>> ^quantumushroom:
Why stop with "free" health care? Doesn't everyone deserves a free home, food and automobile (plus for kicks a high-paying job that pays the same whether you're a brain surgeon or sweep floors)?
This communism sh t has been tried. Doesn't work. People want private property and individual rights, and the profit motive is what makes the system work for saint and sinner alike.
Medicare fraud already costs the US 60 billion a year and no one's doing a goddamned thing about it.
Government has no interest or incentive to keep costs down. It can't be fired in a timely manner and the bureaucrats can't ever be fired, they're not going to give a rat's ass when they're the only game in town (the Govopoly).
Maybe someone should crack a history book instead of heeding the "wisdom" of Leibowitz's jerkoff joke-writing team when it comes to mattes of literal life and death.


Your post suggests that the American system is working. I'd say give it 30, 40 years, and the problems you had to face in '09 will look like happy times, compared to allowing business as usual to complete it's vicious cycle, and topple the American regime. Your rhetoric will be reminiscent of grampa and his wild, rambling stories about the good old days, as the world collectively wheels you and your insane ideology to the nut house. or, sorry man, naturally, you're 100% fucking right all the time. what was I thinking to even speak at you in your tower of logic.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Why stop with "free" health care? Doesn't everyone deserves a free home, food and automobile (plus for kicks a high-paying job that pays the same whether you're a brain surgeon or sweep floors)?
This communism sh t has been tried. Doesn't work. People want private property and individual rights, and the profit motive is what makes the system work for saint and sinner alike.
Medicare fraud already costs the US 60 billion a year and no one's doing a goddamned thing about it.
Government has no interest or incentive to keep costs down. It can't be fired in a timely manner and the bureaucrats can't ever be fired, they're not going to give a rat's ass when they're the only game in town (the Govopoly).
Maybe someone should crack a history book instead of heeding the "wisdom" of Leibowitz's jerkoff joke-writing team when it comes to mattes of literal life and death.


Thank god. One voice of reason in the midst of this big happy socialist circle-jerk. Maybe it's just me, but I thought Locke was on to something when he declared no one is entitled to the labor and effort of another. Selfish concept? You bet. You socialists rail against selfishness. It's immoral to hoard what you earn for yourself, you say. What is it, then, when you extort the unearned from another to provide for yourself or pay for the luxury of your own pity?

You want lower health care costs while preserving rights to private property? Create a more consumer driven market by allowing insurance companies to operate inter-state. Detach coverage from employers and force insurance companies to compete for business on an individual basis. Consider switching the paradigm of physician compensation from 'fee-for-service' to 'fee-for-care' to check queer incentives to over-prescribe and chase wild geese with the patient or insurer's money. Or maybe steer away from the insurer model and encourage people to allocate funds into personal tax-exempt health savings accounts and only insure against catastrophic events. Lack of disincentive to over-use is one of the primary pitfalls of the insurance model, and the problem stands to be exacerbated ten-fold when the government starts providing all this 'free' health-care without requiring a copay.

And for god's sake crack down on frivolous malpractice litigation.

You amaze me with your complete lack of looking into ANYTHING QM.

Have bothered AT ALL to look at other countries that do healthcare a SHITELOAD better than the US? How do you not think it's fair to provide necessary healthcare to everyone in your country? Under what warped logic do you think that only those that can afford it should be able to live, while those that can't die?

How does that work?

And your intro also speaks of being simple minded also:
Doesn't everyone deserves a free home
There is such a thing as government housing, and it's used by people who have fallen on hard times until they can afford something better. The houses are never fantastic, and you wouldn't want to stay in them, but they provide shelter while you try to pick yourself up... Of course you rally against such ideas and think they'll only be populated by the lazy, and how dare they get a roof over their head when you work for all you have...

food
Um... ok, if you don't think there's a need for 'soup kitchens' and other such ways for people who have become destitute, then I would LOOOOOVE for you to end up jobless sometime and not have any family support, and then you can say there should be nowhere for those without money to be able to find shelter and food.

I'd friggen love it.

automobile No, but free/heavily subsidized public transport works wonders for actually being able to get to... oh, I dunno... jobs.

(plus for kicks a high-paying job that pays the same whether you're a brain surgeon or sweep floors)?
Now you're just being a douche. You've got no concept of how any of this works do you? You think that those at or under the poverty line just LOVE living in government housing and surviving on handouts... hell, why bother working when life is so grand hey?

You're an idiot. People don't want to remain like that, people never want to GET like that, but some people do, some through no real fault of their own (some by their own fault, but so what). The idea is, you give them a hand through those times until they can once again become a constructive member of society. And people WANT to get a good job and be able to buy their own home/car and feel like they've been productive. I don't know anyone who enjoys relying on the handouts. But I sure as fuck know people who HAVE HAD to at one time or another and are bloody glad those things were in place to catch them during the tough times.

And some of these people now work for multinational companies in technical roles and are doing very well for themselves... because they were helped during the rough patches.

It ends up costing LESS in the long run you know.

Also... it'd be friggen hilarious if you got some illness that cost an enormous amount of money to treat, and your private health care provider decided that it wasn't covered (as they like to do)... then you'll be bleating that there should be public health.

Why stop with "free" health care? Doesn't everyone deserves a free home, food and automobile (plus for kicks a high-paying job that pays the same whether you're a brain surgeon or sweep floors)?

This communism sh*t has been tried. Doesn't work. People want private property and individual rights, and the profit motive is what makes the system work for saint and sinner alike.

Medicare fraud already costs the US 60 billion a year and no one's doing a goddamned thing about it.

Government has no interest or incentive to keep costs down. It can't be fired in a timely manner and the bureaucrats can't ever be fired, they're not going to give a rat's ass when they're the only game in town (the Govopoly).

Maybe someone should crack a history book instead of heeding the "wisdom" of Leibowitz's jerkoff joke-writing team when it comes to mattes of literal life and death.

>> ^blankfist:
I take offense to him saying "what [Americans] always do is just steal the best things..." I think he's confusing corporatists with American ingenuity like, oh I don't know, the automobile...

Not to detract from American ingenuity, but the Germans invented the automobile.

What Americans did was mass-produce them and make 'em affordable. It's actually a great example of what Americans are usually ingenious about.

Oh, and you're the one confusing what Moore said with some sort of knock on America's ability to innovate. Often times businesses imitate and incorporate the successful innovations of their competitors. If anything I think Moore is giving America praise for a trait it plainly does not have when it comes to politics.

France has the #1 healthcare system in the world, according to the WHO, but what does a significant minority of Americans fear? A healthcare system like the one in France.

Learning from the successes of others is a fundamental human strategy -- we should do a bit more of it where it really matters.

Fuck this asshole. He's got an agenda and he's pushing it however he sees fit regardless of things called facts.

That's not what the head of CIGNA's PR department says.

From: http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm

Transcript:

President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen:

I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief.

I am delighted to be here, and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion.

We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.

Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation¹s own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.

No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man¹s recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power.

Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.

This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.

So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.

William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.

If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.

Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.

In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where the F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field.

Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were "made in the United States of America" and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.

The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the the 40-yard lines.

Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.

We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.

To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.

The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.

And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this State, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your City of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community. During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year; to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this Center in this City.

To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year¹s space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United Stated, for we have given this program a high national priority--even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us.

But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.

I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute. [laughter]

However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the term of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.

I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of a great national effort of the United States of America.

Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."

Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

Thank you.

As liberals like to fondly point out, 8 billion dollars "vanished" during the Iraq War.

Now how in the hell are you going to tell the American people with a straight face that socialized medicine (call it what it is!) will be efficient and save money?

Socialists want to fix automobile problems by replacing the car with a donkey!

>> ^blankfist:
"all the studies have shown..."
Which studies? Also, just because he's saying things you find agreeable doesn't mean he's right.
I take offense to him saying "what [Americans] always do is just steal the best things..." I think he's confusing corporatists with American ingenuity like, oh I don't know, the automobile, the airplane, the artificial heart, the moving image (film), lasers, video games (hello!), and the fucking Internet. Fuck this asshole. He's got an agenda and he's pushing it however he sees fit regardless of things called facts.


I think it would be more apt to say just because he's saying things you find disagreeable doesn't mean he's wrong.

The only thing he said that was debatable was that he said "steal" and "always"... and he used those words on the fly to try to convince a Canadian of his point when asked a mildly hostile question. Other than his choice of words we are a culture known for being a melting pot of cultures and ideas. Most of the American achievements you mentioned either weren't or were partly internationally developed.

Blankfist, whether you take the time to bring some good arguments or leave it. It's not like you couldn't do better then that.

"all the studies have shown..." (you'd agree I'm sure with "some" studies ?)

Which studies? Also, just because he's saying things you find agreeable doesn't mean he's right. (doesn't mean he's wrong either... meanwhile you bring absolutely no argument except for his use of hyperbole and this is not an article for Nature, it's a press conference)

I take offense to him saying "what [Americans] always do is just steal the best things..." (same thing : always doesn't mean only here)

I think he's confusing corporatists with American ingenuity like, oh I don't know, the automobile, the airplane, the artificial heart, the moving image (film), lasers, video games (hello!), and the fucking Internet. Fuck this asshole. He's got an agenda and he's pushing it however he sees fit regardless of things called facts. (YOU bring no fact to criticize him... you're doing it on the only basis of his use of hyperbole)


Hey, I've just learnt this word through a search on wikipedia and feel VERY intelligent to able to use it. And this too is an hyperbole...

"all the studies have shown..."

Which studies? Also, just because he's saying things you find agreeable doesn't mean he's right.

I take offense to him saying "what [Americans] always do is just steal the best things..." I think he's confusing corporatists with American ingenuity like, oh I don't know, the automobile, the airplane, the artificial heart, the moving image (film), lasers, video games (hello!), and the fucking Internet. Fuck this asshole. He's got an agenda and he's pushing it however he sees fit regardless of things called facts.

The video was shot from the lunar rover camera and transmitted from the lunar rover's antenna. With the time delay in sending commands to the Moon, everything had to be carefully planned in advance and the tracking had to be done blind. I have attached some quotes from a website below. (Sorry for the long post..)
-----
The only photograph of the lunar liftoff was taken from Earth and had expectedly poor resolution. "Gene tried to persuade me to stay outside and take a really good picture of liftoff, but I politely declined," Schmitt joked.

As the third outing drew to a close, Schmitt clambered up the ladder of the Apollo 17 lander. Alone on the moon's surface, Cernan steered their battery-powered automobile a mile from the spacecraft and parked the rover so a video camera could record their Dec. 14 liftoff. As he climbed from the vehicle, Cernan bent down and traced the initials of his 9-year-old daughter, Tracy, in the soil. Then he literally hopped and skipped in the moon's low gravity back to the lander.

For Apollo 16 and 17, however, flight controllers did track the ascent stage. With the punch button command arrangement and a 3 to 4 second time delay, their command sequence had to be totally preplanned. I had worked with Ed Fendell for the Apollo 17 liftoff to get it exactly right for a long tracking shot. At liftoff, the action was perfect, but soon the image of the ascending capsule drifted out at the top of the frame. Ed was furious that, after all the calculations, we missed the mark. It was discovered later that the crew had parked the Rover buggy closer to the Lunar Module than was prescribed by mission plan, and the vertical tilting of the camera was too slow.
Whenever I see a clip of that liftoff I note, as the stage nears the top of frame, a cut to a film shot of the stage ready to dock with the command module. And I still think, "Darn, we could have followed that final liftoff 'til it was but a dot of light winking out as it headed for the mother ship."

http://www.ehartwell.com/afj/Apollo_17_quotes

I just read this and it made me roll my eyes:"Go ahead. Call me "Liberal" when I am actually firmly in the masses. I know what a mess the "conservatives" have made."

Thursday, Jun 18, 2009 @02:05pm CST

According to a new study by the Brookings Institution, the economy in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex is among the nation's strongest compared to all other metropolitan areas.

The study reports DFW had the third best change in housing prices, and the fourth best change in total economic output.

In fact, the state of Texas did well overall.

Brookings placed all six of [Texas'] major metropolitan areas in the top 20 of the 100 largest U.S. metro areas.

(Copyright 2009 by Newsroom Solutions)


It's probably all the liberals in Texas keeping thier economy strong, huh?


One more thing:

...Democrats yesterday suggested a $15 automobile license fee and said they may consider a 9.9 percent per-barrel charge on oil produced in the state.

The Democrats’ stance sets the stage for a confrontation with Republican lawmakers because California law requires a two- thirds vote to approve tax increases. While Democrats control both chambers, they are six votes short of a supermajority. State Controller John Chiang has warned lawmakers since May that they had until June 15 to fill the budget gap or the state will be unable to pay all its July bills.

“The budget that we will be voting for on the floor will be a balanced approach and it will be a combination of cuts and new revenues,” Bass told reporters in her office yesterday.

The state’s projected cash shortage, absent a fix to next year’s budget, led Standard & Poor’s late yesterday to place California’s credit rating, already the lowest among U.S. states, under review for a possible cut.

Horsepower... The Veyron has very little of that . Not as much as a Corvette, that's for sure.


Incorrect, sir.

A Veyron from the factory boasts 1001 HP at the rear wheels. The motor is essentially two 4.0 liter V8's wound together through a lot of engineering genius & electronic wizardry.

A stock Corvette ZR1 puts out 638hp at the rear wheels using a supercharged 6.2 liter LS9.
The Z06 model is rated at 505bhp with a 7.0 liter LS7.
A race-prepped C6.R Corvette is the lesser motor, putting out around 500bhp with the LS7.
A Callaway C16 tweaks the LS7 in different ways to jack the output to as much as 700hp.

In general, the smaller motor is preferred by road racers for the more usable powerband. The bigger motor is preferred by drag racers for the sheer displacement, but requires additional modifications to bump the HP, usually through turbocharging or supercharging.


It it possible that you were trying to drip sarcasm on us, but I saw nothing to indicate that this is nothing more than pure misinformation.


For those that care, the rating on the McLaren F1:
6.1 liter BMW S70/2 12 cylinder race motor capable of 627bhp.

They are all beasts of automobiles, to be certain. I'd gladly drive any or all of them, given the opportunity.



And yes, I registered as a sifter just for this!

>> ^imstellar28:10 years ago cell phones barely existed so don't even try to claim they are "necessary."

50 years ago the computer...
100 years ago automobiles...
150 years age the telephone...
...
2000 years ago sanitation...
...
400000 years ago fire...


Even if we ignore the structural fallacy of your argument, I suggest you consider that this is actually something of which you should approve, because it is more economically responsible than the alternative.

I have both the cheapest land line and the cheapest cell phone service available in my area:

my cell costs $5 a month
my land line costs $10 a month

that is a 50% reduction is cost to the tax payer, that is unless you are going to follow your flawed argument at least to the telephone, at which point you might as well go all the way to sanitation, so that we know you are full of shit

After apologizing overseas for America's existence for the umpteenth time, who could expect any less of The Telepromptesident.

Obamarx limits his meddling to American private property rights, Wall Street, financial institutions, insurance companies, automobile companies, energy production, tobacco and now health care.

He and his statist cronies live for radically meddling in the operation of once-free institutions.