JaKiri

I do think dismantling the FDA would be foolish... but even now we still have people who think alternative medicines are better than science-based. We can't force them to stop thinking this way... so why should we? People like being ignorant about these things, and there's nothing to say that, even if you smacked the research in their face, they would still choose the alternative medicine.

And they can take them if they like right now, it's just that they're labelled as dietry supplements. If they were labelled as medicines, then you'd get people taking them who wanted things that actually cured cancer, rather than things that only claim they do and have no evidence for it.

I don't think so... you wouldn't purposefully kill a 2 month old to save a mother's life (hypothetically speaking). Paul wouldn't do that to a fetus.

I can't think of a single example of a mother being endagered because you wouldn't kill a two-month old, other than the old fashioned "What if the world was going to be destroyed if you didn't torture satan himself for 30 seconds, are you in favour of torture now?" kind of jazz.

However, I am actually pro-choice, so I don't agree with his morality. But that's why we'd make it a states issue, because not everybody has the same morals when it comes to abortion.

Not everyone has the same morals when it comes to free speech, or the seperation of church and state. Doesn't mean those should become state issues.

Generally the religious right who oppose those things as well, oddly enough (except in the case where someone's talking about suppressing their free speech).

I feel the need to remind you that this thread is supposed to be about Universal health care

Oh I'll be sure to keep right on topic, I don't know even why I mentioned Ron Pa...

Ron Paul on the FDA: [url']http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul288.html[/url]

Oh.

This is assuming that the socialist government cares about the greater good and that the politicians aren't just looking out for their own economic interests. Bringing it back to topic... this is one of the things that worries me with socialized health care; Who's to stop the government from, say, fixing medicine prices way too high, because the pharmaceuticals are paying off the people who make these decisions. While, in a free market, assuming multiple manufacturers are producing the medicine, competition will keep the price regulated.

Wait, so because business can subvert the regulations, business should be unregulated? It's so obvious, that's the last thing those guys would want!

Anyway, assuming that businessmen are all guys who go around eating babies and the socialist government is all made up of christ-like chaps, socialism is obviously better!

If you remove the things that make producing drugs expensive, most notably the R&D, then you remove the economic incentive for making new drugs compared to just producing any old hogswash and claiming it does anything you like. If it doesn't actually do anything, then that's ok as well - because neither does alternative medicine, so unless you want arbitrary restrictions on what's "alternative" and what's "useless" there's no way to stop that kind of nonsense.

If you keep the requirements but remove patents, then again: where's the economic incentive? You spend hundreds of millions of dollars creating a drug, and some other guy comes along and sells it for just above production cost because he didn't have to pay any of that.

I just realized another thing... how can ChuckWest say that nuclear energy is fake and still say that x-rays were used as part of the hoax... What does he think x-rays are?

Radioactivity is different from nuclear power, if you don't understand how atoms work in terms of energy.

No, not really. Officially, science doesn't have an opinion on it.

That's only for convenience, though. We don't have any evidence of a god, and indeed the church itself (depending on your church) points to faith not requiring evidence, so scientifically there is no god.

This is, of course, subject to change if we do find evidence.

And I agree with you. Though for the sake of brevity in my reply I would have to think such may be a product of being human possibly? I mean how many people can with 100% accuracy explain why they even used the words they chose in a sentence? Or the thoughts used for the matter?

The point is that believing that evolution exists because someone tells you is about as good as believing that god exists, because someone tells you.

God no, I don't have a K6 (for example), and it depends how you define "every CPU ever made". I've certainly had one of most of the significant iterations in the last 4 years though (which is only a handful by my reckoning)

Personally also I do not see how science could be a religion really. Last time I checked a molecular biology class does not deliver a sermon on why its wrong to covet thy neighbors wife. It might describe a possible mechanism on why its occurs> :D but it does not delve into any "moral" jargon.

For most of the young atheists in his classroom, the glory of science would almost certainly not have been routed in reading on the scientific methodolgy that got us the evidence, or the evidence itself. It's certainly not based on reading the bible, as the quote shows.

Quite often in classrooms, science is presented as mystical truths from on high. To use an example given by Feynman when he made a talk on the topic of science education, "What makes a dog move? Energy makes it move!"

That's not science, it's not teaching people about the world or how we reached that conclusion.

He sure did! Did you read it? I'd be curious to know what anyone thinks of him as a pop writer.

I've only read technical papers by him. And seen him on video debate Brian Greene at the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

I was 14 when I read it, so probably not best placed to critique, but I found it entertaining enough. Although his measurement of the number of hard drives required to hold all the information about the human body, ignoring the uncertainty principle, might be out by quite a few orders of magnitude by now, and probably a few more in a few years.

The best way to do most mechanics problems at this level is to sketch a diagram, (ideally without the huge amount of dead space I have on mine) eg:

you know that acceleration in the, horizontal, x direction, x'' is zero. Acceleration in the verticle, y, direction, y'' is -g.

You can work out the initial velocities from basic trigonometry, the initial positions are at 0 and 0, and you now have all the information you need to plug into the kinematics equations to get equations for how the horizontal and vertical distances, x and y, and velocities, x' and y', change with respect to time.

When the speed of the projectile is 3/4 its original, the squareroot of x'² + y'² will be equal to 3v/4 (on my diagram). You can find out how much half the height is using the kinematics equations, equate them and you get an equation in phi, which gives you the answer.

It's a lovely question, it really gets you thinking about what is actually going on in the system.

It's hard to imagine that an 8-core processor is really going to be all that much more better for me while sitting here typing a message in a window in Internet Explorer, for example.

I have a nice Pentium III I could lend you for that.

Faster processors are for things like video encoding and games playing, at least for home users. Multiple cores helps both of these enormously, although the coding for real time games is a non-trivial problem that the solution for is not yet universal across the industry and that's a hideously tangled sentence, I apologise.

He did.

There was a mix-up. Larry Krauss, the lead author, has changed the last two sentences of the conclusions section at the end of the Krauss-Dent paper, and changed the summary at the beginning slightly.

Thanks for the update, don't know if I'd have come across that otherwise.

It has come a bit of a rhetorical battle at this point, hasn't it.

Glad you're finally on board. Might be a bit zealous, though.

Hi5

So what is in the constitution that would make it ok for a company to distribute toothpaste with radium in it? Why can't that company be sued?

It doesn't make it ok, but it would happen. Radium water (and its ilk) existed before government regulation, and there are enough examples of people believing a generic person in a shiny suit to purchase it. And yes, they'd be sued, but companies would either take that into account or mysteriously go out of business when they didn't.

Either way, the populace still gets a heady dose of radiation, heavy metals or whatever cheap or magical product people get an impressive looking front man to sell. These are exactly the problems that bodies like the FDA were set up to prevent.

Incidentally, I'm not against government regulations as a concept, just that we go incredibly overboard and influence markets way, way too much. Ron Paul can be against the FDA all he wants, it isn't going away and I don't want it to either.

That's a fairly sensible opinion, depending on how much market influence you're worried about. Not much else to say about that.

I don't see where anyone has the right to sell you poison without your knowledge, no. However, they should have the right to sell you poison.

You can buy all forms of poison right now. I could go down to the shops and get some warfarin and be dead by dawn. Could cause fatal liver damage with paracetamol.

The thing is that these things aren't being sold as miracle cancer cures, and in the cases where they do have beneficial effects have been tested to ensure that, if I follow the guidelines, I'll have an extremely safe dosage.

That is absolutely out line and exposes your overly emotional investment in what should be a critically thoughtful, civil discussion.

I call people fools all the time, although I don't see a problem being emotionally invested with saving peoples' lives, even if I were.

That's an opinion based on consequence, a valid one too, but I believe Dr. Paul's position is based on the principle of freedom from government interference. That's what I mean by misrepresentation, albeit due, perhaps to misinterpretation.

Very hard to be free when you're dead. Certain loss of liberty if someone makes you blind, or deaf, or paraplegic.

These things can all happen naturally of course, but that's the way the world works. Doesn't mean we should encourage it.

That's actually the first time I heard of him, about a year ago, he stated in an interview on the matter that the constitution gaurantees life, liberty and the pursuit of property/happiness. Clearly he believes the fetus is a citizen (which isn't consistent with his opposal to birth-right citizenship concerning immigration btw) and is enforcing its right to life - just like he'd enforce yours. I don't agree, but it's a valid point.

In 2000, he voted to ban it even if it would save the mother's life. The 2003 vote may be defensible on those grounds, but the 2000 one: less so.

No, he supports state's rights because we have an imbalance of power in this federation - with the federal government taking a disproportionate amount of control. Some of us believe that there would be more harmony if there were more diversity throughout the various states.

I admit that it may be a selection bias here as they're the more obvious talking points, but so far the areas of interest seem to be banning abortion (he's definitely for that), allowing schools to select by race (he's for that too), severely reducing the seperation of church and state and letting people ban evolution in the curriculum.

I must also mention at this stage that I'm not an american, so the day to day social stuff passes me by.

On the issue of states, remember that We The People would make SCOTUS rulings not apply, so one of the most significant of the checks and balances of the federal government would be removed.

Not nearly as effectively, nor long lasting. Nevertheless, I don't see how you can defend either one then.

On the issue of monopolies, I haven't studied economics sufficiently to give an answer of what is the lesser of the two evils.

Overall, I think a socialist government might be better equipped to limit their effects, by controlling or price fixing certain goods and contributing to large amounts of blue sky research (the latter of which most governments seem to have given up on, which is a great pity).

People might point at him and say what kind of genuis are you if you could not understand simple elementary logic.

He says I'm a genius, we were wrong to ever doubt him guys.

I here and now start a campaign to get him unbanned.

FREE THE CHUCK WEST ONE

He's twisting the burden of proof there, somewhat. There's some blind faith from both sides, but from the sound of it he was trying too hard to present both sides as incorrect.

That may have been the point, quite often if you want to teach you argue for effect, rather than necessarily what you believe.

Your home internet could go at 1TB/s now, if the support was in place to allow it to.

As long as you're going to pretend that abortion really isn't a controversial issue that has the country divided between personal liberty / right to commit murder - then yes, your position will continue to lead you to centralized, non-federal government.

 

The fact is, that the constitution is quite clear on personal liberty - there are no issues there.

Actually, a lot of things are a results of SCOTUS interpretation, something that Ron Paul wants to get rid of (at least where it applies to states).

And I refuse to dismiss those who disagree with me that abortion is a right and instead see it as murder. I'm glad they are fighting for what they believe in - between the two sides, the discussion continues and perhaps one day we'll all agree.

We won't all agree, like the two sides never agree. Unless the church changes, but that's generally something that the religious right thinks is dumb and so goes on trucking.

Like I said earlier, a lot of people believe that meat is murder, but the only sensible position is to allow people to eat meat.

This is not an arbitrary geographic collection of weirdos living in Idaho....this is half the freaking country.

Tyranny of the majority is such fun. Freedom doesn't mean half the country telling the other half what to do, or all but one member of the country telling that guy what to do.

I thought Ron Paul was supposed to be the freedom candidate. Although he says he wants to go back to the way the constitution originally was so I presume he wants black people to only count as a fraction of a person.

You're preaching to the choir. We already get that. I believe you refuse to accept your opponents POV to abortion. You don't have to agree with someone to grant that their point has value. In this country, each person's voice has value. To dismiss that, is elitist.

I'm indeed dismissing people's opinions, if the only thing you're allowed to have an opinion over is personal freedoms. But it isn't.

So I'm not.

Yes, I've actually read it. Got any other sources of study on regulations and what they cost us? Something that quantifies its value? Or are you just peachy assuming regulation must be entirely wonderful without any negative consequences?

Part of the supposed cost is from the deaths "caused" by the FDA not giving us the beneficial drugs instantaneously multiplied by the value of a human life. You then divide this by the cost of saving a human life, which is less.

BUT GASP

If you then convert THIS number of "deaths" into money using the value of a human life and then divide by the cost of saving a human life, then even more people die!

BUT GASP!

YOU CAN DO THIS AGAIN!

From this, the only rational interpretation is that regulation kills an INFINITE number of people! WE'RE ALL DOOOOOOOMED

If it's nonsense, such nonsense as you've described, then it should be no problem for you to demonstrate.

OK then

Mixed results? Lack of data collection? Please. Wait times don't even come up in healthcare discussions until you start comparing with centralized, socialized medicine.

Oh hey lets just ignore the rest of the argument that gives evidence that the wait times in socialised health care are not necessarily worse, noone will notice and I'll look like a player to the hot girls reading

How is it impossible for consumers to make informed decisions about health care just because you remove the government manacles that create the monopoly on drugs?

Radium water. If you cannot understand why this is an issue then you don't understand one or all of 1. Why medicine is tested. 2. What companies do when you remove legislation protecting their customers. 3. What companies do when you HAVE legislation protecting their customers. 4. Why medicine is tested.

Supporting alternative medicine against the big bad FDA is a statement about freedom of choice - no matter how stupid you think the choice is.

The freedom to not drink something which may kill, blind or cripple you is quite important. Some may say more important. I would, for example.

Freedom is a funny thing. To really enjoy its full function you have to stop worrying about how stupid you think everyone else is and how smart you think you are and using that to justify dictating your morality code onto them by force - using legislation.

It's not about projecting a morality code you fool, it's about protecting companies from people who want to sell them inadequately tested medicine because it makes them a much bigger profit than something that may not be dangerous.

Of course, in libertarian world that's ok because I'll just spin up my home mass spectrometer to make sure it doesn't contain any thallium...

You misrepresent Paul's ideas because you judge his positions on face value rather than their principle. Just consider the principle of freedom and liberty and you'll see it reflected in his individual positions while those who oppose him spin those positions.

In 2003 he voted yes on banning partial birth abortion. Voted yes on banning it in 2000 as well.

Spin that please.

Paul's purpose is not to keep you from making informed decisions and prop up an alternative medicine market - his purpose is to stop government interference

Which is why he supports state rights, because a state government isn't a government!

that it is wrong for the federal government to dictate what I choose to ingest. Like marijuana, among others.

It's hilarious how it always comes back to cannabis.

And yes, it is wrong for the federal government to choose what you ingest. But they don't. I have no idea why you think they do.

And that government regulation enables and secures monopolies.

Lack of government regulation is pretty good at encouraging monopolies as well. Some would say better. I would, for one. History would too.

I wonder how many times he must be told this before he listens.

If it's finite, then we're getting closer all the time!

I am trying to understand how we can have one without the other.

E = mc² only applies in very specific circumstances. The correct equation remains E²=m²c⁴ + p²c².

A negative force is just a force in the opposite direction. In your example, you've got the positive force direction in the diretion of travel - ie one that causes the head to speed up.

i'm confused, what is different about the photons getting absorbed by the ground and the photons getting absorbed by our eyes thats going to cause the universe to go kaput sooner?

I didn't get to say it yesterday amidst the incredulity generated by that atom-challenged anti-Semite Chuck(full of crap)West, but it sure is nice to have you back, JaKiri.

Where did that go, anyway? It was entertaining.

Duh, maybe we won't be able 2?

Then why did you suggest that we could?

I know that the cdf of the normal distribution can not be evaluated analytically, since e^(-t/2) has no antiderivative. Why is that?

e^-t/2 has an indefinite integral, it's -2e^-t/2. Did you mean e^-t2? (Although you can use various tricks to create definite intregrals of it)

Think about the U tube shown here as a set of scales for liquids. Choose a horizontal line, and if the liquids aren't moving the weight above both side must be the same. An example of a horizontal line above which the weight of the liquids must be the same:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/21/scicosmos121.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox

 

I don't know what to make of this... anyone with relevant knowledge care to opine?

It's rubbish.