16,951 Forum Posts by "RedSkunk"
Just entering my yearly post.
I'm in grad school doing a political science masters. I have a job, and a respectable amount of sex. Life is pretty decent.
I see funkbrs posted recently. Heya.
If you look at actual crop yields, you'll find some of the genetically modified crops actually underperforming, because they're monocultural and vulnerable to drought, or lousy soil, etc. Genetic diversity is a good thing.
At 8/4/10 03:29 AM, darkrchaos wrote: I would try dog or cat. I dont think cat would taste very good but dog may be ok.
Either one you would have to restrict and fatten up before it got scrumptious enough. Can't be too lean, that would ruin it.
When Nixon coined the term "War on Drugs" thirty years ago, it was just hyperbole. Within the last decade or two, however, it seems to have turned into proper warfare - not against drugs, of course, but against any and all people connected in whatever way to the illicit drug market. This is evident in the shifting focus to military solutions, be it SWAT teams here or paramilitary groups in Columbia. The United States' effort at reducing unprescribed drug use focuses overwhelmingly on supply reduction - targeting the growers of coco and poppies through forced eradication, interdiction efforts at our borders and abroad, and incarceration at home of everyone from manufacturing, supply, down to the end user and their neighbor.
The results are readily apparent to any impartial witness. Illicit drug use has ebbed and flowed based on societal demand, unrelated to gov't efforts. Quality of various substances - cocaine, opiates, weed - has risen, and prices have fallen (according to the UNODC, cocaine prices have fallen threefold from 1990 - today adjusted for inflation). Total cost annually, when you factor in federal, state, local law enforcement of drug laws, lost income and wages of those incarcerated (& cost to incarcerate) and debilitated due to addiction, effects of associated crime due to these failed policies - we're talking well over $100 billion squandered each year, in the US. With little success, we throw more money at nonfunctioning programs. From 2001 to 2006, American spending on the "war on drugs" increased 34.4%, with a 136% increase of spending abroad and a 21% decrease for domestic prevention programs. Yet according to a RAND study for the US Army and Drug Czar's office, dollar for dollar, providing treatment to cocaine users is 10x more effective in reducing drug abuse than interdiction programs, and 23x more effective than eradication efforts.
Forced eradication has failed everywhere we look, from Columbia to Afghanistan. This is because we have put the stick in front of the carrot, and put compulsory eradication before significant substitution programs. The growers of illicit crops in Columbia and Afghanistan make more money on these crops than licit ones, and this is largely a function of the illicit nature of cocaine and opiates driving up prices through the supply chain (increased risk, increased reward). It's also a result of their respective war economies and a lack of infrastructure. Before the 1990s, 30-50% of Afghanistan's exports were licit cash crops. Even today with record opium yields, Afghan farmers still only plant partial hectares of poppies - a necessary way of supplementing income to buy wheat (which the typical landowner can't grow enough of to feed their family). Opium, however, is more labor intensive than licit cash crop alternatives, and in the end doesn't result in superior revenues for the farmer. It's a lack of markets and infrastructure that drives Afghans to illicit crop production, as there are no longer alternatives.
Eradication programs and interdiction have wholeheartedly failed in their goal to reduce supplies in consuming countries. Spraying a coca field in Columbia only shifts the production, and a hundred kilo bust at the border results in a diffusion of contraband. Now human mules move the product, carrying smaller amounts with less risk to the overall haul. The entire production line is adaptable, insulated, diffuse, linking Burmese villages to Gloucestershire heroin addicts by way of Bangkok.
Wholesale prohibition of drug production or consumption has rarely worked, but there are exceptions. Communist China, Afghanistan under the Taliban circa 2000-2001, junta-controlled Thailand. But the compulsory tactics required (in Thailand at one point, summary executions at the rate of 1000+ a year) are fairly antithetical to democratic free government ideals. And production simply moves, to an area outside the reach of the interceding gov't. The drug hawks' argument to "double down" on the current approach will only work in the end if we wish to erode our basic constitutional and human rights.
I have no answers as to how to change the reality of a burgeoning "war on drugs" that's not politically safe to question. I do feel like I have a few ideas as to a more rational, results-based response to the innate human desire to "get high."
The implicit assumption of the drug hawks is that all illicit drug use is drug abuse. This is based solely on the licit / illicit divide, which is a fallacious categorization itself. Responsible use of marijuana, cocaine, or Prozac is at the discretion of the user, and licit drugs for depression, "social anxiety," or "restless legs" have now become indispensable daily addictions for millions. We need to recognize the significant amount of people who've smoked weed and lived to tell about it, the college-aged who've crammed for exams using prescription drugs for non-prescribed purposes, and the coked out day traders of the 80s who are now dying of obesity-related heart disease. The fact is, the majority of illicit drug users (-cum-criminals under the current system) used drugs and were not much the worse for wear. Many currently illicit substances have beneficial effects: marijuana's are well known, Freud advocated cocaine, and hallucinogens like lysergic acid or psilocybin mushrooms promise breakthroughs for those looking.
A saner approach to non-prescribed drug use recognizes these facts, and offers treatment to those individuals with substance abuse problems. Which has been demonstrated time and again more effective than incarceration or punitive measures. This would be the approach to take if we honestly want to reduce harm.
I am offering not legalization, but decriminalization of the end user. Reframing America's view on non-prescribed use will be a boon in the effort to reduce the deficits run by federal, state, and local governments. Resources now spent on non-violent sellers and users can be devoted to violent crime - including on our side of the Mexican border, with the drug cartel-induced violence blowing up just south. Federal and state officials will still rightly pursue those offenders wrecking havoc in urban areas, connected to other criminal enterprises, or blowing up their trailer parks in meth cook-outs gone bad.
With two-thirds of the country overweight or obese, you can't say America is a particularly self-disciplined nation. But it stands to reason that explaining the dangers and mitigating the harm of a drug (or a corn-dog) is a better response than pedantic prohibition. In the same way that safe-sex education beats no-sex education, some people will always shirk the law when it comes to getting high. The harshest of measures in Iran, Thailand, or China have not eliminated use there. Conversely, decriminalization of 'soft' drugs in the Netherlands did not result in a large increase in consumption. Meanwhile, needle exchange programs and other harm reduction strategies have been shown effective throughout Europe, Canada, and Australia. I don't believe American exceptionalism extends to an inability to be responsible when it comes to drugs, legal or otherwise.
The bulk of evidence suggests DARE as being an ineffective drug prevention tool. Yet it continues to sap millions each year with the only apparent outcome being assuaged parents given bumper stickers. A means-based approach reducing demand is the most productive way to combat drug use, if we even assume everyone en masse become frothing addicts without gov't proscription. This means better prevention programs, focused law enforcement, and non-compulsory tactics in Columbia and the Golden Crescent. Better enforcement of borders would still curtail trafficking, while rational policies at home could cool demand - because "buying local" isn't just a good idea for your veggies.
In the end, the rational solution is to think of non-prescribed drug use as a public health issue, and not a criminal one. Too bad the rationality of man is way overblown.
At 3/8/10 12:56 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: Okay, saying that they aren't protected by the first amendment is a fair enough sort of thing to say.
However, even though the right isn't constitutionally PROTECTED, why shouldn't they have the right to free speech?
You're assuming that political contributions ought to fall under "free speech" protection. I don't think they ought to. Also, clearly the constitution's focus was on guaranteeing liberties for individuals, not legal entities created a hundred years after the fact. There are plenty of instances where corporations are not afforded identical rights to citizens - separate law and tax structures, limited liability, no vote in elections. US corporations are not afforded any constitutional right to practice religion because they're seen as not having the necessary faculties to practice it. But unregulated campaign contributions have a direct, measurable impact on elections - whoever has the largest war chest is most likely to win.
Republicans and Democrats court big business equally so it's a moot point which party will benefit more from this court case. The effect is going to be a bigger emphasis on contributions, and a corresponding decrease in importance of the vote of the ordinary citizen. When in office, who is the politician beholden to more - single voters from the district, or the corporation that drove millions into the election effort? Allowing business unrestricted access to elections diminishes the representative nature of government - clearly antagonistic to the spirit of the constitution.
At 7/25/09 02:38 AM, BrianEtrius wrote:PLUSIRECOGNIZETHOSETITLES
homo.
Don't feel sad, Shrikey. What's that line about satisfying some people some of the time? Obama has exceeded my wildest expectations. Has anyone here stayed up with their parents and watched the news? Seen the Dow? The economy is not in death spiral, kamikaze mode anymore. There's a turn around in sight, somewhere. Just imagine McCain suspending his presidency so he could focus on the economy, or Bush bleary-eyed, sucking his thumb in Crawford. Everyone is underestimating the value of having adults back in the White House over just these past few months. Without a steady hand, things would - guaranteed - be much worse.
Meanwhile he's fulfilled (given political realities) numerous campaign promises (gitmo's time is near, end of fed raids on legal pot suppliers, IRAQ) and is actually successfully pushing through substantial healthcare reform. I never expected that to become a reality. What makes Obama successful as a campaigner is making him successful in office. He's using the bully pulpit. He's got popular support, and I love how it's making all the nut jobs squirm.
Not reading any responses to anything I write does wonders for my enjoyment of this forum.
At 1/5/09 09:36 AM, bcdemon wrote: Ok fine, how much dose Hamas pay for the fuel that powers the Katyusha rocket? You figure that out and were set....
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/513 51
At 1/5/09 05:41 AM, Tancrisism wrote: The ones we should support are the Israelis and Palestinians, not Israel or Palestine. In order for there to be peace it is extremely important that both sides no longer feel attacked by the other, as at the moment both Israelis and Palestinians feel that the other is completely out to kill them. I don't know how it can be accomplished, but at the moment I think the ball is in Israel's court.
"Palestine" or "Palestinians" or Hamas or any other over-generalizing representation of the other side has no say over whether or not some random dude in Gaza is willing to blow themselves up at a checkpoint. There will never be a wholesale end to the violence with a single swoop - Israel uses this as justification to continue the conflict.
Israel has all the control in the world over their military. The burden has always been on Israel because they've always had the ability to end their side of the conflict. They are the ones with a functioning government. Israel's attacks are at the bequest of the Israeli government and carried out by the Israeli military.
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."
At 1/5/09 06:38 AM, KemCab wrote: Didn't the Palestinians ELECT Hamas?
I think Israel should consider every citizen in Gaza a member of the organization and act accordingly. There's no negotiation with these people. Give them a hand and they cut off your arm.
You don't understand the situation at all. I would suggest picking up a book.
Hamas was elected in a sham of an election that was pushed by the US and Israel. The only organizational body in the Occupied Territories before the '06 elections was the PA, which was never meant to be a government. Suddenly, we give the Palestinians the right to vote, and we expect them to vote for, who? Fatah? Our boys? The party that did effectively jack since Oslo? They went with the alternative.
Keep in mind that Hamas is effectively two different organizations, similar to many others in the Middle East, in that they have a political arm and a military arm. Bombing government buildings and destroying what little infrastructure remains will do nothing to prevent rockets being launched. Rockets will be launched regardless of Hamas' top leaders, the Gaza population, or Israel's retributory attacks.
Israel never really left Gaza. "Re-invading" Gaza won't do anything but escalate the situation. Israeli leaders know this.
Anyone who thinks humanity will be around in a million years is really naive.
At 1/4/09 11:59 PM, TimeLordX wrote: Solar (photovoltaic) panels and wind power will always be fringe power sources. The bulk of our nation's energy production will need to come from a cheap, replenishable source. My bet's on nuclear fusion (which uses hydrogen, the most common element in the universe). The trick to making it work is to make the reaction sustainable (which is harder than it sounds-the longest sustained reaction lasted .5 seconds and generated 16.1 MW). The only byproducts of the reaction are helium, an inert gas and tritium (a hydrogen isotope with a half-life of 12 years). There is no chance of a runaway reaction as nuclear fusion requires precise conditions and any disruption to those conditions would shut the reaction down. There is concern over radioactivity, but mainly from the reactor's components. They would remain very radioactive for 50 years and treated as low-level waste for another 100 (compared to the thousands to millions of years with fission by-products). In 300 years, they'd be as radioactive as coal ash. (Source: Wikipedia-Fusion Power)
First, the irony of your "fail safe fusion" plant. People say the same thing about fission because of the multitude of safeguards, yet we've seen them fail. And did you really just favorably compare the waste from fusion to coal ash? Didn't coal ash just create one of the largest manmade environmental disasters state-side, since, well. um? (Pick your favorite. Do Three Mile Island for extra irony points.)
Radioactive byproducts - even ones that last hundreds instead of thousands of years - are unacceptable today. The waste presents the same, identical problems as fission. I have a bridge to sell to anyone who thinks Yucca Mountain will be a permanent solution. Similarly "permanent" storage sites are leaking waste across the globe. I also sincerely doubt the technical differences between fusion and fission will have any difference regarding proliferation.
You can call solar and wind "fringe," I think they're an opportunity at a drastically different form of energy production. One that takes production away from plants and onto the homes of Americans across the country. Revamping America's infrastructure by putting energy production into the hands of consumers and small businesses (vis a vis today's oligopolies) would do wonders in terms of increasing our personal stakes in energy efficiency, lowering and insulating costs, and preventing things like huge, regional outages during storms or other disasters.
At 1/3/09 12:38 PM, Conspiracy3 wrote: Ethanol and hydrogen aren't solutions: they are just worse problems. With ethonal you burn more energy refining the corn (unless you make ethonal from sugar cane like Brazil doez) than you get from burning the fuel.
I think you're wrong. Ethanol is the immediate solution to a transportation infrastructure based around liquid fuel. Cellulosic ethanol - fuel produced by agricultural / industrial waste like corn stalks left in the field or sawdust from a sawmill, or even switchgrass in fallow fields - holds promise for a huge net energy gain because this energy is going unharnessed currently. Traditional ethanol produced from corn is still a net energy gain, dependent on economies of scale. Ethanol promises better energy gains than petroleum in the future. Consider the amount of energy put into drilling in Alaska or in the North Sea. Cheap, easy oil is gone - we've drilled Pennsylvania and the Balkans all to hell. Petroleum is becoming more energy intensive every day, and ethanol: less.
Just because a fledgling tech might not be immediately economical isn't reason to abandon the technology. We used to tap into the ground, find oil, and fill buckets of it for lighting. We used more coal BTU for BTU to get oil in the 1860s because oil was advantageous, net energy gain or loss be damned. Likewise, even if / when ethanol is a net energy loss, we're able to use renewable green energy to produce ethanol which is advantageous compared to burning more petro.
The reason cellulosic ethanol or biodiesel is the future for transportation use is because we have the technology today to do it. Any modern car will run E85 with a $400 conversion kit atop your injectors. It's a liquid fuel that we'll be able to use in our existing infrastructure. We do it already. Ethanol is also a fuel we'll be able to produce at home, meaning some insulation from international politics / markets. Locally E85 is nearly a $1 cheaper per gallon, and while you'll see a ~25% decline in fuel economy, the fuel's octane is actually in the 105-110 range, making it a better fuel than petro.
Nuclear, fission or fusion, isn't really conceivable as a future fuel source. Firstly, fission has proved dangerous. Not while operating (although, sure, it can be), but when dealing with the spent fuel. It's also a huge obstacle in terms of nuclear proliferation worldwide. Inconsistency between what we say and what we do. Nuclear power also directly contributes to the proliferation of weapons in the same way the dairy industry contributes to veal. Fusion may be safer operation-wise, but it still does not replace petro as a liquid fuel for transportation use. We'll be able to generate electricity from alternative renewable sources, but electric automobiles are still a joke. Meanwhile, we have the ability to reduce consumption of petro now via ethanol production. Maybe it's just a bridge to a future source that holds more promise. Till then.
At 1/4/09 11:03 PM, Minarchist wrote: The idea that technology reduces the demand for labor, resulting in a net loss of jobs, is a classic fallacy and is contrary to the long history of human civilization. The fallacy exists because of the incorrect view that economics is a zero sum game.
Bingo. Give the boy a biscuit.
Efficiency does not mean less manpower. There are more factors at play. Take recycling. Recycling creates jobs (it's quite labor intensive) while reusing resources. It also consumes a lot (manpower, electricity, water, depends on what you're recycling).
Green technology is another example. Everyone wants more efficient transportation, housing. This means new technology, research, and skillsets in building materials, HVAC, energy sources. Green is a boon for industry because highly specialized industry can't be as easily outsourced. Neither can the manual labor or know-how that'll be required.
At 10/20/08 06:39 PM, Grammer wrote: I don't really know who he is. It's hard to tell the trolls from the sincere idiots
Why differentiate?
I've written about this before....
Powell's endorsement only helps Obama, particularly among moderate, suburban, and military families. It didn't have very much at all to do with race, and everything to do with Obama being the better candidate (and Powell not being a partisan hack).
At 10/20/08 05:49 PM, Grammer wrote: You just said "wrong" a bunch of times
I could do that too but I'm not a retard
Uh... You're spending time responding to WolvenBear. That doesn't really demonstrate great judgement, bub.
At 10/20/08 05:24 PM, Phratt wrote: Rigged? Yes.
Racist? No.
You throwing the word racist around like that just make people take it less seriously. Use the word where its do, not just anything bad done to a blackman.
I imagine "discriminatory" wouldn't have fit in the title...
It's pretty obvious that Obama is not a Muslim, and that this is an underhanded smear fueled by hyperventilating conservatives. Obama's supposed "gaffe" wasn't even a gaffe as far as I'm concerned, just poor wording. They were talking about allegations that he's Muslim. There was a question whether McCain had been floating those allegations. Obama said McCain hadn't said anything about his "Muslim faith." He should have put "alleged" in front of that. But the looney tuners jumped on it. *yawn*
At 10/20/08 10:20 AM, Al6200 wrote: I just find it hard to believe that voter fraud is as prevalent as people claim.
"Voter fraud" is actually incorrect wording here. Voter fraud would be individuals attempting to vote when they're not legally entitled to, say a non-citizen or a citizen attempting to vote several times. That's inconsequential.
What we're talking about here is a systematic failure of the entire voting system. This isn't a huge politicized conspiracy, per say. But it does have political consequences, because poorer (overwhelmingly minority) districts are disproportionately affected.
Here's a press release from a report looking at whether or not we're ready for Nov. 4th. (Full report is linked within the release.)
Included in that press release are these points about failures during the primaries earlier this year:
- In the Republican presidential primary in Horry County, South Carolina, touch screen machines in 80% of precincts temporarily failed, and a number of precincts ran out of paper ballots and sent voters to cast provisional ballots at other precincts.
- In Ohio's March 2008 primary, votes in at least 11 counties were "dropped" when memory cards were uploaded to computer servers due to a software flaw;
- In the August 26, 2008 primary in Palm Beach County Florida, several votes in a judicial contest disappeared during a recount, and then reappeared in a second and third recount, flipping the outcome to a different winner each time;
- In the September 9, 2008 primary inWashingtonD.C., three different counts produced three different vote totals, with thousands of "phantom votes" appearing in the first two counts.
Why is the US system more complicated than Canada's? Historical and political realities, as well as the simple fact that our population is 10x larger.
At 10/14/08 04:51 PM, JoS wrote: If you go to university I am sure you have heard of some group advertising meetings for a group about the "Israeli Apartheid" . hell I am sure most of us have heard this term before. However, am I the only one who finds this to be racist and bigoted?
No, the comparison is neither racist nor bigoted. It's completely apt.
First, apartheid is generally defined as a system of segregation or discrimination on the grounds of race.
Pointing out that Arab-Israelis are allowed to vote does not prove your point Rugby. The apartheid comparison is directed towards Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. They don't get to vote in Israeli elections - only shams of elections via the Palestinian Authority, an administration organization, not a government. Saying that Palestinian disenfranchisement is OK because they are not citizens is circular logic. In apartheid S. Africa, black disenfranchisement was OK because they were not considered 1st class citizens. Israel is still in de facto control of both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Palestine is not an organized state, and Israel actively works to prevent a functioning state from emerging.
Egypt blocking refugees from entering their borders has nothing to do on this topic.
The fact that many home demolitions are justified on the basis of "permits" does not condone these demolitions. Israel has in the past used three main justifications for demolitions - as retribution for "terrorism," national security reasons, and the houses were built without permits.
During the Second Intifada (2000-current), Israel has demolished 5000 homes, nearly 2000 excused because of permits, more than 600 as retribution. Israel has stopped the retribution justification, but still demolishes based on the second two. Israel makes obtaining building permits by Palestinians in the Occupied Territories virtually impossible. In addition to housing, Israel has also targeted Palestinian Authority ministry offices, infrastructure, and cultivatable land.
Israel controls all borders and access points (ports, airports), collects taxes and duties for the Palestinian Authority (and withholds said taxes on political grounds), continues to build a segregated highway system running throughout the Occupied Territories, constructs illegal walls, settlements, and checkpoints preventing Palestinians from moving freely throughout the Occupied Territories. All of Israel's actions have reinforced and exacerbated conditions in the Occupied Territories, where 2/3s of Palestinians are impoverished and unemployment sits around the 50% mark. Since the '06 elections, Israel has withheld the taxes and duties owed to the PA, which now runs almost entirely on foreign aid. This money goes toward basic infrastructure like schools, police and fire stations.
Pointing out these facts does not make me an anti-semite. Calling Israel's actions in the Occupied Territories "apartheid" does not make me racist. Condemning the actions of the government of Israel has nothing to do with Judaism.
"How I experienced a deja vu when I saw a security check point which Palestinians had to negotiate most of their lives that I was reminded so painfully of the same checkpoints in apartheid South Africa, when arrogant white policemen treated almost all blacks like dirt, or, when someone pointed to a house in Jerusalem and said that used to be our home, but now it has been taken over by the Israelis, which made me recall so painfully similar statements in Cape Town by coloureds who had been thrown out of their homes and relocated in ghetto townships some distance from town."
-- Desmond Tutu
At 5/19/08 06:34 AM, Korriken wrote: my apology: I told em I was sorry that he was raised in a society of double standards where he is allowed to use racist remarks but white people couldn't. I was tossed out for a few more days until i got a lawyer to get the principal to reverse his decision.
Did you impress anyone?
At 5/15/08 07:36 PM, Al6200 wrote: On the other hand, Paris Hilton appears on TV shows and gets money from her Dad. Even though she doesn't work very hard, she gets a lot done and therefore makes a lot of money. The fact that everyone knows who she is is a testament to how well she does her job of being infamously well known.
"Being famous" isn't an occupation.
At 5/16/08 09:50 AM, RedCoin wrote: Every culture to ever exist has always had some form of hierarchy and probably always will.
It's human nature I suppose.
It's not human nature but a natural consequence of a stratified economy. Hunter-gatherer societies were egalitarian. Before the existance of agriculture, where specialization began.
At 5/16/08 06:35 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Class systems tend to spring up on their own, Even in Utopian Indian tribes you WILL have individuals in the tribe valued more than others.
A tribe is a class system by definition, bud.
You are confusing the letter of the law with the intent.
A drinking age of 21 is not to prevent 20-year-olds from drinking - it doesn't - but to limit the number of 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. And this, it does, as the number of young teens drinking on a regular basis did in fact statistically decrease after the age limit was raised. A drinking age of 18 increases accessibility to young teens exponentially as we then have 18-year-olds in high school legally able to purchase alcohol for their younger peers.
Moderate consumption is not particularly harmful, given. But moderate consumption is essentially unaffected by the drinking age. Parents, on a case by case basis, can make the decision to allow their child alcohol. Age restrictions are not meant to prevent a responsible 18- or 19-year-old from having a glass of wine with dinner at home with his/her parents. I know of no such instance where someone has been charged for this.
Additionally, I am unaware of any study that shows consumption of alcohol to be beneficial to young teenagers. Early teen drinking has been linked to alc
oholism later in life, however.
You have not adequately demonstrated how an age limit of 21 "shrouds alcohol in mystery" or prevents a "positive cultural attitude" towards alcohol. Even if we assume these things are true for a moment, lowering the age to 18 would not necessarily change a thing. The largest single input in regards to children and mature drug use, is their parents. Better parenting at a group, societal level is dependent on factors far more reaching that an arbitrary age limit.
The single argument that holds water for lowering the drinking limit from 21 to 18 is the adulthood one and the inconsistency between drinking and smoking, warfare, etcetera. Therefor I've held for awhile now that we ought to raise the smoking, draft, and voting age to 21. A similar argument to drinking applies to smoking - I think the less accessible cigarettes are to young teenagers the better. I also don't think teenagers are, on a collective basis, mature enough to fight in wars or vote intelligently. The voting thing is alleviated by the fact that youth don't vote. But as long as we're looking for consistency in our laws, right?
Denial isn't an argument. Pretending the WHO doesn't study the health and healthcare of a nation isn't an argument. And out typing someone else isn't "winning." I'm bored. You haven't swayed me. I still put more faith in an international health body such as the WHO than an unimpressive user on a flash website.
As for your claim that I haven't provided proof of direct indicators of the quality of care... Here are some links to some statistics the WHO commonly uses, which you may or may not agree are such indicators. Click them or not. I'm done.
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7MortNeoBoth/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7Immunized/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7BirthsAttended/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7ANC/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7ARV/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7TBCasesDetectedDOTS/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7TBCasesCuredDOTS/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7TBPrevRate/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7TBIncidenceRate/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7PolioCases/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7MortChildCauses/en/index.html
At 11/28/07 07:40 PM, fli wrote: Stuff for the AARP.
I've gotten stuff from AARP before too. Who knows what monkeys are in charge of sending that stuff out.
.
And I'm ducking out for another few months. Too many kiddies and ideologues still.
I don't think there's any hope for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict until the US government steps up to the plate and forces a solution. The US sends a huge amount of aid into the area year after year. Attaching actual strings to it could set things going pretty quickly.
Cellar door - say something new and worth responding to if you want a response, ok sweetie? If you believe everything I say to be either disingenuous or ignorant, then don't bother. You're wasting my time.
