A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 15-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

In fact, the Catholic church, through the Jesuit order is largely responsible
for dragging the world out of the Dark Ages.

While the Jesuits have long been educated and open to new ideas, that claim
is pure hyperbole.

Who else was preserving knowledge and passing it on during the Dark Ages in
Europe? Anyone?

Nope. Just the Catholic Church.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 15-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

Ultimately, somebody has to pay the price of the water.

Yes, so what? Everybody has to pay for water, one way or another.

California's agricultural water usage is enormous.

That would be because California's agricultural production is prodigious.

If agriculture
was cut in half, there would be enough water freed up to double
the population and industry in CA without any change in consumption
patterns.

But there would be less agricultural production. And, there would be more
people and more industry, which has a much more harmful effect on the
environment than agriculture.

That would roughly double the state GDP while dropping
less than 2% of GDP in agricultural production.

I don't know where you get the idea that a 50% reduction in agriculture in
California would result in less than a 50% reduction in agricultural
production in California.


It seems there
are better ways of spreading the cost of water around.

Not really.


Mike

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 15-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

Since you live on debt, you'll be broke

Don't be silly. Who gets shafted in a bankruptcy?

Yours is a country that can't survive, so it seems, without
debt. If you default or go bankrupt, you can't borrow except
at very high costs. Your dollar will also trash, making imports,
which you thrive on, too expensive.

You didn't answer the question.



The vast majority of those imports are luxury goods, not necessities or
staples. We can get along without them just fine.

You mean like oil?

No, like luxury goods. Oil we'll get one way or another.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 15-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

Well, let's see...the "countries" in the EU are now pretty much "states"
like those in the US, aren't they?

Different languages, different cultures, different governments... I'd
say they're not. By comparison, the US states are a union with weak
state rights.

Actually, much stronger states rights than in the EU.


You do know that an alternative term for
an independent nation is "state," don't you?

Semantic triviality. Nothing to do with the US use of "state".

Untrue. Each state in the United States consists of a geographic area and a
population of people with an elected government that they control that is
part of a larger conglomeration of states united in common cause. It's no
different than the EU. The EU got the idea from us, in fact.


Where do you think the EU got
the idea? From us.

Yes of course, without the US nothing would exist. This might come
as a surprise to you, but the idea of an association of states goes
back a long, long, long time before 1776.

But was never effectively implemented anywhere until the US showed them the
way.


Total bull****, seen from my position as a person living in a country with
government provided health care.

Uh huh. Do you have heart disease? Diabetes? Cancer?

No but members of my family do and are receiving fine treatment. Timely and
quite effective. You have no idea what medical care is like in other
countries,
so why waste your time writing the drivel that you do?

Well, are you claiming bad press then? Whenever someone here talks about
socialized medicine, the examples of people waitlisted to death in Canada
and Britain are commonplace. Maybe you're just lucky.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

BCITORGB wrote:

Fortunately Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora and had 5 children.

That's where the Usenet is so useful -- we can all learn... your
response caused me to do some research and i came up with slightly
different info..

"1525 heiratete sie Martin Luther. Dem Ehepaar wurden sechs Kinder
geboren, von denen vier das Erwachsenenalter erreichten." -- 6 kids, 4
of whom survived into adulthood... who knows which source is correct,
but thanks for sending me on a learning journey.

The "5 children" factoid came from extras with the DVD movie "Luther"
starring Joseph Fiennes, Bruno Ganz, Peter Ustinov, and Claire Cox.

The first daughter (second child) Elisabeth died soon, 8 months old.
The second daughter (third child) Magdalena lasted until 13 years old.
The other four (three sons and one daughter) lived until adulthood.
One son became a lawyer, one a theologian, one a physician, and the
third daughter Margarethe married into a wealthy Prussian family.
So any number from 4 to 6 is correct, I'd say.

Weiser says:
================
Well, are you claiming bad press then? Whenever someone here talks
about
socialized medicine, the examples of people waitlisted to death in
Canada
and Britain are commonplace. Maybe you're just lucky.
==================

Probably bad press all around, eh? Whenever the media talks about the
Americam model, it's examples of the working poor, nursing nagging
ailments that under socialized medicine would have readily been cleared
up.

I've had plenty of relatives with eye, cancer, heart, diabetes, etc etc
problems. NO issues with our health system. NO waits (in one case, in
fact, helicopter from one town to the next -- immediately from the GP's
office).

frtzw906

On 16-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

The theory of evolution is that all organisms evolve continuously

YOu keep tossing around this "theory of evolution" as if it is a
single definition of a single law of science. Could you please
post a reference to such a definition and also a reference that
clearly demonstrates that such definition is the only one that
is widely accepted by the scientific community.

One of the standard techniques of the anti-science crowd is to
construct a strawman version of a supposed theory and then
attack that. They often ignore or misunderstand the real
science that is understood and practiced by scientists.
(This from a study by a York University professor - I
can dig up his name and possibly the publication of the
study if you're desperately in need of satisfaction.)

I stand by my original post.

Mike

On 16-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

I never suggested that I did.

On the contrary - you keep insisting that Americans are free because
of their constitution and that everyone else is a slave. In fact,
the constitution does not guarantee freedom. it only provides for
it as long as there are enough people to defend it. People change.
There used to be widespread support for kings and queens and people
fought to the death to defend them. Now some defend constitutions.
American is not the first example of democracy - democracy has been
known to disappear in the past.

It proves that you are slaves to those who do have guns.

We are not slaves to anyone and we have a constitution that protects
us as much as yours. The pen is mightier than the sword and always
has been.

Mike

On 16-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

Thus, my answer is correct and you are wrong.

Stop playing with words and look at the facts.

Mike

Weiser says:
============
the examples of people waitlisted to death in Canada
and Britain are commonplace.
===============

I think the misunderstandings are due to differences in how medical
priorities are established. In Canada, "your turn" is decided by a
physician. If more emergent cases arise, your less-critical procedure
is "delayed". That is, you have no "absolute" time for your procedure,
because the system cannot anticipate more important cases coming up.

As I'm given to understand from conversations with Americans, your
"place in line" is a function of both emergent need and ability to pay.


Philosophically, the Canadin people do not accept that money should be
a factor in these decisions. For us, the only criteria in making these
decisions ought to be medical -- that is, whatever medical
professionals think the priorities ought to be.

Overly simplistic, but a reasonable picture, I think.

frtzw906