Comment Re:haha (Score 1) 319
-1 redundant
commodore, my man you already said this
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1352459&threshold=-1&commentsort=5&mode=nested&cid=29252481
Recyling your arguments so soon?
tsk tsk
-1 redundant
commodore, my man you already said this
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1352459&threshold=-1&commentsort=5&mode=nested&cid=29252481
Recyling your arguments so soon?
tsk tsk
Don't exaggerate. It's only around 15%... mostly people over 65. That's how "safety nets" work
Who's exaggerating?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)#Eligibility
In 2007, Medicare provided health care coverage for 43 million Americans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid#Budget
In 2002, Medicaid enrollees numbered 39.9 million Americans
http://www.va.gov/NCPS/NEWS/NCPSBg/vha.html
7.9 million veterans enrolled as of October 2006
That is roughly 90 million of a US population of about 300 million or just under 30 percent.
These are old numbers too. A lot of people lost jobs since then so I would fully expect the numbers to be well over 30%. Maybe not a majority, but you have to admit it is a significant minority.
Well that sure sounds like a big useless piece of rhetoric.
Freedom in America is an illusion. It's an illusion in the rest of the world too, but it is more pronounced in the states. The only people who have any sort of freedom in any country are the ones who are financially independant. All others lead indentured lives of one sort or another.
Since the US has a very poor social safety net the the need to work is all that much greater, and peoples freedom is then that much less. Most people are not free to pick and choose their health insurance. If you are employed then your employer picks it. If you are unemployed and can't affort $1000's of dollars a month then you have medicaid (if your lucky, and can even afford that) otherwise you have none. There are no choices here. You are only fooling yourself.
Americans' fear of "big government" is absolutely bizarre to say the least, especially in light of the fact that they have what is probably the biggest government in the world. Their government simply chooses to spend its money on guns rather than social infrastructure. A very poor choice indeed.
Too bad your reference is old
Canada Debt is now less that 500B not 868B http://www.debtclock.ca/
US debt is now over 11T, not 8T http://www.usdebtclock.org/
so your numbers are totally useless.
How might authors be protected from the devaluation of their work when copyright no longer exists?
By this logic then the optimim level of copyright protection would be that which maximized the value of a piece of work. That would be perpetual copyright, with no fair use exceptions, and a very broad definition of derived work.
You only see it as "devaluation" because of where we are starting from. If we had no copyright at all and were trying to figure out what was the best level of copyright protection you would come up with a very different answer than now when we have to much protection.
If you first ask the question "What is copyright for?" then answer it with something like "to provide incentives for producing creative works" then you would see that your question would not fit in here at all.
True enough for criminal cases such as car theft. For civil issues such as copyright infringement "punishment" has traditionally been refered to as damages, and it is only enough to compensate the party whos rights have been infringed.
5% number of non-citizen Americans (according to CBO)
- many non-citizen Americans get insurance through employers just like Americans do.
6% (0.16 times 0.37) YOUR numbers of persons who voluntarily choose not to buy insurance even though they could afford it
- no I said a would be surprised if a majority of these people would not want insurance if they could afford it.
therefore we do not need a government monopoly takeover of the industry
when you consider the number of people on medicare, medicaid, and VA benefits you will find you already have a significant minority, (maybe even a majority) of people on a government program. In fact I think the us government spends more on medicare/aid for this minority of people that Canada does for our entire population. Your system is very inefficent, does not adequately cover several 10's of millions of people, and gives most people no more choice than a government run system would.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance#United_States
I think the figure is more like 84% have some sort of coverage. Of the 16% without, only 37% have incomes greater than 50K. I'd bet almost 100% of those below $50k would like insurance if they could afford it, and I'd bet that even the majority above $50K would say the same thing. So your 97% figure is way our in left field.
You are also mistaken if you think that most people have a choice. 60% of Americans get their insurance through their employer. It is therefore their employer who chooses. not the user.
On top of that the American system spends more on health care than any other country by far, and they still can't ensure adequate care for all their people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:International_Comparison_-_Healthcare_spending_as_%25_GDP.png
I'm not sure about actual performances but using it for direct educational purposes is one of the strongest fair use protections
You are absolutely correct.Unfortunately in Canada we don't have fair use, only the much more limited fair dealings. which does not cover education uses.
Oh well, if we are playing the stats game. Here are a few more stats for you
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate
Infant mortality (per 100000)
Canada 4.8 5.9
United States 6.3 7.8
Life expectancy
Canada 81.23
United States 78.11
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Canadian_and_American_health_care_systems
over all cancer mortality rate
Canada 148.2
US 160.5
And you can talk waiting lists as long as you want. Canada, the U.K. and many European countries may have waiting lists that force those with money to wait a bit longer, but they also ensure that those without get the same respect. In the US those without the means don't even get on the waiting list.
to quote Pink Floyd: "And if I had my own way, I'd have all of you SHOT!".
There's some copyright infringement right there.
fair use/dealings
Do you have a reference for this 3% figure?
I'd rather have a government monopoly that is at least accountable to me as a tax payer rather than a corporate one that is only accountable to its shareholders.
"Only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core." -- Hannah Arendt.