I suppose a fiery rant every once in a while is also more acceptable than blowing up effigies of David Cameron in one's backyard. Not sure about puppets of Iain Duncan Smith though, those might be considered appropriate kindling.

Anyway, if I was involved in any popular social media, I'd be prone to make statements that might get me into trouble at some point. Mum's the word.

By the way, later this month, I'll be in the presence of people who are already on Uncle Sam's shit list.

Excellent stuff, all around. It's nice to have a comprehensive overview over certain aspects of (y)our economic system instead of having to rely on piecemeal analysis by Baker, Stiglitz, Krugman, Galbraith, DeLong and the likes.

I watched the November issue last night and it made me appreciate even more that we still have a proper socialist party in our parliament, including a communist wing. They are still considered pariahs, yet their presence alone suffices to keep the other parties from following the British Tories' footsteps -- what a nasty bunch of inhumane wankers they continuously reveal themselves to be.

Just my opinion here, but I think there are better ways to solve the issues with soaring profits while paying people nearly nothing for said profits.

Negate tax loop holes. If you're making a billion more each year, you shouldn't be showing a 0 dollar tax burden year after year. Incentivize expanding (lower taxes, etc), heavily tax companies who sit on their money or offshore nearly everything but still call themselves a US company. You should not get both the benefit of low cost offshoring, while the US has to maintain a military presence, infrastructure, and other safety/security institutions that allow you to operate your business and live in safety as you do.

Regulations on speculation that have made a lot of markets spiral out of control. I'm no economist, but when you see prices rise and fall based on rumors and possibilities...look at fuel prices especially. People shouldn't be making money on commodities when they have no hand in adding value to said commodity. If they aren't processing/shipping/extracting/packaging/ANYTHING but sitting on something waiting for a price spike, you need to take that avenue of profit out of the equation. There are places out there with enough buying power they can literally buy all supply, hold it for a few days to jack up the price and sell it off. Creating false shortages should get you a kick to the nuts.

Basically put profit back into production and manufacturing instead of offshoring and screwing with markets to get profit.

Leads to stagnation and often times inferior products as people race to the bottom to drive costs down to increase profits.

For stagnation, look at the broadband market. They have done jack and shit to improve it for a long time now for the majority of the the US, there is absolutely no reason for them to because monopolies and ability to drive costs down while continuing to jack up the rates and influence laws in their favor.

Inferior products, a good example of this would be the Craftsman line of products. Or hell something as simple as kitchen utensils...they look the same until you've had em for a bit and your forks and spoons are bending and not holding up in the dishwasher like they should getting kinda "off" looking.....probably made in China or some other Asian nation with inferior stainless steel. Then you got your US made ones, they might be more expensive but they still make them the same way they did your grandparents silverware...which your grandparents left to your parents and they still look better than the inferior china ones.



This is why I don't believe offshoring lowers consumer prices, because you might spend less on a single thing..but it likely won't last as long and you end up either buying a "good quality one" or repeatedly buying shitty ones. I do however believe offshoring lowers COMPANY costs, and increases their profits. Rarely does stuff actually end up cheaper once they offshore it, and if it does it usually comes with a swift decline in quality.


Lots of ...."off" ways of thinking about things that have become ingrained into the media and people's minds. And I think it's intentional. Minimum wage debate puts the focus on the "greedy" worker, and gives them another reason to move more jobs offshore "to maintain low prices for consumers" yet the company profits continue to go up. IE they pay less to make it, you pay the same or more to buy it. And people are too busy blaming joe schmoe for his minimum wages to notice they just keep doing this shit.

Most of these are the same reason, and none are really arguments against the viewer's existence so much as what we think of as their conventional physical presence. Descartes, who was a half-wit, nevertheless managed to make a convincing argument for existence, even if he did pussy out of exploring some of the dimensions of his experiment in order to pursue his religious agenda.

The idea of simulated reality is pretty difficult to dispute. Of the many simulated universes we reasonably expect to be eventually created, what are the chances of finding ourselves in the single original 'real' reality? What's amusing is this doesn't really have any significant consequences for the way we live.

Here are the sift guidelines when it comes to "snuff"

Please do not post pornography or "snuff" films (which we define as the explicit depiction of loss of human life displayed for entertainment).

Note: The presence of human fatality is acceptable and not considered "snuff" if presented as a limited, incidental portion of a lengthy educational, informative news report or documentary that encompasses a much broader narrative. Our definition of "snuff" does include but is not exclusive to any short clip in which a human fatality occurs whether or not any victims are actually visible on camera.
http://videosift.com/faq#posting_guidelines

To remove the video just put *kill or *discard in the comments and it will be removed.

Agreed, Payback. The shell-shock of newsspeak and race-baiting, media manipulation and fear-mongering caused this woman to go into shock while in the presence of a black man, probably because she lives insulated from their culture in some all-white sanctuary. She's no more developmentally-disabled that 85-90% of the entire Population of America.

Part of her initial association-reaction may have come from having seen zombie after zombie in film with dirt all over their faces or that deep-blue hue of necrotic flesh.

OR, her 1st zombie film (like mine) was George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, in which the first zombie of the film to take a heinous bite out of that persons shoulder, was a blackman zombie with a giant afro. That shit fucked me UP when I was 12!
I will never forget that brother....best zombie film still, ever made.


To cry "racist" from the utterance of one word is quite a stretch and usually denotes a lack of critical thinking capability of the user. Racism is a convenient label for assholes who think their shit does not stink, ESPECIALLY coming from an American.
Not accusing you of being an American or an asshole Gunter, but that kind of quip reminds me of the type of shit dick-berries from UC Berkeley would say, the ones who can find racism in a bowl of clam chowder.

Ask an amateur radio (ham) operator this question, and you'll get a list of 340 weirder answers, including places like Scarborough Reef that generally don't have a full-time human presence...

Ideology and Insanity are not mutually dependent.

You can have :
Sane Ideology
Insane Ideology
Sane non-Ideology
Insane non-Ideology

The principles of an individual can be constructive or destructive, whether or not they are part of an ideology.
What matters is the specific principles, and not whether or not they are associated with an ideology.

As individuals, we have animal impulses.
These include :
- Feeling combative in the presence of a verbal threat or insult.
- Feeling combative (inclined to silence/sensor) in the presence of ideas that are at odds with one's own.
- Feeling impulse to take shortcuts to reward (eg. stealing money fast vs earning money slow).

Ideology helps to fix these things.
This includes :
- Personal feelings don't take precedence over other people's physical condition.
Words are only words, actions are what makes a tangible measurable difference. We are masters of our own emotions, only ourselves can be blamed for our happiness or malcontent.

- Inherent equality of individuals. Ideas out in the open can live or die by their own merit as determined by all people. Censoring is taking privilege over other people by predetermining for them what ideas they are allowed to consider.

- Respect for domain. Doing as we like with what is ours, and not affecting what belongs to others.


"The moon does not care" (TM).
Nothing is intrinsically universal.

There are worldly concepts native to life on earth (protecting one's children, guarding one's domain, suffering/pain response, etc), but the higher order concept of "Idea X is _unacceptable_" is a purely human invented "meta" issue.



Sanity is Rationality is Logic ... which in turn is the ability to find a path from state A to state B.

For example:
[Given A=alive]
If your desire is to survive (B=alive), then eating poison is illogical.
It would be insane then to eat poison, as it would not be a path from A to B.
But if your desire is to die (B=dead), then eating poison is logical.
It would be sane to eat poison, as it would be a path from A to B.

Point being, people like to view the world with their own goals in mind.
Given that other people invariably have different goals in mind, the judgment of sane or insane becomes relative ... that's not "just words", that's quite real.
If a miserable person with a painful disease eats poison, is it logical for a healthy happy individual to say "that's insane"?



Much of our body politic is the projection of a subset of people's standards onto a larger population, with disregard for the other people.

At this point, politically, we are mired in populism, and we lack ideology - even though we were handed a pretty good one at the beginning.

Instead of having some guiding concepts that we use to restrain emotional impulses, we [as a society] fly off chasing populist agendas fed to us by our "team" (party) of choice.

Ironically, often rooting for a position that we are at odds with. (eg. "I hate the Affordable Care Act" even though "I like having coverage for pre-existing conditions")

The constitution does a good job at laying down the rules for an equitable relationship between government and people, but it's practically a dead document these days.
Elected officials neglect their obligation to represent and instead fashion themselves as leaders.
Lawmakers pass laws in violation of the constitution day in and day out.
Judiciary enforces lower laws that are constitutionally null.

Life, Liberty, Pursuit of happiness aren't just words. They're text from the highest law of the land.
Under such a standard, you would think that it would mean that a person would be able to lead their personal life as they please. But not as it stands.

Most of our public debate, is about whether or not people should "allow" other people to do things with themselves or other consenting individuals.
"Allowing(y/n)" people to do drugs [while not harming others].
"Allowing(y/n)" people to have firearms [while not harming others].
"Allowing(y/n)" people to marry [while not involving others].
etc.

With the main objections being "I'm not physically involved, but I wouldn't do things that way if it were me, so I choose to have hurt feelings (and call that a personal involvement), and subsequently push my personal standards onto others".
It's a selfish, impulsive, capricious, predatory behavior ... lacking any meaningful ideological temperance.

-scheherazade

Michael Swaim acts like a goofy pervert. Daniel O'Brien acts like a nerdy, yet dumb-ish know-it-all. Soren Bowie acts like a pompous, yet likeable douche know-it-all who is usually right most of the time.

And Katie Willert just gets frustrated by being in the presence of all three.

Pretty much par for the course!

You're missing the point. The USA may be able to say that they own the moon, and even get everyone on earth to agree to it, but without a permanent base on the moon, and a way to defend it, they can't enforce the claim.

Let's imagine that the whole of a small country, like France, is magically teleported to the moon. (With a protective air bubble, and the necessary resources to survive and defend it.)

The entire population of earth might still agree that the moon belongs to the USA, (as they could be coerced by military action and trade agreements), but the entire population of the moon would say the moon belonged to France - or the Moonians as they might call themselves - until the USA becomes motivated to put a competing presence there.

Flags are an effective means of designating territory on earth because they represent the nation whose power is backing up the claim. The flag on the moon is not backed up by the US Navy or Airforce, but instead with the knowledge that they last put three people there, for under a week, 41 years ago.

I've watched this about 20 times now and the strength, will, presence of mind, reflexes, talent, just ... wow.

Current.com is *dead

" To Our Faithful Current.com Users:

Current's run has ended after eight exciting years on air and online. The Current TV staff has appreciated your interest, support, participation and unflagging loyalty over the years.

Your contributions helped make Current.com a vibrant place for discussing thousands of interesting stories, and your continued viewership motivated us to keep innovating and find new ways to reflect the voice of the people.

We now welcome the on-air and digital presence of Al Jazeera America, a new news network committed to reporting on and investigating real stories affecting the lives of everyday Americans in every corner of the country. You can keep up with what's new on Al Jazeera America and see this new brand of journalism for yourself at http://www.aljazeera.com/america.

Thank you for inspiring and challenging us. We are incredibly proud of what we have been able to accomplish together!

– The Current TV Staff "

@oritteropo

I'm hoping it really is mainly procedural means the NSA have. Already before this, I've been operating under the assumption anything I haven't personally encrypted using keys controlled only by me is not secure. Used to be I only went the whole mile when I felt it was necessary, now I'm starting to move as much of my net presence into the dark as I can, out of principle more than any immediate need. But if strong crypto is compromised, as some now worry... Things get ugly.

@enoch, thanks for your comments. I thought it better to respond directly to your profile than on the video, about which we're no longer discussing directly. Sorry for the length of this reply, but for such a complex topic as this one, a thorough and plainly-stated response is needed.

You wrote: "the REAL question is "what is the purpose of a health care system"? NOT "which market system should we implement for health care"?"

The free market works best for any and all goods and services, regardless of their aim or purpose. Healthcare is no different from any other good or service in this respect.

(And besides, tell me why there's no money in preventative care? Do nutritionists, physical trainers/therapists, psychologists, herbalists, homeopaths, and any other manner of non-allopathic doctors not get paid and make profit in the marketplace? Would not a longer life not lead to a longer-term 'consumer' anyway? And would preventative medicine obliterate the need for all manner of medical treatment, or would there not still remain a need to diagnose, treat, and cure diseases, even in the presence of a robust preventative medical market?)

I realize that my argument is not the "popular" one (and there are certainly many reasons for this, up to and including a lot of disinformation about what constitutes a "free market" health care system). But the way to approach such things is not heuristically, but rationally, as one would approach any other economic issue.

You write "see where i am going with this? It's not so easy to answer and impose your model of the "free market" at the same time."

Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. The purpose of the healthcare system is to provide the most advanced medical service and care possible in the most efficient and affordable way possible. Only a free competitive market can do this with the necessary economic calculations in place to support its progress. No matter how you slice it, a socialized approach to healthcare invariably distorts the market (with its IP fees, undue regulations, and a lack of any accurate metrics on both the supply-side and on the demand-side which helps to determine availability, efficacy, and cost).

"you cannot have "for-profit" and "health-care" work in conjunction with any REAL health care."

Sorry, but this is just absurd. What else can I say?

"but if we use your "free market" model against a more "socialized model".which model would better serve the public?"

The free market model.

"if we take your "free market" model,which would be under the auspices of capitalism."

Redundant: "free market under the auspices of free market."

"disease is where the money is at,THAT is where the profit lies,not in preventive medicine."

Only Krugman-style Keynesians would say that illness is more profitable than health (or war more profitable than peace, or that alien invasions and broken windows are good for the economy). They, like you, aren't taking into account the One Lesson in Economics: look at how it affects every group, not just one group; look at the long term effects, not just short term ones. You're just seeing that, in the short-run, health will be less profitable for medical practitioners (or some pharmaceuticals) that are currently working in the treatment of illness. But look at every group outside that small group and at the long run and you can see that health is more profitable than illness overall. The market that profits more from illness will have to adapt, in ways that only the market knows for sure.

Do you realize that the money you put into socialized medicine (Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, etc.) is money you deplete from prevention entrepreneurship?

(As an aside, I wonder, why do so many people assume that the socialized central planners have some kind of special knowledge or wisdom that entrepreneurs do not? And why is there the belief that unlike entrepreneurs, socialist central planners are not selfishly motivated but always act in the interest of the "common good?" Could this be part of the propagandized and indoctrinated fear that's implicit in living in a socialized environment? Why do serfs (and I'm sure that, at some level, people know that's what they are) love the socialist central planners more than they love themselves? Complex questions about self-esteem and captive minds.)

If fewer people get sick, the market will then demand more practitioners to move from treating illness into other areas like prevention, being a prevention doctor or whatever. You're actually making the argument for free market here, not against it. Socialized bureaucratically dictated medicine will not adapt to the changing needs as efficiently or rapidly as a free market can and would. If more people are getting sick, then we'll need more doctors to treat them. If fewer people are getting sick because preventive medicine takes off, then we'll have more of that type of service. If a socialized healthcare is mandated, then we will invariably have a glut of allopathic doctors, with little need for their services (and we then have the kinds of problems we see amongst doctors who are coerced -- by the threat of losing their license -- to take medicaid and then lie on their reports in order to recoup their costs, e.g., see the article linked here.)

Meanwhile, there has been and will remain huge profits to be made in prevention, as the vitamin, supplements, alternative medicine, naturopathy, exercise and many other industries attest to. What are you talking about, that there's no profit in preventing illness? (In a manner of speaking, that's actually my bread and butter!) If you have a way to prevent illness, you will have more than enough people buying from you, people who don't want to get sick. (And other services for the people who do.) Open a gym. Become a naturopath. Teach stress management, meditation, yoga, zumba, whatever! And there are always those who need treatment, who are sick, and the free market will then have an accurate measure of how to allocate the right resources and number of such practitioners. This is something that the central planners (under socialized services) simply cannot possibly do (except, of course, for the omniscient ones that socialists insist exist).

You wrote "cancer,anxiety,obesity,drug addiction.
all are huge profit generators and all could be dealt with so much more productively and successfully with preventive care,diet and exercise and early diagnosis."

But they won't as long as you have centrally planned (socialized) medicine. The free market forces practitioners to respond to the market's demands. Socialized medicine does not. Entrepreneurs will (as they already have) exploit openings for profit in prevention (without the advantage of regulations which distort the markets) and take the business away from treatment doctors. If anything, doctors prevent preventative medicine from getting more widespread by using government regulations to limit what the preventive practitioners do. In fact, preventive medicine is so profitable that it has many in the medical profession lobbying to curtail it. They are losing much business to alternative/preventive practitioners. They lobby to, for example, prevent herb providers from stating the medical/preventive benefits of their herbs. They even prevent strawberry farmers to tout the health benefits of strawberries! It is the state that is slowing down preventive medicine, not the free market! In Puerto Rico, for example, once the Medical Association lost a bit to prohibit naturopathy, they effectively outlawed acupuncture by successfully getting a law passed that requires all acupuncturists to be medical doctors. Insanity.

If you think there is no profit in preventative care or exercise, think GNC and Richard Simmons, and Pilates, and bodywork, and my own practice of psychotherapy. Many of the successful corporations (I'm thinking of Google and Pixar and SalesForce and Oracle, etc.) see the profit and value in preventative care, which is why they have these "stay healthy" programs for their employees. There's more money in health than illness. No doubt.

Or how about the health food/nutrition business? Or organic farming, or whole foods! The free market could maybe call for fewer oncologists and for more Whole Foods or even better natural food stores. Of course, we don't know the specifics, but that's actually the point. Only the free market knows (and the omniscient socialist central planners) what needs to happen and how.

Imagination! We need to get people to use it more.

You wrote: "but when we consider that the 4th and 5th largest lobbyists are the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry is it any wonder that america has the most fucked up,backwards health care system on the planet."

You're actually making my point here. In a free market, pharmaceutical companies cannot monopolize what "drugs" people can or cannot take, sell or not sell, and cannot prevent natural alternatives from being promoted. Only with state intervention (by way of IP regulations, and so forth) can they do so.

Free market is not corporatism. Free market is not crony capitalism. (More disinformation that needs to be lifted.)

So you're not countering my free market position, you're countering the crony capitalist position. This is a straw man argument, even if in this case you might not have understood my position in the first place. You, like so many others, equate "capitalism" with cronyism or corporatism. Many cannot conceive of a free market that is free from regulation. So folks then argue against their own interests, either for or against "fascist" vs. "socialist" medicine. The free market is, in fact, outside these two positions.

You wrote: "IF we made medicare available to ALL american citizens we would see a shift from latter stage care to a more aggressive preventive care and early diagnosis. the savings in money (and lives) would be staggering."

I won't go into medicare right now (It is a disaster, and so is the current non-free-market insurance industry. See the article linked in my comment above.)

You wrote "this would create a huge paradigm shift here in america and we would see results almost instantly but more so in the coming decades."

I don't want to be a naysayer but, socialism is nothing new. It has been tried (and failed) many times before. The USSR had socialized medicine. So does Cuba (but then you may believe the Michael Moore fairytale about medicine in Cuba). It's probably better to go see in person how Cubans live and how they have no access to the places that Moore visited.

You wrote: "i feel very strongly that health should be a communal effort.a civilized society should take care of each other."

Really, then why try to force me (or anyone) into your idea of "good" medicine? The free market is a communal effort. In fact, it is nothing else (and nothing else is as communal as the free market). Central planning, socialized, top-down decision-making, is not. Never has been. Never will be.

Voluntary interactions is "taking care of each other." Coercion is not. Socialism is coercion. It cannot "work" any other way. A free market is voluntary cooperation.

Economic calculation is necessary to avoid chaos, whatever the purpose of a service. This is economic law. Unless the purpose is to create chaos, you need real prices and efficiency that only the free market can provide.

I hope this helps to clarify (and not confuse) what I wrote on @eric3579's profile.

I can understand that Deano. My argument is that this guy is making waves daily, pissing people off by taking the most valuable thing in America (Money;) and people are, for the last 30 years, just saying fuck it, it's okay we still love you.

But what does piss me off, in no way related to you Deano, is how "skillful" came into question in the first place. Basically, "Fuck this Uncle Tom Pig, little black ass kissing ass in a white person's world by not making waves. Got the cock sucking skills to survive!"

This has nothing to do with him being black. All command presence coupled with a sense of humanity. I am also sure that he didn't just have dealings with "white" people in 30 years. I am sure he has had a few poor, disenchanted black, white, Hispanic, etc. They do live around "white" people, despite the fact that certain Americans don't believe it.

I say that line of thinking belongs 30 years ago. And yes, it was presented exactly like that. Seems more appropriate for Bill O' Riley than a Sifter.

So thank you Deano, for being civil. I respect your choice