*shakes fist*
Ounce makes no sense
Pounds make no sense
Miles make no sense
AM/PM is stupid
Fahrenheit makes no sense - 32F is the freezing point, wtf?

It is colloquially adopted everywhere EXCEPT certain third world countries and the US... goddamit, get with the program!


>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^gwiz665:
Americans should change it, like they should change to the metric system and a 24h clock.
No thanks.
When it's 30 degrees outside, it's cold, not hot.
It's never 13 o'clock. Never.
A woman with 36-24-36 measurements is hot, not a circus midget.
Someone who weighs 100 something is petite, not huge.
Never mind automotive stuff, mph to kph, converting horsepower to kilowatts, torque from foot-pounds to newton-meters, miles per gallon to kilometers per liter (or worse, the crazy liters per 100km thing some countries use).
Metrics are fine for engineering, but I just don't see it being adopted colloquially anytime soon.

>> ^gwiz665:

Americans should change it, like they should change to the metric system and a 24h clock.

No thanks.

When it's 30 degrees outside, it's cold, not hot.

It's never 13 o'clock. Never.

A woman with 36-24-36 measurements is hot, not a circus midget.

Someone who weighs 100 something is petite, not huge.

Never mind automotive stuff, mph to kph, converting horsepower to kilowatts, torque from foot-pounds to newton-meters, miles per gallon to kilometers per liter (or worse, the crazy liters per 100km thing some countries use).

Metrics are fine for engineering, but I just don't see it being adopted colloquially anytime soon.

I am genuinely disgusted by this man, if you can call him that. I did some simple Googling, and I found this list of funds that he's received from lobbyists:

Oil & Gas $1,448,380
Electric Utilities $1,361,985
Health Professionals $1,102,804
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $797,738
Lawyers/Law Firms $556,415
TV/Movies/Music $503,349
Automotive $330,350
Chemical & Related Manufacturing $323,940
Lobbyists $323,000
Telephone Utilities $300,420
Insurance $282,199
Misc Manufacturing & Distributing $259,490
Real Estate $240,450
Retail Sales $237,130
Hospitals/Nursing Homes $227,384
Retired $227,272
Securities & Investment $224,208
Defense Aerospace $220,550
Commercial Banks $214,810
Computers/Internet $204,474

Also, from Wikipedia:

"During his political career, the industries that have been Barton's largest contributors were oil and gas ($1.4 million donated), electric utilities ($1.3 million) and health professionals ($1.1 million)[33] He is ranked first among members of the House of Representatives for the most contributions received from the oil and gas industry, and number five among all members of Congress. His largest corporate contributor, Anadarko Petroleum, owns a 25 percent share in the Macondo Prospect, the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.[34]"

You can't escape politics; even in academia I couldn't escape it.

‘Escape’? I encounter it, but am fortunate enough to be in a position where it does not impact my day to day job function.

It surprises me that you are too lazy to develop yourself so that you are in a position to get your ideas across. You seem to be a person that values hard work in the face of adversity.

I’m in a top-heavy organization, and the last thing it needs is another manager. With only about 1,200 employees we have 7 people at the “EO” level, 50+ VPs, 125+ directors. Believe me, we are no-where near short of ‘chiefs’. We need more ‘indians’ – more highly qualified & skilled professionals. It’s a good company; I see no need to try to ‘manage’. To do so would turn the nature of my work away from in-depth analysis towards a more simple, business-decision oriented truncated approach. I’d move from data, to budgets. From study to meetings. I prefer to tear a topic down to its roots rather than skim above it at 50,000 feet.

In the face of uncertainty, 'gut feel' and the intuition derived from experience often does trump a fancy stochastic model.

I don’t have a beef with QUALIFIED people who make a decision against data. I have great respect for business guys who are skilled, intelligent, thoughtful, and have the ability to make a ‘gut’ business decision after weighing the options. Such people can take my detailed analysis – put it in the hopper – and make a decision that isn’t totally data-driven, but accounts for other things. The reason my company does well is because most of the business guys are of this sort. I respect them, and don't feel the need to add myself to their number when there are more than enough of them to take care of things. I'm best off where I am - doing the detail research they don't have time for.

Obama is he is NOT that kind of person. He is the ‘other’ kind that you meet in a business meeting... They have made a decision before they walk in the door, or have heard a single fact. They do not try to learn, or educate themselves, or respectfully consider other experts when making decisions. They only seek to justify decisions that they already made in everyone’s absence. Such persons are more than happy to use data - but only as long as it agrees with what they want. The second the data disagrees with them then the tiniest, most illogical of excuses will suffice to bat it aside as faulty. Thankfully there aren't too many of them where I work. But they're there sometimes.

When Obama encounters someone who presents facts, research, opinions, or approaches contrary to his own – he manifests himself as the small, petty, vapid man that typifies this sort of ‘bad’ business decision maker. The good ones are precious. The ‘bad’ ones like Obama are a blight on any organization they darken with their odious presence.

How many times did Bush screw up words, sentences, and concepts, trying to make a point

Did you see the thread, “Why do Republicans believe lies about Obama”? In it, people say that news-driven talking points are sucked up by intellectual sponges and parroted back unthinkingly. Your opinion about Bush is based on the very same practice, but sponsored by the left. It was grossly exaggerated. Bush did a lot of dumb things, but he proved himself more competent and intelligent than Obama in many respects. Obama can't handle himself with diplomacy (case in point with Isreal), but Bush did it easily and naturally.

You say I ‘don’t get it’. I can only shrug and say you are the victim of groupthink, and have no logical grounds for your specious position. For example – you say I supply no list of economists. I can easily do so.

http://www.adsavvy.org/consensus-war-300-top-economists-disagree-with-obamas-no-disagreement-remark/

But – as is usual – folk of your stripe will ignore fact and try to weasel away from the reality that I've proven you completely, totally, and irrevocably wrong. I am the one here that provides links, data, and information to justify my arguments. People such as yourself only climb up on rhetorical soap-boxes and fling poo.

Obama is no marxist. His policies are centrist liberal.

How is an administration ‘centrist liberal’ when it moves to take over the financial industry, the automotive industry, the medical industry, the insurance industry, and energy – while at the same time feeding billions in stimulus money to big unions & trial lawyers? All of Obama’s positions are RADICALLY far-left. Isreal, education, taxes, role of government, deficit spending, Supreme court nominee, you name the issue and Obama has proven he is way out left. This is why independent and moderate voters (who voted for him) have abandoned him in droves to the point where his approval rating is cratering to George W. Bush levels.

A very low power to weight ratio does not make it a high-performance hybrid...that would make it a dog. Who made this clip? Cause I'm having trouble reconciling a mistake like that with automotive professionals.

Make no mistake about it...even if it performs like a dog, I'd love to have one.

1.the health care debate is a moral argument

Morality is a word that applies to the freedom based decisions of principled individuals. Morality is not a word that applies to compelled requirements of a profligate, collectivist government.

3.historically the end result has always been the working class tax payer who bears the brunt of corporate malfeasance.

The people pay for 100% of government malfeasance. The government's budget is big enough to swallow 'corporate' budgets for breakfast. Is not then wiser to attack government as the greater evil to the middle class? Government generates no wealth, produces no goods, and provides only a handful of services that are poorly managed, sub-standard in quality, and are on the brink of financial collapse due to graft & incompetence. The housing bubble is chump change compared to the government bubble.

5."dey took our JOBS" is just a knee jerk reaction by those who have bought the malarky that somehow jose from mexico took their job when in reality it was the company you worked for who sent it to india or china.blame the company not jose.

No. Blame the government which (by taxation, over-regulation, & unions) make it financially undesirable to operate domestically. It would be really nice if government gave incentives to companies such as tax breaks for employing U.S. workers. But government doesn't do that. Government is more likely to punch corporate America in the gonads as a method of getting votes. Either that or government greases BAD laws for companies so that government can profit itself.

Americans need to learn a harsh reality. Unskilled labor is unskilled for a reason. The jobs leaving the U.S. leave because they only need a handful of skilled professionals and a huge pile of unskilled labor. If you can hire 10,000 unskilled foreign laborers for the same price as 100 U.S. unskilled laborers then the decision isn't very hard. If you want those jobs to stay domestic, then you either have to lower their pay or give the company enough incentive to pay the higher labor costs.

7.labor unions back was broke during the reagan years.they were portrayed as evil how is that working out for everybody now?

Broke labor's back? Pht - we WISH. Thanks to big labor (a government offshoot) we have lost our steel industry, and are well on the way to losing automotive as well. Big labor has also all but annihilated the quality of U.S. teaching.

obama,seems a nice sort and is a talented speaker

If so, then he has not yet demonstrated it. I think people are confusing the term 'talented' with 'articulate'. Obama can give a speech without mangling as many words as Bush Jr. But that's mostly because he's symbiotically grafted to his teleprompter. But he isn't inspiring, uplifting, motivating, or exciting. He's as dull as dirt. So yeah he can make his speeches on a technical sense. But that doesn't make him talented. It makes him robotic.

Ten years ago I was 19 and a born-again, holy-rolling Christian. Worked in an automotive factory making parts for the Toyota Camry. You may be driving a faulty Camry at this moment. Sorry if you die. I was a bad employee and was let go.

Nine years ago I was living in my birth town near Mt. Rushmore, lazily pretending to work in a lumber yard as I lost my religion under the watchful eyes of George Carlin, Rene Descartes and my own sense of logic. I moved back to my home state and promptly watched my grandmother die of a heart attack.

Eight years ago I was working in an injection molding plant, getting tattooed and listening to Slipknot while the towers fell. I laughed while watching them fall, because it looked like a movie. Don't let Michael Bay film a tragedy.

Seven years ago I was working under the Golden Arches, getting tattooed and arrested. No conviction, though. If the glove don't fit...

Six years ago I was moving to the City of Trees for a girl. Yeah, I know...

Five years ago I watched Bush get re-elected, and thought about Rage Against the Machine lyrics.

Four years ago I watched the girl move out of my apartment a week after I started college. Somehow I failed that semester.

Three years ago I started making sandwiches and pretended to enjoy the company of customers. I may have also gotten laid that year at some point. I think.

Two years ago I still made sandwiches, but I quit school because the American education system is ridiculous.

One year ago I worked for the Evil Empire of Mr. Sam Walton and lived with a bunch of vegan hipsters. WTF was I thinking?

This year I started by walking out of Wally World and into the land of unemployment and living in a friend's house while I got back on my feet. (Which means I'm making sandwiches again.)

In between all of those I read halves of interesting books, wrote halves of my own interesting books, wrote halves of interesting pieces of music, memorized numbers, found number patterns, made friends, lost friends, smoked the occasional joint, smoked the occasional cigarette, drank too much, lost a few thousand dollars in poker and spent too much time on Facebook and Videosift, from which I've been banned two or three times.

Edit: Somewhere in there I watched my mother try to commit suicide twice. Forgot about that.

okay, so, man + prosthetic tits - women's clothes + auto shop + flirtation with sexy girls = lesbian. I think I understand, but the mathematics of sexual identity I find baffling sometimes.


In reply to this comment by marinara:
RLY? He's in drag AS A LESBIAN A country music lesbian apparently with fully tooled auto garage. I'm not familiar with the automotive lesbian stereotype but...

In reply to this comment by schmawy:
Is that a lesbian? I thought it was a man? I'm still so confused.

In reply to this comment by marinara:
funny thing about promoting videos, is that little things make the difference, but brute force doesn't. So, yes, I'm redoing my lesbian garage video!

RLY? He's in drag AS A LESBIAN A country music lesbian apparently with fully tooled auto garage. I'm not familiar with the automotive lesbian stereotype but...

In reply to this comment by schmawy:
Is that a lesbian? I thought it was a man? I'm still so confused.

In reply to this comment by marinara:
funny thing about promoting videos, is that little things make the difference, but brute force doesn't. So, yes, I'm redoing my lesbian garage video!

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker: To owe $6,000 or so in deductibles or $200,000 for the fully monty?

So, now you are claiming I will be an outlier. I refer you to your own response to that argument.

And I personally know literally hundreds of co-workers, friends, family members, and associates who have never had a single trouble in getting medical coverage. EVER.

And I personally know literally hundreds of people who have never needed it. This argument is also a wash.

Yes they have for over 86% of the country.

So anything that 86% of the population believes is right? Need I list all the stupid things most people do? You have probably posted such a list here at some point yourself.

It is unfortunate that your inaction that results from your delusion is burdening the rest of society though.

Your commute puts a burden on the rest of society. You are putting others in harms way as a consequence of your decision(delusion?) that you should drive a ton+ of steel at hight speed down an asphalt byway twice a day. All decisions have externalized costs, in all likelihood my life has fewer than yours.

Your apparent outrage at the "burden" I place on society sounds like a call for imposed universal coverage if ever I heard one. You want "freedom", but you are offended that I use mine. I don't want it either, I'm just not willing to volunteer for the system as it currently exists.

Well - not to put to fine a point on it - but what is working in your house doing for you?

Oh, where to begin.. I:

- have free time coming out my ass.
- have an exposure to automotive health risks at least an order of magnitude lower than average.
- can pay all my bills.
- have no debt.
- don't have a boss.
- do something I enjoy.

Getting a job with a commute might increase your travel expenses... But - you know - it just MIGHT increase your monthly income to the point where you don't have to worry about it.

That's the thing, I don't have to worry about it, I don't need another red cent than I have, I don't expose myself to risk unnecessarily.

You have exposed yourself to risk, and then decided to mitigate that risk by paying somebody who promises to take care of you in spite of your decision to put yourself in harms way. I have simply elected not to put myself in as much risk.

How much earning income have you 'given up' to be that poor?

How much freedom have you 'given up' for more money? You want money, I don't, I want my time. I address my risks in a different way than you do, but that does not mean that my non-insurance-mitigated risk is, on balance, greater than your insurance-mitigated risk.

You support the death penalty, then? See, direpickle, this is a statist. He believes the state has the right to take your life as long as it can be proven to discourage murders.

HA... why do idealists always resort to such extreme examples?

No, it is not okay for the state to commit genocide in order to bring about the great society.

If it could be proven, however, that detainment until sobriety, and income appropriate fining reduced automotive fatalities, I would support that. In the case of murder, death is too light a sentence .


Third, once you open the door to government restrictions where do they end? First you needed a permit to drive. Then they made you wear a seat belt. Now you can't talk on your cell phone. Next you won't be able to change the radio station or talk while driving. All in the name of safety to prevent risk.

You draw the line where the cost of intervention outweighs the costs imposed by the unregulated marketplace. Part of this requires an understanding of "token" laws if you will. Texting while driving, for instance, is obviously stupid. Unfortunately people still do it, and die because of it all the time. As a result, many states have token laws banning it. Everyone knows it's damn near impossible to enforce, or at the very least it's not enforced. All it does is pass the message from the government to the people "trust us on this one, it's a dumb idea." Just putting the law on the books can be enough to get people's attention, and help the greater good. It doesn't ever even have to be brought up in court.

For a people who have anime, giant robots, and the most advanced electronics and automotive industries on the planet, they sure are easy to amuse, eh?

...or attending a tea party. I counts because it's covered by Fox News, right?


In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
I think it's a misnomer to classify this any differently from writing letters to an editor.

How is sifting a series of #1 political videos here with a raw, abrasive message any less impactful than getting a milquetoast letter to the editor published in, say, The New York Times or Wall Street Journal?

It's probably better than in-person protest, now that those are essentially kept under media blackout (unless it's sponsored and promoted by Fox News). At a minimum, it can give coverage to a real protest that was missed due to media blackout.

True slacktivism is crap like making a crude joke about Obama on an automotive blog, or going to Paul Krugman's blog and calling him a commie. Or sending hate mail to Keith Olbermann.

If you're serious about an issue though, volunteering for an activist group or political campaign can make a real impact, and I've found it's really satisfying too.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
-Slacktivism - I do think arguing online, and posting videos has a small effect, which is better than nothing. I've certainly learned things on VS that have informed my world view. I'm sure political conversions are very rare around here, but arming yourself and others with information and philosophy is important non the less.

I think it's a misnomer to classify this any differently from writing letters to an editor.

How is sifting a series of #1 political videos here with a raw, abrasive message any less impactful than getting a milquetoast letter to the editor published in, say, The New York Times or Wall Street Journal?

It's probably better than in-person protest, now that those are essentially kept under media blackout (unless it's sponsored and promoted by Fox News). At a minimum, it can give coverage to a real protest that was missed due to media blackout.

True slacktivism is crap like making a crude joke about Obama on an automotive blog, or going to Paul Krugman's blog and calling him a commie. Or sending hate mail to Keith Olbermann.

If you're serious about an issue though, volunteering for an activist group or political campaign can make a real impact, and I've found it's really satisfying too.

>> ^blankfist:
>> ^NetRunner:
the expensive doctor's office when you are not sick enough to see a doctor.

You can't be serious trumpeting this as an example.

The free market to be considered free requires full information to make efficient choices by consumers.

Now when you go to the doctor, you are not qualified in any way to make any value judgment on what is considered good or bad for you, that small chest pain could be just that or your appendix removed or have kidney stones.

You are wholly reliant on the doctor to do his job, this is know as asymmetrical information. The same applies 90% when you do banking or automotive repair or anything that requires a specialized skill set or knowledge.

How does a consumer know what is better in those cases? They don't this breaks the free market analogy.
-----

Furthermore, if the market is free, that home nurse could be providing snake oil solutions, but through clever late night advertising and promos she is selling magnetic coil rings that. She makes $$$. That is free market.

She is not providing a service really, the patients pay for an X gratification so she is actually filling a niche in the consumer wants. Thus her solutions fall well into the free market. Since what you are talking about is health care regulation.
-----

The American medical system as it is now is interesting, expensive pre-tests are carried out because Doctors are fearful of litigation and do a barrage of tests because they want a paper assurance about how they reach their medical conclusions, disregarding the fact that they spent most of their adult lives studying ailments on which they can provide medical solutions at the outset.

The doctors don't care because they are not risk exposed and are leveraging the cost to the patient, which is most cases should be leveraged to the insurance company which it in most cases won't because you aren't covered because you represent a high risk group. That's free market as well.

You don't like public health care then you should be able to afford private, if you can't then Ayn Rand sees you as a failure as you shrugged off the Atlas.