That last post got all fucked up, let's try again.

Indeed. Common sense goes a long way! I have been a computer user since 1995, a support technician since 1999, and I have had a total of 2 viruses on my systems.

I can also say that back when I first worked here (1999) I wouldn't touch the consumer stuff either. It was bloated and basically took over the computer. But as you said, the 2010 products are much, much improved over the older stuff. Things may still get by us but that's rare and mostly due to new variants of old threats or new threats altogether. Other products may catch more threats but they also have a higher false positive rate. Norton products have the lowest false positive rate of any AV software in the market today. The main problem with AV products is they are reactive instead of proactive. Once we can get to a proactive state things will change drastically.

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=5278&review=Symantec+Norton+Antivirus+2010+Review

>> ^Tymbrwulf:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://duckman33.videosift.com" title="member since January 10th, 2008" class="profilelink"><strong style="color: rgb(43, 104, 238);">Duckman33: I've been a Norton user until '05, when I switched to ESET. As far as Norton goes, I wouldn't say it sucks, but it does not have a good track record over the past 5 years.
I would argue that your lack of development of FAST AV software is what gave you guys the shit reputation you have today. I heard Norton 2010 isn't as bad as previous versions, but I won't touch it until I read positive reviews citing benchmarks, detection rates, and other things.
I've recently made the switch over from ESET to Panda Cloud due to owning a netbook, and haven't looked back since.
Of course we all know the BEST AV out there: Common Sense™ 2011. Using this you'll avoid 99% of all viruses.


EDIT: /sigh, I give up...

DO NOT listen to people like this guy. He knows absolutely fuckall about this, and is making false connections, uses political innuendo and wacked data every step of the way.

THEOILDRUM.COM is the primary source of knowledge here. Not some douchebag radio talk show host.

I will debunk a few of his points, but the rest of them are just as wrong.


1 - skipped safety test = TRUE.
However, MMS were Bush crew. He's trying to push this on Obama, but to go through every contract, every test, every government contract and every employee in every arm of the government is an unbelievably mountainous task. Our gov fucked up big time. But this is due to Bush/Cheney's gutting of government oversight and regulation, and hiring cronies or completely unqualified lackeys for incredibly important positions. Not some unspecified nefarious Obama reasoning.

2- Halliburton's "Seal" = MOSTLY FALSE
(this guy calls it a "seal", which shows he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about)
Halliburton followed/s ******* *********'s specifications and instructions. From all accounts, Halliburton warned ******* *********several times of the risks involved in the cement plug and cmt centering devices in the BOP. ******* *********overruled them every time.

"Halliburton, the cementing contractor, advised ******* *********to install numerous devices to make sure the pipe was centered in the well before pumping cement, according to Halliburton documents, provided to congressional investigators and seen by the Journal. Otherwise, the cement might develop small channels that gas could squeeze through.

In an April 18 report to ******* *********Halliburton warned that if ******* *********didn’t use more centering devices, the well would likely have “a SEVERE gas flow problem.” Still, ******* *********decided to install fewer of the devices than Halliburton recommended—six instead of 21"

3- Dispersants with the "blessing" of EPA = FALSE
The EPA has told ******* *********time and time again to stop using the dispersant "Corexic" altogether and to use SeatBrat 4, which dissolves into an organic compound in just four days. There is no truth that Corexic is illegal in the UK. The truth is exactly opposite of what this guy claims.

4- ******* *********= Corexic Disperant = FALSE
The company who makes Corexic is a consortium that includes Blackstone, Apollo and Goldman Sachs. They are called Nalco. 2 out of 14 Directors of Nalco were also Directors for ******* ********* They were NOT "the executives".

5- ******* *********didn't release video = TRUE
But, contrary to what he says, Sec Ken Salazar demanded video be released, and we've now had some three weeks of live video footage from at least 6 different cameras.

6- ******* *********refused to let scientists measure leak = TRUE
But, contrary to what he says, we now know the leak is NOT 20x greater than ******* *********'s figure.



Basically, this guy doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. He's using one-sourced claims backed by "IF this story is true", making way false connections, and from what I can gather, basically lying out of his ass to be at the top of the Fear Monger class.

Yes, this is an unbelievably horrible moment in our history as a species, but listening to people like this with absolutely zero background in any of the industries related fields, and with no empirical facts whatsoever, is exactly the opposite of who anyone should be listening to.


Again THEOILDRUM.COM is the primary resource for all oil spill knowledge. Shut the rest of these people off. Listen to what the experts, scientists, engineers and technicians have to say.

[redacted]

What's with this perception that in America anyone and everyone can be middle class? Somebody needs to collect your garbage, clean your toilets and kill darkies for you Jon Voight. But the person I envy least is studio technician who attatched the mic to your butt so your asshole could be heard

I'm actually going to disagree here. Stealing music and the lost proceeds does hurt people, but not the ones you typically think about. Fuck the Madonnas and Britneys - they really aren't hurting if you bit torrent yourself an entire MP3 library (or home tape the radio) However, there are hundreds of other artists and technicians who have a direct stake in the sales. How about the composers? Somebody writes all the trash that the pop stars sing, and you can bet the amount of artistic input from most the actual performers is next to nothing. Instead, the composer is counting on his 7 cents (literally) from each CD sale with his song included on it (remember, most songs don't get radio play time so radio royalties, which are paltry anyway, can't be counted on). Same goes for the nameless sound engineers, recording techs, and session musicians who count on a healthy industry.

Also, I don't think the implied comparison between home taping and modern digital formats is a fair comparisons for a number of reasons.

1 - When home blank tapes came on the market, I believe that the recording industry did negotiate a royalty deal whereby they received a small portion of every blank tape sale - this helped cover the record sales losses. However, nobody is receiving a royalty payment for every "blank MP3" that is distributed.

2 - Taping the Top 40 off the radio is inherently messy - shorter tracks, announcers cutting in, commercials, etc.... There is still a very clear incentive to go buy your favorite artists for the higher audio quality free of distractions. However, MP3 reproduction is pretty darn perfect with very little quality loss - - save me the reply about MP3 quality vs loss-less formats.....the average listener can't hear and doesn't care.

3 - Also, only 1 or 2 tracks from an album may receive radio play time - if you are taping from the radio, it is nearly impossible to get an album recorded. However, in under 5 minutes I can have any album I want, in its entirety, on MP3, and an entire artists' library is not out of the question.

Now, I am not saying the recording industry isn't shit stupid for their resistance to digital media for so long, and I'm not saying they aren't complete ass holes for suing college kids for more money than they will ever earn because they put their MP3 collection up on Napster. Also, I know the whole argument that having access to free music will encourage someone to go out and actually buy the albums they like. However, the numbers don't lie - CDs sales are tumbling, and the lost revenue is not made up for through legal digital sales. Plain and simple, it is stealing, and there are a lot more (middle class and nameless) people counting on a paycheck from RCA than simply the front man recording "artists." Yes, if the industry finally gets its act together, they could offer legitimately compelling digital sales, but until then, the little man shouldn't pay the price for record executive dip-shittery.

On the open vs. closed debate:

First of all, the macintosh itself should be excluded from that debate entirely. The unix back end gives mac os much more credibility in this department than any offering from MS. Sure, it doesn't come with DC++ preloaded or whatever, but dude, what do you want? Azureus is but a click away.

With regards to the tablet/iPhone, if you really care, jailbreak it or buy another device. The API is available for download. You can write your own software, and install it on your own device. The fact that they make stealing content hard is not a legitimate gripe. Frankly, I'm more concerned about a future in which artists are not compensated for their art (including the peripheral staff such as studio technicians, book editors, lighting guys, etc). Further, on a scale of 1 to manufacturer owns your soul, I'd say Captain Open himself, Google, is the champ. Their whole angle is that you don't even own your software. You freaking rent it from them and use it as a "service." In exchange they learn everything there is to know about you, and sell it to the highest bidder.

Nope, no terrorist attacks in the USA 2000 - 2008. Though there was quite a bit of state sponsored terrorist attacks in Iraq from 2003 on.

April;30 0 0 United StatesElettsville, Indiana The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) claimed responsibility for causing over $500,000 in damages to construction equipment in Elettsville, Indiana. Fourteen pieces of logging and construction equipment were destroyed by the perpetrators, who filled gas tanks with sand, cut fuel and hydraulic lines and set a tractor-trailer filled with wood chips on fire. Graffiti found at the scene read, "Go develop in Hell," "ELF" and "This machine is evil." The equipment was being used for a state-run project to build a four-lane highway in the area. In their written statement, the group writes, "the government and developers are mad with greed and there will be no limit to what they destroy until we take away the profit from their schemes."[48]

# United States United States, September 11: Attacks kill 2,997 , and many more later from exposure to toxic dust in a series of hijacked airliner crashes into two U.S. landmarks: the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, and The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane, originally intended to hit the United States Capitol Building, crashes in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after an apparent revolt against the hijackers by the plane's passengers.

# United States United States: Anthrax attacks on the offices the United States Congress and New York State Government offices, and on employees of television networks and tabloids.


# United States United States, May: Luke Helder injures 6 by placing pipebombs in mailboxes in the Midwest. Motivation to protest government control over daily lives and the illegality of marijuana and promotion of astral projection

# United States United States, July 4: An Egyptian gunman opens fire at an El Al ticket counter in Los Angeles International Airport, killing two Israelis before being killed himself.
# Israel

United States United States, October: John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo conduct the Beltway Sniper Attacks, killing ten people in various locations throughout the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area from October 2 until they are arrested on October 24.


March 3 0 9 United States United States: Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, an Iranian-born graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, drives an SUV onto a crowded part of campus, injuring nine.


July 28 1 5 United States USA:A woman was dead and five others were hospitalized this afternoon after a shooting at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building in downtown Seattle by a man who declared he was "angry with Israel."[10]

August 30 1 16 United States United States: An Afghani Muslim hit 19 pedestrians, killing one, with his SUV in the San Francisco Bay area.

October 26 2 United States A pair of improvised explosive devices are thrown at the Mexican Consulate in New York City. The fake grenades were filled with black powder and detonated by fuses, causing very minor damage. Police investigate the connection between this and a similar attack against the British Consulate in New York in 2005.[105]


July 27 2 7 United States Knoxville, Tennessee. Knoxville Unitarian Universalist church shooting, Jim David Adkisson kills 2 people and injures 7 in Knoxville, Tennessee.

17 1 4 United States Dalton, Georgia An explosion at a personal injury law firm in downtown Dalton, Ga., injured four people, including at least one lawyer, and resulted in the death of the apparent bomber in what a federal law enforcement spokesman described as a suicide attack.[212]

December 12 2 2 United States Woodburn, Oregon. Woodburn police Capt. Tom Tennant, and Oregon State Police bomb technician Bill Hakim were killed, and Woodburn Police Chief Scott Russell was critically injured after a bomb exploded at the West Coast branch of Wells Fargo in Woodburn. Customer Service Manager Laurie Ann Perkett was taken, and later released from the hospital after being hit by shrapnel. The explosion happened just before 5:30 p.m. while Hakim and Tennant were trying to open the bomb, which Hakim felt confident was not a bomb. Officers were on the scene investigating a bomb threat called in to the bank at 10:19 a.m., when the explosion occurred. Joshua Turnidge and his father, Bruce Turnidge were charged with the murders.[314]

Yo, I'm smokin herbals till it hurts you
I keep your daughter way out past her curfew
Hard far from commercial
(So what cha mean nigga)
We don't give a fuck when we smoked out
In the land that's doped out [it's like that?] no doubt
From this bomb weed, I cock from the streets
Get you open like buttcheeks, from girls who be freaks
Aiyyo, can I be SWV?
You the One nigga
Rap Shogun, yes E the one
Yo, I'm rollin with a forty pack of niggaz
Get my weed from Branson cause his sack's bigger
Yo give me dap nigga
What I clap lyrically tap call back
Ferocious causin comatoses to collapse
So chinky eyed I see people wavin on a map
I make it hotter than your thermostats (beep beep beep beep)
Bomb MC's with rough megahertz so call me
Funk Doctor verbal starburst, lyrical expert
Your boombox better form a union
Cause I leave your circus overworked, word bond
Niggaz front like they want it
But I be in the five hundred with E steadily gettin blunted
Damn nigga you cool at what you spittin
So why you holdin the blunt so long politickin
Huh, I ace them blunts with the technician
of electrician, I don't got a pot to piss in
But still spend my last on hyrdroglycerin
I keep it live no jive rollin Dutches
that's Masters like the Furious Five
I, keep your crew chinky eyed, for bitches actin dog
(Can you hit it from the back?) Why not, while we toke on this

I smoked with a lot of college, students
Most of em, wasn't graduatin and they knew it
You know the weed slang? Yeah boy I speak it fluent
I light your college dorm with my entourage from Newark
Bigger they come, harder they fall
That goes for, knuckleheads, MC's, pussy walls and all
I lit my first L before I started to crawl
I got my ass whupped when I had my first brawl
But things changed since I was twelve years old
I specialize in wreckin mics and area codes
Now, PPP the kinda niggaz that'll bug witcha
Smoke bud witcha, later on stick a sluginya
Everything that's like green ain't the bomb bitch
I got different forms to make you lose your calm bitch
Read my lips, you ain't hittin unless you got
Ten on it, get on it, or get the fuck out my cypher

Liberal Lies About National Healthcare: Fourth in a Series
Ann Coulter
Wednesday, September 09, 2009

(12) Only national health care can provide "coverage that will stay with you whether you move, change your job or lose your job" -- as Obama said in a New York Times op-ed.

This is obviously a matter of great importance to all Americans, because, with Obama's economic policies, none of us may have jobs by year's end.

The only reason you can't keep -- or often obtain -- health insurance if you move or lose your job now is because of ... government intrusion into the free market.

You will notice that if you move or lose your job, you can obtain car and home insurance, hairdressers, baby sitters, dog walkers, computer technicians, cars, houses, food and every other product and service not heavily regulated by the government. (Although it does become a bit harder to obtain free office supplies.)

Federal tax incentives have created a world in which the vast majority of people get health insurance through their employers. Then to really screw ordinary Americans, the tax code actually punishes people who don't get their health insurance through an employer by denying individuals the tax deduction for health insurance that their employers get.

Meanwhile, state governments must approve the insurers allowed to operate in their states, while mandating a list of services -- i.e. every "medical" service with a powerful lobby -- which is why Joe and Ruth Zelinsky, both 88, of Paterson, N.J., are both covered in case either one of them ever needs a boob job.

If Democrats really wanted people to be able to purchase health insurance when they move or lose a job as easily as they purchase car insurance and home insurance (or haircuts, dog walkers, cars, food, computers), they could do it in a one-page bill lifting the government controls and allowing interstate commerce in health insurance. This is known as "allowing the free market to operate."

Plus, think of all the paper a one-page bill would save! Don't Democrats care about saving the planet anymore? Go green!

(13) The "public option" trigger is something other than a national takeover of health care.

Why does the government get to decide when the "trigger" has been met, allowing it to do something terrible to us? Either the government is better at providing goods and services or the free market is -- and I believe the historical record is clear on that. Why do liberals get to avoid having that argument simply by invoking "triggers"?

Why not have a "trigger" allowing people to buy medical insurance on the free market when a trigger is met, such as consumers deciding their health insurance is too expensive? Or how about a trigger allowing us to buy health insurance from Utah-based insurers -- but only when triggered by our own states requiring all insurance companies to cover marriage counseling, drug rehab and shrinks?

Thinking more broadly, how about triggers for paying taxes? Under my "public option" plan, citizens would not have to pay taxes until a trigger kicks in. For example, 95 percent of the Department of Education's output is useful, or -- in the spirit of compromise -- at least not actively pernicious.

Also, I think we need triggers for taking over our neighbors' houses. If they don't keep up 95 percent of their lawn -- on the basis of our lawn commission's calculations -- we get to move in. As with Obama's public option trigger, we (in the role of "government") pay nothing. All expenses with the house would continue to be paid by the neighbor (playing "taxpayer").

To make our housing "public option" even more analogous to Obama's health care "public option," we'll have surly government employees bossing around the neighbors after we evict them and a Web site for people to report any negative comments the neighbors make about us.

Another great trigger idea: We get to pull Keith Olbermann's hair to see if it's a toupee -- but only when triggered by his laughably claiming to have gone to an Ivy League university, rather than the bovine management school he actually attended.

(14) National health care will not cover abortions or illegal immigrants.

This appeared in an earlier installment of "Liberal Lies About Health Care," but I keep seeing Democrats like Howard Dean and Rep. Jan Schakowsky on TV angrily shouting that these are despicable lies -- which, in itself, constitutes proof that it's all true.

Then why did Democrats vote down amendments that would prohibit coverage for illegals and abortion? (Also, why is Planned Parenthood collecting petition signatures in Manhattan -- where they think they have no reason to be sneaky -- in support of national health care?)

On July 30 of this year, a House committee voted against a Republican amendment offered by Rep. Nathan Deal that would have required health care providers to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program to prevent illegal aliens from receiving government health care services. All Republicans and five Democrats voted for it, but 29 Democrats voted against it, killing the amendment.

On the same day, the committee voted 30-29 against an amendment offered by Republican Joe Pitts explicitly stating that government health care would not cover abortions. Zealous abortion supporter Henry Waxman -- a walking, breathing argument for abortion if ever there was one -- originally voted in favor of the Pitts amendment because that allowed him, in a sleazy parliamentary trick, to bring the amendment up for reconsideration later. Which he did -- as soon as he had enough Democrats in the hearing room to safely reject it.

If any liberal sincerely believes that national health care will not cover illegals and abortion, how do they explain the Democrats frantically opposing amendments that would make this explicit?

>> ^Psychologic:


Automation will create jobs as well. The big fear back in the 80s was the robots replacing factory workers on assembly lines. I say good. I've worked an assembly line, and it's no fucking picnic. It's monotonous and I don't believe any man should suffer that fate. But, that's just a personal opinion, and in no way am I trying to take a political stance for or against assembly lines.

The robotics industry still needs employees. Sure, the factory worker lost his job, but a technician gained a job to fix the robot, and the software engineers needed to program these automations. It's a tradeoff. The factory becomes more efficient, and higher paying jobs are created where skilled human labor is needed. I do feel bad for those uneducated workers with little to no skills, but progress in the marketplace doesn't sit idly worrying about the sum of all its parts.

I do fairly well programming Flash sites and games. You think that will be a career I could hang my hat on for the rest of my life? Hell no. At some point I will need to progress and try to find another way to make a living. It wouldn't be fair to anyone if Flash programmers unionized and demanded tech benchmarks that prohibited the tech industry from advancing beyond Flash 8 AS2 (an older benchmark for Flash programmers) so to best make the market fair and to ensure the majority of programmers keep their jobs. I know this isn't exactly what you were talking about, but I wanted to go off on a tangent. Sue me.

I think it becomes everyone's responsibility in life to pick yourself up by your bootstraps, if you pardon my cliche - including the purchasing of health care. And, as I do agree we need health care reform, I don't believe government involvement is the system we need. I hate the current corporate system, and I'd love to see corporations die on their knees as much as the next man, but not by way of the government gun.

A new system is necessary. I just don't know what that system could be. I'd like to start with the government not recognizing corporations, therefore they'd lose their teeth, and people could use the courts to regulate a market instead of relying on the bureaucratic government morass that's terribly ineffectual and completely unfair. Point in case, Smithfield's pork industry in NC is ruining the land and getting the loc
als sick. Their hands are tied from suing Smithfield's unless they want to go way of Class Action, which is a joke. The EPA stepped up to correct the injustice and fined Smithfield's less than 1% of their yearly sales. The EPA in turn gave Smithfield's an award for environmentalism!

These government is part of the problem. We don't want them further ruining something that's already broken thanks to their collusion. We want them out. And, we want to use the court system to keep these corporations honest, which would lead to less denials of claims if there wasn't such thing as a goddamn insurance commission to protect them.

>> ^brycewi19:
As far as Im concerned you shouldnt make peoples health into a business though, and lucky for me it isnt where I live


We shouldn't pay doctors? Nurses? Residential care and medical office administrators? X-Ray technicians? Database managers and data entry personnel? EMT? Diagnostic technicians? Occupational/physical therapists? Medical assistants? Personal and home care aides? Health services managers? Dispensing opticians? Mental health counselors? Respiratory therapists? Human service assistants? Clinical laboratory technologists? Diagnostic medical sonographers? Pharmacy technicians? Medical records technicians? Building cleaning workers? Bookkeeping and accountants? Receptionists and information clerks? Clinical researchers? Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.

Surely, it's still a business where you live; it's just a business paid for by the coerced taxes of the people as opposed to being a voluntary business.

Almost all of these oddities are easily explained with slight differences in camera angles mixed with extremes telephoto lenses. All of these camera shots were miles away from ground zero.

The timing of the blackouts are strangely similar, but why would there be black-outs at all? Because during live video shots, technicians were sitting at the controls with orders from the FCC to not show "traumatic imagerey" on live tv. That's why they have a tape delay. This is in large part due to a suicide by shotgun that was accidentally broadcast live in 1998. News stations all moved to tape delays and had instructions to "obscure" violence that happened during live broadcasts.

Some thought the plane impact was such a moment, others did not. Obviously two people at two different tv stations had very similar gut reactions: to obscure the moment of impact, but get back to the shot as soon as possible. And their timing was a little slow.

Obviously this is just a guess, but it is far more plausible than some vast conspiracy that the US government is incapable of pulling off.

....

Trying to finish watching, but it's too painful. Whoever made this can't grasp simple concepts like perspective.

And they think it's more likely that a super-sophisticated virtual reality program accidentally made a background character translucent rather than do a little research about video interleaving and compression.

And they think to simplify complex concepts like acoustic dynamics in a dense urban environment.

Patently absurd. I can't finish watching.

Give me some real evidence. Lets hear from some of the dozens or hundreds of government workers that had to have been involved in this so-called fabrication. I would believe one single whistle-blower with some real government credentials over a thousand "charcoal" planes and "road-runner" physics videos.

I don't need to look much beyond the Constitution, which says nothing about 'free' healthcare for all or robbing one group of people who worked hard to pay off others who didn't.

Bingo!

You treat the constitution like others (you perhaps also?) treat the bible... your one stop shop for everything. Everything begins and ends with one document and you'll be damned if any further discussion will be had because apparently that document is perfect. (Let's ignore the raft of amendments... they... um... just fine tuning and already perfect document aren't they?)

The Constitution limits government power and says any powers not expressly given to the federal mafia is given to the States. That balance is already long gone. If "you" wish to circumvent those limits, even and especially for "the common good", then you may as well admit you support a benevolent dictatorship where the thugs at the top can do anything they want as long as you FEEL they're doing the right thing, or they appear to be.

The Constiution is not a "living document" nor written on an Etch-a-Sketch. It is, however, simply ignored by the scum in the federal mafia. If an Amendment was needed to outlaw alcohol, why is there no proposed amendment mandating 'free' health care? Because the current shits are anarchists, or monarchists.

No one is saying that the US system is GOOD now at all. But what you DO have is the situation where private health companies are consulted BEFORE you get treatment to see if you will be covered for that treatment. THAT is absolutely insane.

And you're basing this massive dissatifaction on what, exactly? Or is the mythical "46 million" uninsured going to come out of the woodwork again?

Look, here in Australia we have public and private... public health guarantees you all the necessary health care you need, and you pay a levee on that in your taxes (Medicare levee), if you take out Private health care (as most do), then you don't have to pay that levee as you are paying your own way via the private insurer. You don't suddenly stop getting public health, just the hospitals get paid by the private insurer rather than the government. Also, private health care gives you elective benefits and better rooms in hospitals etc. (ie. your own room rather than shared). The deal is, you can get better 'extras' etc. surrounding core health care by being on private, but you never miss out on the necessary care by not being able to afford it... and that's the way it should be.

"But you never miss out on the necessary care by not being able to afford it."

You would be hard pressed to find average Americans dying in the streets due to a lack of health care. Like I wrote, 20 million illegal aliens seem to know where the emergency rooms are, even when the sign is written in English.

From wikipedia:

The health care industry is likely to be the most heavily regulated industry in the United States. A study published by the Cato Institute suggests that this regulation provides benefits in the amount of $170 billion but costs the public up to $340 billion.[159] The study concluded that the majority of the cost differential arises from medical malpractice, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, and facilities regulations. Part of the cost is attributed to regulatory requirements that prevent technicians without medical degrees from performing treatment and diagnostic procedures that carry little risk.

It appears that once again, the soaring costs of medical care can be largely attributed to government interference. (And trial lawyers, but that's another story).


It's perplexing that numbers of people claim religion is evil yet believe that a true source of goodness is a government program which people are forced to enroll in at gunpoint. There's some confusion that this recent Obamunist government intrusion isn't the same as mandatory "universal halth care" but that's where it will end up. The camel's nose is poking into the tent.

I didn't wish harm on you. I wished destitution on you (which doesn't have to physically harm you at all, just take your ego down a few notches). I wished that you ended up with no money and therefore be reliant on the very things that you think shouldn't exist, because apparently you lack a iota of empathy and are incapable of ever seeing how someone could end up poor and without help and need some help to get back on track. Sometimes, for some people such as yourself, the only way to get through that 'it's other people' mentality is for it to affect you directly.

Yes, you wished harm on me, but that's due to your "left wing brainwaves"as the socialist believes that when one person wins, another must automatically lose; that's why the scramble for an "equality of outcomes" is so important. This isn't Dicken's "A Christman Carol" and I'm not Scrooge. And because not everyone agrees with your one-size-fits-all mentality on this or that issue does not mean they they're A) automatically wrong and B) in need of an ego resizing. Don't worry, I've had hard times aplenty.


Seems to me the only thing missing from your plan is personal responsibility. Are smokers or fat folks given less priority care or charged more in Australia? And forgive me in advance for going here, but at what point under the government system does some bureaucrat say, "Your child ain't gonna make it anyway because such-and-such condition has a 20% survival rate" and cut off treatment, or the more expensive treatments. From my point of view, you should at least entertain the idea that giving the government power over life and death when they can't even deliver the mail is a serious risk. They're serving you at their convenience and if they decide to cut you off, you're in a lot more trouble than some insurance company which can be sued.

You're making shit up that has nothing to do with my argument, so here it is again worded slightly different: is it the government's obligation to provide "free" basic everything ALL the time the way they claim to want to do with healthcare?

No, and no one is suggesting that the government should provide everyone with free everything.

There's a whole political system based on the idea that government should provide everyone with free everything, via the abolition of private property. And really, since no one is driving the train, it makes perfect sense for the communist to demand that everyone be fed for "free" all the time. Food is a more immediate and vital basic need than health care, isn't it? Even the healthy must eat to stay they way...so is "free" bread a 'right'?

What we're saying is access to healthcare should not be dictated by your bank balance. I, because I earn a good wage, should not be able to get a heart replacement if I need it, but let someone else die because they couldn't afford the operation. That just isn't right, and nowhere in the bible does it say anything about looking after only those who can afford it. In fact, I'm pretty sure it talks about taking care of the weak and needy.

Things cost money. Either you pay or someone else does. Your argument in a nutshell is that socialized medicine is less expensive, and in some ways---brace yourself---you might be right. As stated, I don't claim to have all the answers, but for America a completely government-run health care system (which is what the taxocrats are after) will be a disaster.

Um... you're several trillion dollars in debt for many, many reasons, not least of which is the trillions of dollars you spend on your damn military. You can't take anything you don't agree with and try to suggest THAT is why you're in debt... sorry, doesn't work.

The military is a tiny slice of the US budget compared to all the "free" social programs. We don't have the money to pay for all of the "free" goodies we have now, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Someone has to pay for all this stuff. Under socialized health care is it "fair" that the healthy guy with no major medical problems gets little return on his health care taxes while the fat smoker spends two years in a hospital bed before expiring?

And in regards to those that would have made it one way or another... not necessarily so at all, although you'd LOVE to think so, because that's the right wing brain.

"Successful people will always be successful with no help from anyone else". I said no such thing, but I will say this: government is the problem more often than not, and per your friend, your government system could just as easily and cheerfully kept him on the dole to suit its own purposes. Apparenlty he made a choice which brought him desired results. Which brings me to another point: some people are beyond helping, they will fk up everything all the time by constantly making the wrong choices no matter how much help you give them. There's no reason to hurt such people more than they hurt themselves, but there's also no reason to let them game the system forever.

Huh? You've given up again... you've obviously got some hardwired words in your brain that are 'bad':
'Socialism' = bad
'Big Government' = bad
without really thinking through what you're saying.

It must be cultural. Americans--the real ones--don't trust authority. Our government was founded by revolution and rebellion against the idea of kings, or ten thousand pint-sized would-be kings holding clipboards.

Saying that a government can turn around and deny care is, well ridiculous when you're comparing it to private companies that do it ROUTINELY. If government does it (please do give me examples where they have... hmmm? I can pull out stupendous amounts of private health examples)

Government consider plans to deny NHS treatment to smokers and obese

Anger over NHS restrictions for osteoporosis treatment

Vulnerable And Frail To Get Substandard Medical Care, Australia

Australia's health care system basically 'broke'

Left-wing socialist ideals have given you a certain perspective not shared by all. Your "culture", like many in the world, believes that the group is more important than the individual.

I'm sayin' that sooner or later, that belief will bite you on the buttocks, because the operators of such systems remain human. Less government = better.

The basis of the idea that every human being is entitled to "free" health care is a made-up "right" based on nothing. Even among the world's major religions' mandates to selflessly help others there is no call to establish gigantic government entities to take care of the public.

It's repugnant to suggest that because one does not fall to his knees in praise of The System, one then must automatically be for suffering or letting others starve.

Government is a necessary evil that creates nothing and can only take by force and shuffle around what already exists. The answers to the health care 'crisis' will be found among the people, not bureaushits.

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While sweeping floors is unskilled labour, I think I'd be affected more by having nobody clean the areas around where I lived than if the brain surgeons stopped their work. Without anyone removing rubbish all the time, the rat infestations and associated disease would probably harm and kill more people than brain surgeons save.

Don't underestimate the importance of core workforce like cleaners.

I'm not berating unskilled labor, but doesn't the medical student with half a million dollars in loans and 10 years of college study deserve more financial reward for their efforts? The socialist says, 'No, doctors' labor is a publicly-owned commodity whereas other occupations are not.'

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If an American with a serious illness that requires expensive treatment knocks on Canada's door seeking asylum, do they let him in? Any Canadian sifters, let me know.

Canada doesn't do asylum based on illness, that's reserved for other things. We do however bring people back into Canada from around the world who actually need medical care and can't get it in 2nd and 3rd world countries for treatment all the time. That aside, if you show up in Canada and require critical care for some emergency condition. You'll get it. Whether or not you'll have to pay for it(being that you're out of country and a non-payee into the system) is another question altogether different. Healthcare isn't free here either, that's where that 50% tax rate comes in along with country wide equalization payments. Since Canada already deals with Americans, and other foreign nations entering the country for healthcare, I'm sure you can figure out how much of a strain the puts on the system. And yes, there's a special division relating to healthcare fraud from non-Canadian nationals in every province.

Thank you for this information.

Yeah but thats how "science" works. Most of what the lady says is probably pretty solid, and based on evidence...but science doesn't just stop with observations and data - the whole point of science is the hypothesis - a "guess" based on observations and data. Maybe her hypothesis is wrong, but its our job to disprove it - and you don't do that by calling it "retarded."

I'll summarize the facts, and you can draw your own conclusions (hypothesis):

1. WHO gives funds, support and cover to labs such as the CDC to bio-prospect for pathogens, bio-engineer them to make them more deadly, and also patent them.

2. WHO has been actively searching for ways to weaken the immune system.

3. WHO gives deadly bio-engineered pathogens to companies such as Baxter in Austria, so that Baxter could use those viruses to deliberately, systematically contaminate vaccine material.

4.If the contamination of the 72 kilos had not been detection on time by a lab technician in the Czech Republic, millions of people would have caught the “bird flu” from the injections.

5. WHO orders a compulsory vaccines for all 194 countries, following “recommendations” by an advisory vaccine group on which executives of Baxter also sit.

6. WHO awards Baxter, Novartis, Sanofi and other companies lucrative contracts to supply those vaccines.

7. Under special pandemic plans enacted around the world… including the USA in 2005, national governments are to be dissolved in the event of a pandemic emergency Governments will be replaced by special committees answerable to the WHO and EU in Europe and to the WHO and UN in North America.

8. The Model Emergency Health Powers Act makes it a criminal offense for Americans to refuse the vaccine.

So far, nobody has refuted ANY of these claims. Maybe the "total picture" is incorrect, but all the pieces certainly seem to be correct. Whether the WHO is trying to dominate the world or not, looking at that list, pretty much all of them look pretty fucked up to me.

>> ^direpickle:
And furthermore the crazy part of the original story is not "omg someone screwed up and the vaccine is contaminated!" It's: "The WHO secretly controls the world is and is going to dissolve all of the world governments by purposefully infecting everyone with murderous (not contaminated) vaccines. (And also all of the governments consented to this four years ago by putting through seeeeecret directives)."

It might be an unusual case, but this is a similar situation to how Gary Glitter was found to be a paedophile in the UK, when he took his laptop in to PC World to be repaired and one of the technicians there found the pictures and reported it to the police.