Haynes.tv

One of the biggest questions currently facing our administration is the level of health care the United States government should provide its citizens. Some call for complete health care, that no one would pay for their health care. This system is already in place in many countries, including England and Canada. Other’s claim that all health care should be done privately, whether through an employer or from one’s own personal funds. This decision needs to be made, as currently the state of American health is steadily declining. The best way to address this problem is to look at Canada, which is following its North American Neighbors by expanding its waisting, sick time, and medical cash flow.

Currently, Ontario is plagued by chronic diseases. The numbers are startling:

One in three Ontario residents is currently fighting a chronic disease. . . at least 60 per cent of health-care costs are already associated with chronic diseases. . . almost four in five Ontario residents over the age of 65 have at least one chronic disease, and of them, 70 per cent suffer from two or more conditions. . . getting people to eat better, stay active and giving them safe and meaningful work would prevent 80 per cent of the cases of coronary heart diseases, Type 2 diabetes, and over 85 per cent of lung cancer cases. . . 50,000 new cases of Type 2 diabetes diagnosed in Ontario every year. . . Preventing these cases alone would free up about 2,900 hospital beds … per year in Ontario.

This situation is similar to the United States. In both countries asthma, arthritis, diabetes and heart failure are on the rise. Obesity is growing at an unimaginable rate with the deterioration of healthy eating habits. Many of these diseases are preventable. There is one difference between the two situations, the provider of health care. In the United States the patients are left to fend for themselves, leaving a large population of people (mostly elderly) that have a chronic disease and are struggling to get treatment. However, In Canada all of these cases are jamming the system, preventing immediate health care from reaching many. The problem with chronic disease is that it lingers and takes up a lot of the doctor’s time and the patent’s money.
Patients with acute sicknesses cannot find immediate care to cure their ailments. They are forced to suffer because of a large group of citizens are too lazy to keep up their own health. I see the same problem to a much larger extent in America. We are just as lazy, and in fact are most likely spreading our lifestyle to Canada. Therefore I have doubt about the effectiveness of a mass health care system. Such a system may not ensure the greatest health of all patients involved. However, a socialistic medical system would be better if the kinks could be fixed. However it is questionable that these problems will ever be fixed. Currently the government should continue Medicare and Medicaid to an extent to prevent one’s class definition by one’s health. America needs to remain free and equal, therefore the government should continue to research answers to this growing problem.

We all know of the world’s greatest source of information, Wikipedia. Students begin (and sometimes end) all research on Wikipedia. Any one with a medical disorder goes to the site to get their prognoses. If you want to know what a Billiken is you go to Wikipedia. (Go search what a Billiken is anyway, it will blow your mind. I am planning on starting a Billiken fan club. Tell me if you want to join. Maybe I should change my name to Billiken S-R) If you want to learn the science from apples to zip ties, you can find a comprehensive 97% accurate article on the subject. In fact, a good amount (more like 99%) of my Haynes.TV research is done on Wikipedia. However with such an extensive library of random information and a cult following of confused individuals, can anyone possibly challenge the dominance of Wikipedia?

Citizendium (Citizens’ Compendium) began testing in November 2006. It already has over 1000 articles in its possession. It was created by Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia. Sanger’s goal is to inject some intelligent expert advice into the wiki encyclopedia. He will do this through a hierarchy of expertise and responsibility. Authors must submit their full name. They will then be subject to constables that can ban irresponsible or “stupid” authors from contributing. Constables must be at least 25 and hold a bachelors degree. The authors will then be supervised by editors. Editors choose which material makes it to the site. Editors require an academic background in a specific area of expertise. The system of authors and constables should prevent the free roam of false information that plagues Wikipedia. Wikipedia has seen complaints for Internet “vandalism” from subjects that have had articles falsely written about them. Also, an interesting fact, Stephen Colbert has been banned from Wikipedia for his abuse of the site, having his viewers alter comments in an immature (0r hilarious) way.

However, I don’t see Citizendium making it too far. While the stages of revision will prevent inappropriate and inaccurate information from reaching the site, it will restrict the sites growth. The appeal of Wikipedia is that there are so many articles, one can find almost any tidbit of information on their site. They can change with popular culture, politics, and the economy. Citizendium will be restricted by a limited pool of authors. Wikipedia seems to grow exponentially, while I see Citizendium growing in a line at best, most likely plateauing in a few years. Maybe Citizendium’s 820 authors and 126 editors should spend their time making Wikipedia a better site. At least 5 of them should contribute Billiken articles any. Wikipedia is too large and powerful to mess with. They almost define popular knowledge. Any other wiki encyclopedia is just wasting its time.

Many concerns have been raised pertaining to the free flowing nature of information and content in the modern industrial age. Besides the burgeoning identity theft industry, major questions have been raised over the legality of copyrighted content on the Internet. Specifically, the media giant YouTube has been targeted for its blind spot towards copyrighted shows. All major “traditional” media corporations, such as CBS, NBC, BBC, and Viacom have cried bloody murder over the so-called piracy of their popular programs. YouTube has worked with these companies by deleting the content specified as content, although only after the corporations raise the issue, as well as work to make deals with these companies over the extent of profit sharing. Viacom has responded to Google’s (Google bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.6 billion) lack of interest by initiating a one billion dollar lawsuit accusing YouTube of major international copyright infringement.

YouTube is claiming that all its actions were perfectly legal as described by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This act, the constitution of Internet copyright laws states that if a website deletes copyright protected materiel upon being notified by the copyright holder, than they are not liable for copyright infringement. However, Viacom contends that Google is aware of content and waits as long as possible to delete material, as evidenced by their attempt to broker a deal with major media conglomerates. However, the biggest legal issue at hand in this case is the precedent it will set for the emerging Internet media empire’s ability to show media created by traditional networks.

I see this case as only delaying a major media shift to the Internet. The advancement computer video technology and monitors combined with the shift to make the computer the center system in the household makes it apparent that traditional television as we know it is an endangered animal. We can all ready see with the introduction of Tivo and the DVR that television viewers want to see their own shows at their own times. We no longer want to be restrained by commercials, show times, and reruns. Major media networks are starting to recognize this shift, including Viacom. With new polls showing that teenager aged 13 to 21 spend as much time on the Internet as watching TV, MTV, a viacom owned network, is launching a new website aiming at capturing young web surfers. They offer such applications as actual music (if you can believe that) and personal remixes of popular shows. Viacom recognizes that it needs to extend its empire to the Internet. However they want to do it in their own way and they are willing to wait in order the achieve the biggest success and profit. They do not want to see other websites such as YouTube creating a steady audience of their programs, unless they could broker a deal that gave them a substantial proportion of the profits. With YouTube’s inability to cooperate, Viacom has decided to take it under their belt to stop any copyright infringement and start work on the Viacom death-staresque Internet empire. I can guarantee that if Viacom loses this law suit they will immediately go into stiff competition with YouTube, intending to cripple the site in any way possible.

Is this a picture of a cellular tower or a water tower. You guessed it; it is both a cell tower and a water tower. As many of you may remember I put up a picture of a cell tower off the Mass Pike back in August, that was made to look like a tree. The dilemma of where to put new cellular towers

Well here is another way in which they attempt to blend the cell towers in; this one is actually integrated with what appears to be a fully functional water tower, and is thereby serving a dual purpose both as a water tower, and a cell tower. Many people just are unwilling to have these cell towers go up around them, because they think they are ugly so they have to work out many solutions like this in which they integrate these things seamlessly

This particular cell tower is located off of route 138 in Rhode Island, just prior to the URI campus.

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Ann Coulter (Conservative commentator) remarks that “…you have to go into rehab if you use the word fagot” has apparently sparked some controversy. It seems most of the focus has been on the fact that she was using this word to characterize John Edwards, which was clearly wrong. Even though Coulter in her defense has claimed that she was just joking, that was also what John Kerry claimed when he botched his joke about getting stuck in Iraq. That controversy was of course more over the nature of the joke, but the point really is if these politicians and political activists would not make these negative jokes about people they would not have these problems, and would be much more respected by the American people. In addition, there is clearly a underlying message Coulter has presented with her inappropriate joke, about the fact that our society has come to the point where we have categorize any use of such a word as extremely hateful, because it characterizes homosexuals in a negative way. Although, our society, as a whole, does not particularly care if conservatives are characterize negatively with words slanderous towards religion, and Christians.

Of course, John Edwards then sees fit to put a clip of Coulter’s joke up on his web site with captions “Shame on Ann Coulter” “Fight back against the politics of bigotry”, in order to disgrace Coulter or something. I am not quite sure which act is worst, using such a childish word to characterize someone or drawing attention to this childish act, instead of just ignoring this as the shameful and pointless seam it is. No, John Edwards had to hit right back, apparently following the mentality that when attacked you must always hit back even harder, even though someone calling another a such a word is not usually damaging. It is childless, as mentioned above, and it is just name-calling not exposing. If it was an attempt to expose then it of course should be addressed to dispel any potential rumors. However, what rumors or negative image are going to come from name-calling unless you are the one doing the name-calling? Not many, if you ask me the very act of addressed this, especially in the nature that he did, was also shameful and was just done in order to seam. It was just a needless response brought upon by defense mechanism. So who wins in this; Coulter probably, because she is not actually running for office she is not endanger of losing votes, although again she was clearly wrong, this does not hurt her much. John Edwards has, through the very act of addressing this, added fuel to the fire. I.e. when a child starts acting up for attention you do not go not give the child that attention they want, as John Edwards has apparently done, you ignore them until, until they find out no one is paying attention to them any more.

I believe flip flopping is just a natural result of the passage of time and the maturing of a candidate. Everyone makes mistakes, and as people mature it is reasonable that they may change their mind. For example, all those that voted for the war prior on the basis of WMD’s could claim that by learning the fact that there was no serious fact they may now feel opposed to this war. This is a flip-flop, but not an opportunistic flip-flop. opportunistic flip flops do exist, and they are a problem. However I don’t believe a voter should get too mad over opportunistic flip-floppers. There is no evidence that modern politicians are more prone to make a flip flop than in past years. In fact, since the beginning of politics, politicians have been parts to large organizations, whether religions, industrial, or social, very seldom was a politician truly independent, a large percent of the time his actions are representative the organization the politician stands for. Voters need to accept that politicians will flip flop, however it is no reason to lose faith in a candidate or become a political hermit. It is necessary to look at the backing of the candidate and decide where their interests lie and where your interests lie, by doing this you can choose the right candidate. A voter can look at the unions, businesses, and other major social/cultural institutions that support and more importantly, fund the candidate. The heart lies within the wallet. If your interests overlap with those of several organizations supporting the candidate than that may be a good vote for you. For instance, if you are against the war, a politician funded by businesses that want an end to war, or social organization seeking the end to war, than it is relatively safe to assume the candidate will end the war as soon as logistically possible.

The biggest problem with flip-floppers is the adverse effect they have on the psyche of the modern voters. Voters, especially new voters become overwhelmed by the politicians and their ideologies. They come to distrust the process because they feel betrayed by the actions of politicians. Upon this happening, undeserved pressure is placed on the candidate to remain steady, or else suffer the consequences. A politician at that point is dominated by his contingency in a bad way. The voters should control their candidates, but they should not prevent the politician from following his/her natural course. Because once a politician become an artificial puppet of fear, we can no longer trust his/her future action and when he/she may change. The population could consistently reelect a politician only to learn that he may not side with their majority opinions. It is necessary to learn when a politician has done this so the population can elect a new representative. However the pressure they place on the system to follow certain taboo rules prevents the population from knowing has the politicians views change and develop. For as stated in the beginning, a person matures and his opinions will change. Therefore it is necessary to know those changes and how frequently the politician may change, so we can better make our choices. By putting this pressure to remain behind one position we cannot know the true character of the politician.

This post is about flip-flopping in general and does not specifically relate to any one person or situation. The example about the Iraq war is just an example and does not represent any specific opinion. Leave a comment with your opinion, and I shall present mine to the extent required to answer.