he found it in the trash. He didn't steal it. It was being thrown out and would have been put in a landfill. The museum was negligent; he didn't steal it.

"You have health care and the complaints you have about it will be much worse after the government has taken over the insurance industry"
that doesn't mean the current system isn't broken. also, your point is a good one, glad you are not a troll. There is one single thing that undermines your point: the rest of the developed world has government run healthcare. And it works. Not perfectly, but it works. I don't think you could make the same statement about ours. it works OK for some people, and is completely busted for the rest.

It's easier to reform a system where everyone has the same universal plan. Currently, the US has a patchwork of health plans. Any changes to legislation under the current system has a ton of unintended consequences. If you have the same experience for everyone, then the repercussions are the same for everyone. This provides incentive to produce good legislation.

The middle class will pay for this because the current political climate in the US gives corporations and the very wealthy a free ride. If corporations and the very wealthy paid their fair share, then this wouldn't be a problem. You could ensure this by doing one thing, and one thing alone: impose a 14% federal flat income tax on EVERYBODY, corporations included. One exception: determine a poverty level for each state, and anyone at or below this poverty level pays no taxes.

I'd bet that universal healthcare could take a lot of the burden off the welfare system as well, maybe even make it obsolete. If you don't wanna work, you get health care so nobody here in the US is going to die from a lack of care. But you will need to work, since you need a home and food and clothes. In other words, the government will help keep you alive. But what you make of your life is up to you.

I am calling you out as a troll.

I gave you a reply and you never bothered to address it, since it showed your statement to be fallacious.

If you have nothing better to do than serve as a shill for HMOs, why don't you get a hobby?

Defend the current health care system that you claim is so great and everyone should like. This time, try to use sound logic. You can't. It's broken, and so are you.

I do, and I have what people would consider "good" insurance and a great job. I have never ever been unemployed since I was 14 years old.

I am far from happy with my insurance.

There is so much bureaucracy to deal with. I know that government run healthcare would still suffer from this, obviously. But privatized healthcare has this same bureaucracy but it is coupled with greed. Insurance companies have an interest in making it difficult for you to get the coverage you need, because every dollar they can get you to pay out of pocket is more for the bottom line. These insurance use fabian tactics and diffusion of responsibility to get out of taking care of you. If you want to spend an entire day on the phone or writing letters, you can sometimes get somewhere. But who has that much time to dedicate to making the insurance company do what you are PAYING THEM to do? When I go to work, I do the job I am paid to do. Insurance companies have to be wrestled with to get them to cover your expenses properly. I guess since I cannot fire them (they have a monopoly after all) I just have to suck it up.

My wife had some health problems and needed a surgery. Well, long story short, despite the fact I have insurance, I ended up with a $2000 bill I had to pay off. And at my current job, I find that if I ever need to take my children to the doctor, the insurance company always finds ways out of covering everything, so I always get stuck with bills. Because I don't believe in being dishonest I pay the bills off. I could probably use some shady means to get out of paying them, but that would make me just like the politicians and corporations I hate so much.

It makes me angry to think that people think this system is ok. Those people come off as either naive (because they haven't really ever had to use insurance or are just very young), evil (because they stand to profit from the current situation at everyone's expense), or just plain dumb (because they just fall for the insurance companies' propaganda).

yes, because you're 20 years old and male.

Try being a 35 year old woman. Or having children. Or just getting older.

You suffer from the same narrow minded mentality as many others here: oh, it doesn't affect me (yet) so it's not a problem! What's wrong with these whiners?

Healthcare in the US is broken beyond belief. You are either incredibly naive or a beneficiary of this broken system.

"Everyone I know has health care they're happy with"

Ah yes, and since you know *everyone* there is no problem with the current health care system. We should all just move along because there's nothing to see here. Something like that?

Don't be naive.

and yet you sound so bitter...

Note I didn't say "make money for the municipalities off you". The camera companies were not operating at a loss. Of this you can be sure. Those guys are a lot of things, but bad businessmen isn't one of them.

yep, what you said is even better than what I said.

people who run red lights suck and all, but this isn't about safety. If it were about safety, the cameras would go into places where your safety is most likely to be compromised. For example, cameras would be on parking lots, etc, where people are robbed, abducted, attacked. The placement of red light cameras suggest that their purpose is to make money. They are put in places where there is a high probability of catching you doing something ticketable.

The red light camera companies are in it to make money off you. Where I live, a majority of the money goes not to the city, but to the company operating the red light cameras. They are heavily interested in making money by taking it from you. And guess what? Dishonest people who run the red lights and get camera tickets don't pay them. The only people who pay them are honest people. So these companies have found yet another way to extract money from hardworking people who perhaps misjudged a traffic light.

If a cop pulls you over for running a red light, that's one thing. He has an interest in preventing crime. The police officers I have talked to about this usually tell me that in most cases, unless the person was being reckless or was suspect (or treated the cop like a jerk), the person would be let go with a warning. He isn't getting richer by pulling you over. The police officer can make a judgement call. Many police officers are reasonable people who aren't trying to ruin your day.

The companies who run the red light cameras have the power and the incentive to be as harsh and unreasonable as possible. They want your money. It's all done via an automated process so there is no face to face contact with anyone, so no judgement call can be made.

If the local governments were in charge of operating the cameras I think many people would feel differently. I know I would. I mean I don't like the idea of the cameras, but at least the money isn't just making someone rich.

LOL, ironically my post about intellectualism seems to make the point that the article was trying to make ...

Forgot the s on "beside". The "isn't" should have been "is". Also "being intellectual" should have been "to be intellectual".

this.

beside, equating chasing after the university degree with intellectualism isn't just plain wrong. Being intellectual is to enjoy learning, and one could argue that many universities are less about learning and more about learning enough to pass a class.

Agreed that gnome's star is fading. I don't see how anyone could ever love kde, but xfce is wonderful. But therein lies the beauty: you can pick whatever DE you want. That's powerful!

there are several desktop environments for linux, not just two. Nobody has to put any feet down. You can use whichever you like. Who cares?

Up until about a year ago, I used Ubuntu as my OS (at work) every day and it worked fine. I have to admit I don't know what kind of fancy effects they are using these days, but you could always turn that crap off.

Also, I went from gnome to xfce because gnome was becoming too bloated for my tastes. I didn't feel like it was getting dumbed down so much as it was getting too fat. Have you checked out xubuntu?