>> ^Lann:

There are two female voices. Elizabeth Fraser & Lisa Gerrard.
>> ^Opus_Moderandi:
>> ^Lann:
This is featuring Dead Can Dance.

In what capacity? I didn't hear either of their voices, was it the piano?
And what's with the hockey mask? Is this a fan made video?
Too many questions?



Not that I don't believe you but, both the voices sound like Elizabeth Fraser was multi-tracked to me. Guess my ears just ain't what they used to be.

There are two female voices. Elizabeth Fraser & Lisa Gerrard.

>> ^Opus_Moderandi:

>> ^Lann:
This is featuring Dead Can Dance.

In what capacity? I didn't hear either of their voices, was it the piano?
And what's with the hockey mask? Is this a fan made video?
Too many questions?

Fraser is from the Oscars I believe, and he was crazy drunk. Good times.

>> ^MaxWilder:
1. Is that new healthcare coverage, or covering the cost of healthcare inflation under our current crapstorm of a system? "Good work this year Johnson! We're increasing your compensation! No not a raise, healthcare premiums went up, and we're going to cover half of the cost. See you next year!"
3. I don't see how this applies. "Good work this year Johnson! We're increasing your compensation! No, not a raise. You will now have the opportunity to buy a Nexus One and the H1N1 vaccine. See you next year!"
I have nothing snarky to say about number 2. Let me think on it.


1. Healthcare inflation is occurring in even the most socialist of countries, and in government funded healthcare in the US. That's what happens when we vastly increase medical knowledge, technology, and treatments. Bottom line: if scientists stopped all that pesky research, healthcare costs wouldn't be increasing faster than inflation.

The new miracle treatment, for example, that was developed in the events portrayed in the new Harrison Ford / Brendan Fraser movie, costs $300,000 every year for the rest of the patient's life.

3. The point is that, even if our employer didn't give us as large a raise as we wanted relative to 1973 compensation, the goal posts have been moved in our favor. We're all shifted toward being upper class, because we can take for granted things that the upper class couldn't dream of affording in 1973.


"I have nothing snarky to say about number 2. Let me think on it." Much appreciated

No worries. Sadly, I find it's usually the most controversial/dumbest sifts that actually make it to the Top 15 for me...

In reply to this comment by littledragon_79:
Nothing personal, but that was a terrible 1:04 for me to sit through.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I was going to go with John Malkovich >> ^thinker247:
Is that the ghost of Billy Joel floating behind Fraser's head?

It's somewhat depressing to note Bredan Fraser is middle aged...

Your video, Brendan Fraser's Drunk Clap at the Golden Globes: The Remix, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Is that the ghost of Billy Joel floating behind Fraser's head?

Holla back, girl! There's beer that needs drinkin' round this Sift.

http://videosift.com/video/Brendan-Fraser-s-Drunk-Clap-at-the-Golden-Globes-The-Remix

In reply to this comment by jan:
Yes, absolutely.

The picture as I understand it involves not only the farms but the financial profits reap from them.
There has been some conflict of interest reported as government officials have investments in these farms.

The logging of BC forests also impacts the accessibility up creeks and rivers to spawning beds.
Forest companys have guidelines, but some get broken.

Some farmed fish are fed fish pellets that have been produced from other countries fish stock. So they take fish stock from sometimes poor countries to feed fish in farms.
Last year I heard a biology student talking about feeding the farmed fish canola pellets, imagine carnivorous fish eating canola pellets.

Other issues involve the antibiotics they have to give the fish in order to help them survive in the pen. Too many fish locked in one space.
The larger than normal amounts of sea lice is do to the fish being confined. The fry swim past these farms and pick up the lice in lethal amounts.

I could go on.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
The answer is yes - of course Al Franken is just as guilty of cherry picking his numbers. I don't care what system you talk about, there is no such thing (statistically) as a ZERO when you are talking about a population in the millions. He's either making that up, or using some report that excludes medical bankruptcies. It doesn't matter what system the U.S. cooks up in Congress - there is never going to be a single day in the entire history of humankind that there will be 'zero medical bankruptcies' in the U.S. Such a claim is absolute bunk based on "cherry picking" how you define bankruptcy.
For example, Mr. Franken is probably not including Canada in his list of 'zero bankruptcies'...
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/Commerce.Web/pro
duct_files/HealthInsuranceandBankruptcyRates.pdf
He also probably isn't too eager to say that his desired system will be shutting off the tap of so-called 'free medical care' to millions on a regular basis based on economics. He also didn't seem to eager to quote the words of his own fellow democrats who say that grandma better get ready to "take the pain pill" and "we're going to let you die".
If you don't work, have no income, and have medical issues then you are 'medically bankrupt' even in Germany, France, and Switzerland. Zero - what a dingus. And some of you think this guy is smart?


[Krupo shakes head]

This is pretty dismal.

It's not cherry-picking to pick a well-defined topic and discuss it.

It's an absolute disgrace to take a topic of discussion and turn it into something completely different. Redefining the scope without informing others of your intent is akin to bringin a laser gatling gun to a fencing match.

Have you even for a moment considered that perhaps Canada has bankruptcy laws which may be easier for people to gain access to than the US, making it easier for them to wipe their slate clean after misfortune?

The topic at hand is regarding people who have to pay their hospital and doctor for treatment, can't, and go bankrupt.

If you go bankrupt in your personal life that is not a medical bankruptcy, that's just an ordinary bankruptcy.

So please stop twisting terms around, and encouraging other people's "junk science" - go Wiki "Fraser Institute" to note how it is, if anything, a clearinghouse for "junk science."

They're deliberately working on misleading people with your so-called study, and your twisting of the facts.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
The answer is yes - of course Al Franken is just as guilty of cherry picking his numbers. I don't care what system you talk about, there is no such thing (statistically) as a ZERO when you are talking about a population in the millions. He's either making that up, or using some report that excludes medical bankruptcies. It doesn't matter what system the U.S. cooks up in Congress - there is never going to be a single day in the entire history of humankind that there will be 'zero medical bankruptcies' in the U.S. Such a claim is absolute bunk based on "cherry picking" how you define bankruptcy.

All untrue, except possibly for the last sentence. Note that the Fraser Institute's study (and BTW, Fraser is a Canadian version of CATO), doesn't look at medical bankruptcy at all. It basically just looks at the per capita bankruptcy rate of Canada and the US, finds them similar, and declares Canada's program as being no help in general bankruptcy.

It doesn't define "medical bankruptcy" at all, nor does it attempt to breakdown the causes of bankruptcy in any way.

The latest study from the American Journal of Medicine on this topic, at least attempts to do all of those things.

He also probably isn't too eager to say that his desired system will be shutting off the tap of so-called 'free medical care' to millions on a regular basis based on economics. He also didn't seem to eager to quote the words of his own fellow democrats who say that grandma better get ready to "take the pain pill" and "we're going to let you die".

Liar liar, pants on fire. That's not what was said, dingus.

If you don't work, have no income, and have medical issues then you are 'medically bankrupt' even in Germany, France, and Switzerland. Zero - what a dingus. And some of you think this guy is smart?

Ahh, I see. So you make up your own standard of "medical bankruptcy" that doesn't match that of any reasonable person, and declare Franken a moron or liar.

"Medical bankruptcy" is shorthand for "bankruptcy caused by medical costs." There's a huge amount of wiggle room about how much medical cost means that it "caused" the bankruptcy, but it's pretty straightforward to say that if no one pays out of pocket for medical treatment, it won't make them go bankrupt.

If someone is sick, gets free care, and then goes bankrupt, they didn't go bankrupt from medical costs.

Unfortunately, we're not even talking about setting up some sort of universal, no out of pocket system for the US. What we're talking about mostly is mandated insurance, which should make it easier for families to budget their health care costs. Most of why they cause bankruptcy here is that no one plans to have major medical problems, nor do they plan on having their coverage rescinded by their insurance company, nor do they plan on getting laid off and losing their benefits.

The whole point of the health care reform is to attempt to address those issues.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

That's the biggest misconception that all you non-Americans need to get your facts straight about. Canadians & Europeans look down their noses and say, "Oh how awful that you evil American's don't 'cover' all your people..." Bullcrap. There is a difference between being 'covered' and being TREATED. I would venture to say that the end result of the evil American system is that far more people are TREATED than in the precious socialized countries where everyone is 'covered' but is routinely denied treatment. I'd rather have a system where 42 million people weren't 'covered', but almost everyone was being treated as opposed to a system where everyone was 'covered' but that people are not treated.


Via Wiki

One complaint about both the U.S. and Canadian health care systems is waiting times, whether for a specialist, major elective surgery, such as hip replacement, or specialized treatments, such as radiation for breast cancer. Wait times in each country are affected by various factors. In the United States, access to health care is primarily determined by whether a person has access to funding to pay for treatment and by the availability of services in the area and by willingness of the provider to deliver service at the price set by the insurer. In Canada the wait time is set according the availability of services in the area and by the relative need of the person needing treatment.

A report published by Health Canada in 2008 included statistics on self-reported wait times for diagnostic services.[47] The median wait time for diagnostic services such as MRI and CAT scans is two weeks with 89.5% waiting less than 3 months.[47][48] The median wait time to see a special physician is a little over four weeks with 86.4% waiting less then 3 months. [47][49] The median wait time for surgery is a little over four weeks with 82.2% waiting less than 3 months. [47] [50] In the U.S., patients on Medicaid, the low-income government programs, can wait three months or more to see specialists. Because Medicaid payments are low, some have claimed that some doctors do not want to see Medicaid patients. For example, in Benton Harbor, Michigan, specialists agreed to spend one afternoon every week or two at a Medicaid clinic, which meant that Medicaid patients had to make appointments not at the doctor's office, but at the clinic, where appointments had to be booked months in advance.[51]

In Canada, waiting is prioritized by patient according to relative urgency, with urgent patients receiving immediate access and the least urgent waiting longer. [52] Studies by the Commonwealth Fund found that 42% of Canadians waited 2 hours or more in the emergency room, vs. 29% in the U.S.; 57% waited 4 weeks or more to see a specialist, vs. 23% in the U.S., but Canadians had more chances of getting medical attention at nights, or on weekends and holidays than their American neighbors without the need to visit an ER (54% compared to 61%).[53] However, statistics from the free market think tank Fraser Institute in 2008 indicate that the average wait time between the time when a general practitioner refers a patient for care and the receipt of treatment was almost four and a half months in 2008, roughly double what it had been 15 years before.[54]

A 2003 survey of hospital administrators conducted in Canada, the U.S., and three other countries found dissatisfaction with both the U.S. and Canadian systems. For example, 21% of Canadian hospital administrators, but less than 1% of American administrators, said that it would take over three weeks to do a biopsy for possible breast cancer on a 50-year-old woman; 50% of Canadian administrators versus none of their American counterparts said that it would take over six months for a 65-year-old to undergo a routine hip replacement surgery. However, U.S. administrators were the most negative about their country's health care system. Hospital executives in all five countries expressed concerns about staffing shortages and emergency department waiting times and quality.[55][56]

In a letter to the Wall Street Journal, the President and CEO of University Health Network, Toronto, said that Michael Moore's film Sicko "exaggerated the performance of the Canadian health system — there is no doubt that too many patients still stay in our emergency departments waiting for admission to scarce hospital beds." However, "Canadians spend about 55% of what Americans spend on health care and have longer life expectancy, and lower infant mortality rates. Many Americans have access to quality health care. All Canadians have access to similar care at a considerably lower cost." There is "no question" that the lower cost has come at the cost of "restriction of supply with sub-optimal access to services," said Bell. A new approach is targeting waiting times, which are reported on public websites

Tags for this video have been changed from 'emotional, no shame, beautiful, manly man, bedazzled' to 'emotional, no shame, beautiful, bedazzled, Brendan Fraser, Elizabeth Hurley' - edited by deedub81