smarter to diversify our systems from a global perspective?

Socialized medicine doesn't do that either. It just redistributes the financial obligation to those who are already getting screwed by paying for insurance AND the copays for their own care - the people that don't sit around letting life happen to them and then crying because they have no insurance or any method of payment for health care costs. Then we're still paying for it. Either with taxes (subsidized) or with insurance and cost of care - either way the losers don't pay anything, but now you want those of us who DO pay to have to settle for a crappier system.... and why? Because of people who are supposedly poor and can't pay? Screw them. Let them get inferior care to mine. I pay. I work a job and don't sit on my ass crying about how the government, the people of this country, needs to fix my life. The message should be: You want to whine bag and let life happen to you, fine, you'll get the same level of service returned to you. This is the natural, inherent mechanism of incentive. I think people perceive it as heartless and cruel. It's not. It's quite appropriate.

So, how does investing in government lower those costs? With socialized medicine there is not competition. What method keeps finances in check and good quality of care? Why is a wasteful government monopoly preferred over private competition?

A government system that's cheaper? Exactly how many more examples of government waste and inefficacy do we need?

Well, what I'm getting at is what's the characteristics we can derive from an earth with such low lying cloud layers, if that were the case? Wouldn't that suggest differences in habitat, planet surface and so forth? I just don't understand all the variables involved. I mean, why not cirrus type just a few hundred feet up?

Wasn't sure where to put this one... Was wondering what determines the distance of our atmosphere relative to the earth. I mean, why isn't the atmosphere a little tighter, clouds hovering mere hundreds of feet overhead rather than thousands?

Actually I chalk up one for Swansont and Severian who haven't forgotten they're scientists and this is a science board. I didn't comment on how right Farsight was, I commented on how threatening he was. Your obsession with him borders on religion. Rather ironic...but not surprising. This thread and most of its contents are blatantly against forum rules. So are the other ant-Farsight threads. If you're so right, why do you need the tool of humiliation? Grow up people. You know who you are. And you know its wrong. You're allowing the psychology of this gang bang to cloud your better judgement.

Because they are threatened by him. No one cares about a troll, they ignore them without any issues. That's proof enogh that Farsight is not a troll and apparently is dangerous enough that they have commited to a gang thrashing. No different than ganging up on the wierd kid...except we're supposed to be adults now and have learned to be wise and thoughtful. In these Farsight Trashing threads I've even seen the mods completely lose their disposition entirely in favor of childish, smear the queer mentallity. They've said things I'd get infraction points for saying. I don't care how wrong he is, most in these threads are attacking the man, not the idea. That is wrong. And I learned that from the very people that are guilty of it in this thread. This forum takes a nose dive in integrity. Way to go...

No. It's the other 300 million citizens you didn't mention in your post that I want to defend by using our constitution. Freedom has a price. It's worth it. You don't get to cherry pick when the constitution should matter and when it shouldn't. If the constitution is going to mean anything, and have clout, then it has to be respected even when it's not convenient - especially when it's not convenient. By realizing that freedom has disadvantages - and this is one of them. And even though it's a disadvantage, it's worth it to keep being free and jump through the hoops necessary to maintain its integrity. No, I'm more concerned with you using our Constitution as a weapon against us. We can figure out how to get these guys, but there is no workaround for totalitarianism. Sacrificing civil liberties is not an american option. Why is out of the question to work harder to deal with our constitution and get these guys? Yes. That's the freedom I care about. The kind of freedom where you have to have a good reason to violate my privacy. If people die, and they will, so be it. It's worth it. This is consistent with our justice system. Our system was designed with the idea that we'd rather let 10 guilty people go free than 1 innocent person falsely imprisoned. We err on the side of liberty - not on the side of security. We've always been that kind of country, more or less. It's a conscious decision whose consequences were weighed and considered over 200 years ago. And I still agree with them today.

Funny thing is, I'm not sure many would have really noticed if she had just been fluid and had her game face on. I love the Iraq. I don't think I'll ever be able to say Iraq ever again...it's the Iraq from now on.

I don't know, from my limited experience it's the deeper, more intellectual types that are the most deviant...and therefore the most fun. She ain't perty, she jus' looks thataway? Maybe, but she's plenty hot enough for me. I have a tendency to judge female beauty in reverance of my lack of such beauty...so she's smokin' to me.

Hmmm..so is it not possible that it was inevitable? If I scatter matter and anti-matter in a room, randomly, I would expect concentrations of one or the other, even just slightly - just by mere chance. So, isn't it possible that only non-concentrated matter and anti-matter would annihilate each other and that only the clumps would be left - more than likely at a distance that would negate any eventual contact? So, if matter and anti-matter are scattered about, wouldn't they naturally form a division, separation, between them due to the inevitable variable of concentration? And then could the continual expansion of the universe keep them separated, pulling them further and further apart? Perhaps the matter we've validated (as not being anti-matter) is such a clump, that was intermixed with anti-matter at one time but by sheer numbers and concentration has annihilated anti-matter out of this region? Which leads into the OP asking about possibility of anti-matter existing in some other part of the universe. I think I need to put away the scifi for a bit...

Damn, you don't play around do you? You nuked the whole damn area. Awesome. Yeah, I'd have filled my slacks alright...

So what is the difference between energy created from matter and energy created from anti-matter? And am I phrasing that right? If I'm following you, and I'm not sure that I am, then what boundary are you referring to here? If there was no separation of matter and anti-matter in the past, and they annihilated each other over time by mere proximity consequence then what boundary is present?

Yes, isn't it amazing what she did to earn that?

I look at it this way...when a politician gives a speech and the media spends two hours talking about what it really means, then it's pretty obvious to me the consensus is that politicians lie, and we're all supposed to pick apart their lies to find the little nuggets of truth or what they really stand for. If you have to analyze what they said, rather than just take in their words like anyone else... Elections and debates, town-hall discussions, basically a big joke here in america. You can't believe what anybody is saying unless it's unpopular. Clinton is going to say the military is brave and successful - whether she believes it or not. She's also going to say some line about "our prayers are with the family's of the victims" or some equivalent lip service requirement. Whatever they think the american people want to hear, she and her aspiring band of presidential wannabe's are going to say it. There's only one guy saying the unpopular thing, in this case the truthful thing. Only one presidential wannabe is willing to say the emporer wears no clothes...I won't say it cuz I know you guys are tired of hearing it...

I don't know much about how Polls come to be, sorry. I always thought they were more for "shaping" opinion than actually querying for it, at least in the news media anyway. I'm not really sure how to draft a survey, but that sounds like the best idea. If I had known better, I would have figured that out and done that first. I made an incorrect assumption that everyone would jump on the presence and meddling and that would be that...

Yet you essentially voted for presence and meddling. I'll increment that value in my head. I understand the whole poll thing, I've bitched about polls for years; suggestive answers within the questions, not enough choices, not complete enough - blah blah blah. I think we all know there's a handful of dynamics at work that contribute to hatred, mistrust, and violence. No poll is going to cover that. Like I said, I'm not asking for a comprehensive report to submit for peer review...I'm just asking for a generalized impression. I'm really more interested in who thinks it's JUST about being rich and free that causes muslim extremists to fly across the ocean and attack us somehow. I'm thinking there are plenty of rich and free nations a stone's throw away so that doesn't fit, to me. This is the reasoning sold by the Bush administration and all aspiring republican presidential wannabe's, except for Dr. Paul.

Ok, let's complete it. Try telling me what other options need to be there and let's update the poll. I'm not putting together a comprehensive report on why they attack us, rather a generalized attitude and impression. If we can make it more accurate, provide more options, then I'm all for it. It's obvious where I stand on this, but I want to know how many people really think it's NOT about our presence and meddling as to why they attack us. There's plenty of reasons why they hate us, and I'm disinterested for the most part. I don't run around worried about what others think of me. I do, however, care about what others do to me and why.

I would change the thread title to reflect Islamic terrorism but I can't seem to edit that after the fact...

Well I'm speaking about Al Queda, Muslim extremist terrorism. I don't know of any other terrorists that attack the US. Sure a nutcase here or there, like the unibomber, Oklahoma city bombing and etc, but that's not what I'm asking about.

Speaking on Islamic extremist terrorism, I just about pulled my freaking hair out last night watching one conservative talk show idiot after another bash Ron Paul about his 9/11 "blowback" comments. They are delusional. I'm convinced. http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/15/ron-paul-vs-giuliani-on-the-root-causes-of-terrorism/ Now, the Hannity response (sorry I couldn't find any quotes) was along the lines of 'Ron Paul is a nutcase to say america asked for 9/11' - which is NOT what he said. And the ever popular 'No, Ron Paul is wrong because america is a great country that has done good things in the middle east' - which is NOT a point on why they don't hate us, but rather a plea to why they shouldn't hate us - which is irrelevant and totally off center to Paul's point. It doesn't matter if you think they have a good reason to hate us or not, the fact is that they do. This goes unchecked by EVERY conservative nutcase on Foxnews. So, I think this is an important point that deserves its own thread and poll. Why do terrorists attack us? 1) Because we're rich and free? 2) Because of our presence and meddling? 3) Because we're not Muslim? I'm not asking why they hate us. There's a huge difference.

That's interesting. So the cut-off age for forced education is 16? Here in the states it's 18 or graduation from High School. I've always wondered how a more condensed education program that graduated/terminated at around 14 or so, would work. Maybe if we could graduate the kiddos with a basic education before their hormones get the best of them, then drop outs would only apply to college.

I think that's the longest post I've ever seen from YT.