You say "Canadians don't have private insurance companies forcing them to use the HMO approved doctors.". The entire system is like an HMO (referral based in network coverage). In the US, with a PPO, I can walk into any specialist I want and make an appointment. I can also easily get a second opinion from another specialist. Try either of these in Canada.

In the US an HMO is not the only option. In Canada it is.

Sorry, are you suggesting that people remain ignorant of an underling health problem so that they don't undergo "unnecessary" procedures and the government does not spend money unnecessarily? Are you also claiming this is somehow better?

I am an American living in Canada with a legal permit. I have been here 4 years working and paying taxes. I am completely ineligible for Provincial insurance. I pay for my own insurance (I am required by law) and I am extremely limited to who I can see. An American in Canada, with out insurance, would simply be turned away unless it was an extreme emergency situation. The inverse in not true. Canadians, who can afford it, go over the border for medical services that are difficult to come by in Canada.

The health services in Canada are not as good for the average Canadian as the health services in America are for the average American. It seams to me that most Canadians don't care as much about the quality of care as they do that everyone receives the same care. As long as those people are not new immigrants of excluded types.

http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/ohip/eligibility.html

   

The name of the bike you are, presumably, referring to is called a penny farthing. They worked by direct drive. The cranks were tied directly into the front hub. You would generally get the largest wheel your legs would allow so that you could travel as fast as possible. The bigger diameter of the front wheel the further you would go with one rotation.

Interestingly the first geared bicycles, that resemble the ones we ride now, were called safety bicycles. Presumably this was because you were closer to the ground and had less distance to fall. However the invention of gearing on the safety bicycle allowed a rider to travel much faster than would of even been possible on a penny farthing. Bicycles today are far more dangerous than a penny farthing. Even going downhill, the penny farthing rider is limited to how fast they can pedal (the cranks never stop spinning) but todays bicycles employ multiple gearing ratios and free wheels/hubs that allow for extremely fast speeds. As I understand it penny farthings quickly died out after the invention of the safety bicycle.

-Will

 

You, sir/ma'am , are an idiot.

The place does not matter but giving two shits about what you are doing does. I am most productive when I care.

-ev0l

I think this is a far more interesting and depressing graph. I just don't get it.

-Will

As an American living in Canada I call bull.

There are just as many flags flying on all sorts of building and homes as their are in the States. Canadians frequently sew canadian flags on their bags/back packs. Canadian symbolism is everywhere even on the new bike racks they are putting up around my neighborhood. Canada preaches "peace keeping", no guns, multi-cultism, universal health care (of the Canadian variety), and other politically identifiable Canadian things to your children and your immigrants. Schools reinforce these notions in the same way that all countries encourage their citizen children to be "better" in those ways that the people who care consider better. Somehow pretending that you are better than Americans because you don't do these things is diluted and silly.

And this gets me to another point. Canada, and some of her people, far to often define them selves as how they are different from Americans. This is, frankly, sad. Canada is a great country full of great people who care very much for the land they call home. Canada, her populous and her officials should stop defining them selves based on the standards of another country or how they differ from those standards but instead declare she is a great country regardless of how others behave or define them selves. Canada should find its own path.

-Will

PS: The weather sucks up here.