WTF Friday

[gerbick]

What's the difference between a dead baby and my leftovers?

You sauteed the placenta in your leftovers but not on the baby?

[WannaBe_80z]

That's correct. I am just marinating the baby for a few days until it's tender.

I was going to say they're both just going to sit in my fridge til I throw them out

[silverx2]

whats funnier then a dead baby?

[WannaBe_80z]

two?

[silverx2]

a dead baby in a clown costume.

[WannaBe_80z]

How do you get 50 in a bucket?

[Loyal Rogue]

What's the difference between a dead baby and my leftovers?

I've heard about your cooking... I'm guessing the difference is the dead baby is edible.

[gerbick]

How do you get 50 in a bucket?

You ask silver the odds between three buckets?

[silverx2]

everyone know the bucket i end up choosing has a 50% chance of being correct as long as you remove one of the buckets that doesnt have 50 dead babies under it.

[WannaBe_80z]

I've heard about your cooking... I'm guessing the difference is the dead baby is edible.

Doubt it. My cooking gets praises.


Silver the question is- if you had 3 dead babies and 50 buckets. What is grosser then the 3 babies in 3 random buckets?

[FlashLackey]

Hmmm, Central Intelligence Agency... or partisan extremists pushing a political agenda... I think I'll stick with "A".

Not at all. I think the CIA numbers are what is available, including the differences for how different countries report those numbers, as detailed and sourced in the articles I posted.

This is a perfect example of "Classic FL reasoning", if the propaganda FL needs to believe doesn't match the facts, then the facts must be wrong.

The irony is that I have provided facts that you are ignoring. For instance, that different countries count live-births differently. What facts do you think I have ignored?

So your argument is that the US has greater infant mortality not only due to worse healthcare, but also substandard education, lack of nutrition, and racial inequality?

No. My argument is that there is no evidence showing that infant mortality in the US reflects on the quality of US healthcare relative to other countries.

The other issues that you list could be a few examples of non-healthcare related factors in the numbers you cite. Unfortunately, the teachers union and lack of school choice damage our education and affect minority groups unequally, unlike in Europe where school choice is the norm. Ironic again that you would bring up education, a colossal failure, that is run by government as Obama wants to do to healthcare.

[Loyal Rogue]

What's the difference between a dead baby that's been laying in the hot sun for a week and FL's arguments?
All of a sudden the dead baby doesn't smell that bad.


No wait...

What's the difference between FL's arguments and a dead baby that's been used for target practice by a battalion of marines?
The dead baby has fewer holes.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist dragging the low class/poor taste level down as far as I could... so sue me.



Actually FL, in all seriousness I have to agree with you about our education system being a failure.
Ever since Reagan dismantled higher education and the conservatives strangled the budget for every other level of education, our children just don't/can't compete with the rest of the world anymore.
Our children are the future of this country and our longterm economic health, global competiveness, and prosperity depend on their education.

I've been thinking that I should reconsider my previous opinions about the voucher system for education.
Maybe it would be a better system if parents were given a voucher to allow them to choose any school to send their children for education instead of the current system we have for government run education based on geographic locations.
Of course, all the extemely flawed and biased voucher systems currently proposed would have to be scrapped and revised so that they weren't so blatantly subsidising the children of the wealthy and gave equal opportunity to children of all races and economic classes.

[gerbick]

No. My argument is that there is no evidence showing that infant mortality in the US reflects on the quality of US healthcare relative to other countries.

You've shifted from the US not being low/last in healthcare simply because of what the Republicans didn't do in the last 8-12 years to defending how infant mortality isn't a indicator of how good/bad healthcare is in the US because of one report you've found that's a reworked OECD look at facts.

It's a slight repositioning; however the problem still exists that I think you're not willing to admit one thing: the US healthcare system, past and present is extremely flawed and is not up to par for a country of our wealth. No need to drag politics into that statement.

It stands by itself since it's true.

[FlashLackey]

Actually FL, in all seriousness I have to agree with you about our education system being a failure.
Ever since Reagan dismantled higher education and the conservatives strangled the budget for every other level of education, our children just don't/can't compete with the rest of the world anymore.
Our children are the future of this country and our longterm economic health, global competiveness, and prosperity depend on their education.

Blaming a lack of spending is the defacto liberal mantra.

The inconvenient fact to that argument is that spending per student in the US has more than doubled over the last 15 years while student performance has remained below that of countries that spend less than the US per student.

I've been thinking that I should reconsider my previous opinions about the voucher system for education.
Maybe it would be a better system if parents were given a voucher to allow them to choose any school to send their children for education instead of the current system we have for government run education based on geographic locations.
Of course, all the extemely flawed and biased voucher systems currently proposed would have to be scrapped and revised so that they weren't so blatantly subsidising the children of the wealthy and gave equal opportunity to children of all races and economic classes.

It's promising to hear that you are coming around on vouchers. Some Democrats have done so recently as well. However, opposition from the teachers union remains strong and continues to obstruct positive change.

Not sure what you're talking about in regard to "biased voucher systems." Every voucher system I've seen gives students of any race or economic class the exact same value of voucher and choice in its use. Did you hear that they were flawed from John Edwards?

You've shifted from the US not being low/last in healthcare simply because of what the Republicans didn't do in the last 8-12 years to defending how infant mortality isn't a indicator of how good/bad healthcare is in the US because of one report you've found that's a reworked OECD look at facts.

It's a slight repositioning; however the problem still exists that I think you're not willing to admit one thing: the US healthcare system, past and present is extremely flawed and is not up to par for a country of our wealth. No need to drag politics into that statement.

It stands by itself since it's true.

I've just rolled with the statistics and arguments that others have put forth. I agree that our system is broken. Just that the quality of the healthcare isn't the broken part. It's the cost that is out of whack. And that is a result of government involvement piled on year after year by both parties. What Obama wants to do would simply be a record-breaking-sized dump on top of a long history of smaller ones.

[Loyal Rogue]

Blaming a lack of spending is the defacto liberal mantra.

The inconvenient fact to that argument is that spending per student in the US has more than doubled over the last 15 years while student performance has remained below that of countries that spend less than the US per student.

You bring up a very good point and one that is often overlooked in these kind of discussions.

You statement wrongly makes the assumption that all spending is equal.

For example, lets say two houses are being built.
Both owners decide to throw an extra $50,000 into their project to make a better house.
The first owner spends his $50,000 on better quality lumber, appliances, fixtures, and storm bracing.
The second owner spends his $50,000 on twinkies and beer for the workers.
Now they've both spent an extra $50,000 but I doubt you would say the end products are going to be the same.

It's the same with throwing money at education.
You could spend $100 billion to increase teacher's wages to attract better talent into the field.
You could spend $100 billion to purchase the latest equipment, textbooks, and learning aids so that students have the best materials to work with.
Or you could spend $100 billion by making it mandatory for every school to pay George Bush's brother for his "No Child Left Behind" tests and all the associated administrative expenses that go along with it.
In all 3 cases you've spent an extra $100 billion on education, but the end results for each case are going to be vastly different.

Not sure what you're talking about in regard to "biased voucher systems." Every voucher system I've seen gives students of any race or economic class the exact same value of voucher and choice in its use. Did you hear that they were flawed from John Edwards?

No, I didn't hear it from Edwards, but now that you've brought it to my attention I would like to go lookup what he's had to say about it.

I'm just basing it off my own knowledge of the various voucher plans that have been floated around the legislature hear in Florida.
None of the plans I saw would fully fund moving a child into a better school.
The only plans I ever saw discussed were very limited subsidy programs that would pay only a portion of the expense.
This would amount to subsidizing the only ones who could afford to cover the rest of the expenses out of pocket, basically the wealthy.

If there's a voucher plan that covers all of the expense so that every child has an equal opportunity to attend any school of their choice then I'd like to see it.

[WannaBe_80z]

my fridge is getting full.

[gerbick]

How timely this article seems to be...

The proposal might have been sound policy, but it didn't work politically. Republicans attacked this as an example of big-government liberalism. The complexity of the proposal offered the GOP an opportunity to launch these kinds of attacks even though the program itself was as far from "socialized medicine" as one could imagine.

That was in 1993. Absolutely no traction forward since.

If Democrats are able to achieve national health care reform, they will go into the 2010 and 2012 election with a major, concrete political achievement. If they fail, as Clinton's experience reminds us, they might give Republicans the kind of issue that they have been looking for to recover from 2008.

I'm rather tired of the positioning like there's a better idea when that article shows that 16 years later, nothing has been done about the skyrocketing prices, utter inability to reform due to politicians doing what they do best... talk and talk and talk and do nothing.

16 years. No changes. Not one change for half of my life. And I'll be honest in stating that I'll listen to any other arguments any might provide; I'll not be swayed.

[FlashLackey]

You bring up a very good point and one that is often overlooked in these kind of discussions.

You statement wrongly makes the assumption that all spending is equal.

For example, lets say two houses are being built.
Both owners decide to throw an extra $50,000 into their project to make a better house.
The first owner spends his $50,000 on better quality lumber, appliances, fixtures, and storm bracing.
The second owner spends his $50,000 on twinkies and beer for the workers.
Now they've both spent an extra $50,000 but I doubt you would say the end products are going to be the same.

It's the same with throwing money at education.
You could spend $100 billion to increase teacher's wages to attract better talent into the field.
You could spend $100 billion to purchase the latest equipment, textbooks, and learning aids so that students have the best materials to work with.
Or you could spend $100 billion by making it mandatory for every school to pay George Bush's brother for his "No Child Left Behind" tests and all the associated administrative expenses that go along with it.
In all 3 cases you've spent an extra $100 billion on education, but the end results for each case are going to be vastly different.

Your comment wrongly makes the assumption that I think that all spending is equal. In fact, it should be quite obvious that I believe the opposite. One of the key premises of conservativism is that government DOESN'T spend money as well as private citizens do. People tend to know what they need and value individually better than bureaucrats do.

This appears to be a positive development in your argument. According to you, the amount of spending isn't the problem and therefore does not need to be increased. Instead, we could actually reduce spending to what other successful countries spend and focus on "better spending." An excellent way to implement better spending would be to allow school choice. That way, schools that under-perform will not receive money and schools that do well will thrive.

I applaud your recognition of free market principles working better for the people than granting our destiny into the hands of grand poo-bahs.

I'm just basing it off my own knowledge of the various voucher plans that have been floated around the legislature hear in Florida.
None of the plans I saw would fully fund moving a child into a better school.
The only plans I ever saw discussed were very limited subsidy programs that would pay only a portion of the expense.
This would amount to subsidizing the only ones who could afford to cover the rest of the expenses out of pocket, basically the wealthy.

The voucher should equal the same dollar value of the funds allotted per student in the public system. To make a voucher system that covers switching to any school, no matter what the cost is, would defeat the benefit of having vouchers because it would allow schools to inflate their prices at the tax-payer expense. We would end up with the same problem we have with healthcare, radically rising education prices.

If vouchers were available for a set amount, schools would be pressured to offer education for that amount. Any school charging significantly more would be at a competitive disadvantage to "voucher priced" schools and would lose money.

[argonauta]

I don't know how they do it...how can a thread about dead babies turn political...I wonder what these two guys would do with a thread about nipples.

[FlashLackey]

Government nipples? Or, private?