Gorgon

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

English is not a difficult language to master, all you have to do is not dub your movies like the frenchies and the krouts, if you do the kids never learn, and learning languages becomes progressively harder with age.

I wonder what the punishment would be for slapping a woman's ass. Alah himself comming out of the sky shooting lightning bolts out of his eyes ?

Or you can just keep them scared and convince them that you are protecting them by chiseling away at their rights.

Yes, but so far constitutional rights have only been suspended in times of crisis, or times of just plain hysteria. What about this war on terror deal then, is that going to go on forever ?. That would make the temporary rollback, which as you say has precedent, be in effect permanent. Actually, IIRC the supreme court ruled ex post facto that Lincoln did not have the authority to do that. You won't be seeing that happen again. Look, I realize Bush is not the best President we've ever had. In fact I would probably classify him in the lower part of the middle. But after next year he will be gone and I think it's obvious he wields little influence over congress now. In 2009 we will have a new President and although I do not know who it will be, I can tell you when their term is up everyone will be happy to see them go. Thats just how it is here. How about the imprisonment of Japanese and Japanese-American nationals during ww2, the hunt for forgein 'agitators' following the war with spain, Maccarthyism. There are certainly more examples of civil rights suspension than Lincoln. Now imagine you lot elect Guliani, the war on terror isen't going to end with Bush. It may turn out to be temporary, and people will look back at aspects of the war on terror as yet another one of these episodes of limited civil rights, but the jury is still out.

Yes, but so far constitutional rights have only been suspended in times of crisis, or times of just plain hysteria. What about this war on terror deal then, is that going to go on forever ?. That would make the temporary rollback, which as you say has precedent, be in effect permanent.

Neuclear is the best shot we have of a 'clean' energy supply providing we can find safe storage for spent neuclear fuel. Environmentalists who stage blockades at neuclear fuel transports are being unrealistic about their own aims. You can't seriously expect to power a modern society with windmills and solar cells, and if you can't, that energy is going to come from traditional 'dirty' sources like coal. Neuclear accidents are spectacular and terrifying, but they ammount to practically nothing compared to the effect of traditional energy consuption on the environment. Tree death, acid rain, smog. etc.

You can be a proud as you like but you can't threaten death and desctuction over a very general percieved insult to your religion and expect people to just brush it off as a cultural difference. Both the insult and the reaction may be breaking the rules of civil conduct, but if the reaction is a deaththreat it's a whole other ballpark.

Then I'll have crushed nut everywhere. A delicacy in the Tonga Islands I hear.

Cars that fold out into robots are moronic in any incarnation, there is no leeway for being a puritan here. Whatever they do it can't possibly get any worse.

oHH LOOK LOOK I found something that reinforces my ill informed beliefs on teh inarweb, what are the odds of that, lols

It seems like a choice between having a deadbeat on a wage suplemented job as opposed to having no job at all. Now obviously 'metal adiction' is utter baloney, but if he needs to have the job center sweeten the pot in order to have anyone hire him it might well be a win - win situation regardless.

"an assessment that entitles him to a wage supplement from the job centre." Job.... centre Not employer

No the business is getting the metal freak for a song, the government is picking up the rest of the tab.

I wonder if I could swing being classified as a comic book and computer game adict. If i got the right case worker I bet I could make the sale. hmmm.. It's okay, the Swedish civilization will collapse under the unserviceable debts before he lives to old age. Actually the Sweedes are doing just fine fiscally even with their almost unprecedented redistribution. If you have a hightly skilled workforce globalisation is not necessarily going to spell the doom of a wellfare state.

On your feet there are ten toes. They look just like potatoes. Roses are red, gesundheit !

I imagine it's not fun to live with a price on your head. There have been several offered over the years

Sneezing feels good, thats just physiology, not a fetish.

I'm of the opinion that Muslims in general need to develop tougher skin when someone insults their religion. In Europe, with the notable exception of Italy, we can generally be depended on not to freak out beyond measure when an artist of provocateur insults Christianity. The more insults the quicker we can toughen them up and bring them into the 21st century, with the understanding that racism can sometimes go hand in hand with these insults, and that we must recognise and distance ourselves from it.

That happens if you cover your nose to keep snot from flying everywhere and prevent the pressure from escaping, your ears pop and your arm hurts. I suppose it's preferable to your head exploding.