My PhD supervisor always advised it better not to make statements where you can say the opposite and it rings equally true.

Costs will tend to go up and quality will tend to go down as long and as much as profit-driven corporations are involved in the business of education.

Profit-driven corporations mostly benefit from a passive conformist populace, they're a lot easier to rule over and exploit.

Dogs love playing with plastic bottles cos they can't grip them properly, safe as long as you take them away before it gets chewed and cut, they can be as sharp as knives.

And leaving the tops on is advisable (keeps them inflated and less likely to rip and hurt the dog) but only if they're very secure, cos of the choking hazard.

>> ^Mikus_Aurelius:

The older I've gotten, the more importance I've placed on the character of the candidate, rather than his ideas. A candidate's ideas are the product of their advisers. I want to know if my leaders are honest or deceitful, brave or cowardly, rigid or flexible, ideological or practical.

The older I've gotten, the more I've realized that our politicians are not leaders; they are puppets, each with a modicum of power, doing the bidding of whoever pulls the strings the hardest. Occasionally they get yanked into behavior which benefits ordinary citizens; more often they get yanked into behavior which benefits large corporations at our expense.

Not in my lifetime have I seen any politician exhibit leadership. I wonder regularly when this changed, because I'm sure at some point in the past we did elect leaders.

The older I've gotten, the more importance I've placed on the character of the candidate, rather than his ideas. A candidate's ideas are the product of their advisers. I want to know if my leaders are honest or deceitful, brave or cowardly, rigid or flexible, ideological or practical. No one can fully anticipate what challenges a country will face, so you have to pick someone that you trust to tackle the unknown.

This isn't an absolute of course. I've still rejected the better man (I don't think I've voted against a major party woman) because he believed in an ideology I couldn't stomach.
>> ^hpqp:

>> ^VoodooV:
Oh Rachel, so smart, but so dumb.
did it ever occur to you that the two party system is BAD. Our founders did NOT want Parties,
One party may be less bad than the other, but the system of parties is BAD. How many people, on both sides of the aisle, voted not for Obama or for Romney, they voted for democrat or republican.
Don't you see a fundamental problem with that....with the party being more important than the person...than the country.
The two party system needs to go. ban all parties. vote for the person, not the party

No, vote for the ideas, not the person, nor the party. (but I think that's what you meant, amirite?)

Now imagine you are a campaign adviser- you just had an active (almost-)hurricane rip through the most "media-covered" city in the USA and its mayor consecutively openly addressing what should have been a core election-topic.

You advise your client to ignore the question.

I don't know what frightens me more - the fact that what is supposedly America's brightest Republican spinsters can't come up with a better solution to this... let's say somewhat foreseeable problem - or the fact that Obama campaign have gladly ignored this rather glaring chink in their opponents armor and hence probably doesn't have a truly debatable stance either...

Point 1: If by misquote, you mean substituted a larger term (religion) for a smaller one (churches), I suppose I did. But without religion, there -are- no churches. I don't see any meaningful difference.

Point 2: Texas has worked damned hard to earn its reputation as a major-league collection of wingnuts. I'm not sure how you can justify getting upset when that reputation is assumed to be true. You have a problem with the reputation, maybe you should start blaming the people who are going out of their way to earn it...like Rick Perry, or the Texas Board of Education. As long as the state is trying to rewrite history to eliminate reality's liberal bias, you're going to be stuck with that.

Point 3: Perhaps I should have slowed down and spent more time in the step-by-step logic...I really thought most people who read her could follow the shorthand, but I did indeed jump about a bit.

In many ways, churches are no different than any corporation. They exist as a means to concentrate funds and offer the controller(s) of those funds a method of avoiding personal responsibility for misuse of those funds. On top of that, churches pay no taxes, although they still make liberal use of publicly funded services, -and- in many cases, they keep lobbying for public funds to be handed over to them as well. Now add how many churches are politically active and advising their cult members how to vote, and you might begin to see why I refer to them all as corporate welfare queens. Or maybe not...I don't know if you're even going to try to follow it or not, and don't much care at this point.
>> ^chingalera:

>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^chingalera:
>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

I was gonna...but then decided it's not worth it, then changed my mind one last time.
I suspect aAnyone who can call religion "the last bastion of sanity" is too far gone to make sense, but... Religion supplies a cushy lifestyle for priests...that's the sum total of it's accomplishments. Churches have, if anything, helped push the government down the path you so self-righteously condemn...and they preach and stump political issues all without paying any taxes. Yet more corporate welfare.
It's time for the -real- welfare queens to start paying their share...churches, Wall Street, Defense contractors, big Pharma, etc. Time to either start contributing to the upkeep of society, or be broken up (or strung up, as the case may be).

No, you misquote me and then infer bullshit in that same smug manner that libby there used and that anyone on the receiving end of such smug could expect after reading a gajillion similar quips. I said CHURCHES and meant the members of the same whose communal efforts keep the building's physical plant in order and supports the members in time of want or need. You know...The first places to get raided and ransacked when the jackboots come??
This didn't start about about religion: I started it when Potato-libro there took a jab at Texas and lighted upon another opportunity to bash "them ignernt conservatives, etc.", NOT UNLIKE a shitload of folks with "holier than thou" attitudes concerning politics and government. QUITE laughable really, because the opinions they have and the conclusions they have arrived at, are based on limited and incomplete information or worse, they have been programmed to do so through systematic efforts by do-nothings in colleges or universities.
Stormsinger, YOUR rant began with religion and politics and manically concluded with corporations and Wall Street....WTF??!! By the way, my solution as an anarchistic, soon-to-be expatriate is to use the BIG TEX method on governments and corporations. You hate em so much, be like the Hulk. SMAAAASH! Then burn, repeat.
Can we talk about how fucking progressive IDAHO is now??? Jesus Christ, Allah Mustapha!!
I suspect anyone who can start with anti-religion rants, switch to blaming churches for the state of America's demise, bash tax-exemption and somehow blame corporate welfare (whatever the fuck!??...see where this is going?) and arrive at a total solution by blaming BELTWAY INSIDERS AND THE SENATORS/CONGRESSMEN THEY HAVE BOUGHT for pharma, defense, etc. shifting the blame to people without any power or influence???....I'd have to call them schizophrenic! Which is how most rabid concerning politics ion one side or the other are to me. ALLL OF THEM, conservative or liberal. I could give a fiddler's fist-fuck about working within a failed system. I prefer to keep to the fringes of this broken machine and put as little of my resources or mentations into it.
But some, like stormie and libby here...well, hopeless fiends and junkies for the dance politic. Playing right into the hands of the corporations iffn ya axe me!

@bareboards2

I'm also glad that we can discuss these issues like reasonable people. I apologize if I've come off as unreasonable in the past. The truth is that I'm always willing to talk things out.

I've heard the rhetoric about death panels from both sides; I just haven't put in the effort to separate fact from fiction. Now that I've looked into it, this is what I've found. What you're describing (end of life consultations) is not the same thing as what are now being called death panels in Obamacare. Yes, it is true that the provision you are speaking about was demonized by republicans and ultimately removed from Medicare. I'm actually not sure how I feel about it, because it is a form of assisted suicide, and it could be abused. Some seniors may feel pressured into forgoing care, just as you hear of some people receiving substandard care because they are organ donors.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/dad-rescues-brain-dead-son-from-doctors-wishing-to-harvest-his-organs-boy-r

In any case, the conversation has evolved, and we are no longer talking about these end of life consultations when we are talking about death panels. The death panel in Obamacare is an unelected board of 15 "health care experts" (the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB) who will make critical decisions on what services within Medicare are financially viable, and which aren't. Here is a quote from President Obama in the first debate acknowledging this:

"It — when Gov. Romney talks about this board, for example, unelected board that we’ve created, what this is, is a group of health care experts, doctors, et cetera, to figure out, how can we reduce the cost of care in the system overall?” Obama said.

“Now, so what this board does is basically identifies best practices and says, let’s use the purchasing power of Medicare and Medicaid to help to institutionalize all these good things that we do,” Obama added.

This is also acknowledged by a senior adviser to Obama:

"WE need death panels. Well, maybe not death panels, exactly, but unless we start allocating health care resources more prudently — rationing, by its proper name — the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/opinion/health-care-reform-beyond-obamacare.html?_r=2

So call it death panels, or rationing, the principle is still the same. The recommendations this board makes will become law unless it is overridden by a 2/3's majority vote in congress. Here is a good example of how this type of legislative oversight is making health care "better" (penalizing hospitals for readmitting patients within 30 days):

"Beginning Monday, the hospitals will receive lower reimbursements on Medicare claims filed with the government for each admitted patient. Over the year, the total amount of those reductions will vary from $1.2 million for MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Northwest Washington, the region’s largest private hospital, to about $12,000 for Reston Hospital Center in Virginia. Of 16 hospitals in the District and Northern Virginia, all but three will get paid less."

"Some of the hardest-hit facilities are inner-city hospitals that tend to treat sicker, poorer patients. These patients sometimes end up being readmitted because they have a harder time getting medication and follow-up doctors’ appointments, often because they lack transportation, hospital officials said.

“Not only do we have the very sick patients, they also have very significant social needs,” said Kamaljit Sethi, who heads quality and safety at Providence Hospital in Northeast, where officials estimate they will lose about $320,000 in the coming year."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hospitals-in-dc-va-to-lose-millions-from-medicare/2012/09/30/2fe0f96c-08ca-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83b
f_story.html

What this means is that patients with the greatest needs will lose the most services, because the hospitals will no longer be able to serve them because of this penalty. This outcome could turn out to be deadly for thousands of people, ultimately, all in the name of efficiency. This is a perfect illustration as to why Government should have as little power over your health care as possible. Here is testimony from the front lines:

" Today while working my shift in the emergency room, an old lady was brought in very sick and in fact near death. I did my usual workup and evaluation and attempted to administer life saving treatment. It was my plan to admit this woman to the hospital. I found out a little later that this same woman had been a patient here just slightly more than 2 weeks ago with a DIFFERENT DIAGNOSIS. I was told that if this woman was admitted, the hospital would not be paid.

The new Medicare rule now is that if the same Medicare patient is re-admitted to the hospital within 30 days, the hospital will not be paid. When they first started this nonsense they said this only applied to patients with the same diagnosis. Now they have "expanded" the rule to include re-admissions for any reason. So if you're in the hospital for pneumonia, and 3 weeks later, you break your leg.......too bad. Medicare will not pay the hospital to fix your leg."

http://grouchatrighttruth.blogspot.com/2012/10/death-panels-are-here.html

This is completely outrageous, I think you will be forced to agree. Personally, I think we need to have a national conversation about this issue, and both sides need to come together to hammer out this issue. Obamacare is clearly not ready for primetime, and as it stands it is going to hurt people.

As far as your other comments, I'm not limiting myself to any particular news source. I am a political independent and I will share with you that I won't be voting for either candidate this year. I will still participate in the local elections but I cannot vote for either candidate in good conscience. While I am socially and fiscally conservative on many issues, I am liberal on others, such as helping the poor, the environment (within reason), and immigration. I don't fit into a polical cookie cutter and I don't automatically support a candidate because they give God lip service.

>> ^Stu:

We all know why Americans wouldn't care if they caught him and/or killed him: because they don't. Jokes aside about the selfish nature of Americans, it goes way beyond living in a bubble of self content. It's change. Who likes change? No one. You can apply this same line of thought to almost any large group of people, be it countries, religions, etc. People think they want to know everything. They don't. If they knew everything they'd be accountable. Could you imagine the responses you'd get if you held every single United States citizen accountable (for which they are) for the economy crash? It's far easier to blame someone else and easier still to blame the government.
Blind allegiance to an unknown cause is the biggest plight of any civilized society. It's s joke you hear a lot around election time: "Why do we only get 2-3 candidates to pick from for the leader of our country, but we get 50 to pick from for Miss America." If elections were more about issues and ideas and less about money and promises, the world would be a much better place. Instead of having a lawyer run things and having the world's smartest people being advisers it should be the other way around. It won't however, because the smart people don't want the job. It's kind of a catch 22. We want smart people in power, but the smartest don't want it.
It all comes back to this case. It's easier to just get rid of a problem by shooting it than to talk it out. I say give Assange his own tv show, radio show whatever. Why? Obviously the guy isn't afraid of talking. Then again, that kind of bold disregard also comes with the usual disregard for most things, like his "other" issues of douchebaggery.
People always laugh when I say there is at most only 5-10% of this world that should be allowed to make crucial decisions because they would be unbiased and objective, but they never want to be in that group.


It's not necessarily that they don't want to be in the group, it's that unswervable people who can make decisions without bias are least suited to getting into power. I totally agree with you, but i go one further. There's probably only about 1% of people you'd ever meet that you could trust to act entirely fairly and honestly in every possibly situation.

Politicians are surrounded every day by opportunites to skim a little off the top, make life a little easier for you and your loved ones, how many people do you know that could resist that whilst working tirelessly for others? That should be a requirement for leadership. The term is public servant.

We all know why Americans wouldn't care if they caught him and/or killed him: because they don't. Jokes aside about the selfish nature of Americans, it goes way beyond living in a bubble of self content. It's change. Who likes change? No one. You can apply this same line of thought to almost any large group of people, be it countries, religions, etc. People think they want to know everything. They don't. If they knew everything they'd be accountable. Could you imagine the responses you'd get if you held every single United States citizen accountable (for which they are) for the economy crash? It's far easier to blame someone else and easier still to blame the government.

Blind allegiance to an unknown cause is the biggest plight of any civilized society. It's s joke you hear a lot around election time: "Why do we only get 2-3 candidates to pick from for the leader of our country, but we get 50 to pick from for Miss America." If elections were more about issues and ideas and less about money and promises, the world would be a much better place. Instead of having a lawyer run things and having the world's smartest people being advisers it should be the other way around. It won't however, because the smart people don't want the job. It's kind of a catch 22. We want smart people in power, but the smartest don't want it.

It all comes back to this case. It's easier to just get rid of a problem by shooting it than to talk it out. I say give Assange his own tv show, radio show whatever. Why? Obviously the guy isn't afraid of talking. Then again, that kind of bold disregard also comes with the usual disregard for most things, like his "other" issues of douchebaggery.

People always laugh when I say there is at most only 5-10% of this world that should be allowed to make crucial decisions because they would be unbiased and objective, but they never want to be in that group.

I'll say a little bit about my experience here, since you brought it up @ZappaDanMan. The reason I signed up to videosift, initially, was to provide a counterpoint to the enormous amount of anti-christian videos I noticed being propelled into the top 15. There was no one here representing the other side of the argument, or posting any Christian videos, so I figured I would be that guy. However, I quickly found out that I was pretty unwelcome here, except, that is, for a few important exceptions. One is @dag. Dag has commented many times that he feels I am a valuable member of the community. Perhaps he recognizes the pitfalls of a lack of diversity in the sift economy. Quite often the comment sections, at least for anything related to religion, are echo chambers for militant anti-theists. That isn't a good thing if you want to have a broad-based appeal.

There are some individual users who have reached out to me, some openly like @enoch, most though in secret. The reason being is because from the beginning there was a concerted campaign to try to get rid of me. The first strategy was to downvote all of my videos and comments and deny my participation in the system. I am sure I am the most downvoted user of all the time. Can anyone (@lucky760) track that? There was a time when I couldn't get a video to last more than half a day. It wasn't because of the nonsense people are posting in this thread, it was because there was a group of people working against me to kill them all off. I have 18 discarded videos in my discarded posts folder. Granted not all of them were that great, but some were sincerely good. Can anyone else claim a number like that? I doubt it, because people don't generally treat eachother like that here.

When that didn't work there was another campaign waged to totally marginalize me by labeling me as a troll. Many people put me on ignore and advised others to do the same. I felt like I had entered into an Amish community and advised them to use zippers instead of buttons. That actually worked because at some point I decided to leave and stopped posting for awhile. I couldn't get any videos published, and every time I posted anywhere people would insult me, or ignore me. It was only because a few people reached out to me that I came back.

These days, it isn't as bad. People just generally ignore me and don't really downvote my videos that much. There has actually been somewhat of a softening towards me and I've gotten a few videos published, which surprised me. I also appreciate @ChaosEngine 's principaled stand and I wish more people thought that way. There have been some people who have consistently given me their votes (I won't name you because it will make you unpopular) even though I know they disagreed with the material. So I am not here to rail against the sift, because I appreciate the people who are being nicer to me, and I pray for all of you whether you like me or not.

The point I am making is that my experience completely affirms everything Zappa said. If you want further proof, just look at the amount of anti-religious vs. religious videos that have been sifted. There is no actual comparison. People downvote for ideological reasons (they hate religion) and that is why you don't see many videos that inform rather than denigrate religion on the sift.

I appreciate the time you took to formulate your response in a fairly respectful manner and even tone, so I'm going to try to reply in kind.>> ^VoodooV:
That's the thing about many republican views. They take an ideal, utopian world view....and work backwards.My views on the potential legality of abortion are not based on my party or religious affiliation. You can look elsewhere for my views on how destructive the party system is to American democracy, and I believe religion should play no part in legislation. (For instance, if your only opposition to gay marriage is a religious one, then you have no valid opposition to the legalization of gay marriage. However, it's easily to rationally oppose theft or murder outside of "Thou Shalt Not Steal" or "Thou Shalt Not Kill", so that gets legislated.) I'm looking at what I know and believe about human development and extrapolating from there. So perhaps airing my opinions in a thread discussing the backwardness of the Republican Party Platform is likely to promote some misunderstanding.>> ^VoodooV:
"In a perfect world, there is no rape or incest and health care is perfect, thus there would be no need for abortion, therefore we should ban abortion."
That's nice and all, but it just isn't that simple. Yeah, if we lived in a perfect world where every single citizen was financially and emotionally secure and nothing ever bad happened and no one ever accidentally got pregnant, sure I would oppose abortion.
We don't live in that world, we won't ever live in that world in our lifetimes, so why would you propose a law that only applies in a perfect world?I don't think we live in a perfect world. Rape, incest, and threat-to-life are real things, and I believe it's acceptable to make an exception in those cases - that it's acceptable to do the reprehensible when it is necessary to promote justice. I believe this in the same way I think murder is reprehensible, and that taking of a human life would never be necessary in a "perfect world", but acceptable in cases of self-defense or punishment of particularly heinous crimes. Accidental pregnancies are a known risk of sexual intercourse. "Financially and emotionally secure" are different issues, addressed in a moment. >> ^VoodooV:
A baby is not the equivalent of getting a pet for your kid to teach them responsibility. why would you needlessly punish the baby by forcing it to be raised by parents who are incapable of adequately raising it? You're trying to correct a mistake by forcing people to make another mistake. Some people should just never be parents, ever. Even if they were financially able to take care of a kid.You're absolutely right. Having a baby is VERY different from just getting a puppy. We're talking about a human life. Some people aren't emotionally or financially fit to be parents. Some of them realize that. Unfortunately, some of them realize it too late, after they've chosen to have sex and gotten pregnant. Should the child be "punished" by being raised by unfit parents? Of course not. I advocate adoption in those circumstances. Is this a perfect solution? No. But it is an acceptable one. Yes, this means nine months of pregnancy and the lifestyle impacts that carries. I feel it should be noted that you are also advocating "fixing a mistake by making another mistake.">> ^VoodooV:
To use an analogy that even a republican should understand. An abortion is like a gun, you hope to hell you never need to use it, but you're going to be glad you're able to use it if you need it.Yes, but again - selectively. The use of a firearm against another human being should not be taken trivially. I'm not going to shoot my neighbor just because he's doing something to make my life inconvenient. I'm going to shoot him when he poses a threat to my life or the life of another innocent individual. I'd say it was an ill-advised analogy, because it's a much better analogy for the anti-abortion stance than the pro-abortion stance. In the firearm analogy, the one harmed is a violent aggressor, while in abortion we're wielding this power against someone who is genuinely and truly innocent. My stance on abortion is MUCH more lenient than my stance on deadly force, since I also acknowledge cases of rape or incest. >> ^VoodooV:
Whenever you masturbate (oh wait, republicans never masturbate)I have to admit that that is a ridiculous position for them to take. If you're going to advocate that people avoid having sex if they're not prepared to take responsibility for the consequences of that choice, then it's ludicrous to tell them masturbation is ALSO verboten. Mutual masturbation is almost the only sexual practice that can legitimately be said to eliminate the risk of pregnancy.>> ^VoodooV:
Even when you're having legitimate baby-making sex. The male ejaculates millions of sperm. Each one of those sperm is a potential life. Yet only one of those sperm will make it, and the rest will die. Republicans don't seem to care about those millions of potential lives being snuffed out. And with the woman, every time a woman has her cycle, that's another potential life snuffed out.I think this takes the slippery slope (no pun intended) too far, and I think you realize that. There are religious viewpoints on the "spilling of seed", but again, I think religious viewpoints alone are not justification for legislation in a free society.
We can both agree (I'm fairly confident) that killing a newborn is murder. I'm fairly confident that we both agree that late-term abortion is abhorrent, if not explicitly "murder". (Is this assertion correct?) Furthermore I think we can both agree that an unfertilized egg or unused sperm is not a "life". So, somewhere between those points is the point of contention. The point where a mass of undifferentiated tissue becomes a developing human life. I don't think we can clearly define that point with our current level of knowledge, so I feel it is most rational to err on the side of caution and oppose abortion even in early pregnancy. (I feel that this view tolerates, for instance, the "morning-after pill", that prevents implantation of a fertilized egg, a view that is likely opposed in many "pro-life" circles. I must admit, though, to a degree of uncertainty in that opinion.)

Most recent dog that had to be put down was my parent's rescued German Shepard. He was losing his hair to something, having more trouble walking. His rear claws, a couple of them fell out. He could barely step up into the house on his own, a few inches off the ground.

This went on for a month with no improvement, but no noticeable deterioration...he kept losing hair. Vets wanted close to a grand to run tests on him to try to figure out what was happening to his skin after the first round of tests came up with nothing.

We thought it was a severe flea allergy at first, but it just kept spreading despite medications.

Got to where he couldn't get up on his own anymore, and this was a 100-120 pound dog with bad joints so you had to be really careful how you helped him. Eventually he started not going to the bathroom outside when they got him out, but he'd lay back down and pee all over himself.

He ate throughout this, he ate as much as he ever had when he was well. He responded well, acted like he wanted to do things but he just couldn't get up on his own.

Then he got to where he could barely walk once he got up, and he was put down after that started. Didn't sleep deeply or much throughout most of this. Vet was out of ideas, and this was almost two months of giving him a chance to recover if it was possible.

I felt that last week was irresponsible of my parents, my mother in particular, to continue on. Because despite him eating, he was noticeably worse and while he wasn't whining in pain he was panting all the time. The lengths they had to go to just to get him outside to use the bathroom was crazy, getting him back in was worse. And they had to try to plan it because it took both of them to do it.

I suspect he had some kind of cancer that was on his skin and internal, but the vets had no guesses as to what it was. But they advised that everything he came in contact with should be thrown out just in case it was infectious to other dogs or animals. I mean technically he could have recovered, but you're talking a thousand dollars in tests just to find out where to go next on a dog that was getting worse in a few months time. And was already near the typical lifespan of a well taken care of German Shepard, and he had heart worms due to previous owners and a bad diet for his first year of life...he was healthy enough but it plagued him through the years. Plus arthritic joints that had been getting steadily worse for him.

He was.......10 or 11, hard to be exact since he was a rescue. That was in Dec of 2011 a few days before christmas. It was either do it then or risk him getting even worse and having to go through the holidays with no places open.

Before that was a 18-19 year old cat. Whose kidneys were failing, some shots made it looked like she was recovering. But she got bad fast when she started getting bad again.

Both of those cases made the few extra days we got with them seem rather selfish after it was done, because both of them could barely sleep. Go to the bathroom under their own power, etc. And hindsight being 20/20 goes to that, but it was clear to me in both cases that at least a week ahead both of them were not going to make it. And plans should have been made so it wasn't a wake up in the morning, see the cat/dog is way worse than the day before and have to find an emergency vet or something because you waited until the weekend or it was too early in the morning to take them to the regular vet and they had to lay there for hours like that.

I miss them both, but.......that was selfishness to go to those extremes and kid ourselves that they weren't old for their breeds.


I mean maybe this guy's dog sleeps like a baby at night and it's a totally different case, but a 19 year old dog is a very old dog anyway you cut it. If it needs the water every day to function......when it gets cold out I hope that guy is prepared to do what's right for that dog.

I look at it as being no different than having an elderly parent who expressed their wishes to have no extreme measures taken to keep them alive after X many days 15 years ago. You will always have that doubt that they changed their mind in 15 years or that something could be done, but you also know what you agreed to do when they told you this. Once the reasonable options are exhausted, not doing what's best for them and/or within their wishes to prolong it "because maybe....." is selfish. Owning an animal is kind of like agreeing to do something like that, do your best and when it's time do what you agreed to. If vets are giving you multiple thousand dollar treatment options with low chances on an old animal, you're probably being a little hysterical and they don't want to kill that hope or are taking advantage of you.

And I say this as someone who despises people who mistreat animals, and let them breed uncontrollably and let them run stray around the neighborhoods getting hit by cars and such. They invoke suffering on animals by negligence and ignorance. You are as bad as them if you drag it out on your own pets after they've had a long long life compared to others of their breed. Try your best, and when the time comes...do what's right by them...not for you.

There are probably quite a number of people out there who wish they could be euthanized due a terminal illness or some kind of degenerative disease......it's not as heartless as it sounds but it hurts to think about.

Below is the parable of the ox: (http://www.johnkay.com/2012/07/25/the-parable-of-the-ox)

Though it is about our economies in general, it also says something between the lines about markets without guidance. Namely that in ANY market, given enough time, you will get people who "abuse" the lack of rules and change the game in their favor. (Libor, credit default swaps, monopolies, etc etc) As free market policies work only when there is plenty of competition, as soon as some one cheats or in another form effectively removes competition the entire thing will collapse. Free market policies can be optimal during a time, however, that time is limited as before (just started market, monopoly or wild west) and after (mature market, few or 1 large competitors ruling the market, monopoly) you need guidance to make sure all the stakeholders are protected, not just those with power.

(BTW though there are rules setup to make sure the system works, you can see those are reactionary because otherwise the system doesnt work at all. They make sure there are good options for everyone, not just maximum options for those with power, aka in this case the cheaters)

25 July 2012, Financial Times

In 1906, the great statistician Francis Galton observed a competition to guess the weight of an ox at a country fair. Eight hundred people entered. Galton, being the kind of man he was, ran statistical tests on the numbers. He discovered that the average guess (1,197lb) was extremely close to the actual weight (1,198lb) of the ox. This story was told by James Surowiecki, in his entertaining book The Wisdom of Crowds.

Not many people know the events that followed. A few years later, the scales seemed to become less and less reliable. Repairs were expensive; but the fair organiser had a brilliant idea. Since attendees were so good at guessing the weight of an ox, it was unnecessary to repair the scales. The organiser would simply ask everyone to guess the weight, and take the average of their estimates.

A new problem emerged, however. Once weight-guessing competitions became the rage, some participants tried to cheat. They even sought privileged information from the farmer who had bred the ox. It was feared that if some people had an edge, others would be reluctant to enter the weight-guessing competition. With only a few entrants, you could not rely on the wisdom of the crowd. The process of weight discovery would be damaged.

Strict regulatory rules were introduced. The farmer was asked to prepare three monthly bulletins on the development of his ox. These bulletins were posted on the door of the market for everyone to read. If the farmer gave his friends any other information about the beast, that was also to be posted on the market door. Anyone who entered the competition with knowledge concerning the ox that was not available to the world at large would be expelled from the market. In this way, the integrity of the weight-guessing process would be maintained.

Professional analysts scrutinised the contents of these regulatory announcements and advised their clients on their implications. They wined and dined farmers; once the farmers were required to be careful about the information they disclosed, however, these lunches became less fruitful.

Some brighter analysts realised that understanding the nutrition and health of the ox was not that useful anyway. What mattered were the guesses of the bystanders. Since the beast was no longer being weighed, the key to success lay not in correctly assessing its weight, but rather in correctly assessing what other people would guess. Or what others would guess others would guess. And so on.

Some, such as old Farmer Buffett, claimed that the results of this process were more and more divorced from the realities of ox-rearing. He was ignored, however. True, Farmer Buffett’s beasts did appear healthy and well fed, and his finances were ever more prosperous: but, it was agreed, he was a simple countryman who did not really understand how markets work.

International bodies were established to define the rules for assessing the weight of the ox. There were two competing standards – generally accepted ox-weighing principles and international ox-weighing standards. However, both agreed on one fundamental principle, which followed from the need to eliminate the role of subjective assessment by any individual. The weight of the ox was officially defined as the average of everyone’s guesses.

One difficulty was that sometimes there were few, or even no, guesses of the oxen’s weight. But that problem was soon overcome. Mathematicians from the University of Chicago developed models from which it was possible to estimate what, if there had actually been many guesses as to the weight of the animal, the average of these guesses would have been. No knowledge of animal husbandry was required, only a powerful computer.

By this time, there was a large industry of professional weight guessers, organisers of weight- guessing competitions and advisers helping people to refine their guesses. Some people suggested that it might be cheaper to repair the scales, but they were derided: why go back to relying on the judgment of a single auctioneer when you could benefit from the aggregated wisdom of so many clever people?

And then the ox died. Among all this activity, no one had remembered to feed it.