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Post by Hook on Oct 23, 2009 0:26:41 GMT -8
However, I am merely one backward, racist, homophobic, fascist, hatemongering, ignorant conservative meathead who has the audacity to disagree with elites like Franken and the larger majority of the gang here at MMUK. I suppose I simply care too much about seeing every last egghead in Washington selling my future, my childrens' future, my buddies here at MMUK's futures down the river for their own corrupt favors, special interests and gains. Nah, you're just someone who refuses to read. The article makes the case against a government takeover of health care and advocates for a consumer-based approach where, get this, the consumer is the patient and not an entity like Medicare (which he calls a Ponzi scheme and gives good reasons why) or an insurance company. It states plenty of facts that I haven't heard from anyone in this "debate". Did you know that if you took all of the insurance companies' profits and the pharmaceuticals and invested on health care as it is, it would only cover 11 days? And if you take all industries' (yup, all of'em) profits, that would cover it for about 5 months? His dad didn't die because of an insurance company denying him coverage. Nope, he had great coverage. He died of an infection he got in the hospital. That's what sparked his interest. Apparently, there's 100,000 deaths per year of preventable deaths caused by health services. Apparently, a checklist of hand-washing and sterilization protocols devised by this doctor totally works, but hospitals have brushed it off (brings to mind what they did to the Hungarian physican who first suggested hand-washing). Why? Because they have no incentive to do so. It's a good read, you'll find you'll agree with more than you disagree with. I promise. Example: I never thought a capitalist approach to health care was the best solution, but now I'm revising that kind of thinking. And STDs. I bet Franklin would back up free condom dispensers if he were alive today. Ol' Ben would've liked that. Pfft, no worries. That's the whole point of a discussion forum. This is a message board, not an autocratic regime. Or a home owner's association. *shudders*
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Post by Jockolantern on Oct 23, 2009 0:53:37 GMT -8
Nah, you're just someone who refuses to read. I believe you made your response to my thoughts a bit prematurely, though it doesn't help that I have the habit of editing posts like a maniac without ever mentioning the fact that I have, in fact, edited them. Head back once more to read what I said and you'll notice I make note of my agreeance with the article. I did read it. Indeed. It was an excellent read and I certainly come away agreeing with the type of thinking Mr. Goldhill proficiently expresses. Many thanks for linking us to it.
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Post by Hook on Jan 15, 2010 0:22:15 GMT -8
What's right with the world? Roger Ebert. These past few years his musings on entertainment, life, religion and whatever else on his site and, subsequently, his blog (the most incredibly managed blog in the entire internet) have shown me the type of man he is, and part of that has lead me to appreciate why I like reading his reviews before anyone else's. Or only his, for that matter. It also helps he's responsible for introducing me to all kinds of cinema. From the irresponsibly perverted (the kind of films he finds are done with malice), the most exotic, the quirkiest, to those not even he knows about and we can discover together, to, obviously, the classics. I don't like listening to his commentaries on their video releases, though. I don't know why. I tell you this to show my personal bias for being fond of him now and, in years to come, in memory. The article linked (this, in case you thought the url was a bio of Ebert: rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100114/OPINION/100119985 ) contains one magnificent piece of wisdom. ---skip this--- I'll interrupt, first. I'm sorry. In the general population, the word "crazy" has long been associated with the mentally ill and also with the minority opinion, those people who think and act different than they do (think of how one culture describes another which it does not understand, like the Spanish and the British treating their conquered land dwellers as savages). I have a different concept of crazy. I won't get too into it, but it includes some of the wealthiest in Wall Street, people who actually see a difference between the personal value of $1 billion and that of $2 billion. The kind of people who think they deserve it, that it means something, that they're different from you guys. An LA fellowship? ROFLMAO. That means nothing compared to... I don't know... obscene spending and getting mad at everything? I don't understand those people. They're crazy to me. And I'm a hypocrite, because my thinking is judging others' thinking as crazy, just as in my cultural example, but let's not go there. --skipped content is skipped--- Ebert sums it up beautifully in his article. The kind of feeling I get when I see "crazy" people (of note: to qualify for crazy, your behavior must negatively impact other people's life in some way). Here are words representing what I love from this voice-impaired, once obese and prey of alcoholism, animal lover film critic: Ebert's ending statement:"You have a sizable listening audience. You apparently know how to please them. Anybody given a $400 million contract must know what he is doing. "That's what offends me. You know exactly what you're doing." Me, againYup, the crazies have it good, their mental faculties at 100%, and yet chose to act how they do. They were lucky enough to be given a chance and have wasted it. Thanks, Roger. It's things like these that you write that keep me going back for more.
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Post by Hook on Apr 14, 2010 1:48:29 GMT -8
I donated, not much, $25 to Wikileaks. I want to explain my reasoning in this thread. First off, the thought of doing so would've never crossed my mind (though I've long been "for" what they've accomplished in the past) were it not for Stephen's interview last night: www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/260785/april-12-2010/exclusives---julian-assange-unedited-interviewOne of the awesome things about Stephen is how he's able to let his real thoughts and values come out through his pundit character and make both work, somehow. In spite of this ability, I've only seen the "real" Stephen come out this hard (as in this interview with Assange) a couple of times in the past (no more than I can count with my hands). He put the guy in a position to answer some scary real dilemmas. To my huge surprise, Assange was (seems to me) honest in his answers. He acknowledges that even though he believe in its meaning, the words "Collateral Damage" were designated as its title to milk the most out of the video, politically. He accepts barely 10% of the people will see past the title and controversy to watch the entire thing. I can see the reasoning: if it weren't for the controversy, that 10% would've been a really, really small number of people. It seems that Wikileaks follows no ideological, journalistic ethos past "we won't disclose our sources"; by which I'm not referring to politics, but the conduct of the journalist as a member of a larger group of dedicated professionals. He, almost, flat-out says they do editorialize on a case-by-case basis, and fine-tune their strategy to the political climate of the time in order to attract the most attention. He earned my respect by simply answering a couple of questions very openly. But that's not why I made this post or the (tiny) monetary contribution. In the end, I guess only a 10% of that 10% who watched the entire video will have done so and, after putting some thought into it, managing not to mix it with other biased views to the best of their doing, come to a reasonable conclusion of their own. But, J-Lo-sized but, because of the site, they (and anyone else who might bother) are able to make up their minds about issues with more information than what they had before. It's easy for a politician to justify an act of war and, when confronted by opposition, cite that "It's hell", but it's worth it, like WW2 and the boys from Band of Brothers. But stuff like The Pacific (which is very intense and brutal... brilliant, but very honest about its subject matter), while doing us a favor and giving us the faces and inner lives of the men involved in that conflict, can only be used to reexamine our attitude towards the events of almost 60 years ago and decide whether some of it was worth it or not and why some of it happened and how. But we have way too many years of experiencing the aftermath of those decisions. Today, we don't have that at our disposal to judge the merits of what's going on right now. Wikileaks might call attention to itself somewhat unfairly (it's effective), but they empower individuals to make decisions on their own. As little, human beings, we're impressionable creatures that can be easily swayed by our leadership, and thus forget how reality actually works. Getting direct perspective is really difficult and we need it so we don't mess up by giving others too much leniency in what they can or can't do to impact our world. And I'm happy to encourage anyone who can deliver cold truths so that we may ask ourselves if it's worth it, and what "it" really means. This is going to sound really, really off-topic, but I think it rings (at least, I know that's how it got me into this line of thinking these past few days) with above. Here: I would never call the "boardroom" members of the Taliban "smart", but I can't deny they know how to accomplish at least two things: enlist poor, uneducated, naive young men to fight for a "cause" in their place (that's how they get their objectives met) and to scramble a governed society just enough to let it react to their bullying in a very, poor way. I guess you've seen the news of how the U.S. Air Marshall program went from being a 30-40 men operation with an annual budget of $4.4 million dollars to 3,000-4,000 people on duty (never mind management), working with almost $800 million they get after being transferred to another department and funding source. By now, you know that it's a program rampant in corruption, where more Air Marshalls have been prosecuted for a range of crimes than the number of arrests they have made on suspects, at about $200 million per arrest. Without judging the merits of the program, tell me: do you think the Taliban is working real hard in their next Airline-related attack? Baseball coaches get pissed enough when a second player of theirs gets ballsy and decides to steal base on their own, that pitcher is not stupid, why would a terrorist organization make that same mistake? If I were them, I'd give myself enough time to observe where my target transfers all its resources, then observe the rest of the playing field for security holes. Anyway, talk about government spending (ironically, the people who bitch about excessive spending are the most likely to support the FAMS program and go "Fuck yeah!" when it's mentioned at a rally). Science mascot Neil deGrasse Tyson informed me that an asteroid passed us by a small margin just last week. How do I convince people to endorse a defense program against Scary & Fast (and probably Furious) Space Objects and give them more resources than Bruce Willis has to counter a CGI menace? Again, perspective. Direct. Yo, humanity, this is where you live: edit: sorry for the blurb here. I always make it a point to remind myself to be skeptical/cautious (not cynical, just wary) when I find what I think is a good cause to give money to. For example, I knew the scale of Haiti's catastrophe would be worse on the long run and that the immediate emergency response had adequate funds, but very limited resources (nothing to do there but pray). I found that, of all people, Ben Stiller's charity (from before the quake) was the most sensible, to me (not his idea, but his reasoning was good, I thought: in times of need, children have nowhere to go and, when they do, it's school. Donate to schools and make them strong, all-purpose shelters. That idea... that m-m-m-m-m-mah-mah-makes me happy). So went over to look for this site's finances just to be clear the money was well spent (even if it's just 25 bucks). In this case, they don't even have money. Any organization that can make real change possible without money gets my respect. And 25 bucks.
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