United Kingdom - Justify Your Existence

[Velocity Kendall]

http://www.collegeslackers.com/forum...howtopic=11097

heee heee ha ha ha haaaaa

[Partisan]

thihihihihi

[TASmith]

Wouldn't that destroy your penis?

[JFierce]

Haven't touched this thread in a long time. Come back and good lord. Oh wait... it's the Lounge.

[Spellsword95]

England gave us Monty Python. And great bands such as Iron Maiden and Motorhead

Yeah, and a bit offtopic: Neil Gaiman wrote kickass book called Neverwhere that is set in London and fictive London-Above. Excellent reading for everyone who loves fantasy. And a lot of his other writings are set in UK.

[Black Spot]

Yesterday my 11yo & 17yo sons were play fighting as they've been doing for ever and my youngest fell back and hit his head on a radiator. It was pretty obvious that he had concussion and so it was off to A&E. They gave him a CT scan and today he had a MRI scan (albeit at a different hospital as the first one's was broken - being fixed). His double vision has cleared up but his wobbly legs are still a problem. A small bruise on the brain, which was expected, showed up on the CT, the MRI was clear. He's spending a second night in hospital and if the walking doesn't improve he'll see a neurologist - I don't think he's that bad.

This is what I love about the UK. I've paid my taxes and my son got all of the above at no extra cost. I've had max 5 hours sleep in the last 48 hours. so excuse my crowing US.

[Velocity Kendall]

A stay in ICU costs about $20000 a day... thank god for the NHS.

[TASmith]

I hope he gets well soon! Keep us updated!

[Kolbenito]

Hope your Son is doing better, Blackspot.

Yeah NHS would be nice, seems to be one of the best models of the countries that offer universal healthcare. Here in the US nobody can actually afford to get sick or injured unless they are made of money. That reality just keeps driving up the cost. Any time we have a discussion about affordable/free care the right wing tinfoil hats come out of the woodwork to scream things about death panels and other paranoia.

[Black Spot]

Thanks. He's still a bit wobbly, but back to being annoying and talking at full volume so everyone 3 streets away can hear.

I cringe whenever people talk about the US healthcare and worry about my friends there.

[Dusty]

Thanks. He's still a bit wobbly, but back to being annoying and talking at full volume so everyone 3 streets away can hear.

I cringe whenever people talk about the US healthcare and worry about my friends there.

I agree. And at the risk of getting political - it's a difficult change.
People fail to realize at times that the USA is big as hell and is, for all intents and purposes, lots of little countries piled into one if you go by it's various regions and their respective culture/beliefs. Because of that, no one can ever agree.

I'm shocked that Obamacare has gone as far as it has, to be honest, and that isn't anything like what you your healthcare is like.

I'm curious...what percent of your income goes toward taxes? Because that is one of the big reasons a lot of Americans are so opposed to it. They hate being forced to pay for "someone elses' care".

[Velocity Kendall]

[Dusty]

Interesting. Appears to be quite the myths around your tax costs from the far right in these parts of the world.
That doesn't surprise me much, though.

[Velocity Kendall]

Interesting. Appears to be quite the myths around your tax costs from the far right in these parts of the world.
That doesn't surprise me much, though.

From overseas, the Tea Party, and the science-denying, abortion-banning, God and gun loving, big-business-pandering Right in general do seem amazingly evil. The more liberal ironic media-savvy kind of evil of the Democrats is much more our style.

[Psychotime]

It seems like the rest of the 1st world all have health care for it's citizens, which still confuses me when you remember that for a good while the US has been the most powerful country on Earth (in the last 70 years, anyway).

Their BFF's the UK and Japan have it. What's stopping them?

[Kolbenito]

^Interesting article.

The quality of health care here in the US is very good. The cost is the problem. You get billed for non-trivial amounts for just sitting in the waiting room on a doctor visit among other things. I think people are under the impression that people who can't pay don't get care. That isn't the case. We basically already have a really unfair version of NHS; it's some people paying large amounts for their care to cover the cost of those who can't pay. Bankruptcy from medical bills is unfortunately common.

Americans, especially older Americans spit the word Socialism. Left overs from the cold war. You can't do anything here that sounds like the government using tax dollars to provide important social services without people going ape shit. We have the money to do something like NHS comfortably, but would rather spend it on wars and putting more junk in space.

We get the best comedy during election season.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-col...s=synd_twitter

[Dusty]

Might want to define "junk in space" a little bit?
Nasa has developed a LOT of "junk sent off into space" that has benefited the entire planet. Once they develop materials and products to use on their space missions, those ideas are then used for other commercial products and progress science and medicine.

http://wtfnasa.com/

Just curious as to if you just don't support spending money on science or if there is a specific kind of space junk that you don't like.

I think the Curiosity rover, for example, is far more important *to me* than most of the political bullshit that gets spouted during election season. My two cents...

[Shorinji_Knight]

I'd have to agree with Dusty here. I care more about space exploration than I do politics. I think both parties are currupt and petty. They each have things I agree with and others I don't.

I want them to figure out have to garner resource from space, so they will stop destroying our planet. I look forward to the day when the stars are opened up to us. Then we can spread the plague of humanity to the farthest reaches.

[Velocity Kendall]

The Curiosity Rover is surely one of our species' most impressive achievements and cost something like 2.5 billion dollars.
The US spends 660 billion dollars ($660,000,000,000) each year on "defense". That my friends, is fucked.

[TASmith]

As an American I'm proud of the many accomplishments our military has made over the last century, mainly as a counterweight to the totalitarian regimes which have sought to expand their influence. We've failed many times in our strategy, such as in Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, and South America, with horrendous consequences, due to poor leadership and failed ideology. Currently, I'm not so embarrassed about our total expenditures as the fact that there's no accounting runaway prices, i.e. $400 hammers, etc. But the money wasted is only one small part of the scrambled rubix cube that best describes our current military situation. How to solve that cube is anyone's guess - and many of the moves aren't up to us anyway.

Anyway, this is all a different topic for another thread. So is space travel.

[Kolbenito]

We created the totalitarian regimes in Iraq and Iran btw. You can read about the Mordad Coup, CIA involvement in Iraq to get the jist.

Back on topic. Do you have a lot of advertising on television in the UK or does the license fee make it mostly ad free? Odd question, but I'm curious.

[Velocity Kendall]

There are no adverts on BBC

[TASmith]

Best British/UK TV shows?
Favorite or worst Celebrities?
Is there any UK equivalent to Jon Stewart?

[Velocity Kendall]

This is quite the exhaustive lecture series on what inane shit random people like and dont like isnt it?

There are lots of people a bit like Jon Stewart; try Charlie Brooker's NewsWipe or Have I Got News For You.

[TASmith]

You guys aren't random. You're conceptart.org

[Elwell]

Who is the Slovakian Jon Stewart?

[JFierce]

Awww I missed the discussion on healthcare.


Gotta rant. My family has been dealing with the U.S. healthcare system regularly for the past year now. It's insane. Funny thing is one of the most common excuses for the ridiculous cost is the care. But even that is pure bullshit. Sisters a nurse, her friend is a nurse, while we were at the hospital for extended stay for her, she pointed out all the ridiculous things that go on. Then since she's a nurse the staff and anyone who works for the healthcare system we came across start pouring out all their horror stories.

2 of my family members have almost died from different hospitals. One was bleeding internally and the doctor sent him home because it was his birthday or some shit. It's a complete tossup whether you get good care or not. Then if you know nothing about the medical field people will pull the most stupid and dangerous shit on those that don't know.

It's insane what goes on behind the scenes, all on your ridiculously expensive dime.
Even more insane the cost of the non emergency care, aka the meds.

End rant.


Random note I didn't know until recently: Apparently you can patent a biological organism.