Waldo_II

Yo, in case you were wondering, the corporation responsible for the $10,000 price hike is KV Pharmaceuticals. There is now a senator pursuing them, a democrat for Ohio, with the ultimate goal of reversing the situation. Google it up, read all about it. Peace out.

I'm outta here, man. I don't even

What makes people think large corporations will be more efficient than state bureaucracy? Both are human institutions, subject to human flaws in communication, organization, and execution. The biggest difference between the two is that one of them is run for profit, the goal being the consumer's wallet. The other is run for the benefit of the person, with democratically elected officials at the top. That said, for most institutions, the market system has proven the most efficient in the long run. State run organizations with no competitors are just as bad as corporate monopolies. A pure capitalist society will fall economically just as hard as the old-school USSR system would have, had it continued the way it did during the Stalin years. The government needs to set limitations to keep cost-of-entrance to the market low, and market share spread through many firms. The government's purpose also needs to include regulation of corporations on lower levels. Wage minimums and safety minimums and the like. America, at one point, was essentially purely capitalist state in the early 1900s. That wasn't going to well, for sure. There is a reason Upton Sinclair was awarded so highly for his novel The Jungle. His writings do not exaggerate any aspect of the situation; President Roosevelt visited the meat packing boroughs after reading his novel, and started some major changes afterward. From the Reagon years toward now, there has been a frightening trend of deregulation. Hell, just a couple weeks ago a drug company in Minnesota was granted monopoly on an injection-contraceptive drug. Before, it was priced from $10-40, and after being granted a monopoly, the firm rose the price to over $10,000. I'm counting the days until the government figures out how to reverse the situation. (I won't even touch on the environment, and Reagon's famous quote "Trees produce more pollution than cars" except for this single sentence, just so I can get a snide anti-Reagon remark in) So how capitalist do we go? We can't go to the extreme right and expect simple "supply and demand" sort things out. Too far to the left, and you see the failure of the Soviet Union. We know that for most industries, the market system proves the most efficient, although inherently evil, as greed and profit are the ultimate goals. In theory, the government system is purely beneficial in democratic societies. The best system is the mixed economy, a la many European countries. Public healthcare systems are undoubtedly better off run by the people. The European countries with public systems look down on America as a backwards country. Their healthcare costs a small fraction of ours (Imagine not paying a cent for an unconscious ambulance ride that costs $1,100 in the US), is just as good for 99% of issues (the "line waiting" business is right-wing bullshit, btw. If you're having a seizure, you're getting to the ER ASAP. If you have a compound fracture, you're not going to be told to sit around for a couple days. If you have a problem that you need to talk to your doctor about, you just schedule an appointment like Americans do now). What would be best is a public system combined with the market insurance system, a la some European countries. Private corporations compete with the public, and if they can offer better coverage for less, than fucking go for it. Tl:DR: Mixed Economy. Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, etc. Their people live the longest, healthiest lives, and are ranked on the top of nearly all other countries on general happiness of the public. Highest standard of living, cheapest healthcare, high marks on freedom of the press (America isn't on the top, sorry to burst your bubbles. JULIAN ASSANGE), and high education marks. They make America look like hicktown.

OPs entire post made me lose every shred of hope I had in humanity. Evolution as not having "a single shred" of evidence No evidence means it is only a theory Great flood accepted as fact Those that believe in the flood are the real scientists No fossil records supporting evolution Young Earth Oh god, my keyboard is covered in puke, and my puke contains blood. I'm being infected over the Internet.

The KKK is essentially Christianity in its fundamentalist form, plus a spice of southern nationalism. Although historically it is known for beginning as a lynching organization, its roots are without doubt in fundamentalist Christianity. Black people are looked down upon in the bible. I do recall one story where there is some shit going on and Noah is naked, some guy sees him, covers him up, and Noah curses somebody, and their skin turns dark. Many fundies then believed that black men and women descended from this evil, dark skinned being, and are thus prime for slavery (which, itself, is practically encouraged by biblical texts)

But Atlantis didn't exist.

Non-fundamentalist religion is a funny thing. Most religious people, we'll take Christians for populist sake, are not fundamentalist. We'll define fundamentalist as believing in and acting according to their religious text in its entirety. My Christian friends are tolerant of people who believe in other gods, other prophets, are accepting of gay men and women, etc. According to the bible, none of these people should be accepted. Fundamentalists, like the Westboro Baptist Church, do not. My Christian friends, however, absolutely must be wrong in their religious beliefs. They are less likely to believe in an accurate depiction of Yahweh than their Westboro scum counterparts. Take the Mona Lisa. The person who has the Mona Lisa is like a fundamentalist. Lets say that Henry does not like Mona's nose, and so he makes a copy of the Mona Lisa and erases the nose. Henry does not have an accurate depiction of the Mona Lisa anymore, his is false. Henry is not a fundamentalist, he is the average Christian. (The nose is like the parts in the bible that says no woman shall teach, or hold position over a man.) Now, it is possible that the real woman, Mona Lisa, did not have a nose. However, long ago Leonardo Di Vinci did see Mona Lisa, and painted her. The original Mona Lisa painting is the most likely to accurately depict the original being. There is the 1/999999999 chance that Leonardo painted a noseless Mona Lisa with a nose, but c'mon, bro. C'mon. Anyone but fundamentalists are incorrect. They must be. You could come up with your own random deity and it would have the same chance of being a purely accurate depiction of the original. My Christian friends believe what they want to believe. They believe what is comfortable. For this, they must be wrong. (That said, fundamentalist Christianity is shit.)

When man dictates the laws of physics, and creates something from nothing, then he has exceeded the capabilities of Yahweh.

Edit: aw, shit. Posted in the wrong tab.

The forum does not have over two thousand members. Those numbers came from the many anonymous and semi-anonymous posts that were imported from the old news commenting system when the forum was created. Posts made by myself, under the username "Waldo" waay back when count as a different account from the one I use now.

As an atheist, I don't subscribe to the morals of ancient oral-storytellers and sheepherders who got their stories written down in various books that were eventually compiled by ancient councils into an everyday bestseller. That said, I am free to compile an ethical code of ethics, one where women and men are equal, and everybody has the same rights. Man or woman, marry and sex up whoever you like.

"Symphonic?" "So called classical?" I love me my Tchaikovsky, my Dvorak, my Beethoven. And what of chamber music? Piano music? Duets? Oh, the underrepresentation. And choosing between that and my Coltrane and Parker and Cannonball and Shorter..

Raw Uranium out of the ground is not particularly dangerous. Only if it enters your body. Miners wear masks and have to worry about cuts, but I'd be surprised if you saw someone mining with a straight-up radiation suit.

Anyone who thinks that this will resemble Chernobyl in any way is completely uninformed and does not understand the modern nuclear power industry in any way. Nuclear reactors are built with a hundred different mechanisms to prevent a disaster. It is probably the most watched and regulated industry in the world. Hell, each reactor is encased in a huge, impenetrable shield many feet thick of concrete and steel. The article mentions a breach of the concrete layer, but admits that the steel layer has not shown any sign of failure. If anybody starts crying "Chernobyl," don't listen to them unless they themselves are either nuclear inspectors or nuclear power agents.

Excuse me, gentlemen, but you are all wrong. http://listen.grooveshark.com/s/Symphony+No+5+In+E+Minor+Op+64+1+Andante+Allegro+Con+Anima/3pYWLW?src=5 http://listen.grooveshark.com/s/Symphony+No+5+In+E+Minor+Op+64+2+Andante+Cantabile+Con+Alcuna+Licenza+Moderato+Con+Anima/3pYY6c?src=5 http://listen.grooveshark.com/s/Symphony+No+5+In+E+Minor+Op+64+3+Valse+allegro+Moderato+/3pYYCs?src=5 http://listen.grooveshark.com/s/Symphony+No+5+In+E+Minor+Op+64+4+Finale+andante+Maestoso+Allegro+Vivace+/3pYZGA?src=5

You do know that Popular Science is a shitty, sensationalist disgrace to the name of printed publication, right? I stopped taking their stuff seriously a year ago.

Naw, man. Capitalism will endure in some form or the other (If you ask me, it hopefully will go the way of current Scandanavian systems of socialism-capitalism, which is working out great). I'm saying that if you are to predict the course of the future, it must be thought of in a capitalist's mind. All actions must be thought of with maximum revenue in mind. Scandanavian countries may go another way, with people allowing strong government regulation when necessary, but west Europe and American countries will be hit hard. It isn't like the oil will suddenly disappear. We (I speak from the point of a United States commoner) will see gas prices spike to $5 a gallon and will flip shit. At that point the government will be subsidizing the shit out of oil companies (moreso than now), but society will finally get the picture that shit won't be good. By the $6 mark, people will be screaming at the automaker oligarchs to put electric vehicles on the road. Developing a line of vehicles takes time. Years. A year or two after gas hits $5, electric vehicles may hit the market in reasonable force, and will be gobbled up as fast as they leave the factory. The high demand for these electric vehicles will drive prices up, and it won't be for a long time that the American commoner will see their electric vehicle (I say $25,000 mark). During that gap that I mentioned, the economy will hit a depression. I won't be the next Great Depression, but it'll affect the way we consume for a while. All consumer products across the board will rise in price thanks to expensive shipping costs (truck driving costs gas). Airline industries will lose customers quickly as they raise their prices to compensate for fuel. That said, I make it sound pretty bad. It won't be nearly as bad as some of the stories out there. The last gallon of gas will not be burned by a battle tank (I won't even get into military consumption of fuel, thats beside the point). If you get anything out of what I'm babbling about, it's this: the western market economy will react sluggishly to rising oil costs, but it will seek the revenue-maximizing route and produce electric or alternate fuel vehicles and products before it leads to global destabilization. Aside from airlines, military and consumer vehicles, ships, and plastics, oil isn't much needed for anything else. Not anything that will threaten the stabilization of the economy with a sharp rise in price.

Time never has been an issue. If work had been invested in building, say, electric cars ten years ago, we could have had vehicles like the Chevy Volt five years ago. Even better and cheaper electric cars today. Wherever our society goes, you have to consider capitalism. Everything capitalism. The only reason Chevy would have spent the research money in developing the Volt is because they deemed that revenue exceeded cost. They saw demand for the Volt rising. They wouldn't have done that ten years ago because even though the outcome was almost just as predictable (oil prices, running out, etc), it wasn't profitable then. Even now, there isn't that much going on in the way of electric vehicles. Major car manufacturers are still going to be producing gas-guzzling vehicles for years to come because they know people will buy them. Electric vehicle technology will just inch along. We aren't going to see shit happen until gas prices start driving us to the poor house. Electric cars won't be produced until the gas prices force customers to buy them. Unless prices for electric cars drop, which I'm saying they won't because there is no incentive for corporations to produce them, by then it might just be too late. We'll have our Chevy Volts, but at $40,000, most of consumer America will leave their cars at home. No portion of American society will switch to alternative energy until the cost of using oil outweighs the research costs, production costs, and switching costs of alternate energy.