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Gorgon

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Everything posted by Gorgon

  1. That only happened for me when I used the cosnole on an unpatched version. Wird game this, very good in certain parts, others look unfinised, and it actually shipped with a fatal bug.
  2. They didn't even have the stones to blow themseles up in the process.
  3. Thank god these guys appear to be such utter amateurs. Is this second fid connected to the investigation of the first one, or did the police just get lucky again ?
  4. I especially like that he is thinking on the run and relying on his own initiative rather than silly gadgets and dry martinis. Although the basic premise of being a secret agent on the run is going to get old eventually. If there is no resolution it's going to be like one of those TV series where nothing ever really changes.
  5. The progressive area lost wind in the US, mores the pity, whereas in Europe the experience of hardship during the great depression and later WW2 would lead to the fornation of the modern wellfare state. With the war experience came a sense of unity and people were used to an extreme level of government control, so the thinking was, if we can make an effort to win and overcome a world war why not spend some if that level of effort in improving society. In the US that sense of lifting the burden in unity vanished with the post war boom. Whats amazing is that it became a broad political consensus for decades on that society should change fundamentally and provide a wide range of services for everyone. Now, despite the problems of coupling a high level of redistribution with globalisation, most of us remain fiercely proud of the European model compared to the rest of the world.
  6. Arent you already in the camp of "we can stop it so might as well legalize it"? There is another boat ?
  7. Cant they make it into painkillers or something. Seems like a waste to throw away all that blow.
  8. Yes, but I can get away with that since I complimented you in the same sentence.
  9. Self suficiency is so deeply ingrained in the American way of thinking that it will never happen. It's both their greatest strength and the reason why they will never evolve to solve the glaring problems with health care.
  10. Federal and local doesen't mean very much over here. I guess the Germans with their lander have some inking but for the rest of us government is government is government.
  11. I'm a Christian and to that I'd say "I'll voluntarily help pay someone's medical bill from my own pocket. Not demand the Federal Government take money away from someone else to pay MY medical bill." But that is just me. I guess what us europeans can't get our heads around is that you don't consider medical treatmeant a basic function of society, like schools, a police force and a fire department.
  12. Beckham is on the case, she'll be safe now !
  13. What does that matter, if they get some chronic ailment they start costing more money than they put into the system. Hence, the incentive to limit the people who generate losses.
  14. Captialism is the way the world works, it doesen't have any inate miraculous power to better society, all we can do is decide on a set of rules that will make it function the best it can. Cartels, pricing agreements, protectionism are sides of capitalism that work against the interest of the consumer. Unregulated we would be back in the 1900s. In China babies die because the baby milk formula has the nutritional value of sand. Private blood drives infect the donors with AIDS. In Africa fake maleria medication kills people who think they are curing themselves. Simply depending on corperations to be ethically responsible is naive in the extreme, Capitalism and government regulation go hand in hand, they must in any sane country.
  15. And denials for treatment high. How do you figure? Without the interference of either a government or insurance entity. The same market forces that keep insurance prices low mean that the companies have an enormous incentive to renege on their part of the agreement. They all hire specialists who do nothing all day but make up plausible reasons why they should deny treatment. It's the same with propperty insurance, except the investigators usually don't wind up causing serious injury or death. With denial of treatment that is a quite plausible outcome. It's a fundamental flaw in the makeup of the system.
  16. And denials for treatment high.
  17. Well, my personal experience with our system has been quite good, a couple of years ago I broke my arm, I walked into the nearest hospital and got an exray, a consult and cast the same day and was sent on my way. No charge. Later on my father got cancer and was admitted urgently several times, when it became clear that it was terminal, the hospital sent a bed, a wheelchair a physical therapist and nurse to ease the burden on us who were with him in his last months. We do have problems with waiting lists for operations, but our government has just earmarked a considerable increase on healthcare spending to adress just this problem. If something is seen to be seriously awry with our healthcare, the people blame the government and they are compelled to act
  18. It's pretty obvious that HMOs are in business to make money, and that actual treatment for their customers is written off as loss, just as any settlement is a loss for any other type of ensurance carrrier, this is why they employ detectives and try any and all legal means to avoid it. A state sponsored system has an overall vested interest in returning people to heath, while at the same time not having an incentive to weasel out of their promises.
  19. My hats off to the guy in the film who name dropped Moore and this documentary and got this ensurance company to pay for implants for is deaf daugher, even though Moore had never even heard of him. Briliant.
  20. Maybe not, but they are rushing to Cuba for free medical and other degrees. For 'socialised'-if there is such a term- healthcare you need to be a rich country first. About the only place you can still find it are in the surviving welfare states of northern europe where it enjoys widespread support among the population.
  21. Michael Moore is a superb agent provocateur. Why else would so many people waste their breath hating him. The factual errors of this documentaries, most of which have a rather heavy political slant, are nowhere near as rampant as people would have you believe, most of them are simply part and parcel of filmmaking. For instance people would rave that he uses stock footage of one meeting of the NRA a while back while the voice over is about another more recent one.
  22. This reminds me of that Scottish resturant owned by a fellow named Mcdonald which was sued for infringing on a brand name. Nevermind that the resturant owner felt that the association with burgers was actually hurting his reputation, but that he wanted to use his family name nevertheless.
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