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Comment WOMBAT! (Score 1) 182

Yes my friends this is your typical government Waste Of Money Brains and Time!

What is wrong you say? Well just suppose I went to my location and found some coverage. For me that would be wireless only as there is not cable or DSL within miles and that leaves only wireless.

Now I zoom it in and see it is covered. Big question is, covered by WHOM? I have guv'mint assurance that I can get it but no clue where to sign up. Thank you for nothing tax payers er bureau rats.

Comment Pipe Dream (Score 1) 111

Seems to me the target for this stuff would be the un-served rural population. There are millions of us out here who will be dead and gone long before we get even DSL service. You are looking at huge areas with insufficient population to support any "for profit" service except possibly wireless.

That brings us to the infrastructure needed. You have to have towers, power, radios, antennas, and back haul. Just because you make the spectrum "free" and declare service free does not put the necessary equipment in place.

Maybe they will pay for it with the surplus funds they make from 0bama health care.

Comment Re:Move to Canada (Score 1) 1197

Statistics are fun. Figures below are quoted in or converted to the mighty American dollar.

People in Canada spend, on average, $3,895 per year on health care. Meanwhile, Americans spend $7,290. The United States has about 2.4 doctors per thousand people. Canada has 2.2. The United States has 10.6 nurses per thousand people, while Canada only has 9. Clearly, our system is better.

Or is it? The life expectancy in Canada is nearly 81 years, while in the United States it's about 78. The Canadian government spends about 16.7% of its revenue on health care, while the American government spends about 18.5%. (This part is blind speculation, but one might attribute that to our large "baby boomer" population, since their health care costs are greater.)

Nonetheless, it certainly does seem as though the Canadians, despite their "evil" single payer system, are spending less and getting more for their dollar. And even if they were spending more, what would you pay to spend three extra years (on average) with your mother, son, father, or daughter? As far as the United States is concerned, the statistics seem to point out that we're very well equipped from a logistical perspective. It's just not evenly distributed, though, is it?

Comment Re:Step 1. (Score 2, Insightful) 1197

I think it's hilarious that there are all of these complaints about what basically amounts to triage, which is a practice that nearly every developed medical system engages in. Even those used by Americans who are lucky enough to have insurance.

But, hey, single payer systems are bad because "big government" is going to "socialize your wealth" and "destroy the American dream." Seeing as the average American has no wealth and only debt (at 24.99% interest, despite the bank bailout -- thanks, guys), what would be wrong with socializing that? We already do it for AIG. ; )

In addition to some of them having been bashed over the head with the idea that good health care practices are bad, people have been gradually indoctrinated by billions of dollars in advertising dollars that were spent by the health care industry. These efforts reach at least as far back as the 1960s. More recently, it's gone completely unchecked as the media outlets that were supposed to work for us surrendered to the will of the machine. There are reasons our more "capitalistic" (i.e., greedy) tendencies used to be more heavily regulated.

Comment Re:Move to Canada (Score 4, Interesting) 1197

I'm pretty sure the parent post was meant in jest. But, at the same time, the United States might be the only developed nation in which such a huge chunk of the population could be so blindly frightened and misinformed. How the people formed such a masochistic relationship with the big corporations -- one so strong that they'll stand in the street and protest against their own interests -- is beyond me.

Maybe this entire American health care "debate" could be summarized with an infamous quote from a man protesting a perceived intrusion on his lifestyle by Obama: "Keep your government hands off my Medicare!"

Medicine

Scientists Find Master Gene To Switch On Immune Cells 94

Scientists claim to have identified a master gene which is able to transform blood stem cells into disease-fighting immune cells. The hope is that this discovery will allow for new treatments for cancer. "The researchers have 'knocked out' the gene in question, known as E4bp4, in a mouse model, creating the world's first animal model entirely lacking NK cells, but with all other blood cells and immune cells intact. This breakthrough model should help solve the mystery of the role that Natural Killer cells play in autoimmune diseases, such as diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Some scientists think that these diseases are caused by malfunctioning NK cells that turn on the body and attack healthy cells, causing disease instead of fighting it. Clarifying NK cells' role could lead to new ways of treating these conditions."

Comment Re:Phenomenal browser (Score 2, Informative) 277

Facebook's new brokenness in Opera has been driving me insane. You can join the discussion on it and bug report here: http://forum.developers.facebook.com/viewtopic.php?id=34783

It's fairly absurd, really. The push that broke things did not seem to introduce any visible changes to the site, only internal changes that don't work in Opera. The errors also affect Facebook Connect, so every site on the Internet using Facebook connect suddenly no longer works in Opera.

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