I think you and I may disagree on how one may accurately measure LOWER prices and BETTER outcomes.

An individual in any given European country, for example, where healthcare is totally (or very nearly) socialized may not be out-of-pocket very much for minor or even major medical issues... but it doesn't mean that healthcare costs less to provide. The burden of cost is on the whole society through higher taxes - and the individuals are forced to pay these costs whether they want to or not - indeed whether or not they EVER need healthcare in their entire lives they are still forced to pay.

And 'better outcomes'? I know how that trick works... Socialist medicine country has, say, 95% success rate for some major procedure - an artificial transplant of some kind, for example - whereas in the U.S. it's only 78%... Sounds like a win for socialist medicine, right?... That is until one learns that 38% of the people who needed the procedure under the socialist system died while they were on the waiting list... leaving only the more healthy individuals (more likely to survive the procedure) to be counted in the statistic... rather than everybody being counted in the U.S. because there was no waiting list.

What I said still stands... I don't even need causation for my point to stand. When a government program fails (lower healthcare costs, for example) the liberal answer is always more government... another bigger, more comprehensive program is needed. And when that one fails... the next attempt is even bigger! And on... and on... and on... It's like you've got brain damage or something and can't comprehend that more and more government control over things such as healthcare may actually doing more harm than good!

You obviously do not realize that the REASON medical care is so expensive in the U.S. to begin with is largely because of government interference. The level of government regulation in the healthcare business (and healthcare insurance) nationally has been consistently INCREASING over the past 30 years or so... and it keeps getting more and more expensive. Are you seeing a pattern here?

You liberal retards kill me. Additional government control fails to lower prices... What's your answer? MORE GOVERNMENT!

One will generally not find a "White People are Evil" or "Conservatism Sucks and Liberalism Rocks" entitled as such on the class schedule at most universities... It does not mean it's not in the curriculum. And it is certainly not entirely avoidable.

For example, World Geography 101 my freshman year in college - part of the core curriculum and a general education REQUIREMENT - consisted of less geography and more of the professor pontificating about his Liberal political views... Deprecation of Caucasians in-general, inherent evil of corporations, global warming, etc. etc.

This is a serious problem. It's endemic in virtually all higher education institutions. If you disagree with me, you are simply wrong. So, there. :-)

Good thoughts... Of course one always has to allow for possibilities beyond our current realm of understanding - or even comprehension. That's one reason I, personally, don't accept the idea that 'life' evolved - spontaneously - on this rock. Chance - is not a scientifically workable solution (in my opinion). But its not my intention to start a 'creationist' debate here. :-)

I think you have misinterpreted what my logic assumes.... We have many odd-ball 'types' of life that exist on Earth NOW - not dependent on oxygen, etc, etc. Many species of which have only been discovered recently. IF the theory of evolution is true - in the sense that we humans evolved from primitive life-forms... it follows that such a process takes millions upon millions of years - even billions of years! This requires some level of stability in the system in which it develops over a VERY long time-scale. Presuming the laws of physics are the same throughout the universe (and have been here through the history of the Earth) - life - of ANY type - is dependent on complex forms of chemistry. Afterall, DNA is just a strand of chemicals bound together in a very specific way... There are boundaries (such as temperature) outside of which these complex forms of chemistry break-down and will not work. At all. (That's why boiling water destroys ALL of the run-of-the-mill-type bacteria in it.) Even if one did have a hypothetical planet where life did spontaneously generate itself at some point in time... its chances of evolving into something like a human that consumes all kinds of energy just to stay alive and feed our massively intelligent brains - even if it IS based on something other than a DNA molecule - aren't very good if its host star blows itself up after only a few million years, incinerating the planet in the process... or if it gets swallowed by a black hole... or the magnetic field disappears and the 'life molecules' begin to be blasted apart by solar radiation, etc. etc.

Indeed. I've often found it fascinating when we discover a new piece of the puzzle here on Earth - that of a condition peculiar to our situation - that is absolutely essential to sustain life (or at least intelligent human-type life as we know it). One of the more recent examples that comes to mind is the existence of our moon and its mass ratio to the Earth... stabilizing the progression of Earth's axis. Life could not exist for very long without it. And there are hundreds of conditions like this that are absolutely essential - likely lots more yet to be discovered: Right kind of star, right distance from star, right orbit, proper chemical composition of planet, magnetic field, proximity of solar system to non-life-friendly cosmic events (supernovas, etc),

And when it comes down to calculating the probabilities of all these conditions happening in one place... the numbers become stupid insane big - like 1 chance in greater than the number of sub-atomic particles in the entire universe big. The reason is because of "irreducible complexity"... You see, it doesn't do you any good to have the right type of star if you don't have a planet with the right orbit... and if you DO have the right kind of star with the right kind of orbit, it doesn't do you any good if you don't have a planet with the right kind of magnetic field to protect the atmosphere and life that may be on it... Any life that may exist wouldn't last very long.

Want to see how fast the probabilities decrease? Let's assign some arbitrary (certainly underestimated) numbers:
Chance of having the right kind of star: 1 in 100
Chance of having proper orbit: 1 in 500
Chance of having appropriate chemical compisition of planet: 1 in 1000
Chance of being in the right place in the galaxy: 1 in 5000

100 x 500 = 50,000 x 1000 = 50,000,000 x 5000 = 1 chance in 2.5x10^11

So, you see... with ONLY 4 parameters the chances of having the right conditions to sustain life are very remote. And there are LOTS of parameters to figure into the entire calculation. It is INDEED very much possible - even probable - that our little blue dot is the only place like it in the entire universe.

Are you insane? Didn't you receive that message transmitted from space back in 2010? It plainly said of Europa: "Attempt no landing there!"

Shaka, when the walls fell. :-(

Here here! In Arkansas -most- folks generally get along pretty well. Instances of racism are encountered occasionally... but rarely in my experience (I'm pretty pale-skinned). In any event, although pockets of racism may be found in a wide-spread geographic distribution, one doesn't generally find institutional-type discrimination anymore here in the 'South'... You'll run into an occasional crack-pot (of any color) here or there... but I've personally encountered a seemingly - alarmingly - high incidence of racist white folks up north. Once on a business trip with a black co-worker of mine, we even encountered somebody who, apparently, had never met a black person face-to-face before. So, I'm quite disappointed when I hear people - who likely live in the North - make disparaging remarks of how racist white people in the south are.

It's also important to note - there are many geographic regions here in the South where a white person is the minority... I've been to many of those places in my travels. Some of them are the most welcoming environments I've ever visited... Other places, I'll walk into a gas station, restaurant, or what have you... and all of the black folks just stare at me. So, it goes both ways... Your mileage may vary, however, depending on where you go. :-)

Technology break-though in Urbana, Illinois? That is also where the HAL 9000 was created.

Who are these pompous erudite jerks that think they are so much smarter than me as to dictate my choices in what I drive, how much I should pay for fuel, and enact punitive measures upon me if I choose differently than what they deem proper? I am sick and tired of people like this who look down on us as some flock of sheep that are too stupid to make or do for ourselves. So what a lot of people drive vehicles that don't get the best gas-mileage? Who are you to tell us we don't NEED to? I've got a good reason for driving an SUV... Don't punish me just because lots of people also drive one when you don't think they've got a good reason. GRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Actually, the jury awarded the plaintiff $2.5 million. So, the civil case is over and Crystal L Cox was found guilty of libel. She doesn't have that kind of money to pay, however... and she said she will appeal the decision. I'll bet she doesn't even stop blogging about this guy and she ends up in jail after being found in contempt of court.

Do a google search on Crystal L Cox. I think you'll find she's a bit more 'crazy-person-y' than you realize. She has literally hundreds of blogs/websites bashing just as many people and companies. Her sole purpose is to drive traffic to her sites - which, indeed, she has done.

In a more perfect world than the one in which we live I would tend to agree with you.... However, she is very smart. And knows where the lines are - and which ones not to cross - inasmuch as extortion goes. i.e. Offering to sell the offending domain name to the company or individual rather than outright saying "If you pay me $10,000 I'll stop posting negative blogs about you." And the thing is, what she posts are misrepresentations of the truth... In other words, many of the blog posts are based on actual events - but she twists the facts and draws erroneous conclusions.

And, then, you have to keep in mind... It's a mad woman who pays maybe $6.00 per year to register the domain name vs. a company potentially spending tens of thousands on a court case which is difficult to win at best. The owners of the company for which I worked made the decision to ignore her. Do a google search on Crystal L Cox. Do it! I submit to you if you are a rational individual (which I'm sure you are) you will recognize she is a particularly disturbed human being. And woe unto you if you ever have the misfortune of crossing her path yourself.

formorsucks.com is the domain she registered against my employer... she also registered similar domain names based upon the names of the owners - and even some of the employees! Fortunately, I don't think she knows who I am. Oh, and I'm smart enough to already have myname.com registered.

Well.... not a bad living for sitting around on your butt blogging all day long.

You are presuming that her purposes in blogging are to actually communicate something to the public. It's her business model. She sets up these blogs, gets highly ranked in google and attempts to extort money out of those whom she attacks. Think about it. Sometimes it's worth paying her $5,000 or so to a business to have her turn over the domain name than to pay a lawyer to go after her. If she cons just 1 person/business into doing that per month - that's not a bad living.