yeah, I thought it might be too but a thorough search turned up nadda! oh vell.

edit: lol, apparently not to thorough though, you were right. a dupe indeed.

In reply to this comment by ant:
Hmm, seems old to me since I have seen it. Maybe a dupe. who knows.

In reply to this comment by EndAll:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Ants-adapt-to-floods-create-river-raft-for-Queen

'Nother one for that playlist of yours - which I've been browsing; fascinating stuff!

Hmm, seems old to me since I have seen it. Maybe a dupe. who knows.

In reply to this comment by EndAll:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Ants-adapt-to-floods-create-river-raft-for-Queen

'Nother one for that playlist of yours - which I've been browsing; fascinating stuff!

http://www.videosift.com/video/Ants-adapt-to-floods-create-river-raft-for-Queen

'Nother one for that playlist of yours - which I've been browsing; fascinating stuff!

This list is bollox, the aliens didn't even make the cut?! Plus I felt a lot of those were just normal Indiana Jones stuff. I admit the raft out of the plane bugs me too, and the fridge seems a bit far fetched, even for Indy, but that's about it.

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.

-----------------------
-----------------------

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.'

-----------------------

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.

>> ^quantumushroom:
You amaze me with your complete lack of looking into ANYTHING QM.
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?)



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?


Life isn't fair and no amount of government force will make it fair. I wonder if you lefties even know what's going on in America. Socialized medicine practically exists NOW. WTF is Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? S-Chip? You'd have to work pretty hard to not get the care you need, especialy if 20 million Mexican illegals are getting it.

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. 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.


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...
I don't object to safety nets, but you know and I know that's not what we're talking about here. Also, with the Christianity bashing that goes on here at liberalsift, I wonder where the morality of the left exists on its own merit? Was every atheist born knowing 'the right thing to do'?

Wah? Huh? I don't get the point of this comment at all. If you're going down that religious path of 'well, I have this book that tells me my morals, and what is right and wrong... you must have no morals and not know what's right and wrong because you don't have a book', then sorry, but that's an insanely stupid tree to be barking up. If you truly believe that you would do 'bad things' if you didn't have the fear of god punishing you for breaking his commandments for doing so then you are a 'bad person'. Most of us don't do 'bad things' because we don't want to hurt other people or make life worse off for others, not due to some selfish fear for ourselves.


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.
Well that's just fucking wonderful. With all the shit you've been through, you'd rather just wish harm on others that disagree with you, eh?

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.


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. 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.


automobile No, but free/heavily subsidized public transport works wonders for actually being able to get to... oh, I dunno... jobs.
I'm not against local public transportation. In some places it works, in others it's been an expensive disaster. And it's not my point. But if you think people with no car have a right to a "free" bus, so be it.
No, people who have no access to their own transport through not being able to afford it, despite their best efforts, should be able to use public transport to get around. If you deny people the ability to get around, how are they ever going to get to the jobs to make the money to be able to pay for these things themselves?



(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.
Yeah, that's why we're several trillion dollars in debt. I have another theory about those success stories: those people might have made it whether there was government aid available or not.

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.

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". Which is a load of crap. SOME people pick themselves up completely independently and become successful with no external help, but ALMOST ALL have support from many places. A particular case I'm thinking of (a friend), spent years being horrendously insecure in themselves and doing f-all for his career and being effectively 'a drain' on society as you would say. But now he earns a good wage and is giving back to society through his taxes, so therefore paying back for his time. He needed that time being supported to get out of that rut. If there was no support... well, I don't know what would have happened to him, but it wouldn't have been nice.


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.
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.
If you take nothing else away from this: I don't pretend to have all the answers, while Big Government tyrants do. I oppose socialism in general and in particular this health scam the Obamunists are trying to pass as quickly as possible before the people realize what they thought were brownies are really dog turds.
A government big enough to pay for your kid's "free" health care is also big enough to say, "You're over the limit for treatment costs. Back of the line."


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.

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), then they have public outcry from the country to contend with because it's health care that WE are all paying for. If a private company denies treatment then you'd just say 'Well... it's a free market, go with another provider'.

I really think that you've been taught to believe these right wing mantras but, like most right wingers, you haven't thought through the consequences of those actions AT ALL... You run on an endless loop of 'hard work will get you what you need', whereas we run on one that says 'a fair go for everyone'. Your loop ignores how people get started in the first place, how people need help to get up from being poor and uneducated and pull themselves up to be really productive members of your country. You think that anyone who can't afford to go to university or get healthcare or have a car only lacks those things purely through their own laziness. We think that maybe you help people to have the opportunity to become educated and not be sick, and maybe that gives them a better chance to spend time learning a trade and becoming skilled and earning a great wage and getting their family moving on and up rather than staying poor and a drain on society for ever.

I chose selections from an article about male porn habit that addresses the subject for your reading pleasure. I have a few problems with the article. It seems to assume that only lonely and hurting people use porn, and that isn't true. Still, it makes some good points:

"How addictive is pornography?

‘I'm frightened of real sex, which is unscripted and unpredictable so I engage in pornography, which is totally under my control. But it brings intense disappointment because it is not what I'm really searching for. It's rather like a hungry person standing outside the window of a restaurant, thinking that they're going to get fed.’ That’s how one man described his porn addiction to Edward Marriott...

...Like many men, I first saw pornography during puberty. At boarding school...long before my first sexual relationship, porn was my sex education....Being away from home, my friends and I longed for love, closeness, acceptance. The women over whom we masturbated - surrogate mothers, if you like - seemed to be offering this but, of course, were never going to provide it. The untruths it taught me on top of this disappointment - that women are always available, that sex is about what a man can do to a woman - I am only now succeeding in unlearning.

...'Just like drugs, pornography provides a quick fix, a masturbatory universe people can get stuck in. This can result in their not being able to involve anyone else.’

...Men, as much as women, hunger for intimacy. For many males, locked into a life in which self-esteem has grown intrinsically entwined with performance, sex assumes a freight of demands and needs...

...It is into this troubled scenario that porn finds easy access. For in pornography, unlike in real life, there is no criticism, real or imagined, of male performance...

...Women in porn are always, in the words of the average internet site, ‘hot and ready’, eager to please...

...Men, say psychologists, also feel threatened by the ‘emotional power’ they perceive women wielding over them...they are at the same time painfully aware that their only salvation from isolation comes in being sexually acceptable to women. This sense of neediness can provoke intense anger that, all too often, finds expression in porn...

...The porn industry, of course, dismisses such talk, yet occasionally comes a glimmer of authenticity. Bill Margold, left, one of the industry's longest-serving film performers, was interviewed in 1991 by psychoanalyst Robert Stoller for his book Porn: Myths For The Twentieth Century. Margold admitted: ‘My whole reason for being in this industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don't care much for women and want to see the men in my industry getting even with the women they couldn't have when they were growing up. So we come on a woman's face or brutalise her sexually: we're getting even for lost dreams.'...

...As well as ‘eroticising male supremacy’, in the words of anti-porn campaigner John Stoltenberg, pornography also attempts to assuage other male fears, in particular that of erection failure. Pornography answers men's fetishistic need for visual proof of phallic potency...

...Pornography, in other words, is a lie. It peddles falsehoods about men, women and relationships. It seduces vulnerable, lonely men with the promise of intimacy, and delivers only a transitory fix. Increasingly, though, men are starting to be open about the effect of pornography. David McLeod, a marketing executive, explains the cycle: ‘I'm drawn to porn when I'm lonely, particularly when I'm single and sexually frustrated. But I can easily get disgusted with myself. After watching a video two or three times, I'll throw it away and vow never to watch another again. But my resolve never lasts very long.’

Like many men, McLeod is torn. Quick to claim that porn has ‘no harmful effects’, he is also happy to acknowledge the contradictory fact that it is ‘deadening’.

Extended exposure to pornography can have a whole raft of effects.
By the time Nick Samuels had reached his mid-20s, it was altering his view of what he wanted from a sexual relationship. ‘I used to watch porn with one of my girlfriends, and I started to want to try things I'd seen in the films.’ Married for 15 years, he admits he has carried the same sexual expectations into the marital bedroom. ‘There's been real friction over this: my wife simply isn't that kind of person. And it's only now, after all these years, that I'm beginning to move on from it. Porn is like alcoholism: it clings to you like a leech.’

...Even when in a loving sexual relationship, men who have used porn say that, all too often, they see their partner through a kind of ‘pornographic filter’. This effect is summed up by US sociologist Harry Brod, in LynneSegal's essay Sweet Sorrows, Painful Pleasures: ‘There have been too many times when I have guiltily resorted to impersonal fantasy because the genuine love I felt for a woman wasn't enough to convert feelings into performance. And in those sorry, secret moments, I have resented deeply my lifelong indoctrination into (pornography).’...

...Running through all pornography use, according to David Morgan, is the desire for control...

...The user of pornography is also psychologically on the run.
Welldon says: ‘people who use pornography feel dead inside, and they are trying to avoid being aware of that pain. There is a sense of liberation, which is temporary: that's why pornography is so repetitive - you have to go back again and again.’...

...For John-Paul Day, an Edinburgh architect, the experience of being a small boy with a dying mother drove him to seek solace in masturbation. He says he has been ‘addicted’ to pornography his entire adult life. He has attended meetings of Sex Addicts Anonymous for 12 years...

...Like drugs and drink, pornography - as Day has realised - is an addictive substance. Porn actor Kelly Cooke says this applies on either side of the camera: ‘It got to the point where I considered having sex the way most people consider getting a hamburger. But when you try to give it up, you realise how addictive it is, both for consumers and performers. It's a class A drug, and it's hell coming off it.’

The cycle of addiction leads one way: towards ever harder material...

Morgan believes ‘all pornography ends up with S&M’.
The myth about porn, as a witness told the 1983 Minneapolis city council public hearings on it, is that ‘it frees the libido and gives men an outlet for sexual expression. This is truly a myth. I have found pornography not only does not liberate men, but on the contrary is a source of bondage. Men masturbate to pornography only to become addicted to the fantasy.'..."

Read the whole article here: http://www.malehealth.co.uk/userpage1.cfm?item_id=2302

Other articles on the sibject of porn "addiction":

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/11/65772

http://men.webmd.com/guide/is-pornography-addictive

In reply to this comment by choggie:
catchy hook......again, atheist fucktards, how much work for good can be done, by being the obnoxious schoolyard bully??? Yer all fucktards, preachy is the disease you all share.....atheist's most outspoken and memorable examples, I wouldn't be caught dead inna life raft 3 clicks form shore with.....oh and, Madeline Murray O'Hare???...she's in heaven

Read below Ignoramus!

Raft = more fun

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
^I don't want to see you calling the fire department when your home catches fire, Señor rugged individualist.


Can you not read or something? I want government funding to the extent that they're preventing the infringement of rights and offering recourse, not "directing industry" with forcibly appropriated money or providing services any more complex than laying pavement. Any fire could be arson, you need a fire department to protect private property. Full-blown state health care addressing self-inflicted conditions with other people's money is garbage.

Ever hear about the guy in Sweden with the brain tumor? The state didn't like his chances and declared it inoperable to save money. He flew to private facility and paid for the operation, and lived for many more years. How kind and wonderful socialist health care is.

Learn what Socialism is.. do you really want to Live in CUBA or Russia? for the next 4 years.

Surely not, but it's worth nothing that economic and political freedom are two completely different things and they don't even have elections in Cuba. And yes, economically, Cuba is even more socialist than we are. Just this year they ALLOWED their citizens to buy computers. People don't risk their lives fleeing to America on rafts and banana boats for nothing, they're trying to escape living life as just another lowest common denominator. They want the opportunity to live, not merely survive in a so-called socialist utopia. Unfortunately, they don't realize the hyperinflationary depression brought on by our socialist interventions they're now stepping into. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they might say.

downvote banshee for ignoring what i wrote and telling me the definition of a word.

Are you on drugs or something?!! I totally answered your question. If you aren't socialist, you're capitalist. The terms are a reference to where the majority of the capital is controlled, politicians or its earner. There is no other place for it to be. Just like if you're not feeling good, you're feeling bad. Not anti-good.

YES, THAT MEANS GEORGE BUSH AND NEO-CONS ARE SOCIALISTS, EVEN MORESO THAN CLINTON WHO ENJOYED POPULARITY UNDER THE FED-INDUCED TECH BUBBLE OF THE 90S. Instead of having that bubble burst on Bush's first term and making him a one-term president, he delayed a severe recession by having Greenspan artificially lower interest rates to 1% for an entire year. The inflationary effects of that filtered into real estate. Amazing revelation, here for you?

then you only have one problem left, and for me it's a big one: The Arts. I cannot figure out a way that art can be compatible with capitalism. It doesn't work like that.

It's the complete opposite, art is hurt by socialism. What funds advanced types of art and entertainment like video games and movies is the personal tastes of a private earner who has in his possession excess capital after buying things to merely survive. Socialism could try to provide for that, but tastes vary far too much for a central office to know the millions of places that the capital would have flowed to if it had been spent by its earner. Or even how much is appropriate to distribute to each person. Invariably, there will be people who don't care much about art and just want a bigger family. Do you then take from one person's art fund to finance the cost of those kids? That will gut the art fund very quickly. As will the corruption inherent in having capital controlled by someone who didn't earn it. And when your government is involved in banning computers and censoring speech, good luck with damn near anything.

I immediately included MGR... we need experience security to keep the rift raft out.

Bartlett has a poor understanding of population dynamics, S-curves, carrying capacity, and a raft of other important models. His power laws are simply bad science.

That said, he's certainly right that people don't understand how population growth and economic growth multiply to create today's overwhelmingly large human footprint.

Anyone thought about buying a spot on a raft to Cuba yet?

no way man, the dog learned that trick on his own, the first time he realized he could float on the raft-he probably did not begin that feat, with so much confidence-The larger brain, set it up for the dog to be able to do it.....

Very sad story

Reminds me of this:
One day there was this preacher and he was having his usual sermon when all of a sudden it started raining, really, really, hard!!!! After about 1 full hour of complete non-stop rain, they started making evacuations because the whole church was flooding, but the preacher just stood there in the ankle-deep water. A guy in a car came up to him and said. "Preacher, Preacher you better get in here before you drown!" But the preacher just replied "Don't worry God will save me." The man then said "Whatever!" and drove away. The water was now knee-deep and a guy in a raft came over to the Preacher and said "Preacher, Preacher you better get in here before you drown!" Despite the second warning the Preacher just stood there and replied "Don't worry God will save me." The man then said "Whatever!!" and rowed away in the orange raft.

The water was now waist-deep and a guy in a power boat came to the Preacher and said "Preacher, Preacher you better get in here before you drown!" Despite the third warning the Preacher just stood there and replied "Don't worry God will save me." With that the man said "Whatever!" and jetted away in the power boat. The water was now neck-deep and a guy in a helicopter came and said "Preacher, Preacher you better get your butt in here before you drown!" The man still just stood there and replied "Don't worry God will save me." And with that the man said "Whatever" and flew away. The water then got so deep that the Preacher was sucked under and died. When he opened his eyes he noticed that he was in heaven. He then saw God and asked "God! Why didn't you save me from that horrible flood?!?" God then replied, " I sent you a car, a raft, a power boat, and a helicopter!!! What else do you want from me?!"