Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread [2]

[Eldorion]

Yes, we're also flouridating water to corrupt your precious bodily fluids. Although that would explain a lot for you, Orwell!

[Pettytyrant101]

This is why I only drink buckie.

[Orwell]

Yes, we're also flouridating water to corrupt your precious bodily fluids. Although that would explain a lot for you, Orwell!

How insulting. Not worth reacting to either, but I'm spamming just now and so decided to lower myself and react, Eldo.

[Eldorion]

It's okay, I understand it must be frustrating for you to have your fluids corrupted ... and all that entails.

[Pettytyrant101]

Map showing countries with/without or on the way to getting healthcare. Presumably a Republican world map of Communists looks just the same!

[Eldorion]

I'm trying to think of some sarcastic comment or joke about the state of the U.S.' health care system or the political debate on the matter but I just can't see the humor in it right now.

[Pettytyrant101]

I find it bizarre the US uses its war funds to provide Health Care Coverage in Iraq and in Afghanistan but not to their own citizens!

[Eldorion]

A lot of people in the U.S. are legitimately convinced that government-sponsored health care is bad because it will drive up costs/taxes, or lead to "death panels", or other such conspiracy nonsense. They probably rationalize it by saying that Iraq and Afghanistan should be grateful even to have puny government health care until they're big and strong enough to switch to a privatized system.

Yes, I know that notion is divorced from reality, but one gets used to that in the debate over health care in the U.S. Other commonly accepted myths are that most people in Canada and Europe don't like having universal health care, that bureaucrats replace doctors under universal health care, etc.

[Pettytyrant101]

Therer's a bit of a row going on in the Uk over benefits at the moment. With the Bishops and the Lords on one side and the government on the other.

The background is the govt want to cap benefits at a max of £26,000 a year which is the average yearly wage in the UK. They say it is unfair those who aren't working can claim more in benefits than what those who are working earn. And that they want 'to make work pay'.
The other side of the argument is a cap of 26,00 means un unemployed fmaily living in London would be unable to pay their rent and would be made homeless. And this is unfair and would essentailly 'cleanse; inner London of poor as they couldnt afford to live there anymore and condemn many to existence outside the city in ghetto housing schemes- the Lords and Bishops have tabled an amendment that child benefit should not be included in the cap. But the govt is sticking to its guns saying it has the public on its side and the cap is coming into law whether the House of Lords passes it or not.

Now it seems to me the real problem here is being missed. Firstly the amount a private landlord can charge for rent has no control and has been spirraling out of control for years. Even somewhere like where I live the minimum rent on a one bedroom flat is about 400+ a month. For so long as private landlords can charge what they like -and so long as the govt pays it in benefits they will- this makes getting somewhere private when you are working almost impossible and leaving unemployment for work much trickier as there is a good chance you will be worse off and no longer able to pay your rent.
Secondly the benefits figures are worked out by the government based on a number of factors which supposedly determine the minimum required to live on. If this is the case then the problem is not that benefits are too high but that the minimum wage is too low. If going to work only sees you as well off as the very bottom level the govt determines you need to survive then its too low. If they really want 'to make work pay' then the amount you can earn from working minimum wage has to be noticably higher than the minimum you need to live on.

[Pettytyrant101]

Former government drugs adviser Prof David Nutt has said that regulations should be relaxed to enable researchers to experiment on mind-altering drugs.
Prof Nutt told BBC News that magic mushrooms, LSD, ecstasy, cannabis and mephedrone all have potential therapeutic applications.
"I feel quite passionately that these drugs are profound drugs; they change the brain in a way that no other drugs do. And I find it bizarre that no-one has studied them before and they haven't because it's hard and illegal," he said.
Prof Nutt was sacked by the home secretary from his government advisory role three years ago for saying that ecstasy and LSD were less harmful than alcohol.
He says his new research indicated that there were no "untoward effects" from taking magic mushrooms and that it should not be illegal to possess them.
Prof Nutt and his team scanned the brains of volunteers who had been injected with a moderate dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient of magic mushrooms.
They had expected higher activity in areas of the brain associated with visual imagery. But in fact they found that the drug switched off a network of interconnected regions of the brain which regulated an individual's sense of being and integration with their environment.
The researchers say that this alters consciousness because individuals are less in touch with their sensations and normal way of thinking.
Medical role?
They also found that psilocybin also turns off a part of the brain which is overactive in some forms of depression. So Prof Nutt believes that the drug could be used as an antidepressant and has applied to the Medical Research Council to carry out a small patient study to see if this is the case.
He also said that there was nothing in the brain scans or follow-up studies which would suggest that if taken in moderate quantities the drug was unsafe.
"People who use them regularly seem to do that. They seem to use them on an annual basis in order to enjoy the experience but also because it has this positive reaffirming effect.
"And there are certainly examples of people who take magic mushroom tea for obsessive compulsive disorder to keep it under control.
"So it may be that there are broad utilities of these kind of compounds in terms of mental well-being. I don't know - I think it's very much a question to be answered."
A second study, due to be published online by the British Journal of Psychiatry on Thursday, found that psilocybin enhanced volunteers' recollections of personal memories, which the researchers suggest could make it useful as an adjunct to psychotherapy.
"Research has been minimal, if not non-existent, on psychedelic drugs because the regulations are so overwhelming," he said.
"I would say that this is the most obvious unexplored area of neuroscience; drugs which change the brain in a fundamental way and yet we don't bother studying them because it's too difficult or we are to scared of falling foul of the regulators or the media."

Never did me any harm! In fact I couldn't imagine my life without those experiences, they were so informative about how my brain assemblies things and a hint at the other possible configorations the brain can adopt. It depresses me that only 4 years ago it was made illegal to have fresh mushrooms (previously it was only illegal to have prepared or dried mushrooms). It was an annual event, mushie picking, for generations around here- now ridiculously it is a Class A drug, the highest category comparable with crack cocaine. Now thats madness.

[Orwell]

The question for me is, should there be any regulation, and, if so, where do you start?

[leelee]

Therer's a bit of a row going on in the Uk over benefits at the moment. With the Bishops and the Lords on one side and the government on the other.

The background is the govt want to cap benefits at a max of £26,000 a year which is the average yearly wage in the UK. They say it is unfair those who aren't working can claim more in benefits than what those who are working earn. And that they want 'to make work pay'.
The other side of the argument is a cap of 26,00 means un unemployed fmaily living in London would be unable to pay their rent and would be made homeless. And this is unfair and would essentailly 'cleanse; inner London of poor as they couldnt afford to live there anymore and condemn many to existence outside the city in ghetto housing schemes- the Lords and Bishops have tabled an amendment that child benefit should not be included in the cap. But the govt is sticking to its guns saying it has the public on its side and the cap is coming into law whether the House of Lords passes it or not.

Now it seems to me the real problem here is being missed. Firstly the amount a private landlord can charge for rent has no control and has been spirraling out of control for years. Even somewhere like where I live the minimum rent on a one bedroom flat is about 400+ a month. For so long as private landlords can charge what they like -and so long as the govt pays it in benefits they will- this makes getting somewhere private when you are working almost impossible and leaving unemployment for work much trickier as there is a good chance you will be worse off and no longer able to pay your rent.
Secondly the benefits figures are worked out by the government based on a number of factors which supposedly determine the minimum required to live on. If this is the case then the problem is not that benefits are too high but that the minimum wage is too low. If going to work only sees you as well off as the very bottom level the govt determines you need to survive then its too low. If they really want 'to make work pay' then the amount you can earn from working minimum wage has to be noticably higher than the minimum you need to live on.

I live in British Columbia and during the last ten years we have become the poorest province, once the richest, due to all the trouble with the U.S. and our lumber industries etc(We failed to look far enough ahead and for our own interests so we paid the price). The average wage is minimun unless you have a very high degree like a masters or high trade such as mixer in a bakery or such. Yet our prices for a one bedroom to rent can be nearly a thousand dollars per month and then hydro up to one hundred, water, sewage etc.
And I copied this from the global market review from two years ago, it has climbed a lot higher since. This is for purchasing a modest house;
Canada’s most expensive houses

Canada’s most expensive housing is in British Columbia, with existing homes’ average prices CA$491,832 (US$475,062) in July 2010.

We are just looking to buy a house in the same area we have rented and we will pay twenty thousand in cash for the down payment so we can get a decent rate of mortgage and then about six thousand closing costs. Then yearly insurance, about one hundred fifty a month, sewage, water and garbage, about eighty, etc etc etc. It is tiring really. I am a stickler for saving every way I can. Up before dawn cooking baking nutritious everything from scratch before work. Everyone working extra hours. For years it was a better deal renting even in the higher bracket, but landlords have their costs too and pass it on each twelve months to the renter and it is getting much too expensive to rent and you have nothing to show for it.
I LOVE universal medical. We are only just now going in the direction of the U.S. with all the private stuff and it is unbelievably expensive. When I was a child every man woman and child got taken care of and it was lovely. But Canada for so long let floods and floods of immigrants come that had no means of support and of course they must be taken care of, so they get education and training, health care, schooling, so very very very much for free or next to free sometimes for years before themselves putting back into the economy and we have so few people across the land to pay for all this unlike our brothers the Americans who had like ten times the population . We are stretched like too little butter over too much bread. We are a people that loves our immigrants, many of us volunteer in so many organizations to make sure the people old and young are well taken care of, and unfortunately we ourselves get left out a lot. We perhaps should have been a little slower to keep opening the doors to a new group when we had not brought the groups before to the place they could stand on their own. But I know we would all do it again if needs be. Only now we cannot afford universal health care, sad days for us.

[Pettytyrant101]

Discuss.

[Orwell]

Discuss.

Too true. I have often thought the exact same thing when a billiionzillionaire scoffs at workers wanting a payrise, while they're doing the work that earns his/her billionzillions. {{{Don't tell Odo I said it, though. }}}

[David H]

As a farmer I produce food. It fills a basic human need and therefore has intrinsic value. When I meet people and they tell me how they earn their living I notice that they rarely can say the same, yet they often earn many times what I do. Funny about that!

[Orwell]

A billionzillionaire might work twelve to sixteen hours a day (they say). A working class man/woman mght earn $30,000 a year working similar hours in a low paid job. Sure, the Owner of a business has more responsibilty and deserves a bigger cut of profits, but the "gap" is often totally offensive. It's even more offensive when high level CEO's earn millions, often for doing very ordinary work, and taking no real risk because it's not even their money their mis-managing. I'm no Lefty, but sheesh!

Growing food would seem a vital pastime, David, but don't expect to earn an easy life from it. The most important jobs in life seem the most maligned (in regard to wealth distribution). I cite health care workers here as a good example, and cleaners, alongside farmers (not corporate farmers, mind!) Try getting a job as a CEO - if you don't mind suppressing your scruples, that is.

[David H]

Yup. The CEO of the company that markets what we produce makes something like 50 times what I do, yet he could no more do my job than I could do his. On the other hand I could survive without him but he couldn't survive without me. He's a good, hardworking guy, but he does in some ways resemble a high-functioning parasite. It appears that the money somehow seems to stick to the hands that handle the buying and selling, not those that produce the goods and services.

And then there are the bureaucrats.....

[Pettytyrant101]

The Head of the RBS Bank in the UK (which would have collapsed without a tax payer buy out) gets a million a year. He has just been given a million in bonus to go with it. The public are the majority stakeholder yet the government on our behalf let it go through. At the same time the Govt are trying to force a bill through the House of Lords which would see sickness benefits removed from those recovering from cancer treatment and capping benifts. Despirte the fact the benifts bill is less than a 10th the size of unpaid tax from large companies and super rich individuals.

This cant go on forever without something giving.

[Orwell]

I thought things were giving. Except in Ozhobbitstan, the Lucky Country... ... ... .. Not that any of you would want to come here.. Horrible place. It really is! Not sunny or free or egilatarian or anything...

[Pettytyrant101]

Rather amazing- converting human brainwaves into speech!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16844432

[Pettytyrant101]

Bit of back ground here. A Muslim preacher who is accused of being Bin Ladens right hand in Europe and operated out of the Uk has been released on bail following a European Human Rights decision. He is under a 22 hour curfew, banned from using the internet or a phone and is supervised 24/7.
The government is determined to deport him to Jordan but is not allowed to because he will almost certainly be tortured there.

What I don't understand, as with many of these cases, is if he is so clearly a national threat and guilty of inciting violence here in the UK and preaching hate- why has he never been formally charged with a crime or put on trial?
There are plenty of laws, including one precisely for incitiment to hatred, that he could be tried under so why won't the government do it?

You can read the full story on the BBC news page here- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-17012448

[Amarië]

Can't give you an proper answer. We here are stuck with people like mullah Krekar (Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad). We don't want him here, but can't deport him since he most likely will be sentenced to death. And I imagine if he was given jail time for some other offence, he would have to do that time first before he could be sent out.

[Pettytyrant101]

It just seems quite dodgy to me- if the man is as guilty as the government say and they are so certain of that they have had him under arrest for years without trial or charges why not put it before a Court, try him have him convicted and locked up?- problem solved. Why are western governments so afraid to put these people on trial- up until 9/11 the very thought people in the UK would be held without charge or trial indefintely would have been preposterous and caused outrage- it is against the very basic principles of our justice system-now it seems almost a matter of course if someone gets a terrorism charge levelled at them- that cannot be good for democracy or justice surely?

[Amarië]

I agree that it does sounds dodgy and undemocratic. Krekar keeps a relative low profile compared to "your" man it seems. Additional charges haven't led anywhere so far, so he walks around freely and has been for 9 years or so now. He also has his wife and kids here. And we're stuck with him until it is safe to kick him out.

[Pettytyrant101]

The NHS in England and Wales seems to be at a bit of crisis. I had though Cameron's arrogant attitude was confined to dealing with Scotland but it seems he has the same tactic for the NHS too.
Today the government- in the face of huge critism of the new plan which most seem to see as sneaky privitisation of the Health Serivce- held a crisis meeting to decide how to move ahead with their plans. But they only invited those who are for their plan to the meeting- this meant that British Medical Association (which represents all the Doctors) and the Royal College of Nursing (representing all the nurses) and UNISON (representing all the health Care workers) were not invited to the meeting as they all oppose the plans and say they will destroy the NHS.
So the people who run the service and who will have to deliver the Tory plans weren't even at the meeting.

"The government said the Downing Street meeting was designed for those "constructively engaged in implementing the modernisation".

That not only seems unbelievably arrogant but it must have made for a small meeting!

"Another protester, London GP Louise Perkins, said: "Cameron is misrepresenting us by saying he has GP support. He doesn't. You could get the number of supporters into a telephone booth."

"the British Medical Association said: "It would seem odd if the major bodies representing health professionals were not included."
And Sarah Gorton, the senior national officer for health at the public sector union Unison, said: "Health workers should have their voices heard when major changes to the health service are being discussed."
A Downing Street spokesman said the prime minister had no plans to meet health groups opposed to the NHS changes, but added that he was "listening to health professionals about how we can implement the reforms we have set out".

Now how exactly can you listen to health professionals about how we can impliment the reforms if you dont let them into the metings because you dont want to hear what they have to say?

All I can say is I am glad health is a devolved issue- if this was being pushed through in Scotland we'd have voted for independence by now.