mpohl

The Anglo-Saxon model of unfettered capitalism has certainly disproven itself. Ireland is just another data point: look at the state of affairs in the UK and the USA! QED.

At altitude, try burying a toggle from full flight and you will be above the canopy. It's a fantastic canopy to fly and play with. Landings and flare are nothing to write home about but it well set you down safely. I never understood why they stopped making it.

Just like anything else, things head for the shitter when money and GREED become the overriding themes: for example, (i) health care, (ii) journalism; (iii) politics, (iv) feel free to add on.

+1

How about volunteering in the USA? It's not like we have everybody medically covered, even at the most basic level. People die here in the tens of thousands per year for lack of medical care. Btw, you haven't answered my question. Have you? Or haven't you? Have I ever had sex with?! What does that have to do with ANYTHING? How do I know? I am looking to volunteer time at one of those clinics. I have currently only gone on medical mission in South America, but plan for the next one to be with the incontinence clinics in South Africa. (still confused by the "have I ever had sex with?!")

So, are you a registered organ donor? You should truely consider it. Minus the brain, of course. And the balls. The other remnants might be useable, after all. Well, it will only work when you die, and the value of your organs at this moment might be much less useful comparing to what they worth to society now. Obviously if you commit yourself to be split apart right now, it will make greater good for society.

I am European, and I am also American (two passports). I have not "just been to" Europe. No need to lecture me! I lived there in several countries in Europe (comparing to just "been to"), and I can tell you this is definitely not the case. Again, you're following the same mistake as most healthcare critiques do - they compare costs of flu treatment in Europe vs cost of cancer treatment in USA. And they're definitely not the wealthiest - I spent almost three months in Romania during last 12 months, and it's definitely not even close to wealthy region - even though they do have "free" healthcare. That's what I'm talking about - you could just go there for thrill if you want to, and leave any time you wish. This is NOT how people live there, they do not have U.S. income, and they cannot move back to U.S. as soon as they wish. That's why to wipe the slate clean you'd actually have to move there on permanent basis. Which, of course, you do not want to - it's only OK to force _others_ to start from basics, but not you.

It's your choice to believe whatever you want to believe! But believeing is not knowing! Have you ever had sex with an African woman w/ obstetrical lacerations, fecal and urinary incontinence, and that has been kicked out of their tribe? How do you know all this? FOX NEWS? Limbaugh? Glenn Beck? Right. That's why women with obstetrical lacerations and subsequent fecal and urinary incontinence are kicked out of their tribes.

I am a registered Organ Donor and have been ever since I turned 18. Which part do you wanna have? Half a brain, or may be a testicle? You know, splitting you apart for organs and tissue could save up to ten lives. Isn't it also greater good for society - exchanging one life to ten, and how'd you feel about it?

Yes, I am living in the US, but realistically it closer resembles some of the third-world countries I have been to. Did you know that the wealthiest region on earth now is Europe. YES, the Socialist countries of Europe that provide adequate health care for all. If I want to experience Africa LIVE, I just have to travel 10 mi. to South Fulton (Atlanta). Let me amend that statement: ppl in Africa are much more communal and supportive of each other! Well, you are most likely living in USA, and have access to computer and Internet. Presumably you're not starving, your life is not in permanent danger, you have access to education, healthcare and you have a place to live. Very likely you had all of this as soon as you were born - and this puts you into a approximately lucky 1% of the world population. To wipe the slate clean it would be necessary to send you to some African country, to deal with the same problems most of the world is still dealing.

I disagree. You are free to do w/ you hard-earned money as you see fit while you live. Afterwards, the greater good of society overrules your petty wishes. It's that simple. And no, you can't steal from a dead person. Even with having no children... I have to argue against that comment. If I make money... I should be able to decide to be buried with it, give it to my husband, give it to my mom, give it to my invisible unicorn named "Bob". . . It's MY property. Why should all my property be forfeit to the state on my demise? Does it make me a little jealous to see rich kids inherit daddy's (or mommy's) company? Yes. I rose up from lower middle class... and a part of me is annoyed that others "get it free." But it's not my place to take theirs away just because I want it. That's called stealing

And that's exactly why we need an estate/inheritance tax of 90%+ to wipe the slate clean! Otherwise, we are supporting "generational" wealth which is counterproductive to fostering individual accomplishments. Other than the "accomplishment" being to having been borne to wealthy parents. If you watched Pirates of the Silicon Valley they depicted Gates and Allen basically stealing the Op Sys from that guy and breaking IBM's balls to use the software while keeping the ownership of it. Remember, Gates' family was rich before he endeavored that deal, so he was already made. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

It takes 30 days+ to die from starvation. It takes less than 7 days to die from dehydration. A ruptured appendix will put you under in less than 24 h. Now what's your point, DOGBREATH?

While we are living in the US, our family is also fully-insured (no deductibles, no copays, no lifetime limits) in Austria. By extension we can receive care anywhere in the 27-member nation EU. Stateside we are insured through a Belgium company (www.expatplus.com). The benefit per insured person is limited to $1,875,000, that is per year!! Also, the European insurer cannot pull all the crap that American companies regularly do now: no easily rescinding policies, denying claims, treatment, etc. My experience with them has been top-notch. So, in closing I am not going anywhere right now. But it's a a whole different matter w/ the US: I'd be very scared if I had to relay on US (non)healthcare alone.

Reminds me of an episode some 7+ years ago. Loads and lots of tandems throughout the day. Multiple tandems on the load. I land w/ my passenger and next tandem comes down under a reserve. "What happened?", "Pulled and nothing happened, so I went for silver." I was looking him over: main container closed, drogue still in its pouch. He had forgotten to throw the drogue! So, it's all been done before!

If you are living in Finglas, a suburb of "Dulin", aka Dublin, shouldn't you be more worried about spalin? Samurai swords are the least of your worries.

Well, if free speech encompasses the hatred and lies as perpetuated by Limbaugh, Beck, and the likes...maybe it needs to be outlawed then. After all, the 30ies are only 20 years away.

Hows about just invading everything south of the border to, let's say, including Panama. Next, we declare them American territories and voila: at least, half of the illegal immigration has been stopped. Let's not even talk about the anticipated decline in cross-border drug trafficking once MX has been declared a territory/ state. What y'all think?

Don't you have anything better to do? First you are telling the English how to run their country, now the Irish are next? As stated before: This is rich, very RICH...JOHN RICH. Get a life, dude! And a clue! Source: http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0901/samurai.html That should take care of all the ninjas running around committing crimes on the streets of Ireland! The following images will no longer be allowed in Ireland.

My first container was an Altico Dolphin back in 2000. Fresh off of student status, I paid around $550 if memory serves me well. At that time a Spectre 210 was around $1,200 and a PD reserve ran $600. Not sure how much I paid for the Cypres. (All prices for new items.) So for under $3 k you were well equipped and ready to go.

So now you are telling the English how to do things in their own country. That is rich, very RICH...JOHN RICH. Care to invade? Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6145785/Scouts-to-no-longer-bring-penknives-on-camping-trips.html Isn't it sad that people think of an inanimate object like a pocket knife, and equate that to a violent illegal gang "knife culture", and then continue on to presume that anyone carrying one of these inanimate objects, even Boy Scouts, are now also part of that violent illegal gang knife culture that can't be trusted. I guess they might as well abandon the Boy Scout motto: "Be prepared." They're no longer allowed to be prepared. Maybe they could change it to: "Be prepared to ask someone else for help when you need to do something with a pocket knife." As for the Boy Scout oath: On my honor, I will do my best To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.I guess those don't count any more either. By gosh, they can't be trusted!

My 7-year old was not too impressed by Obama because the President "wants him to watch less TV." I mean, if a President can't even please a seven-year old, how will he ever please the GOP and its followers?

Exactly my point (#1 in this thread): Quod erat demonstrandum.

It seems you missed that this was an insertion by a poster who quoted the original AP release. So, please enlighten me: what important point did we miss besides ideological, right-wing rhetory? An important point that many will miss.

Prepared text of Obama's speech to school students By The Associated Press Monday, September 7, 2009 (09-07) 11:36 PDT (AP) -- The prepared text of President Barack Obama's back-to-school address scheduled for Tuesdays, as released in advance by the White House: OBAMA: Hello, everyone — how's everybody doing today? I'm here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we've got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through 12th grade. I'm glad you all could join us today. I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it's your first day in a new school, so it's understandable if you're a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you're in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could've stayed in bed just a little longer this morning. I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn't have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday — at 4:30 in the morning. Now I wasn't too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I'd fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I'd complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster." So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I'm here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I'm here because I want to talk with you about your education and what's expected of all of you in this new school year. Now I've given a lot of speeches about education. And I've talked a lot about responsibility. I've talked about your teachers' responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn. I've talked about your parents' responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don't spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox. I've talked a lot about your government's responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren't working where students aren't getting the opportunities they deserve. But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. And that's what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single one of you has something you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide. Maybe you could be a good writer — maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper — but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor — maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine — but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a senator or a Supreme Court justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team. And no matter what you want to do with your life — I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can't drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to work for it and train for it and learn for it. And this isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future. You'll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You'll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You'll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy. We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don't do that — if you quit on school — you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country. Now I know it's not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork. I get it. I know what that's like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn't always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn't fit in. So I wasn't always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I'm not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse. But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our first lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn't have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country. Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don't have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there's not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don't feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren't right. But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life — what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home — that's no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying. Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future. That's what young people like you are doing every day, all across America. Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn't speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez. I'm thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who's fought brain cancer since he was three. He's endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer — hundreds of extra hours — to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he's headed to college this fall. And then there's Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she's on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college. Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren't any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same. That's why today, I'm calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education — and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you'll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you'll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you'll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you'll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don't feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter. Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it. I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you're not going to be any of those things. But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won't love every subject you study. You won't click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won't necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try. That's OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who've had the most failures. JK Rowling's first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." These people succeeded because they understand that you can't let your failures define you — you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn't mean you're a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying. No one's born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You're not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don't hit every note the first time you sing a song. You've got to practice. It's the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it's good enough to hand in. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don't know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust — a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor — and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals. And even when you're struggling, even when you're discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you — don't ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country. The story of America isn't about people who quit when things got tough. It's about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best. It's the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other. So today, I want to ask you, what's your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country? Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you've got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don't let us down — don't let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.