A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

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.

It works fine until the system becomes overloaded with non-critical cases.
When that happens, people get prioritized and waitlisted, and not
infrequently die while waiting for the list to move along because the system
is bogged down with "emergencies," both legitimate and non-emergent cases
that are given a false high priority through political influence or other
forms of corruption.

One of the problems with socialized medicine is that because it is centrally
organized, you can't bypass the wait list for your assigned doctor/hospital
by going somewhere else where there are fewer people on the list, because
this is seen as "jumping the queue."

In the US, if your doctor is too busy to see you, you can go find one that
isn't so busy, anywhere in the US...or indeed in the world.
--
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 16-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

Nor do scientific principles DENY the existence of God.

Which is where the discussion ends for many scientists and such
institutions as the Catholic Church. Scientific principles can
neither prove nor disprove the existance of God. Fundies can't
deal with this concept. The Vatican (aided by the Jesuits you
seem to respect) stated this in the mid-nineteenth century after
a review of the "Galileo Affair".

That's not necessarily true. Science probably can either prove or disprove
the existence of God, if and when our scientific understanding advances to
the point that we can identify the concept. Of course, one of the root
difficulties is defining "God" and what that means. Does it mean a white guy
in a robe with a long beard, or does it mean some intelligence so superior
to our own that it appears to be omnipotent and/or omnicient? Or does it
mean something else.


There is a large
body of scholars who believe that the physical properties of the universe,
combined with statistical probability, provide substantial evidence of
intelligent design of the Universe.

It does not provide evidence of intelligent design.

Are you sure?

It certainly does not
prove the existence of God.

Nor does it disprove it. Evidence, however, is a rather more abstract
concept than proof.


A Bayesian would look at the probabilistic "evidence" and suggest that
since the highly improbable has happened, their estimates are likely
wrong.

That would be tautology. Only if one pre-accepts the premise that the
occurrence of a highly improbable event is a matter of random chance would
this logic apply. On the other hand, if one posits the hypothesis that
because an event that has occurred is highly improbable, it is reasonable to
suspect some factor other than random chance is involved. Recognizing that
improbability is a significant issue when examining events is sound
scientific thinking. Bowing to the diety of "Random Chance" combined with
the companion hypothesis of "Infinite Variation" is no more scientific than
a simple belief in God.

Just because a bunch of fundies pull some numbers out of their
asses and make claims, doesn't prove anything.

True, but not really relevant, since it was the scientific asses the numbers
were pulled from. The "fundies" are merely suggesting, Occam's Razor-wise,
that when an event is highly statistically improbable, it's perhaps more
reasonable to conclude that there is some meddling with random chance going
on that skews the system towards the occurrence of the statistically highly
improbable event. You might call it a risk of "observer bias."
Schroedinger's cat might be more than a cloud of probabilities if God's
unseen thumb is on the scale.


There is a large body of scientists and enthusiasts that support the
concept of a hydrogen economy, but a larger body that can show it
is mostly smoke and mirrors.

Not really. The only real impediments to a hydrogen economy are
infrastructure and investment...and consumer acceptance of the
inconveniences associated with using a less energy dense fuel than oil. But
the concept is hardy smoke and mirrors, and indeed technology is moving on
apace to make it a realistic, economic reality...which is a good thing.


Hm. So, now any field of study that is "fringe" is not acceptable? What ever
happened to academic freedom of inqiry?

There is also a significant proportion of the US population that thinks
Elvis is still alive.

Really? Do you have any evidence of this, or are you making assumptions
again?

--
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 16-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

Um, the primary reason for stockpiles is to provide food in the event of
crop failures and shortages

BUt if you check the history of US agriculture, the primary reason was
_not_ to provide food - it was to prop up prices. Stop playing with
words and check the facts.

It's both. And neither is an improper exercise of government power.

Living up there, you don't have access to stockpiles of government cheese,
for example, that are distributed to feed the poor.
--
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 16-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

The fact that Canada accepts more refugees than the US (but then, most
countries are more open to help others than the US) has nothing to
do with terrorism.

Unfortunately, you are mistaken.

Proof? Refugees come from around the world. Terrorists tend to
be well funded and arrive carrying briefcases.

No, they come looking like refugees, and acting like refugees, so that they
can move about freely and without scrutiny.


One can get to Toronto without any scrutiny,

You've never arrived in Toronto from anywhere, right? There
is such a thing as customs and immigration. Canada's border
is _not_ open.

It's more open that it ought to be.


and then it's a short car trip across the border to the US

Which only proves that the US can't control its borders.

Well, "will not" is more accurate. We can, we just choose not to. You
wouldn't like it at all if we chose to. Neither would Mexico. That, however,
is precisely what I (along with many others) are suggesting we need to do.
You won't like it if we do.

Don't blame anyone for your problems.

I'm not blaming anyone, I'm merely suggesting that if Canada doesn't do its
part to prevent infiltration by terrorists, the US may have no choice but to
close the border, which will wreck your economy.

The 9/11 terrorists
arrived in the US thru US ports of entry, not thru Canada.

And yet other terrorists arrive through Canada. Case in point: the terrorist
with a vehicle full of explosives caught entering the US from Vancouver at
Port Angeles just prior to the Millennium celebration who planned to blow up
the Space Needle in Seattle. He was caught by an alert Border Patrol agent.
Others have certainly slipped in from Canada as well.

--
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 16-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

Nah, we'll just drill more wells here. Canada will suffer far more than the
US from a border closing.

If you could increase domestic oil production in the US by 10% of your
total consumption, it would already have been done. That would be in
excess of 25% of current US production. That is an enormous amount
of oil and the value to the domestic oil industry would be tremendous.

Yup, but you fail to recognize that the regulatory climate in the US
constrains domestic production. Just look at ANWR. We've been wrangling over
that for years...all because drillers want to impact about 2000 acres of the
several MILLION acres in the ANWR.


There is also no way you could replace the electricity you import
without a lot of time and enormous expenditures.

Given the stimulus to provide our own electricity, we can do so. The
question is not what it costs us, but what it costs Canadians.


Nothing we can't do without.

Raw materials and manufactured parts for US industry? For a
start, closing the border would shut down GM, Ford and D/C's
car plants. When the border was backed up after 9/11, Michigan
Congressmen were the first to complain.

Temporary impediments only.


I know you'd like to think Canada is essential to the success of the US, but
it's not.

The problem is that you are completely ignorant of the interconnectedness
of the US with the rest of the world in general and Canada in particular.

Not at all. In fact, my arguments depend on it. But I posit that other
countries need us far more than we need them.

If the US could survive on its own, it would. It can't - it has become
much too dependent on imports.

You'd be amazed what we can do without at need.

The US has been spearheading free trade
pacts for decades.

Sadly true, because we've begun to see how some of those pacts are not
helpful to our economy, but are harmful to it. So, it's time to amend the
pacts so that our economy suffers no harm.

Get your head out of your ass and look at the real
world.

Hey, you need us more than we need you, so the rest of the world can kiss my
ass, you and Canada included.

--
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 16-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

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.

Your head's been in your ass too long - you can no longer read. A 50%
reduction in agriculture in California will result in a 2% reduction
in California's GDP. You do know what GDP means, don't you?

Of course. I was merely twitting you for your lack of clarity of writing.

The pertinent question is, however, what a 50% reduction in agriculture in
California means to the nation as a whole, and to our needs for foodstuffs.

And then there's the issue of what happens to the ag lands once the
production is stopped.

--
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 16-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

Actually, much stronger states rights than in the EU.

You really don't have a clue, do you? Individual states
in the US have virtually _no_ power compared to the EU
countries. They have less power than Canadian provinces.

The US is a union of weak states. Canada is a confederation
of relatively strong provinces. Europe is a loose union
of independent countries. Completely opposite to what you
claim. The advocates of strong state rights in the US _lost_
the civil war. Just check your history books. It would
also do you some good to learn about political systems in
the world, since you don't have any idea what you're talking
about.

You have it exactly backwards. All powers not *specifically* reserved to the
federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the states, or to the
people.


It's no
different than the EU. The EU got the idea from us, in fact.

Jingoistic day-dreaming. Try some reality someday.

It is reality. Two thousand years of European nationalism and conflict prove
my thesis.


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.

I don't know where you get what you think are facts, but they don't jive
with reality. Luck is not involved.

Sure it is. Too many sick people, too few underpaid doctors. The math is
inevitable.

--
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 Wilko wrote:



Lynn Tegrity wrote:

If the US was more like the rest of the world then we would not be
powerful and so influential in the world.

If the U.S. was more like the rest of the world, we wouldn't have had so
many wars involving the U.S. and so many dirty wars started because of
the U.S. influence.

Right. You would have had one war, and you would now be speaking German and
Seig Heiling Der Furher.

Or, alternatively, you would have had two wars, and you would now be
speaking Russian...if you were still alive and not buried in a mass grave
somewhere in the Urals.

Thumbing your nose at the US and its military power and policies is easy for
you, and you have US military power and policies to thank for your ability
to thumb your nose at all, ingrate.


If all the other countries in
the world was more like the US then we would not be the most powerful
and influential country in the world because they would be the US's equal.

There used to be the Soviets, who had the military advantage up untill
the late seventies,

Which the US single-handedly defeated thanks to Ronald Regan.

and right now China and the EU are catching up with
the U.S. economically with big steps.

And we're making sure that they are directly tied to our interests by making
them dependent on the teat of US consumerism.


If the U.S. hadn't alienated so many of the other countries, maybe more
countries would want to be allied with it in its illegal and unjust wars.

We have never engaged in an illegal or unjust war. But, if France and
Germany (or anyone else for that matter) doesn't want to help in Iraq,
that's fine, we'll do it alone...and then we'll enjoy the fruits of victory
alone too. Not a drop of Iraqi oil or dollar in reconstruction contracts for
the EU...excepting perhaps Britain. Everybody else can pound sand.


The citizens of the United States should always vote what is best for
our country, not what is best for other countries.

The citizens of most countries vote for what is good for them, however,
there is not necessarily a discrepancy between voting what is good for
you and what can also be good for most other people. The joke is that
the citizens of the U.S. have a tendncy to vote for what seems to be
good for them right now, conveniently forgetting the long term
detrimental effects,

On whom?

or pushing their long term negative effects down
the throats of future generations.

Well, that's the thing about future generations, they don't have any rights,
so their interests are subordinate to the present needs of the people who
are actually alive.

Very egoistical thinking that will
burden your children, grandchildren and maybe even more with the
irresponsible financial and environmental behaviour of the current
generation.

That's what you get when you come late to the table.


Talking about behaving anti-socially...

Well, anti-socialistically anyway.


The world should not dictate to the US what type of government we have.

The world won't, the rest of the world will just start to recognise it
for the selfish double standard lying warmongers that the U.S.
administration really is.

Fine by me. They should particularly remember the "warmongers" part, and
they should fear us and do what they can to avoid raising our ire.



The Kyoto treaty is an example of the world trying to stop our
technological growth and our strong economy.

What strong economy?

It's a watered down version of what could be done to do the very least
to limit the wholesale destruction and pollution of our environment.

This is such claptrap. There is no "wholesale destruction and pollution" of
the US environment. The water and air are cleaner than they've been in a
hundred years, there are more trees now than existed prior to the arrival of
Eurpoeans on the continent, animals and habitat are better protected here
than nearly anywhere else on the planet. The list goes on and on. Your claim
is nonsense.

Since the average U.S. citizen uses up five times as much energy per
person as the rest of the western world

Which we use to produce ten times more productive economic output of the
rest of the world.

and causes a similarly
staggering amount of pollution that isn't just limited to the U.S.,

Hogwash and balderdash.

who
are you to tell others that you can keep going on this egoistical course
without doing anything to limit the impact for everyone else?

We're the most powerful, influential nation on the planet, that's who we
are. We like it that way. After the rest of the world limits their CO2
emissions to zero, then we'll see if the Kyoto Protocols have any real
impact on the false specter of "global warming." If the link is actually
proven, and it's shown that worldwide CO2 reductions have a beneficial
impact on the environment, then you can come to us and demand that we do the
same. Until then, the Kyoto Protocols are more about disadvantaging the US
economy as "retribution" for our success by sour-grapes nations who would do
anything to damage our economy, even if they don't have to do anything to
reduce their own impacts. Kyoto was just like the UN...a bunch of malcontent
petite lords trying to drag down the King just because he's the King.

Sorry, not going to play that game. Get your **** together, prove that it's
necessary by achieving real benefits first, then you can come to us and ask
us to participate.


Do you also drive your car through your neighbour's lawn,

That would be trespassing....just like all the illegals are doing to us.

throwing your
spent BBQ ashes over his fence

Hey, we asked and he said we could do it if we paid him five bucks, so we
did.

after sending the smoke over into his
garden

Sucks to be downwind, doesn't it?

where the clean launndry was drying

Put your laundry in a clothes dryer instead.

and their children were
playing, ignoring their outcry,

Smack the whiney kids and tell them to enjoy the fragrance of barbecuing
meat while recognizing that the neighbors have every right to barbecue.

because you simply don't care what they
think or say?

Ah, quit your bitching.


One day you will need that neighbour, who has been stupid enough to keep
the company that you work at afloat with his investment money for so
long and they will not help you because you didn't treat them with
respect for so long.

Or not.

The U.S. debt is skyrocketing, the trade balance is
losing roughly a billion and a half dollars a day and the only way
that you will keep afloat is with the help of those insane enough to
think that by investing even more money into that bottomless pit that
your economy has become, it will return their previous investments.

Which it will. It always has. Every time some doom-and-gloom naysayer has
predicted the economic collapse of the US, we've proven them wrong. We'll do
so again.


I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. economy crash will happen within my
lifetime.

It won't. But even if it does, we'll recover and once again take our
rightful place as the preeminent power in the world. That's just the kind of
people we are.

--
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 Galen Hekhuis wrote:

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 15:43:47 -0700, Scott Weiser
wrote:

A Usenet persona calling itself Galen Hekhuis wrote:

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 15:22:54 -0700, Scott Weiser
wrote:

Again, you make the erroneous presumption that the theory of evolution is
"the truth."

If it is, care to explain why sharks are still sharks 400 million years
later? It only took 2 million years or so for man to evolve from monkey,
according to evolutionary theory, so why haven't sharks changed appreciably
in 400 million years. If evolution is "the truth," then the world should be
being run by incredibly intelligent sharks, who ought to have evolved far
beyond what they are today. They haven't.

Interesting conundrum, isn't it?

Not really. Sharks may well be more intelligent than man. They may have
such great intelligence that they thought about running the world, rejected
the idea, and then stayed in the sea, masking their far superior
intelligence from creatures like man. It's kind of easy to score highly on
"intelligence tests" that you make up the questions for, grade, referee,
etc.

Feel free to try to prove this asinine assertion. Get back to us when you've
been peer-reviewed.

It was just a suggestion, Scott, you needn't take it so hard. Relax.
Don't drink so much coffee. The point is that it is easier to claim that
"We're #1" when it is we who decide on the criteria for being #1. Who's to
say that the most highly evolved creature is not some bacteria numbering in
the trillions and trillions and able to adapt to survival almost anywhere.
Man, with all his intelligence, hasn't even managed to number 10 billion,
let alone a single trillion.

Galen Hekhuis NpD, JFR, GWA
Illiterate? Write for FREE help


Indeed. But that still doesn't prove evolution.

--
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 Rick wrote:

Michael Daly wrote:

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.


That original statement is completely false. Darwin stated that
organisms evolve to fit the environment in which they live, or they face
extinction. The oceans, for example, are an extremely stable
environment. Sharks will evolve, or go extinct, when the oceans change
in some appreciable way that threatens shark survival. Those offspring
that survive will produce offspring that are more likely to survive in
those new conditions. Most who do not understand evolution make those
broad statements which prove their lack of knowledge.

So, why then do humans, or indeed land-dwelling vertebrates exist? If the
ocean is such a stable environment, why did *any* species leave it to
(theoretically) evolve into land-dwelling creatures? How can you explain the
400 million year non-evolution of sharks while simultaneously subscribing to
the view that all live evolved from the ocean? It's dichotomous and
illogical. Or at least unexplained.

What forced other species from the oceans that did not also force sharks
from it?

Or, is it perhaps that sharks are "intended" to be ocean predators and some
"intelligent design" is at work causing huge and sudden jumps in evolution
that drive species from one comfortable niche to the uncomfortable niche of
"adapt or die?"

If the ocean is a stable place for sharks, Occam's Razor tells us that it
must have been stable for other ocean-dwelling species as well. What then is
the impetus for some species to leave it? Your assertion suggests a
steady-state system were nothing evolves unless there is some biological or
environmental pressure that forces evolution.

But you cannot support this theory without accounting for sharks and why
they are immune from the pressures that drove other species to evolve.

On the other hand, if "evolution" is in reality a series of distinct, sudden
changes in form and function, triggered by some as-yet-unknown mechanism,
rather than a gradual adaptation to environmental pressures, we come to the
question of why those sudden shifts occur. Is it random chance caused by
gamma-ray damage to DNA, or could there be some greater intelligence at
work, one that we cannot detect or quantify?
--
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